Inside the Great Hall, the hearth-fire roared. It cast long, dancing shadows across the ancient stone walls, past the weirwood heart tree carved into the dais, and over the long tables where the Stark household had gathered for the evening meal.

The hall was quieter than it had been in years. Fewer voices, fewer children underfoot. The empty chairs at the high table seemed to hold their own weight, memories pressing down upon the worn oak. Ned Stark sat at the center, his grey eyes fixed on the door as if expecting someone who hadn't walked through it in twenty years. Mya, the serving girl, moved along the tables refilling goblets, her footsteps soft against the stone floor. A hunting hound dozed beneath the table, occasionally twitching in its sleep, chasing rabbits in whatever dreams dogs dream.

And then, the door opened.

Not with a grand crash, but gently, as if the wind had nudged it loose. A figure stood in the threshold, silhouetted against the storm. Rainwater dripped from a sodden grey cloak, pooling at worn boots on the flagstones. She was smaller than the woman who had left. Thinner. The fierce, wild girl was gone, replaced by something quieter, carefully held together. But her eyes—grey as the winter sky, sharp and unyielding—were unmistakably Stark.

Ned's goblet clattered against the table. He didn't stand so much as rise, his legs moving before his mind could catch up, disbelief warring with wonder on his face. A serving boy dropped a tray of bread, the clatter echoing in the hush. Even the hound lifted its head.

And then there was the child. A boy—no, not a child, not anymore. Perhaps eleven or twelve years old, his face half-hidden beneath the hood of his cloak. He clung to Lyanna's side, uncertain, a boy caught between two worlds, two houses.

And whatever he expected to find here, it wasn't that. His mother had told him stories of this place. Of Winterfell, of the North, of the family she loved. But she had never once mentioned the girl who stood near the high table, watching him with eyes like the winter sky.

Across the hall, Y/n caught Aemon's eye again. He looked away quickly, staring instead at the direwolf carved into the high table's edge, as if memorizing every line of it.