The snow fell in slow, lazy flakes, the kind that never stuck but still made everything quieter. The yard was half-empty, no drills, no calls to form ranks. The castle was preparing for a feast to honor the highborn boys leaving for Harrenhal, and most of the household was too busy or too proud to let the forgotten ones swing blades today.
Which suited Cregan Norrey just fine. He sprawled out on a hay bale near the smithy, flipping his practice knife end over end with theatrical carelessness. Wulfric sat on the ground beside him, sharpening the knife he had, long, slow scrapes of metal, the way he always did. Nearby, Torrhen Locke leaned against a post, arms crossed, watching the clouds more than the boys.
Cregan caught the knife mid-flip and sat up, squinting toward the kindling pile.
"Hah," he said, hopping off the bale. "Look at this ugly thing."
He pulled a half-rotted block of wood from the pile, curved at one end, gnarled like a broken snout.
"Wulfric," he said, grinning, "this looks like you when you're about to yell at me."
Wulfric glanced up, unimpressed.
"I don't yell."
"True. You just glare so hard the snow melts. Anyway," Cregan tossed the block in front of him, "I'm keeping it."
"It's trash," Torrhen said, not moving from his post.
"nah, i dont think so.. more like potential" Cregan pulled a second, slightly cleaner chunk from the pile and drew his knife. "I'm going to make a work of art. You just wait and see."
Torrhen raised an eyebrow. Wulfric just returned to his sharpening.
By midday, all three of them had blades in hand and chunks of wood on their laps.
Cregan hacked away with the enthusiasm of a drunk butcher. Shavings flew. His "axe" looked more like a melted fish.
"Masterful," Torrhen said dryly. "Truly. You've captured the soul of a broken ladle."
"jackass! It aint that bad!" Cregan snapped, holding it up. "A reminder. This little axe means: 'it started here.' Me and this knife and this place. Someday I'll carve a real one. And youll be jealous!."
"Unlikely," Wulfric muttered, still carving.
"Okay well it's still done before yours!" Cregan added proudly.
Some time later, Wulfric's piece was slow to take shape. He didn't announce it, didn't explain. He just carved, carefully, precisely, until a shape emerged: a wolf's head, muzzle curled, ears alert. A single, deliberate groove crossed over one eye.
Torrhen said nothing at first. Then, after a moment of observation
"A self portrait?"
Wulfric didn't reply. Just a huff of amusement.
Torrhen, for his part, worked differently, measured, and patient. No flurry of motion, no unnecessary cuts. His piece was small, circular, and flat, etched with careful lines, like a sigil. When finished, he held it up between two fingers.
"A sun clock?" Cregan asked.
"Crude one," Torrhen replied. "Angle it with a shadow, you can tell the direction somewhat. Good enough if I ever get lost."
"You? Lost?" Cregan scoffed. "Not with that face. People'd point the way just to get rid of you."
Torrhen gave him a long, deadpan look. Then looked down then at wulfric.
"Am i truly that ugly?"
Wulfric finally looked up from his carving. Then looked at Torrhen for a long moment, not speaking, just staring before I looked down and continued carving.
No one replied. But the silence that followed was broken by the laughter of Cregan.
"Oh by the gods!, and people say you have no humor wulf!" Torrhen for his part just shrugged and muttered something about looks being unimportant anyways.
That Night.
Cregan strung a bit of cord through the loop of his axe and tied it to his belt.
"I'm wearing mine every day."
Torrhen slid his sun clock into his belt pouch, tucked near his knife.
Wulfric stared at his wolf head for a while before wrapping it in cloth and stowing it in his chest.
Each boy coming out with another memory of something. Unmistakable to Rickard or to the few watchers that would occasionally see these moments.
During these past few days…
The wind tugged at Lyanna's braid as she watched from the training yard's stone rail, arms tucked close beneath her cloak. Beside her, Benjen shifted, silent for a long time as his eyes followed the movements below.
Wulfric stood with Torrhen Locke and Cregan Norrey, three shapes in constant motion as they circled each other in the falling snow. Practice blades clacked in steady rhythm. Jabs, parries, steps, each one sharper than the last.
Benjen exhaled through his nose.
"He's different with them. I… I don't understand why…"
"He's growing," Lyanna answered gently.
"I know. Still… it's just weird, after everything we've gone through..."
She glanced at him, her voice low and warm with a hint of cheekiness.
"You don't like sharing him."
Benjen's lips tightened.
"He was ours, Lyanna. Just ours, after everything…" He swallowed. "After Darnell. After the woods. The way we survived together. The way we stayed close. It feels… like we're being left behind… again."
Lyanna placed a hand on Benjen's arm and smiled faintly.
"He's not leaving us. He's just finding others who see him the way we do." She paused, watching Wulfric deflect a quick strike from Cregan's axe. "That's not losing him, Benjen. That's protecting him, too."
Later that evening, as dusk settled over Winterfell's towers, Brandon found them both sitting together near the old well, still bundled in furs, still quiet.
He approached slowly, like an older brother who already knew what weighed in their hearts.
"You've seen it, then," Brandon said softly.
"We have," Lyanna replied.
"It's what Father intended." Brandon's voice, stern but filled with an underlying tone of acceptance like he's already known something they didn't.
Benjen's brow furrowed.
"You mean the boys? Torrhen? Cregan? All of them?"
"Aye." Brandon nodded. "Father sent word to the bannermen months ago. He didn't say it openly, but he asked for second sons. Third sons. Bastards."
"Why?" Benjen's voice was sharper than usual.
"To give Wulfric something more than us. Something where biased blood would fail to do so. A net and shield all in one."
Benjen's jaw clenched.
"We've been here for him. We've always been here. What can some strangers do for him that we can't?
Brandon knelt slightly, his voice never hardening.
"And you always will be. But Father sees the long road, Benjen. One day, our names won't be enough to shield him, not mine , not Lyanna's, and not yours." He gestured toward the yard. "He needs men who'll stand beside him when we can't. Bonds that aren't built on blood alone. Comrades who know who he really is even if he's a… a bastard." The last words said with reluctant acceptance.
Benjen lowered his head, but Lyanna spoke first.
"So he's building them now."
Brandon nodded again.
"Aye. And doing well at it."
They sat in the cold for a moment, the silence between siblings holding the weight of both comfort and ache.
"I still want him to come to me first," Benjen said quietly.
Brandon smiled at that, reaching over to ruffle Benjen's hair in a rare flash of older-brother warmth.
"He always will. You were his first brother so to speak. He won't forget that. He's just young and while he's more mature than his age, he's still young and impressionable. He's growing. Give him a few years and he'll be one with the pack. Nothing changes that."
East of Winterfell
The horses' hooves cracked thin ice as they crossed the narrow brook. Frost gathered along the bare branches, silvering them like glass. The wind hadn't risen yet, but the cold seeped through every seam.
Domund Snow sat his horse in silence, his heavy cloak pulled tight. His axe rested against the saddle horn, its weight familiar against his leg. He had been riding north for two days, but still hadn't grown used to the awkward presence of the boy riding beside him.
The Skagosi, Brandon Crowl the tall one, the quiet one.
Domund glanced at him briefly, pale as drift-ice, blond hair like the sun shaved at the side with a long mane of hair on the other side braided., long arms steady on the reins. The boy barely moved except to guide his horse. When he breathed, it came out in steady white clouds.
"Never been to Winterfell before?" Domund offered after a while, voice low.
Brandon blinked, shifting his gaze but not his head.
"Neither have I," he said.
Silence again, the wind whispered through the bare trees.
They rode a little longer before Domund spoke again.
"You're fostered with my father," he said.
"Karhold," Brandon replied with a nod. "Two years."
Domund grunted acknowledging it but scratching his head in thought, almost confusion.
"Barely see you there."
"Not much reason to be seen."
Domund could kinda understand that.
The Skagosi's voice was calm. Not cold, but… steady. Like a stone that didn't ever feel the wind.
Domund didn't know what to make of him. He was used to the servants at Karhold who whispered his name like a curse. Used to the guards who saw him as a shadow of his father's shame. But this boy, this Brandon, looked at him without judgment, without much of anything.
"You know why you're being sent?" Domund asked, his voice quieter now, almost bitter.
"Wardship," Brandon replied. "Oath to House Stark. Political courtesy really."
"You think that's all?"
Brandon finally turned his head, meeting Domund's eyes for the first time. His expression was unreadable.
"Does it need to be more?"
Domund stared back a moment, then gave a short, humorless chuckle.
"Guess not."
The road narrowed as they passed beneath a stand of pine. The banners ahead fluttered on their escort's lances, Karstark men mostly, quiet riders with little to say. Winterfell's towers had not yet come into view, but both boys could feel the weight of them ahead.
"You want to be here?" Domund asked suddenly.
Brandon considered the question longer than most boys his age would have.
"Don't know yet, much death from home. Little death in Karhold. Winterfell better than Karhold so better living i think." he finally said.
"Neither do I. Though I don't know bout better living.. anywhere in the North is cold."
Domund shifted in his saddle, tugging the fur tighter around his shoulders.
"They say Lord Stark called for us. The second sons. The spares. The ones not meant to inherit."
"So we find a place we can belong," Brandon said simply.
"Or we don't," Domund added.
For a moment, the horses' breaths were the only sound between them.
Then Brandon spoke once more, softly.
"I plan to."
Domund looked at him. This strange boy from across the sea, taller than most grown men already, swinging that monstrous spiked mace with ease, calm as falling snow.
For the first time since they left Karhold, Domund felt something faintly familiar in him. Not friendship, not yet, but recognition.
By nightfall, they would reach Winterfell's gates.
And what waited for them there neither could yet see.