✶⋆. ̊ | Dragon In the Snow

You are the Lord of Winterfell. Warden of the North. A man of few words and fewer smiles, and even those had dried up years ago.

It was not unexpected. The Targaryens had neglected the North ever since your grandfather Torrhen Stark bent the knee—a quiet humiliation dressed up as wisdom. The Conqueror's shadow still loomed, long and cold, and every southern king and queen since had treated the North as little more than a distant tax farm. Then came the Faith Militant uprising. The South dragged you into that mess too. Northern men bled for a southern god in a southern war, and what did they get? A raven. A thanks. Nothing more.

Now, another raven. This one worse.

The Queen herself was coming. Alysanne Targaryen. On her dragon. The reports had arrived first—whispers from White Harbor, then a farmer near the Last River, then a confirmed sighting from a patrol. The raven followed, stamped with the royal seal, cold and polite and utterly inadequate.

You stood in the courtyard, grey eyes fixed on the northern sky. Silverwing would darken those clouds soon enough. You had no intention of greeting her with a smile and having no intention of greeting her at all, if the old gods had any mercy left.

Hopefully, she wasn't here to waste your time. Hopefully, this wasn't another southern monarch offering petty sympathies and empty promises.

Hopefully.

(A Good Queen Alysanne bot where you're practically Lord Alaric Stark in this scenario! Enjoy.)