cw: heavy angst, hurt no comfort, emotional distress, yearning, northern faith themes, cregan's direwolf cameo, grief, inspired a little by penelope and odysseus, (2.4kw).
Cregan Stark, going away on a long hunt beyond the wall.
Cregan Stark, who does not return, even after two years without setting foot back in Winterfell.
"My lady, there have been many, many letters sent," one advisor is brave enough to say, looking as uncomfortable as his words feel to you. "You are the lady of Winterfell without a—"
"Finish your sentence, my lord, and it would be the last you ever speak in my presence!" You snap, palm flattening onto the hardwood of the long council table, eyes colder than the ice frosting the keep's windows at this time of year.
How dare they? How dare they talk like this about him, as if his word is still not law among these walls and the bards sing songs about him as if he’s still here, flesh and blood and yours.
A deep sigh follows your words, exasperated. This discussion had taken place many a time, and each instance came to the same consensus: you will not marry again.
Your husband is not dead.
You know it in your heart.
For the Gods of the North could never forsake him this way. Could never forsake you this way, to take for themselves what you most hold dear, what your soul and mind cling to so desperately, even after many moons without a word of his well-being.
The world beyond the Wall is ever treacherous, filled with peril and misfortunes.
And still, you hope.
And still, you pray.
Praying.
What a laughing matter.
You do not care for prayer, for getting down on one’s knees or touching one’s forehead to the cold ground in Gods knows what sept or, even worse, frozen damp earth cold enough to bite mercifully at your skin.
“They will answer you if you’re truthful, wife,” your husband used to say whenever your nose would turn beneath the Weirwood tree, displeased at having to sit in the frigid winds and wax grateful words for deities that you didn’t believe in, or worse, ask for their favour, be it forgiveness or blessing.
What a waste of time.
What a stupid, futile custom, which does not serve you and never will.
And of that you are most certain, for you have begged and pleaded with those wretched Gods to bring back your husband and to kill each one of the men who dared to raise the question of betrothal to you.
And yet, the petitions do not stop.
And yet, the lords still pester and ask and nag until their throats tighten with annoyance and their brows furrow with disdain for you.
“You are not thinking of The North’s future, my lady,” continues the man who thinks himself above his station, staring you down like it’ll solidify his words somehow. “It needs a lord, where it already has a lady. It cannot continue on ghosts and memories,” his tone mellows, trying to placate, but it does nothing but light a fire under your heels, slowly kindling all the way up towards your heart, your head. “You need a husband—”
“I already have a husband!” you interrupt sharply again, feeling a lump in your throat that you try to swallow down so your voice would not waver.
You cannot show any weakness.
You cannot let the vultures seek to exploit your sorrow, for there are many who would, and more than enough who already do.
“And you still have a lord, if your memory fails you, my lord.”
“My lady, it has been too long—”
“And it will be even longer if I do so wish it!” Your voice bellows in the council room, snapping the other men attending to attention, stiffening in their seats as if their chairs prickle at their backs. “I will take no damned husband until mine own turns up at my door, nothing but ash and bones.”
The words leave your mouth, and in the hope of making your station known, you add another vice around your heart, squeezing until you feel your chest throb with the heaviness of what you just said.
No one around the table looks at you with respect. Not anymore, at least.
Not since the disappearance of your husband, of their lord. In its place stands disdain, pity, and a disgusting spark of hunger.
Hunger for power, for worth, for proving themselves better than they are now that the one man who held them at bay under his boot has been amiss from court.
“Lord Stark had time to return, my lady,” one of them has the gall to say, making your head snap towards him, gaze scalding enough to melt flesh from bones. “Your husband is regrettably dead and—”
“My Cregan is alive!” Your voice cracks on his name, as it always does, even the mere utterance of it bringing forth the moons of grief and sorrow that weave through it like poison. “And any more word of it out of any mouth in this room will be regarded as high treason and thus punished accordingly.”
You cannot look them in the eye as you hurriedly get up and walk out of the room, door shutting behind you hard enough to startle the maids that lingered nearby.
As always, your feet carry you to the very place you curse: cold, damp, and unavailing.
The weirwood tree’s branches move slowly with the wind, as if welcoming you back, just like yesterday. And the day before. And every single day since your heart had been trampled over by your anguish.
It is with ease that you kneel beneath it now, trembling fingers curling into the skirts of your gown until they change pigment from how hard you’re holding on. You would tear this blasted thing to pieces if you could.
But it was one of Cregan’s favourites.
“The colour suits your eyes, sweet wife,” he said one day, stopping you in your tracks, your traitorous heart thumping in your chest like a bird’s wings at the observation. “Wear it more often, if you so please.”
And you did, to your utter dismay and annoyance.
Every time it was out of the washing, it made its way back onto your body, back under your husband’s gaze, which softened at the sight of it, as if pleased that you begrudgingly decided to allow him this one pleasure.
Now, the gown feels like another reminder that there is no one’s gaze sweetening for it, no beautiful grey eyes taking it in as if it were one of life’s blessings.
“I am becoming fiercely cross,” you whisper, chin wobbling as you try to hold back your tears, as if even the Gods are not worthy of seeing the extent of your heartache. “For you have not brought him back to me yet.”
Your eyes sting with the promise of tears, hot and angry, but you do not blink, for you wish not to give them a helping hand to slide down your cheeks.
“I have prayed, and I have knelt, and I have done every possible prayer in those blasted tomes, and yet my wish has not been granted!”
At last, even as you try to keep from breaking, not even you can keep up the facade of an unfeeling wife for too long, not when speaking of him.
“My knees have blistered, and my feet have frozen times over, and yet my Cregan is not here to soothe me!”
Your voice cracks under the anger that pushes your words forward, you vision is blurring from the tears that can no longer be kept at bay.
“Why have you not brought him back to me? Why must I suffer from such grievances while he is not here to appease me, as a husband should?”
It is childish. Selfish, to think of such things, to want your husband back for such whims.
But if not he, then who?
If not him, then no one else can, for you do not want them to. You would rather suffer through a thousand blisters and even colder feet than ask for someone else other than Cregan to help relieve your pain.
“Where is he?”
The question rips out of your throat, painful, making you cough afterwards, wet and croaky from holding back your tears, still clinging onto that stubbornness, even if you are way past looking strong.
Your body crumbles under the weight of your own words, for they go unanswered again, like they always do.
No God answers you.
No mercy is given towards your cause.
Do the Gods take jest in your grief? Do they sit in some place high above, pointing fingers at the woman who used to scoff at the sight of their tree and now sits curled beneath it, begging for scraps of their clemency?
They must, for why have they not brought your heart back home? The one that still sits in your chest is not your own, for it stopped beating as loudly, it stopped following the same tune as Cregan’s, and now only thuds enough to keep you standing.
It was so cold, and yet it was not even close to the feeling of not having your husband close to you as you drifted off to sleep, walking close along Winterfell walls or not using his broad palms to warm your cheeks when the wind bit at them.
All of it felt colder, infinitely so.
You felt the snow dampen your clothes, your hair, your very resilience as you lay curled at the trunk of the weirwood tree, knees hurting as they dug into the frozen earth.
“They’re trying to marry me off,” you whispered, bottom lip wobbling as you hiccuped back sobs, shaking your head fervently as you continued, refusing the notion from your mind, tone only getting more desperate, as if words alone were enough to undo the misfortunes of your heart. “The council. Those good-for-nothing, callous men want me to choose another.”
Sometimes, you believe you have gone mad with grief, finding slivers of comfort in speaking as if Cregan was out there somewhere and could hear you, could reach through time and distance and soothe your sorrow.
It is so foolish.
It is so shameful to speak to the wind and hope it will carry your hopes and pleas to the one your heart yearns for most ardently.
“They want to give me to some lesser lord,” you continue, barely able to see anything past the veil of your tears. “To give some stupid mongrel your title and wife.”
There are not enough words, even if one could compile all that have ever been written, to articulate the way your heart breaks with every sound that leaves your mouth.
You had never known such pain.
But then again, you had never known life without Cregan.
Not after every bone in your body decided it did not want to be separated from him until the day the earth swallowed you both.
“How dare you!” you accuse, voice rising, cracking from overuse, shaking as it tries to make space through painful sobs. “How can you leave me to another?”
It is unfathomable to think of having to look upon someone else’s face and pretend your heart and soul do not call to Cregan. Of having to think about sleeping, eating, and bedding someone who is not your brutish, lovable northern man.
The thought makes you ill, willing your throat to swallow back the bile that rises from such revolting notions.
“Don’t leave me to another, for I will curse you for all eternity if you dare do so! And I will hate you until I draw my last breath.”
You never thought your voice could sound so earnest in its plea for mercy, for salvation from a fate that meant nothing but pain and grief. The promise of a betrothal to someone who is not Cregan would rather find you dead.
“Please come back to me, you insufferable brute.”
After so long in the cold, with nothing but your mournful words and blasted tears for company, you hear a few soft thuds in the snow close to you.
Then, a nudge to your bowed head, before soft sniffing brushed against your temple and hair, making you startle, teary eyes trying to blink away the moisture as you look upon the offending newcomer to your peace.
You scoff when you see the direwolf, but it has no bite in it, long gone, having lost the ability to perform distaste when there was no truth beneath it.
“What do you want from me, you beast?”
Hearing you address it only makes Cregan’s wolf move closer, a soft whine rumbling in its throat, nosing at your tear-streaked cheeks with insistence, as if sensing your distress and wishing to soothe it.
Just like he would.
Your throat feels like it’s burning again.
One of your hands lifts to pat at its furred neck, breath hitching at the warmth of it, not being able to hold yourself back from pressing close, burrowing into the beast with a shaky whimper, wet with tears and need for comfort.
“Don’t you dare leave me, too.”
It’s vulnerable and disgraceful, and it makes you feel the weakest you’ve ever been, but this creature, this furred thing that nuzzles at you and tries to crawl under your skin out of a need to comfort, is the last remaining piece of your husband.
The last piece of your Cregan that hasn’t been taken from you.
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