uuhhhmmm cregan giving reader a puppy or trying to get his wife used to the north
𐔌 . ՞ 𝑊𝑜𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑁𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑔𝑖𝑎.
.𖥔 ݁ Cregan gives a direwolf pup to his lady of Winterfell.
⊹ˑ ֗ ִ cw: fem!reader, reader is sad because they miss their home, reader is sensitive, crying, fluff?,short.
⊹ˑ ֗ ִmy very first request ahhh I'm hyped, ty for the anonymous comment, hope u enjoy it, I might've gone a bit off script lol but whatever, English ain't my first language and I'm still new to this, so feel free yo send your request.
The cold of the North is unlike anything you have ever known before.
It was a great change, going from the normal climate of the riverlands to the winter chill of the North.
In your homeland, on the rare occasions when winter came, it was a brief visit a light layer of frost that melted by midday.
Here, in Winterfell, the cold is a permanent lodger that seeps through the cracks in the stone, that settles in your bones and does not leave, not even by the most generous fire.
You have been the Lady of Winterfell for weeks now, and you still have not learned to breathe this icy air without your chest aching.
It is not just the weather.
In your home, the halls buzzed with voices, with laughter, with servants chatting as they worked. Here, the walls are thick and words are scarce. The Northerners speak just enough, as if every syllable were a coin they do not wish to squander.
They are respectful, yes, but distant. And you... you feel alone in a castle full of people.Tonight, the loneliness weighs heavier than usual.You are sitting by the hearth in your chambers, wrapped in a bearskin blanket that smells of smoke and of Cregan.
The flames dance and you stare at them without seeing them, lost in memories of another fire, in another home, in laughter you no longer hear.
You do not realize you are crying until a tear slips down your cheek, and you wipe it away angrily. You are the Lady of Winterfell. You should not be like this.
The door opens with a groan,It is him.Cregan fills the doorway like a huge shadow, his boots stained with snow, his wolfskin cloak covered in frost. The cold enters with him, but so does something else. Something that moves against his chest, beneath the cloak.
"Can't sleep?" he asks, and his voice is calm, but without losing that serious tone of the Starks.
"I wasn't tired," you lie, drying your cheeks discreetly.But Cregan is not a man who can be easily lied to. His grey eyes, those wolf's eyes, scan your face, pausing on the damp gleam of your lashes. He says nothing. He simply crosses the room and stops before you.And then he opens his cloak.Inside, curled against his chest, is a direwolf pup. It is tiny, a ball of smoke-grey fur that trembles uncontrollably.
Its eyes are still hazy, barely open, and its ears flop with that clumsiness of newborns who have just arrived in the world.Your breath catches.
"I found him at the foot of the Heart Tree," Cregan explains, and his voice, though deep, has a softer edge than usual. "The mother didn't survive the birth. He was the only one of the litter that held on."
"He's so small..." you whisper, reaching out a hand without daring to touch him.
"Too small for this cold," he nods. "He needs a mother wolf."
And then, with a care that seems strange in a man so large, so accustomed to war and steel, he places the pup in your lap.
The animal lets out a pitiful whimper and, by pure instinct, seeks your warmth. It curls against your belly, buries its snout in the folds of your dress, and trembles a little less.Something breaks inside you. But not from sadness.
"And what am I going to do with him?" you ask, looking up at your husband.
Cregan bends down, resting one knee on the floor to bring himself to your height, and looks at you with those storm-coloured eyes.
"Take care of him," he says, simply. "Give him warmth. Feed him. Protect him."
"I don't know how to take care of a direwolf, Cregan. I don't even know how to survive a Northern winter."
The corner of his lips curves a millimetre. It is not a smile, but almost.
"You will. You are stronger than you think."
Your eyes fill with tears again, but this time you do not hide them. You cannot. You have a wolf pup in your lap and a husband who has brought you the entire North in the form of a trembling animal.
"I miss my home," you confess to your husband in a whisper, after keeping it to yourself for so long.
"I know," says Cregan, and his huge hand comes to rest on your shoulder for a moment. It is not the most affectionate gesture, not that of a courtier, but it is warm, solid, comforting.
"I missed mine too, when I first went to war. The North is hard for those who come from elsewhere. But this one—" he nods toward the wolf, "—this one will help you. He won't leave you alone."
You look down at the pup. He is pathetically fragile, a miniature miracle. But you know that with time he will become excessively large.You stroke his back with your fingertips; the fur is soft and smells of forest, of wet leaves, of living earth. He lets out a small yelp and pushes his head against your hand.
You smile. It is the first genuine smile in weeks.
"Does he have a name?" you ask.
"No," Cregan straightens up and removes his gloves. "That's up to you. He's your wolf."
You ponder for a moment, looking at the animal that has fallen asleep against your chest, exhausted from fighting the world.
"Storm," you say at last. "His colour is like storm clouds. Like your eyes."
This time, Cregan does smile. It is a brief, crooked, almost imperceptible smile, but it transforms his severe face completely.
"Storm," he repeats, testing the name. "It's a good name."He turns to stoke the fire, and as he does, he adds without looking at you:"I'll tell the maester to prepare warm milk. Don't give it to him cold, or he'll die."
And you watch him as he stirs the logs, that enormous man who seemed so intimidating on your wedding day, and you feel something warm in your chest that has nothing to do with the hearth.
An hour passes. Maybe two.Storm has drunk the milk a servant brought, has peed in your lap (because he is a wolf, not a lapdog, as Cregan reminds you with a snort that sounds dangerously like a laugh), and now sleeps curled up on an old blanket near the fire.
You have fallen asleep in the armchair.Cregan finishes removing his wolfskin cloak, left only in his dark greyish doublet. He watches you sleeping. He does not wake you. He does not tell you to go to bed.
He simply finds another fur blanket and covers you with it, carefully, making sure it covers your shoulders.
Then, after a moment of hesitation, he leans in and brushes your forehead with his lips. A dry kiss, almost reverent.
"Welcome to the North, my lady," he murmurs against your skin, low.And then he sits in a nearby chair, rests his sword against the armrest, and stays there, watching over your sleep and that of the newest member of House Stark.
Storm grows. He becomes your shadow. He follows you through the halls of Winterfell with his still-clumsy paws, tripping over his own feet, and the servants learn to step aside when they see him coming. At night, he curls up at the foot of the bed, and when the cold tightens its grip, he climbs up without asking and curls between Cregan and you.
"He's a wolf, not a lapdog," your husband protests one morning, when he wakes up with Storm's snout resting on his pillow.
"You brought him," you remind him, ruffling the animal's fur. "Now he's part of the family."
Cregan snorts. But he doesn't push the wolf away. What's more: when he thinks you're not looking, he scratches behind his ears and murmurs things to him that you don't quite catch because he speaks so quietly, but Storm wags his tail as if he understood every word.
You have not forgotten your home. Sometimes, nostalgia still washes over you, especially at dusk, when the Northern sun hides too early. But you are no longer alone. You have Storm, who rests his head on your knees when he senses you are sad.
And you have Cregan, who never says "I love you" in words, but tells you when he passes you the softest bread at dinner, when he lends you his cloak, when he looks at you from across the training yard and gives you that almost imperceptible chin-jut.
Here I am. I see you. You are one of us.
And you, for the first time since you arrived, are starting to believe it.
hope I got close to what the request wanted but I don't think I did lmao
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