Winterfell, 278 AC
(Wulfric, Age 6)
Snow still clung to the ramparts of Winterfell like stubborn moss. Another year had turned, and the winter seemed slower to release its grip. The days came grey and cold, and the nights howled with wind that slipped through stone and timber alike.
Wulfric healed in silence. He said little in the days after his recovery, even less in the weeks that followed. The scar on his face remained, a cruel, harsh reminder that curved from his brow down over his eye to the edge of his lip. Barely not taking his vision but it gave him a look that made some turn away when he entered a room. Others simply stared gawking at him like he was some fantasy made real.
He bore it without complaint or noise.
By early spring, he was training again. Ser Rodrik Cassel took over his training from Darnel and brought him back to the yard slowly, wooden sword in hand, footwork drills, balance tests. Wulfric took to it with quiet obsession, even more focused than before. He didn't wince when he was struck. He didn't whimper when bruised. He absorbed each correction and stored it like a blade in his growing arsenal.
But this year, Wulfric pushed beyond the sword. He asked Ser Rodrik for time with the spear. He studied the heft of the weapon, how the balance shifted depending on grip and tip weight. He learned to thrust, not swing, and to use reach rather than brute force. It didn't come naturally, but he refused to give up.
After the spear, he tried the axe. Not the heavy, brutal weapons of the Umber forges, but something similar for his size, a bearded axe. He took to it with grim focus, and while the weight felt foreign at first, he soon found a rhythm. Rodrik noted how he favored a diagonal strike more than a straight chop, a hint of instinct born from some deeper memory.
He even asked to try a short bow, but it felt unnatural in his hands. Still, he kept practicing even if he found a weapon that didn't come naturally to him.
"Versatility," Rodrik said, watching the boy train through gritted teeth. "That's a soldier's weapon. Not just a knight's."
Wulfric nodded and returned to the drills contemplating his favored weapons.
In the evenings, after the bruises were salved and muscles stretched sore, he climbed the stairs to the library tower where Maester Walys waited with ink-stained hands and more books than most men would see in a lifetime. Their lessons now spanned beyond histories and houses.
Wulfric began studying maps of the North in greater detail. He traced the jagged lines of the Frostfangs, the rivers that wound through the Gift, the locations of hot springs like the ones beneath Winterfell. He pored over old records, ledgers of stone yields, forgotten silver veins, amber clusters found near lakes, timber harvest records dating back generations.
"Why so curious about the mountains?" Walys asked him one evening.
"If I know where our strengths lie," Wulfric murmured, "we won't have to beg for coppers from the South."
The maester raised a brow, then nodded. "A good lord's mind… for a boy who may never wear a cloak of office."
"I don't need a cloak," Wulfric replied. "Just purpose."
He studied the bannermen, their lands, their crops and complaints. He listened when visitors came to Winterfell, when traders arrived with stories of roads worn thin and passes blocked by snow. He kept notes of it all, silently in the shadows of his station, a bastard, unseen, unheard.
Benjen Stark remained a constant thread through the year. Though older by nearly five years, he never treated Wulfric like something beneath him. If anything, he took the younger boy's silence and quiet intensity as a challenge, and soon, an invitation.
They sparred together sometimes. Benjen wasn't bad with a sword, though he lacked Wulfric's tenacity. He joked more and flailed more. But he was agile and quick, and when Wulfric grew frustrated with a technique, Benjen found a way to laugh him out of the mood.
"Maester says you sleep with your eyes open," Benjen teased once.
"I'm watching you make a fool of yourself," Wulfric replied dryly.
When Benjen wasn't with Wulfric, he was usually sneaking around the kitchens or climbing the outer walls like a spider. One day though, he brought Lyanna along.
She was small and fierce-eyed, with a voice like iron. Wulfric didn't know what to make of her at first, but she threw a snowball directly into Benjen's face and laughed so loudly that Wulfric, against all odds, grinned.
After that, the three of them often met in the godswood or behind the kennels. They shared stolen apples, raced around the walls, or sat quietly while Benjen told wild tales of knights and monsters.
Lyanna, with her untamed hair and boundless energy, was fearless and occasionally reckless. She challenged Wulfric to climb trees, dared him to jump from low ledges into snowbanks, and constantly tested how far they could push the patience of Winterfell's servants. At first, Wulfric was hesitant, but the more time he spent with her, the more he loosened. Her energy was infectious, and in her company, he laughed more, smiled more.
One quiet night, as the dusk turned the snow blue, Wulfric sat beside Benjen in the inner courtyard. Lyanna had gone to bed and they were alone.
"You think your father's proud of you?" Wulfric asked.
Benjen blinked. "I… don't know. He never says much. Though I think I have lots of time to make him proud.. What about yours?"
Wulfric stared ahead. "He says even less."
Benjen nudged him. "Well, I'm proud of you. Even if you're quiet as a corpse."
Wulfric gave him a slow nod. "That makes one of us."
Benjen hesitated, then added, "Brandon's strange with you. Not cold, but… he's different."
"He's different with everyone," Wulfric said. "With me, he's distant. Polite. Like he's watching a campfire burn from too far away." the hint of irritation or envy bubbling in his voice.
Benjen nodded slowly. "But with the lords and bannermen, he's loud, funny, fun. He's talks and everyone listen to him already.. like father."
Wulfric didn't respond immediately. "I think he doesn't know how to be a father to me."
Benjen didn't argue. He just sat beside him, and the silence between them grew into something that felt like understanding.
High above, from the windows of the Great Keep, Lord Rickard Stark watched.
He was not a man prone to emotion or sentiment, but as the years lengthened and the weight of the North pressed heavier upon his shoulders, he had come to understand the necessity of shaping the future while iron was still hot.
Wulfric, his grandson, his blood, all but in name and yet he knew he had to decide soon.
The boy trained harder than any son of the North Rickard had ever seen. He bled and kept going. He studied not for pride but for mastery. And yet… he bore the name Snow. A reminder of folly. Of fire and desire not tempered by alliance. Oh if only Brandon wasn't so foolish…
One evening, Rickard stood before the fire in his solar, speaking with Maester Walys.
"He's not like the others," Rickard said.
"No, my lord," Walys agreed. "He's something else entirely."
Rickard sipped his mulled wine. "If I send him to another house, he'll grow faster. Learn from others. Maybe from men who can shape him without bias. But if I keep him here…"
"He becomes a Stark in all but name. Though prejudice and envy might hang over like a cloud to the many."
Rickard's brow furrowed.
"Do you see him as a threat?" Walys asked gently.
Rickard shook his head. "No. But I see what he could be. And the North will need every blade. Even bastard-born ones. We both know that truth..."
He paused... letting that sink in.
"I've considered fostering him out. The Umbers. The Karstarks. Even the Mormonts. It would forge bonds and season him."
"But?"
"But then I lose sight of what he's becoming. Here, I can see the man forming. A sword in the fire still hot enough to shape."
He stared out the window toward the yard, where Wulfric trained with Rodrik, his strikes sharp despite the lingering snow.
"He'll never wear my mantle. But he may one day carry my will."
Wulfric did not know the weight of these thoughts. But he felt the eyes on him.
When he sat beneath the weirwood, he didn't pray anymore. He simply listened. To the wind. To the roots. To the pull of something old in his blood.
The scar remained. But so did he, so did something inside him.
So in the quiet, among wolves and snow, a bond was forming. Between him and Benjen. Between him and Lyanna. Between him and Winterfell. Between him and the old gods who watched without speaking.
He would never forget the cold. But now, it no longer bit.
It welcomed him into its cold embrace waiting for the day it could speak to him properly...