The last thing Andru remembered was the storm over Table Bay. Cape Town's winter gales had turned vicious that night in 2025, waves slamming the harbor like artillery. He'd been on the promenade near the V&A Waterfront, phone out, filming the lightning cracking over the Atlantic, when a rogue swell hit the wall. Salt water in his lungs, the cold shock, then nothing but black.
He woke to warmth. Not the dry heat of a hospital bed, but the smothering, living warmth of furs and a woman's arms. A heartbeat thumped against his ear—steady, strong—and a voice murmured in a tongue he somehow understood, soft and lilting with an accent that wasn't quite English.
"Shh, my little one. The fever's broken. The Old Gods have mercy."
He tried to speak, but only a thin wail came out. His limbs were tiny, uncoordinated. Panic surged as realization hit: he was an infant. Reborn. In a world of stone and snow, wrapped in wool and the scent of pine smoke.
Winterfell. He knew the name the moment he heard it whispered by servants. Eddard Stark. Catelyn. The North. Game of Thrones. The books, the show—he'd binged both in lockdown years ago. And now he was here, inside it.
They named him Cregan.
Cregan Stark, second son of Lord Eddard and Lady Catelyn. Born in the shadow of Robb, the heir, but alive and whole where so many Starks would not be. The memories came in fragments at first—modern life flickering like bad reception against the medieval reality—but by his second nameday they sharpened. He remembered spreadsheets and Wi-Fi, climate change debates and craft beer, yet here he was, toddling through halls lit by rushlights, learning to say "Winter is coming" before he could properly walk.
He kept silent about the past life. What good would it do? Tell them he knew the Lannisters would murder Ned, that the Red Wedding waited like a blade in the dark? They'd think him mad, or worse, a greenseer touched by something unholy. No. He would watch. Learn. And change what he could without breaking everything.
The years blurred in the way childhood does in the North—short summers, long winters, endless drills in the yard. Robb was his constant shadow and rival, a boy of fierce grins and wooden swords. They trained together under Ser Rodrik Cassel, clacking sticks until bruises bloomed. Jon Snow watched from the edges, dark and quiet, the bastard brother Cregan already knew was more than he seemed. Rhaegar and Lyanna. The Tower of Joy. He ached to tell Jon, but held his tongue.
Catelyn was kinder to him than to Jon. Perhaps because he looked more Tully—dark auburn hair like hers, though his eyes were Stark grey. She sang him river songs when nightmares came, mistaking his thrashing for fever dreams. He let her. It was easier than explaining the memories of a life where rivers ran brown with pollution instead of trout.
By four namedays he began to nudge things. Small things. He "found" a better way to stack firewood so it burned cleaner—modern efficiency leaking through. He asked Maester Luwin innocent questions about crops that might grow in the cold: hardy roots from far-off lands, things like potatoes he'd read about in history books. Luwin humored him, thinking it childish fancy. But when trial plantings in the glass gardens yielded fat, earthy tubers that stored through winter without rotting, the maester began to look at him differently.
Soap came next. He remembered the basic chemistry—lye from wood ash, fat from kitchen scraps. He pestered the kitchen maids until they let him experiment in a corner cauldron. The first batch was harsh, but it cleaned better than anything they'd used. Fewer sores in the barracks. Fewer fevers among the smallfolk. Catelyn noticed. Ned noticed. They called it "the boy's cleverness." He smiled and said nothing.
Then came the wars.
Robert's Rebellion had ended six years before Cregan's birth—Ned riding south with Robert, returning as Warden of the North with a crown on his friend's head and ghosts in his eyes. The North had bled for the Iron Throne: Brandon and Rickard burned, thousands dead in battles from the Bells to the Trident. No gold came for it. No titles beyond what was already theirs. Just honor, and the cold knowledge that the South had used them.
Greyjoy's Rebellion changed that equation.
It began in 289 AC, when Cregan was four. Balon Greyjoy crowned himself king on the Iron Islands, torches burning Lannister ships, reaving the western coast. Robert called the banners. Ned rode south again, this time with Robb barely six and Cregan clinging to his leg, begging to go. "Not yet, lad," Ned had said, ruffling his hair. "The North needs you here."
The war was short and brutal. Stannis smashed the Iron Fleet. Robert took Pyke. Balon bent the knee. Theon's brothers died; Theon himself came north as a hostage, a sullen boy of ten with salt in his hair and defiance in his eyes.
Ned returned to Winterfell in the autumn of 289 AC, weary and bearded, the scent of smoke still on his cloak. The great hall roared with welcome—ale flowing, bards singing of Pyke's fall. Cregan watched from the high table, heart pounding. This was the moment.
He had rehearsed the words in his head for months.
That night, after the feasting wound down and most had stumbled to bed, Cregan found his father in the solar. Ned sat by the fire, staring into the flames, a goblet untouched. The room smelled of wax and old parchment.
"Father," Cregan said quietly.
Ned looked up, surprised. "Cregan. Shouldn't you be abed?"
"I couldn't sleep." He stepped closer, small boots scuffing the rushes. "The North fought two wars for the king. Robert's Rebellion. Now Greyjoy's folly. We sent men. We lost men. And what did we get?"
Ned's brow furrowed. "Honor. Loyalty to the realm."
"No coin," Cregan said. "No reward. Moat Cailin crumbles while the South feasts on tourneys and gold. If the Ironborn had pushed north instead of west..." He let the thought hang.
Ned studied him. "You speak like a man grown, boy."
"I'm four," Cregan admitted with a shrug that felt too adult. "But I listen. And I think. Moat Cailin guards the Neck. Always has. Ten thousand years, the singers say. If it falls, the North falls. We could rebuild it. Make it strong again. But it needs gold. More than Winterfell can spare."
Ned rubbed his beard. "The crown owes us nothing by law."
"By law, no. By right? Two wars. Thousands dead. Robert calls you brother. Ask him. For the North. For the children who'll need that road safe one day."
Silence stretched. The fire popped.
"You've thought on this," Ned said at last.
"Every night since the banners flew."
Ned exhaled. "I'll write to him. No promises."
Cregan nodded, relief flooding him like warm ale. It was a start.
The letter went south with the next raven. Weeks passed. Then months. Winter deepened.
A reply came in the spring of 290 AC, just as the snows began to melt. Robert's own hand—blunt, scrawled, smelling faintly of wine even on parchment.
Ned, my old friend—*
Your boy speaks sense, if the tales are true. A Stark whelp of four arguing strategy? Ha! The North bled twice for me and got bugger-all but scars. Moat Cailin matters. I'll send gold. Enough to rebuild the damn thing proper.
But here's my price: betroth your Cregan to my Myrcella when she's of age. A Stark-Baratheon match to bind us tighter. Lannister gold pays for it, if Cersei squawks. Tell the boy he'll have a golden lioness for a wife one day. Make him worthy.
Your king and brother, Robert
Ned read it aloud in the solar, voice low. Catelyn's eyes widened—pleased, wary. A royal match for her second son. Power. Alliance.
Cregan felt a chill that had nothing to do with the North. Myrcella. Sweet, kind Myrcella, doomed in canon to poison and tears. But if he could change things... if the betrothal locked the Lannisters out of outright betrayal...
He met Ned's gaze. "I'll make it work, Father. For the North."
Ned placed a hand on his shoulder. Heavy. Steady. "You already have, lad."
Work began that summer. Masons and engineers arrived with Baratheon coin—hundreds of dragons, then thousands. The causeway through the Neck was shored up. Crumbling towers of black basalt were righted, new ones raised in Roman-inspired lines Cregan sketched in secret: straight walls, angled bastions to deflect siege engines, murder holes for archers. He whispered ideas to the foremen—better drainage to fight the swamp fever, compacted earth ramparts layered with gravel.
He didn't stop at stone.
In the glass gardens, he pushed harder: more potato fields, insulated cellars packed with sawdust and ice cut from the lakes in winter. Compacted snow held longer than loose; he showed the stewards how to layer it tight, like bricks, to keep meat and roots fresh through the lean months.
The brewery experiments bore fruit too. Better malts, cleaner distillation. The first true vodka—clear, fierce, potato-based—earned the name "Northern Fire." Small casks went south with traders. Coin flowed back.
And in the training yard, Cregan began to dream bigger. Shields locked in tight lines like Greek hoplites. Long spears to break cavalry charges. Gladii for close work, short and brutal. He called the games "old ways from far lands," and the men laughed but tried them. Soon, small units drilled in phalanx, shields overlapping, pikes gleaming.
One night, lying in the dark with Robb snoring beside him, Cregan stared at the ceiling beams.
The pack survives, he thought. But the lone wolf dies.
He would not be lone. He would build something new. A black wolf among the greys—spear and gladius crossed, red eyes in the dark.
Moat Cailin would rise. The North would prosper. And when the lions came prowling...
He would be ready.