Chapter Three
Direwolf in the Snow
Weeks later, she reached the North.
The land changed gradually at first — fields thinning into scrub, scrub yielding to stone, stone surrendering to frost. Villages grew smaller. Speech grew sharper. Hospitality became measured, cautious.
Then the trees changed.
Tall pines rose like sentinels, their branches heavy with snow that did not melt by afternoon. Rivers moved sluggish beneath sheets of forming ice. The sky hung pale and distant, as though warmth had been erased from its memory.
The cold bit deeper than any winter her game had simulated.
In her old world, winter was aesthetic — soft flakes drifting past a farmhouse window, crops sleeping politely until spring. She had swapped seasons like chapters, secure in the promise of return.
Here, winter did not promise anything.
It consumed.
Snow stretched endless and untouched beyond the Kingsroad, a white expanse so vast it swallowed sound. Her boots sank with each step, leather stiffening, breath ghosting before her face in fragile plumes.
Her stamina did not drain.
Her fingers still felt the cold.
That was new.
She walked alone.
Villagers had begun to whisper when she entered towns. Some welcomed her carefully. Some crossed themselves. In the South, soldiers had ridden harder roads after hearing rumors of a woman who conjured bread from air and healed the dying without prayer.
Miracles traveled faster than armies.
So she traveled north.
Fewer people. Fewer eyes.
Or so she thought.
It began as a prickle at the back of her neck.
Not danger.
Attention.
The forest to her left grew dense, shadow pooling between trunks. The wind shifted, carrying the faintest disturbance — snow compressing under weight not her own.
She stopped walking.
The world held its breath.
Then she felt it fully:
She was not alone.
A white shape emerged from the trees.
Massive. Silent.
Snow did not cling to its fur; it seemed carved from the storm itself. Muscles moved beneath thick white pelt with fluid certainty. Its head was broad, muzzle dusted in frost, eyes a striking, unnatural red that fixed on her with calm intelligence.
Direwolf.
The word surfaced unbidden from memory she had never lived.
Her inventory shimmered reflexively at the edge of her vision.
Galaxy Sword.
She did not reach for it.
The wolf regarded her carefully.
It did not bare its teeth. Did not growl. It simply watched, head slightly tilted, as if evaluating a creature equally strange.
Elara lowered her hands slowly, palms open.
"Hi," she said quietly, her voice swallowed by the snow-laden trees.
The wolf blinked.
Steam curled from its nostrils.
Then it stepped forward.
One step. Two.
Close enough that she could see scars hidden beneath its fur — thin lines crossing flank and shoulder. This was not a beast of fairy tales.
It had survived.
It circled her once, slow and deliberate.
Her heart beat steadily, not from the comfort of invincibility but from something else — recognition. This creature did not hunger for what she carried. It did not sense gold or power.
It sensed her.
Abruptly, it turned.
And walked past her.
Not dismissively.
Expectantly.
It paused several paces ahead and looked back.
As if waiting.
Elara hesitated only a second before following.
Snow muffled their steps as they moved deeper into the forest. Branches arched overhead, dimming the already pale light. The air sharpened, cleaner here, untouched by smoke or ash.
The trees thinned.
At the edge of the forest stood a man in black furs.
He did not move as she emerged beside the wolf.
He had the stillness of someone accustomed to long watches and longer silences. Dark curls stirred against a wind-burned face. Snow clung to the shoulders of his cloak, melting slowly against thick wool. His sword hung at his side, not drawn, but ready.
Gray eyes studied her with wary calculation.
Jon Snow.
The name settled into her mind like a memory from a book half-forgotten yet deeply known.
The direwolf moved to his side, massive head brushing briefly against his gloved hand.
He did not look at it.
He looked at her.
"You're far from home," he said.
His voice was quiet, but it carried. It was the kind of voice used to giving orders no one wanted and hearing truths no one liked.
Elara considered the question.
Home.
A farmhouse that no longer existed. Pixel skies. Predictable seasons. A world that bent to her efficiency.
She studied him in return — this man who did not gleam like gold nor burn like dragonfire. He wore no crown. Carried no visible prophecy.
He endured.
It was written into the set of his shoulders. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes. The way he stood slightly angled against the wind as if expecting resistance from the world itself.
He was not optimized.
He was weathered.
"Yeah," she replied softly. "I think I am."
The wind howled between them, dragging snow in restless spirals.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
His gaze flicked briefly to the sword at her hip — the faint, prismatic shimmer no northern forge could produce. Then to the supplies strapped across her back.
"You alone?" he asked.
"For now."
A pause.
"That's not safe," he said plainly.
It wasn't an offer.
It was fact.
Elara glanced at the endless white beyond the trees. At the wolf whose red eyes never fully left her.
"I'm starting to understand that," she answered.
The direwolf stepped forward again, close enough that she could feel the heat of it even through layers of wool. It did not snarl. Did not challenge.
It simply stood.
Jon Snow watched the exchange carefully.
"Ghost doesn't take to strangers," he said at last.
Ghost.
The name felt right.
Elara reached out slowly, giving the wolf time to refuse. Her fingers brushed thick fur, warm and real beneath the snow.
Ghost did not pull away.
Something subtle shifted in the air.
Not magic.
Not mechanics.
Something older.
Jon's expression changed almost imperceptibly — not trust, not yet, but curiosity edged with respect.
"The Wall's not far," he said. "If that's where you're headed."
She did not know if it was.
She only knew that for the first time since the sky had torn open, the ground beneath her felt less like exile and more like possibility.
"Lead the way," she said.
He studied her one heartbeat longer, then turned toward the north.
Ghost moved first.
Elara followed.
And somewhere deep inside her — beneath gold that never diminished, beneath power that frightened villages — something small and stubborn rooted in frozen soil.
Not control.
Not dominance.
Belonging.
The wind rose around them, fierce and wild.
This sky did not reset.
But perhaps—
Neither did she.