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The man that Daenys saw standing high on the balcony the first day she arrived at Winterfell came to her during the late night that winter. He wore the resemblance to Rickon and to Cregan; the beard has grown longer and there was a scar stretching across his left cheek. She didn't see a man at all but rather a creature straight from a nightmare that Aegon would've told her late at nights.
She crouched down and picked the small black direwolf she named Balerion; he wept of something like the startled little thing he was and nudged his snout towards Daenys' chest. Her cold fingers wrapped around his back when she called down the hallway, "can I – can I help you?"
"I don't think a Targaryen can help me in Winterfell," he responded back but didn't move.
"I'm sorry, my lord," she replied in a quiet voice and suddenly she was six again being yelled at by her father, "I meant no offense, you just startled me, that's all."
He looked out in the darkness of the night, "I would think it difficult to startle a dragon."
Daenys shakes her head and helps Balerion before he can slip out of her grasp, "I'm no dragon, lord. Unfortunately, I'm just a girl."
"Just a girl," he huffed back after a small laugh and he finally looks towards her, "a wraith, rather, I'd venture."
Her brows furrow at his words, "a wraith? Why are you here?"
"To see what kind of a spell a silver-haired wraith cast over the heir of Winterfell," he replied and turned on his feet to take a few steps closer.
Daenys only then realizes it's the same Bennard Stark Cregan told her about, "there's no spell. Cregan is my husband."
"Aye," Bennard said, "and I remember when marriage meant something to us. But maybe it means more to your kind when it stays in the family."
Balerion sniffles against her chest, a small whimper leaving his mouth. She's not sure if she's angry or sad for his words, "I'm not my ancestors."
"No, you're far from that," he replied, "if you were, you would probably burn us all to the ground already. But I hear you are far too scared to do that."
The direwolf shifts in her arms again and she tries to calm him down and Bennard rolls his eyes, "and you hold a direwolf to your chest as if that means something to your family."
She then looks up from the direwolf, "I didn't choose this."
"I think you wear that ring on your hand and sleep under my brother's roof, and that is all that matters. You may not have chosen this, girl, but you are here. And your blood... your blood poisons the roots," he spits out quietly.
"I've done nothing," she whispered, shaking her head, "I've tried—"
"You were born," Bennard cut her off sharply, "and that was enough."
