Disclaimer: I do not own ASoIaF or GoT. Never have, never will, so this disclaimer applies to the entire fic.

This fic is NOT completely new. It is a version of "The Great Northern Alliance" in which the snippets are organized chronologically rather than "I think this way is funniest." I got several requests to create a chronologically organized version, so here it is! (Also, thank you for being so polite in your requests. I really appreciated that.)

i.

"A pleasure to meet you, Lady Catelyn. Would you mind telling your lord husband that he is not, in fact, insane?"

Beside her, Ned had gone completely rigid, eyes round in his pale face. Confused, Cat looked around, but she was unable to see anyone but them in the godswood. "Did you see who that was, my lord?"

Her husband jerked as he turned to her. "You heard that as well?"

"Of course," she replied, beginning to feel that she was missing something. "Who is it?"

Ned's eyes flitted toward the towering weirwood. Still confused, Cat followed his gaze.

"Here," the tree said, looking at her with its bloodred eyes.

Cat screamed.

ii.

When Ned and Cat finally worked up the courage to return to the godswood, it was with fire in her hand and Ice in his. They approached cautiously, warily, perching on the balls of their feet.

"I'll not harm you," the tree sighed. Ned glanced at Cat, who nodded back to him ever so slightly. They'd both heard that voice two days before, the voice that had scared him witless when he finally returned to Winterfell with his sister's bones and his sister's secrets weighing him down. He'd feared he was going mad, then, broken from guilt and grief and stress, but the fact that his lady wife had also heard it laid that particular worry to rest. Now, of course, he had other things to worry about, because whatever this was, he doubted it would speak with him without good reason.

"Are you a god or a greenseer?" Ned asked cautiously, angling himself so that he stood between Cat and the weirwood. He'd initially thought it was a god, but a few cautiously worded, completely hypothetical questions to Old Nan had reminded him of the other beings who could supposedly communicate through heart trees.

"I am a greenseer," the voice proclaimed, carved lips twitching into a thin smile. The weirwood's face had changed, Ned noticed, the features not quite so long and somber anymore, one bloody eye gummed shut with sap. It was an old face, the nose large and drooping, the bark rough and wrinkled, a red stain ghosting across the right cheek. "I am the last of the greenseers, at least for now."

Ned was not sure he liked the sound of that, not certain if he was relieved or troubled that this was a greenseer and not a god. He decided to think about it after receiving more information. "Why are you speaking with us, my lord?"

"Because winter is coming, Eddard Stark, and I would be an irresponsible idiot if I didn't do everything in my power to guard the realms of men."

iii.

The Great Hall of Winterfell was silent, its inhabitants hardly daring to breathe. It felt almost sacreligious to break the silence, but Ned knew full well that it needed to be broken.

"Rise and be welcome in my hall."

The man—clad in green from head to toe, his skin painted with green runes, crowned with a great heavy antlered headdress—looked up and smiled. "The honor is mine, Lord Stark."

iv.

Ronnel had been in Winterfell for almost a year before he started talking about the possibility of a school. A few people made it to the Isle, he admitted, but most didn't realize that his order still existed, much less that they were willing and able to take students. Besides, the Isle of Faces lacked the sort of facilities that Winterfell possessed, and they had an unfortunate problem with potential students capsizing and drowning to boot.

Ned was against this at first, but a few days of contemplation later, he found himself warming to the idea. More magic in the land meant more people willing to prepare for the Long Night, after all, if only because more people would believe that it was on its way.

So he granted Ronnel and any other potential instructors leave to use an older building on the northern part of the grounds as an academy.

A half-dozen more Green Men, two woods witches, two maegis, four wildling wargs, three Westerosi skinchangers, and one archmaester later, he began to wonder if that was really a good idea.

v.

Catelyn sent for a septa after Sansa was born, mostly so that her daughter would have a tutor in the womanly arts. She appreciated the sept Ned had had built for her and the septon he'd summoned to man it, she really did, but it was hard to keep the Faith of the Seven when you'd spent the last two years plotting against the reemergence of an ancient war with an unnaturally old Targaryen-Blackwood sorcerer who could only communicate with them through ravens and trees (gods, her life was strange). Still, Sansa and any potential unborn daughters would need to learn needlepoint and such, and all her children (not to mention her nephew) would need to know about the Faith even if they never followed it.

Alas, Septa Mordane was not truly fit for the new Winterfell that was taking shape. To her credit, she managed to mostly ignore the talking ravens, the fellow from the Isle of Faces, and the old albino woman whom Cat (and most of the household) was convinced was actually a child of the forest in disguise. It wasn't until the more blatant bits of sorcery started manifesting that the poor woman's "health problems" really began.

Or maybe she was simply canny enough to realize that a baby as active and loud and wild as Arya would be impossible to mold into a proper lady and cut her losses while she could. Cat really couldn't tell.

vi.

Theon Greyjoy would never admit it, especially not to a baby like Robb (or, Drowned God forbid, to his sisters or bastard brother), but he really wished that he'd been sent literally anywhere else for fostering. The rumors about Winterfell and the North were… unpleasant. Not that he believed them, of course—they were ridiculous—but there was still a niggling doubt in the back of his mind that they really did water their tree gods with the blood of their enemies, that he would be a human sacrifice. But sacrifice or not, everyone knew that Northmen were dumb, backwards brutes.

When he finally got to Winterfell, he was relieved to find definitive proof that the horror stories he'd heard weren't true. He was not relieved to find that the truth was so much more insane.

vii.

The second septa spent more time in the Academy, as it was often called, than she did watching Sansa and Arya. When she wasn't glaring at the people in the Academy or carrying out her actual duties, she spent a great deal of time scribbling increasingly hysterical letters to the High Septon and attempting to bribe people into carrying them down to the Great Sept of Baelor.

Fortunately for Winterfell, nobody was particularly interested in tattling to the head of a foreign religion. The North wasn't exactly hiding its preparations for the incoming Long Night, but they weren't really advertising it, either, and thanks to the relative lack of southron spies (and near-complete lack of southron interest), few people south of the Neck had any idea what was going on. Sure, they'd noticed the sudden increase in shipbuilding, but since most of the White Harbor fleet was designed to double as trade vessels and they had just finished putting down the ironborn, not many people outside of Stark territory cared that much.

Unella lasted just under a year until she couldn't stand it anymore and set out for the Sept, intent on giving her report in person. No one was particularly sorry to see her go.

"She thinks we're out to destroy the Faith. Do you think Robert will believe her, Cat?" Ned asked worriedly, watching her ride away.

Cat thought of the talking trees, the Green Men, the ghosts, the everything else….

"I think we're safe, Ned."

viii.

They had started formally presenting the children to the heart tree shortly after Bloodraven made his presence known. Cat had reasoned (and Ned had agreed) that if the children were going to be raised in a magical madhouse, they might as well get used to it early, learn at a young age that the talking tree was nothing to fear. Besides, the greenseer had a tendency to drop cryptic hints about the children's futures that might help their parents prepare.

It had also led to the revelation of Jon's true parentage, so the practice had already come in handy.

The tree stayed quiet for a long time, gazing at the newest baby with its single red eye. Wind whispered through the weirwood's leaves, but the greenseer within said not a word.

Bran stared back in equal silence, his little face confused.

Finally Brynden Rivers smiled, sad and triumphant at once. "This one has power, even more power than his siblings or cousin," he announced simply. "When he is older, I must needs teach him how to use it. Only then will I be free to die."

Catelyn Stark had long grown used to the cold of the North—but still, she shivered.

ix.

Jaime was guarding Jon Arryn that day, which mostly involved standing decoratively around the throne room as one peasant after another brought their insignificant complaints before the Hand of the King (and tried to pretend they weren't disappointed that the king himself was "busy"). It was boring business that made him glad he'd given up his inheritance, because he couldn't imagine having to pretend to care about disputes over chicken ownership or irregular cobblestones.

Then the High Septon waddled in, trailed by a gray rake of a woman, and suddenly things became interesting.

Arryn and the High Septon exchanged the mandatory pleasantries before the fat priest nudged the woman forward, introducing her as Septa Unella, who had apparently been serving at Winterfell and had "immensely disturbing information" about what the Starks were getting up to in their frozen wasteland. This "vital intelligence" turned out to be the hysterical ramblings of a madwoman convinced that Eddard Stark was preparing to drag Westeros into a new era of sinful evil heathenism by training various Northern savages in the dark arts of their tree gods. He might claim to be preparing for the next Long Night, but it was obvious that his real intention was to march south with his army of monsters, sorcerers, and tree worshippers to utterly annihilate the Faith of the Seven and all that was good, pure, and holy in the land of Westeros.

By the time she was halfway through, Jaime was biting his lip to keep from laughing, but he couldn't completely fight back his laughter. Several snorts escaped, prompting dirty looks from the High Septon and his entourage.

Jon Arryn was more composed, though not even he could completely hide his bemusement. "I see," he finally said, once it was clear that Unella's raving died down.

"My Lord Hand," the High Septon began, "in the name of the gods, I beseech you to put a stop to this wickedness!"

Arryn spent the rest of the morning (and a good part of the afternoon, too) explaining that no, he would not arrest the Warden of the North or take his children into custody or invade Winterfell or reform the Faith bloody Militant just because one painfully dubious source (not his words, but certainly implied) thought that Ned Stark—his foster son, a man he knew personally, his wife's own good-brother—was the source of all evil.

"Then what will you do?" demanded Unella frantically. "Do you intend to wait until the armies of wickedness are at our door?"

"…I shall begin by writing him a letter."

"A letter?" squawked the High Septon.

Unella looked surprisingly relieved. "I think that he will confess," she assured her master. "He did not even try to hide the depths of his depravity."

"A letter?" Jaime asked once the delegation was gone and they could finally get some lunch.

"I helped raise Ned. He's completely incapable of deception and couldn't tell a lie to save his life—or the life of any family member, for that matter." A slight smile. "Also, he might find this funny."

Jaime had heard that Northmen had no sense of humor, but Unella's ideas were pretty hilarious, so he didn't say anything.

Apparently Ned Stark did have a sense of humor, or at least enough to find Unella's ridiculousness funny. He wrote back that he was indeed preparing for the Long Night (though not the destruction of the Faith) by funding an Academy of magic, and if anyone from King's Landing wanted to see his preparations, he would be happy to host them at Winterfell.

Robert read the letter and laughed so hard he nearly puked. Upon recovering, he nonsensically declared that clearly, marriage had been good for his old friend.

"What do you mean?" Cersei demanded.

"I mean that obviously, his wife has taught him sarcasm."

x.

The third septa tried very, very hard to ignore the supernatural activities all around her. She avoided the Academy and its residents. She pretended that Sansa and Arya weren't looking forward to their first lessons in magical theory. She even managed to subtly change the subject whenever Septon Chayle (who had adjusted to the North much better than his co-religionists) referenced something that she didn't want to know about.

Her mistake was that she had a tendency to take out her pent-up frustrations on Jon Snow.

Oh, she was subtle about it. "Bastard" or not, Jon was greatly loved by his family, and he wasn't the sort of boy to complain about that sort of mistreatment. Brood on it, yes, not complain. Nor was he the type to seek vengeance.

His lady mother was a bit more vindictive, however, and soon the septa found herself haunted by an angry ghost.

(When the septa fled, Jon left a bouquet of blue roses on his 'aunt's' grave.)

xi.

"You're certain?" Ned asked, his face grim.

"I'm certain," Cat replied, as grim as her lord husband.

When she'd been betrothed to Brandon Stark all those years ago, she'd never expected to be anything other than a lady—not that being Lady of Winterfell was a paltry responsibility, of course, but she had expected to lead a somewhat chillier version of her mother and grandmothers' lives. She hadn't expected the magic, or the oncoming winter, or to fall in love with Brandon's quiet younger brother. She definitely hadn't expected to found and head the North's first (slightly illegal, but no one enforced those laws anymore) network of spies since Aegon's Conquest.

Now, looking at the reports from the Dreadfort, she was glad that she had.

Ned's face darkened further. "Thank you, my lady."

A month later, when word reached her that the Dreadfort had fallen, that Roose Bolton and Ramsay Snow were dead, she smiled.

xii.

The fourth septa had the misfortune of arriving on the same day as a delegation of giants. She took one look at the huge hairy beasts with their mammoths and enormous spears, then turned around and walked away.

xiii.

The fifth septa was a spy for the Faith. Ned was rather surprised it had taken them this long to send one and considered returning her to King's Landing, but she wasn't a particularly good spy, so he let her stay. The Faith would just panic more if they didn't have someone in Winterfell, and this way, he could control what information went south.

Come to think of it, the fourth septa had probably been a spy, too. Good thing the giants had scared her off.

xiv.

The High Septon was going to have an apoplexy, Jaime thought. His lips twitched. Oh, he very much hoped he could somehow see the man's face when word reached him of Ned Stark's latest stunt. If the supposedly humorless Northman kept this up, Jaime might actually start to like him.

"I didn't know they still knew how to breed weirwoods," Robert said, staring at his friend's gift. "And I thought that only children of the forest were supposed to carve the faces?"

"The singers of the songs of earth are few in number, Your Grace," said the green-clad messenger who had come with the weirwood, "but there are enough of them to carve a few trees every year. This one bears the likeness of Ser Brynden Bloodraven."

Well, that explained why it was so ugly.

"Planting it might offend the Faith," Jon Arryn pointed out once the messenger—Ronnel, Jaime thought his name was—had left to scout out the godswood for a good place to plant it.

"Tell them it's a sign of unity or something," Robert instructed. "As long as Joffrey doesn't start sacrificing to it or anything, all they'll do is grumble. Also, Joffrey is not allowed to sacrifice to it."

And then Jaime had to poke at his ears, because he could have sworn that the tree was laughing at them.

xv.

Cat knew full well that Uncle Brynden wasn't just here to visit his eldest niece. He was one of the Hand's best knights, doubtless here on his lord's command.

She and Ned greeted him courteously and warmly, introducing him to all the children, Theon and Jon included. He raised an eyebrow when the supposed bastard was allowed to sit at the high table with them, but since his niece didn't mind, he refrained from commenting. Cat was glad of that.

Her children were fascinated by their 'new' uncle. Every Stark child save Bran, who was still a babe, pestered him for stories, and he was all too happy to oblige them.

Finally, the children were down in bed and the adults could meet in relative privacy. "We decided to show you outright," Cat explained as she led her uncle through the godswood.

Brynden Tully raised an eyebrow, gestured toward the wing of the castle they used for the Academy. "I thought your school was over there?"

"It is," Ned confirmed, "but the reason we founded the Academy is out here."

But Brynden wasn't paying attention. Instead, he stared in horror at the great gush of green-tinted flame that suddenly erupted from the tower's window. Moments later, a huge boom reached their ears.

Cat and Ned kept walking.

"Something just exploded," Brynden pointed out. "Why are you not concerned by that?"

"We have alchemists trying to rediscover how to create glass, Valyrian steel, and other useful things," Cat explained.

"We're used to it by now," Ned agreed.

Brynden looked from the burning tower to his niece and her husband with an expression of pure incredulity. "And you're going to introduce me to the reason for all this?"

"Of course." Cat gave a gentle tug on her uncle's arm.

Ahead, the heart tree watched with a single red eye.

xvi.

No one was quite certain how the two enormous direwolves snuck around the guards, made it past the walls and gates and doors, and plopped themselves down outside Lady Catelyn's chambers. Ned and Cat didn't even know they were there until he opened the door and nearly tripped over one of the great bloody beasts.

Ned stared at them for a long, long moment. The direwolves stared back.

"Are they being warged?" Cat asked, coming up behind him.

"I don't think so," Ned confessed, bemused.

"So they came here of their own free will?"

"So it would seem."

Cat sighed. "We'll need to speak with the guard about how they got in."

"Of course," Ned agreed.

The he-wolf grinned at them. The she-wolf wagged her tail.

xvii.

One seemingly random day when Jon Snow was eleven, his lord father called him aside for a talk. A few hours later, the twelve-year-old boy (because he was twelve, it was his nameday, he hadn't even known his real nameday or his real name) left his lord uncle's solar with a story spinning in his head and a small chest in his hands.

Back in the safety of his room, Jon (not his name, never his name, but—he didn't know how else to think of himself. Certainly not by that other name) found himself opening the chest, partly to gaze upon the treasure within and partly to make sure that it was all real. It was. He stared in stunned silence at the dragon egg, white as snow with whorls of ruby (fire and blood), his hands ghosting across its hard surface. It was warm, he observed dazedly, warmer than a stone should be.

("She'll be useful in the Long Night," Ned told him four years later, after an unfortunate accident involving Ghost, a turnip, and a misaimed fork had resulted in one new-hatched baby dragon, "but couldn't you have waited to hatch her until after Robert's visit?")

xviii.

Arya's hair was still wet, but she couldn't wait any longer. Wrapping her towel around her prize, the nine-year-old made a beeline for the Great Hall, where Father and Mother were holding court. She and Nymeria, one of Frost and Blizzard's pups, slid into place behind the next petitioner. The girl was practically vibrating in excitement; the wolf's entire rear end wiggled, she was wagging her tail so hard.

Her parents noticed her right away, of course. Father even raised an eyebrow at the bundle in her arms. But there were other petitioners ahead of her, so she forced herself to wait her turn. Amazing as her discovery was, it wasn't exactly all that urgent.

After far too long a wait, Father gestured for her to come forward. At his side, Blizzard pushed himself from his comfortable lounge into a sitting position, his ears pricking up, while Frost did the same next to Mother. It might just be because Nymeria was so close, but Arya liked to think that her parents' direwolves knew how important this was.

Arya reached the place the last petitioner had stood and dropped to her knees. Even she recognized that this was an occasion for boring formalities. "My lord," she announced, "I've found something of yours in the godswood pool." Taking a moment to savor the curious anticipation in the hall, she slowly unwrapped her towel to reveal—

-a sword, a great two-sided broadsword with a weirwood hilt and a blade of shimmering blue-white ice. A sword that had been lost or hidden long centuries before and replaced by a weapon of Valyrian steel.

"The original Ice, my lord," Arya proclaimed, her voice loud and clear in the stunned silence of the Great Hall. "Isa."

The wolves flung back their heads and howled.