Comment: The war is over. The iron throne shattered and the lands at peace. An alliance of the Southern lords has been formed, but it is shaky and troubled by the North that claimed independence. And while there is peace, the North still loves to hinder as many negotiations they can.
Rickon is Lord of Winterfell, Sansa married to Willas Tyrell is Lady of the Reach, and their son Garrett a squire to a Northern lady (because Sansa is done trusting men) visiting Winterfell.

Watching him at sword practice Rickon wonders about his sisters loyalty for her home in the South.

Out of all his nephews and niece, from the moment he first laid eyes upon him, Rickon liked Garrett best.
Garrett with his brown curls and affectionate smile had been the most adorable toddler. Running around in snow with his cheeks apple red squealing in delight when one of the dogs pushed him to the ground during their play of tag.

He looked very much a small version of Willas. Tyrell bred. Slim built, peach skin, summer in his face and altogether out-of-place here in the North where people were pale, and sturdy from hard work outside.
The North had never been kind to its people. The lands still rough and untamed. A wildness you couldn't subdue, but learned to live in, learned to breathe.

Even after all these years, Garrett - now a squire to Lady Reed of Greywater Watch at age three and ten - looks very much a future summer Lord. Everything about him screaming Reach. Everything but his eyes. Those are all Sansa.

Flashing ice. Cold and harsh and totally foreign in his petite face.

It is the eyes, Rickon loves the most. Wild and untamed. Challenging and unrestrained just like the lands he so treasures.

Rickon remembers, when Garrett had been small, how people lost their composure having his eyes staring at them eerily.

And while Garrett had been too young to remember himself, Rickon can see it in his poise, that through the years he has realized and learned to use those ghostly eyes of his.

Rickon chuckles.

There had been a time the South tried to tame the North but he does not remember much from when they came to crush, to overpower, to conquer.
But he remembers the time of rebuilding and adjustment after.

Now, while the war is over and weapons have been tucked away since years, in a way the North is still fighting, the South still trying to bend, to shape and them opposing. Always straining against the shackles cast upon them after the end of the war.

And Rickon wonders if they know.
When he stands in the courtyard watching his nephew practising swords with one of Winterfells own guards. White puffy clouds forming on his breath.

His thoughts wander to his sister in the South. He doesn't know much about the things Sansa had to endure while he was on the run with Bran, Hodor and Osha.

The bond with his remaining sibling dimmed through time and miles apart. She never told him about that time, and he did not know much about the woman she had become.

But watching her first-born whom she had sent North and who loved the cold so much, he wonders if it wasn't him but Sansa who would have been fit to rule at Winterfell.
For all his wildness in the end he had been forced to kneel and lower his head to the Southern alliance, lands so far away from everything the North knows and treasures.

And as Garrett strikes his opponent down with confident assurance - silent, without the usual battle cry boys his age let loose during practice, as if his every move had been calculated from the start, like a beast stalking prey - Rickon feels his chest swell with pride at the thought of his sister living bravely. Never bending but ruling. Always fighting.

Maybe their bond has not dimmed at all...

One day Garrett with his eerie winter eyes may very well rule the South.
He will become Lord of the Reach, the most fruitful and rich among the Southern lands. The one leading the biggest army.

And Rickon ponders, his lips forming a toothy grin.

He wonders if they realize - those Southern Lords - that soon, North will be upon them.

Winter is coming.