Invisible String - Cregan Stark

Eight~ Shadows

Snowflakes streamed past my face as Merrax soared higher, her powerful wings slicing through the air with practiced grace. The sky stretched wide and endless above us, pale gray and shimmering white where the sun fought through clouds.

Below, the North rolled out in a silent sprawl — trees dressed in frost, hills blanketed in snow, and Winterfell now just a shape carved into the land.

I leaned forward and pressed a gloved hand against Merrax's warm neck. I felt the pulse of her beneath me — not just muscle and strength, but instinct. Emotion. Memory.

She tilted her head slightly, responding to my touch, and then...

We dove.

A laugh came bursting out of my mouth — a real, breathless sound that no one else would hear — as the wind screamed past my ears, and my heart lifted, weightless and free. Merrax spiraled through the air in a tight roll, her wings folding ever so slightly as she plunged through a column of mist and snow.

We didn't need words.

I didn't tug the reins or shout commands. A lean of my body, a thought half-formed — that was all it took. Merrax listened, understood.

Now.

I gave the tiniest shift in my grip, and Merrax pulled up sharply, leveling out into a glide just above the tree line. Her wings beat with slow, mighty rhythm — effortless — sending waves of snow fluttering from the pine branches below.

I let go of the handles entirely for a moment, spreading my arms to either side, my dark cloak flaring like wings of my own. My braid whipped over my shoulder, creating a rhythm with my earrings. My teeth stung as the cold air hit my smile.

This was the only place where I wasn't thinking.

Not of being the daughter with lilac eyes and hair that didn't match the crowns, or the girl behind the quiet.

Here, I was simply Visenya. The rider. The soul bound to a creature of fire and starlight.

Merrax tilted her head again — playful now — and suddenly tucked her wings, falling in another sharp dive.

I shrieked and gripped the saddle with my knees, laughing all over again as we shot down between two tall ridges, snow bursting around us like mist. Just when it seemed we might crash into the trees, Merrax snapped her wings open, wind slamming into them, and we soared upward again in a graceful arc.

Merrax rumbled beneath me — amused. A rumble that sounded too close to a laugh.

We glided over a frozen river, the ice below a mirror of the sky. I leaned forward to stare down at our reflection: rider and dragon, black and silver streaking across the glass of the earth.

I remember when we first flew together — when Merrax was smaller, all legs and wings and hungry snarls, and I was still a child who didn't know how to be seen. We had found each other in the shadows.

And now, we ruled the sky together.

I let Merrax lead, surrendering to her rhythm, to the silent dance of flight. We rose through a thin band of clouds, then broke free into the clear above — sunlight streaming through the haze, catching on Merrax's armored scales.

She looked like a creature forged in the stars.

"Take me somewhere quiet," I whispered.

And Merrax turned toward the open North, where the trees grew thick and the world was still untouched.

Up here, we were not hunted things. Not pawns. Not pieces.

We were free.

-———————————————————————————