The slumbering direwolf of the North has rested peacefully for nearly three hundred years, content to rest and build as they always had since the days of King Torrhen Stark, who had surrendered his crown to Aegon the Conqueror in the name of peace and fealty. His heart broken by the loss of the kingdom passed down through the ages, his bastard brother takes him on a trek around the North to survey the realm he rules now as Lord Paramount...and in a blizzard, they find something that forever changes the history of not just the North, but the entire world.

But nothing can sleep forever.

When Prince Rhaegar Targaryen snatched Lyanna Stark from the city of Winterfell, the direwolf stirred from its slumber and was enraged by the death of its liege lord and his son and heir...the Andal realms of the South learnt that the North was not the sparsely populated backwater they told their children about, but one of the foremost powers in Westeros.

What if the North had a population on par with the Reach, brought about by having a reliable and consistent supply of food?

First written for AlternateHistory.com!