Panting were the sounds of the direwolf made as he ran through the forest.
"Where are you going, boy?" he wondered. Ned Stark thought this but he couldn't say it. He was seeing through the eyes of Shadow, the name of his direwolf.
The dream vision went on, just him running and searching. In that dream, Ned had become Shadow. And the steel glare of the sunlight reflected on Ice, the Valyrian sword, woke him.
He wanted water. It was so hot.
"Are you well, Stark?"
"Huh?" Ned saw the blue gaze looking at him, with the smell of ale on his breathe. It was Robert.
"I was dreaming," Ned told him. "Another one of those dreams again, I was Shadow."
Robert laughed.
"You're so cold that you dream of wolves but I dream of women!" Robert laughed.
The war had been over and the mad king was dead. Lyanna was still missing. Prince Rhaegar was dead. Now Ned's direwolf, Shadow was missing too, last seen in the Riverlands, or thereabouts. running after something. He was gone for days and never returned.
Shadow was a large black direwolf, brother of the pack of direwolves they'd had since they were children. Their father found the four pups wandering around just outside Winterfell, considered to be a sign from the old gods.
Each of the Stark children owned one. Ned Stark had the clear grey eyed dark pup, named Shadow because he trotted around alongside Ned all the time. It was so odd now that Shadow just simply left. The others included the grey yellow-eyed pup called Rage, who was given to Brandon, Ned's oldest brother. This direwolf grew to become the biggest and ferocious of the pack. Rage died there in the Red Keep with Brandon.
Benjen was given the palest direwolf pup, it was white with very pale blue eyes. He was called Fangs.
The only female among the direwolf pups was coloured grey with eyes that sparkled like blue gemstones. This was Lyanna's direwolf, called Sapphire. When Lyanna disappeared, Sapphire also vanished. Lyanna's favourite colour was blue and she loved blue roses that grew in the Winterfell garden. Ever since Rhaegar crowned her the Queen of Love and Beauty, she wouldn't stop wearing the blue roses in her hair.
Ned had another dream, that he was Shadow and running, but he was now searching for Lyanna and met Sapphire. Ned didn't know. But he said "Find Lyanna! Go and find her!"
The road was rocky and almost red in colour. It wasn't the King's Road. He could no longer recognise the forest. How far did Shadow run? This direwolf travelled as he woke, and as he slept, he became Shadow and entered his direwolf, who searched on and on. Then the hills took form as the sun was rising. These hills looked red, and there was a tall, slender tower. He looked at it, through the eyes of Shadow, and he saw this tower, and sensed that Sapphire was near but then a sword appeared to close upon him.
The sudden caws of ravens woke him in a start.
"Ned! Are you feeling alright?" Robert asked.
It was based on that dream, or Shadow eyes, that Ned knew where to look. That place was South from here, and what other landscape has red hills but Dorne. But as for Shadow, he knew something was wrong. Shadow was dead. He sensed it as much.
He discovered the tower in Dorne, with three members of the Kings Guard outside. The sight of Shadow laying there in the dust was making him filled with sadness. The Kings Guard saw him and his group. It was time for a battle.
Ned found hi sister. Inside the tower, was Sapphire, and up a winding stair was a chamber where he found Lyanna, covered in blood. She still wore the roses in her hair but they had turned black and brittle.
Lyanna had just given birth to a baby boy.
"Promise me Ned" she told him, as she was dying.
Sapphire stayed with Lyanna, until they all returned to Winterfell. Ned took Lyanna's newborn son home to meet his wife Catelyn. Sapphire remained there for a year and left the castle beneath stars and a full moon.
Many years had passed when Ned Stark and his sons found the direwolf pups with their dead mother. His sons were with him as was his nephew, Lyanna's son called Jon. The direwolf mother had been killed by a large stag and there was a broken antler in her body. Ned was so sure that the mother looked like Sapphire, the direwolf of his dead sister. Could it be her? He wasn't sure. If it was, then she lived until a grand old age. These direwolves had to be a gift from the old gods, he thought.