[His gaze is direct, neither blank nor burning, and he’s silent for a long moment before he answers her, with the fronts of their bodies all lined up against each other.

He’s not sure that anyone raised with a bastard name would prefer it. Still—]

When they made me King in the North... I know part of it was because of who my father was. But still, it meant something that the king was named Snow. It would mean something to any other child named Snow. So that they don’t have to feel it like shackles: maybe they can feel it like honor, instead.