Jon breathes in quiet, sharp when she turns to meet his gaze as if he was somehow unprepared to meet it head on. They stand close enough he notices the color of her eyes (how they're honeyed, soft, and warm). He could melt even in this cold from the way she looks at him alone.

A softness washes over his own features even as the dark of his gaze razes over her now that she stands in front of him. She does look like she belongs in the North with her hair dark as a raven's wing, with her toughness and resolve, with the warmth upon her face. She's beautiful. Heat remains nestled within him (how could he feel cold at all when standing near her makes him feel this?). The answer tumbles out of him with a tiny smile.

"No."

They're in a place which wishes to punish them for sins, which could send them away any day, which is meant to be temporary and in between worlds. He carries new sins he's only heard about (but carries them nonetheless), and yet when he looks at her, speaks to her, it's as though all of that melts away too. His head ducks briefly.

"But you look of the North." He thinks of how Tormund's always told him he had the real North in him, and somehow Jon knew what that meant.