They are now in the same boat. This man must be one of his siblings' sons.

...Or his own.

"Truly?" Ned looks with wonder at the full-grown man, trying to understand how these times can have worked. What magic has brought a nephew and uncle together at the same age. "Then we are family. I am Eddard Stark. Perhaps you are one of my brother Brandon's. We believe he may have fathered a few bastards in his time."

His smile is touched with melancholy, for Brandon will never sire a true-born heir now. That task will be up to him.

"Do you know who your father was?"