King Elk Forest tell me again how rome burned, how our bodies became the sun

She dreams.

Real dreams were something she had not experienced until the pair had left Northstar Vale and its wolves behind and though she had appreciated the kindness that Rannoch had showed her, Tindómë gave her a solace that she had not felt so clearly in her life.

The dreams are shielding and all-encompassing, so Brienne stirs not when the King Elk's call rings clear through the brisk morning air but instead when the heat from her Morwinyon leaves her side and draws her early from her slumber.  She craved for him more intensely — with more want than she had before but she knew how busy the infant pack was keeping the prince so instead she took the time for herself to stretch out and bathe in the warming rays of light that breached the canopy above, lingering where the pair had lay the night before.

Feelings.  They stirred inside her each time he passed, when she caught his gaze, in the way the sunlight reflected off of his pale grey pelage to give the king a halo, an aura.  They came in stride with a (late) physical maturation she was unaware of; the final rite of adulthod.

Tindómë's king returns to her once more but this time she is alert, awake, and she stands to greet him fondly as her lips meet the bulb of his ear. Good morning, Mato.