King Elk Forest -- when the ones that damn the innocent are on the nightly news

 

paging @Delight and being vague since we don't quite know how the mato/brienne thread will go yet.  additionally, because it was my personal ooc absence, i won't have brienne discuss the feeling of being betrayed icly because i'm not sure if everyone is comfortable with it.

the wind had changed.

she was distant and cold, in a different way than she'd been before.  while she'd always had a tendency to isolate, at least then she'd held some kind of compassion but her brief stint away from the king elk had left her bitter and jaded.  once more she felt like the crumpled thing that had washed upon the vale, at her the morwinyon's feet, and while he had every reason to call for a hiatus on their mateship it had left something at the back of her throat she could not cough up.

how dare they think she'd just abandoned them?  but how dare she have left?  it was a vicious cycle of self-blame that held her captive, and despite being a counselor and having one readily available, they were feelings that she refused to discuss. so instead she'd done what was expected of her and nothing more.

until today.

brienne stirred to the dampened sounds of snow-rain.  it was tempting to stay tucked away, hidden in her den, yet something in her bones from before the wilds called her forth.  the very thing that had led her so foolishly away from the king elk, and once more she gave in.  head low, she made her way somewhere, making sure to stay well within the borders but away from her hide.