King Elk Forest -- carried on a breeze, you'll never find me, i'm gone

Brienne watches a grin form across the older gentleman's face and bathes in his apparent approval of her feelings towards his grandson.  Something stirred within her as he affirmed her worth — she had thought of herself as ephemeral, gone like the creeks that ceased to exist in the dry seasons.  Although Burke might not know it, his words grounded her in a way she could not verbalize.

It was interesting to her the things he brought up.  He suggested that she stand beside the ashen empyrean instead of serving him but it was not the advancement in rank that she craved — given the structure of the pack she doubted she'd even move up and this was fine because what she wanted was something she did not yet understand.  She wanted more from him than what they had now, something yet undefined and new, but perhaps she was reading too much into the phrasing.   

Thank you.  It is all she can muster for a minute and she focuses on the air cooling as it enters her nostrils — hmm! — and warming as it exits with an ahhhh.  Perhaps you are right.  But I do not know whether he feels the same and I do not know if I should.. have him exploring those feelings right now.  I'm not sure if he knows what he's feeling.. I'm not sure if I quite understand it myself.  She looks up at the elder and laughs, Can I attribute that to just being young?

She stands, stretching out her limbs with a sigh.  If he comes to me, if he wants to figure.. us.. out, then I will be more than ready.  Thank you for your advice, Burke.  I think I will sit on it a while longer and I might speak with him about it before too much time passes.

If he did not feel that way for her or found her to be too much of a time and resource suck, then so be it.  She would cross that bridge when she came to it.  But for now she found no harm in reveling in his presence, soaking in what she could of the man who brought her the most happiness she could ever recall feeling.