King Elk Forest -- we can't say we didn't try

in which brienne is internally a straight up savage i'm SORRY

perhaps maybe she thought it would've been easier.  maybe she comes back and he has worried for her, her presence has been missed in tindome.  yet the longer this carried out the more it seemed as if she hadn't mattered in the first place the thought crosses her mind that maybe she shouldn't have come back at all.  it might've even been easier for everyone that way.

she hadn't the foresight to even begin to wonder how they must have felt (so unlike a cemna), how it must have looked to them when she disappeared without a trace.  

still.

this was not the happy return she had been expecting, and she dare not push for it now.  his apology is canned and lifeless and though there is genuine intent behind them she is too furious to feel it, because while he's sorry it happened he isn't sorry enough.

because she is so young, so unseasoned, she feels a sense of unfairness to it all which is ever ripened by the way he tiptoes around the next subject, their relationship, speaking slowly like she's an idiot who is oblivious to what he is absolutely going to say next because he's already moved on.  god forbid she find out one of these new smells has replaced her in that way, too.

her heart rises to her throat, choking any response she could have offered and maybe it's for the best because she is not. thinking. rationally.  he is brilliant, a falling star; light and love coming into her life so quickly before flickering out to nothing, promises like passing wishes that die into silence. but she is the entire sun, unmatched and unbridled in her pain and fury over not only the situation itself but the reaction from her husband? unrequited love? alpha. 

if she is to get past this she must destroy every ounce of herself that has ever cared.  she must become like him in a way, shutting out the parts of herself that have always felt too much.  the pain in her eyes remains but she swallows the knot that had lodged in her throat and answers him, finally, after standing and shaking in silence.

fine, that's.. fine, she forces out, voice wavering. and you don't have to do anything, everyone is safe.  i made sure of it.  i wouldn't ever bring anyone back here to do that to you.