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

feel free to reply once more or simply archive as is. :-) sorry mato's being such a butt. T-T

Mato Rochester is capable of great kindness and compassion but a coin is never without a flip side and it is not so hard to believe that despite that the empyrean is capable of such cruelty. Bone-chilling and vitriol. It is unfortunate and unfair that Brienne witnesses the other facets of Mato here and now on the eve of most unfortunate circumstances. She is newly freed and returned to him and even knowing the circumstances of her absence does not erase the sting that it nevertheless left behind. A sting that is not necessarily aimed at her but he can no more help the broken heart he’d nursed during her month long absence and the closure he’d attempted to make for himself so he did not do something reckless and stupid and selfish any more than she could help being taken as a captive. Things have changed. They have changed. She breathes yes at him, at his rhetorical question: that it was, indeed, a far jump to make and perhaps it is for her because she knows herself but Mato has come to wonder exactly how well they knew one another in the first place.

Evidently, not all that well. For if he had known her as well as he believed, as well as a mate was meant to know their significant other then they would be having a very different conversation, wouldn’t they? In the end, Mato does not respond. He remains stalwart and silent, brooding as he turns everything over in his mind. It’s a lot of information to sort through and process and he tucks it aside to inspect at a later time.

“Yes.” Mato breaks his silence to speak. Neither appeared ready to budge on their defense, to see the other’s point of view ( and on this Mato is just as guilty ) and therefore there was no sense in continuing to bicker with one another. The starlit king takes his departure, heading to a secluded but favored spot to do a bit of information and emotional processing. He’s got a nasty wound to try to close back up for the second time, after all and a secondary perspective that is not his own to try to see and the Morwinyon would much rather process these things alone.