hh_mirror

It was late afternoon when Brienne made her way out to the forest, Oathkeeper strapped to her hip, having spent the better part of the last couple of days cleaning everything--it turned out butter and salt were hard to get out of boiled leather. Who knew? (It occurred to Brienne that maybe there was some sort of cleansing spell that would have saved her some time. Perhaps Lily would know what it was. Then again, she'd kind of liked the excuse to scrub everything clean, including herself. The activity left her less time to think about Jaime, and the fact that she really ought to owl him to let him know she was back.)

Now, though, clean and scrubbed and--to be completely honest, bored out of her skull--Brienne wandered into the forest, looking for a clearing large enough to practice her swordwork in. She wanted some solitude, and was hoping Arya had proven right about the forest being a good place to do that.

She found a likely-looking spot and began a few stretches, then moved on to actual sword work, sparring with an imaginary opponent that she pretended was queen cersei, then Jaime, and then any number of the bloody mummers. Any observer might notice that her movements were oddly graceful for such a big, hulking woman. She practiced with the singleminded purposefulness with which she did everything, oblivious to the growing darkness as the sun began to set or the fact that she was acquiring an audience.