[Longest Night] The wealth of Tarth was not measured in sapphires

[thebeautyoftarth]

One moment Brienne was looking into the waterlogged face of a long-dead lady - long dead, truthfully, yet somehow horribly animated and accusing her of treason. Madness, perhaps, Lady Stoneheart could have accused Brienne of, and Brienne would have believed her. How else did one come to see a dead and drowned woman walking, leading men, but through madness?

And then she heard the screams of children, coming at her as if from very far away, yet fast drawing closer. Brienne did not know what a train was, to compare it to the way the sound suddenly filled her ears, but the sound impacted her as such. She blinked her eyes and the day around her was night, Lady Catelyn's dead body walking was gone, and the screaming children were nearby.

So was a shape in the dark, red eyes glowing even without light to reflect off them - a monstrous huge bear, a creature that was to a bear as a direwolf was to a wolf of common stock. Around it, rubbish and shredded green metal that Brienne did not recognized as a dumpster torn to pieces made the ground treacherous.

The beast lifted its snout from the rubbish without noticing her, and lumbered towards the screaming children. They ran, and that only made the beast pursue, faster by far than children could run.

She did what was only natural for an armed, armored woman to do - she drew her sword and bolted between the bear and the children.