he drank my past, like the finest of wines; raul

[Warlight]

He flinches, and the warmth which had been building grows cold. Their brows touch and she feels his hesitation, mistrust, and anger. She realizes the mistake she has made.

Suddenly, the morning light is glaring to her eyes. The sand burrowed in her pelt makes her skin crawl. Before Death, hot, angry tears would have pooled in her dark eyes. But now, if the way his words affect her could be seen, it would be in the way her mouth sets and her shoulders tighten.

He forces her to make a choice when he uses her soft words against her, it is an effective weapon he has chosen. She would not grovel or plead, and it makes her sick to think that this is what he wants from her. She almost turns to leave, suddenly impatient with the whole situation.

The silence stretches as she makes up her mind, but in the end, her deeper instincts win.
She had never back down from a fight.

As if in a dream, she watches him step back, and she tells herself she doesn't care. She feels herself pulling away, mirroring him before she consciously decides that is what she must do. It takes a moment, and the emotions ripple across her face as her tender impulses wrestle with her will, but in the end, she detaches.

She had always been a quick learner.

Her lip curls and she wonders, fleetingly, if she is burning the most most beautiful thing she ever had. Again.

"So, I'm the bad guy,"  Will states her interpretation of his words, watching him as she may a rival, as she had watched the beast that killed her before he struck her. Before she ripped his throat out.

(How would this go if she broke down with hooded eyes, told him she has only been alive for less than two days, or that in the afterlife she spent her weakest moments cured together with him and their son.)

But that's not her. It is easier to say that this is what she wants, that she doesn't need anyone as much as she needs her independence. Right now she is hurting, and chasing him off again was the fastest way to make it stop. But she thinks of their child, and that is something he deserves to know, she decides. So she better get that out before one of them brought this reunion to its abrupt and imminent end. 

"We have a son. It was best for my mother, Solace, to take him." He probably wouldn't believe her, choose this fact as his next weapon, but her words catch in her throat. It is the only crack in her wall, and she doesn't elaborate. If she thought about her baby, her death, she would unravel.

"She was in the Riverlands last I saw her." Cool and dull she overcompensates, not wanting him to see the way her heart is breaking. He could never see the frantic and damaged part of her that needs his calm and steady presence. That was the part of her she left in the Afterlife.

"I'd imagine you would like to meet him, so I'd start there."