The Sunspire I don't want to be alone

He said it so straight, and so easily, that Maia was flabbergasted for a minute before she had to turn away again a minute.  Wow.  Her dad had been a great leader, but with him, everything was about the good of the pack.  She couldn't imagine him saying that, even to her... instead he'd usually just chided her for her stupider decisions.  And this was way worse than any of those... she'd half expected to be punter out of the pack.  She needed a minute to let it sink in.

"Yeah," she said, then cleared her throat when her voice cracked on the delivery.  Ok.  Moving on.

"Better, yeah.  Itth going down.  A little."  She opened her mouth slightly and ran her tongue over her gums experimentally.... the roof and sides were back to normal, and the tongue was only swollen enough now for the slight lisp.  "Thank bob. I hate it.". Her love of talking made hating the sound of her voice an awful ordeal.