Haunted Wood I'm gonna smoke you out

in the cold numb of the water, the world seemed ages away. she wondered if this was how her mother felt, when her eyes had been those of a dead thing but her chest had still stirred with life. her thoughts turned to death, then—was it simply a blank expanse of nothing? no thought, no feeling? she hated the thought, and considered then Maegi's tales of sithis, who she'd thought Vengeance most similar to. was that any better, though - to spend death in the company of a man such as the leader? her heart plummeted, at the thought of her mother all alone with a man, a god, like that. her lungs seized, and suddenly the voice of another - Valour. she breathed in instinctively, filling her throat with water, before wrenching her head from the stream and backpedaling, shaken. sputtering, coughing up water and for a few frightened moments wondering if it was possible to drown outside of the stream, she finally regained her breath. wheeling, staring at the boy, she managed only a "what?" for the first time her voice held the tone and pitch of a child her age, not a trace of the carefully controlled voice she usually used present.