"Just run, fool. I'll draw as many of them as I can to me. If only one of us can escape, it has to be you. No, this isn't me being brave. Or anything of the like. I'm just being logical. This world needs you more than it needs me. Now go… or I'll kill you myself."
It wasn't the best of speeches, certainly not one of her better ones. But it was heartfelt. She isn't sure the right thing was to help him escape. She wasn't sure the right thing was to escape with him. But now… Alea iacta est. And here she is. And she hopes her former companion is faring better.
She has been on the run for… it feels like days. She knows it hasn't been, but it sure does feel that way. She had bolted for the forests, the same forests she had spent hours in hunting rabbit. But now she realizes she had not actually gone that far into the forest… because for the passed couple of hours she has been in places she does not recognize.
These woods are near the base of some mountains. If she could make it to the mountains, maybe she could escape. But she doesn't think she could make it that far. It's getting to the point, she thinks, that she will have to fight these Hounds. And in her condition, that would end with her death. But so be it. She could burn this forest around her… make them think twice about getting closer. Maybe even kill them, or make an escape for herself. But that is folly also, she thinks. It would require to much power, and constant power, to do such. And also… this fog is helping to hide her.
Or so she thinks.
At this moment, the young girl is kneeling behind a tree. Her back against the rough bark. She wears a peasent's tunic, it torn and stained in blood in some areas. Specifically around where the arrows are still sticking in her body. Her left shoulder, her thigh and her side. She was also grazed in the side of the head with an arrow, and her right bicep. Yes, she's in bad shape. But surrender never even comes into her mind. She is young, maybe out of her teens. Her long dirty blond hair is tied into a french braid, a look of determination upon her freckled face. She tries to catch her breath for a few more moments…and she hears voices in her mind that aren't there in the air.
'She's going to die here, doesn't she know that?'
'Why fight? There's nowhere left to run.'
'It wasn't smart to run in the first place, wa-'
Her own voice suddenly comes forward in an angry tone, but almost a whisper. Her voice has a heavy French accent to it.
"Quiet, all of you! I'm trying to listen for them…" she looks around the edge of the large tree she huddles behind, her green eyes squinting to try and make out who might still be out there.