Artemis scrunched her eyebrows together and tilted her head to the side as she tried to make sense of his words. Dragon… eggs? Tree prisons? But her thoughts halted when the old knight's voice turned chilling as the night wind. She stood a little straighter, the hairs on the back of her neck bristling. Since waking up she'd felt confusion, nervousness, frustration… but for the first time she felt a very real trickle of fear trailing up her spine.

And then the ground left her. Artemis could only look up to see the haunting grey eyes of the shade – pulled from the darkest corners of her childhood tales – drift farther away as she fell.

She wasn't prepared for the water. It stunned her with a gasp – that she immediately regretted when water rushed into her lungs. Flailing for some sort of hold on the situation, Artemis spluttered and coughed, desperate for air. She was helpless to the currents as they pulled her along. All she could think was that this was how she died. All her life, her pain, her mistakes had lead to this one, confusing, unimportant end. 

[i][color=DarkTurquoise]I want my brother.[/color][/i] 

The thought suffocated her more than the water did, unbidden and more powerful than it'd been in so long. She did not deserve her brother. But at least she would see him again.

She couldn't do much when she found herself dropped down again, but the water she met was calm and languid. Breaking the stillness of the river, she flailed and coughed some more, blind to everything but the fear in her heart and fire in her lungs. Artemis managed to keep her head above water long enough to cough out most of the water from her lungs. Her eyes watered from the pain, but then it was difficult to tell since water was just about [i]everywhere[/i]. Water and voices. As Artemis returned to her senses, she felt more thoughtless panic bubble up inside of her. She didn't have time to register any more than her desperate need to [i]hide, protect yourself, there are hungry shadows here and you don't understand.[/i]

[i][color=DarkTurquoise]I want my brother.[/color][/i] 

The thought echoed in her head again, sadder and softer, but still desperate. Artemis breathed out ragged gasps as she tried to shove the thought down. Frantic, she looked around for some sort of escape. The voices – accompanied by an eerie blue light – were almost upon her. Soon their owners would see her. 

A red glow below her drew her eye then. Artemis looked from the glow to the river's edge, where a brush of reeds grew, to the blue light. Making her decision, she sucked in as much air as her pained lungs could hold, and dove. The river was dark and murky, but not terribly deep. Soon enough Artemis found the lantern and pulled at the heavy shawl pinned around her waist. (The scarf tied at her wrist had slipped away in the rapids, as had the feathers pinned to her hair. The marking painted on her skin were a dripping, ugly mess. She hadn't spent an hour in this world, and already it was dismantling her piece by piece.) Scooping the Lantern up, she wrapped the shawl around it, hoping the fabric would be enough to stifle the crimson light it emitted. Then with all the force she could muster, she kicked off of the river's floor towards the edge, where she remembered the reeds growing. 

When Artemis surfaced among the brush – as quietly as she could – the boat was already passing over where she'd landed. She clamped her free hand over her mouth in an attempt to stifle her pained breaths and pushed herself further into the plants. The swaddled Lantern was held close against her stomach, under the water's surface. Artemis was too focused on the thundering in her heart and the fire in her lungs to notice anything else that might've stalked the shore.