sacred arrow

"That's why I- wh-- Argh!"

Lora went down faster than Nia had ever imagined she could fall, even with all the noise making preamble. Some dust cloud, some grass gracing the air. Well, but there was nothing graceful about it, from top end to bottom.

As she sat stunned on the ground, listing slightly despite the heaviness of her set, Lora rubbed her right knee with two fingers and thumb.

"Hurts there?"

Didn't take a genius.

"I'm afraid so."

Nia knelt as well, conscious of a bit irony and careful of her own spiky shoes, and wrapped her own right hand around the point of contention, thumb and fingers. Yipes...a little bit grisly, eh? Something moving in there what shouldn't, normally. But nothin' that couldn't be attended to.

Knees, after all, were probably the joint Lora took most for granted. Nia had often heard them locking, that way and this, as Lora snapped tension from out of her braid down through her body and full into her feet. Then there were those horribly heavy greaves, and the constant effort of running (Lora wasn't one to suggest frequent breaks).

Of course this would happen, eventually. Maybe she'd come out of it getting to do tricks. Time for one of Nia's, now, though.

Lora's eyes were closed in experience of the pain, winces out of time with her pattern of breath, but then she appeared to white out for a moment as her lips stayed parted.

Nia withdrew and stood back up again. "Will you stand, or shall I have to carry you? Princess."

Ignorant to the cadence of the teasing, Lora stared at her savior, bewildered. "Stand? How could I possibly-?"

Nia shrugged, smirked, showed a single fang.

Lora's eyes bugged out wider. "That's it?" She scrambled herself up, not at all cautiously. Yep, sure as.

"You're amazing, Nia!" she proclaimed, jumping to grasp her healer's hands but faltering a touch.

"Good as new," nodded Nia, "but even baby deer have their troubles."