neosporin heart

Midna shot Nia a sharp look - sharper than all her slender fingers and crooked abcesses. Much sharper, than, then the silk of her hair.

"You're not going to touch me, are you?"

"No," replied Nia, calmly as she can manage. "I don't need to."

"Then don't," said Midna. The notes of her cadence zipped from one ear to the other, left and right channels, swapping registers between words somehow unincongruously.

"I just wanted to..."

Well. She'd never had that problem before. Never someone who flinched away from her healing touch - and wasn't that supposed to be the sacred thing about her?

Merciful heart. Measuring hands. Sage and simple actions.

Only by her own failure to act had life ever been lost under her hand. This current minor calamity was not the impetus for the gravest of intercessions upon and into Midna's life, but what was the sense in biding time until that moment came?

Maybe Midna feared the light of being healed. Maybe this one idle opportunity, mundane if unaddressed but yawning to swallow as the stretch of a shadow's physical-form beast, was too much for her.

Not like Nia had never been in a similar position. That was why it irked all the more, even now.

Nia's own fingers, once steady, now trembled at the pinioned position. Midna accepted the weakness of a body already constrained, that she could avoid anyone seeing any deeper. She felt she could handle it herself forever.

"You shouldn't be so scared of me. There's naught I can do to hurt you, but if you shun me away..."

Midna smiled now, sly. "I know that. And I think you can handle a little bit of suspense."

She knew Nia wouldn't get vindictive. Knew that the predicament was a joint thing, inspired by unspoken trust that had to stay that way or else bloody sparks.

You just want to be free. We all just want to be free. But we're not all such close companions with our chains.