notmeanttoexiist:

                     To answer dear Namine’s musings —
                                                                       Yes.  This is exactly how she felt when her dearest friend is harmed.
                                   A pinch of anger, a dash of self-loathing.  Pained.

           Even if Namine had not disallowed any kind of argument with her tone alone, Xion would not have offered any.  There is no point in hiding it any longer, and while Xion can manage the pain {she is always followed by a kind of aching discomfort, a sense of wrongness, so she is used to ignoring such} she does not have any particular desire to suffer more than necessarry.

                                 {besides.  the last this she needs is saix angry
                                  because she’d been broken again.}

        “A—alright.”

                   She thinks about making a joke about how bossy she’s becoming.
                                 Parting her lips further is too much effort, however.

         Her shaking hands rise and pull her hood back, cause it to fall and reveal the most painful of the wounds — and the primary one she’d been attempting to hide from Namine.  The gash itself is hidden by her hair, but the blood seeps down to her eyebrows and eyelids.

                               ”Sorry,” she whispers again.

         _{Against her own will she heard herself gasp—did not feel it, was not fully self-aware and instead was drifting, half conscious and detached from her body. Perhaps it was the sight of blood matting her hair and coloring her face the wrong shade of dark red that caused her to feel as if she were not truly there. The amount of things that rushed through her body in that moment made her dizzy, an absolute overload of something she supposed humans called feelings.}

                           _{But she could not feel.}

                                             _{Not really.}

         _{Within one moment and the next, within the space of barely a breath she felt herself return to full consciousness and her hand was reaching out once more, as if she were going to touch the wound on Xion’s head, but she stopped herself. Thin and pale appendages clenched and she let her hand fall, cradling it against her chest as she tried to breathe. After all, she was not the one who was hurt.}

                                    _{So why did she feel as if she was—?}

         _{Pushing the thought aside she stepped up close to the other girl, taking her arm gently and slinging it over her shoulders, lightly tugging the black haired girl so that she was leaning against her side. Naminé was not very strong and was not the best means of support, not in the slightest, but she could not bear to let her friend walk on her own. With a gash on her head and injuries that the blonde wasn’t even fully aware of, it was a wonder that she had gotten there to begin with.}

                                                      _{”Come on.”}