She leans tiredly against Kronk, willing her legs not too shake, not to give out beneath her. The pain was distracting, it was disorienting and she found it nearly impossible to keep her focus trained on Ledger and those hollow, shame-filled eyes she suddenly loved so much. All at once Kronk disappears at her shoulder so he can look more closely at the damage on her chest. She braces her weight and doesn’t move, though she inhales sharply, reflexively, when his face swings close.
“It’s not going to kill me.” She tells him quietly, tiredly, her soft voice even more hushed now than it had been before. But she does not know that it will not kill her, not for sure. She has never had a wound like this before, never seen a wound like this before. But she is afraid that Kronk will make her leave if she tells him how much it hurts or how dizzy her thoughts felt spinning in her head. She isn’t ready to part with Ledger, not yet, not until some of those shadows have lifted from him face.
But even she knows it to be an impossible desire.
“You’ll hurt me if you leave.” She says quietly, her voice tremulous. And she knows how cruel her words are, how they mean to trap him here. This selfishness is not wasted on her. But when her eyes sink into his and hold his gaze, she finds something there that feels kindred and the thought of him leaving makes her stomach hurt. “It was my fault, I shouldn’t have touched you so.” There is an apology in her voice, and she doesn’t tell him that she’d do it again if she thought her legs would let her.
ILKA
makai x oksana