Character/s: Unohana, Minazuki
Word Count: 457
Warning/s: None.
Prompt: from silvermuse89: Unohana - "Doctor, heal thyself"
Notes: I didn't know much about Unohana-taichou when I wrote this, and I guess I still don't know very much about her, but a prompt is a prompt, eh?
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It is not an easy thing, for the captain to walk away from the wounded, the unhealed. There are so many, and more are entering her wards all the time - but Isane-san insists, they all insist that she rest, from time to time.
She strokes her hand along Minazuki's hide, smiling at the feel of the smooth, almost rubbery flesh against her own. Minazuki hums to her, the sound echoing like a song through the cavernous body, and she hums back more softly, understanding the concern and appreciative of it. She smoothes the hand from the corner of Minazuki's great mouth around to its very center, and pauses there for a few moments, just breathing.
Perhaps Isane-san is correct. She is tireder than she had suspected. It is always this way. She gets too caught up in her work, too concerned with the needs of other people - she forgets...
Minazuki's song reverbrates in her bones, and the zanpakutou's wide, lipless mouth parts slightly in invitation. Unohana Retsu smiles and nods slightly. "Will you wake me, when they need me again?"
She knows she doesn't need to ask, but she does anyway - Minazuki deserves the courtesy, just like anyone else. She smiles as the warm, greenish darkness envelopes her; the light shining through Minazuki's skin makes a strange, relaxing grotto of the zanpakutou's belly. She has known the healthier of the guests here to complain at their surroundings, but Minazuki's belly has never seemed distasteful to Unohana. It is a place, a healing place - warm and comfortable - and she enjoys her time here, gently slumbering until the outside world requires her once again.
It is a mutually beneficial arrangement, the one she has with Minazuki, and she fears that no other shinigami will experience the depth of this bond. She is sure that none of her fellows, not even Yamamoto-soutaichou, will understand the connection that they have forged over the years.
None of her fellows will ever experience being 'sealed', as their zanpakutou are. In a relationship like theirs, it is a warm and comforting thing, this bundling and containing of spirit. Sometimes she thinks that she resists rest, resists healing this way, just so that she will not grow to love this state too much, so that she will not become addicted to the warmth and affection she experiences here.
But when Minazuki's wide lips part and the daylight rushes in, when the wind touches her cheeks, she feels such joy, such pleasure, that it is impossible to believe she will ever stay in this state forever. She will always relish the waking just as she relishes the slow drift into healing slumber--
Just as Minazuki relishes the waking and the seal.
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