Characters: Orihime, Ulquiorra
Summary: She remembers him at twilight, listens for him in the night wind.
Pairings: UlquiHime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc
Timeline: post-Deicide arc
Author's Note: Where I usually paint UlquiHime as parasitic and somewhat masochistic, here it's just—somewhat; you know me—light-hearted.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
It's gotten past the point where the sky is bleeding and the sun is in its death throes, spilling out red and gold fluids and painting the skies garishly bright. Now, soft celestial blue and amethyst violet are draped across the sky like veils, holes pricked through to allow for the stars' light.
Orihime stands in repose, back against the wall of her apartment building—the stone is starting to lose the heat it gained during the day when the sun was beating down upon it, but still feels a little like a radiator—counting stars. She doesn't know constellations, so she just traces lines herself, and sees a world that no one else can fathom.
The random passer-by would think she was waiting for someone.
And in a way, she is.
Her hands trace through her hair to smooth silken strands glistening in the gentle light—green hairpins sparkle, galaxies and constellations caught in the faceted petals and swimming in an emerald sea.
She'll always remember Ulquiorra at dusk, in the gloaming when the world seems to be neither day nor night—it seems less like night now than it did in the red fire of sunset, seems less like day than it does at midnight. He was a creature of the dusk, a child of the long shadows, and this was his time, when it was neither day nor night.
And when the dark night comes, Orihime will still stand, and wait for the wind.
She listens for the voice of the one she couldn't save, who still lives where she can remember him, and still asks his questions, the child of the long shadows.
It is the least she can do. It is an obligation. It is a pleasure.
It is a way of life for her now, becoming a child of the stars.