Characters: Byakuya, Neliel
Summary: She is a paradox, and he watches her.
Pairings: Byakuya x Neliel
Warnings/Spoilers: spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc; AU|
Timeline: no timeline necessary
Author's Note: Lo and behold, yet more crack. And yeah, I know, not really all that angsty, but there was nothing else that fit.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Long, green hair ripples over her ears and her neck like a silk veil caught in the wind, the mask sitting like a crown on the very top of her head. Apart from that jarring, glaring proof, it's hard for Byakuya to think of this woman as a Hollow, when she behaves as nothing even remotely resembling a Hollow.
On the desert stretches of Hueco Mundo is where Neliel tu Oderschvank is best in her element; it doesn't take Byakuya long to realize this, so when she stands and stares with enigmatic eyes out on the sea of night-washed sand, he doesn't interrupt her, and says nothing.
This will be brief, at best. In a few hours, they will be enemies again. For now, Byakuya, who has never had any particular love of fighting, is happy to take advantage of whatever brief cease-fire they share.
This tall, pale woman stands against the onset of the twilight of her race, the long night of the Arrancar that will never see a dawn, and though she herself has already been shattered into a million pieces, still she stands, strong and tall and steadfast, with more nobility than Byakuya ever thought a Hollow could possess.
Like a breathing paradox, Neliel stands.
Like a queen with crown and scepter taken from her, broken, shattered, but still holding together for one last, long breath before death and oblivion.
Maybe, Byakuya muses, this one is deserving of life.
And in a moment, he knows she is.
Something this noble, this sad and this beautiful, though fated to die in high and lonely places, ought to be able to live.