The chain rattles the most at night.
He comes to her with arms open and claws extracted. She resists or tells herself to; but there is nothing but compliance as he slowly devours her soul and sips away at the stream of her consciousness. Reality is absolute and cannot be denied. She bleeds where he touches and burns where he looks. There is nothing to hide. In the absolute darkness, he sees everything bold and naked. There are beautiful scars and ugly wounds. He takes them all.
In every movement, every shift they make – the chain rattles.
Her breathing is broken and her throat is raw. She cannot scream. He eats every single one. Her hair is ensnared in his claws and he pulls hard. She wishes that he would pull all of it out and be done with the pain, but there is a certain edge to his cruelty. There is a line he will not cross. He breaks just enough to satisfy, but never destroy. He conquers just enough for tribute but nothing more. He comes to her every night; a black demon to a young princess and leaves a mighty dragon with a shallow corpse.
He drowns her in the encompass of his wings and suffocates any thoughts that might take hold. There are never any words. Her bones break where he holds her and bruises where he squeezes and twists. It is a grotesque ritual. His cold embrace sets chatter to her teeth and when he whispers infinity into her ear, her heart withers further. There is no escape. There never will be.
Somewhere deep inside she knows she not quite human anymore and can only wonder when the dawn breaks if he has changed too. She wants to hate him for what he does to her, for what she has become but ignorance is no excuse. She sought him out first and it was only and ever in his nature to be cruel and savage in return. She initiated the bargain and now there was no turning back. There never would be.
He strips her eyes. Searching, searching, always searching. He scavenges her ears. Seeking, always seeking. He probes her nostrils and invades her mouth. Looking, looking but never finding. It is always the same. He will leave with temporary satisfaction and return with a ravenous appetite. She always feeds him; cannot turn him away and he will have no other.
His fangs sink poison into her flesh, his final parting. A promise and reminder that he will return. The chains rattle as he withdraws from her. With a strange sort of detachment, she watches as he places her heart back in her chest. Somehow he always takes it without her knowing. The chains rattle and he moves away. She is empty and broken now, but by nightfall her essence will be renewed. She is a fountain that never empties, a vessel that can never die – and he is the devil that is always thirsty, a thing that forces on her eternity if she will but fill his cup. Neither one of them could ever be free.
It is a bitter contract.
AN: I was trying for something abstract and somewhat poetic. Orihime and Ulquiorra got to be together but it wasn't what either imagined it would be. Readers of course can come to their own conclusion as to what exactly the price was that they paid.