Disclaimer: Don't own.

Tags: AU.

Flowers and Friendship

When Arisawa Tatsuki was seven years old, she found a fairy in the park.

It looked just like the fairies in storybooks – tiny and person-shaped, sleeping on a flower. She had bright red-brown hair that fell over her face like flower petals. Little gold dragonfly wings peeked out from under her jacket.

Tatsuki being the tough, scary not-girly girl that she was, she bent down to have a closer look. And she started to coo over the cute.

Because fairy.

This, of course, was when the little fairy woke up. Squeaked.

And vanished into the bushes.

Tatsuki yelped, because tough girls did not squeak. She jumped back.

Then stupid Ichigo yelled at her to hurry up, it was getting dark, and she forgot all about the little person in the bushes in favor of hitting him until he shut up.

She came back the next day, but there was nothing there.

It was probably just a daydream anyway.

Arisawa Tatsuki was ten years old. She was close to getting a black belt in karate and hands-down the scariest girl in town.

She was also lost.

She'd decided to go exploring in the park near the clinic for old times' sake, just because she could, and the wind stole her new hat so of course she had to go get it, and she'd fished it out of a tree and gone back to the path only she couldn't find the path, and this was the fourth time she'd passed the exact same stupid stump!

So she kicked it. Predictably, this didn't get her anything but a sore foot.

So she sat down on the conveniently-placed tree stump, put down her bag, and tried to remember how the heck she'd gotten there in the first place. In hindsight, running around in a park she hadn't visited since she was a kid alone wasn't really a good idea. Maybe she should have asked Ichigo again?

Pfft. He never wanted to play anyway.

"Why can't there be a sign?"

A sunbeam hit her right in the face. She squinted and turned her head, blinking the afterimages away.

The another sunbeam hit her, and she turned-

"Ack! The heck?" Tatsuki rubbed her eyes. Sunlight was only supposed to come from one place at a time.

She jumped to her feet and looked around. The shadows of the trees and rocks and branches all slanted somewhere over to her left, and most of the light was on her right, but there were tiny dancing spots of light coming from multiple directions. Light meant flashlights or reflections off metal, and either way it meant people, and people would know where the path was. Okay, so there was a chance that they were lost too, but it was still better than staying here and staying lost. She was just sick of walking in circles.

She took off, running through the brush and pushing past the prickly bushes that pulled at her clothes and scratched her legs. Her mother wasn't going to be happy, but then, she was never all that happy with Tatsuki so that was fine.

She burst out into a clearing and looked around.

There was no one there. Just flowers and grass and more bushes.

Even at ten, Tatsuki knew this was a cliché, but it fit: It was just way too quiet. Out here in spring, there should have been squirrels and birds and flies buzzing around wherever you went, but there was nothing except-

-wait-

-was that someone crying?

"Hello?" Tatsuki called out. "Who's there?"

Her voice sounded small in the forest, suddenly thin and altogether too high-pitched.

The cries stopped.

"…I'm not going to hurt you, whoever you are. Seriously, I'm just a little girl." Tatsuki snickered. She was a little girl who could beat up most grown men with one hand tied, but the mystery person didn't need to know that. Just in case. "Hello?"

A squeak.

Maybe it was a little kid? Tatsuki looked down.

"Lower!"

She looked at her feet. There, perched on a tiny rock, her doll-size blue dress covered in dust and dirt and who-knew-what, was a little girl just big enough to fit in the palm of her hand.

Tatsuki blinked, hard. Nope, still there. "What the heck? Did I eat some bad shrooms?"

The tiny girl shook. "No, um – wait! Can you…"

Tatsuki knelt down and lowered her voice. "Speak up a little. I can't hear you when you're being so quiet."

She stilled. Still not quite looking Tatsuki in the eye, she said, "I'm lost."

Tatsuki facepalmed.

The tiny girl squeaked. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I just wanted to know if you could help me find my nii-san."

Tatsuki thought about that. "…so, you're lost and you're looking for your big brother."

She nodded cheerfully.

"Um. Sorry, tiny, but I'm lost too."

Her face fell. "Aww."

Tatsuki felt a twinge. Even if she was a hallucination, it was just wrong to be mean to someone so sweet and helpless. And tiny. "Hey, you know, I had an idea a few minutes ago. I saw these weird flashing lights, and I figured they might be people. Did you see them too?"

She brightened. "Uh-huh! That was me."

Tatsuki stared. "Those eye-hurtingly bright lights were you?"

A nod yes.

"So there's no one else here?"

Head-shake no.

With a sigh, Tatsuki flopped down on the grass. "Well, I got nothing."

The tiny girl looked up with wide wet eyes.

Tatsuki put her hand out. She wasn't particularly big for a ten-year-old girl, but the little flower girl, whoever or whatever she was, looked even tinier next to it. "Calm down, okay? My parents will probably come looking for me soon."

She just curled up into a ball and sat still.

Tatsuki sat and thought. There wasn't much else she could do. "Why were you flashing lights everywhere anyway?"

"So nii-san would find me."

"Huh."

She sniffled. "Yeah, but he said not to do it unless it was an emergency because-"

For a moment there was silence. Then the tiny girl let out an earsplitting shriek.

Tatsuki clapped her hands over her ears. "What was that for?"

"Because there are little-girl-eating monsters in Karakura Town!"

Tatsuki froze. Thought about it. "…are you stupid?"

"I was scared! I didn't think!"

"No kidding, you didn't think-"

It wasn't a howl. A howl meant there was a stray dog or something, just a lonely animal. Whatever made that sound was not a dog. It sounded like screaming and anger and something big and hungry with lots of sharp teeth coming to eat you and-

Tatsuki took a step.

The girl sank down, shaking like a leaf.

Tatsuki reached down and plucked the little fairy girl up by the hem of her dress, because she was tiny and probably fragile and she knew she had to be careful with someone that small, and then she ran away.

The screaming was back. It was louder, closer.

Her breath came in short sharp bursts. The girl was a small warm weight in her hands.

I forgot my bag, Tatsuki thinks. And that was a dumb thing to be thinking about when you were running for your life.

Tatsuki clambered over a fallen log, squeezed between some close-growing bushes, skidded and nearly fell on a slick spot left behind from yesterday's rain. Faster.

She ran, ignoring everything but the ground in front of her and the branches she had to duck under and the empty woods that should have run out by now.

How long had she been running in circles?

How long until the monster caught her?

Something grabbed her leg. No.

She fell. No.

She threw up her hands-

-and-

-a brilliant golden light blotted out the sky.

Tatsuki peeked out from behind her hands. The little girl was floating or maybe falling down, and there was something just off the path that was white and shiny like sharp teeth.

Hope flared. We're on the path?

With reflexes gained from four years of practicing martial arts just about every day, Tatsuki caught the girl, turned on her heel and collapsed.

Crud. Her legs felt like jelly. She could barely breathe, let alone run away, and oh yeah, there was still a giant monster right behind them!

If she had been alone, Tatsuki would have played dead and hoped it would lose interest. She couldn't even run, so why try to fight?

If she had been less tired, Tatsuki would have jumped to her feet and cried challenge. No monster was going to eat her.

Tatsuki heard a small voice crying into the wind.

Oh. I lost my hat again, she thought.

Somehow, she got to her feet. Took a step.

Her vision was hazy, her mouth was dry, and she could swear that that thing was laughing at her.

And then there was a tall man in a white coat shouting words she didn't think her mother would want her to know.

And then the monster was dead.

Tatsuki looked up. "…Ichigo's dad?"

He turned around and grinned. It didn't look right. The black monster-blood all over his white doctor's coat kind of ruined the effect. "Arisawa-chan, is that you under all that dust? You all right?"

Tatsuki blinked, hard. Her eyes were wet. "How?"

He knelt down and picked her up. "Hey, hey, it's okay. I'll get you home, all right?"

The little fairy girl peeked out from under Tatsuki's jacket. "Hello. Um, thank you."

Tatsuki smiled. So she was okay.

She faded out to the sound of Kurosaki-sensei and the mystery girl talking.

The next day, Tatsuki went back to school. She had some nasty bruises from when she'd gone out exploring and fallen down a hole. Luckily, Kurosaki-sensei had known where she was thanks to Ichigo complaining about her bothering him over dinner, so she'd been found and patched up before it even got dark.

Tatsuki was still embarrassed that she actually tripped and fell down a stupid hole, like she was one of those helpless little girls in storybooks that couldn't do anything but sit around and scream for help like a wuss. Crud.

And to top it all off, she'd lost her new hat!

When Arisawa Tatsuki turned twelve years old, she would meet a girl with red-brown hair and blue flower hairpins.

Tatsuki would save her from bullies, learn her name and become her best friend all at once.

…but that's a story for another day.