Characters: Ulquiorra, Orihime
Summary: Don't speak.
Pairings: UlquiHime
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Hueco Mundo arc
Timeline: Hueco Mundo arc
Author's Note: Consider this to be what would happen if Orihime wasn't rescued.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Not planned for but hardly anything Ulquiorra finds disagreeable. If the girl is to be more pliant, than he does not care by what manner she becomes docile and easily led. It's less trouble for him if the girl isn't attempting to free herself or cause trouble anymore.
Ulquiorra is surprised to find that the girl is actually…palatable now. Not that she wasn't before, in her own way, but now she is easier to manage and far easier for him to find himself in the company of. She doesn't disturb him anymore.
The girl has truly become one of Hueco Mundo, a denizen of the desert.
She is silent now, voice put to rest. Something has been snuffed out in her, the candle behind her eyes darkened. Ulquiorra…misses that, just like the way he misses how she challenged him, intrigued him, gave him answers to questions he harbored. Wide brown eyes are liquid and quivering and enigmatic—a touch of madness to add to the mixture and they seem less than what they were.
But he can mould her now. Nothing else is as important—Ulquiorra's appetite for questions has been sated and she need not try to satisfy it anymore.
The girl has fallen silent.
Ulquiorra, a child of the silence of the desert night, prefers it that way.
He leads her on now, into shadows and darkness, into night, into oblivion, and he realizes that he need not lead her on, since she is already there.
His hand is still in hers, anyway. She makes no attempt to find another path than the one made out in his shadow.