Characters: Byakuya, Hisana
Summary: "'I am not your enemy', Death seems to say."
Pairings: ByaHisa
Warnings/Spoilers: spoilers for Soul Society arc
Timeline: no timeline needed
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Dead as dust, her bones are cold beneath the earth. She sleeps a sleep so deep that she can not hear when footsteps sound over the canopy of her bed. Her lover now is Death, who holds her in his eternal embrace. She will never be yours again.
That is what Byakuya tells himself to let himself know that, when he hears Hisana's voice in the halls and sees her shadow on the wall during the night, it's only his mind playing tricks on him, and not actually her.
Still, he wants so badly to believe that maybe she'll be back, someday, that death is only a trip that people go on for a very long time, to return later, that Byakuya can fool himself into believing that she'll be back, eventually. For a little while, anyway.
It is at night, when the single candle casts dancing shadows on the wall and Byakuya finally, finally realizes that it isn't Hisana's shadow, that he knows she's gone for good.
Because Death is the last journey, and no one who sets down on the road ever comes back, not even those great heroes of legend. Hisana was not a great heroine of legend; she was just a normal woman (though Byakuya can not see how anyone could ever think of her as 'just a normal woman', but love biases him, and he is rational enough to know this), and no different from any of the rest.
And because night shows Death taking off the veil because, when the darkness falls, it has no need of invisibility. It can fly and perch as an owl with lamp-like yellow eyes on the nearest tree, peering in the window.
I have taken your love, it seems to say. It is not that I wanted her madly, only that she was tired, and the rest of mortals could not rejuvenate her. She came to me naturally, peacefully, gracefully. I was for her just a gentle breath to cool her lips.
And I am ready to carry you on that last journey as well, if you should ever grow tired, or meet me with a blade sliding over your ribs.
I will always be ready for you.
I am not your enemy, it seems to say.
Byakuya understands.
But he will try to stay alive. He will try to keep from growing tired.
Hisana, he thinks, would have wanted him to carry on. She wouldn't want him to get tired, like she did.