Characters: Byakuya, Hisana
Summary: She whispers in her sleep.
Pairings: ByaHisa
Warnings/Spoilers: No spoilers
Timeline: Pre-manga
Author's Note: This is meant to have a bit of a surreal feel to it; hope I achieved that.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
It sounds almost like the trickle of a waterfall, and Byakuya's not sure what he's hearing when he half-wakes from sleep, still hovering on the edge of that dark abyss, and hears the soft tendrils of words. He spends night upon night wandering the edge of consciousness until his curiosity finally rouses and he wakens himself.
The darkness casts its shadows like falling leaves in the dying of the year down onto the chamber, and Byakuya's eyes search and search until he remembers that there is someone sleeping beside him now.
A pulsating mound beside him is his sleeping newlywed wife, the whispers flying up from her.
Byakuya frowns, not at first sure of the situation.
But then, he realizes…
Hisana's still asleep.
Byakuya lifts his hand and brushes fingers along her soft, silken hair, but there is no stirring from her. She is lost deep beneath veils and shrouds of sleep, unable to be woken simply by a touch.
Her lips are moving, forming words that seep out like black ink seas on the wood floor and over the walls, mingling with the shadows.
He puts his ear close to her mouth, and finds that the words forming in Hisana's sleep-bound mind are too hazy and indistinct to be understood.
The words are unknown to him, foreign, alien, unreachable.
In the mornings, Hisana is pale and taut but gives no indication that she will acknowledge that she dreamt at all.
Byakuya doesn't ask.
And the next time he hears the sound, like feathers falling over glass, he knows that there is nothing to do but sleep.
The black ink seas of her words spray over his face.