Characters: Byakuya, Hisana
Summary: The song's words are unknown.
Pairings: ByaHisa
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Soul Society arc
Timeline: no timeline needed
Author's Note: A stab at the surreal. Hope you all like it.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
His fingers spread across her skin in the long night hours and her flesh is cold as ice, so cold it burns under him. An odyssey for both of them, strangers surfacing in both faces, a myriad of nameless strangers before finally Byakuya sees Hisana and Hisana Byakuya.
These nights seem like a distant dream now. A cold winter's wind alleviated, just a little bit, by the hint, just a hint, of the promise of spring in the pale, wan bloom of her cheeks, flowers that have been frozen and killed by the frost. It's still incredible how much the feel of her skin, dry or drenched, still resonates in his fingertips. One close of the eyes, and Byakuya can feel her flesh under his hands again, the sweet smell of her hair rising in his nostrils.
Not almost.
Not so tantalizingly close, but so far.
But there, reality unfolding like the production of a play. The actors take their form from swirling dust, spectral forms with stark white silk masks for their faces and marbles for eyes. They dance in great leaps and bounds, their dance feverish and strange, going to a tune knowledge of which has long been lost to human reckoning.
Byakuya remembers.
He and she once danced to this tune, not knowing where the next step went but sweeping on anyway. Everything grows stranger and more alien by each passing second but neither notice and neither care.
Everything drowns in passion play. For times all too short, memories leave, the scars of past and things yet to come are banished. Words run dry; there are no more words here, nothing that needs to be said, and nothing will be said.
It is not silent, of course. Two twin strains of a single song of love float into the air, soundless and resounding. All recognize the language of that tune, though there are no words with which it can be expressed.
There are no secrets in Hisana's smiles, and yet all her teeth sparkle with them. Dark eyes, open wide and still so shy, blink up at him, and are veiled. Byakuya only considers it natural to want to take the veils off.
Dreams and reality come together, and all slips away in the cloak of darkness that night provides.
Dreams and reality come together, and even night can not cloak now what Byakuya knows.
He still feels her flesh. It is cold to his touch, because she is dead and not there at all. She is but a smoky player at the play, her voice spectral and indistinct. Byakuya stares at her silk mask face, her marble eyes, all a mockery of the life once encased like immortal flame in mortal flesh, and tries to make out her words.
But they are unknown to them.
She calls to him, and he can't reply.
He wants only now to wake up. To wake up, and be faced by the pale light of morning. Byakuya will wake up alone, as always, the sheets to his left and right cold and empty, but at least he will have a handle on his own heart again, and not feeling it dance, helpless to that song.
The song of death.
These dreams are cold and wintry for all the smoke, siphoning what little life is left in his bones away.
But then, he realizes.
He is awake.
And he can still hear singing sweet songs in his head.
Only in death has she ever been so unkind.