A girl stood at the cross roads, her small hands clutching a necklace. Wind whipped her black hair back, and chased the tendrils away from her deep blue eyes. Three tears fell, in quick succession, down her round child like face. She didn't move for a moment, letting her gaze fall on a small rock in the middle of the road. It was there that she shuffled to, and sat down.

Time passed. The girl became like the rock, waiting with a mournful, patient gaze. Her surroundings never changed. It was a perpetual darkness that shrouded a world full of white. Bone white trees. Bone white sand. White lizards with white masks basked in a white moons glare. She was the only sense of color against the background. A flash of bright blue, in a sea of black and white. Her skin was pale against the wash of the backwords moon, her black hair darker with the tone of the sky, her white dress giving the child a washed out appearance. It was only her big blue eyes that brought color into the dark and dank world around her. Eyes that were now slowly closing, in the process of sleep. A little yawn, a stretch of arms, and curling up on the cold rock face. She sighed, and looked out again in half closed eyes at her horizon, as if what was meant to come would come now. But it didn't, so she closed them, and fell into slumber.

Lizardwing wasn't the happiest person in existence. In fact, he was a miserable person. But there was a pride in this misery that he couldn't quite understand. He was a hollow. A partially strong one. One that disserve respect.

"That's why I'm so miserable. I get too much respect." He thought. There was nothing around him that wanted to have fun. They respected him to much to have fun with him. Any hollow that was respected was challenged to a fight. But, then again, all they ever did was fight. So why was it that he could think of a hundred things a lot more fun than fighting? Of course, after those a hundred things were done, he would have to admit that fighting did have a certain excitement in life. Or could he live in peace? Would that be just as exciting? He stopped in mid stride to think about such a perplexing question.

"It's like one of those questions of life that never are answered unless people started to like each other…can they do that? Why don't they fight with those plastic swords? You could solve so many problems with those things…" He started to ponder this unusual thought as he took up his stride again. So many things to think about. So little people to think with. How disappointing. His meandering through life was getting tiresome, but at this point, it would make sense. He was six thousand and fifty five.

"Six thousand and fifty four. Get it right." …sorry. Six thousand and fifty four. He was old. Too old. Too old to be like all the young hollows, going around eating anytime they pleased. Or eating anything they pleased. He was different. Even from the beginning…not that he could remember it that well. He ate toothpicks. A lot of them. At least he called them tooth picks. They were in relation to his size, but in reality, he ate the trees that grew in the menos forest. A true vegetarian. The reason. He was too lazy to get humans. Or hollows. Plus, he always ended up talking to them rather than eating them. There is nothing more unpleasant than eating a new found friend. So he was content to munch on trees. It really didn't do much but fill his stomach, but who was he to complain? True, it was an odd practice as an hollow, and one that he didn't really enjoy. But his stomach was grumbling, and with no alternate food source, he headed off to his feeding grounds. He had to trot all the way across the desert landscape, to get to the small little opening that held the best trees that he liked. There was even a little path that he had made over the years, which led the way.

"Such a nice path." He crooned to himself. He was proud of it. One of the few things he could be proud of in fact... except for all the socks that he had managed to collect over the years. You know that lost sock that you were always looking for? Well, now you know. As he trotted down his "little" foot path, which could have doubled as a road for large machinery, he noticed something odd. Way down, all the way down to the ground, was a child. A human child. A human ghost child.

The child craned her neck, trying to find the face of the monster before her. He was huge. The size of a two story building in height alone. Her wide eyed gaze stared back at the masked being in front of her.

"The dragon…" She mouthed in amazement. For that was what he looked like. A white dragon. White, like everything in this darn country. The dragon cocked its head, ruffled its wings, and with a grunt, sat down on the ground. The boom hurt the girl's ears, but the dragon didn't seem to notice.

"Don't tell me…you're lost right?" The dragon finally said after a long awkward silence. The girl shook her head.

"You're not lost? Then what are you?" The dragon stretched one of its wings lazily.

"I'm here. If I'm here, I'm not lost. I'm here." The girl's small voice said. Surprisingly, the dragon seemed to have heard her small quivering voice over the unforgiving wind.

"That is an excellent point. Good logic. Good word usage. Do you have some time on your hands to spare?" The girl cocked her head, and then looked behind her, at the forever stretching horizon.

"Yes." Was her reply.

"Do you have a name?" The dragon enquired.

"No." the girl looked away, staring at her bare feet.

"Then you'll be named giggles." He said promptly.

"Giggles? That's a silly name." The girl grinned.

"Exactly. There should be silly things in life. For instance, my name. It's Lizardwing." He said sarcasm thick in his voice. What do you mean it's silly he thought to himself, it's wonderful! But the girl didn't seem to agree. The girl started to laugh. Lizardwing sifted uncomfortably. He realized that he was one of the most powerful hollows, and currently, he was being laughed at by a human ghost child. Laughing at his incredible name. That was insulting. So he told her.

"I was being sarcastic. Don't insult me." He glowered. The child stopped with a wide grin on her face.

"It don't make it less funny!" She said in between giggles.

"It's a serious name! Both of them!" He protested. He liked the name giggles; he thought it sounded like a fun, but nice name. Could be shortened to Gig, which could sound cool. There was nothing wrong with it to his knowledge. And Lizardwing! That was a glorious name that struck fear into every hollows heart. The sound of a true dragon among the little people. The girl was shaking her head, obviously disagreeing.

"Lizardwing sounds like a fake dragon!" She giggled.

"That's not true! Besides, why is that funny?" He exclaimed.

"It isn't!"She yelled in-between gasps of hysteria. It was at this point that Lizardwing believed the child to be insane. He was most likely right. But she was also very true in the fact that none of this was very funny. She just happened to like laughing. Too much. It made her look like an idiot. Lizardwing had to agree, and being the blunt miserable hollow he was, he proceeded to tell her.

"You are an idiot." He said, "Giggles suites you." With that he stomped away, very much offended.

Within seconds of his stomping, he came upon the hole that required him to transform. Lizardwing had to sift his size to a smaller version of himself before he could even hope to get through any hole. In doing so, he also made himself faster, and but less powerful. But he was too annoyed to even think about doing that. He was so annoyed that he wanted to eat a really big fish. He hated fish. Loved toast. Only got it when he went to the real world. Stole it from random people, along with socks…wouldn't steal any fish though. But he would now…

"I am just that annoyed!" He bellowed. He sighed, and tried to think about toast. It didn't work. All he could see was that kid, laughing. He got so frustrated he rammed into the hole. It didn't work. So he tried to transform…didn't work. Fish…

"The only way I'm going to do this is if I calm down." He went through his calming exercises. First, he counted to ten. Then he counted to ten again. He found that this annoyed him more than calmed him, so Lizardwing did something else. He imagined each number; and got rid of it in not so nice ways. Some of them I won't describe due to graphic violence. Some of the few happened to get pelted with oranges, and one was shot to the moon in a fish. By the end of it he was humming happily, and significantly smaller. Now about the size of a panther. He proceeded to wiggle through the hole in front of him, and would have to. If it wasn't for the small hand that grabbed his tail. Hard.

No one. No one dared to do stuff like this to him. In all of his six thousand and fifty five

"Four!" sorry…four years had anyone had the gall to laugh at him, and now, she was tugging his tail. His tail! He felt that annoyance rise again, and no images of oranges or fish rockets to the moon could help him now. He spun around, eyes glaring at the girl. He would have snapped her head off, if it wasn't for her expression. It was sad. It was dreadful. It was pathetic. It was a puppy-eyed look.

"Don't leave me." She said a little catch in her throat. He growled, trying to show her that she had no control over him. But as he stared into her blue eyes, he saw it. That same puppy eyed look. There was no hope. With a sigh, he bent his head in surrender. She won.

"Very well. But you have to keep up." He said, trying to snarl at her. Failing miserably. He couldn't snarl at a girl with such a teary eyed look. With a sigh, he turned back to the passage, and wriggled through. With an undignified plop, he landed on a small rock cliff. The sky was shut out; he was now completely surrounded by rock trees, rock walls, and rock ceilings.

"Rocky…" He said, snorting at his own joke. To his surprise, he heard Giggles laughing to. No one laughed at his jokes. Mainly because they were bad. And there was no one there to laugh at them. He felt an inkling of pride. He was funny. She laughed, which means I'm funny he thought to himself, his chest puffing up slightly. If he could have smirked, he would have. Giggles was now on the landing with him, staring over the cliffs edge, down to the forest floor.

"It's a long way down isn't it?" She asked apprehensively. Lizardwing looked down, and considered it. He had never considered heights an issue. It may be because of the wings folded neatly across his back.

"Guess so…" He said, "Your not afraid of heights are you?" The girl shook her head. With a sigh of relief he turned to her with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"Good, because if you didn't, you wouldn't like this at all." And with that said, he scooped her up in his front paws, and leapt into the air.

With a snap, his wings opened up. He had his landing gear tucked neatly underneath him, and a screaming child making him slightly top heavy below him. Lizardwing really hoped that the child was screaming in delight, not fright, because he wouldn't like to traumatize the child that much. Maybe just a little. But the giggles that followed the screams told him that she wasn't scared.

"Idiot." He said under his breath. Any normal ghost should be scared. Why wasn't this child scared? In fact, there were a lot of things that didn't make sense to him. In all his years, he had never seen a plus ghost grace the prescience of Hueco Mundo. Why was she here right now? And why hadn't she been eaten already? She should have. And if not, then she should be in the soul society, where her kind belonged. In fact, there really should be no way for her to even reach here. Unless she was dragged in by a hollow. But if that was the case, she would be dead. Maybe she was cleverly disguised hollow. He peeked down at the child in his claws. She was currently holding her arms out, pretending to fly. Cute. And there was her chain, fluttering in the wind. Nope. Certainly a plus ghost. Hum… Certainly a mystery. He wheeled around, searching for the right tree. He made his way for the one on the right, with a large branch already half eaten. Not the tastiest of the trees, but he was saving the gourmet ones for later. For his birthday celebration.

"Not that it has ever been fun…" He moaned to himself, falling back into his same self pity.

"What's never been fun?" Came the child's voice from underneath him. Lizardwing stopped short for a second. That's right! Someone was listening to him! Not only that, but wanted to talk to him! Who cared how odd this child was, she was company! And now he could complain all he wanted to, and still have someone to listen to his ramblings about life! With a sense of smugness he decided he was going to have…a conversation.

"My birthday. I'm going to turn six thousand and fifty five this year." He said, smugness emanating from him.

"I bet you that you'll never be that old." He continued to say, the smugness going to a whole other level.

"No…but I'm going to be turning six! …or at least I was…before I died…" She said sadly.

"Ahh." He said sympathetically. There was a vague speech about death that he remembered hearing…maybe it would make her as miserable as himself. That would be nice. They could complain together.

"Life is nothing but a stage my small little friend. Each person has an exit and an entrance, and one little girl, in her time, will play many parts.

"Many parts?"

"Yes. About seven." He said after a pause in thought.

"Why seven?" Giggles asked with faint hint of interest in her voice.

"Well…First, there's the infant, mulling and puking in the nurses arms…then the whining school girl, with satchel and shining morning face creeping like snail unwilling to school."

"I never did any of those things!" Giggles protested.

"But you may have. But I'm not done yet. These are the stages you missed. There is the lover, who sighs like a furnace, making woeful ballade to her mister's eyebrows."

"Why eye brow?"She asked in disgust.

"Don't ask me! A depressed man like myself said this! Now do you want to know the rest of it or not?" He demanded.

"No." came the curt reply.

"Doesn't matter, I'm telling you anyway. Where was I? …oh yes…then the solder, bearded like a leopard, full of strange oaths, jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel! Then the judge, with full round belly and good capon lined, a beard of formal cut, full of wise saw and modern instances…and so he plays his part."

"This makes no sense." She quipped.

"Shut up. This is the good part. This is the part that you get to miss entirely!" He cleared his throat in ready anticipation, and continued,

"The sixth scene slips into a lean and slipper pantaloon, with…" He would have said more, but she interrupted him,

"What are pantaloons?" Lizardwing thought about it for a moment, and all he could see was…nothing…just inky blackness. And a fish. Odd. He tried to answer her question anyway.

"…I don't know…maybe a fish…who cares! Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah! …with spectacles on eyes, and pouch on side, her youthful hose well saved a world to wide for her shrunk shank…"

"I didn't understand half of those words." She interrupted him again. But each interruption brought a good point.

"Funny, neither did I. They probably aren't important anyway. Here's the last part, the part that you did get to do. The part that really sucks. Listen close!" He said, his drawl containing all the excitement that he could contain.

"Last scene of all, that ends this strange oblivion, sans teeth, sans taste, sans eyes, sans everything…I love that part!"

"What does it mean?"

"That you die." He said curtly.

"Oh. That's depressing!"

"I know! Don't you love it?"

"No." She said, her voice more annoyed than depressed. He tried to get a good reaction.

"Did what I say make any sense?"

"No." Then he tried to prompt her.

"You want to know why?"

"No." He didn't care. He told her anyway.

"Growing up doesn't make any sense either. It a play about growing up made sense, it would be contradictory, wouldn't it now? Now get ready. I'm going to land. It'll jolt you a bit." The girl scrunched herself up, Lizardwing knowing that it was completely pointless for her to do this. With his back legs, his landing gear, he grabbed onto the thick branch, bending in precariously as he landed. The girl swung around in his claws, her dress flying all over the place.

"Well, we're here." He stated the obvious. He placed Giggles gently onto the branch, and carefully made his way to the area he was chewing before he had met her. Hunkering down, he began to chow down on his meal. The girl sat there, watching him try and chew a piece of the white tree rock. After a while, she grew board of him, and started playing with her pendent. She tried to get it to glint with the little bit of light in the area. There wasn't much, so it made it more of a challenge. Lizardwing didn't mind, because at least it kept her occupied. Besides, he liked the company much more than he like being alone. That may have made him an odd hollow, but it also made him a happy one. Almost all hollows are unhappy. Except the ones with DVD players. And those are few and far in between. There is nothing more fascinating than a DVD player for a hollow. It takes a disk, and you put it in, and then you see pictures. They move. And make sound. So cool. Hollows, even the newer ones found it amazing, and it wasn't because that they were never introduced to one, but because all hollows are fundamentally dumb in all things concerning everything. Except fighting. They're good at that. Except Lizardwing. He was exceptional. It was Lizardwing that thought Giggles should know this. So he told her.

"I'm exceptional at fighting." He proclaimed. Unfortunately this made very little impact on Giggles. Due to the lack of reaction, Lizardwing couldn't help but feel confused. All hollows loved to fight. It was just like all Canadians love hockey. It was a rule. If you didn't like it, you were shunned. All Hollows fight. It was a rule. If you didn't like it, you were shunned. Wasn't it the same down in the real world?

"I hate fighting." Giggles stated, while still fiddling with her necklace.

"…oh." Lizardwing chewed on a particular hard spot on the branch. Guess he was wrong. Maybe that wouldn't impress her. She didn't like to fight. Should he shun her? As he thought about it, Lizardwing couldn't help but feel something warm deep inside him when he thought of what she said. She didn't like to fight. Maybe, in some deep…very deep…and hidden with a pad lock and laser beams, with five guard dog….maybe he was like her. He didn't like to fight either.

"But what if that's all you can do?" He asked with an uncertainty that colored his voice. When had he ever felt uncertain? This was ridiculous. But he still waited for her answer like that small locked part of him depended on it. Maybe it did. She sure was taking her precious time to answer it though. She twirled her necklace a few more times before answering.

"Then you'll have to put up with it. Just don't love it." Huh…really. That was her answer. He bit down a little harder than he anticipated on his next mouthful. A crack rippled through the air.

"That's not a good answer." He said between mouthfuls. Giggles didn't seem to care. She was too mesmerized with what she saw in her pendent for some reason. He watched her, crunching his bone hard tree limbs in his mouth.

"Nice pendent." He said, for lack of better dinner conversation. She grinned.

"Someone gave it to me. I don't remember who though. They said that if I broke it, I would find a power that could save me from danger. But if I broke it, I would be breaking something very precious. So I just play with it. I don't want to break it. I'm not in danger anyway. I don't want to break something that's precious." And the way she looked at it, it must have been. Such a happy smile. Something occurred to Lizardwing as he chomped on another mouthful of "food".

"Weren't you in danger the moment you came here? It's a dangerous world down here. Not a place for something like you."

"I was not in danger!" She said indignantly, "I was brought here by some nice mask people. They called themselves hollows! They said that they were going to take me to dinner. And I've been hungry for a while. So I went with them. But…as soon as I came here…they ran away. They said the dragon is coming. They ran away so fast, that I couldn't keep up with them, so I ended up waiting for the dragon. And here you are!" She said with her smile bright.

"And why on earth would you want to see me? The hollows you thought were your "friends" ran away from me! Why did you go with them at all? Don't you know what hollows do to ghosts like you?" He half bellowed. The girl shook her head, eyes slightly wide with fear.

"I died around three hours ago. I don't know much at all." She said sadly.

"And you hungry already?" He exclaimed, staring at her in a altogether new way, like he was seeing her for the first time.

"I shouldn't be?" Her eyebrows drew together as she asked the question.

"No! Ghosts don't need food for weeks, sometimes years on end! You should not want food at all. That's a bad sign." He darkly stated.

"Why, what does it mean?" She asked apprehensively.

"It means you're becoming one of us." He said, a shadow cloaking his voice. The girl clutched her pendent closer to her, staring up at him with trembling eyes. She touched her face lightly, feeling it as though the mask was already there.

"I don't want to be masked like that." She whispered.

"None of us did. It's a choice that none of the hollows make, but our bodies." Lizardwing shuttered, thinking back to his own transformation, all those years ago.

"What do I do?" She whispered.

"You follow me. We're going to get you and that pendent thing to safety. This is not a place for a ghost like you. Hollows will and can eat you. You're just lucky that I'm not one of them…in fact come to think of it, I 'm the only one that doesn't eat humans…I wonder why? I think that's why I'm so miserable…" He trailed off, pondering again his former question before he came upon the kid.

"Hollow eat ghosts!" The child gasped, snapping Lizardwing out of his thoughts.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Which is why you're going to stick around me ok?" Giggles nodded vigorously. With a satisfied nod, Lizardwing took one last crunch of tree, and got up.

"Ready?" He asked. Giggles nodded and held her pendent in a closed fist. He rose up on his hind legs, grabbed Giggles, and launched himself into the air. Now he had committed himself to helping her. He didn't know why. He didn't know how. But he knew for some idiotic reason, he was going to help her. Maybe it was because he wanted to do something constructive for a change. He had asked her about fighting, but what if he was wrong. What if fighting wasn't the only thing he could do. What if he could save to? It would be nice to see the flip side of the coin for once. Why not? Why not let this girl show him what she means.

As they flew, he thought about complications, questions, any bits of information that would be helpful to his quest. That's what he was calling this now. A quest. A quest sounded like fun. A chore did not. Plus, it made him sound epic in a non-stupid kind of way. At least he thought so. But from what Gig had told him, there were a lot of things that were slightly silly about him. Like his feet.

"I'll have you know, that I like my feet very much. There is absolutely nothing wrong with them." He muttered.

"But they're so skinny! Skinny feet! Skinny feet!" She laughed and clapped. He considered dropping her with his "skinny feet."

"I'll have you know that these skinny feet have the power to rip these trees in half." Giggles looked up at him, wonderment and laughter in her eyes. He couldn't help but feel a little envious. His face couldn't be that expressive, it was covered by a big ol' mask. She'll never be able to tell when he gave on of his extremely rare smiles, or well known frowns…she also wouldn't know when he stuck out his tongue… he found out that he was doing that a lot more lately…maybe it was for the best that she couldn't see his face…

"Your feet are so skinny, they look like a branch!" Giggles exclaimed. Lizardwing rolled his eyes. She couldn't see that, which was fine with him. Instead of thinking of a comeback to such a childish comment, he came up with a ten second plan.

"I'll going to tell you what we are going to do." He said, trying to draw attention away from his feet to the moment at hand. Hand, not feet. He snickered.

"What we are going to do is we are going to go to the real world first. That's where you sort of belong. Then we are going to find a way to soul society. We have to get this done before you turn into a hollow, which, but the size of your appetite, is going to be around one week. Kapeesh?" The child nodded to Lizardwing direct words.

"Any questions?" He asked mater of factly. Giggles shook her head.

"Good! Then, let's be going!..." he paused, looking around for a second. Then looked above him. Below. One side…other side…behind him…in front of him…hum…

"Gig?" He asked, confusion in his voice.

"Yes?" She replied.

"Where is the real world?" Gig sighed. What had they gotten themselves into?