sorry it's not very long, but I haven't updated this in a while and I wanted everyone to know it's not on hiatus or anything, I've just been busy work on my Sengoku story, The Fangs of the Dragon. anyway, review and enjoy!
Though she respected his preference for silence, total quiet bothered Erin despite the endless hush of Hueco Mundo dominating her memories-memories that disturbed and unsettled her; she needed some kind of noise or sound or she became aggitated, thus she often hummed or sang or spoke to herself to relieve her tension, much as she did now, quietly humming as she soared below Ulquiorra whose shadow on the ground below helped her keep track of him as her mind wandered aimlessly. Yes, she might be giving up some of her freedoms, but in exchange she was going to be granted power, and being a fair judge of character, she felt Ulquiorra wasn't lying about the arrangement, even if reading his face was almost impossible, therefore it would be worth it.
Gotta work on that, she told herself, head swaying side-to-side to the sound of her own song which was changing suddenly to include lyrics that came from nowhere; Erin had a very bad habit of losing focus quickly when her interest in something took a nosedive. "Where are the heroes, in my time of need? Is my cry not loud enough or have they gone all numb? They just sit and stare out of the rain, thinking but not acting that they're not to blame..."
Ulquiorra glanced below him, hearing the soft sound of her voice as it carried to him on the wind, breaking the usually-comfortable silence in a way he was unused to. He listened, trying to stay disinterested, but he had never heard singing before-actually, he'd never heard music period and never paid much attention during his jaunts to the human world, so this was a novel experience for him, and one that he, in his own way, appreciated it for what it was: a splash of color in an otherwise dull world. He listened to her soft voice, to how gentle it was and compared it to the vicious strength behind it when defending herself. Clearly she had different sides to her personality, and he wanted to figure out what drove those feelings, what birthed them, what allowed her to retain such human-like behavior.
One day his curiosity would be the death of him. For now, though, he feigned indifference, listening to her gentle melody as they travelled and picking apart the message contained within, trying to understand the meaning behind it until the song faded away and life resumed its dull routine once more.
"Hey," she suddenly called as the horizon broke before them, becoming uneven in a small part. "Looks like there are rock formations ahead. Planning to go around or above?"
"Above," he answered matter-of-factly, noting how keen her eyesight was to be able to discern what was ahead from this distance when he himself could only barely make out the shapes.
"Straight ahead?"
"Yes."
Feeling a surge of recklessness, Erin began to flap her wings harder, picking up speed slowly, her mischevious side showing itself for the first time in a long while. "Race you through the crags."
"Race?" the Arrancar repeated just as she began to accelerate, zooming ahead of him with an unprecedented burst of speed that prompted him to pick up his own already-impressive pace, watching the way her body seemed to shift from sturdy and flight-stable to something more lithe, like a winged serpent, her forearms hugging the underside of her belly and the rear hanging loosely, her body undulating with each beat of her massive wings that shone snowy and perfect in the eternal moonlight, bringing dark memories to his mind. What does she expect to do? he wondered to himself, raising his altitude in order to skim over the tops of the canyons and plateaus that lay just ahead now and keep Erin in sight, calculating her wingspan against the gaps between formations and concluding that she was too large to be able to compensate her required lift effectively to be able to squeeze between rocks and outcroppings with ease.
She was going to hurt herself and he felt no inclination to stop her.
Unsurprisingly, the Adjucha was full of surprises. In her maneuverable mode of flight, Erin could weave, dive and dodge with the best, her body loosened in order to bend just well enough to avoid loosing her balance when turning and banking, which came very much in handy as she soared under the first stone arch that marked the edge of the canyon. Her guide stayed above, but even with her boobing about, twisting, ducking and looping about between the unusual formations, she managed to keep pace with him, her wings half-folding as she closed in on two sheer cliffs that sat side-by-side with a space barely open enough for her to squeeze through-at half her wingspan. Ulquiorra saw this and moved off to one side, assuming Erin would pull up and exit the canyon, as he wanted to avoid what would otherwise be a nasty mid-air collision.
Assuming.
He was quite shocked when she suddenly vanished against the cliffside, and baffled that there was no hint of an impact and that her reiatsu signature was still moving below. Reaching the other side first, he turned, searching for her at the exit of the ravine between the cliffs, trying to see into the oppressive darkness; a rush of air and a triumphant cheer screeched below him, sending his hakama and tailcoats flying about as the she-Hollow reemerged far below. She'd lost altitude, but her speed made it possible to shoot through the crack without need of her wings' beating, thus she turned sideways and skimmed the walls, slowly descending toward the sands below. Once oriented correctly, she flapped quickly and returned to the sky, spiraling upward with a cheerful whoop as the deadpan Arrancar joined her, a small tug in his chest warned him of incoming nostalgia.
Having been a flying Hollow at one point, Ulquiorra knew the urge to soar was always prevalent within him, as he would always be a creature of the sky, not the ground, and some days it got the better of him, driving him to leave the fortress to release the tension from himself; what he was not prepared for was for the familiar need to soar to be amplified merely by witnessing another take to and enjoy the sky in front of him. Flying Hollows were few, and he had not had the pleasure to see many pre-Arrancarification, so he surmised it was this reason that provoked him, and his duty to lead Erin to Las Noches is what kept him from giving in to the base instinct that slept inside him. He would never admit it, but in that moment, Ulquiorra Schiffer was jealous of the pseudo-freedom Erin had-her desire of power ensured she wouuld not stray from him, so it was not true freedom, but she was freer than he.
He beat it back of course, as he was a Hollow once, and an Arrancar now, and therefore unable to feel such things as joy or jealousy-all that lay within him was despair. Despair for being the outcast, the different one, for his self-inflicted isolation; yes, depsair was the only thing he felt he was capable and justified in feeling at any given time, as he was depsair given form and therefore physical, and as he was physical he was real. No other feelings could be seen or felt by his hands, and so he did not believe in them or his ability to feel them within himself and any instances of something stirring within him were his own weakness of his mind trying to fool himself into believing otherwise. He only had a legacy of despair in his memory-nothing else to give him reason to believe he could feel anything more, as he had no memories of a human life to call on, like every other Hollow that survived its first half-decade.
Despair was real. Jealousy was not.
Even so, he was already accustomed to the fact that using sonido in the air was not the same nor ever would be, and thus resigned himself to his fate, carrying on with his assignment in silence, restraining his instinct and ignoring Erin's cheerful half-freedom-induced joy as they closed in on Las Noches.
"Is that it?"
"Yes."
Erin tipped her head to one side, studying the blob on the horizon. "Can't be more than a day away now."
Ulquiorra turned his head slightly. "Do not be so certain. Even keen eyes can be fooled."
She sighed. Over the course of the last few hours, the Hollow woman had gotten used to her companion's cryptic statements and stopped expecting a straight answer whenever he felt like divulging her. That did not stop her from being baffled, of course, considering the structure she saw ahead was already quite big, she felt it couldn't be more than a day's flight from their current position. After all, how big could it be?
Wind shifted across the vast, snowy sandscape, kicking up little swirls and dust devils and carrying on it a scent-a scent that made Erin bristle and growl ferally. Her mind blanked and she lowered into a hunting crouch, digging her talons into the desert floor, pointing herself west. Ulquiorra turned his whole body towards her now and simply said, "Adjucha," expecting her to snap out of it, but instead she began a quick trekk off into the night, her body slung low, her reiatsu crushed into a low level bordering on a common Hollow. He didn't appreciate being ignored, and with his assignment looming over his head, he followed her, keeping a fair distance behind; he knew a hunting Hollow was not a Hollow to cross paths with, and her abilities-if used in a prolonged fight-could be troublesome seeing as she effectively rendered his cerro a moot point. So he relented, trailing behind her with ever-widening distance, but never letting her out of his sight as he searched for whatever beast she'd selected to devour; there were many options availible, yet curiously she ignored them all, seeming to march herself straight toward a specific target.
Eventually, the possibilities narrowed to three: two average Hollows and one Adjucha, which he assumed was her choice considering she was making a fairly straight path toward it, searching its scent right out of the air until she was close enough to navigate using her pesquisa. Erin was focused solely on her hunt, her body coiled, wings pressed flat into her back, jaws beginning to unhinge; something unsettled her about this reek, this one particular Hollow that she was tracking, and she wanted to know what, and then devour it so it couldn't unsettle her again. Very single-focused, this she-Hollow, when the situation demands. Pinning down her pattern of behavior would be more difficult that Ulquiorra realized, as there was no known way to know if she'd remain focused or for how long, or if her habit of changing course-applying to fighting style as well as train of thought-would make her predictability erratic. Of course, if anyone could find out, it was him, and seeing her hunt provided an excellent chance to observe.
Erin suddenly crouched low, hiding herself against a dune, her prey just beyond the crest of the rise; she bunched her muscles, ready to spring, using her nose as her guide. Deafening silence blanketed the desert, enough so to drive one insane, for the longest second of Ulquiorra's immortal life before, without warning, Erin sprang, a viscious roar tearing from her throat as she cleared the rise and pounced on the Hollow she'd tracked down. Black claws sank into dark flesh, one Adjucha's hunting cry melding into the other's pained shriek, the pair rolling across the sands, kicking up a cloud of dust as tentacles thrashed about, black blood splashing out and seeping deep into the ground. Ulquiorra used his sonido to leap into the air and stand, his sharp eyes peeling apart the layers of the squabble one-at-a-time until he could make out the distinct shape of Erin who was coiled around the other Hollow like a snake, her teeth tearing pieces from it as it cried defiance, trying to shake her.
Watching Hollows kill each other could easily become a nasty affair, as this one was turning out to be, but using his sharp eyes and even sharper pesquisa he was able to place a heavy bet on Erin to be the victor, as this other creature was trash compared to her. Now normally, Erin would have a slight debate within about killing another creature so blatantly, but luckily this time that little inner-Erin had shut up and let the inner-Hollow take control, overriding her other thoughts and feelings as she ripped this creature to pieces.
This particular abomination was a huge monster of a Hollow atop one of the boulders that sparsely dotted Hueco Mundo's landscape, pink and purple triangular patterns stretched from its toothy, permantent skull grin, down its sides and arms and legs, a mess of tentacles writhing from its back in white, purple and pink, its head tilted to one side as it tried to chomp at Erin's hind leg, its short neck her only saving grace. The dueling pair tumbled, the mess of tentacles writhing, trying to pry her off as she tore at them, searching for its fleshy back; she was slammed into the ground and her hold faltered, allowing the destroyed Hollow to attempt an escape, but the blood and injuries it had sustained proved too great and it collapsed a short distance away as its attacker righted herself and sprang without hesitation, jaws biting into neck and throat and talons ripping into flesh, black liquid forming a shallow pool aorund them.
It didn't last much longer after that and Erin devoured the remains quickly, her usual demeanor returing in leaps and bounds. Ulquiorra hadn't found out anything particularly useful or helpful in that little skirmish except that Erin relied too heavily on her brute strength to get the job done. He berated her silently for not taking vital strikes and ending the hunt more swiftly, indicating with a turn of his head that she should follow him again, which she obliged to doing, feeling slightly drowsy after such a fulfilling meal.
Oddly, though, she felt as if she'd tasted that Adjucha once before, long, long ago.