Orihime wasn't sure how long she slept or even when she fell asleep, but the faint smell of smoke awoke her later. At first she slowly opened her eyes, realizing she was laying on the platform of stone that served as a bed, the doeskin bundled to her waist in a tight clutch. For a moment it took the events from the night before a few seconds to readjust as they rushed back to her.
The cave was a little brighter now, the filmy moonlight shedding at one far wall in a narrow slit of light. Most of the light came from a small fire nearer to another wall. A butchered animal, something that looked like part of a lamb, was roasting over the spit there, smelling delicious to Orihime's hungry nose. Around the charred circle of firewood and ash were a two clay bowls and a jug.
Orihime's memories sharpened on her new environment at the sight of the items. She glanced to the entryway, seeing nothing but the black of void, and then up at the few slots of light that let the early morning's milky light in.
She sighed in relief at not seeing the man-cat, until a slight movement by her feet made her gaze go there. He sat against the wall, only inches from her on the hide-covered bed, watching her wake.
Her feet recoiled, but not quickly enough. He grabbed one of her ankles, a firm yet not quite bruising hold that only slid her a few inches down to him as she tried to tug her bare foot away. She pulled herself up and leaned back to the wall behind her, half sitting as her leg tensed in his hold.
"I-I didn't know you were here," she stuttered, trying to settle against the wall without full use of her leg.
His hand brought her ankle to his knee crooked over the bed, watching her pull her collar as high as it would go over her chest. "It's morning." His thumb moved over her ankle and to her instep. "You have small feet."
"Oh?" She breathed slowly, letting her foot rest on his leg, as she really had no choice. "Oh, well, I guess...maybe." The light was better in the cavern room as morning stretched on and his lack of clothing was more evident. She tried to keep her attention from straying past her foot on his knee. "You cook your food?"
He chuckled, allowing a tolerant nod as his eyes followed her ankle up to her shin where the gauze skirt lay. "You think I just rip up the animals? Tear them to shreds with my teeth?"
She instinctively looked to his mouth as he said it. She had no doubt he could, but the smell of roasting lamb seemed much more civilized than a wild cat-man. "I didn't know... I thought you were really a cat-beast. I think all of the villagers did. Do."
He shook his head, letting his hand leave her ankle and glide up the calf of her leg, fingers nearly encircling her entire knee when they reached the skirt. Orihime couldn't resist shifting slightly away from him. He sent her a cross look that was magnified by one side of his upper lip wrinkling, and she let her leg remain in his grip.
"No one watched for you," he said, fingers moving over the skin of her knee, but eyes on her timid expression. "They really left you there?"
She nodded. "Yes."
He moved onto the bed beside her, nearly pinning her to the stone wall without even touching her further. She pressed her back to the hard, cool surface, trying not to recoil, but unable not to.
He braced one knee at her hip, the other crossing her legs, trapping her with the dress skirt. She shook her head, pulling the doeskin to her neck, but his hand closed over hers.
"Why are you hiding from me?" he asked.
She swallowed, fearing his grip would crush her fingers in an annoyed clench. "I, uh, I...I was unprepared."
He lowered her hand with the doeskin to her lap between them, seeing her gaze drop and flick to his chest briefly before rising again to his face. "You're old enough to be a bride, aren't you?"
She nodded.
"I thought so." He moved her collar to one side, fingers slow on her skin as his eyes followed the thin material. He pulled the drawstring that cinched her gown closed, seeing her quickly catch her breath. He ignored her still bound, fidgeting hands in her lap, intent on the pale skin beneath the gauze.
Orihime shifted, but his knee on her skirt locked any real movement. Her gaze went to his hand at the drawstring, and then to his face as he pushed the material to her shoulder.
He leaned closer, smelling the curve of her shoulder, detecting the sandalwood she'd used and spilled on her arm, and then lifted that arm. He pushed up her sleeve, which undid his progress at her collar.
Orihime couldn't help but smile as he sniffed her arm, inch by inch, up to her elbow and then as far as the billowy sleeve would allow. She giggled before she could stop herself.
He glanced to her quickly. "I like how you smell."
"Oh, well...you do?"
He nodded and let her sleeve drop and pushed her collar back over her shoulder and took a longer movement to inhale the scent of her skin at her neck. She wasn't giggling anymore, but there was a different sensation of his breath on her skin, something that wasn't quite a touch, but tangible on another sensory level. He sat back, appraising the disarray of her hair from her sleep and the flush of agitation on her cheeks.
"Why are you reluctant to let me near you?" He leaned one hand to the stone wall beside her head, hovering close enough to smell the almond scent of the fragrant oil she wore. "I haven't hurt you."
"B-Because...everyone in the village is afraid of you." It wasn't the entire reason, Orihime knew, but she wasn't about to reply with her worst fears. Not yet.
He nodded, letting one hand go to her hair and pull some of the tangled waves over her collar, almost petting them as they lay at her breast. "Then we'll eat." With a quick movement, he sliced through the rope at her wrists with a few talons and whisked the binds from her. "Are you hungry?"
He was off the stone bed and crossing the floor to the small fire before Orihime could even respond. She blinked a few times, forgetting to be embarrassed at his naked rear side as he squatted at the fire.
"Come on. It's done."
"O-Okay." She rubbed her wrists for a few seconds, and then scooted off the bed and stood, taking a moment to straighten her gown and run a few fingers through her hair. She looked up from her make-do preening to see him watching her, turned so that crouching she only saw the agile lines of his body. He was a man, as much a man as nearly any that she'd seen, and except for the low fur and tail and mane, she doubted he'd cast a shadow unlike most men.
Except he had a more muscular build than most men Orihime knew. She blushed anew at that thought as she met him, keeping out of arm's reach, but doing her best to appear congenial. She knelt and watched the flames lick at the roasted lamb quarters, blaming the heat in her cheeks on the fire and encroaching daylight from overhead.
"It doesn't look uncomfortable on you," he said as he broke off a whole leg joint and set it in one of the nearby bowls. "So I assume your discomfort is me."
She glanced down to her gown when she figured out what he meant. She looked up to see the bowl extended to her, one leg bone sticking out. "Thank you," she murmured, taking the enormous portion of breakfast. "Uh, yes, this isn't exactly a gown I'd where...anywhere."
He twisted off a leg of meat for himself and sat down with it. He saw the blush flush rosé on her cheeks as she watched his movements. Against his usual routine, he grabbed the second bowl and set it in his lap.
Orihime found herself looking and quickly dropped her attention to her own bowl, deciding he was going to need a much bigger bowl to hide what he was attempting to.
"What's your name?" he asked between bites.
"Oh! Yes, Orihime." Her head snapped up and she made a half-bow, averting her gaze back to her bowl. "And, what may I call you? Do you have a name?" She regretted the words as she said them, and was eager to add, "Of course you have a name, right? I mean, what –?"
"Grimmjow," he said, swallowing a mouthful of meat. He shook his head, attention on the leg bone in his hand. "I can't even remember the last time I've said that."
She stopped chewing, seeing something different cloud his face. "Oh, you don't...well, you don't have much chance to tell anyone."
He stripped the meat from one end of the bone with his teeth, not looking to her. "No one asks."
She ate for a few moments, letting the words sink in to her. The slits of light from the outside world were moving along the cave walls, allowing in more light. It made her conscious of her scant clothing, and she found herself holding the bowl closer and higher up on her chest.
Grimmjow noticed it, too. "You don't like wearing that?"
"Not in the light." It wasn't what Orihime had meant to say. "I mean, it's too transparent in the daylight."
He reached across the fire that was beginning to dwindle and grabbed the jug and set it near her knee. He saw the flinch from him she couldn't resist, but he also saw the effort she made in stopping the slight reaction.
She pushed her hair from her face, reminding herself she had been given to him; there was no reason to expect he wouldn't take anything he wanted. She was in the middle of that thought when her fingers paused at her temple and she realized her flower was gone.
She spun from her kneeling position to look to the bed. There was no sign of the small flowers she'd worn in her hair before she'd left her home for the last time. Lost in all the activity at the Sacrifice Rock, she thought, gaze dropping to the half-eaten portion of lamb. She sighed and then looked up to see Grimmjow watching her intently.
"You want more?" he asked.
She shook her head until she realized it only agitated her precarious hiding behind the bowl held to her chest. "No, thank you." She savored the bite still in her mouth, debating to say anything of her observation. She looked to the lamb over the low fire, and then to Grimmjow, trying to keep any judgment from her face.
He saw it anyway. "What are you thinking?"
She shook her head, swallowing the bite. "It's very good. Very tender and succulent."
He grinned a little. "And the wrong time of year to be so young. That's what you're really thinking, isn't it?"
She looked to the fire and then the tasty lamb meat in her bowl. "Well, all the lambs are grown now and much older than this."
"You think I stole it. That's what you villagers always think." He tossed a bone into the bowl and drew up one knee to rest his arm on it.
"I know they offer animals every other month." She knew it wasn't an answer or explanation, but she didn't know what else to say.
"But it's still too young to be stolen or offered at this time of year."
She looked to him and nodded slowly. "It isn't possible."
"'Course it is. You're eating it, aren't you?"
She bit her lower lip, nodding.
He watched the bowl lower as she contemplated the meal. "All these villages are the same...Orihime."
She felt a small compulsion go through her when he said her name; maybe it was the way it sounded through his fangs, or the echo against the stone walls around them, but she liked it. She smiled a little despite it being the wrong moment to.
Grimmjow didn't understand why she smiled, but it was a nice smile, and he felt it was something he wanted to get used to. She let the bowl ease to her lap, attention on him as he continued. "They learn of a creature, a monster that is neither man nor cat, living nearby and they want to either hunt it down or blame every suspicious happening on it." He shrugged, tossing the last picked clean bone into the bowl and reaching for another section of the roasted lamb on the spit. "It's natural."
"You've been hunted before?"
"Not here," he said, breaking the upper section of leg bone in half and leaning over to set the more tender part of meat in her bowl. He sat back and took a big bite of the remaining portion he held. "Other villages."
She picked a strip of meat off the new bone he'd given her. "So, you haven't always been here?"
"A few years. But all you villages are the same."
She frowned, glancing to the jug. She saw no cups, so she set her bowl down and took a moment to take an ungainly drink straight from the large receptacle.
Grimmjow was amused at the spectacle, watching her swallow the unexpectedly voluminous drink as the jug's wide mouth literally dumped too much water into his new companion. If had never occurred to him to need cups before.
Orihime set the jug down and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, feeling sloppy, looking sheepishly to him. "Excuse me."
He shook his head, grinning.
"How do you get these things?" Before he could misunderstand, she continued. "We always offer animals, live animals, but you have bowls and things."
He glanced around at the few pieces of pottery, chewing through the lamb. "Since you're here to stay, I'll show you."
He swallowed the last big bite of meat and stood. Orihime set her bowl down just as he grabbed her arm and pulled her to her feet.
"Come on."
He led her through the entryway into the dark void of tunnels lacing the cave, his grip tight on her arm as she was enveloped blindly into the inkiness. Around her she could hear water trickling, sometimes close and sometimes farther away, but she could see none of it. Her bare feet followed him as he led, the stone of tunnel floor chilly and growing colder as they wove deeper and lower into the mountain.
"Where are we going?" she finally asked after trailing him without being able to see anything for several long moments.
"Your village is one of the more generous ones. They offer enough to feed a clan of bears." He pulled her along behind him, not too quickly, but at a quick enough pace that she had no time to think about her steps.
"A few animals every other month. I know we've been offering more the past half year, but..." Her voice stilled in the echoing depths of the stone tunnels. "We're a poor village...Grimmjow. We need what flocks and herds we have."
"Then you should build fences or put up watches to keep the wolves out."
Her wrist tensed in his hold. "Wolves? But everyone thinks it's you, taking animals and slaughtering."
"I know. Every village does." He sighed, but she could only hear the expression in the blackness.
Her voice grew timid. "Have other villages offered sacrifices before? To you?"
"Every one of them." He chuckled dryly. "Villagers are odd; they chase away wolves but offer live animals to something they cannot identify as a cat or man. Superstition is the same everywhere, Orihime."
"But...it's not you? You don't raid the flocks or herds?"
He sighed again, pulling her along over an uneven part of the tunnel pathway as they made their way lower and deeper into the mountain depths. "I don't have to. I just have to be seen. That's enough. You villagers want to think it's that easy; appease some odd creature rather than think it's just the wild dogs. Wolves can learn that sort of superstition. They raid at night and remain unseen. Some places, when the villages decide to offer up animals to keep me out of the flocks, the wolves will lie in wait at the offering place. They do here." He laughed. "'Course wolves can't figure out every other month, but they show up at night enough at the rock, looking for an easy meal that's been tied up."
Orihime slowed as she listened, nearly halting on the cold stone pathway. "So it hasn't been you at all?"
He stopped, turning to look at her in the dark. She was looking blindly in his direction, her eyes unfocused in the black that was too thick for her. He watched her gaze search for him, saw her blink and felt her hand rest on his forearm as his grip on her wrist changed. "No. But why shouldn't I take advantage of a village's superstitions?"
She shook her head, tilting her head up at his voice. "So then the wolves keep killing?"
"Your village men should be setting up archers to take down the wolves, not tying up animals to bait the wolves in and keep them coming back." Her arm trembled in his hand and he realized she was cold. She folded one arm over her chest, shivering in the much colder air of the deeper tunnels. "Instead they offer you. I've been to three villages and they're all the same – superstitious. But none of them offered me a girl."
Now her head drooped some, her gaze flicking down to the floor she could not see. "They were desperate for you to stop killing the animals."
He nodded, bending to see her face better. "Then they should kill the wolves, Orihime."
She nodded, flinching a bit at the nearness of his tone. "You could talk to them."
"Talk to them?" He shook his head. "You know I couldn't get anywhere near your village. Not as I am."
A softness lent her voice, her eyes raising to him despite knowing she couldn't see him. "Have you ever lived among people?" She frowned slightly. "Have you always been this way?"
He knew he should be angry at her for posing such questions, and it was a sore spot with him, but at that moment her voice was soft and low, like music, like the melodies he heard from the village on some occasions. Her voice carried off the walls in the tunnel, unthreatening and gentle. He looked to her still tousled hair and the faint tremble of her lips in the cold air. "We'll do this another time. You're cold."
"I didn't mean –"
"Stay here," he said, pushing her to the wall behind her.
"I'm sorry. I –"
"Don't move."
Orihime didn't move. His voice had changed, sounding as if he was walking away. She kept her back to the wall, blind and cold in the stony darkness. Her feet were beginning to ache with the cold and her thin gown let in every frigid touch of air. She put one hand behind her on the wall, feeling its iciness as her feet twitched together in an effort to jeep warm.
Maybe she'd made him mad, asked the wrong question. "I shouldn't have asked how long..." she mumbled to herself. Her breath seemed to thicken when she exhaled, and she wondered if it was steaming in the dark. "Grimmjow?"
There was no sound, not even the sound of trickling water now.
"Grimmjow?" The answering silence made her heart quicken. "I'm, I'm sorry if I said the wrong thing. I didn't mean to."
There was a muffled sound, and then footsteps on the cold stone pathway, and then he took her arm. She smiled in the dark, never happier to have the warm contact of another being, even one layered in fur.
"Let's go back. I'll show you the caves later."
She sighed in relief, eagerly following him now as they took the trail that ascended slowly back the way they'd come. "It was so cold."
"You people offer too much," he said, his hand welcome and warm on her wrist. "It's cold enough to freeze in the lower caves."
She wished she could see him. "Freeze? You freeze the excess?"
"I can't eat it all." He chuckled. "We can have lamb out of season, Orihime."
There was something contenting about the we when he said it. She smiled more, nodding, following him blindly still, but now with a sense of belonging.
Something, she realized, that had been lacking in her own home in the village since Sora had been absent.
It wasn't until they were back at the main cave chamber where the light of the upper crevices shed in sunlight that Orihime saw that Grimmjow carried something in his other arm.
"I have to see about a few things," he said, releasing her arm when they got to the center of the room where the biggest patch of sunlight spotted the floor. "Take what you want from here."
Orihime was still concentrating on her slowly warming feet on the slate floor when Grimmjow dropped a heap of clothing. It made a large mound of colored material in the midmorning sunlight sneaking into the cave chamber.
She marveled at what she knew to be a range of styles and patterns, her eye for fabrics and dyes proven from her work in weaving. "This is...so much, Grimmjow." She knelt and picked up the closest piece of clothing, a brightly dyed frock she knew was from the oriental continent. She looked up at him. "How did you get this? It's not from our village."
He had to grin at her delight in the bundle of assorted cloth, watching her pull the patterned dress to herself, nearly cradling it. "Shipwrecks. The back of this mountain butts up to the shore. Wreckage washes up, some of it right into the lower caves underwater." He nodded to the loudest trickle of water that ran off the wall slope and into a shallow basin before draining out of sight against the wall. "Fresh water comes from the mountaintop and gets in; but there are lower caves, too."
She folded the frock to her chest, feeling the softness against her throat. "I can wear this?"
He watched the colorfully-patterned material seem to pale in beauty next to her, and more than ever he felt the fur on his skin, felt the tail weight his back. He turned and walked to the entryway, the familiar anger welling in him that had driven him from his own past. "Wear whatever you want of it, Orihime. It's all yours."
"Thank you, Grimmjow."
He wanted to turn and look back at her, but it would be one more chance for her to see him as he was, neither cat nor man; a beast. He kept walking. "I'll be back."
"Soon?"
To him, it seemed that there was hope in her tone.
He nodded as he stepped back into the darkness of the cave passages. "Soon."
