11.
Title: Spare Time
Prompt: Pastime
Pairing/Character(s): Espada
Word Count: 639
A/N: I just started school, so it's a bit harder to find time to write. :( If anyone's reading this, I really could use some prompts.
The shinigami spent the weeks and months before the upcoming war making frantic, hasty preparations, dithering, and training. The arrancar, the ones that had been born so far, anyway, spent them doing nothing.
It didn't take anyone all too long to figure out what to do with their new bodies and abilities. They knew they were all going to be fighting but saw no reason to train. They were so much more powerful than they were before. They'd be powerful enough when the time came. So they spent time tarrying, doing nothing, and generally being bored.
But being bored was generally boring and they got bored...grew tired of it after a very short while.
Starrk was the first to find a pastime. He didn't have to look far. The pillows beckoned at him to spend time with them, and he didn't feel like refusing at the time.
Aaroneiro spent time experimenting with all of the languages 'his' memories could dredge up. However, when no one could understand him at all he decided it was boring. So he started to experiment with all of the human and shinigami forms he'd accumulated. Apparently he was far more amused for a while with making people wonder why they had a plus or a shinigami amongst them that they didn't know. And when he exhausted his numerous forms, he'd go out and eat some more hollows and test out the new ones.
Szayel discovered science. No one wanted to be anywhere near him for the weeks right after that.
Ulquiorra found himself learning how to read. There was a library tucked away in some corner of Las Noches where he could get books from. And he learned painstakingly to make tea. There was a betting pool for how long he would wait for the water to boil. Much to everyone's disappointment, he just read his book when he was waiting.
Yammy incited fights with anyone who would take him up on it, namely Grimmjow and Nnoitra, when the former wasn't trying to find a good hollow cat to keep as a pet and the latter wasn't trying to kill the 3rd Espada, whether it be Nel or later Tia.
Barragan, the old ornery man he was, managed to get in a verbal duel with Tousen. Later, the pair were seen companionably (for them) playing chess. No one quite knew how, but it had somehow involved Gin's hall-changing tendencies, oranges (because otherwise where would Zommari's prized oranges go?), a pair of glasses, a lengthy bit on hair, and one of Aizen's spare uniforms.
Zommari started gardening. Someone had to grow the food for Aizen's plate, and he had enough eyes to keep a few on them at all times.
Harribel, the last of the Espada to be born considering Nel's unfortunate 'demise' and the fact that Aizen had asked her a long while after he asked Barragan even though she had known about it, had a bit of a late start. But she made up for it with intensity. Yells and shrieks and echoing laughter permeated the fortress of Las Noches as Harribel and the girls that comprised her Fraccion bonded over fashion and Human World celebrity drama. She was quite a bit more girlish than she let on to everyone else but they were fine with that: everyone had their own cobwebbed corners. Even if they all knew about it.
And so when the order for war came, Starrk was napping, Barragan was strategist, Tia was smiling, Ulquiorra was brewing tea, Nnoitra was fighting, Grimmjow was out looking for a cat, Zommari was pulling up weeds, Szayel was mixing chemicals, a shinigami form named Kaien from one of Aaroneiro's newer conquests was waiting, and Yammy was glaring at some poor hollow.
For once, Aizen isn't quite sure what has happened to his 'children'.