Good evening :D A light and somewhat bitter-sweet read for tonight, as well as the return of Halibel :)

Hope you enjoy ^^

The Iron Shoes

Seven long years I looked for you.
I wore seven pairs of iron shoes.
I ate seven loaves of iron bread.
I climbed seven iron mountains
until I reached this shore.

Here, it is always summer.
Here, the grass is soft underfoot, plums
and peaches fall sweet and ripe
right into our outstretched hands.
We lie at night on sheets edged with lace.

Why is it I cannot sleep?
I lie on the royal pillows,
the wind of your breath rises and falls,
a sliver of moon travels over the hills,
and I wait for sleep to come.

When I dream, I am on that road once more.
I follow a trail of purpose and will,
my legs are strong, and you
my dear are the moon
on the distant horizon.

I know iron. I know its weight. Its taste.
The rise and fall
of black, black hills.
Seven long years I looked for you.
Now I'm lost in this gentle green land.

- Johnny Clewell

'I had meant to apologise,' he said, standing with one foot in and one foot out of the doorway.

Halibel lowered her glance to the papers before her, and pondered her response, as well as his hesitation. They had not spoken alone in well over a year, and the last time they had…

'Changed your mind already?' she asked, a few moments later. It was Stark's turn not to hurry with the answer.

'Just lost a bit of nerve,' he said. 'In the end, I am even unsure…'

'That it bears any relevance now.'

The Primera closed the door behind himself, but did not advance; Halibel stood, and walked around her desk, leaning on its side. She turned off the lights.

It was a beautiful, still night; the orchestra of wind and leaves outside heralded autumn amid echoes of summer.

'Do you want to make love?' Halibel asked.

'Yes,' Stark answered, without hesitation, and both chuckled.

The moon veiled itself in a cloud just thin enough to enhance its light; like many other women who chose to do so, it perhaps understood that fascination rarely outlived the mystery which had sparked it.

'What are you running from now?' she asked, kindly.

Stark didn't answer; he sat on the floor, away from the rectangular patch of light that the moonlight cut in the darkness, and looked at the ceiling.

'Did you feel this way, I wonder…' he began, in an uncertain voice – Halibel slinked to the floor by his side, and crossed her legs. 'I have asked Unohana Retsu to continue seeing me,' Stark said, answering her earlier question.

'Do you think she won't, or are you afraid she might?' Halibel laughed.

'Both,' he shrugged. 'Neither.'

He stretched his fingers on the floor, and she laid her hand atop his, as if she'd just casually picked the very same few inches of wood to lean on.

It was odd that the last time that they'd spoken alone persisted in her rational memory, but not in her present thoughts.

'I always knew you did not mean to hurt me,' Halibel said, softly. Stark cringed. 'You have nothing to apologise for.'

'It is odd that I only now understand that I was hurting you,' he replied, then bit his lower lip and looked her way. 'I thought my distances were indifferent to you. Why did you never tell me?'

'I did,' she reminded. 'Repeatedly, I might add.'

She looked to the ceiling in her turn.

'Perhaps I chose to tell you in the wrong way,' the woman shrugged. 'Unhelpful vocabulary, as Szayel Aporro would have it. I will admit to being wrong,' Halibel added, softly.

He drew a deep breath, probably guessing what she was about to speak of, and hoping that she would not. Halibel did not immediately press; if she knew something, anything about this man, she thought, he would come to ask on his own.

'Do you see her often?'

Halibel didn't chuckle, though she found the accuracy of her intuition amusing.

'Yes,' she replied, briefly. Stark questioningly glanced towards her, then hastily looked away. 'She,' Halibel continued, recognizing that names were unnecessary, 'is…something entirely new.'

He nodded, and from the frightened brevity of the gesture, she could not truly distinguish whether he was in pain, or he was trying not to cause her any.

'But then,' she added, 'you always knew that. You only led me to believe that she is a fabrication of your mind and of your reiatsu. I always thought you had imagined her.'

'You knew, though,' he frowned. 'I told you of my past, and you knew…'

She sighed, and shook her head, only half conceding to his point.

'It was entirely your fault that I could not bring myself to believe you, though. Sometimes you are…' Halibel began, drawing a deep breath, 'the kind of cowardly man that I spent the better part of my human life either running away from or seeking to defeat. Oh yes,' she chuckled to his deepening frown. 'And the mere fact that after we shared whatever it was we shared for such a long time, you still did not realize that should give you pause.'

'I know of your life,' he protested.

'Yes, you do,' she shrugged. 'But I think you memorized some facts, and in so doing you all but lost the meaning. We lived,' she whispered, 'at approximately same time, but in different worlds – growing up, and as a young woman, I thought I cherished men like you. I thought your sort was at least willing to listen…'

'I always was,' he muttered.

Halibel laughed once more. 'Indeed,' she said, 'you did. And judging by your personality, I am sure you gave many a speech in defense of equality in a distinguished but narrow minded all male company…'

'I did,' Stark earnestly protested. 'I never thought of women being anything less, even in that century, even under the glorious rule of kings and church…And don't scowl at me, you are the one who died a Catholic.'

'More or less,' she chuckled. 'Being hanged by a Catholic does not a Catholic make.'

'Never say that to a Catholic,' the man sighed, leaning his head back on the wall. He paused for a moment, to gather his thoughts and his courage. 'So,' he asked. 'Where'd I go wrong?'

'You did and you didn't,' she shrugged. 'Perhaps I am being harsh. I never bothered with men who dismissed me,' Halibel said, softly. 'Looking back, I probably should have paid more attention,' she chuckled, 'but I thought life was too short…Obvious prejudice is easy to face; so easy, in fact, that outward recognition of the prejudice, the kind that you, oh defender of equality and brotherhood offered is all but pointless. All rational creatures should inherently grasp that the creative principle is neither male nor female, and if they do not, they are even below the status of mindless animals.'

'I say,' Stark incredulously chuckled.

'Do you think that the lion thinks less of his lionesses?' Halibel asked, tilting her head to the side. 'He may mate with more than one, but I doubt he thinks them inferior to each other, or to himself; they too lose sexual interest in him once his biological function is completed, and rather than look at it from the point of view of your sex, and think the lion lucky for having a harem, I would ask you to look at it from my point of view and note that if they lionesses did not hunt, he would likely starve – ironically, because his mane, the great display of masculinity, prevents him from being an efficient killer.'

'Thus, to his harem, the lion is powerful patriarch and helpless child at the same time,' she continued, softly, 'and natural instinct preserves this symbiotic cycle because it represents the meaning of all energy. The female is the vessel and the male is the filler, but none can do without the other, and it is only men that choose to regard the passive principle as inferior or derogatory.'

'You too think like that, Stark,' Halibel said, smiling. 'Most men like you I knew thought like that – that the passive is inferior and needs to be overcome, and that females of spirit must be and act like men, in any field, be it intellectual prowess, or physical strength, or sexual conduct, because otherwise, the spirit cannot be seen. This is not emancipation or equality – it is simply a perverse manifestation of male cowardice and selfishness.'

'That is unfair,' Stark muttered.

'Not so,' she frowned. 'I doubt that you ever outright considered the women who shared your bed whores; with your disposition, I am sure you thought they were in some way enlightened, but how many of the women you slept with did you lose interest in, after just one night?'

'I doubt I was emancipating any of them,' he wryly smiled.

'You see?' she shrugged. 'This is what I was speaking of – you took sexual submission as a sign of passivity, immediately felt smug because your mane was bristling, and, your victory scored, simply removed yourself not only of whatever passed for human morality, but also of that symbiotic cycle of natural respect I was mentioning. That is the below animal status I was referring to,' she scolded. 'So do not get coy.'

The man smirked.

'This is what, growing older and coming to know of even men who would listen, I above all disliked,' Halibel whispered, 'their incapacity of recognizing an equal, unless the equal mirrored them precisely. And you, dear Stark, are just that sort. In fact,' she added, the kindness of her voice contrasting the harshness of her words, 'you made me think you are even worse. Because when you could not recognize an equal amid the many you thought you tried, you went and created yourself one, out of your apostate Catholic rib.'

Stark withdrew his hand from hers, and crossed his arms over his chest, his entire body language screaming denial.

'Not only that,' the woman followed, 'but it felt as if in her you had created and enforced your hidden notion of male superiority in its most insidious form. She was naturally intelligent, in a manner that was not of your making, so you latched on and enhanced that, and you loved her energy because it appeared so active and male. You took advantage of a manifestation of the principle, and shaped it to your will. And then,' she chuckled, 'you left it barren. You never touched her. You made her the ultimate slap in my face, telling my sort of woman, the sort you sleep with, but you never choose as true mate, that both intelligence and energy are acceptable, as long as they are not accompanied by sexual expression. That you are so narcissistic and vain, that you would only truly love a one who is your mirror, but may never actually become your vessel, thereby insuring that all creation and evolution begins and ends with you.'

'Creation is not only sexuality,' Stark said.

'No,' Halibel replied. 'But the Lilinette of Hueco Mundo could not even think or feel or remember without you…'That's why, for so long, I thought she was nothing but a figment of your imagination, and resented her so,' Halibel concluded, softly. 'If you'd invented her to your liking in her human life, there was no reason why, in the vastness of your reiatsu…'

'I would not invent her again in Hueco Mundo,' he said.

'I thought she was the living manifestation of your prejudice.' The woman nodded.

'She never was,' Stark whispered, returning his fingers to the floor, and to her hand.

'Well, we're both learning that now,' Halibel shrugged. 'I found it deeply surprising that you could bring yourself to let her go…'

'Unsure if that's what happened,' he sighed. 'Completely unsure.'

'I do not know what is in your heart, because you never let me even catch a glimpse,' Halibel said. 'But,' she chuckled, 'even if maybe you did not de jure let her go, you let her go de facto. I was truly and pleasantly surprised, and once more, jealous of her. You never afforded me that luxury…'

'I let you go,' he sighed.

'No, you left me with a pile of guilt and poked me from time to time to make sure I don't forget to feel guilty,' Halibel scowled. He sighed again.

'You know what I never liked about the alchemical theory of active and passive principles?' he perked making her chuckle. 'That it is so constraining. To both genders, actually,' Stark quipped.

'Oh dear,' the woman answered, arching an eyebrow.

'It is,' Stark bravely affirmed, fully turning to face her. 'If you think back to its inception, ritual magic from which alchemy stemmed, after ironically being taken over by men, was a form of female liberation from a real world factually dominated by males; in fact, you can argue that it is just as much an attempted form of social control as all other organized religions. Further, that all just like all other organized religion, it is, in fact a form of political resistance, and that the more its tenets became set, the further from the truth it drifted.'

'Which is why it eventually came to be dominated by men,' Halibel pointed.

'I thought you were being passive?' he chuckled, making her laugh, in turn. 'But that is not where I was going,' he reiterated. 'Women have, and you will excuse me, an unholy and self-defeating tendency of claiming stake to the spiritual. Though men run its institutions, organized religion could not have survived without the mass of female worshippers flooding churches and temples. No matter how ridiculously oppressive most religions tend to become, after they drift from the truth and fall into the hands of people who truly use them as means of political control, women continue to worship. En masse. Even when said institutions turn against them; it is not men that groom women into being obedient, quiet and decorative. It is not men that fear female sexuality; as you well pointed, we would be very happy buzzing along the field of many flowers – it is other women, who fear that their bee will buzz away who teach their daughters to fear themselves.'

'Well,' Halibel bit, 'one could point that the responsibility of maintaining human kind to at least animal status must lie somewhere…'

'Perhaps' Stark shrugged. 'But I cannot see why you would castrate us of that ability.'

'Because men have proven over and over that they take spirituality and create institutions,' Halibel shrugged, in turn. 'You'd rob all things, even faith, of their magic. See,' she scolded, 'that was precisely my point. If you do not recognize a form of intelligence, you tend to dismiss it.'

'Maybe,' he laughed. 'And I'll freely admit that this I don't understand. Do you not hate the people who killed you, in your human life, and the church that caused them to do it?'

She considered the question for a moment, cranking her nose under her visor.

'To tell you the truth, Stark, no,' she shrugged. 'Or at least, not anymore. Frankly,' she bitterly chuckled, 'I am oddly grateful that I got hanged and not burned, that would have not boded well for my…'

She gracefully let her hand drift above the contours of her body, and the man smiled.

'Even then, I hated the men, but not the church itself,' she said. 'There is nothing wrong, per se, with the tenants of the Catholic church, and some of the more sophistically inclined of my friends actually tried to marry the alchemical principle with the Bible, with smaller or greater degrees of success,' she wryly smiled. 'I think,' Halibel followed, 'that this is another symbiotic cycle that you don't see. Spirituality is not strong in all…'

'True,' Stark muttered. 'I have none whatsoever.'

'Exactly,' the woman answered, turning to fully face him as well. 'But you will recognize that even on your arena – which is to say, politics and philosophy, policies exist so that the masses are charmed or coerced into following a system.'

'Correct,' the Primera frowned lightly. 'Where are you leading?'

'I am leading to the fact that if you replace policy with ritual, you arrive at the need for organized religion,' Halibel said. 'Not all people are spiritual and gather knowledge and wisdom with breath – thus ritual and institutions are needed, to maintain those who are not inherently spiritual rooted into the best part of their nature. Still, just like political systems turn void without the participation of a majority of society, organized religion turns void without actual faith. In this case,' she added, 'the symbiosis assures that a part of the church provides for the structure – the ritual – while the other caters for the actual energy. Neither can do without the other...'

'Aha,' Stark exclaimed, making her jump.

'What?' the woman protested.

'I have you where I wanted you, my beauty,' he laughed, catching a thin strand of her hair, and running his fingers along it. 'You have just given me a very good example of a symbiosis where the active principle, the generator of energy, is the female gender, and where the structure and the vessel are the men. Complete inversion of your active and passive principles,' Stark innocently shrugged.

'Not really,' Halibel smirked. 'You can argue that women are passive principle in tolerating the institutions for the sake of the greater spirituality, and that the vessel is not the structure of one religion or another. Religions vary in practice, but not in basis, and the idea that contains them all is simply…if I were to say faith,' she laughed, 'I would be biased, so I shall say – belief in magic.'

'But why would one need to sacrifice so much of oneself for sheer belief in magic, Halibel,' Stark whispered. 'For the sake of others' magic…'

'There is no others' magic. There is only one kind, and without it, the world and the heart are just an empty shell,' she whispered in return, hoping that he'd seen the warmth of her smile in her eyes. 'That is, I think, why you are always so alone…'

Stark smiled bitterly, and leaned back on the wall, remaining silent for a few long minutes; for half the silence, she measured him through half lidded eyes, then leaned her shoulders on the wall in her turn. She knew she must have hurt him, but did not feel that he'd withdrawn into his cold, safe corner. At least not yet.

That too was new.

'Why did you leave me?' he asked, at long length.

'I never left you,' she sighed. 'You, may I remind, were the one who imposed ultimatums and left, closing the door.'

Halibel insinuated her fingers between his, and chuckled eerily.

'See, I could say,' she began, 'that I turned to Aizen because your projection of ideal femininity in Lilinette irked me out of my mind. And it did,' she sternly muttered. 'I could say that I turned to Aizen when I finally understood that your heart is closed, as far as magic and faith are concerned,' she added, in a whisper. 'That is even more true…I only truly gave up on you when nothing could make you believe in him, and even though the miracle has been accomplished under your eyes, you still do not believe, Stark…'

'I am still wondering about the cost of this, my beauty,' he said, shaking his head. 'Everything has a bill attached.'

'Faith is for free.' The woman answered; their glances met, and both shrugged and smiled, admitting that there would be no common ground.

'I never left you,' Halibel repeated, gently. 'It is you who cannot share.' She added, bursting into laughter at his sudden frown. 'Even lion prides have two male lions, Stark,' she managed, between chuckles, and the visible effort it took him to breathe out made her laugh even harder.

'Well, that's a confidence building notion,' Stark huffed, in dismay.

'You're hopeless,' the woman warmly declared. 'Aizen…' she began, casting a glance to the side to assure herself that he would still be listening; she renounced the original train of thought.

'Let me make a supposition,' she said, softly. 'If none of this had come to pass, and, in some uncertain future, Lilinette would have evolved as she is now, you would not have left me for her.'

'I would not think so,' he muttered.

'I do,' Halibel shrugged. 'Or, if you did leave me, you would have done so with a crushing sense of guilt, which would have gnawed at both you and her. Because you are narcissistic, and vain, and terribly monogamous…in spirit,' she laughed again. 'You can only love one thing at a time.'

'That is truly the first time I hear that word used as an insult,' the Primera said, in a low huff.

'It is, in sorts,' Halibel answered. 'Because rather than being an expression of belief in something greater, or of sacrifice, in your case it is an expression of egoism. You would never have left me, because you would have thought you would grievously wound me, which would immediately lead you to fear you would be wounded in the same manner. Not true dedication, but a low bargaining coin – if I'm not doing this, you cannot do it either, because you owe me.'

'I loved you,' Stark said, with a frown which only reinforced her point.

'And because of that, you thought I owed you,' the woman said.

'Yes,' he grunted.

'Like Lilinette owes you,' Halibel smirked, expecting that he would not answer; he did not. 'See,' she whispered, almost forcefully keeping his hand in hers, 'this is the difference between a vessel and a mirror. One makes you evolve, the other just keeps you drowning in yourself. I've learned a lot from you,' the woman said. 'But all you ever want to do is stop the world from spinning, circumstances from changing…Even if you do not like the circumstances – how long did you hold on to me, in your heart, even after it became clear that the direction in which I wished to evolve was not yours?'

'I don't like you having faith in this man,' he muttered. 'It's not even the man himself, it's…'

'…the base notion of faith that you dislike,' she shrugged. 'I know.'

'It makes you seem like such a brainwashed tool, Halibel, when we both know you are anything but that,' Stark continued to protest. He gazed into her eyes, then lowered his glance and sighed deeply. 'And now,' he mumbled, 'you are going to say that I am yet again dismissing forms of intelligence I do not understand.'

'You can call it instinct, if you like,' Halibel smiled. 'The principle remains the same. I too loved you,' she said, knowing that it was the first time she'd uttered the words, and that it would also be the last. 'But it did not come in a form that you recognized, because I chose to give some of myself to another man.'

'All of yourself,' Stark whispered. 'The essential…'

'I gave him nothing that you wanted, my body aside,' Halibel scolded. 'Well, would you have wanted me to have faith in you?' she laughed to his frown. 'That is what I regard as essential about myself – my belief in magic, my faith. You have no use for it; though you are a leader, you refuse to be followed, and I wanted to have faith. You could not give me that, so should I have amputated my need of having something to believe in, something to sacrifice for, because I owed you?'

'No,' he sighed, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb. 'No.'

'I suspect that both I and Lilinette would not have resented being your crutches so much if you were actually heading somewhere…' Halibel said. 'But you weren't, so you not only relegated us both to objects, you relegated us both to useless objects. I hate that in men,' she whispered.

'May I offer an uninformed opinion?' the woman asked, arching an eyebrow.

'You are never uniformed,' Stark brought himself to say, even managing a hint of irony.

'Thus far, Unohana Retsu was a mirror too,' Halibel said. 'She was placed in a situation where she was obliged to follow your lead, and accept you. I guess the fact that she was not following of her own free will made it easier for you to lead…But this woman is no mirror by nature, Stark. If she chooses to continue exploring you, you either have to be prepared for the same heartbreak that you experienced with me and Lilinette, or…'

'Or?' the man tiredly asked.

'…or actually take the journey with her,' Halibel shrugged. 'Fully take the journey,' she muttered, 'not ask her to be your crutch and stand very still, or reluctantly accompany her for three miles, in the hope that she will stop her exploration simply because you want to stop. Some of us cherish our journeys more than we cherish our companions,' the woman whispered. 'I never left you; you stopped, and I simply kept walking.'

'I don't like that,' Stark muttered.

'I know,' she said, leaning her head on his shoulder. 'Were we not about to make love?' Halibel dreamily asked. The arched stream of moonlight had slowly drifted to cover them both.

'I think we already have,' he said, kissing her forehead.

Up next - Grimmjow, Lilinette and Apache get all business like. Be scared :)