Coyote and the Death
"Primera," the world rolls off the old man's tongue like an obscenity. For someone like Barragan Luisenbarn, delusional with grandeur, acknowledging another as his superior probably is profane.
The newcomer turns his droopy eyes toward the newly-demoted Segunda Espada. Oh, how that must burn him. It's already burned half the Espada. Stark stifles a sigh.
He would really rather be sleeping, but saying as much is bound to get old goat's goat. So Stark suppresses his apathetic instinct long enough to look interested.
"Don't assume that number means anything," the old man growls, his muscles twisting amid the scar tissue. He looks like some sort of troll, Stark personally muses. "I will regain all that I have lost some day."
"You snooze, you lose!" Lilynette pips in not-so-helpfully, despite the stay-out-of-this vibes Stark had been sending her. If he won't stick up for himself, she damn sure will. "You're not tough enough to play king of the mountain anymore!"
And that's the straw that breaks the camel's back.
Barragan all but explodes, his spiritual pressure filling the room like a localized tsunami.
"What do you know of kings, you worthless little whelp!? I am Barragan Luisenbarn, God-King of Hueco Mundo, Emperor of All Hollows, Supreme Being of This World and Every Other! I have slaughtered every challenge to my dominion! Hollows far greater than you fell before me: Isley of the North, Riful of the West, Luciela of the South! Even that pathetic rabble in the east did not escape my notice—as if a confederacy of dunces could pose any more than a nuisance to me, let alone a threat! If you dare speak out of turn again, you will face the same fate, lying prostrate beneath my axe!"
"Lilynette," Stark's voice cuts through the din. "Go on ahead."
Somewhere amid the swirling tempest, the youngest Arrancar has the presence of mind to glance up at her comrade. Whatever she might have had to say dies on her lips when she sees one of those rare, unshakable looks on his face. He won't tolerate any backtalk today. She vanishes with a nod and a sonido buzz.
Now there comes the little matter of defusing the God-bomb…
"She really shouldn't have said that."
"Of course not!"
Better.
"I'll have a talk with her later—tell her she can't talk to you like that."
Better still.
"Hmph," Barragan snorts, his pressure thinning out but not quite back to its usually placid levels. "It's a sad day indeed when Hollows like that can pass for Primera Fracción."
Stark resists the mild surge of annoyance. Barragan doesn't know about their bond (although Stark isn't so dim-witted as to think the miserable old man wouldn't seize on it if he knew about it).
"She's new to this. We both are."
"That is precisely why it falls to me to educate you, Primera," the word comes out of him like a violent bodily emission. "I was Primera once and Primera shall I be again. You will know your place in Las Noches, young one, for it is another thing stolen that is destined come back to my hand."
Stark files that one away for future reference. He doesn't give much of a damn, but Lilynette will surely love to go poking and prodding for whatever it is the old man is babbling about.
"Well, good luck with that."
Assuming the situation resolved and Barragan temporarily defused, Stark moves past Barragan and down the hallway. He doesn't want to be late for his second meeting with the Espada, after all. So far, they've been any combination of frosty and hot-headed toward him, but he figures he should give them a chance to get to know him. It's been so long since he's been around others who didn't die the moment he came within arm's reach. His social skills must be lacking.
"Where do you think you're going?"
Stark comes to a halt. The old man is going to be one of those types, huh? He wheels around to face Barragan.
"I'm reporting to Lord Aizen, as ordered." He figures that if he couches it in terms of duty, maybe the old man won't take it as a personal slight.
"The Primera does not grovel!" Something about Barragan's voice makes Stark realize the old man still thinks of himself as the number one Arrancar in these parts. That he has a "2" tattooed on his chest must be some sort of coincidence. "He arrives whenever he pleases! He deigns to appear before that usurper!"
"Well, I don't want to be late," Stark replies, trying and failing to end the conversation again.
"You have a responsibility!" Barragan thunders up to him, grabbing Stark by the collar of his jacket. "You bear the burden of the Primera, whether or not you deserve it. You are the steward of the Hollow race. Set an example! How are we ever to live with ourselves in a world without Aizen if we do nothing but lick his boots?"
Stark says it before he can stop himself.
"Aizen doesn't wear boots."
Damn it. He really should have had that nap. He has better impulse control when he's well-rested. A good fourteen hours a day is the recipe for success.
"Do you think this is some kind of joke?" The two are so close that Stark can feel the other man's breath on his chin.
Stark pauses, counts to five and very gently removes Barragan's hand from his clothes.
It's a measured movement. The last time he had to get physical with another Arrancar, in a situation eerily similar to this one (collar hold and all), he broke the fool's arm. Grim-Jay, was it? Whoever he was, he had accosted Stark just after his introduction as the new top dog. Stark had only meant to shoo him away. He never would have anticipated Grim-Jay's bones snapping in his grip.
The grim one had not been pleased, spoiling for a fight at the drop of a hat. The same had been true of another—Neutral?—and even Barragan, although he had the decency to glower rather than challenge. Maybe the old man is making up for it now.
Maybe Lilynette was right when she told him he should stand up for himself more often. You're the Primera! Start acting like it!
"I don't really have time for his," Stark straightens his clothes a bit. "You're the Segunda, and I'm the Primera. That means I don't have to take orders from you."
Barragan's glare is the kind that could melt steel. For a moment, Stark thinks it will come down to the kind of fight half of his so-called 'comrades' have been spoiling for. But for whatever reason—irritation, arrogance, some small sense of propriety—Barragan backs down with a huff and stomps toward the meeting room.
Stark stands around for a few moments more, hands in his pockets. He has a feeling that Barragan is just stuck up enough that following after him would probably be taken as yet another insult to his kingliness.
But when the alternative is wandering through the desert with nothing for company, Stark supposes that people like Barragan are a fair price to pay.
Anything is better than loneliness. Even Barragan.