Dang, it has been awhile. I just moved out on my own and it's been a hectic few weeks, hopefully some of you are still out there.

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Bleach or any of its character but the story does belong to me.

Lets jump in-

I dreamed inside a hollow sky. A sky that moved around me in a whirlwind of clouds and storms. The gods all watched as I rose, high enough to be one of them, high enough to touch their golden gates. They all smiled as I ascended. They all cheered.

Ares, God of war, raised his sword in my honor.

Aphrodite, goddess of love, bowed her head in apology.

Zeus himself striked his lightning down to make the entire earth below us quake.

But it was the grin of Morta that made me swell, that had me laughing.

Only she could appreciate the pedestal in which I stood. On which I rose. Looking down I saw the faces of every person I'd slaughtered. The faces of every comrade fallen while I had lived. And the bodies I now stood atop, the latest betrayed, the latest conquered, the faces of Sam, of Bonnie, of Ichigo.

The Gods continued to cheer, roaring to finally have me back, to finally welcome me home as I stepped off the mountain of my dead, that stretched clear into the cosmos.

It was the cold that brought me from sleep. The chill from something cold and wet beside me, soaking into the sheets.

Thunder crashed outside my window, lightning illuminating the world in white as I blinked my tired eyes awake. Turning to a shivering Bonnie, laying with dripping clothes and hair on the pillow beside mine.

Her eyes were open, and she breathed in deeply as I moved to sit up, "I thought you would seek me out before you left," she said, cold evident in the rattling of her teeth. "Like you sought out the others. It is why I have stayed away. I wanted to remember what it was like to have you come find me."

As I had found her all those years ago. In the darkness of night.

I dug the balls of my palms into the aching of my eyes. "I have no plans to feed to your adolescent ego."

She was quiet as the storm raged. And so we both sat in that silence, tired and cold. And then, "You are different than I thought you'd be."

I gazed down at her over my shoulder, and she seemed so incredibly small, curled in on herself for warmth. "Putting your faith into other people often leads to disappointment."

I rose, shoving the sheets from my body. I felt her attention on me as I filled the fireplace with fresh logs and ignited it into flames. I stood before the rising heat, staring into the flickering fire, and could pretend to see the shapes of people in the smoldering ash.

Bonnie spoke from behind me, "You were suppose to take me under your wing. You were suppose to teach me all that you know."

"You assumed I knew anything worth teaching." The only skills I had were to lie and forget.

"All of the stories… they had painted you differently." She spoke clearly now, the warmth of the fire reaching her at last. "In those stories, on those battlefields, you were unstoppable, to those king's you were merciless."

"I was young then. And hungry."

"For glory?"

I shook my head, turning, "I never sought glory."

The red of her hair seemed to be a fire in its own, the green of her eyes sparkling, "And yet still you found it."

Perhaps it was my dream, still fresh in my mind that made me say: "Glory and stolen blood, I wonder when we began to think of them as one in the same." And perhaps it was the thought of Ichigo that made me continue, "People had called me a hero, yet refused to speak of the heads I'd taken. They threw me grand parties to celebrate my conquest, yet ignored the blood still dripping from my hands." I made my way back over to her as I spoke, and she rose up onto her knees, "They would cheer again if I killed you now. If I threw your head to the king's feet and ended this war as I'd ended the last."

Bonnie did not flinch as I reached out for her, my hand smoothing over her damp hair. Her hands rested, palms up, on her folded knees as she leaned into my scarred touch.

"We call the survivors of tragedies heroes. That southern lord had sought out his own glory and, had the war gone his way, his people- and the world- would have cheered as this very city burned. That sort of admiration is fleeting," She rose a scarred hand of her own, fingers hot as she gripped my hand and brought it to her brutalized cheek.

"What do I do," The white of her eyes blazed, "I do not want to lead them to ruin."

A sunrise over a field of shallow gasps and decay. Mistakes and ignorance, painted into dirt stained red.

"You lead them only where you yourself would willingly venture. And you fight beside them every step of the way, and if you must die then you will do that together too. Loyalty will outlast your glory. And it will guard your back far longer."

Bronze lifted her chin, "You fought alone in the war, you did not need a thing such as loyalty to protect you."

"No, it was simply a weapon I did not possess." Half the men in my legion would have gladly swung at my undefended back if given the chance.

My fingers slid off her face, dropping to my side loosely. And she sat straighter, "Ichigo told me," spoken carefully, "that your father sent you to the front during the southern rebellion." I nodded. "My father never mentioned it in all his stories."

"Your father?"

A nod, "I owe him everything I know of you. For your legends have yet to be written."

Delight formed on the corners of my mouth but I pushed past it, "I am glad you came here tonight." I rummaged through the drawer of my night stand, bringing up the parchment I'd placed there earlier that day. I folded it carefully and slid it into her hand.

Bronze read it over, and opened her mouth, but I shook my head with a whispered: For safe keeping.

Her jaw was locked but she dipped her chin slightly and rose, walked to the fire and threw the paper in, not turning away until it was nothing but a memory. "I have withdrawn my watchful eyes from inside the High Courts, as per your request. We will be blind of your fathers movements- and of his cunning witch while you're away."

"Grimmjow should supply us with a closer look at Clark than any of your men ever could."

"And if you are wrong about his intentions?"

I shrugged, "Sam will be keeping watch over the twins, and will act accordingly if my prediction does not unfold properly."

Bronze prowled around the room, her predator attention not once leaving me, "Can the soldier be trusted?"

I nearly scoffed. "Of all the stories you heard from your father, did you not hear Sam Cortland's name?"

She never halted in her stalking about the room, and her tone was that of a wild beast, "I heard of him plenty. Though never his name. I heard of a warrior who wore no armor to battle, who preferred the feel of gore falling to bare skin. I heard of a man who dragged you off battlefields still screaming for death." I shuddered. "And then there was the ghost story of a pale faced man, searching in the fog. Looking for the face of his ally, his friend, who had died in a massacre. He filtered through miles of rotting dead for hours, for days, all so he could carry their body home. My father spoke of it as a fiction, for he had never seen the man in the fog, had only heard it from alcohol drenched mouths, and they had never known the man's name. Only that he had appeared on horseback in the dead of night while they were clearing the bodies, his horse exhausted, dehydrated- as if he had ridden all through the day and into the night. I had wanted to believe, as a child, that such a companion existed, and now- knowing what I know- I find myself again hoping."

I was still while the words swirled.

I could see that long stretch of open field, where tents had been stuck in the ground, with men singing and the smell of stew and wildness had overshadowed the stench of unwashed bodies. And I also recalled the burrows of smoke coming from burning sticks where men had once slept, where bodies laid bleeding into the ground that had grown the food cut from their bellies. It truly would have taken Sam days to search every face of those fallen.

He had never told me he had looked through that unmarked graveyard, that he had come for me. I hoped it was a tale to be written, to be immortalized in ink and verse.

The Man in the Fog.

My throat was clogged with more than one emotion, "And yet still you doubt him?"

Bonnie's eyes held no forgiveness as she said, "I did not need to be told the story of the man who held the Heir of Gold in his hands while she bleed, who held her steady as her feet collapsed, who readied her for the next crack of leather. No one needed to describe the sound the whip made against her flesh as it tore it to shreds. I was there to witness Sam Cortland's cowardice, and it will always be all I see."

I turned to her, as a predator of my very own, "Then you will always be blind."

We faced off, the room separating us as crackling embers filled the silence. The quiet so thick it was as if the entire world was holding its breath. As the dragon and the phoenix waited for the other to erupt.

And then, as one, we exhaled, deflating and the world breathed a sigh of relief.

Bronze took a step towards the balcony, where the stars now streamed through clouds of thickest grey. I watched her go, her silhouette small and yet powerful in the dim light and wondered if this could be our last encounter. If my death could be lurking in the snow capped mountains I was due to visit.

"Wait," She paused but didn't turn.

I ventured back to the silken sheets of my bed, reaching into the case of my pillow, where the paper had been become creased and wrinkled, it mattered not.

Bonnie's brows furrowed as I handed it over, "Pass this to Ichigo for me." The crinkle between her eyes only deepened, but she stuffed the parchment into the pocket of her pants and gave no confirmation before swinging her legs over the railing and jumping into the night.

I knew the words, had memorized them the night they had spewed out of me, and I wondered if Bonnie would read them before handing it over to its recipient.

Ichigo had requested a reply with his first poem, and I hadn't planned on ever giving him one, but after the whipping, when I had been stuck with nothing but my thoughts for company the words had forced their way into the world:

I've buried my dead in the air I breathe
Their rot reminds me of flowers. Of home.
They taunt me with all the steps I never took
Which might have lead me to prosperity, to safety among the roses
I have forgotten soft touches and sore words
Within chaos I have made a home and it is comfortable
I am made of the silver of my armor, scratched but sturdy
They've all tried to destroy me
And maybe I could have forgive them
If not for the laugh they let out
When my innocence shattered like glass
Maybe I could have closed my eyes to the horrors
If not for the feeling of hands like oil on my skin
(Even my mind isn't safe anymore)
Maybe I could have grown kinder
If not for the reminder of his anger
Written in those neat white lines over the cage I call body
But maybe it was me who had forgotten
That I was an animal long before it all
I'd had a taste for blood long before they split my veins
When my mind was grown and my soul was trapped inside
I wasn't born to kneel, I was born to conquer
Tremble as I bleed your gods dry

I hoped Ichigo smiled when he read it. I hope he understood.

They would call me Warmonger as I turned their armies in on themselves. The people would dance on the cobblestones drenched in raining blood. They would cheer as I ascended up the dias made of stolen gold and false fire. They would declare me Queen when I plucked the crown from my father's head like a wilted flower and melted it down into the nothingness that will remain of the Madoc name.

The beast stirred inside me as the sun peeked over the horizon, streaming passed the clouds to glitter on the marble of the High Courts. It opened its jaws, sharp teeth glistening and I grinned right back.

To the North we go.

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Thank you so much for reading! Please give me some feed back, it would be much appreciated at this point.

Thank you!

Till next time-