Author's note: For xxpoisonivyxx. Please enjoy.
Mythos
There are times when he knows that what he is doing is crazy. Running along the rooftops of abandoned buildings, swinging a sword whose blade is as dangerous as its hilt, throwing around words like "quincy" and "shinigami". Even just a year ago, he would have thought it all nonsense, a myth, a fairytale of the delusional. He wonders why it is so easy to accept it now, when the only thing that's really changed is Rukia.
She's the reason for everything now. Coming into his life so abruptly, changing him, teaching him, nagging him, saving him. Still, it's easy to see that for an ordinary person, such things as soul burials and the painfully white horror of a Hollow's mask were overwhelming, the sole objects of tales told in the dark of night around campfires. Beyond those there was nothing accept vague notions of life and death and whatever lay after.
He's not so blinded now, no more gauzy veils of ghosts shading his eyes and distorting images like water mirrors. He sees past the mirage and the enchanted and realizes the right of what he is doing, the truth of it, the need. There are no magic tricks up his sleeves, no white rabbit. Just an annoying stuffed teddy bear and a punt-sized recovering shinigami.
She stands next to him as he plants the end of his sword against the pitiful soul's forehead, watching with the seriousness of one seeing her pupil perform admirably. There might be something else lurking in her face but he can't see it and even if he did, he wouldn't understand it.
Then there's just the cold stone of the alleyway and the night sky above gleaming with distant stars; and Rukia, the hidden swallowtail winging its way into his bedroom and into his heart.
"Very good," she says, the whisp of a satisfied smile.
And though he sees the butterfly, he ignores it, concentrating on her instead.
THE END.