It's not your place to say, but an answer you're asked, and so an answer you give. You motion behind you, to the place beyond Las Noches, to the sands. That is where you would take it; and you would bury it, so that no other fool ever comes to take it and play pretend, and invade disaster upon himself. So that you don't have to kill them over a meaningless icon. Kingship, such as it is, does not need a crown to anchor it. All know who to look up to. All acknowledge power.
Barragan chuckles mirthlessly, and waves his hand towards the crown.
"Take that bauble. Carry it into the desert beyond Las Noches and bury it."
You swallow nervously. There is no need for him to warn you against stealing it. No need for him to give the task to one of his known and trustworthy servants. It is a menial duty unfit for even them, and if you are led astray in conducting it you will die, and he will get the crown back eventually. All that is understood without needing to be said.
You take the crown, quickly, as if you were afraid that it would take flight and leave you to be punished for failing to catch it. You bow deeply and walk out of the room, trying your best not to break into a run; Barragan gives you no regard, but the Fraccions' gaze is heavy on you - one curious, one dismissive, one irritated. You clutch the crown tightly against your chest, too big to simply hold it in your hand; you have to wrap your arm around it.
You leave Barragan's hall and walk across the sands for hours until you reach the walls of Las Noches, and pass from them into the cold night outside. Then you walk for hours more amidst featureless white sands.
You feel strange. The crown is too heavy in your hands; at times the distance seems to stretch, a single steps takes you a minute, a few yards several hours. But at the same time you don't feel quite like it's true; your body is at odds with your mind, and as you instinctively try to reconcile this contradiction your head starts to ache and throb.
There is a chittering some distance from you, and you wrap your black cloak around the crown, looking in that direction.
It is the spider, of course, coming out of the sand and staring you in the face.
"Hello again, little moth," it says.
You're happy to see it, but you're confused how you seem to stumble into it whenever you leave Las Noches.
"Oh, this time was no accident. Your spiritual pressure is weak, but in this empty desert, it is easy to sense and recognize. So I came to say hi; I was surprised you'd leave again so soon after I brought you here."
You puff your cheeks. Your spiritual pressure could be very strong if you wanted to, you're just not fighting right now, so it's quiet. Right, that's the word: quiet, not weak.
The spider laughs. "Of course, of course. A lowly Hollow such as myself would not compare my spiritual strength to that of an Arrancar, anyway."
It's totally being sarcastic right now, but you'll take the point anyway. You lift your chin with magnanimous haughtiness.
"So anyway, do you need a lift somewhere? I am warning you - my services will eventually start to cost you!"
It's teasing you - it wouldn't have hounded you across the sands upon sensing your presence if it hadn't liked the idea of company. Unfortunately you must decline. Barragan would not like you letting another Hollow see where you buried the crown.
"Oh, secret missions for the powerful? You must be moving up in the world."
You smile weakly. Chores and errands, really.
"Well, be that as it may. I will leave you to it, and promise you not to pry. And if you ever need me again… Well, just wish upon a star, and maybe it'll happen."
You frown. You're about to protest that there are no stars in Hueco Mundo, but it's already burying in the sands, and then is gone. Maybe next time.
You look up at the starless sky, and miss the tiny things.
You walk on. With every mile the crown becomes heavier and your steps feel slower. At times it seems like you are a single grain of sand in the desert, and must walk past each other grain one step at a time. Your heart beats very, very slowly.
Eventually, you stop. Las Noches still feels just as close as it was when you set out, its size defying the imagination, but you know it is far away in truth. You bend down to dig - but then you realize you don't have to work in such a crude way. You look around you first, ensuring that no one is there; then just to be sure you close your eyes, put your hand to the ground, and send out a pulse - a wave of spiritual energy flows across the landscape and down into the ground, revealing to your senses all spiritual presences. But all you get are a few tiny, mindless autotrophs in the miles around you. Standing up, you breathe in, raise your hand in a claw-like motion, then strike down again and again, Balas cause the sand to erupt high in the sky as you dig further and further; eventually you stand in front of a hole at least a hundred of meters deep, erupted sand already trickling slowly down into it.
You take the crown, holding it before you, and spare for it one last look. It is still a crown even so weathered; battered, wrinkled, shineless, but golden and forged by hand. A creation of someone's art and desire now discarded.
You wouldn't steal it. You're not so foolish. But as you examine it you feel a strange sensation under your thumb; as you examine that point of the crown, you see a faint tear in it. You run your finger and it plays under the gesture, moving under pressure. It must have been damaged during the battle with the king - or perhaps before that, when it was forcefully planted in his mask.
As you play with it it comes loose. It sits in your hand now, a small triangle of gold, shaped like a tooth.
It's stupid. You know this. But you're a moth: you slip through the window into the homes of those far greater and more powerful than you, and there you are drawn to their light. You're a thief, is this not what Barragan employed you for? Thief of curtains, thief of crowns. You bite your lip, rolling the gold tooth in your hand.
You toss the crown into the hole. Then, with more Balas - enough that in the end you are panting, winded, your spiritual energies weak - you push the mounds of sand back into the pit. When you are done there is no indication that anything was ever there, only a dune of white sand.
You turn back towards Las Noches.
In your hand you hold a tooth of gold.
o\O/o
When you reach the inside of your apartment you are prepared to inspect everywhere for hidden intrudars, but Esmeralda is openly and brazenly sitting on your "chair," smiling widely.
"You're back! And you don't even look hurt. Although you have a new coat? I'm sorry, I know how much you liked the old one. But I'm glad you're unharmed."
Nonono. You put a finger to your lips, narrowing your eyes. You are very much not back. In fact, you're somewhere far away in the sands, still on the way home from Barragan's mission.
"Really? You think that'll fly?" Esmeralda asks with a chuckle.
Oh, it will. You were very careful on your way back to walk stealthily, to not be in view of the most used windows, you even used Sonido a few time to move between buildings, but mostly kept your spiritual pressure as low as you could… There's only her, because of course there's her, somehow always knowing you're back before you're even home.
She beams.
"Well then, I guess that can be our little secret… But you shouldn't take too long. The bosses are always looking for someone wanting to run an errand, and they keep assigning the job to me. I guess because we don't get into a lot of fights at the moment they feel they can spare a medic, but since I'm just a Hollow I can't do the jobs they want. So they just have me go around fetching people for them…" She sighs. "It can't be helped, I suppose."
You give her a dubious look. At least she just has to fetch people, not do the work herself. Your sympathy is limited. That just makes her chuckle.
"You're so cruel! That's because you don't need me, isn't it?" She says with a mischievous look. "Don't think I haven't noticed. They send you out to do all sorts of things, and you're only a Numero, but you never come back hurt. Sometimes your clothes are, but not you. I never get to sew you back up and poke at you with needles…" Her expression is full of exaggerated regret. "What's your secret?"
You raise an eyebrow. You don't see why you'd tell her anything, when she's keeping secrets of her own. Last time you came by she was waiting for you in your own apartment and that was a first, but she had pulled that kind of stunt before, always being right at the corner you turned waiting for you. And after your sneaky approach of today you don't buy her stories of 'someone spotted you and I heard about it' anymore. So if she's not going to tell you how she keeps knowing where you are and where you're going, you're not going to tell her how come you've never ended on her operating table.
"Fair enough, fair enough!" She says grinning again. She does this entirely too much, it's… Distracting. "I guess we'll both have our little secrets to each other."
She claps her hands. "A promise is a promise! I'll leave you to your rest now. But don't be late tomorrow, I really need to foist these orders on someone."
You nod, then wave your hand to shoo her away. Esmeralda leaves, followed by her giggling.
Once alone you sigh deeply and look at your room. You're just… Okay, you're exhausted. You can go days without sleep but you don't actually know if you don't need sleep, because eventually sheer psychological tension leads you to lie down and embrace a few hours of nothingness anyway. And nothingness sounds real good right about now.
You remove your uniform, then throw yourself on your back in the heap of Hollow-silk sheets that make up your bed, wrap a few layers around you, and close your eyes. Sleep comes quickly, but it comes… Fitfully. You dream - or you're not sure you dream. Your body twitches, spasms. You feel as if the strange stretching of time you experienced after coming into contact with Barragan's influence and carrying his crown is retracting now; as if hours are collapsing into seconds, as if your body changes, your muscles quivering with days of marching in the span of moments. But throughout all this you sleep; a fevered sleep, with chaotic, senseless dreams, a sleep that will not let you be sure if any of these strange distortions of time actually happened to you… But sleep still. It is a kind of rest.
In a hollow in the wall, hidden under a rock, the tooth of gold glimmers in the dark.
o\O/o
You have carried one item back from the Butcher King's fortress with which to decorate your room. Which is it?
[ ]Half of his mask, split length-wise, which you will hang on the wall as a strange kind of sculpture. What fearsome fangs.
[X]New curtains, made out of his black cloak, plus a few accessories besides your coat (scarf, overcoat?). Fetching, but lacking in color.
[ ]His great cleaver knife, the blade broken halfway (it would never have fit otherwise). You planted it in the ground and leave it there, occupying space. Don't cut yourself.
Tomorrow you're getting a new assignment, but this time it's nothing so lofty as working for the Espada. Or, in a sense it is… Except the old Espada, the Privaron. Those made obsolete just like you.
[ ]Dordoni wants something done off the book, and needs someone stealthy to do it. You'll have to slip under the notice of Las Noches's shinigami.
[X]Cirucci is dissatisfied with her uniform and got into a spat with Las Noches's tailor. She needs you to act as a go-between.
[ ]Gantenbainne wants a sparring partner. He promises to go soft and that you could pick up a few tricks from him, but no Numero is touching this with a ten-foot pole.