A/N: Hi again everyone! I got a lot better response than I expected, and I really want to thank all of you for reading, and more so to those who left me some feed back!
To lilarin: Sorry about that, but if I didn't give Chizuru her trademark hair color, I wouldn't have been able to give Ichigo or Orihime their hair color either, so I figured I should play it safe as far as that went.
To nikosoup: Your message didn't come through, so I'm thinking that the huge blank space should have held something… hahaha! I'm open to suggestions of course :)
Okay, on with the story then! I will try to get my updates out every Saturday and Wednesday.

Stories to Tell

Orihime scraped the sides of the wooden bowl she was eating from free of rice, scooping the last stray grains into her mouth with zeal, using a pair of finely lacquered chopsticks that were smooth to the touch. As she finished, she noticed the lack of other sounds of eating. Placing her bowl down and the chopsticks atop it, she swallowed and turned her face in the direction of her silent companion.

"Aren't you hungry?" she asked with mild concern. Or perhaps he had already eaten? Though it wasn't late, it was a possibility.

"You were using my only pair of chopsticks," the man answered flatly. A flush of slight guilt crept into the blind girl's cheeks.

"I'm sorry, I didn't realize… you should have said something!" she protested. There was a small sound of dissent, and Orihime reached forward to pick up the bowl again and ask where he wanted her to put it, but her fingers only encountered the dimpled wood of the table.

"The bowl…." She cried, feeling around for it, wondering if it had fallen from the table and she had somehow missed the clatter it must have created.

Ulquiorra looked over his shoulder as he took the container back to its cabinet, "I have it,"

The red head sighed with relief and embarrassment, passing a tired hand over her eyes. She missed them. She wanted to see the color of the sky, watch the rain as it kissed the earth, see the face of the man before her…. She was tired of the never ending blackness which would inevitably stretch before her for the rest of her life. It didn't often come to her mind, the thought of living forever in darkness; she liked to take things day by day. When it did occur to her, however… The man spoke, and Orihime was surprised by his bluntness.

"You weren't born without sight, were you, woman?" he asked passionlessly, as if he had no interest in the matter. The girl gave a sad smile and shook her head.

"Do you mind if I tell you how this happened?" she murmured, fingering the cloth that bound her head. It was of a rough weave, and she could feel the individual threads tugging and shifting under her touch.

"The night is long," he replied, his footsteps coming closer to her. There was a soft flump as he resumed his seat on the cushion across the table from her. Her smile widened.

"That it is," Orihime said in answer, taking a deep breath and beginning her narrative.

…..

"Onii-chan," Orihime called, plodding through the snow toward the small shack at the edge of the village. She is fourteen, five years younger than the present, her cold hands holding a bundle of dry twigs. "Onii-chan, I brought back some kindling, and I found a few greens buried under the ice."

Sora Inoue turned to face his beloved younger sister, the sight of her filling him with both sorrow and joy, bittersweet pride welling up in him. She is so beautiful, her eyes the same color as the blue daisies that grew in front of their home in the spring. She was the sky princess, and he was the sky. Rightly she ruled over him in her own special way, as he cared for her more than anything else, even himself.

"Good job," he praises with a smile, tousling her long sunset colored hair, "I caught a snowshoe hare, we can have stew tonight."

"Yaaay!" the young girl sang, dancing in the snow before slipping in a patch of ice and landing on her butt with a wince.

"Are you alright?" Sora asked, restraining a chuckle; his sister was so innocent and klutzy… she couldn't cook or clean…. But she was great with kids, so he supposed that someday she would make some other man very happy- a man that would make her happy in return or find himself looking down the point of Sora's blade.

"I'm fine," she giggled, picking herself up. She glanced at the twigs in her hand with slight disappointment. "But the twigs got all wet… I'll go find new ones."

"Wait, Hime-! Ah, she's gone," Sora sighed and headed inside, "Better clean this rabbit for when she comes back then," he muttered to himself, missing the rustling of the bushes behind him as he shut the door.

…

Orihime fell silent for a long moment.

"Is that all?" the man asked, a tint of curiosity barely detectable to her keen ears.

"No," she said quietly, "It's just that the next part is painful."

"You don't have to speak if you don't want to."

"I don't want to," she said with a melancholy smile in his direction, "but I need to."

…

Orihime skittered back toward the house, and even before she had come within ten feet of the building she knew something was wrong. The snow outside was churned up with a myriad of footprints and the light inside was flickering under the door as if people were rushing around the rooms.

Orihime started to run as she heard muffled yelling from inside.

"I told you, there's nothing of value! I live alone here, chopping wood for a small living!" It was Sora's voice that she heard. Why would he say that he lived alone? Why was he lying? To whom was he lying?

She prepared to push open the door as a sickening splattering was heard, following and dull theeeew-ktsh-wock, the same sound the rabbits made when Sora cut their heads off at the chopping block…. Only this was much louder.

Her body moved of its own accord and she shoved open the roughly cut wooden door with panic, stumbling into the room.

"On-Onii…. Onii-chan!" Orihime screamed, looking for him in the room. It was full of strange men dressed in tattered armor, their faces thin and starved. There were blood… bloodstains…. Bloodstains on their clothes… and on their swords… and on the wall…. And on her feet.

Blood was everywhere, seeping over the wooden floors, dripping through the planks, soaking into the bamboo mats and the cushions that they slept on.

She finally spotted her brother… or his body at least. It lay slumped in the corner, cleanly separated from the head. Orihime threw up and closed her eyes, falling to her knees and trembling.

"What, don't you want to see?" one of the men crooned to her, running his bloody fingers down the side of her face and onto her chest. Orihime kept her eyes closed and shook her head violently.

"Come on, don't be like that, wench. Take a look!" another man laughed. Orihime cracked open her eyes, reacting only to the command. Sora's face stared back at her, only the rims of his dark irises showing where his eyes had rolled back in his head.

Orihime screamed and shut her eyes again, vowing never to open them if it meant seeing something like that a second time. Her eyes were closed, but she could still see him, in her head, the image burned into her mind, the image seemingly imprinted onto the inside of her eyelids.

"NO!" she shrieked, becoming incoherent.

"Oh shut up, bitch," the man who seemed to be the leader growled casually. There was no warning of what he did next. Swinging his blade with pinpoint precision, he slit Orihime's eyes, blinding her, but not giving her injury enough to die by. "You don't want to see, fine. I've made it so that you'll never see anything again."

He then grabbed her by her hair and tore off her clothes, using her in ways she didn't know were even possible. She struggled, flailing and biting, but it only seemed to amuse him, and it was dawn before the thieves finished with her.

She lay naked, blind, and bruised in a pool of congealing blood, sobbing. She was sobbing but there were no tears. Her eyes no longer functioned.

She was broken now. Broken beyond repair so that no one would ever want her again. Her parents had abandoned her, now Sora was gone. No one would ever want her after this.

No one.

….

"I see," the man said calmly. Orihime was taking in ragged breaths now. The back of her throat ached, like she wanted to cry, but she knew no tears would fall. She could never cry again, out of joy, or out of sorrow.

Ulquiorra examined the girl somewhat unenthusiastically. So she really was weak, beyond her lost eyesight. The weakest thing anyone could ever do was love, and it was obvious that she had loved her brother a great deal.

The greatest expression of strength was complete and utter nihilism. If you had nothing to lose, no one could ever take anything away from you.

The woman released a dry sob, and he noticed that her shoulders were shaking violently as if she were crying her heart out, but no tears came through the cloth that hid her eyes.

"Can you not weep, woman?" he asked, her face reflecting on his emerald eyes as he scrutinized her. She shook her head and forced a wry little smile, her bottom lip trembling. "Then we are the same, you and I."

Her face turned toward him in and expression of surprise, but before she said anything else he unrolled a blanket.

"It is late, and you should sleep," he told her, effectively ending the conversation.

"Thank you," she murmured as her fingers guided her across the floor to the futon, "for listening, and for your hospitality."

Ulquiorra did not answer, but he instead extinguished the candle that had lit the room and stepped outside.

He lifted his worn shamisen from where it leaned on the side of the house and laid it across his lap as he sat with his back against a nearby tree.

A full moon hovered above the trees, casting everything in silver and onyx, the only colors coming from those frosty emerald eyes, the gaze of a demon in the woods, a gleam of fire in a frozen world.

…..

Orihime woke and stretched in what she guessed was midmorning by the sounds of the birds twittering in the background. She stood and combed her fingers through her hair, straightening her kimono.

Noticing that her companion was absent from the building, she felt her way to the door, being careful not to stumble. Pushing her way through the cloth entrance, she halted and gasped. Flowing from a few feet away was a beautiful melody that sounded sad and unbearably empty, like the feeling of loss at the death of a loved one.

At her sharp inhalation the music stopped abruptly, however, and there was rustling as the man stood. A clunk was heard, likely from the instrument being put down.

"Are you leaving now?" he asked her, approaching where she stood.

"Oh," Orihime said in surprise, "Yes, I should be getting back to the village… but I'll come back."

"You can't," he replied flatly, and she smiled.

Turning away from him she called over her shoulder, "You're a nice man."

Ulquiorra only snorted and turned his back on her, retrieving his shamisen and returning inside. Orihime's grin widened and she began her way back to the village, feeling the landmarks she had tripped over the night before.