Clouds

Characters: Ikkaku, Shachi. Rating: K. Warnings: None

There was something slightly ominous in the air. Ikkaku couldn't place it, but something felt off, somehow. Heavy, almost expectant, although whatever it was waiting for didn't feel like something she wanted anything to do with. It was, in a word, unnerving.

Storm clouds were gathering overhead. It wouldn't be long before the captain gave the order to dive to escape the weather. It could just be that she was feeling, the pressure changes sinking deep in her bones and translating it as something akin to fear.

Maybe.

"You okay?" She heard him before she saw him, but his presence didn't surprise her. Somehow, she'd known he was coming. Common sense, because Shachi had a knack for reading the crew? That was probably all it was, but still. It didn't quite feel right, like she was trying to put her fingers in the wrong holes on a glove.

"We're in for a storm, aren't we?" she asked.

"So it seems," he agreed. "Law had better give that order to dive soon."

He was restless, too. The barest shift of his weight, the rustle of fabric against the railing they were both leaning against. Lips pulled into something that seemed apprehensive.

It gave her the confidence to ask. "Does it feel like something's about to happen to you, too?"

Shachi's shades were dark, his ever-present hat casting them even further into shadow. She'd never seen his eyes, and even this close that remained true, but something ran up her spine and she knew he was looking straight at her. It felt like scrutiny.

"'Too'?" he parroted. "Ikkaku, what are you sensing?"

Sensing. Not the word she'd have chosen but it fit, like her fingers had finally found the right holes.

"I don't know," she said. "It just feels like something's about to happen. Like I'm expecting something to happen. Like there's a storm coming, but somehow more."

"Hard to put into words." Shachi wasn't asking. She was right; he felt it, too. "But I can give it a name."

"A name?"

He grinned at her, a wry thing dampened by whatever it was the two of them felt. Sensed.

"Ikkaku, have you ever heard of haki?"

This was a response to a challenge to write a drabble to a random song on my playlist. Shuffle gave me 'The Gathering of the Clouds' from The Hobbit's soundtrack. Writing to a piece of music without lyrics is tricky, but the atmosphere in that one worked with me to produce this.

Thanks for reading!
Tsari