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sometimes you feel like you can reach out and truly touch death. sometimes it’s so close that you can feel it buried just beneath your steel-toed feet, in the ashen sands of an endless desert. the endless sands of an endless desert of death.
the white bones peek only slightly out from under the sands. upon the great expanse of las noches, they blend together with the silver-grey like a mirage. you could fall, could release, could let go completely and no one would ask differently. your brethren can simultaneously understand and not understand this feeling, the ever-reaching. the desire.
you have none. but it pulls so hard sometimes that it’s moot to ignore.
if one were to fall, to release, to let go of themselves and be taken by the quick-dune, he wouldn’t even bat an eye. perhaps she would (with that foolish feeling, that empathy, that trash you could only hope to comprehend in a thousand years) if she ever could.
but she is banished. forever gone, but not like you. not like him. unlike any of them.
only acceptance remains, to plunge oneself against the sharp strike of bones that peek out from under the death. you can only see it– white branches, glowing, reaching and pulling, and the spill of black tar and the shatter-crack of your own shield. something like reminiscence had taken you over at that point, back to that time, when your world was solely perceived through glass eyes.
it was an undeniably simple time.
they streak down your face in a taunting way. they are not real tears, they cannot, can never be. you touch your cheek and wonder what this could mean, ultimately setting it aside (to die) to lie dormant forever. as you cannot find it in you to truly ponder the meaning.
you simply cannot find the means to care.
you follow his orders like a dog, a loyal servant. it's to pass the time, you think, to give it something- a semblance of justification. the zanpakuto next to you sits heavy against the crystal surface reflecting the infinite moonlight. your legs dangle over the edge.
perhaps you think you are tired of this game that aizen so insists on playing. an infinitely long yet cuttingly short game that you mustn't dare question. this game that he just has to play, the toys, the tools he uses to make his move with the next piece.
you struggle (don’t even try) to see the fun in it. the fun he is supposed to get out of it.
and you stare down at the bone-sand and look out, out, wondering where the white could be now. wonder about the solace, the peace, the release, even if you can so easily admit your state of uncaring. even if you look at your brethren, at those souls and the humans and so damn easily declare them trash. squash them like flies, when deep down, you are but a fly yourself.
enticed by the light, by the bones, by the death, the release and everything else, you think a quick end doesn’t really suit you.
perhaps falling, letting go and sinking into the ashes of your brothers and sisters and whatever else that was, slowly, endlessly, forever, perhaps that was more your style. a timeless grave, a grave without time as time can only stretch so far, because eventually and inevitably, you’d only lose count of the years.
but a flash of blue and white snaps you out of this trance of death, one that grabs you by the left breast and crinkles your ivory uniform in its fist, angry and maddened, destructive.
“lord fuckface ‘s callin’ for ya, bastard. open yer damn crazy ears or i’ll be takin’ his stupid punishment again,” the voice growls into said crazy ears.
you push him away with a feather-light tap. your sword back in its sash, you stand and dust yourself off, calm, straightening the wrinkled fabric of your coat. only faintly you hang onto reality, wanting so nearly to drown yourself in the tantilization of that white release.
he watches you, furrowed eyebrows and hunched back with hands-in-pockets. his foot is straining not to tap wildly on the quartz.
you feel stiff, almost sick.
you walk past him, but not before giving him a punch to the shoulder. friendly or hostile, you didn’t really know at the time. he snarled at you, though it ultimately amounted to nothing as you heard the hollow footsteps trailing you soon after. the crescent moon beckoned you, almost pleaded–that you thought it somewhat pathetic how it almost snagged you before, and almost again so soon.
but you still had use. you still had to be the loyal dog. you still had to bend your knee in a bow and receive your orders that were not to be broken unless something truly terrible and unspeakable might happen, the something that you read in-between the lines, in-between your lord’s smile and silent, intense gaze.
sadistic.
grimmjow did not blather on behind you as you once would have expected him to, before you learned that he was not the same type of hot-headed brute with limited intelligence that yammy was.
he and you walked in silence. tense and yet comfortable, and unbelievably real. it was nothing to be thankful for, and despite that it wasn’t, you felt exactly so.
grimmjow leaned against the wall as you approached the throne room door. he fiddled with his hands a little before gesturing at you oddly. you recognize it as some sort of shoo-away. it was amusing, noticing the little things behind it, how his back slumped against the quartz wall heavily and his scowl was as hard as ever.
you opened the door, knowing he’d be there waiting for you for whatever reason he might have. moonlight shone through an invisible window still, as you know it would never truly go away, but you allowed yourself a silent and yet mirthful smile as you thought of grimmjow jostling himself around the hall as impatient as one can get, scratching little lines into the walls and floors, just waiting for damn aizen to let you back out.