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tampered2007-07-02 06:30 am
whatanentrance.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2007-07-02 06:30 am
LOG: complete
When; June 30, evening, slight backdate?
Rating; PG-13 for discussion of death.
Characters; Dordonii [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
whatanentrance] & Cirucci [thunderwitch]
Summary; Cirucci welcomes Dordonii to the City, helps him find an apartment, and spills Arrancar dirt. Dordonii is very surprised. Jules's posts continue to grow, the tl;dr soon to be enough to swallow entire buildings
Log;
Dordonii was close to shaking with frustration. The insults that those within the City dared fling at him! As if he had not suffered enough on this day, with death and the confusion of the City, to be topped by the disrespect of so many! He huffed, noisily, drawing more than a few stares, as he stomped around the Cafe in which he had earlier stormed in, demanding explanations and eventually kicking the machine. Lucky for the proprietor that he had kindly explained why it had begun to talk back.
Eventually, he had the presence of mind to detract himself from the machine and escort himself outside. That is, the proprietor had begged him to stop before he broke the machine, and Dordonii could hardly say no to such a pathetic request. And why should he look at a glowing monitor and listen to odd things, speakers, when the Thunderwitch was coming for him? It would not be nostalgic, not least because they were Privaron, not least because for him, it had not been so long since he last spoke with her. To think that she had died, had spent months here, waiting!
It filled Dordonii with an indignant anger, to be sure, that such a disgrace would befall his fellow Privaron. At least, he reassured himself as he positioned himself some feet from the door, closer to the gurgling fountain, a ticking beginning against inside his skull, he was here now. He did hope that she might forgive him his delay, however badly his last try at hope had gone.
To say Cirucci was pleased at the arrival of another Arrancar, let alone a Privaron Espada, would be an understatement. First Grimmjow coming back, and now Dordonii? Delightful. If she were an Arrancar more secure, less of one who validated her own existence through others, perhaps she would not have been as pleased. But that was not the case.
Tracking his reiatsu was easy, much easier than the others, because as long as she could remember Dordonii had been there, had ripped off his mask shortly before she had, and she had always been in the ranks with him, stood with him, beside him, through their rise and disgrace. No, Dordonii was much easier to find, because he had always been around.
So it was no surprise when the reverb of her sonido echoed when she landed by the larger Arrancar, a short hop to wrap her arms around his neck in a rare display of genuine happiness.
“Dordonii~!” She smiled, not too much of a smirk, and hung lightly, small feet kicking idly. She’d almost forgotten how tall he was in the six months she had gone without the sight of another Privaron.
Now this, this, a beautiful señorita with her arms circling his neck, this was a reaction. And his was instinctive, an easy reflex; strong arms finding holds around her waist, almost an embrace, more easily explained as a support for her light weight. A chuckle rumbled from the barrel of his chest, a grin that was both delighted and a little manic in that delight splitting his face, exposing his white teeth.
”Señorita!” He crooned, and though Dordonii would never admit to needing something, anything like reassurance, the presence of another Privaron in this City made it a bearable anomaly. Through power and disgrace, Dordonii had been alone only in one instant: his death. So it was for all creatures, and so he expected nothing more, and could hardly count his as an overwhelming problem when so soon after waking again, “waking”, that is, he found himself so heartily greeted by one of his own.
He shifted an arm, reaching up to trail a hard thumb with surprising gentleness over the violet tear-mark on her cheek. Cold; Cirucci was cold, but then, so was he. Dordonii’s grin became more of a rakish smirk.
”The City has agreed with you, señorita; your beauty has increased exponentially.”
She’d almost missed his stupid little Spanish quips and names. Almost, really.
“Mmm~” Flattery was always nice, he knew that. He was flamboyant, too, attention seeking, now that she thought about it, they all were, all the ones who’d lost their rank that much louder, that much more expressive, and it she were one to analyze she would think it was because they had to compensate. But she wasn’t the type.
“You’re still the same.” She murmured, but it was a compliment. He was so familiar, achingly so, and if she closed her eyes, and she did, she could see Tres Cifras again, the large domed ceiling, the blinding white of her own small domain, the pillars that reached up and up until the vision wavered. But it was a picture soiled by the memory of a human male, of her blood splashing against the ground, her feathers and wings falling discarded around her only to fail.
“I’m glad you’re here.” The Privaron didn’t say it, no, that would be too disgraceful, far too weak and the idea of it made her stomach knot, but she did mouth it against his chest, squeezing with her arms in a sort of welcoming gesture.
How terrible, to think that she could be dead. He knew her well, the Thunderwitch, the one hundred and fifth Arrancar, Privaron, his fifth Espada, once. Once, once.
“Dordonii-sama does not change,” he told her, more a reminder that brimmed in arrogance, for the words were fact. “Around him, the world changes. Everything changes, but Dordonii-sama? No, he is—“ Not stagnant, he sniffed at how ugly the word was. “He is constant.”
It was something, he suspected, knew, she would appreciate. The Privaron had known tumult, displacement, great change, but the changes enacted on them since removing their masks were only tattoos placed and scarred away, followed by a death that was nothing but inevitable. He would be the same, but he would not think of that place, not when confronted with this new thing, this strange thing. Dordonii would confront it as he preferred, like a bull, head on, grasp it by its horns, or it would grasp him by his.
If he could make out the meaning of her words if only in her gestures, Dordonii’s reply could only be to squeeze in return. And follow by sparing her anything she might think of with distaste; his arms loosened, casual but not dismissive.
”Did the señorita mention lodgings?”
Cirucci slipped from his neck and frowned up at him, frowned because she had to crane her neck something awful, and so stepped back to lessen the angle, her form far more petite than his was. But the same look, that stark white uniform, that lift of the chin, prideful despite their ranks and the scars they shared.
“Ah,” She turned to gesture in a sweeping circle about them, to the twelve apartment buildings. “Twelve buildings, all with rooms, and you just pick one. She’d given him the guide, so he knew about the curses, the deities, the jist. But it was still overwhelming, she knew. Hell, Grimmjow hadn’t even believed her when she’d tried to tell him about the damned curses. Espada could be so aggravating.
“We’ll get you one.”
It may have been the simple pride of a Privaron, but Dordonii might have been inclined to believe that a Privaron was better equipped than many to deal with the overwhelming. While this City was an extreme of the likes no one could have known, change was no stranger, and nor was putting aside one’s personal feelings or confusion to accept fact and move on despite it. Dordonii might not have wanted to believe the post, but given to him from such reliable hands, surrounded by so many faces, alive and yet dead, he knew better than to obsess over it.
Not that knowing equated doing, or contentment. Queer, how accepting the City without great protest sat much easier with him than did accepting the removal of his number, that position on the top. His eyes followed her, first, the passage of her hand, then turned to the buildings.
Sweet as chocolate, he thought, as sentiment pricked into his decision. His eyes fixed toward the third. As if it could be a real surprise, his attachment to that number. It may have been better to pick something completely different, a seven, a twelve, yes, a number that would not fit in ten.
Dordonii looked at the third building and cocked his head. “Numero Tres,” he said, dragging the number over his tongue, long in his moth. Too sweet, too foolish, but what did it matter if he indulged it here? He was dead, after all.
“Cirucci’s more ambitious than Dordonii~” She knew why he’d picked that number, flouncing away from him and talking back over her shoulder for him to follow, beckoning with a curl of her pale fingers before she pointed to the first building.
“Cirucci picked the first~.” She smirked, burying any genuine happiness or relief under her usual look, wickedly seductive, coy, and both hot and cold.
“But perhaps she overestimates herself, Dordonii coming knocks her down a peg.”
Dordonii followed her beckon, the swing of her hips and the energy in her steps. No, he had not had the time to miss the 105th Arrancar, not that Privaron missed, but he could enjoy her company, morseo without the stifling oppression of Hueco Mundo, of Tres Cifras, of what they had become and what they had been, the constant shadows.
His grin was as ever wide, as ever exposing his teeth. “Ambition suits her,” he allowed, for he knew she had never been content settling for second-best, no more than he had. No building stood out more than any other, the only attraction was in the numbers, the absurd importance attached to any series of one to ten. An obsession that was insanity.
”But neither of us were the first,” he said, tutting with an exaggerated wag of his finger. “Dordonii could stand to be more ambitious?” A question followed by a laugh that was, no, it couldn’t be bitter, not from this one. They knew what came of ambition.
“The first is here.” She would need to address that with him, need to address how Aizen had fallen and what they had done here. The situation with the shinigami, everything. She would tell him.
“Ah, but, no~” It was an easy walk to the building he’d mentioned, not even far enough to warrant sonido, enjoying the humans that recognized their uniforms and steered clear thanks to the reputation Arrancar had in the City, a reputation she had helped shape, helped more than some others, certain Espada. It made pride swell in her hollow breast.
“Dordonii is fine just the way he is.” Violet eyes roamed up, hand coming to her hip and pausing.
“Pick a floor?”
“So Dordonii-sama has heard,” he retorted, the reservation lost in the easy magnitude of his voice, in his confidence that brimmed. It lingered in the set of his jaw, a tension of taut muscle. He acted a fool, and in many respects was a fool, and yet, experience, remnants of loyalty however much abused, those lent him skepticism.
Intriguing, wonderful how the humans avoided them as they walked. It made a finer line of his shoulders, added a cruel edge to the broadness of his grin, words that wanted to spill out of their inferiority. Ants, in a way, ants, disappointing only in that they hardly deserved his attention, not as satisfying as one would hope.
”Dordonii-sama is honored to know that one Arrancar thinks so,” as if only amused, as if only flattered, a motion that fluttered his hand against his chest, chin lifted.
He had a trend, at this point, and he saw little reason to break it. Another laugh announced his predictability, “Come now, señorita. The tercero!”
“It’s interesting, to be sure.” Cirucci didn’t like openly admitting to taking sides. It made it seem final, so very black and white, and she hated making it sound like she’d committed to something.
Cirucci Thunderwitch did not really commit to anything.
She shrugged a bit, entered the building, climbed the stairs, and led him to the third room on the third floor, anticipating him picking that number. A guess, she supposed. But she was smirking slightly, a tug in the corners of full lips, at his antics. Dordonii hadn’t changed, no.
“Interesting also, considering what ours do, here in the City.” The Privaron knocked once on the third door, heard no answer, and simply opened it, a sweeping mock curtsy to let him enter first.
Interesting; a delicate, understated way of putting it. Not hours after arriving in this place, countless Arrancar began to approach him with whispers of another leader. There had only ever been one, and Dordonii’s devotion was nothing to laugh at. And yet, and yet, the scar of a three that would never be returned…
The third room, and Dordonii might have acknowledged that it was near pathetic, that it was fruitless if anything. Instead, he grinned, wicked and pleased. “She reads my mind now, how clever is my señorita!”
For her curtsy, he performed a sweeping bow, the fringe on his sleeves in active movement as he straightened and strode into the room. It was mundane, it was bizarre, unnatural, this must be normal for a human and yet, not at all to an Arrancar. He needed to fight the desire to scratch his head, fidget, rub at his neck for how little he knew what to do with this space. Dordonii shook it out of his head. Change, constant.
”What ours do?” he asked, snorting out breath through his nostrils, the only indication of how uncomfortable this room made him.
She followed him, shut the door behind them and instead of standing aimlessly flopped down onto the couch in the first room, the living area, sprawling out, always concerned for her own comfort, evident in the lazy stretch she preformed, fingers interlocking and arching above her head.
“It takes some getting used to.” Was the only comment she provided for his comfort, knowing he was uncomfortable with the sheer domesticity of the situation. She herself had been, but she had acclimated, making her space her domain, customizing the look and feel of it until it was all her, a comfort she could take considering the losses she suffered, the cold bed she intentionally kept cold if only to remind her of the warmth it had once had.
At the mentioned of others, she had to constrain a snort of derision.
“It’s disgusting.” She never mentioned the few lapses she herself had had, it was easy to blame those on other things, to blame them on curse days and the effects of other citizens with powers.
“Guess which among us has fucked a shinigami.”
A couch, chairs, some form of coffee table, human things that were alien to Dordonii, of a life that he had never retained his memory of. She sat, however, and so he took the cue, sinking into an arm chair and crossing one leg over the other, ankle over knee. He tried to make himself comfortable, to look comfortable, but his back remained too straight to be entirely convincing. That she looked so natural in this environment, mask shards and all, only proved the validity of what she claimed. Months spent here.
In Hueco Mundo, the practical, the wise, those who had learned from witnessing the punishment of the loose-lipped, they knew what would not be said. Could not be said. Words were puzzles and mazes, tortuous pathways toward truth, until everything became a riddle and one walked up walls like walking for floor, the mind wrapped in illogical spirals.
The harshness of Cirucci’s words held surprise not because of her word choice, but because of what was implied in them, because the lesser ranks would not have warranted that tone. Because, of course, the action, coupled with a shinigami, was utterly beyond comprehension.
But Dordonii could not believe Cirucci would lie to him; if there had ever been something less than camaraderie while they stood as Espada, if there had been competition and rivalry as fitting those that wore different numbers and sought highest favor, in their fall, there was connection that made it all unimportant.
He raised his eyebrows, expression a mix of comical disgust, shock, disbelief, and severity. Aizen-dono would permit this?
Now she was amused, because only someone like she would find amusement in this, in the belittling of her superiors and the imagining of what would have been done to them if Aizen had still been in his right mind.
“Two Espada, and one other.” She held up three fingers, propped her chin in her hands and stretched again, sighed and pointed at the thermostat on the wall.
“Guess, and turn the air conditioning on, it’s hot as hell in here.” Cirucci liked the heat in her bones, the heat from the friction of bodies, but not this sticky, nasty heat that made her feel like bathing only, unsnapped the first few bits of her dress to expose pale throat and collar to the air, sweating lightly despite herself. Nasty weather. Much less attractive than the cold and rain had been.
Two Espada?! Dordonii’s jaw dropped, it could be called nothing less than a facevault. The Espada, having intercourse with the shinigami! He had hardly realized that his arms had come up, a seize around his face as he near-flinched back into the chair. The words came as a shock infinitely greater than any dull reaction to one of his entrances.
It took Dordonii a long moment to realize that she had pointed at the thermostat, as initially, when she had told him to turn on the air conditioning, he leveled her with a completely bewildered look. What the hell was air conditioning? He stood, a eager jump to his feet, because with such appalling information boring through his skull, it would be impossible to sit still.
Dordonii moved to the thermostat and looked at it, his eyes narrowed fingers claw like in front of it. A blue arrow pointing down. A red arrow pointing up. Hot, she had said, as a complaint. Logic: Dordonii thumbed the blue arrow, watching digital numbers count down.
”Guess?” Dordonii repeated, numbly, and shook his head, a wild laugh breaking out as he spun to face her. “How could Dordonii-sama guess such an unacceptable thing?! The thought is—“ his head shook.
Cirucci smirked.
“Sexta Espada, Grimmjow Jaggerjack.” One finger moved down, leaving two up. “Cuarto Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer.” One more thin finger down and she finally moved again, rolled over onto her back, flopped her bare legs over the arm of the sofa and stretched out again.
“And… Aizen Sousuke.” The last finger joined the rest resting against her stomach, watching for his reaction, and, while she was sure he would not want to believe it, her face was deadly serious.
A long moment passed, a pause that stretched. Had Dordonii’s thumb remained on the thermostat during this time, the room might have entered dangerous temperatures. As it was he stared. This stillness, this pause, was broken by an abrupt cackle of laughter. Dordonii threw back his head, his arms curled up toward his chest as he shook with it, a fit.
When it had passed, he looked at her, extending his arm with a commanding, pointing finger. “Señorita, Dordonii-sama has been through enough today without these ridiculous jokes.”
Her face may have been serious, no lie even as her movements were languid, sinuous, a spider drawing its web and confident in its spinning. Not a lie, no, and yet, for Dordonii to believe it of the Cuarto, of the Sexto, of Aizen-dono. No. His grin could have shattered his teeth, exposing some gum and too much teeth, his eyes too wide, it was a maddening possibility, that his might be true.
”I will not listen to that disrespect,” He declared, loudly, disapproving, reprimand undone by the unraveling confidence in his voice. The Thunderwitch he knew would never lie about this.
“Not even if it’s true?” Cirucci murmured, beckoning him closer with the crook of fingers, pouting now, letting her serious look dissolve from her features. She was too whimsical to ever appear serious for too long.
“Cirucci must not have become more beautiful like Dordonii thought, because all three took shinigami women.” She sighed again, a dramatic addition, fanning herself with her other hand and lifting the tails of her hair off her neck. “Grimmjow can be forgiven, for he rid himself of the problem. Ulquiorra perhaps can be overlooked, for he still acts as normal, but… ah… Aizen…”
Her lips pursed together in a firmer pout.
With truth came repercussions, and Dordonii hesitated to face them. If it were true, if the Espada and Aizen-dono had... fraternized with shinigami, the declared enemies of the Arrancar, the focus of the war that Aizen-dono had declared, had organized, had made official against Soul Society. Everything became that much more meaningless.
But as his eyes followed the arc of her finger, as if swinging along a pendulum, so too did his body, and Dordonii reclaimed that chair, sinking into it heavy, a bending slump in his back now, a disregard for the comfort of the so-called “apartment†in the face of her revelations.
”No shinigami woman could ever compare,” Dordonii hissed, an immediate instinct, there could be no other reality. The Shinigami were the enemy, they were not women to please and bed, they were niños and opposition. And here, the Espada had proved themselves to be—
“Jovezuelos,” he muttered, youngsters, taken in by a few tricks of some hellish City, all pride lost, instead of fighting at their best, fucking at their worst? Even his reverence for the Espada paled to the significance of Aizen-dono, for the attitude toward Espada sat in direct proportion to the importance Aizen-dono placed on them.
"Tell me then," he gritted out, his teeth hard and together, his hands too fists pressed together, over his knees. So disturbed that he well and completely lost his third-person address.
She sympathized, as much as an Arrancar could sympathize, with his anger, his disbelief. She too had been loyal, had trusted in the man named Aizen to bring them to some higher state, to a superior place, to be and do. But she also realized this was all at once for Dordonii, where she had been given the… luxury, an unwanted one, of watching things develop. Of watching their leader slowly slip away, slowly lose all her respect she had and see it replaced by disgust.
“The shinigami woman, Matsumoto Rangiku.” Cirucci murmured, softly, nearly reverently, slipping closer to him, draped herself across the other arm of the couch so that her fingers played lightly over one of his clenched hands, her own much smaller, paler, more delicate than his own, a comforting gesture, a little soothing from a woman all fire and steel in her true element.
“He bedded her, kept her near him, allowed free reign, to be given all the respect from us he received,” the last past was spit out, bitter memories of having to cater to the 10th division’s whore. “He even said he loved her.”
One hand pressed insistently at the hole in her torso, for, he was a shinigami, Aizen, but he was more ruthless, more fearless, than even they without hearts. At least, he had been.
All at once. Take on the Exequias for a mere niño, a spit of a shinigami with shocking power. Break Giralda, fall to the swords of jovenzuelos, to the Squad. Awake in a City, rather than finding whatever death it was that an Arrancar experienced; thinking ahead bore no result. A city which was the City which was like no City he could remember, in which nothing made a whit of sense, in which a fellow Privaron revealed her death, revealed rebellion, revealed a twisted reality that could not have stood.
The betrayal was not tantamount to the removal of tres. Its nature was different. That held sense, held the fact of power levels and his own weakness, the failure of his purpose, the failure of the only thing that gave them worth. It could be seen as his own failure, and so Dordonii had dreamed to take it back. It would not be, and in the same day, the same day so far as his memories told, as Dordonii had learned to let go of his own too sweet dream, Cirucci revealed this. More to let go, it seemed like everything. If he watched it slide through his fingers, sand and petals and dance steps gone clumsy, what would he be? What was the point?
Dordonii’s head spun, that would be an underestimation. Her hand was a small comfort, but its presence, soft and cold, small and light. Cirucci was the constant, Cirucci in her fire and her steel. He watched her hand, felt the play of her fingers, and would have remembered to breathe had he needed to do it.
”Love,” he repeated, the echo dry and hollow in its disbelief. Their fearless leader, of too much power, too much strength, commanding all respect and demanding that they deliver it to a meager woman of the enemy. Dordonii did not know this Rangiku, but he felt an emotion hard and foul spiral in his gut, toward her, a hatred of what had corrupted the ideal that had been Aizen-dono. Worse yet, worse, that Aizen-dono had allowed it to happen. The ex-shinigami they had chosen to follow.
An unfamiliar notion: Dordonii felt sick.
There was a reason Cirucci liked to be the first one to greet the Arrancar when they first arrived in the City. For one thing, she kept track of everything her family did, watched carefully for every little detail she could spy, use to her own advantage. Another, she sought to increase her own power, to have those she could rely on, use, and the males were good for that, binding them to her with her availability for the more pleasurable acts, for information, and for what scant comfort she was able to offer. Even more important still, to explain away her own transgressions, the curse day that had made her love, the two, was it three, events that had made her cry, all had to be covered, concealed beneath the weakness’ of others so hers never came into question.
“That’s right.” She whispered that confirmation of something hideous and wrong, something to be rejected even though it could only be for so long. “This City… he is not the Aizen we served.”
For Dordonii, it was not the fact of love, love, though an alien concept to any Arrancar, did not appall as severely as Aizen-dono’s other transgressions. Curse days, the writing had said, lasted at most a few days, a week, and Cirucci spoke of Aizen-dono’s actions in a longer term. Perhaps it was that Dordonii had been subject to extremities of emotion outside of simple blood-lust, nothing like love, and yet…
It was not a nauseous sickness, but that burn of betrayal, that acceptance of what could not be accepted. More important than love was the object of his love, was his double standard with the enemy, was the entirety of love, shinigami, the dissolution of whatever the man had been. And, it seemed, not to be easily blamed on the irregularity of this place.
”And?” He asked, sharply, looking up at her whisper, looking up to meet her eyes, his own hard and questioning. There was a point to this, he knew, a point to Cirucci bringing up the shortcomings of their kind and their leader, a point that revolved around the so-called First. “Señorita tells Dordonii-sama unforgivable things. It is a…”
His fists hard, trembling, suppressed. His face, seconds before solemn, split again, Dordonii grinned. “…a shame he can do nothing. My poor Giralda…” Not that, Dead and Privaron, he would have gotten very far even with an intact blade.
“The first is the more appealing leader.” Cirucci would be blunt with him, there was no reason not to be with Dordonii, not only because of his nature, the way he took information, but because he was Privaron, and she trusted he would come to understand.
At the mention of his blade’s state, however, she lay aside her pursual of slandering the one she once saw as god and refocused her attentions. It wasn’t like he couldn’t see it himself, if he looked.
“Let Cirucci see.” She held out her hands, smooth and silk despite being accustomed to the weight and wear of a hilt in her palms. She herself had come to the City damaged, come with her wings ripped from her and left scattered on the ground.
Dordonii would not give his assent or dissent, agree or disagree with her statement. The truth of it was alarming, but too sudden a shift. He had his questions about that one, about the one who pecked at the rejected Arrancar of Aizen-dono like a scavenger, like rot, pecked at the rejected and let them feel taller and larger than their boots. Dordonii snorted, simply to think of it. With desperate, futile hope for an Espada ranking had come the necessary doubt. Letting go of hope, all that remained was doubt.
”The Thunderwitch trusts the first?” He asked, rotating it in his mind, his words firm but not cruel, not down. He knew her answer, the obvious answer: he is more easily trusted than Aizen-dono, and so, that was not what Dordonii had asked.
At her request he fixed her with a brief look. It was not distrust, though Dordonii trusted no Arrancar completely. Being sweet did not make him stupid; he knew much better than that; he had survived much longer than some other Privaron. An Arrancar did not simply hand over their blades, allow another to take it in hand and caress it with strange fingers. Still, his hand moved to the hilt, and he drew it out first, his Giralda, exposing the full blade, its broken, lost tip, his eyes sweeping from hilt to break, narrowed and grim.
“Unworthy of me,” he acknowledged, that grit back. “To allow that to happen,” Dordonii shook his head, it was his weakness that had been that niño’s permission to offer him that disgrace. Gazing on the blade, he placed it in her hands, expression closed.
Cirucci took it gently, let her touch dance lightly from hilt to broken end, reverent in that she had only ever touched one other zanpakutou not her own in her lifetime, and that had been Del Toro. Golondrina on her own hip, whole when, upon arriving in the City, she had not been.
“You’ll need to see one of the deities.” She murmured, ran cold fingers along cold steel once more before handing the zanpakutou back to it’s rightful owner, to the one who form belonged to it.
“Cirucci… admits to not coming here with Golondrina intact.” She tried to laugh but it came out bitter, her smile came out wry. “Had to rip her wings off to try and win her fight.”
Not unworthy hands, not filthy hands, the hands of near-kin; Dordonii watched the Thunderwitch handle his blade and felt no apprehension. The intimacy of the gesture left Dordonii too alert, senses briefly heightened. She returned Giralda, and he returned Giralda to his sheath. The deities, she mentioned, and he inclined his head, as if to consider what he already had. Reading that informative post, his mind had already fled to Giralda, what had once been so fearsome as to release without being removed completely from his sheath.
Her explanation was met by understanding, fiery regard that twisted his own mouth in a grotesque exposure of his grin. He flung out his arm, gesturing in an arc to emphasis the dramatic significance, ending in fingers pressed together to form a point that jabbed toward her, toward him, beneath his chin. “Again, señorita, we walked the same path. The niño I fought broke my blade, and with it I faced the Exequias Squad.”
Still more warped, that grin became. “To express my thanks.”
Cirucci raised one eyebrow, wondering again why it had even occurred to her she could have missed the big oaf. But maybe she had, in some small way.
“Yours tried to spare you, too?” She huffed angrily, embittered by the weakness the humans seemed intent on forcing on them.
“Shiro-Megane-Kun tried to-” Cirucci paused, swallowed in something like nerves but couldn’t possibly be, before continuning, voice light and apparently unconcerned. “Tried to sever her saketsu chain. Isn’t that silly, Dordonii? Should have known a Privaron with no reiatsu is worthless, would be killed. Too coward to do it himself.” Her insults came easily, to the one who had contributed to her death.
“…But, yes, the deities… Cirucci had to go to them to see Golondrina released whole again.” She paused once more, tried to think of what he had of value. “And they require payment.”
“No, no,” Dordonii said in quick, eager words, as if amused, but for the baffled anger that sat beneath them. His index finger rose up to wag in a confirmation of the negative.
”The niño, sweet as chocolate, did spare me. He even had that shrimp…” His face scrunched up, disgust puffing out his lips in an awful grimace, “…heal me, in that way she does.”
His finger moved again, back and forth, quickly, again the words to accompany it, “No, no Dordonii thanked him with his life because the niño went all out for him, showed his full--full, TREMENDOUS power,” his voice escalating to a fervor as it had, his enthusiasm for strength almost unbearable, when it tired the niño, when he had no need to, not against Dordonii.
His voice did not fall there, at the end, but it could have. And if there were other reasons for accepting the consequences of taking on the Exequias Squad while at a fragment of his strength and wounded, well, he left it alone. Shiro-Megane-kun… the title meant nothing to him, White Glasses? He left also alone any recognizable swallow the Thunderwitch had given. His nostrils flared at what the niño had done.
”Too presumptuous of a jovenzuelo. The niños today, no regard for their elders, for their superiors.” Dordonii’s head shook in plain frustration, as if that was what it boiled down to, as if at least his niño had been good enough.
Payment. With a laugh, too close, too close to being self-condemning. “In his current state, Dordonii does not think he has much to offer!”
“Cirucci didn’t either.” She flounced, brushed her gloved hands angrily over her skirt, smoothing needlessly, clenching in frustration. “They don’t take normal things, they’ll take memories, other people’s items…” A light came to her eye, a wicked smile taken from her dissatisfied pout.
“Could maybe trade a shinigami’s sword for fixing up Giralda~” That was a topic that would never cease to please her, slipping from her sprawl on the couch to sitting by his feet, hands on his knee and chin on her hands, looking up at him with a coy smirk.
“The shinigami here still die. They come back later, but they die anyway.”
Dordonii did nothing in halves; the intense concentration on his face as he attempted to pick out some fitting memory, something of appropriate compensation for his Giralda, dissolved into something fare more nefarious, his hand in a sweep to stroke at his beard.
"Other people's items," he repeated, "A shinigami's sword." While no shinigami's weapon could compare to Giralda, he knew, a weapon for a weapon seemed more than fair. The señorita's change of position brought an amused glint to his eyes, if possible, his enthusiasm for the idea growing.
"Not a real sense of accomplishment then, is it?" He asked with a fleeting frown. "Only killing again, and again, and again--but they can't begrudge us too badly, if they'll just come back." Dordonii laughed; to think of caring whether or not a shinigami begrudged them!
Still, the question of power weighed in his mind. He knew that dead he was weaker, he knew that with a broken blade, it made him altogether at his worst. Dordonii knew he couild handle any shinigami, a dash of overconfidence, but it would do no good to fall in disgrace without restoration. If they could die, logic followed, so could he.
“We’re not too well liked, here.” Cirucci frowned back, hating that she had to caution him, warn him. Arrancar should not have to be warned, cautioned. They were superior, they all knew that. And yet, here… a weakling shinigami’s zanpakutou could cut her. Sure, not any other blades really, but still. That their hierro were so weakened…
“Arrancar have many enemies… actually, maybe it’s only Cirucci has enemies, she’s the more… social.” She smiled, wriggled a bit in excitement against his leg, and laughed. “So many people who’d like to see her dead... Something of an accomplishment, no?~” Her voice went back to serious for a moment to give the warning.
“But we actually need be careful sometimes, especially on the curse days.” The Privaron frowned, “Lost her tongue once, to something of that nature.”
A warning about how well-liked the Arrancar were. One more incomprehensible thing to ladle onto the impressive pile this City had provided Dordonii. The betrayal of Aizen-dono, the weakness of the Espada, and now, the Arrancar are not well-liked? Dordonii was torn between two equally over the top reactions: a maddened dismissal, as how should an Arrancar care what humans and shinigami thought? The alternative: extreme offense taken at how he could be so judged, so disliked, the great Dordonii-sama!
The two fairly cancelled one another out, leaving Dordonii eerily still, an eerily focused look on his face. It was a relief to be able crack back into a grin at Cirucci’s admission, her body against his leg. With her chin in that position, it would have been reminiscent of a dog seeking approval. Dordonii was much too inclined to give it to be reminded of it. The dogs of the Arrancar, the Privaron?
”Dordonii-sama will be most cautious,” He replied, and though she was serious, he spoke with a manic grin that shouted how little danger he believed himself to be in. “He only hopes that he can reach such a desirable reputation as the señorita has built.”
Again, he dropped his hand to trace a thumb over the marking on her cheek.
She knew he probably wouldn’t heed her warnings, she herself had trouble heeding them, but she supposed he would come to understand on his own. They were stubborn things, Privaron, Arrancar, and often had to learn things on their own, disinclined to believe others over their own instincts.
Cirucci sighed lightly, closed her eyes and nuzzled against the touch, softer than what she was usually accustomed, more gentle, more… understanding. Because he was Privaron, so was she, and they knew what it was like, knew the pain of ripping of one’s own mask, living in that tumultuous darkness before Aizen had come.
“Cirucci.” She mumbled, wanted to hear him call her by her name and not the little Spanish petname, Wanted other Privaron to come, wanted more Numeros that were beneath her in power, wanted Il Forte.
Sense of mind, logic heeded warnings, and Dordonii was too much the bull. Charge ahead, heedless, make a decision and regret nothing. He knew nothing of regret, not proper regret, and he had never been anything but stubborn. His thumb slid as his hand curve to cup her cheek, allowing the nuzzle, indulging in it himself. The attention necessary to give, to receive, as Privaron.
”Cirucci,” Dordonii echoed, the hard glare in his eyes softening for her alone. “The Thunderwitch. Tell Dordonii…”
He bent, cheek brushing cheek as he lowered an arm to her back, tightened his hand some inch below her hollow hole and lifted her with ease, to place her in part on the arm of the chair, in part on his lap. His eyes hard again, a cruel, eager gleam. “How Cirucci has made the City fear us?”
She almost laughed, a cruel noise, but settled for a little warble in her throat, settled in place and kicked her feet a little, draping across his lap with a smirk.
“Killed the fourth division vice captain.” That had been lovely, so delightful, Golondrina slicing through her heart. “And the 10th division’s whore, when she was pregnant.” It was somewhat twisted and ironic that she could call Rangiku a whore, sprawled across a male’s lap as she was, but it wasn’t strange to her. She considered the shinigami far worse than she could ever be, because Cirucci never pretended to love any of the males she took to bed, they all knew what it was about. It was about worth, about pleasure, about selfish gratification, not love and selfless giving.
“Also killed a few little humans, oh, and the pet Szayel Aporro keeps.” The Thunderwitch crooned sweetly, the thoughts of it enough to make her happy, fingers flicking lightly at Dordonii’s eccentric beard.
As she settled, a hard curve turned on his mouth. Dordonii growled in low approval, shifted to run his fingers through her hair, large hand with surprising tenderness, insofar as he did not seek to rip, or tear, as they maneuvered around the shard of her mask, reverent and appreciative.
A vice captain and the woman who had taken part in Aizen-dono’s fall. Pregnant? Wrath moved in tremors over his face, down his arm, through the caress of his fingers. “With Aizen-dono’s child?” He asked, the only possible link from what he knew thus far. The humans were easily dismissed; unimpressive, but a Privaron did bore, need to keep in practice.
Still … even the Octava? His brow jumped, even as he tilted his face, allowing better access to the twist of goatee. “...Pet?”
“Ick,” Cirucci lips reflected her disgust at the very thought. “No, no, no, she’s awful promiscuous. Some nasty god thing’s child.” She decided not to mention that the Red God had cursed her after, had made the skin on her arms and legs rot until she’d submitted and apologized.
“Szayel Aporro may not have fucked a shinigami, but his little thing is just as nasty.” She let the pads of her fingers ply at his jawline, her own neck arching a bit against the hand in her hair with a small croon.
“Cirucci warned her off him, killed her for it, and she still comes back, why must mortals be so stupid, Dordonii?” Her voice affected a bit of whine, slipped farther into his lap.
A promiscuous shinigami. One who had fornicated with Aizen-dono, then disgraced his name further by finding and using others? Dordonii’s nose had wrinkled something fierce, horror sucking in his cheeks. He fairly gasped, the affront almost too strong to remain seated for: “And they look down on the Arrancar as monsters!”
Easier to be calm, to remain seated, when Cirucci offered such a compelling distraction from his inclination to hysteria. Dordonii’s eyes closed, briefly, concentration on her touch. Physical creatures, the Privaron, better understood in contact, in brutality, in flesh.
”As nasty as a shinigami?” Dordonii asked, the thought hard to equate with anything sensible. His laugh was cut off, made more guttural, as she slipped, muscles tensing. “Are we better?” A teasing question, knowing that it might infuriate her, this comparison. “As we have died, so we have come back.”
“Of course we’re better.” Cirucci snapped immediately, knowing he was teasing but fully rejecting the mere idea of it with all her pride. Her hand dropped to his chest, nails scraping lightly against his uniform, pouting fully.
“All the other boys are off playing with nasty things, hmmph, Luppi even has this nasty male.” She shuddered, hating the very idea, other hand propping behind her head to ease her strangely slouched position.
“It’s because this City’s so boooring sometimes, she supposes, so very dull.”
It may have been impersonal, cold, but Dordonii thought in numbers. Cirucci was first the quinto, first the 105th, but out of the mutual respect of the Privaron he called her by name, whether pet or true. The reference to Luppi, then, picked first the Numero, then his brief time as the Sexta Espada, the means of acquisition and loss having produced a minute stirring among the Privaron.
“Male?” Dordonii asked, exercising his current status as the Arrancar Echo, his hand finding a place at her knee, sliding up her soft, cold thigh. Callused palm, skin thick and rough, fingertips beginning to toy with the purple of a garter. Nasty things, his disgust still contorting his face.
“The cursed City,” Dordonii mused, and shared with her a softened grin, the look in his eyes queer, old; confidence, a boast that, for him, was rather quiet. “It is their youth, señorita. We Privaron… we have bided our time for much longer than they, we have waited in their halls as well as ours, awaiting inconsistent command, left more and more to our own devices.”
Dordonii spoke as if he knew, and know he did.
“It’s been forever…” She whined, wriggling a bit in his lap at the touch even as her hand rose from his jawline to the broken mask on his forehead, running the pads of her fingers over the jagged ivory of the break, a sad and forlorn sort of thing.
“We’ve waited and waited, and it wasn’t ever going to change back the way it was.” It was a truth they had all known, all knew but didn’t want to acknowledge, holding on far too long to the hope that they could one day erase the first two digits from their numbers again and return to the halls of Los Noches.
“Too long.” The Thunderwitch acted childishly, immature, at times, but she was old as well, held a more cunning a vicious personality behind the veil of simple hedonism, back arching to reach higher of up on his mask, her thumb closing his eye for a moment, something silly. “Far too long.”
Dordnii could have grimaced, emotions more subtle than his typical in play across his angular face. Eyelids almost falling at her wriggle, at the touch of his mask. He did not snap the garter, nothing playful or teasing now, nothing commanding, he traced the fabric in parts around her leg.
Her words were not words a Privaron spoke, not thoughts to give voice to. It wasn’t ever going to change back the way it was, the fact that put Giralda broken into his hands, facing down the Exequias Squad for a spit of a human boy. It was gratitude, gratitude for the human who had given him more respect than the majority of his kin.
Far too long; she closed his eye and both went blind in the moment, watching the backs of lids as he grunted his assent, strong teeth tight and together. Waited, and it burned, but Dordonii had trouble holding a grudge, when....
“We should have known better than to wait,” he spoke, quiet, so quiet, eyes narrowed and everything dark, his shoulders weights to sink rather than lift in trophy. Our weakness, his weakness. “The Privaron: sweet in our old age.”
She hated his little analogy, the sweet, the chocolate, because she hated the idea of being naïve to anything, of not knowing anything, of being taken advantage of or having faith in other people. But it was fine, when she could use it. She quieted for a moment, lay still draped across him and the chair, tipped her head back over the chair arm and let her hair tumble back over her face, snag in the hairpin spike of bone on her skull, swing free unaccompanied by the rush of blood to the head humans experienced by such movement.
“We don’t have to be sweet any longer.” Cirucci murmured, lips curving up into a small, satisfied look, leg lifting a bit to encourage the touch, it had been far too long, in her opinion, since she’d had more than Luppi or Alturo to see to, and the two of them sometimes became far too occupied in making sure they had her attention more favorably than the other, neither willing to be bested in anything, whether it be a fight or the attentions of the Thunderwitch.
“Here we can be of even more service. And not just to Aizen… to anyone, to ourselves.” The idea itself was more seductive than anything she could offer in the physical. “We make our own allies, fight out own battles, choose our own deaths…” She would have said chosen how to live their lives, but that would have been false.
As she laid still, so he remained still, unmoving, the progress of his touch halted as his thoughts lurked on the familiar, inexhaustible topic. Not tired of it, not even in death. But, this was not quite death, not death as any human, shinigami, or Arrancar understood it. Sweet as chocolate; his overused but never inaccurate analogy. Those words combined with her movement was too much a revival, symbolism obvious to those vulnerable to the sentiment.
His hand moved without his mind, over garter, caressing past thigh. Service to ourselves, but if not sweet, would he be bitter? Choose our own deaths, his fingers flinched, seized up, pressing hard enough to bruise, if not bruise an Arrancar’s flesh. I chose my death, he sought to say, the suddenness of his contained, rejected protest bit back into the cords in his throat.
Had he? “What,” Dordonii began, his sometimes slow mind unable to leave it be, “but what purpose do we receive for our freedom?” Decide one’s own purpose? Inconceivable. In this City, moreso.
Ah, but that was the point where things got complicated.
Cirucci almost winced, instead fidgeted under the harsher touch, though she was certainly no stranger to pain, nor the pain in the sensual, it just contrasted too harshly with the soft illusion of before, of touch gentle and soft, not harsh and frustrated.
“We can still kill shinigami here.” She murmured, a hint of desperation hidden carefully, for she too had been through several times in her stay where it had seemed she would lose herself, lose her purpose, because without Aizen, even though she wished to be free of him and his ridiculous whims of the City, she had no purpose. It was much easier to say “I serve Aizen”, when asked one’s purpose, than to say “I serve only myself.”
“And… there are other things here… things…” But Cirucci couldn’t name the things she spoke of, only had vague impressions of fletting amusement found in other citizens, in stupid little domestic tasks, of lounging about and being able to say she was doing it because she wanted to.
Her smiled had died, and that annoyed her, back arching again to pick herself up from draped across his legs to more of a sit on her haunches over his knees, a stubborn, defiant expression on her face as she crossed her hands under her breasts, the top of her uniform still undone, a bead of sweat down her neck evidence of the heat that affected even them.
“We’ll find our own.”
Privaron apologized for nothing but weakness; it did not occur to Dordonii to apologize, though it had not been intentional. Irregardless, his attention was far from the pleasures offered by her flesh. To think, Privaron seating in a human living room, questioning the meaning of life. Absurd enough to, had he been better aware of it, launch him into mad peals of laughter.
Kill Shinigami, she said, and Dordonii snorted. “Shinigami that return, shinigami who—“ a realization as he spoke it, his eyes widening, might had been red with popped vessels had the blood run, “who are not—“
Dordonii could not, not yet, finish the statement. In this City, dead Privaron, unneeded Privaron, with wavering faith in the leader who had organized the war against the shinigami. What would make the shinigami enemies, in this place, except nature twisted by curses and death? Enemies, always perhaps, but not so much as to give meaning.
Other things, and Dordonii looked at her, looked at his fellow Privaron, and his frustration at the answers she could not give him could not be pinned onto her. She who had dealt with the problem far longer than he had, and dealt alone. To watch her flounder for words, to watch her then move to claim them, claim her right—with such decisive words, as if it were a possible hope, as if they had not learned better than to hope!
Dordonii found himself impressed, delighted, entirely taken with her.
He stretched his arms up in his enthusiasm, hands framing her in highest honor as his guffaw broke the heaviness of the moment. “Cirucci,” Dordonii beamed, clamping one hand onto her shoulder, cupping a cheek with the other. “Cirucci, Cirucci—“
“How WONDERFUL!” Dordonii would always gravitate toward hope; too sweet for anyone’s good.
Cirucci huffed a bit, tossed her head and raised her arm to flip back her hair, dissatisfied with the way it clung to her neck, stupid weather, stupid City curse days-
“Of course it’s wonderful.” Her huffing was mostly show, slowly replaced by the little smirk she’d been holding back, unwilling to show how pleased she was at breaking that heavy silence that had led to them only discussing what they hated, their lost ranks and their battered prides.
“Because,” She pointed out vainly, “Cirucci is wonderful, see?” The 105th laughed lighly, almost a giggle, leaning forward to flick his beard playfully.
The heat affected her, as well as him, feeling moisture, damp hair against his fingers. Dordonii could not look at himself and see the sweat beading on his brow, slipping down his neck. Though Hueco Mundo had not been affected by such an extreme heat, Dordonii relished it. It felt terrific, some compensation for the chill of his skin.
His grin did not fade, if anything, grew, stretching and hard on his cheeks as he forced it so. “So she is,” he agreed, chuckling as she toyed with his beard, “Also a constant, no? Dordonii-sama’s single claim to good luck is finding the señorita in this place.”
The gesture was not quite paternal, not quite regarding her as a youth, to tap his index finger against her nose. “Cirucci has always known precisely what to say, to make Dordonii-sama glad again,” he flattered, both at once, the silk of her tongue and his own preeminence.
She wrinkled her nose, swatted at his hand a bit of a huff and somewhat or the irritability in the heat, releasing a long sigh as she fanned herself.
“Cirucci will be here.” It was something of a statement, something of a reassurance; she dealt too much with double meanings to know anymore, even herself. “And, she is lucky Dordonii came.” She would not admit to have preffered a lower ranked male in his place, but he would do, she had been far to agitated with the higher ranks, with only those more powerful than herself around and far too few of equal or lesser standing for her to be able to order, boss, or dictate, too. Dordonii was highter ranked, true, the 103rd over 105th, but he was still Privaron, and they shared a sort of camaraderie bonded through the rise and fall of pride.
“Even when it’s hot out.” She flopped down against his chest, sighing lightly. “This place is too crazy.”
Another chuckle as, ever-obedient, Dordonii retracted his hand. Not entirely, let it fall, beneath the swell of her sleeve, along her arm, his palm moist and pressing, sliding toward elbow. It was a reassurance no Privaron could admit to needing, though need it they did.
“Lucky,” he repeated, only to cock an eyebrow. “Ah, señorita, she is too kind to Dordonii-sama, to say that. Doubtless, he would only hold her back!” It was blatant, shameless; this thin veneer of self-effacing, of being humble, but a thin shell for what it too obviously was: fishing for compliments.
Cirucci pressed closer and Dordonii knew another fortunate thing: though death made her cold, her weight added extra heat, the friction, pressure of her legs on his. Fortunate that he welcome the heat, let his hand leave her arm as she moved and curled that arm tightly around her, heavy, made warm by the hot air.
“Lucky, lucky,” Dordonii chanted, chuckling too often, taken with the word. “Lucky, we Privaron are already, a little…?” Lifted a broad shoulder in question, allowing the pause to suggest the word. Crazy? Dordonii had no doubts, he welcomed it, relished it. “This City, it may not be such a … bad thing. It seems to Dordonii-sama, more and more, that it wants to make the Privaron shine.”
It was too easy, the lull of heat and the presence of one she was somewhat a ease with, to settle, to let her body relax and fit against him, her eyes fluttering closed as she wriggled about a bit, shifting to find a comfortable position.
“Not such a bad thing until the curse days make you fall in love or spill all your secrets or wake up with disgusting creatures in your bed.” Cirucci muttered, unable to muster her full anger at each of those situations, but her distaste was still evident. A day when she’d felt her heart swell for Il Forte. A day when she’d been forced to answer everything truthfully. A day when she’d awoken, rolled over, and seen Crowley of all people.
“Without those, no, not terribly bad. Good opportunities, allies… fun…” She shrugged against his arm, a small noise of helplessness towards the curses.
Her position did not enable Dordonii to rest his chin in her hair, as he might have otherwise done, his large frame to curl somewhat toward her smaller, find greater contact. No; Dordonii had a strange desire to kick up his feet, on the coffee table or some kind of foot stool; he shifted some in the chair, waist twisting, to find where he sat in comfort even as she draped over him.
Love, secrets, creatures, Dordonii made the appropriate faces but did not comment; now, with the heavy topics passed, he found himself far more taken with the texture of her hair, the fit of her body against his arm. Simple things, good things, as fine as a strong entrance and the power behind a kick; a nicely shined shoe, better.
“Dordonii-sama will have to see for himself,” he remarked, almost wisely, unable to comprehend a finer ally, any more worthy than the Arrancar, than his fellow Privaron. He closed his eyes, dropped his head back, against the chair. Behind his eyelids he watched the masks of the Exequias turn into the explosion of fountain water, overwhelming information stifled by the rhythm of his fingers stroking around her ear.
Cirucci found herself sighing again, letting her eyes close fully, nodded a bit.
“You’ll see.” She murmured, a promise, knowing with a somewhat amused snort that Dordonii would probably react in some wild manner, and she would probably roll her eyes at him and call him an idiot, he would splutter and deny it all, and they would probably go on like that for some time. It was good, constant, familiar, and she liked things that way.
She was a little disappointed in herself, she’d intended to have a bit of fun, but it was far too hot, in her opinion, to do anything but laze about, hardly do anything that required even more physical exertion. Nope. She prided herself on never falling asleep on her males, but… she did just that, her breath stopping completely as she drifted off, her body no longer trying to tell her she should breathe, slumping into a quiet state of death, with one she’d been born around, and had died around.
For a Privaron, an Arrancar, to look on another person—on another Arrancar—in the way that he looked at Cirucci Thunderwitch, then, went contrary to whatever one could know about Arrancar. Arrancar hated, hungered, lusted for blood and flesh and little else. He felt her drift even as he watched her, tilting his chin forward to crack open an eye and observe the passing of the Thunderwitch.
Lovely, the beautiful señorita, an ally, one of the few Dordonii could trust, could never deny a word that left her lips, a request. Exaggeration, yes, he would exaggerate, made sentimental, but Dordonii was a victim of sentiment, of thinking too sweetly. He looked at her, bewitching, deceptive in how innocent she appeared though he knew far better and could never believe it, his expression soft, fond. Not protective, for no Privaron required protection.
He stilled his hand, its last movement to slip beneath her heavy, damp hair and curl against the back of her neck. Cold, warm, wet. Breath snorted out through flared nostrils. This City, a City of excess and insanity to rival Hueco Mundo. It was a comfort to face it alongside a Privaron; as constant as hunger.
Rating; PG-13 for discussion of death.
Characters; Dordonii [
whatanentrance] & Cirucci [thunderwitch]Summary; Cirucci welcomes Dordonii to the City, helps him find an apartment, and spills Arrancar dirt. Dordonii is very surprised. Jules's posts continue to grow, the tl;dr soon to be enough to swallow entire buildings
Log;
Dordonii was close to shaking with frustration. The insults that those within the City dared fling at him! As if he had not suffered enough on this day, with death and the confusion of the City, to be topped by the disrespect of so many! He huffed, noisily, drawing more than a few stares, as he stomped around the Cafe in which he had earlier stormed in, demanding explanations and eventually kicking the machine. Lucky for the proprietor that he had kindly explained why it had begun to talk back.
Eventually, he had the presence of mind to detract himself from the machine and escort himself outside. That is, the proprietor had begged him to stop before he broke the machine, and Dordonii could hardly say no to such a pathetic request. And why should he look at a glowing monitor and listen to odd things, speakers, when the Thunderwitch was coming for him? It would not be nostalgic, not least because they were Privaron, not least because for him, it had not been so long since he last spoke with her. To think that she had died, had spent months here, waiting!
It filled Dordonii with an indignant anger, to be sure, that such a disgrace would befall his fellow Privaron. At least, he reassured himself as he positioned himself some feet from the door, closer to the gurgling fountain, a ticking beginning against inside his skull, he was here now. He did hope that she might forgive him his delay, however badly his last try at hope had gone.
To say Cirucci was pleased at the arrival of another Arrancar, let alone a Privaron Espada, would be an understatement. First Grimmjow coming back, and now Dordonii? Delightful. If she were an Arrancar more secure, less of one who validated her own existence through others, perhaps she would not have been as pleased. But that was not the case.
Tracking his reiatsu was easy, much easier than the others, because as long as she could remember Dordonii had been there, had ripped off his mask shortly before she had, and she had always been in the ranks with him, stood with him, beside him, through their rise and disgrace. No, Dordonii was much easier to find, because he had always been around.
So it was no surprise when the reverb of her sonido echoed when she landed by the larger Arrancar, a short hop to wrap her arms around his neck in a rare display of genuine happiness.
“Dordonii~!” She smiled, not too much of a smirk, and hung lightly, small feet kicking idly. She’d almost forgotten how tall he was in the six months she had gone without the sight of another Privaron.
Now this, this, a beautiful señorita with her arms circling his neck, this was a reaction. And his was instinctive, an easy reflex; strong arms finding holds around her waist, almost an embrace, more easily explained as a support for her light weight. A chuckle rumbled from the barrel of his chest, a grin that was both delighted and a little manic in that delight splitting his face, exposing his white teeth.
”Señorita!” He crooned, and though Dordonii would never admit to needing something, anything like reassurance, the presence of another Privaron in this City made it a bearable anomaly. Through power and disgrace, Dordonii had been alone only in one instant: his death. So it was for all creatures, and so he expected nothing more, and could hardly count his as an overwhelming problem when so soon after waking again, “waking”, that is, he found himself so heartily greeted by one of his own.
He shifted an arm, reaching up to trail a hard thumb with surprising gentleness over the violet tear-mark on her cheek. Cold; Cirucci was cold, but then, so was he. Dordonii’s grin became more of a rakish smirk.
”The City has agreed with you, señorita; your beauty has increased exponentially.”
She’d almost missed his stupid little Spanish quips and names. Almost, really.
“Mmm~” Flattery was always nice, he knew that. He was flamboyant, too, attention seeking, now that she thought about it, they all were, all the ones who’d lost their rank that much louder, that much more expressive, and it she were one to analyze she would think it was because they had to compensate. But she wasn’t the type.
“You’re still the same.” She murmured, but it was a compliment. He was so familiar, achingly so, and if she closed her eyes, and she did, she could see Tres Cifras again, the large domed ceiling, the blinding white of her own small domain, the pillars that reached up and up until the vision wavered. But it was a picture soiled by the memory of a human male, of her blood splashing against the ground, her feathers and wings falling discarded around her only to fail.
“I’m glad you’re here.” The Privaron didn’t say it, no, that would be too disgraceful, far too weak and the idea of it made her stomach knot, but she did mouth it against his chest, squeezing with her arms in a sort of welcoming gesture.
How terrible, to think that she could be dead. He knew her well, the Thunderwitch, the one hundred and fifth Arrancar, Privaron, his fifth Espada, once. Once, once.
“Dordonii-sama does not change,” he told her, more a reminder that brimmed in arrogance, for the words were fact. “Around him, the world changes. Everything changes, but Dordonii-sama? No, he is—“ Not stagnant, he sniffed at how ugly the word was. “He is constant.”
It was something, he suspected, knew, she would appreciate. The Privaron had known tumult, displacement, great change, but the changes enacted on them since removing their masks were only tattoos placed and scarred away, followed by a death that was nothing but inevitable. He would be the same, but he would not think of that place, not when confronted with this new thing, this strange thing. Dordonii would confront it as he preferred, like a bull, head on, grasp it by its horns, or it would grasp him by his.
If he could make out the meaning of her words if only in her gestures, Dordonii’s reply could only be to squeeze in return. And follow by sparing her anything she might think of with distaste; his arms loosened, casual but not dismissive.
”Did the señorita mention lodgings?”
Cirucci slipped from his neck and frowned up at him, frowned because she had to crane her neck something awful, and so stepped back to lessen the angle, her form far more petite than his was. But the same look, that stark white uniform, that lift of the chin, prideful despite their ranks and the scars they shared.
“Ah,” She turned to gesture in a sweeping circle about them, to the twelve apartment buildings. “Twelve buildings, all with rooms, and you just pick one. She’d given him the guide, so he knew about the curses, the deities, the jist. But it was still overwhelming, she knew. Hell, Grimmjow hadn’t even believed her when she’d tried to tell him about the damned curses. Espada could be so aggravating.
“We’ll get you one.”
It may have been the simple pride of a Privaron, but Dordonii might have been inclined to believe that a Privaron was better equipped than many to deal with the overwhelming. While this City was an extreme of the likes no one could have known, change was no stranger, and nor was putting aside one’s personal feelings or confusion to accept fact and move on despite it. Dordonii might not have wanted to believe the post, but given to him from such reliable hands, surrounded by so many faces, alive and yet dead, he knew better than to obsess over it.
Not that knowing equated doing, or contentment. Queer, how accepting the City without great protest sat much easier with him than did accepting the removal of his number, that position on the top. His eyes followed her, first, the passage of her hand, then turned to the buildings.
Sweet as chocolate, he thought, as sentiment pricked into his decision. His eyes fixed toward the third. As if it could be a real surprise, his attachment to that number. It may have been better to pick something completely different, a seven, a twelve, yes, a number that would not fit in ten.
Dordonii looked at the third building and cocked his head. “Numero Tres,” he said, dragging the number over his tongue, long in his moth. Too sweet, too foolish, but what did it matter if he indulged it here? He was dead, after all.
“Cirucci’s more ambitious than Dordonii~” She knew why he’d picked that number, flouncing away from him and talking back over her shoulder for him to follow, beckoning with a curl of her pale fingers before she pointed to the first building.
“Cirucci picked the first~.” She smirked, burying any genuine happiness or relief under her usual look, wickedly seductive, coy, and both hot and cold.
“But perhaps she overestimates herself, Dordonii coming knocks her down a peg.”
Dordonii followed her beckon, the swing of her hips and the energy in her steps. No, he had not had the time to miss the 105th Arrancar, not that Privaron missed, but he could enjoy her company, morseo without the stifling oppression of Hueco Mundo, of Tres Cifras, of what they had become and what they had been, the constant shadows.
His grin was as ever wide, as ever exposing his teeth. “Ambition suits her,” he allowed, for he knew she had never been content settling for second-best, no more than he had. No building stood out more than any other, the only attraction was in the numbers, the absurd importance attached to any series of one to ten. An obsession that was insanity.
”But neither of us were the first,” he said, tutting with an exaggerated wag of his finger. “Dordonii could stand to be more ambitious?” A question followed by a laugh that was, no, it couldn’t be bitter, not from this one. They knew what came of ambition.
“The first is here.” She would need to address that with him, need to address how Aizen had fallen and what they had done here. The situation with the shinigami, everything. She would tell him.
“Ah, but, no~” It was an easy walk to the building he’d mentioned, not even far enough to warrant sonido, enjoying the humans that recognized their uniforms and steered clear thanks to the reputation Arrancar had in the City, a reputation she had helped shape, helped more than some others, certain Espada. It made pride swell in her hollow breast.
“Dordonii is fine just the way he is.” Violet eyes roamed up, hand coming to her hip and pausing.
“Pick a floor?”
“So Dordonii-sama has heard,” he retorted, the reservation lost in the easy magnitude of his voice, in his confidence that brimmed. It lingered in the set of his jaw, a tension of taut muscle. He acted a fool, and in many respects was a fool, and yet, experience, remnants of loyalty however much abused, those lent him skepticism.
Intriguing, wonderful how the humans avoided them as they walked. It made a finer line of his shoulders, added a cruel edge to the broadness of his grin, words that wanted to spill out of their inferiority. Ants, in a way, ants, disappointing only in that they hardly deserved his attention, not as satisfying as one would hope.
”Dordonii-sama is honored to know that one Arrancar thinks so,” as if only amused, as if only flattered, a motion that fluttered his hand against his chest, chin lifted.
He had a trend, at this point, and he saw little reason to break it. Another laugh announced his predictability, “Come now, señorita. The tercero!”
“It’s interesting, to be sure.” Cirucci didn’t like openly admitting to taking sides. It made it seem final, so very black and white, and she hated making it sound like she’d committed to something.
Cirucci Thunderwitch did not really commit to anything.
She shrugged a bit, entered the building, climbed the stairs, and led him to the third room on the third floor, anticipating him picking that number. A guess, she supposed. But she was smirking slightly, a tug in the corners of full lips, at his antics. Dordonii hadn’t changed, no.
“Interesting also, considering what ours do, here in the City.” The Privaron knocked once on the third door, heard no answer, and simply opened it, a sweeping mock curtsy to let him enter first.
Interesting; a delicate, understated way of putting it. Not hours after arriving in this place, countless Arrancar began to approach him with whispers of another leader. There had only ever been one, and Dordonii’s devotion was nothing to laugh at. And yet, and yet, the scar of a three that would never be returned…
The third room, and Dordonii might have acknowledged that it was near pathetic, that it was fruitless if anything. Instead, he grinned, wicked and pleased. “She reads my mind now, how clever is my señorita!”
For her curtsy, he performed a sweeping bow, the fringe on his sleeves in active movement as he straightened and strode into the room. It was mundane, it was bizarre, unnatural, this must be normal for a human and yet, not at all to an Arrancar. He needed to fight the desire to scratch his head, fidget, rub at his neck for how little he knew what to do with this space. Dordonii shook it out of his head. Change, constant.
”What ours do?” he asked, snorting out breath through his nostrils, the only indication of how uncomfortable this room made him.
She followed him, shut the door behind them and instead of standing aimlessly flopped down onto the couch in the first room, the living area, sprawling out, always concerned for her own comfort, evident in the lazy stretch she preformed, fingers interlocking and arching above her head.
“It takes some getting used to.” Was the only comment she provided for his comfort, knowing he was uncomfortable with the sheer domesticity of the situation. She herself had been, but she had acclimated, making her space her domain, customizing the look and feel of it until it was all her, a comfort she could take considering the losses she suffered, the cold bed she intentionally kept cold if only to remind her of the warmth it had once had.
At the mentioned of others, she had to constrain a snort of derision.
“It’s disgusting.” She never mentioned the few lapses she herself had had, it was easy to blame those on other things, to blame them on curse days and the effects of other citizens with powers.
“Guess which among us has fucked a shinigami.”
A couch, chairs, some form of coffee table, human things that were alien to Dordonii, of a life that he had never retained his memory of. She sat, however, and so he took the cue, sinking into an arm chair and crossing one leg over the other, ankle over knee. He tried to make himself comfortable, to look comfortable, but his back remained too straight to be entirely convincing. That she looked so natural in this environment, mask shards and all, only proved the validity of what she claimed. Months spent here.
In Hueco Mundo, the practical, the wise, those who had learned from witnessing the punishment of the loose-lipped, they knew what would not be said. Could not be said. Words were puzzles and mazes, tortuous pathways toward truth, until everything became a riddle and one walked up walls like walking for floor, the mind wrapped in illogical spirals.
The harshness of Cirucci’s words held surprise not because of her word choice, but because of what was implied in them, because the lesser ranks would not have warranted that tone. Because, of course, the action, coupled with a shinigami, was utterly beyond comprehension.
But Dordonii could not believe Cirucci would lie to him; if there had ever been something less than camaraderie while they stood as Espada, if there had been competition and rivalry as fitting those that wore different numbers and sought highest favor, in their fall, there was connection that made it all unimportant.
He raised his eyebrows, expression a mix of comical disgust, shock, disbelief, and severity. Aizen-dono would permit this?
Now she was amused, because only someone like she would find amusement in this, in the belittling of her superiors and the imagining of what would have been done to them if Aizen had still been in his right mind.
“Two Espada, and one other.” She held up three fingers, propped her chin in her hands and stretched again, sighed and pointed at the thermostat on the wall.
“Guess, and turn the air conditioning on, it’s hot as hell in here.” Cirucci liked the heat in her bones, the heat from the friction of bodies, but not this sticky, nasty heat that made her feel like bathing only, unsnapped the first few bits of her dress to expose pale throat and collar to the air, sweating lightly despite herself. Nasty weather. Much less attractive than the cold and rain had been.
Two Espada?! Dordonii’s jaw dropped, it could be called nothing less than a facevault. The Espada, having intercourse with the shinigami! He had hardly realized that his arms had come up, a seize around his face as he near-flinched back into the chair. The words came as a shock infinitely greater than any dull reaction to one of his entrances.
It took Dordonii a long moment to realize that she had pointed at the thermostat, as initially, when she had told him to turn on the air conditioning, he leveled her with a completely bewildered look. What the hell was air conditioning? He stood, a eager jump to his feet, because with such appalling information boring through his skull, it would be impossible to sit still.
Dordonii moved to the thermostat and looked at it, his eyes narrowed fingers claw like in front of it. A blue arrow pointing down. A red arrow pointing up. Hot, she had said, as a complaint. Logic: Dordonii thumbed the blue arrow, watching digital numbers count down.
”Guess?” Dordonii repeated, numbly, and shook his head, a wild laugh breaking out as he spun to face her. “How could Dordonii-sama guess such an unacceptable thing?! The thought is—“ his head shook.
Cirucci smirked.
“Sexta Espada, Grimmjow Jaggerjack.” One finger moved down, leaving two up. “Cuarto Espada, Ulquiorra Schiffer.” One more thin finger down and she finally moved again, rolled over onto her back, flopped her bare legs over the arm of the sofa and stretched out again.
“And… Aizen Sousuke.” The last finger joined the rest resting against her stomach, watching for his reaction, and, while she was sure he would not want to believe it, her face was deadly serious.
A long moment passed, a pause that stretched. Had Dordonii’s thumb remained on the thermostat during this time, the room might have entered dangerous temperatures. As it was he stared. This stillness, this pause, was broken by an abrupt cackle of laughter. Dordonii threw back his head, his arms curled up toward his chest as he shook with it, a fit.
When it had passed, he looked at her, extending his arm with a commanding, pointing finger. “Señorita, Dordonii-sama has been through enough today without these ridiculous jokes.”
Her face may have been serious, no lie even as her movements were languid, sinuous, a spider drawing its web and confident in its spinning. Not a lie, no, and yet, for Dordonii to believe it of the Cuarto, of the Sexto, of Aizen-dono. No. His grin could have shattered his teeth, exposing some gum and too much teeth, his eyes too wide, it was a maddening possibility, that his might be true.
”I will not listen to that disrespect,” He declared, loudly, disapproving, reprimand undone by the unraveling confidence in his voice. The Thunderwitch he knew would never lie about this.
“Not even if it’s true?” Cirucci murmured, beckoning him closer with the crook of fingers, pouting now, letting her serious look dissolve from her features. She was too whimsical to ever appear serious for too long.
“Cirucci must not have become more beautiful like Dordonii thought, because all three took shinigami women.” She sighed again, a dramatic addition, fanning herself with her other hand and lifting the tails of her hair off her neck. “Grimmjow can be forgiven, for he rid himself of the problem. Ulquiorra perhaps can be overlooked, for he still acts as normal, but… ah… Aizen…”
Her lips pursed together in a firmer pout.
With truth came repercussions, and Dordonii hesitated to face them. If it were true, if the Espada and Aizen-dono had... fraternized with shinigami, the declared enemies of the Arrancar, the focus of the war that Aizen-dono had declared, had organized, had made official against Soul Society. Everything became that much more meaningless.
But as his eyes followed the arc of her finger, as if swinging along a pendulum, so too did his body, and Dordonii reclaimed that chair, sinking into it heavy, a bending slump in his back now, a disregard for the comfort of the so-called “apartment†in the face of her revelations.
”No shinigami woman could ever compare,” Dordonii hissed, an immediate instinct, there could be no other reality. The Shinigami were the enemy, they were not women to please and bed, they were niños and opposition. And here, the Espada had proved themselves to be—
“Jovezuelos,” he muttered, youngsters, taken in by a few tricks of some hellish City, all pride lost, instead of fighting at their best, fucking at their worst? Even his reverence for the Espada paled to the significance of Aizen-dono, for the attitude toward Espada sat in direct proportion to the importance Aizen-dono placed on them.
"Tell me then," he gritted out, his teeth hard and together, his hands too fists pressed together, over his knees. So disturbed that he well and completely lost his third-person address.
She sympathized, as much as an Arrancar could sympathize, with his anger, his disbelief. She too had been loyal, had trusted in the man named Aizen to bring them to some higher state, to a superior place, to be and do. But she also realized this was all at once for Dordonii, where she had been given the… luxury, an unwanted one, of watching things develop. Of watching their leader slowly slip away, slowly lose all her respect she had and see it replaced by disgust.
“The shinigami woman, Matsumoto Rangiku.” Cirucci murmured, softly, nearly reverently, slipping closer to him, draped herself across the other arm of the couch so that her fingers played lightly over one of his clenched hands, her own much smaller, paler, more delicate than his own, a comforting gesture, a little soothing from a woman all fire and steel in her true element.
“He bedded her, kept her near him, allowed free reign, to be given all the respect from us he received,” the last past was spit out, bitter memories of having to cater to the 10th division’s whore. “He even said he loved her.”
One hand pressed insistently at the hole in her torso, for, he was a shinigami, Aizen, but he was more ruthless, more fearless, than even they without hearts. At least, he had been.
All at once. Take on the Exequias for a mere niño, a spit of a shinigami with shocking power. Break Giralda, fall to the swords of jovenzuelos, to the Squad. Awake in a City, rather than finding whatever death it was that an Arrancar experienced; thinking ahead bore no result. A city which was the City which was like no City he could remember, in which nothing made a whit of sense, in which a fellow Privaron revealed her death, revealed rebellion, revealed a twisted reality that could not have stood.
The betrayal was not tantamount to the removal of tres. Its nature was different. That held sense, held the fact of power levels and his own weakness, the failure of his purpose, the failure of the only thing that gave them worth. It could be seen as his own failure, and so Dordonii had dreamed to take it back. It would not be, and in the same day, the same day so far as his memories told, as Dordonii had learned to let go of his own too sweet dream, Cirucci revealed this. More to let go, it seemed like everything. If he watched it slide through his fingers, sand and petals and dance steps gone clumsy, what would he be? What was the point?
Dordonii’s head spun, that would be an underestimation. Her hand was a small comfort, but its presence, soft and cold, small and light. Cirucci was the constant, Cirucci in her fire and her steel. He watched her hand, felt the play of her fingers, and would have remembered to breathe had he needed to do it.
”Love,” he repeated, the echo dry and hollow in its disbelief. Their fearless leader, of too much power, too much strength, commanding all respect and demanding that they deliver it to a meager woman of the enemy. Dordonii did not know this Rangiku, but he felt an emotion hard and foul spiral in his gut, toward her, a hatred of what had corrupted the ideal that had been Aizen-dono. Worse yet, worse, that Aizen-dono had allowed it to happen. The ex-shinigami they had chosen to follow.
An unfamiliar notion: Dordonii felt sick.
There was a reason Cirucci liked to be the first one to greet the Arrancar when they first arrived in the City. For one thing, she kept track of everything her family did, watched carefully for every little detail she could spy, use to her own advantage. Another, she sought to increase her own power, to have those she could rely on, use, and the males were good for that, binding them to her with her availability for the more pleasurable acts, for information, and for what scant comfort she was able to offer. Even more important still, to explain away her own transgressions, the curse day that had made her love, the two, was it three, events that had made her cry, all had to be covered, concealed beneath the weakness’ of others so hers never came into question.
“That’s right.” She whispered that confirmation of something hideous and wrong, something to be rejected even though it could only be for so long. “This City… he is not the Aizen we served.”
For Dordonii, it was not the fact of love, love, though an alien concept to any Arrancar, did not appall as severely as Aizen-dono’s other transgressions. Curse days, the writing had said, lasted at most a few days, a week, and Cirucci spoke of Aizen-dono’s actions in a longer term. Perhaps it was that Dordonii had been subject to extremities of emotion outside of simple blood-lust, nothing like love, and yet…
It was not a nauseous sickness, but that burn of betrayal, that acceptance of what could not be accepted. More important than love was the object of his love, was his double standard with the enemy, was the entirety of love, shinigami, the dissolution of whatever the man had been. And, it seemed, not to be easily blamed on the irregularity of this place.
”And?” He asked, sharply, looking up at her whisper, looking up to meet her eyes, his own hard and questioning. There was a point to this, he knew, a point to Cirucci bringing up the shortcomings of their kind and their leader, a point that revolved around the so-called First. “Señorita tells Dordonii-sama unforgivable things. It is a…”
His fists hard, trembling, suppressed. His face, seconds before solemn, split again, Dordonii grinned. “…a shame he can do nothing. My poor Giralda…” Not that, Dead and Privaron, he would have gotten very far even with an intact blade.
“The first is the more appealing leader.” Cirucci would be blunt with him, there was no reason not to be with Dordonii, not only because of his nature, the way he took information, but because he was Privaron, and she trusted he would come to understand.
At the mention of his blade’s state, however, she lay aside her pursual of slandering the one she once saw as god and refocused her attentions. It wasn’t like he couldn’t see it himself, if he looked.
“Let Cirucci see.” She held out her hands, smooth and silk despite being accustomed to the weight and wear of a hilt in her palms. She herself had come to the City damaged, come with her wings ripped from her and left scattered on the ground.
Dordonii would not give his assent or dissent, agree or disagree with her statement. The truth of it was alarming, but too sudden a shift. He had his questions about that one, about the one who pecked at the rejected Arrancar of Aizen-dono like a scavenger, like rot, pecked at the rejected and let them feel taller and larger than their boots. Dordonii snorted, simply to think of it. With desperate, futile hope for an Espada ranking had come the necessary doubt. Letting go of hope, all that remained was doubt.
”The Thunderwitch trusts the first?” He asked, rotating it in his mind, his words firm but not cruel, not down. He knew her answer, the obvious answer: he is more easily trusted than Aizen-dono, and so, that was not what Dordonii had asked.
At her request he fixed her with a brief look. It was not distrust, though Dordonii trusted no Arrancar completely. Being sweet did not make him stupid; he knew much better than that; he had survived much longer than some other Privaron. An Arrancar did not simply hand over their blades, allow another to take it in hand and caress it with strange fingers. Still, his hand moved to the hilt, and he drew it out first, his Giralda, exposing the full blade, its broken, lost tip, his eyes sweeping from hilt to break, narrowed and grim.
“Unworthy of me,” he acknowledged, that grit back. “To allow that to happen,” Dordonii shook his head, it was his weakness that had been that niño’s permission to offer him that disgrace. Gazing on the blade, he placed it in her hands, expression closed.
Cirucci took it gently, let her touch dance lightly from hilt to broken end, reverent in that she had only ever touched one other zanpakutou not her own in her lifetime, and that had been Del Toro. Golondrina on her own hip, whole when, upon arriving in the City, she had not been.
“You’ll need to see one of the deities.” She murmured, ran cold fingers along cold steel once more before handing the zanpakutou back to it’s rightful owner, to the one who form belonged to it.
“Cirucci… admits to not coming here with Golondrina intact.” She tried to laugh but it came out bitter, her smile came out wry. “Had to rip her wings off to try and win her fight.”
Not unworthy hands, not filthy hands, the hands of near-kin; Dordonii watched the Thunderwitch handle his blade and felt no apprehension. The intimacy of the gesture left Dordonii too alert, senses briefly heightened. She returned Giralda, and he returned Giralda to his sheath. The deities, she mentioned, and he inclined his head, as if to consider what he already had. Reading that informative post, his mind had already fled to Giralda, what had once been so fearsome as to release without being removed completely from his sheath.
Her explanation was met by understanding, fiery regard that twisted his own mouth in a grotesque exposure of his grin. He flung out his arm, gesturing in an arc to emphasis the dramatic significance, ending in fingers pressed together to form a point that jabbed toward her, toward him, beneath his chin. “Again, señorita, we walked the same path. The niño I fought broke my blade, and with it I faced the Exequias Squad.”
Still more warped, that grin became. “To express my thanks.”
Cirucci raised one eyebrow, wondering again why it had even occurred to her she could have missed the big oaf. But maybe she had, in some small way.
“Yours tried to spare you, too?” She huffed angrily, embittered by the weakness the humans seemed intent on forcing on them.
“Shiro-Megane-Kun tried to-” Cirucci paused, swallowed in something like nerves but couldn’t possibly be, before continuning, voice light and apparently unconcerned. “Tried to sever her saketsu chain. Isn’t that silly, Dordonii? Should have known a Privaron with no reiatsu is worthless, would be killed. Too coward to do it himself.” Her insults came easily, to the one who had contributed to her death.
“…But, yes, the deities… Cirucci had to go to them to see Golondrina released whole again.” She paused once more, tried to think of what he had of value. “And they require payment.”
“No, no,” Dordonii said in quick, eager words, as if amused, but for the baffled anger that sat beneath them. His index finger rose up to wag in a confirmation of the negative.
”The niño, sweet as chocolate, did spare me. He even had that shrimp…” His face scrunched up, disgust puffing out his lips in an awful grimace, “…heal me, in that way she does.”
His finger moved again, back and forth, quickly, again the words to accompany it, “No, no Dordonii thanked him with his life because the niño went all out for him, showed his full--full, TREMENDOUS power,” his voice escalating to a fervor as it had, his enthusiasm for strength almost unbearable, when it tired the niño, when he had no need to, not against Dordonii.
His voice did not fall there, at the end, but it could have. And if there were other reasons for accepting the consequences of taking on the Exequias Squad while at a fragment of his strength and wounded, well, he left it alone. Shiro-Megane-kun… the title meant nothing to him, White Glasses? He left also alone any recognizable swallow the Thunderwitch had given. His nostrils flared at what the niño had done.
”Too presumptuous of a jovenzuelo. The niños today, no regard for their elders, for their superiors.” Dordonii’s head shook in plain frustration, as if that was what it boiled down to, as if at least his niño had been good enough.
Payment. With a laugh, too close, too close to being self-condemning. “In his current state, Dordonii does not think he has much to offer!”
“Cirucci didn’t either.” She flounced, brushed her gloved hands angrily over her skirt, smoothing needlessly, clenching in frustration. “They don’t take normal things, they’ll take memories, other people’s items…” A light came to her eye, a wicked smile taken from her dissatisfied pout.
“Could maybe trade a shinigami’s sword for fixing up Giralda~” That was a topic that would never cease to please her, slipping from her sprawl on the couch to sitting by his feet, hands on his knee and chin on her hands, looking up at him with a coy smirk.
“The shinigami here still die. They come back later, but they die anyway.”
Dordonii did nothing in halves; the intense concentration on his face as he attempted to pick out some fitting memory, something of appropriate compensation for his Giralda, dissolved into something fare more nefarious, his hand in a sweep to stroke at his beard.
"Other people's items," he repeated, "A shinigami's sword." While no shinigami's weapon could compare to Giralda, he knew, a weapon for a weapon seemed more than fair. The señorita's change of position brought an amused glint to his eyes, if possible, his enthusiasm for the idea growing.
"Not a real sense of accomplishment then, is it?" He asked with a fleeting frown. "Only killing again, and again, and again--but they can't begrudge us too badly, if they'll just come back." Dordonii laughed; to think of caring whether or not a shinigami begrudged them!
Still, the question of power weighed in his mind. He knew that dead he was weaker, he knew that with a broken blade, it made him altogether at his worst. Dordonii knew he couild handle any shinigami, a dash of overconfidence, but it would do no good to fall in disgrace without restoration. If they could die, logic followed, so could he.
“We’re not too well liked, here.” Cirucci frowned back, hating that she had to caution him, warn him. Arrancar should not have to be warned, cautioned. They were superior, they all knew that. And yet, here… a weakling shinigami’s zanpakutou could cut her. Sure, not any other blades really, but still. That their hierro were so weakened…
“Arrancar have many enemies… actually, maybe it’s only Cirucci has enemies, she’s the more… social.” She smiled, wriggled a bit in excitement against his leg, and laughed. “So many people who’d like to see her dead... Something of an accomplishment, no?~” Her voice went back to serious for a moment to give the warning.
“But we actually need be careful sometimes, especially on the curse days.” The Privaron frowned, “Lost her tongue once, to something of that nature.”
A warning about how well-liked the Arrancar were. One more incomprehensible thing to ladle onto the impressive pile this City had provided Dordonii. The betrayal of Aizen-dono, the weakness of the Espada, and now, the Arrancar are not well-liked? Dordonii was torn between two equally over the top reactions: a maddened dismissal, as how should an Arrancar care what humans and shinigami thought? The alternative: extreme offense taken at how he could be so judged, so disliked, the great Dordonii-sama!
The two fairly cancelled one another out, leaving Dordonii eerily still, an eerily focused look on his face. It was a relief to be able crack back into a grin at Cirucci’s admission, her body against his leg. With her chin in that position, it would have been reminiscent of a dog seeking approval. Dordonii was much too inclined to give it to be reminded of it. The dogs of the Arrancar, the Privaron?
”Dordonii-sama will be most cautious,” He replied, and though she was serious, he spoke with a manic grin that shouted how little danger he believed himself to be in. “He only hopes that he can reach such a desirable reputation as the señorita has built.”
Again, he dropped his hand to trace a thumb over the marking on her cheek.
She knew he probably wouldn’t heed her warnings, she herself had trouble heeding them, but she supposed he would come to understand on his own. They were stubborn things, Privaron, Arrancar, and often had to learn things on their own, disinclined to believe others over their own instincts.
Cirucci sighed lightly, closed her eyes and nuzzled against the touch, softer than what she was usually accustomed, more gentle, more… understanding. Because he was Privaron, so was she, and they knew what it was like, knew the pain of ripping of one’s own mask, living in that tumultuous darkness before Aizen had come.
“Cirucci.” She mumbled, wanted to hear him call her by her name and not the little Spanish petname, Wanted other Privaron to come, wanted more Numeros that were beneath her in power, wanted Il Forte.
Sense of mind, logic heeded warnings, and Dordonii was too much the bull. Charge ahead, heedless, make a decision and regret nothing. He knew nothing of regret, not proper regret, and he had never been anything but stubborn. His thumb slid as his hand curve to cup her cheek, allowing the nuzzle, indulging in it himself. The attention necessary to give, to receive, as Privaron.
”Cirucci,” Dordonii echoed, the hard glare in his eyes softening for her alone. “The Thunderwitch. Tell Dordonii…”
He bent, cheek brushing cheek as he lowered an arm to her back, tightened his hand some inch below her hollow hole and lifted her with ease, to place her in part on the arm of the chair, in part on his lap. His eyes hard again, a cruel, eager gleam. “How Cirucci has made the City fear us?”
She almost laughed, a cruel noise, but settled for a little warble in her throat, settled in place and kicked her feet a little, draping across his lap with a smirk.
“Killed the fourth division vice captain.” That had been lovely, so delightful, Golondrina slicing through her heart. “And the 10th division’s whore, when she was pregnant.” It was somewhat twisted and ironic that she could call Rangiku a whore, sprawled across a male’s lap as she was, but it wasn’t strange to her. She considered the shinigami far worse than she could ever be, because Cirucci never pretended to love any of the males she took to bed, they all knew what it was about. It was about worth, about pleasure, about selfish gratification, not love and selfless giving.
“Also killed a few little humans, oh, and the pet Szayel Aporro keeps.” The Thunderwitch crooned sweetly, the thoughts of it enough to make her happy, fingers flicking lightly at Dordonii’s eccentric beard.
As she settled, a hard curve turned on his mouth. Dordonii growled in low approval, shifted to run his fingers through her hair, large hand with surprising tenderness, insofar as he did not seek to rip, or tear, as they maneuvered around the shard of her mask, reverent and appreciative.
A vice captain and the woman who had taken part in Aizen-dono’s fall. Pregnant? Wrath moved in tremors over his face, down his arm, through the caress of his fingers. “With Aizen-dono’s child?” He asked, the only possible link from what he knew thus far. The humans were easily dismissed; unimpressive, but a Privaron did bore, need to keep in practice.
Still … even the Octava? His brow jumped, even as he tilted his face, allowing better access to the twist of goatee. “...Pet?”
“Ick,” Cirucci lips reflected her disgust at the very thought. “No, no, no, she’s awful promiscuous. Some nasty god thing’s child.” She decided not to mention that the Red God had cursed her after, had made the skin on her arms and legs rot until she’d submitted and apologized.
“Szayel Aporro may not have fucked a shinigami, but his little thing is just as nasty.” She let the pads of her fingers ply at his jawline, her own neck arching a bit against the hand in her hair with a small croon.
“Cirucci warned her off him, killed her for it, and she still comes back, why must mortals be so stupid, Dordonii?” Her voice affected a bit of whine, slipped farther into his lap.
A promiscuous shinigami. One who had fornicated with Aizen-dono, then disgraced his name further by finding and using others? Dordonii’s nose had wrinkled something fierce, horror sucking in his cheeks. He fairly gasped, the affront almost too strong to remain seated for: “And they look down on the Arrancar as monsters!”
Easier to be calm, to remain seated, when Cirucci offered such a compelling distraction from his inclination to hysteria. Dordonii’s eyes closed, briefly, concentration on her touch. Physical creatures, the Privaron, better understood in contact, in brutality, in flesh.
”As nasty as a shinigami?” Dordonii asked, the thought hard to equate with anything sensible. His laugh was cut off, made more guttural, as she slipped, muscles tensing. “Are we better?” A teasing question, knowing that it might infuriate her, this comparison. “As we have died, so we have come back.”
“Of course we’re better.” Cirucci snapped immediately, knowing he was teasing but fully rejecting the mere idea of it with all her pride. Her hand dropped to his chest, nails scraping lightly against his uniform, pouting fully.
“All the other boys are off playing with nasty things, hmmph, Luppi even has this nasty male.” She shuddered, hating the very idea, other hand propping behind her head to ease her strangely slouched position.
“It’s because this City’s so boooring sometimes, she supposes, so very dull.”
It may have been impersonal, cold, but Dordonii thought in numbers. Cirucci was first the quinto, first the 105th, but out of the mutual respect of the Privaron he called her by name, whether pet or true. The reference to Luppi, then, picked first the Numero, then his brief time as the Sexta Espada, the means of acquisition and loss having produced a minute stirring among the Privaron.
“Male?” Dordonii asked, exercising his current status as the Arrancar Echo, his hand finding a place at her knee, sliding up her soft, cold thigh. Callused palm, skin thick and rough, fingertips beginning to toy with the purple of a garter. Nasty things, his disgust still contorting his face.
“The cursed City,” Dordonii mused, and shared with her a softened grin, the look in his eyes queer, old; confidence, a boast that, for him, was rather quiet. “It is their youth, señorita. We Privaron… we have bided our time for much longer than they, we have waited in their halls as well as ours, awaiting inconsistent command, left more and more to our own devices.”
Dordonii spoke as if he knew, and know he did.
“It’s been forever…” She whined, wriggling a bit in his lap at the touch even as her hand rose from his jawline to the broken mask on his forehead, running the pads of her fingers over the jagged ivory of the break, a sad and forlorn sort of thing.
“We’ve waited and waited, and it wasn’t ever going to change back the way it was.” It was a truth they had all known, all knew but didn’t want to acknowledge, holding on far too long to the hope that they could one day erase the first two digits from their numbers again and return to the halls of Los Noches.
“Too long.” The Thunderwitch acted childishly, immature, at times, but she was old as well, held a more cunning a vicious personality behind the veil of simple hedonism, back arching to reach higher of up on his mask, her thumb closing his eye for a moment, something silly. “Far too long.”
Dordnii could have grimaced, emotions more subtle than his typical in play across his angular face. Eyelids almost falling at her wriggle, at the touch of his mask. He did not snap the garter, nothing playful or teasing now, nothing commanding, he traced the fabric in parts around her leg.
Her words were not words a Privaron spoke, not thoughts to give voice to. It wasn’t ever going to change back the way it was, the fact that put Giralda broken into his hands, facing down the Exequias Squad for a spit of a human boy. It was gratitude, gratitude for the human who had given him more respect than the majority of his kin.
Far too long; she closed his eye and both went blind in the moment, watching the backs of lids as he grunted his assent, strong teeth tight and together. Waited, and it burned, but Dordonii had trouble holding a grudge, when....
“We should have known better than to wait,” he spoke, quiet, so quiet, eyes narrowed and everything dark, his shoulders weights to sink rather than lift in trophy. Our weakness, his weakness. “The Privaron: sweet in our old age.”
She hated his little analogy, the sweet, the chocolate, because she hated the idea of being naïve to anything, of not knowing anything, of being taken advantage of or having faith in other people. But it was fine, when she could use it. She quieted for a moment, lay still draped across him and the chair, tipped her head back over the chair arm and let her hair tumble back over her face, snag in the hairpin spike of bone on her skull, swing free unaccompanied by the rush of blood to the head humans experienced by such movement.
“We don’t have to be sweet any longer.” Cirucci murmured, lips curving up into a small, satisfied look, leg lifting a bit to encourage the touch, it had been far too long, in her opinion, since she’d had more than Luppi or Alturo to see to, and the two of them sometimes became far too occupied in making sure they had her attention more favorably than the other, neither willing to be bested in anything, whether it be a fight or the attentions of the Thunderwitch.
“Here we can be of even more service. And not just to Aizen… to anyone, to ourselves.” The idea itself was more seductive than anything she could offer in the physical. “We make our own allies, fight out own battles, choose our own deaths…” She would have said chosen how to live their lives, but that would have been false.
As she laid still, so he remained still, unmoving, the progress of his touch halted as his thoughts lurked on the familiar, inexhaustible topic. Not tired of it, not even in death. But, this was not quite death, not death as any human, shinigami, or Arrancar understood it. Sweet as chocolate; his overused but never inaccurate analogy. Those words combined with her movement was too much a revival, symbolism obvious to those vulnerable to the sentiment.
His hand moved without his mind, over garter, caressing past thigh. Service to ourselves, but if not sweet, would he be bitter? Choose our own deaths, his fingers flinched, seized up, pressing hard enough to bruise, if not bruise an Arrancar’s flesh. I chose my death, he sought to say, the suddenness of his contained, rejected protest bit back into the cords in his throat.
Had he? “What,” Dordonii began, his sometimes slow mind unable to leave it be, “but what purpose do we receive for our freedom?” Decide one’s own purpose? Inconceivable. In this City, moreso.
Ah, but that was the point where things got complicated.
Cirucci almost winced, instead fidgeted under the harsher touch, though she was certainly no stranger to pain, nor the pain in the sensual, it just contrasted too harshly with the soft illusion of before, of touch gentle and soft, not harsh and frustrated.
“We can still kill shinigami here.” She murmured, a hint of desperation hidden carefully, for she too had been through several times in her stay where it had seemed she would lose herself, lose her purpose, because without Aizen, even though she wished to be free of him and his ridiculous whims of the City, she had no purpose. It was much easier to say “I serve Aizen”, when asked one’s purpose, than to say “I serve only myself.”
“And… there are other things here… things…” But Cirucci couldn’t name the things she spoke of, only had vague impressions of fletting amusement found in other citizens, in stupid little domestic tasks, of lounging about and being able to say she was doing it because she wanted to.
Her smiled had died, and that annoyed her, back arching again to pick herself up from draped across his legs to more of a sit on her haunches over his knees, a stubborn, defiant expression on her face as she crossed her hands under her breasts, the top of her uniform still undone, a bead of sweat down her neck evidence of the heat that affected even them.
“We’ll find our own.”
Privaron apologized for nothing but weakness; it did not occur to Dordonii to apologize, though it had not been intentional. Irregardless, his attention was far from the pleasures offered by her flesh. To think, Privaron seating in a human living room, questioning the meaning of life. Absurd enough to, had he been better aware of it, launch him into mad peals of laughter.
Kill Shinigami, she said, and Dordonii snorted. “Shinigami that return, shinigami who—“ a realization as he spoke it, his eyes widening, might had been red with popped vessels had the blood run, “who are not—“
Dordonii could not, not yet, finish the statement. In this City, dead Privaron, unneeded Privaron, with wavering faith in the leader who had organized the war against the shinigami. What would make the shinigami enemies, in this place, except nature twisted by curses and death? Enemies, always perhaps, but not so much as to give meaning.
Other things, and Dordonii looked at her, looked at his fellow Privaron, and his frustration at the answers she could not give him could not be pinned onto her. She who had dealt with the problem far longer than he had, and dealt alone. To watch her flounder for words, to watch her then move to claim them, claim her right—with such decisive words, as if it were a possible hope, as if they had not learned better than to hope!
Dordonii found himself impressed, delighted, entirely taken with her.
He stretched his arms up in his enthusiasm, hands framing her in highest honor as his guffaw broke the heaviness of the moment. “Cirucci,” Dordonii beamed, clamping one hand onto her shoulder, cupping a cheek with the other. “Cirucci, Cirucci—“
“How WONDERFUL!” Dordonii would always gravitate toward hope; too sweet for anyone’s good.
Cirucci huffed a bit, tossed her head and raised her arm to flip back her hair, dissatisfied with the way it clung to her neck, stupid weather, stupid City curse days-
“Of course it’s wonderful.” Her huffing was mostly show, slowly replaced by the little smirk she’d been holding back, unwilling to show how pleased she was at breaking that heavy silence that had led to them only discussing what they hated, their lost ranks and their battered prides.
“Because,” She pointed out vainly, “Cirucci is wonderful, see?” The 105th laughed lighly, almost a giggle, leaning forward to flick his beard playfully.
The heat affected her, as well as him, feeling moisture, damp hair against his fingers. Dordonii could not look at himself and see the sweat beading on his brow, slipping down his neck. Though Hueco Mundo had not been affected by such an extreme heat, Dordonii relished it. It felt terrific, some compensation for the chill of his skin.
His grin did not fade, if anything, grew, stretching and hard on his cheeks as he forced it so. “So she is,” he agreed, chuckling as she toyed with his beard, “Also a constant, no? Dordonii-sama’s single claim to good luck is finding the señorita in this place.”
The gesture was not quite paternal, not quite regarding her as a youth, to tap his index finger against her nose. “Cirucci has always known precisely what to say, to make Dordonii-sama glad again,” he flattered, both at once, the silk of her tongue and his own preeminence.
She wrinkled her nose, swatted at his hand a bit of a huff and somewhat or the irritability in the heat, releasing a long sigh as she fanned herself.
“Cirucci will be here.” It was something of a statement, something of a reassurance; she dealt too much with double meanings to know anymore, even herself. “And, she is lucky Dordonii came.” She would not admit to have preffered a lower ranked male in his place, but he would do, she had been far to agitated with the higher ranks, with only those more powerful than herself around and far too few of equal or lesser standing for her to be able to order, boss, or dictate, too. Dordonii was highter ranked, true, the 103rd over 105th, but he was still Privaron, and they shared a sort of camaraderie bonded through the rise and fall of pride.
“Even when it’s hot out.” She flopped down against his chest, sighing lightly. “This place is too crazy.”
Another chuckle as, ever-obedient, Dordonii retracted his hand. Not entirely, let it fall, beneath the swell of her sleeve, along her arm, his palm moist and pressing, sliding toward elbow. It was a reassurance no Privaron could admit to needing, though need it they did.
“Lucky,” he repeated, only to cock an eyebrow. “Ah, señorita, she is too kind to Dordonii-sama, to say that. Doubtless, he would only hold her back!” It was blatant, shameless; this thin veneer of self-effacing, of being humble, but a thin shell for what it too obviously was: fishing for compliments.
Cirucci pressed closer and Dordonii knew another fortunate thing: though death made her cold, her weight added extra heat, the friction, pressure of her legs on his. Fortunate that he welcome the heat, let his hand leave her arm as she moved and curled that arm tightly around her, heavy, made warm by the hot air.
“Lucky, lucky,” Dordonii chanted, chuckling too often, taken with the word. “Lucky, we Privaron are already, a little…?” Lifted a broad shoulder in question, allowing the pause to suggest the word. Crazy? Dordonii had no doubts, he welcomed it, relished it. “This City, it may not be such a … bad thing. It seems to Dordonii-sama, more and more, that it wants to make the Privaron shine.”
It was too easy, the lull of heat and the presence of one she was somewhat a ease with, to settle, to let her body relax and fit against him, her eyes fluttering closed as she wriggled about a bit, shifting to find a comfortable position.
“Not such a bad thing until the curse days make you fall in love or spill all your secrets or wake up with disgusting creatures in your bed.” Cirucci muttered, unable to muster her full anger at each of those situations, but her distaste was still evident. A day when she’d felt her heart swell for Il Forte. A day when she’d been forced to answer everything truthfully. A day when she’d awoken, rolled over, and seen Crowley of all people.
“Without those, no, not terribly bad. Good opportunities, allies… fun…” She shrugged against his arm, a small noise of helplessness towards the curses.
Her position did not enable Dordonii to rest his chin in her hair, as he might have otherwise done, his large frame to curl somewhat toward her smaller, find greater contact. No; Dordonii had a strange desire to kick up his feet, on the coffee table or some kind of foot stool; he shifted some in the chair, waist twisting, to find where he sat in comfort even as she draped over him.
Love, secrets, creatures, Dordonii made the appropriate faces but did not comment; now, with the heavy topics passed, he found himself far more taken with the texture of her hair, the fit of her body against his arm. Simple things, good things, as fine as a strong entrance and the power behind a kick; a nicely shined shoe, better.
“Dordonii-sama will have to see for himself,” he remarked, almost wisely, unable to comprehend a finer ally, any more worthy than the Arrancar, than his fellow Privaron. He closed his eyes, dropped his head back, against the chair. Behind his eyelids he watched the masks of the Exequias turn into the explosion of fountain water, overwhelming information stifled by the rhythm of his fingers stroking around her ear.
Cirucci found herself sighing again, letting her eyes close fully, nodded a bit.
“You’ll see.” She murmured, a promise, knowing with a somewhat amused snort that Dordonii would probably react in some wild manner, and she would probably roll her eyes at him and call him an idiot, he would splutter and deny it all, and they would probably go on like that for some time. It was good, constant, familiar, and she liked things that way.
She was a little disappointed in herself, she’d intended to have a bit of fun, but it was far too hot, in her opinion, to do anything but laze about, hardly do anything that required even more physical exertion. Nope. She prided herself on never falling asleep on her males, but… she did just that, her breath stopping completely as she drifted off, her body no longer trying to tell her she should breathe, slumping into a quiet state of death, with one she’d been born around, and had died around.
For a Privaron, an Arrancar, to look on another person—on another Arrancar—in the way that he looked at Cirucci Thunderwitch, then, went contrary to whatever one could know about Arrancar. Arrancar hated, hungered, lusted for blood and flesh and little else. He felt her drift even as he watched her, tilting his chin forward to crack open an eye and observe the passing of the Thunderwitch.
Lovely, the beautiful señorita, an ally, one of the few Dordonii could trust, could never deny a word that left her lips, a request. Exaggeration, yes, he would exaggerate, made sentimental, but Dordonii was a victim of sentiment, of thinking too sweetly. He looked at her, bewitching, deceptive in how innocent she appeared though he knew far better and could never believe it, his expression soft, fond. Not protective, for no Privaron required protection.
He stilled his hand, its last movement to slip beneath her heavy, damp hair and curl against the back of her neck. Cold, warm, wet. Breath snorted out through flared nostrils. This City, a City of excess and insanity to rival Hueco Mundo. It was a comfort to face it alongside a Privaron; as constant as hunger.
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