Pale Shores [Rukia, mentions of others, PG]
In her dreams, the ocean is frozen, and pale, blank shores beckon from afar.
It is too cold to snow. The world has been reduced to the bitter frost of winter. In this fantasy-land where she should not feel, the wind picks up her sleeves and chills her flesh. Even the moisture in the air has condensed, and it leaves the icy road ahead of her bleak and frightfully dark.
Each time she ventures down its winding path, someone calls her from afar - when she nears close enough to see their face, they crumble into ash. And then, Rukia wakes.
This dream has been plaguing her for three long months.
She never remembers the faces. Sometimes, she can discern their voice above the echo-silence of the frost, but never well enough to tell who, exactly, calls her from beyond the fog.
Even after she wakes, Rukia remains lost.
The young Shinigami often finds herself dazed, staring into some lightless world in her mind, roused only when her brother’s voice rises, ever so. In all her time knowing him, Rukia has never once heard her brother raise his voice. It is always calm and deep, like the waters of an endless well.
She can feel his eyes on her at breakfast, her bowl of rice only partially eaten, the soup left cold. Her uniform hangs like a flag in the breeze. Her pale cheeks have become wane, and her black hair no longer shines. Rukia can feel the worry in Byakuya’s spirit when it flickers across her own, but she never quells it, voice lost within the mist of her dreams.
The few times she has lifted her head to meet his gaze, the hurt in his eyes mirrors her own.
Within these last three months, Rukia has realized that he, too, is lost and wandering within the reaches of his own mind. Words weighed down with regret. She wants desperately to speak to him, to slake the worry from his eyes and the paleness from his cheeks, which match her own - but cannot.
For now, the manor is silent.
There is silence in the very air she breathes. The weight of it pins her to the futon, sometimes for days at a time. Days blur together into a splash of color and muffled noise. The silence is so deep she could drown in it. The food servants bring her has no taste, and the walls around her are colorless.
Only rarely, times so few she could count on one hand, does Rukia dream.
And always, always, she dreams of Ichigo.
Rukia’s other friends are there, too. Ishida and Orihime, Tatsuki, Keigo. But its Ichigo’s face which births light into her dreamland, the sound of his voice which finds a familiar place in her heart.
The world becomes silent as they say good-bye, her image fading into dust.
Then the daylight comes through her window and Rukia realizes, terribly, that it was only a dream, and the silence has followed her out of it. Recently, her brother has been spending more time in his study beside her bedroom, no doubt to pass the still hours with books. By now, he has surely read each one.
Rukia likens their siblinghood to a bridge in slow repair. It had been left unattended until he took Gin’s blade for her, and since then has been patiently tended to, each board and nail placed with great care.
More for him than Rukia’s own concern, she ventures outside to train in the courtyard on warm days. With each swing of her blade, she envisions the quiet walls between them slicing in two; one for her sister and the ghost she has left behind, one for Yoruichi, whose eyes still burn in his heart, and two more for herself.
Kaien and Ichigo. The wall between her and Renji has already been taken down. He’s come to see her many times, when not busy with re-building morale amongst his comrades. The Winter-War has left many of these same, silent, empty rooms.
She has Kaien’s heart, but it is not enough, even still. She has Ichigo’s memories, but they are no more real than the visions which maim her sleep. She has her brother’s worried eyes, but she can no more string them to her heart like jewels than air.
In the evenings, after yet another meal goes half-eaten, Rukia closes the door to her bedroom, as if doing so will close the concern in Byakuya’s heart. Her room is the color of an ink painting. She undresses and pulls a sleeping robe over her bones, which poke and prod as she settles into the futon.
The silence, she hopes, muffles her cries better than her hands.
After the tears have dried, but not left, does she finally sleep.
Tonight, it is the same as always. The frost crackles beneath her bare feet as she braves the barren road another time. Her cheeks are colored not with joy, but wind which rattles the dead trees in its chill. Up ahead, above the deafening silence and strangling ice, someone calls her name.
Rukia walks on. The pale shores beckon.