There was only ever moonlight here. And not even proper moonlight: it didn't wax or wane or even bother traveling across the coal black sky. It just shone through the bars of Orihime's window, as if it had nothing better to do than to mock her like a big, tilted Cheshire-cat grin.

Her sense of time had gone stiff as a piece of overchewed gum, and had begun snapping off and leaving huge gaps in continuity. She felt like she'd been here a day; she felt like she'd been here forever. She felt like her life in the World of the Living had been the dream of the night before, and was slipping further away each time she reached for a solid memory, just to assure herself that it had really happened. The only thing or sensation she could really trust at this point was her hunger—she must not have eaten since she got here, because it felt like her stomach was burning itself down in protest.

After what might have been several centuries, she turned away from the window to find Ulquiorra standing in her always-open doorway. She yelped, which didn't seem to bother him—he might have been a statue, the way those hooded green cat-eyes stared. His hands didn't leave his pockets. If the moon was the Cheshire cat's grin, Ulquiorra wore its eyes.

"Um," Orihime started, her hands clenched and white-knuckled in the pale, unfamiliar fabric of her new clothes, "did you—do you need something?"

Ulquiorra's only response was a single slow, toweringly unimpressed blink. Her cheeks heated up. What are you, a waitress? She squashed the tiny, indignant voice like she always did. No, she was a hostage. Or a prisoner of war, or something. Either way, she was surrounded by enemies, and it wouldn't do to be anything but as calm as she ever was. Or no, she was never calm—in fact, she felt not so different from usual, which was to say: in a state of overstimulated panic. So…as meek as usual, then?

Ulquiorra—now, he was calm—seemed resigned to standing there staring at her—or at something between the tip of his impossibly straight nose and her—for the rest of the day, but Orihime's stomach chose that moment to growl. Or maybe growl wasn't the right word either: the sound was more of long, anguished groan, something like the sound a child might make during a tantrum, that had time to bounce once off the hard stone walls of the spartan bedroom before it finally went silent.

Orihime's hands were at her stomach now, grabbing at it as if to impress upon it, also like a tantrumming child, just how embarrassing that little scene had been, and could it perhaps, never do that again? Please? She would give it all the weird curry donuts and wasabi-churro icecreams it wanted later, if it would please just not.

On the other side of the room, Ulquiorra appeared about as unflapped as he had when he had cut down Orihime's two shinigami guides the day (or maybe year?) before. Nothing personal, all business. She suspected that it had been all business, nothing personal, as well as when he'd let her heal them and given her those few hours of reprieve. She probably didn't need to feel embarrassed, she hushed herself—he probably didn't even know or care that empty bellies did things like that.

But his eyes cut down to her stomach abruptly, so abruptly that she flinched. He looked back up at her face, and waited. When she didn't respond, he finally raised his eyebrows, or at least the one not covered by the partial Hollow mask. The effect was like watching a doll—one of those creepy Western-style dolls that had no use but to sit endlessly on a shelf and gather dust—move under its own power. Just that small mark of attention possessed its own little horror. She froze, too terrified to move, until finally—at last—Ulquiorra turned and left. She didn't move until his quiet footfalls finally faded away. Then she fell on her hard bed and wept herself to sleep.

She still hadn't eaten when, an unknowable time later, Ulquiorra came to fetch her. This time he didn't stall or stare, though he didn't exactly hurry either. She was curled up on her bed where she had fainted some time before—when he approached, but his unhinged Reiatsu shook her awake as he appeared at the door. He informed her that she'd been summoned. She didn't have to ask by whom. Not that she had the best handle on the Arrancar/Espada/soon-to-be-godking hierarchy yet, but she at least had a definite feeling Ulquiorra wouldn't play errand boy for just anybody.

Orihime trailed after him, feet dragging and head spinning. She kept her drooping eyes fixed on the slightly bobbing single horn of Ulquiorra's half-mask. Her stomach growled again, but this time she couldn't care enough to even paw at it. She'd gone past hunger now and into near delirium. She hurt all over, and her thoughts were lost in a fog. After another century or two of endless branching corridors and hunger-benumbed panic, they arrived at a high doubledoor. It hitched a few inches open as they approached, and Ulquiorra pushed unwarily past it. Orihime had expected him to bow, or to knock, or to at least wait for some kind of subordinate-requesting-entry-style pomp. She didn't know about the rest of Hueco Mundo, but Las Noches struck her as…pompish? Was that even a word? Anyway, it was a place where people seemed to really value their pomp.

Beyond the door stood a balcony similar to the one where she'd seen the Hogyoku a few days before. Hueco Mundo didn't have any obvious weather: outside it was the same clammy chill as it was indoors, though the thin blue splash of the Kido-lanterns ended at the threshold. Outside, the moonlight felt soft and dry on her skin.

A simple table and two chairs stood a few steps ahead, and something—an alarmingly bright splash of primary colors and texture in the smooth, barren setting—sat in the middle of the table. A tantazlizingly savory smell rose from it.

"Welcome," said a deep voice behind her. The chill returned. Ulquiorra had stopped where the lantern-light faded—she could still see his silhouette in the doorway from the corner of her eye—and fabric brushed her sleeve as a tall figure passed by. Aizen turned, that one lock of messy brown hair tickling the bridge of his nose, and gestured for her to take the seat closest to her at the small table. She must have looked as stricken as she felt, because eventually Ulquiorra's hard, cold hand grasped her elbow, and she was half-pulled, half-pushed the last few steps to the table. She almost leaned into his touch—even if it wasn't tender, or particularly comforting in any way, it was at least too alien to fear properly. Her fear of Aizen—a human, or a human soul, at least—was much more clear and present in her mind; his possible intentions too easy to guess, or at least project. Ulquiorra was still a blank page, an unwritten sentence, whereas Aizen had already shown his true colors, and then some.

She persuaded her knees to bend, and in a moment she was sitting rigidly upright on the hard stone chair. At this distance, both to Aizen and the tasty-smelling thing on the table, Orihime's attention was thoroughly divided. Aizen didn't appear to mind. A small smile quirked one corner of his mouth as she stared at what she now realized was a paper sack—from none other than the weird European-American-Thai fusion fastfood joint that she had eaten at many times in Karakura. All of her few friends had hated it, though, and she'd stopped going once she got into highschool. The brightly-colored paper bag with its mustachioed cartoon mascot looked unreal, almost profane, in this bleak, somber stone-and-sand world. She wondered, with a sharp, hunger-fueled pang of paranoia, whether Aizen was using his zanpakuto's bizarre power to show her an illusion.

"Would you like some?" Aizen asked as he took his seat opposite her. Orihime could only stare at him. "It must be some time since you ate," he prompted.

"Is it—" Orihime licked her dry lips. "Is it real?"

Aizen laughed, a soft chuckle that was neither kind nor unkind. "Yes, it's real and fresh and edible. Ulquiorra retrieved it less than an hour ago from the World of the Living."

Orihime still didn't move, but in the back of her mind she began sketching an impossible image of Ulquiorra standing placidly in line at the dingy little restaurant while the staff snuck glances and patrons tried not to flee too obviously.

"I'm told it was one of your favorites once, but it seems you haven't been in some time. I hope it's still to your liking?" He touched the shiny paper receipt stapled to the bag and read, "Three orders of green curry chili fries with beef and a Thai iced tea with sweetened condensed goat's milk." His eyebrows furrowed. "Maybe I should say 'presumably edible.'"

Orihime's hand moved, practically shot forward, to grab the bag. Her stomach was controlling her now, but she yelped as her knuckles immediately cracked against an invisible barrier. Her eyes flicked back to Aizen, who was watching her neutrally, unconcerned. She tried again—and hit the barrier again. This time, it gave her a shock.

"Ow!" she barked. It was a very un-Hime sound, much of her mind was telling her, and and even less-Hime way to behave, but that wasn't the part of her mind in control right now. "You said I could—" she started, teeth bared, but when Aizen quirked an eyebrow, she faltered, horrified with herself.

"Go on," Aizen said, not visibly bothered by her outburst. "Tell me. Do you want to eat or don't you?"

Orihime sat silent. Everything was a game to Aizen—she'd overheard Ulquiorra say as much, and she believed it. But she didn't know the rules, or even how to play along. She fell back on habit, and waved her hands meekly.

"I'm fine," she said and shook her head as politely as she could manage, but her voice hitched weakly as she said it.

Aizen continued to watch her. "Are you?" he asked. "It's been a while for me, but I'm sure human…necessities…can't have changed so much since my time." He leaned forward, eyes fixed on hers. Orihime felt like a sparrow hypnotised by a snake's gaze—her thoughts were reduced to an unending loop of wondering when that swaying head would strike. Now…ok, now…no, maybe…now…

"Orihime," he said directly, and she flinched. "Do you, or do you not, need to eat?"

Oh. So that was it. Orihime didn't even grind her teeth. If he wanted her to grovel, what, really, could she do but go along with it? It was familiar territory for her, anyway. She was almost relieved. "If you would allow me to eat, Lord Aizen, I would be most—"

"You were right, Ulquiorra," Aizen said over her. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "This is going to take some doing."

Orihime blinked. Behind her, Ulquiorra's silence deepened. Aizen nodded, and Ulquiorra snapped his fingers.

The bag caught fire and was incinerated in an instant—its precious contents burned more slowly, but they were ruined at once. Containers bubbled and melted as sweet-smelling tea splashed the stone tabletop—the smell of meat and sauce mingled with the acrid scent of burning plastic.

Orihime's seat fell backward as she jumped to her feet, and something, or several somethings, flashed in the air around her. A violent little spark arced away from her to shear through the hard barrier between her and the food—she felt it resist, then give away, as Tsubaki punched clean through it. Two more lights crossed to form a rejection field over the rapidly charring remains of her meal. Time rewound beneath it, and almost instantly, the food inside was again fresh and edible.

She threw another shield between her and Aizen as she grabbed at the payload one last time. She almost cried as her fingers closed on the rustling paper bag. Whatever, she thought as she dipped her hand inside and felt the warm, squishy chili-fries and the icecold tea. If he was going to kill her, she at least wasn't dying on an empty stomach.

She didn't look up as she crammed spice and starch and protein into her aching, starving body. Aizen and Ulquiorra were silent, though she had a feeling Ulquiorra had long since averted his eyes in abject revulsion. She'd care later, maybe, but not yet. She felt Aizen still watching her, but she didn't look back at him until she'd finished the first two orders of fries and had to either slow down or throw up. She calmed herself, wiped her hands on the bag—the shop had never included paper napkins in their takeout orders and it looked like nothing had changed—and sipped primly at the extra sweet and creamy tea. She sniffled a little around the wide straw. The sweetness was like a cool hand on the forehead of her fevered tempers.

Aizen tapped twice on the barrier between them with a fingernail—once assessingly, and then a second time to shatter it with a high, tinkling noise like a dropped champagne flute. Baigon and Lily yelped in alarm and zipped back to hide in Orihime's hair. Orihime put her cup down, fixed one last longing look on the untouched third order of fries, and squared her shoulders. She was ready…but Aizen only nodded.

"That," he said approvingly, and waved for Ulquiorra to approach, "is much more like it. Though, for the record, I would have been equally satisfied with a less dramatic approach."

This time Ulquiorra didn't touch her, only tugged at her chair to indicate she should stand or be dumped out of it. Aizen rose and swept away to the other side of the balcony while she watched, numb with confused relief.

Orihime turned to follow Ulquiorra back into the corridor, but at the last second, dashed back to the table to grab the remaining food and stuff it into the bag. She clutched her tea and the crumpled, still-warm bag to her like a precious child, and stalked stiffly after Ulquiorra, who bore this all without comment.

Before he left her standing, still shellshocked, in her bedroom, he turned his melancholy face on her just long enough to offer some advice. Or maybe it was a command.

"Next time you want to eat," he said, resigned, "say so."