I know, I know, update spamming. Sorry. I'm posting this before the scanlation of ch353 comes out (gods) in case bad things happen. I don't want bad things, please Kubo-sama? Please?

First person, Ulquiorra POV, since I find it works better to do an Ulqui-centric fic in first person.

Pairing: UlquiHime, UlquiorraxOrihime

Rating: K+, simply because I never rate anything K just in case.

Word Count: 3,488 words.

Spoilers for anything past... Um... the last chapter of volume 26, I guess.

As for what Orihime puts in her "pasta" bake, it may even taste good for all I know. I can't cook to save my life. Much like Orihime, but without the delusion. All I know is that Orihime likes butter.
I will admit that this fic was inspired by the pic on Wikipedia of Orihime twirling a leek around. I was there to look up the names of the kotodama for the Shun Shun Rikka, but there you go. Enjoy your UlquiHime goodness

Disclaimer: Don't own. Wish I did. Hoping Kubo sees sense. Don't expect him to.

This is quite lighthearted for me, I guess. I'm usually quite heavy on the angst. Go figure.

Taken from a friend-made prompt list, the prompt is "Her", which isn't a wonderful title for a fic. Hence the change. Not that the change is all that great, either.f

Eating Habits

I pondered my fate as I paced down the corridors.

Lord Aizen had set me to look after the girl I had caught for him. Such a task was menial at best and hardly befitting someone of my rank, and whilst I did understand that I was the lowest-ranked Espada with enough sense to look after a human woman – God forbid Lord Aizen set Syazel or Nnoitra to the task – I did not see why it had to be an Espada who did the duty at all. Could he not just assign some weak, unranked Arrancar to the task? Perhaps I had somehow displeased him. Or perhaps this was simply another twist in his grand, barely-fathomable scheme of things.

No matter the reason, I still had a duty to carry out, and now I had been given it I would do it to the best of my abilities. Whether it was a waste of such abilities or not was irrelevant now. I had a task. I would perform this task. That was the way it worked here.

I had been sent to make sure she ate – this was her third day in Las Noches, and she had not eaten well at all the first two days. Lord Aizen was concerned that she might be starving herself, rendering herself useless and so jeopardising his plan. Never mind the possibility of being saved, never mind her duty to Lord Aizen – something I had to instil in her in the future, too, possibly tomorrow, possibly some time quite far in the future, it depended upon when the Soul Reapers made their move – if she decided not to eat, she was useless.

I knocked on the door of her room. Occasionally I would just walk in, but she always acted so affronted when I did so, as if it were some great taboo to walk in on a prisoner. But then, she did not act like a prisoner.

"…Ulquiorra," she murmured when she saw me, some kind of emotion written all over her face, but it was the usual tangled mess of a faked smile and the undertones of her true thoughts that I found impossible to decipher. It was almost frustrating at times, if I let such things move me to frustration.

"Have you eaten?" I asked, walking over to the tray and examining it. Most of the food was untouched, so I let out a slight sigh. "You must eat," I told her. "You need to keep your strength up." She bit her lip.

"Well… It's just…" She started. I waited; indifference on my face. What excuse would she come up with for her meagre act of defiance? She was not hungry, perhaps. Maybe there was something wrong with the food, it had been burned? "It's just… Your food is so boring," she finished. The barest hint of surprise flitted across my face.

"…Boring?" I repeated. She nodded; her face red with embarrassment.

"Well, you see, you… You just can't cook!" She told me suddenly, all in a rush, as though afraid to say it but determined to have it out in the open. I blinked.

"Woman, what makes you think I prepare your food?" I asked her bluntly. "I am an Espada. I have better things to be doing with my time than preparing food for you." She seemed abashed.

"…Oh… I… I just assumed…" She mumbled. "So, um… Would you tell who cooks it that… That if you're going to use leek, you really shouldn't use it like that?" The barest frown touched my face, and I examined the food she had been given.

"There is nothing wrong with this," I told her. "Eat it." She shook her head.

"Just because you have no sense of taste!" She retorted, more confident now. "Try it! Go on! It's so… Bland, so boring!" I regarded the food with disinterest. I much preferred the more normal Hollow sustenance of souls to this human garbage, but… I ate a little of the meal, even if just to appease her.

"There is nothing wrong with this," I repeated. "You are delusional, woman. Eat it." She shook her head again, determined.

"No taste," she decided. "Do you have a kitchen?" The sudden question took me off-guard. She did ask the strangest of questions at times.

"Clearly," I responded. "How else would your meals be prepared?"

"Take me?" She requested. "I'll show you how to cook!" I considered this. Certainly it would not be a breach of the rules if she were to leave her room when accompanied by me, but I was not sure if I wanted to allow this. It seemed to me to be a pointless excursion.

"Will you eat if I do?" I asked. She nodded brightly.

"Yes!" She replied. "If you cook my meals right!"

"I told you it is not I who prepares your meals," I reminded her curtly. "One of the lower-ranking Arrancars has that task." I turned and made my way to the door. "Come. If you use this as an attempt to escape, not only will you sorely regret it, but you will never leave this room again, understood?" She nodded.

"…I won't try," she promised. "I… Wouldn't know where to go even if I did." I made a noise of confirmation. For once, she showed some sense, a quality I had been almost certain she did not display.

"I am glad you understand. Come, woman. I have little time to indulge your little whims." She caught up to me, falling in step behind me as I walked down the corridors of Las Noches. Why had she seemed so certain that it would be I who prepared her food? Even after I had told her, she had persisted in that belief. Humans… They confused me. She more than the rest I had met. I found it easier to understand the Soul Reapers than I did to understand her. The first time I had seen her – when I had written her off as trash, before I had seen her strange, unique abilities – she had seemed simple to read. She showed determination, defiance, then she showed concern for the hurt, then, when the Soul Reaper Kurosaki had appeared, she had shown that worry again, coupled with something else that I had later identified as love. That was another strange thing to me – she blindly gave her love to this man who cared so little for her. She would believe in him until the end of eternity. How could she do such a thing?

Even now, listening to her footsteps behind me, I did not know how she truly felt. Once more, the confusion bordered on frustration. Why did I not understand? She should be simple to read. Humans were such complex creatures – so many burdening emotions, so many unneeded feelings. Both were things I had cast off long ago, so long now I could not remember having them, how it felt to have them. Those who got overly emotional were weaker for it – Grimmjow being a prime example. He had got too angry and proud, and because of it had lost his arm. He had been lucky not to lose his life in the process – Lord Aizen was merciful when the mood took him, at least.

"…Ulquiorra…" She started tentatively when we were close to our destination, not that she would know that.

"Yes?" I asked, not looking back at her. If she wanted me to take her on a walk, I was most certainly not going to oblige. I had nearly not agreed to this. There was no reasoning at all to agreeing to anything extra.

"…Do you eat?" She asked. "Food, I mean. Because… I know that Hollows eat…"

"Souls?" I supplied for her. There was a pause – perhaps she had not wanted to hear the word said aloud. How petty and foolish. She knew it to be the truth. Why shy away from it?

"…Yes," she murmured. "…But can you eat… Real food… In place of… Of…" She took a breath, presumably to steel herself. "…Of souls?" She finished. I considered the matter.

"It would suffice, perhaps," I decided eventually. "But it is a poor substitute." Another pause from her. If it hurt her so much to hear it, why did she ask the questions? I had never seen her as being a masochist, but perhaps that was something else I had misinterpreted about her.

"…But you could?" She persisted. "If you wanted? You could… Go vegetarian?" How utterly ridiculous, to use that phrase. What trash she proved herself to be, time after time. Ridiculous woman.

"If we wished," I replied, emphasising the if, "we could do so. But, as I said, it is a poor substitute for the taste of a strong soul." She made a slight noise this time, a noise of distress and pain and fear. Did she think that I would shy around the subject as she did if she showed her distress? Foolish of her.

"…What does a soul taste like?" She asked unexpectedly. I paused to consider this question, and she walked in front of me, looking at me with eyes full of fear, full of uncertainty, and full of a strange sort of longing.

"…It is not comparable to human food," I decided on eventually. How to describe to a human the essence of a soul? How could I phrase in words the feeling of subsuming the very being of the strong? How could I put it into words used by someone who had only ever tasted the bland foods we brought her daily? It was not possible.

She sighed softly.

"…I see," she replied. "I thought, maybe… I could try and make something that tasted the same…"

"You are a fool, woman, with vain hopes," I informed her bluntly. "Come. We go in here." I pushed open the second door on our left and walked in, she following me closely after. It was empty, rarely being used, only four beings in the whole of Las Noches ever requiring meals of the kind that could be prepared here.

Orihime, however, brightened up at the mere sight of an oven and the various other implements around the place.

"Wow," she murmured. "Watch me! I'm going to cook something properly! And I'll show you how to do it so you know how to do it in future, ok?"

"I have already told you twice that I do not cook your meals, woman," I reminded her, entirely uninterested in her little escapades. I would have to watch her closely, though – there were weapons in the room in the form of the kitchen knives. For some reason, I caught myself musing on how my old tail-blade had been sharper than the edges there, and quashed that. What pointless musing. How ridiculous.

"I'll let you try some of my specialties!" She enthused. "And you can tell me if they taste any better than…"

"Souls," I finished for her, already growing weary of this charade. "Be swift. I do not have an unlimited amount of time to spend with you." She nodded obediently, and set about selecting what seemed to me to be an eclectic and strange collection of ingredients. But then, I did not often partake of human food, so perhaps my opinion was no longer valid.

She set about the preparation with an enthusiasm bordering on obsession; perhaps a more effective method of distracting her in future would simply be to take her to the kitchen. If it stopped her moping, it would certainly be of some use. I watched with deepening consternation as she did things to various foods that I was almost certain should not be done, especially with the way she handled the leeks. Was she entirely sane?

She seemed oblivious to the fact that her kitchen knife could be turned into a weapon, either that or she had realised that she would get nowhere if she attempted to use it as such. That was a slight comfort, at least – I had no desire to deal with restraining her for the entire trip back to her cell, and the subsequent report to Lord Aizen. As I had said to her, I had much better things to be doing with my time.

I watched, hands in my pockets, leaning against the wall slightly, as she checked the oven and put what was possibly an leek, butter, pasta and mince bake into it, although by that point I had thoroughly lost track of what she had done with her various mutilated ingredients. I had a strange urge to get inside her head, to know why she did the things she did. How something so mindless as cooking, even the way she did it, could provide a comfort to her, make her happy, even. Emotions… they were such strange things.

"It'll be ready in just a few minutes," she promised. She seemed to have returned to the bubbly, happy girl she had been before I brought her here. The transformation was almost startling to watch. Perhaps she had been able to forget she was in Hueco Mundo – but how could she, with I, an Arrancar with my Hollow Hole clearly visible, stood in the room with her? The frustration at my lack of understanding was becoming almost visible on my face. I allowed a vague look of distaste at this to cross my features and repressed it. Orihime had turned away by this point, and so was unaware of this, something I was oddly glad about. I frowned slightly again and suppressed the gladness, too. Feelings were superfluous and unnecessary. I had not felt them for a long time, except for the blindingly negative feelings of a Hollow.

She was humming to herself, a happy and mindless little tune. I found myself reflecting on how her voice sounded, and shook my head ever so slightly. I needed to limit my time spent around her. She was affecting me, and it would likely not be for the better.

"Here you go!" She told me cheerfully, thrusting a plate at me. I regarded it somewhat warily, but took it nonetheless. "Tell me what it tastes like!" she enthused. "If it's anything like-"

"Souls," I cut in for her automatically, but this time she said it, too. I met her eyes, and again their look was entirely unfathomable. Perhaps I was altering her, too, as she changed me? An intriguing thought. If I was able to change her pre-set views on us, perhaps spending more time around her would be beneficial, rather than harmful. Was that what Lord Aizen wished? I would take the question to him in good time.

She looked away first, and went back over to the oven. I regarded her creation – yes, creation was certainly the word for it – with a decided sense of wariness. It did not smell right to me. It did not look wonderfully safe, either. And she had insulted my taste? I had eaten that human trash for her… Well, there was always the chance that it tasted nicer than it looked…

I was hard-pressed not to spit the foul-tasting mouthful out instantly. Through sheer force of will, I swallowed.

"Is it nice?" she asked hopefully. I looked down at the plate.

"…It is nothing like a soul," I settled for. I would be diplomatic about this. If she wished to feed herself with this – presuming it was not some kind of poison – she may do so. I simply would not be doing the same. Her face fell.

"Maybe my special leek, pasta and mince butter bake will be closer…" She mused. I had been right, it seemed, about the ingredients. I placed the plate down on the nearest surface, being careful not to get too close to the actual food. She could eat it. She needed the sustenance, and if she would rather partake of that than the more stomachable food prepared by the servant-Arrancar, she could.

Her next offering did not smell like it needed decontaminating, so I was slightly more inclined to eat it. Still, I was not particularly enamoured with the thought of food, especially since the cook in question seemed determined to turn me… 'vegetarian.'

"Well?" She prompted. I sighed softly and ate a mouthful. It was not foul, like the previous dish; in fact it tasted pleasant, especially for human food.

"…It is eatable," I told her aloud. "But hardly a substitute for souls." She sighed.

"…Oh, well," she mumbled. "I tried…" I ate another forkful without realising it.

"I told you, human food is no substitute for souls," I reminded her. She bit her lip.

"Well if you at least gave me some idea!" She exclaimed, sounding as frustrated as she made me. I raised an eyebrow slightly, my only response to this. "…Please?" She asked, a hopeful tone in her otherwise small voice. "Even if you have to use some sort of metaphor…"

"What use would a metaphor be?" I asked. "It tells you nothing." She smiled slightly.

"Well, I just wanted to hear you say something like, 'it tastes like the heart of a rainbow seen in the first sunlight after a summer storm'," she confessed. Her language was certainly poetic, but entirely useless for describing a taste, especially of a soul.

"Every soul tastes different," I responded, eating a little more of her concoction as she devoured the first plate of food. "It is like you attempting to summarise all human food in one taste. Can you say 'food is bitter'? No, because some foods are sweet. Can you say 'food is delicious'? No, because not all food is." I looked at the now-empty plate she was holding pointedly as I said this, but she did not seem to pick up on it.

"Well, what does a strong soul taste like?" She persisted. Why was she so desperate to know? It made no sense.

"As I said. Every soul is different," I repeated patiently. "Both you and Kurosaki have strong souls, but I am sure you would taste different indeed." She seemed taken aback by this.

"I have a… Strong soul…" She repeated. "Do you… Really think so?" This irked me.

"It is not a matter of thought," I responded. "I can sense your soul. It moves within you, gives off a scent as you move." An almost irresistible scent, although for obvious reasons I did not add that. "A strong soul is much easier to sense than a weak one. The humans Yammy killed the first time we met, they were weak. That was why he was able to devour so many at once, although he does have an ability which helps in that regard." She looked thoughtful and took the plate from my unresisting hands. It was empty, which was odd. I did not recall eating much of it at all.

"Is that why Tatsuki survived?" She asked me.

"Tatsuki?" I repeated. She blinked.

"Oh, um… The girl who was… Near you…" She mumbled, off track now. I nodded.

"Yes," I responded. "I told Yammy as much. It was a waste of time, killing as many as he did. We were not there to kill, and, contrary to his opinion, they were not staring at him. Trash." She laughed slightly at that, which surprised me a little.

"You really don't kill often, do you?" She remarked. "It's like… Every time you talk about these times, you say 'they didn't need to die', or, 'it was pointless to kill them', or, 'a necessary waste'. You don't like killing."

"I dislike unnecessary killing," I corrected. "I have no problems with killing itself. I am an Arrancar. I am essentially Hollow." She raised a hand uncertainly and, when I did not react, brushed her fingers over the skin of my chest, around my Hollow Hole.

"That doesn't mean you have to be a monster," she murmured.

"I am not going to stop simply because you dislike it, woman," I told her bluntly. "Are you done now? Can I return you to your cell?" She nodded quickly, pulling her hand back and moving towards the door.

"…What would… my soul… taste like?" She asked tentatively as I drew level with her. I looked at her, at her earnest, troubled, emotion-filled eyes, and considered it.

"…A good question," I responded, putting my hand over where her heart would be, feeling her energy changing around me. "…It would taste like…" The slightest of smiles touched my face, although I would later deny it. "Like the heart of a rainbow seen in the first sunlight after a summer storm." A true smile spread across her face, and I removed my hand. "Come, woman. We must return. I have wasted a lot of time here."

She followed me, willingly as ever.

A/N - thoughts appreciated ^^ I wrote this on sugar and tea. And once this whole ridiculous will-he-won't-he trash is done with, I'll probably write something light, like GinxRangiku... That's not light, I guess, but it could be, it could be. I owe Die... Diu... Dieutwjin... However you spell it... A oneshot anyway from my Tales Of Symphonia fanfic for winning the little competition ^^