Oh the possibilities

he sensor woke her. Blodeuwen grumbled. Of course; of course it would be at night, after she'd gone to bed. She considered just ignoring it. Theocelese would be back some other day, she mused, arguing with herself. But she lost. Swinging pale legs over the edge of her bed, Blod seemed to hoist her torso up, head and arms flailing along with fatigue. Rubbing sleep from her alabaster eyes, she could see that he was in K-town. Of course. With a yawn, she picked up her zanpakuto Cariad, and headed out the door. Before walking straight back in upon realizing that she was still wearing her pyjamas.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour later; the amount of time taken to dress, tie her hair up, go to the loo, and throw on some make-up for good measure, and Blod was out the door for real. This evening would be a regular old shihakusho night, no captain haori, no Soshi robe. She greeted the bleary-eyed gatekeeper with a quiet hello, simultaneously waking her up and startling her into a bow which made Blod smile. She went and messed with the gate's controls; no point putting the limiter on herself this time, if things went south they'd almost certainly go really far south. With a quiet goodbye, a particularly ostentatious Aoi-made jigokucho fluttering down onto her bun, Blodeuwen stepped through the senkaimon, which closed behind her.

She'd not bothered to be particularly discreet about it. She wasn't going to keep him if he didn't want to be kept and Theo wasn't a man exactly known for seeking out violence where it could be avoided. The senkaimon would open, the strange looking doors drawing apart, within seeing distance of Theocelese. Blodeuwen had kept her reiatsu to a polite level. She wasn't scared, or even nervous really. This mission had been given to her following the attack on Karakura town. After all Theo's years of trying to get the Gotei 13 on side, they finally were interested in hearing him out. She wouldn't be surprised if he told them to go do one, or asked if she was having a laugh. Perhaps that was why they'd chosen a shinigami from outside their ranks to come and talk to him. More likely was that the arrancar had shown an interest in her personally.

"That's a pretty nasty looking axe, Theocelese." she said, sardonically, in an almost sing-song voice. "I hope you aren't planning on hurting anyone with it." upon saying this, she looked at him, pouting slightly, her ocean-blue eyes totally clear and innocent, before her lips curled back into a pretty smile, and she skipped closer.

h-hmm." she wasn't especially surprised at his answer. At this point, these were merely pleasantries. Vague or not it wasn't as if she had been farming him for information. In fact, Blodeuwen had voraciously read every scrap she could find in the archives about the man, and had pestered Kurotsuchi Mayuri for every additional piece of info that he possessed. No leaf was left unturned. It was strange, knowing so much about a person, despite hardly having met them. And the more Blod learned about Theo, the more depressed she'd gotten. The Court Guard Squads were so mired in their tradition, so set in their ways, that they let opportunity after opportunity slip through their withered fingers. The Central 46 had been a part of that. She hoped her darkest secret had died with Adam in that hollow-sealing pit, but he seemed like someone who might have understood what she'd nearly been driven to do.

His next question addressed the topic that, realistically, they both knew she was there to discuss. Brief and to the point. She sighed heavily, tucking the long bangs that framed her face behind elfin ears. She sat down next to him as he scootched over. Her legs dangled freely and playfully over the edge of the roof, like a child. She sniffed and frowned slightly, eyeing his cigarette from the side. It reminded her of Raiden. Raiden who Blodeuwen hadn't heard from since the attack. Had they let him go? The time had slipped away so carelessly.

"Three Taicho out of commission." she said, making little guns of her pretty fingers and miming shooting motions with them. She was staring blankly into the middle distance. "You get that bit of intel totally free of charge." she told him, with a cheeky grin, though not once removing the focus of her eyes from a point some thirty metres distant.

Blod snorted at the mention of Kira's name. He hadn't been one of the casualties this time, but his captain had. She'd seen the report of how the Crisis Core defeated that disgusting pig Pepe Waccabrada, with the help of captain Kuchiki, of course. Rose was still in a critical state, with Izuru acting as captain in his stead for the time being, though she didn't imagine this state of affairs would last for long. He didn't quite have the chops, and he was a little too depressing. She imagined the other captains would get sick of it.

"Izuru Kira is fine; he recently got promoted, in fact." she told Theo, sunnily. "Abarai Renji was not a casualty I read about. I can't imagine it would have been as exciting for him as getting kidnapped by you, anyhow." she finally broke out of her reverie, to cast a sideways glance in Theo's direction. "And Kyōraku-Kun is his same devilish self. He met your friend "Athena" the same day I did." Blodeuwen mimed the finger quotes around Emilia's name. She was vaguely aware that Sui Feng was on her own hunt for intel from the leader of Olympus. Sui Feng was uptight, but competent, so Blodeuwen needn't do any digging here.

"As you might understand, the Gotei 13 are feeling the pinch. Three captains down. I've been looking for you, on their behalf, for a little while. Kurotsuchi has sensors all over the place trying to pick up traces of your reiatsu. They have the bakery- well, what remains of it, under pretty close watch. And yet here you decided to show your face after my bedtime. Do you..." she turned to look at him, her pauashell eyes wide and glistening. "Do you realize how inconsiderate that is?" she asked in an attempt to elicit a laugh, a smile, anything.

et's be honest here. If you go for the commander, dealing with the rest is just a cleanup job." Blodeuwen replied. She knew little to nothing about strategy. She'd never been a battle commander of any description really, all the things she knew were tactical. The Kido Corps were not a combat-unit. Despite what so-called Taicho Kuchiki seemed to think. She smiled as he grinned, glad that her humour had managed to touch him in at least some regard. She still swung her legs as Theo moved slightly. They were a hair's breadth from touching now, which felt slightly strange. Not too long ago they had been enemies, opponents in a bloody combat that she felt neither of them particularly wanted. Yet here he was now, pouring his heart out; not that Theo had a heart. How he became an espada. Why. Having been lied to and used as a weapon. It wasn't something Blodeuwen could ever understand; having been kept safe from one thing or another her whole life, through status, or power, or others dying for her cause. The life of a hollow, constantly afraid, constantly hungry, simultaneously terrified of backsliding to mindlessness, and ambitious for greater power.

Much of what Theo said, of his own past, of the events of the Hogyoku war, were familir to Blodeuwen but they meant something different coming from the mouth of the lion himself. The frown and crease in her brow she'd developed while listening deepened as he spoke of his family disappearing. Comrades in arms gone forever... Blodeuwen thought of those she had lost, good shinigami consigned to dust forever. That was something she could identify with, and it brought with it a flood of memories of people who had gone forever, but also of the ones she had let down. Vanessa and Shiori shot through her mind. Raiden. She grimaced.

He laughed humourlessly. It churned her insides, she could almost taste the feeling of bitterness. It was the feeling she had whenever she remembered Llew, and her inability to have killed him and had him returned to her. She stopped swinging her legs and tucked them underneath her, crosslegged.

"Theo-" she said, as he asked his rhetorical question. "I-" she wanted to say she understood. She was angry at herself for seeing his humanity now for the first time. For seeing that he had succeeded where most other arrancar hadn't even tried, or had outright dismissed. Only some had striven for his humanity and failed; fewer still had succeeded. She cursed the Gotei 13 to herself silently. She cursed the central government for their inflexibility, and the heartbreak it had caused.

"It's not fair." she shrugged as he lamented the purpose he had been assigned by others. But then again... Life wasn't fair. And Theo would know that even better than her- she was coming across as the spoiled child she was. His next request was peculiar. She recalled vaguely how the blonde arrancar had destroyed the bakery to aid Liam during her escape. She had been the same one reported to have come through a Hole who had nearly destroyed new Gotei 13 recruit @gage. His request elicited a frown. A daughter? She hadn't even begun to consider the mechanics of arrancar copulation before. But finding someone in the rukon districts? Was that even possible? Even Kitado had struggled to find her, and only when her spiritual powers had been discovered. What if she had been sorted into one of the lower districts and was currently fighting for her life in Zaraki district or some other hellhole? But then she remembered it. A seemingly innocuous Kido that few shinigami outside the Kido Corps bothered to learn, as many were focused on pure combat utility. But tracking a spiritual presence you didn't know? Blodeuwen couldn't remember the individual reiatsus inside the building when it collapsed, let alone pick out which one. There would be a way. But there had to be a way.

"Theo-" she paused, and took a deep breath. "If you come with me to the Seireitei. If you join us... I will find your daughter, if she's alive." she said, solemnly. "Personally." tacked on to drive the point home, Blodeuwen was almost certain that even if he didn't agree to come with her she'd still agree to do it. "I don't answer to Yama-jii, Theo. My time and authority is my own." she stood, quickly, eyes sparkling. A ray of hope shining from her face. Could she do for Theo what she had never been able to do for herself? Re-unite with loved ones after death...

A small, soft hand reached out for him to take.

he could see him wrestling with himself. Feel it too; perhaps the shinigami and hollow parts of his reiatsu were in turmoil. Was this... Forcing him to go against his nature? No; Tia Harribel and her fraccion, Nel Tu the same. Arrancar could form bonds. Brother and sisterhood. Theo himself showed it, plain and simple, before her very eyes. And it wasn't as if shinigami were pure virtue by nature. They too could be monstrous and wicked. The world possessed many more shades of grey than when young Blodeuwen had set out on her quest to slaughter one particular hollow, all those centuries ago.

His hand was calloused. It was the hand of a warrior, a man that had been turned over by the rough waves of life. Blodeuwen's fingers, dainty and soft, but still long and elegant, pale but for their extremities, were part of the well-cared for hands that came a product of a life of relative luxury, and shelter. Could these bonds they created now hope to last? Could hundreds of years of enmity really be undone by decisions they made now? Or was the die long cast, their fates sealed into the meridians that were now pressed into one another, as if to let go would be to shatter that fragile bond.

She followed the point of the axe. Tsubakidai park. Blodeuwen's homeland, as a human, was a long way off. Few dead or alive had seen it, and certainly the kingdom of Gwynedd was long gone. Blodeuwen didn't utter a single thing as the weapon sprung to life. Not merely out of a will to show willing and trustful, but also because she genuinely felt as though she were in no danger here. What Theo said reminded her more of her past. He had died for love, hmm? Well, she could say perhaps that the same was true for her. The wicked blonde face of the arrancar Llew flashed through her mind for a brief instant, sending a shudder down her spine. Even now, with all her power, was she strong enough? Perhaps one day, she considered, she would tell Theo. Maybe he could understand. He was turning things over in his mind, Blodeuwen was empathetic to his pain, and squeezed his hand gently, rubbing his large thumb with her own. If she had any doubts about his humanity before... They were entirely erased now.

"I promise, Theo." she whispered in a cracked voice, before he could deliver his ultimatum. Though when he did, she let out something between a sob and a giggle. She regained her composure as he did. On the battlefield, Blodeuwen was as staunch and stoic as anyone else. Calculating, unyielding, a force of nature. But here, in these quiet and private moments, the trauma she had suffered through over the past year or so bubbled up, and Theo's sadness resonated deep within her. She dashed a tear free with her remaining hand, before he asked her; who exactly was she?

She puffed out her cheeks, and furrowed her brow in mock-seriousness, and performed an incredibly wooden salute.

"Soshi of the Kido Corps, Grand Kido Chief of the Seireitei, Blodeuwen Ab Mabon Hirashi at your service." she said, her tone also mock serious. "But you may call me Blod." she smiled, dropping the salute gently. "You've got the right shinigami vouching for you. I don't answer to the 13 Court Guard Squads; I'm at the same rank as the Captain-Commander. Technically..." she trailed off. Yama-jii was really something else, she remembered the meeting after the Karakura attack, where his spiritual pressure had felt like getting hit by a train. "But anyway, they'll listen to me, goodness knows I deserve it after I was the only one who showed up when your monkey friend was making a mess of this place." she gestured around with a laugh. With her free hand, she withdrew her zanpakuto, Cariad, from its place on her waist-sash, and jabbed her into the air, turning the sword slowly much like a key in a lock, which opened up the Senkaimon.

"Oh, one last thing;" she said, before taking a deep breath and shutting her eyes.

Wedi ei fyw y mae dy fywyd, - dy rawd
Wedi ei rhedeg hefyd
Daeth awr i fynd i'th weryd,
A daeth i ben deithio byd.

She sang, to an old melody from her childhood. When she did, two Jigokucho emerged from the Senkaimon, one of which fluttered down onto Theo's shoulder, the other onto Blodeuwen's head.

"Stops us getting sucked into the Dangai." She explained. "Shall we?" she said, before stepping into the portal.