hands. for your muse to take a hold of my muse’s hand.
intimacy action prompts.
Secluded and lonely, the two best adjectives that characterized the desolate vast emptiness of the Hueco Mundo dessert. White sands and the inky black eternal night sky for as far as the eyes could see. Yet for Nelliel this was home, the solitude of the vast dunes bringing a sense of inner peace to the Arrancar woman's worried mind.
There was so much that needed be done and so many troubled souls seeking guidance and support from their rulers, that sometimes, the former Tres Espada couldn't help but feel the need to escape and flee the chaos of the now derelict Las Noches palace. It was the nights like this, when she found her solace in the desert, walking in silence with her own thoughts through this vast laminal space.
And this night felt like all the others... Except, it wasn't. She must've been walking for about a few hours now, when Nelliel's distracted mind and thoughts happened to be drawn by an unidentified figure disrupting the even view of the otherwise empty desert. It was way too big and thick to be another one of the tree like formations littering the sands every now and then, but also too small to be a stray Hollow.
It was safe to say that her curiosity was peeked and since she couldn't draw her attention away from it, Nelliel had to get closer and see for herself what or who this might've been.
As she got closer and the figure grew bigger and clearer, she could finally make out that it was the silhouette of a person, a human looking man to be more precise, which in other circumstances would've been strange, but with the latest events that had taken place over the past hundred or something years, the ram Arrancar was by now accustomed to any bizzarery.
Nelliel knew that this couldn't have been another fellow Arrancar, given that she knew every single one of her people, but at the same time it couldn't have been a Hollow or human either. Advanced Hollow, even the Vasto Lorde were still far from retaining a humanoid resemblance to an actual human person, and a normal human couldn't have crossed the barrier between the two realms without dying in the process.
So the last viable option would've been a Shinigami. But what would a reaper be doing in Hueco Mundo, of all places? Aizen and his men had fallen, and with the war between the three realms now over, there was no reason for a Shinigami to wander the still desert of Hueco Mundo. Could've this maybe been an outcast? A Shinigami that had decided to renounce his own spiritual duties and life in the barracks of the Gotei 13?
Whoever it was and whatever their reasons might've been, Nelliel could sense the sorrow that permeated the space between them, as if the man himself was lost and haunted by his own demons and indecisiveness, which ironically would've been fitting with the natural inhabitants of Hueco Mundo. And something about this sadness and somberness drew the woman in, calling to her empathetic side and the compassion left in her by her former human life.
Unlike other Hollow or Arrancar, Nelliel was one of the very few that could feel emotions and experience the wide range of the human feelings, even if they had been dulled by the transition into this afterlife. So naturally, she forgot about any precautions and just walked towards the man, stopping by his side to take his hand into hers.
It was a simple gesture, but even without words, it would deliver a strong message to this troubled man, maybe something that would help comfort whatever grievances he might've been experiencing. It was something that said 'you're not alone' and 'I'm here now, it's going to be okay.' and something, this would've been all the other person might've needed to feel a bit better.
