Sea's Greetings [Catherine, Ulquiorra]

The sound of Catherine would have alerted her if her pesquisa hadn't already. The unsteady gait was evidence enough, but when she turned and made note of the woman's partial state of dress, this confirmed her suspicion as to the woman's state of mind.

Hm. She wondered how frequently this occurred.

She sat up and watched as Catherine produced her dismissive comment in regards to her behavior toward the woman. She accepted that comment with silent contemplation, before she stood up and walked her way over toward the human. Those dark green eyes met the drunkard's gaze and she was silent for several seconds. Gauging the dilation in the woman's pupils and the shift of her muscle groups. She was gone for the night.

"Intent is not something that I project. That my observations produce a perception that I care for you is a matter of your own interpretation. I will, on occasion, impress upon a human that I am interested in them, and that I care for them. However, it is not necessary for me to make such an effort in your presence. You seem to come to this conclusion fairly frequently." She noted, pausing as she looked over herself. Running her tingers along a few tears in her cargo pants, small little things. They were delightfully sturdy.

"However, as I have told you before. And as I will tell you numerous times in the future when you have imbibed sufficient alcohol to become so verbose. I probably do not care about you as a human would understand such an emotion. But, functionally, your well-being is in my best interest, Catherine. If it is easier for you to frame that as 'caring', you're welcome to it. But I have a feeling that it doesn't." She noted plainly, setting her folded-up outfit on the counter beside her leather jacket.

"If you were a bird, Catherine. What type of bird would you be?" A question she left with the woman just as she slipped into the bathroom.


This was not the first time that she had witnessed this behavior from the woman. She had recognized that fucntionally, Catherine was now a blank slate. A reflective surface warped with human perspective. Nothing that she saw, heard, or said for the rest of the evening would register in her long term memory. She could be direct without concern for the woman's defensiveness. And, most recently. She had taken to presenting Catherine with these strange little questions. She'd discovered a list of them on the worldwide web. Questions to ask your friends and family. They were inane. Generally without any proper reason or purpose behind them. Open ended questions that, ultimately, were merely to pick someone else's mind.

Not once had she posed the question to someone and been able to provide one of her own that seemed to satisfy the other person. She did not understand why one would ask such a question. And so, two blackouts ago. She had decided to pose these questions to Catherine in a state in which she would not remember doing so. And.....slowly. She had begun to see the appeal.

Sometimes, Catherine would give an entirely different answer. Sometimes she would give the exact same answer as she had given before. Sometimes she refused to answer the question and began talking about something else entirely.

It was...

Interesting.

Initially, she had performed this experiment in hopes of helping herself learn how to answer these questions. But, she would admit. She was also simply beginning to enjoy Catherine's answers. She was already looking forward to what would come out of Cat's mouth once she was finished washing up.

She certainly thought these things through. The thought crossed her mind as she relaxed in the shower. lathering her hair and listening through the patter of the shower water as, without any further prompting, Catherine provided a steady stream of thought on the subject of what she felt about birds. An almost endless deluge of her own conceptions and thoughts. a menagerie of ....interesting little projected tidbits. That she hated being around others. That she hated the idea of being beautiful and might pull out her own feathers.

This continued even as she finished washing herself thoroughly. Emerging from the bathroom after having wrung out her hair, only to pause and glance toward Catherine as they continued to ponder the question that had been presented to her. "Perhaps a hawk. They are solitary and humble looking creatures." She interjected. A simple capitulation to the impressions that the woman had put in, and an injection of a potential answer. Something she could watch her work with as she sat herself on the edge of the bed and let her chin rest on her palm as she watched the woman's mind wind around itself.

"I suppose it very well may. They don't live particularly long."

She listened as the murmurings continued. In the meantime, Ulquiorra waited to dry, with Catherine properly distracted she could do as she pleased, and once she was no longer dripping, she made her way to her bag and started to get dressed again, crouching by her bag and looking for her pajamas as it seemed the woman had settled on a bird.

"I did notice the claws you had earlier. I suppose that's fitting." She added in her own two cents as she slipped a t-shirt in over her head. It was oversized, practically a little dress, which was the point with casual pajamas. Given the temperatures, it was similar to the city of Lights and so she settled with just the shirt.

"And what sort of bird do you imagine I would be?" She introduced a new subject. Now that she was dressed, she put forth a subject which would put Catherine's attention on her surroundings, as her own inner musings had so conveniently turned her mental eye inward, now it could be directed,m namely to Ulquiorra herself. Now in her 'pajamas', The Arrancar took a seat at the edge of the bed, and waited patiently for the deluge of words. Or perhaps, would there be one this time?

A Snowy Owl. She wasn't fully familiar with the details of that particular species, but she was familiar with what an Owl was. So an arctic owl, probably because it was white. Quaint. "'Specifically snowy? And why might that be?" She ventured, pushing the girl a bit further as she settled back against the headboard of the bed itself. Watching the human as their attention moved at odds with the alcohol flowing through them. No doubt their concentration was something difficult to grasp.

And of course, that compliment came along as well. But more than that, came a question, which wasn't too irregular, just a bit rarer.

Lost it?

"Some might argue I've never had it. But yes. Once." She stated softly.

"Hidey. I suppose I may seem that way." She ntoed softly, eyeing the representation of the animal on the little screen as it was presented to her. Pronounced eyes. She imagined that her eyes were very striking for most, so it was an apt comparison so far as she was concerned. Though the following question certainly was an amusing one. Did she like hollows?

"I don't feel any partiuclar way about them as a whole. There are examples of both pleasant and unpleasant members of the group. As there are with any broad stroke of a group." She observed openly, considering if at any point she might find some way to 'feel' about them. She imagined humans did. They would likely fear or hate them.

"The process is especially unpleasant. From what I've been able to observe, it is agony. Arrancarization is ...intense. But it is a liberty to those who have been suffering for as long as they can remember. Though this too, is in some cases subjective. At the time that I was a hollow, I did not feel anything until my mask broke. But I don't believe that to be the norm."