The Pale Woman (Dahlia/Lethas)(TBTP)

The years of experience a soul gathers as they live out their lives is paramount to their evolution. They learn from their mistakes and make memories that last their whole lives and ripples of their actions are felt years down the road. This is a luxury that one such as Lethas did not have the pleasure of experiencing. Years and years could go by and he would be exactly the same, albeit with some new memories, but not his own.

His own self didn’t change easily. The only molding influences on himself were the memories that he gathered from feasting. The soul was a sturdy thing and Lethas’ had evolved to overcome his forgetful nature by absorbing memories when he absorbed others after eating them. These did very little, since he knew they weren’t his. Even when they felt so much apart of him, they were rejected.

His mind was empty of any of his own thoughts, or his own feelings. He lived moment to moment. He lived in a strange, never ending limbo. Constantly being reminded who and what he was. His thought never became too deep. Destined to always get wiped from his mind as easily as chalk off of a chalkboard. Even in this sea of memories, he was still alone. Fated to never remember any that he would meet. Fated to be ever alone.

He had spend the past centuries flying between Hueco Mundo and the World of the Living, just eating soul after soul. He had no drive in life besides hunger, besides growing in power. His goals were set at the forefront of his mind. Gained from Maespa, he had the goal of growing. Of finding a way to stopping himself from forgetting. A way to gain his own memories instead of living in an ocean of useless ones.

The memories would help sometimes, but they were more often a burden on Lethas. He would be sparked by something and his memories would take over and fill him mind. Past lives would bubble over. He had to eat. He had to consume to gain power and gain more memories, since they were all he had. He had to consume because he needed to feed. His everlasting hunger always tore at his soul. Always called out for more.

The flutter of wings on wind could be heard as Lethas flew high above the wastes of Hueco Mundo. He had been stalking a pack of dogs for miles now, waiting for the right moment to strike. They would be easy prey. They had not noticed Lethas and he was planning on swooping down once they stopped. His hunger gnawed at his soul. His want of memories gripped his thoughts. His keen eyes saw them stop...near another figure. One Lethas hadn’t noticed before.

Lethas circled once, twice. They conversed. He was tempted to just dive and eat them all. His hunger was great. The white figure suddenly lashed out and took out the other Hollow. One. Two. Three. Slowly and methodically, she took them out one at a time. Lethas was enthralled by what he saw. The precision and decisiveness of the figures strokes were impressive. He had completely forgotten of his meal.

Wings flowed downward as he found himself slowly gliding downwards to where the carnage had taken place. The white figure was identified as a woman of some sort. Obviously one like Lethas, but he couldn’t tell much more besides that. He landed, quite gracefully for a creature of his size, near the woman, hesitant. He observed her, head tilted, as she feasted.

A vague memory of the food being his tugged at the sides of his mind. He pushed it away. A vague alarm of danger pushed into his conscious though. He pushed it away.

He continued to watch and see what this Pale Woman who had stolen his meal so adeptly would do next.

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The heart was an interesting prize, the idea of the heart nothing like the reality. The still beating organ La Mujer had ripped from her foe held no emotion, no answer to her questions. It was merely a tough rubbery pump, leaking blood onto the sand. And yet...it still held power over her, the warmth of it enough to draw the girls attention whenever she got one. All Hollows ate one another to grow, but the more powerful variants sometimes developed a taste for something specific.

For La Mujer, this was the one food that she could not resist. No matter how gruesome, or how pointless it was to feed more to the bottomless pit that was her being, the allure of the heart drew her back into violence time and time again. But it seemed her day was not yet over, the pack had been dealt with but another Hollow had been watching the watchers it seemed. She paid no mind to the giant owl at first, instead biting into her prize like a ripe red apple. The tear of flesh and the gurgle of blood brought a sweet taste to her tongue as her body absorbed yet another foe's reiatsu via consumption.

It was an interesting sight to say the least, this lithe skeletal woman biting into a dying heart like it was a fruit. But the woman ignored the other two victims, as well as the corpse of the wolf, only their hearts had been worth her interest once these creatures had died. She turned her head slowly, looking over at the Owl across her nearly nonexistent shoulder blade. Blood coated her teeth, but it was hard to distinguish if the blood was the wolf's or hers, as her bottom jaw and cheeks seemed to me made of raw muscle, bloody red as the heart she'd just eaten.

"An owl? I remember...such a bird." The skeletal woman mused, vaguely recalling the shape and the word from some lost past. "Mysterious and dark, an omen?" The woman questioned, her expressionless face somehow watching Lethas through solid bone. "Are you the omen of my death? Or were you the harbinger of theirs?" She turned to look at the corpses littered beneath her feet.

La Mujer was a curious Hollow, perhaps even the memory-less owl might reach such a conclusion or have the vague recollection of such a being. Hollows were creatures of fear, they cast shadows of fear to maintain control and avoid their own fears, but La Mujer couldn't remember such a feeling. She'd lost all of her humanity once, plunging head first into an ocean of madness and violence, only to wake once more deep within a different sea of insanity. Clawing her way through that had left her Hollow once more, a being that simply followed one impulse, to fill that hole within her.

Her left hand unconsciously drew up to her Hollow hole once more, hovering over it before she turned to face Lethas completely. The other Hollow was taller than she, but his proportions seemed more real, his body making more sense than her own. And like every other Hollow he seemed to have those things she so sorely lacked, though he lacked a human face, his eyes were what made La Mujer jealous. Eyes were windows into one's soul, the gateway by which beings read one another's emotions. She had no eyes, and felt so little, was she perhaps soulless? Maybe the owl knew.

Yes, owls were symbols of mystery and omens, but they were also known as creatures of wisdom and knowledge in a world far removed. Her hands dropped down to her sides, blood dripping slowly onto the sand beneath her from her right claw. Her hand was barely a hand even, constructed from skeletal plates and with fingers like the blades of a butcher knife, or maybe scissors.

"Mr. Owl, can you feel it?" She asked, her head tilting to the right a bit. She kept her distance from Lethas, not moving any closer. But she held no aggression for the other Hollow, in fact she hoped he'd have the answer she'd been seeking. Surely something as wise as an owl could tell her, could help her remember what Love really felt like.

A twitch in Lethas’ neck brought his head tilting sideways. He was watching the woman. She seemed to not notice him at first. She also seemed quite wasteful to the owl. The bodies of the creatures she had slaughtered with some skill had been left to rot. The only prize she had taken was their heart. Still beating, she had methodically taken them and eating them. Blood caressed her mouth and jaw and spewed forth with every bite.

It was almost mesmerizing to Lethas. She didn’t seem to have the same need that Lethas felt deep inside. She was able to be selective in her choice of meals. Lethas felt a longing deep inside of him. Unsure of where it came from he uncharacteristically shifted in his spot, no longer the stationary sentry he had made himself to be.

Before his thoughts could get muddled in self-analysis, the white lady spoke. To him, yet almost to no one. Her mouth dripped red as she spoke. It stirred the hunger inside Lethas. He had come for them, the one’s she had slaughtered. She may still let him have them. His mind was able to turn from hunger, if not for just a moment. He focused on her words and listened intently. He felt an importance in them. She was something more than he. Whole somehow where he wasn’t.

He answered her queries with his truths, “This One is no omen...This One was hunting these...” He gestured at the mangled bodies before the two creatures with a wing, another uncharacteristic thing of him to do. “This One hunts to survive. This One hunts to grow.”

The words were slow as molasses out of his beak. He was as methodical in his speech as the white woman had been in her kills. He felt the need to use each word carefully and place them where they were suppose to go. He didn’t know the next time he would be able to speak them, nor did he remember a time he had spoken them.

His head tilted even more sideways, almost completely parallel with the ground. The woman was observing him, he saw her hand reach up to her Hollow hole. She was strange in her motions. Everything about the woman wasn’t right to him.

He broke the silence, oddly wanting her to keep speaking, “This One does not wish to hunt you, Eater of Hearts.”

The faint sound of dripping blood on sand could be heard as the silence between them started to creep in. She looked like she was thinking before she spoke, breaking the silence. Her words did not make much sense to Lethas.

This One feels much through it’s memories.

“What is it you wish This One to feel? This One...has felt much...in a way”

He had felt much that he could remember. It was all only pseudo feelings brought on through other memories. He had felt love, hate, fear, regret, despair, happiness, nostalgia, and every other feeling under the sun. Yet none of his own feeling had ever been preserved. The closest thing he had were memories of Maespa, who had grown fond of Lethas. He thought that if he had feelings for the old turtle Adjuchas, it would be similar to that.

This woman’s question interested him. Not just that, the woman alone interested him. He may be able to appease her, have her show him how to suppress his hunger. He would need a way to gain the memory for it to stay with him. Failing that, he could get a meal out of the scattered corpses on the ground.

Or from this woman, who seemed to not need to eat like Lethas did.

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So he was not her omen, but theirs. He didn't think so, but perhaps his shadow signaled their deaths at her hands, or perhaps her shadow had robbed him of that honor. Either way she cared little, to kill was such a basic instinct that sometimes she didn't even notice when she was doing so. Like breathing, it merely took place as a means to exist. She remembered the earlier days as well, when the hunger was so strong she had to consume non stop just to grasp a moment's peace. But with each meal, each kill her mind had begun to solidify, and her heart to wither.

Then she'd attained this form, a body that somehow felt...correct but wasn't so. She knew she was a woman, but this skinless skeletal form was not what she wanted to be. Everything was so cold and empty. Her body was cold and thin, and her hands could feel nothing save when they tore into another's life. Only death brought warmth, only the pain of others brought relief. But the Owl seemed to still be at that level of hunger, when all that mattered was a meal. She turned her faceless head towards the ground where the corpses still bled out into the dunes.

So the owl wanted their flesh. No, it was more than that. He wanted their power, much as she had once. Hollows ate to acquire that which they lacked. At first it was always power, more power, there was never enough. But La Mujer had at some point...stopped craving it. No matter how strong she'd grown, it wasn't what she wanted. Thats why she starting eating the hearts. Yes, to eat the body was to consume their power, but she wanted their feelings. She wanted to feel what they felt, to feel her own feelings once more.

"I see. You hunger for their flesh." She knelt down some, wrapping her hand around the leg of a piece of the wolf Hollow she'd slain last. Then with a swing of her thin bony arm tossed the body at the feet of Lethas. "Eat then, an act of kindness. Perhaps I can feel...kinship." To care for another was another facet of love, and thus ultimately beyond La Mujer's grasp, but even the heartless desired interaction.

Her legs began to move as she walked towards another corpse, the long gait of her strides though nearly as long as she herself was, managed to maintain a semblance of femininity. Her hips still managed to sway despite their lack of girth, and the cloak that grew from her hips swayed like a dress as she moved over the body of the hyena. "We're different but similar. Hollows eat, craving for that which we do not have. But what I lack, they all seem to have." She mumbled as she continued to heap the dead before Lethas, a grim offering to the idol whose wisdom she sought.

As she finished her offering, the woman stood tall once more, looking directly at the other Adjuchas. Her limbs drew in close to her body, managing to shrink her silhouette to the point that this creature could possibly hide behind a stone pillar or tree trunk and vanish entirely. "I eat their hearts because I wish to feel. The heart is the symbol of feeling, of love." Her scissor hand rose up to her chest, pressing lightly against the right portion of her breast plate. "I miss that feeling, the warmth it gave me. But I am heartless Mr. Owl, nothing stirs within me save the need to kill."

"What is a woman without love?"

Lethas immediately swallowed the sacrifice. An offering to the Gods.

An offering to his endless hunger.

An offering to his craving memory.

He felt the wolf’s memories become his. He saw it’s life flash before his eyes. The pack was his family. The pack was his life. Much kinship had been between the creatures, even if their last moments did not show it. He felt the fear of the wolf, as this white woman had ripped his heart out. The pain pierced through him, but Lethas himself stayed resolute. He had felt memories enter his system before, though he might not remember it, his body was use to the change and sudden sensory overloads.

“This One thanks you,” He spoke quiet and slow, instead opting to listen to the woman’s words. He hung on every one. Given more food to sate his ever burning hunger, he gladly swallowed the other corpses whole. This gave him some kind of relief. Temporary taming of his tormented soul. He felt the other memories enter his, similar to the wolf’s. Nothing worth observing.

He gave her a slight bow. She continued to speak and he continued to listen, still holding on every word. He watched her shrink and followed with his eyes, leaning as she all but disappeared. She seemed like she was trying to hide from the world. Hide from her missing heart. Lethas felt much in that moment.

After she presented the question to Lethas, he struggled. He had his own missings. His own things that he desired to have. He could never feel love himself, yet...yet he had. He had felt it countless times over countless lives. Different versions, which all had different results. He knew how to feel, he knew how it was suppose to happen. But how was he suppose to explain it?

He started slow, as he usually did, breaking the silence when he thought it appropriate, “This One is also missing, lacking, things...A being is the sum of it’s past, yet...yet This One can remember naught. The only memories This One possesses are those that This One gains from eating souls.”

“This One does know of the pain you suffer. Feeling only happens in memory for This One. It is abstract and artificial.” The owl took a step towards the fair lady, slow, but steady.

“This One could tell you how thousands fell in love, how thousands felt as they did such, but This One fears without the actual experience, it will mean naught. The definition is different between lovers. This One could not pinpoint one specific one down.” He continued to struggle internally with ways he could explain to the figure before him. His wings moved slightly. Uncharacteristic to the normal stolid figure of Lethas.

“It may not help, but This One knows you will not find love in the heart, where the symbol lies, but in the brain, where thoughts do. Thoughts...and feelings...”

“The heart is mechanical, the brain...emotional.”

It seemed they were both broken in their own way.

Her with her broken heart, and him with his broken mind.

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The Owl swallowed up the remnants of her kill, the existence of the wolf soon lost to all but his and her memories, the poorest of places to be it seemed. His heart had fueld her hunger, and now a larger portion of his power went on to fill the void within the Owl, the two of them splitting the creatures power, but only the Owl gaining it's memories. La Mujer knew nothing of these Hollows, and now with their corpses gone she'd never think of them again. Only their facial expressions stuck with her, the beauty of their pain at her hands.

Thanks was an oddly rare resource within Heuco Mundo, as Hollows were essentially all predators competing against one another. A thing to be valued, and yet she could feel no joy about it. The respect the Owl showed her was perhaps more vital to her, as being respected meant being feared, and fear held power here. But La Mujer at least knew the etiquette of interaction and spoke. "You are welcome." Simple words, with no feeling of sincerity to them, the tone of her voice as empty as her heart. However while the monstrous woman could not feel much of anything, she could show interest, and the Owl's explanation of his own failings pulled on her more.

He moved, coming closer to her with timid steps, but she showed no response. Her thin frame remained still, as if she'd been carved from alabaster and was never meant to move. While being cautious was within the realm of La Mujer's remaining habits, she felt no need to to question the Owl's motives, he was straight forward, similar to herself, though through different behavior. He knew of the emotion she craved, had memory of it much as she did. No perhaps his were more detailed and useful than her own, but ultimately it was the same, the two of them remembering the memory of a memory.

It was odd this craving of hers, the want of something she couldn't comprehend. The sensation of knowing you had done something once, something important, and then being unable to remember exactly what that thing had been. Perhaps the Owl's poor memory was simliar, perhaps he knew many things, but most of it a mere mockery of the total. His answer was certainly reasonable, but just as useless as any other as well. La Mujer moved finally, the spindly woman bending down to hug her own knees, her unnaturally tall form looking quite odd in this pose. "I see, you don't know either. A pity." She mused to herself, her words showing her disappointment, but the tone the same as always.

However the Owl was not entirely useless, offering her other words of wisdom as he explained the importance of the mind. She looked up as her rose to her feet once more, her hand moving slowly towards her own head. "The brain..." She mumbled as her scissor fingers ran over her featureless face and head. "I...dislike thinking though. So alone with my thoughts, all I can think about is what I lack." A depressing thought, but the life of a Hollow could only grow more lonely as time went on. Their nature was one of murder, and the stronger you were the more fearful the world would become.

A self fulfilling cycle, pushing La Mujer to constantly seek the only relief she knew. "I ate once like you, always chasing a new meal to fill my need." But the hunger never went away...it merely changed. "But it never went away, it simply changed." Her hand fell from her skull, and her head looked down at it, somehow seeing it without any eyes. "You want power, so you take it, but what good is it?" She noticed the blood still dripping form her fingers, the last remnants of warm falling from her cold body once more.

"I grew so much, hundreds of years worth of murder crumpled into mere decades, but I am still much the same as any other." Hollows generally took centuries to reach La Mujer's stage, an accomplishment she'd made in a mere century. "I hunger still, and now my food is so much more scarce." Her hand moved slowly towards her lips, the skinless flesh pulling open as her tongue slithered out to clean her fingers. A cruel sight, to watch this monster save the taste of another's blood, but she continued her thought. "You watched them die? You saw their fear?" The tone of her voice finally changed, becoming something...seductive.

"Did you enjoy it? The vibrancy of their face’s during the throes of pain?"

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The desperation of the mother dripped from her voice. It could be felt in the air around her. It could be seen in her motions or lack there of. Lethas began to realize what this pale Hollow desired. It too seemed lacking. It too seemed to be at fault somewhere within the very core of its being. It too seemed broken. The feeling that Lethas had before finally made sense. He felt companionship. This creature he had stumbled upon had touched him in a way no other had. Her words echoed into him. They rang true with him. He didn’t know how to express what that meant to him.

It was overwhelming. He had never felt like this. He had never felt so close to something more. The shifting sands moved with his weight. He was closer to the Hollow, closer to the woman that had stirred something inside of him.

It wasn’t this woman, or was it?

He was unsure how to proceed. He wanted to know more. He wanted to hear her say more things that made sense. But he knew. He knew he would forget this. He knew he would be the same as before he met this creature soon. Eating this creature seemed wrong. It seemed horrible. It also seemed like the only way. He didn’t want to let this feeling go. He couldn’t let it go.

A question had been asked, though. Lethas needed to focus. He needed to keep his memories close. He couldn’t lose them yet. Not yet.

His slow voice broke the air, deep and close. He was near the woman now. “This One feels their fear. This One has their minds in its own. This One see’s your face before they die. They feared you immensely.”

He took a moment to reflect on the mother’s last questions. He had never thought of killing as enjoyable. Much of what he did was out of necessity. The need to keep feeding the hunger. The need to keep growing his memories. There was no room for enjoyment in his work. It was his life.

It was necessary.

“This One does not enjoy...This One only lives until the next day. Always hoping the pinnacle will be reached before the mind is wiped again. Perhaps if This One could put its mind to other things, it would feel pleasure. This One does not feel much.”

The Hollow called Lethas came up short with words. He didn’t mean to say as much as he had. The words had spilled forth. They were out in the air, dancing into the woman’s ears. He decided to ask the pale mistress questions. Her emptiness was vast, vaster than Lethas’ hunger. If he could help, things might be better for her. He felt like it might help him.

“How did you become what you are? What do you want to become?”

The two questions that seemed the most important. There was a problem. There must be a way to fix it. He had so many memories locked in his mind. There must be something or someone that can tell him how to fix her. He had to be able to fix her. If she could be fixed then there was hope for him. Hope that one day he would have memories of himself.

Hope that one day he would remember.

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The pain of being unable to love was the definition of La Mujer's existence. Her death robbed the ability to love from her, and without it she'd become a cruel monstrous thing. Perhaps that method of birth was exactly why Hollows were so dangerous, hungry beasts never able to sate their hunger, and growing hungrier instead. Most Hollows however died to their mindless hunger before reaching the far worse state of knowing what it was they missed. These two, Hollows of a higher class not only knew what they'd lost, but suffered more so because of the knowledge, further increasing their hunger to fill the hole within their heart.

La Mujer had hoped the Owl would have the answer she'd been seeking, but it seemed he was no better off than her, his soul still as incomplete as her own. The heartless Woman sighed with disappointment. It seemed however that the Owl could read the emotions of the other Hollows as he ate them or watched them. Fear...this was an emotion that La Mujer could still understand. The expressionless face stirred, the hints of a smile tugging at her lips. "Fear...is exquisite. The other Hollows all share that feeling, and always of me." The woman's despair quickly dissipated as she became the monster once more.

She listened to the Owl as he spoke, his manner of speech unusual but quite purposeful. But it seemed unusual, he still ate only to grow? La Mujer already knew, no matter how much power you acquired, it eventually stalled unless you found a way to answer the question, the question she still had yet to answer. She curled her bladed fingers, the weapons shining beneath the moonlight. "I was surprised at first, how the necessity of murder turned into relief as I grew. That fear you saw, the emotions it puts on their faces. It comforts me while I search for more." La Mujer was a sadistic creature, a difference between her and Lethas it seemed.

Perhaps it was merely a matter of personality, or was it their missing piece that crafted their personalities? A sadistic murderer, a creature who only felt warm when bathed in blood and observing the last moments of her victim, and he the mere predator, a creature eating to grow and survive. Perhaps she had merely evolved faster than he? Or it could be simply that they were different Hollows, and followed different paths all along. The thoughts she'd been having it seemed the Owl had reached as well, as he asked her how she'd come to be. A personal question, but the taciturn La Mujer didn't mind, after all she'd never shared that aspect of herself before, and sharing seemed like it might stir some feeling within her.

Her head tilted back, her eyeless face staring at the stagnant moon. "A curious bird aren't you? But I don't mind." She took a breath and lowered her gaze to him once more, the smooth surface of her face shining as she spoke. "I was many once...so many, a thousand voices all crying out in the dark. And beneath them all..." Her head fell forward to the ground as she tried to relive the memory of what she'd been long ago. "A woman...a useless woman at the bottom of it all, screaming out in rage." Yes, she'd been that woman once, a useless creature that'd lost what mattered most. What had that been?

"But I was strong, filled with hatred back then. How warm it had been." She clenched her claw closed, the lack of flesh on her hand the only reason she hadn't cut herself and drenched the sand beneath her with crimson blood. "I hated the pain, I hated the sound of their voices, but I hated myself most of all. You lash out, strike at the darkness and eat every body that falls till the voices go quiet." That time had been when La Mujer was a Gillian, a massive black Hollow comprised of countless Hollows all fusing together. Sometimes they all went mad and none ever took hold, but other times the strongest voice silences the others and claims all that power for it's own.

She'd done that, she'd massacred a portion of the Forest of Menos, leaving a graveyard as she started this journey of hers. "I was a thousand strong once, and then I became one. But losing them only made me cold, made me lonely." She wrapped her arms around her own body in a hug, the spindly arms offering no warmth. "I grew stronger, as you've seen, but the loneliness leaves you...hollow. "She'd realized the humor of the statement, but couldn't laugh at it. "Hatred was a warm blanket, and a powerful motivator. But when I had no one left to hate I'd realized I felt nothing. Do you know what it's like to feel nothing?" She dropped her arms, and somehow her stare felt all that more intense, as if she'd been trying to burn a hole into Lethas' very core.

"I consumed my hatred and fear, and now I regret it. This lack of feeling...is far worse. I am merely a walking death." Perhaps that was the best descriptor of La Mujer, a creature that brought only death in it's wake as it sought the epitome of life. "I would rather have been frail...have been weak but alive. I would give you all my knowledge Mr. Owl, if it merely let me love once again."

The only thing that comforts This One is memory.

The hollow Hollow’s story was similar to what he had seen in memories of other Hollow. His own life before Lethas was one that didn’t exist in his or anyone’s mind. Instead, he relied on the memoires of the ones he consumed. Their knowledge fueled his own.

The woman could almost be mistaken as frail if not for the sinister reiatsu that flowed off of her. Her plight could be heard in every single word that escaped the lips. He was drawn to it more than he had ever been drawn to anything. His massive frame was nearer to her skeletal being. He had been moving closer and closer as she spoke.

Her final words rung in his mind. Her knowledge. Her memories. His desire. Wide, unblinking eyes stared at the frame of the woman. The lust for memory filled him. He fought inside himself. Part of him wanted to help this creature. Her plight was so similar to his, perhaps there was hope for him if she could be saved. Another part wanted to consume her, have her live on inside of him.

They would be together and he would feel her plight...and know he wasn’t alone.

Silence broke easily, Lethas’ voice rumbling from his beak, “This One knows much. Not of itself, but of others. Of Hollow. To become closer to human. To become closer to feeling, you must shrug off your Hollow self...”

A strange notion, but one he knew of. Many Hollow he had eaten held knowledge of such things. The process of it had eluded him, but it was rumored and passed down through different Hollow throughout Hueco Mundo. This could be the key for her...maybe even for him. To become an Arrancar.

“This One...hasn’t seen it done. This One only knows of the process. Have you heard of what this one speaks of? Of the Arrancar?”

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Generally when two predators met the distance between them was a valuable resource, that neither wanted to lose. But as the Owl had moved closer to her, she'd deemed it unimportant, her lack of fear causing her to let go of caution for the moment. Sure he could possibly turn and attack her, but most other encounters began with such an event, if it happened now, it wouldn't be anything new. It was an odd comparison, how large and fleshed out the Owl Hollow was in comparison to her thin and skeletal shape, creating quite the contrast.

If the Owl ate her, he'd surely be increasing his own level of fitness and power, but it seemed the complexity of her being and that of his own was creating a rare relationship between the two strangers. La Mujer was unlike most Hollows, her lack of aggression or hunger making her a rare variant, something the Owl, a creature comprised of curiosity couldn't pass up on. And this Owl, his mind and visage both symbols of knowledge and possibly even hope for the murderous woman made her willing to forgo any hostility. She listened as the Owl began to speak of something she'd never heard of before.

Like a wandering vagabond, the frail monster paid close attention to Lethas, her head looking up from her hands and that eyeless mask somehow staring holes into him as he spoke of an even rarer creature than themselves. The word human...it was like an old word, something she'd known of but not thought of in decades. That was certainly what she missed, emotions were human things, so much so that she'd grown into this mockery of their shape as she evolved. If she couldn't feel love now, would being more human let her do so? She turned her head a bit in thought, thinking upon Lethas' shared knowledge. "Is it possible...to regain some bit of humanity?" She said as she looked at her arm, stretching out the limb while she thought.

It was human like...but vastly different than anything a mortal being would have. Sure she had an elbow, and fingers, but the limb lacked almost any flesh, it's movement in clear defiance of any natural biology. And her fingers, long and slick with bone, sharper than any sword. Could such implements even be called hands? She returned her hand to her body, her arms hugging to her knees as she grew a bit like an inquisitive child. The Owl continued, speaking a word she'd not heard before in her two and a half centuries of being. Arrancar. It was an odd word, fitting with the language of Heuco Mundo and Hollows, but she'd never heard the term out here in the wastes.

"How do you know of this Mr. Owl? What is an Arrancar?" She asked, her voice still cold and lifeless, but somehow a sense of urgency had fought through her taciturn ways and sprinkled into her voice. She rarely found her self truly interested in anything beyond her wandering violence, but the idea that she might still regain some type of feeling had roused the murderous woman from her stupor.

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The attention of the skeletal woman caught Lethas by surprise. Nothing showed outwardly, but, if he even had one, his heart skipped a beat. It was a surprising feeling. The same he had felt before. A need to help this creature, cutting past all his base instincts and hungers. She looked for knowledge that he had. Knowledge that could help her.

Help her.

It was a strange thought. To help another. To bond with another through strife and struggle. A feeling he had never felt before. A feeling he would probably never feel again.

Or even remember.

The feeling of uselessness tried to creep in. There isn’t much point to live a life that you can’t remember. Barely making it by on memories and eating every chance you got wasn’t fulfilling...did he need to be fulfilled? Did he need something more in life than just simply enjoying the neverending hunt. The never ending hunger gnawing at his insides. It wasn’t something he really wanted. He wanted it all to end...

He pushed the thoughts out of his mind, deeming the needs of the woman more important than his own now. He could be useful.

“This One knows very little about these Arrancar. This One was able to eat Hollow more knowledgeable and learn things. Just as This One was able to eat the ones that you killed and learn of their fear...This One has many memories. Many thoughts. Many lives.”

The air went quiet as Lethas took a moment. He didn’t take a breathe. He just stood there, towering over the skeletal frame of the woman and stared at her. His hunger was strong. He would not eat her, but it was something that had to be kept in check.

After it passed, he continued to speak, “An Arrancar...is a Hollow with a broken mask...If Darwin is someone you believe in then they would be the next step. They would be the continuation of our evolution from Gillian onward.”

He stopped speaking, believing he had given enough information. He didn’t have much left on the subject. Coming across knowledge of the Arrancar was a sparse thing. Any moment where Lethas could have run into one, he had run far away. Their power was said to be immense.

He wasn’t ready for that.

Yet.

[387] [7] [59]

Most evolved Hollows were intelligent, some only clever, but many had to be devious to evolve to such a point. And La Mujer wasn't an exception, not a genius but certainly an intelligent monster, a creature whose thoughts were rarely given a chance to show the thought behind her brutality. But even a clever mind couldn't compare with a creature who simply absorbed others knowledge through consumption. This Owl's power was certainly an impressive one, and meant he could play this game of violence very differently than she could.

Her face showed little expression, but the tone of her voice gave away her maintained interest in Lethas' words. He ate other Hollows to gain their memories and knowledge, similar to how all Hollow’s gained the spiritual power of their prey, but he could absorb even more of his prey because of his gift, La Mujer wouldn't forget this. Perhaps Hollows couldn't be friends, but as allies of circumstance, Lethas would certainly be the sort of resource not to be wasted by sheer violence. The Owl cast his darkness over her, like the image of a fledgling hero before the divine mentor of his story.

Though both of these creatures were the monsters of the tale, never to become heroes. Other Hollows might tremble in fear, or at least show caution. But she wanted this information, she wanted to know of a way to fix this misery, this hell that was Heuco Mundo. If she could regain some semblance of emotion, this madness of hers might pass, the lust for blood might never show again. But more than that, if she could feel she might better understand why she'd woken up in this horrific place, always fighting to keep her thoughts, only to wide up utterly alone with a deep sense of loss for something she couldn't know.

"Tell your tale Mr. Owl, tell me how I might regain my heart." She whispered in request, her voice almost human as she realized she needed his words, almost as much as she needed to devour her own kind to sate some dark hunger in her bones. She hungered for Lethas just as much as he hungered to know who he was the day before, to have a memory. The regain that piece of humanity was certainly the only escape from this existence.

The owl's words seemed cryptic, a name she didn't know, and an idea she'd never thought of. A broken mask? Was she wearing a mask? Well of course she was, but it wasn't clothing or something she could take off. Since she'd become a Hollow she'd wore a face plate made of bone, the mask growing simpler with each evolution. No eyes, no nose, no markings of any sort. La Mujer's face was as her heart, devoid of anything. Her hand rose towards her face without her permission, the long murderous fingers caressing the smooth bone growing from her face. Most of it felt just like bone should, hard and dense, but not as smooth as you might think if you had flesh to caress it.

But the way it circled around her mouth, the flesh beneath it, ultimately it was a mask. If she broke it off, saw the world with whatever eyes were beneath it, would things change? The monstrous woman took a breath, the information processing in her brain. "To fix what is broken...I must break myself again?" The words were not so much a question for Lethas, but for herself and the universe she lived in. Could it be so simple? If she took off the face of a monster would she cease to be one? Could it change the heartless into the feeling?

She grasped her mask, the smooth plate of bone held tightly as she pressed into it, feeling just how sturdy it was. She might be able to break it, but would it hurt her? THis was a part of her body, not clothing. Thoughts and more questions, and likely no more answers as the Owl fell silent. She'd have to seek more answers, from other Hollows.

She'd wade through the flesh and bone of her brethren if it meant an end to this merciless existence. "All of our kind wear masks, could it be so simple that taking it off is the next step? Are we all so ignorant to take this long to think of it?" No it was more than that, there was something besides just breaking it. "Where did you learn of the Arrancar Mr. Owl? Point me towards where I might learn more." She demanded, her voice carrying that same human sense of urgency. Lethas had pointed her towards the first real step towards escaping this form, and she wanted it.

Lethas might not be ready to leave behind his current life and needs, but La Mujer was desperate to regain what she'd lost. To feel, to suffer, to live, she needed that. And she needed to fill that void in her heart, the one that even eating couldn't fix, that need...for someone to love.