Eye of the Beholder

[mistkitt]

Originally posted 4/23/2015

 More dryad!Orihime because I need cuteness in my life. Much thanks to shiloah18 for the idea. ;D

~

Orihime picked up a heavy black object from Ulquiorra’s glass coffee table and examined it. The contraption was boxy with one long, circular limb, a knob at the top, and several buttons. “Be careful with that,” Ulquiorra warned her as she pressed down on the biggest button she could find. A bright flash went off in her face. Startled, she screamed, threw the object in the air, crashed into the sofa, and scrambled over it while Ulquiorra dove to save the black box. “I told you to be careful!”

“I’m blind!” Orihime screamed from the floor.

Ulquiorra sighed. When people came across nonhuman creatures in movies, the teaching process was often skipped over in a humorous montage. God forbid they portray it as the challenge it was. “You’re not blind,” he said to Orihime. “Just keep blinking.”

She blinked rapidly. “Oh.” Once she was certain she’d recover, she stood up and glared at the object in Ulquiorra’s hand over the top of the sofa. “What is that thing?” she asked, flinching back when he turned towards her.

“It’s called a camera.” He tried to keep the annoyance out of his voice. “It’s an integral part of my work.”

“Work. Labor that you exchange for human currency,” Orihime said, repeating the definition he’d given her verbatim. “Your work is a camera?”

“Sort of.” A small smile tugged at Ulquiorra’s mouth. She’d taken an accidental selfie - and a very unflattering one at that. “I’m a cinematographer.”

“Cinematographer,” she echoed uncertainly.

He nodded his head towards the television, where two men were walking together. “Take that scene, for instance. The camera is at a distance from the men, so that you can see the valley before them, and the mountains beyond. The colors are darker than they would be in real life. It evokes a gloomy feeling, doesn’t it?” Orihime nodded. “Those are choices a cinematographer made, together with the director of the film. Giving focus to the scenery rather than the men establishes setting. You wouldn’t do that with a shot of a man’s mustache, because what does a mustache say about setting? Very little.”

Orihime nodded again. “I think I get it.” She tilted her head. “Umm. Well. Maybe.”

“Here.” Ulquiorra motioned for her to sit on the sofa. She did so reluctantly, casting suspicious glances at the camera in his hand. Then he went and lowered the blinds of two windows, opened another, plucked a dying rose from the bouquet he’d been sent by a transexual actress named Charlotte, and gave it to Orihime.

“Oh, this poor thing!” she cried, momentarily forgetting Ulquiorra as she brought the rose to her lips. The moment she kissed its withering petals, Ulquiorra took the photo of her. She looked up. The flower had come back to life. “What was that noise?”

Ulquiorra brought the camera over and showed her the accidental selfie she’d taken. She gasped at the close-up of her face. “What does this photograph say about you,” Ulquiorra said, then flipped to the picture he’d just taken, “compared to this one?”

Orihime stared at the photograph for a long time. The way the light shone in her hair, the soft glow of the magic reviving the flower, the almost sorrowful expression that lingered on her face at the sight of the rose, the gentleness and care with which she handled the stem. “Do I really look like that?” she wondered.

“That’s the way I want others to see you.” She turned her large eyes on Ulquiorra. He looked away, embarrassed. “I mean, as the photographer, that’s… I arranged the lighting so… Cinematography. It’s a similar concept, only with moving pictures.”

Orihime smiled. “Okay. I think I get it now!” She blinked, then frowned. “But how did I get in the camera when I’m sitting right here?”

Ulquiorra sighed. It was going to be a long afternoon.