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Super-Earth
- Joined
- Jun 23, 2013
Kimonos itched.
This wasn't normally a conclusion that Shineiki Kietsu would have normally found herself coming to, since she didn't wear kimonos as a general rule. In fact, until this point in time the closest she had ever come to a kimono was when her parents made her wear a yukata for festival times in the district. She'd never had a reason to wear a yukata since entering the Academy and didn't even own one of her own anymore, having outgrown them when she hit that last growth spurt and shot up to just a little shy of six feet. Even still, she had a vaguely coltish look to her, all arms and legs and messy brown hair. She was exactly the sort that would look utterly out of place in a kimono. It didn't dissuade her newly introduced clan from trying to stuff her into one, but she at least had the satisfaction of knowing that she was right.
Kietsu, or Kiki as she preferred to be called (but noooo, try telling those nobles anything!) had certainly not known that instead of drilling the new recruits in sword forms or even kido, she'd be spending her day having someone poke at her face and hair, trying to pluck at her eyebrows and she swore they were trying to wash her freckles right off of her nose. Of course, that was after she had received a letter from a very official looking person asking her to come to the Nayumichi estate that morning. Komamura-taicho had been very understanding, though she imagined that he was just as confused as she was. Noble houses didn't typically have an interest in the rank and file shinigami, and even as a fourth seat, she wasn't high enough on the totem pole to really warrant anyone paying any attention to her. It wasn't like she was a genius or anything, she wasn't a captain, and she was just a commoner from Western Rukongai. However, when she arrived to the Nayumichi manor, she discovered that all that wasn't entirely accurate.
The Nayumichi clan was a lesser noble clan, but like all noble houses, they were always seeking ways to rise in status. There were only certain ways for a house to rise in rank. Conquering and wiping out another house was extremely frowned upon in these more civilized times; that was a barbaric custom from back in the day. They could attempt to curry favor with the Soul King but that could take thousands of years to come to fruition, and that was assuming that anything at all came of it. There was a third way of course, and Kiki was looking for the door as soon as they started to speak about it. Ohh, they had been very nice and polite, a little stiff for her tastes up until that point, but they were nobles so she didn't pay it much mind. She had manners; they might not be the best, but she could at least appear civilized. Well, up until the point that they explained why she was there and outlined their master plan for her.
It had never occurred to Kiki that her parents might have had a life before her. Ohh, she knew on a fundamental level that her parents were people with their own lives and everything that didn't include her, but they'd never talked about it, and whenever she'd asked, they told her stories about their lives here in the district before she was born. To be told that her father was a noble who had abdicated his place in the clan to marry her mother, a soul from Rukongai who had been a maid on the family estate, had been enough of a shock. It didn't make any sense to her. Her father wasn't at all what someone would have thought of when they imagined a noble. And her mother…if she had ever pegged one of them for being secret nobility, it'd have been her mother. Graceful and beautiful, she carried herself with a regal sort of bearing even when doing the simplest tasks. Her father was a carpenter, and one of the district elders, and her mother owned a restaurant. How…how could they have hidden something like that? She was still in shell shock when they went on to explain why they had sent for her.
She had known that she should have run as soon as they mentioned that they were working towards an alliance with one of the high noble houses. The heiress of the clan was supposed to be meeting with a clan leader to see if they would suit well and if his family would accept her into their clan. However, it seemed that there was one in every generation, and the daughter who was supposed to be doing her duty by the clan had found herself in a most compromised position with another man, and thus was…unsuitable for the task. Kiki wasn't sure why this was any use to her, she wasn't political savvy in the least and the ever shifting ranks of power in the noble houses hadn't ever interested her. It wasn't until they started throwing around words like "marriage" and "producing heirs" that she started to get an idea of what they wanted. Apparently, she was the only other woman in the clan of an age to fulfill any sort of marital obligations. And looking around, she noticed…yeah. She was the only female that she had seen that was older than a preteen and younger than a grandmother. At least, the only single one, they had explained. It had taken months of careful negotiations to arrange a meeting between the heiress and the clan leader, and to not have a daughter to present them, well…that was a quick way to fall from grace. A VERY quick way.
It was a no-brainer. She was just about to thank them for the tea and the little cakes with the seeds on them (which she was sure were firmly lodged between her teeth at this point!) and beat a hasty retreat...when they sweetened the deal. Her father would have his position in the clan restored. Her mother would be accepted and welcomed as a noble lady. They could return to live in the clan manor if they wished. All she had to do was just meet with the clan leader. It was too good of a deal. She didn't know how happy her parents would be about something like that, but…there were times when she could remember her mother looking at her father sadly, times when her father would simply hold her mother and pet her hair and say it was alright, that it was worth it. Times that she would watch her father hold an old medallion with a wistful expression, and when she asked about it, he said it was nothing, and distract her with a new joke or idea for a prank. But now it all made sense.
They had said all she had to do was show up; that they would handle the rest. She wouldn't actually have to marry anyone, they wouldn't force her into that, but it would save much more face to have a daughter to present and be refused than to have no daughter at all and have to explain what had happened. She supposed she could see the reason behind that. And so she found herself subjected to the tortures of face painting and hair pinning and nails being filed and scrubbed and lotioned. They had tried to pluck her brows even and brandished some odd metal wand at her eyelashes like they were going to try and rip them out, but she drew the line at that. After all, it was just a simple matter of going there, meeting whatever noble it was that they were talking about, be polite for a few minutes, and then she could wash the gunk off her face, go back to her uniform and her duty as far as her clan was done. Easy peasy.
At least, it would have been if the clan head head was anyone other than Kuchiki Byakuya. Yeah. That would have been nice to know.
When they had dropped THAT little bombshell on her, they had been nearly to the gates of the Kuchiki estate. They'd had to grab her by the obi and hold her in place because the idea of showing up and having to make small talk with the stoic, quiet captain of the 6th division was enough to give Kiki a serious case of the heebie jeebies. She'd tried to bolt, but unfortunately for her, a couple of her clan elders had apparently been working out because all she managed to do was nearly trip in her sandals. She hadn't ever met the man before, though she had seen him in passing a few times, and that was more than enough. The man practically oozed "noble" from his pores – if he even had them, that is. He was…well, everything that she had always prayed never to be stuck in a room with for a long time, and so meeting him to talk about… ohh sweet Soul King, they were gonna try and marry her to Kuchiki-taicho! Kiki wasn't much for fainting, but that was just about all it would take to do it for a girl. She felt decidedly more like she was going to the gallows than to a meeting with a possible husband (and she had a very hard time not laughing hysterically at that idea). However, she might have felt a bit better had she known that at that moment, Kuchiki Byakuya was feeling rather the same way.
This wasn't normally a conclusion that Shineiki Kietsu would have normally found herself coming to, since she didn't wear kimonos as a general rule. In fact, until this point in time the closest she had ever come to a kimono was when her parents made her wear a yukata for festival times in the district. She'd never had a reason to wear a yukata since entering the Academy and didn't even own one of her own anymore, having outgrown them when she hit that last growth spurt and shot up to just a little shy of six feet. Even still, she had a vaguely coltish look to her, all arms and legs and messy brown hair. She was exactly the sort that would look utterly out of place in a kimono. It didn't dissuade her newly introduced clan from trying to stuff her into one, but she at least had the satisfaction of knowing that she was right.
Kietsu, or Kiki as she preferred to be called (but noooo, try telling those nobles anything!) had certainly not known that instead of drilling the new recruits in sword forms or even kido, she'd be spending her day having someone poke at her face and hair, trying to pluck at her eyebrows and she swore they were trying to wash her freckles right off of her nose. Of course, that was after she had received a letter from a very official looking person asking her to come to the Nayumichi estate that morning. Komamura-taicho had been very understanding, though she imagined that he was just as confused as she was. Noble houses didn't typically have an interest in the rank and file shinigami, and even as a fourth seat, she wasn't high enough on the totem pole to really warrant anyone paying any attention to her. It wasn't like she was a genius or anything, she wasn't a captain, and she was just a commoner from Western Rukongai. However, when she arrived to the Nayumichi manor, she discovered that all that wasn't entirely accurate.
The Nayumichi clan was a lesser noble clan, but like all noble houses, they were always seeking ways to rise in status. There were only certain ways for a house to rise in rank. Conquering and wiping out another house was extremely frowned upon in these more civilized times; that was a barbaric custom from back in the day. They could attempt to curry favor with the Soul King but that could take thousands of years to come to fruition, and that was assuming that anything at all came of it. There was a third way of course, and Kiki was looking for the door as soon as they started to speak about it. Ohh, they had been very nice and polite, a little stiff for her tastes up until that point, but they were nobles so she didn't pay it much mind. She had manners; they might not be the best, but she could at least appear civilized. Well, up until the point that they explained why she was there and outlined their master plan for her.
It had never occurred to Kiki that her parents might have had a life before her. Ohh, she knew on a fundamental level that her parents were people with their own lives and everything that didn't include her, but they'd never talked about it, and whenever she'd asked, they told her stories about their lives here in the district before she was born. To be told that her father was a noble who had abdicated his place in the clan to marry her mother, a soul from Rukongai who had been a maid on the family estate, had been enough of a shock. It didn't make any sense to her. Her father wasn't at all what someone would have thought of when they imagined a noble. And her mother…if she had ever pegged one of them for being secret nobility, it'd have been her mother. Graceful and beautiful, she carried herself with a regal sort of bearing even when doing the simplest tasks. Her father was a carpenter, and one of the district elders, and her mother owned a restaurant. How…how could they have hidden something like that? She was still in shell shock when they went on to explain why they had sent for her.
She had known that she should have run as soon as they mentioned that they were working towards an alliance with one of the high noble houses. The heiress of the clan was supposed to be meeting with a clan leader to see if they would suit well and if his family would accept her into their clan. However, it seemed that there was one in every generation, and the daughter who was supposed to be doing her duty by the clan had found herself in a most compromised position with another man, and thus was…unsuitable for the task. Kiki wasn't sure why this was any use to her, she wasn't political savvy in the least and the ever shifting ranks of power in the noble houses hadn't ever interested her. It wasn't until they started throwing around words like "marriage" and "producing heirs" that she started to get an idea of what they wanted. Apparently, she was the only other woman in the clan of an age to fulfill any sort of marital obligations. And looking around, she noticed…yeah. She was the only female that she had seen that was older than a preteen and younger than a grandmother. At least, the only single one, they had explained. It had taken months of careful negotiations to arrange a meeting between the heiress and the clan leader, and to not have a daughter to present them, well…that was a quick way to fall from grace. A VERY quick way.
It was a no-brainer. She was just about to thank them for the tea and the little cakes with the seeds on them (which she was sure were firmly lodged between her teeth at this point!) and beat a hasty retreat...when they sweetened the deal. Her father would have his position in the clan restored. Her mother would be accepted and welcomed as a noble lady. They could return to live in the clan manor if they wished. All she had to do was just meet with the clan leader. It was too good of a deal. She didn't know how happy her parents would be about something like that, but…there were times when she could remember her mother looking at her father sadly, times when her father would simply hold her mother and pet her hair and say it was alright, that it was worth it. Times that she would watch her father hold an old medallion with a wistful expression, and when she asked about it, he said it was nothing, and distract her with a new joke or idea for a prank. But now it all made sense.
They had said all she had to do was show up; that they would handle the rest. She wouldn't actually have to marry anyone, they wouldn't force her into that, but it would save much more face to have a daughter to present and be refused than to have no daughter at all and have to explain what had happened. She supposed she could see the reason behind that. And so she found herself subjected to the tortures of face painting and hair pinning and nails being filed and scrubbed and lotioned. They had tried to pluck her brows even and brandished some odd metal wand at her eyelashes like they were going to try and rip them out, but she drew the line at that. After all, it was just a simple matter of going there, meeting whatever noble it was that they were talking about, be polite for a few minutes, and then she could wash the gunk off her face, go back to her uniform and her duty as far as her clan was done. Easy peasy.
At least, it would have been if the clan head head was anyone other than Kuchiki Byakuya. Yeah. That would have been nice to know.
When they had dropped THAT little bombshell on her, they had been nearly to the gates of the Kuchiki estate. They'd had to grab her by the obi and hold her in place because the idea of showing up and having to make small talk with the stoic, quiet captain of the 6th division was enough to give Kiki a serious case of the heebie jeebies. She'd tried to bolt, but unfortunately for her, a couple of her clan elders had apparently been working out because all she managed to do was nearly trip in her sandals. She hadn't ever met the man before, though she had seen him in passing a few times, and that was more than enough. The man practically oozed "noble" from his pores – if he even had them, that is. He was…well, everything that she had always prayed never to be stuck in a room with for a long time, and so meeting him to talk about… ohh sweet Soul King, they were gonna try and marry her to Kuchiki-taicho! Kiki wasn't much for fainting, but that was just about all it would take to do it for a girl. She felt decidedly more like she was going to the gallows than to a meeting with a possible husband (and she had a very hard time not laughing hysterically at that idea). However, she might have felt a bit better had she known that at that moment, Kuchiki Byakuya was feeling rather the same way.
