Title: A Hollow's Kingdom

Genre: Fantasy/Romance

Rating: T, I guess, for some swearing

Pairings: Ulquiorra/Orihime, Ichi/Ruki, and Renji/Tatsuki, may add others later

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or its characters…………………………………………………………………..Damn.

Summary: When Princess Orihime's father and mother have been killed, her kingdom taken from her by the usurper Aizen, and her brother missing, what can she do to get everything back? There is only 1 problem: she doesn't have much time to formulate an escape plan and carry it out, as Aizen is planning on marrying her off to either himself or one of his henchmen to solidify relations with the people of his new kingdom. What can Orihime do, especially as she is locked up in her suite of rooms with no one to talk to, except for her hated guard Ulquiorra?

Chapter 1: Happy Birthday Orihime

The day began as any other normal day for Princess Orihime. After being forcefully awakened from a pleasant dream involving her and her orange haired knight, Ichigo, she was helped into the outfit she must wear for the day. It was a blue colour as pure as the sky on a cloudless day. The colour would bring out her fiery orange locks of hair that hung down to her waist that much more. The cut to the dress was simple, as it was a one piece dress with no petticoats, while it did have a small, embroidered cape over the shoulders.

Orihime smiled, this dress would have to be the work of the palaces' resident Quincy, Ishida Uryu. He was prized among the spiritual corps for his talents with his spiritual bow, but he was also a great maker of clothing for women. Orihime and he sometimes spent a few hours together during the day sewing in her solar, under the watch of guardsmen and gossiping maids, of course.

Though she could have put the garment on by herself, she let her maids fuss over her. She secretly found the primping rather enjoyable. Now that the servants were done dressing her, they gently led her over to the full length mirror in the middle of her sitting room; it had a simple wooden chair with a medium sized back. Then they gathered up her lustrous hair and started to fix it up, too.

They curled it until it was wavy enough to suit them, then they pinned it up high on her head. They let two locks of hair dangle on either side of her face, but the rest of it was captured in pins that had small blue and silver stones glued on the ends, so that they winked out of the depths of her curls and waves. Her hair now hung down to her shoulders, and the hairdressers tucked the two final pins in, the silver and blue flower ones that had been a gift from her older brother some time ago, and that she could not be parted with.

While they dug around in the dresser where she kept her jewelry, she heard a quiet knock come from her door that led out into the hall. "Who is it?" she called.

"Just me!"

Orihime's eyes lit up. "Come in, Sora!"

Her brother obliged and walked over to the doorway leading from her entrance chamber to her sitting room, hands clasped behind his back. "Guess what today is?" he asked with a mischievous smile on his face.

Orihime wracked her brain for an answer, but couldn't wring anything from it so early in the morning (the sun wasn't even up yet!). "What is it?"

"Happy 16th Birthday!" he called, whipping two wrapped packages from behind his back. He nearly lost his balance and fell over backwards when Orihime launched herself from her seated position 15 feet away to catch him in a flying hug.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou, thank you!!" Then she stepped back and released her hold on him so he could breathe. Sora gave her the presents before she hugged him again.

She tore through the plain brown wrapping to reveal two nearly identical boxes, one with an outside of Bahamian Rosewood, and the other of solid Purple Heart. Her eyes opened wide and she clutched them to her rather endowed chest. She looked up at her brother, tears beginning to brim in her eyes. "Thank you, brother," she said again, though much quieter this time. "They're beautiful."

"The smaller one, the one made out of Purple Heart, is a jewelry box for you, to hold your most treasured pieces," Sora explained to her. "The other one, the Bahamian rosewood, is for holding the things you hold most dear in your life, or at least, the ones small enough to fit. Here are the keys," he said, digging through his pockets to get them. "The gold one is for the purple heart, and the red one for the rosewood."

Orihime gently took the boxes and the keys and laid them on her dresser top that was near her bed. She turned back to look at him and smiled broadly in her happiness.

"I think that dress you are wearing is a birthday gift from your friend Ishida Uryu. All of your friends asked me to deliver their presents to you right now, as they may not get around to seeing you today. Hold on and stay right there, while I go get them. Sora spun on his heels and left for a few minutes. For Orihime, this was too long and she began to bounce up and down on her mattress while she was waiting. Sora came back with two extremely full sacks, which he set on the bed as soon as Orihime stopped making it jump. He raised an eyebrow at her antics, and she just giggled it away.

Without a word, he opened one of the bags and took out the first thing he saw. These were two small boxes of Australian Lace wood; the markings on the wood making the eye believe that it was looking at the desert sands. Inside one of them, was a necklace made out of hundreds of tiny pieces of abalone shell, hand fitted together into something that Orihime could wear without it being uncomfortable. All of the little shells caught the light and reflected back brilliant hues of blue and green. The other box contained a set of earrings that matched the necklace, only these were made of only six pieces of shells each, one for each of her Shun Shun Rikka. Sora helped her to put them on while explaining that the necklace and earrings were a joint present from Rangiku Matsumoto and her Captain Hitsugaya Toushiro, of 10th squad.

There was embroidery set from Yumichika, and a letter opener made of deer antler from Ikkaku. Yachiru had been thoughtful and had given her a bit of lace that had a rather elegant design on it. Captain Zaraki of 11th squad had commissioned an honorary uniform with the symbol for his squad on it; she could pick it up at the tailor's later, as it wasn't quite finished just yet. He'd put her receipt for it in one of Sora's bags. There was a little carven figurine of a dragon from Maki Maki. Rukia had given her a pair of leather sandals (the type that wraps around the heel) dyed in the same colour as her dress; Orihime immediately buckled those on. Captain Byakuya of 6th squad gave her several nice pieces of super soft and supple vellum to draw some of her best embroidery designs on. They were even dyed a brilliant white. Thinking to complement the gift that his captain had given her, Renji gave her several quills and inkpots full of many different hues of ink. There was also a small Ichitori set, just a simple wooden bowl and 45 brightly polished stones. They were from Keigo and Muizuiro. Chad had procured many balls of yarn in different colours for Orihime's enjoyment. She was really pleased with these, now she could knit thank you scarves for everyone.

Ichigo's present surprised her. It was a cookbook! Well, there were some new recipes that she wanted to try out, but what was he trying to say about her cooking? Was he trying to say it was good, and encouraging her to continue with his present? Or was her cooking awful and he was just trying to make sure he didn't die of food poisoning? Orihime pondered this for a couple of seconds. It must mean that he likes her cooking, since he gave her more recipes to modify to her own taste!

The last present that Sora pulled out was a large hair pin that looked like a red dragonfly. She touched it to her cheek gently, and started bawling like a young child, with nothing keeping the tears in check at all.

Sora was shocked. He hadn't anticipated this type of reaction to any gift she was given. Her chokes changed a little, as she tried to catch her breath and say something. Sora leaned in closer to catch her words.

"W-w-wh-o g-gave m-me this pr-pr-pres-ent?" she finally managed.

"Your friend, Tatsuki," Sora answered her. For the second time already that day, Orihime flung her arms around her older brother. He enfolded his arms around her slight form. "'Hime," he said, using her nickname, "what's wrong? Please tell me. Maybe I can help."

She shook her head against his chest, and then lifted her face to meet his gaze. She was smiling, in pure joy. "Put it in my hair. Please?" She turned her back to him, the palm with the hairclip in it extended out behind her for Sora to take.

He picked it up tenderly, and placed it in the center of her arranged hair, where it would be most visible. When he was done, she took two hand-held mirrors and checked out how the clip looked on her. She thought it looked nice; the colour of the pin and her hair weren't all that different.

"Brother?"

Sora had been neatly arranging her gifts on her humongous bed. He looked up at her. "Yes, 'Hime?"

"Would you like to hear why that gift is so special to me, and why I cried when I saw it?" At his nod, she continued. "You know, you are the person who raised me, the one who did it the most throughout my entire life. Mother and Father were, and are, just too busy to deal with a daughter that needed more attention than they could give; they just have too many duties being King and Queen. I have never hated them for that, and I know that they love me very much. I love them too, but I've never been very close to them." Orihime wheeled around on her feet to face the opposite direction from Sora, her hands clasped behind her back.

"Brother, you were a father and mother both to me while I was growing-up. I owe it all to you for how great I've turned out to be so far." She turned back to face him and looked him square in the eyes. "So, as a result, I worry very much whenever you leave the royal city's boundaries on an errand for Mother or Father. A few months ago, you were gone for a full 3 weeks. We had a fireworks festival a few days before you came back. My friends dragged me out of the palace to celebrate and have fun, but I was making the mood dour with all of my worrying. So my friend, Tatsuki, and I went to our favorite spot on the riverbank by ourselves. She asked me what was wrong, so I told her that I was missing you. She also asked me what I missed the most about you."

"Which is?" Sora prompted her when she finally paused for breath.

"Do you remember when I was younger, that you used to take me to that same spot on the river? You would point your finger to the sky and say, 'Look, Orihime!' and then a red dragonfly would land there almost immediately. It was like magic. I've never been able to do that once, so red dragonflies are creatures that I associate you with."

Sora didn't say anything to this. What could he? There was nothing more to add. He stood up and straightened out imaginary wrinkles in his clothing.

"Your friend, Tatsuki, must love you a lot," he finally told her.

"Yup! And I love her very much, too!"

Sora walked over to her and kissed her brow. Then he held his arm out to her. "Well, Orihime? Shall we be going, then?"

Smiling, she took his outstretched arm. "I'd be glad to, brother."