i don't own bleach & sonnet 17.
this poet lies
Whenever he asks about her own once upon a time and engagements and choices for princes, the princess spits for an answer. Albeit weak and pathetic and a feeble attempt to look intimidating and manly. Princess Rukia, Ichigo the knight thinks very fondly, is a bit fucked in the head.
"Why always ask?" The princess's black hair is not done in an elegant bun – on very princess-like waves and braids and curls, instead, on a messy ponytail, and forehead slick with thin sheen of sweat. No dress, she wears a garb similar to the noblemen of her court, white pants and a fitted coat, feet and legs in dirty high boots. A white sabre clutched on her left hand. Smudges of dirt on her cheeks and on the tip of her nose, and an unbecoming growl on her face. And they say she's the fairest of them all.
"Because I want to know when," Ichigo the knight easily carries a black-bladed claymore, as tall and as imposing as he is, "when I'm going to get relieved of my duties to you." He points the live steel to her, one-handed – as he is strong enough to brandish it in only on one hand.
It is very early in the morning, chilly and spicy, and the little light from the sky is barely a thin line. And unlike the princess who wore properly for their early spar, Ichigo got up from his bed unceremoniously (in his nightclothes), took his sword and allowed himself to be towed.
Ichigo likes to remark loudly how his skills are wasted by being the high guard to the princess – no matter how temporary. He could fight wars and win, but as the Kuchikis do not have any wars to fight, he could instead lay siege and gain more territory. Expansion – worthwhile. With the princess, his street-instinct is halted; he doesn't exactly know what to conquer.
For a princess, Ichigo thinks she's a disappointment. The princess doesn't have a mind full of daydreams, nor does she have a room full of expensive court dresses, she does have hands full of small scars and scabs from practicing with a sword, and a place to sit inside the stable's quarters to brush her horse. She wakes him very, very early to force him to spar with her in the marble gazebo a long walk from the castle. She keeps him late at night waiting for her to finish reading. She makes him pick grapes in the vineyard with her. She makes his life hard.
So there's a bit of conviction (only very little) when he smirked and said in all good but mostly annoying humor, "you're a disappointment." Other princesses don't have personality; it'd be easier to look after them than with the princess Rukia.
"Hah!" and her answer comes in a form of an aggressive attempt at a sword hit, willful and solid, but still weak. The princess is very little, too, diminutive in height. But: "When I hit you, 5 hits to the torso and up, will you rethink about that remark?"
The first rays of the season begin to dapple the marble gazebo and the trees and their scattered amber and ocher leaves. Ichigo considers the princess's words for a long moment, looking at her reflected with the warm morning colors of autumn, and it isn't quite right – how her violet eyes clashed with everything else. He isn't here to teach her or be her friend. "To the torso and up?" he echoes, thinking how could possibly the princess think she's big. Also, how could possibly the princess be too gutsy:
"Yes, I figured you'll need your legs and feet uninjured in case you want to run away in battle." She tells him very earnestly and wide-eyed, she meant that.
Ichigo permits himself an amused smirk very early in the morning, cutting and handsome, shifting in his stance and holding his sword in two hands, "then go ahead. 5 hits."
.
.
.
.
.
The circular sunroom of the castle glows misty in the early winter morning. The frosted edges of the windows that formed overnight begin to crack as the sky takes a swirling peach and blue shade – peach from the sun and blue from the night. The overlooking garden is half-buried in half-melted snow, daphnes and winter roses are pushing through the layer of snow, and are in full bloom, the cold and white extending very far. Rukia likes to spend her winter mornings here. Unavoidably, Ichigo spends his mornings with her.
She wears a dress today, cut across her shoulders (very curious to wear in winter). He finds her to be modest in dressing.
Over servings of apple cakes and rose tea, Rukia invites him to sit with her and converse, and share her food.
"Don't just stand there, you'd look like one of the decorative armors." She chides him, looking ahead at the silver-framed mirror reflecting him behind her, watching his reaction. Ichigo doesn't know if it was something given to nobles, but the princess always looks at him very sharply, very royal, too, annoyingly royal, always probing.
"No." He frowned at her through the mirror. Then tells her resolutely and rigidly, because Ichigo the knight only knew rigidity, "I am an armor." There's truth in it: I'm your armor. She knows it.
"Fine," Rukia pauses, and contemplates, spoon in midair, "then I'd like my armor to act normally from now on." Then decides on to add, "like a normal human."
"No." Ichigo answers, just as hard, remains in his standing position, as if he were planted there. He intends to not talk anymore.
"No? So you admit to not acting normal?" Rukia deliberately attempts once more.
"Eat in silence, why don't you?" Ichigo snaps.
.
Later in the day, when the snow starts falling idly, and the afternoon is tinged in blue and silver, Rukia decides to go out and scout an icy pond. A disapproving Ichigo following behind her, meters away, like always, just to keep watch.
The princess dared to venture out in tea-length dress and shoes designed for dolls. Ichigo eyes her balefully from a distance. She is of winter, to be sure; is why the warmness of autumn colors and the brightness of summer and the merriment of spring don't suit her.
.
As much as how Rukia would like to think her high guard smells like a pig and rotten tomato and all the unpleasantness of a dump, he doesn't. She found Ichigo to be neat – too neat, he often watches the maids work and tries to apply the procedure onto his own routine, in his own quarter.
The Kuchiki colors are white, grey, and blue. And Ichigo should wear the colors proudly. But long ago, they decided Ichigo is not a white knight, black suited him more, a distinction, and he seemed to have no problem with it. So during the winter, he stuck out from the white snow severely, like a crow and swans, but with a peculiar shade of orange for a head.
When Rukia turns her head, she sees Ichigo meters from her, without his armor, but still wearing a gloomy black attire, clearly glaring at her.
A man like him does not truly belong in a poor village – he's too much of a presence, there's too much of the sun in him to let him waste away in the back alley of whatever tavern his failed pickpocketing landed him. He has always been too tall to pickpocket and make a successful escape, he's always caught, but he makes good in fighting back, quick with his limbs and good with edged objects, but is always outnumbered and ultimately beaten bruised.
He's blazing and strong; knows disorder and anarchy but is not blind or unfamiliar to the painful drag of watching someone die from starvation and poverty; lives on very little but never selfish; brash but uncorrupted. A man like him never belonged in terrible villages and old taverns nor does he belong in petty skirmishes over few coins recruited as a mercenary with no name – some would be quick to spot the potential in him if they haven't yet.
Rukia's family, though regal and ruling and proud and more times condescending, spoke highly of honor and prestige to the man, took him in.
Rukia remembers having met him in the middle of winter, as it is now, exactly a year after.
Now the man is well-clothed and knighted, black-armored and tall, rides on a stallion of the purest black and dines on a full table, she thought Ichigo never looked so hale.