Strawberry Maid; Butterfly King
First Flight: The Cage
I feel like a bird in a cage,
I want to spread my wings and fly,
Then finally the cage was opened.

Purple eyes stared out at the beautiful night moon before her, fingernails tapped against the rail of the porch and a sigh escaped painted lips.

'I want freedom...' she thought, staring out at the city before her.

She didn't have a horrible life... it could be worse, but then again, it could ALWAYS be worse. People always thought princesses were the luckiest people, all they ever had to do was look pretty and marry a prince and they could do and have anything in the world that they wanted, but that was so drastically far from the truth. Being pretty and marrying a prince were almost a curse, she truly hated it.

Princesses were held to a stigma, as a princess having your own style was prohibited, you must have long hair, you must wear expensive clothes, you must own fine jewelry, you must paint yourself with layers of make up, you could not blemish your skin, you could not dress comfortably, you could not smile and show your teeth without a fan or hand in front of your face, and you could not cut your hair ever. It was like she wasn't even alive but others were doing it for her.

The most devastating part, without a doubt, was marrying a prince. She didn't get to choose her prince that was her brothers' job. To the Kuchikis' nothing was more important than sustaining their honor. She had no choice but to marry whoever her brother chose, even if she did not truly love him. Gin Ichimaru was her future husband and prince of a far off kingdom in the west. Rukia may have always been a strong woman but something about that man makes her just want to curl up in a ball and cry out of fear, the fact that he was her brother's age was the least half of her worries.

Rukia gritted her teeth and squinted her eyes shut.

'And tomorrow it will all end...' she thought with regret.

Tomorrow was her wedding day. She'd have a red letter printed on her forever after tomorrow morning. The fact that she never accepted Gin's marriage proposal to begin with made her hot with rage to the point where she wanted to cry. Her brother had signed the papers for her when they were sent and at the formal engagement she never uttered a word, when Gin had asked her to marry him Gin exclaimed that she must have been speechless from excitement, which everyone at the event had thought was cute besides Rukia how wanted to protest and Byakuya who just sat there with usual poker face.

"This cursed ring..." she huffed with anger.

Taking the silver piece off of her finger and staring at it with disgust.

Even the silver band gave her chills. She had already made up her mind though, she wouldn't do this, she refused. This was the one thing she would not give up because of her birth title, the one thing she would hold on to; she refused to sacrifice her purity for this... this... snake... nor for her brother, nor for her people no matter how much she loved or hated them. She would regret it for the rest of her life if she did.

The princess wouldn't dare allow him to see her, touch her, and most certainly have her. She would rather die before she hung her head in complete surrender to that man, or any man she didn't love. Dying with pride would be more honorable than living with shame in her opinion, but suicide was no less shameful for her family than giving herself to that man.

But tonight the Kuchiki Princess decided this would be the night she'd go to the neighboring kingdom Karakura. Rukia would penetrate the city with papers declaring a peace offering and pray the guards of the Kurosaki kingdom wouldn't kill her before the king got the chance to read her papers.

In the eyes of her people and to the other kingdom she would look like a foolish child who had gotten lost in the village, a true disgrace to the princesses country.

Rukia looked out at the beautifully lit palace of the Kurosaki kingdom and made up her mind.

And so the bird flew into unknown skies

Rukia had made sure to leave the strands of fallen hair in a pouch, which she had buried in the backyard. People would assume her hair was cut by the guard who caught her, stripping her of her royal status, shaming her but to her she felt FREE... so FREE!

With her hair short and sweeping her shoulders, she had changed into an elegant ball gown instead of her kimono so she wouldn't stand out. Since the Kurosaki palace was having a masquerade party that night, she slipped right through the guards sporting a butterfly mask.

Her intentions were to get past the Kuchiki gates and hopefully near the Kurosaki palace. It was easy getting to the palace, every night around eleven a cart of strawberries went from their village towards the Kurosaki kingdom. After all, the best strawberries anyone will ever find could only come from the Kuchiki Empire.

Rukia easily hid in the back of the cart when the horse stopped for water. The princess snuck out as soon as the cart was close enough to the Kurosaki castle. It was kind of obvious that she didn't belong. Everyone was socializing or dancing and Rukia was just kind of… there. She didn't seem to mind though as she found it nice just be out of the place. After freeing herself from the crowds of people she managed to make to a beautiful fountain.

'Koi fish... how unusual for a fountain...' she mused, deciding to take one last look at the beautiful fish before continuing her mission only to feel a presence behind her.

"So nice of you to join us... Princess Kuchiki..." he whispered in her ear.

Shocked Rukia turned around to find intense amber eyes staring back at her scared violet ones.

Only to have her wings clipped