A/N: In which I mess around with backstory...
Every culture has its stories of true love, of star-crossed lovers braving the odds to be together, soul-mates finding each other after decades of loneliness, princesses going on adventures and marrying far-off princes. Stories where everyone gets their happy ending.
This is not that kind of story, for all that it starts like one (the funny thing about romances and tragedies is that they so often start the same way). Here is how it begins:
There is a princess (there is always a princess). Fujiwara Shiori grew up the daughter of a noble, in a world filled with etiquette classes and calligraphy lessons and quiet conversations where she was expected to look pretty and keep her mouth shut. She lost herself in tales of passion and intrigue and excitement, using them as a welcome escape from the ennui of her everyday life. At night, she dreamed of being free, of being able to marry for love instead of convenience, of having a husband who would see her as more than a decorative ornament, where her existence would amount to more than a political bargaining chip or a means of producing children.
(No one ever told her that freedom has a cost.)
Then there is the man she falls in love with—a mercenary with decent spiritual pressure, possessing the same edge of danger and strength she senses in the shinigami she comes across. Unlike them, however, he has no ties to the Seireitei (to her father, to all the crushing expectations placed on her). She meets him in a bar, after sneaking out of the city with several of her friends who are just as bored as she is (Kaiwan, the gatekeeper of East Rukongai had let them out with a knowing smile and a warning to be back by morning). Aizen Daisuke is charming and handsome, all sparkling eyes, smooth words, strong jaw, and quick smile. He spends hours flirting with her and by the end of the night, Shiori is half in love with him already. She leaves him with a promise to return next week.
A week's waiting time turns into five days, then three, and before she knows it, she's sneaking out of the Seireitei every time she gets a chance. Of course, all secrets come to light eventually and hers is no exception—after two months of clandestine meetings in run-down bars, Shiori's father summons her to stand before him.
She offers no explanation, no words in her defense, refusing to make a sound even as her father slaps her across the face, hard enough to bruise (stupid, ungrateful girl, don't you know how much trouble this could cause me? Have you no shame?). Instead she nods silently as he dismisses her, bribes one of her maids to send a message to Daisuke, and then prepares herself to be on her best behavior for the foreseeable future. She waits a fortnight, until she has convinced her father that she is as meek as she makes herself out to be, and then she packs up all the valuables she can find (money, gold, her dead mother's jewelry) and sneaks out of the Seireitei for the last time.
She finds Daisuke waiting for her and as he welcomes her with open arms, she thinks yes, this is what happiness is.
She isn't mistaken, but this isn't where her story ends either.
The first few weeks are bliss. Shiori takes on Daisuke's last name, cuts her hair, and they travel to the 10th District of East Rukongai, far out of her father's reach. Daisuke takes on a position as a bodyguard to a relatively well-off merchant and they have more than enough money to live on, thanks to the size of Shiori's 'dowry.' He makes love to her for the first time a week after they elope (and it hurts, it's hot and messy and more than a little uncomfortable but she'd expected that after hearing about it from her older cousins—sure, sex could feel good, but that was a pleasure reserved only for men, wasn't it?). All in all, she thinks she's happier than she's ever been in her life.
Here is where things start to go wrong:
Somehow, about a month after leaving the Seireitei, word gets out in the district that they have money. Within twenty-four hours, they've been robbed of half their kan and three-quarters of their gold. Daisuke yells at Shiori for a good half hour before storming away. Two hours later, he comes back with an apology and tells her to pack her things, that one of his connections had promised him a job in the 14th District where they could start over.
Two months after that, Shiori watches her husband kill a man in front of her for the first time and spends the rest of the night alternating between throwing up and trying to wash the blood out of his clothes. He apologizes the next morning and brings her flowers, promising that he'll try not to get any blood on his clothes next time. She wants to tell him that the bloodstains weren't the problem—it was the fact that he'd casually gutted a guy for flirting with her that had made her sick to the stomach—but doesn't. It takes her a few days, but eventually she learns how to brush off her husband's actions as him simply being protective. In fact, it's almost sweet, if she looks at it in a certain way.
He starts to get rougher during sex, but given that he's almost always in a better mood afterwards, she puts up with it. The way he holds her close—warm eyes and gentle, loving words murmured into her ear—is more than worth the blood between her thighs.
Daisuke gets fired from his job—something about getting into a fight with one of the other bodyguards. He tells her that they have to leave again in rough, angry tones before storming out. She pretends not to smell the alcohol on his breath when he comes back.
Shiori's husband hits her for the first time when they've been together just after a year. Daisuke informs her that their money is almost gone and she unthinkingly points out that if he didn't spend his entire salary and then some on sake and gambling debts, they wouldn't have this problem. She regrets her words as soon as she says them, but it's too late—Daisuke's face goes pale with fury and the next thing she knows, pain is blossoming across her cheek and she tastes blood in her mouth. For the first time, she doubts her decision to leave home, but although she is Aizen Shiori now, she was Fujiwara Shiori once and she grew up a noble. She still has her pride, tattered though it may be, and she cannot quite bring herself to return and face her father as she is now (she cannot bear to let him see how low she has fallen). So she stays and she tells herself that she still loves the man who sleeps next to her every night (she has to love him—she gave up everything for him, so if she doesn't love him, what reason does she have to live?).
Daisuke treats her like royalty for the next two weeks, remorse and guilt evident in his caring touches, his soft words. Shiori smiles and lets herself enjoy it (she already knows it won't last).
Indeed, after their next fight, which leaves her with hand-shaped bruises on both arms, he comes back to her reeking of sex, with what looks to be a hickey on his collarbone. Neither of them mention it. Shiori pastes a smile on her face (forcing herself to act as if her heart isn't shattering piece by piece) and eventually life goes back to normal.
A month later, she misses her period. A few weeks after that, she starts throwing up in the mornings. Shiori may have been painfully naïve, once upon a time, but she was never stupid—and she recognizes the signs. That night, she cries herself to sleep. The next day, she tells Daisuke that he's going to be a father.
He disappears for a week. Shiori agonizes over whether to keep the baby or not (there are ways, she knows, to terminate a birth). She has no means of support aside from an abusive husband she cannot help but love and a few heirlooms she cannot bear to part with, and her life is hard enough as it is. But when it comes down to it, Shiori is a selfish, selfish girl and raising a family is the last remnant of her childhood dream. She wants to create something with her life, even if it means subjecting an innocent child to a world that will show it no mercy. In the end, it's no decision at all.
Daisuke comes home. He is obviously conflicted, but Shiori can see some of what she feels reflected back at her in his eyes (that same desperation to create something, to give meaning to his life).
Shiori's pregnancy…changes things. Daisuke is obviously more careful around her and even when she incites his anger (an increasingly common occurrence these days), she can see him visibly restrain himself from doing more than snapping out a few frustrated words. There are times where she catches him staring at her growing stomach with something like awe, and in those moments, she thinks she sees something of the man she fell in love with. She can't leave her house anymore (having children is near unheard of in the Rukongai and if there's one thing she's learned, it's that standing out is never a good thing), and the pregnancy definitely takes its toll on her body (she's always hungry nowadays, and despite how much more she's eating, it's never enough—she can feel herself weakening even as she gets thinner, her bones are constantly aching, and she never feels warm anymore), but despite everything, she's almost…content.
Giving birth is more painful than she could have ever imagined, but she's used to pain by now, so it's okay. It's worth it, anyway, to see the soft look on her husband's face as he hands their children (their children!) over to her. Sousuke was unexpected but not unwelcome, she thinks, as she looks down at the two miracles in her arms. She can't deny that a part of her feels absurdly proud—almost giddy, in fact. Having a child is rare, having twins is…well, there have only been one or two documented cases in the past few centuries. She can't bring herself to regret having two children instead of one, despite knowing that it'll place an even heavier burden on their already strained finances. At least this way, she knows that neither one of her children will ever be alone.
Daisuke, surprisingly enough, takes to fatherhood like a fish to water, constantly doting on both his children—loving in a way he hasn't been with her in almost a year. Shiori watches him cradle their son with pride and calm their daughter down from her hysteric fits with seemingly endless patience, and for the first time in a very long time, Shiori allows herself to hope. Sayuri and Sousuke, she murmurs to herself at night, over and over again. It sounds like a prayer.
Three weeks later, everything crashes down around her when Daisuke goes out and only his body—bloody and broken and empty—comes back. Sorry about your loss, one of her husband's friends (she can't remember his name, she only knows that he was the one who carried Daisuke home) whispers before fleeing out the door, leaving her alone with Dai—no, her husband's corpse.
I'm a widow now, Shiori thinks hysterically to herself before she falls to her knees and screams.
A/N: Next chapter there'll be more Sayuri/Sousuke interaction :) Should post it in about a week.
