As one girl breathed a sigh of irritation, another stood in front of a mirror. Her robes were a steely shade of blue and embroidered with water lilies - the emblem of her noble family. She had bathed for several hours that day, scrubbed at her skin until she was pink as a newly born babe. Even as she stood there, fully clothed, her hair still bordered on the damp side.
This girl always made a conscious effort with her appearance but today was special, requiring more effort than usual. It was a day she had dreaded for many months and goodness knows how many years. The commanding sect of the thirteen Shinigami squads, better known as Central 46, was made up of various noble born citizens. It was regarded as a great honour to sit in the conference hall and give judgement on the daily running of the squads, one that the girl's grandfather had promised her since she was old enough to talk.
On the eve of your thirteenth birthday, Hotaru, I will take you with me, she remembered him saying so long ago. Make sure you are beautiful by then, my dear, they all will be looking at you.
She had never understood the meaning of his words, why any of the nobles would bother looking at her, though the older she got and more beautiful as her grandfather had so kindly requested, she attributed it to her flawless features and bright eyes. Eyes so much brighter than any of her cousins', sharp enough to spot the hatred in theirs.
Yes, that was right, all of them hated her, her cousins and their mothers in equal measure. They were not at all gentle when they combed her hair, pinched when they dressed her in such exquisite robes. She would have to have been blind not to notice their jealousy - it was quite unusual for an unmarried young woman to make an appearance at Central 46 and her grandfather had never so much as mentioned it to her cousins, let alone promise them an outing. She was his clear favourite, had the best food from the table and the nicest clothes.
And that was what confused her so much about her outing to Central 46. The administrative duties did not interest her in the slightest. She knew next to nothing about the rules and regulations Shinigami had to follow, much less how to make decisions on their behalf. She did not want to insult her grandfather, but she was about as excited about visiting the Shiningami conference hall as she was about the pain of childbirth.
A knock to her dressing room door dragged her out of her thoughts and, with the sweetest, most feminine voice she had in her arsenal she called 'Come in'. She immediately leaped into the arms of the man who stepped inside, regardless of how his grip creased her clothes or his kisses dislodged the various ornaments in her hair.
Her brother, Haruka, often seemed to be the only person in her family that actually liked her and she loved him as much as she hated everybody else. He was as masculine as she was delicate, taller than all of her other male cousins and had the same grey eyes that she did. His arms were strong and warm, arms that had wrapped themselves around her when she was much younger and prone to nightmares.
She took in his smell as he held her, the mix of bath salts and steel that seemed to enclose his person. Her brother was ten years her senior and a member of the King's Guard, higher in rank than all of the commanding officers of the thirteen guards, which even the girl had to admit was impressive. However, the privilege came at a cost - namely that Haruka was rarely around to speak to.
He laughed and buried his face in her hair.
"Hey, Ru-chan, if I didn't know any better I'd say you missed me," he said.
Haruka was the only person with a pet name for her. Everybody else called her Naraku-sama or, at a push, Hotaru-sama. Everybody spoke to her as if they didn't know her - all except for Haruka. Darling Haruka, who would ferret drumsticks and greasy breads into her room when they were children since Hotaru's inability to hold chopsticks in the manner expected of a noblewoman meant she often went to bed hungry. The pair of them conspired as they dragged flesh from bone with their fingers and grease dripped down their chins.
"Of course I missed you," said Hotaru as she reluctantly left his embrace. "You've been gone for such a long time. I'm starting to think it was a terrible idea you joining the King."
Haruka laughed at her bitter words.
"The King is an honourable man, Ru-chan, and it would be better if you remembered that," he said, pausing to observe her sullen expression. "Now what on earth is the matter with you?"
Hotaru didn't know how it was that he read her every move as if she was a picture book, yet it was an enormous weight off her shoulders to finally have someone to talk to.
"Grandfather intends to take me to the Central 46," she said. "I don't want to go - I have more important things to do-"
"Ah, like reading banned books?"
Hotaru blushed a bright red at his accusation. Each of the noble houses prided themselves on something and in the case of the Naraku family this was kidou. Not the same sort of aggressive kidou used by Shinigami, but a gentler, more delicate sort that the women used to create things of beauty, and in turn attract better husbands. Their ancestor, Naraku Gyra, had been the King's magician, delighting the royal court by turning grown men into chickens and using the feathers as darts. He had been able to levitate things, bring statues to life and so much more. His kidou was an innocent, borderline vain creation, as it meant female children were no longer a curse. From being young girls in main Naraku families were taught kidou - to grab all of the attention from women of other houses. Hotaru did not know when exactly it had been adapted for warfare.
What she did know, however, was that her mother had been exceptionally talented-capable of making dead flowers bloom once again and creating horses out of flames. She was so talented, in fact, that many nobles still referred to her as the Gyra of her generation. The banned book, as Haruka referred to it, was the manuscript of an enormous textbook detailing the 'art of kidou'. The manuscript was unfinished and divided into three volumes, one and a half of which were actually published. The most important detail, however, and the reason it had survived so many years in the Naraku household following their mother's disgrace was that it was written in her tidy handwriting and still smelled of her were you to hold the papers close enough.
Hotaru had only been a baby when her mother was disgraced and no one wished to speak of her any more. She did not know what it was that her mother had done that was so terrible that no one would speak about it. Hotaru and Haruka had been shipped off to live with their grandparents shortly afterwards and all of their mother's possessions were locked in their grandfather's study -including that manuscript. It belonged to Hotaru and Haruka but they were expressly forbidden from going anywhere near it.
"That manuscript is ours, Haruka," Hotaru snarled. "Our mother would have wanted us to read it."
There was no use denying she had read the manuscript - she knew the truth would have been abundantly clear from her reaction.
"Mother would have wanted us to do many things, I imagine," he said. "But she's not here."
Hotaru bit her lip and said nothing. Sometimes, as much as she loved Haruka, it was all she could do to prevent herself from slapping him across the face. She liked to think of her mother as the elegant creature all of the stories seemed to suggest, rather than a disgraced woman who did something so hideous that no one was permitted to talk about it.
"Don't worry about Central 46," said Haruka, taking her silence as agreement. "I'll be there with you and just between you and me, Grandfather has requested that Central 46 hold their meeting at midnight, as he intends to make a grand announcement."
At first Hotaru meant to ask why midnight, but she slowly began to understand. At the stroke of midnight she would be thirteen, the age when most girls began to think of marriage. A grand announcement at midnight, in front of all the other nobles surely suggested bragging and, what's more, it seemed her brother had come home from his duties as the King's Guard just for it. Along with his warning about insulting the King, her suspicions were peaked.
"Could it be…" she said, the words catching in her throat. "That Grandfather intends to marry me into the royal family?"
Haruka laughed once again and wrapped his arms around her shoulders.
For the first time in almost thirteen years, Hotaru worked hard to contain her squeal of excitement.
