DISCLAIMER: Cindquiorra and her family belong to Mr. Tite Kubo.
When Cindquiorra had finished her pre-evening, post-afternoon chores it was just in time for dinner, and since the cellar was under construction to become part of the girls' new indoor swimming park, she was allowed to eat with the rest of the family at the big table.
The dinner started off as normal as possible for this dysfunctional family. The two stepsisters had been out shopping for clothes in nearby Karakura 109, and were showing off their latest purchases to their mother, who had been getting her hair straightened in the meantime.
"You're so boring, Yammy!" The younger sister rolled her eyes, playing with her fork.
"I AM NOT." Bellowed Yammy and spat out a wad of pudding into the vase of wilting roses that had been positioned strategically in front of him.
"Yes you are, you fat pig. Today we went into Urahara's Boutique and Yammy bought the most boring thing in the world. A black shirt. It has no ruffles, no, like, lace, no glitter or sequin…or PINK! It's just…a lame black shirt." The younger sister said the word "fat" like it was the worst possible curse and the greatest bane possible in a person's life. The opposite applied to "pink", which was uttered with utmost reverence.
"BLACK'S SLIMMING!" Yammy screamed with the force of twenty large hollows, and a blob of pudding made a valiant effort, sailing over the vase entirely and onto his anguished sister's hair.
"My…my hair!" For a moment or two the younger sister sat, crushed and devastated.
"MY HAIR!" She gaped for another stunned moment or two, before leaping across the table and scratching wildly at Yammy's face until there were red marks down her sister's cheeks.
Her sister, lacking agility and nimbleness, made up with bulk. A single punch cracked the panes of glass in both frames of the younger sibling's spectacles, which had resiliently withstood the force of that hefty fist.
A brawl of epic proportions was about to begin.
"SHADDUP!" Barked their mother, flipping her greasy hair over her back where it remained glued to her robes.
Cindquiorra sighed and chewed blankly as the table erupted into chaos around her.
It took a while and a boisterous stream of violence but finally, the lively family calmed down and the younger sister piped up again smugly.
"Why, mother, guess whom we saw at Urahara's! Ishida Uryuu of the Royal Family!"
The mother frowned grumpily and stabbed at a piece of meat in front of her. "Who?"
"Mother! ISHIDA URYUU, that nice boy with the spectacles!"
"She means the dorky geek with the god awful curtain hair. The Prince's book writing…about himself…man." explained Yammy loudly.
"But he's so cute..."
Another catfight ensued, but this time Cindquiorra was more interested. What would a member of the Royal Family want with her peculiar family? Then again, she remembered her mother telling her the King was a complete loony and unnatural pervert. Best keep her nose out of this fishy business, and she didn't only mean her stepmother's breath.
"Anyway, Mother, Ishida Uryuu saw me while he was buying sewing wool and gave me this!" The younger sister said huffily, flourishing a piece of paper from the inside of her dress while pushing up her spectacles.
"Blind date at palace. Hot chicks needed." Mumbled their mother, squinting hard at the thick, well-made paper.
"It's a masquerade ball, mother! And it says that all beautiful young women of the kingdom are cordially invited! How romantic…" The younger sister sputtered, but her mother only shrugged and said, "Same difference."
"I'll bet they're doing this to convert that weird little Prince of ours. Best get him married off to one of them hot girls. Who wants a kingdom run by a freak?" Yammy asked rhetorically, a complete stranger to irony.
The mother leered.
"And who would the Prince pay more attention to than my gorgeous daughters?" She said with a leering grin, as her older daughter preened, gazing at her reflection in a shard of what was once a vase, and her younger daughter twirled a lock of shiny pink hair. "Marry the Prince, my daughters; I will give you all you need so you can succeed. And then, we will have riches, we will have power, our family name will travel to the furthest corners of the kingdom and beyond!"
Then as if nothing eventful had ever happened, the sisters cheered and went back to eating and discussing the newest make-up, shoes, make-up, body, shoes, hair, make-up, politics ("Say, isn't that Ishida Uryuu dating that nameless peasant boy Ichigo-something-or-other?" "That boy really needs a new pair of spectacles, he obviously can't see what or who he's doing.").
No one knew, however, that the words of the stepmother rang like peals in Cindquiorra's head, long after they had been spoken. Late in the night, hours after the traumatic dinner, after a traumatic paradigm shift, Cindquiorra crouched stealthily in the cellar. Feverishly she sewed; frenetically she brushed her hair until it shone once again.
With reverent fingers she stroked the liquid satin of her mother's wedding gown, and picked up the mirror of moonstone to gaze at her reflection for the first time in ages. What she saw was satisfying, it filled her with a rush of adrenaline and on her tongue lingered the heady taste of power soon to come.
She was going to go to the masquerade ball. She was going to seduce the Prince and one day become the Queen. She was going to escape from a life she was never bred for. She would do it one wily, shrewd step at a time.