Hello everyone, and thanks for reading my new chapter!

I might have gotten a little carried away this chapter and wrote 1K more than I normally do. Hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Bleach or any of its characters!

Let's just in!-

There is a course of things. A natural order. To run you must first walk. To become an expert in something you must first study.

But there is no natural order to being alive. All we know is that you are born, you live and then inevitably die.

Yet what happens in between birth and death? There are the moments that shape you, mold you into the person you are. But your entire life can not be filled with those moments. They have to be earned through the mundane things.

The rain must wait for the storm clouds to come before it can fall.

That was the only thing that kept me awake in the course of meeting after meeting. Man after man entering and leaving having said so much, yet changing absolutely nothing.

They spoke of taxes and immigrants, of laws and orders. I should have been listening, but the longer the day inched by the more unbothered I became. It is hard to care about something when you know that in the course of a few months it will all become irrelevant to your life.

For they had set a day.

A day to where my entire life crumbled; when it would cease to exist.

The men continued discussing around me, not at all noticing the silence from my side of the table. They did not notice the walls begin to close, shrinking in on us from every angle.

Was it all in my head? Was I not screaming?

No. Perhaps I wasn't.

"We must raise the wall, forty-five inches." A man told us from his position in the large open pit before us. His chin was large, his eyes a muddy brown- and they were set in a permanent glare. As if the man did not know what it was to smile.

"And where do you plan on getting the money to do so, Mister Lance?" Spoke a voice to my left. "Wish to ask the king for an allowance?" Councilman Mavell finished, gesturing in my direction.

"We raise taxes in the Rim." Lance informed us, his hands coming to rest on his bulging hips.

I sat up straighter, placing my own hands flat on the table, "Tax the Rim? Have you ever even been to the Lower Rim, Mister Lance?"

Every pair of eyes, that had been balanced on me, now snapped to Lance. Who looked up at me, yet he still, somehow, had a way of looking down his nose. "No, I have not. But I have read the reports and I think we can stretch out the rations and save money there, as well. I can assure you, it can be done."

"Stretch the rations?" I echoed, glancing at his belly flapped over his belt. "Yes, I think you are on to something, Lance." I rose from my seat, clasping my hands behind my back. "But where to stretch these rations? Certainly not in the Rim; for they're already very skinny yet in the merchant district," I glanced again at his stomach. "the rations seem to be coming in high quantities. May I ask, why is it you want to raise the wall?" He looked at me as if I had sprouted two heads or perhaps that I had no head at all.

"My shop," he began, "has been severely impacted by the amount of non-Golden city residents making homes within the city. More shops sprout from the ashes of all my fellow struggling Merchants. Shops run by Bellatonians, Northerners and even people from the South. Are you telling me that I am wrong in believing that we should come first in your eyes and in the eyes of the king?"

I processed his words. Disagreeing about as quickly as he spoke them but I also did not fully understand how he could draw such a conclusion, which caused me to pause. Pausing for too long if the look in his eye had anything to say about it, "I guess I should've expected as much from a Bellatonian bastard." My entire body locked in place. "I had requested to meet with just the council- excluding you- but it seems I have drawn the short straw. So, must I repeat myself?" Lance turned his eyes from me, a clear dismissal. "We need to raise the wall to keep immigrants out and to protect ourselves from wasting away as the days go by."

Taking a deep intake through the nose and letting it out through my mouth slowly, as to not lose my temper as I opened my mouth to say, "I do not wish to hear another word about it until you have the proper plans or even a more logical idea to gain funds and I also would like to remind you that this 'Bellatonian bastard' could very well take your head from your shoulders without so much as a second thought. So, Mister Lance, I suggest you take my words very seriously; for it is not often that someone insults me in such a way, and still leaves with their tongue intact."

My voice, and the looming threat, turned the room icy. And Lance felt no need to bless me with even another moment of his time, and left with hardly a clang of his shiny jewelry.

"You love your books, don't you?" Ichigos voice broke through my concentration later that night, when I sat alone, at last, in my bed chamber.

I looked up to see him leaning against the door frame, his trademark smirk plastered on his lips. "Let me guess torture guides, right? No? Must be romantic novels then."

Knowing he would get the most satisfaction from my denials, I decided to say nothing. Instead, I focused my eyes back to my book, ignoring him completely.

Oh, come on, Princess." He whined, stepping into the room. "You were in meetings all day and I've been bored." He plopped down onto the couch beside me and peered into my lap, "'Ichigo looks incredibly handsome today,'" He fake read. "'and I think I fell even more in love with him.' Oh, so your diary, then." He finished with a wicked smile.

I snapped the book closed and sneered, "Can't you monitor my activities from somewhere else? Preferably somewhere farther away."

"Well, I could." Ichigo smiled and reached forward to tuck some hair behind my ear. I resisted the urge to break his fingers. "But like I said before, I've been really bored today thanks to you. When I took the position I thought you'd be doing far more interesting things but so far all I do is watch you sit in meetings and then run errands around the court and then come back here to sit and read your smutty romance novels. I thought Princesses got to have more fun than that."

I swatted his hand away when it lingered on my cheek. "You're more than welcome to go have all sorts of fun and leave me to my business. I never asked for you to follow me everywhere. And I am not a princess so stop calling me that."

"Your father is the king that makes you a princess, Princess." He smirked, his eyes gleaming.

I glared at him as I forfeited my seat, tossing my discarded book onto the table.

"I am the general to his armies and Heir to his throne, his blood may flow in my veins but I am about as much his daughter as I am yours." I stated, as I surveyed my shelves, looking for a book that would be enticing enough to drown out his voice.

But it seemed, for once, he had nothing to say. I enjoyed the silence as I walked about the room, taking more time than necessary to choose.

A peek over my shoulder told me why he was suddenly so quiet. He had started flipping through the book I had been reading when he arrived. No wonder he was so interested, I realized, it was a book written by an author from Bellator.

The story was about a young girl born into poverty, how her mother would sell her to men on the street so that they could afford to eat. The girl didn't know how terrible a thing it was because she had never known otherwise. But as she grew she befriended another girl who was also sold by her own mother, except this girl was sold, not because her family was poor, but because her mother was envious of her beauty and innocence and wanted to destroy it. Soon the girls friendship blossomed into love.

The two girls, having finally know what it is to love something, decided to go tell their mothers that they would not be whored out any longer and that, in fact, they were leaving their homes behind to find a life together. They decided to do this separately and then meet at the edge of their village.

And so, the poor girl went to her mother and told her of her decision and her mother- who loved her very much- wished her luck and sent her out into the world.

She arrived at the edge of town and waited and waited and waited for her lover to come for her.

But she never did.

Finally, after the night had come and gone, she walked through her small little village- her eyes filled with so many tears she was practically blind- and when she got to her lovers door it began to rain. Then, when the mother answered, covered in scratches and blood, the girl knew what had happened.

For it was not rain but the blood dripping from her lovers decapitated head, nailed to the door frame, that was soaking into her hair and her skin.

The story ends with the young girl brutally killing the mother, and then cradling her lovers head, not moving an inch, until she slowly starved to death.

"Not a sex novel but I hope you're not too disappointed with it." I mumble, turning my back on him.

"You say that as if I haven't already read it."

I looked at him slowly, not fully believing him.

"You forget but I grew up in Bellator, books are as common as air there. This story was actually one of my favorites. Growing up in poverty like I did, I saw the girls I had grown up with suddenly become women. I saw them turn from innocent little beings into sour, hateful people and back then I didn't know that, as a woman, sometimes your choices are taken from you. I was lucky enough to be born a boy, where I was taught to work with my hands, taught to hunt and to fight. I never had to fear people choosing such things for me."

Ichigo placed the book back on the table and met my eyes from across the room. His face more stern and serious than I had ever seen it. "This story helped me put things in perspective. That if I had to hunt then I would hunt for the weak and the starving. That if I was forced to fight then I would fight for the people that can't fight for themselves."

He waited for me to speak but I nothing left to say. He had spent his life fighting for something, while I had spent my entire life killing people just like him, who just wanted their people's voices heard.

"And I think it's the same for you, Princess. But I think the problem is, you look at this story as a tragedy, as the good having lost."

"But it did lose, the girls both die."

"Yes, but they died standing up for what they believed was right. They saw a better life and decided to fight for it."

The air in the room seem to crackle like fire, the deafening silence felt like red hot coals being shoved down my throat.

"I didn't know you could read let alone comprehend." I joked, breaking the silence. Hoping for him to turn back into his carefree self.

It felt odd to speak about something like this with him. For him to understand something I held so close to my heart.

But he simply stared at me. His eyes piercing my very soul. I waited for him to recoil at what he saw there but he just continue to look, without a hint of disdain. And so, I stood before him, feeling completely naked.

And then, in the blink of an eye, his whole demeanor changed, the smirk returned to his face and relaxed his body- sprawling himself over my couch- just as Ryley walked in.

Ryley crossed the room, saying words I didn't hear, about something I didn't care about, I could only gap at Ichigo, who had stripped me bare and glanced away without the slightest care.

My fiancee kept speaking, clearly not noticing my indifference. Until, finally, he rested his hands on my shoulders and shook me a bit. I looked up into his odd eyes, so close to mine that I leaned back slightly to gain a more comfortable distance. "Earth to Orihime. You in there?"

It had never been so hard to hide my irritation. I had been biting my tongue for twenty years and in that moment I was about to let out all of that compressed anger. Ichigo must have seen that, hidden somewhere in the lines of my face, because he rose elegantly from his slouched position and with a cat like grace, extended his hand to Ryley. "I don't think we have ever been introduced, my name is Ichigo Kurosaki. I'm one, of many, of Orihimes recruits."

Ryley took his hand while I focused on my breathing. "Pleasure to meet you, I am Ryley Vilantrio, youngest heir to the North." Ryley looked over his shoulder at me and then to Ichigo once more, "I'm sorry, had I interrupted something?"

"No, not at all." Ichigo assured him, "Orihime was just letting me borrow some of her books. It can get somewhat boring in the barracks, you see."

"Ah." Ryley laughed lowly. "I can imagine it gets quite difficult being so cut off from the rest of the world, especially for so long."

"Yes, yet when Orihime is teaching, sometimes I forget there's even a world to miss."

Clearly not knowing what more he could add to the conversation, Ryley looked back at me.A call for help.

"Well, I should be getting back." Ichigo sighed, picking up the random pile of books on the golden side table, his arms flexing in the candlelight. "Nice to finally meet you, Ryley. Orihime." He threw a nod in my direction. The door thudded closed behind him, leaving silence in its wake.

Taking in his surroundings Ryley said, "You seem to have a lot of males in your life."

"Not by choice, believe me."

He gave me a tight lipped smile, and I mentally slapped myself.

Somehow, I had formed the skill of putting my foot directly inside my mouth. And always when Ryley and his feelings are concerned. I was beginning to believe it was because of his small presence, but, no doubt, that was only to make myself feel better.

"Was there a reason you came by?" I deflected, quickly.

He gave me a small grin, in appreciation. "Oh yes. I was going through my stuff and I found this," He pulled a folded piece of discolored paper from his pocket and began to unfold it, stepping closer. "I forgot I even brought it. It's kind of hard to read but I think it's kind of a cool memento."

I looked closer, seeing the swirl and ink splotches of words written very faintly.

I read:

Sorry about your finger, I didn't mean to break it

It doesn't hurt much, so don't worry

It was written in a childlike rush, where the words were nearly on top of each other. I ran my finger tips over the parchment, in an almost awed fashion and I could feel Ryley beaming beside me as he read over my shoulder.

"That finger is still crooked, you know." He teased.

"I told you to keep it wrapped, but you wouldn't listen." I threw back.

I handed the note back to him, and he refolded it very carefully, before replacing it back into his pocket securely. "I thought it made me look tough..." Ryley admitted, with a slight embarrassment in his tone that had me chuckling.

We met eyes and a tension filled the room. Never before had I seen that look in his black eyes; I'd been having new experiences a lot recently, and I didn't quite like it. So, to maintain my dignity I turned my gaze away. When I had become such a coward, I also had no clue.

"I really must leave now," I informed him. "I have made a promise to a friend. I will see you tomorrow."

I went to leave, not even bothering to retrieve Vladimir, but Ryley quickly gripped my wrist, bringing my escape to a screeching halt. "It seems you are always running from me." That look in his eye had turned to hurt. "I know you didn't choose this- me. But we got along well enough when we were children- broken fingers aside. I thought... well I thought we could just form a friendship again, before the winter comes."

Ah yes, winter. When I would cease to be Orihime Inoue, General of the Western Army, Heir to the Golden Throne, the Enforcer of Law- and abruptly become something new and foreign.

I would be Orihime Vilantrio, Wife to Ryley Vilantrio youngest heir to the North.

Each and every title I had earned through death and blood, stripped away with two little words.

It had evaporated when I'd seen my younger selves handwriting but now two decades worth of anger bubbled inside me, stronger than ever.

I rested my hand over Ryleys, where it still gripped my wrist, and I poured every last bit of that anger into my glare, into my skin. I became that fire, and it became me."We are not friends, Ryley. Perhaps, once but not anymore. I have changed too much." I ripped his hand way, crushing his delicate fingers in my clutches. Damning the mask completely. "And those changes have made me despise the touch of a man's flesh. You'd be wise to remember that, my dear husband."

I released him, and took only one step back, to I let him see it. All of it; all of me. I let the glass barrier shatter, and Ryley turned pale as death. For where he had expected to see a princess, shaking and begging for his help, stood a bloody, battle scarred dragon.

Ready to devour him whole.

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HOLY METAPHORICAL FIRE BREATHING DRAGON BATMAN!

Orihime seems to be throwing her tricks away... for now.

Please leave a review if you have any thoughts!

Till next time-