Hello! Anyone else feeling swamped with the holiday? Because same

I hope you all enjoy this chapter, and please review with some feedback, i always love reading them!

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

Lets hop into it!

The dining hall was large. And yet plain. No paintings, or decor besides the table long enough to seat 16 people comfortably.

Yet with just the seven of us, the space felt awkward, each scratch of silverware seeming to echo in the silence.

Lady Florence, fashioned in a dress very similar to my own, ate with grace and precision. Not a speck out of place. And I had never been so conscious of my own table etiquette.

She, however, was the only civilized person in the room.

Cuyler, seated to the right of his father at the far end of the table, barely breathed in between bites. His younger brothers, all ate the same, their arms placed around their plates, protectively. Ryley was at least attempting to slow himself, though one look at Brandt's plate, now nearly empty, had him doubling his mouthfuls.

"Men," Lady Florence mocked, with an exaggerated eye roll. "They act as if I starve them."

I took a sip of my water with a smile, "At least starving men know how to pace themselves."

"Next time, I'll request smaller portions. Then perhaps we would be able to hear ourselves think over their chomping." She laughed at the muffled complaints from down the table. Then she wiped the corner of her mouth with her napkin, "Tell me, Orihime, how have you dealt with only men your whole life?"

I set my own fork down as I faced her, "Truthfully, I've never known much else. Even before the trials, I still grew up with only my brothers."

Suddenly, the air grew thick. And I kept my eyes away from the head of the table. I'd nearly forgotten that the northern heirs had grown up with my brothers. And had all come to their burials after I'd killed them. Their chewing had slowed, deep in thought. Perhaps they had forgotten as well.

"I grew up with six sisters. Six," Lady Florence said, either not noticing the tension or ignoring it all together. "All younger. And believe me when I say, you should count yourself lucky you never had to deal with such bickering. Sometimes I'd want to choke the life right out of them just to get some peace and quiet,"

"Mother," Ryley snapped.

Lady Florence paled, her hand going to cover her gaped mouth, "By the gods, I never meant-"

I waved a hand to stop her, "Oh, please don't even think twice on it. My composure is not so easily overtaken… or neck so easily broken, thankfully."

Garth broke into a laugh, some of his food flying across the table.

It was Brandt who said, "We can attest to that. Do you remember the battle of glatter bass? When that horse nearly stepped right on your windpipe?"

"I still can't believe you had time to roll out from under it!" Garth added.

"It ripped a solid chunk of my hair out with its stomping," I reached a hand up into my hair near the nape of my neck, "It wouldn't surprise me if it's still bruised."

Cuyler leaned forward in his seat, "Didn't a southern bastard get his steel into you because of it?"

I didn't even hesitate to lower the sleeve over my right shoulder, exposing the jagged scar right above my collarbone, "Went straight through to the other side. Lucky for me, he hadn't aimed." I took another sip of water before pointing at the quiet Elof, "Don't you have anything to say?"

"It was not my fault." He said, solidly.

"It was your horse!" I laughed.

"I never claimed to be a horse tamer."

Brandt knocked him in the shoulder, "You know what Cuyler would have said if your horse really had clipped her?"

"Inoooueee-" all three soldier brothers shrieked, there arms shooting out dramatically.

Cuyler shook his head, chuckling, "Oh shut your mouths,"

"No no no," Garth said, "That would have come later, he would have been too busy bathing in a billowing stream while the healers looked on. 'Oh let me just rid my bare chest of all this sweat, oops dropped my washcloth, better bend over to find it, oh ladies, didn't see you there!'"

Cuyler just sent him a vulgar gesture.

I tapped the table, "Hey now Garth, watch where you sling your accusations. I remember you following that busty redhead around like a lost pup."

"Rebecca and I were in love,"

I scoffed, "I didn't know love could be bought by the hour,"

Even the ironclad Elof cackled, "You paid her?!"

Garth shoved him, "Shut up!"

"You all sure have a lot of stories," Lady Florence said, amused.

"What about that other Goldie we met? What was his name..."

"Sam,"

"Right! Now that was a pretty one," Brandt purred, and I shook my head.

"I'll be sure to let him know you say so."

"Such a shame he got called away so soon, though it's probably all for the better. You never would have bothered with us if you'd had anyone else to keep you company."

"I still didn't bother with any of you, you were just too persistent."

Ryley, who had been listening intently, with a smile said, "You all make war sound like fun,"

Brandt's tone was a little heavier when he spoke again, "Now I wouldn't call it fun. I hope you never have to experience it."

"Orihime says war is likely inevitable, now."

Tension- and then for the first time, Luca spoke, "Has the king come to such a conclusion?"

All heirs to the North looked to their father, and when they turned back to me, the warmth in their eyes was gone, like a shutter of cold breath against a solitary flame, "He has advised me to prepare."

It was all I was at liberty to say, all I was ever actually told.

Brandt sighed, "Always another war,"

"We go where our King sends us." Cuyler reminded him.

We all went back to eating. And in the silence we all felt the heaviness that surrounded all our happy memories from the South, all the darkness that loomed around the blotches of light we had been reminiscing.

Death had followed us wherever we went, had seeped into us whether we admitted it or not. We had carried her with us every step since. And together, we would face her again.

But this time, we would stand on opposite sides of the battlefield.

"I wonder," Luca said, "how many will die. I wonder who at this table will never see the end of this next Great War." Luca looked at his sons. Looked to all but one. And stared at them with a fear in his dark eyes, that I could see but not possibly understand. "How many of my boys will never get to sire children, how many will never know the feeling of growing old?" Luca spoke now to the table in front of him, lips pulled tight over teeth, anger no doubt fueling the words that could damn him as he slammed a fist down, "He has no right to take them from me!"

The words shook me, deep inside, just as surely as they shook the room.

Lady Florence was silent, as she stared at her husband from across the table. It was not love on her face, but a grim alliance that would always flow between them. For as long as their sons breathed, they would be connected in their longing to protect them; shield them.

Yet another sentiment I could never understand. My father had ensured I knew the wickedness of the world. Ensured that I faced every horror this wretched existence could offer.

And so, I did not have the words to comfort him as the father he was, but instead as the general I am. "They would not fall alone."

Cuyler seemed to hold his breath. Luca leaned forward, fist clenched tightly beside him on the table, "Is that to be a comfort? From you?"

I had meant it to be. To me it would have been. Was that not what we all feared? To die alone.

Yet, it was perhaps the cruelty I will never rid myself of, that made me say, "I wonder, Lord, how many sons you have killed? How many brothers and husbands and father's did you and the king butcher to get where you are? Why does the deaths of your loved ones matter more than the murder of theirs? You'd still be here in your stone castle, where you are warm and fed," I scoffed a laugh, "It might as well be made of bone."

Luca's face had turned a blocky red, "Careful where you point that finger, girl. I've heard enough of the things you've done to know it would churn the stomach of Hades himself."

I did not shrink under the eyes of him, or his sons, though the sideways glance from Lady Florence, that was something I could not bring myself to look toward. So I simply smiled to the lord, "And believe me, Luca, I have paid the price for my atrocities." I looked briefly to all of his sons, one by one, before meeting his eyes again, "Have you?"

I picked up my fork and knife, cutting neatly into the slab of meat on my plate. I was nearly finished chewing when Cuyler spoke, "You will forgive us, Heir. The idea of war leaves a stark cold within us all."

Luca did not seem happy to be spoken for, but Cuyler had not spoken my rank by accident. My title hung in the silence around us, as Luca seemed to remember exactly who I was.

It was undoubtedly very easy, to look at me as I was now, gown of silk and hair of soft curls, and see nothing but a girl of twenty two, with doe eyes and a tongue of glass.

We ate the rest of our dinner in silence, not even the fine Lady beside me could bring herself to say a word.

I had never liked sleeping in foreign places. For while I had checked the lock on my door three times, and secured the latch on the window, I felt restless. Unsafe.

It made no sense, really. I had never felt safe back home, but it had been a different form of unease. At least then, I'd had the comfort of my things surrounding me.

Though, eventually I did sleep. And dream.

In my dreams, I was running over rooftops, and sleeping in alleyways. I was feeding stray cats- ignoring the rumble of my own belly.

Then the world would tilt and I would be basking in blistering sunlight, feeling my skin slightly burn beneath its beams, nothing around me but fields of long wheat. I felt sadness in that dream. Home.

The next time the dream changed, I saw nothing but sapphire eyes surrounded in black, staring down at me. Growing bigger and bigger, blazing with a heated curiosity. I shrunk away from their stare, I clawed at the darkness as those eyes grew slitted and vicious.

You do not belong here

And when the dream shifted, there was nothing but unconsciousness to meet me.

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