Her fingers glided over the designs on the fine plates and her eyes followed the flowers decorating the fine silver. It seemed so surreal. This was going to be hers. How many times had she taken some plate of food off to one of the real members of the house. This simple act of going through the house again as Ryuuken's finance, was making her reexamine ever aspect of this house. Being a member of the Quincy was a life full of history and tradition, but perhaps because she was not a pure-blood Quincy she had never felt as connected to it as she felt now staring at a bunch of plates.

But they weren't just plates as she listened to her soon to be mother-in-law talk about how they had been in the family for four generations now. Everything had history in this house, everything had a tradition that must be upheld and now she was in going to be in charge of all that.

Her marriage to Ryuuken never felt more real, and she found herself excited. Like many young unwed women, she had lived with her parents while working saving up money that she would now most likely never need. This would be her first experience with being in control of her own living space. Even with the weight of the Ishida history on her back, this is what she had figured all girls must dream of. Falling in love with Ryuuken at such a young age and knowing how far apart they were in status, she had never allowed herself to really dream of actually getting to marry him. All she had wanted was to marry so that she could still stay at his side and to have a space of her own, a place where she was in control. Now she was quickly approaching both a marriage to Ryuuken and control over the place most associated with her helplessness. She wasn't just mistress of a house; she was mistress of THE house, the house where before she had been a half-blood servant not worth a moment's glance. She was having a hard time not getting lost in the strangle tingling that seemed to run through her as she walked through the giant house that she had walked so many times before. She was really going to be in control for the first time.

As the Ishida matriarch led her around the house stressing duties and responsibilities, all of which she assumed Kanae would completely screw up, Kanae found her impressed by how much there was so much of the house too. She had always known that the Ishida family was well off, but she never noticed all stuff that entailed. That was going to be her salt shaker, chairs, grandfather clock, serving utensils, library of books, collection of rugs and vases, etc. All these things had been accumulated over many years, many generations so that is was daunting to think of ever accumulating near this on her own. Then came the question of what would she add.

She wanted so badly to add something now so that some day her daughter or daughter-in-law would come to see her as really part of this Quincy tradition. Because the Quincy tradition is so much more than just the fighting techniques. The Quincy tradition is the moral code, the sense of honor, the society,the history, and even the more physical things they left behind. Being a Quincy was a balancing act between the world of the living and the duty toward the death. Because she was a Gemischt Quincy, she had always felt dissociated with the Quincy tradition because to her it felt that she would never really be a part of it. Her was to be a life of unexamined service before a painful and untimely death. Now she had an outlet for leaving something behind.

"Are you even paying any attention to what I am saying?"

"Yes, mistress. I am doing my best to remember everything. You were just explaining how in 1952, it came to be that there are only 19 of the tea and coffee plates when there are 24 matching cups. Do you wish me to recite the details so to make sure that I have them all correctly?"

"I don't wish for you to do anything put keep up. He have covering everything in glass dining cupboard, so I would like to move on the kitchen. I assume you know what to do in the kitchen"

"Yes, mistress I am familiar with the kitchen. Do you have any special instructions to that regard?"

.

.

.

This was not originally what I had planned for the second part of my kitchen theme, but it is something that wanted to come out. I'm not really sure I really captured that bizarre feeling you have when you realize: oh my gosh I am not a kid any more, I am a woman with control and possession over my own space. Or for that matter, the wonderment of owning family heirlooms when you realize that you have not only been intrusted with this history, but you are becoming part of the history. Don't know if this is in character or not. It is still very internal rant-y, which I am sorry about. Please tell me if you think the chapters are getting worse.