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PROCESSIONS
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In the streets, the dowry that her family has produced for her and, once the official announcement of the engagement has been published to the broader public, that they then have sent off to the Kuchiki house, is called lesser. After all, it takes no more than two official processions between her home and her new home to have the things moved, and people marvel not at the richness of the large, decorated trunks of heirlooms and newly commissioned kimono, screens, paintings, books and cosmetic items that only ruin her family even further, but at the dwindling number of them. Surely, they say, the head of the Kuchiki clan is doing the Ayakura family a great favour by marrying such a girl. She is quite old, too. For a first-time bride.
Satoko is barely 200 years, when she, too, is sent to enter Kuchiki Byakuya’s household. She leaves behind a love that extends at least 50 years, because Matsugae Kiyoaki naturally isn’t invited to attend the daytime ceremony, and she can’t socialise with men so freely anymore, once she bears the name of another. Thus, Kiyo-sama stays in his rich merchant house that still wasn’t worth her dowry, and she dutifully goes off to redress her family’s wealth and standing.
As a daughter should. As she must. And as she dressed her only child for the last day, that she would bear their name, her mother cried silently. Tears of joy, she called them, but Satoko sensed her sadness.
At the wedding ceremony, they decked her in white, then in red and black, and people who had attended the festivities would loudly tell each other, no doubt Ayakura Satoko is the most beautiful bride in Seireitei for a hundred years to come. That would be the last compliment she was paid as a part of her own family. From thereon out, she was known by another name. His.
The Kuchiki house is grand, much larger than most other residences in the city, and a steward leads her to her wing, while three maids accompany her to help her undress for the night. Behind a solitary screen which stems from her family home, to combat any homesickness, one maid tries to soothe her, her bridal kimono comes undone, is carefully hung away and she proceeds to dress in thinner and simpler nightwear. Ushered to her bed by another maid, so she won’t get cold on the way, Satoko thinks, she would not mind the thousand layers of rich fabric back.
If nothing else, then to shield her away properly. For protection.
In the vaguest of terms, as if Satoko didn’t already know of what men and women do together, her mother had explained to her what was expected of her on her wedding night, how important a wife’s duty is to her husband and most importantly, exactly how uncertain her position in the Kuchiki family would be, until she could deliver an heir. The inability to produce one was common ground for divorce, after all.
Lying down, surrounded by one screen that she knows the design of and a dozen others that she is completely foreign to, Satoko wonders if Byakuya-sama will divorce her, if she is not satisfactory to him. If she doesn’t perform well. If perhaps, then, she might be returned to her parents’ house and to Kiyo-sama.
Still, it would be extremely shameful and her family’s standing no doubt unsalvageable in the aftermath.
There are things that can’t be risked.
Her own happiness not counted among them.
Thus, all night, Satoko lies on her back with her head on the hard headrest, to keep her hairstyle from slipping out of its confinements, and she listens for him, and she waits, but no sound of footfalls announces his arrival and in the end, Byakuya-sama doesn’t come.
She shouldn’t be relieved, truly, and on the tenth night that nothing happens, she isn’t anymore.
Satoko is barely 200 years, when she, too, is sent to enter Kuchiki Byakuya’s household. She leaves behind a love that extends at least 50 years, because Matsugae Kiyoaki naturally isn’t invited to attend the daytime ceremony, and she can’t socialise with men so freely anymore, once she bears the name of another. Thus, Kiyo-sama stays in his rich merchant house that still wasn’t worth her dowry, and she dutifully goes off to redress her family’s wealth and standing.
As a daughter should. As she must. And as she dressed her only child for the last day, that she would bear their name, her mother cried silently. Tears of joy, she called them, but Satoko sensed her sadness.
At the wedding ceremony, they decked her in white, then in red and black, and people who had attended the festivities would loudly tell each other, no doubt Ayakura Satoko is the most beautiful bride in Seireitei for a hundred years to come. That would be the last compliment she was paid as a part of her own family. From thereon out, she was known by another name. His.
The Kuchiki house is grand, much larger than most other residences in the city, and a steward leads her to her wing, while three maids accompany her to help her undress for the night. Behind a solitary screen which stems from her family home, to combat any homesickness, one maid tries to soothe her, her bridal kimono comes undone, is carefully hung away and she proceeds to dress in thinner and simpler nightwear. Ushered to her bed by another maid, so she won’t get cold on the way, Satoko thinks, she would not mind the thousand layers of rich fabric back.
If nothing else, then to shield her away properly. For protection.
In the vaguest of terms, as if Satoko didn’t already know of what men and women do together, her mother had explained to her what was expected of her on her wedding night, how important a wife’s duty is to her husband and most importantly, exactly how uncertain her position in the Kuchiki family would be, until she could deliver an heir. The inability to produce one was common ground for divorce, after all.
Lying down, surrounded by one screen that she knows the design of and a dozen others that she is completely foreign to, Satoko wonders if Byakuya-sama will divorce her, if she is not satisfactory to him. If she doesn’t perform well. If perhaps, then, she might be returned to her parents’ house and to Kiyo-sama.
Still, it would be extremely shameful and her family’s standing no doubt unsalvageable in the aftermath.
There are things that can’t be risked.
Her own happiness not counted among them.
Thus, all night, Satoko lies on her back with her head on the hard headrest, to keep her hairstyle from slipping out of its confinements, and she listens for him, and she waits, but no sound of footfalls announces his arrival and in the end, Byakuya-sama doesn’t come.
She shouldn’t be relieved, truly, and on the tenth night that nothing happens, she isn’t anymore.