I woke up peacefully from a nice long sleep for the first time in a few days. My muscles ached a little from the long ride back from Nohr, but they weren't too bad. I curled my knees in so that my feet would stay under the blanket, and laid there. But there was no real joy in my thoughts, so it wasn't worth relaxing. I figured I'd rather be up doing something. So I reluctantly lifted my sore bones out of bed and got out of my nightgown. I rubbed my stiff spots, pushing hard on them and working out the kinks. My inner thighs were both bruised, because Crystal's flying grew rougher with age. I hadn't felt aching in there since I'd started riding on an old horse before I got to ride Crystal. So I rubbed my thighs, putting as much pressure on them as I could. It hurt, but I knew it would feel better later.

After I was finished, I got dressed and went outside. It was about ten in the morning, so the sun was high and bright. My personal garden was somewhere I loved to be. I even grew some vegetables in the center. They gave me something to do, something to take care of. I watered them from the fountain with a spouted bucket. It rained often enough that I could just take water out of the fountain like that, and it would fill back up soon enough. Thorns pricked my forearm as I reached into a rose bush to water the daikon radishes behind it. Ouch. I pulled up the sleeve of my dress and found long scratches along the back of my arm, one of them bleeding profusely. I cried for help, and I heard someone come running. Much to my dismay, it was Hinata. He came over and looked wide eyed at my wound.

"Wow, that looks bad," he remarked. What an idiot. Of course it hurt, I was leaking blood like the fountain was spraying water.

I swore loudly, "Can't you do something? That's why I cried for help, isn't it?"

Hinata stammered, "W-well there isn't much I can do, Lady Hinoka. What do you sugge-"

I cut him off, screaming, "Go find me someone who can, then! I'd rather not bleed out on the ground, if you don't mind!"

He took off sprinting out of the garden. I poured some water over the scratch on my forearm. It wasn't even that bad, it shouldn't have been bleeding that much. I swore a few more times to myself, being alone in the garden once more. The pain was fairly bad, but the worst part was the weak feeling from my shoulder down. For all I could move it, it might as well have been severed off. It wasn't until twenty minutes later or so that Azama came rushing in. The bleeding had been stopped for fifteen minutes already by then. He gave me a very concerned look.

"Lady Hinoka! Are you okay? Shall I amputate it?" he joked, running up to me.

I rolled my eyes, "Azama, it was only a scratch. It bled like crazy, though."

He nodded, "I noticed, milady," Azama looked down at me. It was just now that I realized I had bled all over my dress, and the ground. Both were stained crimson red.

"Ugh, whatever then. Can you just bandage this up, please? I've got to clean myself up, and then go explain to Ryoma why I'm almost an hour late to our meeting. He wanted to discuss something with the family."

He obliged, wrapping my lower arm in a thick bandage. I forced a smile, thanked him, and left for my room. I threw my dress in the fire, since I knew it couldn't be salvaged. Oboro would be furious, but it wasn't like it was any worse than her seeing it and deciding the same thing. I had to rinse my abdomen where the blood had soaked the whole way through the cloth. Then I threw on something decent to wear and headed for my meeting.

"Brother, I really think this is a horrible idea," Takumi insisted. He and Ryoma seemed to be having a large disagreement over something. Sakura was sitting between them, her head in her hands. I couldn't tell whether it was in sadness or irritation. I knew she hated when the boys argued. She seemed exasperated, so I concluded it might just be Ryoma and Takumi's nonsense. Corrin was surprisingly absent from the room. I slammed the door behind me, distracting them from their conversation. They both looked at me, with a strange anger that wasn't at all fierce. They were just having your average disagreement, but with all the conviction in the world that they were right. That was a normal occurrence between the two.

Ryoma sighed, "Hinoka, where have you been? I'm not upset, but when I call a meeting I expect you to come."

I realized I was wearing sleeves, so he couldn't see my arm. I pulled it back to show them, "I gouged myself on a thorn in the garden. Then somebody's incompetent fool of a retainer took half an hour to get help."

Without any indication, the three understood I meant Hinata. Sakura looked me in the eyes, "I wish I hadn't been busy here, I would have helped you. My apologies, sister. Do you want me to take a look at it?"

I shook my head, "Azama took care of it. I just wish he would have come before it bled so much that I couldn't move my arm."

"It sounds like you had a rough morning," Ryoma started again, "We were just discussing a, er, somewhat personal matter. For all of us."

I took a seat across from Sakura and took a deep breath, "And what would that be?"

"He wants us to give up our freedom and be courted," Takumi spat distastefully. Courting? That certainly didn't sound up his alley.

"It's mostly for me," Ryoma explained, "The people of Hoshido would love to have a queen again. And it would alleviate my workload. So I thought I should find a woman, and I figured perhaps you lot might be interested as well. It hasn't gone unnoticed that none of us have considered marriage so far. I'm not imposing it on you or anything, it's just that Takumi takes everything as an insult."

Takumi angrily bellowed, "I do not take everything as an insult! It's just that I was truly insulted by your insinuation that I need to settle down and give up my adventurous way of life! Would you seriously consider for a second that I would agree to this nonsense?"

The two of them exchanged furious mockeries and implications at each other. Sakura quickly excused herself and ran out of the room. I followed her, hoping to comfort her. By that time I think she had figured out that I knew about her depressed state. It was my hope that she'd open up to me and I might be able to help her out. I tried not to make myself known as she stormed down the corridors to her room. I paused for a minute after she slammed her door, then creaked it open. Sakura laid face down on her bed and grunted loudly at me.

"It's only me, Sakura," I told her in a calming voice, "It's okay, you know how Takumi is. He'll never get married, not even to his soulmate." She didn't answer at first, so I sat next to her and stroked her back. She hummed sadly, sobbing occasionally. I kept on caressing her, making her feel a little better. We sat like that for a while. Eventually she sat up and looked at me, a look of despair in her watery eyes. It seemed to me like she just wanted to let it all go, and so she had.

"Hinoka..." she whimpered, "why is it... why do I... ugh..."

I wrapped her in a hug, "I know you've been hurting since the war ended. I know you probably don't like your life anymore. Sometimes I don't either. Just tell me everything and maybe you'll feel better. That's what I did with mom when Corrin got taken away, and when dad died. You can trust me."

Sakura stared into my eyes, blinking away tears, "Okay... I will..." she managed. She drew a great big breath, then began, "Ever since we came home, life has been a million shades of black and white. The war was my worst nightmare. You were the only person left that I truly cared about. I know, the boys were there too. But it's the truth. You really were the only light in my world. And you of all people should know that you haven't been cheery this past year either. I'm used to losing myself in my thoughts instead of socializing. But my thoughts have been infested with all the death, heartbreak and cruelty I witnessed in battle. When I close my eyes, I see murder. Even when I am able to shake off my horrible mentality, a great sadness still dwells inside of me. I think my birthday was the only time I felt happy at all in the past year."

I sat there, stunned at her revelation. A single tear rolled down my cheek. She finished off her lament by saying, "Whatever shall I do, my dear sister?"