Sakura knows that her birthday soon. Yuck. She hates it when things are all about her. She doesn't want to be a princess, or a Lady, or -sama. But she knows it makes other people happy to call her those things, so she lets it go.

On occasion, Sakura can almost hear her mother's laugh and feel the breeze because Kaa-san always left all the windows and back screen door open. Even now, she can fully recall all of the stories of her mother's homeland, Kiri, and all of her stories of magical water nymphs from The Hidden Whirlpool Village who could use magic and make others see the things that they imagined.

And Sakura can remember the time she told her Kaa-san about the red strings that she saw- attached to everyone's fingers. She told her, "Kaa-san! You have a string attached to Tou-san's finger too! Just like with the secret person always in the trees!"

"Sakura-chan," her mother warned, suddenly serious, "you must never tell anyone that you see those strings. You cannot tell Tou-san, or anyone else. Understood?"

Afraid, she nodded, "O-okay, Kaa-san."

The strings were never mentioned again.


Welp! I lied, so this story is going to have 200-word chapters because I feel like I can't get everything I want into these chapters. But yay for you guys! More words!