Yukimi hadn’t come to visit her dreams as of late, and Izumi wonders why. Maybe the girl was merely something brought on by the incessant loneliness she felt while recovering in that pack. The desperate need for her samurai to be by her side — a need so severe that the crane ended up dreaming up a child with him. This wasn’t the first time it happened; it also happened back when she was kidnapped under that dingy mountain and barely clinging to life.

Or perhaps it was the woman’s strange new obsession with wishing to start a family of her own. Ever since taking the initiative to inherit her parent’s crown, the woman had never so much as thought of the warmth of family life nor kids. Perhaps she’d be betrothed during her reign to a foreign royal to strengthen the bloodline and nothing more. Never once had she thought that she’d open her heart again and fall in love in a way that made her vulnerable. It was a weakness that she still feared to this day, yet…wasn’t exactly upset about.

Would she even make a good mother if the time came, though? Raise a heir strong and worthy enough to replace her when her mind became too frail to balance the crown?

Izumi had stayed on the sidelines once again and watched as the others mingled, getting lost in her own thoughts as she stared at the samurai’s form from afar. A warmth lingered within her chest at the thought of it all, but so did the notes of fear and doubt of anything that could go wrong…