the young woman approached the pool with a leaf satchel, the petals it carried bouncing with each trot. if she left behind a trail, she did not notice.

her and the rest of the ichimonji clan had acclimated to their lives. it still felt like such a precarious tight rope to walk on, versus the freedom of the world beyond the palace walls — but with freedom always came risk and danger.
her mind wanders to the past — the furthest past — how were mother and father now? and izaiah and richie? a loneliness, usually reserved for night, clogged her mind in the brief silence.

her mind had wandered so far ahead of her, she hadn't realized there was someone else in the pool already — let alone the empress!
rio's spine shoots straight up, and a rare moment of quick thinking, decides to let the petals drift into the water, bumping the flowers with her nose so they glide across the crystaline surface.

for you, my Empress. lady kaede's warning ran through rio's mind again.