Within the Blooming Flowers

The Ocean-Colored Maiden

After greeting Kotori into her house, Honoka just rushed upstairs. After saying hello to her parents of course. Kotori followed her, but she was rather slow. She stopped to greet Honoka's parents, who, immediately greeted her back with a bow. But she insisted them to act normally around her. After that, she went upstairs to Honoka.
Even from downstairs though, a few yells and a very angry voice was heard.

"I can't believe it! You went and actually did that?! I told you not to! I'm definitely not ready! This is shameless! You're absolutely SHAMELESS, Honoka!!!"

Hearing that, Kotori even got a little scared to get in. But, she had to. So, she carefully knocked on the door

"H-Honoka? Is...is everything okay? Sh-Should I go home...?"

Her voice sounded kinda cracked. She was obviously worried.

But then Honoka opened the door... She looked exhausted, and kinda tired of the yelling

"N-No! No, please come in!"

"O-Okay..."
And so she walked in, but no one was there beside Honoka.

"Uh..."

"Ah! Bastard!! She ran off!"
Honoka quickly ran to the window, only to see the blue haired girl riding away on one of the horses. This was so embarrassing....

"The blue hair... Could it be.."

"Who? do you know her?"

"A-Ah...no, I just remembered someone who I once saw, and all I could see is that they had long, beautiful blue hair... So I thoug-"

"That Umi was the one you saw? Could be!"

Honoka immediately started laughing. Now everything made sense to her. Umi disappearing that day, and Kotori talking non-stop about her blue-haired person the day after.

"You should go after her, Kotori! She probably went to the open field. We put up a lot of targets there so she could practice with her bow, after all. She always goes there. So, let's go get you a horse!"

And so Honoka grabbed Kotori's hand, and dragged her to the horses. There, she got her the horse she remembered Kotori liked. It was a grey horse, with whitish, long hair.
So, Kotori quickly climbed on the horse, and took off towards the open field.
There, after 10 minutes of riding around, she finally found her. Riding around on a brown horse and shooting the targets around. She looked super serious, until she saw Kotori simply staring at her. They both stopped everything they did to gaze at each other, but Umi suddenly looked like she saw her worst nightmare when she looked at her. And so, she rode her way to the opposite direction.

"W...Wait, hold on! Please don't run away!!"
Kotori tried to say, and continued to chase Umi. After a short time she was very close behind, but suddenly, Umi turned around and pointed her bow at the ground near the horse Kotori was riding on legs.

"I'm sorry."

She said in a very low voice, and shot the ground to scare the horse. And successfully, since the horse stopped, but also threw Kotori off at the process. She let out a faint scream, and at that exact moment, Umi seemed to look at her sharply, and with a look of complete guilt, but she hesitantly turned her head back around and rode off....
Ever since that moment, Kotori was just staring at the distance where Umi was riding. Of course, she was gone now, but Kotori couldn't get up. Both from shock, and her now broken leg. Her dress got really dirty, too. Which she didn't care about, but a princess walking around with a super dirty dress isn't really the best thing anyone wants to see.

After about 20 minutes of sitting in agonizing pain, Honoka came riding on her horse to Kotori. She looked mad, sad, and even disappointed in something

"K-Kotori!!!"

She quickly jumped off her horse, and rushed to the so shocked Kotori

"What happened?! How long have you been here?! C-Can you walk?!"

But Kotori was still in shock. It took her a few moments to respond, too

"N...No, I... can't really walk... I've been here for...15-20 minutes..I suppose...

"Gosh... You probably broke something... Let me help!"
Honoka carefully lifted Kotori up, and began walking back to her house

"B-But...what about..the horses?"
"Don't worry, I'll come get them after I bring you back to my house. I'm so sorry this had to happen... It's because of her, isn't it..."

All Kotori could do is keep quiet. She didn't want to blame Umi. It wasn't even her fault, since she herself was the one who chased her in the first place. She felt guilty now and now it was all she could think about.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of h-"

"N-No!! Please, don't..."
All of a sudden, Kotori broke her silence. Though right after it, she lowered her head and continued it.
With that, Honoka felt even more angry at Umi.
And so after they arrived back to her house, Honoka's parents just freaked out. First they looked at Honoka as if she was the one responsible for this, but Honoka looked so serious it was almost creepy to look at.

"Where'd Umi go? Is she anywhere around here?"

"Upstairs. She didn't say anything to us, so please check on her... And let us take care of the Princess, we'll bring her to the hospital!"

"She has her own doctor. Just call them."
Honoka gave her mother a piece of paper, and put Kotori on the sofa so she could rest.

Suddenly, her mom sounded scared too. She didn't know what's going on, and now her daughter was acting suspicious.

And so, without even saying a word anymore, Honoka left upstairs

"My, what were you doing to break your leg like this? It's at least the third time you break something within these two months, princess..."

Speaking, was Kotori's assistant; Ayase Eli. She was kind, caring and mostly a funny and calm person, but at moments like these,  she'd turn all her attitude around and become the most strict person Kotori ever knew.

"I-I wasn't doing anything bad! I just found out Honoka had another family member that I never knew about, so I tried to talk to her, but she ran off and I chased her..."

"Chased her? Why would you? If she wasn't interested in seeing you, you should've let her go. You're not to force one to communicate with you, Princess.

"I-I...I know that... But I really wanted to meet her! The way Honoka-chan described her made her even cooler... She even has blue hair, and golden eyes like me!"

"...Blue hair?"
Suddenly, that rank Eli's ears. It was too strange, since there wasn't a single person with blue hair around. It was more than suspicious, and she looked like she was terrified

"Eli...? Are you okay? You look scary..."

"Y..Yeah! Yeah, forgive me for a moment."
Eli just rushed out the room and into the queen's room.
"Your Highness! We found it... What shall I do now?"

"...Move out and ask for the help of the magician in our town. She might have some tools to help you kill that thing with."

"...Roger that. I shall take Nishikino with me, as well. She might be able to help me.

"As you wish, you shall take her."
The queen said, and relaxed in he chair. Somehow, she seemed happy now.

"Thank you, Your Highness. Now, I shall get going."

Meanwhile, somewhere around town though..
"..."
"Ahhh, they're coming, Nicocchi... Brace yourself, because they won't immediately like you~"

"Shut it. I don't feel good about their visit. Obviously, they're here for that golden eyed cutie."

"The cards told me, don't worry. We'll just have to wait and see what happens..."