Moments like this

Thinking

Sitting in the garden and picking flowers were something she did, not because she liked it, but because she was bored. And she did not really pick the flowers. It was more her sitting on the grass looking into the sky or around her and plucking flowers and culms out likewise.
While sitting here she thought about everything and nothing.
She thought about her past, she thought about the present, about her husband, she thought about the future.
The Kou Empire were struggling under the new laws, under the new circumstances, but it was a peaceful time. But she knew that it wouldn't last forever. Peaceful times were rare and short.
Therefore, she decided to enjoy the times in which nothing bad happens.

When she came to the Kou Empire for the very first time, she was not pleased. She didn't like the land or its people. Meeting the new emperor was strange. He was different from what she expected, even though Sinbad had already told her a few things about Hakuryuu. Not that she had expected something bad, it was just something different.

Thinking about the future made her wishing for more peaceful times. She hoped for her and Hakuryuu to be able to become at least friends.
Sleeping next to him was somewhat awkward. Starting to talk to him wasn't so easy either. Most of the time she just started, but it always felt wrong. Especially because she talked about very personal thing, but the wanted to know him better and she wanted to change something.
What exactly she wanted to change was up in the air, she just felt that something had to change. Hakuryuu was unhappy, but she wanted him to be happy. He deserved happiness. She also wanted to bring happiness to her husband's cousin Kougyoku.
She liked the other girl from the first sight. Although she did not agree with the point of view of that girl, when it came to the Kou Empire and their royalty. But that was a different matter.

When she was sitting in the garden on her own and thinking about everything and nothing alike, she thought that this world was a strange one, that being alive was strange and she wondered what was the reason for all of them to exist.
And in the end she always would get up and walk into the kitchen to bake something sweet for her new family members. She loved baking and she loved her new family – even when everything still felt strange and unreal and forced, but what wasn't could be someday.
She hope that one day her new family was a happy family like her old family, like her other family, like the family of her beloved "wife".
All she wished for was to be part of a big, happy family. But for that she herself had to change, too. Hakuryuu already did his best for both of them, even though he did not love her and was forced into this marriage. She had to do her best for both of them, too!

All the times sitting in the garden and plucking flowers and culm out of the ground made her decide to not give up, to give her best and gave this world and its inhabitants another chance.