The couple had finished getting clothes for Ari and Anna, who were currently staying in their mansion, and Sophia had even placed a hidden portal in the princess' bedroom for future use. Being able to visit each other in an instant would surely come in handy in one way or another. Once they had dealt with that, the duo finally did what they came to the castle for in the first place and went to Ellie’s room.

“So… phia! Maya!” Entering her room, the little princess immediately greeted them and ran up to the two.

“Ellie~.” The couple kneeled down and gave the girl a hearty hug after she had jumped into their arms.

“Yay~!” Liking how she got hugged by them, Ellie cuddled even closer to them.

"I missed that~." Once the trio was done with that, Sophia looked at the little princess with a big smile. "Kira said you wanted to see us? What can we do for you? Whatever it is, the answer will be yes." She was getting ready to spoil her already.

“Ellie needs someone to go shopping with!”

“Mhm?” Maya tilted her head. “Is Kira busy? I’m sure your mother would love to go shopping with you.”

“No! Ellie can’t go with mama!”

“Oh, back to being a rebel again?”

“No!” The princess shook her head. “Ellie’s no rebel! With mama…” She turned her head away during those last words.

“I heard that.” The cat-girl wanted to play with her a little.

"A-Ah…” She looked even more awkward for a moment. “Ellie wants to get a gift!” The little tiger decided to ignore it. “Mama’s birthday is soon!”

“Oh!” The blonde clapped her hands. “You want to keep it a secret and surprise her?”

“Yes!” Ellie gave her a big nod.

“That’s great!” Maya liked the idea. “What a lovely plan!”

“Ehehe~.”

“Do you already know what you want to get her?”

“No!” The princess shook her head.

“Ahh.”

“Can you help me?” The little tiger glanced at them with upturned eyes.

“Of course!” There was no way they would refuse to go with her.

“Thank you!” Ellie got even happier.

“Okay, let’s go!” Sophia raised her hand in motivation.

“Yay!” The little princess did the same.

"Should we put you into some other clothes first?" Maya looked at the small tiger and noticed that she was still wearing her blue dress. The only difference was that she had exchanged her regular, long socks for either white overknees or tights, which was impossible to tell because of the dress’ longer hem. “It’s too cold for that, isn’t it?”

“Ellie’s new tights are super warm!” Her face lit up. “They’re all fluffy and fleecy inside! They’re the bestest!” She apparently was doing fine. “Ellie also got a new and super warm jacket to go over my dress!”

“Do you like your dress that much?"

"Yes! Anna's wife got it for me in the summer! She has very good taste! Super cute! She wanted to go shopping with Ellie for winter, but something happened. She and Anna had to leave for something. Ellie’s pretty sure Anna did something bad again!”

"Ahhh…" The couple naturally had no intention of telling her what had happened.

“Wait, wife…?” Sophia noticed something odd here.

"Yes!" Ellie just nodded. "Ari is Anna's wife, right? They act just like mama and papa all the time. They are just as annoying when together… Always just pay attention to each other… None to Ellie…!" She started pouting. "Well, Ari is really nice, so it's okay! Ellie doesn’t know why she likes Anna, though…”

“I’m going to kick Ari so hard in her butt once we get home…” Sophia’s expression looked a little dead. “Even Ellie noticed her feelings…”

"And I'm going to kick Anna…" Maya had basically the same expression. “She’s denser than even I thought…”

“So, they did do something bad?” Ellie tilted her head because she couldn’t follow them.

“No…” The couple shook their heads. "They were just a little silly and stupid."

“Oh.” The princess paused for a moment. “Ellie knows about that.”

“…” The couple just fell even more in love with her. After having petted her head a little to praise her, the trio then finally got ready.

----------------

The couple put a jacket and some shoes on the princess, and after they had told Kira that they were going out with her for a while, the three left the castle to go shopping together.

"By the way," While the trio was walking through the capital, Sophia glanced at Ellie sandwiched between the couple while the princess held a hand of one each. "Do you want to buy something, or should we get some materials so you can craft a handmade gift for your mother?"

“Hmm…” She titled her head in response. “W-What is cheaper…? Ellie has a little spending money, but because Ellie is still young, it's only a little…"

“Something handmade might be better, then.” The cat-girl smiled at her. “It’s also more personal. I’m sure your mother will like something you made yourself much more!”

“Yay!” She liked the sound of that.

“Do you know where we can find a handicrafts store?” Maya then faced Sophia for some weird reason.

“Why are you asking me…?” She looked extremely confused. "I don't even know where our home is from here. Without my detection magic and sensing where Ari is right now, it would take about two days for me to find the way…"

"I was worth a try? Every now and then, you know about the oddest things, after all.”

“Even if I knew about it, there’s no way I’d ever find it again.”

“Yeah, I expected too much.”

“You were just messing with me in the first place, right?” The blonde increased her stare.

"Yup." She simply nodded. "Ellie, do you know where such a store could be?"

"No!" She almost sounded proud. "Ellie is not very good with directions… Ellie gets lost in the castle all the time…”

"Okay, she's still little, but why are tigers so…" Maya wasn’t sure what to say. "Well, let's walk around for a while, and if we find nothing, I'm sure there's someone we could ask."

“Okay!” The tigers in question just gave her a big nod.

----------------

The trio kept walking around for a while, but as they were finding nothing, the cat-girl eventually started asking around and quickly found out that they were in the completely wrong corner of the capital for these kinds of stores.

“Finally!” Around half an hour later, Maya let out a relieved sigh when the girls had finally found a store that sold all kinds of handicraft-related goods.

“The capital is way too big…” The princess looked a little tired. “Ellie will ask papa to make it smaller…”

“Sounds like a plan!” Sophia just smiled at her.

“…” The cat-girl decided that she won’t be involved in that. “Let’s head inside?”

“Yes!” Giving her a big nod, they finally entered the store. There, the trio looked around for a while before eventually asking the little tiger for an opinion.

“Have you found anything?”

"Hmmmm…" Her eyes were darting all over the place. “Still no idea!”

“Nothing at all?”

“Hmmmmmm…” She couldn’t decide.

“Do you just want to wish her a happy birthday? Something like a colorful card would be really nice. A mug might be too hard, but we maybe could also make a clay bowl and paint it with lots of colors. Your mom could put it on display or use it to store things.” Sophia gave her a few suggestions.

“Ellie wants to make a bowl!” She liked the idea. A lot.

“Alrighty!” The blonde liked her enthusiasm. “Let’s get some clay and all the colors!”

“Yay!”

“How about… we also get some… glitter to… eh…?” Maya wanted to suggest that they should decorate the bowl even more, but her gaze seemed to have suddenly drifted towards the store’s window leading to the street outside. It seemed like she had noticed something there.

“What’s wrong?” Sophia naturally noticed that something was up.

“Uhh…” The cat-girl looked quite confused while her eyes were still glued to the window. “C-Could you buy the stuff together with Ellie…? I, uhh… I think I just saw something. It's, err... impossible, but I have to check out…” Saying so, she didn’t wait for her reply and immediately left the store.

“Okay…?” Sophia just tilted her head in confusion. “Well… let’s go and choose some nice colors?” She decided to focus her attention on Ellie for the time being.

“Yes!”

----------------

Outside the store, Maya looked around on the street for a short moment and quickly spotted what was bothering her. Or rather, who was bothering her.

“Mom?! Dad?!” With her eyes shot open, she was staring at a couple of the cat-beastfolk that seemed to be somewhere in their early fifties at best.

“Huh?!” The two, a cat-man with a slight belly and ever so slightly receding brown hair with ears and a tail in the same color. The ears and tail of the woman next to him had the same form as Maya, as well, but her medium-long hair was primarily black, but it was streaked with many white highlights. "Maya?!" They seemed to be just as shocked. Immediately after, the two walked up to her and almost crushed her in a big and hearty hug.

“W-What are… Why are you here?!” She was too confused to return their hug.

“That’s what we’d like to know!” The couple let go of her again after a few moments.

“Nonono, I asked first!” Maya didn’t let them have that.

“Well,” The female cat looked at her. “After you left home, Theo and I also got the urge to travel a little. Back when you were with us, we always had to apologize to everyone because you’re such a rowdy girl, but after you left, we decided to use that chance.”

“H-Hey!” The rowdy girl felt offended. “I wasn’t that much of a bother!”

“Eve and I apologized to Masi at least twice a week, though. Because you always used him in your magic experiments.”

"A-Ah…” She just awkwardly scratched her cheek. “M-Masi doesn’t count…”

“Is that so?”

"A-Anyway, so you felt a little adventurous and decided to visit the capital…?”

“Pretty much.” The couple just nodded before the cat-man looked at her again. “What about you? Weren’t you out with some girl to train magic…?”

“Ahhh…” Maya only got more awkward. “Yes… One thing led to another, though… and we're currently staying in the capital for the upcoming winter season…"

“Really?” The cat-woman tilted her head. “Does that mean she’s here, as well? I would love to meet the girl that made you become interested in someone.”

“Uhhh…” She had a bad feeling about that. Sophia alone was already a big thing, but Ellie was currently there, as well, and meeting two tigers at once could only end in a disaster.

“Why so evasive? Are you trying to hide something?” Eve tilted her head. "You know, now that I think about it, during the last couple of years, your magic training became much more time-consuming, and you didn’t come home for a couple of days every now and then. All of that wasn’t just a pretense, right? Did you know the girl for longer already, and you now left with her for an entirely different reason? Is there something you're hiding with her? Wait! D-Don't tell me you and her..."

“E-Eh…?!”

"Look, there she is!" Just at the perfect moment, Sophia’s voice echoed from behind her. “Oh, Theo and Eve? What are you doing here?" While holding hands of Ellie, she walked closer to them and noticed the couple standing in front of Maya. Not only that, but said couple also looked strangely familiar to her. "It's great to see you again so soon! You didn’t get lost again, right?”

“Sophia!” The two waved at her before Eve started smiling. "Nice to see you, too! Don't worry, we're fine! We just ran into our daughter here! Can you believe that?!” She pointed at Maya. “She’s the girl we talked about before."

"Y-You know each other?!" Maya got loud and then stared at her tiger with big eyes. “You know my parents?!”

“E-Eh…?” The blonde froze up when she heard that. "P-Parents...?"

“Here!” Ellie didn’t care about any of that right now, though. Letting go of Sophia’s hand, she walked between Maya and her parents to present the bag she was holding to her. “Look! Ellie got a present for mama!” She had decided to choose the best possible wording for the situation while she clung to Maya’s hand with the brightest smile she could muster on her lips.

“…”

Afterward, things got a little chaotic.