The couple had brought Maya’s parents to their home because they thought it would be easier and more private to chat there. Once they arrived there, Maya had left them alone, though, under the pretense of preparing some drinks. Sophia naturally wasn’t a fan of being left alone with her girlfriend’s parents out of nowhere, but she did surprisingly well. After all, they already liked her quite a bit after the phenomenally positive first impression she had left on them the day before. When she helped them find the way back to their inn when they had gotten lost in the capital, she scored a lot of points,

“Okay, now that the most important thing is confirmed, our girl finally having awakened to romance, I need to hear the whole story here…” Eve looked straight at her daughter. “Maya, why haven’t you told us that you’re going to travel with a tiger?!”

“That’s a very important detail if you ask me!” Theo was also focusing his gaze on her.

“Uhh…” She only reacted by awkwardly scratching her cheek. After all, Sophia wasn’t a tiger yet back then. “I, uhh… forgot…?”

“How is it possible to forget such an obvious thing?!” The two didn’t buy it while pointing at said tiger.

“Well…” The blonde also looked a little awkward. Naturally, even though they are Maya’s parents, she didn’t want to tell them everything about her. “Maya, why don’t you tell them just how much you knew about tigers?” Luckily, she had a handy excuse ready that actually was the truth, as well.

“A-Ah…” She didn’t like the direction this was going. “Yeah, I, uhh… I kinda forgot what tigers are supposed to be… I only noticed when we were getting closer to the capital, and others started paying a weird amount of attention to us…”

“Where you that stupid?!” Theo couldn’t believe her. “Really, all that’s going on in your brain is magic, huh?”

“…” The idiot in question had nothing to say in her defense.

“Then again,” Eve then focussed her attention on Sophia. “Why didn’t you tell her? It must’ve been awkward for you, right? For her having no idea that you’re someone important.”

“Well…” She paused for a moment. “I had no idea about tigers being special, either… We found out about that together…”

“Eh?!” Maya’s parents naturally only got more confused.

“How can you, a tiger, not know about tigers being the rulers of this nation…?” Theo wanted to know more about it.

“I am not from this nation… One of my travel companions, who’s currently out somewhere with his girlfriend, and I came from the monster country, and Maya’s one of the first people, at least when it comes to those I want to talk about, we met after leaving that place…”

“S-Seriously?!” The two got loud.

“Yeah.” She nodded. “I totally get your reaction… I also have no idea how I managed to stay in such a boring place for that long… Finally finding some more friends was the best!”

“No! Nonono!” They vehemently shook their heads.

“I know, I know.” The blonde smiled at them. “I’m actually quite strong. Easily stronger than everything that lives in the monster country. Actually, so would Maya be, for that matter.”

“Leave me out of this!” The girl in question got loud.

“I never was any good at precisely sensing the magic of others, but…” Eve concentrated on Sophia for a little while. “I know that our daughter’s an exception among exceptions, but it feels like you have more than twice her power… So, it’s actually true…?”

“Yup!” She sounded a little proud. “There were no tigers, though… So I had no idea that I was something special. I also didn’t quite look like I do right now back then, so people actually had to look at me closely to notice that something was up with me…” Sophia decided not to mention that she looked so different that she wasn’t even a tiger in the first place back then.

“Oh, I see…” Maya’s mother paused for a moment. “Wait, if there were no tigers beside you… What about your parents? At least one of them has to be a tiger, right?”

“…” Sophia’s expression got quite awkward as she hung her head. “I, uhh… I don’t have any family in this world anymore… I… I got separated from everyone long before I even learned how to use my tail to walk… The companion I mentioned earlier, he taught me everything about magic and how to survive…” Once again, it was a bit of a stretch, but she hadn’t told a single lie.

“Oh.” Eve instantly looked just as awkward as the tiger. “I am deeply sorry to hear this… Ah, it probably was pretty painful that we welcomed you to our family just like that earlier… I am sorry about that, too…”

“Eh?” The blonde just looked at her in response. “Why? Rather, it made me quite happy! I-I love Maya, so hearing that her parents don’t seem to dislike me made me really happy…”

“Aww.” Maya grabbed her hand in return because she liked what the bashful-looking girl was saying right now.

“Our girl actually has a romantic side.” Her mother was just as touched by her little gesture.

“...” Her face turned red.

“It’s that easy to make her blush?!” The sight of that had calmed down Sophia a lot.

“H-Hey!”

“That’s actually no work at all.” Eve looked at her. “While she’s extremely outgoing and often quite rowdy, there are many topics that made her embarrassed very easily.”

“I need to know about all of them!” The tiger’s eyes started sparkling. “I know that she immediately loses her composure when the topic resolves around k-kids… but that’s not really a topic one can tease another…” Not only that, but Sophia had lost the ability to remain calm there, too. “Other than that, it’s more by chance that I can make her blush!”

“Oh? Kids are a weak subject?” Eve then smiled at her daughter. “That’s an interesting development.”

“S-Shut up!” Her daughter didn’t like her expression, or anything about this exchange for that matter, and turned her head away to hide the ever-increasing blush on her cheeks.

“Hehe.” Her smile only increased even more, though. “Anyway,” She then faced Sophia again. “Absolutely, I’ll gladly tell you about every weak point of our girl, my dear.”

“Yay!” She liked the sound of that.

“D-Don’t do that!” Maya did not.

“Alright, we’ll do that later, but I first need to know about everything that is going on here!” Eve’s eyes were slightly sparkling. “Maya, seriously, how did you, who was completely ignorant of romance, fall in love and catch a tiger out of everything in half a year we haven’t seen each other?!”

“I-It’s more like 8 months, okay…?” She tried to defend herself a little.

“Everything between us started in the first one or two months after we left your home, though?” Sophia decided not to be on her side for the time being.

“N-Not helping!” Maya lightly glared at her, but she eventually gave up once she noticed the expectant expression of her mother. “T-There really isn’t much to talk about… I, uhh… I hadn’t realized it back then, but it was, more or less, love at first sight for me…” She didn’t have the easiest time admitting it in front of her parents.

“Aww!” Eve’s smile actually managed to get even bigger. “So, you were just missing the right girl for you to finally awaken?”

“M-More or less…” She weakly nodded. “I wasn’t lying back then, though… My motivation to go with her really was to learn her magic. It took me a while to realize that there was more…”

“You started being aggressive quite fast, though. Even before we left, I want to add.” Sophia had a different opinion on the matter.

“That’s just what you think because you were a shy mess back then.” Maya just looked at her. “The stuff you did with Ari already isn’t that different compared to the first weeks of us.”

“…” The tiger paused for a moment while tilting her head. “Okay… It changed when you forced me to take my baths with you, though.”

“Oh my.” Eve slightly shook her head while glancing at her daughter.

“W-Wording, idiot!” She just glared at the blonde once again.

“You pretty much forced me, though? I mean, in retrospect, it was great, but I had not much saying in the matter, had I?”

“…”

“Well, when she wants something, she wants something.” Theo smiled at her daughter. “It’s always been like that.”

“Urgh…”

“That sounds a little like it was rather one-sided in the beginning?” Eve then changed her attention to Sophia once again.

“Uhh…”

“Well, that backfired, huh?” Maya finally had the chance to look smug again.

“Don’t worry. You don’t have to tell us if it’s embarrassing.”

“Hey!” The white-haired cat-girl got loud. “That’s unfair!”

“Why?” Her mother just tilted her head. “You’re our daughter, so we can pester you as much as we want, but Sophia, we have to win her over first.”

“Grr.” She just reacted with a growl.

“Ehehe.” The tiger liked their exchange a lot. “I, uhh… I would like it if you treat me the same as her, though…”

“Even though we like you more already?”

“H-Hey!” Maya raised her voice again while she glared at her mother.

“Well…” As the blonde didn’t want to get any special treatment. At least in the ways of them being careful around or with her, she decided to talk on her own. “I’m not exactly sure if it was full love at first sight… but I definitely found her interesting from the moment I saw her. For the biggest part of my life so far, I had neither friends nor close acquaintances…” She made a slight pause after that. “Because of that, I had a hard time understanding the feelings I had. Or were developing… Now, I can say that I was in love with her for a while already, but I actually only realized when she confessed…”

“Aww~.” Eve enjoyed that bit of information a lot. “You didn’t have any friends, though? I sense some traces of timidness in you every once and then, but you really don’t strike me as someone unsociable. Quite the opposite, actually.”

“Thank you!” She looked really happy about that assessment. “I worked really hard on that the past year and Maya helped me a lot, too! I used to be extremely shy and reserved to the point where it already was extremely unhealthy…”

“Really?” Maya’s parents just tilted their heads. “That’s unexpected.”

“Up until this year… my life was pretty miserable… I went through a lot that left behind some scars on me… I managed to start a new life and changed myself this spring with the help of others, first and foremost Maya, but before that, I was kind of a wreck…”

“Oh.” The two had no idea how to react to that.

“Well~,” Sophia’s voice suddenly got much more cheerful. “As you can see, that’s a thing of the past, though! My life is amazing right now, so there’s no reason for those long faces!”

“I-I see…” They showed her a small smile in return. However, Maya’s parents still needed a few moments to get over it before they could continue their little chat.