The Red Carpet

It only took a few minutes after Tsuna had greeted the guards at the gate and told them she was expected company for word of their arrival to reach Alpinia's ears. And, it took even less time for her to rush down to go and meet up with her family that had arrived at last. Finally, someone who had come just to see her, and not just for some political or agenda meeting! And it had been forever since she'd seen Tsuna, too, so that'd make the reunion all the sweeter.

"Tsuna!" Alpinia exclaimed as she burst out the front doors of the castle and rushed past all of the guards. She launched herself right into the arms of her older sister, and gave her a great big bear hug. Well, as big a hug as she could giver her, anyway - Tsuna was quite a bit taller than Alpinia. As was everyone else present. 

After Alpinia had gotten her fill of hugs, she fell back and gave her sister a beaming grin. "It's soooo good to see you! It's been forever! God, there's so much to catch up on. Where to even start?" As she began to think, she looked over and remembered Tsuna had two other guests with her. Right, she shouldn't ignore them, as cool as Tsuna was. "Oh, Sukeru!" Alpinia exclaimed, and she also gave the Heran a hug, though not quite as tightly as she'd hugged Tsuna. "You better be treating my sister with all the love and care you can muster!"

Then, lastly, there was the orange-haired girl. Her name was... "Azuki!" Alpinia exclaimed yet again as she gave her niece one last hug. Azuki was much taller than she was, and not actually that much younger than her, though Alpinia was still going to treat her like a small child. "You've gotten so big! I mean, I've never seen you before in person, but I've seen pictures of when you were a little sprout!"

The time Alpinia had spent apart from Tsuna certainly hadn't seemed to sever their bond, as the two embraced and shared energetic smiles and warmth with each other. "Oh, don't worry about all that," Alpinia insisted as her sister tried to apologize for not making the time to visit Plant more often. It was entirely different planet a very solid distance across the galaxy from Earth, so Alpinia understood why their meet ups couldn't be any more frequent. "And Taori treats me very well, so don't worry about that, either," Alpinia gestured around behind her at the castle. "I mean, just look at the house he got me!"

Sukeru, obviously, wasn't quite as warm and loving towards Alpinia as Tsuna was, but she was still by far the most polite Heran Alpinia had ever met. And Sukeru was right - Tsuna was certainly headstrong enough to handle any bumps in the road just fine, so Alpinia probably didn't need to worry about her. Probably. ...She'd still worry about her a little.

And lastly was their daughter, whom Alpinia had only ever met remotely. "Well, Taori is more the head than I am," she clarified to Azuki, "But I still have quite a bit of pull. Some of the more elitist Saiyan nobles around here don't like listening to me, but they usually bend a knee once Taori shoots them a glare." They'd probably come around in time, though it was a tad annoying having to deal with the red tape of nobility Alpinia had run off with Taori to avoid in the first place. It wasn't that bad, but there was a certain part of her that missed the simplicity of their life in Tarbel Village. Maybe they could take a vacation there, sometime.

"Anyway, come on inside!" she exclaimed as she led the trio back towards the castle. "What did you want to see first? There's the throne room, my bedroom, the dining hall, the observation deck... It's a really big castle."