If there is one emotion Maiko doesn’t quite understand, it is a certain kind of bitterness that stirs in her stomach when she thinks of Koi and Senketsu. She thinks of them as she follows her brother’s pawprints; the feeling moves from the bottom of her stomach like the namesake of her mother, swimming and swirling before it leaps up her throat and into her heart. It moves to her throat then, clutching at any words that she wants to call out to Junketsu and silences her. She breathes it out but it still lingers in the air for a moment. What had Koi looked like? Her voice is lost in all the other voices Maiko has met, and she cannot recall the precise way that ginger and black across her body, or the exact way her fur felt to snuggle into. Showa and Takumi were born with mother’s eyes...but they’re gone, she thinks, and so I’ll likely never see that colour again. And Senketsu? Well, she sees him in her own eyes when she gazes down at still water, and she sees him in Junketsu’s. He was a shadow in life and now, he is but a shadow to her too. It makes her heart hurt, a secret she keeps closely guarded, but she runs when she feels it anyway.

Maiko runs through the rain, her paws hitting the slick stone of the grotto in no time at all as Junketsu’s figure begins to manifest behind a veil of rain and shadow. Her breath is ragged, her chest heaving, so she stops before he can see her fully, trying desperately to compose herself. She is Maiko, after all! Maiko, the girl who was brave enough to approach the Thunder King and to learn from him too. She isn’t some sniveling child who cries in the rain because she’s woken up to bad dreams. She sucks in a deep breath and straightens herself, casting a thankful glance up at the sky before she begins to jog forward towards where Junketsu dances about. At least she can wear her usual mischievous grin and pretend everything is as it was.

"Oh? What do you think to call that jiggling about you’re doing?” she calls out in their native tongue, feeling more at ease as she speaks it. At least there is a little piece of Koi and Senketsu left in her, no? "Are you scared of these raindrops, brother? Do you need me to scare them off for you?“ She joins him then, leaping into a similar dance as she mirrors his movements – only, she lashes out to bite at the raindrops as they drop, grinning toothily any time she manages to feel one on her tongue. This, she thinks, is how it was supposed to be for all of them. She was meant to be a lady at home and sneak off with her brothers to fight and dance; they’d claim she watched patiently aside and congratulated them all on their prowess, tending to their hunger and smoothing their fur when their games had ended. But instead, things had gone all wrong...

When the thoughts come, she moves faster. She forces out her own speed, ducking and weaving, nails scraping on stone. She no longer dances like Junketsu but rather, she fights with some unseen force that comes down with the raindrops. Junketsu too, for he wasn’t always with her like when they were younger. Where was he? What was he doing when she was alone in Diveen, patrolling the borders and trying to scrape together food for the winter? She bites down on a raindrop hard, panting hard as she stops and stares up at Junketsu. Where is it? She can’t find her usual troublemaker-smile and so, she looks down, looks away, anywhere but the face that reminds her of Senketsu and herself in that moment.