Had she forgotten him so much? She takes the jest in stride, as it was meant to be taken, but she feels it settle into the bottom of her stomach like a heavy stone. Has she forgotten him? Has she forgotten Takumi and Showa? She dances instead of answering because, she thinks, it is so much easier to dance. It was easier to bite at the air and chase away memories and thoughts in the shape of raindrops than it was to face them as they were – intangible, difficult to keep still. It isn’t until she feels the burn in her very lungs and muscles that she realizes just how much her dancing had become fighting. It is embarrassing, that much she feels is true, but she is glad, she thinks, that her brother does not seem to notice so much. At least, not visibly. Perhaps there is something good in the forgetting of others – or the forgetting of small pieces of them, at least. Maiko would not be so angry if she knew he had only forgotten the pieces of her that she did not like herself, like the way she looks away and bites her teeth ever so slightly when she feels the warmth of self-conscious thought bloom in her face. She composes herself as much as she can, glad that he speaks of something at least more...well, brotherly.

She pauses when she mentions another boy and the Thunder King. She waits a moment, catching her breath, but she frowns in curiosity and thought, nonetheless. "A boy like us, you say? How can he be like us, brother?” She tilts her head and then shakes it, disbelieving in the idea itself. Her brother would not forget Takumi and Showa so much as to not recognize them by sight, even if they returned with different names. But...what of her parents? She looks away in thought, her frown returning. No, they would not have left only to have more siblings, or to find new mates...and then to send them to Moladion? She exhales sharply, a snort of disapproval. No. Even if their parents sent kin or friends back to find them, she would not go. Maiko wasn’t going to abandon a place or her own future just because they had. No!

She feels herself shake, and it is the feeling that makes her turn back to her brother. She does her best to look composed again, grinning a wane, half-moon grin as she dips her head. Respect, she thinks, for the Thunder King despite him not being there. "Is this your way of asking me to teach you, brother?” She pokes fun at him, dancing forward a step and giving him a nudge with her shoulder before she dances back several paces and lowers her head. "What will this mysterious like-us boy teach us in exchange? That is lesson one!” She bites at the air with a laugh, pushing aside her worries in an effort to give way to something more tender. "Diplomacy, brother! Lesson one is to make trades, not to give things away for free.” She spins then, a little dance as she bites another drop of rain as it falls. She must move, keep alive, to stave off screaming into the cave beyond them both.