Lion Head Mesa you stink of death my friend

The vanishing of her sister has not settled well within the shadow. It is an absence that she feels acutely, an emptiness. She is often alone with her thoughts; watching, waiting, and learning of the things her mother wishes to impart. So too does Kotake learn from others - although her interest is thin, and she becomes colder by the day without her fire to warm her.

Kotake decides that she does not enjoy the loneliness of Koume's absence and she seeks her out; although without a guide she relies solely upon their twin connection. Intuition leads her from the forest and to the south, to where the earth lifts and undulates, to where the sun is the master; the antithesis of the dark wood from whence she is born. Why she thinks that Koume could be here is a mystery. The girl is fire, and perhaps in her desperation Kotake thinks that pleading to the sky will bring her back home.

Traveling through the morning, Kotake stops to rest along a ridge. She can see the dark swatch of forest from here, her home. To the west there is water. To the east, the jagged silhouette of many mountains. It feels strange to supplicate herself to the sun rather than the moon, to the light rather than the dark - so she does not. Her silence is well rooted within her, but all the same, she mourns the absence of her sister.