Shinobu answered lightly, without looking around, "Well, it is inconvenient, but knowledge demands sacrifice, eh?"

That stung. Wordlessly, Yoshi turned around and retreated into the kitchen. She came to a stop in front of the sink and stood grimacing and rubbing her neck in silence. Shinobu didn't seem to notice her lack of response, absorbed in carefully wrapping objects in the blankets as she took them down from the altar.

She paused, though, when she took the framed photo down, and instead studied it quietly. It was a formal portrait of two women and a dog, taken against an empty backdrop. Both women wore quite simple kimonos; one sat in a chair, and the other stood at her shoulder, with her hands posed on the chair's back. The dog, with a curly tail and small triangular ears, lay at their feet and looked at the camera.

A strangely tender expression had come over Shinobu's face as she looked at the portrait. After a while, she remarked, "...You look less like your mother as you age."

She smoothed the glass over one of the subjects with her paw--the standing woman, who had pale eyes and a familiar nose.

"I think that's a good thing, mind you," she continued. "Not that Michi wasn't beautiful--but you are your own person." She paused again, and added in a more wry tone, "Er, at least in your more human shape, anyway. But your wolf shape, that's just like hers. Minus the fiery bits--that must have come from your father, whoever he is. Michi didn't--"

She'd turned to address Yoshi face-to-face, but Yoshi had gone, so she broke off in puzzlement.