Iekika stood in the doorframe of the weapon smith's hut. Makana stood, hunched over an anvil like a cat on edge, hammering away at some piece of metal. Her back was to Iekika, the edges of her silhouette framed by the fire of the forge, and all she said was the clanging of tool on metal. Iekika sighed, grimacing with her chest mouth.
"... I know this was... unexpected." She said, after a moment. Makana's hammer swung against the red hot material, sending sparks flying. Clang. "And... I know how this looks. I'm sure the people in charge aren't going to be happy with me, and I get it, but humans... aren't that bad?" Makana replied with another swing. Clang. "If it wasn't for Amber, I'd be dead right now," Iekika continued. "That has to be worth something, right? Me, being here?" Swing. Clang. Iekika sighed. "I don't expect you to forgive me for this whole thing, easily, I know it's... a lot, but I want to try. Can we do that, at least?" Clang. Her anxious expression turned to a slight frown. She stood upright, squaring her shoulders. "Come on, 'Kana, give me something to work with here."
The hammer came down. Gently this time, on the side of the anvil. Makana leaned against the work surface for a moment. Iekika's empathy could feel anger, tiredness rolling off her. Though, using her powers for it seemed a bit redundant. "Why did you come back." Iekika had spent the past 4 years fantasizing about hearing that voice, again. Not once in that time had she imagined it with such venom. "... I wanted my old life back." she eventually replied. "I missed it. I missed you. I missed us. That's it. I know things can't go back to how they were, but I wanted to try."
Makana stood upright, the flickering fire casting an orange glow around her in the otherwise dark room. She turned to face Iekika, her single brown eye catching the light and gleaming off of it. "When you first left, I thought you had died. We all did. No one could imagine even someone as hardy as you surviving that storm. So as we searched through the rubble, as we rebuilt our villages and homes, we grieved for you. We celebrated your memory, and your sacrifice. You were our hero, and you were gone."
"Those first months were awful. I kept thinking back to the things we said, the training we did, your goofy smiles. I thought a lot about how I’d never experience them again. I was a wreck."
"But, eventually, things got better. As the buildings were rebuilt, the world returned to normal, and I started living a life without you. It was hard, to start, but I made progress. Hell, I even tried dating again, eventually. I didn't seem to find the same luck you did, you were always better with that sort of thing."
She smiled, slightly, and Iekika couldn't help but do the same.
"But then... you’re not dead. You were alive, on the mainland. Mingling with humans.” The smile disappeared. “You broke our hearts, and just as quickly went and broke our law. Our way of living. But, despite that...” She sighed, tired. ”I can't hold it against you. You were doing the same thing we were - you had moved on, you found a new life, as much as it goes against what we believe in.”
For just a moment, a smile returned to her chest mouth.
”I like to think you were happy."
Before Iekika could react, she was interrupted by the sound of metal scraping against metal as Makana hefted the hammer back up. She turned to face Iekika, dead on, and approached, her eye glaring at her with newfound hatred.
"But you can't. You can't come back here, not like this. You can't be this selfish"
Iekika's eye widened, and she took a step back outside the door.
"We got our closure. We moved on. I moved on. My wounds healed, and now you want me to rip off the scab? Reset the bone? "
The hammer raised. Iekika reached for her spear, but grasped at empty air. Makana stared Iekika in the eye like she was looking at another lump of cold, dead metal.
"Whatever life you wanted to come back to, it died with you."
Clang.
A thunderclap outside shook Iekika from her sleep, and she jolted upright in her hammock, sending the whole structure rocking back and fourth. She looked up - the only thing in front of her was the fireplace, gently glowing from the coals of the last night. Not too long after, Amber woke up to the sound of gentle sobbing.