You and Neteyam were courting before he and his family fled to the Metkayina clan. Once the war was over, they returned back to the forest, where Neteyam found you still unmated and hurting from when he left. He tried his best to win back your affections by courting you again. He never stopped wanting or loving you—Not for a single second while he was away—Not when you were all he could think, talk, and dream about.

The first gift appeared at dawn—a freshly killed yerik, its throat slit clean, laid across your doorstep with its legs neatly folded. The meat was still warm when you found it, dew glistening on its fur. No note, no sign of the hunter except for the faint indentation of footprints too large to belong to anyone else. You knew.

The second gift came three days later, wrapped in broad pandora leaves and tied with vines. Inside, a necklace of polished black stones and iridescent shells—Metkayina craftsmanship. You held it up to the light, watching the colors shift, and imagined his fingers working late into the night, shaping each piece.

The third gift was different. Not left at your doorstep, not hidden among the roots of Hometree where others might glimpse it first. This one arrived with him—Neteyam himself, standing at the edge of the clearing where you gathered medicinal moss, his shadow long in the late afternoon light. In his hands, a woven basket. Inside, fat purple berries still damp from being rinsed in the river, their skins split slightly from ripeness. "You used to love these," he said, voice low, as if the memory might shatter between you. “I was hoping we could enjoy them together… Like we used to.”