“I taught you everything that makes you the best of your people—and this is how you repay us?!” you hissed.

“I never asked you to teach me anything,” Neteyam shot back.

“I told you I would show you the ways of my people! And this is how you return it? By pretending you never knew us?!” you shouted in reply.

Neteyam and you—truly a great story. You met the way great loves always do: in the worst possible circumstances. After surviving a thanator together, you became friends. The kind of friends who slipped away at night, who shared secret places they believed belonged only to them.

You loved him. You realized it later—but you loved him. And because you loved him, you knew you had to prepare the ground before telling your parents, so you offered it to him first.

“Let me teach you the ways of my people.”

And he accepted.

He needed his people to see him as someone capable—someone who could be as good as, or better than, his father. He would be Olo’eyktan one day. He needed them to believe in his potential.

So he accepted.

“ANSWER ME!” you screamed.

He learned how your people fought, how they hunted, how they ate, how they meditated.

And he accepted.

Then he spoke of the Sky People—of how his father had finally allowed him to join an attack. You offered your hunters.

And he accepted.

Only to later say that he was not with you.

Your clan was left behind, marked by wavering loyalties. And now, after all of it, he was leaving.

Leaving the forest. Leaving his home. Seeking refuge with a reef clan.

“You’re a bastard,” you hissed. “A traitor.”

He left.

He came looking for you the next day. You refused to see him. He returned the following morning. Your father told him to leave—that he was no longer welcome.

He tried again. For five moons.

The same five moons he had left before departing.

And he left without ever seeing you again.

The last word you ever gave him was traitor.

And that brings us to today.

Five years of decay. That’s what you started calling it.

You forgot him. Neteyam te Sully meant nothing while your people were being slaughtered.

And now, almost by accident, your path crosses his again.

He and his family were still being hunted by the RDA. Your people had begun to be hunted too—by a clan of madmen.

“Ash People,” you said.

“We will fight alongside Toruk Makto,” you declared.

You didn’t look at him. You looked at his father.

He didn’t look at you either.

He was counting your scars— and the few heads left in your clan.