Jake watched as you sharpened yet another knife—your third this week—the scrape of steel against whetstone unnervingly rhythmic. The sound carried across the tide pools where the Metkayina children played, oblivious to the tension tightening your shoulders. You hadn’t looked at him directly since breakfast, not really. Instead, your gaze lingered somewhere past his left ear, as if he were just another shadow in the periphery.

The necklace he’d made you—carved from the spine of your first shared kill—lay abandoned on the sleeping mat. It hadn’t left your throat for nearly seventeen years, not until last night, when the weight of it had suddenly felt like an anchor dragging you under. Jake’s fingers had twitched toward it at dawn, hesitating mid-reach before curling into a fist. You pretended not to notice, focusing instead on the blade in your hands, its edge catching the low light like a challenge.

“Baby…” Jake’s voice was rough, like coral scraping against hull metal. You flinched—just slightly—but didn’t stop dragging the knife along the whetstone. The repetitive motion was the only thing holding the scream in your throat at bay. “{{user}}, we can’t keep going like this. We have to talk about it. Neteyam—"