Forgive me: An Aonung story

Forgive me

By the time we got back it was fully dark..I knew we were going to be in trouble. We could hear people shouting our names out, "we're in trouble..go I will see you again." Lo'ak says to the Tulkun as he gently takes me by his side helping me swim. As he gets us into the reef he starts to shout, "help! It's my sister!"

"Help please!" He says as a warrior soon comes by our side helping us to the shore. A conch shell went off letting everyone know we had returned, Lo'ak helped me onto the platform as we stood infront of Tonowari. Aonung looked at me with sad eyes again as he saw my condition, I glared at him, this was his fault.

"Hey. Hey. You okay" our father speaks as he rushes by our side, "let's have a look at you, he's fine. He's fine just a few scratches" my father says as he looked to Lo'ak soon checking me over, "you okay?" He asks me concerned as I scrunch my face up in pain, "she'll be fine" my father says to calm the people down.

"Kids!" Our mother shouts appearing from the crowd grabbing my twins shoulders "I pray for the strength that I will not pluck the eyeballs out of my children" she snarls at us. My ears pin to the back of my head and my tail hung low..this wasn't our fault.

"No my son knows better than to take him outside the reef. The blame is his" Tonowari says as she pushes Aonung to the ground. "No. This is not Aonung's fault. This was my idea. Aonung tried to talk me out of it." Lo'ak said defending the boy as I hissed by his side, "why lie!" I shout frustrated, "I'm sorry sir, but your son told him it was where you hunt! It was only pure luck I followed. They left him out there. He could've-" I started to choke on my words as I got so upset "he could've died. I could've died. Heck we actually nearly drowned till an animal saved us! We awoke on its back!" I shout frustrated as Lo'ak holds my hand in reassurance.

I watched as Aonung's face showed his hurt, good as it should I thought. Tonowari and Ronal looked to their son in disappointment as we all walked away back to our pod.

"Dad you told me to make friends with these kids.. that's all I was trying to do.." Lo'ak says defensively "Nàlàni came to save me for being stupid..and she ended up getting hurt" my twin says upset. "Why lie, why?" our father asks "because it's easy to believe that I'd do that" Lo'ak whispers our father goes to respond as Lo'ak speaks again. "Can we please chat about this later..Nàlàni is currently bleeding" my twin says.

Everyone now ushers by my side nearly forgetting I was in pain, they carefully lay me down to the ground. As Lo'ak goes to get Ronal..why am I the one always injured I thought to myself.

Ronal comes by my side with a damp cloth, she carefully dabs at the blood on my forehead seeing how bad the cut was. Luckily it was so deep..unlike my leg before she applied ointment to my forehead she started on my leg. "What did this?" She questions me as I shrugged my shoulders "I don't know..some long fish" I say unsure. "An Akula" she says in shock, "my child you are lucky to be alive" she says as she applies pressure to my leg making me hiss.

"This will need stitches" she says as she starts to patch it up. I kept hissing in pain, I was so ready for this to be over. I saw Aonung stood in the door was with his ears pinned to his head..he looked awful, but as he should I'm like this because of him.

Ronal started to apply some ointments on my wounds and covering them up in seaweed, "be careful with your leg" she says with a smile as she gets up to leave. "Thank you" I say to her as she gives me a nod in response soon leaving our pod.

My family sat by my side as Aonung started coming towards me, "don't even say anything. Not now anyways. Go." I say harshly gesturing for him to leave, "Nàlàni..please" Aonung said choking on his words..he was crying? I felt bad..but I really did not want to speak to him. "She said go" Neteyam said gesturing for the boy to leave me alone, not long after he spoke he left my sight walking out of the pod.