preserved in amber

After the merge -Why?!-

Skylor was sat down in the living room while Kai, Lloyd, Zane, Nya, and the thee kids stood in front of her.

If Skylors words made a good impression, it was all wiped away when they started talking about Riyu.

"You STOLE Riyu?!" Wyldfire exclaimed, almost jumping over the table. The kid with black hair held her back, barely.

"Yeah, that's true." Skylor shrugged. "But only because I really had to."

Lloyd shook his head.

"Right. But why did you really have to?" He asked.

Skylor looked down at her hands again. She took off her gloves. Her gloves felt too tight. She tossed the orange gloves on the coffee table.

"I... uhm.." she muttered, she closed her eyes and pushed her hair back, grazing over her bandages that covered her eye.

"Spit it out!" Wyldfire hissed. Her fists glowed with fire. "Or I'll MAKE you!"

Kai put a hand on Wyldfires shoulder and Wyldfire doused her flames reluctantly.

Skylor took a deep breath.

"So before the merge, I was practically rich. I had a whole noodle empire, I was making it pretty good in life." She said. "I even used my funds to renovate my father's island, I was preparing to turn it into a resort, maybe make enough money to expand my business."

She had to take a moment to find her words.

"Well then, the-..."

Skylor looked down at her hands to avoid seeing their faces.

"When the merge happened, I lost the business, I lost the island, I lost everything." She said. 

She really didn't want to talk about it too much. The most Skylor has ever gotten emotional like this was when Nya became the sea. But the temple... she grew up there, fell in love there, and with it gone, she felt like she died in there, and she was just an empty shell now. So she tried not to think of how the wood sounded when it broke, or how she just knew all the artifacts were destroyed, and how the boulder had just crushed-

No. She needed to continue. She pushed her hair back again and looked up at them.

"With all the exotic foods here now, I have no business selling noodles. So to find income, I used my other set of skills." She said. "I became a hunter. Or 'assassin'."

As she looked she saw sympathetic faces from most of them. Wyldfire still glared at her.

"And I know that 'Dragons are our friends', I just kinda... forgot." Skylor said nervously. The guilt weighed down her shoulders like she was carrying a dragon. "But-... but I'll help however I can to get him back."

Everyone seemed pretty okay with that explanation, and Kai had already heard it before.

Lloyd nodded.

"Well, we need to figure out a plan to get him back anyhow." He said. "We'll meet downstairs in a bit."

Skylor nodded at that as the group disbanded. Wyldfire remained, glaring with her arms crossed.

"...what?" Skylor asked after a moment of long awkward silence.

Wyldfire took a second to answer. When she did, it sounded a little like a pout.

"I thought you were cool." She said bitterly. Skylor really didn't have a response to that, so Wyldfire walked away.

Skylor sat on the couch, holding the sides of her face with a blank expression.

Why did that hurt so much?