“I still don’t understand why you have to leave.”
The woman sighs at the question and dips a hesitant toe into the sand underneath her foot. “Isn’t it enough that Idhamiya wants me gone?”
The girl next to her scoffs. “You hardly care what Idhamiya wants. If anything, that’s a reason you would choose to stay.”
“I resent that.”
“Don’t even deny it.”
“I’m not denying it,” the woman says, exaggerating every syllable. “I just resent it.”
“That makes no sense.”
“Sure it does.”
“Not it doesn’t.” The girl crosses her arms.
“Sure it does.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Yes it does. Even if I’m petty like that, I don’t have to appreciate you pointing it out.”
The girl scoffs again, but this one sounds suspiciously like a laugh. “That also seems like a very petty thing of you to say.”
“Absolutely.”
They stare at the water in silence for a few seconds, until the girl’s eyes widen with indignation. She grabs a handful of sand and hurls it at her companion. “Hey! You’re just trying to distract me!”
“Hey me? Hey me? Hey you! Sand is just… it doesn’t… this is so… why would you do that?” the woman sputters, already on her feet and shaking out her clothes in an awkward dance. “That’s horrid! I’ll never get this out – you’re so juvenile!”
“Answer my question or I’ll rub sand all over your cot,” the girl threatens.
“You wouldn’t.”
Dark blue eyes meet light green ones in the half-twilight.
The woman looks away first. “You absolutely would.”
“And your change of clothing,” the girl adds after a beat. “I know where you keep it.”
The woman shakes her head and plops back down onto the beach, throwing her hands up in irritation when the motion sets off another spray of sand. “This is blackmail.”
“It is.” The girl scoots around so she can look directly at her companion.
“Aren’t you supposed to be the diplomat? I doubt tossing sand at dignitaries will get them to do what you want.”
“Stop stalling.”
The woman raises her arms. “I’m just saying that it’s a valid point, and you’re going to have to overcome this stubbornness thing if you want any hope of…”
The girl scoops up another handful and holds it up with a raised eyebrow. Her companion’s elbows and knees have already shot up to protect her core. “Okay, okay!”
The words are foreign, but their meaning is clear enough. The girl opens her fingers and watches the sand slip through back onto the beach while the woman next to her unfurls and unfumbles herself.
“Why do you have to go?” the girl asks again, her voice much lower this time.
“Things aren’t going well over there.”
“Is that what you and that foreigner were talking about?”
“Partially, yeah.”
The girl huffs. “Well, do tell.”
The woman pokes at her cheek. The dirty, gnarled fingernail leaves a little half-moon mark in her skin. “The riots are getting worse.” She rubs at the mark with her palm. “People aren’t happy with the ban, with the endless treaties, with anything really.”
The girl draws up her legs and pulls up her tunic over her knees. “That sounds like some excellent reasons not to go back.”
The woman leans back further into the sand, apparently resigned to the film of dust that now covers her hair and clothing. “It does, doesn’t it.”
“I don’t understand,” the girl snaps.
“What if… what if it was my fault.” The woman allows her head to touch the sand now, one arm stretched up into the sky so she can contemplate the back of her hand.
Neither says anything for a while.
“Even if it is, which I’m not fully sold on,” the girl finally says, “what’s done is done. What good will it do to go back?”
“What good indeed?” The hand slowly falls back onto the ground and lands with a hollow thump. “That’s why I left. Cut my losses. But being here,” she swallows loudly, once, twice, three times, “being here for so long made me think.”
“I’d certainly hope so,” the girl says drily.
“It makes me think that, even if what’s done is done, well… things can always be… undone.” Her voice is thin and reedy, to the point where it’s almost inaudible over the waves breaking against the shore. “Undone” hangs in the air and quivers in the wind. Neither of them quite knows what to do with it.
“The thing you did.” The girl is quiet, but firm. “The thing you did seems pretty permanent to me.”
“So you know about that.”
“I have my theories.”
“I’m sure they’re very informed theories too.” The woman reaches up to play with her earlobe, the left one with the ugly slit down the middle.
“Am I wrong?”
No answer.
“Murder is pretty permanent,” the girl snaps.
The woman gives a choppy, bitter bark of laughter.
“How exactly are you planning on undoing that? How?”
The woman sighs again, a shaky thing that seems to deflate what’s left of her frame. “Even if I can’t,” she says – “If,” the girl repeats incredulously – “Even if I can’t, I’ve come to the decision that it’s my responsibility to try.”
“Well that’s stupid,” the girl declares.
“It is.”
“You’re going to get yourself killed.”
“I’m pretty good at not dying. But you’re probably right.”
“It’s quite literally impossible.”
“I know.”
“So why…?”
The woman slowly sits up and blinks out the sand from her eyes. “It’s my responsibility to try,” she tells her knees.
“Yeah, but—”
“It’s not my responsibility to succeed.” It takes obvious effort for the words to crawl out of her mouth.
The girl looks her companion up and down in disbelief. “So just to review, you’re going back to a place where you know they’ll murder you if they figure out what you’ve done, without a plan, just because it’s your ‘responsibility’?”
“I’m not like you!” the woman snaps. “Some of us don’t have your magical moral compass that prevents you from making really bad choices, okay? Which means we sometimes have to do stupid things to make up for the stupid things we messed up in the first place.”
The girl shakes her head. “Don’t drag me into this, please. I mess up all the time, but that doesn’t mean I do ridiculous things out of guilt!”
The woman throws her hands up in frustration. “Look at it like this. I did something so terrible that it means an entire country is in chaos because of it. How is it fair that I don’t have to deal with any of the fallout? How is it fair that I just got to… climb into a boat, and land here, and not die in a shipwreck, and not have to face any of my actions? That’s not fair. Even if I can’t fix what I did, I should at least have to live with the consequences.”
Silence.
The girl shifts uncomfortably. “You’re such a pain to argue with.”
“Not argue,” the woman says with a raised eyebrow. “Diplomats don’t argue.”
“Now I know you’re insane for sure,” the girl retorts. “Quoting Idhamiya? I might as well leave you to the fish. That’s not the Yetkava I know.”
“Fair enough.” The woman – Yetkava – clambers to her feet and dusts off her clothes. “It’s late, and I leave early tomorrow. I’m heading back inside.”
The girl nods, looks away, looks back up. “All the best,” she mutters awkwardly.
Yetkava’s expression is illegible in the dark, but her voice is soft and gentle. “Take care, Amita. Who knows? Maybe we’ll see each other again.”
She lingers for a few more seconds before she turns away and plods up the dune, towards the island’s centre. Amita stares at her tunic, just a grey smudge in this lighting.
Things can always be undone.
“Maybe we will.”