Suna woke to a bright day and…well. Nothing else good. 

Keiba's word about Suna and the Slayers stopping Yura seemed to have changed their parents' attitudes towards the Slayers, but it wasn't enough to get Suna out of trouble.  Their parents seemed to have somehow twisted Keiba's words into the belief that the Slayers had protected Suna from Yura — so much so that their father, on his way out the door for his shift with the Dusting Force, took two bags of coins with him as a reward for the Slayers having saved Suna's life. It was a stinging insult to Suna's pride. They wished they could have told him that they had saved the Slayers' lives, but instead they were left behind to face yet another of their mother's lectures. 

No sooner had she bid their father farewell than she turned to Suna with a dark expression.

"You're lucky you're alive young lady," she scolded. "I can't believe that you would sneak out — what were you even trying to do? After I've told you again and again—" 

"I was just going for a walk," Suna interrupted, dejected.

"Suna, you never listen. I don't care what you wanted to do, you put yourself in danger—"

"I didn't put myself in danger! No one knew Yura was going to appear—"

"Suna!" their mother yelled. "Stop interrupting me. I don't want to hear it. Thank the gods those Slayers were there." She put a hand to her forehead, color flushing her cheeks like her own high-rising emotion was exhausting her. "I shouldn't have spoken so poorly of them before. Without their help, you could have died." 

Suna's face burned with anger. "I wasn't going to die, Mom," they said before they could think better of arguing. "You always act like I can't take care of myself—"

"You can't take care of yourself, Suna, you're a child. And I'm done arguing with you. We're setting up a cot for you in my and your father's bedroom and, during daylight hours, you're not to go anywhere without supervision, is that clear?" 

Suna stood speechless with rage. Everyone — everyone, not just Keiba and the Slayers, but probably the whole village — would have died if not for them. They'd been the one to think quickly, to be brave, to stop a sea monster while those Slayers bumbled around, and still their mother refused to even acknowledge that possibility. 

"Suna," their mother said, her voice tight with impatience, like Suna was somehow insulting her, "I asked you a question. Answer me." 

In the bright fall of the morning light, taking in the tone of their mother's voice and the seething look on her face, Suna realized that she was never going to see them as anything but an inept child forever in need of rules and protection. She didn't want to see them as anything else. Suna didn't know why, but the fact of it broke their heart a tiny bit, and their heartbreak made them resent her. If she didn't want to know them, then they didn't need her.

"Yes," they said, hiding their sneer by dropping their gaze to their feet. 

Their mother seemed to take the downward look as acquiescence. She exhaled heavily. "Good. Put your shoes on.. We're going to the market — and I don't want you straying one inch from my side." 

Suna walked away to get their shoes, their stride stiff and sharp. They'd suffer through today, they decided, but that would be the end of it. They were done with their parents, with all the rules, and with this small village. They didn't need any of it — there was a bigger world out there waiting for them.