At the first remote indigenous community the Northern Territory's child protection and detention royal commissioners visited, they were given a boomerang by elders who told them that in the olden days, such an act would have been a challenge to fight.
Margaret White and Mick Gooda were in Kalkarindji, and just one month earlier had watched Abu Ghraib-style footage of boys being tear gassed at Darwin's notorious Don Dale Detention Centre on national television in a scandal that sparked the inquiry.
Since last August the pair has travelled from the red centre to the tropical north hearing painfully private stories from vulnerable families and youngsters who suffered "brutality" behind bars.
At their first stop in Kalkarindji, they were set a challenge to make sure Territory kids could be raised by their families and kept safe.
"We were told by the elders our fight was for all children and grandchildren," the commissioners said.
"In submitting our report, we think of those old men in the hope that we have met their challenge."
After 15 months and three extensions, the $54 million inquiry's findings will be handed to the federal and NT governments on Friday, in the hope of providing a road map to reform to close a dark chapter inside Australia's youth prisons.
"The problems we have identified are deep seated, confronting and come at an enormous human and financial cost," Ms White and Mr Gooda said.
Deloitte has estimated the inquiry's youth justice recommendations will deliver savings of $335.5 million in the next decade, and the commissioners may call for Don Dale and the Alice Springs Youth Detention Centre to be closed.
"Doing nothing will see costs of $37.3 million in 2016/17 increase to $113.4 million by 2026/27 with the main driver being ongoing use of existing facilities," Ms White and Mr Gooda said.
The Territory has the nation's highest rate of kids in protection and detention, the vast majority of which are indigenous, despite Aboriginal people making up only one third of the NT population.
The commissioners said the witnesses who shared their stories expect this inquiry to succeed where many before it have failed, in finding "the signposts to a better future".
