It's a sentiment he's heard before, if not in voice then in the language of empty places. Madness that feels like clearest sense, a child's idea of the world given new life in teens and adults. It happens, when the world is turned so inside out from what it was, when safety is so far forgotten. And it can happen suddenly, quietly, escalating until settlements disappear from their sites, until vaults guard corpses so old and dry there's hardly a smell.

He doesn't want it to make sense. Not here, not in Kamala, but it's not a thing that's ever going to. If it's not her own mind, they'll deal with it; if it is, well, that's a slower, more sideways thing to fix.

"I understand," he says. When he puts her down, it's with one arm still crooked around, holding her with her own arms still pinned. Just enough to reach down for his pack. He's got his lines in there, his tools. Even then, he pushes them further up, until there's grass underfoot again. "I won't leave you either, alright. If I put you down, so I can make us a tie to keep together down there, will you stay? Just for a minute?"

Calm as he keeps his tone, his heart's in his fucking guts, right now.