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sixthiterationlogs2017-02-02 09:57 pm
3ofswords) wrote in sixthiterationlogs2017-02-02 09:57 pm
let's take it to the grave [closed to several]
WHO: Kira Akiyama
WHERE: Southwest of the Town Hall, under one of the tallest trees nearest the village
WHEN: Feb 7, after the discovery of Ren’s death
OPEN TO: Open to but not requiring tags from: Casey, Credence, Veronica or Mark, Jyn
WARNINGS: Grief, character death, a dude literally digging a grave for a friend
STATUS: Yes, from the above people
Time to dig a way out, or a grave.
The message had seemed a threat, at first: Kira had wondered if meeting Ren alone might put him six feet under. What he should have done, what he should have paid attention to, was the invisible force the man spoke of, the way it connected all things. The way Ren had reached out with it, and had wanted to help him test his own strengths. There would be no more time alone with him. There would be no more meetings, no taking him into the forest to hunt the wendigo, no looking for the way out.
Taking a deep breath, Kira lifted the short, unfolded shovel again, and speared it into the hard earth. The snow had stopped falling, and the air had warmed enough to melt some of it from the ground, but the soil at the base of the tall pine was packed tight and cold. Kira was sweating under his clothes, his coats laid at the roots, and every impact of the shovel travelled up to his injured hand and tested the healing skin.
It hurt: so did his fingers and palms, the muscles strained by sudden labor. So did his arms and back, and his hamstrings, his calves, from standing and bending and tossing the dirt he moved off to one side. He’s outlined the hole to an approximation of Ren’s height, and started to sink it in.
Ren had only just returned the tool to him, after his meeting. It made Kira’s heart crawl up to his throat to think about, how thoroughly the place had punished the man for his efforts.
Maybe it was chance. Plenty of people had been injured, but so far only Ren had died. Only his home had been torn in with a symbol burned across it, and Kira took another breath, lifted again, rattled the impact up his shitty narrow frame, again. It was exhausting work, worse than deep cleaning the kitchen or scrubbing out the tub. And those were his only points of comparison, as physical a project as he undertook, to prepare him for this one. He had lain awake most of the night, wrestling with the glimpse of Ren’s body, well after it had been removed from the house; he had lain awake in a silence that denied even Casey’s concern, the cat’s attentions, his own prickling flop sweat of weariness.
And at sunrise he’d gotten up, the question of what to do with that body mixing with the question of what must have been done with Ty’s. The question of his own worthlessness tying itself to both ends, marrying them to each other, tethering him to this single purpose: dig one of them a grave, at least.
It wasn’t lost on him that Ren might have predicted this. That he might have known, and Kira hadn’t recognized it about him.
It wasn’t lost on him that, with his full abilities, he might have told him not to go home.
He’d stolen Casey’s gloves on the way out. It was almost habit, to pull one over his injured hand, to see how much he could get done in the kitchen. Today he wore both of them, and he could feel the soft new skin tear and ache for the work, under the leather. Sweat made a slippery layer between his flesh and the interior, but the gloves saved his grip, and he put his weight into it. There was no strength left, the sun directly overhead, his breath rattling dry in his throat.
On the next attempt, the shovel hit the side of a rock; slid; and sent him falling forward into the hole. It wasn’t so deep yet as to swallow him, but he tipped awkward inside, scuffing his shoulder and hip on the dirt, jabbing the handle against his ribs. When he sat up, his head and shoulders, hunched as they were, showed over the edges. His limbs shook from the long effort, and he slowly unclenched his hands from the handle: it was time for another break, whether he wanted one or not.
There was so much left to do, and not enough strength in him to do it.
He felt like he was facedown in the snow again, exhausted, out of his element, following a feeling in the hopes of doing something concrete. He’d been an idiot then and he was an idiot now: wasting time with people, getting attached, having a sliver of hope, when he knew how it ended. What awful place would he be whisked away to before he finished this task? Was he going to push a boulder up a hill, over and over, stripping away his sanity every time it crushed him on the way back down?
Lifting dirty hands to his face, Kira hid his mouth and eyes against them, and the sounds of the shovel chipping at the cold earth were replaced with soft and solitary sobs.
There was still a long way to go before even the top of this hill.
[Kira, owner of the Village Shovel, can be found either crying in his initial attempts at digging Ren a grave, or if you prefer to skip the waterworks, after he's gotten up and gotten back to work a while later. The list of characters are those who can tag, but no one is required; kept it short due to the emotional nature of the post for Kira himself]
WHERE: Southwest of the Town Hall, under one of the tallest trees nearest the village
WHEN: Feb 7, after the discovery of Ren’s death
OPEN TO: Open to but not requiring tags from: Casey, Credence, Veronica or Mark, Jyn
WARNINGS: Grief, character death, a dude literally digging a grave for a friend
STATUS: Yes, from the above people
Time to dig a way out, or a grave.
The message had seemed a threat, at first: Kira had wondered if meeting Ren alone might put him six feet under. What he should have done, what he should have paid attention to, was the invisible force the man spoke of, the way it connected all things. The way Ren had reached out with it, and had wanted to help him test his own strengths. There would be no more time alone with him. There would be no more meetings, no taking him into the forest to hunt the wendigo, no looking for the way out.
Taking a deep breath, Kira lifted the short, unfolded shovel again, and speared it into the hard earth. The snow had stopped falling, and the air had warmed enough to melt some of it from the ground, but the soil at the base of the tall pine was packed tight and cold. Kira was sweating under his clothes, his coats laid at the roots, and every impact of the shovel travelled up to his injured hand and tested the healing skin.
It hurt: so did his fingers and palms, the muscles strained by sudden labor. So did his arms and back, and his hamstrings, his calves, from standing and bending and tossing the dirt he moved off to one side. He’s outlined the hole to an approximation of Ren’s height, and started to sink it in.
Ren had only just returned the tool to him, after his meeting. It made Kira’s heart crawl up to his throat to think about, how thoroughly the place had punished the man for his efforts.
Maybe it was chance. Plenty of people had been injured, but so far only Ren had died. Only his home had been torn in with a symbol burned across it, and Kira took another breath, lifted again, rattled the impact up his shitty narrow frame, again. It was exhausting work, worse than deep cleaning the kitchen or scrubbing out the tub. And those were his only points of comparison, as physical a project as he undertook, to prepare him for this one. He had lain awake most of the night, wrestling with the glimpse of Ren’s body, well after it had been removed from the house; he had lain awake in a silence that denied even Casey’s concern, the cat’s attentions, his own prickling flop sweat of weariness.
And at sunrise he’d gotten up, the question of what to do with that body mixing with the question of what must have been done with Ty’s. The question of his own worthlessness tying itself to both ends, marrying them to each other, tethering him to this single purpose: dig one of them a grave, at least.
It wasn’t lost on him that Ren might have predicted this. That he might have known, and Kira hadn’t recognized it about him.
It wasn’t lost on him that, with his full abilities, he might have told him not to go home.
He’d stolen Casey’s gloves on the way out. It was almost habit, to pull one over his injured hand, to see how much he could get done in the kitchen. Today he wore both of them, and he could feel the soft new skin tear and ache for the work, under the leather. Sweat made a slippery layer between his flesh and the interior, but the gloves saved his grip, and he put his weight into it. There was no strength left, the sun directly overhead, his breath rattling dry in his throat.
On the next attempt, the shovel hit the side of a rock; slid; and sent him falling forward into the hole. It wasn’t so deep yet as to swallow him, but he tipped awkward inside, scuffing his shoulder and hip on the dirt, jabbing the handle against his ribs. When he sat up, his head and shoulders, hunched as they were, showed over the edges. His limbs shook from the long effort, and he slowly unclenched his hands from the handle: it was time for another break, whether he wanted one or not.
There was so much left to do, and not enough strength in him to do it.
He felt like he was facedown in the snow again, exhausted, out of his element, following a feeling in the hopes of doing something concrete. He’d been an idiot then and he was an idiot now: wasting time with people, getting attached, having a sliver of hope, when he knew how it ended. What awful place would he be whisked away to before he finished this task? Was he going to push a boulder up a hill, over and over, stripping away his sanity every time it crushed him on the way back down?
Lifting dirty hands to his face, Kira hid his mouth and eyes against them, and the sounds of the shovel chipping at the cold earth were replaced with soft and solitary sobs.
There was still a long way to go before even the top of this hill.
[Kira, owner of the Village Shovel, can be found either crying in his initial attempts at digging Ren a grave, or if you prefer to skip the waterworks, after he's gotten up and gotten back to work a while later. The list of characters are those who can tag, but no one is required; kept it short due to the emotional nature of the post for Kira himself]
no subject
She shakes the thoughts from her mind; there is nothing Kira has shown so far that would give any credit to these scattered, dark thoughts. She's had enough people in her life who wanted her dead, some who actively tried to bring about that end. There's nothing like that here, nothing like that in the loosely clasped grip on her hand as he drags them both through the forest.
It would be peaceful, she thinks. It could be.
"Vallt," she corrects quietly. "There's not much to tell. Didn't spend too much time there. It's -" she stops, normally unwilling to give out such information. But there's no connection to her home galaxy here. She isn't even sure there's a galaxy still left to speak of. "Ice world. It's mostly a Separatist Prison. My parents were there because my father refused to use his knowledge of kyber crystals to help the Confederacy in their war against the Galactic Republic." She isn't sure if any of this even makes sense to Kira, but there's something oddly cathartic in letting it spill out to someone who understands none of it. "We were only there six months."
no subject
What does make sense is the forest shading green around them, as if the vegetation had already been hiding under the snow. Now that it's melted away, the plumes of new grass and ferns seem to have gotten brighter, thicker the deeper they move into them. Seeds grab and trail along their pantlegs; leaves rustle in the dry breeze, then louder for their passing.
He's never been anywhere like this, really. The park was manicured hills of grass and paved paths, full of triathletes and students drawing the back of the Met.
It was a bit like walking through the emptied streets after the first snow: new, calming--and full of shit that could kill you. "We're almost there," he says, though he has no real idea of the distance, "Where did you live after Vallt?"
no subject
"Coruscant," she replies lifelessly, "For a while. Then Lokori, then back to Coruscant. I don't have any memories before we moved to Coruscant for the second time." She'd tried to ask her parents about those years, once, but the non-committal answers told Jyn they'd rather not talk about it. And so, she'd never tried to obtain more information. It was as though those years had never existed at all. "Then Lah'mu, then -" her breath catches in her throat, forcing her to inhale suddenly. "Across the galaxy, for varying lengths of time." She lifts her gaze, which had been unfocused and lost in the underbrush to glance now at the back of Kira's head. "Where are you from?"
no subject
"A place called New York," he says, the first time the answer has felt small or obscure in the telling. "On a plant called Earth. A lot of us here are from Earth, I guess." It certainly takes his mind off other things, to try to put his section of what is an increasingly large universe into proper context: "It's the only habitable planet in our solar system, and in my time we haven't really explored beyond that.
"And I've never left New York until now." He hadn't even moved out of Chelsea, when he left his mother's building. She'd offered him a room upstairs, hardly understood the point of his leaving at all, without a family of his own to start, but his rebellion had gotten him all of a city block away.
"What did you--" do falls quiet from his lips, as they clear bright young saplings into a carpet of moss, covering the rocks surrounding the spring. Steam comes off the water, bubbles rising idly from whatever natural vent is heating it. When he drops her hand, its an idle movement, their fingers catching at the tips and resting together, waiting for someone to pull away. "It's pretty," he says in a low hush, like it's the first thought he's had since the other day that doesn't hurt.
no subject
She begins to wince at hearing the inevitable question about her past life when she's saved, forgiven by the clearing and beautiful spring that's laid out in front of them. She's grateful for the lingering feeling of his fingers against hers - the skin that had now grown used to the feeling of his against it tingling in his wake. It's a steadying gesture, a grounding gesture. One to remind them both - we're still here, we're still breathing, I haven't lost you yet.
"Very," she whispers in reply, eyes skating across the surface like a stone. "Can we go in?"
no subject
All he can do is rest his eyes down on the carpet of green like he's never seen it before, hands at his sides, gaze trailing patches of blue blossoms popping under the ferns. He's never known the name of them, but they're almost familiar, the kind of flowers that grew through cracks in sidewalks and choked the short grass around a gutter drain. A sign of spring that might bleed out from this place to the rest of the canyon. Might bloom up over the grave when it's finished.
It isn't a bad thought, but it reminds him of the long hours left to work when they return. "Come on," he says idly, finally making his legs move and pulling from her orbit. He only needs space to crouch and pull at his laces with his shaking fingers, wanting to feel something other than dirty socks under his toes, wanting to soak some of the ache from his legs.
no subject
"Bet you'll drown before you get anywhere near my record!"
"Deal."
Jyn steadied herself in the still water of the grotto, Codo opposite her, Staven lingering somewhere off to the side (preferring to keep the bulk of his body dry, in the water up to his ankles), Maia snickering to Codo's left. Now that she'd properly learnt how to swim, and in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that she was the youngest, she'd felt emboldened, brazen in her desire to prove her merit. Prove she wasn't just another kid fighting another war, prove she was more than Saw's "favorite."
She scanned their faces - Codo, Maia, Staven - before pinching her nose, inhaling a deep gasp of air, and sinking underneath the surface of the water.
Kira's voice pulls her back, away from the wailing ghosts of her past. Eyes scan and search for him, only to find him hunched over - pulling with trembling hands at the laces of his shoes. It's all the permission she needs to follow suit - toeing one boot off, then the next, tossing them idly over to the side. Socks, trousers, shirt - all peel away like an exoskeleton - until she's standing in her underwear and sports bra. She's slighter than the size of her clothes would convey, and her body is mottled with the lingering spirits of the battles she'd seen, the war she'd fought. She has a particularly large one on the side of her right hip, running down from the bone almost to her knee. Her left calf is also slightly misshapen when compared with its counterpart, a piece of shrapnel still nestled underneath her skin. There's hardly any fat on her, and each movement of her muscles looks like a beast stirring beneath the blanket of her skin.
She gives Kira a glance before wading into the water, the warmth of it relaxing her almost instantaneously. She continues going out until the water's at her neck, when she finally turns to see if he's followed.
no subject
Her own rejection of privacy or propriety gives him permission to do the same, to strip to his briefs and slip into the water--but his fingers slip down his boots, only opening his laces on their own weight. He's hitting a wall, a limit of how long his body will remain conscious, with or without his deciding he should sleep. He'd rather not drown in his underwear with a near stranger.
He doesn't speak yet, conserving the energy for getting his boots off. Sitting is just the dull tip of a crouch to his ass connecting with the mossy earth; his whole body aches, trying to pull the boots from his feet, but the reward of fresh air and new grass underneath is worth it. Painstakingly, he rolls the hems of his greying pants up to the knee, and hardly stands up straight to hobble to the edge. Just his legs, plunged into warm water. Just some of that ache eased away, with the rest of him safely on dry land.
"I think if I get in right now, I'll fall asleep," he admits, an apology for not following her further from the hole's edge, now that they've crested it.
no subject
When he's eased himself into the water up to his calves, she begins to tread back over to him - slowly, carefully. She crouches in the water as she nears the edge, eventually standing to exit the water - the chill of the air making her body tremble slightly as she walks over to him. She folds her arms across her chest, both out of modesty (though living in shared quarters for most of her life has led her to drop the constant sexualization of the human body) and out of heat preservation. She stands next to him, the water reaching closer to her knees, looking down at their feet.
"I wouldn't let you drown," she says quietly, wiggling her toes. "If you wanted to go into the water." She glances up and over at him, the ends of her hair dark and sopping, dripping water back into its source. "If you wanted to float - it might help." She pauses, eyes falling to his shoulder then to their feet. "I wouldn't let you drown," she repeats, voice quieter.
no subject
How can he trust her, with her own body recently dragged from the fountain, fed and rested one night, thrown frenzied into the digging of a grave? How can he put the responsibility on her, when he can't promise the same?
He isn't strong enough, wasn't--has never been. The end of this physical rope hangs by the frayed end of his spirit, and he wants to give this to her, he wants to let her help if it will make her feel better, but guilt drags claws under his skin. Heats his cheeks and sets him crying again, refusing to look at her. He feels like a child, like he's responding to tragedy like a child--confused and helpless, shutting down sooner than a grown man should. "I can't," he starts, but it chokes off, and he breaks out one inverted sob, a cat swallowing back a hairball, before he crosses his own arms in a placating self-hold and sucks it all back again.
"You don't have to," he manages. "It isn't fair, you just--you just got here."
no subject
Still, Jyn knew - from a factual standpoint - what made someone attractive.
She lets the sounds tumble out of his mouth, lets his arms tangle themselves around his fragile frame and lets him feel whatever it is he must. She only hesitates a moment longer before she turns towards him, wraps her own arms around his body - realizing too late that she's dampening his scrubs with the wet fabric of her undergarments, but isn't bothered enough by it to move. She's slight, but there's a strength in her grip, a steadying, anchoring weight to it, one she hopes will keep him tethered to the ground - to stay there, sitting next to her. She presses her cheek to his shoulder, face angled down towards their feet in the water.
"I don't have to do anything," she murmurs gently, voice like a velvet blanket meant to envelop him. "I'm not offering because I feel obligated. I'm offering because I want to."
no subject
Count it back, the weight of an embrace, to distract from the wash of her against the ever dimming and reviving sense of himself. Jyn, Casey, Credence, Nicky--
Ty.
It's enough to strangle him, just thinking the name, thinking of it with any pair of arms around his shoulders, any cheek laid against him. He came here to rest, he brought her here to make her rest, and all he's done is find a new patch of earth on which to sit and cry. Ty starts it, and the fact that Ren isn't on the list--never will be, might have wanted or needed to be, and this is one more way Kira failed him--sinks the pair of knives to their hilts in his side. Her hand over the wound just holds them in place.
"I'm sorry," he chokes out, face in his hands, rocking forward against her grip and then back, as soft as his own voice as it repeats the words into a whisper.
"I'm so tired," he murmurs, almost mewls, one hand dropping to find hers again. To cling to it, grip it too tight and wish the world worked both ways. That he could send the feelings back along the touch, and be as understood as she was to him.
no subject
In the cargo hold of the ship they'd stolen - the ship Bodhi and K2 had stolen in the hysteria of the Alliance attack on the base.
Her skin was slick and hot with the precipitation that had almost killed them on their descent, on fire with the ghost of her father's body in her hands. He'd known her, in those last moments - recognized her, somehow made peace with the little girl he'd once played silly games with and the shattered shell of a woman who was wiping the hair from his face the way he had when she was young.
She'd hated Cassian, then. Would have tossed him from the ship and into the dead, cold depths of space if she could have. Had held him responsible for the unbearable absence of her father - for the way he'd torn her from his corpse, even as she cried, 'I can't leave him!'
Jyn had holed herself up in the cargo hold of the ship after that - needing to find some solace, some sanctuary from the sorrow and pity in Chirrut's milky eyes, the avoidance of Bodhi's, the softness in Baze's. The rumbling tremors between she and Cassian. She'd curled herself up, wanting to curl more and more until she'd ceased to exist - until she could become nothing more than the Stardust her father always told her she was - until the shredded mass of her heart could somehow beat again.
She had cried like this, back then. She had rocked herself in her solitude, wanting nothing more than the safe harbor of her mother's arms, her father's touch. She had felt something like this, she thinks. There's a part of her that feels like an intruder, as though she has no right to be here - no right to hear the apologies and whimpers and pleas that stream forth from Kira's mouth. They're virtually strangers, after all, tied together only by their co-existence in this foreign place and the kindness he had shown her half a day earlier.
Yet -
Perhaps it's the echo of her empty chest to his, the wailing of one broken heart to another, that makes her feel connected to him. Two ghouls floating about through time and space, recognizing each other in separate flesh-and-bone cages, reaching out - stretching endlessly - to meet.
She hushes soothing, quieting sounds, arms firmly planted and unwavering. She motions to move their torsos back, feet still dangling in the water like lures, backs and sides pressed against the dense, soft moss underneath. She props her head on one bent arm, the other still across his chest and shoulders, still clinging onto him like an anchor. Her exhaustion still lingers, but it's a familiar friend - sleep has never been much of an ally in her life. If he wants to close his eyes, find whatever sleep he might be able to - she will let him - will stay with him, keep him safe. If it's only for a fleeting moment, to gather the pieces of himself back up into his exhausted arms, then she will help him - carry some of it for him.
Whatever it is, whatever he needs - she's there.
no subject
It should be too much, too maudlin. Not cinematic or storybook, just stupid. A painting of a thing that doesn't really happen. But zoom in: find the scabs on their hands, see the crushed petals bleeding deeper blue. This is the bed he's made of this place, and he's laid in it, invited to sleep. In a story it would be a place to forget, to lift out of his body and walk away from it until there was no going back. Something would put it on like a suit, or the plants would grow over and through it, his spirit left to wander or join the procession of some forest god.
Those stories are and aren't real: spirits don't slip in and out of bodies in sleep, gods don't prey on men quite so specifically. But people do get lost, people do go into forests and never come back.
Someone, something, is watching them.
He's quieted by the time he sucks the last of his tears back, coughs, and goes still. They aren't in immediate danger, but his ability to know that would be cut off in sleep, and she wouldn't wake him right now. She might nod off at his back, and then there would be two bodies at the end of his trail, half a grave dug for a count of three. "If you're going to get me wet anyway," he says, sliding his hand down to her wrist and squeezing, "I guess I could give it a try."
no subject
It all feels strange.
But perhaps the acceptance she'd had at the end - or what should have been the end - had filed away the jagged precipice of her life. Clutching onto Cassian, kneeling in the sand - the destruction of the earth in a retina-searing wave of light and energy herding closer like the fog - maybe she'd found absolution, then. Or something like it.
Maybe she'd been cleansed, forgiven -
Both by the man whose soul clutched onto hers, and the light itself.
She'd been kneeling at an altar that should never have existed.
But maybe that's why she's here - curled up gently behind a man she barely knows, trying her hardest to find and give him what she'd received back on Scarif: forgiveness. - Though she knows, it isn't hers to give.
She finally stirs, fingers finding his wrist to return the gentle squeeze. She moves, props herself up on her hand as she sits on her hip, eyes wafting down to the side of his face.
"Come on, then."
no subject
They'd like it here, too. Credence was from the same city, and Casey got excited for leaves on trees. Would fall asleep easily on a patch of ground that smells this green, worry needlessly about the water.
Kira pushes himself up, knowing why he could never do what Casey does--people are rungs on a ladder, are the anchor at the top of the hole. Are the only thing to really climb out for. Without them there were just--duties, vengeances, oaths sworn to ghosts. He hadn't promised Ty anything, and Ty hadn't even promised to heed him, to live another day.
Just that they would go far away from New York, when it was over. Did it count as a promise, to follow him so deep in the hole that they both wound up in the ground, who knew how many miles or years or galaxies apart?
The answer should be more important to him. It should be harder to say no, and push himself up. Ty isn't the only person now: just one rung on a ladder, leading both up and down. The energy Kira finds is stubborn, a third wind that will break him when it ends, but he shrugs and struggles out of his dark shirt, slithers out of his worn pants, and crab walks his skinny hide into the water. "Jesus," he murmurs, sitting on a shelf of slippery stone that lets him soak to his shoulders.
He has his hands on the edge, his legs tucked beneath, all of him holding to the spot as the heat eases from searing to tolerable. There's far less muscle between the knobs of his bones and his skin, only what could be built scrubbing an inn and wandering the trees, but the water eases them all the same. "I'm never coming out again, I don't know how you did."
Freeing one hand, he lifts the water to his face, washing the dirt and tears from his cheeks.
no subject
Beeny.
Oh, poor Beeny - abandoned, left behind in the apartment on Coruscant.
How she'd cried for him. How she'd hated herself for leaving him behind. How she'd nightmare, imagine him back to life and back in the darkness of her room on Lah'mu, broken and battered and sobbing - weeping - because she'd abandoned him.
She'd left him.
She thinks of the stories she'd create, thinks of the tales she'd conjure - how she'd always fight to protect the weak, the nameless, the voiceless, the vulnerable. She remembers the girl in Jedha City, the penetrating vibrato of her wails - how it hadn't mattered, in the end, that Jyn had saved her. How she'd turned to ash with the rest of her city, hopefully - kriffing stars, please - in the arms of a loved one.
As she watches Kira re-absorbing some of the life that's evaporated from his skin, she thinks of them. She sees the same vulnerability, the same sadness she'd seen, imagined in all of them. She sees the fragile spirit, frayed threads and broken edges, fighting to keep its grip - cracking fingernails and tearing flesh - the way she'd had on Eadu. It doesn't take much for her to realize, then, what it is that drew her to him.
Once she's given him a few moments, she slides back in herself, exhaling a beautiful sound at the feeling of being once again enveloped by the almost torrid embrace of the spring. She wades near him, not wanting to be a more than centimeter away in case his head should slip under the water. She's made a promise.
She won't break it.
"I had to convince you somehow."