Sofia gets some strange looks as she walks from home to pier, probably because of the open-ended lei hanging around her neck. But she doesn't pay them any attention, just keeps on her path with a silence that is absolute. Once she gets to the end of the dock, she stops. Dead still. A deep breath and she bows her head for a moment.

When she moves, it's to take her new diving knife out of the sheath on her thigh. She looks at it for a long moment, then bends down, washing it in a pool of salt water on the end of the pier.

Once it's cleaned, she takes the knife to her hair, gripping the length at the base of her neck and sawing at it until the sharp blade cuts through. Once it's off, she methodically knots strands of hair around the ends of the lei. There's no need to hurry, so she takes her time, more concerned with being careful. With doing things right.

While she's tying her hair around the flowers, she can't help but wonder why anyone ever abandoned this way of doing things. There's something exquisitely cathartic about destroying something. Those thoughts fade once she's finished, though, and she bends to rinse the knife off again in the salt water, then extends her left hand, kind of bracing herself for the next part.

Sofia spends a long moment or two looking down at her hand and seems to be considering her fingers. In the end, she fists all of them except the smallest and, taking a breath, starts digging the knife in around the last joint. It hurts like hell, but it's almost good in some way. It lacks the soul-deep agony of other pains recently. The look on her face is one of grim determination as she saws methodically through flesh and tendons, hissing under her breath until the joint finally comes free.

The lei comes off, gripped in her good hand, and she carefully twists the discarded part of her finger into the strands of hair. Then she runs the flowers through her hand, bleeding on them, watching impassively.

Once that's done, she sits down on the edge of the pier, holding the bloody length of flowers in her lap.

"Watch over her, eh?" she says softly.

"I speak to you as an equal. Make my daughter my au' makua just like you gave me mano to watch over me. I offer this."

The words are quiet, almost ritualized; there is no bowing of head or closing of eyes, she faces her gods as equals. At the end she brings the lei to her lips, kisses it, and throws it into the water.

For a long time after that, she just sits, bloody finger pressed tight against her shirt to stop the flow, watching as the tide carries away her offering.