The skeletal figure begins wrapping the red vein around his arm and hand.

"But he is not done trying. He will find a way to open the harbor gates. They'll curse my name, they'll spit in my sea, they'll shame the very memory of me. But there is no shame on earth that can stay my hand."

Flanked by its own skeletal wings, emblazoned with the familiar black bands, he tosses the string upward toward the surface, the sun sparkling down through the water.

"Hate me all you want. I love you all the same. And thus my long climb back to you begins."