Oh, you forgotten beast. You terrible, jealous creature. If you had known the outcome of your jealousy, would you have changed your course? Would you have carried Pollux safely at Castor's side?
No, Galadriel, you would not have. For the jealousy that turns your throat into a volcano of erupting emotion tells you that you would have made sure Castor died, had the thought occurred to you. Even now, as you watch Pollux's wails with rapt attention, you crave such passionate emotion. You almost wish you were dead so that he might mourn you. (Never mind that he would never mourn you as he mourns his twin. Even such a valiant horseman takes beasts for granted.)
It reminds you of the lackluster emotion you felt. Of the mother that tried desperately to understand you. The siblings that could not help. You are as helpless to your emotions as Pollux is to the will of the gods. For a moment, you understand. You feel so deeply the grief, the loss. You know that what your master is feeling is beyond what you can see.
But it doesn't matter. You are lost in it.
"Oh, please. Please, return me to my brother. Please, return me to my twin. I am nothing without him. What is an immortal without pleasures, without a will live for all eternity? He was my other half. My soul has been torn asunder. I cannot be. I cannot be without him."
The cries fall on deaf ears. You stand numbly as Pollux removes your bridle. The weight of obedience, the utter heaviness, it leaves as the metal removes itself from you tongue. You lap lazily at the roof of your mouth. You think, quietly and entirely to yourself, Is this it? This blood, these vessels, the familiar flavor of want and hunger . . . Is that all there is? Naked, now, you are alone. The stars return to the sky. Was that all they ever were? Just stars? Imagination? Was your quiet cohesion just some simple will of the gods?
You hardly register the monster as it rises from the sea. Clicking claws, gnawing hunger. You have been like it. You are like it. Wanting bloodied flesh, the diminished version of complexity in its rawest form. It doesn't notice you for now. You watch as it rummages in the vestiges of war. There is nutrition in blood, in dying passion. The crab, vulture-like in its hunting, picks apart what is left of Pollux and Castor. Or the emptiness of thoughtless violence. You wonder if it has hunted greater things, if its feasts are more magnificent than the bodies that are just that now: vessels void of passion, mere meat and bone.
But you cannot wonder for long, no. The creature wants you, now. Hunts you, now, Galadriel. And what will do, dear desperate and empty girl? What is it that you will do, without your power? You have no bridle, no master. You bend to what you once were, sweet Galadriel. You remember the crying girl, the power that lies within. The magic you forgot you wielded.
With a scream, a guttural cry that sounds like a horse to mortal ears but a lesson to the divine: you screech. You fall to the earth as the beach tears in two. You have no control of the living beings that fall in the cracks, the endless and inevitable cries of man. Both living and dead fall to the whims of your terribly pained fancy. As the crab rushes you, swipes a claw to your side and knocks you fully to the ground, you sob. The crack in the earth, one that in your true reality would be just a mere illusion, swallows all that may defy.
It swallows the monster. A creature so dear to the gods you feel their rage as you lay there, on your side, heaving. The gods love their monsters for that is what makes the mortals so obedient, so patient. You erase what makes them lay down offerings in an instant, on a pained, screeching whim. It was never about the physical battle, no. You're convinced this is about your transgressions. The gods want you to learn about your immortal might, your magical wit. How dare you end their sweet leviathan?
Are you not one of them, Galadriel? The thought echoes in your mind as your sides rise and fall in desperate repetition.
How am I alive?
