In one of the meadows in their homeland, he rested his head in her lap. She was pale, even paler because her face was framed by dark hair and her dress was so white, but she was beautiful. She was like looking at the sun through a patch of dark leaves on a majestic tree. She was beautiful, and he loved her.
Sometimes, they would spend all day in the meadow (or in the valleys, or in the fields, somewhere with sunshine and birds and flowers). She would stroke her small fingers through his hair after sliding the headband from it. She would sing to him, ancient songs about courageous and heroic ancestors, about fair maidens trapped by danger and awaiting rescue, and about old gods who bestowed miracles on their people.
"They say we are not allowed to go there," he said once in conjunction with her mentioning the Forbidden Land. "I don't know why."
"They say it is too beautiful for mortals to see," she whispered with a smile. "The gods would become furious with jealousy because we have trampled on their untainted land."
"But they said it was filled with monsters, with beasts who would kill us all."
Scoldingly, she put her palm across his forehead. "Why do gods have to make destruction to protect the things they love? What if they are just as scared as we are?" She smiled. "What if the gods want to live just as we do?"
Now, however, there are no times in the sweet meadows of their homeland.
He remembers when the elders came to claim her, saying, "She is the one. She has to be sacrificed. If not, she will destroy us all."
He remembers being chained back as they carted her toward an altar to be poisoned. He remembers how long his heart stopped the instant she closed her eyes. He made a promise then, that he would save her. He took Agro, he took the sword he should not have touched, he traveled far and wide in search of this Land, he used the magic spell, and he talked with gods he knew nothing about.
Anything for her.
It's the second colossus down. He has fourteen more to go. Fourteen more before she can be resurrected, before she can be back to greet the world-and, oh, how beautiful it was here, in this place. She had been right; the gods were scared because this land was the most beautiful of all the lands.
He didn't care about the costs. He could lose an eye, a limb, his body, or his soul, so long as she was returned to the realm of the living. "It doesn't matter," he had said, and it didn't. The colossi were gargantuan, regal, gorgeous, but they fell just like anything else.
Waking up after more and more colossi are destroyed, he starts to actually sympathize with them. In his heart, he can slowly begin to feel the pain, the grief, the fear that lay within the depths of the colossi's souls. Frighteningly, he can also feel a shard, a pang of excitement build within him as each one crashes heavily against the earth.