Title: Forgetting Galatea
Word Count: 502
Rating: K+
Genre: Angst/Romance
Summary: She's gone, but not forgotten. He's defeated, but still tormented. Demons must be exorcised, memories forgotten.
Author's Notes: I watched the movie a few times the other day, and this started coming to me. There's a hefty amount of mythological (Pygmalion/Galatea) inspiration here, which surprises me. I thought it would have been Hades/Persephone. Oh well.
Enjoy!
He was single-minded in his task. For as long as he worked, he saw nothing but what was in front of him, heard nothing but the sounds of his own work. The goblins had learned long ago not to disturb their master, for his anger was great, his punishments terrible.
But now, it seemed, he was finally done, and he stepped back from his masterpiece. His eyes roved over it from head to toe, apraising the stone figure that stood before him. Yes, he was finished.
Yet it was still nothing compared to the real thing. Just as a shadow was nothing compared to its caster, so too was this copy a mere shadow of her beauty.
For he had used as his frame of reference the moment in time when she was most beautiful, most glorious. Not when he had dressed her up in finery that paled when compared to her, but the moment she had been triumphant, proclaiming that he had no power of her. Over and over had he watched those scenes, in his mind, in his crystal balls that showed him his dreams.
Even now his vision shifted, and he could see the two of them, dancing amid stars he would move for her and no one else. He could almost feel her in his hold now, and it would be easy to cross the room and sweep into his arms the pale imitation that stood before him.
Yes, a weaker man than he might kiss those lips he had spent forever carving.
But he was not weak, and he was going to forget her.
But oh, how beautiful she was! Even this false copy was enough to take his breath away, her mortal beauty besting anything that he himself could create. Even in this frozen moment he could see the determination set in her jaw line, the sweet almost-innocence in her eyes. And a mouth which promised more pleasures and joy than any heaven could imagine...
Her imagination had been powerful enough to reform the Labyrinth, strong enough to create a whole world. His, on the other hand, could barely create the dream that was these stone lips taking life under his own.
But he could not give life to this statue before him. And even if he could, she would still be a shadow, a copy, pale and thin compared to her vibrancy, her life. Her light.
And so he pulled away from this statue, hoping that by doing so he had exorcised any remnants of... fondness for the girl. Too long, now, had she plagued him. She had defeated him with a single sentence, and now she was destroying him with her mere memory.
But not for long, he knew that. And he made sure to lock the door to the chamber behind him, shutting his memories in with the statue, keeping it so that they could never escape from the oubliette.
For that is where you placed people you wanted to forget.