Your shoulders tense as you draw your bow, the movement as swift and familiar as it is tiresome. You scan the ground near the small temple and then upwards, searching for the faint glow of a lizard's tail, wishing that they weren't so small and fast.
Your prey skitters into sight from just around the corner and freezes, appraising you with its tiny black reptilian eyes. After a moment of tense silence in which neither of you moves, it apparently decides you aren't a threat and scampers past your feet and onto a nearby rock. You track it with the head of your arrow, fingers starting to ache from the pull, and prepare to release, but an odd hesitation tugs at your heart. You are beginning to tire of killing things, all of the strangely helpless things of these empty lands whose inhabitants' blood coats your weapons.
The lizard moves suddenly, scuttling off behind the rock, and as a reflex you release your arrow. It clatters harmlessly off the rock and you stare after it, relief and frustration flooding through you.
Mono might have laughed at you then, had she been watching, told you he who hesitates is lost or one of her thousand proverbs; but she is not and you wouldn't even be here if she were.
It's all for her, of course, and you would do anything to bring her back again, even when you can feel yourself slowly breaking to pieces on a landscape built for ghosts and giants.
You sigh and gaze at the altar, wondering if you should pray. But for whom? For Mono, who lies on a pedestal with a face too still for slumber? For yourself, whose limbs get heavier and whose world gets duller with shadow-blood every time a monster is slain? Perhaps for the monsters, too, who watch you with curious eyes before you plunge your sword into them, over and over and over.
No, you think. It is not the Colossi who are the monsters. It is you. You know that at the end of your mission you will die, and are grateful because then you won't have all these achingly long silences where all there is to do is follow pinpoints of light towards your own damnation. This whole place will be your grave, and you take time out of your way to ride to all the distant parts so you can see all the beautiful things and hope that someday Mono will too.
You used to hope she would not hate you, but you are starting to hope that she will.
The lizard crawls into view once more and pauses near the stone steps, soaking up the sunlight. It's an easy shot, so you take it, and try not to think about why it is that the only things in this world are either terrifyingly large or hopelessly small, and all there is to do is hunt them when they wish you no harm.
The lizard dies squirming helplessly on the end of a wooden shaft tipped with slate; your aim is worsening, breaking down along with the rest of you. You move towards the tiny body and stoop to retrieve your arrow along with the tiny body. It will do for a meal, you think.
With a sharp whistle you call Agro, who whips up her head from where she was grazing and canters to you, the thundering of her hooves a welcome intrusion on the silence. You smile a little because you remember you're not completely alone, and the expression feels out of place on your too-often serious face. Mono used to tease you about that, too.
It is twilight, but the light from your sword shines every bit as bright as the afternoon sun as you hold it up to track the location of the next beast to be slain.
"To the north," you say out loud, petting Agro's neck as she tosses her head and snorts. You pull yourself up on her back with a practiced movement that is just slightly less fluid than it used to be, and gather the reins in your hands. With a deep breath you kick your heels against your horse's sides and prepare yourself to sell your soul one more time.