Cry of the Moon

Chapter 21: The Last Titan

I walk for a long time. I walk until my feet bleed and my path is marked behind me in golden footsteps. I walk in a straight line, never stopping, not for food or water or sleep. I'm a Titaness. I don't need any of those things so stay alive.

But reader, to be honest, I don't want to stay alive. When my beloved Endymion had died, I had thought that was the most pain any being could be in. It had felt as though my heart had shattered in my chest, the shards cutting into my lungs every time I breathed.

Losing my brother felt as though someone had reached right into my chest and ripped out everything necessary to feel anything.

As I walk, the seasons change around me. Spring turns to summer and the sun beats down angrily, burning my skin but I don't feel it. As summer fades to winter, heavy gusts of wind blow me off my path but I don't have I destination, so I barely notice. When thick blizzards of snow pile up around me, I acknowledge it just long enough to realize I'm no longer in Greece. Perhaps I'm somewhere no being has been before, a new land full of bright new things just waiting to be discovered and explored.

I keep walking.

Occasionally I see shapes fliting in the shadows ahead of me. Nymphs and dryads and even sometimes creatures like Pegasi or centaurs, but none ever approach me.

I keep walking.

I'm not sure what I first start seeing her. The days seem to blur together in my mind, the sun and moon nothing but a change in the light around me. But I know she always looks the same. A woman older than time, dressed in a moss green chiton, with eyes that have seen more than their fair share of worlds.

She sits against a tree and on the doorstep of a house in a small village. She appears behind a fruit stand and in a meadow of tall grass. Everywhere I go, she is there, not blocking my path but just silently watching.

I get the feeling she's been watching me for a long time. But I'm tired of her silent judgement.

For the first time in a long time, I give my feet a destination.

"Hello grandmother," I say, not looking at her as I walk past her. The rustle of grass tells me she's following me. "It's been a while."

"I have always been here," she replies, and her voice sounds wearier than it did the last time we talked. "You could have called on me at any time and I would have answered."

"I've noticed you tend to appear only when disaster has or is about to befall me. So please excuse my silence." My voice comes out sharper than I mean it to, but I am too exhausted to care whether or not I've offended her.

"Tragedies will befall you whether I am near or not. I tried to warn you, to save you last time but you ignored me. This time I simply come as an explanation."

"An explanation for what?"

"Everything."

And that's all it takes to get me to stop. One word, that's it. For the first time in a long time, the ground is still beneath my feet. I notice the ground is cold, the soil nearly frozen, and I shiver. I haven't been aware of the elements for a long time and now I realize my entire body is shivering.

"Why don't we go inside?"

I turn and look at Gaia and spot a small house in the distance that I know wasn't there a moment ago.

"When -"

"The heart is always there for those who need it," Gaia says, beginning to walk to the house. Her chiton flutters along the tops of the grass, the colors shifting so that it blends in and looks like the entire meadow around us is a part of Gaia's dress.