She sits, silently weeping, watching
the river whisper by.
Along the path of time, she had loved them both. Polyphemus, as would be expected, was thick and strong, and loved her as the nymph she was. He loved her female scent, milk-white skin, flash of curve of breast when she turned, laughter.
Until Acis came along.
Acis. He was so much a male version of herself - lighthearted, scarred from old pain, but still with a lilt in his step, a song on his lips; and joy as he walked forward, always.
When she fell in love with him, they fell into the stars, together. Their love was like a river flowing through her, a fountain overflowing, a spring, upwelling. A boundless connection to an infinite source.
Polyphemus had wanted her as a goddess. Alabaster skin. Still. Perfect and beautiful, and frozen in time.
She valued his love, and returned it. Yet there were times she felt herself hardening into a statue, a work of art, two dimensional.
She found she longed for her humanity. For frailty. To be as beautiful, as desirable to him kneeling by the hearth, dirt on her hands, as she was all polished and draped in finery.
Then the shepherd came along.
She first saw him at a distance, shaft of sunlight crowning him with light...tears rolling down his cheeks, for one lost from his flock. When he walked through the meadows, all the plants caressed his ankles, loving him, the green man, the shining one.
Instead of strength, here was tenderness. Instead of immortality, here was humanity. His love so differently from the harsh, expectant and fierce love of the son of a god. This man was all too mortal - his wounds, though healed, still visible, still apparent.
And they loved, and they loved, and they loved. They played as little children. They talked as wise old men. They laughed, and sang, and danced in circles.
They lay together in the grass, surrounded by stones.
Polyphemus, though immortal, had been blinded long before. He could not see her as she was.
He hurled stones. So many shapes and sizes. Stone after stone after stone.
As the shepherd lay bleeding, she turned him into a river. Water, flowing, endless, sourceless, cycling from ocean to mist to cloud, then rain and tiny spring to mighty cataract, over and over.
And
she sat on the bank, fingers trailing in the water.
Slowly sliding down, she slipped beneath the waves.