And so it was over shortly.
Poleon rose and ran to the fallen girl, leaving behind him a huddled and twisted likeness of a man.

He picked her up tenderly, moaning and crooning; but as her limp head lolled back, throwing her pale, blind features up to the heavens, he began to cry, this time like a woman.
Tears fell from his eyes, burning tears, the agony of which seared his soul.

He laid her carefully beside the water's edge, and, holding her head and shoulders in the crook of his left arm, he wet his right hand and bathed her face, crouching over her, half nude, dripping with the sweat of his great labors, a tender, palpitating figure of bronzed muscle and sinew, with all his fury and hate replaced by apprehension and pity.

The short moments that he worked with her were ages to him, but she revived beneath his ministrations, and her first frightened look of consciousness was changed to a melting smile.
"W-what happened, Poleon ?" she said.

"I was afraid!" He stood up to his full height, shaking, and weak as the water that dripped from him, the very bones in him dissolved.