His words engraved a deep, confused frown upon Helen’s features. She could hardly understand their meaning. For years she had contemplated these camps from a high tower in Priam’s palace, had watched battle after battle from the parapets of the mighty walls of Troia, wondering what was keeping her brothers from the battlefield, but no answer had sufficed. Could they believe her to be a desertor? The question had popped into her brains from time to time; the idea of her own people branding her a traitor had occasionally slipped the acid tongues of a person or two in the court who still disapproved of her presence in the city, but plausible though that might be, Helen was sure that they knew better than to believe such falsehood.
But who could tell, truly, after all these years?
“Failed me?”, Helen repeated, bewildered.
Pollux’s reaction was the farthest thing from what she might have anticipated. It became clear to her, thus, that there were many things Menelaus hadn’t told her since Helen’s return to the argive camp. Something must have happened, she figured. The last time they had seen each other was when the twins were about to leave the palace where they were hosting the Trojan embassy in order to settle some quarrel with their cousins, but that had been so many years ago—
It hit her suddenly. Castor. Where was the other half of their duo, if not beside Polydeukes?
Wide-eyed, Helen gulped with dread. “Pollux, what are you talking about?”
Ah... So she didn’t know. Well, that was to be expected, after all. He just... He had wished to not have to explain it.
The prince willed the tears away. He had mourned enough already, too much, for too long. And while he did, he had allowed the rest of his family to fall apart around him, too caught up on his own pain and misery to notice.
“I... I couldn’t...” It was so difficult to speak the words. He hadn’t told anyone yet. It was like saying it out loud would make it truer, somehow. Like if he tried to not think about it too much, to not admit it had happened, his brother would surely come back to him. “I couldn’t protect him, Helen... I let them kill him... He... He died in my arms. In just seconds. It was so fast...” They were young, and stupid. Too fast, too strong, too good. They had believed themselves almost inmortals, never having lost a fight before, dragging down foes twice their size, thrice their age... And suddenly, the truth had hit them like a hammer to the face. That at least one of them, was just as frail as anyone else.
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