Episode 2.b
>The Divine Hearth, mythic time, the theft<
The hearth is steady now. The flame stands tall and clear in its pale stone bowl, Vesta stands beside it, and for the first time since you arrived, the quiet in the room feels peaceful.
Then footsteps cross the stone behind you, and someone else is in the room.
He is tall and lean, and he moves fast. In one hand he carries a fennel stalk, long and dry and hollow inside. He walks straight to the hearth without looking at Vesta or at any of you, as if he has gone over this moment in his head a hundred times. Then he reaches the stalk toward the flame.
Nothing happens. The fire pulls away from him.
He tries again, more slowly this time, and the flame bends away in the other direction. He steps back and stares at it.
Vesta hasn't moved. She is watching him, and you can't tell what she is thinking.
Quintus speaks very quietly. "That's Prometheus, but not the one we're chasing. This is him much earlier, at the moment he's supposed to steal the fire." He watches the Titan stare at the hearth. "Something is stopping him."
Prometheus stands in the middle of the room holding the empty stalk, and you can see his certainty draining away. He looks at the flame, then at the stalk in his hand, then down at the floor.
"Jupiter will know," he says, mostly to himself. "Jupiter will know, and there will be a price. There is always a price." He turns the stalk over in his fingers. "I told myself I would do it fast, before I had time to think. And now I have all the time in the world."
He looks up at you, and for the first time he seems unsure of himself.
"The mortals have nothing," he says. "They sit in the cold and the dark, and they call out to gods who never answer. I want to answer them. I always have." He glances at the hearth again. "But the fire won't come to me, and the goddess I came to rob is standing right there, watching me. I'm not sure anymore that this is right."
Vesta says nothing. She only watches.
Prompt: The fire will not come to Prometheus, and he is starting to wonder whether he should take it at all. He has told you why he wants it, and Vesta is watching in silence. Decide together what your Recentii do. You might talk to him, ask him questions, help him reach the flame, or stand between him and the hearth. Whatever you choose, tell him why.
