Episode 5.b
>The Caucasus, mythic time, the ledge<
You step out onto the rock, and he watches you come. He is sitting where the chains used to hold him, with the falx resting across his knees. He has been waiting for a very long time, and he doesn't seem surprised that it's you who came.
Up close, he looks even more tired than he did through the seam. The cleverness is still there, and so is the stubbornness, but something heavier has settled over them, into his face and his shoulders and the loose way he holds the sickle. He has been out of his chains for a while now, but he doesn't look free.
"You came," he says. "In person, this time. That's different." He looks at each of you in turn. "You're young, and you're mortal. I don't know why they sent children."
He shifts on the rock. "Do you know what they did to me? I gave your kind fire. I looked at you, cold and frightened and eating raw meat in the dark, and I loved you, and I gave you the one thing that would let you become something more. For that, they chained me to this rock and sent an eagle to tear at me, every day, forever." His voice stays steady. He has said all this before, to himself if to no one else. "The gods who punished me are the same gods whose ordo you came here to defend. Jupiter, the king you helped put on his throne. He did this to me."
He holds up the falx. "This ends it. No sickle means no overthrow, and no overthrow means no Jupiter, no eagle, and no rock. I am only asking to stop being tortured. Is that so much?"
Quintus is beside you, but he has nothing to say. This part belongs to you.
The flame in your hand burns quietly. It is the fire from Vesta's hearth, the same fire Prometheus stole and gave to mortals, and you have carried it and tended it through every stop. Now it lights the ledge between you and the Titan who first believed you were worth saving.
Prompt: Prometheus has told you why he took the falx and what he wants. He is right about what was done to him, but you know what his plan would cost. You are carrying the fire he gave to mortals. Speak to him.
