Episode 5.b
>The Caucasus, mythic time, the ledge<
You step onto the rock and he watches you come. He is sitting where the chains used to hold him, the falx resting across his knees. He has been waiting a very long time and is not surprised that you are what arrived.
He is more tired than you expected. The cleverness you saw through the seam, the defiance, is still there, but it sits under something heavier now, settled into his face and his shoulders and the way he holds the sickle without gripping it. He has been free of his chains for a while. He does not look free.
"You came," he says. "In person this time. That's different." He studies each of you in turn. "You're young. 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 afraid and eating raw meat in the dark, and I loved you, and I gave you the one thing that would let you become something. And for that, they chained me to this rock and sent an eagle to tear me open, every day, forever." His voice is steady. He has said this before, to himself if 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, no overthrow, no Jupiter, no eagle, no rock. I am asking to not be tortured. Is that so much?"
Quintus is beside you but he has nothing to say. This is yours.
The flame in your hand burns quietly. It is the fire of Vesta's hearth, the same fire Prometheus stole and gave to mortals, carried through every stop, tended by your hands. It lights the ledge between you and the Titan who first thought you were worth saving.
Prompt: Prometheus has told you why he took the falx and what he wants. He is not wrong 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.
