The Flight of Prometheus

At the base of a grand mountain hid a humble home of mud brick and thatch doors, of wooden floor and the fitful form who tread a rut into its surface. He was not made of flesh so much as he was comprised entirely of worry; mere moments prior he came to realize that his dear brother was in the middle of doing something very, very foolish. Worry, and revelations that came far too late - this was the meat and bone of the titan Epimetheus.

Epimetheus's gaze soared skyward towards the roof of the world, pierced by that towering peak, a jagged thorn snagging the seam of a grey woven sky. Lightning slithered through its layers and it lit the home for only a moment, revealing a shape on the mountain. The brother tugged at his beard, eyes growing wide in fear. His kin, his blood, his twin; the titan Prometheus. Cast against the sky, with a strange light blaring above his head.

Prometheus was one of the first to be born on this world. He and his twin, among several others of their family, saw this world grow form a churning darkness to the wild garden that swept beneath the mountain of Olympus. But now it languished in umberous gloom.

His foot faltered. The mountain tasted his golden blood, the meager offering reflecting the uncertain light that struggled in Prometheus' hand. In his calloused grasp did he cradle a green stalk, a stem from which bloomed a flickering bulb - fire. The first fire to ever be born. Prometheus couldn't help but admire it - its light guided him down the mountain in the pitch black of night. It warmed him in the cold, but it was a different warmth than his cousin Helios'. And in some sense, he sensed that it breathed as he did, almost a living thing. It was by its strength that the night was put at bay.

The flame, it seemed as if it was nervous to exist. To disobey the lord of the sky's wishes. It hid from the cloud's ill winds which clawed at the mountain face in an attempt to fling Prometheus from his path. But he would merely pluck dry grasses and fed the flame. It wound hold his fingers in its countless tendrils. A flash of shock, and the flame's father peeled back his hand, only for it to return to shield his charge from his nephew's ire.

That darkness enshrouded his descent, down the mountain, down back to Earth. At times he had to clutch the fennel stalk into his teeth, the flame's heat cloying at him and threatening to reach out and soil his beard with soot. He clung to the mountain, fingers gouging the stone footholds as his project progressed. The wound from earlier wept golden ichorous tears. The fennel stalk was almost at risk of being chewed off! Shadows danced around him just waiting for the chance to dive across him.

Curse you Zeus! thought the titan. Curse your wailing tempest! Man should be free to live. In our image did I sculpt them, and in our comfort and knowledge they shall live! The father of mankind, who sculpted clay into the shapes of humanity, saw their desperate struggles from his secluded home. Starvation was an ever present issue, and without fang nor claw, Gaia's bestial brood had little consequence in making dinner of the vulnerable creatures. As he peeled himself from the rocks, he ducked into a crevice sliced into the mountain's side by glaciers of old. There whilst resting did Prometheus continue to feed the hungry newborn flame with wild flora.

He thought of his brother, hoped that he'd be spared this emotional act of rebellion. The two were spared from the bloody conflict that slew their uncle - in fairness, the brothers held no love for their cruel uncle. He ate his children, an act whose foolishness and brazenness angered the titan. But then, was this not foolish? This whining stalk full of flame, casting embers which licked his skin, would cost him everything. He could extinguish it. Snuff the fire out, and abandon not just humanity but also the flame itself. He almost let it go out, the fire growing weaker and its breath more ragged as it drew closer and closer into the stalk.

But in that darkness just beyond his torch's final call, Prometheus had a vision.

He saw what fire might bring to man. Not just food and shelter, but more. They weren't gods, but with fire fueling their ambition, they could rival them as the Olympians did the Titans, and the Titans their parents too. The children, *his* children working together to make a world better than the land they wrought. The flame was hungry though, but all things were. It was that hunger which Prometheus used to deceive his wrathful nephew with seemingly delectable sacrifices of fat and marrow, which allowed the titan to steal flame from his hall as he feasted.

That light led him down here, it warmed him in the cold, and now it brought him something he thought he had so firmly; the flame had brought him hope. By now, the fire had eaten through the majority of the stalk. There was no way to carry it safely. But the titan was a father, and a hopeful one, and in that instance he made his choice. Prometheus dabbed with his ichor, his blood that carried divine power. Coating his palms with it, he scooped up the last of the fire in his hands and spoke into the glowing cup.

"You will outshine me. You, and your siblings. You will spread far and wide, and perhaps do more than I've seen now. But you will spread. You will glow this beautiful color which I have seen this descent, and guide mankind out of this dark. Keep them warm, child. They will take care of you."

Before the embers could protest and sear him, the touch of ichor transformed it into a roaring fire of countless golds and reds. Candled fingers ripped into the tenebrous dark that fled from him and his progeny in fear. Prometheus flew across the stone, leaping from step to step and pillar to pillar. It cracked with every momentous landing and sighed as soon as he lept away, climbing into the dark before hurtling back down emboldened by his new task.

In the lands below, bleary eyes stared out towards the home of the gods. Humans, dogs, lions, and a titan whose teeth threatened to shatter from their clattering cast their attention towards him. Prometheus, laughed, his hands wreathed in flame as he stole into the night from Olympus. Far far above would his nephew roar in anger, one that would surely find the titan thief in time. But all that could be heard was the flame's own roar.

When Prometheus arrived, his hands had become like the darkness that haunted him down the mountain but were warm as his smile when he saw a mother of a child come forth. A human, come to take his gift.

"What is this?" she asked.

"A flame. Fire, a gift of mine, and a luxury of the gods. Now its yours. I wish you to make use of it. To feed it, to care for it, to learn how to call it from wood when you grow cold. Take it," the titan urged.

She reached out, but clever as Prometheus had sculpted them, took it into a fennel stalk just as he did in the beginning. A new torch was born. One by one did the village come out to take the fire with them to their homes, and slowly his own flame would shrink. With the final villager, it gave him a closing embrace that nonetheless left him cold. Until, that is, a woolen blanket fell onto his shoulders. Epimetheus always did worry for his twin.

As the two sat, Epimetheus fret over every breath and Prometheus laughed between each sharpened yelp while his burns were tended to. The starry night of Nyx watched over them, the cloudy sky drawing back for the last hours of the night. This would be the last night of this Earth that was truly dark. But when all the fires were hidden away with the children of clay, the brothers could look skywards to see the darkness had its own beauty.

It too had fires, clutched in its own embrace.