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His footsteps fell like the drummings of war- each step resolute in its finality. A confidence that could only be afforded by a man of his character. Heracles knew it would only have been a matter of time before he’d be forced to come face to face with him.
After all, the titan would want to look his saviour in the eyes before truly starting his righteous revolution, wouldn’t he?
Prometheus broke the silence first.
“Do you regret it?”
Heracles stared back, eyeing him down like a beast. He certainly didn’t beat around the bush did he. The titan still towered above him like he had all those years ago. Even when he had first laid eyes on him, keeled over with his guts spilling across the bloodstained rock, forced into a kneel by silver shackles chaining him down, still- he had stood a thousand feet tall in his resigned resolve. Blazing crimson eyes, familiar in their rage and foreign in their righteousness.
Prometheus seemingly hadn’t changed much. Not in a way that mattered. Time had done him well though, his face was no longer as gaunt and sickly, his body a little fuller and his eyes… less sullen.
“You’ll have to be more specific, titan. I’ve had far too many regrets in this life.”
The Nemean lion weighed heavy on his shoulder, a poisonous sting crawled across his skin.
“The one you’ll speak is the one I’m referring to but perhaps you should surprise me. You mortals always do.” The casual use of his foresight was as jarring as ever. It left him with a floating feeling, like the words had been snatched from right out his jaw.
It beckoned him back to his mortal days. When the titan had whispered into his ear of his cunning brother with the weight of the world upon his shoulders, of golden apples sunken in the teeth of a great dragon and the eternal servitude of one man. He hadn’t believed it then, but he’d lived it now.
He adjusted the club off his shoulder, shifting it into a laxer position onto the snowy ground. There was no point in picking a fight here.
“Regret is for cowards. I’ve walked this path far enough, haven’t I? What use is it to anyone, to whine about it now?” He scoffed. There was no room for self-pity in him... not anymore. He lost that right when his son’s blood stained his hands.
“You would still fight for them. For her? After all they’ve done?” The titan’s voice didn’t even have the grace to sound angry. Like he had already made peace with Heracles’ future centuries past. He uttered words like reciting lines in a play. But… the words struck.
“For her? You think I want to be ordered around like an attack dog by Olympus? Don’t have much bloody choice, do I?” He snarled, a beastly expression on his face as his body coiled up in rage. “Can’t exactly take a vacation when the titan I set loose decided to invade this stupid mountain. If I’d known you’d give me so much shit, I’d have bludgeoned your damn head in myself!”
His hand pounded against his chest, the audacity- the audacity. As if it wasn’t his legions, his fire and his bloody siege. His breath heaved and his arms shook with a palpable anger. With gritted teeth he met the titan’s gaze again… and saw nothing. No disgust, no surprise. Like he had expected his words to make him fly into a mania.
“Calm yourself.”
And his patience snapped like a thread. Staring that titan in his apathetic eyes- it infuriated him to no end.
Heracles couldn’t take this conversation any longer. He’d had enough with playing along to this sham. With a decisive turn, he swung himself around and slammed his club onto his shoulders. This had been a waste of time.
“Wait.”
Heracles halted to a stop; his calloused hands tightened their vice grip on his weapons. His foot had been halfway out the gate, damn it all, couldn’t he hold his tongue just this once.
“I can only overlook your commands over me so many times, titan. You realise it is my duty to kill you here and now, surely. Telling me to stay? Are you a fool?” Only a man who knew the future could speak so carelessly towards him. His back was turned on Prometheus and he couldn’t help but wonder what expression was on the titan’s face. But the response to that taunt never come. Instead-
“I will free you from your servitude. You do not deserve this.”
‘You don’t deserve this’…. Hah. What a foreign sentiment. He certainly never spoke those words to himself. He didn’t even recognise the man in the mirror anymore. All he saw was a family killer. A curse to anyone who loved him. A wife slayer and a child murderer. He couldn’t help it. His shoulders began shaking, and a twisted laugh rumbled from his chest. Like a caged animal clawing against his beating heart, a sickening giddy feeling bubbled in his heart. It felt like divine mania. It felt like her.
“Don’t make promises you can’t keep, titan. Not even death could free me from her. Don’t you know?” He slowly swivelled his head to the side till he met Prometheus’ gaze out the corner of his eye.
“There’s no mortal left for you to save.” He snapped his head forward and the next words fell heavy from his lips, like thunder crashing. “The gods made sure of that. They burned it all away. All that’s left in this body are the remnants of my father.”
With that, Heracles trudged on into the snow. Onto the next battle, the next labour. Forever. As was his divine duty.
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Prometheus watched the ascended mortal stumble away, his footsteps heavy and his back stained gold.
Olympus had to burn. If he had to set all the heavens aflame, he would do it without hesitation. That wasn’t in question… but.
He wondered if he had made the right decision back then. To tell him of his twisted future; a man driven mad at the whimsy of the gods. Would he have lived a better life in naivety?
Perhaps it would’ve been better for that great warrior to have died right then and there at his mercy. He would’ve ended him quick. He would’ve laid him to rest, sent him down to hold his wife and sons.
It didn’t matter now. He looked down upon his enflamed hand and clenched it till the holy fire combusted. The sparks splattered onto the floor like spilled ichor.
Revenge would have to be good enough for the both of them.