Prometheus/Cosette, 840 wds., untitled
As the subject says.
---
Bound to this barricade forever I be, condemned by the gods whom I have offended to eternal captivity. My chains are heavy on my arms, the shackles chafe my bared ankles. Every day, the Eagle comes, and every day rips into my flesh, tearing my soul, my life, from my body.
Every day, he takes away from me the mortal flame - divine retribution for the immortal flame I stole from the Eagle’s masters.
Every day, I wake to the light of the sun blazing into my eyes, to await the Eagle’s coming.
Every day is just the same as the one that came before it - on and on for eternity, unending pain and unending fire, bound to this barricade of stone forever I be.
One day, eternity paused for a moment.
One day… one bright, hot, dry day, as every day has ever been and ever shall be on this stone… a girl passed my way.
She was a small child, a plain little girl, clad in rags and covered with filth, clutching a bucket, far too heavy for her small size, in her tiny, pale hands.
She was a sad, a pathetic, a wretched creature, as imprisoned in her unhappy fate as I was. This is the way of the mortals, and this was the fate I had tried to relieve by my theft, my gift. For pitying the children of Earth, as miserable as this one, I had been condemned.
I called out to the mortal child, my voice as weak as my shackled limbs. I called to her again, and again the dryness of my throat and tongue worked against me. A third time I called, and this time my words fell upon her small ears.
The child looked up, and for a moment, I, bound to my rock, saw the world as she saw it.
A dark wood, looming trees that were taller than the biggest man who ever sat down to dine at the inn - the inn! And the Madame, and the Monsieur, and the other girls… and a rush of memories, of beatings and broomsticks, of pinches, punches, and pails of water; memories of dirt and soot and grime, of loneliness and tears and being sent to clean up the ashes from the fire, now dead…
That fire, that I had given to humanity. A fire I had tried to save their race by. A fire which this mortal, for whom I had sacrificed my eternity, never felt the warmth of.
“Child,” I whispered through cracking, dry lips.
She turned, and she saw me, and she set down her pail.
“Have pity, mortal,” I croaked, the dust in my mouth as dry as that beneath her feet. “Show me mercy… Your water - I am so thirsty…”
The human girl, the little mortal child, did not speak, but though she could not see the dry sun, the dusty rock, the barricade and chains, and only saw the towering trees and dark nighttime of her world, she crept closer to me, dragging the pail of water with her.
“You look sad, m’sieur,” she said in her trembling child’s voice, and she climbed carefully up to the rocks at my feet, hauling the pail up after. Though some of its precious, cool contents spilled upon the dusty stone, the heat of the blazing sun dried the lofty barricade within moments. In the girl’s eyes, though, I knew that she had climbed onto the lower branches of the oak in which she saw me tangled, and the water drops had merely soaked into the thick earth below.
“Can’t you climb down, m’sieur?” she asked plaintively, but I could not reply, for she scooped water into her dirty little palms and held it up to my lips, and I drank the sweetness, the coolness, as greedily as the mortals had gathered around the celestial flame when I first brought it to them.
“I’m sorry you’re trapped up here, m’sieur,” that blessed child whispered, and this time, I could speak.
Through moistened lips I stammered my gratitude, and she smiled, and climbed down out of the tree that was a rock that was a barricade.
As she staggered away into the eternal desert, into the barricaded city, into the midnight forest, I whispered the invocation I had been unable to summon for myself, the blessing of fire upon her life.
“Let her fate be lit with the fire of the gods, let the ashes of her life blaze into happiness, and let the gods be kind to her, as they were not to me, as they were not to her ancestors.”
The child was a black dot on the distant horizon, now, and as I finished my prayer, I looked into the sky, to see another black dot, approaching - the Eagle had come for my soul, as he came every day, as he would come every day more. I was immortal - this was my fate. But the child who gave me water, she was mortal - and her life could change.
---
Need a title. Suggestions encouraged.
---
Bound to this barricade forever I be, condemned by the gods whom I have offended to eternal captivity. My chains are heavy on my arms, the shackles chafe my bared ankles. Every day, the Eagle comes, and every day rips into my flesh, tearing my soul, my life, from my body.
Every day, he takes away from me the mortal flame - divine retribution for the immortal flame I stole from the Eagle’s masters.
Every day, I wake to the light of the sun blazing into my eyes, to await the Eagle’s coming.
Every day is just the same as the one that came before it - on and on for eternity, unending pain and unending fire, bound to this barricade of stone forever I be.
One day, eternity paused for a moment.
One day… one bright, hot, dry day, as every day has ever been and ever shall be on this stone… a girl passed my way.
She was a small child, a plain little girl, clad in rags and covered with filth, clutching a bucket, far too heavy for her small size, in her tiny, pale hands.
She was a sad, a pathetic, a wretched creature, as imprisoned in her unhappy fate as I was. This is the way of the mortals, and this was the fate I had tried to relieve by my theft, my gift. For pitying the children of Earth, as miserable as this one, I had been condemned.
I called out to the mortal child, my voice as weak as my shackled limbs. I called to her again, and again the dryness of my throat and tongue worked against me. A third time I called, and this time my words fell upon her small ears.
The child looked up, and for a moment, I, bound to my rock, saw the world as she saw it.
A dark wood, looming trees that were taller than the biggest man who ever sat down to dine at the inn - the inn! And the Madame, and the Monsieur, and the other girls… and a rush of memories, of beatings and broomsticks, of pinches, punches, and pails of water; memories of dirt and soot and grime, of loneliness and tears and being sent to clean up the ashes from the fire, now dead…
That fire, that I had given to humanity. A fire I had tried to save their race by. A fire which this mortal, for whom I had sacrificed my eternity, never felt the warmth of.
“Child,” I whispered through cracking, dry lips.
She turned, and she saw me, and she set down her pail.
“Have pity, mortal,” I croaked, the dust in my mouth as dry as that beneath her feet. “Show me mercy… Your water - I am so thirsty…”
The human girl, the little mortal child, did not speak, but though she could not see the dry sun, the dusty rock, the barricade and chains, and only saw the towering trees and dark nighttime of her world, she crept closer to me, dragging the pail of water with her.
“You look sad, m’sieur,” she said in her trembling child’s voice, and she climbed carefully up to the rocks at my feet, hauling the pail up after. Though some of its precious, cool contents spilled upon the dusty stone, the heat of the blazing sun dried the lofty barricade within moments. In the girl’s eyes, though, I knew that she had climbed onto the lower branches of the oak in which she saw me tangled, and the water drops had merely soaked into the thick earth below.
“Can’t you climb down, m’sieur?” she asked plaintively, but I could not reply, for she scooped water into her dirty little palms and held it up to my lips, and I drank the sweetness, the coolness, as greedily as the mortals had gathered around the celestial flame when I first brought it to them.
“I’m sorry you’re trapped up here, m’sieur,” that blessed child whispered, and this time, I could speak.
Through moistened lips I stammered my gratitude, and she smiled, and climbed down out of the tree that was a rock that was a barricade.
As she staggered away into the eternal desert, into the barricaded city, into the midnight forest, I whispered the invocation I had been unable to summon for myself, the blessing of fire upon her life.
“Let her fate be lit with the fire of the gods, let the ashes of her life blaze into happiness, and let the gods be kind to her, as they were not to me, as they were not to her ancestors.”
The child was a black dot on the distant horizon, now, and as I finished my prayer, I looked into the sky, to see another black dot, approaching - the Eagle had come for my soul, as he came every day, as he would come every day more. I was immortal - this was my fate. But the child who gave me water, she was mortal - and her life could change.
---
Need a title. Suggestions encouraged.