"There you are!" Kronos said gleefully, "I almost joined you in the dirt you know, that took an incredible toll on me. Father might have been able to do that sort of thing easily, but without a Legacy A.I. to do the math on the dynamic charges in the clouds, it's a lot of work."
"Did we get Kasios?" Prometheus asked.
"No, I'm afraid not. We wiped out his army, almost no survivors, but he escaped. Still, that might be as much as a third of Hekate's army right there. A devastating blow; the war won't last much longer now."
"Yeah, it only cost us Selakano Valley..."
"What? What are you talking about? We held the valley just fine."
"By destroying a large portion of what made it worth holding," Prometheus said, "huzzah."
Kronos glared at him, "You've been through a lot, and I have business to attend to in Knossos. I trust that, next time we speak, your tone will be more mindful of your station." Kronos stormed out.
Prometheus tried to get up, but for some reason he was too drained to stand. He asked Amalthea for a report on the situation - it was grim. The forest was now nothing more than black, smoldering kindling and smoking corpses. It would be hundreds of years before the forest regained its grandeur. Of course, the small villages within and along the edges of the forest were also gone - many of their inhabitants had escaped the carnage, but they were now homeless, and cursing Prometheus for his failure to protect them.
Typhon and Echidna arrived to report on the welfare of his troops. Typhon looked weak, frail compared to his normal robust self, and it was obvious that Echidna was concerned about his state.
"Owing to your strategy and your bold, suicidal decision to attack Kasios alone," she said, "We sustained minimal losses in the fight. Unfortunately, many of our men - most of our scouts - were caught in the forest fire. Of the rest of us, injuries are few but I'm afraid many of us are falling ill.
"Ill?" Prometheus asked, studying Typhon.
"The healers can't name the malady," Echidna said, "Men and women are just getting... weak. Fatigue, listlessness, nausea, the symptoms don't seem serious at first, but they build in severity until the person just... gives up."
"Gives up?" Prometheus asked.
"Dozens of men simply stopped breathing," Echidna said, "and several have committed suicide."
"How are you feeling, Typhon?"
"Honestly, general... not too good. Like... a pond in a drought... I feel dried up, empty of anything but washed up refuse."
Prometheus studied him for a moment, "Typhon, what's your opinion of Kronos?"
"Well... I mean, he's the real deal, isn't he?" Typhon said with adoration in his eyes, "Bringing down a storm like that to smite his enemies - we haven't seen that sort of thing in a long time, have we? I dedicated a sacrifice to him after the battle, to thank him for saving your life."
"I see," Prometheus said, "Echidna, how do you feel about Kronos?"
Echidna stood with arms folded, and looked back and forth nervously, "Seriously?"
"Speak freely Echidna; no harm will come to you," Prometheus said.
"I think he's an insufferable dung-filled pestulant scrotum. I accept that, maybe, he couldn't have gotten here faster, but once he did... I mean, what was he thinking? Really? You told us yourself how important the valley was, and you were right, but he just comes in and razes it all to the ground. And why? Because Kasios's army needed to be defeated? That was done, they were finished. We had them trapped. The only reason he summoned that storm was to grandstand before the impressionable masses."
Typhon glared at her.
"No offense to the impressionable masses intended," Echidna added.
"Tell me, at best guess, how many of the men who've fallen sick share your general impression of Kronos, Echidna?"
"Well... actually... none. They are all pretty devoted. What's the phrase you used once, 'They drank the Kool-Aid?' Whatever Kool-Aid is..."
Prometheus might have laughed under different circumstances.
Typhon had a deeply troubled look, "Are you suggesting that Kronos is cursing us for our devotion to him?"
Prometheus sighed, "Okay, look, there's some things you two need to know. I depend on you two too much to not tell you."
It took a full afternoon, but Prometheus explained the nature of Titans to his human subordinates. He explained that they thrived on the submission or loyalty of other beings, and that the reason he himself probably collapsed after the fight with Kasios was because of the sudden movement of faith away from him to Kronos. Moreover, he explained that when a Titan used his or her powers excessively, the result could be great misfortune for their followers, and that that was probably the reason Typhon and many others had fallen ill since Kronos's impressive display of power.
Echidna clearly felt validated by the revelations. Typhon was at first despondent but then angry. Then he himself realized that he felt better the angrier he got at Kronos, and at the system in general; then his anger turned to righteous outrage. The man had wanted to immediately tell the troops the truth, to dismantle the altars and the shrines, but Prometheus persuaded him - not as a god but as a commander - that right then, it would do more harm than good. It would certainly bring Kronos's wrath down upon them, and Prometheus was in no condition to protect them right now.
Echidna promised that they'd find some way to steer the soldiers away from the zealotry that had gripped them, and took Typhon away to let Prometheus rest in peace.
Prometheus was awoken by a gentle bump on the bed, and thought it must be one of his human friends come for another discussion. Instead, Prometheus looked down to find a silky-furred black cat perched on top of the covers between his knees. The cat hopped up onto his chest, and with a sparkle of light transformed.
Prometheus started to shout, as best he could, but Hekate pressed a finger to his lips, "I'm not here to hurt anyone."
"Come to gloat? Happy to see me like this?"
"Gods, you're dense," Hekate shook her head, "Yes, I'm very happy to see that Kasios didn't kill my oldest friend. Do you still not understand? I'm Kronos's enemy, the system's enemy, not your enemy."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
Hekate responded to that with a mischievous smile. She slid down the bed slightly so that she was straddling his hips. Prometheus could feel her warmth through the thin linen sheets, and despite his physical weakness, his body responded. His skin flushed with hot blood at the touch of her hands on his chest, his breath shuddered, and his eyes became immediately drawn to her glossy black lips.
"Is that a better way of showing it?" Hekate whispered.
Prometheus bit his lip, trying not to think about the sensations surging through his lower extremities, "What do you want?"
Hekate moved to gently rub herself against his lap. Prometheus groaned involuntarily.
"We are rapidly approaching the... climax, of our little war," Hekate said, "I know how I want it to end, but I can't be sure it will go the way I want, so I wanted one final tête-à-tête with you."
"I don't recall ever having a conversation this way before," Prometheus said.
"Oh, but I do," Hekate said, "Do you remember the day we became Legacy Bearers?"
"Of course," Prometheus said, "It was probably the most important day of our lives."
Hekate smiled. "I always loved that our ceremonies were on the same day," she said as she ran her black fingernails lightly across his chest, "I thought it was romantic."
"I didn't really imagine you were inclined to that sort of sentiment," Prometheus said.
Hekate laughed slightly, sadly, "How do you remember me before I received the Legacy of Morgania?"
"Kind, gentle, warm..." Prometheus said.
"Am I so different now?" she asked, leaning forward so that he felt her breath on his lips and her breasts grazing his chest.
"I - I don't know. Sometimes I felt like you became a completely different person, sometimes you still seemed like... you."
"Well, I remember that you were already passionate, unafraid of others contempt. Less cautious though, more certain of yourself." Hekate sighed, "Do you know... how badly I wanted to have a relationship with you when we were younger?"
"You... never said anything," Prometheus said.
"I did, actually, I just - I was never confident enough to say it in a way that you would hear it. Back then, I was the cautious one. We knew we were likely to become Legacy Bearers, and I was afraid that anything that began before that moment might not last - we were about to become very different people, after all. I was afraid I might not feel the same way once I had Morgania's voice mingled with my own, and that would be heartbreaking."
"Did you?" Prometheus wasn't sure when it happened, but his hands were now on Hekate's hips, caressing them gently.
"Much to my surprise, yes. More intensely than ever. And for the first time in my life, I had the confidence to talk to you without fear for the future."
"Then why didn't you?" Prometheus's feelings were a riot at this point. The woman he'd been trying to tell himself was his archenemy was in his bed, professing her love for him, and he didn't want her to stop.
"Because life played a cruel trick on us," Hekate said sadly, "My feelings became stronger because Morgania and Mbomxolodur had fallen in love during their journey across the stars. It was like finding out we were soul mates - we were, literally, star-crossed lovers."
"All the more reason to say something then..." Prometheus was confused.
"No, see... I... I remembered all of it, all of Morgania's experiences as if they were my own. But you didn't. You remember people who won't be born for thousands of years better than you remember me. Her, I mean."
"Oh, yeah. That would be... frustrating," Prometheus said, "To put it mildly."
Hekate nodded solemnly, "I also remembered Morgania and Mbomxolodur's successors - each of my predecessors went through the same thing. I had so much better of a chance at making it work than any of them did - old Xipe was hopeful that our Legacies might finally be reunited, because she knew there was already something between us. Once I received Morgania's Legacy, though, I remembered all of the heart break, hundreds - thousands - of years of it. And it just made me feel so... tired. I thought, maybe I shouldn't try to force it. Maybe I should just let you come to me. You weren't... disinterested in me before we became Legacy Bearers, and I hoped that Mbom would still love Morgania on some level, even if he didn't remember her. And it's not like I played hard-to-get. I just wanted you to make the first move, to give me a sign that there really was something there."
Prometheus felt like his heart was in a vice; how long had those feelings been burning softly in the back of his mind, but he'd always been afraid to act on them? And now they were leading opposite sides of the war; they should have been bitter enemies, but all he wanted to do was kiss her.
"It could be a trick," Mbomxolodur's voice sounded in his head, "we don't know that anything she's saying is true. If Morgania and I were lovers, others would have known. There'd be some record."
"Screw it," Prometheus thought back to the A.I. He slid his hands up to Hekate's back and gently pulled her closer, softly kissing the lips he'd been fantasizing about for several minutes. She kissed him back, enthusiastically, hungrily. He felt tears run off of her cheeks and fall onto his. He paused, his forehead pressed to hers, their breath mingling between their faces.
"You're crying..."
"This is kind of an emotionally intense moment for me," Hekate smiled and kissed him again.
"I want this," Prometheus said, "I want a lifetime of this. Centuries of this. Please... let's just... quit this war, and do this."
Hekate gave him a pained look, "We can't just quit."
"Yes, we can. You control Kasios and Tiamat, somehow. Tell them to stand down and we'll negotiate a truce. If need be, you and I can just leave. This world is enormous, and we're going to live a very long time - imagine how much of it we could see together."
Hekate smiled at him and stroked his cheek, "Just get on the back of your motorcycle and go, huh?"
"Well, we're on an island, so we'd have to get a boat..."
"And what would happen to your humans? I'll admit, I've never felt the empathy for the lower species you have, but I still know that a system that heaps all of the burden on the weakest people without doing anything to repay them... I still know that is wrong. And so do you. If we leave, Kronos will become worse. He'll crack open Tartarus to find the power he needs, and he'll expand beyond the shores of Crete, his influence spreading like a plague."
"I haven't foreseen that..." Prometheus said.
"Because we stop it," Hekate argued, "We take the throne, together, and we run this kingdom the way it should be run. We keep our powers and immortality, both of us, but we share the rest of what we have - our technology, our medicine, our culture - with the humans. Why, why on Earth are the helots breaking themselves in the fields to raise our food? Even if we couldn't do it far more easily ourselves, we could build automatons to do the work for them! Let the humans be scientists, philosophers, and artists. Our people have kept them as slaves, just for the sake of having slaves."
"I agree with you..."
"I know you do."
"... But if people overthrow the system through violence or deception every time they aren't happy with it, the result is chaos. You have to work within the system to fix what's broken."
"You can't fix a broken tool with a broken tool, Prometheus."
Hekate had him there. "I'm honor bound to serve my king," Prometheus finally said.
"I'm asking you to renounce him as your king. That sort of addresses that problem doesn't it?"
"It doesn't work that way..."
"How else can it work? There has to be a line, doesn't there? A breaking point? Where the people say, 'enough is enough'? When will it be enough, Prometheus? Where's the line?"
Prometheus didn't have an answer for that. "What would you want me to do?"
"Think about what I've said," Hekate answered, "Continue your war against me just as you would have, but think about this conversation. There will come a time, soon, when you have to make a hard choice, and when that time comes, I have faith you'll make the right choice - for us and for them."
"And right now?"
"Right now I want you to stop arguing with me and go back to where we were five minutes ago. Can you do that?"
"Yeah," Prometheus said. He shimmied to the side so that she could slip under the bed covers with him, "Yeah, I think I can do that."
"Tell me, at best guess, how many of the men who've fallen sick share your general impression of Kronos, Echidna?"
"Well... actually... none. They are all pretty devoted. What's the phrase you used once, 'They drank the Kool-Aid?' Whatever Kool-Aid is..."
Prometheus might have laughed under different circumstances.
Typhon had a deeply troubled look, "Are you suggesting that Kronos is cursing us for our devotion to him?"
Prometheus sighed, "Okay, look, there's some things you two need to know. I depend on you two too much to not tell you."
It took a full afternoon, but Prometheus explained the nature of Titans to his human subordinates. He explained that they thrived on the submission or loyalty of other beings, and that the reason he himself probably collapsed after the fight with Kasios was because of the sudden movement of faith away from him to Kronos. Moreover, he explained that when a Titan used his or her powers excessively, the result could be great misfortune for their followers, and that that was probably the reason Typhon and many others had fallen ill since Kronos's impressive display of power.
Echidna clearly felt validated by the revelations. Typhon was at first despondent but then angry. Then he himself realized that he felt better the angrier he got at Kronos, and at the system in general; then his anger turned to righteous outrage. The man had wanted to immediately tell the troops the truth, to dismantle the altars and the shrines, but Prometheus persuaded him - not as a god but as a commander - that right then, it would do more harm than good. It would certainly bring Kronos's wrath down upon them, and Prometheus was in no condition to protect them right now.
Echidna promised that they'd find some way to steer the soldiers away from the zealotry that had gripped them, and took Typhon away to let Prometheus rest in peace.
Prometheus was awoken by a gentle bump on the bed, and thought it must be one of his human friends come for another discussion. Instead, Prometheus looked down to find a silky-furred black cat perched on top of the covers between his knees. The cat hopped up onto his chest, and with a sparkle of light transformed.
Prometheus started to shout, as best he could, but Hekate pressed a finger to his lips, "I'm not here to hurt anyone."
"Come to gloat? Happy to see me like this?"
"Gods, you're dense," Hekate shook her head, "Yes, I'm very happy to see that Kasios didn't kill my oldest friend. Do you still not understand? I'm Kronos's enemy, the system's enemy, not your enemy."
"You have a funny way of showing it."
Hekate responded to that with a mischievous smile. She slid down the bed slightly so that she was straddling his hips. Prometheus could feel her warmth through the thin linen sheets, and despite his physical weakness, his body responded. His skin flushed with hot blood at the touch of her hands on his chest, his breath shuddered, and his eyes became immediately drawn to her glossy black lips.
"Is that a better way of showing it?" Hekate whispered.
Prometheus bit his lip, trying not to think about the sensations surging through his lower extremities, "What do you want?"
Hekate moved to gently rub herself against his lap. Prometheus groaned involuntarily.
"We are rapidly approaching the... climax, of our little war," Hekate said, "I know how I want it to end, but I can't be sure it will go the way I want, so I wanted one final tête-à-tête with you."
"I don't recall ever having a conversation this way before," Prometheus said.
"Oh, but I do," Hekate said, "Do you remember the day we became Legacy Bearers?"
"Of course," Prometheus said, "It was probably the most important day of our lives."
Hekate smiled. "I always loved that our ceremonies were on the same day," she said as she ran her black fingernails lightly across his chest, "I thought it was romantic."
"I didn't really imagine you were inclined to that sort of sentiment," Prometheus said.
Hekate laughed slightly, sadly, "How do you remember me before I received the Legacy of Morgania?"
"Kind, gentle, warm..." Prometheus said.
"Am I so different now?" she asked, leaning forward so that he felt her breath on his lips and her breasts grazing his chest.
"I - I don't know. Sometimes I felt like you became a completely different person, sometimes you still seemed like... you."
"Well, I remember that you were already passionate, unafraid of others contempt. Less cautious though, more certain of yourself." Hekate sighed, "Do you know... how badly I wanted to have a relationship with you when we were younger?"
"You... never said anything," Prometheus said.
"I did, actually, I just - I was never confident enough to say it in a way that you would hear it. Back then, I was the cautious one. We knew we were likely to become Legacy Bearers, and I was afraid that anything that began before that moment might not last - we were about to become very different people, after all. I was afraid I might not feel the same way once I had Morgania's voice mingled with my own, and that would be heartbreaking."
"Did you?" Prometheus wasn't sure when it happened, but his hands were now on Hekate's hips, caressing them gently.
"Much to my surprise, yes. More intensely than ever. And for the first time in my life, I had the confidence to talk to you without fear for the future."
"Then why didn't you?" Prometheus's feelings were a riot at this point. The woman he'd been trying to tell himself was his archenemy was in his bed, professing her love for him, and he didn't want her to stop.
"Because life played a cruel trick on us," Hekate said sadly, "My feelings became stronger because Morgania and Mbomxolodur had fallen in love during their journey across the stars. It was like finding out we were soul mates - we were, literally, star-crossed lovers."
"All the more reason to say something then..." Prometheus was confused.
"No, see... I... I remembered all of it, all of Morgania's experiences as if they were my own. But you didn't. You remember people who won't be born for thousands of years better than you remember me. Her, I mean."
"Oh, yeah. That would be... frustrating," Prometheus said, "To put it mildly."
Hekate nodded solemnly, "I also remembered Morgania and Mbomxolodur's successors - each of my predecessors went through the same thing. I had so much better of a chance at making it work than any of them did - old Xipe was hopeful that our Legacies might finally be reunited, because she knew there was already something between us. Once I received Morgania's Legacy, though, I remembered all of the heart break, hundreds - thousands - of years of it. And it just made me feel so... tired. I thought, maybe I shouldn't try to force it. Maybe I should just let you come to me. You weren't... disinterested in me before we became Legacy Bearers, and I hoped that Mbom would still love Morgania on some level, even if he didn't remember her. And it's not like I played hard-to-get. I just wanted you to make the first move, to give me a sign that there really was something there."
Prometheus felt like his heart was in a vice; how long had those feelings been burning softly in the back of his mind, but he'd always been afraid to act on them? And now they were leading opposite sides of the war; they should have been bitter enemies, but all he wanted to do was kiss her.
"It could be a trick," Mbomxolodur's voice sounded in his head, "we don't know that anything she's saying is true. If Morgania and I were lovers, others would have known. There'd be some record."
"Screw it," Prometheus thought back to the A.I. He slid his hands up to Hekate's back and gently pulled her closer, softly kissing the lips he'd been fantasizing about for several minutes. She kissed him back, enthusiastically, hungrily. He felt tears run off of her cheeks and fall onto his. He paused, his forehead pressed to hers, their breath mingling between their faces.
"You're crying..."
"This is kind of an emotionally intense moment for me," Hekate smiled and kissed him again.
"I want this," Prometheus said, "I want a lifetime of this. Centuries of this. Please... let's just... quit this war, and do this."
Hekate gave him a pained look, "We can't just quit."
"Yes, we can. You control Kasios and Tiamat, somehow. Tell them to stand down and we'll negotiate a truce. If need be, you and I can just leave. This world is enormous, and we're going to live a very long time - imagine how much of it we could see together."
Hekate smiled at him and stroked his cheek, "Just get on the back of your motorcycle and go, huh?"
"Well, we're on an island, so we'd have to get a boat..."
"And what would happen to your humans? I'll admit, I've never felt the empathy for the lower species you have, but I still know that a system that heaps all of the burden on the weakest people without doing anything to repay them... I still know that is wrong. And so do you. If we leave, Kronos will become worse. He'll crack open Tartarus to find the power he needs, and he'll expand beyond the shores of Crete, his influence spreading like a plague."
"I haven't foreseen that..." Prometheus said.
"Because we stop it," Hekate argued, "We take the throne, together, and we run this kingdom the way it should be run. We keep our powers and immortality, both of us, but we share the rest of what we have - our technology, our medicine, our culture - with the humans. Why, why on Earth are the helots breaking themselves in the fields to raise our food? Even if we couldn't do it far more easily ourselves, we could build automatons to do the work for them! Let the humans be scientists, philosophers, and artists. Our people have kept them as slaves, just for the sake of having slaves."
"I agree with you..."
"I know you do."
"... But if people overthrow the system through violence or deception every time they aren't happy with it, the result is chaos. You have to work within the system to fix what's broken."
"You can't fix a broken tool with a broken tool, Prometheus."
Hekate had him there. "I'm honor bound to serve my king," Prometheus finally said.
"I'm asking you to renounce him as your king. That sort of addresses that problem doesn't it?"
"It doesn't work that way..."
"How else can it work? There has to be a line, doesn't there? A breaking point? Where the people say, 'enough is enough'? When will it be enough, Prometheus? Where's the line?"
Prometheus didn't have an answer for that. "What would you want me to do?"
"Think about what I've said," Hekate answered, "Continue your war against me just as you would have, but think about this conversation. There will come a time, soon, when you have to make a hard choice, and when that time comes, I have faith you'll make the right choice - for us and for them."
"And right now?"
"Right now I want you to stop arguing with me and go back to where we were five minutes ago. Can you do that?"
"Yeah," Prometheus said. He shimmied to the side so that she could slip under the bed covers with him, "Yeah, I think I can do that."
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