A Prometheus Drabble

For a fellow fa/tg/uy.

>The shackle around his ankle was thicker than bone. Not any ordinary bone either, his sort of bone. Prometheus was built to a different scale than the sons of men, much more durable as well. The chain leading from the shackle was embedded in a rocky mountain beneath him.

>His vision was wider than even the most developed of mortals, he could see the structure of the chain welded so deeply and cunningly into the substance of the mountain beneath him. The two were so intertwined that they might as well be a single thing.

>Not for the first time, he remarked to himself that they'd spared no expense on his accommodations. As if called by his musings, the flapping of wings finally stopped. Five minutes later, a Griffon landed behind him with two thumps and a rustle of feathers and cloth. She had used a thermal, a warm rising column of air, for her landing. To do so five minutes away from him was telling. His nose agreed, the smells of rich food and abundance reached him too strongly to be a fluke of memory. The latter was his first thought when he'd scented the smells of one of his favorite meals while she'd still been gone.

>He knew her payload of food would be heavy, even for a Griffon. Why else would she glide so much instead of flapping? She often flapped much more than necessary when flying. It was a common trait among his long line of jailers. He suspected strongly that this was some show for his benefit. It was likely one of the many variations on lekking and preening native to the Harpy family of mamono.

>He turned to face her aware, that if he waited too long, she'd worry that he was angry or displeased at her. The brown skinned Griffon was unraveling the cloth to expose a sumptuous meal. She was his jailer, hostess, friend, and a self-inflicted cruelty disguised as a punishment. Like the rest of his accommodations, they'd spared no expense in cruelty either, neither for him nor the long series of jailers set to watch and care for him.

1, 3, 4, 3, 2
>Valery Bessette was very short for a Griffin, despite her muscular body. If there had been rhyme or reason to the choice in jailers except for the need to be a flying species, he'd have seen it by now. His intellect was beyond any mortal conception, it had stymied the Gods themselves for a time. She'd not been assigned here to due to being short even after reaching her full growth. Still it was a sore point with Valery, who like him, had far too much time to ponder.

>She'd not even preened her hair or feathers as was her habit. Her long black hair was lovely in it's wind-scattered messiness, the sheen of healthy sweat on her and the slight tremors of her developed arms as she fidgeted with the food containing cloth. His intuition had been right, she'd gone much further afield to gather and make their meal. She must have exhausted herself once outside the range of his senses to cover more area while returning at the usual time.

>He spent a moment observing the bounty gathered and prepared by his friend-jailer. The well roasted boar itself was beyond human carrying capacity, let alone the assortments of fruits, nuts, and vegetation she'd gathered. As he regarded the immense layout of food, he could hear the sloppy panicked turning of feathers and strikes of claw. She truly must be exhausted to be so out of sorts that an instinctive behavior was done so inexpertly that he could hear it. He examined the layout longer than necessary.

>The sharp flap of her wings as she adjusted them nervously was a sure sign she'd found herself presentable. Mortals were such strange creatures, really. He turned to her and saw a poor approximation of Griffin calm and relaxation. Her head gave a slight bob in the direction of the food. With a nod of his own, the Thief of Fire stood. He took care to cover the gaping wound along his right side which would be fully healed by next morn. Walking over to her, he sat and began eating. It was an excellent effort as usual. He made an effort to chew slowly and thoroughly. He did this both to increase the nutritious and medicinal value of the food, and to reduce Valery's trips to hunt and gather on their behalf. There was no salve for his situation, but he need not make it worse for his jailer either.

>Mamono nature was a strange thing, and it had shifted strangely across the centuries of his imprisonment. When the Gods had finally caught up to him and hobbled him during the Dawn of Man, his first jailer had no real human aspect about her. Lacking both morphological and psychological traits of humanity, she'd gleefully done her appointed duty out of hunger and delight. His bloodied liver freshly torn had been a favored treat, and not a single shred of empathy had lived in the Harpy's eyes. He'd bode his time with naught else to do, feeling the change he'd wrought trickle and flow down into humanity. Soon, something began to shift, not due solely to his efforts but in combination with other forces. Momentum was building, and mankind would be the crux of it. Odd that the mamono were the first sign of it though.

>Their forms had slowly changed even across the varied flying species set to guard him. What had started with inhuman beasts that'd thoughtlessly snatch out his liver and bring just enough of a raw kill and water in exchange had subtly changed. He'd wondered for a moment if knowing the feelings of near-starvation and thirst stretched across centuries had scattered his mind, but no, there was a change.

>Gradually there appeared more affectations of human shape, used no doubt as lures for prey. The psychological changes had been the truly surprising part. The removal of his liver still satiated their hunger, they still desired their gory prize, but they brought food and water as well. More that enough now that he'd not spend his days feeling his immortal body devour itself to make up for the stinginess of his jailers. Most strangely of all, they spoke. Sometimes in viciousness or kindness, the hunger in their eyes sometimes transmuting to something resembling lust. He'd began to worry then, mankind had yet to face a truly intelligent predator. And sometimes, because he was too intelligent for his own good, he worried for the mamono. Empathy for prey was as good as extinction for an intelligent predator.

>He'd been out of the loop for so long, but he could feel the change he wrought building to something. The mamono were part of it in some way. The trends in their behavior had continued shifting. The last two centuries had seen the most dramatic change. He'd long ago seen Harpies feet shake in agitation at doing their appointed task, even as their eyes burned with hunger. The cold burning magics that sprung from the chain, freezing his body at the appointed hour of his punishment did nothing to obscure his vision. But never did he think to see one refuse to tear and eat. That had been a terrible day. Perhaps he shouldn't have spent his idle time talking to her.

>As a God, he couldn't be broken, merely punished. Mortals however could be broken, and what was broken could always be made worse by the inventive. The Gods spared little expense there either, they'd shown her the cost of sparing him and made her pay it in full. It had taken a decade for the scars of her punishment to be worn away by the weather. The charred and twisted rock had haunted him almost as much as her agonized screams. It had only gotten worse from that point. The mamono had only become more resistant to the ancient hunger for man-shaped flesh. Somewhere within he could sense it in them, that ancient change he'd brought into the world and thrust upon the shoulders of mankind. How had it bled into the mamono? Why did they now have to be cajoled and convinced to do what should have come naturally to a predator?

>As with all other nights within the last two centuries, he would have to convince his jailer to do her duty in the morning. Bolstering and bracing her to rend his flesh and eat that which mamono had permanently lost a taste for. Strangely, they took to kindness best, were more willing out of devotion than anger. He gave Valery as much of a sincere smile as possible while chewing a morsel of boar. This seemed to soothe her restlessness slightly. She'd barely been a year into her position and her claws shook often. Her eyes wandered away from his ever-present wound in guilt instead of staring in hunger in the way of her ancestors. He would have to talk with her at length soon. The irony wasn't lost on him, but it was better this way. Valery was a mortal and could not understand what it was to be broken and remade in such agony that death was a blessing. He had started with helping humanity. Despite their appearance, mamono were now close enough to count in his eyes. He'd spent his effort in protecting mortals from the Gods and their wanton cruelties. Prometheus could not break, for he was a God. If they spared no expense in their tasks, then neither would he.