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The Titan of Foresight’s smoldering gaze falls upon her. Within it, Melinoë finds that she cannot truly see his eyes, only a neverending inferno.
The chill of Lady Demeter’s winds nips at her skin, causing her skin to pebble even within this crucible, the arena they find themselves in night after night, yet still. She knows his flames cannot be extinguished, no matter how much she wished it so. Even on nights where he falls, where she claims victory—the flames took him, and the oppressive heat remained. In constant competition with the chill of everlasting winter.
“Hail, Prometheus.” Melinoë greets, her voice tentative, much more so than she would have liked. She had her doubts about besting him this night. He picked up on it, no doubt. She cannot see the whites of his eyes nor the narrowing of his irises, but she knew all too well by now that they were clever. Sharp. He and his eagle were alike in that way.
On cue, Prometheus holds his gloved hand to the sky, and Aetos swoops down, perching on it and digging his claws into the already tattered falconry glove. She wonders if he would appreciate a new one. The current one was peeling. Shedding its blue color to reveal the base white underneath. It was worn, having evidently been through quite a lot. Not unlike the bearer.
“Goddess.” He says placidly, in a manner that beguiled his deep grudge against the Olympus, against the gods themselves. She could feel it simmering beneath the surface, peeling off to reveal its base. How he must hate her Lord Uncle Zeus especially, for he was the one who bade Aetos to feed on his liver night after night for aeons, for what was meant to be an eternity.
She couldn’t imagine what it was like bearing the titan’s “gift” in such circumstances. The gift of foresight, of seeing countless possibilities of the exact same scenario; of Aetos’s powerful beak plunging through his skin, exposing his innards to the icy winds in search of his liver. Knowing, always knowing, but never being able to prevent it. No matter how many times he was granted a vision of the future.
She also could not imagine that the eagle would not grow a taste for something else after aeons of subsiding on a singular source of food from the same man, chained to a rock as always.
Both of them; man and eagle alike, were unfathomable to her.
But perhaps that is why their bond now was unbreakable.