Theft Or Illusion, It's All Trickery In The End

Chapter 1

Prometheus screamed as the sharp beak once more dug into his side. He had long lost track of how many times he had been through this, yet he still screamed with violent force; it was part of his punishment, that each would hurt as terribly as the last, that he would never quite be able to dull himself to the pain.

He would've sobbed from the thought and the seemingly eternal torment, but his eyes were dry; he had no more tears to shed, they were long used up despite his throat still filling with sound.

Unexpectedly, it stopped, the pain and the tearing and the rustling of feathers stopped. He wasn't good at telling time anymore, not after so many years having such little reason to do so, but he was sure it was too soon. In a thousand-something years that blasted bird had never once stopped early, so why would it now?

He was grateful that it had stopped, of course, but it made him nervous. Had Zeus thought up some fresh new torture to inflict upon him? Prometheus almost wished it would be true; he was so bored...

He opened his eyes, which previously had been screwed up in pain, to observe what had changed. He sucked in a sharp breath when he saw the eagle laying dead upon the stone, an arrow through its heart. Not that it would stay dead for long, of course, but still — who would dare shoot a pet of Zeus himself?

And that thought was what really shocked Prometheus. For if there was an arrow, there must have been a person to shoot it. Another living person whom he could perhaps exchange a few words with, awkward or angry they could be, he cared not so long as they were spoken by one other than he.

"H-hello?" He called, though it came out as barely a whisper, his voice cracked both from disuse and from his constant wails. He licked his lips and tried again, louder this time. "Hello?"

"Well, hello there." A voice chuckled, sounding simultaneously far above him and right next to his ear, wispy yet powerful in a way that reminded Prometheus of the wind itself. "I wasn't quite sure if you were alive or not. You hardly look it."

"I am alive." He confirmed, trying to think of something more to say. It had been a long time since he had practice carrying a conversation. "You killed the bird. Zeus's eagle."

"Yes. I did do that, didn't I?" The voice sounded far too amused. In a blink, a slender form jumped down from above, landing in a nimble crouch on a narrow ledge within Prometheus's sight. The man was uncaring to the fall in a way only the very powerful, the very brave, or the very foolish could be. Prometheus had the feeling that this stranger was all three.

He was unlike any man the Titan had seen before, long red hair falling in even but tangled dreads down his back and shoulders, body slender and thin in a way that should have looked frail but somehow promised deadly strength instead. His strangely scarred lips were pulled up in grin that was as sharp as the small horns poking out on top of his head, green eyes shining with an intense sort of controlled wildness that seemed to yearn so terribly to be released.

"Hello. I'm Loki. Come with me." The foreign man introduced and softly ordered. Prometheus rattled his chains. Loki hummed, unreleased laughter bubbling in the sound. "Oh, don't worry, I'll take care of those silly old things."

Prometheus thought for a moment. He had always given everything, every choice, quite a bit of thought. It had once annoyed his brother to no end, though he doubted he'd ever get the chance to either annoy or be annoyed by Epimetheus again. His heart ached at the thought, but the sharp pain of loss had been dulled by time and so many other sorts of hurt. "What happens if I go with you?" He finally asked.

"You never see the bird again." Loki answered simply.

"And?" Prometheus prompted. He wondered what the man wanted. Had he sought him out for some purpose, or inexplicably stumbled upon him by accident despite his out-of-the-way prison? Were his intentions beneficial or malicious? Did it matter? Could there possibly be a fate worse than this?

Loki regarded him curiously, frowning and tilting his head. His grin returned after a moment. "And we do some things that aren't being chained to a cliff for millennia."

Prometheus grinned back, barking out his first real laugh in who knew how long. "Sounds like fun."

"Oh," Loki chuckled, "it most certainly will be."

With a snap of calloused, pointed fingers, the chains around Prometheus's wrists and ankles disappeared. After a heartbeat of disbelief, gravity interrupted the moment, sending the newly freed Titan crashing into the waves below.

Loki blinked. He stretched out of his crouch and walked out into open air, looking down at a very perturbed, very wet Prometheus. "Oops?"