The Titan Returns (ota)

[pecked_by_birds]

He had been back in London for seventy-three hours, twenty-six minutes, and fifteen, sixteen, seventeen... Seconds. He knew that for certain, and there was no need for clocks. No, Prometheus could feel the seconds ticking inside of him.  

Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine...

Upon his return home, he'd locked himself away in his flat, pulling out his paints and canvases and filling them with dark shadows and heavy lines. This form was not like the last he'd worn. It felt wrong and right all at once-  It was all angles and odd lines, sharp bones and pale flesh, highlighted with ginger hair and pale green eyes- Eyes that weren't so different from other forms he'd worn. 

However, when he closed these eyes he could hear waves crashing, and feel the weight of the chains that had once forced him to remain still and suffer.  With his eyes shut, every moment that ticked by sent him spiralling deeper into the darkness he'd spent so long running from. 

The titan's madness had known all kinds of forms. Sometimes quiet, sometimes loud- Often angry, but sometimes... Sometimes it was like a fog. That's how it was now, it seemed. In this form it didn't bring rage, only pain, moments of confusion, and a lingering sadness that weighed him down and made him wish for the one thing he would never have.
 
Eternal rest.

He couldn't stay in the flat forever though, and today he'd finally ventured out, daring to go shopping for supplies before finally returning to the small second hand shop he called his own. With no fanfare at all, he set about opening the shutters and flipping the sign from closed to open for the first time in months.

Inside the stock was mostly unchanged, the same paintings and books, the same oddities and trinkets. Some very old, some only from a few decades back. The difference this time being the man himself, his looks, and the way he loitered in his own shop. He didn't sit behind the counter reading now, that required a stillness he was struggling with today. Instead he stood with a paintbrush in hand, and a fresh canvas before him that he slowly began to mark in time to the drab, and slightly melancholy, sound of Radiohead.

He didn't look up when he heard someone come in, but he did point his brush at them. 

"I know what you want, but do you?" he asked.

Comments

[miss_ives]

Vanessa had been saddened to find the shop closed for so long, after her first and only run-in with its owner. She had made him a promise to come back and visit, but it wasn't the promise that drew her to walk by the shop, every now and again, in the hope of finding Prometheus again. It was the simple fact that he had seemed to understand, and it was the depth of what she could read in his eyes. It was what she had felt when she had touched his runes. She wanted to come back and visit, regardless of her promise.

So when she found the little shop open at last, she pushed the door open eagerly, stopping just inside to look at the only occupant. A man paintnig on a canvas, much different from the person she had expected to find, but she remembered Prometheus' words. How many different forms, how many different lives.

His words made her pause, heart thudding a little harder than normal in her chest, but she had composed herself by the time she asked, watching him closely, "What do I want?"

[pecked_by_birds]

Prometheus finally looked away from his canvas, locking eyes with her for a moment, then raising a brow.

"It's obvious, isn't it? Another taste," the titan purred, watching her a beat longer, then returning to his work.

"It's been some time, Raven."

[miss_ives]

So it was him - and it wasn't, all at once. Vanessa watched Prometheus as he went back to painting, walking closer, then only looked at the painting itself. "I thought you would make me a liar." Finding the shop closed, all this time.

[pecked_by_birds]

"I was away," the titan said, swirling his brush in a pale blue he'd mixed himself, then dabbing it gently onto the canvas. His work had taken a turn for something more surreal this go around, his landscapes and still life no longer picture perfect, but instead exaggerated and slightly warped. Currently he was painting a small, and very beat up looking antique doll that sat on one of his shelves, exaggerating her features so she lingered in the uncanny valley.

"My brother was visiting," he explained. "He requires a certain amount of supervision."

[miss_ives]

"Epimetheus," Vanessa acknowledged quietly, her gaze on the warped features of the doll. She knew the myths, of course, and if they were any true, then she could easily believe that.

[pecked_by_birds]

The titan glanced over sharply at the mention of his brother's name, then nodded once before returning to his work.

"Yes," he said simply. "We travelled until he grew bored and returned home."

[miss_ives]

Vanessa's eyes cut to his when he turned around to meet her gaze, and she did not realise that she had been holding her breath until he looked away, and she slowly let it out. "Where is home?" she asked curiously.

[pecked_by_birds]

"Olympus," Prometheus replied, speaking the word slowly- Almost reverently.

"Not as mortals know it, but as only we can. ...They can," he corrected after a moment.

Olympus was not his home now, and though he'd attempted to return more than once, he was shut out completely.

[miss_ives]

Vanessa appreciated the correction, and took a second to decide not to ask about it. "Will you tell me about it?" she asked, very ready for the answer to be negative.

[pecked_by_birds]

"It's not a place that can be described. Not even a place that can be painted," the titan replied. "I should know, I've tried."

[miss_ives]

"Can it be... felt?" The way she had felt his madness and his pain, through his runes.

She knew that she ought to stop asking these questions. But she could not quite force herself to be the recluse she would be safest being.

[pecked_by_birds]

Prometheus hesitated, then offered a small shrug.

"It's possible, though I can't be sure. Why, Raven? Are you curious to try?"

[miss_ives]

"Yes," Vanessa admitted, because such was the truth. "But not entirely convinced that it would be a good idea."

[sunsongs]

"Not these days," Coby answered absently. He'd never been in the shop before, and had no idea it belonged to the titan he'd met the night of his first London gig. Or that the redheaded with the paintbrush who'd spoken was that same titan.

He wasn't even sure why he'd gone in, other than the need to move that had him out of the flat he'd spent so much of the past month hiding in. He was used to his head feeling too small for everything crammed into it, but the skin too small, stretched tight feeling was new. Keeping the wings in and hidden when they wanted to unfurl, to move, to soar, had him antsy in new ways. (He'd promised Anael, though. No flying until he was stronger, and only while the angel was there to catch him when he fell.) So he was out and walking, no idea where he was going or what he was looking for.

[pecked_by_birds]

"You want... Space," the titan said, jabbing the brush to emphasise that last word, then glancing over the canvas to look at Coby.

"Isn't that right, dove?" he asked.

[sunsongs]

Coby had been 'guv'd often enough since coming to London, his brain heard it instead of 'dove' in this case. Besides he'd been thinking more about the rest of what the guy said.

"Well... yeah. But it's London. Who doesn't want more space?" What? It wasn't as though he could say, 'yeah, my wings are cramped as fuck'.

[pecked_by_birds]

Prometheus only shrugged, returning his attention to his work as the next song started, leaning in close to the canvas as though he were literally attempting to breathe life into it.

[sunsongs]

"What about you?" Coby asked, coming over to get a look at what the guy was painting. "Do you want space, or something else?"

[pecked_by_birds]

The titan was dabbling in surrealism, his current subject a small stack of books that were perched near the window, their lines exaggerated and their pages fluttering, as though a breeze had blown them open. Words oozed and slid off the pages, puddling on the floor, taking what had been a colourful sceen and making it just a bit more unsettling.

"Space? No, I don't crave space. Silence, sometimes, but not space. If I were one to want, and I'm not sure I am, I think I'd want- A clear mind, all the chemicals balanced and the grooves swept clean."

[sunsongs]

That was something Coby had wanted almost as long as he could remember – in this lifetime, and across the ones before – and with it, the guy became far more interesting than his painting. Coby studied him a moment, and then a bit more, but if there was a memory there he wasn't finding it.

"Have we met?" he asked finally. It wouldn't be the first time he'd run into someone he should know but didn't.

[pecked_by_birds]

"Maybe," the titan shrugged, honestly not sure if they had or not. His memory was sharp only when it wished to be.

"I'm Prometheus," he said, mixing a soft lilac colour with his brush. "...Who are you?"

[sunsongs]

Oh. Well, that explained it. Prometheus had said something about different bodies, different faces.

"Coby. These days. Shamsiel once upon a time." And feeling closer to that these days than he ever had, although still nowhere near. "We met a few months back." He grinned. "You still don't look Greek."

[pecked_by_birds]

The titan studied him, head tilting as his mind raked through the faces it had seen.

"No, I never seem to," he agreed. "Shamsiel."

He spoke the name as though he could taste it.

[sunsongs]

"Coby." The difference felt important, maybe more important now.

"There's not nearly enough space in here," Coby touched his temple, "for Shamsiel. That's... part of the deal."

[pecked_by_birds]

"If that's the name you chose, it's the name I'll use," the titan agreed with a nod, dragging his brush over the canvas as he spoke.

"So, Coby, why do you look like a moth trapped in a jar?"