sacrifice , and teased me . Was I not a goddess , all-powerful , undeniable ? Yet I stayed my desire and burned ever a er , for some compulsion higher than love . It was bizarre .
My suitors forgot me . Poseidon returned to his coral palace , putting sky and sea between us .
The gods were chasing mortals ; their wives chased the semen trail . I tended the hearth .
This was my pleasure , not shaking trees . Fire held power older than ours . It crackled with secrets and auguries , origins and ends . Flame was the first language , older than ours . I wished to learn it — to be guided toward something more than diversion .
For now I guarded the fire , the original and only . Zeus kept it here from enemy wielders .
Only Olympians could bask in its warmth . And yet there he stood , the Titan . He froze as our eyes crossed . But I knew him under his cowl . “ Friend .” I beckoned him . “ Come warm your hands .” “ They crack from the cold ,” he said , joining me . He did not speak of hands , but of the clay men . They needed fire , or they would die off . He begged their relief , his eyes round with compassion — a painful compulsion . I knew he would pay for it . He knew as well . He had aided us against his own during the Titan War , foreseeing the indomitability of Zeus . It was his decision to cross the thunder god . I stepped back . Prometheus cupped his hands , and a flame crawled inside . It did not burn him as he made off .
The mortals knew warmth that night . They dimmed the sapphire sky with their field fires . They singed their fingers and ruined cottages , some , and rejoiced to hold the day in their hands .