I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.

Host:
The storm had passed, but the sky still trembled.
The sea lay beneath it, vast and silver, churning with quiet memory. On the far end of the harbor, a colossal wooden horse loomed — its eyes hollow, its body slick with rain and moonlight. It stood like a monument and a warning.

In the shadows of the broken walls, Jack and Jeeny watched it in silence. Flames flickered where Trojan torches still burned, their light revealing the exhaustion carved into both faces.

The world was on the brink — not of celebration, but revelation. And somewhere in the stillness, Virgil’s words hung like a curse in the air:
“I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.”

Jeeny: (quietly) “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? How danger can disguise itself as wonder.”

Jack: (grimly) “That’s the oldest trick there is — a lie that looks like love.”

Jeeny: “You don’t trust beauty anymore?”

Jack: (staring at the horse) “Not when it comes on wheels.”

Host:
The wind carried the faint smell of ash and salt, a mixture of victory and decay. In the distance, the sea whispered like an oracle. Jack’s hand was clenched tight around his sword hilt, though no enemy stood near.

Jeeny: “Virgil’s words are centuries old, but they still cut deep. You think he meant it as a warning against deception — or faith?”

Jack: “Both. Gifts are never just gifts. Every kindness has a ledger behind it.”

Jeeny: (with quiet defiance) “That’s a bitter way to live.”

Jack: (turning to her) “It’s a realistic one. Every empire falls the moment it mistakes generosity for grace.”

Jeeny: “So what — we refuse all kindness? We turn away from every gift out of fear?”

Jack: (his eyes narrowing) “We learn to question it. That’s all. History isn’t written by the trusting.”

Host:
The moonlight glinted off the horse’s massive frame, the shadows beneath its belly deep and dark as secrets. The rain began again, soft and unhurried, tracing lines down the sculpture’s wooden flanks like tears.

Jeeny: “You know, sometimes I wonder if the Trojans didn’t deserve their fate — not out of stupidity, but out of faith. They believed in the beauty of the gift. They saw something sacred where others saw strategy.”

Jack: “Faith didn’t kill them, Jeeny. Pride did. They wanted the gift to prove they’d won. That’s how most people fall — not because they’re naive, but because they need to believe they’re safe.”

Jeeny: “And you don’t?”

Jack: “Safety’s a story people tell themselves before the ambush.”

Jeeny: (softly) “Maybe that’s why you’re always standing guard.”

Jack: “Someone has to.”

Host:
Lightning flared briefly — illuminating the horse, the walls, the two figures frozen between doubt and devotion. The thunder rolled a second later, heavy as prophecy.

Jeeny’s cloak clung to her shoulders, drenched, but her eyes — dark, alive — did not waver.

Jeeny: “You call it realism, Jack, but it sounds like fear. You fear gifts because they remind you that not everything is earned.”

Jack: (with a half-smile) “And you worship them because you think grace can’t have an agenda.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t that the essence of faith? To believe that not all good hides a trap?”

Jack: “Faith is for the unarmed.”

Jeeny: (fiercely) “No. Faith is for the undefeated.”

Host:
Her words struck him like the flash of a blade in the dark — clean, bright, undeniable. Jack’s gaze softened, though his mouth still held the ghost of a smirk.

The wind howled through the ruins, bending the flames of torches into gold ribbons. In that flickering light, both of them looked like fragments of a myth — reason and hope caught mid-argument, unable to destroy each other.

Jack: “Tell me, Jeeny — if the Greeks came to your gates tomorrow, arms open, gifts in hand — would you let them in?”

Jeeny: (without hesitation) “I’d let them in. But I’d keep my eyes open.”

Jack: (grinning) “So you’d trust and doubt in the same breath.”

Jeeny: “Isn’t that what love is?”

Jack: (pausing) “Maybe that’s why it scares me more than war.”

Host:
A single flame guttered out, the smoke curling toward the open sky. The sea beyond the walls glimmered faintly under the moon — calm, deceptive, eternal.

Jeeny stepped closer to Jack, her voice soft but firm.

Jeeny: “You see threats in everything because you’ve been betrayed. I see hope because I’ve been forgiven. That’s the difference between us.”

Jack: (quietly) “And yet we’re both standing here, afraid of the same thing.”

Jeeny: “Afraid of what?”

Jack: “Of being wrong — again.”

Host:
For a heartbeat, the world stilled. The horse, the sea, the rain, the firelight — everything seemed to listen. Then a low creak echoed from within the massive wooden figure, faint but unmistakable.

Both turned toward it, their bodies tense.

The ancient warning came alive in the air between them, trembling like truth reborn: I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts.

Jeeny: (whispering) “Do you hear that?”

Jack: (gripping his sword) “Yes. It’s the sound of faith meeting consequence.”

Jeeny: “Or trust being tested.”

Jack: “Same thing.”

Host:
Another creak, louder now. Somewhere inside the horse, something shifted — a sound like breath, like the stirring of hidden intent.

Jeeny’s eyes glistened, not from fear, but realization.

Jeeny: “Maybe the gift wasn’t the lie, Jack. Maybe the lie was believing that trust makes us weak. Maybe it was meant to remind us that even in danger, humanity survives by believing — by trying again.”

Jack: (looking at her, almost pleading) “And when it kills you?”

Jeeny: (gently) “Then at least you die human.”

Host:
The wind roared, the torches blew out, and the horse’s hollow began to glow faintly from within — the beginning of its betrayal.

Jack and Jeeny stood together, their silhouettes framed by both light and shadow, neither moving, neither retreating — like two halves of the same truth: one forged in fear, the other in faith.

Host:
The camera pulled back slowly, the walls of Troy towering in the background, the sea murmuring its ancient song.

And over the sight of the rising deception, Virgil’s warning echoed — not as prophecy, but as wisdom eternal:

Trust is divine, but never blind.
The gift you fear may betray you —
but the fear itself can become a prison.

The scene faded into the slow, rhythmic sound of waves against stone,
and the faint, hollow echo of hooves inside wood —
the eternal reminder that even the noblest gifts
carry the shadow of our own suspicion.