Orbs in the Sky

“Do you know what Angelica said, when she heard what you had done? She said, “You've married an Icarus, he’s flown too close to the sun.”

Wax slowly dripped down the metal plating at the bottom of the twisted candle, it’s little halo of light reflecting the sunrise over the sea. Silently, Daedalus held the handle of the candelabra and tipped it down to the pile of feathers by his feat. His eyes were giving their all to the small contraption he had built, but his son’s were straight at the sunrise. 

“Careful,” Daedalus said, concentrating on his work. “You don’t want to blind yourself, Icarus.”

The boy nodded, his attention still on the glowing orb in the sky. The sun was traveling rapidly, rising over the great seas of Crete. “Father, do you think that Helios ever gets bored of the same chariot ride everyday?”

“I suppose,” said Daedalus, as he picked the candelabra up. “But he doesn’t really have a choice. He’ll do it for the rest of time, unless he’s forgotten before then. But you help me here - if we want to get out of here, this is our last hope.” 

Icarus nodded, his gaze drifting from the sun down to the sea below it, graceful winged creatures swooping down and then back up again, over the steel and bricks stacked high which Icarus and his father were standing above. The same tower they had been in for the past several years, as Daedalus worked hard at contraptions to get them out, and Icarus watched the birds fly and the sun rise. A feather dropped from the bird’s poised wings, as it drifted down, fluttering in the wind like a butterfly, until a drop of wax weighed it back down onto Daedalus’s creation. 

Daedalus nodded, as he stood up. “We’re almost there, Icarus,” he said to his son, grabbing his hand. “We’re almost there.”

Icarus’s attention turned towards the contraption on the floor - a pair of wings, like that of the birds he had been watching fly above them. They were beautiful - not quite as beautiful as the natural ones on the bird’s backs, but beautiful, nonetheless. Beautiful like the sky at night, all of the different parts coming together nicely to form one complex, moving creature. 

Beautiful like the sun above, glowing as it rose and set with the Earth and with time itself, the original gods of the world. The sky, the Earth, and time. 

“How does it work?” he asked, turning towards his father again. 

Daedalus smiled. His face glowed like the sunrise, as he began to speak of his invention. It was like this all the time, for each and every contraption, each and every possibility of escape. Icarus was beginning to lose hope. At least he still had the sun and the birds and the stars to keep him company for eternity. At least Helios would always ride his chariot. 

“It’s complicated,” he said, finishing up a sentence Icarus had blocked out. “But, the gist is, we’ll fly. We’ll fly out, just like the birds you watch every day. We fly away, until we reach the next island. We’ll glide away.”

Icarus’s face lit up at that prospect - the prospect of gliding through the sky, of feeling the air around him, of the sun on his face and the ocean at his toes. Of being free.

“I was inspired by you, you know,” Daedalus said, watching his son closely. “By your fascination with the outside world. I see how you look at the sky, Icarus. I know that you’re head’s in the clouds half the time I’m talking to you. But I watch the clouds, too. And I watch the feathers float down, light as air. And then I realized - we could be like that, too. We could float through the air, until we reached our escape. Float to a new world, to a new island. We could do it, and we had the tools right with us.”

Icarus nodded, tightening his grip around his father’s hand. “I didn’t know that you noticed,” he said, his gaze drifting down yet again, towards the makeshift wings his father had created. The colors were all over the place, from all different types of birds, but they still looked as exquisite as the sky at night.

“Oh, Icarus. Of course I noticed,” said Daedalus, his own eyes focusing on his son. His son, who he knew probably had no recollection of the outside world. His son, who never even asked how they got there. Not that he would ever tell him. Not until they had escaped safely. 

Icarus didn’t need to know about the Labyrinth he had created, about the poor Minotaur he had entrapped, or the newly depressed Pasiphae, parted from her son, even if he was a monster. Deprived of her throne, and all because he had helped her when she had asked for it. 

He didn’t need to know. No one needed to know. 

Not in Sicily, where he’d have a fresh start. It wouldn’t be like Crete, or like Athens. It would be different. It would have to be different. 

“Icarus,” he said, letting go of his son’s hand. “We’re almost finished, alright? We’ll get out of here soon. I promise.”

Icarus nodded again, his gaze drifting again from the wings on the floor to the sky, the sky he’d see again from down below, an experience like never before. To feathers falling through the air, the birds majestically flapping their own wings, wings he would have on his own back soon. It would be everything he’d ever hoped of. 

Minutes turned to hours, as the birds dropped their feathers and the wax dripped down to hold them in place in the great creation Daedalus was building. Icarus kept his eyes at the sky, occasionally turning towards his father. Each time he turned away from the world and into his father’s own, the wings were more and more complete, more exquisite. Wax dripped away, timing his father’s work. Drips welded with seconds and the glorious wings began to finish themselves. 

Finally, Daedalus turned away from his work and towards his son, still staring at the sky. “Icarus,” he said, tapping his son’s shoulder. “It’s ready.”

The boy’s eyes widened, as he grasped his father’s hand once again. “Really?” he asked, the wind blowing away any doubt in his mind.

“Yes,” Daedalus answered, giddy with excitement. “We’re going to be free, son. Free.”

A fresh start, he thought to himself. A new life for himself and his son. A new life for them all. 

Quickly, Daedalus strapped the wings together with twiddled bark from the tall trees above the tower and slid them over Icarus’s body, handling the delicate wax and feather contraption carefully. After doing the same to his own, he helped his son up onto the ledge of the tower, holding his hand. 

“Now, Icarus,” he said, gripping his son’s hand tightly, so as to not let him fall. “There are two important things to remember.”

Icarus nodded, his eyes still wide with joy. 

“You can’t fly too close to the ground or you’ll fall, alright? But you can’t go too high, either, or the wax will melt. You have to fly evenly through the middle. Understand?”

Icarus nodded, his eyes glued to the sun. 

The two men, father and son, lept off of the ledge, their makeshift wings of feathers and wax gliding through the sky, slicing through the clouds. Icarus’s eyes never left the sun’s careful gaze, though, the gaze of Helios, watching from up above, his chariot moving further down in the sky as the sun began to set. 

Whether he knew how far he was going or not, Icarus’s eyes never once wandered towards his father. They were facined to the glowing orb in the sky, as he grew closer and closer towards it. Wax began to drip, just like it had from the candelabra earlier to create the wings, but Icarus couldn’t see it. All he could see was the great ball of gas gradually spread out to see a large chariot floating, drifting through the clouds and pulling the sun down. 

Helios’s chariot. 

“Icarus!” Daedalus shouted, calling for his son. But he couldn’t fly any further, and risk his own wings melting. 

Wax dripped further and further down the sky, as Icarus’s wings began to burn and melt. Tears dripped down Daedalus’s own face down below into the ocean, as he watched his son fall. He was falling. Falling, falling, falling, until there was no hope left for escape for the two of them.

There would be no new start in Sicily. No new life, far away from his past. All there would ever be was Icarus, and his journey too close to the sun. 

Tears flowed down Daedalus’s cheeks as he screamed and cried for his son, but it was too late. He had fallen, with a large thud onto the ocean as he fell directly above the reflection of the moon, yet another glowing orb in the sky. 

(Authors note: Hey guys! It's been a while! I've been super busy with school, but since the quarter just ended, I've had a chance to do some writing in my spare time. I have another story planned for this week's prompts, too, so we'll see if I can use my time wisely and get it done. Also, I just realized I really like having the word sky in the titles of my stories, lol. Well, I guess I'll say that this is a very well known myth and I did a very standard adaption of it, so while I hope you all like it and are able to take meaning from it, I also think I definitely have written better stuff in the past, and I really hope to grow further as a writer as time moves on, with school permitting, of course. Well, that's it! Thanks for reading!)