The Fall of Icarus (Book 1 in the Apollo series)

Οκτώ

Icarus heart was warm.

It was beating in a musical, calming rhythm that reminded him he was still alive.

This was the first time in his life he felt like that.

It was the first time he felt alive.

Thanks to Apollo.

Icarus had to thank Apollo for many things. Apollo, in the few days they'd been together, had done so much for Icarus, in the smallest of ways. He'd made his hands warm, his heart beat and toes wiggle. He'd put a smile on his face, he made his eyes crease in laughter and he made tears fall from his eyes in the best of ways.

Apollo had become his heart, in such a short space of time. He had become Icarus' world, quite ironically. He had given him life, he was sustaining him in a way that no one else had done before.

He wasn't just existing anymore.

Now Icarus was alive, and he was loving every second of it.

"You're music is beautiful." Icarus said, as he sat on his familiar windowsill, basking in the sunlight like a lazing cat with his eyes shut, listening to Apollo delicately pluck the strings of his lyre. "It's so...nice."

"Thats always comforting to hear." Apollo smiled, as he plucked another. "Considering what I'm the god of."

Icarus laughed. "I suppose so." He replied, looking deeply into Apollo's eyes. "I suppose so."

Apollo played a few more random notes on the lyre. "What do you plan on doing when your father finishes the labyrinth?" He asked. "What are you going to do?"

Icarus' smile disappeared from his face. "Probably nothing."

Apollo raised an eyebrow. "Nothing?"

"Nothing."

"Why nothing?"

Icarus sighed and he suddenly looked a lot more tense. "My father thinks that, once he finishes the labyrinth, we still won't be able to leave." He explained. "So I suppose that, once he finishes the labyrinth, I'll do nothing. Nothing's going to change."

Apollo put the lyre down. "Surely, you can't settle for this. Surely you can't be content with nothing changing."

"Of course I'm not content!" Icarus frowned. "I have never been content in my life because nothing's ever changed for me, no matter how much I've wanted it to!" He blinked quickly, as if he were trying to stop the inevitable flow of tears. "At this point, I don't know what to do. I prayed and now I have you, I can't ask for anything more."

Apollo's dark brows furrowed. "Is it that you can't ask for anything more, or is it that you think you shouldn't ask for anything more? Because let me tell you Icarus, there have been many before you who have asked for greater things than freedom."

Icarus frowned because Apollo was right.

"You aren't asking for your lover to be brought back, you aren't asking for eternal life, you aren't asking for all the world's riches; you're asking for freedom, which should be a human's given."

"I would like to leave, to go to all of these places that you described to me." Icarus said. "But maybe, this is my forever. I'm not happy with it, in fact I couldn't hate it more, but I'm trying to accept it. Accept the fact that these four walls might be my forever."

Apollo could not loose the frown that had grown onto his face. He hated that Icarus could now accept this, accept that he'd never leave Minos' palace. It was painful to him; this was no life, it was barely existing.