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

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Apollo may be terrified of death, he's said as such, but he is not terrified of his own death. He had long come to accept that one day he might die, after all death is a risk of living, but what he had not come to accept is deaths of those he loved.

It was a silly thing really. If he could die, of course others could, of course everyone could. But seeing death is a lot different from experiencing it, he knew as much.

Apollo had never felt the oncoming, looming threat of death, but he had seen his fair share of it, he had even cursed it upon others. He knew what watching people die felt like, and he will admit that it feels different each time, depending on the person. For those he gives plague to, he doesn't care; it's a page of his life he'll never revisit. For those he kills, like Python, he might dare say he's happy when they die. Python was a menace, destroying the lives of the people of Delphi, it was a blessing to see him go.

But for those whom he loved, that was different. It was an ache in his chest that he couldn't shake, it was a headache he couldn't loose, it was the eternal nothingness he always felt. It was something that was a lot more difficult to move on from, if one ever could.

Hyacinthus was his first love. He was the first love that Apollo would've given up everything for, and he was the first love of his many that died in his arms, through no one's fault but his own. Hyacinthus was the first to suffer for his ignorance, for his naivety- and Hyacinthus' body was the body to which he promised to never be so ignorant and naive again. Hyacinthus' death was the first death he wept for.

And for some reason, he always had the habit of repeating himself. Maybe it was the immortality that made it easy. Easy to repeat mistakes and never rectify their causes.

He wanted to help Icarus, he really did. Every fibre of his being wanted to help Icarus in any way he could, but he had also wanted to help Hyacinthus and Daphne- And look where that got them. If he could just help Icarus escape Minos, if he could just whisk him away like his heart wanted to, with no consequences, then he would. But there are always consequences, always. A millennia of internal suffering had taught him that much.

Apollo felt his limbs twitch every time he saw Icarus stand on the window ledge with those wretched wings tied to his arms. Every time he made the smallest movement, Apollo wanted to launch himself forward and stop Icarus from falling. He wanted to take Icarus in his arms, place him back on the window ledge and reprimand him for being such an idiot. For thinking that this had any hope of working.

There was always a different way. Always, he matter what Daedalus claimed. He'd much rather take the chance and steal a boat from Crete's port, than fly across the sky in makeshift wings that could oh so easily go wrong.

"That makes you uncomfortable, doesn't it?" Hermes grinned, as he rested his arm on Apollo's shoulder and pointed his spindly finger at Icarus, who was flexing his arms up and down. "Watching him with the inability to help should something go wrong. It's not a nice feeling, is it?"

Apollo pushed Hermes' arm off of his shoulder with a disgruntled look on his face. "This isn't funny Hermes, go find something or someone else to laugh at."

"Hey." He held his arms up in defence. "I'm not laughing. I was just indiscreetly making the point that you're uncomfortable and that humours me greatly."

Apollo frowned.

"Are you still angry I stole your special little cows that one time? You have to get over that. Seriously."