Elysian

01 | Icarus

I C A R U S

He was the dawn, a blush seeping across the horizon like a blood stain. He was the end of the night sky, the destruction of all things dark. He veiled the stars, banished the moon and called upon the sun. Wax dripped off his fingers and from his eyes, tears that crumbled where they should have dried.

* * *

In an ancient land with sweltering summers, marble structures rose from the ground as if the heavens were gravity and all fell into the sky instead of into the ocean. Delphina, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, roamed through a crowded market—an agora—in Athens, masked by a cloak and veil. She carried a wooden crate filled with solid wax and her men carried planks of wood behind her; they were all items requested by her lover.

"Icarus," she greeted him with a shy kiss on the cheek, polite and respectful, careful not to reveal too much around the prying eyes of her men. She turned to them with the flick of her wrist, gesturing them to drop the wooden crates before clicking her tongue dismissively. "Do not dare speak of this arrangement to anybody—especially to my father," she reminded them as they began their long journey home. As far as her father was concerned, she was at the agora purchasing oils and perfumes for the night's feast.

"Did you bring everything on the list I hid inside our tree?" Icarus asked her after planting another soft kiss on her plump mouth. She nodded and waved a hand over the boxes she smuggled from her father's shipment that morning.

"Will it be enough?" She watched him crouch down, his worn tunic parting to reveal the tanned skin of his scuffed knees. She blushed and looked around his mud house, a modest space cluttered with pencils, rulers and protractors, finished models and incomplete structures, physics and architecture, hidden scrolls and dust. Lots and lots of dust.

Icarus turned a plank of wood on its side, eyes lit like a swollen, golden sun. Delphina wondered if he would ever look at her with that same transfixed smile—lips stretched and cheeks flushed with a blossom of excitement. He had so much potential. Enough ignorance to kill a man, and enough to woo her away from the marble fortress her father kept her in. In a boyish manner, he spared her a crooked smile. It wasn't the same beaming warmth that he shared with his secret woodwork projects, but it was enough to stir her heart, and enough to keep her coming back everyday.

"How did you get past your father?" Icarus asked, taking her hand and leading her to his table, brushing aside scrolls so that she could sit down without creasing her dress.

"How did you get past yours?" Delphina threw back, arching a thin brow to taunt him as he rolled his eyes.

"My father," he stressed, "never leaves his study to notice my absence."

"Mmm, is that so?" she asked, standing up again. She smothered a giggle behind her palm when he latched an arm around her waist and pulled her close.

"All that my father lacks, yours excels in."

Delphina wrinkled her nose, a dainty button splattered with freckles. Icarus often liked to compare them to constellations. He ran a calloused finger along the curve of her jawline and kissed her slowly.

"My father keeps me a prisoner," Delphina protested quietly when Icarus released her to return to his work. He could never give her the hours he gave to his creations, but she didn't mind too much. She liked to watch him work, the crease between his brow, the tip of his tongue between his teeth. It was a sight she could never tire of.

"What do you plan to make with all this wax and wood?" she asked when he began to unpack the crates she'd moved heaven and hell to get for him. "Not another horse drawn carriage for another prince, might I presume?"