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His story would be told for generations, for centuries. Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun, the boy whose recklessness and hubris led to his death. But that was never the full story, that was the story people told for lessons, to tamp down on disobedience and pride. It was the story of Daedalus more than Icarus, of the inventor’s grief-stricken face as he buried his son and how a light went out inside him from that day forward. It was a cautionary tale parents and loved ones told in the hopes that they would never experience what Daedalus did.
It was one part of the story, not the full one.
That story omitted how Icarus had spent nearly his entire life locked away in a labyrinth. He had learned to make mechanical wonders at the side of his father and heard all the stories of heroes and gods, but that was all he ever learned. All he knew of the world was what his father told him and what he could see from a window.
He could see the sea beyond them, where ships traveled back and forth bringing wonders and horrors (the ships of the Argonauts or the ships of Athenians to be sacrificed to the Minotaur). If he leaned far enough out the window, he could see the lush mountains where Artemis roamed. He saw the moon at night, an orb hung in the sky as Selene made her journey across the cosmos. At day, he saw the sun, bright and shining and warm.
They were reminders of the world he had never been a part of. He could see the ships and meadows but he would never feel the salty water splashing on him as the ship rocked or the soft grass beneath his feet. He would ask Daedalus for ever more stories, pressing for the finer details. What did these heroes and kings look like? What did they sound like?
Even while creating inventions at Daedalus’ side his mind was ever wandering, ever desiring. There was an entire world out there that only existed in stories, of heroes slaying the monster and living happily, of sailors eaten by six-headed monsters, of musicians trying to carry their loved one out of the Underworld. Tragedies and comedies and heroic tales with happy endings. No matter how the story ended, there was always one constant: they lived. Even when they died at the end, for a time they had lived, they had experienced happiness and sorrow, had friends and lovers. They had lived. Icarus had not.
Imagine Icarus’ joy at Daedalus’ proposal. Wings, made of metal, that would take them far away from the Labyrinth and Crete. They would find a new island where they could live, where they wouldn’t be locked away any longer.
He worked hard on the wings, perhaps harder than Daedalus himself. When Daedalus strapped the wings to Icarus’ back, he could barely keep himself still. All he could picture was flying over the sea like a boat travels on it, seeing from above the people living out their days, free and uncaged.
He nodded distractedly at his father’s warnings and then they were gone, leaping from the windows. The wings folded out, flapping like they were connected to a bird and made of feathers instead of metal, and they soared.
Icarus laughed and spread his arms and wings and looked up at the sun above. It was bright, shining, and he remembered the stories of how Apollo and Helios carried the sun across the heavens. His heart soared with him as he flew higher, hand outstretched as if he could catch the sun chariot.
The warnings fled his mind. At that moment there were no thoughts in his mind, only emotions. Even as the first feathers drifted from his wings, even as Daedalus cried out his name, Icarus kept flying, a smile firmly on his face and eyes lighting up in a way they never had. There were no words to describe what he felt that day - excitement, joy, happiness, exhilaration, nothing could do justice to that moment as Icarus soared above the clouds.
There was a world out there, a sun, and for the first time in his life he was a part of it. He would touch it and leave his mark. He was free and he was living.
He swore he could see the sun chariot, see Apollo leaning out of it and stretching a hand towards Icarus. Their fingers brushed. And then Icarus fell.
His wings came apart at the seams, feathers drifting around a screaming Daedalus.
The story wasn't wrong when it told of how Icarus fell into the ocean that day, how he died, how Daedalus found his body and buried him.
But what the story failed to tell was that Icarus didn’t scream, didn’t feel terror or curse the Fates as he plummeted from the sky. No, he stared into Apollo’s eyes, the same color and warmth as the sun, and his smile didn’t break. Even as he fell, he wasn’t scared. He closed his eyes and hit the waves.
Icarus died that day, but first he flew on metal wings. First he touched the sun. First he lived.