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A tall tower sat upon a castle, locked away from the outside world, sentenced to look out a window till death claimed its occupants. They were never to see the light of the days and darkness of the nights, only gaining the smallest amount when it filtered through their window. A boy lived in the tower with his father, an inverter and architect. The boy's father was hired for a task, he was to create a labyrinth beneath the king's place to hold his wife's child, a minotaur created by a certain sea god’s retaliation. It was to be inescapable, trapping the beast in there till someone killed it.
The boy's father worked day and night to create this labyrinth for the king, only being allowed short periods of rest in which he could see the boy. When he did, the boy would ask for stories of the word outside the tower, lands that the boy's father had seen. Yet, he would never unless freed from the tower. The boy's father promised once he was done that he would take the boy to see the wonders of the world. The years ticked by and still the boy was trapped. The boy took to sitting on the ledge of the tower's window to feel the sun against his face which the sun happily agreed to do shining it's warm light upon the boy, wrapping him in its warm embrace. The boy would tell the sun his worries, his life before being trapped in the tower, even if it was mostly forgotten, and his hopes once he was freed. The sun would only listen, never acknowledging the boy's stories and memories. It was content to shine it’s light upon the boy before the moon started to rise and the sun disappeared casting the world into darkness.
When the sun appeared the boy, now a young man, felt at ease and peaceful even with his father's woes hanging over him like a cloud. At the window, the sun would shine it’s love onto the young man as he would stare into the rushing seas and blue skies. However, the young man's father soon made a great mistake. He invoked the king's wrath when his lie about the completion of the labyrinth was discovered. The man had taken to falsifying his reports, under the suspicion that the king would put them both to death once the build was complete, trying to plan an escape. The young man and his father were trapped in their tower by the king’s orders to await their deaths. The young man teary-eyed sat at his window, the sun embracing him for what he believed to be the last time, while his father went to work on a plan to free them both.
The young man was torn from the sun's warm embrace by his father, forced to put on wings made of feathers, wood, and candle wax. A question of safety died on his lips as he was pushed out the window, flying to freedom. The young man, gleeful to be free from the dark tower with only a small window to the light outside, took to the skies faster than his father. He soared high and low towards the sun and seas. A warm wind carried a voice calling to the young man to soar closer to the sun, as close as he could. He obeyed, soaring higher and higher, the wind drowning out his father's calls for him to come back before he fell into the seas below. Higher he climbed to meet the sun in the beautiful blue sky as it called to him from it’s place, begging for him to join him. The young man reached out his hand towards the beautiful sun feeling it’s warmth and loving embrace as hot wax dripped off his wings. It burned his skin, feathers flew free, dragging him away from the sky down to the seas below. The sun would not allow for their love to fall and reached out, grabbing the young man's hand pulling him to them. The young man stared at the face of his love the sun or Apollo as he was known to many before he was pulled into a warm embrace being called sweetly by his name, Icarus.
He was Apollo's love that flew too close to the sun yet was saved to be with him upon his chariot of light in the sky forevermore, surrounded by love and light. Far below, however, Icarus's father weeped for his lost son, his only boy, as he flew to his version of freedom far from the king's tower. He passed on the story of Icarus's tragedy, of his death, not of his flight to be with Apollo, the sun god and his love, forever in his warm embrace allowing for Icarus to disappear from tellings of Apollo and his influence in other stories.