Chapter Text
I lay on the spread of tattered cloth my father tossed me for a place of rest, my throat feels closed and my eyes ache but I do not show my distress. I look over to my father, muttering over diagrams and the such.
The guards come in “your grace” they say, it feels like a mockery at this point. “You are requested by the counsel” my father eyes me, “what of the boy?” Not ‘my’, ‘the’...should I even call him my father?
“Not of importance”, he says, almost hesitant, the reason is beyond me. He looks at me again, and sighs “you are not to leave here” he demands, where would I go? I nod “answer me” his voice is stern and sharp
“I will not leave here” I echo, he nods, pleased, and walks out…
…
…..as soon as his footsteps dissipate i jump up, moving the cloths around to find the papers. There , i spread it out, laying it flat. Rushing to fathers- his desk, i carefully move it, pulling the back out slowly. My heart drops as i hear the door open, “apprentice….Octavius” the guard asks, seeing me, kneeling, holding the back of the inventors desk, any illness i had as my facade gone. He looks out the door and taps his finger to his lips, shutting the door once again. My hands shake as i open the desk back the rest of the way, pulling out the frame.
Two more days, two more days in this hell and im free.
—
Two more days! Two more days and im finally free!
“Oh dont act so excited, having your own herd just means you have more responsibility” My mother scolds me, making supper for us. I sit on the table “buuut it means i get to roam! I can see the world!” my brother snorts from the living room “maybe you should have been an apprentice to the sailor instead of dad” mom rolls her eyes “well someone has to carry on the family name, and i guess Jed will be the one”
“Shouldnt we be blacksmiths? Cause of our last name? Wasnt that a whole thing?” Mom gestured for me to set the table, which i start doing “we were, the smiths were blacksmiths but your great-great-great-grandmother fell in love with a sheep herder and he took her name. “Why?” i asked “because he was originally a girl, his family didnt much like that and he wanted to be completely separated from them” it made sense to me but also not “why didnt they like it?”
“They thought the almighty said that two men should not lay together, it wasnt true, ill have you know, and they wanted to be rid of everyone else that they didnt see fit in their name” me and my brother stayed quiet “well thats dumb” my older sister said “that it is, darlin’, i want yall to never behave like that, just cause someone’s different, it dont mean they’re bad, now Cyrus, honey, could ya call the rest of your siblings?”
–
I fashioned them together, the beeswax holding the feathers in place like it was all those years ago, call me a fool, call me insane, but daedalus was an inventor like he is, i had seen the diagrams! I tested over and over, fashioned faux birds of the same material, i had saw them fly until the eye could no longer see, like they had come to life like his arts often did. But the gods had never given me a blessing before, why would they start now? Im a curse anyhow.
As i held the last two feathers i heard the clanking of the guards, as quickly as i could i rushed to push the frame back in, moved the desk to rest on the wall
shoved the materials in the basket there were resided
Snuffed the candle fashioned as a solder
Hid the diagram
And laid with a sweat-laced sheen on my face, hopefully fooling them with my illness.
I coughed as he entered again, he sneered, glaring and tossed me a stale loaf of bread. As i took a bite, i wondered if this is how it would be like outside. Would it be worse? Jupiter, no, nothing could be worse than this, i could be torn limb from limb by the hellhounds of the underworld and i would call it an improvement, maybe im ungrateful.
Shame bubbled up in my throat, but i pushed it down with the bite i had swallowed. He went back to his work, i sighed, looking to the sky as the sun started to set.
A night, a day, a night, then you get to fly.