The Sun and the Sea

Invocation

Humans on the same level as creatures of the sky?

Impossible said the gods

It was never their intent to give man both wings and intelligence

The wings are not their worry of course but the feeling that accompanies them

Jubilance

It filled his veins just like the golden ichor of the gods

His wings carried him higher and higher

Words floated in his mind

Warnings of altitude 

Wax melting under the sun

But Icarus

The jubilance in his system 

Carried him higher and higher 

He grew closer and closer to the blinding sun 

Closer and closer to being filled with the enemy of the gods

Jubilance, for like helium it drew things closer to their realm

His father shouted and shouted 

But to no avail

The jubilance in Icarus' system was to the point where gravity wasn't a concept

Despite popular belief

He knew what he was doing 

He knew that Apollo was being sent to strike him down

But what he knew above all

That even though death was the price 

(the price to literally end all other prices)

The feeling of blood coursing through his veins

Insistent on carrying oxygen that filled his lungs

(there was barely any)

The slightest flick of a finger out of line 

Swaying his entire figure in a direction

(fracturing his finger in the process)

This he would pay any price for 

Pain and serenity combined into the most beautiful combination

He finally understood those who talked of a figure

Both black and white and perfectly balanced

For he had never seen pain be so beautiful

He had never felt it either

His father screamed and screamed but Icarus felt everything

Sorrow that his father must see him fall

Joy that he may live on

Satisfaction in the final moments of life

Disappointment that he could only feel this once

But perhaps it was best that way 

He fell and fell

Twisting and turning while the wind whipped his back

Gasping for air as the oxygen around him rushed

Smacking into the water

Although he never felt the water

For the Fates cut his string right as he plunged

Hades now had control of the soul of Icarus

Poseidon had control of the body

Apollo had control of the sorrow

Daedalus had control of the grief

And as Icarus was tortured on the racks of hell

Tortured for his arrogance and selfishness

A question was repeatedly demanded

He was asked when he was first chained

And he was asked after all his teeth had been broken 

He was asked through all of eternity

Through spitting teeth and tired limbs

"What was the best part?!"

He did not respond by saying the jubilance which rose him to the sky

Nor did he speak of the wind as he ascended

The words he repeated came through gritted teeth and pained eyes

"The fall"

When he was asked

By the bittersweet god of Hell

Black robes swathing across his body 

Icarus smiled with his pearly teeth not yet rotted

As Hades demanded that he share this feeling with the world

With himself

But Icarus knew if the whole world felt it

Then no person would ever  

His back became a pit of scars

Carrying wounds that would kill a person twenty times over

He was already dead so the pain had no escape

Except for his memory

His only escape

The memory of the wind and the jubilance

The memory of the fear and the regret 

The memory of his father and Apollo touching his wings right before

He fell into the hands of the god of darkness

"No."