look at me crossposting my fics on tumblr!
anyways i love hades 2 and mel and icarus make me insane. i also dabble in a bit of eris/mel but right now have some waxwitch yearning. i'm not too proud of this one bc i wrote it in one sitting and it could defo use some work -- but this isn't going to be my last waxwitch fic so i'm just feeling it out for now.
summary:
icarus is doing his part on the surface -- safe to say he's proud of it.
but one flight through the rifts of thessaly takes him back to a place he wishes he could forget, looking into the eyes of the demigod he once loved. and perhaps still loves, too.
word count: 1985
ao3 link
Icarus sits, cross legged, at the stoop of his tower. His wings always feel so snug when he’s tied it to his torso, and even as a shade, he’s gotten his way of adjusting its inner workings just right. Correcting mistakes long after they’ve already driven him to his end.
It’s been a while since he left the Crossroads, breathing the fresh air he once believed he would no longer be able to take in. To feel the sun, Apollo’s light, on his skin, and feeling the gentle warmth that once scorched him whole. A shade only feels these things in fragments, not in its entirety. Not like a living mortal would.
But it’s not all that bad, he supposes. He flies across the remains of Olympus during the mornings where he can enjoy his solitude. He does it less often, now, ever since everything got worse. Icarus notices that there are eyes everywhere – and the rush of sand grows ever quicker. So in turn, he keeps watch, waits tirelessly, for something to happen. He helps the living when he can with his inventions – whatever is useful for their survival. He observes, even though he has no one to tell (Not even his father – even in retirement, he’s too busy with his tools than to look at the outside world. Perhaps it’s cabin fever, perhaps it’s routine).
So when he sees Melinoë at the hull of a ship in the Rifts of Thessaly swinging her blade in precise, organized movements, the refreshed resolution of a warrior, a witch , his heart – though only a hollow replica of what it once was – almost stops.
Immediately, he thinks fast – he draws the explosives strapped to him, aiming them for the enemies she fights against. He’s careful to avoid her, catching a glimpse of her left forearm, trapped in a green glow that exposes the bones underneath.
His stomach churns, both in guilt and in envy. So this is the privilege of a demigod.
Once it appears all the foes have disintegrated into thin air, Melinoë lowers her weapon, wiping out a sheen of near-golden sweat on her forehead with the back of her palm. A chubby frog ribbits happily next to her, and he sees her smile in relief, saying something under her breath. Probably to Frinos.
Icarus, still in the air, wonders if she has noticed him yet. He doesn’t know if he wishes she did. Eventually, as if she heard him, she looks up, her green-red stare flickering up to meet his gaze.
She’s surprised, for a moment, almost taken aback, eyes wide with recognition. Then she waves, excitedly, and a part of Icarus is brought back to their time together in the Crossroads, when he would visit her tent, and he would be greeted by that same excited wave.
In the Crossroads, when she meant everything to him. When her heart once belonged to him – or at least, that’s what he believed. You never know with those with godhood in their veins, after all.
When he betrayed her. Took a part of her away under his own selfish pretenses.
“Icarus!” She can hear him yell, albeit faintly. “Come down here!”
Icarus looks at her, one last time. He inhales, heavily, before swooping down, lowering himself until the soles of his feet press against the creaking floorboards of the ghost-driven ship.
And there stands Melinoë, across from him. A closer distance away.
Even the sky, stripped of light, could not dampen the way his insides glowed from the sight of her.
“It’s really – it’s really you,” he breathes, amazed. His mind and heart gather itself in a moment, snapping back to reality. Icarus switches his tone into something firm, more solidified– “Now, before you say anything, I know I’m not supposed to be here. But I was just flying by, I spotted this ship and got curious. Had to drop in for a closer look. Um…”
He rubs the back of his neck, hesitating to look up at her. His feet don’t like being on the ground for too long, especially when he has the opportunity to leave.
“...And now I’ll be taking off.” He turns around, getting ready to climb up the ship for his wings to gain their altitude. His thoughts are everywhere and nowhere, all at once. “Let’s just… pretend this never happened, okay?”
But before he can even take a step further, he feels a sharp tug on his wings, which makes him gasp.
“Hold it right there, Icarus!” Melinoë shouts, her voice tight. “I’m not going to let you fly away from me again.”
Icarus clenches his jaw, letting her words sizzle on his skin. Melinoë lets go of him when she catches her own words, suddenly stuttering over herself.
“I mean, without a chat, at least…” she says, quietly. He looks at his sandals, feeling his weight shift onto the wooden floors, rocking with the movement of the waves. The sea is far from calm – but they are both able to find a balance here, just enough to feel like they are stilled by the other’s presence. Lanterns adorn the ship’s pillars, green flames flickering hauntingly to cast a bright emerald hue over their skin. It matches Melinoe’s skeletal arm – the one Icarus is responsible for.
“Okay,” he says, simply. He doesn’t know what there is to say – or what there isn’t. It’s felt like forever since they last spoke – but with a mere shade and the princess of the Underworld, time is both irrelevant and an enemy.
“Well,” she picks up, putting away her blade, “For starters, what are you doing in the middle of this blasted war?”
Icarus laughs. Same old Melinoë . Her personality shines in her words – and it hurt to admit, but he really missed it.
“The same thing I’ve been doing.” He gestures to the explosives strapped to his chest, the bag of inventions he has wrapped around his torso. Each item proved his usefulness since their time apart, his own ability to take care of himself and provide for others. It proved that he’s better now – that the mistakes he made long ago were nothing more than mistakes. And now he’s aiding the gods, aiding the witches, aiding Melinoë – in whatever way he can.
“I’ve been slowing these bastards down.” He snorts, bitterly. “If everyone like me pitched in a little bit… this war would’ve all well been over now.”
“Like you,” she repeats, smiling tenderly. He reciprocates by laughing, shyly, trying his hardest to conceal the way his throat is drying up.
“That may be so,” she continues. Her eyes span over the surface, where the water breaks from the sides of the ship. She watches the monsters in the sky, the way they hover – the ones Icarus has been fighting relentlessly for a while, now.
“But this is a matter between gods and Titans.” She looks back at him, and her eyebrows furrow. Her hand moves forward – the one he didn’t strip from her, the one still ashen grey, like the rest of her expanse of skin he had once gotten the privilege of seeing. It moves as if to reach him, to graze his elbow. But he moves away, afraid of what he might feel if she touched him again.
“I wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” she eventually says, pulling her hand back when she notices his hesitance.
“A bit late for that now, Meli. Don’t you think?” Icarus cracks a painful smile, not realizing he’s called her that until after it’s left his mouth. He’s too embarrassed to correct himself, so he doesn’t. “For both of us.”
Melinoë tilts her head. “I can handle it. You know me.” A pause. “Or, at least, you did once.”
It’s so easy for her. It always has been.
He wants to say so many things to her – he wants to tell her where he’s been, what he’s been making, what he’s been up to. He wants to tell her how much his inventions have improved – much more polished and effective than his prototypes back in the Crossroads. He wants to ask her – he wants to know – how she’s been, too.
Instead, he coughs. “Anyway, I’ve kept you for far too long. You must be heading for Mount Olympus, aren’t you?” He nods up to the sky. “I’d fly you up there if I could, but I don’t think these wings could handle the two of us yet.”
Melinoë laughs. “It’s alright, Icarus. Thank you anyways…” She sighs. “This probably won’t be the last time you’ll see me climbing up here, either.”
“Yes, well.” Icarus shrugs. “You’ve always been one to be rather persistent.”
“And so have you.” Her voice is entwined with knowing humor, the tone of someone who once knew everything about him, and who he once knew everything about, too.
He coughs, again, to break the tension, to move on, he doesn’t know.
“Okay, well, let me give you something I’ve been working on before I go.” He stops, opening his bag of various trinkets and inventions. They were initially meant to keep him flying out there, fighting off the wretched beasts, for as long as possible. But this was the least he could do for her, after everything.
She’s born to do this. When she was stripped from her crib, from her family – from then on, she was born to fight. Even back then, when he got to see every part of her, to know her from her body to her soul, he knew that well. That was all, that is still, that she cares about.
And one thing Icarus knew about the gods — it's that nothing could ever stop their resolve.
“And before you say anything, I swear these all work.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything!” she laughs, looking at the items he’s displayed for her, running her calloused fingers across the metal. She eventually takes the bottle with an explosive coating. “This will be good for my cast circles, will it?”
“Err, well, yes. If you bind it with your spells, you can intertwine the explosives with your attacks,” he explains, jittering with his fingers as she leans closer to him to examine the trinket. “Though, I haven’t tried it myself since my spells aren’t that good. I’m still positive it works.”
Melinoë purses her lips, shaking it a little bit, before putting it in her own bag. “I’ll keep that in mind, then.” The wind whips through her hair, the ocean’s horizon revealing a faint shadow of land. She tucks a lock behind her ear.
“Thank you, Icarus. Truly. I’m… I’m happy to see that you’re alright.”
“Likewise.” He eventually closes his bag, wrapping it around him again. He clings to its straps for dear life. “Good luck, Meli. I’ll… see you soon?”
“You can probably count on it, yes.” She sighs again, motioning for Frinos to follow her. A mirror sits at the side of the ship, where begins muttering under her breath, supposedly casting a spell.
“I’ll be off,” Icarus says, to no one, probably to himself. He grabs the ropes to climb up above the mast, watching as green dust takes her whole, sticking to her like goo. With a surge of light, she disappears into the mirror, into nothingness. And he is left with the ghost of Melinoe’s scent, her laughter, her voice.
He didn’t realize he’d missed her this much.
“Agh, gods,” he mumbles, slamming his head against the wood. Forget it. These lingering feelings – they were positive feelings, nonetheless, and he’s glad to see her again, to know that there’s at least some progress to this war.
“Stop it. Let’s get back to work.” Icarus sighs, already on the highest point of the ship. The wind is strong – good – and he lets himself take flight from the way his wings steady against the air.
He will see her again soon, he supposes. She even said so herself.
And, honestly, he couldn’t wait until then.
