𝗔𝗣𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗨𝗦𝗘 ! ━ 𝙋. 𝙅𝘼𝘾𝙆𝙎𝙊𝙉

ix.

𖤓

The boy in front of her was bothered with shivers, and uncontrollable spasms.

It was a sad sight. A face so familiar covered in dark red splotches, burned skin in some places healed into ugly scars. A boy so young, who should never suffer anything like this at his early age.

She could recognize this face anytime. The sweetest face she has ever seen, gods included. It was the face of a man's son she once upon a time loved, in the bloody and corrupted times of Crete thousands of years ago. Where both the son and father were imprisoned in the palace for his crime being a pure genius in craft.

The memories no matter how old, she could see them vividly in her mind.

The nights Daedalus spent in her chambers when she was asked to help her sister, the times she saw young Icarus innocently running around the palace, having no idea he was yet another of Minos's prisoners.

She remembered the time she heard of the boy's death. How his ambition and desire to do the impossible were his downfall. How his tragic passing utterly broke her old lover, who, some say, went crazy with grief, and suddenly disappeared without a trace from the surface world.

Now the exact same boy, thousands of years later, laid right in front of her, already half way through the treatment.

If he were somebody else, another boy, she wouldn't bother helping, not anymore. She wouldn't feel bad for him, and she wouldn't use her herbs and magic on him.

But here he was, Icarus in another body, on the brink of death so similar to the one all those millennia ago.

It must've been a curse, because what were the chances of almost dying from such similar reason?

His burns were severe. It took hours upon hours to get the boy into his previous appearance. Even to someone as powerful as her, this process was complicated and required hours of non-stop chanting and high quality potions.

Thankfully the results were more than satisfactory.

It was a late afternoon the day after the three teenagers came upon her island Aeaea, that the boy woke up.

It was a slow process of him slowly twitching his fingers, his head lolling from side to side, and his breath slowly becoming more shallow. Finally, he slowly opened his eyes, and she had to steady herself.

Not only his face was the exact same. His eyes, by the Fates, his eyes.

The hazel in them was softer - muted greens and sleepy browns, as if the color hadn't fully returned from wherever he just was. Gold lingered faintly at the edges, dulled like a memory of sunlight rather than the sun itself.

They drifted, unfocused, like he was still half in a dream, trying to remember where he left his thoughts. There was a dazed gentleness in them, a flicker of warmth beneath the haze - like the sun rising behind heavy eyelids, not yet ready to burn but promising light all the same.

His tired gaze finally found her melancholic one, and his now soft lips, free of any scars or wounds, parted in an unspoken question.

She slowly came up to him, her movements clear of any hesitation. She reached out to him, and he flinched, or at least tried to, since his body had yet to rest and recharge.

"It's alright, my boy," she said, hoping to somehow bring him some sort of comfort. "I know you're confused."

He keenly observed her, his still hazy eyes not leaving her for a second.

"Your friends took you here," she paused as she noticed his expression lightened up. "They are very worried about you."

"Who...?" His voice was raspy and croaky, not surprising as she had to heal his vocal cords as well.