Of Wax and Wings

Chapter 2

Ikaros was small.

Maybe five or six, his tiny body stood only about three feet off the ground. His clothes hung loosely off his shoulders; they were far too big for him, meant for an older, taller child at least a foot taller than he was. Not sure where he was, Ikaros began to walk, looking for a door, a sign, anything at all that might tell him where he had found himself.

He knew who he was; he was Ikaros Levitz, from the cloud city Parnaia. However, the little boy found a mirror before he found anything else, and the face that looked back at him was an utter stranger, as wholly unfamiliar to him as the surface of the planet below his cloud city was.

The small child that stared back at him was different in appearance to Ikaros in almost every way. This boy's hair was a deep black, and Ikaros' was pure white. The boy with the dark hair had well tanned skin that spoke of long days playing in the sun. By comparison, Ikaros' alabaster skin spoke of days sitting in his room by himself, working on projects on his own time and within the safety of his own space. The one feature they did have in common, however, was the eyes that the two boys seemed to share. Both Ikaros and the stranger staring back at him from the mirror had similarly shaped, gentle, cobalt blue eyes that searched their reflection curiously.

"You aren't me." The boy with the dark hair stated, looking Ikaros up and down entirely of his own volition. Seeing that he was free to move his own body in any way he wanted to, regardless of the movements of the other boy, Ikaros nodded at the boy, paused, and then shook his head.

"You're right," the half-Aviatte agreed. "And you aren't me." Looking at his hands and his body, Ikaros realized that he was his proper height and age, so now he was looking down at the very small boy.

"So, can we be friends?" The little boy smiled endearingly up at Ikaros. "If I'm not you, and you're not me, can we be friends with each other?"

The question was a simple one. "Can we be friends?" Yet to Ikaros, It was a touching one. He smiled at the boy, nodding and chewing on his lower lip.

"I'm Ikaros," the Aviatte said, introducing himself.

The little boy beamed. "Nice to meet you Ika... Ik... Ikar..." Struggling with the Aviatte's name, the boy frowned.

"Ih-kah-rose," he enunciated, laughing.

"Ikaros! Nice to meet you! I'm-" the boy in the oversized shirt never got to tell Ikaros his name, because the sentence died in his throat and he stared with wide and fearful eyes at something out of Ikaros' field of view. He screamed and fled the mirror, his shrieks echoing in Ikaros' ears long after the boy was gone.

In his place, a hulking shadow lumbered into the mirror's frame, looming too close to the glass for Ikaros' comfort. It was a mass of the purest darkness, punctuated only by pointed white teeth that glimmered in a wicked and dangerous smile and red eyes that seemed to glow with the amount of evil contained within them.

"Hello, Dodo," it said in a guttural voice. Underneath the creature's words, Ikaros could hear the voices of his school bullies all speaking the same words.

"He is not one of us, he is not one of us, he is not one of us," Repeating over and over, enough to drive someone mad. "Freak, freak, freak..."

The monster laughed at Ikaros' obvious fear. "Yes," it snarled, stepping closer, pressing against the glass until its mass slips through the glass, approaching Ikaros. "Be afraid, you flightless bird. Be ashamed of what you are, you freak. You will only ever make me stronger."