I am so glad to be back! My exams are done, and I have promised myself to write until my dominant hand falls off xD I've had this idea since mid-April, and had a first draft planned, but I am so, so happy to be able to put it to... paper? pixels? anyway, to {blank} at last.
This was supposed to be one lengthy oneshot, but I decided to make it a two part thing. Stick around for the second part, which will be uploaded within the following week (or so).
Quick note regarding the Italian: I do not speak it, so if any of y'all native Italian speakers or learners notice any mistakes in the few phrases I've used please bring them to my attention. I've been using my French and Spanish to try to be sure that every sentence I've constructed makes sense, but they can only help up to a certain point. If you spot any mistakes, please tell me and I will correct them immediately. Thanks in advance uWu
I'd like to thank my best friend and (strict) critic, Helen, for proofreading the first chapter, and for encouraging me to, quote on quote "GET DOWN TO WRITING" (all caps) when I told her what this particular story was about.
Please R&R :)
Part One: Lontano dall'Orlo*
I feel like I am slowly being consumed by a deep, ingrained hate for the aggregate of beauty that our Earth has to offer as I grow older. This is a paramount defeat for me; if anything, I made a living by appreciating the beautiful and breathing life into them, observing as they grew from ideas that occupied a minuscule part of a minuscule cell of my brain to towering structures that never failed to impose and engrave their grandeur on the pair of eyes that admired them.
More often than not, those eyes were mine. I fail to believe that any other man but myself could experience the awe and fear that would sprout inside my chest whenever I glanced upon the lofty buildings whose construction I had overseen.
Indeed, watching your creation become something bigger than yourself can be unnerving. I was always beside myself with joy and terror whenever I saw the last stone being put into place. My dismay had nothing to do with fear of a collapse, no — I knew myself well enough to be sure that my plans were perfectly thought through.
I never really understood why this dread would always fester inside, like bile in my throat. Not until now, when I have grown to loathe even my children of stone and cement.
My old age is catching up with my mind. It is ineluctable that I become the man I perpetually abhorred becoming. One cannot escape from what he fears the most.
I fear the night now. I can never elude its grasp, which drags me through dark waters and pulls me under. They taste of salt, loneliness and sorrow. When I was but a hatchling of a man, I used to love the night — I saw no reason to hate it, always accompanied by a jolly swarm of friends, or a most engaging lover. I basked at the silence of the dark. It amplified my company's laughs, the moans of my amante*. Now it only echoes back my own silence.
So, I grew to loathe it.
I then swore to love the day. The sun's noble rays, the throbbing life it so plainly offered were gifts that I would be too ungrateful to not accept.
He ruined that, too.
He was flying too high. Dangerously high.
I still remember that morning, when the sun was cracked open by my striking epiphany.
I see him climb his way up the planks, inspecting everything around him. Higher, higher still, he dares to reach the parts where the scaffolding is unreliable. I catch a derisive whisper behind me.
"Il cocco*'s got some stones".
I have little regard for the deplorable nickname that my workers have given Erik. Perhaps I am unwilling to admit that they are right.
At the time, my attention was fixed on him alone. My most experienced men were hesitant to mount those boards, and the apprentices in Erik's level would bluntly refuse to do so unless I gave them a raise.
When I cry out for him to "scendi subito da lì*", he laughs.
He seldom laughed.
I taught the boy my craft, let him play around with my tools, like homespun toys; watched as wonders bloomed under his fingertips, saw the results of his genius greatly exceed those of my experience, the pervasive feeling of dread always nearby. Constantly watching, my gaze cast over him, my scrutiny making clear warnings of all that was beyond his reach. And he would laugh. And he never laughed. He did, only then.
Only now. On those planks.
It wasn't until that day that I understood that I had once again allowed my creation to eclipse me myself.
Disregarding his master was one thing, but merely laughing in the face of such danger was another.
I remember finding the quote from Ovid the night before.
"At last, the wings were done", he tells us, "and Daedalus slipped them across Icarus' shoulders. "Take your flight between the heavens and the sea." he said. "Always between the two. Steer where I lead the way."
Fate can be ruthless, this much I know. The poet spun tales that have come to haunt my dreams. Tales that I had never had any reason to pay much heed to.
"Stay away from the edge." I had advised him that first day. The old man's face was wet with tears as he chattered more fatherly advice to his son.
But the edge is a sun by another name, and it called to Erik like the blazing sphere in the sky did to the reckless Greek.
"Stay away from the edge."
"I shall do nothing of the kind, signore." Beyond his father's lead, the wide sky was there to tempt him as he steered toward heaven.
When I was near him, my glorious Roman hometown metamorphosed into Crete. Wings grew on both our backs, and the Aegean expanded, vast, under us. Samos appeared on our left, and I could barely discern Delos and Calymne on our right.
I would hear him flap his wings next to me. The next moment, he'd be gone. I'd see a shadow loom above me, and snap my head heavenward. The sun's rays assault my vision, when I catch a glimpse of him.
He is smiling. He seldom smiles.
"Scendi subito da lì!" I hear myself roar, yet again. Without warning, the sea shifts into dry land. The sun elevates higher, or maybe I descend lower. My apprentice is still scaling the same rickety scaffolding that protests and creaks under his weight.
"Scendi subito da lì, maledizione*!" My workers have gathered around me. Some watch the boy in disbelief, while most stare at me like I am some special kind of madman.
"Signore, would you like me to bring him down?" Ignazio, the contractor, asks over my shoulder.
Our voices fail to discourage Erik's climb, not even by a bit. He ignores us, as if he's being invited into a foreign realm by some unworldy force, and deems it too discourteous to decline the invitation. And then:
"Let him fall."
"...What did you say, Pietro?" I glare at the audacious man that had come to stand by my side, gazing up at the boy on the planks.
"I said, let him fall, signore. He is stubborn, he is arrogant, the word "limit" simply does not exist in his vocabulary. He will be nothing more than a burden for the construction in the future. For God's sake, stop trying to protect the lad. It is pointless, signore."
I look around, waiting for someone, anyone, to differ. I am met with a succession of hard stares.
"Nessuna disciplina*." Pietro continues, clicking his tongue, the disapproval in his voice plainly evident. "Let him burn, signore."
My heart skips a beat at his words. My aged, feeble heels grow wings and I find myself running up the scaffolding, the boards groaning emphatically as I sprint across the path they form. I climb up the decks to save time, my weak, arthritic grip trying to stick to the rails. In a flash, I have reached the top, and Erik stands a few metres away from where I am, his back turned to me.
"Erik!" I bark.
He turns around. His eyes bug from behind the mask.
Unmoving, his stare fixes on something behind me.
"Bambino*, do you even hear a word I say?" I snarl.
Before I can process what is happening, I see him dash in my direction. The planks are shaking violently, and I feel his arms seizing my shoulders tightly before we plunge to the ground, ten metres below, the boards crashing down with us.
*
(Lontano dall'Orlo (tr. Italian): Away from the Edge)
amante: lover (fem.)
cocco: pet (as in "teacher's pet")
scendi subito da lì: get down from there immediately
maledizione: dammit, damn you
nessuna disciplina: no discipline (whatsoever)
bambino: child (masc.)
