Exploring: Icarus and Evangeline

My mother told me stories when I was young. Most were of daring folk who struck out on grand adventures and slayed monstrous beasts who ate good little boys and girls, or elegant creatures made of wind, water, fire and earth who soared through the air on gilded wings or lurked in the deepest depths of the oceans, waiting to be discovered. But my favorite stories weren't of the noble young thrill-seeker, but rather of the older wiser and often crotchety elders they met on their journeys. So often they had stories of their own to share, and hearing their tales interested me more than those of the swashbuckling pirates or ill-fated conquistadors.

I remember lying in my nest late into the night, the flicker of the fire in the hearth a punctuation to my mother's sweet voice. I suspect she knew I would ask her to tell me more about the elders in her stories, and that she spent her free time thinking of their stories and how they would tell them. She gave them the best voices, gravelly and strong or old and meek, humbled by age and time. 

"Icarus, you must sleep," she would admonish me gently, tucking the covers more tightly around me. 

"But I want to hear more!" I would protest, and she would look to the ceiling and mutter a prayer for help to deal with a son who had such a hunger for stories. 

"Just remember that we rise with the sun," she would warn me before settling beside my nest, stretching her wing out to cover me and continuing her stories until my eyes finally closed. We would both be tired the next day as we rose with the sun like she promised. I doubt she minded, because she kept letting me get away with it. 

My people are descended from phoenixes, or so the legends say. Those stories are all but forgotten except by the eldest of us, and even they don't recall the legends in truth. Imagine my disappointment when I faced Teragth, the oldest creature in existence as far as I was concerned, and the toothless, blind drakiri couldn't so much as hear me. For a people who prided themselves on storytelling we certainly hadn't lived up to our reputation. I could have wept, my hopes had been so high.

One thing my people did well, however, was war. We did not enter this world thirsting for blood and violence and death, we were peaceful once upon a time. Every child born to our people was raised with the stories of the Great War. Most of it was dismissed as half-remembered hogwash or propaganda created by our enemy to confuse our message and blind us to the truth. The truth that we had been wronged sometime long ago. So long ago that no living soul remembered what crime had been committed. It was heresy to disagree with the war, with King Rebenon, the respected and revered leader who had fiercely protected us and run a successful campaign for decades. Heresy, unfortunately, became my namesake.

I disagreed with the war. I refused to join the ranks of the soldiers, much to my father's consternation, but I firmly believed that if no one knew why we fought, why should we continue the battles? Lives on both sides were constantly lost, and for what? I had never seen the fruits of our labors, only the scattered feathers and necklaces of teeth brought back from the maws of our enemies. 

And who are our enemies? Drakiri like ourselves, different but not enormously so. Holy descendents, with dominion over light from what the Tellers and their Barkers report. They come in ranges of colors, but almost all of them can fly whether they have wings or not, like our people. Just under their chins, their throat opens into a maw that stretches the length of their throats, over their chests and down their bellies to stop around the lower belly. Long, sharp teeth line the openings of the maw to grasp prey and hold it fast, crushing it into their body where it is consumed. 

They sound horrifying and I imagine that was done with purpose. I'd never seen one myself, nor had most of my generation, as we were too young to join the ranks. Our parents, grandparents, extended family and friends frightened us with stories of nightmarish drakiri sneaking into our camp in the dead of night to snatch us away and gobble us up. I remember my siblings' wetnurse telling me when I was hardly old enough to toddle around on my own that one of the angel-folk would crawl in through the open tent flap and chew on my tail until it was all gone if I didn't keep my coat groomed. I hadn't feared her story, rather wondered what the point of it was. 

I’ve always tried to find the explanations for everything around me, even if it didn’t seem important. When my mother showed me around our home, I asked her rapid-fire questions and she answered each with the patience of a saint. She told me of the magic our people had used long ago to grow homes in the massive trees of our forest, and how the gardens we grew were a symbol of our reverence to the sun since each different flower required different amounts of sunshine to thrive, just like we did. Learning fascinated me, and I hungered to learn all that I could, though there was seldom more to be found in the city of Illeros. 

“Mother I want to travel,” I remember saying one evening as we watched the sun sink toward the distant horizon. 

My mother, always patient and understanding, had smiled in what I thought was a funny way at the time. I know now that it was the smile of a mother who knew this was coming. 

“You will in time, my dove,” she had said, leaning over to nuzzle my cheek with her soft nose. “Where do you want to go?” 

I shrugged as I looked down at the grass beneath our hooves, out at the forest that seemed to stretch endlessly in front of us past the hill where we rested. 

“I don’t know any places away from home,” I had told her. “I want to know what’s out there. Do you think I can do it? Even without wings?” 

My lack of wings and ability to fly had always been a sore spot with my family, my father in particular. Exceptions had to be made for me, stairs built so I could reach our family home for example. My mother had always been my biggest supporter, and she had raised me with the belief that I could do anything if I put my mind to it. I still believe that to this day. 

“Do you think not having wings kept you from wandering off for half a day when you were hardly old enough to run?” my mother asked, amused. “Or from climbing into the branches of Home Tree and frightening me half to death?” 

“No,” I chuckled sheepishly. “But Father says--” 

“Your father says many things, Icarus, that does not make them true,” my mother interrupted sternly. “Do your father’s words change how quickly you run? Or how easily you breathe at a gallop? These are the things that determine if you can travel, you are strong and young. Someday you will leave my side and I will eagerly await your return to hear the stories you have to tell me.” 

She had spoken with such vigor, but there was sorrow in her words as well. Evangeline had born seventeen children in her life, I was the last. All of her children had left home to join the war, leaving her behind in the process. Our people were social drakiri, and I knew that having her children so far away must have been painful. 

“I’ll bring home the best stories,” I promised her that day, “and I’ll tell them to you before bed every night, just like you’ve done for me.” 

Her eyes, warm and loving, had closed then as she moved closer so our sides touched and she draped her wing over my back. 

“I believe you,” she had told me. “You will have wonderful adventures, my son, and I’ll be waiting for you when you come home to me.” 

These are the sweetest memories I have of my mother, of the love she had for me and her grace even in the face of her youngest child leaving the nest. She was everything to me.