Helios hated how kind he was most of the time.
He helped the goddess he had secretly loved for ages save continuously the man that just showed up in her life and made her fall for him in seven days. Seven twisted, damned, disgusting and terrible days. He didn't understand it, he couldn't believe how easily it was for Aphrodite to love someone in a breath but not dare to see she always had the warmth of the Sun God near.
"I'm not yours to love, Helios. And I'll never be."
Those were Aphrodite's last words before he left the couple in the remnants of Troy. Or at least, those were the words Helios remembered the most. He flew high after that. Higher than he ever needed to. The chariot creaked beneath him, its golden wheels slicing the clouds at full speed. Horses of fire snorted beneath the harness, eager to be anywhere, unlike their master. Helios wanted to be nowhere. He had a lot to think, a lot to yearn, a lot to dig deep into his heart.
Every day it was meant for the Sun God to announce the arrival of the morning, to warm people's hearts and lives with his presence and his chariot. In the end, that's all he was. The Sun. Nothing more, nothing less. Just the Sun. Nonetheless, that same day he parted from Troy something had changed. He felt like he lacked purpose, that all his work was thrown away in just a second. For Zeus, he was replaceable: Apollo could take over any day now, and his horses loved the Art God. For Olympus: he was always the kind one, the one meant to be used like a rug to be stepped on. Only once he had dared to defy them all, and it was for love. The result? A nasty thunder-shaped scar in his chest that hadn't healed. Last but not least, for Aphrodite: he was her best friend. Always listening, always there, providing warmth and a good advice or two. But she never looked at him with different eyes, and she was the goddess of love and lust.
"I'm not yours to love..." Helios repeated to himself, his voice a mock attempt to imitate Aphrodite.
"Foolish of me. Should've told Hephaestus to make the strings of that net thicker." He huffed, holding tightly the chariot rail.
The light around him flickered, just a little. It was evident that he wanted to burn something, to make something feel his anger, his pain, his jealousy... but that wasn't himself. He sighed, controlling his emotions, or just holding them back and chose to admire and observe. He was great at doing that: spectating. Watching the world, watching mythologies being written, legends and events taking place. He loved that. That was one of his favorite parts of the day. He still remembered that time he watched a foolish mortal scream out his full name to Polyphemus, Poseidon's son. Helios laughed to himself at the comical moment in his mind.
He drifted for hours, looking down while the chariot took him places. He admired with his elbows resting on the rails at lovers kissing, at conflicts happening, and they were mostly for love... and he was never part of them. He hated to have a million love stories to tell, but none was his.
Until something moved on the edge of his vision. A blur of bronze and white on a cliffside workshop, surrounded by wind and possibility. A young man leaping from the top of a half-built tower with wide wooden wings strapped to his back. That made Helios almost drop the reils, he was intrigued.
The boy soared, laughed, and fell. Not to his death, but onto a padded net waiting below. The sound of his joy rose into the sky. Not prayer. Not praise. Just pure happiness and optimism. Helios took a moment to look closely at the young man, just narrowing his eyes to catch a good eye of who was that mortal boy.
His smile matched Helios' light. The boy was trying to reach the sky over and over again... almost as if he wanted to reach Helios. Someone wanted him, someone was willing to reach him despite how stupid it may be.
Helios did not yet know the boy's name. But soon, he would. He tugged the reins of the chariot gently, and began to descend to the island where the boy was. Crete, surrounded by a maze, but Helios couldn't care less about what monster could hide. All he wanted was to meet that young man that tried to defy nature over and over again to reach the sun.
What had once been a prison now looked like a workshop, alive with hammering and laughter and the distant hum of invention. Helios stepped out of his chariot and approached the entrance. And for the first time in decades, He dimmed himself. His radiant skin turned to sun-kissed bronze, his eyes dulled from pure gold to flickering ember: just bright enough to unsettle, not enough to reveal. His hair remained golden, wind-tousled and boyish, and his frame remained tall and effortless. If a mortal saw him, they would simply think: a beautiful stranger. Nothing divine. Nothing threatening.
Helios stepped forward. The scent of sawdust and olive oil filled the air. Metal clanged. Sparks leapt from the forge like fireflies. Helios followed the sound until he saw an old man with silver in his hair and soot across his arms, he was adjusting a contraption with the size of a lion. The man looked up, startled. His hands didn't reach for a weapon, but a wrench.
"Lost?" The old man asked.
Helios smiled kindly, taking a step closer.
"Not at all. Just curious. Who might you be?"
The old man narrowed his eyes, before shrugging and letting it slide. It wasn't common that a stranger asked for a name, specially in Crete's maze.
"Daedalus." He said, before setting the wrench aside and looking up at Helios with a slight defiance in his eyes. "Not many wander into my workshop. Who sent you here?"
"No one." Helios stepped closer, glancing past the inventor towards the tower in the distance, where the boy had leapt from earlier. "I saw someone fly. A boy with wings. Do you know him?"
Daedalus relaxed only slightly, brushing sweat from his brow before he stepped back and continued to work on his project. "Ah, you mean my boy. His name is Icarus. He helps me build. Learns too fast. Falls too hard."
Helios felt something twist inside him at the name. Icarus. Even the name sounded like sunlight.
"He seemed..." Helios hesitated, then looked up towards the sky the boy had leapt into. "unafraid."
Daedalus laughed, dry and tired.
"That is his gift. And his curse. He sees the world and believes it wants him to reach it. Every piece of it. Foolish, am I right?"
"Not at all. It's beautiful." The Sun God whispered.
"I try to keep him grounded, but his eyes are always on the sky." Daedalus replied, too focused on his work to notice he had the man in front of him mesmerized at the idea of his son.
Helios' gaze remained fixed on the distant tower. He could still feel the afterimage of that boy's flight. The curve of his back in the air, the way he twisted to face the wind, how he laughed even as he fell. It reminded of him, but Helios hadn't laughed that way in centuries. It wasn't just the flight of Icarus. It was the fearlessness. The way Icarus didn't ask the sky for permission. He simply believed it would catch him.
Daedalus spoke again, unaware of the god beside him and taking Helios away from his thoughts.
"If you are a patron or a noble, I can send word when the boy's performance is ready. He does shows sometimes. To raise coin. Not that he cares for money, he just likes for people to admire his flight."
Helios smiled faintly, his ember eyes glowing slightly.
"No, no." he said, shaking both hands and offering a slightly sheepish expression. "That won't be necessary."
Daedalus looked up, raising an eyebrow. Helios stepped back towards the path.
"I'll find him again. I'd rather meet him... when he's not performing for anyone."
Daedalus huffed softly. "You sound like someone who knows how to fly."
Helios paused for a second. Then looked over his shoulder, his eyes burning just a little too bright.
"I only wish I didn't."
Then he vanished, back into the maze's shadows, towards the rising tower and the boy who thought the sun might love him back.