The rain fell like mist through his roof of branches. The dew clung in its way to the moss and leaves that were his pillow. The scar tissue and exposed bone of his skull could only perceive that the rain was there from the weight that the moisture added to his black hood and tattered cargo pants. The wounds suffered long ago only pained him as a dull, comforting ache, a memory of when he had been whole, had been one, a man, a soldier, a preist, a father, a husband, his purpose so simple and far removed from what his road had shaped him to be.
The left side of his face had years ago been flayed off by the fires of a burning church, the day when he had shielded the lives of innocents whose days were not yet numbered from the flames of an arsonists rage. His left eye had been left lidless from the encounter, his teeth exposed in a permanent snarl, his lips partially melted away. The bleached bone of his skull on his right side still remembered the blade of an executioners ax that had been meant for the same innocent one he had given his flesh for years ago. The pain had been great, but the pain of the world losing a life that never had a chance to shine would have been greater, and felt wider by so many for years and years to come.
He himself had nothing but years, decades, centuries, the limitless abyss of time. Time. A construct. A fallacy. A failure. An attempt to measure out something without dimension, without beginning, end, or middle. The worship of time as a God had been poisoning the worlds of the ones who do not know since its very creation. Time itself was a lie.
He knew very well of these things. The small, sharp knife he wore at his hip began to dig into the remaining flesh of his right leg. He could not feel it, again, just like the rain, he could only perceive it by his own knowledge and awareness of its presence.
He opened his remaining eyelid, and blinked a few times, taking in the blood-soaked soil around him. The crimson fuel that pooled around him was not his, nor was it the remnants of some enemy he had beaten. His body had slept off its wounds, and had healed what it had felt necessary to heal. Despite the viciousness of his eternally scarred appearance, the pain meant nothing more than the rain did to him.
He had risen, which meant that it was time to work again.
He assessed his surroundings, propping himself up on his elbow, the remaining skin of which was as black as tar. With his other hand, he dipped his fingers into the still warm blood that appeared to him like the aftermath of a flood. The dark reddish brown of the soil, and the lush greenery of life all around him outlined the source of his rising.
A small bird, barely hatched and featherless lay dead upon a flat stone, its neck snapped, and soft beak broken off at the middle. It's energy fluttered around it in small whisps of white and blue, an almost pleading confusion for salvation silently screaming in its dance.
Icarus crawled forward, and followed the point of blood to its source. He cupped the little body of the bird in the palm of his hand, slowly lifted it up, and released his prayers as if they were the tears he wished he could still shed.
"It's not for you anymore," he spoke softly to the life that had left, but waited by the side of its own past, unsure of where to go next.
"It's not yours anymore, I'm sorry," he said again, pulling his knife from its sheath, and severing the string that only he could see. The tiny body in his hand began to crumble like wet sand until it was gone forever, and the whisping smoke of life fled back into the earth and sky from where it came.
"I'm sorry," he said again, resheathing his knife. "You're remembered, little one."
"Good morning, dark one," came a melodic voice from above him.
Icarus secured the hood over his head, and turned towards the familiar voice.
"Hello, beautiful one," he replied, his good eye reflecting the multicolored shimmering image of the woman he was bound to.
She reached down, and the silver, blue, green, and gold veil she wore washed over his small corner of forest with its radiance.
"You never forget to save them," she said gently, caressing his scars lovingly, as if reading each of them like stories written in braille.
"For you, for forever. For the way I tried to save you," he said, taking a deep breath, and letting it out before asking the question that he already knew the answer to, "Why am I awake?"
"You're needed," she answered, just as she always did. And just as always, it was enough for him.
Icarus stood, spread his black wings, and reclaimed the skies that had long ago freed him from himself.

© DDLX