The Origin of the Icarian Sea

His entire life confined to a tower in the clouds, Icarus had never learned to swim. Everything he knew about the outside he had only read about in books. As Icarus plummeted from the sky into the sea, he began to learn what could not be put into words: suffering and despair. As the cloying, calamitous sea conspired to consume his soul, Icarus recalled all which he had read about the Underworld. Afraid of everything he had read, Icarus succumbed.

Resigned to surrender his soul to Hades, the boisterous voice of Dionysus jolted Icarus awake. Encouraging Icarus to tell his tale, Dionysus thrust a goblet of wine into the boy's hands, then eagerly poured one for himself. Though merely a Demi-god, Dionysus exuded an air of overbearing pride, so much as to be ostentatious. Immediately, Icarus yearned for his father.

His father, the esteemed yet enigmatic Inventor Daedalus, had always been mysterious, even to his son. Days would go by without a word between them, with Daedalus quietly devising his next invention while Icarus contentedly scoured the bookshelves. Yet Daedalus had always looked out for Icarus. This realization made Icarus grieve, for he would not have found himself in his situation if he had heeded his father. Being confined to his father's side, Icarus had never been alone, nevertheless expected to make it on his own.

Aided by the goblet given to him, Icarus recovered from his despair. To Dionysus he confessed his situation and the corrupting influence of the confines he had escaped. Upon professing his remorse over not heeding his father's exhortation, Icarus was interrupted by an imprudent Dionysus. The glossy red of his cheeks no longer prominent to his bellowing voice, Dionysus emptied his goblet with a flourish and vowed to reunite father and son.

It was whispered on the wind that Daedalus had finally come to roost. Following the demise of his son, Icarus, Daedalus had prayed for fair winds and safe travel by offering Apollo tribute: his wings. Still, his flight from King Minos control was far from over and so his whereabouts were to be kept secret.

Beseeching Apollo to reunite him with his father, Icarus traveled to the temple in which his father had hung up his wings and reclaimed them as his own. Upon returning to the sanctity of Dionysus, Icarus encountered Apollo, who had merely followed the trail of molted feathers. Despite Apollo's short temper for insolence, Icarus was spared Apollo's wrath as Dionysus divulged the boy's tale over an evening of libation.

Having spent life aloof at sea, Dionysus was held captivated as Apollo expounded on Daedalus's ingenuity: the wooden bull, the labyrinth…and the wings strapped to Icarus's back. Daedalus, in name, had reached Olympus and the Gods had destiny in store for him. However Apollo confessed it was not until Daedalus had offered him the wings that he had heard anything about a son. Apologetically, Dionysus offered the boy a goblet to revive his doused spirit and the night proceeded.

Despite even more libation, Apollo refused Dionysus's pleas to help Icarus reunite with his father. Adamant, Apollo admonished Icarus, warning him that having spent too much time by a god's side had set him apart from other mortals. He explained how Olympus considered relationships between mortals and immortals taboo, and how Icarus was as good as dead.

Refusing to take another sip offered from Dionysus, Apollo stuck to his decision, stating the dead were forbid to contact the living and an attempt to reunite Icarus with his father could not be abetted. Dispirited to be turned down, the surly Dionysus refused to abandon the boy, and the fight continued into the early hours of the next day.

At last, the two gods and mortal boy came to a grudging consensus: Dionysus would not be forced to cast Icarus away if Icarus were to be cast into immortality.

As an immortal, Icarus would spend the rest of his youth looking after his father. During these years, Icarus returned the guidance and protection that Daedalus had lovingly given him. Unaware until his passing, Daedalus would fulfil the Olympians' prophesies under the gentle hand of a son who could only reach him through dreams.

Even in death Icarus could not reunite with his father as immortality had spared him the realm of Hades. However by then he had grown into a proud, independent young man, content to dedicate eternity as Dionysus’s pledge and faithful companion. As word carried of the pair's egregious escapades upon the sea, their territory became known as the Icarian Sea, despite Icarus never having been known by any mortal other than his father.