F/D Ch38 - Melancholy (Patreon)

Fate/Defiance

Chapter 38 - Melancholy

More months had passed. Summer had burned itself out quietly, and Autumn had arrived with inevitability.

The earlier phases of the ritual were finished now—Blood, and Yellow Bile. Under Asclepius’ relentless supervision, the worst instabilities had passed. 

Atalanta was also a great help during the yellow bile-phase correlating with summer. Training together, hunting together, painting together—those simple, physical interactions had stabilized his emotional responses when his yellow bile threatened to spike.

The emotional stability she aided with helped ground him and allow Icarus to smoothly finish his second phase of preparation.

But, he still wasn’t done—not even close—but he was no longer fragile.

Now, the work has shifted.

From repair and reinforcement… to improvement.

The Black Bile phase was unlike the previous phases. Because it was different from Blood and Yellow Bile, as the other two humours were less… conceptual.

Black Bile was generally seen as the most detrimental of the humors and believed to be opposed to blood, the most natural and beneficial of the humors.

It was considered an elusive liquid hidden in the spleen, and its excess was the source of depression. Even the direct translation of the word Black Bile, Melaina chole, was the source of the word Melancholy. 

Too much black bile broke men.

But a measured amount sharpened them.

That contradiction was where the danger lay.

His Black Bile was low in proportional to his dual mind physicality. This was something he had to fix.

His current black bile phase would increase his internal black bile enough to compensate for his unique condition. The ending transition of this phase would also tie into his phlegm phase, which correlated with the brain.

The preparations for his future ritual involved strengthening his body’s—for a lack of a better word—foundation. It would allow him to improve his constitution and metaphysical strength enough to withstand the effects of his final ritual.

—————

Icarus sat cross-legged on the stone floor of the workshop’s inner chamber, bare to the waist, his breathing slow and deliberate. The hearth he added to the center burned low, its flame carefully restrained.

Asclepius watched him from across the room.

Not with the nervous tension of earlier months, nor with the constant hovering vigilance that had defined the Blood and Yellow Bile phases—but with wary attentiveness.

“Begin the count again,” Asclepius instructed.

Icarus nodded, eyes half-lidded.

“Inhale,” he murmured.

“One… two… three… four.”

The breath settled deep, not into the chest, but lower—into the abdomen, into the quiet spaces beneath thought.

The rhythm was slow. Purposefully so, as black bile did not respond well to force.

Unlike blood, which could be stimulated and circulated, or yellow bile, which could be burned off through exertion, black bile accumulated through reflection.

Through inward focus, those who warned against it also noted its connection to philosophers, scholars, and those who thought too deeply for their own good, without release.

Which made it the most dangerous humor for someone like Icarus.

Asclepius shifted his weight, inked reed scratching lightly against primitive paper he made a note. “Your baseline is stabilizing. Slowly. Too quickly would have been worse, but this pace is… acceptable.”

“High praise,” Icarus said dryly.

Asclepius ignored him. 

After another cycle of breathing, Icarus spoke again. “How far off am I?”

Asclepius didn’t answer immediately.

That alone was telling.

“You’re under-expressed,” he said finally. “Black bile accumulates when thought loops inward—when ideas stagnate, ferment.”

He tapped the tablet. “Your thoughts never stagnated. But, they did iterate—but, we have already fixed that issue in our prior phases.”

Icarus exhaled slowly, “So?”

Asclepius’ eyes sharpened. “You have to add more black bile to compensate for your dual-mind nature. Use emotion to create more—but, these feelings need depth.”

“…You want me to brood,” Icarus summarized.

“Yes,” Asclepius said without irony. “But correctly.”

Icarus nodded sagely, “Brooding is an old friend.”

Asclepius pinched his chin in thought, “This phase is not just emotional in the conventional sense. Black bile isn’t sadness—it’s density. It is the capacity to hold contradictory thoughts without resolving them.”

He stepped closer, kneeling across from Icarus.

“Black bile grants depth of will. Without it, your improvements would remain superficial—if even successful at that—they would be enhancements unable to bear themselves.”

Deep thoughts…

Icarus had tried to keep himself from deep thoughts for some time now. Ever since he had left his father Daedalus, and had embarked on this journey of his own.

Athens always felt somewhat like a gilded cage to him. So unfamiliar yet still uniquely beautiful—a legendary city in its mythological prime. There was truly nothing he could compare it to during his own time. 

To see the famed Acropolis and Parthenon—not as some damaged ancient relic—but as a lived in, breathing monument! Not to mention the awe inspiring golden and ivory jeweled statue of Athena—long lost in his own time.

He could only imagine what else was out there. Could he even see things unrecorded and completely unknown in modern times—meet creatures unlike any remembered in Mythology? …Who else could ever have that opportunity?

Yet even so, it hurt having no one to share it with.

No one to relate to.

Home was where the heart was, and there was always something telling his heart that it didn’t belong here—that Daedalus’ casual mannerisms were off, that the commonly accepted exploitation of slaves and children were horrific, that the hedonism of the Greek Pantheon was unacceptable—that he couldn’t feel right in his own skin.

The earliest years were a struggle. He felt so unequivocally lost and confused, there were always so many questions on his mind. Why was he here? Who brought him here?

Was any of it real? Or, was he under some kind of psychotic fugue state and only one off putting lamp away from full scale insanity?

Why was he Icarus—and not some random unknown child? 

…He didn’t think he would ever find the answers.

But he could accept that, eventually. He could accept that he was lost and may never find his way home—that all that he loved was a universe away in another timeline… or plane of existence.

He could accept it.

Even though it hurt like hell.

Icarus’ breathing remained steady, but his thoughts no longer drifted. 

They sank.

He remembered the nights in Athens when sleep refused to come, when he would lie staring at the ceiling while the distant sounds of the city carried through the bounded field of Daedalus’ home. Laughter. Music. The casual cruelty of normalcy. All of it felt wrong to him, even then—before he had words for why.

He remembered watching his father work.

The brilliance in his eyes—and the obsession behind them. The way Daedalus could create wonders capable of reshaping the world, yet still be so profoundly… broken.

Icarus had left him… and he didn’t regret that choice.

Although regret was not the same thing as an absence of loss. No matter how Icarus thought of him, Daedalus was his father, and someone that time had long made familiar—a one constant in such a foreign world.

…What if he never truly belonged anywhere?

The thought settled, unpleasant but undeniable.

He had knowledge of a future that would never belong to him. Memories of a time that no longer existed, people who would never know his name. Even if he succeeded—became something greater than mortal—what then?

A Heroic Spirit, placed on the Throne of Heroes? A defense tool kept by the Counter Force only to be copied and deployed—or some arrogant magus’ personal servant?

One that wasn’t even really him, but just an echo of him shaped and altered by belief.

The idea used to frighten him.

Now, it simply sat there, cold and solid.

Icarus felt his jaw tighten.

For the first time since he arrived in this world, he allowed himself to acknowledge a quiet truth he had long avoided—he was afraid of being forgotten.

Not dying.

Not failing.

Being unremembered. 

Not as the Icarus who flew to the sun… but as the nameless person who became Icarus, only to never amount to anything.

That his quiet struggle against fate would go unknown, or have never mattered at all.

He felt the weight of his thoughts and started to understand what Asclepius meant… black bile did not ask questions—it held them.

His dual minds—once so quick to partition, to categorize—found less room to maneuver. The thoughts lingered instead, heavy and unresolved.

—————

Pollux spied Icarus as he gazed into the distance dramatically, occasionally looking down before staring back at the sun with a purposely sharp jaw.“...What are you doing?”

“Brooding.”

“Why?”

“Mostly for the sake of it.”

Pollux tilted her head in confusion, “But, why?”

Icarus turned towards her with a blank stare, “That’s a good question.” Then he promptly continued his distant gaze. “...So, why?”

“I don’t know, so I’ve decided to brood over it.”

“...” Pollux pouted.

Icarus always loved to play mind games with her. 

She didn’t like them, using her mind was not her best strength—that’s why she preferred her fists. She let Castor take care of the thinking.

Pollux shifted her weight from foot to foot, watching him with narrowed eyes.

“You’re weird,” she said at last.

“...I’m sure I am to you.” Mythological Boomer.

“That’s not what I mean.” She paused, then frowned again, “Well. It is what I mean. But not just that...”

Icarus didn’t respond and just continued to brood with glazed eyes.

He looked sad.

So she tried something else.

She leaned closer, peering at his face from the side, invading his space with the boldness of someone who didn’t understand the concept of personal boundaries. “Are you sad?”

He blinked once.

“No.”

She squinted harder. “You hesitated.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did.”

“I paused.”

“That’s the same thing.”

“No it isn’t. Hesitation implies indecision, pausing doesn’t… most of the time.”

Pollux clicked her tongue in annoyance, then abruptly placed herself in front of him—directly in his line of sight. Blocking the horizon entirely, completely destroying his internal illusion of a binary sunset.

“There,” she said. “Now you can’t brood at nothing.”

Icarus stared at her.

“…You’re sabotaging me.”

“It’s helping.”

“...Not really.”

She leaned forward, eyes bright with sudden inspiration. “Okay, then answer this. If you’re not sad, and you’re not thinking about anything in particular, and you’re just… sitting there, then what are you doing?”

He opened his mouth.

“…Contemplating.”

Pollux beamed. “See? That’s better.”

“They’re literally the same thing.”

She ignored him and instead scrunched her features into an exaggerated imitation of his distant expression, before standing by his side and dramatically jutting out her jaw.

Icarus winced, cringing at his own Luke Skywalker pose, “Do I really look like that?”

“Yes.” She grinned, clearly pleased. “You look less like that when you’re annoyed.”

“I am annoyed.”

“Good.”

She stood abruptly, brushing dirt from her hands. “Come on.”

“Come on where?”

She shrugged. “Anywhere. Somewhere that isn’t here. You brood too well here.”

“That’s the point.”

Pollux ignored him and grabbed his wrist, tugging. But Icarus resisted, “I’m brooding for my ritual Pollux.”

“Then… contemplate while walking.”

“That’s not—”

She pulled again. “You can brood later.”

Icarus hesitated for a moment, before eventually, he sighed, “…You’re interfering with a delicate internal process.”

“I know,” she said cheerfully. “That’s why it’s working.”

Against his better judgment, he let her drag him along.

They didn’t go far, just toward the trees edging the clearing. The air was cool, with the leaves crunching faintly beneath their steps.

Pollux kept talking.

About nothing.

About Castor doing something stupid earlier. About how Atalanta had crippled the local mouse population. About how Chiron had to deal with the complaints of forest nymphs as a response. 

About how Icarus needed to stop making that face because it made people think he was planning something mischievous.

Somewhere along the way, Icarus realized he hadn’t thought about brooding for some time.

By the time the sun dipped lower and Pollux finally ran off to bother her brother, Icarus was left standing alone again.

He frowned.

“…Damn it.”

Hours later, back in the quiet of the workshop, he sat down once more—intending to resume where he’d left off.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, irritation blooming where solemnity had been before.

“That little menace,” he muttered. “She sabotaged my brooding—ruined my black bile gains.”

The hearth crackled softly in response.

Icarus leaned back against the stone, eyes half-lidded, torn between amusement and annoyance.

Black bile required depth. But apparently—It also required privacy.

And Pollux, infuriatingly, had none of that.

Well, it was probably for the best in the end. Too much brooding wasn’t entirely good either.

============

Author’s Notes

This chapter found my writer’s block and reinforced it with more walls. 

Sorry for the delay.

Hope you liked it! Please leave a comment and tell me what you thought of it.

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