He’d been encaged with machinery far too long.

Perhaps not the correct terminology he’d come to learn, machinery implied life behind a gear turn and the steady hounding of sound that signaled perfection and worth.

There was no sound within the labyrinth besides the cries of children and that thing running about by Minos’s whims. Clotting blood to its fur, screaming its isolation until stone shook to its misery.

He’d been given so little by Minos yet the son of Zeus. Shrouded to the darkness of the earthly caverns and winding corridors with hands of bruised flowers blossoming with blood.

He had come to learn his creations would find themselves buried beneath Minos’s name and word. Tarnished. Smashes. Razed by the rage of their creator and his ripped away wings.

Then you.

With smallest of fingers, delicate and unblemished by hammer or sword. Small and soft, bright eyes with hopes of assistance and questions- his dream to see the sun shine on such a face.

He could hold you until starvation clawed through his stomach, until the stars burned and no longer shone, until Zeus fell and The Underworld found its place within heavens where the gods lay in mortal soil.

He knew the labyrinth was not for you, he feared the day the Minotaur may find your sweet face and discard such perfection for its hunger.

He held out food for you, bread within the olive oil as Minos often served to him. He sat onto his knees, you with him as he attempted to feed you but your stubbornness yielded that hope.

“Come now, my partridge, you do not wish to lose your strength so.” He said with jest, though beneath such honeyed words a worry came to fruition. Blooming unto a vine within his thoughts.

He was no father, how could he hope to keep you alive with him if you did not eat? He had no heart to force it so. Despite his pride he found himself ready to beg for you to let the small rations fill your belly and eat for another life.