A Stairway of Clouds

Ever since she was a small girl, Angeliki had wanted, more than beauty, more than strength, more than comfort or life itself, a pegasus. Though she’d never stopped to examine her obsession with the majestic sky horses, it could be suspected that it had something to do with the fact that her father was Icarus. Not only had she seen him soar high above, while both her feet were tethered unfairly to the ground, but he, too, had been possessed. Possessed by his ambition, a need to go further than any had before, and a blazing, awesome sun that would one day spell his doom.

While living, Icarus was rarely there with Angeliki, too preoccupied with pushing his body to new heights. But the rare moments his feet stayed on the earth, he’d take her to a hidden valley, tucked between rising mountains that seemed to grow taller each year, and there they’d watch the pegasi frolic in the sky above them.

“I want to ride on the back of a pegasus, just like Bellerophon,” Angeliki would say each time.

“Of course, my daughter,” Icarus would respond. “If you can reach one, you may have a pegasus.”

“But I have no wings,” Angeliki would complain.

“And you never will,” Icarus would say. “When you want something badly enough, it is like a fire burning you from the inside of your heart, out. Nothing will stop you from reaching it.”

Angeliki never noticed how he gazed at the sun, not the pegasi, as he said this. Her own eyes were fixed on a black foal with the midnight-blue mane. Her favorite.

Some dreams become smaller as you age, fading into the lost recesses of your mind, and some grow even faster than you, exploding forth, unable to be contained. The latter was the case for Angeliki. By the time she became a woman, her dream had outgrown her body. Sometimes, she did not even feel intact, and she released her desire into all she did. She read everything there was to read about pegasi, from legends and myths to books on anatomy and breeding, and when she had consumed the knowledge thrice over, she wrote her own stories. Songs she sang while bathing, walking, cooking, cleaning. The walls of the home Icarus had left for her were covered with paintings of the winged horses, as were the floors and ceilings. She was rarely there to see them. When she was not lying on her back in the hidden valley, she was traveling on her feet in search of bards and prophetesses, anyone who could provide her with a way to reach the creatures that lived in the clouds.

She paid for information with her money, when that was gone, her hair, when that was had been shorn short, her body, scrubbing floors, washing dishes, fetching water. What she got in return were calluses on her hands, blisters on her feet, bruises on her knees, and techniques for reaching the pegasi that did not work.

She left cardoons on the slopes of the mountain to tempt the pegasi, tried to sing them from the sky with lyrics she’d become a servant to acquire, and staged herself to be attacked and kidnapped in hopes of being rescued by one of them. She could’ve sworn that the black and blue pegasus, now a strong, massive stallion, was watching her. But he never so much as descended a single hoof to be nearer to her.

Exhausted from years of hard work and betrayal, Angeliki was ready to leave the world, for if she could not have her pegasus, there was no reason to go on each day. All could see that her spirit had left her. She was but a shell.

She was known for her madness in the surrounding towns and cities. Of course, who could be surprised? She was the daughter of Icarus, afterall. So used to being mocked was she that, when a stranger arrived in her town and said he wanted to help her with her quest, she threw three apricots from a nearby vendor at him and fled.

The stranger was uncannily quick, and when he grabbed hold of her wrist, firmly yet gently, she found herself entranced by his eyes. They reminded her of her pegasus, the same midnight blue, with specs of white sparkling inside them like stars.

“I mean you no harm,” assured the young man, his black hair like a blanket made of night. “I know the secret to reaching the pegasi.”

“What is it you want in return?” Angeliki asked, weary from the games of strangers, even one as lovely as he.

“Would you believe me if I said nothing?” he asked.

“No,” was her reply.

“Then all I ask for is your dimples,” he said. “After you have accomplished your quest, I want to see those dimples every day.”

Angeliki thought it over. If he was lying, she had no obligation to him. If he was telling the truth, any price was worth it, and she’d figure out a way to find the man again and smile for him every day. Perhaps she should’ve questioned how the stranger knew of her dimples, since it had been years since she’d last smiled.

“Tell me what I want to know, and you shall have your price,” she said.

The man smiled, and though his cheeks were free of dimples, Angeliki recklessly thought how she’d like to see him smile every day too.

The secret, according to the stranger, was the clouds. She was to climb the mountains, up to the height where rock met clouds. From there, she must fashion a staircase out of the clouds themselves. This would work, he assured her, if she never wept, for tears would melt her progress; never slept, for the clouds were ever shifting; and never stopped singing, for the clouds would be drawn to her voice and, without it, they would not gather together for her.

“And if I should fail?” Angeliki asked.

“You will plummet to your death,” the stranger said.

She could read in his eyes what he did not say: Like your father before you.

Angeliki set off for the valley that same day. She slept in the soft green grass that night, and before dawn, began the longest trek of her life.

She had scrambled up the side of the mountain several times in the past in an attempt to get closer to the pegasi, but never had she come close to reaching the spot where the clouds met the rock. For three days straight she climbed, sleeping, though not long, when she could, on the rough mountainside, as she would not be able to rest once she reached the clouds.

On the fourth day, she awoke feeling wet from head to toe. The clouds had found her. More than the fear or doubt, she felt excitement, and as she began her song of winged horses and epic sky battles, the clouds rolled towards her, growing thick and dense. With her hands, she fashioned one stone-shaped cloud after the next, placing each one a little higher. Like this, she climbed her way into the sky.

While the sun shone, the same sun that had both consumed and ended her father’s life, she felt high with hope and relief. The stranger had not lied to her. She was on her way to the pegasi. But day gave way to night, and there was a reason Icarus held no love for the moon: its light was distant and cold, its domain, the night, one of doubt and fear.

Still, Angeliki sang on, weaving one song into the next as her hands formed the cloudstones, and the rising sun brought with it another burst of motivation. But when night came for a second time, Agneliki could feel nothing but exhaustion. Oh, how badly she wanted to sleep. She’d give anything to close her eyes and rest her body for a moment.

She’d never been one to cry. She’d shed but a single tear for her foolish father, though all of her memories of him she held fondly within her heart. However, when the clouds turned thunderous in the dead of night, and each time she dipped her hands in them, she was shocked by sparks of lightning, she’d never yearned to cry so much. She forced an image of her black and blue pegasus into her mind and blinked furiously until the building tears retreated.

For nearly a week, she climbed thusly. Her throat was so dry from singing that her voice was barely louder than the gentle wind. Her mind was mad from resisting the urge to drink the clouds. Her body begged for sleep, sleep, sleep.

She yawned, grandly. For a minute straight, her mouth hung open. When she at last closed her aching jaw, her eyes began to water. She thought nothing of the singular drop that traveled down her cheek, holding on for a moment, as if to give her a chance, before slipping off her chin.

The instant the drop of water touched the cloud on which she knelt, it began to dissipate beneath her. Perhaps she could’ve salvaged it, had she quickly fashioned another. But her mind felt untethered and slow, and any lyrics or melody were lost in her immediate, enveloping fear. She had failed.

Angeliki fell from the sky, plummeting the thousands of feet she’d spent days climbing, all her progress evaporating like the clouds. She tried to scream, but nothing came out of her desert-dry throat.

She’d often wondered, after the death of her father if, when he was falling to his doom, he’d thought it had all been worth it, losing his life to reach the unreachable, attain the unattainable. Angeliki, with her short hair flailing like the arms of a spider in the wind as she tumbled through the sky, now had an answer. It was worth it. For if she hadn’t done all in her power to pursue her dream, even though it had led her to this moment, the guilt and weight of the abandoned dream would’ve consumed her. Perhaps it would’ve taken longer, but it would’ve led to her demise nonetheless.

She’d never resented her father for abandoning her, both in life and in death, but now, she forgave him for the pain that still daily clung to her. There could’ve been no other end to Icarus’s story, nor hers.

Closing her eyes, Angeliki accepted her fate. Her body landed on something soft, and she was scooped upward. She opened her eyes and would’ve gasped if she could. Beneath her, carrying her towards the clouds again, was her black and blue pegasus, larger than she could’ve imagined while observing him from the ground all those years.

She wrapped her arms around his thick neck, feeling his deep breath as he climbed, without stairs, into the sky. Once he leveled out, she relaxed, sitting up straight, and took in the view she’d been too exhausted to notice before.

The sun was dipping behind the mountains, casting the valley and mountainside in a radiant hue of coral. Looking down, she was in awe of how far she’d climbed up the mountain to reach the clouds.

“There they are,” the pegasus said, his neck twisted back to look at her.

Angeliki tried to speak, but still could not.

“Drink,” the pegasus said, veering into a pillow of clouds.

Angeliki opened her mouth and swallowed them in, the softness and moisture immediately coating her throat and alleviating the pain.

“May the stars remember you for your kindness,” Angeliki said. “You have saved my life.”

“It was a life worth saving,” said the pegasus. “I have watched you since I was a foal. I have heard every song you have sung. I have known every pain you’ve endured.”

“Why did you not come to me before?” Angeliki asked. “I, who was wingless and alone.”

“Had I descended to your realm,” the pegasus said, “you would not now know your strength, and I would not know the strength of your devotion.”

“But I failed,” Agneliki said.

“No, Angeliki,” he said. “You had already reached our domain, you were simply too drained to see us all around you.”

This revelation left Angeliki momentarily speechless. How had she become so absorbed in her task that she was unaware of succeeding?

Then she said, “You know my name.” Though it was not a question, his large head nodded.

“May I know yours?”

“You may call me Califax,” he said. “Shall we go on an adventure, you and I?”

Angeliki’s heart lifted and fell in a single second. “There is something I must do,” she said. “I am bound to a stranger by an oath.”

“Angeliki?” Califax said. “How do you like flying?”

Forgetting for a moment her anxiety, Angeliki let herself take in the sensation. She no longer felt like a creature of the earth. She sat weightless on the back of her pegasus.

Day was giving way to night, and the first stars appeared in the sky, closer than they’d ever been before. Instead of the fear and doubt, she felt wonder and contentment. The night was not so bad when she was not alone, as she’d been her whole life.

“My father longed to touch the sun,” she said. “But all I want is to bathe in the moonlight with you.”

“There they are,” Califax said again. “It has been years since I’ve seen them, but oh, how I’ve missed your dimples.”

“Califax,” Angeliki breathed, realizing that he and the stranger were one and the same.

“Just as it has been your life’s mission to reach this moment, so it will be mine to make you smile each passing day, and if I fail, I will free you from your oath.”

Angeliki wrapped her arms again around his neck and rested her head on his mane as they glided through the stars. She wished her father could see her. She thought that perhaps, he would be proud.

Califax landed in an unfamiliar meadow of the softest grass, flowers sleeping all about them. He laid beside her, his feathery wing covering her like a blanket. For the first time since she’d seen the pegasi with her father as a little girl, Angeliki was able to rest peacefully. In spite of her bruised and tattered body, she’d never felt more healed and whole.

Califax watched her as she slept, the smile never leaving her mouth, and wondered if she’d ever know that from the moment he first saw her, frolicking in the valley below him, he’d been as entranced by her two little dimples as she’d been with his sprawling wings.