Dyssia's brain is a jigsaw puzzle being put back together.

Well, no, that's the wrong metaphor. It's a jigsaw puzzle being pieced together from inside the box, while the picture on the outside changes each second, or maybe it's actually inside the [i]wrong[/i] box, and also some of the pieces insist on fighting with each other?

Yeah, that's a bit closer.

She's almost got all four corners in place when Aphrodite presses the cigarette to her lips and vigorously shakes the box.

And suddenly the pieces are fitting together, right? But it's obvious the pieces aren't meant to fit like that, like someone has taken a mallet and forced tab A to fit inside slot B, but the pictures on either side spell out--

No, wait, is that right? Is it that the pieces are wrong, or that the cutting stencil is? Do they fit together, but only because someone went in and sanded them down to fit a different pattern, and now this is where they originally were, but no longer fit?

She stares at the cigarette, at Aphrodite, and at the cigarette again.

"What instrument do you play, again?"

It's not meant as a gotcha--not a conversation-ending zinger, not a line you say right before a stare-down becomes a bar brawl. Just two friends passing a doobie back and forth.

"They can't change what they are, what they do, any more than I can. No wonder they're working at cross purposes! They're the sun, the sky, disaster--"

[i]A smiling bastard who never gave her the time of day[/i]

"--But have [i]you[/i] ever viewed someone as something other than a means to satisfy your own desires?"

She points the cigarette at Aphrodite, flicks it away, and grinds it into the earth with the tip of her tail.

"People love to talk about Icarus! Flew too close to the sun, crashed into the waves! What a lesson! What a tragedy of hubris! But they don't understand what the wings [i]are![/i]

"They're expressions of hope and freedom! They're a father and a son, trapped in a tower with only each other and a plan for escape! They're Daedalus, pouring himself into giving his son everything he can, not because he views Icarus as his continuation, his lineage, not because of what Icarus can do for him, not because he wants to control Icarus, hang strings from his limbs and puppet his future, but because he wants his son to be free!

"Have you [i]ever[/i] done that? Have you ever hoped your children would surpass you, escape you? Have you ever wanted good for them, not as a gardener does, not as someone who wants to build [i]with[/i] them, not as someone who wants to paint a mosaic in the stars with their efforts, but because you hope to give them the tools to make their own success? Have you ever wanted to build something [i]for[/i] them?

"Aphrodite, have you never loved anyone besides yourself?"