When I read your outline (which was longer than some things I've posted lmao) to give you advice, I was worried about how the ending would play out. The longer the build-up, the better the pay-off is expected to be. In your case, you completely fucking knocked it out of the park. Literally got chills! The decision to focus on possibility, on fate, calling back to the conversation on dead branches and the plenty of times Daidalos struggled with the idea of fate throughout the piece, focusing on the possibility of being happy, of being able to make the right choice PLUS the callback to the story of the manticore — it's just wonderful.
You write about Daidalos as if you fucking hate the guy but can't help but sympathize, see it his way. So much in the narrative is slightly skewed in a really intelligent manner. The way the silversmith just happens to die, when you say "there is still so much both of them can learn from the other" which normally be positive I see it more as Daidalos believing the boy can learn from him, and he can hear praise from the new boy, when you say "But what is freedom without power?" it is just boggling in the different way he thinks. Daidalos on the boy with one eye never learn each others names too, something I was thinking about nearer to the beginning of the story but forgot and was only reminded of right at the end. It's all so thought-provoking. I think my only slight problem for the whole thing was the boy talking a bit too verbose? But I think it's excusable for the type of story your were going for
Beautiful job, big +1, they weren't lying that Gawain can Long Piece
