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She wakes up in a mess of a garden, breathing in the scent of upturned dirt and sweetness of flowers. Underlying it all is something slightly overripe, rotten, acrid. The smell of decay.
She grimaces, sucking in air between her closed teeth. Demeter warned her of this place, but it’s not like she ended up here on purpose. She can vaguely remember tripping into a pothole, which is embarrassing, yet not very surprising. She just wonders why her fall into darkness had led her to the underworld of all places.
She can feel the jut of her ribs pressed against the soil, how her limbs fit into the indent of the earth from where she landed. She sighs against the cool grass, peeling her body away from it until she’s sitting on her heels. She’s unscathed, but it’s still uncomfortable to hit the ground so hard.
Looking down, she groans. Her dress is ruined too; the front is covered in grime and the carefully sewn hems frayed. Demeter is going to kill her.
She hears soft footfalls behind her, and she stumbles to her feet, turning to look at the person approaching.
It’s a man, arms folded tightly over one another. She sucks in a breath; he’s a deadly kind of beautiful, hair slicked back and gleaming, features sharp, eyes narrowed into a glare.
“Who are you?” the stranger asks icily. She tilts her head curiously, undeterred by his frigidness. She knows a thing or two about the cold, and how to let it thaw. There’s something there, underneath this man’s harsh exterior. She can feel something inside her urging her to bring it out.
Natalie smiles brightly at him. “A friend, hopefully.”
She supposes it wouldn’t hurt to stay for a while.
For being ruler of the underworld, Lucifer isn’t as intimidating as she thought he’d be.
She sits across from him, a heavy cloak draped over her shoulders. The manor he lives in is predictably dark, iron furnishings lined with burgundy velvet and thick rugs, the color of blood, pinned beneath them.
“Who are you?” He asks again, leaning forward in his chair.
“I told you, a friend,” she says, relaxing against the plush couch. “I go by Natalie these days.”
He scowls. “I don’t want a friend. I want to know who you are and how you got here.”
“I fell into a hole,” Natalie says honestly. “I didn’t know it would bring me to the underworld.”
“You’re not human, then. A human would be panicking right now,” he says.
“Smart boy,” She says. “I’m the same as you, Hades. Or Lucifer. Which do you prefer?”
“Lucifer, for now,” he replies absently as he eyes her ragged dress, intricate patterns of blossoms and leaves extending through the fabric. Her hair spills over her shoulders, eyes as green as flower stems.
“Persephone,” he says, more to himself than to her.
Her smile widens into a grin. “See, it wasn’t that hard to figure out. We already know each other so well.”
He scoffs. “Yeah, right. Go back to Olympus, flower girl.”
She gasps in mock indignation. “How could you? I thought we were friends.”
“I don’t want a friend,” he repeats, although his tone is now more grumpy than vitriolic.
She shrugs, a shrewd smile curling on her face. “Don’t knock it ‘til you try it.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Leave.”
“Make me.”
He groans, running a hand down his face. “You’re incorrigible. Fine. Whatever.”
“Why do you keep coming back here?” He asks, months later.
Natalie looks up from the flowers she’s planting into the soil. “I thought that was obvious.”
He remains silent, giving her a prodding look. She sighs, and rises to meet his gaze.
“We’re friends, right?” She asks.
He shrugs noncommittally. “I guess. So?”
She laughs. “So, I like being around you, dummy!”
He looks taken aback.
“And besides…Olympus is getting a little too intense for me,” She murmurs.
“How so?”
She glances at him. “You know how they can get. The endless drama, fighting all the time, bringing destruction down upon the humans, the works.”
“And aren’t they unhappy that you come down here every chance you get?” He asks.
She thinks of the quiet wrath of her mother, the burning look of the gods when she excuses herself to fall into Lucifer’s domain.
“Extremely so,” she says with a grimace. “But you aren’t, right?” She adds, feeling a bit anxious. He makes a show of irritation when she talks to him, but there’s something buried underneath his acid words. Fondness, she hopes.
Gods, does she hope.
He suddenly seems to find the blooming plants very interesting. “No.”
“Good,” she says, grinning.
It’s like a vice has unclenched beneath her rib cage. There’s something hot in her chest, seeping to the edges of her fingertips, anchoring her heels to this earth beneath the earth.
She doesn’t quite know this feeling, but she wants it to never stop burning.
The gods want her back.
“Are you going to leave?” He asks, and she’s never heard him sound timid before, but there’s a slight tremble in his voice that’s jarring.
“I don’t want to,” she says, “But they’re going to make me, regardless.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Well, there’s one way,” she murmurs, holding up the pomegranate, split open, red leaking onto her palms. “I can stay here with you, at least for the most part.”
He looks strangely taken aback. “Girl, that’s a very permanent solution.”
She balances the fruit on the flat of her hand. The seeds glimmer in the firelight, like a geode sheathed in crimson. Like tiny rubies, ones that she could piece into a crown, or an empire, maybe. She sees a kingdom in the red of this fruit, in the red of his tattoos, his horns, his heavy, beating heart.
“I know,” she says simply. “But I love you.”
The fruit tastes sweet.
His kisses taste sweeter.
Natalie twirls a poppy between her thumb and index finger, idly watching the clouds fly past her.
The thin-bodied stalks of wheat sway gently in the August breeze, warm air tasting of summer settling on her tongue. She breathes it in, letting the feeling of heat and freedom melt into her limbs. It’s nice, to let the sun brush against her skin and settle there. His lips, too, touch her just as gently.
“Autumn’s going to roll in soon,” she observes, still looking at the cloud-speckled blue sprawling towards the horizon.
“Almost ready to go?” He asks against her jaw, curling his hand into her hair, threading through the copper strands. He pulls back to look at her, mouth quirked into a slight grin. She likes him best like this, hair messy and posture relaxed and eyes shining amber in the sunlight.
She nods, leaning against his chest. “Let’s go home.”
In his heartbeat, she feels a warmth that forgets to fade away.