Chapter Text
Persephone is dressed not in her regalia but in a simpler gown when she pokes her head around Nyx’s corner.
“I’m going to spend a little time in the garden, Nyx. Would you care to join me?”
Nyx looks down at her own midnight robes. “Should I change first?” she asks, sincerely unsure.
“No need! I just wanted to look over everything before I prepare to leave.”
That does not seem to be the entire purpose behind her invitation; usually, she tends to the garden on her own, or with Hades’ help, and Nyx notices that she offered her invitation only minutes after Zagreus’s latest departure. But, if there is something her Queen wishes to discuss in private, then Nyx will gladly oblige. And besides, any time spent with Persephone is a treasure.
So she follows Persephone outside, floating effortlessly behind her as the younger goddess waters the hedges. “Those flowers you keep in your little corner,” Persephone says, “Hades tells me they were a gift from Zagreus?”
“They were.” Nyx smiles, a bit wistfully. “He commissioned them without warning, one night when I was attending to other business, and they startled me when I returned, but they made me think of you. They have brought me more joy than I foresaw.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“They are.”
“You’ve raised him to be so thoughtful, Nyx. I can’t thank you enough.”
“Mm.” Nyx thinks of the young prince. “I do not believe that I am solely to thank for his upbringing. Achilles has shaped him as well, and his father, in his own way. And while I may take some credit for his thoughtfulness, that cannot be fully conflated with his kindness.” She averts her gaze, cupping a pomegranate blossom in her hand. “You know well that I have struggled, in the past, to demonstrate such kindness; to empathize before I think of practical matters. In this regard, I have tried to learn from you, and to treat both the prince and others under my care with tenderness when it is appropriate. But I am not sure that I am the reason that Zagreus learned such an instinctive kindness as he shows to all those he meets.”
“Nyx.” Persephone draws near and takes Nyx by the elbow, looking up into her face. “You have always been so kind to me.”
“Not always,” Nyx disagrees. When the Fates first brought Hades to this realm, her realm; when Zeus, shortly thereafter, deposited Persephone here and the tendrils of light and life that the younger woman inevitably carried with her infiltrated Nyx’s carefully cultivated darkness, upsetting the balance that she had been fighting so hard to maintain—Nyx had been curt, then, and unwelcoming, injured by the implication that her control (already costing her everything) was not enough. If Hades had not been so gruffly dutiful and Persephone so patient and willing to listen, there might have been a clash that tore the Underworld in two. But Nyx is at least observant, and unlike Chaos at their distant remove she has learned to respond to the world around her. Hades and Persephone had helped to shape the Underworld into something that could be controlled. And from the two of them, Nyx learned a little more about interaction, about the subtle skill it takes for a being to exist alongside another being.
Now, tenderly, she touches Persephone’s face. “I know that I was part of what made your adjustment to the Underworld so difficult the first time, my Persephone. I only hope that this time, I have not repeated my old mistakes.”
But Persephone cups her hand over Nyx’s, smiling ruefully. “You haven’t, Nyx, not at all! You’ve been more welcoming than I can say, and you know that I missed you. Our early difficulties, you had already made up for a thousand times by the time I left.”
The Queen’s eyes are honest. Nyx lets herself trust them. “Then, good.”
“Then, good, indeed!” Persephone gives her hand a little squeeze. “Don’t worry so much about ancient history, all right, Nyx? We’ve all changed. I’m not that impulsive young woman anymore, either.”
“No, you aren’t,” Nyx agrees.
“Exactly.” Persephone turns back to her flowers, but he does not release Nyx’s hand; Nyx trails obligingly after her to observe what Persephone is observing. She half-expects the Queen to explain some detail of care for the plants, some task she would like Nyx to perform in her absence. But, instead, a hint of seriousness comes into her voice. “Speaking of impulsivity…. Well, perhaps that isn’t a fair transition. Nyx, I wanted to ask you, what was Zagreus like as a child?”
Nyx looks at her in confusion. “Zagreus, as a child?”
“Yes.” Persephone’s face is as serious as her voice. “I will confess, I am asking with an ulterior motive. Supposing Mother should inquire about her grandson, I don’t want her to catch on that I wasn’t around for his upbringing.”
Nyx feels a pulse of fear, and conceals it. “Ah. You are clever to think ahead of such a possibility,” she says, and Persephone winces in answer. “Do you think that Goddess Demeter would try deliberately to entrap you thus?”
Persephone gives a wry smile. “She may. She used to do so when I was young, catching me in little lies about whether I had spent the night obediently in my bed or gone out running through the fields. Maybe it’s silly, to worry about such things like I’m still a child, but…”
“You know your mother best, my Queen. If this is a concern you have, then I will do all I can to alleviate it. Including telling you stories of Zagreus’s younger days.”
“Thank you, Nyx.”
Nyx hesitates, though, because telling stories cannot be all that she can do. She enfolds Persephone’s hand between both of her own and looks seriously at the goddess of verdure. “To tell the truth, I would prefer not to have to send you back to your mother.”
Persephone looks back solemnly. “I know,” she says. “Hades has said the same, and I know Zagreus is thinking it, too. And I… I don’t mind the idea of reconciling to Mother, but I wish I felt that I had a little more choice in the matter. If she were not holding the mortal world hostage, if Hades didn’t fear that she would start a war over me… well, it’s funny, but I think I’d be more willing to visit her, if that were the case. But I must go. This all started because I seized an opportunity to run away from my problems, and it’s spun out of control for long enough.”
“I understand.” She does not like it, but she understands. “Will you forgive me if I send something along with you, to keep you company and keep you safe?”
A smile comes back to Persephone’s face. “There would be nothing to forgive, Nyx! I would treasure something to remember you by. As for keeping me safe, well… I know what my family is like. We can’t be too careful.”
“Then give me three nights before you depart, and I shall have something for you. But for now…” She draws Persephone over to the bench at the edge of the garden, and they sit down together. “Let me tell you of your son’s youth. There is much to tell, for Prince Zagreus was not always as well-behaved as he is nowadays…”
*
Busy though the Underworld is, it does not take Nyx the full three nights she requested to fashion her gift for Persephone. She lets the time pass, anyway; darkness seeps into the gift, strengthening its power and Nyx’s connection to it. But she cannot force Persephone to tarry for too long. When the fourth day dawns—after Persephone has said her good-byes to her son and seen him off on another escape attempt—Nyx pulls her aside and places the newest Chthonic Companion into her outstretched hands.
Surprise crosses Persephone’s face as she sees what it is. “A Chthonic Companion, for me? Don’t you think I’m a little old for this?” For a moment, there is severity in her face, and Nyx wonders if she has misstepped, making a stuffed animal for the woman who rejected the name maiden. But then Persephone breaks out into a warm smile. “I’m only joking. It’s adorable, Nyx. It’s a swallow, isn’t it?”
“It is.” A bird whose arrival in the land of Greece above foretells spring. The Companion is made in a red and black that recalls the Queen’s regalia, with a pale wheat-colored belly that matches her hair. Nyx selected the emeralds carefully to reflect Persephone’s beautiful green eyes.
Persephone cups the swallow in her hand, turning it this way and that to admire it. “I always loved swallows. Mother taught me to watch for them when the winter grew too long to bear. I love it, Nyx, thank you. Does she have a name yet? A fable?”
“Not yet.”
“Is it all right if I come up with all of that?”
Nyx smiles. “I would be honored.”
“Then when I am lonely for the Underworld and missing you, I will tell myself stories of how Mother Night fits into this little one’s life.” She presses the Companion to her chest and then tucks it into the top of her bag.
Nyx takes her hands and draws her closer to the wall, speaking quietly. “It is not only a keepsake to remind you of me, my Queen. Should you ever feel that you are in danger there on Olympus—”
“I know,” Persephone says. “Zagreus has told me all about how they work when he carries them through his father’s realm. Are you promising to burst into the light in my defense, should my mother and all the rest not treat me with all the respect I deserve?”
“Yes, I am.”
Persephone speaks lightly, but Nyx does not. She did not realize it until the Queen returned to the Underworld, but the truth is that Night Incarnate would gladly start a new war and end it in the same moment if that was what it took to keep Persephone safe.
Seeing the sincerity in Nyx’s eyes, Persephone falters for a moment. Then she squeezes Nyx’s hands tightly. “Let us hope that things do not come to that,” she says.
“I will always hope the same, Persephone.”
And then Persephone releases her hands in order to throw her arms around Nyx. Nyx is startled for a moment—she fears for the propriety of such an embrace here in the formality of the House—but when Persephone does not release her, she returns the gesture, holding Persephone’s head close to her breast. “I will miss you,” she confesses.
“I’ll miss you too, Nyx. You’ll write, won’t you? All the time?”
“Of course I will.”
“I will, too. We’ll give Hermes quite a workout, ferrying our letters back and forth.”
“I am sure he will appreciate the opportunity.”
They stay like that a moment longer, until some deep part of Nyx feels something slip ever so slightly out of balance. “You must not keep Charon waiting any longer, my Queen,” she says.
Persephone sighs. “You’re right, of course. Then I’ll go. But I’ll be back this time, Nyx. I swear it.”
“We will all look forward to your return.”
“I will as well. Farewell, Nyx. None of you may forget how much I love you all, you understand? I forbid it.”
Nyx answers with a half-bow, and Persephone leaves through the garden, turning once to make her swallow’s wing wave one last good-bye. And then, as Charon ferries her away, Nyx watches the golden thread of her existence wind its way all the way up to the surface and into the blinding light.