Chapter Text
She was reduced to - to innocence, the scent of flowers, a scream - things lacking the whole - snippets of what was re-packaged and relayed to men, landing on the ears of her mother and her father.
She was taken - that much was true. She was out, picking flowers, when the ground opened up and swallowed her whole.
She was, she was, she was - until, she wasn't.
***
No one asked.
***
The thing about spring is that often, people forget just how cloying it is.
It appears, nipping at the heels of winter, the sky lightening, the flowers blooming, and people rejoice, because finally, the hard and harsh winter is over - finally they are saved.
People forget how spring's sweet scent covers the rot that froze during winter. How the heady scent rises in the wind, bringing heat and warmth, but also tempestuous storms and thick rains.
Spring comes, as she always does, but she is not the simple joy of flowers growing. She is layered, wrecked against her own edges, her own worst enemy.
***
She was out, before she disappeared, giving her mother a flashing grin and a quick nod as she darted for the trees. She ran through the forest, sticking to the shadows, admiring how cool and lovely it was.
In the world, with no mother and father around, she was free, allowed to be with no constraints. She wasn't quiet or careful, wary of her mother's churning temper or her father's loud bellow. She could simply exist as wild as she was.
So, when she had outrun her attendants and watchers, she slowed to a stop, coming across a thicket of blackberries.
It was there, with juice staining her hands and a wild look on her face as she wove herself a crown of thorns, that darkness himself came across her.
***
Her mother called her Kore, expectations thick on her tongue. Her father called her nothing, he simply expected her to do as he commanded. She gave herself a name, one she whispered in the dark.
Persephone.
***
Darkness was neither here nor there, he simply was.
As he watched the girl set her crown against her brow, the thorns bringing beads of ichor to the surface, he knew.
She simply was too.
***
She winced as her mother tightened her grasp on her arm, plastering a smile on her face at the warning look her father sent her before she dropped her eyes to the ground.
"Welcome All," her father boomed, the floor rattling with the force of his voice. "Welcome to the Solstice."
At his words, the crowd let out a raucous cheer, Persephone's lips twisting at the noise. Her mother cut her eyes to her in another warning before she let go, her words do not embarrass me and stick close unspoken but understood. She dipped her head in acquiescence letting her mother get away from her before she spun towards the edges of the crowd, slipping through the columns to find herself a solitary place.
She slowed as she came across a singular soul, out in the shadows of Olympus.
"Oh," she said, quietly as he lifted his head to meet her inquisitive gaze. "Oh," she repeated, her eyes flashing in surprise as he stood, darkness billowing out from underneath his feet and shadows stretching towards him. He said nothing, inclining his head as he strode past her, the marble bench he had been sitting on in sudden vibrant sunshine as soon as he passed by her.
Lying innocuously on the bench sat a crown of purple-robe black locust, its lilac flower bright and bronze-tinged leaves shimmering.
Persephone reached out, trailing a hand over the crown, grinning when the sharp prick of thorns met the flesh of her thumbs. She placed the crown delicately across her brow, letting the flush of wildness prickle across her skin before she hid it, turning and going back into the party.
***
No one asked. He asked.
It's just - well - no one believed her when she said yes.
***
She left more often than not, finding excuses to leave, reasons to run, places to hide. She was wild, she had decided, and she was unable to be contained.
She was raw, flesh and sinew, a simultaneous breaking and re-making, a gift and a curse to all who laid eyes on her.
She was her own person, her own body, her own soul.
***
When she stumbled across him for the second time, she left scratches down his arm, watching with narrowed eyes as his alabaster flesh bled ichor, instead of the shadows she expected.
He smiled at her, a grin of fluttering crows and heart-stopping danger and wickedness and cruelty, and he didn't temper the gleam in his eyes.
She narrowed her eyes and bared her teeth, biting her cheek and spitting her golden ichor at him. He laughed, tossing his head back before turning cool eyes on her. She eyed him again and snarled, feeling wilder than ever, her heart thumping in her chest.
If her mother had seen her then, she would've been horrified. Her father would not have even recognized her.
But he did, and in the end, that was all that mattered.
***
Spring is deadly.
She hides her poison in flowers, her stench of death beneath her smell of growth. She does not forget - though others do - that things must die for her to come to fruition.
Death comes for all, but he never looks more beautiful than he does in Spring.
***
They met again and again, days slipping past each other until months had come and gone.
They rarely spoke, content instead to draw blood, to exist, to saunter through thickets and brambles, letting thorns drag on their skin.
Until - until - the day came, and he leaned in close, and whispered in her ear.
***
He was a proud God, a strong one too, though that was neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things.
However.
He was so very proud.
And so, with all the nagging of his family to find a wife, to settle down, to get some peace - it all was endlessly irritating but only in the way a fly irritates a cow. There was no real bite to it.
He knew he would not care for a partner who had no desires of their own, who sought to be powerful through him and not powerful in their own right. Any who was afraid of blood was unacceptable.
So, when he stumbled across her in the woods, he did not covet and he did not crave.
He stood and watched the drops of blood fall and thought, an equal.
***
"Would you like to come with me to see how the dead live?"
"Oh," she said, her tone delighted. "Oh, yes."
***
She stole down to his kingdom, slipping through the cracks and crevices he had pointed out to her over their walks, until she found the river of abandoned dreams, Cerberus standing guard proudly. She cooed at him, her wildness crackling over her skin as she scratched his middle head, and watched the steady stream of ghosts slip past her curiously.
She turned to follow, feeling scraped raw and new, with splinters in her lungs as she grasped just how much she did not know.
How much had been kept from her.
She ran along the path, following it to the grey castle built into the dark cliffs towering over the dead. She strode in, tossing open the doors and scowling at his raised eyebrow.
"I want," she said boldly, glaring at him in a dare. "To know." She pointed out the doors she had come, waving her hand about in an attempt to encapsulate what she meant. "All of it."
He leaned back, his body a line of lethal grace. "Oh," he said slowly, smiling at her, another fierce grin of darkness. "The dead do nothing but tell stories," he said, nodding his head at the doors. "And teach."
She grinned at him, fierce and bright and luminous in the dark grey of the Underworld. "I'll return later."
He shook his head, smirking. "I have no use for a cage," he said. "Come and go, it's yours."
She grinned even brighter at him, her crown of thorns scratching across her forehead as she whirled around, heading for the pools of silvers ghosts she could see in the distance, her feet steady throughout the rocky ground as she ran.
***
She stood among the trees in the sunlight, watching as her brother pulled his chariot of sunbeams across the sky. She scowled at the freedom he had, unattached from the earthly coil, unburdened from attendants and watchers. She still had to run for miles to escape, sliding between trees and changing direction, until the voices following her fell fainter and fainter on the breeze.
In the beginning, it had been an exciting way to start her days. Now, though, now, it felt tedious because even with all the time in the world, she had more important things to do than escape the women her mother assigned to be her sycophants.
She had no need for endless praise and everlasting sacrifices. She wanted - craved, really - to know.
She frowned, looking again at the sun. She only knew of one who would let her be.
And, earlier, she had heard her mother whispering plans of marriage into one of her attendant's ears, the nymph flushing green in shock as she met Persephone's eyes.
She tilted her head, resting it against the trunk as she watched the sun crest in the sky. She knew who she wished to marry.
***
"Come now, Kore," her mother said gently, her venomous words held fast behind a façade of sweetness. "We must be going to the meadows, for it's time to gather your bouquet to present to your father."
Persephone nodded once, a sharp dip of her head before turning and heading to the meadow, her mother's gaze heavy on her skin as she started plucking flowers caustically, ripping them from the ground without heeding their roots, their drops of pollen spilling out from between her clenched fingers, her displeasure obvious to all who laid eyes on her.
She paused suddenly, her thoughts whirring. Perhaps not, she thought, sending a savage grin at the ground before kneeling down and gently tugging the roots of the flowers away from the soil. Perhaps not, she thought again, shoving her hand into the red-orange clay and thinking of him.
She nearly gasped at the rush of power that left her, before she stood, hiding her scheming eyes behind her flowers and sighing so that none would look to closely at what she had done. She spun in a circle, grasping the flowers and their stems slowly, letting her mother think she had been cowed into doing her duty.
She took a deep breath, when her mother's gaze finally left her and glanced down, taking in the shifting doorway she had created. She looked up quickly, taking in her distance from her attendants before smiling and stepping down once hard.
She dropped through the earth, a scream tearing from her throat as she fell, her flowers tumbling down with her, pollen and sap spinning through the space with her before she grinned, hitting the ground with a muted thud and snapping her head up to see him, staring at her.
"Oh Persephone," he said, a grin growing in the corners of his mouth. "What did you do?"
***
She would refuse to answer for years, but she knew, in that very moment, that she had chosen a side.
And contrary to popular belief, it had not been his.
It had been hers.
***
Earlier, in their beginning, he had tried, once, to call her Kore.
She had screamed at him, her throat rough and raw from her sudden expulsion of noise, that it was not her name.
He had blinked, one quick flicker of movement before he dipped his head and asked, quietly, "Who are you then?"
*
Persephone. Bringer of Destruction.
(an aptly named girl)
*
"Persephone," she had snapped, a defiant look in her eyes.
He tipped his head back, eyeing her contemplatively. "I like it," he said, grinning at her scowl. "Not that you need my approval for anything."
"No," she said, grinning at him suddenly, her eyes fierce and glittering, a savage twist to her lips. "I don't."
***