Archive of Our Own ^beta

The morning after harvest is always the most beautiful morning of the year. Persephone loves it more than anything. There is a bittersweet satisfaction, looking at the fields and seeing them empty, almost devoid of life, yet knowing that the reason for it is yet another successful harvest. Her people have her blessing, and with it, grain aplenty to last them until the next harvest. It is a job well done, on both their part and hers.

This post-harvest morning is no different. Persephone wakes as Helios’ rays are just rising above the horizon, and watches as the world is flooded with an orange tint.

“Mother, I’m going out!” she yells.

“Make sure you take Prosymina and Limmenora with you!” Demeter yells back. Persephone rolls her eyes, but goes to wake the two nymphs as requested. The moment they are no longer in danger of falling over their own feet, she runs ahead of them to the hill overlooking the fields of the human settlement closest to her home. She lets the warmth of the morning envelop her as she looks out across the fields. It’s nothing she hasn’t seen before, but it takes her breath away every single time.

Persephone scans the landscape and spots a far-away field dotted with white. White flowers? At harvest time? She’s never seen that before. Perhaps the white is not flowers, perhaps instead some new human invention. It doesn’t particularly matter; the field caught her eye, and Persephone has nothing else to do this morning. Just as her companions catch up to her, she rises and runs ahead again.

As she nears the field, she sees that white dots are, indeed, flowers. They aren’t flowers she’s ever seen before, however. The petals form a spotless, uniform halo around bold yellow centers the shade of which she’s only ever seen on petals. The flowers are beautiful, almost ethereal. One might think they belong on Olympus, such is their brilliance.

She kneels down and picks a few to bring back home. While she’s picking the flowers, the ground starts rumbling. A crevice opens up next to her, and from it emerges a wild blur of black. Something latches onto her, onto the thin fabric of her dress, onto her arm. Persephone can hardly even let out a scream before she’s pulled backwards into the crevice, and then the ground closes around her and she closes her eyes and she’s falling and she falls unconscious.

PERSEPHONE

Her eyes flutter awake to dim light. Is it still twilight? She wishes that the sun would rise sooner rather than later—her dream was rather unsettling. Wherever did her mind conjure those flowers from anyway? Of the entire thing, that had been the only redeemable aspect. Persephone shakes away the lingering thoughts of the dream and decides to rise early.

When she pushes her palms against the bed, she meets far less resistance than expected. This bed... is soft. Too soft. She jolts up and looks around, only to be met by an unfamiliar bedchamber. Where is she? Is this... Did she really fall?

It is a beautifully constructed room, if darker than she would like, but in light of the fact that she has absolutely no idea where she is or how to get back home, she’s not feeling too inclined to appreciate it. Thankfully, she’s still wearing the same dress she had been wearing that morning. Is it still morning? Has the morning passed? She has no clue, and unless she leaves this room, it’s unlikely she’ll be able to find out.

Persephone looks at the door; there is a bolt to stop it from opening, but it isn’t actually set into place. It’s on her side of the door anyway, so really, not much of an obstacle. She opens the door and is met by a wide hallway. Silently, she walks out and follows the hallway until she reaches a large room, one which has a table, and also a man seated at it.

There is no way out but forward. Persephone tries to creep along the edge of the wall nearest to her, but her foot catches on a step she hadn’t caught sight of, and she’s falling again, and suddenly the man is there and she falls into his arms instead.

“I see you’re awake,” he says, looking down at her. Persephone has to avert her eyes to avoid looking at him. He’s her captor, or so she presumes. She can’t let him know anything, not without knowing what he wants and what he already knows. “Come,” he says, pulling her to her feet. “Let me show you around.”

Show her around? Show her around? Nevermind her earlier resolve. “I’m sorry, but who are you?”

The man stops in his tracks. “Your mother didn’t mention me?”

“My mother doesn’t make a habit of mentioning random men to me.”

He sighs. Under his breath, he mutters, “This isn’t going to be fun.”

“What isn’t going to be fun?” she demands.

“I suppose I ought to introduce myself. While I go by a lot of things, the name I would like you to use is Hades.”

“Hades..." she whispers numbly. “As in, the Lord of the Underworld?”

“At your service, my dear.”

“And for what have you brought me to your realm, Lord Hades?”

“Just Hades, Persephone,” he says, bringing his hand up to cup her cheek. She stiffens and steps back, just as he continues, “After all, what sort of husband would I be if I had my wife address me by my title?”

Persephone laughs, though upon seeing the look on his face, she sobers quickly. “My lord, are you sure you don’t have me mistaken for someone else? I am not to wed anyone.”

“Quite the contrary, dear. You are Persephone, goddess of the grain, daughter of Zeus of the sky and Demeter of earth and agriculture. I know who you are, just as I knew you when I asked your father for your hand.”

“I am not marrying you!”

“Persephone. Dear girl. The ruler of the Olympian Gods gave me your hand, and you’re telling me, no?”

“My father cannot make my decisions for me, no matter that he is the ruler of the Olympian Gods! I knew nothing about this, and did you even approach my mother? She can’t have known anything of this.”

“I did ask your mother for your hand as well, but she did not seem inclined to let you marry, neither to me nor another. With her being unreasonable, I had to disregard her wishes.”

“How can you say that so nonchalantly? If she had said that, you’d have done well to listen to her. Mother knows what she’s talking about. I did not want to marry anyone, and I certainly am not marrying you now.” Hades frowns at her, but she finds it hard to care. “Return me to my home this instant!”

“Persephone, dearest, I know that you haven’t yet had time to accustom yourself to the idea, but you will marry me.”

“No. I won’t. And don’t call me that.”

He smirks. “Don’t call you by your name? I’m afraid I’ve got nothing else to call you, other than my wife.”

Persephone’s jaw is clenched so tightly that she worries for the state of her teeth. It takes her considerable effort not to start screaming at him, but as much as she hates him, he is the ruler of the Underworld. He has power here, and she has none.

“I’m going to my room,” she grits out, then turns and heads back in the direction she came.

From behind her, Hades calls out, “Let me know if you need anything!” His voice is infuriatingly smug, as though he’s won a battle. He has, she hates to admit, for the only thing she needs is the one thing he’s refusing to give her. But she has need for nothing else, so at the very least, she is able to deny him that satisfaction.

PERSEPHONE

Persephone hears the clink of a plate outside her door, followed by the clink of a glass. It’s the nineteenth time after she refused to dine with him that first evening that he’s delivered food to her. Surprisingly, in this whole week, he hasn’t tried to force the door once. All he’s done is knock and announce himself, and, when she inevitably doesn’t respond, he leaves. Of course, some of that might relate to how she brings the victuals inside afterwards. He likely believes that she’s actually partaking in them. But she will not.

There’s a sigh outside her door as she again ignores him. Then there are receding footsteps. When they are far enough she can’t hear them, she waits, just a minute longer, then goes to retrieve the food before he comes back and wonders why she’s left it uneaten.

As she opens the door, she’s met by dark eyes. “Persephone.”

“Lord Hades,” she greets reluctantly. “Thank you for the food.”

“Of course, my dear.” He sweeps into the room, all the while asking, “I hope it has been to your liking? If there is anything you crave, or even just feel a slight whim for, do let me know. There is nothing I wouldn’t get for—”

He seems to have finally laid eyes on her hidden bounty. “Persephone, what is this?”

“Food, Lord Hades.”

“Hades, darling, I’ve told you. And you need not save food in the fear that I won’t feed you. There will always be food for you, never you worry.”

“Mm.”

“And I can’t imagine this food would even be good after so long.” He walks over to examine the plates left next to the bed. As he gets closer, he freezes, then kneels to inspect the food. When he speaks again, his voice is like a tightly wound kithara. “Persephone. Dearest. Have you not been eating?”

Persephone will not become like him. She will not become a liar. “No, Lord Hades.”

“Persephone. You will starve.”

“But I will not die. And even if I could, I would rather starve than be bound to this realm. I know what happens when one eats the food of the Underworld, and I would spare myself that terrible fate.”

“I—” Hades is left speechless. After some long moments, he regains his ability to speak. “Persephone, you can’t hurt yourself like this.”

Persephone stays silent. When he finally realizes that his unwilling audience with her is over, he storms out.

Not an hour later, as she is in the middle of plaiting her hair yet again, Hades reappears at her doorway. “Come with me.”

“No thank you, Lord Hades.”

“Persephone. I will not ask again. Come with me, or I will make you.” She continues to plait. He exhales lowly. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you, my dear.”

He crosses the room in a blink, and Persephone recoils in anticipation of a blow, but none comes. Instead, her world is upended as she’s thrown over his shoulder. She can’t wiggle, exactly, but she pounds her fists against his back. “Put me down!”

“You didn’t come when I asked politely, what was I to do?”

“I’m not your dog!”

Hades chuckles. “No, indeed, you’re not.” He’s still holding her, much to Persephone’s chagrin. She struggles futilely a little while longer, but comes to realize that saving her waning strength might be a better use of her energy.

They move slowly through his castle, and while she can’t see much, on account of his body blocking her view, she catches glimpses of their journey. Mostly it's just a blur of the floor, of the stone walls and the few corners they turn, until they pass through a doorway and suddenly there’s... sunlight?

They’re in what appears to be a bright courtyard, one with carrots and turnips and a few apples oddly scattered throughout. The change of scenery—of lighting—is shocking on its own, and then Hades puts her down and she has to give the world a moment to reorient itself.

It’s a beautiful courtyard. Not as useful as the fields, nor as wild as the meadows at home, but still incredibly stunning. It’s the first time she’s been out in the open since she fell, and by Zeus, she’s missed it, missed the feel of the sun on her dark skin and the wind blowing through her unfinished plait. She’s taking it all in when suddenly she hears the sky rumble. She looks up to see nothing. When she looks at Hades, his hands are raised, his eyes closed.

“Lord Hades,” she begins, but before she can ask her question, the rumbling gets louder. The sky splits open. Falling through, just as she did, is more produce; there are more turnips, carrots, and apples, but there are also some olives, a loaf of bread, and a small basket of plums. They fall into a basket that had been placed a few feet away from where Persephone and Hades stand. As soon as the falling food is gathered, Hades brings down his hands. The rift above them closes, and the sky returns to its original bright state.

Hades grabs the basket, then holds a hand out to Persephone. “Will you come normally this time, or must I carry you again?”

Persephone purses her lips. “I’ll walk,” she states curtly, crossing her arms in front of her. A look of disappointment flits over his face, but it disappears in an instant and then he begins walking back into the castle.

Hades leads her into a small, empty kitchen and seats her at its table. Then, he begins washing the produce, though he cuts a piece of bread for her first. “I will confess, I had not thought about the issue of feeding you until your ill advised fast. There was, I thought, no reason you would be unable to consume the same food I do. I hadn’t anticipated you being so stubborn about your refusal to marry me. I hadn’t anticipated your refusal at all, so you must forgive me for the oversight.”

Hades places a plum on her dish, then begins chopping. His gaze is focused on the food in front of him as he continues, “I have no desire for you to starve yourself in a bid to avoid this marriage. You’ll change your mind, but until that time, I will provide food for you from the realm above, food that won’t bind you here.” He brings the carrots and the olives over to her, depositing them on her plate as he kneels in front of her.

Persephone stays still, her face as free of expression as she has the ability to keep it. He pushes the plate closer to her, but she remains motionless.

“It’s not from this realm, you saw that with your own eyes. Eat, Persephone, please,” he begs plaintively.

“This food may not be of this realm, but I am still here. Until I am returned to my home, I will not eat.” His pleading eyes morph into a glare, and she glares right back at him. “May I take my leave, Lord Hades?”

Persephone doesn’t wait for his answer. She makes to get up, but suddenly he traps her wrist against the table and pushes her back into her chair. “Darling,” he says softly, looking her straight in the eye. There is a dangerous undertone present that makes Persephone shiver as he says, “You must eat. If I have to tie you to this chair and feed you myself, then I will do so, but you will not starve any longer.”

Persephone remains silent. The longer she does, the more his grasp on her wrist tightens. She doesn’t think he’s trying to hurt her: his other hand, resting in her lap, is curled into a fist so tight she thinks he may be leaving fingernail marks on his own palm. Nevertheless, his grip is painful, and she gasps. In an instant, his hand shoots away from hers, but his other one takes advantage of the moment to slip a plum up to her open lips.

Her teeth are pressed right against the skin of it, and it would be so easy to just bite down. It is so tempting. But she keeps her jaw still, keeps staring right at Hades. His one hand is trying to feed her the plum, but his other is free, and it curls in and out of a fist. She keeps staring at him.

Eventually, Hades scoffs and pulls his hand away from her mouth. The plum plops into her lap. Closing his eyes, he says, “I will not tie you up and make you eat. I am no barbarian.” With that, he finally rises and stalks away.

He’s almost left her line of sight when suddenly, he turns around and comes back to the entryway of the kitchen. His mouth opens and shuts multiple times before he softly says, “I hope you do not hurt yourself in an effort to spite me.”

This time, when he leaves, he leaves for good. Persephone is left stunned at the kitchen table, a plum in her lap and plate in front of her. She stares at the spot he had been standing in. Slowly, she lifts the plum to her mouth. She takes a bite. It’s sweeter than she remembers plums being.

PERSEPHONE

Once she’s broken her fast, a routine develops. Persephone still won’t eat food in her room, but Hades refuses to let her miss a meal, so every mealtime, they go out into the courtyard, and he brings food down from her realm, and then they eat in the kitchen. He’d left her alone the first few times, thinking she wouldn’t eat in his presence. He wasn’t wrong, exactly, so it was a rather thoughtful gesture.

However, even as a prisoner, Persephone’s manners get the best of her, and she begins to feel bad that she’s putting Hades out in his own home. As a consequence, one morning after he’s set the food down in the kitchen, she grabs an apple from the basket and begins eating it before he leaves. His eyes widen. Cautiously, Hades sits across from her. After a moment of silence, he reaches into the basket and retrieves an apple of his own, which he eats while she finishes the rest of her morning meal.

That seems to break the floodgates, and since then, he’s been a constant presence at her meals. Sometimes he takes a little bit of food from the basket she’s begun to regard as ‘hers’, sometimes he brings a meal of his own, but he is always present. They don’t speak, and so Persephone can tolerate her captor’s company for the short amount of time a meal takes. She spends the rest of her days in her room, so this is a small sacrifice to make for the peace of mind that comes with ensuring her food isn’t of the Underworld.

At lunch one day, Hades breaks the silence with an unexpected question. “Would you come on a walk with me, Persephone?”

“Thank you, Lord Hades, but I must decline.”

“As you wish,” he murmurs.

He asks again the next day, and the day after that, and then at every lunchtime after that.

At lunch one day, Hades asks the questions she’s come to expect. Instead of declining, as is habit for her by now, she asks a question of her own. “Why, Lord Hades, do you ask me to walk with you every day?”

“Is it too much for me to hope to spend time with the woman who will become my wife?”

Persephone purses her lips. She leaves early that day, her food half uneaten.

The next day, he asks the everfamilar question, and she responds with a different one. “I will never agree to marry you. Ever. You have to know that. Why do you still ask?”

Hades answers, “Darling, you’ve been here for almost two months now. We may not agree on whether or not you will become my wife, but even if we set that aside... You’ve been in my realm for nearly two months now, and you’ve seen none of it but the inside of this castle and the tiny courtyard where we get your food. Don’t you want to know what the place you’re living in is like?”

Persephone purses her lips. She doesn’t leave lunch early that day.

The next day, Hades asks her the question that has become her constant. “Would you come on a walk with me, Persephone?”

This time, she nods. “Perhaps not right after lunch, but I am curious as to what the Underworld is like.”

Hades grins and pecks her cheek. “Then after lunch, I will endeavor to find the perfect place to take you, and then we shall explore my realm.”

Persephone swipes at the spot where he kissed her. “Don’t do that.”

“My apologies, dearest. I’ll go think now, you enjoy the rest of your meal.” Hades gets out of his chair and leans down, then mutters lowly, “She just said not to do that.” Instead of kissing her, as she presumes he would have, he squeezes her shoulder and walks away.

Persephone’s lips turn up just a little. She may be giving in to his wishes, but the fact remains that she has been stuck here for months, and at least walking around will mean something new for her. She doesn’t have to accept anything else from him.

Persephone finishes the rest of her meal and heads back to her room. There, she waits for Hades to pick her up for the walk. As she waits, she undoes her hair, brushes it again, and replaits it. When she turns away from her dresser after finishing her plait, she notices Hades leaning against the wall outside her room. His eyes feel like they’re burning a hole onto her, and she blushes.

“Have I ever told you, dear, that you have beautiful hair?” he asks as he runs his hand across it.

“No, my lord, you hadn’t.”

He sighs a little, but says, “You do.” A little more quietly, “You are.”

Persephone can feel the heat rushing to her face, even more than there already is, and she tries to will it down. She doesn’t quite succeed, she thinks, but Hades is kind enough not to point it out. Instead, he motions for her to follow him, and with him, she leaves the grounds of the castle for the first time.

Unlike mealtimes, Hades decides to use the walk as an opportunity to talk to her. Well. He’s less talking to her, and more rambling at her, but as the latter means she doesn’t have to respond much, she doesn’t particularly mind.

“For some reason, the Underworld is seen as some sort of terrible place to be, but it looks quite a lot like the realm of the mortals, you know. It is not as wide, I suppose, and the people there are alive, but other than that. It’s just as beautiful down here.”

“Mm.”

He glances at her, then ventures casually, “I saw your face when I first took you to the courtyard. You hadn’t been expecting sunlight, had you?”

“No, truthfully, I hadn’t.”

“Would you not say it compares well to the realm above?” Persephone shakes her head, her face stony, and Hades sighs. “I suppose you wouldn’t.”

“Indeed I would not. I do maintain that my home is the most beautiful of all, and I rather would enjoy being returned there.”

Hades winces. “Persephone..."

She glares at him. “May I return home, Lord Hades?”

“No,” he says flatly.

“Then I would thank you to stop making comparisons to my home, for all you do with them is injure me.”

“Of course, my dear. I apologize for my impoliteness.”

Persephone clenches her jaw, and forcefully unclenches it as they continue walking. When she is capable of speech that isn’t absolutely cutting, she asks, “Where are we walking to? Or are we wandering around aimlessly?”

Hades chuckles. He stops immediately, as though still scared of provoking her anger, but upon seeing her mild countenance, smiles again. “It is rather ironic you phrased your question like that.” Persephone tilts her head questioningly, but rather than elaborate, Hades simply says, “You’ll understand when we get there.”

“Will I?”

“Well, darling, if you don’t understand, you have the best person around to explain it to you.”

Persephone glances at him from the corner of her eye. He looks incredibly smug, and she is so tempted to quip about Athena hiding behind a pillar somewhere. However, it is important for her to remember, no matter how pleasant he is, that he is still holding here against her will. She is still just a challenge for him, just another trophy to win from her father, and especially against her mother. So she keeps quiet and lets him advance the conversation without any more input from her.

“Well,” he says, and she looks over at him. “Here we are. The Fields of Asphodel.” She turns to follow his gaze and is struck by a sight that reminds her bitterly of home. The Fields of Asphodel are as they were designed to be: vast and boring. Asphodel is not a grain and the souls doomed to walk in it are doing nothing so productive as working the fields in hope of a harvest. Nevertheless, the sight of all those human figures among the full field calls to her, and she steps forward without any true conscious decision.

There is a voice, a male voice, behind her in the back of her head that asks her to wait, but the moment she feels the graze of the stalks against her arm, she is lost. Persephone heads into the tall greenery, feeling the asphodel surround her, swallow her up. She runs through it, feeling freer than she has in the past month. Not even just the past month. She feels more free than she’s ever been in her entire life.

Persephone runs and runs and feels her dress flow against the grain of the growth. She cuts through the tension and resistance that seems to bog down everyone around her, and she feels untethered. She feels so alive. She runs, and she can feel herself grinning even as her chest hurts from the exertion.

Persephone keeps running, and she could do this forever. Or so she thinks, until she runs into someone. The breath is knocked out of her, she is knocked back. She stops, and it feels like the world stops with her. The soul she ran into has moved past already. When she gets up, all she can see around her is asphodel. There is no sign of another soul, of the edge of the field from which she entered, of Hades.

“Hades?” she calls. She waits a beat. She hears no response. “Hades!”

A cycle of calling and waiting, and she’s wondering if maybe she should move, but what if that takes her deeper into the fields? She’s stuck where she is, and she has to hope—

“Persephone?”

She whirls around and Hades is just a few feet away from her, though he hadn’t been there not a moment ago.

“Hi,” she says, her voice choking on even that one syllable.

Hades’ arms twitch. “I had thought...” He cuts himself off and swallows deeply, his eyelids blinking rapidly. Suddenly, he closes the distance between them and she is enveloped in his arms.

Persephone will not lie. She has missed physical contact. So much, so much so that it was ridiculous some days, and here he was hugging her, and all she wanted to was wrap her arms back around him and sob a little, but. It’s Hades. And he has been kind and pleasant and welcoming but she is still his captive, and it feels so viscerally wrong to give in, even as her whole body is screaming for her to do so.

She squirms away, just barely, and then he’s letting go of her as suddenly as he took hold of her. She’s relieved, she’d swear that on her name, on her mother’s. But she won’t lie. So she admits to herself, she feels bereft as well. If only she could go home and give her mother a hug that has no inconvenient feelings attached.

So lost Persephone is in her thoughts, she almost misses Hades’ next statement, though it logs itself in her head for her to revisit later. “Next time,” he is saying, “don’t go wandering the Fields without me. Or, at the very least, let me know before you do, and I can give you something or send you with someone that will ensure I don’t lose you.”

Persephone nods in acknowledgement, and also with a significant amount of wonder, for his statement implies he will let her return even without him personally escorting her. How very generous of him to give me such free reign, she thinks. How very rude of him to control my movements so, she thinks. Her mind wars with itself as he shows her the way out of the Fields of Asphodel, but as they return to the castle, it calms.

‘Let me push these boundaries,’ Persephone thinks. As they recover from the day, her mind spins.

PERSEPHONE

She doesn’t ask the next day. He asks her on a walk, as is the norm, and she accepts, which, she suspects, will become a new norm, and this time they walk along the Lethe River. It is eerily calm, but it is new, and she doesn not mind a little eeriness if it allows her to see beyond the castle walls.

The day after that, he says to her at breakfast, “Darling, you will have to forgive me, but I cannot ask you for a walk today, for I fear you would accept.”

Persephone isn’t offended, really. This suits her, but at the same time, is Hades really going to tell her she isn’t his priority, when he has such an uphill battle to climb if he ever wants to reach his lofty goal? It is an unattainable goal, true, but he could try, could he not? She raises her eyebrow at him, and he sighs.

“Our walks have been the highlight of my millenia, but I fear that if I continue with them daily, I will neglect my realm, and that is unacceptable.”

Oh. Oh, Hades. “Of course. Our duty to our people comes first, always.”

He grabs her hand and squeezes it. “Thank you for being so understanding, dearest.”

Persephone chooses not to withdraw her hand, letting him pull away when he would. He does not linger, but rather draws away as soon as he finishes expressing his gratitude. Persephone smiles, one of the few genuine smiles she’s had cause for since she arrived.

As they finish their meal, Persephone carefully says, “Hades?”

The grin on his face is so wide, were he not a god, she would worry he might split his face in two. “Yes, Persephone?”

“As you’ll be otherwise occupied today, I was thinking I might visit the Fields of Asphodel again?”

“Of course, dear, thank you for letting me know. I’ll send a shade with you in case you get too far in and need to get out again. Let him know if you need anything.”

“Perfect.” He’s still smiling at her, and the joy on his face is a little too naked, so she ducks her head. Then he leaves, and she is left alone to think about the contradictory nature of her stay in his realm, and really, she’d rather not. Persephone indulges that lack of desire and retreats to her room, waiting for the arrival of her undead escort.

It arrives almost immediately, much to her pleasure. She is able to put breakfast out of her mind. She grabs some fruit, in case her walk through the Fields of Asphodel takes her past lunch, tucks it into a conveniently available basket, then heads out.

The Fields are as stunning as they were the first time she saw them, though she is thankfully much better prepared for the sight today. She carefully walks in, checking with every couple of steps that she can see the shade following a few paces behind her. She grows more confident as she goes, looking back at it less and less until she’s put it out of her mind, almost forgotten that it’s following her.

If she closes her eyes, Persephone can almost pretend she’s back home. The tall asphodel feels like the grain just before harvest. The smell is sweeter though, and that knocks her out of her reminiscence. She can only walk a bit further before she collapses onto the ground and begins sobbing.

The shade flits around her, but it either cannot say anything or chooses not to. Hades doesn’t show up immediately, so presumably, it hasn’t reported her meltdown to him. Hopefully it will keep its silence even after they’ve returned to the castle.

At the moment, however, Persephone needs to focus less on the future and more on pulling herself back together. She breathes in, collects her nostalgia and longing, breathes out. She breathes in, packs it all into a small box, breathes out. Once more, and she pushes the box to the back of her mind, breathes out. There.

Persephone wipes a stray tear away and watches as it falls onto one of the lower hanging flowers. It’s strangely beautiful, like a singular dewdrop drawing sunlight to the soft pink petal.

That gives her pause. Wasn’t the asphodel white? She stands and glances around, and sees only an amalgamation of pink nestled in green. Perhaps she was misremembering; the only other time she’s been to the Fields of Asphodel, she was rather agitated, and the pink was pale enough that perhaps she had mistaken it for white?

Not knowing was... annoying. “Shade? Can you talk?”

There was no response, and she sighs. It was a long shot, but still a tinge disappointing. Persephone grabs her basket and collects the food that had spilled out earlier. As she rises again, the shade drifts in front of her. There is a low, rasping noise, and it takes her a moment to realize that it is a word, ”yes”.

“You can talk!”

“yes”

She has questions, but she also has manners. “Do you have a name? I would hate to have to keep calling you ‘Shade’”

“no” it rasps out. Suddenly, its visage flickers, and then it is speaking again. “maybe... can not remember”

“Oh... Is it alright, then, if I keep calling you ‘Shade’?”

“yes”

The answer came too quickly for it to have thought it through. Persephone sighs again, but asks, “Is the asphodel pink? Or white? I had thought it was white the other day, but apparently not.”

Shade does not answer, instead gliding away from her. She doesn’t move, causing it to fly back and intone “come”. When it flies away again, Persephone follows.

It leads her deeper into the fields, and as she walks, she can see hints of yellow further out. They walk closer, and she can see that the pink of the asphodel flowers is exchanged for a bold yellow.

“Oh! The asphodel is different colors!”

“yes”

It takes her even deeper, and the small section of yellow is replaced by a veritable sea of white flowers. She picks an asphodel flower and tucks it into her hair. “Is it just these three, Shade? Or are there other flowers as well?”

“yes... no... yes” it answers.

Persephone frowns. “What do you mean? There are or are not other colors of the asphodel flowers?”

Shade seems to perk up. “not others”

“Pity. Though I suppose these are plenty beautiful.” She looks around her, at the continuous range of white flowers. An idea strikes her and she is immediately taken by it. “Shade, could you direct me back to the castle?”

It doesn’t respond, but it moves back in the direction they came, so she’ll take that as a yes. As they go, she picks some of each of the various colors of asphodel flowers and throws them into her basket.

After they get back to the castle, Persephone thanks Shade, then retreats to her room. There, once she has emptied the basket onto her bed, she begins plucking the petals of the flowers off from their bodies. She sorts each petal into its particular third of the basket and the small green stems, she weaves together to form a divider. She eats as she works, skipping lunch.

The light streaming through her open windows wanes. It’s getting darker, and Persephone looks up to realize she’s been sorting through her petals for hours now. Missing lunch, when he could see the food gone from the kitchen, was one matter; it is almost dinnertime now, and Hades would probably come looking for her. She stores the petals away and heads out of her room in search of him.

Persephone finds him in the courtyard with a full basket in hand. “Persephone! I was just about to bring you some food. The shade told me you’d returned but were busy, and I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Just as well I came out then. It’s not like I would have eaten food that you delivered to me.”

Hades flinches, and Persephone immediately regrets her teasing statement. He’s been nothing but kind to her—except for the whole kidnapping thing, but even so, he’s treated her politely and fairly. The insinuation of his untrustworthiness had been unnecessary. There are apologies spilling out of his mouth, but Persephone ignores them in favor of reaching past him and grabbing a loaf of bread. She tears off a piece and pops it into her mouth, then tears off another and holds it out to him. Hades is stunned into silence. With wonder filling his eyes, he reaches out and accepts it.

Persephone takes the basket from him and saunters off to the kitchen. After a moment of hesitation, Hades follows her. They eat in companionable silence, until Hades asks, “Did you enjoy your walk through Asphodel?”

“It was fruitful, yes.”

“I’m glad. Tomorrow, would you accompany me again? While I couldn’t entertain you today, there is much more for me to show you.”

Persephone nods.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then, dear. Rest well.”

PERSEPHONE

As the days pass, Persephone and Hades develop a new routine. He’ll tell her at breakfast if he has work that day or not, and if he doesn’t, then he will walk her around his realm. She’s seen a good portion of the Underworld by now: he’s walked her along all the rivers, by the groves of pomegranate trees and the Elysian Fields. He tries to show her something new when he can, but there are times she requests to revisit one of the older sites.

If, instead, he does have work to do, she is left to her own devices the whole day, instead of just the hours between the morning and noon meals.

Normally, given the opportunity, she walks Asphodel, but one such day where she is left alone, Persephone starts sorting through the rooms of the castle she’s been in. She stumbles across a tall basket filled with needles and bobbins of colorful thread sitting atop soft, plain linen. She takes a piece of linen for herself, as well as needles and some threads that match the color of the petals she’s been collecting.

She spends the rest of that day embroidering a quick design onto the linen; it’s fortunate she found it when she did, for the designs she’s been making out of the petals are not the most sturdy: the petals disperse every time the wind blows or the door opens. From then on, she works on embroidering the linen in the mornings, and goes on walks—be they by herself or with Hades—in the afternoons.

Hades finds her one morning and says, “I had not known you enjoyed embroidery.”

“It’s not particularly enjoyable, but it’s not uninteresting either,” she responds, eyes still on her linen.

“If you don’t enjoy it, why are you doing it?”

“I wanted to capture something, and this was the best way I could think of doing so.” Hades doesn’t respond to that. Persephone looks up to find that he’s disappeared. She shrugs, then returns back to filling in the circle she’s working on.

After some minutes, there is a knock on her door. “Come in,” she says, still focused on her work. In the periphery of her vision, she sees Hades walk in and lean against her bedframe, waiting for her to look up. There is something in his arms, and so she finally puts down her needle to ask about it.

Hades sets the pile down on her bed. “I thought this might be more convenient for you, rather than having to embroider your thoughts.” He’s given her a stack of parchment, along with some colored ink stones and assorted reeds. The inks aren’t as exact to the shade of the petals as the threads are, but he’s right, they will be far easier to work with.

“Thank you,” she murmurs, eyes still taking in the bounty he’s given her. She wants to use the new materials right away, but Hades is free today, and it would be rude to ignore him. Persephone settles the parchment and inks into the basket she uses on her solo walks, then follows him to lunch.

PERSEPHONE

More time passes. Hades gets busier and busier, for reasons he can’t explain. “There are whole families arriving at my gates,” he says worriedly. “It doesn’t look like disease, yet I can’t think of any other reason for such high numbers.” The sheer volume of arrivals means that more often than not, Hades can’t walk with her, but he still ensures that they eat together at the end of the day.

Each day, he asks her how it was, what she did all day. When she answers that she was in the Fields of Asphodel for the third time in a row, he frowns. “Darling, you know you can go to places other than Asphodel, right?”

Persephone did not know that, but she nods anyway. “I do quite like the fields, so it’s alright.” Hades looks at her surreptitiously, but doesn’t question her any further.

A few days later, he surprises her by showing up to the fields just after lunchtime.

“Hades!” she exclaims. “I thought you had work today?”

“I did, dear, but I managed to get away early. I wanted to see what it is about Asphodel you like enough to spend all of your days here.” Persephone glances at the parchment she’s been writing on. Hades catches the glance. “May I see?” he asks. She reluctantly passes the parchment over, and he examines it with a keen eye. “Explain what this is to me, darling.”

“It’s...” she hesitates, “It’s a map.”

“I don’t recognize it. What is it of?”

Persephone bites her lip. “Well, it’s sort of a map of something that doesn’t exist yet.” He quirks an eyebrow, and she elaborates, “It’s kind of a plan? For replanting the Fields of Asphodel?”

Once she’s let those words out, she seems to be unable to stop. “I know that the Fields serve their purpose just fine as they are now, but it seems like such a waste to let the gorgeous colors of the asphodel be scattered randomly. If we had the field replanted, or maybe even just a small portion of it, the size of the plot doesn’t matter as the design can be rescaled, then we could add more beauty to it, and it would have the benefit of putting the souls stuck in the fields to work.” She takes a quick breath and continues, “And I know that they’re dead souls, that they’ve already lived their life, but wouldn’t it be nice if we could give them something to do? Even if only for a small portion of their infinite stay; I don’t know if they feel like they’re fading from the monotony but Hades, I did, at one point, and I feel like this would be such a good idea and—”

“Persephone, relax,” Hades says mildly, and her mouth shuts so fast her teeth hurt a little. He hands the parchment back to her and squeezes her shoulder. “Darling, this is a brilliant idea. When you’ve finished it, we can make plans for uprooting and replanting the fields, though we may have to do small sections at a time, considering how vast it is. Coordinating the whole of Asphodel might be beyond even my power.”

That elicits a giggle from her, though she quickly sobers. “You’re serious? About letting me redo the fields?”

“Dead serious.” Persephone rolls her eyes at the ridiculous pun, then quickly hugs him.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“Anything for you, my dear,” he says into her ear. It’s not the first time he’s expressed this particular sentiment, but for once, Persephone might actually believe him.

PERSEPHONE

That day is an anomaly, as Hades continues to be extremely busy. She works on finishing up the redesign of Asphodel, and when she’s done she sketches a few more quick ideas, but eventually she decides it’s time to leave her daily visits to the fields behind. She begins walking around the rest of the Underworld, revisiting various places Hades had shown her. Shade accompanies her everywhere, and on certain occasions he’s even led her to a particular destination when she had none in mind.

It’s a comfortable routine. She goes out, comes home, then eats dinner and answers questions about her day. Sometimes, Hades will volunteer information about his own day, if anything particularly interesting happened, but for the most part he prefers not to bother her with “the tedious minutiae of running the Realm of the Dead”.

When Hades can get away from work, he does. It’s rare, and more often than not it’s just an hour or so, an extended lunch or something of that nature. One particular night, however, he tells her, “I hope you don’t have anything planned for tomorrow, because I’ve got something special in mind.”

“For the whole day?”

“For the whole day. Dress comfortably,” he advises, and she laughs but agrees.

The next morning, she dons the softest dress in her closet and heads to the kitchen to meet Hades. Upon seeing her, he laughs. “What?” she asks, a little offended. “You said to dress comfortably, and I did! Here, feel it,”—she shakes one of her billowing sleeves at him—“it’s so soft!”

Hades struggles to hold back his laughter. “It is soft, I know, I’m the one who acquired it for you. But that isn’t exactly what I meant by comfortable.”

Persephone crosses her arms and glares at him. “Darling, there are tunics in your closet, yes?” When she nods in affirmation, he says, “Go change into one of those.”

“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”

“Just trust me, a tunic is much more comfortable for today.” She rolls her eyes at him, but changes clothes anyway.

When she returns, he takes her hand and says, “I hope you don’t mind not walking too much.” Before she can ask him what he means by such a cryptic statement, the world around her blurs, and when it comes back into focus they’re standing just inside of the Gates.

“Come along, dear, it’s just a bit ahead.”

“Hades, why’d you do that? The Gates aren’t that far from the castle, we could have walked.”

“I thought you might prefer to save your energy, and also time.”

“Save it for what?” she asks impatiently. Hades doesn’t answer her. Instead, he whistles sharply, and she hears footsteps thudding along the earth. Suddenly, a gigantic three-headed dog comes into view. He barrels towards them as fast as he can but skids to a stop just in front of where they’re standing.

“Cerberus, meet Persephone, the wonderful woman I plan to marry. Persephone, meet my watchdog Cerberus.” Cerberus licks at her face, and Persephone immediately falls in love. If Hades hadn’t kidnapped her, she thinks, she might have married him for the pup alone.

Persephone spends the day entertaining (and being entertained by) Cerberus. Hades joins in occasionally, distracting a head or two while Persephone plays with the others, but for the most part, he sits back and watches her acquaint herself with his dog. It is incredibly enjoyable, and she is almost angry that he hadn’t introduced her to Cerberus earlier.

As dusk approaches, Persephone is laying on Cerberus’s back, scratching at his necks while he lays down to sleep. She can feel sleep overtaking her too: it was a very long, very high energy day, though she enjoyed every moment of it. Her hand slows down, and then it stills, and her eyes are about to close when suddenly she hears Hades’ voice from beside her.

“Nope, you aren’t sleeping here. Come on.” She ignores him, and suddenly she’s being lifted into the air by two strong arms. Persephone is too tired to argue with him, so instead she just locks her hands around Hades’ neck and lets herself drift off to the steady motion of him walking.

Persephone wakes up the next morning in her bed, her blanket tucked tightly around her. There’s a note next to her head that reads, ‘You’re still asleep as I write this, for I couldn’t bring myself to wake you up. I’ve got work, but I’ve left food in the kitchen. Enjoy your day, darling. Don’t work yourself too hard.’ Back to the routine, she supposes.

As she walks to the kitchen, she realizes that she’s a lot more tired that she thought she would be, especially after sleeping for so long. It’s nearly noon but her body still feels weighted down. She doesn’t want to lie in her room any longer than she already has, though.

While eating, Persephone realizes that while she’s walked around most of the Underworld so far, she hasn’t really explored the grounds of the castle itself. She’s seen the courtyard where Hades brings down her food, and she knows there are gardens beyond it, but she’s never actually looked there. That’s what she’ll do today, she decides with satisfaction. Persephone polishes off what’s left on her plate and heads out the back door.

Persephone exits the far end of the courtyard and comes to a series of paths which look so convoluted, she’s tempted to call it a maze. It’s not, she finds, as each path is actually a loop, and brings her right back to where she started. Slowly, she makes her way through the different walkways, admiring the landscaping and the few undead animals which are present.

She gets through most of them in an hour or two, and then all she has left is one path: the center path, which, if the pattern holds, will be the shortest one. Part of her wants to save it, because if she finishes exploring this one, then she won’t have anything to look forward to for the rest of the day. The other part of her doesn’t want to go back inside leaving this large stone unturned, and this is the part of her that wins.

She walks down the center path and it is, as she expected, extremely short. It opens into a small, circular field filled with brilliant white flowers. The flowers are gleaming, almost shining, and they’re stunningly ethereal. She’s drawn closer and closer to them, and she kneels down to get a better look. Then, she catches sight of their center: they’re colored bold yellow, a shade she has only ever seen on petals, and on one other flower center. Or, should she say, only on these flowers.

There are tears streaming down her face, and Persephone doesn’t lift a hand to try and quell them. She just sits there on her knees, sobbing, because she had forgotten about these and she hadn’t expected them here of all places and now every illusion she’d been harboring has been violently shattered.

Persephone sits there for hours, and the daylight turns into dusk, and dusk turns into night, and Shade is flitting around trying to get her to get up but she won’t listen to him. Eventually, sometime after night falls, Hades rushes in and finds her surrounded by slightly glowing flowers.

“Persephone? You didn’t come for dinner, are you okay?” She doesn’t answer. He reaches for her shoulder and she swats his hand away.

“Don’t touch me!” she cries, and she thinks it might be the first she’s raised her voice at Hades.

“Darling, what’s wrong?”

She closes her eyes and counts. When she reaches ten, she isn’t calm, not at all, but if she doesn’t ask now she doesn’t think she’ll ever get the chance to, so she does. “Tell me about these flowers.”

“They’re called the Narcissus flower, after—”

“I don’t care about their history. Tell me where they’re from, what they do.” Her voice is steady. She doesn’t feel steady.

“They don’t do anything? They’re just flowers, albeit the most gorgeous flowers I’ve seen. They’re from when Narcissus died, and they grow all throughout the Underworld. I’m surprised you haven’t seen a meadow of them before.”

“That’s the thing,” she says softly, and she is surprised by the amount of venom she is able to insert into words so quiet. “I have seen a meadow of them before, once. You know when it was too, don’t you?”

Hades’s eyes widen, and he is visibly holding himself back from reaching out to touch her. “Persephone...”

“The last time I saw these flowers was the day you stole me away from everything and everyone I care for, and brought me here as a prisoner.” Hades flinches at her words, and she’s glad for it.

“I had given you some credit, you know. I had thought,” she scoffs, “naively, that you kidnapped me in a fit of passion, that you had seen me and wanted me and since you had your purported permission you thought it was justifiable. But you don’t deserve even that much credit, because you knew what you were doing was wrong, didn’t you? You schemed to lure me away from my safety nets and then steal me away. Every step of this was planned.”

Hades is quiet. “Am I wrong?” Persephone asks.

“I mean—”

“Am I wrong? It’s a simple question, Lord Hades, yes or no.”

“No,” he whispers, and she knew it was coming but it stings anyway.

“I thought so,” she says, staring at her hands.

There is silence. They haven’t had that in a long time. Persephone doesn’t look up. She won’t look up. She keeps her eyes resolutely on her hands, refuses to let her gaze waver. Eventually, she feels the air shift. Hears footsteps. Hades has left.

She breaks down for the second time today.

PERSEPHONE

Since finding the Narcissus flowers, Persephone has not once talked to Hades. She does not eat meals with him (she does not eat his meals at all). She either sits in the room he gave her in silence, or sometimes, very rarely, she goes on walks. It’s getting harder to, admittedly, for while the lack of food can’t kill her, it certainly can weaken her.

Even so, she makes an effort to go at least twice a week, if not more. She follows the winding path of Pyriphlegethon and the Kokytos rivers, walks the full length of them, and reminds herself that this, these burning flames, this cacophonous wailing, this is the true nature of her captivity. She would do well to remember it.

When she isn’t walking along the rivers, she’s erasing as much of her presence from the castle as she can. She tore up her Asphodel plans the morning after she came across the Narcissus. They were fed into the Pyriphlegethon the first chance she got. She returns the embroidery set into the tall basket from which it came, and places the parchment and inkstones and reeds in Hades’ study while he’s eating breakfast. She took all the clothes he outfitted her with (everything in the closet, but for the dress she was kidnapped in) and set them in the hall outside her room. They’re still laying there, as though Hades hopes she might change her mind. She won’t.

Currently, she’s walking along the Kokytos river. Shade follows close behind her, but it too is quiet. She hasn’t tried to send it away; she is, after all, a prisoner. Who is she to argue with her captor’s demands?

She takes a step forward, and her foot lands wrong, and she’s falling into the Kokytos. Suddenly her descent stops, when her face is but an inch away from murky waters.

There is a rasping question behind her. “okay?” It’s echoed by the man her captor, who happens to have rescued her. “Are you okay, Persephone?”

Persephone is still being held by him. She ensures that her footing is solid, then shoulders her way out of his grasp. His face is twisted into a look of worry, and she looks away.

She supposes she ought to thank him, but she can’t bring herself to say the words. It’s his fault she’s here anyway, so truth be told, gratitude is unwarranted.

She mouths a quick thank you to Shade before heading back in the direction she came. Behind her, her captor sighs. He doesn’t follow her, however, and when she looks back after a couple of paces, he’s vanished.

HADES

Hades sits in his office, stamping at intake papers and flicking through Charon’s notes. A new note appears, and the text on it is thick and tall. It screams importance, and Hades is no fool. He picks it up. It’s a request for a meeting from Hermes, who is, apparently, at his Gates.

He’s been in his office all day. Hades takes the request as an opportunity to get out, if only for long enough to receive whatever message it is that Hermes has come to deliver.

Hades transports himself to the Gates, much to the shock of Hermes. Really, he’d think the other god would be used to this by now.

“What is it, Hermes?”

“Lord Hades, a message and a request for you, from Lord Zeus. The message: Demeter is on a rampage. Since the disappearance of her daughter, she’s left the earth cold and barren. No crops can grow. The rain freezes before it hits the ground, and the earth is hidden by a thick layer of snow. She neglects all her duties to search for her daughter.”

“And the request?” Hades asks coldly.

“He asks that you return his daughter to her mother, before she manages to set the whole world to ruin.”

Hades wants to decline. He wants to send back an argument, wants to stake his claim on her, wants to tell Demeter that if she wants her daughter back, she can come down to the underworld and pry his bride from him herself, but. The world she loves is dying, because he stole this precious woman from her mother. He thinks of how much love is in her heart for her grains and her harvest and he cannot ruin it all for her.

He thinks, grimly, of the week before when he’d stopped her from drowning in the River of Sorrows, of the blank look in her eyes, as though she were already dead. And while that is his realm, he doesn’t want her to be one of his subjects. He doesn’t want dominion over her.

He wants... Well. It hardly matters what he wants. She wants none of it, she’s proven that quite clearly.

Hermes had been resignedly nattering on while he thinks, trying to give him reason to acquiesce even as he presumed Hades wouldn’t. Hades cuts him off. “Come,” he says, and Hermes falls silent.

“I’ll show you to her.”

HERMES

Hermes is led through a dark castle, down a dark hallway, and then there is a door. Hades raps on it twice with his knuckles, then pushes it open without waiting for a response.

“Persephone!” The cry spills from his lips without his biddance, and he rushes to her. The poor girl looks so disheveled, so scrawny and lackluster and ragged. He glowers at Hades, but his attention is drawn back to the girl when she speaks.

“H— Hermes?” Her voice is hoarse, though he can’t tell if it’s from disuse or overuse. “How—”

“I’m here on behalf of your mother, dear girl.”

Behind him, Hades says gruffly, “Pack your things.”

“I have no things besides that which is on me,” she says, and Hermes glares at Hades once more.

“Wait,” she says before Hermes can question the other man, “I’m going home?” Her voice rises. “You’re letting me leave?”

Hades dips his head, and it’s like a light is lit in Persephone’s eyes. She looks leagues livelier than she’s been during this whole conversation. She looks, Hermes thinks, leagues livelier than she likely has been these past few months.

Just as quickly as her spirit rose, it seems to sink again. Softly, she asks, “What did mother promise you in return?”

Hades turns away, says nothing. Hermes smiles wanly, because, well, nothing. It is curious indeed, that Demeter (or, more accurately, Zeus) hadn’t had to promise Hades anything. He is just letting the girl return. But curious as it is, Hades doesn’t seem to want to let her know. And he’s a messenger, not a secret spreader.

PERSEPHONE

Persephone walks out with Hermes and her would-be former captor. At this point, she supposes, she can just call him Hades, for soon he will no longer have a relation to her.

When they reach the gates, Hades asks Hermes if he would step aside for a few moments, and Persephone worries. What if he reneges on whatever agreement it was that he made? But he doesn’t reach to grab her, doesn’t try to spirit her away.

He tells her, "I'll miss you. If you ever wish to visit, either me or just my realm, you can. This world and everything in it will always be open to you."

"Hades,” she begins uncomfortably, but he cuts her off.

"I have something to give you, before you go." He hands her a pomegranate. She goes to crack it open, so she can eat half and give him half, as a gesture of goodwill, but before she can, he lays his hand over her. It’s gentle, a touch as light as a feather, but it stills her immediately.

“If you eat the food of the Underworld, you’re bound to it,” he says gently.

A trick. She wants to cry, how could he? “You were going to let me eat it?”

Hades smiles a miserable facsimile of a smile. “No, dearest. I stopped you before you could for a reason.”

“Then why—”

“I don’t expect you to eat it, but… I would have married you, if you’d let me. I still would, if you let me now. And I know that you don’t want to, and you probably won’t ever want to, and that…” He lets out a breath. “That’s fine. You will always be welcome here, no matter your decision regarding my proposal. But in case you ever choose to accept, I’m giving you this pomegranate. Eat it, my dear, and you become my queen.”

Persephone shakes her head and tries to give the pomegranate back to him. He just gently curls her fingers back around it. “Like I said, I don’t expect you will eat it. But I have to at least give it to you.”

He lets go of her hand, and Persephone tucks the pomegranate into a pocket.

“Hermes,” Hades calls, and the other god approaches them.

“Ready to go?” he asks Persephone.

She looks at both of them, at the Gates behind her and the Acheron in front of her.

She steps forward, and leaves the Underworld behind.

PERSEPHONE

As they step past the boundaries of the Underworld, Persephone finds that they are surrounded not by the dusky light they just left, but instead by a deep darkness. There’s a chill in the air that she’s never felt before, and she says as much to Hermes, who’s escorting her all the way home.

His eyes dart around, and he says wryly, “I imagine it’ll get much warmer once you reach your house.”

There’s a hint of something underlying his words, but Persephone is too tired to even ask. She leaves it alone, and they pick their ways across the fields in silence. Soon, they’re standing outside her house. Persephone breathes deeply, pushes the door open, and steps inside.

Nothing happens. She isn’t sure what she was expecting, exactly, but surely coming home was momentous enough that something would feel different? But it’s still dark and cold, and Persephone is left stumbling through her house, Hermes watching from the doorway.

From the corner of her eye, Persephone can see light flicker, and she turns around just as a lamp is lit. Behind it, Limmenora gasps, awakening Prosymina, who proceeds to soundlessly stare at her.

Persephone smiles weakly, gives them a small wave. “Hello, girls,” she says, and that breaks the floodgates. They rush to her, take her hands in theirs.

“Persephone?! How have you been?”

“Where have you been? We were so worried!”

“You look terrible, what on earth happened?”

Persephone squeezes their hands. “I’m okay, I swear. I’ve been stuck in the Underworld for these past few months.” At the horrified gasps that ensue, Persephone gives a suppressed laugh. “I know, right? It’s been absolutely absurd. Lord Hades kidnapped me because he thought I would marry him? He even claimed he’d talked to Mother about it, how ridiculous.”

Prosymina and Limmenora exchange twin glances full of meaning. Before Persephone can question them about it, she notices movement in her peripheral vision. When she looks, she’s met by the sight of Demeter with her hands clapped over her mouth and tears in her eyes. Persephone runs to her and throws her arms around her mother. Demeter hugs her back tightly, and for the first time in weeks, Persephone feels like maybe she’ll be okay.

When she pulls back, she feels like the world has changed, like it’s become warmer and brighter. She takes another look at Demeter and says with a wobbly voice, “Mother, you look dreadful.”

“You’re one to talk, darling,” she says, thumbs swiping at the tears under Persephone’s eyes. “My poor girl, you’ve become so thin. What that villain’s done to you, I don’t even want to imagine.” Persephone looks away, unwilling to answer the implicit question. She doesn’t want to think about how Hades treated her, how her mother’s expectations are so incredibly dissonant from the truth.

Demeter doesn’t question it further, and Persephone gets the feeling she doesn’t exactly care to discuss it either. Instead, her mother looks around and says, “It’s a rather early start to the day, but I suppose breakfast is in order.” She pauses again, then says, “Let’s get you cleaned up first. The girls can help you draw a bath, and we can get you into some nicer clothes.”

She waves her hand and the two nymphs come forward. They lead Persephone towards the bath room, where they fill the tub with steaming water. Persephone sinks in and lets herself relax in the company of her friends.

Limmenora helps Persephone wash her hair, and Prosymina sits to the side, offering her soaps as she requests them. They chatter for a little bit, but eventually the conversation peters off. Hesitantly, Prosymina asks, “What was it like, being in the Underworld?”

Persephone clenches her jaw, and the nymph rushes to apologize. “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, pretend I never said anything.” She shouldn’t have. She really shouldn’t have, but she did, and now it’s too late to pretend otherwise. A heavy silence fills the air, far different from the light atmosphere that had been in the room just moments before.

“Thank you for your help, girls. Could I finish my bath in private?”

Limmenora winces. “I’m afraid not, Persephone. Your mother wants us to stay.” Unspoken goes her mother’s reasoning.

Persephone sighs and says, “I suppose I can’t begrudge her that.”

The silence lasts for a while, until Limmenora asks, “Did I tell you about this satyr I met last week?” When the other two shake their head, she begins to tell a dramatic tale, and the atmosphere is once again light.

Persephone finishes up her bath and dons a dress her mother had retrieved from her bedroom. Limmenora goes to gather up Persephone’s shed clothing, but she curtly says, “Leave it.” At the nymph’s slightly confused look, she explains, “I’d like to put it away myself.”

Limmenora shrugs. “Your wish, I suppose.”

“Thank you.” She folds her dress and leaves it in a corner of the room so that she can grab it later. That settled, the trio heads down to the kitchen, where Demeter has made breakfast.

“Oh, darling, you look good. And with some food in you, I imagine you’ll look even better. Come on, eat.”

Persephone does exactly that. She hasn’t eaten in weeks, and she is absolutely ravenous. Her companions watch with amusement (and more than a little sorrow, which she is rigidly ignoring) as she scarfs down the food on her plate, and then another plate on top of it.

When they finish eating, Persephone feels like she’s fit to burst. She watches Demeter clear away the dishes through heavy eyes. It’s been a long day (a long night?) and even though it’s morning here, Persephone is now incredibly tired.

“Mother, I’m going to sleep for a bit.”

Demeters smiles indulgently at her. “Of course, dear. Not too long though, or you won’t be able to sleep come night. I’ll have one of the girls wake you in a few hours.”

Persephone nods. She hugs her mother again, just because she can, and then leaves for her room. She stops by the bath again and grabs her shed clothes, mindful of the lump contained in one of the pockets. When she reaches her room, she closes the door behind her, sets up a bucket of water, then finally, carefully extracts the pomegranate from the pocket where she’d stored it.

She’s tempted to just lob the fruit out her window as far as she can, but that temptation is slight, and the idea of it causes a slight twinge of her chest. Hades was an absolute bastard, but the memory of him gingerly closing her fingers around the pomegranate is fresh in her mind, and she can’t bring herself to get rid of it. Sighing, Persephone shoves the pomegranate into the back of her dresser. She dumps the clothes into the water, leaving them to soak, and falls into bed, letting the thoughts swirling through her head dissipate in favor of the blissful silence of sleep.

PERSEPHONE

While it’s been half a year since she was last home, she’d been there for decades before that, and it’s not hard for her to get back into a familiar rhythm. There are a few differences: for one, whenever she goes to examine her peoples’ lands, she’s always accompanied by someone, be it Prosymina and/or Limmenora, or even her mother. She’d think Demeter would have her own duties to attend to, but somehow she makes the time to spend it with her daughter.

For another, Persephone finds herself to be increasingly taxed. It’s unclear if the lands she’s blessing have changed, or if, perhaps, it’s a result of the time she spent in captivity not using her powers, but the blessings seem to take more out of her than they had in the past. before

Persephone says as much to her mother, and is met with a soft reassurance that things will go back to normal soon. That may be true, but it doesn’t satisfy her curiosity as to why that difference is there. Regardless, planting season keeps her busy, and before she knows it she’s been home for almost three months.

She’d thought that perhaps, after the initial shock and fear had subsided, her mother would relax a little, but Demeter still doesn’t let her go anywhere without an escort. It's a stark difference to the way she was treated in the Underworld, where Hades gave her free reign of the castle and the grounds and the whole realm. Granted, there was always someone watching her there as there is here, but the Underworld was dangerous in a way that the Earth isn’t. This is her home. She knows it well. And at least in the Underworld, she’d had a semblance of privacy, as her watchers often stayed hidden.

When she complains to her mother that she’s tired of being watched like a child, Demeter just smiles at her and says, “Indulge me a little longer?” And when her mother asks that of her, after all the worry she’d endured during Persephone’s disappearance, Persephone can’t help but acquiesce.

It’s due to this that Persephone finds herself spending more and more time with her mother. Prior to her kidnapping, she used to spend a lot of time watching the fields and the farmers she’s responsible for. She still does that, but her mother isn’t always comfortable with silence, so they end up talking more often than not.

One such day, Persephone brings up the idea of love, of marriage and suitors who may have asked for her hand in it. Demeter is silent on the topic but Persephone continues to press her, at which point she says, “Darling, it’s nothing you need to concern yourself with.”

“So there haven’t been any suitors?”

Demeter shakes her head. “I suppose it’s natural that you would ask. You’ve grown to be rather beautiful, and it would be the course of things that you’d have men vying for your hand, but trust me when I say there have not been any suitors that you would care about.”

Hesitantly, Persephone says, “Hades says he asked for your blessing, but what you’ve said…”

“And you trust Hades’ words, Persephone?”

“I didn’t say that, mother, I was just curious!”

“That rascal stole you away from me without any warning. He, like most men, are not to be trusted. You know that, don’t you darling?”

“Of course I do.” Persephone leans her head on Demeter’s shoulder, and the conversation moves away from that topic.

That would have been the end of it. Persephone’s curiosity was satisfied, though the confirmation that Hades had been lying to her so blatantly from the beginning still hurt. She was willing to drop it, and she did, until a few weeks later when she stumbles upon Demeter arguing quietly with a young man. He’s a handsome man, with golden skin and stunning brown eyes, but the sneer on his face is offputting, as is the tone with which he is addressing her mother.

Persephone can only catch snippets of the argument the two are having, but it’s clear that the subject of the argument is her. She’s never felt more self conscious, more like she’s committing some terrible crime she can’t let her mother find out about. Quietly, she sneaks away, and tries to push the moment to the back of her mind.

Her efforts are unsuccessful, and Persephone finds herself watching her mother more closely. What she sees is disturbing. Demeter turns away suitor after suitor after suitor. Persephone is not… unglad, exactly, for her mother’s intervention; she wouldn’t have married any of them, that’s for certain. But Demeter lied to her, has been lying to her by omission for so long. She doesn’t know when she first started receiving suitors, but now she thinks Hades hadn’t lied to her, about this at least.

After a week of watching Demeter continue to lie to her, she can’t stay silent. As soon as the latest suitor is sent away, Persephone bursts in to confront her mom. She doesn’t get that far. The moment Demeter sees her face, she sighs resignedly. With a hassled tone, she asks, “Did you want to marry him?”

“No, I don’t—”

“Then there’s no harm, is there?”

"He’s not the only one that’s come to you! You had no way of knowing that one of them wasn't the match Aphrodite intended for me!"

“Darling, you're a goddess. Aphrodite has no say over you."

“That's not what I meant! This isn't about what Aphrodite wants, this about me, and the fact that I could have loved one of them, and you turned them away without giving me the chance to. My courtships, my marriage? Those are my matters, mother, not yours."

"Darling, you’re young. You don’t know any better. I'm doing what's best for you."

“No, you’re not. Maybe you think you are, but I know what I need, and this isn’t it.”

Demeter stares at her slack-jawed, and suddenly Persephone feels like she’s said too much. She runs out of the clearing and begins heading towards the Underworld. She needs to trust her mother, trust that the decisions she’s made in the past were what’s best for her, because Persephone knows that her own judgement in the past has been poor. Hopefully, seeing her place of captivity will remind her of that and return things back to normal.

She finds the mortal entrance with ease, but hesitates once she’s reached it. Taking a deep breath, she firms her resolve. She can do this. She has to do this. Persephone steps through the gate.

Instantly, the light shifts. It’s the middle of the night here, which is all the better for her purposes. Slowly, she makes her way across the Acheron, ensuring that she doesn’t awaken Charon in the process. She means to head straight for the rivers of fire and sorrow, but she finds herself taken aback by the sight of a sleeping Cerberus.

Something in her heart aches, and her feet take her away from her intended destination, towards another source of heartache: the Fields of Asphodel. By the time she reaches it, the first rays of light are passing above the horizon, and the view she sees from the top of the hill she’s on takes her breath away.

It’s not pretty. The flowers aren’t in bloom yet, they’re just growing stalks, but it takes her breath away all the same, for there’s something new: field markers. They form outlines of familiar shapes. Her mind goes back to the design she’d painstakingly formed time and time again out of petals, until she was able to sketch it. She couldn’t forget it even if she tried.

The realization that Hades continued with her proposed changes, even after she’d destroyed her plans, shocks her. It’s not like he expected her to return, but he’d listened to her suggestions anyway. He’d remembered them. This, more than anything from the time she’d actually spent in his castle, proves that he did actually care.

It’s cowardly of her, but she runs away. She runs past Cerberus and Charon and the fields and runs home, where she’s met by her frantic mother.

“Persephone, where have you been? I was so worried.”

“I just— I needed to clear my head. I’m sorry,” she pants.

Demeter pulls her in for a hug. “Don’t do that ever again, you hear me? I was terrified.”

Persephone nods. She follows her mother inside. She eats dinner. She goes to bed.

All the while, her heart aches.

PERSEPHONE

The morning after harvest is always the most beautiful morning of the year. Persephone loves it more than anything. There is a bittersweet satisfaction, looking at the fields and seeing them empty, almost devoid of life, yet knowing that the reason for it is yet another successful harvest. Her people have her blessing, and with it, grain aplenty to last them until the next harvest. It is a job well done, on both their part and hers.

This post-harvest morning is no different. “Mother, I’m going out!” she yells.

“I’m coming, give me a moment!”

Her heart sinks. “Mother, it’s the morning after the harvest.”

“I know, darling. But there’s nothing wrong with me accompanying you, is there? After all, you could say this is as much my harvest as it is yours, what with myself being the Goddess of Agriculture and all.”

Persephone purses her lips, but can’t find it in herself to deny her mother. They head to the hill Persephone always goes to, but it feels different this year. Beside her, Demeter keeps talking, unable to (or perhaps just unwilling to) enjoy the view in silence. It’s grating.

Abruptly, Persephone stands. Demeter gets up after her, but she says, “I’m just going home. You enjoy the view of your harvest a little longer.” She doesn’t give Demeter the chance to argue, just flees to the house.

When she reaches it, she heads straight to her room and opens the dresser. She throws out clothes until she can reach the back of it, and she pulls out the pomegranate, just as fresh as the day Hades had given it to her. She stows it in her pocket and looks at the clothes around her.

She finds that she doesn’t care for them. So she leaves them laying haphazardly on the floor and starts running again. For once, she’s running towards something.

The grain harvest is over. If she leaves now, she won’t be harming her people. So she runs to the Underworld. She means to head to Hades’ castle, but gets waylaid by Cerberus. It’s late, and while her day had just started it’s incredibly dark here, and she’s exhausted, and it’s been months and she’s sure he still loves her but right now she can’t handle confronting him.

Persephone goes to sit by Cerberus, and he sleepily cracks an eye open. Upon seeing her, the rest of his eyes open as well, and she’s overtaken by three giant heads that want to play with her. So she does exactly that, and after a short while he’s back to being tired. He lies down, and Persephone nestles herself in between his heads. As she does, Cerberus noses at her bag, where the pomegranate is.

She takes it out and he keeps nosing at it, so she cracks it open and peels some of the seeds out. She pauses for a moment. And two. And then she eats one, before letting Cerberus lap the rest from her palm. He quiets. And, well, she is tired. She sets the pomegranate down next to her and falls asleep.

PERSEPHONE

When she wakes, it's to Hades shaking her lightly. “Persephone, what are you doing here?”

“I.. I guess I fell asleep.”

“But what are you doing—” It’s then that his eyes fall upon the open pomegranate, seeds missing. “Did you.. Eat them?”

Persephone bites her lip. Looks away. This is exactly what she came here to do, why is it so hard?

Hades stays silent. He’s looking at her expectantly, and all she can do is nod. Nervously, she says, “I also gave some to Cerberus, I do hope that doesn’t—”

She’s cut off by him picking her up and pressing his lips to hers. Persephone melts into it, and it’s a long, long moment before they separate. Pressing his forehead against hers, Hades says, “The pomegranate wasn’t a binding promise to be my Queen, just a binding promise to my realm. I do, however, hope this means you want to be my wife?”

Persephone kisses him again. “I do.”

He picks her up once more and she shrieks with laughter as he takes them back to his castle.