DESCENT

XXV - DESCENT

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Descent

(noun): it can be an action of moving downward, dropping, or falling... or it could be a moral, a social or psychological decline into a specified undesirable state

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PROSERPINA:

Before she and Alastor can go shopping later (does this count as a date?), Proserpina had fully intended to leave the house not too far or for long seeing as she no longer felt that secure ever since they've been attacked there when she returned to the shadows to rest.

As an underworld goddess, Proserpina no longer thrives in the realm of the living unless she powers through it.

Sometimes, just being in this realm tires her.

That's why, at some point, she's usually on the prowl at night and always had to return to the darkness, to the shadows by morning if she wished to keep her physical being intact in the long run. Despite the lack of given mass or any sort of physical substance, the shadows had always felt cold to her. A familiar one.

And despite their lack of form, they had always felt like the thousands of scrabbling hands that tore her apart on that awful night... though no longer not as painful as it had been the first time she had them, there was still a phantom ache from where they had torn her apart. She knows the shadows was never meant to grant her comfort, they were nothing more but cruel reminders of how she had come to be, as she wordlessly directed them to take her somewhere else, deeper to the only place in the dark where she can be left alone with her thoughts.

Here, she finally confirmed: with Alastor Nyx involved, nothing ever goes to plan. And while she liked to think that everything went well, as smooth-sailing her conversation with her other half, she couldn't still help but feel on edge.

Well yes, Proserpina had every right to be on edge considering that Alastor was too happy to care (she hadn't had the heart to burst his happy bubble) or the fact Hades most likely knows by now that she might as well have violated her agreement with him all those years ago and (–is it still considered a violation of her vow even though she wasn't really in a relationship with Alastor?) she was worried what this could possibly entail for her, for him.

No matter how much some of the other gods cared about her, even they wouldn't be able to help Proserpina if worse comes to worst because no one is that foolish enough to stand up to the eldest god. And having Hades find out was already the worst-case scenario, no thanks to Apollo.

Could things be even worse?

Could Hades take back her divinity?

The god of the underworld had been the one to grant her godhood in the first place, surely he must be able to take it away the same way Zeus had revoked Apollo and even Poseidon's divinity on the many times they have sorely displeased him.

But Proserpina had never wanted to be a goddess. She just wanted to live, to protect her brother. And her immortality had only been a means to live without fear, to become stronger.

Because throughout the years, despite the benefits her being a goddess did bring, she couldn't say that she'd been happy to be divine... there are times she still thinks of herself as human, after all. Certainly, she had been amused for some time, she had been satisfied to play predator and becoming a living nightmare to monsters that once caused her and her brother so much harm but how could immortality possibly bring her joy when it had been nothing but the price of what brought her on to that point?