When Darkness Met Her

Cold

Persephone had never slept as sound as she did the night that her and Hades returned back from the fight with the Nemean Lion. Slowly they had both crept inside, Persephone passing the door to her room completely and going straight into Hades's room. The Lord of the Dead was too tired to offer any kind of persuasion for her to do otherwise, so he merely watched as she climbed into the dark ebony bed and closed her exhausted eyes. He had stripped his shirt and slacks off without a care seeing as how if she was to spend the night in his bed again he would at least be comfortable while doing so.

That night Hades slept like the dead he ruled over, his mind going into a complete shutdown until the morning light refused to give yield on waking him up. Slowly he turned in his covers only to find his wife still in bed with him snoring loudly. In a way it alarmed and humored him that such a delicate creature could make so much noise at night. He lay there for a moment and watched her sleep, thinking about all that had transpired the night before.

"A Nemean Lion" he thought to himself "They haven't been around these parts in centuries... What kind of dark magic brought one back here and now?"

Back in the days of chariots and heroes the Nemean Lion had been originally sired from the great monsters Enchidna and Typhon, two of the nastiest most vile things that Mother Gaea had popped out of her. He could remember the day his kind had destroyed Typhon, but even after their victory the devastation that creature had left behind could not make up for any kind of win they might have gained. Typhon had almost wiped out the human race and gods alike. He was truly the creature of nightmares and fear. But after his death, his bride Enchidna, a half woman half serpent monster gave birth to some of the most horrible creatures to walk the earth. For a while Zeus had let her live only to watch her children die for sport, but she had finally perished by a hundred eyed giant named Argus.

"Maybe the Nemean Lion bred before it died last time" he thought again " Maybe we won't see any more beasts, it could all just be a fluke."

But something deep inside himself felt that it wasn't just some fluke. No, he had to have a meeting with his brothers, the Big Three, as they called themselves. Only then could he be for sure that their world was safe from the nasties that had once roamed the earth freely.

Persephone stirred next to him and rolled over, her wild tangle of buttercup hair falling over her shoulders and face so gently. He gently reached out and moved them away from her sleeping face just so he could watch her a moment longer before he needed to get up. But slowly his sleeping mate's eyes opened, that beautiful shade of blue waking to look on him in the morning light.

He stared at her, his body stilled as her eyes glanced at him, their flickering hints of the bluest blue he had ever seen as her mouth parted as if to say something. But as they both lay together staring at one another they could both feel a shift in the air. Something had changed between them, something neither could quite put, the word hanging on the tip of their tongues. Persephone remembered the way she had held on to Hades as the Nemean Lion rampaged above them, the way her hands grasped at him so tightly, the only thing she couldn't lose, the one thing she wanted to protect.

Hades watched some kind of emotions drift over Persephone's face, his own composure cool and stoic to her but the same flight of feelings washing over him. His wife had protected him, had screamed his name and leaped for him when he was in danger.

Yes, something had changed between them, although both were positive the other did not feel it.

"Morning" Hades said quietly, his piercing eyes looking at her hesitantly.

"Morning" Persephone said softly her lips a bit dry from the hard sleep she had come out of "Did you sleep alright?"

Hades gave a side smile "Like the dead" he joked.