Hung the Moon

As The Rivers And The Sea Are One

Here is the poem Zira is quoting when he compares Anathema to Persephone:

i wasn't afraid, mama;
i was bored. i was hungry.

do you know how long i waited
for that fruit? me in the fields,
the sunlight on my hair a crown.
sweat on my palms glittering
like starbursts carved in marble,
teeth sharp as athena's sword.
he took one look at me
and broke the earth open
for desire.

and all that time, you thought
golden-armoured braggarts
could storm my heart into
surrender. oh, mama.
what did i care to be a bride
when i could be queen?

i wasn't afraid, mama;
i wasn't taken. i left.
if you only knew
how his hair is softest
when he's on his knees,
coaxing spring
from inside of me.

"

LETTERS FROM PERSEPHONE // Natalie Wee

Aziraphale and Anathema (once she'd come around) worked together to tend to Crowley and Wendy. Aziraphale bore Crowley up the steps in his arms, Crowley's overtaxed body limp in his hold.

Anathema encouraged Wendy to go up to her bedroom, an easy grip on Wendy's shoulder to steer the girl; Wendy's steps faltered out of pure fatigue. Anathema did so with a gentleness Aziraphale had not realized the young witch possessed.

"Crowley," Aziraphale said, after settling Crowley in bed. He traced the line of one sharp cheekbone with fingers that he'd willed steady. Crowley looked like Ophelia in the river, his red hair mussed, so vulnerable, too weary to keep fighting the inevitable.

Zira brought the quilt up a little higher over Crowley's shoulders. If only he could protect Crowley from all the hideous things taking shape with something so simple as a warm blanket.

"Hm?" Crowley said, though his eyes remained closed.

"Are you all right? I need to speak with Anathema, but I don't want to leave you alone if you're frightened or worried."

"M'okay angel. Need some sleep, is all."

"On one condition: Promise me you won't sleep for a hundred odd years this time."

A bare chuckle was his reward. He cradled it to his breast as if it were a piece of fine crystal, the sort with high sentimental value. He combed his fingers through Crowley's hair, buoyed up by the whimper of relaxation it earned him.

He went into Wendy's room next, after Wendy's soft assent. He took a seat on the edge of her bed, hating how her dark counterpane made her look funerary. Her hair, fanned out on her pillow, looked like a tangled halo. Her hands were milk-white against the blanket.

"Hi Dad," she mumbled. She wasn't looking at him, but he perceived that it had more to do with her lack of energy than her feeling angry at him.

"Hello, darling girl. I'm sorry. I wish you weren't mixed up in all of this."

Doubt seized his heart. Had they made a mistake, adopting a mortal? She couldn't deny the preternatural now, and Heaven and Hell would soon realize (if they hadn't already) that they were a family. What then? Hell had to have set Tisiphone on them, and that had been bad enough.

"It's crazy," Wendy managed. The wan illumination from the nightlight beside her bed cast her in alabaster hues. "I mean, it wasn't so hard accepting that you're an angel or that mum is a demon, I guess. Still scares me sometimes. But..."

Today was something all together else.

"I'll do my best to protect you, you know that."