I Am Persephone

VII

She had been forced to stay up here for the past six months. A few times, she was willing to admit, she'd been tempted to...kill something else. Just to have an excuse to return. To see him again. But she'd known that her mother would've used that as an excuse to lock her up, and that had been what'd convinced her to push down Seph. That was the name Hades had given to her darker side; he didn't see it as something monstrous pacing inside of her, merely a different part of her. A part that wasn't so terrible – according to him – as her mother made it out to be. As she sometimes felt it was.

Thinking of him made the skin from her scalp to her fingertips tingle.

A feeling almost like regret flared up in her chest. She knew now, as she tugged at the grass under her palms, that nothing on the surface would ever compare to the kingdom below it. The rest of the world had been ruined for her by the discovery. It made her heart hurt, but she knew she would never wish to unlearn of its existence.

It's all right, she told herself. You're going back soon.

And she was: in a short while Hades would be here to collect her and she could go back to the place she'd begun, tentatively, to think of as home. It would be the first time she was going to see him since Zeus had allowed her mother to drag her away from his palace and she'd watched as both Artemis and Athena looked at her with similar expressions of concern on their faces.

They'd since visited her multiple times, and she'd been able to apologise for leaving them to face her mother's wrath. Athena had waved her off. She didn't care at all what the other gods thought of her; what could they do if they didn't like her? Fight her? They'd lose. They couldn't outwit her. Artemis had only been interested in hearing about her new 'marriage'.

So? Spill! What happened? Did you fall in love with him? She had apparently forgotten all the terrible things she'd said about Hades in the past. The huntress was a romantic at heart.

Persephone hadn't been able to form a proper response and had been teased her about it during every subsequent visit. Athena had sighed and (not quite) hidden a smile.

Making a little noise in the back of her throat, Persephone let herself fall onto her back. Maybe if she closed her eyes, he would come sooner. She doubted it, but what else was she meant to do? Certainly not have another conversation with her mother. The last one had ended in tears – this time not from her.

Maybe their relationship would get better in time. Maybe not.

The red glowing through her eyelids was suddenly replaced by blackness and something wet dropped onto her face. "Wha-" She was interrupted by the feeling of something wide and flat and covered in that same thick substance being dragged across her face.

"Please, my friend. I am sure you mean well, but not many would appreciate the gesture." Hades! A shiver of excitement ran through her all the way to her core.

Cautiously, she cracked open an eye to see a huge furry face slobbering above her. She wrapped her arms around his neck, squealing when he almost crushed her in an attempt to lie down.

"Come now." A pair of lightly veined arms lifted Kerberos away from her, resulting in a whine from the dog. "Do not make that face at me."

"Hades!" Persephone rushed to her feet and wrapped her arms around him. He still smelt just like the core of the earth – strong and rich and cool like volcanic ice. She blushed at realising she'd noticed it, but she didn't turn her head to avoid breathing him in.

Slowly, his arms slid around her. "Persephone."

"I missed you," she admitted.

He tensed up and she worried she'd said the wrong thing. "You did?"