Flowers and Shadows

Hades and Persephone is a story that has so many different sides to it. Some people romanticize their relationship (often without taking into account certain aspects of the myth) while others insist that Hades was nothing but perverse and awful... even though taking Persephone, after having her father's permission, was quite normal for the time!
This is a retelling of the ancient myth, with all the ancient components to it. I researched the story from many different sources and tried to make it as accurate as possible. The only writer's license was the amount of time she spent in the Underworld before Hermes came-- I never found an exact number, so I wrote it as six months, partly so that they had time to truly fall for each other, partly so that she would return to the mortal realm immediately after being returned to Demeter.
Persephone is a character who understands the place goddesses and women have in the world, understands the normalcy of her capture, but still struggles with feeling like it's unjust. Hades is a god with few romantic relationships in his past (Leuce and Minthe) who hadn't fallen for anyone for a while and wasn't quite sure how to treat a goddess in a realm he never visited. This is the story.