Persephone's Adonis
Author: CrimsonFuchsia Pairing: Spike/Drusilla Rating: PG Spoilers: None, 'Crush' and 'Smashed' hinted at. Summary: The sight of a Greek statue gives Drusilla cause to muse one night about her lost love Spike. Warning: Angst alert! Timeframe: During Season 6, though it doesn't follow canon. Distribution: If anyone wants it, it'd be an honour to distribute it if you ask first! Disclaimer: Spike, Dru and the rest of the cast belong to Joss and I'm not making *any* profit from this fictional work. Feedback: You have no idea how happy it'd make me!
Author's Note: On a technical note, there are many versions of the legend of Adonis, Aphrodite and Persephone; the story itself always being the same, but several finer details being different in numerous versions of the tale. I'm just using my particular favourite telling of the classic legend for this. I know I should be working more on 'Blood Flows There Like Wine' but this is only a short little thing and my inspiration and muses kept nagging me to do this! ^_^
Persephone's Adonis
She's beautiful. Even for a still statue like stone angels marking graves. Beautiful. Beautiful for someone painted a monster. Innocence and darkness all mixed up with poetry, blood and legend to make her powerful. A Goddess for small people. Not my Goddess but my friend, my still, silent companion. A small miniature statue of the sweet Goddess Persephone made of marble sings me to sleep and tells me her sorrows in exchange for mine in a silent pact, witnessed by the starlight and they are always honest. She stands at watch on an old bedside table that creaks its aches and woes next to my pretty candle, watching the flames dance and making sure it doesn't set me on fire. Her innocent eyes watch me whilst I eat, whilst I sleep, whilst I try to sleep and whilst I play cheeky games of shared flesh. Perhaps the spirit of an ancient Goddess still stays behind in her statue, wondering why no one makes any tea or cakes for her anymore. No one loves an archaic Goddess, however sweet her whispers, no matter that they sound like silver floating on water, all sparkles and softness. Hearts can be so hard. And heads so soft. The heads of man turned away from Persephone, shunning her from their hearts and warm laughter and they painted her red and black with hate. They made a demon out of a Goddess, a victim, the one that helped poor hopeless Psyche and gave her part of her beauty and charm in a sparkling gold box. Were I a Goddess I would turn them into an owl for that, but Miss Edith says I can be a naughty, spiteful girl sometimes. Perhaps I should punish her for that.
Persephone punished only herself, which can be a lovely game of aches and groans but not for a Goddess. Pretty thing she is. Her body is lithe and lean but also generous and supple like all Greek pretties in my favourite paintings, bone and marrow in all the right places, not a pig or a skeleton. She hides her body away, all shy, behind a sheet of silk, on her body like spider touches. She holds it, hands clasped over her heart, I wonder if she's praying or promising? She isn't very good at hiding her marble skin - I see arms, long legs, buttocks and one breast play hide and seek with the silk. Wickedness, it makes me want to dance with the leaves. Marble exhibitionism, marble body, marble face, marble hair, marble features. Would it be fun being made of stone? She has a face that whispers poetry of grief in pretty patterns and cold tears all down marble cheeks. Her face is still and pale, like bits and pieces of ivory on marble, her eyes big and staring like saucers, but for all the sympathy in her eyes she doesn't see me, even Goddesses can be rude. Her hair is long and lustrous and wavy like tassels and velvet washing her body all the way down to her waist. I wonder what colour it is - golden like the sunshine, black like midnight, red like fire or brown like the earth. Or maybe she's a rainbow. I think she'd be dark and devilish in her prettiness, like a portrait that nice man made of her. He tasted of devotion to her and it was fresh like mints.
She's very beautiful now as she holds her bleeding heart and I understand her crying. Most lovely girls look like a sunny Sunday afternoon but not this one; she looks like twilight, it's dark where she is now. The moon sings her name and its meaning. The destroyer of light. Such a cruel name for such a sweet, innocent being, all springtime, strawberries and flowers. People often spoke rude words to me when I was warm, they would speak out of turn and call me cursed and evil, naughty things. No cake for them, no eyes either, not when my fingers dance and pluck. I would cry salt tears of sweet blood at them to stop but they still threw their rocks of scorn, stoning me to death with hatred. We both used to have the sweetness of Heaven and the love of Gods. We were both pure, all white and shiny with virtue and we smelt of poppy nectar, all dizzy and warm with sweetness.
But then our dark Daddies came for us, to take us away in love, passion and death. This was the story I heard of Persephone, not knowing there was another. This was the story that made her rip out my heart with feeling and give me hers instead. She had a God of Death carry her off and I had my Angel of Death do the same thing for me because I was special. They both did it out of love, her Hades, whisking her off to the Underworld while she was picking flowers for her Mummy so they could be married and my Daddy hurt me out of love - he told me whenever he hurt me blind with hurt. That's what love is, whips, chains and torture. He bestowed such love on me, though I didn't see it then. He took my Mummy when she was singing me to sleep and lulling my pain and I cried so much. He took all my family and played such nasty games with my mind and made me miserable and outcast. But he was cruel to be kind, he made me happy and beautiful so I could dance away from the sun. I wonder if sweet Persephone ever knew torture and the fun of branding irons.
My insides got all twisted because my world hurt and my eyes burnt forever with new tears and all my golden loves were shot with hard arrows and fell from my open sky and each time it hurt more. I lived in winter, a frozen Hell, praying that God stop punishing me, that I had the strength for this trial. When Persephone got herself married in the Underworld, all earth became winter and all fertile things died in cold agony and music. I sometimes wonder if Daddy arrived the same time Persephone's Hades did in a chapel of bones. Naughty me, such thoughts out to be whipped till they leave.
She whispers her tale from her stillness on the table, I wish I could see her dance, she'd be a fine dancer, all legs and grace like a leaf burning in Autumn. And she knows fire. She possesses such fire in her, waving it around like a daisy; maybe that's why she gets burnt so much. She ought to be more careful of a scolding. She belongs to the dead now, goodbye sunshine and pity it was taken away. Now she's married to her Hades and Queen of the Underworld, across the river Styx and Miss Edith tells me I've been having tea with a Queen without knowing it. But I'd prefer the Queen of England; refined and grand with real royal tea, a party with her would be a wonderful event. And Persephone remains Queen of the Dead. Perhaps she is my Queen then, because I'm cold. No breath for Drusilla's body, she misbehaved, she sinned, the nuns will pinch you now. Just like Hades fed Persephone those six pomegranate seeds, my Angel fed me his blood, screaming of death. Pomegranates and blood. They all sang the same song in the end and Persephone and I both danced and twisted to it. Daddy was my Hades, Hades to my Persephone.
At least she has six months a year out of the darkness. I missed the sun at first, but now I find it horrible, too much burning and smelling of dust and graves for me to stretch on. Too bright, like Heaven's door. I like night and her kisses chaste and sisterly, not wicked and burning, though I wish I had Cerberus to play with as Persephone did when she was all lonely. I get lonely a lot now, the moon is such a fair-weather friend and Miss Edith and the others have not been good conversation lately, too much gossip till I had to cut out their tongues, shh.
Their china faces and china frowns don't match her emptiness like sockets missing their bright baby blue eyes. She understands how basking in a lemony sun as golden as the flax of a tasty treat of a child's head could be better to always seeing hate behind love. Turns everything upside down, topsy-turvy, the music's too fast to keep up with and I'm afraid I'll fall on my rump and they'll all laugh and throw stones. I'll just have to punish them. She understands, poor archaic Goddess lost all her devout worshippers long ago. She must be lonely.
My Spike used to call me his Goddess.am I archaic to him too? Falling to bits, unspoken, unmourned, all my worshippers dead and gone leaving behind a sad story. I cried for them when my Spike and I crossed cold oceans to visit their temples, all I could hear was the cries of the ghosts of Gods that were forgotten. They all bled and screamed because their people were gone and they were left behind and Olympus fell like each one of them in their turn, howling like wolves. Such sad music, like a lone harp. I wonder if that horrid Christian God with all his scorn and sharp-tongued disciples will be forgotten one day. I hope so; I don't like churches, not one bit. They say the cruellest things and sing their hymns off-key and I can't dance to their music. I wonder if they'll end in a rain of blood like the Bible says so? I hope so; I like blood, all sweet and sticky on my tongue. All the Gods vanish but mine is still lonely, poor thing.
My Spike gave me her statue because her story was my favourite, because her voice all twisted with pain called to me. The sun would never touch us if we had a Goddess' favour, no need for lemon drops for us, we were safe and she cried on my shoulder when Miss Edith wasn't looking. I knew her sorrows then and now I know her sorrows even more. Perhaps you can catch tears and unhappiness like the common cold. Is that how you catch your death? My pretty Persephone will never die, just like me but we're the only ones left in this tea party now and we get lonely. Miss Edith is always cruel to us, never plays nice anymore and acts like a rude bossy-boots. She won't listen to me anymore, she just chatters like cold teeth and tattles to all the others her secrets instead of telling me.
But I thought Hades and the Underworld would be the end of it. End of story. Happy endings for good princesses, sour times for rude witches and all the dark things. She was married, Hades keeps his love and we get loving spring and bright summer to prance like lambs in and autumn and winter to cry in. It didn't end like that for me, I didn't know how close Persephone and I were, touched by blood and suffering - I only kept her then because her tale gave me sweet dreams of my Angel and her voice was smooth as honey. My story moved differently; it hopped to her skip, to her jump. It did not sing to her tune, which was most nasty of me, but her story came back and found me in the end and punished me with words prickly like thorns and stakes. Daddy left and I stayed with my sweet, strong, bloody, devilish William. My Spike.
My Adonis.
His Adonis to my Persephone.
We had such a lovely time, full of blood and night and nakedness in the moonlight. And love. I can't abide by love, it makes my insides sick, I remember what love does. It hurts. But loving my Adonis, my Spike, didn't hurt. It was magic, like gild dust from a pixie fair. He put everything right, my champion and we would play bad, fun games even though Miss Edith always disapproved. Spike made me not care. He made me beautiful in a way Daddy never did, he made me a princess. Skin as pale as the face of the moon and eyes as cold as ice that always melted like snow when he was with me. He was wonderful. Vampires are supposed to feed off blood, happiness and suck the life out of goodness but it was done to him instead. He was a lion and a black devil and a handsome lover like Adonis. He always took care of me and I of him, he was more precious than any of my dolls - and that's why they were spiteful to him so much, wicked things, I should have tied them up to stop that nonsense. Love was strange, like butterflies in my stomach turning into bats and always flying up and down. I miss leeches, they were simple but my Spike wasn't. He was like a puzzle I could never get right even though I knew him inside out, he surprised me as I surprised him, like a Jack-in-the-Box. I loved him, all hearts, eyes, insides and naughty bits, I still loved him. He made flowers of my heart, blood red with thorns for all others, a ring of roses, like the rhyme. He kissed me on my head and on my lips and made me feel worth the world, like a Goddess. His Black Goddess. Loving Spike was like being in a flowerfield with a scissors and a watering can. And being loved by my Spike was like playing at being Zeus. Only with more fun and warmth. He was my special boy and I loved him, more than paintings of poetry made bloodied corpses at my hand. He made me real, less of a whisper and held me close always. Part of how I love him is still whispers; the part I can't understand or recognise, the way humans can't almost, so dark and lovely. Full of passion. I think Miss Edith knows the answer but she won't divulge the secret no matter how many cakes I offer her.
Things went all pear shaped not too long ago. I tried to balance two dishes and I lost both. All I have is bits and pieces of broken china on the floor that cut my feet to ribbons now. Daddy returned to make such a mess of us and I couldn't say no. I wanted him back, he wanted me more than Grandmummy this time and that thought was worth his weight in gold. Shiny, sparkly and rich, it brightened the world up like sunshine that wasn't cruel. I didn't know why my Spike was so jealous but he turned deep, dangerous green and I think I liked it, the naughty girl I was, he should've spanked me if I upset him. But I liked the green, it made him brutal. Daddy's gold and Spike's green, they danced for me like a rich leprechaun, teasing and taunting. I liked it, it was all nice fun between my boys. They wanted me. For a moment I wasn't Persephone, the one everyone loved, but her - and my - nemesis, Aphrodite, the one everyone wanted. Wanted like heated boys.
My Spike betrayed me and it made me angry enough to paint all of Brazil red and cut nasty deep gashes all over him and scream this is why I shouldn't have loved him. He was a bad, rude man. The moon told me to stay away so I pushed my Spike off into the blackberry patch, a bad and cruel Mummy to a foolish and naughty boy. That's where my Adonis plays his part in our bloody, gory play. I played my part too and all Miss Edith did was sit back and watch, always tittering in the background when I got ripped to pieces. No more tea and biscuits for her. Miss Catherine will be my favourite if she doesn't start behaving.
Aphrodite danced into the picture, the Goddess of love and unwitting bringer of misery that all men desired; such bad dogs they are. She was the Slayer. She was golden sunshine made flesh, all pretty, brazen and ripe with heat and sweetness in looks - as lovely, golden and desirable as the apple Eris used to start the Trojan War. Inside, she was a patchwork of nastiness that drove everyone apart, just like Aphrodite, I wish she was here so I could stick my tongue out at her and act very unladylike. Goddesses of love can bring such unhappiness, just like Daddy's first lessons to me. We were all pulled in a tug-of-war for hearts and this one didn't make any pretty colours, which was a shame. It hurt. Not like the way whips, racks, knives and branding irons hurt but the way love hurts. The way I can't abide and try to shoo away.
It started long before I knew it had, in the happier days, or the event that marked my happier days. When Aphrodite took the form of that prudish haughty wench that hurt my boy and ripped and tore him into bloody messes, insides out. She broke him the way he broke his pretty poems that made my insides dance a jig, his words of wisdom to outshine the stars. He glowed with promise. I wanted to rake my nails down those cruel dark eyes like coal dust and slap her mouth, a mouth with the sweetest voice but said the nastiest words. It would have been a great party and laugh to torture her, it would have made me soar with wonder. She played Aphrodite to William's Adonis, to my Persephone. Aphrodite, the one who would become his Venus Flytrap, full of sickly sweet promises in her pretty colours but bringing the worst, ruthless and deadly. I would've liked those qualities - so special and rare - had it not been against me.
Like the legend Persephone sings in my ear when I dream, Aphrodite gave me Adonis in a box to keep safe until she wanted him back, to use and use again. But his voice called to me from the box and I saw something amazing inside, something that almost made my heart beat again, so jittery and funny it was. I saw his vision, his glory, his burning baby fish.someone to bash, slash, hunt and kill by my side. I saw him in a blaze of blood, fire, spikes and glory and I wanted him. So I opened the box and released what was inside. I loved him since then, as my childe, as my lover, as my knight, as my William, as my Spike and as my Adonis.
And so; like Persephone, I kept my Adonis for years. The sands of time were quickly slipping through my hand and I wasn't even aware that I was running out of time, the moon never told me. We had such a wonderful time together, being bad and worse. We celebrated death and madness and each other. I miss the times we had as lovers, slipping away quickly like a deceitful snake, tempting Adam and Eve out of their Eden.
I pushed my Spike away and the Slayer found him and became his Aphrodite, an Aphrodite returning to him after a long absence, after leaving me to raise him as my special boy, she now had him back. My Spike got a nasty chip in his skull, crawling under his skin and telling him such lies about love and what a good dog he is. All lies. Each blue ribbon of electricity was false and cruel and twisted. All wrong, sending the wrong present to someone who isn't the birthday boy. Somehow he loved the Slayer and she was his beautiful Aphrodite and his Persephone looked to be forgotten.
But, again like the Greek Goddess by my side, I was sharp as a steel trap, all unforgiving metal and wanting my lover back. Without him, it was misery and seeing him so broken and lost and his heart belonging to the Slayer was torture. And so I was tortured into remembering my love for him, his name on my lips as I screamed. I always scream. Sometimes in my head, sometimes to the moon, sometimes to Miss Edith and sometimes to myself. I didn't feel like any cakes. I only wanted my big bad wolf to prowl and hunt again, with me by his side. I wanted to play. I wanted my lover, my Spike - just as Persephone wanted to keep Adonis.
I was ready to fight like a cat, a woman and a demon to keep my love, no matter how sick his heart was and how blinded his vision. He was still pretty. Harps on thunder kept me to him fast but m boy was so wrong and so lost, like a little lamb instead of the powerful wolf that he couldn't choose. Tied us both up in such tight ropes, like a fun game but then it turned nasty and my Spike didn't want to dance anymore. He loved us both, we both hold different blooded pieces of his torn heart and that's how it was, the demon and the man and it wasn't a fair game. Or much fun. No streamers and songs in this party. I held one third of his heart, the Slayer held another third and the final piece of the puzzle was for him to keep and snuggle. Like the legend.
But then Miss Edith shouted at me, months later, when I was sad and alone but accepting that my Adonis could not take to cobwebs and deaths. She told me the final third of his heart and been given to his Aphrodite! She had two thirds now and took all the tea and cakes! She made my blood boil like a kettle and red-hot pokers only not as much fun. They were lovers now and his heart and body stank of her. No room for Persephone, Queen of the Dead and her midnight. They became lovers born in hate, my Spike and the Slayer, making a horrid mess of each other in fallen buildings and hearts, both looking for someplace to hide. Their tummies were growly for light, sunshine and humanity. My boy was so ill, burning with terrible fever.
It made me so angry I could score red marks and furrows into myself. No one took my side, like no one took Persephone's side, leaving us both to the dogs. All the poets and painters favour Aphrodite and turn her tale with Adonis into a beautiful fairytale of love. Rude! Disrespectful! Who told them those things? Everyone calls it the legend of Aphrodite and Adonis, without saying my name. Persephone is not to be mentioned. She is painted villainous, so much black and red and horrid words, all dirty and sharp. Nasty, wicked hornets. I ought to punish them and Persephone ought to have sent them a nasty pox. They all hate her for standing in the way and trying to shoot two lovebirds from the sky so they crash in a sea of blood. No pretty supporters for me, either. No one to think we worthy. Not cursed Drusilla, oh no.mustn't walk her home. The lamb is caught in a blackberry patch. They all say rude lies about both of us and call the Aphrodite and Adonis such star-cross'd lovers as though she didn't steal him right under my nose. I should have smelt her, smothering him. They made me think my hair and fingernails were falling off and my skin peeling away. I should've given them all presents of gags, fangs and blood. I wanted to dance on her grave once and for all. Why couldn't they hold their tongues for Persephone and remembered her? He was her Adonis too! My right my shiny and bloody like my knight's armour and I would teach him the song of the stars if only he saw my right and came back. If only others saw Persephone's right and stopped rubbing salt in her wounds by making Aphrodite and Adonis sound so lovely. I felt almost as lost as my poor boy.
Then I remembered Persephone. Her legend of Adonis. And I hold my special boy in my arms tonight as she sleeps, flesh touching flesh, his face buried in my hair like I'm his Goddess again because of it. Because of what I did. I did what Persephone did, even though all the dark things spat at me and hate me - I cheated. I told Aphrodite's Ares about their sweaty games. The Slayer's Angel, my Daddy but not my Daddy, all gone away. Angelus was my Hades and Angel her Ares. It was a naughty party trick to tattle like a cheeky girl but I had to. Persephone did for her Adonis and she won him, like a prize from bobbing for apples. Ares went seven funny shades and I laughed until my sides looked like they were about to split and dance on the ground in blood. Like the legend her Ares gored my poor Adonis. I don't know if his blood made pretty little anemone flowers grow where it split but it did in my heart. They played a funny spinning trick and danced dizzy. I rejoiced to the moon. All my boy needed was the black medicine of death.
His face was a poem when I found him. Persephone found her Adonis when his soul travelled to the Underworld where she is Queen. He was almost as broken as Prague made me. I miss Prague, so many white throats. I rescued him from the sun and let his Aphrodite believe him dead and lament in any way she liked but I didn't feel sorry for her. I wanted to give her a foul present like spells and leeches and wheelchairs. I wanted to do it again and sing and clap and dance. But I just took my Spike away safely, safe and sound with his Mummy. He's all mine now, even though he's big and strong again, he still loves his dark princess. His Persephone. I have to keep Miss Edith an the others gagged tightly in case they tell him what happened, I don't want the air to get all black and red with hate. He can never know my naughty secret. His chip said goodbye to us now and he's my demon again, the one I love, the way I love everything about him and needed him back to love and hurt me again. We eat lemons raw together now.
Every summer he thinks of her, she was made of summers and sunshine's but each summer his sorrow shrinks and withers up like an old lady a tiny bit more. It makes me all tingly inside. He's more and more mine each day and I know he loves me again, loves me like a bonfire. But he'd never hurt me if I didn't want, my boy is back and just as bad as he was. I'll wait till he's strong again, as strong as he was. I'm keeping him forever now that he's mine. I'm moons and nights happier than Persephone but I know her sadness, like maggots chewing away at all the bright birds inside.
I stroke my Adonis' silvery light hair, like light dancing on water, smooth it out and kiss his forehead. Cold as glaciers. Cold as death. I've fixed him, put his broken pieces back together again with hot red glue, like sealing wax. I hold him close, never to let him go again, to hold on for an eternity. No more broken glass eyes. We sing for each other now and don't need to pout or cry. He's my special treat, my love, my knight. My Spike. And he's mine again. He makes me quiver and sing inside now. Persephone watches our bed and keeps away all the bright sunshine of twisted love for a Slayer at bay and it keeps us living in sin and love. I shall have to give her china roses for a marble Goddess, still sad and alone. We have all the cakes and treats and have all the fun of the fair, living happily ever after, my Spike and I. No one holds a candle to him, except me, but only if he asks very nicely.
This Persephone and Adonis will be together till dust and longer.
Forever.
Like God and Black Goddess.
Author: CrimsonFuchsia Pairing: Spike/Drusilla Rating: PG Spoilers: None, 'Crush' and 'Smashed' hinted at. Summary: The sight of a Greek statue gives Drusilla cause to muse one night about her lost love Spike. Warning: Angst alert! Timeframe: During Season 6, though it doesn't follow canon. Distribution: If anyone wants it, it'd be an honour to distribute it if you ask first! Disclaimer: Spike, Dru and the rest of the cast belong to Joss and I'm not making *any* profit from this fictional work. Feedback: You have no idea how happy it'd make me!
Author's Note: On a technical note, there are many versions of the legend of Adonis, Aphrodite and Persephone; the story itself always being the same, but several finer details being different in numerous versions of the tale. I'm just using my particular favourite telling of the classic legend for this. I know I should be working more on 'Blood Flows There Like Wine' but this is only a short little thing and my inspiration and muses kept nagging me to do this! ^_^
Persephone's Adonis
She's beautiful. Even for a still statue like stone angels marking graves. Beautiful. Beautiful for someone painted a monster. Innocence and darkness all mixed up with poetry, blood and legend to make her powerful. A Goddess for small people. Not my Goddess but my friend, my still, silent companion. A small miniature statue of the sweet Goddess Persephone made of marble sings me to sleep and tells me her sorrows in exchange for mine in a silent pact, witnessed by the starlight and they are always honest. She stands at watch on an old bedside table that creaks its aches and woes next to my pretty candle, watching the flames dance and making sure it doesn't set me on fire. Her innocent eyes watch me whilst I eat, whilst I sleep, whilst I try to sleep and whilst I play cheeky games of shared flesh. Perhaps the spirit of an ancient Goddess still stays behind in her statue, wondering why no one makes any tea or cakes for her anymore. No one loves an archaic Goddess, however sweet her whispers, no matter that they sound like silver floating on water, all sparkles and softness. Hearts can be so hard. And heads so soft. The heads of man turned away from Persephone, shunning her from their hearts and warm laughter and they painted her red and black with hate. They made a demon out of a Goddess, a victim, the one that helped poor hopeless Psyche and gave her part of her beauty and charm in a sparkling gold box. Were I a Goddess I would turn them into an owl for that, but Miss Edith says I can be a naughty, spiteful girl sometimes. Perhaps I should punish her for that.
Persephone punished only herself, which can be a lovely game of aches and groans but not for a Goddess. Pretty thing she is. Her body is lithe and lean but also generous and supple like all Greek pretties in my favourite paintings, bone and marrow in all the right places, not a pig or a skeleton. She hides her body away, all shy, behind a sheet of silk, on her body like spider touches. She holds it, hands clasped over her heart, I wonder if she's praying or promising? She isn't very good at hiding her marble skin - I see arms, long legs, buttocks and one breast play hide and seek with the silk. Wickedness, it makes me want to dance with the leaves. Marble exhibitionism, marble body, marble face, marble hair, marble features. Would it be fun being made of stone? She has a face that whispers poetry of grief in pretty patterns and cold tears all down marble cheeks. Her face is still and pale, like bits and pieces of ivory on marble, her eyes big and staring like saucers, but for all the sympathy in her eyes she doesn't see me, even Goddesses can be rude. Her hair is long and lustrous and wavy like tassels and velvet washing her body all the way down to her waist. I wonder what colour it is - golden like the sunshine, black like midnight, red like fire or brown like the earth. Or maybe she's a rainbow. I think she'd be dark and devilish in her prettiness, like a portrait that nice man made of her. He tasted of devotion to her and it was fresh like mints.
She's very beautiful now as she holds her bleeding heart and I understand her crying. Most lovely girls look like a sunny Sunday afternoon but not this one; she looks like twilight, it's dark where she is now. The moon sings her name and its meaning. The destroyer of light. Such a cruel name for such a sweet, innocent being, all springtime, strawberries and flowers. People often spoke rude words to me when I was warm, they would speak out of turn and call me cursed and evil, naughty things. No cake for them, no eyes either, not when my fingers dance and pluck. I would cry salt tears of sweet blood at them to stop but they still threw their rocks of scorn, stoning me to death with hatred. We both used to have the sweetness of Heaven and the love of Gods. We were both pure, all white and shiny with virtue and we smelt of poppy nectar, all dizzy and warm with sweetness.
But then our dark Daddies came for us, to take us away in love, passion and death. This was the story I heard of Persephone, not knowing there was another. This was the story that made her rip out my heart with feeling and give me hers instead. She had a God of Death carry her off and I had my Angel of Death do the same thing for me because I was special. They both did it out of love, her Hades, whisking her off to the Underworld while she was picking flowers for her Mummy so they could be married and my Daddy hurt me out of love - he told me whenever he hurt me blind with hurt. That's what love is, whips, chains and torture. He bestowed such love on me, though I didn't see it then. He took my Mummy when she was singing me to sleep and lulling my pain and I cried so much. He took all my family and played such nasty games with my mind and made me miserable and outcast. But he was cruel to be kind, he made me happy and beautiful so I could dance away from the sun. I wonder if sweet Persephone ever knew torture and the fun of branding irons.
My insides got all twisted because my world hurt and my eyes burnt forever with new tears and all my golden loves were shot with hard arrows and fell from my open sky and each time it hurt more. I lived in winter, a frozen Hell, praying that God stop punishing me, that I had the strength for this trial. When Persephone got herself married in the Underworld, all earth became winter and all fertile things died in cold agony and music. I sometimes wonder if Daddy arrived the same time Persephone's Hades did in a chapel of bones. Naughty me, such thoughts out to be whipped till they leave.
She whispers her tale from her stillness on the table, I wish I could see her dance, she'd be a fine dancer, all legs and grace like a leaf burning in Autumn. And she knows fire. She possesses such fire in her, waving it around like a daisy; maybe that's why she gets burnt so much. She ought to be more careful of a scolding. She belongs to the dead now, goodbye sunshine and pity it was taken away. Now she's married to her Hades and Queen of the Underworld, across the river Styx and Miss Edith tells me I've been having tea with a Queen without knowing it. But I'd prefer the Queen of England; refined and grand with real royal tea, a party with her would be a wonderful event. And Persephone remains Queen of the Dead. Perhaps she is my Queen then, because I'm cold. No breath for Drusilla's body, she misbehaved, she sinned, the nuns will pinch you now. Just like Hades fed Persephone those six pomegranate seeds, my Angel fed me his blood, screaming of death. Pomegranates and blood. They all sang the same song in the end and Persephone and I both danced and twisted to it. Daddy was my Hades, Hades to my Persephone.
At least she has six months a year out of the darkness. I missed the sun at first, but now I find it horrible, too much burning and smelling of dust and graves for me to stretch on. Too bright, like Heaven's door. I like night and her kisses chaste and sisterly, not wicked and burning, though I wish I had Cerberus to play with as Persephone did when she was all lonely. I get lonely a lot now, the moon is such a fair-weather friend and Miss Edith and the others have not been good conversation lately, too much gossip till I had to cut out their tongues, shh.
Their china faces and china frowns don't match her emptiness like sockets missing their bright baby blue eyes. She understands how basking in a lemony sun as golden as the flax of a tasty treat of a child's head could be better to always seeing hate behind love. Turns everything upside down, topsy-turvy, the music's too fast to keep up with and I'm afraid I'll fall on my rump and they'll all laugh and throw stones. I'll just have to punish them. She understands, poor archaic Goddess lost all her devout worshippers long ago. She must be lonely.
My Spike used to call me his Goddess.am I archaic to him too? Falling to bits, unspoken, unmourned, all my worshippers dead and gone leaving behind a sad story. I cried for them when my Spike and I crossed cold oceans to visit their temples, all I could hear was the cries of the ghosts of Gods that were forgotten. They all bled and screamed because their people were gone and they were left behind and Olympus fell like each one of them in their turn, howling like wolves. Such sad music, like a lone harp. I wonder if that horrid Christian God with all his scorn and sharp-tongued disciples will be forgotten one day. I hope so; I don't like churches, not one bit. They say the cruellest things and sing their hymns off-key and I can't dance to their music. I wonder if they'll end in a rain of blood like the Bible says so? I hope so; I like blood, all sweet and sticky on my tongue. All the Gods vanish but mine is still lonely, poor thing.
My Spike gave me her statue because her story was my favourite, because her voice all twisted with pain called to me. The sun would never touch us if we had a Goddess' favour, no need for lemon drops for us, we were safe and she cried on my shoulder when Miss Edith wasn't looking. I knew her sorrows then and now I know her sorrows even more. Perhaps you can catch tears and unhappiness like the common cold. Is that how you catch your death? My pretty Persephone will never die, just like me but we're the only ones left in this tea party now and we get lonely. Miss Edith is always cruel to us, never plays nice anymore and acts like a rude bossy-boots. She won't listen to me anymore, she just chatters like cold teeth and tattles to all the others her secrets instead of telling me.
But I thought Hades and the Underworld would be the end of it. End of story. Happy endings for good princesses, sour times for rude witches and all the dark things. She was married, Hades keeps his love and we get loving spring and bright summer to prance like lambs in and autumn and winter to cry in. It didn't end like that for me, I didn't know how close Persephone and I were, touched by blood and suffering - I only kept her then because her tale gave me sweet dreams of my Angel and her voice was smooth as honey. My story moved differently; it hopped to her skip, to her jump. It did not sing to her tune, which was most nasty of me, but her story came back and found me in the end and punished me with words prickly like thorns and stakes. Daddy left and I stayed with my sweet, strong, bloody, devilish William. My Spike.
My Adonis.
His Adonis to my Persephone.
We had such a lovely time, full of blood and night and nakedness in the moonlight. And love. I can't abide by love, it makes my insides sick, I remember what love does. It hurts. But loving my Adonis, my Spike, didn't hurt. It was magic, like gild dust from a pixie fair. He put everything right, my champion and we would play bad, fun games even though Miss Edith always disapproved. Spike made me not care. He made me beautiful in a way Daddy never did, he made me a princess. Skin as pale as the face of the moon and eyes as cold as ice that always melted like snow when he was with me. He was wonderful. Vampires are supposed to feed off blood, happiness and suck the life out of goodness but it was done to him instead. He was a lion and a black devil and a handsome lover like Adonis. He always took care of me and I of him, he was more precious than any of my dolls - and that's why they were spiteful to him so much, wicked things, I should have tied them up to stop that nonsense. Love was strange, like butterflies in my stomach turning into bats and always flying up and down. I miss leeches, they were simple but my Spike wasn't. He was like a puzzle I could never get right even though I knew him inside out, he surprised me as I surprised him, like a Jack-in-the-Box. I loved him, all hearts, eyes, insides and naughty bits, I still loved him. He made flowers of my heart, blood red with thorns for all others, a ring of roses, like the rhyme. He kissed me on my head and on my lips and made me feel worth the world, like a Goddess. His Black Goddess. Loving Spike was like being in a flowerfield with a scissors and a watering can. And being loved by my Spike was like playing at being Zeus. Only with more fun and warmth. He was my special boy and I loved him, more than paintings of poetry made bloodied corpses at my hand. He made me real, less of a whisper and held me close always. Part of how I love him is still whispers; the part I can't understand or recognise, the way humans can't almost, so dark and lovely. Full of passion. I think Miss Edith knows the answer but she won't divulge the secret no matter how many cakes I offer her.
Things went all pear shaped not too long ago. I tried to balance two dishes and I lost both. All I have is bits and pieces of broken china on the floor that cut my feet to ribbons now. Daddy returned to make such a mess of us and I couldn't say no. I wanted him back, he wanted me more than Grandmummy this time and that thought was worth his weight in gold. Shiny, sparkly and rich, it brightened the world up like sunshine that wasn't cruel. I didn't know why my Spike was so jealous but he turned deep, dangerous green and I think I liked it, the naughty girl I was, he should've spanked me if I upset him. But I liked the green, it made him brutal. Daddy's gold and Spike's green, they danced for me like a rich leprechaun, teasing and taunting. I liked it, it was all nice fun between my boys. They wanted me. For a moment I wasn't Persephone, the one everyone loved, but her - and my - nemesis, Aphrodite, the one everyone wanted. Wanted like heated boys.
My Spike betrayed me and it made me angry enough to paint all of Brazil red and cut nasty deep gashes all over him and scream this is why I shouldn't have loved him. He was a bad, rude man. The moon told me to stay away so I pushed my Spike off into the blackberry patch, a bad and cruel Mummy to a foolish and naughty boy. That's where my Adonis plays his part in our bloody, gory play. I played my part too and all Miss Edith did was sit back and watch, always tittering in the background when I got ripped to pieces. No more tea and biscuits for her. Miss Catherine will be my favourite if she doesn't start behaving.
Aphrodite danced into the picture, the Goddess of love and unwitting bringer of misery that all men desired; such bad dogs they are. She was the Slayer. She was golden sunshine made flesh, all pretty, brazen and ripe with heat and sweetness in looks - as lovely, golden and desirable as the apple Eris used to start the Trojan War. Inside, she was a patchwork of nastiness that drove everyone apart, just like Aphrodite, I wish she was here so I could stick my tongue out at her and act very unladylike. Goddesses of love can bring such unhappiness, just like Daddy's first lessons to me. We were all pulled in a tug-of-war for hearts and this one didn't make any pretty colours, which was a shame. It hurt. Not like the way whips, racks, knives and branding irons hurt but the way love hurts. The way I can't abide and try to shoo away.
It started long before I knew it had, in the happier days, or the event that marked my happier days. When Aphrodite took the form of that prudish haughty wench that hurt my boy and ripped and tore him into bloody messes, insides out. She broke him the way he broke his pretty poems that made my insides dance a jig, his words of wisdom to outshine the stars. He glowed with promise. I wanted to rake my nails down those cruel dark eyes like coal dust and slap her mouth, a mouth with the sweetest voice but said the nastiest words. It would have been a great party and laugh to torture her, it would have made me soar with wonder. She played Aphrodite to William's Adonis, to my Persephone. Aphrodite, the one who would become his Venus Flytrap, full of sickly sweet promises in her pretty colours but bringing the worst, ruthless and deadly. I would've liked those qualities - so special and rare - had it not been against me.
Like the legend Persephone sings in my ear when I dream, Aphrodite gave me Adonis in a box to keep safe until she wanted him back, to use and use again. But his voice called to me from the box and I saw something amazing inside, something that almost made my heart beat again, so jittery and funny it was. I saw his vision, his glory, his burning baby fish.someone to bash, slash, hunt and kill by my side. I saw him in a blaze of blood, fire, spikes and glory and I wanted him. So I opened the box and released what was inside. I loved him since then, as my childe, as my lover, as my knight, as my William, as my Spike and as my Adonis.
And so; like Persephone, I kept my Adonis for years. The sands of time were quickly slipping through my hand and I wasn't even aware that I was running out of time, the moon never told me. We had such a wonderful time together, being bad and worse. We celebrated death and madness and each other. I miss the times we had as lovers, slipping away quickly like a deceitful snake, tempting Adam and Eve out of their Eden.
I pushed my Spike away and the Slayer found him and became his Aphrodite, an Aphrodite returning to him after a long absence, after leaving me to raise him as my special boy, she now had him back. My Spike got a nasty chip in his skull, crawling under his skin and telling him such lies about love and what a good dog he is. All lies. Each blue ribbon of electricity was false and cruel and twisted. All wrong, sending the wrong present to someone who isn't the birthday boy. Somehow he loved the Slayer and she was his beautiful Aphrodite and his Persephone looked to be forgotten.
But, again like the Greek Goddess by my side, I was sharp as a steel trap, all unforgiving metal and wanting my lover back. Without him, it was misery and seeing him so broken and lost and his heart belonging to the Slayer was torture. And so I was tortured into remembering my love for him, his name on my lips as I screamed. I always scream. Sometimes in my head, sometimes to the moon, sometimes to Miss Edith and sometimes to myself. I didn't feel like any cakes. I only wanted my big bad wolf to prowl and hunt again, with me by his side. I wanted to play. I wanted my lover, my Spike - just as Persephone wanted to keep Adonis.
I was ready to fight like a cat, a woman and a demon to keep my love, no matter how sick his heart was and how blinded his vision. He was still pretty. Harps on thunder kept me to him fast but m boy was so wrong and so lost, like a little lamb instead of the powerful wolf that he couldn't choose. Tied us both up in such tight ropes, like a fun game but then it turned nasty and my Spike didn't want to dance anymore. He loved us both, we both hold different blooded pieces of his torn heart and that's how it was, the demon and the man and it wasn't a fair game. Or much fun. No streamers and songs in this party. I held one third of his heart, the Slayer held another third and the final piece of the puzzle was for him to keep and snuggle. Like the legend.
But then Miss Edith shouted at me, months later, when I was sad and alone but accepting that my Adonis could not take to cobwebs and deaths. She told me the final third of his heart and been given to his Aphrodite! She had two thirds now and took all the tea and cakes! She made my blood boil like a kettle and red-hot pokers only not as much fun. They were lovers now and his heart and body stank of her. No room for Persephone, Queen of the Dead and her midnight. They became lovers born in hate, my Spike and the Slayer, making a horrid mess of each other in fallen buildings and hearts, both looking for someplace to hide. Their tummies were growly for light, sunshine and humanity. My boy was so ill, burning with terrible fever.
It made me so angry I could score red marks and furrows into myself. No one took my side, like no one took Persephone's side, leaving us both to the dogs. All the poets and painters favour Aphrodite and turn her tale with Adonis into a beautiful fairytale of love. Rude! Disrespectful! Who told them those things? Everyone calls it the legend of Aphrodite and Adonis, without saying my name. Persephone is not to be mentioned. She is painted villainous, so much black and red and horrid words, all dirty and sharp. Nasty, wicked hornets. I ought to punish them and Persephone ought to have sent them a nasty pox. They all hate her for standing in the way and trying to shoot two lovebirds from the sky so they crash in a sea of blood. No pretty supporters for me, either. No one to think we worthy. Not cursed Drusilla, oh no.mustn't walk her home. The lamb is caught in a blackberry patch. They all say rude lies about both of us and call the Aphrodite and Adonis such star-cross'd lovers as though she didn't steal him right under my nose. I should have smelt her, smothering him. They made me think my hair and fingernails were falling off and my skin peeling away. I should've given them all presents of gags, fangs and blood. I wanted to dance on her grave once and for all. Why couldn't they hold their tongues for Persephone and remembered her? He was her Adonis too! My right my shiny and bloody like my knight's armour and I would teach him the song of the stars if only he saw my right and came back. If only others saw Persephone's right and stopped rubbing salt in her wounds by making Aphrodite and Adonis sound so lovely. I felt almost as lost as my poor boy.
Then I remembered Persephone. Her legend of Adonis. And I hold my special boy in my arms tonight as she sleeps, flesh touching flesh, his face buried in my hair like I'm his Goddess again because of it. Because of what I did. I did what Persephone did, even though all the dark things spat at me and hate me - I cheated. I told Aphrodite's Ares about their sweaty games. The Slayer's Angel, my Daddy but not my Daddy, all gone away. Angelus was my Hades and Angel her Ares. It was a naughty party trick to tattle like a cheeky girl but I had to. Persephone did for her Adonis and she won him, like a prize from bobbing for apples. Ares went seven funny shades and I laughed until my sides looked like they were about to split and dance on the ground in blood. Like the legend her Ares gored my poor Adonis. I don't know if his blood made pretty little anemone flowers grow where it split but it did in my heart. They played a funny spinning trick and danced dizzy. I rejoiced to the moon. All my boy needed was the black medicine of death.
His face was a poem when I found him. Persephone found her Adonis when his soul travelled to the Underworld where she is Queen. He was almost as broken as Prague made me. I miss Prague, so many white throats. I rescued him from the sun and let his Aphrodite believe him dead and lament in any way she liked but I didn't feel sorry for her. I wanted to give her a foul present like spells and leeches and wheelchairs. I wanted to do it again and sing and clap and dance. But I just took my Spike away safely, safe and sound with his Mummy. He's all mine now, even though he's big and strong again, he still loves his dark princess. His Persephone. I have to keep Miss Edith an the others gagged tightly in case they tell him what happened, I don't want the air to get all black and red with hate. He can never know my naughty secret. His chip said goodbye to us now and he's my demon again, the one I love, the way I love everything about him and needed him back to love and hurt me again. We eat lemons raw together now.
Every summer he thinks of her, she was made of summers and sunshine's but each summer his sorrow shrinks and withers up like an old lady a tiny bit more. It makes me all tingly inside. He's more and more mine each day and I know he loves me again, loves me like a bonfire. But he'd never hurt me if I didn't want, my boy is back and just as bad as he was. I'll wait till he's strong again, as strong as he was. I'm keeping him forever now that he's mine. I'm moons and nights happier than Persephone but I know her sadness, like maggots chewing away at all the bright birds inside.
I stroke my Adonis' silvery light hair, like light dancing on water, smooth it out and kiss his forehead. Cold as glaciers. Cold as death. I've fixed him, put his broken pieces back together again with hot red glue, like sealing wax. I hold him close, never to let him go again, to hold on for an eternity. No more broken glass eyes. We sing for each other now and don't need to pout or cry. He's my special treat, my love, my knight. My Spike. And he's mine again. He makes me quiver and sing inside now. Persephone watches our bed and keeps away all the bright sunshine of twisted love for a Slayer at bay and it keeps us living in sin and love. I shall have to give her china roses for a marble Goddess, still sad and alone. We have all the cakes and treats and have all the fun of the fair, living happily ever after, my Spike and I. No one holds a candle to him, except me, but only if he asks very nicely.
This Persephone and Adonis will be together till dust and longer.
Forever.
Like God and Black Goddess.