Decree

by withyouandthemoon

The only thing demeaning them was nature herself, reminding her of how much time she'd lost-time with him-and mocking her for just realizing it after spending twenty-one meaningless years in oblivion. But no matter. Now that she had eternity on her hand she just had to find him, like he found her the first time. Hades/Persephone modern reincarnation AU.

Caroline went to him as soon as she knew. First driving to the airport, then getting on a plane, then back to driving again on her rented car. Without a second thought, like it was a knee-jerk reflex, her body acting mechanically through the trivialities whilst her mind was stuck in that connection bigger even than herself. Yet here she was, across the ocean, rushing through the vast moors of the British Isles. Human life had become such a commonplace to her in the past twenty-or-so years.

Heather and daffodils were blooming outside her windows as she drove by, embellishing the monopoly of green on the lands regardless of the season being too early or too late. The bright colors rose at her approach and dwindled at her departure, forming a wave along the quiet roads of the countryside.

Caroline was never too good at controlling her powers provoked by her moods, nor did she cared to-in fact, she doubted any of the older gods did. They were all in their bones impetuous beings, driven more by the powers surging through their veins than a sane mind-which was probably why when the powers of nature ran thin and the piety of the few humans left believing in them wouldn't suffice anymore a dozen centuries ago, they just ceased to be.

Vanishing was not too painful for her physically, just numb and cold, like the water of the Styx River guarding the Underworld. Her thoughts were frozen in place, her memories frosting and her emotions swallowed by a thick mist. And then when they thawed, drop by drop, the first thing breaking free from the nothingness was her last thought before there was no longer a her-the thought of his tousled blonde hair and widened blue eyes, fleeing into her mind like a lark that had been trapped in the glacier for centuries and miraculously maintained a heartbeat.

It sang to her, the melody always playing in the background when she pieced together her past as an immortal deity.

She didn't know if it was a joke on nature's part, to have gods like her reincarnated into a paltry human life, only to reconnect with their memories and powers when they'd barely grown into the weaker, more ignorant version of themselves. She wondered what it would achieve. Was it meant to be a lesson for them to rein in their hubris? To feel how fleeting life could be for these tiny creatures and show a smidgen of sympathy?

Yet how could she sympathize with them, if she'd never looked down upon them in the first place? She never took pity on the withering flowers, just as he never did with the dead in his realm. The only thing demeaning them was nature herself, creating cruelties like spring and death, constant reminders of their mortality sneering mockingly to their faces, and waiting for them to weakly sneer back.

Just as what she was doing to Caroline right now. Reminding her of how much time she'd lost-time with him-and mocking her for just realizing it after spending twenty-one meaningless years in oblivion.

But no matter. Now that she had eternity on her hand she just had to find him, like he found her the first time.

Although it might be more accurate to say that she had unconsciously drawn him to her, with her dainty fingers plucking a rosebud, its stem snapping with the fresh scent of sap as a last cry, mixed with her blood adorning the stubborn thorn.

She'd always secretly wanted to crush the flowers she created, to feel their velvety petals break into tatters in her palm, the sweet juices seeping from between her fingers so desperate and mournful. She wanted to crush them one by one, until the whole season was nothing but a muddled mess of tangled colors and pungent smells. After all, what was one spring if there were an infinite set of springs to come?

She was sucking her finger prickled by the thorn into her mouth when she heard his voice, soft and low, and her own blood instantly tasted sweeter, "I see you have a touch of death on your own fingertip."

She knew who he was even before she stared into his beautiful face. Millions of times she'd granted plants the wills to feed from the rotten flesh six feet under-the silent darkness felt so very familiar she had to suppress a tiny smile as she discarded the rosebud in a cavalier flick of her wrist.

"I am merely doing it justice."

She bit her tongue when those words escaped from her reckless lips, knowing full well his reputation of being sturdily just and impartial in his ruling of the Underworld.

"Then it seems we have more than one thing in common."

The rosebud deserted on the ground slowly spread its petals into full blossom, but its color paled in comparison to her blushing cheeks. She watched as the almighty King of the Underworld bent his knees before her to pick up the rose, kissing it before placing it on the collar of his toga, just above his heart, all the while piercing her with his iron-hot eyes.

In that moment she knew she'd always make herself a place in his world, like a resilient plant sticking its roots into the hardest rocks, be it the impenetrable realm of the dead, or the English countryside in the disguise of a human life.

She knew his memories hadn't come back yet, nor did his powers. The grapevines among the reincarnated deities brought to her the knowledge that the older and more powerful the gods, the slower their awakening. By now the lands were teeming with gods of nameless ponds and streams but those who were present during the battles of Titans were nowhere to be found.

Though his location was no secret to her-she felt the unbearable pulling even in her fitful sleep on the airplane, her heart thrashing in her chest ready to burst out. The name "Klaus" came to her in a murmur through the winds, and the rest of discovering his identity in the human world was just logistics.

She stopped the car at the back of the ancient mansion where a large garden resided. It'd been no surprise to her that Klaus would make his living by grooming people's backyards. He'd always been fond of the manual work-he excelled in it, which was never made common knowledge. They had their own gardens just outside their palace in the Underworld, and he was the one who always tended to them, cropping and brushing just like he did with an artwork, even if he knew she could make the plants flourish without a batting of her long lashes.

Caroline wandered along the windy paths lined with cypress, her heart already settling down feeling his proximity. Rounding a corner she came into sight of a giant pomegranate tree, the orange-red flowers blooming like little flames among the branches, burning her eyes with a sudden rush of hot tears.

It was only fitting that the plant the fruit of which kept her with him before had brought her back to him.

She'd asked him once why he'd offered her pomegranate on her first visit to the Underworld. It was the third winter they'd spent together as King and Queen, the hearth in their room crackling with drowsy warmth as the scent of the fruit etched into their sheets and covers. The fruit was ever present on the nightstand beside their bed, a gesture he'd silently assumed since their union. She hadn't once brought it up. She just used her powers to ensure the prolific supply, and then turned it into their own aphrodisiac by licking the juices from his tout muscles.

That morning she was feeling all too comfortable, wrapped up in the cool silk, his tight embrace, and the residue daze from her previous orgasm, that the tiny branches of curiosity were sprouting in her heart. So she picked up a few seeds from the glass plate, rolling them on her tongue while whispering the question in the crook of his neck.

She heard him sighing into the crown of her head in response, the tips of her hair spread out along her back humming with the inviting sound, "they remind me of immortality, these bizarre little fruits." He traced the lines of her lips idly with a finger, "the endless time we have in our hands is no more than wasting in the void, with tiny pieces of sweetness stuck in your teeth. It's a torture in disguise really."

"But you enjoy torture." She nibbled on his finger challengingly.

He huffed a laugh, "That may be so. However," he put a little force on his finger and she sucked it in willingly, her tongue circling it like boneless vine, "this is a different kind of torture. You'd always get a taste of your heart's desire," suddenly he drew his finger out, leaving her with an emptiness in her mouth and a pout on her lips, "but never quite enough."

"Not if you share it with another."

She dove into his mouth, pushing the pomegranate seeds in along with her nimble tongue. Soon they were rolling around both their tongues, the friction setting off little sparks on her nerve endings, making her shiver with need and her powers oozing out of her like the juices between her legs. The seeds began sprouting in their mouths, the soft shoots tickling her palate till they reached down her throat. She moaned aloud in pleasure, her eyes snapping open for a moment, only to curl at the corners as a laugh involuntarily rolled out of her.

As aroused as she was, the image of the King of the Underworld with his mouth stuffed like a herbivore was too hilarious to let pass.

But then he was pinning her down and swallowing all her laughter, turning them into one moan after another, till the new branches growing out of the pomegranates on the nightstand broke their window, and the whole realm heard her screams of ecstasy.

That memory was one of the first to come back to Caroline, and for a long period of time the only one that she had. She'd savored it over and over just like a pomegranate seed, sucking up every last drop of juice and taste, drowning in the sweetness, but never getting enough. The empty yearning nearly drove her crazy.

And now, looking at the pomegranate tree before her eyes, she wondered if he'd suffered, even unconsciously, as she did. If he had ruby-colored dreams and felt lost when he woke, if the sight of the fruit made his cock and heart throb at the same time, if that was the reason why he was planting pomegranate trees in a British garden.

Entranced, Caroline reached out to pick a pomegranate flower from the tree, her eyes squinting a little at the fresh smell of the stem breaking. When she opened them again Klaus was there, the shades of the branches casting on his face covering his expression, only the up-turned corner of his lips lit up by the mid-summer sun.

"It's a pity." There was a hint of amusement in his voice, "it won't grow into fruit now that you've led it to an early death."

Caroline snorted, "die a flower or die a fruit, what does it matter?"

"You put Prince Hamlet to shame, love." He stepped out of the shadows, and Caroline's breath hitched as she stared at his face, the face she'd dreamed of every night after she remembered him and the face she'd longed for in the hollow darkness of her sleep before that.

It'd been so long since she last saw him in broad daylight. There was no sunlight in the Underworld, the sky always steely-grey and the air stuffy with despair. She'd always pictured him with her in the half year she was among the living, but she didn't remember the color of the sky bringing out the blue in his eyes like this, nor did she recall the lines on his smirking face filled with shining gold.

She wanted to run into his arms right then and there, to mash their flesh and bones together with the sun like honey and the scent of the herbs they crushed under their feet the spice. They'd make the perfect dish with everything blended and nothing out of place, and she'd devour them, as a whole. She'd drink and gorge and breathe and fill her aching palms with it, letting it rain on her from head to toe, drown herself in it, in them.

But she was frozen in place as the idea hit her like Zeus' lightning bolt-he didn't know her yet. He didn't remember the time they spent together and the time they suffered apart, half-years of light and darkness passing before their eyes in turn like the streetlight cut into pieces by the sprinting midnight train, long before they were tossed into a human world where trains had been invented and that metaphor made any sense.

He didn't understand any of that. He was only an un-awakened deity with the erroneous notion that he was human and an inexplicable fixation on pomegranates and maybe cypresses.

But then he was but a step from her, his fingers scorching her wrist and his head bending down. He was kissing the pomegranate flower ever so gently yet Caroline saw the poor flower catching on fire in her mind's eye, as did her heart.

"I don't…I don't know why I did that." Hesitation seeped into his eyes as he straightened up, and Caroline had to wonder how those blue orbs could appear so clear even when she could see the storm brewing in the midst, "except that it could make you stay."

She cupped his cheek with a trembling hand, smoothing over his furrowed brows with her thumb and he effortlessly leant into her touch, closing the distance of several long meaningless centuries. "Apparently your instincts are failing you." She smiled to reassure him as the dark shadow of dejection flashed through his face, "even the powers of the gods wouldn't be able to drive me away."

Klaus should probably be surprised, or even alarmed at that, but he just seemed pleased, his eyes fixated on her face drinking her in, murmuring things of which Caroline was sure he himself wasn't aware. He had always been drawn to danger, trudging into the darkest gorges, fighting in the deadliest battles, falling for the woman who was suited to rule the living and the dead, as if he'd known all along it would change his life forever and he welcomed it.

It was with that certitude that he invited Caroline into the mansion where the owners had left him in charge while they went on vacations to the Caribbean. Somehow they shared the same feeling of waiting for something to happen, like holding one's breath for the impending boom of thunder. But neither of them spoke of it. The lingering stares and brushes of skin left them simmering in a gentle fire all day long, their body tender and minds half-melted till they barely registered the goings-on around them.

That afternoon Klaus showed her around the garden, his masterpiece of trees, bushes and vines. He told her their names and characteristics, the shape of their flowers and the smell of their fruits fallen on the ground crushed by human foot. Caroline listened to him, rapt, not for the knowledge stored in her brain since birth, but for the passion in his tone, the rise and fall of cadence, the imperceptible pride coating his voice.

She remembered him introducing her to his kingdom the first time she followed him into the Underworld. He'd used the same voice, briefing her of the dead souls trapped there, every single one of them, going into details about their deeds as they lived and their sentence after death. She'd listened with cold interest, surrounded by broken limbs, out-stretched viscera and ear-piercing shrieks without a lift of her brows. When he'd finally finished she'd merely hummed.

"This place stinks."

"Then we'll grow flowers, everywhere you'd like." He held her hand, as if trying to distract her with the heat of his palm from the use of the word "we".

"I suppose it will do." She pictured the white petals of lilies splattered with blood, and it was not at all an unpleasant sight.

It all seemed so distant looking back. The time when he endeavored to win her either with a kingdom or with chains or even both, the time when she was still trying not to show all her cards. They'd danced around each other, probing with a word here and a touch there, both thinking they were reeling the other in while in reality they were bound to meet in the middle.

But not this time. They'd waited so long for this without knowing they were waiting, without the existence of themselves, and that ended the second she booked the flight like a good little human.

That night Caroline pranced into Klaus' room in her tank top and a pair of boxer shorts. She didn't hold his gaze, but she didn't evade it either. She walked right to the bed like she owned the room and she'd done it a million times before, every thud of her bare feet touching the hardwood floor her claim over him, his space, his life.

She climbed into the bed where he was leaning shirtless against the headboard. She curled into his side, wrapping his sheet around herself and placed her head on his stomach, using it as a pillow. The feeling of his warm skin against her cheek made her sigh out, and she felt his fingers tangling into her hair like a sigh of his own.

"Tell me a story about yourself."

He chuckled and his fingers in her hair shook with it, "demanding, I see."

He complied while she ran a finger along the lines between his abs-he'd always complied back in the days, telling her all about the ten years of the Battle of Titans, how he and his siblings overthrew the elder generation. But this time he told her about football matches and bar fights, how he'd gotten his tattoos on a drunken night, (those were new to her, and she scratched their edges slightly in envy that they'd accompanied him in his human years rather than her; but also desperately in desire because she was dying to lick them till those little birds on his bicep were too wet to fly)-things she filed into her keen mind to tease him about when he'd regained his memories.

"I was a dork in school, as people would say." Klaus curled a strand of her hair around his finger and tickled her neck with the tip, making her squirm in protest, "when I was younger I was quite fond of wood-carving. Not to brag about it but I knew my way around knives. I used to carve out a whole palace with gardens attached," His voice dimmed, "but somehow I couldn't keep it-I couldn't bear the sight of it."

Caroline snuggled closer to him, biting her lips to keep her tears at bay. The exact picture of the carving flashed through her mind, only it was much older than this time. It was placed on the mantelpiece in their room from the Underworld, with mosses and tiny little flowers growing out of the dead wood, coloring the gardens and every window of the mini-sized palace-her finishing touch to his silly pastime.

"A girl in my class-Sally, I believe-begged to take it off my hand. I smashed it right before her. Got detention for a week."

She'd seen punishments a thousand times harsher than that, 180 days a year in her past life. Blood had splattered on her white dresses, ruining one piece and another, but it was no more than a nuisance. Yet now hearing the ridiculous human approach of discipline placed on him pained her like thistles in her heart, the contradiction between their past and present cutting her raw and broken.

"It'll all make sense in time, right?" Klaus brushed her cheekbone with his knuckle, "now that you are here…Soon. I can feel it."

And so could she, clear as his heartbeat under her skull.

They settled into a peaceful routine in the following days, neither bringing up the subject again. He'd take her with him to do his gardening work, tending to the delicate plants with his strong hands and slender fingers. Jealousy looked unbecoming on Caroline (not that Klaus would ever agree-he always loved her eyes ignited with green fire), but she couldn't help it. These plants dared to vie for his attention in her presence-cheeky little bastards playing damsels in distress when they'd survive a stampede out in the wild.

She was boiling in fury until he gently grabbed her hands and pushed a bunch of seedling in her palms. Guiding them into a pit he'd dug in the ground, he held her hands in place with one hand while the other pushed down the soil around. The earth was warmed by the sun but his hand was warmer, their fingers intertwined around the seedling, the tender flesh at the base of her fingers buzzing from all the sensations that Caroline had to close her eyes for a while to control her breath, otherwise the seedling would turn into a grown tree by now.

"Does it scare you that I wish it weren't just our hands down there?" Klaus whispered, his eyes fixed on their hands buried in earth.

"It'll only scare me if you don't."

For all its darkness and gloom, she missed the Underworld. It was the only home she chose for herself, and she its rightful Queen. The outsiders only knew of the reputation of death and suffering, of the goddess of spring forever imprisoned in the most harrowing place in all realms. But little did they know that before human technology it was the only haven where flowers bloom in the throes of winter-they thrived on the hopeless tears of the dead.

Little did they know that every day in the land of the living ailed her, tearing her heart apart petal by petal that could only be repaired by his deadly loving hands.

Caroline wondered if they could just dig their joint hands deeper and deeper until the ground cracked opened and revealed the gates of their home. She was never one for patience. In the past when he spent too much time in his meeting hall she'd send tenacious vines growing into the seams between the pillars and roof of the palace until it crashed and crumbled.

He'd break out of the debris to drag her to the side and kiss her senseless, even fuck her right on the ruins with stones and bricks digging into them like blood-thirsty teeth. But never once did he forge the grand building into invincible steel, something well within his aptitude.

He always did know how to soothe her temper-and in the process soothing his own, like right now as he pulled her hands out of the soft soil and pressed a kiss to her muddied knuckles, "you look ravishing with your hands dirty, love." He smirked with dust in his stubble, "so I think I'll have you under the sun for a while longer."

Just like that, suddenly it wasn't so bad playing the mundane human couple on a land that used to only remind her of his absence.

And they played it to the fullest. Every night was movie night, with a single sofa, her folded into his lap, and every snack shared between bites. Caroline was simply amused when she learned that horror was Klaus' favorite genre. She sat through the repetitive plots and sound effects with a fine view of his neck and jaw line, more fascinated by the shrieking monsters and humans chasing each other reflected in his eyes.

"Do you not enjoy this?" She felt him caressing her bared shoulder, drawing a pattern she was almost sure resembled the scales of the vicious creature on the screen.

"It's alright." She searched her brain for an answer that would fit the speculations of his still-human mentality, "just a little scared."

Truth was she felt almost at home when one of these movies were playing. They were not nearly as gruesome as what she'd witnessed in the Underworld, but if she turned her eyes away and let the screams and cries wash over her like a faraway thought, she could for a fleeting moment picture herself frowning in half-sleep in their old bedroom and him whispering apologies that he'd shove nettles down their throat the night after.

Memories of those nights made her sleepy so she snuggled further into him. She felt his smiling lips pressing to her forehead but his mumbled word was lost in her ears.

"Liar."

The next morning that word finally caught up with her as she found Klaus in the little shed outside that he apparently used as a studio. She'd never before that day been aware that he kept his old passion, simply assuming that it transformed onto the canvass of nature and the palate turned from more grey to more green. She stared in silent awe and burgeoning hope as he painted her in one of the scenes from the movie they watched the night before, in the dress that she wore the first time he found her-an image he'd painted countless times in the past.

They dedicated a whole room to storing all his works featuring that one theme, an eternity of springs lining the walls soaked by the thick frosts of winter.

"You were so moved by Orpheus, yet he changed his flimsy tunes every time, not knowing that the greatest stories only ever needed one song; the else were mere pale duplication." He'd told her when she playfully complained about the staggering amount, "though that's why he earned but his own path to the living, while I rule in a throne right beside my Queen."

His painting spree lasted for days to come, always the scenes from those horror movies they watched and always her smiling under the spotlight. The more blood and gore spread out around her, the brighter her smile.

Caroline didn't ask. She didn't point out that their past was gradually seeping into the paintings, shadows of the landscape of their realm appearing in the background, the faces of the made-up characters substituted by familiar ones sentenced to the Underworld since the void of Chaos. But she was ever present in the focal point of them all, past her, present her, in dresses, shifts, T-shirts and camisoles, smiling while the two different worlds etched into each other.

It was almost as if he was building and shaping his majestic kingdom all over again around the presence of her.

Caroline didn't utter a word until one day, the content of the painting finally changed.

Whereas in the previous days the canvass was dominated by red and bluish-grey, this time it was almost swallowed by pitch black. She knew that color, the black with no shades-not a hint of another color added, the darkness impervious to sound or even light. It was the color of the Styx River guarding the border of the Underworld, ruthlessly dividing the two realms with its lethal waters. And there in the far corner, drenched in the darkness of peril, was her.

Caroline's lips trembled at the sight, that same darkness from the painting aching in her bones, the coldness sawing through her every pore, leaving her hollow and unsteady. The same feeling weighing her down on that day. The day when all the gods faded from existence.

But…how could he know?

"I saw you." Klaus' voice startled her, and he reached out to ease the tremors of her body, his hand hovering just over her forearm, as if suddenly afraid of the touch, "I see everything in our realm, remember?" He let out a bitter laugh, his hand finally landing on her skin, instantly fighting away the chills that could never be rid of once you've been exposed to the waters of Styx, "I watched as you struggled in that blasted river but I was too weak to get to you…"

"You? Weak?" The forced laugh cut her throat, "beats my imagination."

And she dared not imagine him frail, helpless, wasting away not in the eternity they were granted, but into the unthinkable nothingness, a void where she was but also wasn't, where they took no shape or form, bore no minds or thoughts. For all her time of being she'd never been that scared and the only one who could drive that fear away was him. It was still two days from winter and she'd fought so hard to get to him, rules be damned. But in the end, it was all for naught.

"The same way I couldn't bear the sight of you losing yourself in those dark waters." His eyes averted to the painting and hers followed.

She saw herself in that moment, her face blank and disoriented, the dark mist of the river eating away at the blue in her eyes. She remembered how the river of hatred poisoned her heart, consuming her with such resentment and bitterness she could no longer see clear. Images of his face, every time she was leaving their realm behind stabbed at her from all angles, making her want to bellow out like a savage animal.

"All I ever wanted," She tore those words out from the deepest layers of her, those hidden petals in the core of the bud that had never seen sunlight; she drained them from her marrow, scratched them from the walls of her vessels and pulled out her nerves to spell every letter, "is you."

"Then you shall have me." He answered, marrow, vessels and nerves, "and I, you."

Their lips crushed together as their bodies mashed and this time it was not they that were fading, but the whole world around them. Yet it was not fading away, but rather fading into the two of them. Her hands roamed over his body and the sun was flowing underneath her fingers, she breathed him in and his smell was decorated by that of the cypresses, she swallowed his tongue and the summer breeze with the taste of pomegranate slipped down her throat.

And she knew they were now in the garden, in broad daylight, for all creatures and gods to see.

He flicked his wrist and there were wild flowers and briar between his fingers, weaved into a crown just like the old times. He placed it gently on her head with such an intense gaze, the thorns needling her making her moan softly and the smell of the few drops of blood from his fingertips making her knees weak from need.

He tended to her like a flower, caressing and brushing with the most delicate touch; he forged her like steel, kneading and stretching with unparalleled force and finesse. When his stubble prickled the lips of her core she cried out with her back arching, her nipples sticking out into his unrelenting waiting fingers and another scream was pried out of her. She felt his chuckling hot breath in between her legs and she had to clench them on his shoulders to anchor herself.

"Will you grant me permission to your Underworld, sweetheart?" He ran his fingers at the base of her thigh, just short of reach to her sex, and a fire spread from there to all the surfaces of her body but she wanted so much more-she wanted it burning inside her. She choked out a "yes" between her panting, and felt a scorching kiss on her inner thigh.

"As you wish, my Caroline."

Reincarnation had never felt so real until he called her by the name of a new life, until his tongue dove into her to claim his presence. He licked and sucked and nibbled, the flesh, the warmth, the spasms between pleasure and pain that was the signature of existence. She felt death blooming all over her as she reached her high, and nothing had made her feel more alive.

She lost track of time the moment he thrust into her, their deviated paths now joined again for another eternity. Hours past or maybe years and centuries, with the world violently shifting its positions around them, the sky either above or under, her fingers twisting this minute into midair and the other into the soft earth, their juices and sweat dripping onto every leaf and every pebble.

In the throes of passion they clang to each other in exaltation and in despair, their newly-restored powers pouring out of them in sheer abandon. Skeletons burst through earth in a maze of deadly white, the fountains in the middle of the garden sprung hot-steaming melted steel while the hydrangeas growing rampant on the ground ever since they laid hands on each other turned blood red. Blowing in the wind was the sweet singing of larks, symphonied with the drawled-out howls of lost souls.

"How was that for reunion sex?" He whispered in her ear, his finger brushing her over-sensitive nipple, sending another shiver rippling through her.

"It'll do," she nibbled at his shoulder, already feeling his cock swelling once more inside her, "for now."

He chuckled, "you always have a penchant for understatements, Kore."

Her heart skipped a beat at the use of her old nickname. "Well I have high standards."

"Then what about me?" He smirked cheekily, pinching her nipple while slightly moving his hip, his cock stirring a gasp out of her, "where do I fit into your high standards?"

"Beyond."

He was perfect in all his imperfect ways. So were their following days loitering in the land of the living, just exploring the world born out of sunlight and enjoying each other's company, like a normal human couple going on their second honeymoon.

It'd been centuries since he'd stepped foot out of the Underworld. He was strict to himself exactly as he was to the dead souls trapped in the lifeless realm-in they went and out they never shall be. Yet he had shown mercy, under her persuasion, once or twice in the string of centuries. He'd always made exceptions for her-she was that exception. But Caroline feared that this exception would not be extended to himself.

For spring could fit herself among the living, but never could death.

The ominous news arrived in the form of whispered words rousing her out of her sleep. The sheet on his side of the bed was cold as the feeling of dread settling in her heart, and she snuck down the stairs barefoot to the entrance of the drawing room.

It was odd, seeing the King of all gods donned in an immaculate suit, not a hair out of place. But his sharp eyes were what betrayed his true identity, the thunders booming underneath the calm façade of dark brown.

"And here I thought the first to call upon my door would be your designated messenger." She heard Klaus' voice, "how is good old Hermes fairing these days, brother?"

"Unfortunately, it is considerably hard to locate him given his well-known prowess. The same, however, could not be said about you."

"Whatever do you mean?" Klaus feigned innocence.

Zeus merely chuckled, "you stirred quite the chaos the other day. I believe the human term of speech was…PDA?"

"And since when have you concerned yourself with humans?" She could detect the menace hidden in Klaus' words, and apparently so could his brother, as his tone turned serious.

"I don't. But that is no excuse to leave the Underworld untended."

Her heart was pounding so hard she was sure both of them would have heard her by now. But for her sake neither addressed her as the conversation pushed forward.

"I would be more than glad to return to my kingdom," Klaus paused, something soft creeping into his voice, "as long as Caroline comes with me."

"We've been through this. Demeter…"

"I don't bloody care what Demeter thinks! We've all been reincarnated and I say the rules change from here."

Zeus sighed, "I understand that you two must be inseparable right now. But we have eternity on our hands, and you and I both know how time erodes all things. Could you swear to me that Persephone and you wouldn't have been reduced to what Hera and I used to be, had we not made that deal?"

Her heart dropped when she didn't hear him respond, but after a short while his sneer reached her ears, the cold sound warming her all over, "Hera had always been a cunning floozy and you, brother, were nothing but a hypocritical coward. Sorry but the comparison fell flat on me."

"That may be so." Zeus' face revealed no emotion, "but I would do anything to resume the balance, and Hera hated you enough to lend me her powers so she wouldn't ever see your face even on Gaia's land. I guess there was something salvageable between us after all."

"You wouldn't dare." Klaus hissed through clenched teeth.

Zeus raised his hands and bolts of lightning whirled around Klaus like mesh, blocking him from her blurry sight, "you know I would."

Clashes of thunder shook the room and then, as abrupt as they came, the lightning bolts disappeared into thin air, leaving in their wake the dizzying smell of burned debris and an absence that was Klaus mere seconds ago. She was frozen in place, feeling disoriented and lost like she was once again drowned in River Styx, not even a strangled scream could break through her clogged throat.

She watched in horror as Zeus fixed his cuff links with his eyes downcast, his voice vague and indecipherable in her ringing ears, "it's only two months till winter, Persephone. I suggest you sit by and let the leaves fall on their own accords."

And then he was gone.

Caroline slipped down the wall, curling into herself on the cold hardwood floor and sat there for days. What was time to her anyway? She had loads and loads to squander, time that she should be spending with him but wasn't.

Once again she pictured him in the Underworld, painting her, thinking about her, but never uttering her name even in his sleep where he didn't dare dream about her. He'd look after their flowers and water them with blood tortured out of the dead, he'd listen to the pleas of the poor souls sent to his realm each day, building a case for pardon like she might do in his mind, and then vindictively sentence them to even harsher punishments because she wasn't there.

There would be no day or night for him, for the days didn't see her return and the nights didn't have her warm in his bed.

She imagined all his eternity in those fleeting days because there was not much to imagine. They had all the time in the world and yet the world was cruel enough to make them forsake half of it.

She wouldn't have it. Not this time. Not ever again.

Just like driving the car and boarding the plane after she'd found Klaus' whereabouts, she traveled to the borders of the Underworld straight from the floor of the British mansion without a single stop, in her sheer silk night gown with her feet bare and her hair a tousled mess, with the residue warmth and liveliness of the end of summer clinging to her skirt.

Let the leaves fall in her wake. Let the flowers wither and the fruits stricken by frost. Humans could call it El Nino or whatever fresh term of the day they invented to appease their narrow minds-it was but a blink of an eye in the eternity that she was claiming for her own.

The Styx River was as it always had been, darker than all the nights combined and colder than a heart maliciously scorned-but never colder than the prospect of his absence. The black mist whirling above the water hindered her sight but she could hear the whimpers of Cerberus from the other side. The loyal beast was trying to warn her-he had seen this once. He knew she wouldn't make it across the river however hard she tried.

A condescending smile adorned Caroline's tight lips. She never repeated her mistakes.

With her arms opened wide, a forest grew from scratch behind her, the trunks stretching high and the leaves casting shadows covering half the surface of the water. Flowers budded, bloomed and fell faster than a breath, and then the branches of the trees were teeming with ripe fruits, cherries and apples and apricots, their fragrance flowing over the stillness of the river like waves.

Soon there was a loud noise fast approaching from the other side, high-pitched cacklings like that of when a soul was flogged by brambles rolling together like thunder. Then came the shadows that shrouded the other half of the water. Crows, thousands of them, marching their way through the heavy mist of Styx River towards the fresh fruits that were never found in the realm of the dead, their beaks tainted with rotten flesh and stale blood glistening at the enticing aroma.

There were so many of them you could not tell one from another, their bodies forming a black bridge over the river with no seams nor holes in between.

Caroline closed her eyes, inhaling deeply, the sweet scent of fruits and death filling her lungs. Zeus' words about eternity flashed through her mind, and she drowned them away with the deafening screams of crows.

She wanted eternity, but she also wanted every day and every night. She was greedy for not only the whispered endearments and the loving gaze, but the tiring, the cold shoulder, the dry spell, the tempers, the catastrophe of fights where every new leaf turned brown in the middle of April and every ghost screamed from the primroses growing out of their dead hearts, and the equal catastrophe of make-up sex where the roots of the trees from the upper world grew into new trees hanging upside down in their iron-grey sky.

She wanted it all, and no gods in all the realms could tell her otherwise.

She stepped onto the bridge of crows with the grace of a Queen that she had always been, their feathers tickling her feet and the flapping wings ruffling the fringe of her gown. But all that caught her attention was his imposing form on the other side of the bridge, approaching her with the pace and determination matching her own.

They met in the middle of the bridge and she crushed herself into his eager embrace. Their lips were fused together as soon as they touched, his fingers tangling into her hair and her hands reaching down his shirt to feel the heat of his skin. As their kiss deepened further she could feel an air-stream lifting them up a few inches till they were floating-the fruits were growing in a frenzy and the crows were flapping their wings so hard, hundreds dropped from sheer exhaustion and were instantly swallowed by the steely-cold water of River Styx.

But she paid no heed to any of that, her whole being satiated by his lips on hers, centuries of emptiness stuffed like frozen soil in her heart melting away from the warmth that he exuded. When they finally pulled back a little, landing back on the bridge and still basking in each other's presence, they were both smiling like fools, their eyes drunken and skin flushed.

"Rumor has it that you never took even half a step out of the Underworld." She teased him.

He tucked a stray curl behind her ear, his face weary yet tender, "my body may be bound to this land through my oath, but my heart used to flee to the land of the living every time spring made its entrance. While winter came to an end for the livings, it was only just the beginning of suffering for me."

Her smile became watery as she cupped his cheek in her palm, "you may keep your heart this time around, almighty King of the Underworld." She braced herself for the weights of her next words, "I will make sure of it."

He instantly tightened his arms around her, his body speaking all the seriousness of vows and promises that were hidden from his teasing tone, "then who am I to question your decree, my Queen?" He slightly bowed his head, his voice now a dangerous burning whisper, "and I pity those who ever dares to."

With a certainty as palpable as the endless time shared between the two of them, she believed her words to be the ultimate truth, now that he was by her side for however long eternity was.