This chapter is particularly dramatic, but I know that's the sort of thing we fanfiction readers enjoy :)
Each petal in her hand was perfect in its own way.
Persephone stroked the purple velvet surface of each one, then tore them into two meticulously ripped symmetrical pieces before blowing them into the stream. The water stole each petal away, never losing its greed for them. The constant rushing of water had lulled her into a near doze, and the warmth of the summer beat down on her bare shoulders. Birdsong and the relentless buzzing of insects filled the air. She was dressed in a wavy dress which exposed most of her back and cut off just below her knees. Persephone lifted listless green eyes to the cloudless blue sky, hating the quiet.
Since returning to the gardens from Olympus, her existence had become torturous. It was her own fault, she knew. Her mother had said as much. If she would just accept the happiness she had here, she wouldn't feel so morose. But that seemed beyond her abilities. She had a brief, fascinating, albeit horrifying glimpse into the power of gods during that visit, and she tormented herself now with thoughts of her own potential as a goddess.
Another petal joined its sisters in the brook.
Demeter was somewhere else that afternoon, performing a ceremony to cause the crops to grow.
"What can you possibly want that isn't here with me?"
That was what her mother had yelled in anger when Persephone questioned her sheltered upbringing. Trying to make Demeter understand was like trying to make butter pour from the sky. Impossible.
The silence was deafening. Persephone sighed. After all this time, one might think she would be used to this beautiful imprisonment, but time was no healer. It only exaggerated the agony. She saw a drop fall onto her green skirt, followed quickly by another.
Tears.
She was glad her mother was not present to see that. Tears were a sign of stupidity, Demeter said. Suitable for stupid mortal girls, not goddesses.
"Take me from this idyllic misery," she silently begged nobody at all.
Such was her sadness, that Persephone did not notice when the atmosphere of the gardens was altered. Birdsong slowly died, and a breeze picked up. The warm summer air grew colder. Even the sky seemed to become perceptibly darker.
Persephone wiped another tear from her eye, not allowing herself the satisfaction of a good sob. Sobbing was beneath her.
It was in that moment that she saw the ominous dark shadow reflected in the stream. For a second she did not react, freezing in place. But then she leapt to her feet with sudden agility, startled.
There, several paces from the treeline, stood the very last person she had expected to see.
"I mean you no harm, Persephone," he said, raising empty hands.
His black hair was smoothed back behind his ears, and his skin seemed even whiter under direct sunlight. The aura of despair and doom clung to him even here, and a jewelled sword hung at his side. He seemed as out of place as a wolf in a flock of sheep. Unease crept up her spine.
"Lord Hades!" she exclaimed in shock, searching her mind for a logical explanation for his presence and finding none. "What do you want?" she asked, confused and afraid. "If my mother knew you were…"
"Demeter doesn't need to know I am here," Hades said.
His dark, intense eyes seemed to examine her in a way that made her nervous. Persephone had not forgotten that he had saved her from Ares' lust, but that did not remove the possibility that he was a threat. Ironically, the suspicious part of Demeter seemed to have rubbed off on her daughter. Her muscles tensed, ready to run.
"You seem sad, sweet niece," he commented casually, either ignoring or missing her anxious expression. "Why is that?"
"What care you why I am sad?" she demanded, perplexed by the question. "What do you want?"
"I came to see you," Hades said simply, as if that was the most natural thing in the world.
"Why?"
"Tell me why you are sad," he countered.
Persephone glanced around. Usually nymphs or dryads were within earshot of her, but as far as she could tell, Demeter's servants were elsewhere in the garden. She looked back at Hades, whose expression was oddly calm. He didn't seem like an intruder, although obviously he was.
"I shouldn't be talking to you," she said. "My mother doesn't allow anyone onto her land…"
"I will not stay for long," Hades said. Since she had jumped to her feet, he hadn't moved from where he stood, which was both comforting and concerning at once. "You know," the Lord of the Underworld continued, "my father threw me and my siblings, your mother included, into a pit thousands of miles beneath the earth. We were very close then."
Persephone blinked.
"I did not know that," she said.
"The way the mortals put it, our father ate us, one by one," Hades said, as if just relaying a piece of gossip. "But that is, of course, mere fiction. Cronus did not swallow us; he just let the earth swallow us. Hundreds of years passed, all in darkness, before we were freed and we overthrew him together. You are in a garden of light and beauty, not a damp, stinking cell, and I can still see something in your sad eyes that reminds me of that captivity."
She stared, conscious of the careless tears that were drying on her cheeks. How had he been able to speak aloud her thoughts like they were written above her head?
"I am not a prisoner," Persephone insisted, feeling it was her duty to defend her mother.
"I did not say you were," Hades pointed out.
"I love my mother."
"But she is keeping you here."
Perhaps it was foolish, but Persephone felt soothed by the calmness of his deep voice. It was all too easy to forget that he was a near stranger, an infamous tormenter of mortals, and a trespasser on her mother's land. She awkwardly glanced at her feet, and the need to express her frustrations built up.
"I am no longer a child," she griped then, her annoyance spilling out. "My mother does not see that. I don't want to spend my whole life here or within her sight. I am a goddess, not some delicate flower. My mother is kind and protective, and good…but she doesn't understand that I need to find myself. The world calls to me, but I'm prevented from answering it."
To her surprise, Hades did not laugh, although he didn't seem the sort of person to do that anyway. He did not criticise her childish problems, and he did not pass any judgement on them. Instead, he just listened. Like that time in the courtyard of Olympus, Persephone met his gaze, and forgot entirely that she had any reason to fear this dark ruler. He was quiet for a long moment, then spoke quite seriously.
"I have a proposition for you, Persephone."
There was a twist in his upper lip, like he was amused. It didn't scare her, although perhaps an older, wiser goddess might have been rightly unnerved.
"What?" she asked curiously
Hades walked slowly towards her, and with an underemphasised flourish, he held out his hand. Persephone did not move.
"If you come with me," he offered, "I can promise not only will you find yourself, but many wonders that most people can only glimpse in their wildest and darkest dreams. Take my hand, and you will see the extent of my realm."
Shock made her pause. Then she frowned, a flicker of suspicion returning. This may have been akin to what she had wished for just minutes ago, but a tour of the creepy, dark Underworld was not exactly the adventure she had planned.
"I barely know you, Lord Hades," admitted Persephone. "How can I trust you?"
Hades did not flinch.
"I am your mother's brother," he suggested.
"So is Zeus," Persephone returned, unsure, "and he would marry me to a brute I have never met."
Again, Hades' upper lip twitched in what she construed as amusement. It felt like he was privy to a joke that she didn't understand. However, just as quickly, his eyes became serious again.
"I swear by all I hold as mine," he promised her, "I will not harm you, Persephone."
His proffered hand seemed undemanding. This was her choice; to take a chance or to remain languishing in this deceptive paradise holding her in a kind of despair.
"I don't know," she protested. "Mother would be furious."
"Don't worry about what Demeter wants," Hades urged her. "What do you want?"
No-one had ever really asked her that before. Hades' deep eyes were filled with something more intense than hope, and she let recklessness take control of her. Her hand moved at her side, and she was just about to consent, a slight smile brushing her lips.
Somewhere to her left there was a strangled gasp.
Like she had been stung, Persephone leapt back from the Lord of the Underworld. Her feet sloshed in the muddy water of the stream. Two dryads with enormous staring blue eyes and identical grassy hair were gaping in horror at Hades from the treeline. They looked frantically between the god and their mistress' daughter, before turning to run. Skirts of leaves fluttered around their bark-like legs. Their warning screams were shrill and piercing.
"MISTRESS! LADY DEMETER!"
Hades swore under his breath. Before Persephone could say a word or do anything, he was moving. With a sudden slicing motion through the air, the dryads' feet were knocked from under them. Their bodies were thrown violently into the trees with sickening thumps. Both fell limp to the ground, screaming no more.
"No!" Persephone cried out.
Hades' casual expression had changed, and she realised with a terrified jolt what a fool she had been to be so reassured by his calmness. When he turned to her, his expression was vicious.
"I would have preferred you came of your own will," he glowered, every bit the ruthless ruler of the Underworld. "But timing seems to be my enemy."
Their eyes burned into each other. Persephone felt fear absorb her senses, and she knew a desperate need to escape. With the wild terror of cornered prey, she leapt into the stream. A rock grazed her leg and she clenched her teeth to ignore the pain. Before she got more than a few strides away, there was a splash from behind, and arms seized her around her waist, yanking her out of the water.
"MOTHER!"
Her frantic shriek was cut off sharply as both god and captured goddess vanished in a rush of darkness and shadow.
The garden itself was silent, appalled by the loss of its most precious flower. Blood ran from the nose of one of the broken dryads lying prone at the treeline, and a feeling of grief pervaded the air.
