TITLE: Persephone
AUTHOR: Mariel
CATEGORY: DRR
NOTES: This started out as a vignette and ended up as this. Go figure. I posted it elsewhere in a slightly altered form a long time ago, but figured it should have a home on ffnet, as well...

PERSEPHONE

He watches while she works and feels fear rise,
dark and familiar

As long as he's known her he's been afraid.

She faces a world nightmarish, dark,
steeped in cult and ritual,
torture and death.

And looks away with clear eyes.

She believes in things he doesn't believe,
can't believe,
won't believe.

She knows darkness and evil.
Swims in it,
bathes in it

And emerges untouched.

She sees his soul
and does not flinch,
Wades through Lethe
and sloughs its waters from her.

She does what he cannot do.
She is what he cannot be.

Feeling his gaze, she looks up.
She smiles a smile that warms him
And frightens him because it does.

As long as he's known her he's been afraid.
Of her.

Inside Pandora's box
she remains unscathed.
Against loss, pain,
unspeakable sadness,
misery, sorrow,
and night without end
she holds hope like a shield before her.

She feels loss not her own,
lives with wrongs not her making...

Unbowed and unbroken,
she faces adversity,
dark whispers in corridors,
disappointments, distress.

And vows that in truth
he will find his salvation.

He does not understand her.
Can not understand her.

She looks across the room at him
and silently offers release.
Fear stirs within him

As long as he's known her he's been afraid.
Of her.
Of himself.

She is Diana,
Athena, and Helen of Troy.
She is Medusa.
She is a temptress
wrapped in innocence,
a nymph, a siren,
a sorceress.

She is warm and
open and wonderful.
She is a puzzle,
wrapped in an enigma.

Wading in the mire
of wasted lives, twisted souls
and unsatisfied desires,
she has quaffed the bitter cup of regret
and placed it down, forgiven.

She knows the depths of despair.
Understands his hell...
But he cannot face what she knows.

Won't face what she knows.

She believes there is power
to defeat the dark.

His dark.

He does not.
Cannot.
Will not.

She looks across the room at him.
Fear keeps him firmly in place.

As long as he's known her he's been afraid.
Of her.
Of himself.
Of living again.

She is Persephone.
She is dawn come from darkness,
promise in the absence of hope.

She is spring come from winter.

Her presence warms him, and eases the strain.
Makes him forget, forgive,
and forfeit his pain,
his guilt, and his anger.

She stands and prepares to go,
her eyes pleading gently.

Slowly,
he rises...

End
Persephone