Persephone Speaks
Summary: The flower crown is heavy, but Sakura holds her head high. It represents her status as the Spring Maiden, the Goddess' vessel for a single day.
Ino peers into the mirror. ''What do you suppose the Dark One will be like?''
Black eyes, raven hair and skin as pale as winter. ''…I was hoping his divine vessel would be an acquaintance of mine.''
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
They spread yellow flowers around the house to keep the fairies out. They walk the boundaries to remind the supernatural of the lines they can't cross. They sprinkle the women with perfumed water and whisper: ''May you never wither,'' so winter will leave their skin and death shan't touch them.
But warding out the supernatural doesn't help a thing if one doesn't stay within the wards And Sakura? She has snuck off the premises every may day since she was five. Her mother would despair if she knew, but Sakura likes to bury her feet in the earth like a rooting tree. She can't miss it, not even on the may day when the only ones not safely indoors are the Spring Maiden and the Dark One.
Her locks are pink blossoms, her eyes the green leaves. Her skin isn't brown, but it's a peach hue speaking of juice, and everything screams fertility.
She's the fresh soil upon which the season grows.
It's only natural she becomes the Spring Maiden. Ino challenged her anyway. Blood under her nails, dress ripped and skin smeared with mud. She would have killed Ino if she hadn't yielded. It scares her how far she is willing to go.
The flower crown is heavy, but Sakura holds her head high. It represents her status as the Spring Maiden, the Goddess' vessel for a single day.
Ino peers into the mirror. ''What do you suppose the Dark One will be like?''
Black eyes, raven hair and skin as pale as winter. ''…I was hoping his divine vessel would be an acquaintance of mine.''
Ino snorts. ''Because you know so many people from West village.''
The sarcasm drips off her voice.
Ino doesn't know about Sakura's nights spent in the woods, caught up in the world's grandness, a body beside hers and breath caught in her chest like a bird trapped in a cage. About lips not touching hers, about hands that never stray, but eyes that devour and a mouth hungry as the gaping monster maws hiding all around them.
East village cedes a vessel for the Spring maiden, the West village surrenders a container for the Dark One. One night of passion will commence. It will not birth a child, but a renewal of the lands for both villages. Only afterward Sakura's peers may marry.
Sakura is in love, but between East and West village is a distance not easily crossed by old legs and when Sakura sees her mother's lonely gaze she knows she won't be allowed to leave. Being the Spring maiden is her only chance for happiness.
She will take it.
Once, when her father was still alive, Sakura asked:
''What is love?''
He grinned down at her and picked her up. ''Your mother's smiles on sunny days, white dresses and wedding bells. Love melts in your mouth like chocolate, travels through your body at the speed of light and blooms like a flower. Love… Love is your heart.''
Sakura always wears white, but wedding bells, nor chocolate ever made her smile. Love is slow, burning in her veins, creeping closer to her heart. It is the song of the nightingale when twilight dies, it is the grass underneath her body, the lake's cold water caressing her curves, the embrace of darkness. It is tiptoeing past the church to the clearing in the woods center to meet her beloved underneath the weeping willow.
It is dreaming of running away, of leaving her mother's overprotective care, of being… She wants to say free, but she'll never be released from the memory of pale skin gleaming in the moonlight, rising from the waves, clothing clinging to his body like it never wants to leave. The Goddess knows she didn't want to either.
He is captivating and she's drowning. Love me, something inside her screams. But she's been meeting with him ever since she was a child, and he's never answered her outcry. But he looks and comes to meet her every single night regardless.
Sakura doesn't want to be gifted the cherry tree's first blossom or the pretty marbles the merchants sell. Let alone gems, things to be locked in boxes and never be seen again. All she wants is him.
She remains silent as the grave.
At her father's funeral, her mother's grip on her shoulder tightened, tugging the girl closer to her. Sakura squirmed, but couldn't loosen the hold.
If there was a before and after her father's death, that was the moment Sakura noticed it. Her mother's love became a noose around her neck, her desire to keep Sakura from the same fate as her father, from leaving her side, made her mother desperate. It suffocated her daughter slowly.
Please, please don't let mother know (she'll put me in a glass case forever).
The drums echo in her ears, in unison with her heartbeat. The entire village flurries around her like a snow storm, the air crackling, the tension high. Children are wailing, the adults belt the song of life and death until their throats are sore, stomping their feet in time with the beat. Sakura's peers whirl around the fire at her back, the heat slamming into her each time the wind changes direction.
It moves past her like the clouds pass the sun.
Ino walks forward, blond hair a waterfall, the sundown behind her creating a halo around her head. She's dressed in blue, allowed to wear color now she's no longer a vessel candidate.
The night is approaching. As Sakura's only contender, Ino is the one who presents the ceremonial dagger, head raised and the Goddess' mark upon her brow. All who honor the Goddess are blessed, so Ino's hands move swiftly when she ties the dagger to Sakura's waist with vines of blooms ready to flower.
Past her shoulder, Sakura catches a glimpse of her mother. She's standing still, not moving at all. All she needs is one tap, one measly touch, and she will shatter like glass. Sakura swallows. Her mother's face is an open book.
''You're leaving. Forever.''
She can't deny the accusation, even though she should be back at midday tomorrow. She's going to leave a part of her inside the forest forever, but she doesn't want to. She wants to stay whole, whole and in the arms of the man she hopes will be the Dark One tonight.
Ino's hands are on her face, lifting her chin and turning her head away from her mother, sky blue trailing over green. She opens her mouth, but instead of the traditional Go forth and have no fear, what slips past her lips is: ''Run.''
Mortality falls from Sakura's shoulders like a cloak. She raises her head to the stars, shedding her human skin and rising, leaving her worries behind. Her feet begin to move and the crowd parts like a sea before her.
The stars are her guides as she walks past the trees, all sound dying away, creatures creeping in the shadows, crawling forward slowly. The moss is wet, squelching when her feet pound on the forest floor. The breath has long left her lungs. The ground pushes her forwards, flowers blooming in her wake. She doesn't look back, it will only make going forward harder.
The walk takes more than an hour, but it never takes any time at all when she knows who is waiting for her. There, the clearing with the weeping willow crying into the lake. Beneath the leaf curtain, he waits.
His features are familiar, but the coloring is not. Hair as black as ebony, skin as white as snow, his eyes inhuman red. His robes are dark, the polar opposite of her white toga.
He is a God and she a Goddess.
It doesn't make them different from their usual selves. His black eyes are gone and the red eyes say enough. He is no vessel- he is the Dark One and has always been so. Her own mortality vanished while bolting through the trees, her body no container either. She did not remember being a deity, but Gods simply are, they do not need memory to be divine. She was the Goddess reborn, it was written in her human flesh, as young as the plants that sprout from her.
She reaches for him. She can feel him, his body marble, his veins silver and gold, rubies streaming through them, sharp, chilling, precious stones. Her warm hand folds around his icy fingers and life flows into death.
She is Spring and gives life, but she sprouts from the bleached bones of the seasons long gone, takes her nutrients from life decayed. Death and life are a cycle- they feed each other. They are partners, lovers, equals, so entwined one cannot have either without the other.
She moves forward, eager to (finally, finally) press her lips to his and breathe life into him, but he stops her.
''Sasuke?''
He smiles gently and offers her his other hand, hidden underneath his sleeve.
She gasps when she sees what he's holding. A fruit, red as a beating heart, his eyes both questioning and piercing in his offer. It looks like blood against his pale skin.
''Will you take it?''
Her mother's grip flashes before her mind's eye and she feels terribly guilty. She'll leave her mother behind, Ino too, but the fruit is red and her love is bright and she's never wanted anything so much in her entire life.
She inhales and takes the fruit from him.
He searches her features. ''You'll never be able to go back.''
She laughs at his frown, at the God, the Dark One, too stupid to realize she loves him, that she wants all of him. The ghosts, the blood, the sin. That she was asking him to share it with her. This man, who spoke of his feelings so sparingly, but whose eyes said it all. Whose gaze was a touch on its own.
The man who, out of an entire kingdom, bowed only to her.
The need to know humanity, for divinity within life smaller than a Goddess, is nothing next to her desire for him.
''I know,'' She takes the dagger, slices the peel open and takes the first bite. It's both sweet and acid, the smell alone tooth-aching, but the smile on her face never fades.
He takes her hand and they are one.
The next morning, a blonde boy dressed in dark robes stumbles into East village. ''The Spring Maiden,'' his eyes bug out, ''She's gone. She cut off her hair. It was there, in the clearing I passed this morning, just like the marriage rites between the Dark One and the Spring Maiden prescribe. But I was his vessel tonight and I wasn't there!''
They search endlessly, high and low, up and down, but no one thinks of hunting for her underground, in the underworld.
The only thing they can find are the pink locks abandoned under the weeping willow.
When Ino picks up the ceremonial dagger, the blade is sticky.
No dares to speak of the pomegranate peel in the grass, the seeds all gone.
When my time comes around
Lay me gently in the cold dark earth
No grave can hold my body down
I'll crawl home to her
-Work song, Hozier
Authors Note
Hi, everyone!
I took inspiration fort his fic from the Work Song and the poem ''Persephone Speaks'' by Daniella Michalleni. The Florence and the machine song Breathe of Life was not involved, though, looking back, it fits it really well. Thanks to I.W.P-chan for telling me which parts were clear and which were not!
I hope you enjoyed it and constructive criticism is always welcome!
Love, Blue.