The Opportunist: Part Two of The Kiss Thief

part one. A Rose-Tinted World

Persephone still remembered. The day she had first encountered her husband was indelible upon her mind. More importantly, though it had been an age ago, she still remembered exactly how he had been. He was young and he had such driving purpose. She found him astounding. He had smiled at her; a small smile, but one that reached his eyes nonetheless.

She wanted him, and she wanted him to love her.

She still remembered when he had turned and lingered in the doorway as he was leaving, to give her that small smile, a tilt upwards of the corners of his mouth, and that was the moment she fell in love.

Persephone's memories of the days that followed were shrouded in a haze she later recognised as blissful, ignorance-inducing happiness. They were young and they had it all. He was brilliance; he became her world. Whenever he left her, if even for a moment, he never failed to smile at her, and she felt she was falling in love all over again.

He was so alive in her memory. Knowledge is power, he would tell her. He detailed his latest plots and exploits, he laid bare all his ambition before her, and he was so bright she felt he was aflame.

part two. The Beginning of the End

She became eventually, through no choice of her own, a trophy. He began to treat her as such. She was expected to sit beside him, the perfect possession, and say nothing while he bartered and bargained. She tired of it.

The days blurred alarmingly as her life slipped into a repetitive routine of constants, the only discernable variable being the increasing feeling that happiness was well and truly eluding her. There was nothing to be done, she knew; only keep going through the motions of her superficial life. Lunch, incessantly meaningless conversation, and then lunch again. It didn't matter that she had been happy once. It was not enough to leave her satisfied, let alone content.

Slowly but surely, her husband was herding her to the edge, and one day she would push him over. Of course she would extend a hand to haul him up, but whether it would be to save him or push him over again, who could say?

A pattern emerged. He would excuse himself from lunch noticeably early, giving her a perfunctory farewell and not even glancing back. She was not blind to what he was doing, but she did not rage, or even bemoan it. What was done was done, and could not be undone. As the days melted into weeks, she found herself transcending her own life. She became increasingly abstracted, focusing on insignificant details, listening to the click of her heels as she made her way down the halls.

When he came home he still smiled, but it wasn't for her anymore.

part three. An Act of Thievery

Another day brought yet another lunch. But these guests of the Merovingian were different; the usual mutually beneficiary arrangements were not made, because Persephone's husband held all the cards and he knew it. But soon, oh so soon, he would see.

Persephone looked at Neo and saw something of what her husband had been, and what he might have been had he not walked the predictable path of greed and power. She saw him, burning inexorably, and she wanted it, she wanted it all. She could see love emanating from him, so overwhelmingly obvious, and it was not meant to last. She had the bizarre notion that if she were to open her mouth she would be able to taste it. And then a thought slipped with surprising effortlessness into her mind; why shouldn't she?

And so she listened with indifference as her husband detailed his creation of a very special dessert for a blonde woman. Well, she had a very special surprise for her husband, and oh, would he be shocked.

In the end, Persephone would have what she wanted. She always did. When she approached the three of them, she laid it out simply. And simple it was: the betrayal of her husband in exchange for a kiss, a small sample, a taste of love. They would gain the Keymaker, she would have a taste of long-denied love and her husband would be handed knowledge on a silver platter; the knowledge that his marriage was no longer what he thought it was. Mutually beneficiary.

Persephone took from Neo the kiss meant for Trinity, and for a moment, she understood what it might feel like to be the other woman and feel such a love. A kiss given to Trinity that she would now never have, because Persephone was a thief.

It was exquisite.

There was something surprisingly elegant in stealing a kiss. The fragility of love enticed her, and so did the knowledge that love was not eternal. Love was always doomed; that was what made it so beautiful.

part four. The Apathetic Aftermath

He ranted; he raved. But honestly, what had he expected? That she would sit and be shown off forever? She did not care what he felt; she knew only that it would never balance out what she had been subjected to, and that really, her betrayal was no less great than the way he betrayed her over and over again. He brought it on himself, and had he been half the collector of knowledge he though he was, he should have seen it coming. . Cause and effect. He should have known.

She did not care for another, more pressing, reason. She was insatiable. One taste of doom-destined love and she knew it could never end. There was nothing her husband could do to affect her, not when she was so consumed. She would find herself studying people, observing the love she saw, and wondering how it would taste, wondering if it would ever be enough.

It would not be enough, she suspected. Not now. Not ever.