Persephone, Queen of the Underworld (persephoneie) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2011-05-07 06:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | hades, persephone |
Who: Persephone (Open to Hades)
What: Uh oh
When: Saturday, May 7th
Where: Persephone's shop and then home
Her flowers weren't sprouting.
The shop Persephone owned was part nursery and part flower shop. She sold growing and cut plants of all kinds, though it was difficult to sell growing plants when nothing would grow. Even the cut flowers she had delivered to her every morning started to wilt by afternoon if too near to her. She had had to re-arrange the shop to put the bouquets as far away from the counter as possible.
She had told herself it was just a slow year. She had told herself the seeds would sprout, they just needed more time. Then she had convinced herself she had a batch of bad seeds and she had started all over again. When those seeds didn't sprout either, it was harder to ignore. Perhaps she couldn't be one part Kore, the Greek goddess of growth and spring, and one part Persephone, the dreaded Queen of the Underworld.
It didn't matter if her shop brought in no money, and to be truthful, it was bringing in less and less as her plants failed. Hades had enough money to provide for them all. It was the pure fact that she was losing part of herself. The maiden of springtime was fading away, replaced by ice and shade. There had been a time when she had dug long fingers into the earth, only to have green shoots spring up around them. Now there was nothing but dead earth.
Persephone left her shop, closing early because there was no point in staying open when no one came in. She headed home, letting herself in to the house to call out for her husband. Seeing him would make everything better.
Hades had yet to notice anything, mostly because he was playing blind. Even Lugra's advice he'd filed away and was pretending to forget. For once, everything was going right for him. He wasn't forced into solitude during the Spring months, and he kept Persephone close. All in all he seemed to be getting what he wanted.
Nevermind the fact that the whispers of the dead were getting harder and harder to hear. Nevermind the fact that it had taken him hours to judge a single soul and still had to pass it to the Judges.
When he heard Persephone he frowned. He knew her work schedule rather well. Far from caring if she was home sooner rather then later he left the office, offering her a smile. "Persephone, everything alright?"
The minute she saw her husband, everything seemed fine and she remembered why she was doing this and staying with him. The rest of it all seemed to fade away. "Of course," she said, going to him immediately. "How are you, husband?"
Just the fact she came up to him, willingly, made him happy. The days where she skittered in fear, earned as it had been, were still too fresh in his memory to not enjoy her willing company. So he reached out to brush her hair from her eyes, "well enough. Quiet day."
"The dead are often quiet," Persephone mused, though she knew they were not always quiet in the underworld. Their bodies were silenced, even when their souls screamed.
Shaking away that thought, Persephone smiled at her husband. "I've been thinking about closing up the shop. If we're trying for another child, maybe I shouldn't be distracted."
He chose not to say anything about that, and just smiled again. For all his dour moods, she got him to smile more then anything. He was a little surprised at her words, mostly because he was still getting used to the idea she actually wanted more children with him.
"It's your choice. I would enjoy having you here more, you know that, but whatever pleases you is fine with me." She seemed to enjoy fussing over the shop, and he anted to see her as happy as possible. "There's very few distractions here though. I'm never the best of company."
"I think you are fine company," Persephone said, smiling up at him. "The shop is just a distraction, but I don't need to decide now." Maybe she would give it another week and see if anything sprouted.
He leaned down and kissed her at that, "I think you are the only one willing to claim that. And as you wish." He stepped back, just a bit, mostly because he was never sure around others. He didn't have too many social skills. "Well, now I have you home sooner, do you want dinner? The servants tell me the mortals have some sort of holiday today if you want to do anything."
Persephone smiled widely at her husband and she nodded. "Dinner would be wonderful. I believe the holiday is Mother's Day." And if she couldn't sell many flowers on Mother's Day there was seriously something wrong. "I believe you are supposed to wait on me hand and foot." She never flinched at the idea that her own mother wasn't there. That was certainly a sign of something too.
Hades chose to ignore both, setting one hand on the small of her back to lead her to the kitchen. He figured the servants could prepare whatever she wanted. "Ah. Well that would explain that." He gave her a side look and smirked, "because that's different from any other day?" Hades, both realm and God, was ruled by her. He didn't even try to keep it a secret. "But what are your wishes my Queen? I'll see that they're carried out."
"It's not different than any other day," Persephone said with a wide smile. She turned to rise up on her tiptoes to kiss her husband on the lips. "I only wish to stay with you." She wished the two halves of herself could make some kind of a congruent whole.
He was happy to take the kiss, never denying how happy it made him she did that. It had taken them quite some time to get there, most of it through his own stupid ways of going about things.
"I'd like that, but you should still have dinner. Your choice. We stay in or dine out." He was never a people person, but he made exceptions for her. That and he liked scowling at the mortals who noticed her.
"I think," Persephone said, running her finger down his chest, "that we should stay in. We can have dinner here, and then move into the bedroom."
Persephone couldn't pinpoint exactly why she was so desperate to have a baby. Perhaps that it was just that she was a goddess of growth and she could make nothing else grow. Surely she could make life this way.
"I think I can arrange that." Like he'd complain when she wished to stay in. knowing she wanted him, rather then feared him, wasn't anything he'd ever thought she'd do. Smiling he set his hand on hers, raising it to his lips and kissing her knuckles.
Persephone couldn't pinpoint when she had stopped being afraid and started loving her husband. But somewhere along the way, she had realised that what he had done to her aside, he loved her and that mattered.
She leaned up on her tiptoes, kissing him again. Dinner and a night with her husband sounded like the perfect Mother's Day.
It would make her forget everything else for a little while.