Entry tags:

hades, persephone

some other spring / when twilight falls
Who: Isobel [Persephone] & Obed [Hades].
What: Another dream, where more of the picture is colored in.
Where: Persephone's meadow.
When: Back when the sea touched the land and spat out four-legged mowing machines. [ Backdated to May 18, middle of the night ]
Rating: NC-17.

Unlike how most might presume a goddess would spend her time, Persephone was on her knees with her hands nearly buried up to her elbows in the dirt. A large pile of half-dead plants sat to her right, and she fought with the roots of the current focus of her ire. Some blight was killing her plants; it happened, every now and again, when some other god introduced a new species or decided to meddle with her designs. Other flora wouldn't take to the change half as well, and she'd end up here.

Thus now, she was pulling and replanting what she could in areas she knew had better soil. It was long, tedious work, dirty work, but it kept her mind off of her predicament and gave her something to do until her mother saw fit to take her on an 'outing.' Sitting back on her heels, Persephone wiped a dirt-laden hand along her chin, leaving a smear of brown that was a deeper tone than her own tanned complexion. Perhaps she was a touch too harsh with the plants; many were missing roots, or were bent at the stem, or had a ripped leaf. She'd been cooped up here awhile, and sometimes her sole subjects were the recipients of her frustration.

She heard movement behind her; a harder step than that of simple wind through grass. Persephone turned, expecting to see Demeter, and was surprised for it to instead be the lord of the underworld himself.

"Hades." Persephone rose quickly to her feet, her heart fluttering in her chest. She patted her hands on her dress, against themselves, trying to rid herself just a little of the look that made her seem a common mortal and regain something of what made her divine. The ecstatic smile that moved over her mouth, however, completely betrayed her pleasure at the sudden sight of him.

"Persephone."

His own expression was shadowed. This was not in itself unusual; even here in the midst of her garden, darkness swirled around him like a cloak, like a sentient extension of his own body. The shadows seemed to lengthen as he drew near to her, black tendrils that sought her out. He searched for something to say, but everything that came to mind seemed woefully inadequate. So he merely looked to her garden, torn apart by the deceptively gentle-seeming hands he loved so well.

"You've been keeping busy, I see."

She glanced over her own shoulder at her handiwork, one shoulder rising in uncertainty as a corner of her mouth quirked in disapproval. "Nemesis turned someone into a flower. I think it's spreading something among the rest of mine; I wish they'd at least tell me, instead of all these spur of the moment decisions." Persephone looked back at Hades, taking a few steps forward to rise up on tiptoe and kiss him gently on the cheek. She kept her still-dirty hands to herself, though fingertips knotted together before her stomach to keep from accidentally brushing his dark robes.

She did not question how he'd arrived; she did not think to ask if Demeter knew of his presence, if their time together was limited. She did not wish to even entertain such things, instead content enough to have a visitor, and him at that.

"To what do I owe the surprise?" Persephone shrank down, a few inches shorter than Hades' height; he looked taller due to the shadows, but none of it seemed to intimidate her in the slightest. The same excited smile stayed on her face, her eyes never breaking away from studying his.

"My own impatience," he said. And loneliness, he did not add. He did not have to; it was plain enough in the tilt of his lean body toward hers, as though he could not escape the gravity of her. He did not reach out to her, but maintained the distance she had put between them. At their feet, his shadows curled like vines, commingling with the darkness she cast on the earth. To stop himself speaking what he most wanted to, he focused on their kindred's misstep, and its consequences for Persephone's beloved plants.

"How will you answer Nemesis' encroachment?" he asked, bitterness coloring his tone. "Do you intend to give ground there as well?"

Persephone's smile thinned, but she did not take Hades' harsh tone to be the offense it implied. Her annoyance chewed away the remnants of her embarrassment, and instead she stepped forward, looping her dirt-smeared hand in his to pull him away from the torn flora. A wave of her other hand had a moist sheet of dirt cover those she'd left unplanted, so they would keep until she had time to properly pay attention to them.

"There is a balance, Theos Khthonios," she replied. "My role is to give; just as yours is to take. Would you have me upset the natural order of things?" Persephone tugged Hades in the direction of a small pond; the edges of her meadow were ringed by a copse of trees; pretty bars for a pretty cage, though Persephone did not blame the tall spires for the work her mother had set them to. Instead, she motioned to a clump of yellow and white near the pond.

"Aren't they beautiful? Apparently as beautiful as the man they were made from." She loosened her hand from his, bending down to gently cup one of the teacup-shaped blossoms. "Apparently he was so in love with his own reflection that he disregarded the heart of another. Do you think this is a fair punishment?"

"I'm not so certain it's punishment at all," Hades answered. He looked down at the bloom, studying its nodding head. "It's a kind of immortality, isn't it. And now others will find him as fair as he found himself." He bent down at the waist. Cold fingers wrapped tight around the flower's thin stem, clenching as he tore it from the ground. It dangled from his hand, raining soil down onto the earth below. The flower withered and died in the god's hand, rotting to nothing in the span of seconds. He dropped what remained of the plant, looking down at the dust in his palm. "But I suppose there is that, as well…"

He looked up to her, studying her face as death drifted down to the softness of her ground. "But I am far more curious about your thoughts. How might you have punished him?"

"I'm not sure he was worthy of a punishment at all," she replied, having watched silently as he quickly and effectively destroyed the new addition to her meadow. Persephone reached forward and plucked up what little was left of the poor thing, holding it between her hands. "It was not his fault that he did not love the one who felt such things for him. It's capricious of Nemesis to have done this at all. If anyone is deserving of punishment, it is her."

A large, green stem blossomed from between her fingers, extending outward until it blossomed into the same yellow and white cup-shaped blossom on the end. Holding it gently with one hand, Persephone planted it firmly back into the ground, the single blossom sure to give rise to more of its brethren soon enough. Then she dusted her hands on her skirts, once again, reaching out to take Hades' hand once more and tugging him to his feet. A smirk tugged at her mouth.

"And you need to stop taking what is mine," she teased, pulling him toward the trees as they meandered through the meadow. "Or I will have to think of some way to punish you."

Hades' smile was a small thing, a slash of shadow across his pale face. His hand tightened in hers, pressing the dirt that traced her lifeline into his own. Her touch was warm as the sunlight that caught in her hair; he found himself basking in both, greedily drinking in every aspect of her being.

"Will you, now," he mused. "I might point out you asked my opinion. How could I give it without thoroughly examining the being in question?" He drifted closer to her, long fingers threading through hers. "I am not to blame that it died because of that examination. Surely you would not hold my nature against me..."

They stepped through into the treeline, their movement slowed as Persephone carefully picked her way over roots and plants; small, living things moved out of their path. Birds hopped through branches, quiet as the gods moved by; insects flew from one trunk to another, fleeing before the larger entities that frightened them.

"Of course not," she replied to his latter statement. "You are what you are, just as I'm sure that man -- Narcissus -- was what he was. The difficulty in anything is when we expect something that is not in someone or something's nature. Things that cannot bend, break." She kept him close, her blue robes meshing and tumbling with his as they moved. Branches cracked, and her head was pulled in the direction of a scuffle; curiosity pulled her toward it, with Hades dragged along behind.

They came around a set of three trees set closely together to find a fawn; one large, round eye stared upward, blinking quickly as it breathed its last. Blood spattered its form from a wound in its belly; entrails were uncurled on the ground, legs making brief, sporadic movements as if to lift itself and run from those who had found it. Persephone gave a small gasp, her free hand making a fist that rose to her breast in sympathy.

For a brief time Hades studied this living thing, caught so perfectly between both their worlds. In a moment it would be his; neither her pity nor the proximity of her vibrant, living things could save it. His gaze was drawn to her face, trying to read her reaction beyond the simple surface of her expression. He turned over her words in his mind, seeing in them a wisdom that belied her sheltered youth.

"This seems not in your nature," Hades said, gesturing to the dying fawn. "It appears to be the antithesis of all you hold dear, all you strive toward. Yet you do not shy away from it, as I might have expected."

"There's no reason to," she replied, loosing his hand to take a step forward and kneel by the dying animal. Persephone pressed hands to its forehead and neck, which seemed to calm it. Her fingers and palms were immediately wetted with its blood, but her nails gently raked over its head. It shuddered, once, twice, and then went still against her leg. "The fawn might die, but it will give much to the rest of the forest. See, there's already insects eating it." She pointed to the entrails, which, upon closer inspection, revealed an intricate dance of feasting as maggots darted through the moist red. "And other things will grow, because of its death. It is a loss, but a gain as well; as I said, there is a balance. Nothing is ever completely lost." She petted the dead fawn once more, then closed its eyes, less so that it would look at peace and more because she did not delight in watching it be devoured, despite her words.

She rose to her feet, hands rising palms up to show the blood intermingling with the dirt. Persephone glanced at him, her mouth drawn into a tight moue of concern. "I did not mean to disappoint, if you prefer everyone to be in fear of you and what you do."

A small smile darted over Hades' lips. "You have not disappointed me yet," he answered. His palms cupped the backs of her hands. His thumbs traced patterns in the blood and earth on her skin. "It is refreshing to see someone understand the fullness of my work. It speaks well of you that you can see beauty and purpose where others cannot."

He raised her hands to his lips; he pressed a kiss to her flesh, his eyes on her as he took this liberty. "You continue to surprise."

Her breath caught for a moment, before her hands reached forward to press those same blood and earth blessed palms to his cheeks. His liberty turned into her theft as she gently tugged his mouth to hers for a taste of what she'd long wanted: his lips, the dark hollow of his mouth, the taste of his tongue. A long minute passed, where she wished she could pause time and keep him like this forever. One hand trailed back to grasp at his fine, blonde hair, curling it between digits to tug as her body pressed flush to his.

"I want to keep you," she said roughly as her mouth pulled back just enough to speak. "How can I? How can I make you stay here, with me?"

Hades shook his head. He kissed her again, drinking life and warmth and sunlight from her mouth. Every moment was illicit pleasure, a joy he had never anticipated finding. When he spoke again, he spoke with coldly calculated logic, and yet an unexpected passion lingered just beneath the surface.

"You deserve more," he said, his lips slick and swollen beneath her hungry kiss. "I would make you Queen of the Underworld. Who better to rule with me than one who truly understands? Who should hold dominion over the dead but one who knows life and its end so well?" He drew away, dark eyes searching her face. "Leave this cage, Persephone. Demeter cannot keep you from what should rightfully be yours."

Persephone found herself nodding, in that moment willing to agree to anything. Her eyes tracked up from his mouth to his gaze, agreeing with the spirit of his words if not the content itself.

"I will," she replied, nails tracing over his scalp. She had to rise on tiptoe to reach his face. "I'll tell her. She said she was only waiting for someone right, whatever that means, someone that would make me happy. She can't say no to this, can she? She can't," she repeated, a clear sign of trying to convince herself more than anything. Before he could answer her mouth came crashing into his again, palms looping around the back of his neck. "I don't want your kingdom," she muttered against his lips. "I want you, I want you to be mine, and I don't want to wait." Her hands came down to his dark robes, hungrily pulling at the way it wrapped around his hard form.

"Then don't." He pressed his body to hers: a tangible chill against her heat, darkness to her light. His arms circled low around her back. His shadows enveloped her, drawing her into black cloth and pale flesh. "A queen takes what she wants." Long fingers skimmed over the narrow waistline of her skirts, tracing fabric, seeking skin. His tongue pushed past her lips, sliding over hers, wordlessly demanding more. His teeth traced her lower lip. He nipped at her, hard enough to draw blood; she gasped, then moaned against the wound. He drew away, his fingers still pressed bruisingly hard to the small of her back.

"You knew I was yours from the moment you spoke."

"I did," she murmured, rubbing her lips together as she tasted the electric bite of pain that he'd left. It, and the cold, aching touch he left over every inch of her body delivered a challenge she felt more than up to the task to complete. Hands moved over his shoulders, unwinding black cloth to reveal white skin, bone white, but pliable and alive all the same. Even if he was icy, she took it upon herself to warm him; her lips moved down over his jaw, her teeth outlining the muscle and bone beneath the skin, down over his throat where she could feel a pulse just the same as hers. Then his shoulders were bare, his robes sloughing over his arms, undressing him slowly to sate her own desire.

Teeth, lips, and tongue found their way to his clavicle, marking him, writing a tale of want over his skin, pressing his robes down further, urging him to his knees, to the ground. He knelt at her feet, obeisant, his frigid blue eyes turned up to her.

"Lay down," she instructed, the ground around them a soft, green bed of grass, the copse of trees and the dead fawn their only audience. "I want you on the ground, in the dirt, Aides, put before me to do with as I please, for you will never go unseen with me. Never unseen, unwanted, undesired, as long as you are close to me, your Chthonia."

A weight seemed to fall off his shoulders. He leaned into her, body and soul laid equally bare before her. His face pressed to her skirts, breathing in the scent of earth and flesh and life and death she so perfectly embodied; her hands moved over his head, his upper body, fingers running over cold skin. His ragged sigh purred through the cloth at her thighs. And then he did as she asked: He lay back atop the grass, green blades first bending, then withering, as the god stretched out atop them. He did not reach for her, though it was clear he wanted to; he only waited for her command.

She did not leave him waiting long; her eyes moved greedily over his form, her own hands rising to the clasps at her shoulders. Undoing them let the cloth fall to the ground in one certain movement, making her as nude as he. Then she knelt, straddling him with an eager purpose. His hips were as cold against her thighs as the rest of him, but the shivers such a caress elicited were not unwanted. Persephone bent over him, pressing a long, slow kiss to his lips as her hands wandered his bare chest. Then she rose up again, sitting atop him as her hands traced down his arms.

"Touch me," she said, grasping his wrists and bringing those wonderfully wintry hands to her sides, then up to her breasts. "I want to feel you everywhere." The slick heat of her vulva hovered over his groin, but she made no motion to give him that particular permission just yet.

His hands moved as she bid. He cupped her breasts, thumbs tracing circles around each peaked nipple. He felt the weight of her in his hands, all firm but pliant flesh, and squeezed her tightly; she shivered as his hands moved, her body no longer completely under her own control. His hands moved upward, delicately tracing the sharp lines of her clavicle, the elegant column of her throat. His lips parted on a sigh; his body stirred between her legs. Gooseflesh rose wherever he touched. He watched its path as his hands moved over her, writing his name on sun-drenched skin. He raised his hips, let her feel the way she moved him. A hand of her own reached down, taking his length in a palm, caressing and stroking it to the fullness she desired. The warmth between her hips ached, but she drew it out, the anticipation a pleasure in itself.

Cold palms flattened on her skin, moving around to feel the angles of her shoulders, the narrow ridge of her spine; she squirmed, back straightening and curving beneath his touch. He trailed downward, short nails scratching at the small of her back, before strong hands curved to fit her backside. Submissive though he seemed, every touch felt possessive, a demand he dared not put to words. She bent forward over him, pressed back into his hands, a wide grin cutting her mouth open. Leaning down again, she took his mouth once more, pumping his member, her knees digging into the ground on either side of him. Then she could not make herself wait any longer; her legs parted further, and she pressed the tip of him to her wet opening. Persephone gasped, a sharp intake of breath marking the push that took him deeper inside of her until she was pressed flush to his body.

One hand spread on his belly for support, the other grasped his upper arm as she started to move, slowly, atop him, her lids half closed as she carefully worked to find a rhythm that would suit them both. His hands drew tight around her, fingertips pressing little spots of white into her flesh. He could not help himself; he groaned aloud as she took him fully in, as her warmth enveloped him.

His eyes ever on hers, he breathed her name like a prayer. His body lifted to meet her next downward stroke, pushing him deep within her once more. "Persephone," he whispered, basking in the shape of her name on his tongue. "My Soteira."

A small sound escaped her throat, and her hips and knees pushed her up again, the grasp of her hand on his lower belly encouraging his movement; the sound came again with each movement, her strokes quickening. She leaned down, over him, grinding down into him, into the dirt and the earth as if to bless it with their coupling. Her hair made a fall between their faces and the rest of the wood, hiding their words from everyone but each other. She pressed her mouth to his, her body to his, never for a moment breaking that most intimate contact.

"What will they say when they hear the Kore has conquered Theon Chthonius?" She teased, her words drawn out in intervals by their joined movements; a tight ball of heat was growing in her pelvis, and she reached for it, grasping, both mentally and physically as her bloody, dirty hands moved over his white flesh.

He leaned up to her, biting again at her lip. He flashed a sharp grin, only for her. "They will say she must be fearsome indeed." His hands tightened on her skin. He sucked in a hissing breath as she moved on him again. Trimmed nails drew bloody crescents in the smooth flesh of her thighs. "They will know you for my equal." His back arched up from the ground, drawing his body into a tight bow beneath her. His gaze drifted downward, greedily devouring the sight of her body staining his own.

Smears of dirt, dotted with now-dark crimson stains, showed a path where her hands had traveled; shoulders, neck, chest, side, everywhere that she could reach was darker for her touch. Persephone pressed down harder on their joining, a moan rocking her body as she felt pleasure blossom throughout her form. One hand hooked fingers around his neck, nails digging deep to draw forth more life-giving blood as a dark sensation swirled through her; all around them, flowers sprouted from the ground, blossoming wide even when there was no sun in their shaded grove.

Persephone rose up, riding Hades with full abandon as her head tipped back, eyes closed, gobbling down every bit as it was given to her. Hands smoothed over his chest, her nails cutting again, the dirt stains twinning down over each side of his abdomen.

He cried out her names, a litany to best those of her most devoted priestesses. His hands clasped her tight, holding her against him as their bodies ground together. His next indrawn breath carried with it the scents of their joining, the flowers that bloomed around them, the corpse that bore witness to their blessed lovemaking. He felt himself rising to that peak with her, drawn ever closer by the tight clasp of her thighs, the slashes of her nails.

She carried them both over the edge, spurring him on as much as herself to bring them both to orgasm at nearly the same moment. Her eyes squeezed tight, vulva clenching around him as her muscles spasmed; his epithets were a moan from her tongue, each followed by her hands on his body scoring, marking him, performing a ritual that would bind him to her permanently. She urged him, feeling him come inside her, warm and wet and quick as she sank down around him. Persephone rocked, for a moment, holding him within her for another long moment as she gave herself time to wind back down, before leaning forward to lay on his chest.

Her eyes opened to the flowers around them, smiling at their cause, her chest rising and heaving with proof of her exertion.

"I wonder if that will happen in your kingdom," she mused, one hand reaching out to gently stroke a stem, her voice light and slightly panting. "More color would not be a bad thing, my love."

Hades' breath still came in ragged bursts, but he watched the motions of her hands with a languid smile on his face. "If you will it," he said, "it will be so. Our kingdom should reflect you as well, after all." His arms wound around her. Long, thin fingers traced patterns on her naked back. He felt blood and sweat and earth between them, cooling and drying with each passing second. He leaned up to her and kissed her temple. When he spoke, his lips wrote each word on her skin.

"Come home with me, and we will find out for certain."

She smiled, her hand retreating from the flower stem to the curve of his neck. She moved enough so that she straddled his waist, mouth hovering over his.

"I will." Her hand moved, tracing nails over his scalp again. For the moment, she had no intention of moving anywhere from him or the nest she'd inadvertently made to hide them. "I will."

---

Were it that simple. Once her mother had left, Persephone slipped away from her meadow in the same fashion that Hermes had shown her; she no longer had the invisible helm, but there were tricks and ways when it came to slipping free from her bonds. Persephone felt that her mother had to know; how could she be foolish enough to believe that Persephone would merely remain where she was bid to? But she escaped time and time again, all the same; this time, she went quickly to Hades' kingdom, her face enflamed, her eyes ringed in red. She paused, wiping at them, trying to calm down enough so that he would not see, but it was a fruitless endeavor.

Instead, she focused on his fortress, the castle he'd constructed underground, searching the halls and rooms for him. She found him inside a vast hall, feeding scraps of still bleeding flesh to his three-headed hound. Four pairs of eyes turned to her the moment she stepped through the yawning archway. Candles flickered to life, lighting the path ahead of their queen.

"Good evening, Chthonia," Hades said. Cerberus' tail thumped against the floor, sending shockwaves reverberating through the ground. Then the thumping stopped as quickly as it had begun, and Hades moved to her side, quick and soundless as a shadow. "What troubles you?" he asked, though he already knew. She felt drawn toward him, but paused a few feet away, one hand lingering in the back of an elaborately carved chair, as though space might make the explanation easier.

"She won't let me," Persephone started, then shook her head, rolling her eyes toward an unseen ceiling sunk in shadow. "I mean, I went to her, my mother. I told her I was going to marry you, and she... " Demeter had been less than the doting, controlling parent Persephone had expected. Her mother's words still rang in her ears, her throat dry and scratched from the screaming match that had resulted. "She laughed at me and said I was foolish. That there was no reason for you to marry me, especially after you'd gotten what you wanted." Persephone winced, but her eyes never left Hades' face. "What you said... you weren't lying, I told her that, and she still laughed at me." Doubt was seeded deep. "You weren't, were you?"

"No." His answer was calm and decisive. It echoed off the stone walls, repeated back to them from the ceiling far above. Hades and Cerberus both moved toward her, closing the distance between them on silent steps. "Gotten what I'd wanted?" He sneered. "What I want is my queen. I am not my brother. And Demeter is no-one to defy me." He reached out and took her hand, cold fingers threading through hers. "Tell me what you want, Kore. I will find a way to bring it into being, whatever the cost."

"I want..." One hand squeezed his tightly, the other rising to rub at a temple. She wanted her head to stop throbbing, she wanted for this decision to not be as difficult as it seemed. She did not want to hurt anyone, much less her mother. "I want you," she said, quietly, firmly. A thumb drew a wavering line across the side of his hand, along the meat of his thumb. It felt as real and as certain as what he'd said before, in her meadow.

"I have to convince her that this is real. That I'm not just some girl with a passing fancy..." Her mouth drew itself in a hard line, her gaze growing unfocused. Then an idea crossed them, her brows drawing together. Her eyes came back to his face, watching. "What if... What if you took me?"

One pale brow crept high along the king's forehead. He was silent as he carefully considered this. Behind him, Cerberus lay down, a wall of solid black flesh at Hades' back. The cold pad of his thumb traced over her skin. "None would expect such a thing," he allowed. "Not of me. And it is no more and no worse than Zeus himself has done in the past." His eyes found hers, watching the dance of candlelight inside their depths. "What is your plan?"

Her other hand rose to encompass his, as if she were pleading even though her words retained their careful pace. "It would have to be a show of force, in some way. You deciding that you would take what it is you want, simply because it is what you want. It would prove to my mother that you wanted me for more than just my body," she stumbled over those few words, but then hurried on. "I cannot be complicit in this. I cannot show that I knew you were coming, that I knew what you would do."

Hades' jaw drew tight. Though he watched her still, his gaze grew unfocused, his mind preoccupied with the many moving parts this plan would require. Already pieces of it began to form and fit together, a terrible puzzle only they two would ever see. It was pleasant in its way. Let his kin have their noise and drama. It seemed fitting that the Underworld's new era would begin with a close-kept secret.

"Very well." His voice was like a hammer on stone; something final and decisive, a difficult work begun, impossible to undo. "Should you change your mind before I come to you, send me a sign. Otherwise… I will make my house ready for you, and come for you in my time."

"I won't." Persephone swallowed, surprised at her own candor. She stared unblinkingly at the king of the underworld, a man who was a strange prize for a girl like her. Moving forward, she pulled his arms around her, settling her hands on his chest. "I will have you, Theon Chthonius. You are mine, and I will do what must be done so that others realize the same."

He held her close, wordlessly commanded by this deceptively delicate slip of a girl. He kissed the top of her head and breathed her in. His embrace drew all the tighter, until he felt her narrow ribs creak beneath the force of his hold. He kissed her again, and tipped her face up to his. "We will," he agreed. "Now go, lest your mother take note of your absence. You will be back where you belong soon enough." He smiled down at her, all shadows and want. "And I will give you such a homecoming as you have never seen."

Her mouth mirrored his; the movements of her hands on his chest told a story of how much she did not want to leave, but she knew she had to go all the same. A hand looped around the back of his head, pulling his face down to hers to press their foreheads together for a long moment. Then she released him, taking a slow step back from his embrace.

"I will hold you to that," she replied, one hand extended as it lingered entwined with his fingers. Then, even that fell away. She turned her attention briefly to Cerebus, fingers passing over his giant middle forehead, scratching behind one ear. The looming dog's eyes scrunched closed in pleasure, and then he whined as she withdrew, moving to the doorway through which she'd entered. She paused, looking back at Hades; then she was gone, as abruptly as she'd arrived.