A Bloom So Deadly: Hades and Persephone Retold

The Reversal

This was not the gentle descent of the Shades Persephone had sent to the Underworld, guided by her vines. This was a pure rush of terrifying freefall in the arms of her captor. The cavernous walls flew past in a blur and she couldn't quite catch a large enough breath to scream.

Gods knew how far down it was and they were plummeting to his domain, a mess of tangled and snatching limbs. They were falling. They were falling and there was nothing to stop them.

Hades tried to gather his darkness, to spirit her away in his black haze, but the thrill of the fall jolted his concentration and she was fighting him, trying to pull herself from his grasp. The arm wrapped around her waist pulled her tighter against his chest. "Hold still," he commanded, demanding, but not unkindly.

She gave him no reply other than a frustrated squeak and wiggled against him, waving her arms wildly around them. Persephone was trying desperately to call out to the vegetation, to cling to one single vine or root and command it toward her.

Falling, falling, there!

She snagged one with her senses and it burst free from the dirt surrounding them, chasing down after her hand. But she could not get a grip on it - as soon as her fingers would graze the earthy bark, she would lose contact. With a great cry of frustration, she sent her energy toward it and it raced faster, wrapping around her wrist and causing the two of them to come to a sudden, painful stop.

Persephone cried out at the sharp pressure in her wrist and shoulder, hanging taut between the vine and the Dread King's heavy weight around her waist.

"Let go!" she said, kicking against him. With another cry, this one of pain, she brought forth more vines that crept up along his ankles and waist, prying him away from her, but holding him aloft. The release of his weight was almost as terrible as the force of their sudden stop. Persephone let out a little cry of pain, her own weight still pulling against her injury.

"Ow," she whispered, twisting her face away from him and creasing her brow. She would not cry. Could not. Mother said if she could go five hundred years without tears, then she would no longer be a child and could leave the grove to wander the earth. But it was so very hard and she inhaled sharply to keep the tears at bay. "You!" she suddenly said, turning toward him and pointing with her free hand. "You stay right there!"

Hades, who had been entirely bound by the vines, grit his teeth and shot her a dark look. "It's not as if I can move," he said, voice even, yet still somehow furious. He did not fight against them, but rather looked at her, accepting his position, and arched his brow as if to say what now?

Persephone opened her mouth, but her weight twisted and her face screwed up. All that came out was a grunt of pain.

He looked away from her, away from the pain so clear on her face. "Switch your arm," he said, glaring at the dirt wall behind her. "You will only make your injury worse."

She did not argue. Persephone called down another vine, which gently wrapped around her waist and then released her injured wrist from the other. A devastated choke of a cry escaped her when she lowered her arm, feeling a sick burning in her shoulder at the movement.

Hades' mouth twisted downward at the noise, but he made himself look back over to her tiny form, cradling her right arm.

"I don't want your throne," she said suddenly, her eyes sullen and uncertain, like a disobedient child being scolded. "I - I never have. I don't desire power or lands. I want only to live my life among the mortals in the sun."

It was silent for a beat.

"The Fates say otherwise," he said, dark mood evident in his tone. "So what will it be, little goddess? Shall we hang here for an eternity? You said above that you had accepted my coming for you."