A Bloom So Deadly: Hades and Persephone Retold

The Prison

Even if there had been a sun to mark the passing of the days, Persephone would not have been aware. She slept upon the bank of the lake, still and frozen like a poisoned princess in a human fairy tale. There was no ripple across the water from a breeze, no errant chirp of a bird from overhead. All was silent and on she slept.

She remembered the Dread King placing her there, remembered saying something to him though she could not recall the words. And the next thing she remembered, she was aware of how uncomfortable she was. It took a great deal of convincing to make her heavy eyes flutter open. For a while she laid there, unmoving, simply taking in her surroundings.

There was a lake in front of her, but it was so still that she was sure not a single fish called it their home. Here and there great crystals jutted up from the ground, catching the low light from scattered torches and glittering with magnificence. Her eyes wandered upward, but there seemed to be no ceiling that she could see. The great cave walls surrounding her seemed to stretch up and up until they were swallowed by darkness.

Even though her body hurt - evidence that she had slept for several days - Persephone could not make herself move. Several times her face folded and she buried her head in her arm, but even then she could not cry.

It was not that she was a prisoner in this dark place. It was not that she missed her mother.

It was the memories of Ares' betrayal that kept playing over and over in her mind, causing her to curl in on herself, her skin digging into the rocky shore beneath her.

She loved him. She loved him more than she had ever loved anything - more than playing in the wild creeks, more than catching lightning bugs with her hands, more than summer storms and fresh blooms and a warm breeze on her face as she climbed trees to try catching a glimpse of the outside world.

Why had he done that to her? The memory of his fists connecting with her head made her flinch. And still, like some possessed oracle, she found she could focus on nothing else. Over and over and over Persephone experienced him striking her, him prying apart her legs and pushing himself inside her. Distraught whimpers filled the otherwise silent space, but there was no one to hear except herself. When she curled into herself, she still felt a tender soreness between her legs.

It was no wonder her mother had tried to shield her from the interests of others. If it were so painful to couple with a man, then her mother had only tried to spare her that pain. And for what? Persephone had disobeyed her mother, had let Ares sneak in and steal her heart and soul, all so he could hurt her. Demeter's rules had been for naught.

Persephone was not sure how long she laid there in her misery and self-pity. But, just as before she could hardly make herself move, she suddenly felt as if she would die if she laid there any longer.

It hurt to stand up. Every inch of her. Ares' marks on her were tender and what wasn't hurting by his doing ached due to her being unmoving for so long. She stumbled, clutching onto the crystal formation and feeling every bit like a newborn fawn on shaking legs. Other than the soreness of being still for so long and what Ares had done to her, there was no pain in this prison the Dread King had placed her in.

Tartarus. She was in Tartarus, just like her mother had warned would happen if she was ever found by King Hades. For a moment she had to stand still, hand clutched on the crystal, and let her reality wash over her.

She would never see her mother again.

The thought alone made her want to sit back down on the shore, made her want to curl up at the water's edge and rot away into the soil. But that was not her nature. No, Persephone had always been one to make the best from what was given.