A Bloom So Deadly: Hades and Persephone Retold

The Awakening

Happening all at once, and not at all at the same time (as time in Tartarus was a fickle thing), Persephone had found her way back to the great resting Kronos. Having gotten turned around multiple times, it had taken her what she assumed to be four days - or at least four sleeps - before she found him. And not once had she crossed paths with another being. Staring up at the great Titan, she could not help feeling some relief. The quiet of the place was beginning to grate in her mind.

The torch, which she had carried when she'd first come across Kronos, had been replaced, though who could have possibly done it, she wasn't sure. What an odd place she had found herself in. Persephone went to fetch it, grimacing as her feet dug into small stones, and returned to her grandfather's hand. Unsure of what to do, she placed her own hand on his giant finger and felt a strange pulse under her palm.

She looked up, searching for any sign of movement. Nyx, in her anger, had told her she had the power to wake Kronos, but there was that ever present voice of doubt in the back of her mind.

"Hello?" she said softly, then again louder, craning her neck up to see his resting face high above. "Can you hear me?" she called. "I have come to ask you questions."

Nothing.

She wondered if he could even hear her. Looking down at his hand, she sighed, then heaved herself up into his fingers. Persephone stood on tiptoe, reaching for something to grasp onto in order to climb onto his lap, but the stonelike fingers beneath her began to shift and she let out a startled scream as she fell backward.

Into his palm.

Which was facing the ground just moments ago.

With a sickening delight, she realized he was lifting her up toward his face. A series of loud clanking noises made her peek over the edge of his hand and she could see he was shackled with the most enormous chain she'd ever seen. She was lifted higher and higher, admittedly to the point of being frightened, until she was level with his stone nose.

"And who are you, little goddess?" came a deep voice, like stones grinding together in the depths of a cave. The words did not seem to come from his mouth, but rather from his mind directly into hers.

She stood on uneasy legs and offered him a small bow. "I am Persephone. I am told that you are my grandfather."

There was a long, gravelly noise which she thought might be a hum. "And which of my children begot you?" he asked.

"My mother is Demeter," she said, tipping her chin upward in pride. "I have no father."

"Demeter," came his quiet voice. "My second eldest." The voice paused for a long time. "Yes, of course you are hers. You look just like her."

Persephone gave him a nervous smile. "She never told me of you," she said. "Mother was your second eldest, you said. How many children do you have?"

Again that gravelly hum. "Six. The girls came first: Hestia, Demeter, Hera. Then the boys: Hades-," at this Persephone stiffened, "-Poseidon, and Zeus."

"King Hades is your...son?" she managed, flummoxed. Not once had her mother ever mentioned the Dread King being her brother. "And he...has you here? In this prison?"

What a terrible thing!

Kronos took a long time to answer and, when he did, it was not at all the answer she was expecting, but instead a question. "How is it that you've come to be in his prison, little goddess?"

Persephone's face fell at the reminder that she was, in fact, a prisoner. She shifted on her feet nervously.

"Apparently it is prophesied that I will steal his throne," she said and nearly jumped out of her skin when his eerie laughter rang out in her ears. Persephone frowned. "I don't think it's very funny," she protested. "He stole me from my life to throw me down here and I have no interest in his throne at all."