A Bloom So Deadly: Hades and Persephone Retold

The Apologies

There was something on the floor, sticking out from under the door, when Persephone slid from bed the next morning.

For a moment she stared at it, head cocked, until her curiosity propelled her forward and she bent to retrieve the piece of paper. Folded, it fit in her palm. She stood under the brightest of the bobbing lights and unfolded it.

Words.

She knew enough to know they were words, but the sharp-edged shapes were little more than doodles to her, all lined up in neat rows. There was a single word at the top, then two rows of text, and one small word at the bottom.

Maybe that wasn't right.

Persephone knew writing, at least how her mother tried to teach her, went left to right and that there were small spaces between each word. She turned the paper upside down. Perhaps she could decipher a letter here or there, but flipping the paper made it no easier at all. Again, she turned the paper. She could recall some of the letters - that was an E, she thought, and that was an A. But most of them were lost to her and she wouldn't know how to string them together if she could identify them.

A message.

Who could have slipped a note under her door? Was it Hecate, inviting her to her cottage for a chat? Or Thanatos asking to take a stroll?

Or, perhaps, was it from King Hades?

There would be no pleasant invitation from him, she was sure.

Would he admonish her for being too forward, too polite to tell her in person? Had he come to his senses and realized she had no interest in his throne? Was he sending her back?

Embarrassment again bit at her cheeks. It had been quite a mortifying day yesterday. The last thing she desired was for him to discover she'd been too fitful of a child to learn reading, to add yet another thing to the list of reasons he would judge her beneath him. The way he had stepped from her, become cold and distant, was already more disdain than she could take.

Persephone stared hard at the note, willing the symbols to suddenly make sense. But if such magic existed, she did not carry it.

She was ready when he knocked. Up earlier than usual, she'd lingered in the dark waiting for the day to begin. She had felt him wake and expected him, fidgeting on the armchair with the note tucked into her silks, hidden against her breast.

She stood when he announced his arrival, facing the door. Her stomach was a single rock of anxiety. Oh, how could she face him after she'd embarrassed herself so terribly the day before? She thought she must just die on the spot.

"Come in," she said quietly, already staring at the floor. She couldn't bear the thought of looking at him after yesterday.

Slowly, he opened the door. For a moment the two stood in silence, Persephone's gaze low although she could feel his eyes examining her face.

"How are you feeling?" he finally asked.

Persephone gave a tight nod, unsure she could actually speak. Heat covered her entire face to finally see him again after his rejection. "I am alright now," she managed.

Again, silence. His own darkness was a thing of anxiety, as well, and she cursed herself for creating this mess. Gods, she was such an idiot for thinking he might reciprocate!

"Do you...want to join me in the throne room today?" he asked, unsure.

If he were giving her a choice, her first instinct was not at all. At that moment she felt perfectly content to be thrown back into Tartarus if it meant not having to spend the day in silent humiliation by his side.