A Bloom So Deadly: Hades and Persephone Retold

The Resolve

One day turned into two, turned into three, turned into a week, and then a month.

Things were pleasant. Persephone was allowed to see herself down to Hecate's cottage in the mornings and returned for afternoons in the throne room alongside Hades. The four of them dined and joked and laughed each night. And when they were done, he shut her in her room each evening with bids for a good night.

But something had changed. And Hades could not put his finger on it.

She still smiled, still told her clever jokes. With Thanatos and Hecate she seemed to act no different. Than had convinced her to (attempt to) teach him to dance as the mortals did one evening, which began in all seriousness and over the hour or so they practiced dissolved into a silliness the Underworld had never before seen. When Persephone stepped on Than's foot for the third time, he howled as if in terrible pain and she'd laughed so thoroughly that even Hades and Hecate, who had been watching from the side with mild amusement, had to laugh.

And she'd grown surprisingly close to Hecate. Persephone enjoyed her mornings in the witch's cottage, talking about gods knew what (though he was curious to know). The two were often seen walking back to the castle arm-in-arm, a most unusual thing for Hecate. Watching them, it was clear this was Persephone's doing, as the witch often had a slightly pinched look on her face, but it was obvious she allowed it as she had grown to like the girl quite a bit. Arms linked with Hecate, Persephone would talk excitedly of all sorts of things, her eyes alight and smile broad.

But...Hades no longer got her unrestrained laughter, or eyes alight, or broad smiles. She was kind to him. She did tell her jokes and they would laugh. But, since their argument, there was something about her that seemed restrained in his presence.

And every time Hermes arrived with another message from Dionysus (sometimes two in a day), it became harder to ignore the growing pit of jealousy that had seemed to settle permanently in his gut. Each time she laughed in delight at something clever the god had said, Hades had to calm that voice screaming out in his blood -

Mine, mine, mine!

He'd noticed she sat Dionysus' rose on her vanity, next to the chunk of obsidian she'd plucked from the mines on their disastrous tour. On particularly envious days, he imagined himself ripping the petals to shreds, feeling them wither at his touch.

He thought of his father's words, how he said she would wear either his shackles or Ares'. And how Persephone had been so adamant they could be Fatebreakers, that she could find a third path.

On the nights he could not sleep, that monster in him clawed to throw her in the horrid cell he'd made.

The ache at her detachment had been harder than he'd expected. That was what he wanted, was it not? To keep her friendly, but at arm's length? And if that was what he had wanted, then why did he lay awake some nights, wincing as he replayed every single thing he'd done wrong?

As unthinkable as it was, her sudden restraint in his presence, particularly when they were alone, gave merit to Hecate's suggestion that she had been flirting in the hedge maze.

She had been flirting with him.

And he'd stepped away from her, grown cold and distant in response. She had done the unimaginable in showing interest and he'd rejected it.

He hadn't known. He hadn't realized.

How perfect it would have been if he'd just been unafraid, if he'd have just kissed her there in the hedge maze instead of making an ass of himself. Now she was laughing and joking and smiling for someone else.