Hades and Persephone

Chapter 15: Over the Edge

1) I have found the will to update! Yay!
2) HELL YAH I MADE IT ON THE READER MONTHNCHALLENEGE TEIR 2 LIST
3) Thank you to all my readers! Hi lurker 1 and lurker 2!
4) Also the beginning of this might be a little creepy.

Little Kore is gone.

Little Kore. Gone.

Gone.

Taken.

Stolen.

And the mortals lied. To a god. 

To her.

They knew. They knew like those sisters knew. And no matter how loudly they screamed- They. Kept. Denying. Her.

Demeter stepped over the newest addition to her collection. The toy was thrown into the dry mud with enough force to shatter the frozen ground. She lowered herself to that of an animal; dirtying the skin of the toy to match the earth. It was a simple enough task to pull the color from their hair, though it was more white than the desired blond.

The eyes- she could never get the eyes right. Brown, tinges of a- nearly black- purple. The closest she would ever get was a bloody red. Freezing the veins until they burst, Demeter found, was not the way to get those lovely pink eyes.

The sisters circled overhead. Whatever evaded the goddess' blizzard- if there was anything- would surely be caught.

One man, old and frail, somehow hung on longer than the rest. He had stayed still, unmoving, until the attention of the monstrous creatures was drawn elsewhere. Felix, for that was his name, refused to believe the horrible woman was Demeter. No god, and not one of growth and harvest, would cause this destruction.

He inched closer to the makeshift altar. No offering. No sacrifice. No blood left to spill in any god's name. All Felix had was a desperate prayer, and a soul that would meet Hades soon enough.

*****

"Care to tell me why Thanatos is freezing?"

Hecate sipped her tea leisurely, seemingly ignoring Hades' question. The god stood impatiently, tapping his foot. "I do."

"Hecate!"

The goddess only rolled her eyes. "Whatever happened to that mirror I gave you?"

Hades shifted on his feet. Crossing his arms, he defended, "I don't see a reason to use it...."

Hecate hummed, sipping her tea. "More like you're afraid of temptation."

"I do no such thing!"

"And you haven't used it to check up on the surface? Your siblings? Demeter? Why? Are you too busy? Too angry? Maybe you really are the heartless god mortals say you are." Her tone was matter-of-fact and left no room for argument. When Hades started to defend himself, she cut him off. "Or you can admit you miss the surface. You miss your family. You can admit you're afraid if you indulge yourself with that you will just leave.

"But I will say, maybe if you had indulged yourself- even just a little bit- you probably would have seen Persephone-"

"This is not about Kore!"

"To Tartarus it isn't!" Magic weighted the air, raw and crackling like lightning. The chair she sat it was overturned. The teacup broken on the floor. "If you had even spared a second to check on Demeter and Persephone, Agelastus, you would see I am telling you, Thanatos is telling you, and Atropos is telling you!"