Hades and Persephone

Chapter 26: Blood and Pomegranates

Yah, I've hit a wall again. Trying to finish this chapter was a pain and im still not happy with it.

Blood and pomegranates. Blood and pomegranates. Why was she tasting blood and pomegranates.
The acid of the fruit dribbled down the back of her already burning throat, metallic taste coated her drowning tongue. But what about that made her body feel like this? As if electricity in the purest sense stabbed from the base of her skull? As if the skin on her arms and torso was freezing and burning and flaking and healing all at once? As if her lungs ceased to breathe and her heart ceased to pump; sludge trudging its way through her body where blood and pomegranates used to be?
Why did that scene keep playing through her mind? Of some creature that spoke with the name of one mother and some woman who spoke with the love of another? Some mouth had been stuffed with cotton and sewn shut with a needle.
It tasted of blood and pomegranates. Every color and every tint was stained that color, too.
The icy green waters bled alongside her. The starlike gemstones dripped drop after drop of blood--or perhaps it was the world weeping in relief? Was it relief? Was she relieved?
Was she selfish for thinking that?

Icy red and icy green made the strangest color. The world turns bland and boring from it, a sort of gray that the longer she lied there the less she saw. Everything was still there, the world still existed with all its corners and crags and crevices, but the less she cared beyond that drab color.
Even as the tarp was thrown over her head--to protect the world from her or the other way around no one knew--the world turned gray. And from it, the world turned black.
Black was comforting, wasn’t it? It was the color of night? The color of sleep? It was the color of something that poked at a distant memory?
She couldn’t remember.
She just let it consume her. She let it carry her as she floated down a river of nothing--to nothing.

Drip.
Drip.
Drip--
“Drop,” a voice gasped. It was hoarse, hardly capable of sound. Perhaps it wasn’t and she simply imagined the words. Somewhere a mouth shaped itself into the word.
Drip.
Drip.
Drip--
“Drop.”
Drip.
Drip.
Drip--
Drip.
“It’s alright, Meli,” a voice whispered. “It’s alright.” Why was it soft? Had it ever been soft? “You don’t have to talk now.” The voice picked up her head to cradle it. “You don’t have to talk.”
Drops continued to leave freckles on her lips.
“You gave us quite a scare,” said another one. Dashes of red hair and a youthful look, but she could place no face nor name.
“--overwhelming her.” The name spoke fell away to nothingness, an empty void in her mind.
Voices began arguing over petty things, each word garbled with no meaning attached to them. Brightness without light blinded her. Spring raised a hand against the black ceiling to guard herself against it; the outline of her hand against the ceiling blurred together into nothing.
The world was screaming and the world was spinning. Snakes wrapped around her waist and arms, restricting her into a ball. Another grasped her throat, another wrapped her legs. No air was enough, no fighting was enough. The sludge that ran through Persephone’s veins slowed to a stop, frozen as ice.

*****

Mirrored basins don’t freeze. Still water does not frost. Oh course, gods hunched over mountains of parchment do not notice. Gods who scribbled note after unforgiving note on the rulings of mortal scrolls did not notice. As the anger fueled judgements grew into a mountain no one could have noticed.
But why had he not noticed? Why, in the ever-living names of Styx and Tartarus and father Cronus, had he not noticed? Why had it been Cerberus to appear and yank at the trail of his robes and bite at his hand? And why, now, did it take the girl seizing uncontrollably to notice her again?
Hades buried his head in his hands, the torrent of thoughts drowning his sanity. Once more oblivious to the world; until a hand rested on his shoulder.
“Are you alright?” Hades jumped at Acheron’s question.
“Is she alright?”
“She’s fine. Persephone is fine. But, please, if she starts doing that again do not restrain her.”
“So, what? Am I just supposed to let her shriek and shake like that?”
“As much as it pains you, yes. If you really are worried call me, or Apollo, but just wait it out. It’s really all you can do, Hades.”
He swallowed a growl before slightly changing the topic. “How long is she going to be unconscious?”
“I truly don’t know.”
“How do you not know? Why do I employ you if you don’t know?!”
“This may strike you as odd, but I am not omniscient, My Lord. You said she was barely conscious to begin with.
“When she wakes just--be gentle. Make sure she eats and drinks but be gentle.”
Acheron took his leave as the god laced his fingers with Persephone’s. He swore the river’s name. “--telling me things I already know,” he grumbled.
“Is she alright?” Why couldn’t anyone leave them alone?
Hades looked up at Clotho standing in the doorway, shaking uncontrollably. Wrinkles crawled along her robes like cracks on pottery; the edges of it were threadbare from walking on it. Her hair, unbrushed, was split where she chewed on it.
Whatever annoyance was quickly turning to rage in Hades melted into nothing--it wouldn’t do anything if he was short with her.
“I don’t know.”
Clotho took two steps before falling to her knees.”I’m supposed to-- I didn’t-- Why--”
“Clotho, stop it. There’s no point in crying.” She didn’t. “Clotho, this won’t do anything. Please, stop it.” He threw one of the many blankets piled at the edges of the bed over her shoulders. “Clotho,” he whispered again. “Please stop.
“I’m not good at this--any of this. Your sisters can do more than me. Please?”
Finally, the fate realized he was pleading for her to do something else--go somewhere else. Too beaten and too cold to argue, she just left. She was in and gone just as silently as a gust of wind. Perhaps she was not there at all.
Cerberus padded in at one point in hopes of a scratch or pat. He found his master curled protectively around a young goddess; her head rested on his shoulder and their legs tangled together.
Persephone was partly aware of something soft warming her feet as she drifted off once more.