When the clock struck twelve, when the dead came out to play and when the owls hooted songs for telling doom in their melodies, the girl stood up, face in front of a mirror and a candle in one hand and a cup in the other.
She was going to meet her love, no barrier, no monster guarding the gates of hell could stop her.
Legend swore that if you stood in front of a mirror holding a cup and a candle you could open a doorway between dimensions. Proserpina had visited it a thousand and one times, and tonight would be no different even though the voice in her head urged her to run as fast as her legs could carry.
She scoffed internally, she was a goddess and her lover was death itself, and death was untouchable, but she was not.
Proserpina waited a long moment, until the lit candle flickered out and shrouded the echoing chamber in thick black darkness.
In that long moment, fear stroke a chord in her heart and she wondered if her mother had finally discovered her secret. It was no secret that Demeter would never approve of her daughter's affair with Polydectes and would even go as far as locking her daughter away from all eyes.
Demeter didn't like eyes on her so beloved daughter and Proserpina wanted nothing more than her mother to realize her that her dear flower had grown into a wild vine with thorns that pricked and stabbed.
Polydectes made her feel like the goddess she was, and someday he would rule Olympus and the underworld like he were destined to, and she would be sitting by his side, not only as his queen but as his equal, the queen of death.
The light flicked back on, but Proserpina was no longer in the cave her mother sealed her in during the day like a flower hidden away from the sun to wither, because it was all Proserpina did in that rotten room, rotten and waste away.
She was standing in the grand chambers of the god of the underworld, and when she spotted the growing vines slithering on the walls she smiled because it was her work, it was her touch. And when she stared, she had to admit that the lush green vines suited the dim light of the spacious chambers.
She blew out the candle and set both it and the cup on the mahogany center table carved by the god's own hands. Proserpina stood again, settling her lover's midnight blue cloak over skin and set out to find her missing lover, wondering where he was.
Hades never failed to meet her, he was always sitting on that bed, waiting for her, he was always sitting, sweeping to kiss her full when she stumbled through the doorways.
Proserpina wished she could burrow into the cloak and nestle on his bed, surrounded by his scent — he always smelt like the fresh rain of a new year, and the scent of the pomegranate wine.
She walked, listening for her lover's laugh or his bark of command that sent minor gods running and made her knees weak until all she wanted to do was make him hers.
He was nowhere in his chambers and neither was his faithful beast; Cerberus, the three headed beast that was every bit as ferocious as its master.
Still, she walked, into the plush red carpets of the hallways. Proserpina paused, looking at the statues of past gods long gone and dead, they liked to say that it was impossible to kill a god but the forgotten faces of these ones say that it was very much possible to.
She shivered at their soulless eyes and thought that somehow they were trying to shout a warning at her through permanently parted lips.
"Hades?"
"My love?"
Her own voice echoed back mockingly and for the first time in a long while, Proserpina felt fear course through her like the cold, teeth chattering spray of the river Styx. What was she without her king? The scared girl she had always been, the girl her mother molded her into.
She never wanted to feel that way ever again, but something seemed to be hiding in the shadows, thick danger waiting to spring upon her.
Proserpina paused, thinking that she heard the slightest squeak in the dimness. It was only when she turned her head did she see that she was standing in front of a mirror. She blinked, staring at her brown skin of her face, willing away the fear that clouding her violet eyes.
The squeak sounded again and she realized that it was coming from her, slow tears were streaming down her cheeks and she was biting down hard on her lip that it drew blood. Something had happened to her love, she knew it and was as certain of it as she was as certain of her love for the underworld god.
Proserpina scoffed suddenly, loathing herself for her weakness. She was a goddess and lover of the underworld god, whatever was hiding in the shadows would be sorry when she found it, she was a wild vine and this vine had thorns.
She didn't have to look too far, she walked to one of the statues of the lost, snagging a wicked looking blade from its crutches. She was a goddess furious.
"Hades?"
She changed her cry. "I am Proserpina, daughter of Zeus and Demeter, you will rue the day you stepped foot in the house of my lover."
Run, Proserpina,
Run, Proserpina,
She steeled her spine, ignoring the warnings in her head.
She was a hurricane in the night, the evil mortals warned their children of.
She heard the steps, sure and brisk. She increased her pace, swerving into a new hallway.
Proserpina raised her head, meeting stormy blue ones.
Her sword clattered to the ground silently, and her heart sank down to her stomach.
It was not her lover standing before her,
It was not even his mistress,
It was not her mother.
"Father?"
Zeus was standing before her, and lightening surrounded his countenance.
"Daughter," She blinked and he was now standing in front of her, so close to touch.
The scream bubbling on her tongue never spills, his sword comes down swift.
Over before it began.
Proserpina awoke screaming, but she was not in the chambers of her lover, she was back in that cave.
Alone.
She was not the lover of Hades, she had never been, it was all a dream. Neither was he hers.
She was a withered flower. No, she would be a wild vine, with or without a man.
****
Yass girl, this short story was a sort of women empowerment thing. Proserpina doesn't need a man to be powerful, she can be if she wants to be, just like you and I.
If you can't tell, this story is a little retelling of Hades and Persephone. Hades has always been my favourite Greek god.
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1001 Sins | ✔
काल्पनिकStories spanned from the beginning of time to now as we know it, a woman scorned, a twisted man turned reaper, the god seeking a wife, several tales long forgotten, some lies and others half truths - all of them passed down to the present to remind...
