❛THEY WOULD TELL YOU OF A KING WHO STOLE ME HELPLESS FROM MY SUNSHINE GARDEN.❜
They won't tell you about the woman who came to him sublime, lily eyes and lily lips. A king does not ask permission from his prize, but she, oh she, she knelt, kissing m...
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ELYSIUM, THE UNDERWORLD.
HADES
HE LOOKED HAPPY.
Persephone's gaze was transfixed on the raven haired youth throwing a stick to his puppy, who eagerly chased after it to bring it back to his master. He grinned, giving him a good scratch behind his ears as the dog's tail wagged about in excitement. It reached up to lick his cheeks as the young man threw his head back and laughed.
Her eyes were moist as she looked away, tearing her gaze from him with difficulty - gulping quietly. I could not take my eyes off him - at the normalcy of his life, the way he went about his day with ease - as if he didn't even know...
...didn't even know he was dead.
Rhadamanthys had taken him in and raised him well, brought up alongside the other blessed, rewarded citizens of Elysium. Kind souls, all of them. A place where I knew he wouldn't suffer anymore. It was seeing his face that gave me nightmares - a face the splitting image of his twin sister. Of his living sister.
Of the one who had survived when he did not.
"He..." my wife murmured softly from beside me, watching from the shadows. "He looks almost..."
Almost alive.
Because he did.
He seemed real - real enough to not make that pain in our chest hurt, as he ran after his pet under the cool shadows of the Elysian towers. But it was when the sunlight hit - the brightness of it throwing his body into sharp contrast - that it was apparent. That he was... that he was dead.
Something about him blurred around the edges, splitting about into seven colors - like looking through the refracted light off a slab of glass. He seemed to shimmer and move in a plane that was not of this world. A stark reminder of the fact that no matter how alive he looked, he wasn't.
This pain in my chest ached like a rotting tooth.
I softly wrapped an arm around her, then hugged her tight.
"It's okay," I whispered. She buried her head in my neck, letting a sob slip through. "He's okay."
I clasped her hand tight, then brushed away the wetness clinging to her long lashes. She tried to wipe the grief from her miserable face, doing her best to slip on the icy mask of composure before this part of the year descended on us.
The part when we'd watch him from the shadows of Elysium on the anniversary of his death.
The part when she'd have to leave for her annual visit to Olympus.
"I have to... get going."
I nodded, looping my arm around her as we finally got up from our spot under the willow swaying about merrily in the breeze. Behind us, my dead son's laughs rang about in the air, grating along my already frazzled nerves to the point of almost making me burst into tears.
