#Persephone and Demeter

[insomniac-dot-ink]

Demeter's Walking Days

Demeter sits in the ruins of herself, legs buckled, head bent low as if for executioner's blade. The earth gapes and it is a wound that should have bled. The crack in the soft soil should have wept ash and billowed smog, choking rivers and blotting out sun. Hecate, who stands between heaven and earth and does not balk, points. She need not. Her daughter’s last cry splinters through Demeter’s head, mind’s eye summoning all.

The thunder crack of hooves and eyes widening in fear. The other daughters bolting, skinny legs flashing and soles of their feet licking the earth. Flowers scattered. Golden tuft of hair disappearing beneath. Daylight bleaching over emptied fields and ravished earth.

Demeter wraps her arms around her belly and lets out a low braying moan. A breeze rustles the tall grasses, and the sun warms her cheeks. “Why?” she rasps. Unfairness is an eating thing, drilling down, down, down into the soft meat of the body.

“Why?” Tears stain Demeter’s cheeks and the crack in the earth remains dull and quiet. Salt wets her lips and the feelings stretch into an unbroken ocean. Oh, but she knew why. She could hear his voice before she even stepped foot into the court of the gods. Before she went to beg.

Because she was beautiful, her brother says, echoing forward and back, because she was there.

Demeter swallows her heart hand over fist, swallowing and swallowing. She stands.

-------------------

Before Demeter walks the earth under barren days. Before the rivers splinter white. Before the soil hardens, unsoft enough for even corpses–why should they get to bury their sons and daughters when she would not? She makes her petition.

“You know our brother,” Zeus addresses the air above her head and all who could listen, “a King in his own right and the only one of our thrones without a bride.” Zeus gives a wry little smile that lights the clouds. Deep and sonorous, his chuckle shakes through her ankle bones. “He’s complained enough, don’t you think? He has to be alone with his gruesome little kingdom while the rest of us fritter about.”

Demeter holds herself perfectly still and the court drones around her. “I did not know.”

“No, no, it was I who promised her,” the father says, despite how little that word meant. “We are lucky to have created such a beautiful daughter.”

“I am her mother.”–how little that word meant as well–“She is only a child.”

He rubs his whiskered face with one hand. “Is this not how girls become women?”

Demeter swallows. “My daughter, she will wither. No sunlight, no fields, no love. You, all of you, you know her. She’ll waste into a shadow of herself.” Silence spread like infection. Demeter’s voice rose, frantic. “She’s not eaten yet, I’m sure! Please, let me go to her, see her, kiss her tender cheek and stroke her hair–”

“You know as well as I there are far worse husbands than rich and patient Hades,” Zeus rumbles through his mighty chest. “Dear heart, you must have known you couldn’t hold onto her forever. You’re wiser than that.”

Demeter clenches her jaw and the Goddess of marriage, who hates her so, speaks. 

“She’ll make a fine bride.” Hera’s voice is smooth and melodic. “And will learn to make her bed where she finds it.”

Demeter’s gaze cuts across the throne room. “How do you know?”

Hera scoffs. “Don’t be naive.”

Demeter looks between their divine figures. The flame in her belly burns low, growing with every breath. Golden head dipped into the dark. Scattered flowers. Voice swallowed. Demeter’s long hair falls around her face. “I can’t allow it.”

“What does that mean?” the Messenger asks, not unkindly.

“You have misplaced your loyalties,” Zeus says, still laughing, tall above the clouds.

“You’ve misplaced your sense of ownership,” Hera tuts. “How many go to Hades willingly?”

Demeter snarls for the first time. “Not my daughter.”

Hera, cruelly, hating them all, laughs. Her lips curl back. “Yes. Her.”

“Hush! This is Hades. Hades!” Zeus raises his voice. “She’ll be taken care of.”

Demeter sets her jaw. “She was crying out for me.”

“Dear heart, I understand you must be feeling lonely now . . .”

The rushing in her ears replaces all murmurs of court. Demeter focuses on Zeus and Zeus alone. He, who loves the mortals more. “If you do this, if you won’t give her back,” Demeter gnashes her teeth, “I will take what you care about in turn.”

They protest. They call out her name. They offer her comforts and consolations and promises. The drumbeat in her ears drowns out all sound. Demeter puts down her sickle.

---------------

The nymph's howl in one voice, their rivers menaced to a standstill and trees unclothed piece by piece. The crunch of leaves as the crunch of bone under Demeter’s step. Helios grows dim. He, who watched fair Persephone gathering flowers and witnessed the silent one pilfer her away, did nothing. And he knew, even more so, Demeter carries a double-headed axe.

Snow falls like shooting stars bent for dying and the clouds transform the land into themselves, harvest buried and buried and buried again. Sunken eyes and wizened bodies. Hands dyed blue and given to tremors.

At first, they try to appease their hollow bellies. Wine into the fire. Slaves at the altar. Blood and beast and prayer. Demeter is not listening. Not to the people, crying out, and nymphs sobbing at the roots of their trees.

One by one, by hearth and forge and stone, they ask her to lift the curse. Could she not hear them in her own fields? It was not they that stole the girl. Did she not have her own divine purpose? And had she not known? Her daughter was beautiful after all, and she was there.

Hermes comes on lighted step, and begs her last of all.

“She’s already gone. Let her go,” he says, not unkindly.

“I did not know,” Demeter answers.

“You misuse your purpose.”

“If my daughter must live in lands of gloom and death, then so must all.”

“Let her go,” the people cry. “Where does this end?”

“I will freeze the world over,” answers Demeter. Hermes leaves to find a different, more listening ear.

---------------

Demeter strokes her tender face and kisses her lovely cheeks. She is taller, heavier, more womanly. Persephone weeps in her mother’s arms. She hadn’t meant to eat. She clings to her mother’s skirts. She hadn’t meant for any of it.

“I know, I know.” Demeter rubs her daughter’s back and bursts with it—alive and breathing, this girl of hers.

“I’m sorry mother.”

“It was not you.”

Persephone wipes her damp cheeks. “You sent so many down to us . . .”

Demeter sets her jaw. “It was not you.”

After Demeter carries her daughter home and sets the sun to rights. After she beds down the frost and unbreaks the rivers, teaches buds to push and birds to roost home, they do not speak of the six seeds. The half a year of hunger—that damnation of Persephone. The girl and the mother embrace as if not but a day has passed instead of the invention of ugly hurting mourning.

“Did he honor you?” Demeter deigns to ask.

She buries her face in her arms. “He will make a godly husband.”

“Does he treat you well?”

“There are worse ones. Far worse.”

“Did you ask to return to me?”

Persephone rises and blinks the tears from her eyes. “Of course. Of course, mother. I would not stay. I,” she swallows, “I love you so.”

“And he?” Demeter asks, petting her hair. Persephone opens and closes her mouth as if drowning. “Could you love him?”

Persephone wipes her cheeks with the meat of her palm. The question collapses around itself. Persephone cannot answer and year after year, she never can, and Demeter forgoes herself for the robes of despair.

---------------

How many times? How many lives lived? In Demeter’s walking days, she goes to the mouth of a cave. Black birds peck at the ground, eyes like liquid ink, and warm air leaks from the earth. A man sits, slumped inside, shrouded. He watches waves crash against a gray shoreline.

The crows peck at the ends of Demeter’s cloak—a trailing gown always scattering the tender seeds of next year. She has already begun to forget.

“You. You came back once,” she says through the fog of her own memory. The man’s lips pull apart like an opening wound.

“He is aware.” He has a warm voice, too big for his large body.

“You know the way. You’ve walked the path.”

His eyes glint from under his hood, bright as tiny suns, too sad for such a large life. “It’s not for you,” says the hero, shooing away crows. “What use would the deathless ones have for such a path?”

“He takes her,” she mumbles.

“What did you expect?”

Demeter’s hand clenches around her golden axe. “Step aside. I’ll visit him myself. At last.”

“The Hospitable One has no fight with you, lady,” he wheezes and gathers the shroud around his bulk.

“He will.”

“He is a fair lord.”

“Does a fair man need a strong grip and a chariot?” Demeter let her chin fall to her chest.

“You would have never let her go.”

“She was a child.” Demeter’s gaze unfocuses, remembering and forgetting. Her own failure sours on her tongue. “She was crying out for me.”

The hero shrugs his vast shoulders. “She’s not the only one—just the one that gets to come back. Is that not enough?”

“No.” Demeter passes the ghost, strayed far from his home and given the leeway of heroes of old or a man so full of life it buoyed him above. She side-steps the phantom and his gaze returns to the sea. She goes to the crack in the earth.

Gloom thick as cobwebs covers the way. Demeter steps into the dark and the dark pushes back. She grits her teeth, and it clings to her, tugs like thorns, pushes back and back until her skin stretches like long rays of sun. But she is a goddess. The sun burns at her back and the crows peck at her cloak. She forces her way through, leaving hair and cloth and flesh behind. Golden ichor trails after her in the dark.

The road narrows and stones pierce the soles of Demeter’s feet through her fine shoes. Muffled voices whisper at the edges of the dark. Fog gathers along the path, ghastly and unlit and forever narrowing. Demeter walks until her head pounds and the way forks—one into the caves and the other into ever-distant black hills.

Ahead, always ahead, a figure turns and pulls down her hood. Her face is the color of bony moonlight, and she wears her crown of thorny branches. A dog bays at her heels and at the crossroads, she holds up her lantern.

“I heard you might be wandering. Do you know where you are?” Hecate goes to Demeter, pushing back Demeter’s tangled hair and rubbing her bare shoulder. “You don’t belong here.”

“I can hear her.” Demeter looks everywhere the girl is not. Voice swallowed. Flowers scattered. Demeter gnashes her teeth. Because she was beautiful. “I can hear him.”

Hecate gentles her. “You can’t be here.”

“But I am.”

“It will cost you. Keep costing.”

Demeter laughs, a throaty sound of puking dogs. “Pay me then. Bribe me. Make me an offer of something worth having that I don’t already make.”

“Have you forgotten? She’ll return to you. Have patience.”

Demeter shakes her head over and over again. Her voice is diminished in the cold and the black and the blood leaks freely from her ankles. “You too?”

She kisses her cheek. “I heard you were wandering.”

A goddess of magic and doorways, Hecate takes her by the hand and turns Demeter. Her shivering is violent, violent enough to come apart, and Hecate’s grip is firm. They walk. There is slim light ahead and the ghosts are murmuring, forgetting more than they will ever remember. The goddesses take the higher path, hand and hand, and the fire drains from Demeter’s belly.

She holds her pounding head. “He’s here, isn’t he? He sent you.”

Hecate rubs her shoulder. “Knowing will not soothe you.”

“Or worse.” Demeter pulls away. “He thinks me impotent.”

“He thinks you lost. They all do.”

Demeter’s eyes flash in the dark. “And you? Hecate.”

Hecate peers over one shoulder and then the other. Her dog sniffs the air. The way is much as it was, dank and unlit and forever narrowing. The other goddess presses a cold metal ball into Demeter’s palm and folds her fingers around it one by one. She whispers an old woman’s whisper, gossip from the funeral pyre. “It can take generations.”

Demeter nods. She clenches her fist around the blunt metal. They walk and the dark shifts from inky blacks to browns to greys. A sliver of brightness breaches the wall, and Demeter jerks her fist up.

“Wait,” Hecate hisses but Demeter goes to the light.

She holds up her gift to the crack and squints. A silver whistle the size of her thumb twinkles between her fingertips. An etching of a wheel is pressed into the belly and time leaks out from inside, the tug of the fates.

She brings the whistle to her lips.

Hecate puts a hand up. “You don’t have to–”

No sound comes out. The ball is missing from inside and Demeter’s eyes water. She breaks from Hecate and runs from the road of the dead, dripping ichor, cursing the games they play. The earth gives her up, splitting like ripe fruit, and Demeter is pushed into a field of sunlight and frost. Her daughter is not there. And she breaks the world.

---------------

She forgets, in her walking days, and the same months play out in the rise and fall of lungs. The light will die along with Demeter’s hope and the gods will turn away. Demeter stalks the land, torch in hand, looking for the girl they cannot save and she will not let go. Remembering is for the muses and the bards and when Demeter runs into a group of mortals, they cower back, and she tilts her head.

“Where are you going, mother?” asks the bravest one, shivering.

Demeter searches her person. “Here,” she says and to her surprise, holds up a silver whistle. It is only in the pale light of the moon that she recognizes how the mortals huddle together with their bags bulging. They are fleeing something, she thinks, and they point her to the mountain. She thanks them in kind.

Between the naked trunks, a set of tracks is stitched into the land. Beams of steel and wood form a single unerring road. She would love that, wouldn’t she? The thought pushes Demeter to move. Iron spikes pierce the soil, and the wooden beams form a path that does not curve. Demeter follows the unbroken way, clutching the whistle, and listening. Smoke billows in the distance and a whistle like a hunting horn, leading her further into the night.

Glimmering like a fish scale in the water, a station waits on the side of the tracks. The building lies in the deep shadow of a mountain and windows glow faintly blue against the dark. A wheel is carved above the doorway and a large clock ticks from inside. Mortals and gods cover their faces and bustle in and out of the front door.

The night is still and unwatched. Demeter tilts her head back, inhales the frigid air that hits like puncture wounds, and climbs the steps. Passing mortals study her face and hurry in the other direction. The minor gods give her a wide berth and take their leave a few steps after. The station at the edge of the track empties.

A large desk takes up the middle of a room caged by bookcases and filing cabinets. An old god sits, rarely alone, always forgoing rest and carrying on. Her head bows beneath the clock and a train conductor’s whistle hangs from her neck. The scratch of pen against paper fills the room and they are alone.

Demeter tosses the whistle down at Nemesis’s feet. Nemesis frowns, a private motion, and raises her head. She wears a conductor's hat and holds a new kind of pen and new kind of parchment, like many times before, Demeter finds her silly. She has little appreciation for the other side of memory, the continuing. A goddess stuck in her own gyres staring down a goddess wearing man’s hat and man’s jacket and man’s unending problems.

Nemesis opens her ledger and trails her finger down a list of the dead propped up against a ledger of deeds. She glances up, eyes like silver coins at the bottom of a well. She clears her throat.

“You aren’t here for me, are you?” Her tone is clipped, professional.

Demeter opens her arms, mourning shrouds spread like wings. “Has it been long enough?” Nemesis narrows her gaze. “How much longer must I wait for your services?”

Nemesis folds her hands. “I don’t set the terms.”

Demeter darkens, rising to her full height above the smaller goddess. “You don’t know what I’ve been through.”

“I do. Spare my house your cold fronts,” Nemesis says, who was born immune to grief. “I am a busy woman.”

“We have much in common.” Demeter takes a seat across from her.

Nemesis scribbles calculations on the side of her ledger. “What punishment would you see fit for the lord of the dead? We can send him more subjects he takes little joy from. Deprive him of wealth he has little to do with.”

“Fair Hades, generous Hades.” Demeter’s lips peel back. “They have been charitable. Granted him room enough to fall.”

Nemesis snaps her book shut. “Be at peace, goddess. You forget your daughter will return soon.”

“That’s all you have to say? Betrayal and violation and the goddess of vengeance—”

“You have been injured.” Nemesis stands and a train shouts in the distance, a long baleful cry. “You carried out your own justice.”

“You are not my brother’s creature.” She exhales a long breath. “You need not be.”

Nemesis looks out the window to the shadow of the mountain. “I am a busy woman.”

“Here. An offering.” Demeter reaches into her pockets. “For your books.” She scatters hay seeds and wheat stalks and bits of golden pods. They clatter in waves across the open pages, landing on the scrawls of her endless notes.

Nemesis’s eyes glint, cold and implacable. A bird crows and Demeter gives a small smile. They’ll come soon, harvest always does, to pull apart the worms and seeds and work of yesteryear. To undo the seams of books and words and let the eating begin. A new world still bends to the rules of the old.

“He is not here,” Demeter whispers furtively and Nemesis sighs. She pushes herself away from the desk.

“Stand.” Nemesis, who was born immune to grief and carries on, rises. “Walk.” Nemesis, without looking back, leads her through the stacks. They pass the mountain outside. Behind the many cases, is a tucked-away door, boxy and dark and opening inward. Demeter has to duck her head to enter.

The furniture within is covered in sheets and surrounded by stacks of scrolls, weaponry, and animal pelts. Demeter sniffs the air, and the dust is thick and generational. She steps to the side and Nemesis goes to her knees.

A train whistle sounds once more and Demeter’s heart thrums. She feels a foreign thrill and pumps her hand in the air. “We’ll master the first injustice.”

“Hardly!” Nemesis throws her arms up in turn. The room is lit by scattered brass lamps, a bridle on the wall, and sword on the floor and the scraps of good bedding in the corner. Demeter privately thinks it sad. Nemesis rifles through her piles.

“We might slay him,” Demeter offers, eyeing the sword.

“Yes. Your daughter will make a perfect sole hostess of the dead, solitary lord of all she touches and rich beyond means.” Demeter frowns and rocks on her heels. Nemesis lets out a tiny laugh. “You cannot undo it.”

She adjusts her mourning cloak. “You’re wrong.”

“I have heard that before.” She laughs again.

“You’re wrong,” she repeats, louder, and Demeter adjusts her sleeves. “She’ll go where she pleases at the very least. She can grant herself that.”

“Will she come back to you then, my lady? Is that where she’s going?” Nemesis pauses. “Do you know where this leads?”

She begins to fold Nemesis’s stray bedding. “I do remember. I have taken . . . steps.” Nemesis nods, shifting a scale aside and digging up molded books. “I have not been idle over these long years. Grown food more richly than ever before, more of it, hardier. Would that not be fit for a dream? To tempt him. Tempt her with fruits rich enough to topple the halls of gloom.”

Nemesis shakes her head. “Sounds like you have little use for me.”

Demeter wrinkles her nose. “You see better than me. Then almost all of us.”

“Flattery will not change my nature nor make it true.” Nemesis dusts off a box no bigger than a hare and lifts it high. She turns over a box of metal and wires, over and over in her hands.

“They made this. It won’t turn things back but may make a difference.” She holds it out, and the same sense rushes from inside: fate, blowing her cool breath.

Demeter finishes making the bed and turns in a circle. “Have you eaten?” she asks all at once.

Nemesis blinks and looks at the window, the mountain, and back. Demeter turns on her heels and waves. “Come. Before the sun rises.”

Nemesis carries her metal box to the other room. The kitchen is smaller than the bedroom and poorly stocked, but Demeter works her small miracle. Bread and wine and grapes. They dine and talk and have little use for past feuds as they are old goddesses and know how to carry on. The wine is good, and time is late.

Nemesis only offers again, once, only once, her box of metal and wires, of lightning and glass and mortals. Demeter stands, paces, and faces the door. The other goddess checks her watch. “You are the one that came to me, mistress.”

Demeter stares down at her own hands, her feet, over her shoulder, awash in bile in the back of her throat. “Would you also have me let this go? You. Of all of them.”

Nemesis folds her hands in her lap, never hurried, never squeamish about the ugliness or beauty in a heart. She waits.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Say,” Demeter swallows around the fist in her throat. “Say I’m like them, like any of them. Say you’ll have me too.”

Nemesis crosses the room, a head shorter than the Lady of the Golden Blade, and darker. “You were wronged.” The Implacable one lifts herself up. Her hat crooks backward and her breath smells of cold iron and rain. “Perhaps it is too early. But what is early to you? Here. Take it.”

Nemesis kisses the Mistress, hard on the lips and Demeter breathes in what there is to take. She cradles her small frame and pushes her down to the sad bedding newly made. A small goddess, always carrying on, and another filled with need that towers over cities and topples over fields. Demeter begins anew.

---------------

They cannot say why Demeter walks or why she wakes, and the years spill past. On one twilight, Demeter’s feet carry her over ravished lands. The fields are caked in frost and frozen blood and small metal apples that are prone to burning. She passes a city opened like a ribcage, and an orchard she once knew.

Hot cider, she thinks in her own deadness, hot cider for the long night. There is a low brown building among the rubble and a note of perfume in the air. She follows the scent all the way to the door. The men inside are not soldiers, leftover grandfathers and teens with bum knees and cowards with better lies, all greet her as fellows.

“Good evening, Mother,” says a man with his jacket undone. “They have taken the last of the meat, but the drinks are strong, and we have a good lady upstairs. Come, get warm.”

Demeter nods at the drunk men, far too many, stuffed into this tiny post office. They cheer and watch the skies, singing about morning—and who knew what morning meant! The space is dim and the perfume strong and Demeter climbs the stairs away from the men’s unwatchable merriment.

A woman lounges on top of a stack of burlap sacks. She is resplendent in nurse’s white; and wears her hair loose and long. Aphrodite is in her prime, reclining as only a goddess can, and flips through crusting yellow letters. She beams at Demeter.

“Look at you, lone little dove!” Aphrodite cries and sets down the letter. “What a pleasure it is for you to stop by.”

Demeter furrows her brow, jostled from the depths of herself. “Are you occupied?” Her mind sparks. Buildings smolder outside, the trees blackened, and skies red. Demeter takes a step back, looking above and below. “Are we alone here? Is he coming?”

“You’re safe with me.” Aphrodite’s smile stretches wide. “You know, the others speak so ill of you when you’re in this way. They have no imaginations. I like you better in your blacks.”

Demeter stalks the edge of the burlap sacks. “I cannot say I like you better in pinks or whites, good lady.”

“See? Delightful.” She smiles even wider into something painful looking.

Demeter goes to the window and inhales.

“Do you know where we are?” Aphrodite asks, kicking her feet up.

“They used to grow apples here,” Demeter murmurs, running a hand down her long face. “You forget what they can do to themselves.”

“Must we talk of work? Tell me of your new lovers.” Aphrodite tosses her thick hair aside and squeals. Demeter needn’t answer. “You’re so predictable, really! The little grim goddess. But that's why I like this version of you best.”

“You shouldn’t.” The men howl a song from down below. Demeter presents her own dim smile. “But maybe you’re predictable too. Is he really not here?”

Aphrodite’s smile falters and she smooths out the note in her hand. “Aren’t they all? My husband is even in the skies if you listen.”

Demeter hums in return. All here. . . She takes out a little box given to her by the vengeance goddess.

“Do you know this?”

“Oh! Do I know it!” Aphrodite scrambles down from her perch. “I love it. I adore it. I am on fire just thinking of it. They invented it for me if you think about it.” She takes the device in her hand and turns it over and over.

“Help me,” Demeter begs, only just. “I do not know how I’ll ever be whole again, you must know.”

Aphrodite smiles, warmly, manic light in her eyes. “You are a testament to the best of us. Come. Let us kiss and make merry. We can invite the little goddess too, if you like, however dull she is. Or any of them, Themis, Dike, if you care for the likes of whatever justice gods come next.”

Demeter, for not the first time, and as much as she can bear it, stares out the window. “I do not think they are awake. Only you and War may even survive such a long night.”

“You are so dramatic in your walking days, kiss me, kiss me next and let winter end or last forever this time.”

Demeter shook her head. “How do I work this? Nemesis said I might.”

“Nemesis is quite busy right now. Quiet busy when she isn’t being devoured for it. Are you really still looking for this girl of yours? So single-minded. Don’t you know there’s a war on?”

Demeter meets her gaze. “Don’t you?”

“I know better than anyone,” says the goddess in her prime. “I am needed.”

Demeter snorts at that and Aphrodite scowls, both thinking the same thought: the mortals could live without the other, but not without her. Aphrodite relents when the sun begins to set, so early, so soon, and she must slip out the back. Aphrodite holds up the camera.

“Click, click,” she says, a bit like a child and Demeter loves her for it. She shows her how to aim the lens and press the button down. “That’s all, click, click. You’ll see.”

Demeter cradles the camera, and she must walk, and the skies must burn, and Aphrodite must slip out the back, carrying several letters with her. Letters that maybe, just maybe, will be delivered. Aren’t the dates off? they ask, nothing else made it out. Oh, but the mail system is unpredictable. These last ones must have made it out. Don’t think too hard, they must all carry on.

---------------

A young mortal man meets a mother and daughter. They live in a farmhouse that spans a small neighborhood. Endless parlors and bedrooms and closets, and the two seem to occupy two rooms—living room to kitchen to living room and back again. His lover does not bother to knock and hurries them to the living space. The walls are painted yellow as dawn and the carpets are a thick cream color. A girl lounges on the couch. She wears a tank top, blonde hair piled on her head, and phone on her lap. The young man wonders what she could possibly be looking at.

“Hello, dear!” His lover strides forward. Nicholas gives a weak wave from behind. “Good to see you again.”

The girl looks up from her phone. Her expression is endlessly blank, and Nicholas must shrink down to the size of two pins. They had met before, back when he was touring and being shown off as a prize and he would like to say he hated it. The girl sticks out her bottom lip.

“Mom!” Persephone’s voice splits the air. “Your appointment is here. He brought a guest.”

“Does she know me?” Nicholas mumbles to his lover and Apollo squeezes his shoulder.

“It’s been a season,” Apollo says in answer. “I’ll be right back, love. Won’t be a moment once I finish up.”

Which is a lie because his lover is never done. He leaves him. Nicholas goes to the edge of the room, eyeing the golden-haired, golden-eyed girl. He had been surprised at her features when they first met, rough-hewn, prominent, clifflike cheeks and sturdy nose, beautiful and strange. Her eyes are the most unnerving part. Their golden color feels natural, yet they are so deep-set in her face to the point of shadow. Most of all, she is young, and younger when she looks up.

“Mom!” she shouts again. “The guest.”

“Send him to the kitchen, dear!” a matronly voice calls, and Persephone groans and throws her head back, ponytail flopping.

“It’s your house. He’s your guest!” She lurches to her feet in the same breath.

Nicholas puts his hands up, face heating. “It’s fine, really. No need to get up. We’ll only be stopping by a moment,” he says, though he knows he’s lying.

“Come on.”

The little goddess takes him to the kitchen and fills up a tall glass of water.

“Here,” she says, and he has to stop himself from staring.

“Thanks,” he says, holding the glass but not taking a sip. “Do you two live alone?”

Persephone raises an eyebrow, stuffing both hands under her arms. “The farm hands . . .” she mumbles and turns away from him. “But we’re not here year round. Mom can’t stand an empty house.”

Her golden eyes blaze against his cheeks and Nicholas realizes too late, she’s expecting conversation.

“Mine too,” he says, chuckling awkwardly. “My mom’s an empty nester and she says she can’t bring herself to turn my room into a home gym even though I’ve been touring for like, what? Almost a decade now.”

He has no idea if this makes sense to her. He’s met Persephone before, but she was different then, even more golden, laughing.

She chews on her bottom lip. “We have a home gym, but I hate using it. I’m a runner, and I dunno, I feel like it doesn’t count if I’m not doing it outside? But my mom hates that too.”

“Sure.” He watches the way she slow-blinks like a person, like she’s forgotten she’s something else as well. He rotates the cool glass in his hand. “Is your dad around?” he asks, because he’s curious and never met the man, thundering and awful as he might be.

“Of course not.” Persephone leans in conspiratorially. “She hates him.” She snorts. “Aaaaand his wife hates her even more.”

He joins her in a small laugh and speaks into the glass. “I can only imagine what she thinks of your husband.”

Persephone’s face goes blank and impassive. She turns and leaves him there. 

Nicholas will spend two weeks in the farmhouse, their errand never done, and wonder at the golden-haired girl and the mother. Demeter plies him with more food than he can eat and has him play songs with “no curse words.” They share meals and jokes and even watch TV. The harvest goddess is taller than he could imagine and has long wavy salt-and-pepper hair. Her lined-eyes crease when she smiles, which is a lot.

During their tucked-away moments in the guest room at the end of the day, his lover feeds him bits of story. How the girl will fall soon, like she always does, and after that long silence, she will run. She will run like it’s the first time and the only time. They’ll wonder if she really means it, but it won’t matter because Persephone cannot answer.

Nicholas, though, is young and mortal and raised to be cherished. And oh, this goddess has long salt-and-pepper hair that falls down her back in bushels. She wears it in twin long braids sometimes along with gardening boots covered in mud and it makes Nicholas want to cry. His own mother would never turn his room into a gym.

Nicholas cannot help himself. When he digs out a camera in one of her long hallways, in one of her deep closets, he dusts it off and brings it to her for inspection.

“Do you want me to develop these?” he asks, and Demeter squeezes his shoulder.

“Only if you want to, honey. I know you must be getting bored. I’ll bother Apollo to take you on a proper date with less old ladies present, I swear.” She chuckles.

He smiles. “No, you’ve been the perfect host. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The mortal develops the photos and before Persephone falls and Demeter walks the earth, before the gods avert their eyes from another long season, he hands her a stack of photos. He must have seen them, must have known, but the images disappear like water through a sieve the second they leave his hand. He never will know what the goddess sees in those pictures, only that she stops smiling.

It’s summer then, perfect summer, and Demeter’s head falls forward like a ragdoll. 

“Is this true?” Her lips tremble and she brings the photos to her chest. She doesn’t wait for him to answer. Demeter crosses her own neighborhood-length farmhouse where she and her daughter orbit each other in two rooms. Persephone is in her chair. Demeter enters, cradling the photos. “He takes you.”

Persephone glances up from her phone. She blinks. “Who?” 

“It’s never going to be over.” Demeter shuts her eyes against the world. She remembers, and how she remembers. Tears fall in long dull streaks and a braying moan escapes Demeter’s body. “You never come back.”

Persephone leaps to her feet. “Mom, I’m right here.”

“No!” Demeter snaps, backing away one wobbling step after the other. Her back hits the wall and she takes tiny panicked breaths.

“What have you done?” Apollo asks the mortal, though he need not. Nicholas’s mind is thrashing against itself. What was it he saw? Demeter turns from her daughter. She’ll goes to find her two-headed ax and don black. Persephone’s voice cannot reach her. When Demeter bends her head to Apollo’s ear, she hisses.

“I have another errand for you.”

His sun, this sun too and all of them, watching and unmoved when Persephone is taken. The same song played in different notes. Time spins forward on an axis of freezing and burning and growing, and Demeter is given the knife of memory to plunge down into herself. The unheard plea to let her stay. The answering of many gods that this is how it goes.

It would be her, of course. The mother at the side of a casket that she is unallowed to close, because shouldn’t she know better? Time lurches forward. Soon, summer, perfect summer, begins to hurt. Temperatures rise. Oceans boil. Demeter burns the world.

FIN

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[playingplayer2]

So I listened to "My Penelope" and "There Is No Name" from Stories from Styx: Hades and Persephone earlier. (I listened to all of it, actually, but this is specifically about those two songs)

And. I just-

Okay. Not only the difference between the line "My Persephone" in My Persephone and There Is No Name, one from a lover/partner, one from a mother- a grieving, devastated one at that- but also. Just the way it can be interpreted.

Persephone, like Perseus, Perses, Perseis, and Perse (forgive if I've missed a name), all mean the same thing. Destroyer, or, to destroy. Destruction. Ruination. Ravage. Devastate. However you want to interpret it.

With Hades, it could be like, "you've ruined me for anyone or anything else," "a destruction of who I was to make way for who I will be," or even just, "you could ruin me and I'd welcome it."

But with Demeter? By the gods is it different. Not only is it the shift from "Kore" to "Persephone" (pretty sure we don't hear her called "Kore" again afterwards) but it's also a cementation of Persephone separating her (sense of) self from her mother and Demeter utterly plunging the realm of mortals into a- seemingly- eternal winter. "My Persephone" is literally a cry of "my destruction" or "my ruin" perhaps even a "damnation" of the people.

The dissonance between the "maiden" Kore and the Queen "Persephone" both as herself and in her mother's eyes is fascinating imo. I mean the whole storyline in sfs: Hades and Persephone is showing the- one of several interpretations of the actual myths- narrative of a woman growing up, going from a girl to a woman, a daughter to a wife (in terms of assumed roles).

Parts of it even narrating Persephone's desire to be allowed to grow beyond the child her mother envisions. But there is also such tangible rage and grief in Demeter's lines; how Zeus dismissed her, that her daughter was taken, that she fears her daughter is unsafe, how she fears that she has lost her child, permanently at that.

Anyways. I've been thinking about this for like 12 hours now.

Just.

"you ruin me" is so neatly summed up into "my Persephone." At least in my opinion.

Anyways give Stories from Styx a listen. It's definitely interesting.

[godsguideme]

Persephone Despoena: A Devotional

*image not mine*

Persephone Despoena, 

Terrible Queen of the Underworld, 

Bringer of Spring, 

She Who is both Bones and Blossoms, 

I worship Thee. 

Oh Blessed Kore, Wife of Hades, Daughter of Demeter, 

Beloved and Feared by all, 

I devote this to You, I adore You. 

Persephone Melitodes, 

Sweet One, Fearsome One, 

I ask You to guide me, 

To teach me. 

Persephone Despoena, 

Assist me in accepting my own duality,

Teach me to love both my shadows and my sunshine. 

Help me, Your worshiper, to find balance.

Persephone Soteira,

I worship Thee. 

[ive-given-up-the-bug-diet]

Screaming weeping and crying as I rewatch Overly Sarcastic Productions' video about Hades and Persephone, a 20 minute long video that almost entirely focuses on the relationship between Persephone and Demeter as well as the ties they have to the underworld in their own right outside of Hades, only to look in the comment section and it's 99%:

"Hades and Persephone are like the Gomez and Morticia of Greek mythology"

"Hades and Persephone as a pastel-goth couple but imagine Hades is the pastel and Persephone is the goth!"

Like I get the appeal of Hades and Persephone's perceived dynamic in modern pop culture, but the video could not more clearly be primarily about Persephone and Demeter what is wrong with you people

[robotsdeservebetter]

Накипело и терпеть я больше не хочу.

Rewriting Kidnapping of Persephone into a romantic/melodramatic story with consensual love is one of the most disgusting and disrespectful things I’ve seen.

I’ve been there too. You and I live in modern world and in modern world edgelords, goths, emos, etc have been trendy for a while. Liking them is cool. Hades, the god of the dead, is close to those things and he has a cool dog, so liking him will make you “not like other mythology fans” (we ended up being the same, what an irony). Despite that, we, idiots, wish for romantic love and project that on Hades. Who’s he with canonically? Persephone? She MUST be so happy to have him uwu 🥰

Do you not understand that if today life gives you extra kicks for being a woman, then 2000 years ago it was ultimately worse? How low must you think of victims of kidnappings, if you see actual fcking love in that? How little must you think of family bonds that you put it below yet another abusive romance? Why are willing to sacrifice a mother character in favour of a kidnapper?

It’s a love story, but not about a romantic one. Demeter, a woman in Ancient Greece, managed to stand up to the Zues, king of gods, and his older brother, and return Persephone at least half of her freedom. Yes, freedom, not a demand to be near mommy, they are that kind of parent and child who love each other. A funny gig about marriage between kidnapper and kidnapped: the latter might never see her family again, she now belongs to the groom and it’s Antient times so guess which “might” is more likely to happen.

Zeus GAVE Persephone to Hades. Like a trophy. A lot of people desire to justify Hades (the dude never even was an outcast, you just Americanised him into a high school antisocial goth. I don’t see that much people making up same stories about Poseidon, who spends most of his time in the sea — his domain. Underworld is Hades’ domain, he’s not unhappy nor judged by other gods, ok? And trust me, an immortal being wouldn’t give a sh*t about us fearing and railing death) and overlook harmful antiquities. Whether the number is small or big, the fact they exist is terrifying.

That myth was above its time and, as we can see, above out time as well. Stories like Lore Olympus and Punderworld, that claim to be feminist rewriting, belittle, demonise Demeter, the only person who truly cares about Persephone’s well-being.

A feminist rewriting demonises a woman who left everything and everyone to save a woman from a kidnapper. If you don’t understand this whole concept is dumb sh*t, I’m not gonna explain why.

Kidnapping of Persephone, much like Hunters of Arthemis, was told to soothe and encourage women, let them know that despite being lower than men, they still have each other, they still can protect each other. Kidnapping of Persephone is a love story, love between mother and daughter. Please, don’t try convincing people it needs to be rewritten, it’s perfect as it is.

And for all what’s holy, don’t demonise Demeter, the exact person who truly loved Persephone, who saved Persephone, who wished her happiness.

[maryhall]

Persephone

early spring colorful flowers blossom

sprouting from the softening earth

soft leaves of green and pink petals

daughter rests her head on mother’s lap

and they giggle about stupid things

an inside joke shared between them

new warmth courses through mother

driving away the winter’s frozen numbness

and bringing new life into cold hands

this will not last as long as they want

but they drive away the thought with

laughter as the world turns a deep green

[fragmentedhekatean]

Greek Myth Aesthetics: Persephone + Demeter

[theunknownpoetssociety]

Aphrodite who cries for the people who hurt themselves because self love is love too

Artemis who doesn’t hunt animals anymore (humans do it enough) She now walks in clubs looking to hunt the real animal

Athena who donates hundreds of books to local libraries and schools

Apollo who watches all street musicians hoping their talents can get them a little money (He gives more than a little)

Dionysus who watches over everyone’s drinks at the bar making sure they stay safe

Zeus who makes it rain for the couples that just want to frolic and dance and kiss in the rain

Hera who donates to woman’s and SA survivors shelters

Ares who is at the forefront of every protest because those are battles too

Hestia who holds and keeps thousands of secrets so the ones who whispered them into flame don’t have to

Hades who let’s families get one last goodbye to a loved one before they die

Persephone who personally makes sure that the ones taken too early feel safe and secure in the Underworld

Demeter who gives Her best crops to food banks and homeless shelters

Hecate who is a street magician and does actual magical for the kids

Poseidon who finds the best seashells and leaves them on the beach for someone to find and treasure

the Gods aren’t gone they ARE the little things in life

[spookedbees]

have you ever made any designs for Greek gods/goddesses? I think they would look great in your style!!!

i have some loose designs for most of the pjo-verse greek gods

i also have ideas for more general greek god designs but no art for them yet

[gigizetz]

"Let them rot, God of Thunder

if I'm not mistaken,

That's what you told me when my daughter was taken."

[princessofghosts-posts]

Thalia watched how Nico got his whole divine family,including the step-mom that should hate him (like Hera's treatment towards her because of the cheating) and grand-mother (like what???),to the battle ; and then got to know how Percy convinced Poseidon to help the Gods fighting Typhoon,even with his kindgom and people in danger,knowing full well that Zeus will never do that for her.

Percy and Nico got their dads (and family) to fight for and with them,because even if they are sometimes shitty,they still care enough for their children to actually help them and being involved in their life. The only thing Zeus did for her was turning her into a tree (not even his own tree,because Pines are Poesidon's and not Zeus's) for a couple of years,to prevent her from dying.

Even her brother had the opportunity to fight with their dad in BoO,something that Thalia herself never had. And she probably feels bitter about it,because Poseidon and Hades care for their children,even after the oath was broken,but her dad was never there for her and barely did anything to help her.

(OG Little Three trio angst,yes-)

[kdpartworks]

Have you listened or, even better, watched the premiere yesterday? Because I do, and i've unlocked a new obsession LOL I could do some fanart. I could. I have so many in mind omg I hope you like my take on Demeter, her song was absolutely my favourite. Also, hey @imcasperfox i hope you like it! And also this is @anniflamma designs from her animatic <3

[turquoisemagpie]

Post-modern Olympus.

(12 more, but not the full twelve, since Persephone and Hades aren’t technically Olympians. In four more character sheets, all will be explained….) :)

[chthonic-kids]

You look just like your mother. I'll not lose her again.

[nikkas-cottage]

Special spring tapers I made in honor of Persephone’s return 🌸

[seleniiium]

Demeter, goddess of agriculture.

Mother of Persephone, goddess of spring.

A little mother-daughter bonding time.