DIVINE - A Persephone And Hades Retelling

TWENTY-SIX || Have You Come To Pity Them?

Orpheus had left the Underworld, haunted by the voice of his dear wife. The voice he had missed with such a hunger. Fate had cursed the couple even before they had started their walk back to the surface, but Persephone blamed herself just as much. She had been the one who sent them, the god who had sealed their fate. She should have known. He had turned around to greet his bride- just as Persephone had predicted he would but had hoped he wouldn't. For days, she could think of nothing else but his hopeful face and the sound of Euridice's lonely cries. Thanatos was the one who had told her of Euridice's return. She was back in the Underworld as if nothing had happened. As if her lover had not gone to hell to get her back. As if Persephone had not even tried to save her. They were separated by death once again. This time permanently. For a mortal might be able to find their way into hell once, but never twice.

Persephone didn't think she would ever be able to forget Orpheus's sad song. Even now, it rattled in her memory.

She told herself over and over again that she had tried, that she had done her best. Hades had told her the same, trying to ease her guilt. Thanatos had been silent with a face befitting death. It was only his silence that she was thankful for. She could not have handled his pity as well.

She had tried to give the mortals a chance by giving them the same opportunity she had been given. No matter how often she told herself this, guilt still soaked her soul. She couldn't help but feel like she hadn't done enough - or that she had done too much. Perhaps it would have been better to lock Orpheus out of the Underworld without dangling hope in front of him. Without seeing his face or hearing his song.

It was clear to her now that she had put her own love above theirs. She had prioritized her life with Hades above the needs of the two mortals. She had kept their enemies at bay for now, but at what cost?

Persephone felt a chill go down her spine as she realized that she had become the god her mother had always wanted her to be, the selfish, power seizing kind. A god who did not care for the lives of mortals. This was not who Persephone was. This was very different from the goddess who had followed the sounds of crying souls into the Underworld, led by her bleeding heart. Some gods were born with tragedy in their bones, destroying all they touch.

Who was she?

What was she becoming?

Was this only the beginning of the evil the fates had spoken of?

They said she was evil, she wanted so badly to prove them wrong, but it seemed they had not been.

Besides the guilt, hate began to creep its way into her mind as she was reminded of the reason she was forced to act. Hate for the faceless gods who were responsible for this tragedy. But ultimately, she could not hate them more than she hated herself. For who could be more of a culprit than the goddess who damned the mortals herself. All to save her throne.

Persephone began to wander through the fields, black flowers growing wherever she stepped. She needed to be out of the castle, away from the throne room, even away from Hades. She needed to wander the meadows, where she felt most at home. Maybe there - among the blooming flowers and the tall grass- she could find herself once again.

She wandered for what felt like hours. Not keeping track of time or the direction she walked, only getting lost in her thoughts. That is until she came to the rushing waters of the river Styx. She had not noticed how far she had wandered until the sound of the rushing waves woke her from her thoughts. It was funny how she always tended to wander to places she was not supposed to go. First to the Underworld, then to Hades, and now the river Styx.

Her steps took her right up to the river's edge. The water lapped at the shore in a way Persephone had never seen. As she watched the waves, there was no question in her mind that the river was enchanted. As a goddess, she could smell the power that the river possessed, but anyone who came upon the riverbank could have seen that the river could never be anything as simple as waves and tides. The water itself seemed to defy the laws of nature; rushing slowly as if ignoring gravity altogether, then in an instant flowing at an alarming speed. She watched the waves as they climbed the shorelines, splashing and playing along the banks.