. . .
"Sadly enough, the most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained."
― Jonathan Harnisch
. . .
"I... see," the goddess of shadows finally managed to say, her quiet voice coming out against the tension in the air like the sharp edge of her blade.
"I'm sorry," he says, for lack of anything left to say.
And Proserpina silently screws her eyes shut at that, clenching her jaw as she slightly lowers her head, as if in pain. As if in mourning.
The hands that were still gripping her arms, as if bracing herself, had been clenched into fists so hard that Rei could have sworn he can hear the distinct sound of leather creaking amidst the still silence, and he can tell she's clearly trying her very best to keep her composure as best as she can manage, to not break down in front of him there and then.
A part of Rei was guilty and even ashamed to admit, if only to himself, that he almost wishes that she would just shatter—if it means letting it all out. That she would scream, or cry or even hit him, because that would be worlds better than witnessing her desperately trying to keep herself together in silence.
When he knows her heart was surely breaking into millions of pieces because he might as well have told her that she had, in fact, killed her own mother.
Rei has only seen Proserpina cry twice; the moment William was introduced to her (at least those were happy tears) and when Rei arrived at the entrance of that accursed, underground temple and finally found the last surviving members of a once-esteemed family—William had been completely inconsolable, his face smushed against his sister's barely heaving chest as heart-wrenching sobs wracked down his battered body while Proserpina only stared up at him without a word, her face pale and weary, a mess of dried blood splattered all over her face and not even the rain dripping down her cheeks could hide the fact that she was crying as well.
And these children had waited for long, for far too long as they were both mourning for their loss of home, for their father... and for themselves.
Grief.
Rei knows that feeling perfectly well.
He felt it on the day he didn't even get to say goodbye to Autumn, he felt it in the air during those fateful nights when countless, innocent demigods paid the price for just being born... and it clung to him like a second shadow when his wife, his son and most of his family passed away during the plague, leaving him and his grandchild behind.
And Rei has never wanted for these children to feel such overwhelming loss. They were too young to feel this kind of sadness. He didn't want this to be something he had in common with her as well.
But he fears he had been too late.
Late.
Rei wanted to laugh at that word.
Too late. Always too late.
He remembered that time he had to bring William back to Japan with him because there was no one left alive in their family to take care of the kid and Proserpina had adamantly refused to let her brother go, even with Hades supposedly waiting for her in the underworld for the time being because deities of the underworld weren't supposed to be in the land of the living for too long.
And Rei felt like his own heart was being torn into two even when he was the one to forcefully drag William away from her before she does something she will surely regret. Because she can't bring William with her to the underworld, no matter how much they didn't want to be separated from each other.
