Hades and Persephone

Prologue

Snapped threads were because she pulled too tightly. Split ones were because she did not spin it correctly. Frays, kinks, knots, loops. They were all her doing, not the soul the thread represented.

All the mother's fault.

Not the maiden's.

Not the crone's.

And most certainly not the child's.

That was why someone frayed it was personal.

She forgoed her throne that night. No matter how much golden light the torches casted against the pristine marble, or how much starlight dripped through the glass dome, or how many people passed through with gifts and sacrifices in her name. The room was too great. Too dark.

Too empty.

Had she not been a good queen? A wife? Fates knew she was not a good mother. No decent mother would harm their child out of sheer embarrassment.

Shadows and horrors hid just out of sight. Behind every pillar, in corners, and seemingly in the fires themselves. They reached out to drown her again.

The burning in her throat, in her eyes. Walls tightened around them, mashing her body against other walls and floor and under the burning liquid. It was suffocating. The halls too small, the throne room too enclosed. And outside was simply too large.

A disgraced queen crumpled on the floor. Praying to anything that it would not hurt as badly this time; when the walls crushed her body and the acid tore apart her flesh. That was the curse of an immortal: no matter how torturous her childhood was she could never die. She could never escape to the aether. None of her siblings could.

He was the only sibling truly free of Cronus; and the only one to make her feel free as well. When the large rooms were simply too bright and large, he sat in the dark corners with her. When the darks corners began to cave in and suffocate her, he took her flying. He stood by her in all the contradictions and difficulties she presented- and he abandoned her. 

And not for the first time.

Demeter had created a pocket of warmth in the dead of winter. The snow came and went with her birthing pains. One moment the blizzard whipped and bit at anything ignorant enough to brave the night. The next it was only a gentle snowfall.

But no matter how the storm thrashed and screamed outside, the walls of trees protected their mistress and her unborn child. Their trunks pressed so close together no prying eyes could see in. A roof of branches, their leaves a rainbow of spring flowers and autumn leaves, woven together.

Eileithyia had the goddess on her hands and knees, legs spread behind her. Lying back was easier but made the childbirth more difficult. Her pains had started hours ago but were only now worthy of her cries.

It was close now, the baby. To her the birth went quickly and smoothly. To the mother, it was torture. The contractions did not stop soon enough and started too soon. But it would all be worth it. It would all be worth it to hold her precious daughter in her arms.

Eileithyia was supportive, centuries of being a midwife prepared her for just about anything. But no matter her experience and no matter how often she had seen it happen, stillbirths were never something she could prepare for.

Hades propped himself up against the walls of trees his sister created. Black hair and robes, both peppered with gray, made him a walking contrast. Even his skin, iridescent against the stark winter, was smeared with the same gray. In truth, it was the ash so common in his realm. It clung to anything, it made him look older. He had given up with it long ago.