Persephone

VII

"Wait here, my lady," Charon requested softly as he helped Persephone out of the raft. She nodded, smiling still as she looked around, before remembering who she was here to see.

"How long do you think the Lord will be?" she mused quizzically, gently stroking a quivering sphere of light bouncing past, shivering at Spring's touch. She did not know it was a soul.

Charon hesitated. He knew Hades was speaking with Zeus. He did not know how much time the god would require to recover from the assured argument that would ensue. 

"Give him time, my lady. He will need it."

With that last, strange comment, the ferryman pushed off of the shore, and allowed the water to lap around his vessel, steering him away from the bewildering and turbulent situation that Persephone had brought with her crown of now slightly faded roses to the Underworld. 

She looked around. It was beautiful here. She never would have thought so. 

It was a lot brighter than she expected. There was light everywhere, from sweet, floating orbs that sailed past on an unseen breeze, tickling her cheeks and unfastening her hair from its loosely held tangle. One bobbed past lazily, twirling in and out of space and time, dancing to a melody long forgotten now. The goddess of Spring reached out to touch it, to hold it, gently cradle it as a small child, but instead let out a paralysed gasp. A scene flashed before her eyes. 

A mother, clutching her child to her bosom, a sword upright and gleaming in her other hand. A soldier, Spartan, stepping over a door, blown back from its hinges, dangling dully from its tethers, flanked by three more men. She held the child tighter, and screamed a curse in Persian, fire in her eyes. The baby cried, and two more men came forth, dressed in the same tattered, faded cloth as the woman. A curved sword, glittering with the iron of Hephaestus' forges, brushed their throats. There was another scream as their heads plummeted to the ground, landing with a thud as their blood turned the dark dirt crimson. The baby wailed again as it was wrenched from its mother's arms, and the wails turned to shrieking as the woman fell as well. The child was carried from the house, and its howls could be heard from miles away for somehow, it knew its mother was dead.

 Persephone was dragged out of the memory, not her own, gulping back the tears that had already spilled down her face, dampening the roseate muslin that was already wet with green algae and mud accumulated from her water-borne journey. She put a hand over her mouth and let out a sob, anguish and heartache beating in her chest as her body was racked with another's misery. There were many moments when she thought she was alone. But suddenly there was a hand at her wrist, pulling her hand away from her face and forcing her to open her eyes. 

It was the man who had acted so strangely when she had met him at the gates of Hell. He was standing in front of her now, bashfully, still delicately holding her wrist with three fingers, his middle caught on one of her many bracelets depicting the rites of Spring. She looked over to his left hand, which now held the flaming globe. Tenderly, he laid it on the surface of the lake, as a cherubic youngling would with a paper toy, and waited, watching as it sunk softly into the darkness. When it was carried away by the tide to supposed safety, he looked up at her, from beneath dark eyelashes, the pain in his eyes washing away any fear she might have still felt. He looked at her, deeply, examining her tear-stained face and dirty clothes, before murmuring, "Azar was her name. She was the last soldier fighting in her village near Caria."

Persephone stared at the man and sniffled, ever so slightly. 

"Why?" she whispered.

The man dropped her hand gently, her jewellery rattling slightly in the silence that had fallen over the cavernous realm. He shook his head.

"Because people and gods require war. Gods require war for entertainment and people for greed. It is the way it has always been."

He then walked away, towards the large set of onyx doors that shimmered with unseen magic. They opened without his touching them, and revealed a dark throne. Persephone followed, for she knew not what else to do. She was transfixed by this man of night and memories and war, and it became more apparent to her how he could be a crucial part of the journey of death. 

"Forgive me," she called, stepping into the chamber, her strained voice echoing a thousandfold in the gloom. "But I am looking for the god of this realm, Hades. I was assured he would be with me soon."

The man turned, and stared at her with such a strange expression on his face. Confusion, pity ... and a small, half-smile appeared. Slightly sad. She furrowed her brow as he twisted away from her again, and lowered himself into the cathedra.

"And you shall not be kept waiting any longer," he replied evenly, with a flick of his hand closing the doors behind her with a crash. Persephone jumped.

"He is here."

Persephone looked back to the man with wide-eyed innocence, and finally saw the God of Death.