They had not expected the sight that greeted them as they walked through the doors.
Zeus. Seated in the throne, idly toying with a loose soul between his fingers, cold rage emanating throughout the room.
Persephone felt her mouth twist. The disrespect. How dare he.
Hades, however, seemed on the surface to be unaffected. He walked to the bottom of the dais, quiet footsteps echoing softly around the stone, and bowed his head.
"Brother. I see you have made yourself comfortable."
Zeus gave him an ugly grin. "Well, it is my throne, little brother, I do not see why I should not."
It took all of Persephone's self-control not to lunge at him with her nails and rake the smug look off his face, dismember the contemptuous superiority that had always betrayed his hubris in his voice and leave him cold and dead on one of the ritual alters at Delphi, to show the mortals that he was not the benevolent king they loved.
Surprise, and a tinge of terror jolted the goddess out of her revelry of patricide. Her heartbeat quickened.
She wasn't a violent person. On the contrary, she detested the way in which Olympus encouraged brawls and wars in the mortals, the way Ares held his sword with him always as if he hated to let the opportunity of a fight slip through his thick, stubby fingers. But here, now, she could think of nothing more joy inducing than ripping her fathers skull apart in her bare hands.
Was it the realm's influence? Was it Hades?
Her hands began to shake, and she soon realised it was from fury, not fear. And she understood that she had been cocooned before, unable to reach her full potential, her full promise of strength and resolution. But now? Oh my.
Olympus should guard itself much more warily than it had in centuries past.
"I suppose so," replied Hades indifferently. "You always claimed everything as yours anyway."
A flicker of electricity in the King's eye. "Careful, son of Kronos," Zeus murmured, smirking, before turning his gaze to his daughter.
"And what of the Lady Kore. Do you have nothing to say to me little one?"
Persephone stayed silent. He wanted her to rise to his taunt. He always had. She would not satisfy him today.
Zeus chuckled, before standing. The marbles in Olympus hadn't been terribly inaccurate - the King of the God's was a behemoth figure, and stood head and shoulders taller than his daughter, who had inherited her mother's height.
Hades, however, only had to look up slightly to meet his eyes.
"Come, brother, let us do away with civilities. There is no point in them. State your business here."
"You know what I come looking for."
Zeus stared into his brother's eyes before glancing over to Persephone.
"The Lady Kore will come back with me this instant. Really, Hades, I expected better of you, we all did. But kidnapping a poor, sweet young girl simply to get back at me -"
"Kidnapping?"
Damn. He'd done it. She had risen to his taunt, and now she could not back down.
"Oh, but lovely daughter of mine, that is what your selfishness has done. Talk abounds around Olympus, that Hades kidnapped you, forced you down here with him, to rot in this decrepit place."
Zeus curled up his nose and spat on the ground. It landed in a tendril of moss that shrivelled up upon impact, a spark igniting its animated screams as fire curled the green into black. Persephone choked.
"You will come back with me at once, Kore, if you wish no further punishment," he stated casually, strutting past his brother, knocking him ever so slightly as he did so, and waited at the doors, staring expectantly at her.
"Now," he added with a snap, eyes narrowing. The king had had enough of playing civil. His barely controlled anger was sure to erupt soon.
Persephone turned. He was not the only one.
She was the goddess of Spring. Daughter of the harvest, guardian of life, she protected those with so little malice from those who would watch the oceans burn. She had felt it, when the green heartbeat had extinguished - in her chest, like a knife between her bones, cutting her, maiming her.
Her sweetness was of the perfume of orchids in the summer. Her compassion, of gentle rain that brushed leaves with life. But her wrath was that of the sun at its core, of towering storms and hurricanes that whipped up dead bodies of Winter.
And her father had yet to feel the heat of a tempest.
"My name is Persephone," she said, softly, gently, without a tremor blemishing the beautiful tone. That was more dangerous than a scream.
Zeus scoffed, and was about to speak again before she interrupted.
"My name is Persephone, goddess of the Springtime, daughter of Demeter and child of rebirth. And I condemn thee, Zeus, King of Gods, to suffer eternally threefold to the atrocities you have committed in your arrogance and apathy."
She had expected a retort by now, but her father was so stunned by the hellfire that exuded the words that he was bound mute. She took the opportunity to continue.
"How dare you appear here, before the Lord of this realm, a brother who you have treated as scum beneath your feet, and be conceited, egotistical, so much so that Narcissus would be ashamed to refer to you as his lord. How dare you appear here, in his realm, and treat it as your own, when your own ruling leaves so much to be desired. You, who struts like a cock parted from a spur fight, who regards all others as inferior - you are not worthy to speak your brother's name. How dare you, impose upon him to remain eternally in darkness, alone, in solitude whilst you drunkenly stumble from mortal girl to mortal girl in blind foolishness and lust."
She had stopped speaking softly now. Her voice raised in volume with each word, and she spat each word with more venom than the last, her tongue becoming sour with hatred. Her father swelled with each sentence, like a volcano bursting at its seams - he had got what he wanted. She had risen to his taunt. But he had not counted on how much so.
"Persephone -"
"No." She interrupted Hades' attempt to stop her. His eyes were wide, and filled with unconcealed panic. He knew the consequences of her vocalised resent. But she did not care.
No one could stop her. Not even the King of Gods' himself.
"You have no power over me now, my king, and I will never, even with all the inducements and threats under Apollo's great sun, go with you willingly. And you know you cannot make me."
The king's barriers fell
"Foolish girl! Do you not answer to me, your king, your father? You are mine, and until you are married off as I told your mother long ago, you are my property and will do as I say!"
The doors blew off their hinges with crimson lightning, and a cloud of smoke engulfed Zeus - only his eyes were visible, golden, shining like beacons in the dark, furious and deadly.
Persephone paid no attention. She simply smiled, and raised her chin defiantly.
"I hope you will give Mother my regards," she said lightly. "But I do believe you have outstayed your welcome."
A brusque, Spring wind danced through throne room and brushed her father's silken mane off his shoulders.
To another being, it may have gone unnoticed. But to the king - it was near heresy. That she use her influence over the seasons on him, her father, her lord, was blatant and horrific disrespect that could have cost the goddess her head.
His eyes glowed with the promise of vindication.
"You will not exit this situation unscathed, daughter of mine," he murmured softly. It was more terrifying than when he had flamed.
Persephone smiled serenely again, before bowing, sarcasm inching into her voice as she said, "I hope not."
There was silence. And then the King of Gods allowed his imperial sceptre to touch the floor, a spark of lightning rippling under their feet. He smiled, a ghastly, grim smirk, before light blazed before the goddess's eyes, and he was gone.
Deafening reticence surrounded them and Persephone blew out a breath, smiling. She looked up to Hades, whose face had gone strangely pale.
"I don't think we will be bothered again," she beamed, delicate hands stroking her various ornamemts absent-mindedly. Finally, someone had stood up to her father. And what a denouncement it had been.
Her attention had been caught so on herself, that it took her more than a few moments to notice the lack of response from her companion. She glanced up.
He stood still, frozen, as the dark, intelligent eyes made calculations and debated points that she could never see. And then suddenly, he turned, away from her, and loped towards the door to the Council Chamber. Persephone, in her elated confusion, followed, but he put out a hand.
"What?" she asked, real agitation seeping into her bursting heart now. "What, what is it?"
Hades closed his eyes and shook his head ever so slightly.
"Do you have any idea what you have done," he whispered.
Persephone huffed out a bewildered laugh and she replied, "I finally told my father what no one else in Olympus will. I know what I have done, and I know it is good."
"There will be hell to pay for this, Persephone," he muttered, before again staggering away from her and into the adjoining room.
It was then that she realised. That look in his eyes, that heartbreaking stare - was fear. He was petrified.
Of what? she thought, blood pumping faster as anxiety flowed through her veins. Of Father?
Of her?
And though her gut, her better instincts, and every sense in the world screamed at her to run the other way, she knew she had to find out. As she walked over the doorway, she felt a tug towards the ground in her soul. She looked down and remembered the plant that her father had so mercilessly killed.
The goddess of Spring knelt down and gently lifted the fragile leaves with her finger. The stalk sat up from where it had prostrated itself, and seemed to blink owlishly as the green returned to its body and the sap ran through its stems again. It sighed, thank you, before standing up taller than before and resuming its post. Persephone stood up, grinned, and murmured, "You are welcome, my darling," before walking away, intent on resurrecting another life this day.