#persephone reader

Your little store sat in ruin, littered with the remains of flowers that had long since refused to bloom. Plants of all kinds, ones you had nurtured and cared for since childhood, now slumped in worn pots of dried soil, their leaves browned and curling where once they had bloomed with lushness and life.

No matter how hard you’d worked to revive them, it was like they had already given up on living. 

Thunder rumbled once more, and the white flash that followed lit up the dreary shop interior, highlighting every dying leaf and frayed edge.

The heart of the storm was drawing closer.

Wind shrieked through the shutters, slipping through the broken panes you couldn’t afford to replace. The sound clawed at your nerves, its howling rumbling through your bones.

Or maybe it was the thought of the inevitable bill they would leave you with, if you ever managed to cobble the money together, that had you on edge. Another one to add to the endless pile you were already scraping pennies together for.

Only your grandmother's datura had survived the winter, though it was barely a shadow of itself. It sat alone by the window in a clay pot spiderwebbed with cracks, its ghostly white petals folded into horns. Once, that cloying sweetness had dared you to lean closer, but the scent had long turned sickly as rot crept in at the edges. 

Still, a lone flower stood, stubbornly blooming as best as it could, white and waxy, reeking the same saccharine aroma. Of course the only thing that survived would be something you couldn’t sell. Useless. Poisonous. 

You moved through the shop on instinct, setting buckets beneath the worst of the leaks as usual and dragging what you could away from the windows as you made your way through to the back room that served as your office.

Your skirt brushed against a particularly dead plant on your way to the back room and the poor thing practically coughed, releasing a puff of brittle leaves that crunched when they hit the ground. 

Everything was dying, or already dead. It felt like a matter of time before you joined them, the dull ache behind your eyes echoing the slow decay of every green thing around you. 

The shop smelled like damp earth and abandonment, the air thick with the sweetness of a flower’s last breath. 

Rot. 

More leaks had sprung in the back room, with thin trails of rain sliding down the wall and pooling on the terracotta tile beneath it. A particular puddle had been growing larger since the storm started, spreading out over the tiles like a particularly relaxed cat until it had nearly doubled in size.

You could’ve screamed when your foot landed in it with a wet smack. Cold water surged through the sole of your shoe, seeping into your sock in an instant, the fabric drinking it in far too easily. It spread between your toes, slick and unwelcome, making the material cling damply to your skin, heavy in all the wrong places. 

It squelched when you took a step back in shock.

There wasn't any point in screaming.

No one was around to hear you. 

No one cared. 

A deafening rumble cracked overhead, accompanied by a sudden flare of white light. The building shook as something whipped against it, far too violently to have just been the wind. The lights flickered with a surge of electricity. The bulbs blinked and chimed before a sharp pop broke through the circuits and darkness swallowed the room shop.

You flipped the switches once, then again just to be sure but there was nothing. The electricity had gone. 

“You can’t be fucking serious,” you sighed, pinching the bridge of your nose. Your temples throbbed with the promise of an incoming migraine. “This place is going to kill me.” 

Maybe literally, if you didn’t get a light source quickly. 

The glow of your phone torch cut through the dark and the battery's yellow icon mocked you. Ten percent, of course. You grimaced, cursing yourself for always forgetting to charge the damn thing.

You clambered over stacks of papers, final notices, a debt collector’s receipt and plants in various stages of decay, trying to lift what you could out of reach of the spreading water. The paperwork was stiff with damp, edges curling where rain had already seeped into them.

Bills. 

It was always bills.

As you dragged one sodden stack of them onto a shelf, something slipped free from behind it and dropped to the floor with a soft, heavy thud.

You frowned and crouched, sweeping the torchlight downward.

It was a book. The leather cover was worn smooth at the edges, darkened with age and water, the spine softened as though it had been handled often and then forgotten. A thin line of damp had already begun to creep along the bottom edge.

Your stomach dipped in guilt as recognition arrived a second too late.

“Oh,” you gasped, snatching it up before it could soak through completely.

You set it aside on the desk without opening it, carefully, placing it as far away from the window as you could before returning to the much more pressing matter of light.

You were sure you had a pack of candles somewhere. Or at least, you hoped you did. It had been a long time since anyone had come in for a birthday, an anniversary, anything worth celebrating, and you couldn’t quite remember what stock you had left.

You almost whooped when you found a small, battered packet with exactly two tiny blue birthday candles rattling inside. It wasn’t much, but it would have to be enough.

You lit one quickly, killing off your phone torch, hoarding the last of its battery in the hope that it might save you later.

The candle’s yellow light crept across the back room, throwing dancing shadows across the cramped walls. The shadows were tall and reaching as they grasped and swayed, stretching out for something beyond their range. 

It flickered as you sank down into the chair behind the desk, your knees more giving out than choosing to bend. The wood creaked beneath your weight. You folded forward, elbows braced on the desk, head in your hands, breathing through the tight, aching knot in your chest.

Grandmother would know what to do. 

The thought came unbidden, heavy the way it always did when everything was falling apart around you. 

Your eyes lifted to the crowded mess of junk on the desk’s surface, the light catching the metal corner of your grandmother’s old journal. 

You ran your finger over it.

The spine was cracked with age, pages softened and yellowed from decades of hands just like yours. The margins were crowded with notes written in looping familiar script. Pressed petals flattened between pages. Wax stains. Dirt smudges. Evidence of a life lived among soil and roots and quiet knowing. 

This forgotten relic was the last thing your grandmother had left you. 

And like everything else she’d loved, it was wearing thin. 

You swallowed the guilt that rose up in your throat. 

It hadn’t been your fault. Not really.

You were the last on there, the final thread in a family tapestry that was already fraying at the edges. It was your burden, your duty. So you stayed. 

You were beside your grandmother through it all, staying and watching helpless as the light of knowing left her eyes, as her world narrowed to the four walls of her bedroom and warm, wet cloths. You hadn’t just loved her, it was so much more than that. You kept her. You gave your everything for her so that every moment was joyous and celebrated. 

You had held her on the earth longer than anyone else could have.

Flowers by her bedside, always. Sunlight pulled in through open windows even when winter bit at your fingers. You memorised the names of medications you should never have had to know. Painkillers, muscle relaxers, antipsychotics and more besides. None of them were cures, they were to keep her comfortable, to keep her out of it enough that she didn’t notice her death creeping up on her. 

But you did. 

The day she stood up on her own again, you understood. You'd read enough books on the dying process to recognise it instantly.

She had been in the kitchen, of all places, chopping vegetables like nothing had ever gone wrong. Like the past years hadn’t happened at all.

“Grandmother,” you’d said, panic sharp in your throat. “What are you doing out of bed?”

She’d smiled at you, warm and lucid, and all at once, you were a child again. Small and fragile and reeking of dirt from the gardens, running inside to find this exact scene. 

“Your grandfather will be along soon, dearie. He’s taking me on a trip,” she’d said, happy as anything. “Now, come along and help me with these carrots. I don’t want him waiting for his dinner.” 

Your heart broke, but you helped her anyway. 

That night, as you tucked her into bed and her hands finally grew still in yours, you knew you were watching the end of something sacred. Your tears fell freely.

After she passed, everything began to rot.

First the shop, then your spirit.

You couldn’t keep up with anything. Bills stacked higher than you could count. Medical bills. Electricity bills. Gas bills. Water bills. Final notices. 

Then the debt collectors came. They’d emptied the meagre amount of change from the register and made away with a few things to cover what they could, but even they could tell it was useless. Their eyes pinned you with a stare so pitying, you wanted to throw something at them. 

So, no, it hadn’t been a choice. It had been a cost. 

A sacrifice that had to be made to keep the last member of your family comfortable as she passed, and it meant more to you than keeping everything else together. 

But the decay had set in too deep and you couldn’t fix it, no matter how much you tried. The building was crumbling to the point that it was a hazard, the customers had long since gone, and even the suppliers stopped calling to collect their final payments.

You wanted to give it all up at times, to sell up or burn it down and walk away with your freedom, but you couldn’t. There was too much of your grandmother left in these walls. Too much of you. Every vine, every brick, every patch of peeling wallpaper was heavy with memory, love, grief, and time.

How do you sell that?

So now here you were. In the shop and all its crumbling glory, trying to pull together the walls that seemed determined to tear themselves apart. Trying to salvage what neglect and grief had already claimed. 

It had been desperation that dragged you out of your shitty apartment at well past midnight and straight into the eye of the storm. Desperation to fix this place. To undo the rot. 

Your grandmother had always seemed magical to you. Not in the glittering miracles or fairy-dust way people liked to imagine, but in something older. Quieter. A whisper-to-the-dead kind of way.

You had never known what else to call it.

You’d seen it, even if you hadn’t known what you were looking at at the time.

Animals that came to her broken and left calm. Fruit trees that bore more fruit than they had any right to. A shop that had stood untouched for decades under her care, only for thieves to come three times in the year since she’d passed.

Yes, magic was the only word you had for it. You’d always thought her journal was an extension of that, too. The same protection. The same quiet authority.

You thumbed the corner of the page, searching for the warmth of your grandmother’s hands and finding nothing.

Yours were a mess. Fingernails stained with the persistent grit of dry soil, a jagged white scar across your thumb from a wayward pruning shear, and skin that felt tight and chapped from work. They were the hands of someone trying too hard and gaining too little. They were nothing like hers. 

Her fingers had leafed through these pages countless times, pausing only when she found what she needed. A note in the margin. A pressed petal. A remedy scribbled beside a bloom’s name. Whatever it was, it had been enough to coax life back into things that should have been beyond saving.

You hoped it would be enough for you, too.

The pages were densely written in her handwriting. Loops and joins pressed close together, a lifetime of careful notes layered over one another until the paper itself had softened beneath them. It felt less like reading and more like eavesdropping on something private. Generations of knowledge crowded the margins, tucked between dried petals and wax stains, the ink darkened by age and use.

Maybe you’d been looking at it for too long. 

Your eyes burned from crying, from squinting in the thin light of the candle. The words blurred when you blinked, then slid back into focus. But something about them felt wrong. The further you read, the less consistent the script became. Letters slanted where they had once stood straight. Curves tightened. Lines wavered, as if the hand that wrote them had faltered, or hesitated, or been pulled away.

You turned another page.

And then there was nothing.

The final sentence stopped mid-thought, the ink ending abruptly as though the pen had been lifted in haste. No flourish. No punctuation. Just an absence, sitting where the end of the sentence should have been.

Your stomach dropped.

“No,” you whispered, already reaching for the page again.

That can't be right. 

Your grandmother had been particular to the point of obsession. This journal had rules. You’d known them since childhood. Do not touch it. Do not read it. Do not even move it from its place. Not until it was given to you. Not until her hands were too weak to hold it herself.

She would never leave a page unfinished.

You thumbed back through the journal, fingers tracing the raised grooves of ink, the brittle edges of dried flowers stitched carefully between the pages. Every entry was complete. Meticulously finished in her neat penmanship.

Until the last page.

It sat there, open and silent, refusing to explain itself.

The candle guttered beside you, its flame shrinking, wax pooling thick and uneven at the base.

Time was running out.

You swore under your breath and reached for the second candle just as the first sputtered, its flame shrinking into a trembling blue dot before vanishing altogether. Smoke curled upward, acrid and cloying. 

You lit the replacement quickly, hands shaking from stress and cold as you pressed the wick to the flame. The fragile light bloomed again. 

You stuck the candle into a lump of Blu-Tack and fixed it to the desk, a pitiful little holder to necessity. Your eyes flicked to the clock, doing the maths without thinking. You only had fifteen minutes of light, maybe less.

You looked at the journal closer, angling it, tilting the spine this way and that. The candle flickered in protest, the fragile light casting crawling shadows across the pages, the ink slipping in and out of clarity.

Nothing. 

You checked again. Slower this time. Running your thumb along the inner margin where the binding met the paper. Pressing. Feeling for something, anything. 

And then, you felt it.  A faint unevenness beneath your fingertip that was too thick to be paper alone. 

“What is that?” you breathed.

The journal came closer still, almost pressed to your face as you examined the back binding. Hidden beneath the glued seam, just out of sight, was the edge of something folded thin and tight into the spine.

Your pulse thundered in your ears.

Your grandmother’s voice rose unbidden in your mind, sharp and certain.

Don't pry, dearie. Some things are not meant to be rushed.

Your hands shook harder, from the cold or the stress, you couldn't tell.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, though you weren’t entirely sure to whom.

You slid your fingernail beneath the edge of the hidden page. The glue resisted just enough to give way in places, clung stubbornly in others, the paper tearing with a sound so jarring, it felt deafening.

You flinched.

The rip was messy and uneven. Tiny shreds of fibers clinging to your skin and the binding alike. This was not how it was meant to be opened.

But when you finally eased the page free the sentence was complete.

And beneath it, written in a hand that was your grandmother's and yet not quite, was something else entirely.

A poem.

The loops were unfamiliar, the rhythm off and urgent or even fearful. 

If it blooms in darkness, it was meant to live there. Build an altar from the breath of dying things. Offer roots. Offer something broken. Speak to Her in the hour before the veil closes.

The words sat heavily on the page.

You read them aloud without meaning to, your voice barely more than a whisper, just to break the silence pressing in around you.

The candle flame shuddered.

Something in your chest ached with recognition. Not understanding, but familiarity. Like a half-remembered song tugging at the back of your memory, coaxing you to join in with the melody.

I’ve heard this before.

A long time ago. When you were small. When the world still felt kind. When your grandmother’s hands had been steady and warm and certain, guiding yours through soil and stem and breath.

You swallowed.

The candle burned lower.

The final page was crowded with drawings and diagrams, inked in tight spirals and sharp lines. In the flickering light, they seemed to shift, almost breathing as your eyes traced their paths.  Words you did not recognise filled in the spaces, letters that refused to settle into meaning, scraping against something old and unsteady in your mind.

The air crackled with a faint hum.

A low vibration that crawled up your spine and settled in your bones, thrumming through your veins until it drowned out the thunder beyond the walls. 

It was the same static your grandmother used to carry with her. The feeling that prickled the air when she spoke softly to stubborn plants, when she coaxed life back into things long dead and willed them to behave.

It had worked for her and right now, you had nothing left to lose.

Your hands began to move, guided by memory and grief and the quiet instinct of someone who had spent their whole life tending to what was fragile. You gathered what you could. A broken pot that still held its shape. A brittle sprig of lavender, crushed between your fingers until it released a ghost of its scent. A pothos you had poured your teenage heart into, now reduced to dry wisps and dust.

And finally, the datura.

You lifted it from the soil with care, cradling it like a child. The roots came free too easily, wispy strands of white barely clinging to the dry earth that had failed it. You didn’t know how it had survived this long.

Maybe it was waiting for this moment. 

Maybe you were losing your mind.

You arranged the altar as the page instructed, stems laid with deliberate care, the candle pressed into a lump of Blu-Tack at its centre. The result was pitiful. Desperate. Almost laughable.

But it was done.

Your heart hammered against your ribs as you drew a breath and spoke.

To Her? 

“Ummmm… hello?” 

The flame jumped, and so did you, nearly flying out of your chair in shock.

“Fucking hell!” 

Not, perhaps, the most sacred invocation. 

You cleared your throat and started again, forcing your shoulders to drop as you lowered yourself back to the chair, legs folding awkwardly beneath you. The cold wood pressed through the thin fabric of your skirt as you stared into the tiny, wavering flame.

“Okay. I’m… I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do here,” you admitted quietly. “But I think I need help.”

The words felt too small for the room. Too fragile to survive the air between you and whatever might be listening.

“I don’t have anything left to give,” you went on, voice catching despite your effort to steady it. “Nothing left to bloom, or grow. I’m just… lost.”

You swallowed hard, a lump forming in your throat as your eyes burned. 

“When my grandmother passed, I didn’t realise how much it would-”

The bell above the shop chimed.

Soft and singular, like a thread snapping in a dark room.

Your heart slammed violently against your ribs. 

You’d locked it. You had definitely locked it. 

It was well past midnight. The streets outside were drowned beneath rain and debris, the storm howling without pause. No one should have been out there. No one could have made it through that weather.

No one with good intentions, at least.

You pushed yourself to your feet, breath shallow, pulse roaring in your ears as you rounded the corner back into the shop, hoping that it was just the wind blowing through the cracks and not a person. 

“Sorry, we’re-”

The words died in your throat.

Because someone was there.

Standing barefoot on the cold terracotta tiles, between your failing monstera and the shelf of discounted succulents, was the most beautiful woman you had ever seen. 

But beautiful seemed entirely the wrong word to describe her. In fact, there wasn't one in any language you knew.

You gaped, mouth opening soundlessly, some part of you dimly aware that you probably looked like a fish that had been dragged onto land.

She did not belong in your shop. She didn't belong on this earth. Instinctively, you knew that.

She stood in a stillness that didn’t belong to the living. Moonlit marble pretending to breathe. Her hair spilled down her back in a sheet of oil-slick obsidian threaded through with strands of silver that shimmered faintly, like starlight caught and woven into flesh. As if the sky itself had found its way into her veins.

The candlelight kissed over her skin, the tiny flame being almost swallowed whole beside the glow of her skin, luminous and impossible, as though she carried her own quiet dawn beneath it. A woman who could end wars. A woman who could start them.

You didn’t mean to stare, your body simply forgot how to do anything else.

She moved at last. Slowly. Deliberately. As if the world bent around her presence.

Your thoughts scattered uselessly, caught on the detail that her bare feet made no sound against the tile. Not a whisper. Not a breath.

Her gown floated around her in layers of sheer fabric. Silk and ash and the suggestion of spring sunlight, moving in ways cloth should not. It caught the light and bent it, glimmering with something more radiant than diamonds, woven by hands that had not touched mortal looms in centuries.

She drifted toward the counter, her movement more a glide than steps. Her eyes narrowed as she took in the state of the plants around her. Her brows furrowed. The crease between them deepening as small, irritated sounds slipped from her throat, soft huffs of disapproval that made your stomach knot in shame.

Her delicate fingers brushed over the crisp, lifeless petals of a wilted rose beside the register. It had been the last plant to give up. The last to fall victim to your ruin. 

A quiet tut left her lips as her finger traced the length of the stem.

And then it bloomed.

Life tore through the plant in a sudden, violent breath. Leaves unfurled with a wet rush, veins darkening as sap surged through them. Thorns sharpened, tipped in deep, vivid red. Petals burst open in a flushing cascade, the air flooding with the perfect, overwhelming scent of roses.

You blinked and rubbed your eyes, wondering if the late nights and stress had finally caught up to you. Perhaps you were dreaming or maybe hallucinating, because there was no way that what you were seeing was possible.

There was no way someone could breathe life into a plant that dead.

You blinked again, but nothing changed. 

You were wide awake. 

The woman lingered over the rose, fluffing its leaves, adjusting the blooms with meticulous care, as if restoring order after a minor inconvenience. Only when she seemed satisfied did she turn to you.

“You called for me.” 

Her voice was soft. Dangerous.  It carried weight, the kind that pressed into stone and cracked it over centuries. Something ancient moved beneath the sound of it, something carved from thunder and stone. A voice with gravity.

The vibration of it struck through your bones and caught your breath. “I-I didn’t mean to,” you stammered. “I mean, I didn’t mean to do any of this.”

“You wanted life,” she said calmly. “You asked for it.” 

Her gaze slid past you, settling on the dying candle in the back room. The pitiful altar. Her mouth curled faintly in distaste.

“And you offered,” she continued. “Something broken. Something beautiful. Something rooted, barely, but rooted enough.”

She stepped closer.

Her eyes traced you slowly, calculating and certain, as one might appraise your worth, your resolve, or perhaps, the shape of your desperation.

“I should be furious,” she said, her voice lowering as her smile grew sharp at the edges. “But I’m not.”

You’d never seen green eyes like that before. And not just in colour, but depth. Moss-dark and sunlit all at once, flecked with gold like light caught in verdant leaves. Seasons lived there. Decay and abundance. Death folded carefully into rebirth.

She stared unblinking, untouched by the dust and the dirt.

“Who-” you breathed. “Who… are you?”

Her head tilted, just slightly. A small, deliberate motion that carried the faintest echo of amusement, as though she were humouring a child who had finally asked the obvious question.

“I have many names, we all do,” she said. “But for your sake, you may call me Persephone.”

The word itself seemed to draw the warmth from the room. The air tightened around it, as though the space recognised the name before you did.

You let out a breath that might have been a laugh if it weren’t so brittle. This had to be some elaborate trick. Some break in reality you hadn’t noticed forming. You had definitely lost it, any moment now you would come to in your apartment and this whole thing would be nothing more than a dream.

But her eyes held you there. Unmoving. Unkind to the disbelief you wore on your face.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered, retreating just a fraction. 

Her gaze narrowed, eyes tracing the line of your throat as if watching the pulse of a trapped bird. 

“You asked for help,” she said. “Did you not?”

There was a sharp edge to the amusement in her tone, the same weariness of a grown-up addressing a child with a stupid question. It threaded through her voice without ever touching her face. “You lit the candle. You made the offering. You spoke the words. Surely you didn’t think the universe was deaf, little mortal.”

She took a slow step away from you, turning her attention to the shop with visible displeasure, as though the rot in the air offended her senses.

“And now,” she continued, almost idly, “you recoil at being answered by the very goddess you asked for?”

A Goddess? 

Her eyes traced the wilted leaves, the mould creeping along the edges of pots, the quiet ruin clinging to the walls.

“And gods,” she murmured, a faint curl of disdain at her lips, “what have you done to this place?”

Shame rose hot in your chest. You wanted to defend yourself, to tell her to shut the fuck up and get out, but she was right. And she was a goddess, apparently. From what you remembered of the old stories, it was better to stay in her good graces, at least, just to be on the safe side.

Still, her words hurt. They twisted the splinter of guilt already lodged beneath your ribs.

“I… I didn’t mean for it to get this bad, I promise,” you said, your voice cracking. ”But we- well, I have nothing left.” 

You hated how small you sounded.

“Evidently,” she said, a thinly veiled sneer curling her lip as she nudged a fallen leaf aside with her foot.

The woman- The Goddess- Persephone made her way around the shop slowly, the hem of her gown whispering across the floor like fog curling over graves. Every step carried confidence and grace and fury, grief and rebirth. Her eyes never left you. It was terrifying.

“You’re trembling,” she observed, voice low and lilting, cruel in a way only someone ancient and exhausted could manage. “Is it fear? Or awe?” 

You opened your mouth, then shut it again. You couldn’t tell. Both, perhaps. Or neither.

Your brain snapped all the pieces into place before you realised. Adding up the "poem", the altar, the fact that you locked the door, the way those roses practically rose from the dead.

“I don’t understand,” you whispered. The words came out raw, scraped from the depths of your belief. “How are you real?” 

“Real?” she echoed, amusement curling faintly through her voice. “I am the only living thing left in this place, and that includes you. You are as barren as the rest of this dingy little nightmare.”

The words struck like ice water, and yet her expression flickered with something almost triumphant. A cruel satisfaction, as though she had been waiting for this moment. Waiting for awe. Waiting to be recognised.

“And yet here I am,” she continued, “with you and your pitiful altar and your dead flowers, begging for something you don’t understand.” 

You bristled.

Were all goddesses this vicious? 

“I wasn’t, I just…”

“You called,” she snapped, all softness gone, clearly at the end of her patience. “You called, and I answered. Do you know how long it has been since anyone remembered how to do that? Since I have been able to get ou-” 

She stopped herself, drawing in a measured breath before stepping closer.

“I’m offering you a miracle, foolish little mortal. Help. Power. Life.” Her gaze darkened. “But everything worth having demands a cost.”

Your heart hammered wildly. “What kind of cost?”

Persephone tilted her head, feigning consideration. “A fair one,” she said lazily. If you'd had more of your wits about you, you would've seen how her smile betrayed the lie. “Think of it as a temporary exchange.”

“Exchange?” You swallowed. “What could I possibly give you in exchange for your help?”

“I need time,” Persephone said, her gaze raking over you. “Time you clearly aren’t using.”

You frowned. “What?”

She sighed, irritation sharpening her tone. “I will grant you a trade. You will take my place for six months. In the Underworld. Two seasons, really. That is all.” She waved a dismissive hand. “And I will walk in your world for the same.”

You stared at her. Surely she didn't mean that literally. Six months in the Underworld had to be symbolic. A ritual. A metaphor. Anything but-

“You’re serious,” you whispered.

“I am always serious,” she said, though her eyes glittered with delight, giddiness even. “Oh, the things I could do with six months among the living. The food. The sky.” Her gaze flicked around the shop. “And of course, I would fix up this…” She swiped a finger through the dust on a shelf and flicked it away. “Decrepit little shop.”

She nearly glowed with the idea, shining so brightly you almost felt the need to squint.

Then her smile vanished.

“Do we have a deal?”

Every instinct screamed that this was a terrible idea. But the quieter voice, the desperate one, whispered back: You asked for help. This is help. You can’t back out now.

“I-I don’t understand,” you said. “What does that mean? Take your place? How would that even work?”

Persephone rolled her eyes.

“We would switch,” she said, as if explaining something painfully obvious. “I take your body. You take mine. No one can know.”

Your stomach dropped. “So I am supposed to what? Rule the Underworld?”

She sighed and inspected her nails.

If you didn’t already know better, you might’ve mistaken her for one of the mean girls at your high school. But this wasn’t Amber or Kaitlin. This was Persephone, Goddess of Spring. 

“Hardly,” she said. “You won’t have to do anything except keep everything as it is.” She waved it off. “It is complicated, but during the exchange, we will glimpse fragments of each other’s memories. Enough for you to understand your role. Enough for me to… help you here.”

She made it sound effortless. Thoughtless. As though she had already solved every problem.

“That all sounds far too simple,” you said.

Her eyes flashed with unspoken anger. 

Oh, you fucked up!

“You have no idea what it means to be me.”

Fix it. Fix it now.

“I’m sorry,” you blurted. “T-that’s not what I meant. I just meant that you’d be doing so much for me and…” Your words faltered, dissolving into the silence stretching between you.

She stepped closer.

“It won’t be easy. Do you think I enjoy it? Rotting in a kingdom of ash and silence while the world blooms above my head?” She spat the words like they were poison she’d been forced to swallow for centuries.  “I was always meant to be more than a wife. I want my life back.”

She reached out, and a chalice bloomed into existence in her hand. Delicate as spun starlight, rimmed in gold. The liquid inside shimmered with colours that should not exist, pulsing softly, like something alive.

You stared at it, the weight of everything crashing down at once.

She wasn’t just offering you a deal, she was trying to claw her way out of her cage.

God, gods(?), you would be so out of your depth. 

“If I agree…” You said slowly. “If I take your place…”

She nodded. “You will be protected. Everyone will think you’re me. You will be safe, as long as you play your part.”

You swallowed. “And if I don’t?”

The smile she gave you was beautiful. And utterly terrifying.

“Do you truly want to know what happens to mortals who toy with gods?” she asked softly. “Are you really so ignorant?” Her eyes burned. “I will know the moment you step out of line. And when you do, you will be punished.”

So, that was it then. Your options were spectacularly shitty. 

Option A: Hand over your grandmother’s legacy, the only thing you had left of her, to a clearly mentally unstable goddess who looked like she was ready to burn the world down just for fun. 

Or. 

Option B: Refuse, and wait for the debt collectors to show up and break your legs while the bank auctioned off your life and organs piece by piece. 

And that was assuming that Persephone didn’t decide to turn you into a decorative fern for being an “ignorant” disappointment before she left. 

You stared at the chalice, the metaphorical point of no return. You’d be out of your depth the second your feet touched the Underworld, but at least down there, the windows wouldn’t be caving in and the bills wouldn’t be your problem.

What kind of a choice did you really have?

Your mouth turned dry as you nodded.

She lifted the chalice again. “Drink.”

The liquid shimmered invitingly. And her eyes, hard and furious as they were, held something else beneath them. Urgency. Need. Almost a plea.

Something in your chest twisted. Reason clawed for purchase through the rising hum in your skull. And yet…

You took the cup and brought it to your lips. 

It tasted sweeter than any wine you had ever known, sparkling across your tongue like starlight and dreams. The flavour shifted as you swallowed. Smoky and sweet. Whiskey and cream. Every taste you had ever longed for, layered and overwhelming, yet impossibly fresh.

You drained the chalice far too quickly, tipping your head back and letting the liquid slide down your throat.

Your head spun from the taste. 

Wait. No. Not from the taste. 

Your head was actually spinning, the same way it did when you overindulged in cheap vodka. 

The room tilted as black spots swam across your vision. Your hands clutching at your chest to try and still your racing heart, pounding so violently it felt like it might tear its way free.

Everything hurt, Gods, it all hurt so much. 

Your knees buckled before you felt them hit the floor, your vision splintering, fracturing into shards. 

Somewhere above you, Persephone laughed, her voice bright and delighted.

“Try not to ruin everything. I worked hard to make my masterpiece,” she chuckled lightly. “Oh, and I probably should have mentioned… this might sting a little.”

The last thing you registered was your head striking the tile and her peals of laughter ringing out like a bell. 

Then darkness took you. 

Total and blinding.

Okay, so first chapter done! What did we think? This is actually the 3rd time I have rewritten this chapter and I'm actually still not entirely happy with it BUT I can't sit on it forever, no matter how much I want to.

Massive thanks to my beta reader @diamondtiger 💎, who has had to suffer through 85 pages of my inital draft work and spelling errors!

You’re not thinking of him now. No. Absolutely not. Gardens are not for blood-soaked, violent men that smell like gunpowder and smoke – and neither are your thoughts. Your thoughts are to be as sun-soaked as the flowers, bleached out by warmth and light. Depthless, shadowless.

There’s soil dusting your fingers. You kneel in the flossy grass to plant wooden dowels, support for drooping stems growing too tall, too fast. You’re endeared by them, that they’re exploding with so much life that they need a helping hand. Perhaps you’re anthropomorphizing them a bit too much. This little recess you’ve carved out of the world is beautiful but lonely.

You hum a soft tune as you bow twine, some happy new pop song about summer. Heard it on the radio in the grocery store and haven’t gotten it out of your head since. The back of your neck prickles.

“Missed your voice, bonnie.”

You yelp as big, rough hands scoop you from the ground. Strong fingers grip your thigh, a wide palm supports your ribs, tugging you close to a thick, muscular body. The rough fabric of tac gear sands against the exposed skin of your stomach. You flail until your arms loop around broad shoulders, a chuckle rumbling into the hollow of your throat.

“Missed that noise specifically.”

You gasp air for another shout, but get jostled up into a fireman’s carry, wind knocked out of you. There will be no screaming for your distant neighbors this time.

“Put me down,” you wheeze instead.

“In a mo’, love.”

You grunt indignantly as the ground blurs beneath you, tools left behind as powerful legs tread the path back to your little house. Spend the disconcertingly short journey thinking of new things to call him, since you’ve been running out.

There’s a heavy wooden thump.

“Don’t kick my door!” you screech.

“I’ll fix the damn door,” he growls back.

Your head spins as you’re dropped to your bare feet on the wood floors, just inside the back door. Steady yourself on corded forearms to catch your bearings, then open your mouth to give him a dressing down he hasn’t had since recruit days.

But a hot, wet tongue slides against yours, curling expertly into your mouth. Dry, warm lips pressing hard. That same arm curls around your chest to gather you close; the breadth of him steals your coherence as much his kiss. Your venomous words are superseded by a soft noise, one that you’ll deny is the admission of pleasure he takes it as.

When he pulls away, you find your fingers curled in the muted green of his shirt, knuckles pressed against his beating heart. Its pace matches yours.

You flutter your eyes open, find summer blue gazing back. Softer than the grass you just knelt in, warmer than the sun in your hair. You swallow back surrender, blink away admissions.

“I was in the middle of something, you bastard,” you snap.

John MacTavish grins back, crooked and arrogant, the scar beneath his eye pulling. “It’ll keep.”

“Then so will dinner.”

His eyes light up. You curse as you realize your mistake.

“You gonnae cook f’me, love?”

“No.” You back away, but it’s like trying to outrun the wind. He manages to make your deliberate retreat feel like a choice he’s making, hedging you deeper into the house. Back, back, unerringly corralling you towards the bedroom. You know it, but you’re helpless to stop it.

“S’alright, you’ve been cookin’ enough, I reckon,” he drawls. “Don’t mind makin’ somethin’ fer you.”

If by “cooking” he means cobbled together snacks that level out to something like nutritional balance, then yeah. You’ve been cooking for yourself.

“Not enough ingredients for two,” you snark, eyes sliding away in a show of dismissal. “You’ll have to starve.”

He smirks, balancing you with hands on your waist when you bump the bedroom door ajar. Your stomach clenches up like you’re on a rollercoaster. Know what’s coming next but dig your heels in anyway.

“Nah, just gonnae eat now.”

Your mouth drops open just as he pounces, squealing as your back hits the mattress. The ceiling is decorated in fairy lights you forgot to turn off this morning. They twinkle brightly as John wrestles your dirty cotton “work” shorts off your thighs, leaves them hanging off one calf.

“Goddamit!” you shout as he tears through yet another pair of underwear. Nothing special, mind, but it’s the principle of the thing. They’re not his to rip.

“Gotcha more ‘fore I came home.”

That doesn’t make it better, you try to tell him. What comes out is a warbling moan as he buries his tongue in your pussy. Licks from your shamefully leaking hole to your already-throbbing clit. He grunts in reply, deep and rough in his wide chest. Drops himself onto the floor for better access, pulling your thighs over his shoulders.

Eats you out like this really is his first and last meal. Sloppy and wet and loud, audible over the sounds you try to stifle behind your forearm because your hands are still dirty. Get away with it for all of a minute (being generous) before he’s pulling back just enough to speak – even if it’s right into your cunt.

“No, no, no, we have a deal,” he growls. You whimper as his hands clamp down on your squirming hips. “I’m home now, you’re mine. This pussy, those noises, they’re all mine again.”

Your hands fly to his hair as he dives in again, tangling in dark, course strands as he laps at you like a dog. If you could rally the brain power to speak more than unintelligible sounds, you’d mock him with that imagery. But knowing him, he’d revel in the comparison. Would bark just to prove a point.

You can’t stand that you know him.

“That’s it,” he rasps. “My goddess.”

You arch as he sucks your clit, flicking the tip of his tongue over the bundle of the nerves. Thumbs massaging into the plush of you. Stubble prickling a bit; you’ll have to remember to tell him off for that later.

“Missed me too,” he continues, flat of his tongue licking a long stripe up your slit. Strings of your slick web between his mouth and your pussy. “Dripping like you missed me, anyway.”

“D-didn’t,” you whine.

He chuckles, the absolute devil, humming as he curls his tongue inside you. Doesn’t believe you, doesn’t even deign to challenge it. Just keeps fucking you on his mouth, groaning when your twitchy fingers tug at his hair. Doubles his efforts, any semblance of restraint crumbling as the time and distance overwhelm his usually infallible patience. Overwhelm you too.

It’s been so long – since the night before he last left. You’re oversensitive and touch-starved and John is a feast for your body and soul. Lose everything to the tides of lust, the current of ecstasy. Washed out to a sea of bliss, floating on awful need. Tilt your hips into the next swipe of his tongue, back arching, thighs tightening as you shudder.

“John,” you keen, “John, Johnny.”

He makes a gutted noise. One hand jerking from your hip to slide two thick fingers into you. Tears gather and rebel down your cheeks as he zeroes in on that sweet, achy spot inside of you. He is a man for whom mercy is scarce and he has none to spare for you, stroking and tapping relentlessly. Your peak rushes up frighteningly fast, voice lost in the shock of it as you clamp down.

He works you through it, savoring your orgasm like the first inhale of smoke in his lungs. Keeps licking and rubbing until your sobbing with overstimulation, trying to scramble away.

“No, John,” you warble, “t-too much, please!”

The sound when he pulls away is utterly obscene. If you had any room in your empty brain for embarrassment, you’d wish for the mattress to swallow you whole. You flutter your eyes open and stare blankly at the fairy lights as you struggle to breathe.

John’s kissing your trembling thighs like he didn’t just ruin everything all over again, whispering devotion into your beard burn.

When you manage to sit up a bit on shaking arms, you find him kneeling there. A supplicant to the alter of your pleasure. Ruthlessly handsome, war-torn. His chin glistens with your slick. You reach to wipe it away, but he catches your wrist in a deceptively gentle hand. Keeps his blown-out eyes on yours as he presses a slow kiss into the center of your palm.

Words bubble in your chest, too honest, even for you.

“My hands are dirty,” you whisper.

“Never.”

You curl your fingers around his jaw. Tell yourself it’s not a caress, no matter how he leans into it. “When did you get back?”

“Eighteen hours.”

You bite the inside of your cheek. Gather your scattered wits. “You wore your damn boots in the house.”

He huffs with amusement, leans his forehead into your stomach. “I’ll mop.”

“You’ll shower first. You smell like travel.”

“You’re coming with me.”

“I have to finish in the garden.”

He scowls even with his eyes closed. You tap-tap-tap absently at his shoulder, where your hand has naturally come to rest.

“I’ll come out with you,” he grumbles.

“You’ll scare the birds.”

“Fuck the birds.”

You tsk, but there’s no force on earth that will keep him inside. “Mean bastard.”

He grins against your stomach. “Darling wife.”

Next

He had told you that you were meant to be his queen. To rule by his side.

You laughed in his face.

You were your own person, and you would be damned if you were to be stuck here for all eternity with someone who kidnapped you, who claimed you like you were the last toy on the shelf.

Letting go of the window frame, along with dropping the tied-up sheets on the stone ground, you walk past Namjoon, ignoring him and the tilt of his lip. The stupid, attractive smile that he wore whenever you tried to escape.

“Sweetheart, you are mine. The sooner you realize that, the sooner our bond can grow. You are the Goddess of the Underworld and deserve to be worshipped like only I can provide.” You roll your eyes, tired of listening to the same speech he gives you every time.

Sometimes, you wonder why you don’t just give in, why you don’t just let him take care of you like he promises. But then you see the smirk he wears on his lips, and you remember.

It was like a game that only he seemed to play. Teasing you and making you feel secure, and then you try to escape, and he locks you up again in the bedroom. You didn’t think he had a serious bone in his body, but by god, you couldn’t help but want to jump him at any given moment.

You had to hold your breath every time you were near him, for his scent only drove you closer, wanting to shove your face into his strong chest.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” You enter the room, walking forward and taking a seat on the bed, as far from him as you can. When you look up, his eyes are locked on yours, narrowed and dark as he bites on his bottom lip.

“Now, why don’t we just continue like normal, where you leave and go do whatever it is that you do, and you lock me up again where I just try and think of another escape plan. Sound good?” Your sarcasm as him rolling his own eyes, his footsteps coming closer to you before he picks you up with one arm, making you scramble for balance. You lock your arms around his neck just in time for him to push you against the wall.

“How about this. Why don’t you tell me why you really want to leave, and I will let you go?” Namjoon’s tone is low, a teasing lilt to his voice as he watches you. He watches your throat move, a gulp going down as you try to breath. One of his hands was holding onto the back of your thigh, fingers dangerously tracing the bottom of your shorts. The other was on your waist, almost brushing against your breast.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Who would want to stay somewhere with the person who kidnapped them out of their bed and continues to treat them like a toy.” You teeter on yelling at him, a scoff to your words. You didn’t understand what he was talking about.

Your heart beats faster, seeing him bring his hand to your face, fingers tracing your jawbone. The touch as shivers moving up your spine, despite your brain telling you it’s out of disgust, you unfortunately know better.

“My darling, once you admit how much you desire me, then you can go, and I will not follow. But you have to say it.” Another scoff leaves your lips, making him growl out at your defiance.

Namjoon was quickly losing patience with you. He could sense your desire for him, could see in your eyes every time he looked your way how you had to clench your thighs together. Your nectar giving him every indication of your feelings towards him. Like sweet pomegranates, your scent jolted with every touch.

Moving closer, he brushed his nose against the pulse in your neck, listening and watching as it jolted at the slightest touch. You could feel his smirk against you, could feel the brush of his lips on your pulse point as he placed a small kiss to the skin.  

You tried to clench your thighs, needing to quell the tingles you were feeling in your core, only to remember your thighs were wrapped around his hips, letting him feel every twitch of your body against him. You felt him smirk against your neck again, making you want to push him away.

You couldn’t help but feel that familiar need to run. That you needed to get away from him and his hypnotizing touch. You couldn’t think when he was so close. Every nerve in your body was telling you to run and hide, but now, you didn’t know if it was from him or from you.

“Darling girl, you mean to tell me you have no clue why your pulse jumps every time I get near? Why you feel the need to clench your thighs when I get close enough to touch?” He watches you shake your head, choosing again to deny your feelings for him instead of admitting them.

‘Maybe I can push them out.’ Namjoon thinks, planning another way for you to admit your feelings. He knew, once you admit your feelings verbally, you would never be able to leave. It’s the modern-day pomegranate seed, keeping you here with him forever.

Going in for the kill, Namjoon starts placing hard kisses against your neck, his tongue laving up your jaw before nibbling on your ear lobe. Your breath hitches in your throat, focused on the feeling of him against you. His arm now picks you up from the wall, moving towards the bed and pushing you down. He is quick to cover your body with his own, all while keeping his lips on you, creating marks on the expanse of your neck and shoulders.

He pulls away to look at you, your eyes blown wide and the deep flush to your cheeks only making him grow harder against your thigh. You looked like an absolute goddess underneath him, and he couldn’t wait for you to realize it.

“If you want to leave so badly, why do you trap me between your legs, hmm?” He tries to lift his hips from your core only for them to move back down, your ankles crossed right above his ass, anchoring him to you.

Your body seems to be betraying you left and right, your ankles unwilling to let go of his hips. He quirks his eyebrow at you again before digging his hips into yours, making you feel all of him against you. A small moan leaves your lips, your fingers tightening their hold against the sleeve of his shirt.

You didn’t understand why your body was acting such a way, when all you wanted was to leave. It’s not like you actually liked the Lord of the Underworld. You hated the mere mention of him, didn’t you?

“I don’t know what you mean.” You mumble out, trying to hold in your moans at the feeling of him moving against your core, his lips sucking marks onto your neck. You were so caught up in the feeling of him against your core, that you almost missed his hand moving south, the tips of his fingers slipping under your underwear.

Another gasp leaves your lips as his middle finger brushes against your core, his cold touch making you jolt. He chuckles at your movement, letting you get used to his touch before he moves further down, the tip of his middle finger slipping into your entrance. But he doesn’t move, watching as you start to move your hips, trying to entice him to move with you. However, he stays still, even slipping his fingers back out.

“please” you whimper, blind to the logic rushing through your brain and instead listening to your heart as it tells you to stay. All you want Namjoon to do is to keep his promises. You wanted him to touch you, to make you feel warm in the depths of this castle he keeps you in.

“You know what I want. It’s the only way I can help you, my love.” You squeeze your eyes shut at his words, the pity in them making you want to cry.

“Come on my darling, all you have to do is tell me why you want to leave. Why your heart beats for me, and I can help you.” Those were two contrasting things, but your mind didn’t notice that. You didn’t notice the twist to his words, the catch that he was hinting at.

All you saw was a way for him to prove his promise to you. All you needed to do was say something. You were taking too long though, making you grasp at Namjoon’s hand that was leaving your skin. You shook your head, eyes pleading with the god to not leave.

“My darling, if you want this, if you want me, all you have to do is ask.” His voice was like honey, dripping into every crevice of your soul. It was like you could feel him everywhere, covering every pore and piece of skin you had. It consumed you until you were crying.

“Please. Please Namjoon.” Your tears had him cooing, leaning forward until he was kissing at the stray tears falling down your cheek.

“What do you want, my love?”

“I want you.”

Your words had Namjoon surging forward, finally capturing your lips with his own, sealing the deal before you could take anything back. He had waited months for this, for the opportunity to have you, eternally.

His hands moved with a new confidence, ripping your clothes off. He was careful with you, his touch soft as he kissed his way down your body. He was excited that you were his. All he wanted to do was map out every inch of you. Find out what made you create those sweet sounds that screamed to the heavens above. He wanted to know the best way to make that sweet pomegranate nectar drip from your core for him and him only.

You were his Goddess, and you would be treated as such.

A cry of pleasure left your lips at the feeling of his fingers entering your core. They left just as quick, Namjoon bringing his nectar coating fingers to his lips for a taste. 

“Oh darling. You’re so delicious.” He rasped out, his tongue coming past his lips to lick the dripping slick that was racing down his palm. 

The sight was erotic, tingle after tingle moving to your core as more slick fell down your center and flooded in a puddle on the bed. The look on his face was almost feral, his eyes now black as he moved quickly and captured your lips again. 

His body was now fully pressed against your own, his clothes missing, a slight thought wondering of how they disappeared so quickly passed your mind, as his hands moved slowly down your body. His touch was soft, contrasting to the kiss he was giving you, his teeth nipping at your lips, pushing for dominance. 

When his hands finally reached your core, you were weeping, pleading for him to do something. You were empty, a feeling you didn't like more appreciate as he pressed himself against you. You could feel the tip of his cock pressing against your hip, making you push your hips up, hoping he would get the hint. 

“Darling, use your words.” You could almost feel the smirk on his lips as he begins to press kisses down your jaw and towards your neck, a hard kiss pressed to your pulse point. 

“I...I” you try to push your words out, but the feeling of him is almost too much. You cry when he removes his hands from your body, only to feel his fingers edge at your lips, almost petting against your soft flesh. 

“I can’t do anything unless you tell me what you want, baby.” You can hear the sass in his voice, the god truly enjoying the teasing he was giving you. 

Namjoon finally had you underneath him, begging and crying for hit touch, and he wasn’t about to give himself to you so easily after you made him wait months to claim you. He would draw this out as much as he could, though he was fading quickly into lust and hunger as the feeling of you rutting up into him catches his attention. 

“Now, now my love. Use your words and maybe I’ll think about helping you.” He uses his thumb and index finger to pull your bottom lip out from between your teeth. 

Everything was quickly becoming too much, and you swore if he didn’t fuck you soon, you were going to do it yourself. You had enough toys to help you, and en extremely nice showered that pulses. 

As if reading your thoughts, Namjoon lets out a low growl before pushing into you, his dick stretching you open as he pushes in inch by inch. A moan leaves your lips at the feeling, every ridge and vein felt against your walls has you clenching around him. 

“Ugh, my love,” He groans out as his hips crash against yours, his cock now fully rested inside your walls. You grab at his shoulders for stability as he pulls back before quickly gaining momentum. 

Your senses were overwhelmed, every grunt, every push, every touch had you whimpering. You were quickly reaching your orgasm, the knot in your stomach tightening with each thrust against your walls. 

Namjoon went from grasping at your hips and ass to pushing you down into the mattress, his hand pulling one of your legs over his shoulder as he brings the other to rub at your clit. 

It didn’t take but a second for your body to reach its limits, the angle of his thrusts and his finger rubbing at your clit had you coming. Your walls clenching around Namjoon had him searching for his own release, coming just seconds after yourself. 

You could practically feel your stomach bulging, his warm cum coating your walls, almost never-ending as he groans in your ear. Your eyes are blurry as you feel his weight drop onto you, the warmth from his body moving to your own as he holds you in his arms. 

As you try to get your vision back, you can feel his length hardening again as he still rests in your pussy, your walls subconsciously clenching around him again. 

“Really?” You ask him, only to receive a nip to your neck and a thrust of his hips. Just as another moan leaves your lips, he thrusts again. 

By the time they made it to the pit of Tartarus, Persephone was thoroughly satiated. Namjoon had her orgasm on his tongue multiple times. He had tried to do more, but Persephone stopped him. 

“You don’t want a lowly servant like Hyojin to witness the most precious thing you will ever have?”

He sighed before leaning back in his seat, “No, I don’t. But perhaps when we get back to the castle…” He trailed off, giving her his puppy eyes. 

“We’ll see. It depends on how I feel.” 

“Right,” he said before placing another kiss on her lips and sitting her upright. 

He glanced at Hyojin, who was still shaking and crying, and shook his head in disgust. If only he had known that the woman was going mad from being his personal servant for so long, he would have let her go to the Meadows long ago. He knew she had a crush, but nothing that he couldn’t handle. A small smile here and there shouldn’t have made her leap over the canyon of insanity. 

To think she would be queen and be on Namjoon’s side was bold of her–and quite stupid, he thought to himself. She wouldn’t have been able to handle Yoongi or Taehyung. Two of the most…uncanny gods Namjoon dealt with on a regular basis. She rudely gave orders to Jungkook (whenever he couldn’t himself) and never said sorry; according to the ferryman, who once cried on Namjoon’s shoulder after an altercation with Hyojin, she had thrown one of his oars into the styx after a late shipment. He had to swim down and pray that he came to the surface on time. 

Of course, Persephone had slit Jungkook’s lip and gum with a drachma, but she did apologize afterwards. And it did get him a new boat–well, that one may have been a result of an overcrowding issue that Namjoon should have resolved years ago.  

Persephone had put Yoongi in his place mostly by insulting his famous shoes. She had made her own demands–hours before  sitting on her own throne. 

But that’s what Namjoon wanted in a queen. Someone who wasn’t afraid of making even Zeus understand what fear is. Persephone silenced any room she walked in, garnering respect and full-attention.  

He moved his eyes to his wife who sat regal next to him, but he could tell that she was studying the plane of the Underworld. He couldn’t quite figure out if she was overwhelmed or excited of how much kingdom they had to rule together. Knowing her, though, she was already listing everything that was wrong in each realm. Gods knew he had piles of organizational mess-ups when it came to Asphodel. 

“Is that Tartarus?”

Namjoon had been so lost in his thoughts that he had forgotten  about their destination. He whistled for Alastor to stop close to the edge but, far enough away, that Tartarus’s pull wasn't strong enough. 

“Yes, my love. This is Tartarus, but you should know that Tartarus really isn’t a thing. It's a primordial being that came before the Titans and the Gods.”

Her eyebrows drew together. 

“Go close, but not too close. Tartarus’s pull is extremely strong.”

Persephone edged closer to the pit and saw nothing. Nothing but darkness greeted her eyes as she peered into the abyss. But she heard. 

Screams of monsters who were damned to restore themselves for ages after being killed by either a demigod or God. Angry screams. 

But there was something else she could hear–she just needed to take a step closer and maybe-

“Persephone!” Namjoon yelled as he gripped her arm and pulled her back.  

She yelped and yanked her arm back. Her mouth moved to berate him before taking in the fear in his eyes.  

“You do not move any closer than we are. Even now, we’re testing its strength. And more than likely, Tartarus is only letting us this close because we have something for it.”

“I understand, but do you hear that?” 

He raised an eyebrow. 

“The bum, bum, bum. It’s almost like a heartbeat. As if the abyss is alive.”

“It is alive, my love. I told you that Tartarus is not a thing. Just as Gaia is not simply a Goddess of the Earth, but she is the earth; Tartarus is not just a pit, it is the pit.”

A blanket of confusion must’ve fallen across her face since Namjoon cursed and mumbled, “Did Demeter teach you anything about your own heritage? Gods, that woman.” He wiped his hands across his face and sighed loudly. 

“Tartarus is a God. A very old, but still terribly powerful God. Mortals, in their many stories, have simply called it another subsection of the Underworld. No, it’s the skin of a god who, if awakened fully, will upset the balance of everything.”

She nodded her head, quickly understanding what Namjoon was saying. 

“Tartarus is home to the Gods’ worst enemies, including Zeus, Poseidon, and I’s  father. “

“Kronos? He’s down there?” “Yes, but he’s a million different pieces and won’t be together any time soon.”

“Who else is down there?”

“More primordial gods and goddesses and monsters,” he tilted his head back and forth in thought.  . “Monsters.”

A dangerous smile played across her face. “Like what?” He lifted an eyebrow in question as he answered. “Goblins, hydras, cyclops, you name it. They live down there, manifesting until they can go out into the mortal world. “

“So,” she turned towards the chariot. “Things that would keep our lovely servant busy, correct? I knew we were going to throw her in there. But, the fact there are savage creatures down there, makes it all the more better.”

They made their way over to the chariot where Alastor grazed on invisible grass.  Hyojin was still in the corner.  Persephone moved to grab her and she shimmied away.

“Now you’re afraid?”

Persephone rolled her eyes and motioned for Namjoon to take over. The woman was disgusting anyway. Her hair was matted in some places and her tears had mixed with mucus creating a nasty shiny effect on her face.  Namjoon snatched her from her crotched position with ease–any respect he had for the woman was long gone–and dragged her to the spot they had been in earlier.

“Please, don’t kill me,” she whimpered, trying to get Namjoon to look her in the eye. Surely, he wouldn’t actually go through with it.  

“We’re not,” Persephone said casually. “Whatever monster is down there will. But that’s if you survive the fall.” “I wasn’t speaking to you, idiot girl.”

“And that’s exactly why you’re going to die. Do you ever learn?” Namjoon questioned from beside Persephone.

“Loving you wasn’t a mistake, my King. She was. I should have given the perfume to you personally, then none of this stupidity would be happening. We would be so happy. Me and you, my King.” Namjoon sucked in his cheeks and looked up to the heavens. “I’m going back to the chariot. You have fun.”

“I will.”

“Wait, my king! Don’t leave me with her! I would rather you kill me than this kun.” 

Persephone raised her hand and Hyojin flinched slightly.  

The Queen let out a small giggle, “I wasn’t going to hit you. Only a kun would do that.  And I already told you that I’m not going to kill you.”  Persephone stepped behind the servant and placed her hands on the small of Hyojin’s back–who stiffened at her touch. 

“One thing my mother taught me is that enemies can become friends. But you–you pushed my patience.  I was willing to make you my own personal servant. I wanted to be your friend.”

“I do not want to hear your lies.”

“You will survive the fall,” she said, ignoring Hyojin. “You’ll have a couple of bruises, but nothing too bad.”  

“And?” 

“Indignant about your death?”

“No, you’re just talking too much.”

“You’ll do your best to survive the rest of your short journey through the pit. Eventually, you’ll meet your end. You’ll be ripped to pieces while you’re still conscious. However, because you’re nothing but a spirit, you’ll materialize again. And the cycle of your death will begin until I feel like pitying you. ”

“I will find a way back and kill-”

“Goodbye, Hyojin.”

Persephone gave her a dramatic push forward so that she skipped  forward.  Hyojin regained her footing before turning around and laughing in Persephone’s face. 

“Is that all you’re worth? A measly push? I could do-” Hyojin’s giggling turned into screaming. She was being pulled towards the pit quickly. She tried her best to keep her feet planted to the ground. 

The force that Namjoon had warned Persephone about–Tartarus’s pull–was stronger merely inches from where they had previously been standing. Hyojin didn’t stand a chance against it.  

Tatarus wanted to grab hold of anything within its reaches–human,soul, god, or goddess. The monster lurking deep within its depths weren’t enough. 

Hyojin was at the edge holding on for dear life when she tried once more to plead for her life. 

“Please, Namjoon, please.”

“I, Queen Persephone, Goddess of the Spring and Rebirth, banish you from the Underworld. May your journey through Hell begin.”