Where Darkness Blooms

Her hair cascades down her waist, a small flower still planted behind her ear. Her olive eyes twinkling in the light. Her sweater falls down her shoulder, a rush of chilliness going down her spine. 

She knows why it’s cold and she doesn’t care. 

She tells herself it’s for the sake of rebellion, for the sake of love, for the sake of living her own life. She tells herself she’s doing something for the people of the Underworld, for her husband, for the darkness, for reality, where the light can’t seem to shine. She tells herself she’s doing the right thing for the world. She tells herself these things and a million others, all of the thoughts roll in her head like smooth marbles, but they never roll out of her mouth. She tells herself it’s alright to feel like this, that she’s doing what she can, and that, at the end of the day, this is her doing. She must have chosen it for a reason. 

She just can’t tell if she’s lying to herself. 

“Lady Persephone!” She turns. Behind her, the fast-sounding galloping of horses coming to an abrupt halt as a carriage parks in front of her. Her sweater hangs further down her bare shoulder, as she bends down to the ground. “Just a moment,” she murmurs out, knowing the carriage driver still can’t hear her. “I’ll be right there.”

Silently, she takes the flower from her hair down, making a little well in the ground with her pearly fingertips, during a dark barque from the dirt. The horse stomps, and she perks her head up, startled by the loud noise. 

“I said, I’m coming,” she murmured  again, quickly placing the flower into the hole in the dirt. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. You’re not him. And he doesn’t care if I’m late.”

The carriage man frowns, furrowing his brow as he runs his fingers through his white hair. Still, despite this, he seems youngish. The trick of death, she thinks. Makes you look young when you’re thousands of years older. 

“Lady Persephone, your husband awaits you. I strongly urge you to come now.”

Sighing, she rubs her hands over the flower, a faint light igniting from her fingertips. “Grow,” she whispers, closing her eyes. “Please, grow.”

The carriage man frowns, stepping out of his seat to invite her onto her own. “How-How did you do that, miss?” He asks, his face bewildered. “That flower was dead. I-I don’t understand…”

She laughs, ignoring his hand as she plops herself down in the back seat. “I am a goddess,” she says, smirking. “You must be new around here.”

He shakes his head, biting his lip as he swings the reins. Persephone knows the ride must be more than a little nerve wracking. She waits for him to continue. When he does, he says, “I’ve heard the stories, the great tales of the love of King Hades and Lady Persephone. And-”

She laughs, stopping him before he completes a narrative she’s heard so many times before.  “And how their love has disintegrated over the years, bringing itself to a mere shadow, a shell of a love that could have been? And of the seasons that the lady controls being as fickle as her love, changing like the wind? I have heard the stories, as well. I can tell you they are not entirely true.”

“Entirely?”

She frowns, her green eyes sparkling. “Yes. Not entirely. I am the bringer of death - the bringer of blights and cold and chilly winters.  But I still love my husband. And I love his kingdom. Those things are the ones they don’t include in their gossip vines.”

The man tilts his head to the side, turning towards the sun in the distance. “You are a goddess of life, and yet you love death,” he says, instructing his horses to trot faster. “It’s peculiar.”

She nods, holding her breath as the carriage jostles over the bumpy roads. “There are no seasons in the underworld,” she says, holding onto her seat. “There are just people, living their lives. Or deaths, I suppose. They don’t care about the time they have. They only care about the time they had before.”

He closes his eyes, slowly nodding along with her words. She looks at him intently, wondering who he was before. He must have died long ago, yet he seemed new to the ways of the Greek afterlife. 

“Who are you?” She asks, not quite realizing that she spoke the words out loud. “Why did he send you of all people?”

He shrugs, bringing the carriage to the entry of a dark tunnel, where he promptly scowels. “Are you ready, Lady Persephone?” He asks, stopping his horse from going further. “Are you sure humanity doesn’t need a longer spring?”

She snickers, reaching forward towards the horses. “Tell them to go,” she says. “This is my escape from reality.”

Silently, he swings the reins again, mumbling something about how bad an escape it was. She smiled, the warmth of the darkness embracing her. “There’s always light at the end of the tunnel, you know,” she says, turning towards the clean walls. “But I suppose we came from the light side.”

He nods, the two staring down into the depth of the underworld, the whole world coming into light as their eyes adjusted. Large, factory buildings, fancy palaces, rivers and lakes being avoided like the plague. The people moved around, never once looking up.

She smiled. 

He frowned. 

“Lady Persephone,” he began, looking into her eyes. “Why did you plant that flower in the ground?”

Suddenly, she let out a deep, bellowing laugh. “Because it is a violet,” she said, smiling. “It will grow beneath the blankets of snow left by my absence. It will thrive.”

He nods. “And another question. Do you love King Hades?”

She frowns, scrunching her eyes. “Why wouldn't I?”

“Why would you plan for snow in your absence if you knew it would happen when you’re unhappy?”

She pauses, staring at the carriage man for a minute until she eventually shrugs. “I suppose I don’t know,” she admits, hoping out of the carriage and into the city. “Is love really that simple?”

Before he can answer, a man dressed fancily walks forward, holding out his hand to his wife. 

“Persephone,” he says, as she takes the final step onto the underworld surface. 

She does not know that he has the same doubts as her, yet the same confidence, as well. She does not know that he wonders if she loves him, that he plants souls in the mortal world while she plants flowers. They know each other, and yet, they do not know so much.

“Hades.”