Such Small Things

Summary:

Set in the future, Persephone loses control during a quarrel with her boyfriend, Hades, and ends up in an unexpected place. Having to confront and prove to an unlikely character just why she belongs by the King of the underworld's side.

Where am I?

Persephone opened her eyes to a bright light. Her pupils shrank much like her perception of herself in the universe. Down. Down till a speck of sand, lost amongst the beach sure to be dragged out to sea.

"Not again." She huffed and sat up, trying to remember the last few minutes before she — her hand gripped a cold dark stone — before she came here. But where is here? She spun, twisting at her waist to lean against the rocky surface with both of her palms. Completely ridiculous. One minute she was arguing with Hades having their first real fight as a couple and she lost her control again. And ran. Ran to whatever this place was.

"Huh." Persephone struggled to her feet stumbling against the uneven rocky surface. She looked out at the horizon but all she saw was the same landscape. The same barren rock stretched out until it met the skyline. Persephone breathed in slowly, allowing a tiny sliver of fear to creep in. This didn't look like any place Persephone had ever been to. No sight of anything familiar. No people. No plants. What was it that Hades said to her just moments ago? "Do you?" His heart stricken eyes set under quivering eyebrows. Angry on the surface but sadness just a layer deeper. "Or are you just trying to prove it? Who are you trying to prove it too?"

She stumbled back. The soles of her feet scratched along the rough surface of the stone. "What did you do this time, Persephone?" She gulped. An array of comforting butterflies fluttered from her shoulder, shades of white and gentle yellow. The only spots of color. She stared up at the sky again and tilted her head. It was so vastly bright, but there was no sun. The sky was white, as if clouded, but no cloud in the sky. Just light from above. And dark from below.

"Ah." A deep voice that sounded like the first bite of a ripe berry verberated into the core of Persephone. "So you're Persephone." The voice moved and echoed all around her slowly funneling into one point behind her. "I've heard so much about you." A large shadow shifted over her. When Persephone turned she saw a woman. Dull eyes stared blankly into Persephone. Arms the color of summer sunsets reached out to her. "Come on. You look like you need a cup of tea. Come. Come."

The woman turned and grabbed a kettle from midair and set it on a stove that Persephone was pretty sure wasn't there before. "You like tea, right?" She asked while dropping in a few dried leaves into the heating water.

"Go on. Have a seat. It's not much." The woman sighed. "But it's home."

"I'm sorry." Persephone watched the woman with an odd feeling in her stomach. "I- I didn't mean to intrude. I'm not sure how I got here. I didn't mean to. I'll leave —"

"No-no." She waved a mauve hand. "I invited you. Please. Be my guest." The woman pointed at a chair.

"Standing is fine." Persephone said. "I don't mind."

"But I do." The woman stepped towards her. "Tch." She clicked her mouth in a familiar way. "Be as you are then." She turned back around almost as if in slow motion. "I suppose you already know who I am."

Persephone wedged her hands together behind her back. "Yes."

When the titaness of the gods turned around again she held a tray with two cups, a bowl of sugar and a small spoon.

Persephone reached for the cup. "It's nice to meet you, Rhea."

Rhea grinned, her deep pink cheeks pulling at her lips. "So what is it they teach the young gods these days about their history?"

"Um." Persephone stared into her cup.

"Suppose I should be grateful if they teach anything at all." Rhea sighed and took a sip of tea. "Grateful." She rolled her eyes, losing herself in memories Persephone couldn't even imagine. After the Titan war, when the traitors six defeated their father, famously locking him away in the depths of the Underworld. . . but they didn't teach what happened to the King's mother. "Ah, well. I didn't bring you all the way out here to talk about some old washed up croan like me know did I?" She chuckled warmly.

"You brought me here?" Persephone lifted the tea strainer from her cup experimentally.

"Of course I did. Only way to see me is if I want you too." Rhea leaned back with a knowing eye. "What, did you think this was a prison?"

"N-no." Persephone lied.

"I'm free to do as I please. But. . . the world out there. . . it's not mine. It's a stranger to me. Though it still bears my toil and tears I know it no longer." She stared off wistfully into the milky sky. Persephone kept quiet letting her tea steep a little longer. When she took her first sip Rhea gave her, her attention once more. "He's the only one that doesn't visit."

Persephone nearly choked. "W-what?"

"Aidoneus." Rhea explained. "He's the only one that doesn't come when I invite him. I see Zeus at least once a year on my birthday. Poseidon comes just about every other month. But my first born?" The titan shrugged. "The last time I saw him. . ." Her voice faded. "Well, he's just as stubborn as his father. And he never came. So I stopped inviting him a few centuries ago." She set her tea down on the table. "I suppose I'm stubborn too."

Persephone wasn't sure what to do. She could tell Rhea wanted information on her son. But would that betray Hades? Would that start another fight? He clearly doesn't want a relationship with his mother. But what would be the harm in just telling her "hey, you raised a great boy." Except. . . you know for those 14 years he was trapped in your husbands stomach alone and terrified.

"You know. I was like you once." Rhea mimicked Persephone's standing posture, but took a long sip. "Bright and innocent. Just like you. Saw the world in vivid color. Hmm." She looked Persephone up and down. "You're Demeter's child right?" Her tone went from despondent to sour.

"Yes." Persephone nodded. Grateful to be talking about something she felt was safe—herself. "I'm an only child."

Rhea's eyes narrowed. "Yes, so Possy told me. Goddess of the Harvest. That's a good gig." Rhea took another sip of tea. "You know that used to be my wheelhouse. Though I did a lot more than that. It's. . . adorable all the little things you gods micromanage these days. I suppose everyone gets a participation trophy, huh?"

"I don't think I follow." Persephone straightened up.

"Well, in my day we didn't need things like seasons. We didn't need gods over such small things like. . . tides and flowers and…" Rhea took in a deep breath watching the insects flap their wings around Persephone. "Butterflies?" She contemplated the floating wings with a sny smirk. "How. . . cute."

Persephone was wrong. Rhea didn't want information about her son after all. Persephone closed her eyes wishing she could transport back to Hades kitchen. But all she saw was the angry look on his face and the feeling of her balled up fist by her side. "You don't understand what it's like to be on my side of other's expectations." She had yelled.

"I always thought butterflies were just the most delicate little insects. So pretty. And so fragile. What's their life span? A few weeks? They're great food for so many other animals being so low on the food chain." Rhea smiled. "It's a cute little animal symbol. It suits you." She took a long pause. "Unlike my son."

There it is. And yet she could only hear her son's voice say again and again: "Do you? Or are you just trying to prove it? Who are you trying to prove it too?"

"Do you? Or are you just trying to prove it? "

"Do you?"

She didn't say it to him then but she would now. "Yes! Yes I do love…" She cleared her throat. Persephone set her cup of tea down pointedly forgetting herself. "I do love my butterflies, Mother Rhea. Did you know butterflies can trace the smell of rotting corpses up to three miles away?"

Rhea blinked. "Oh? Well. Why on earth would you ever need to know such a thing as that?"

"You should know better than anyone, I would have thought." Persephone tilted her head. "Though perhaps, like you said you didn't have seasons in your world, but in mine, I own the beginning of life. Spring. It's rather beautiful, or at least your son thinks so. And in all life, there is death. A baby bird growing big and strong is not without the sacrifice of the worm, is it not? The cat survives to live another day and feed its young while that bird does not. The crocodile lays her eggs on the sustenance of the cat. The lion protects her cubs and teaches them the way to kill a crocodile to one day provide for their own pride. And man." Persephone chuckled and stepped towards Rhea. "They say man worships many deities in life, but in death he serves only one. . . but that's wrong." She stepped forward again and Rhea stepped back. "No. When men die they serve your firstborn son the King of the Underworld —that is true —and they serve me. For from their rotting corpse, their purpose on earth is realized, to give way to such small things like... flowers and butterflies."

Rhea appraised the small spring goddess again with new eyes. A smile toiled around her lips. "And this— this is why they call you Death Bringer. For where you bring life—"

"Death is there to balance the scales. No matter where you are on the food chain. It all goes right back into the soil." She made sure to bring it all back around.

Rhea sipped her tea again. "I like you, Death Bringer. You're more like myself than I thought."

Persephone blinked, not expecting that.

Rhea vanished the odd assortment of appliances and furniture until they were back to the barren rocky surface. "I've taken up enough of your time. Thank you for . . . standing . . . with an old woman like me. That's all."

Before Persephone could respond she felt the world turn upside down and by the time her stomach landed back down from her throat, she was sitting on Hades countertop.

"Kore?" Hades lifted his head out of the freezer. Ice had started to form around his limp hair. "Kore? Are you alright? I'm sorry. I-" He wrapped his arms around her tenderly.

"I figured it out." She placed a cooling finger on his frozen lips. "I'm the one who should apologize. I got so caught up trying to make people see me in a certain way that I lost sight of who I was. What I'm capable of. And that. . . it's not a matter of whether or not I belong by your side, but that we. . . together choose to hold each other's hand."

Persephone kissed his lips sweetly, pulling back before he could muddy the waters.

"Is something wrong?" Persephone never held back.

She squeezed his hands. "Your mother's very proud of you, you know."

Thank you for reading! Thank you for commenting it truly does make my day. :)

xoxo Goldie
Don't forget to check out Solitaire and War and Peonies if you like these stories (and Work From Home if ya feelin' naughty).