Work Text:
Persephone is goddamn sure that she’s never hated Hades more than she does in this moment, and that’s saying a lot of a woman who makes a part-time occupation of being deliberately downright contemptible. Woman-king of all that’s dark and goddamn miserable sits across the table from her with her big, stupid nose in a bundle of papers, not a word to say to her. She doesn’t think it’s too much to ask that, if her thick-headed wife insists on snatching her from the surface two fucking months too early, the least she could do in exchange is act even the littlest bit happy to see her.
It’s been becoming a habit for a decade or more. Started out with Hades popping up a day or two early, which then became a week or two. But at least that was something. At least when Hades took her up in those big arms, it felt like she’d come for her so soon because she couldn’t help herself. Missed her too much - missed the feel of her, missed the taste. Couldn’t bear to go another moment without her, and it was in her embrace on the platform that she felt the cracks in their grand old union start to knit back together. Loved her best, in that little moment between the worlds.
Only now it’s not that. Now it’s months, entitled fucking bitch, and Seph can feel the barely-blooming harvest withering in the fields the way she can feel her heart beating in her chest. This dumb stunt from Missus Hades is not a crime of passion - no, it’s staking her claim on what she thinks she owns, imposing her iron will just to prove the goddamn point that she can. Hell mind the consequences - and hell will mind them, when they starve or freeze.
Ain’t so easy to forgive her when she barely seems to think Seph is worth the time of day. They’ve got a long, long winter ahead to ignore each other - at least grant her the small mercy of an hour or two on the train to pretend that her marriage ain’t dawdling its way up shit creek.
Her brothers have whiled away the millennia in an eternal mythic dick-measuring contest with one another, and Hades likes to think she’s so fucking above it all. Regal little diplomat in her fancy little suit - not like she’s splashing around waging wars and spawning bastard half-gods left, right, and centre. But when all’s said and done, there’s not all that much separating her from the pair of them - from Persephone’s very own dear, detested daddy especially. All obsessed with owning shit, with proving their own might and lording it over their subjects and their wives like they’re little more than toys to be played with.
Persephone thinks about saying as much, just to pass the time. Just because she knows it’ll cut straight through Hades’ supposedly thick skin.
But she doesn’t say shit. Sips from her flask. Sulks. Sits in an uncouth spread-eagle with one foot kicked up on the seat - Hades would hate that, if only she was paying enough goddamn attention to her to know she was doing it. Drinks some more.
Wants Hades to look at her and start spewing venom - to see the flask in her hand and the bottles in her bag and tell her she’s a goddamn lush, that it’s unbecoming and pathetic and hell, is she really that miserable that she can’t take five minutes in the presence of her wife without a mouthful of rotgut?
Hades doesn’t even lift her head.
So Persephone keeps on drinking until she feels her stomach churning - keeps on drinking until her flask runs dry, and then stuffs it back down into her dress. Hades studies over her mile-long ledger of lost little souls, cap of her fountain pen tapping the corner of her lip contemplatively - pulls it away to make note of something in her clinical, too-neat cursive. What, like she doesn’t have enough time in her unending life nowadays to put it down for half an afternoon?
Seph is on her way back down to Hadestown, and Hades herself, it seems, never bothered to leave. Yet another reason to curse the whole sickening operation. There wasn’t half this much pointless administration when all Hades had to do was keep track of the incomings and let Thanatos send them where they oughta go. Monotonous work, but at least it was honest.
Not like the mess her wife had made of their home had a shortage of things to hate. Too hot, too bright. Sleepless, lifeless, deathless, stifling. Churning out smog and misery at the end of a production line, grinding any little shade unfortunate enough to end up there to a fine pulp in its gears. Frightened to see what she’s done with the hellhole in the six months - four months - that Persephone has been gone.
Persephone swore up and down that she’d never become like Hera, way back when they were first wed. Bitter stepmother, most jaded auntie; so consumed with despising her husband that it seemed like nothing but spite and gristle left holding her body together. But if anything, she’s become worse. At least Hera’s got the stones to do something about it - doesn’t waste her time on pickling her insides and silently hating. Though it’s easier said than done when retribution can’t be bought with a couple of stillbirths. Persephone would have to lay waste to an entire festering city, and frankly she’d sooner just have another fucking drink.
The clinking of the bottles in her bag catches just the tiniest little snippet of Hades’ attention. She looks up from her infernal work - not a full lift of the head, just flicks her labyrinthine eyes away from the page, so subtle a move that Persephone wouldn’t have noticed had she not been studying her for it. Persephone pops the cork - raises the neck straight to her lips, daring her to complain out loud.
Hades looks away with a scathing little tsk noise. Closest thing to talking she’s done this whole ride. Gods above and below. Long fucking winter indeed.
Barely like she’s even got fucking to look forward to. That’s the one area of their relationship that remains in some measure of working order, although Hades had still found a way to strip that down to its basest parts. Ever the damned machinist, her wife - always trying to optimise.
Found a way even when they could barely stomach a second of each other’s company - even when lady of shadows and shades was at the peak of her worst temper, and lady of ways and means was searching for an excuse to get away from her at the bottom of every available cup. They could fuck without saying a word to one another; without even looking at one another.
Seems like longer ago than it truly was - and brother, it was a long, long time ago - when they could spend weeks just wrapped up in one another. A worship most unholy, each whimper and gasp a prayer of its very own. Persephone would give a pound of her own flesh to return to the days when nothing lay rotting between them, when contact with her lover lasted beyond the point of a bitter climax; for anything better than bending Hades over her desk in near-silence, ragged breath and crumpling papers.
And wouldn’t she hate for anyone to know that sordid little detail? Not that she’s all take and no give, in this regard at least if no-fucking-where else. But it’s a secret long-kept and close-guarded that almighty Missus Hades ain’t nothing better than a desperate little dryad on a mountainside at her most delicate core.
It’s some sight - proud old lioness who rules over death itself with a wrought iron fist, belly-up and begging the other goddess to take her. All about owning shit with Lady Hades, until it very much isn’t. She owns everything, and Persephone owns her.
She’s halfway to finishing the bottle when the idea strikes her; thank you very fucking much indeed to Hermes’ little hole-in-the-wall for the liquid confidence. Might be that Hades thinks she’s the boss - might be that she thinks she can dictate the length of a summer - but she should know damn well by now that Persephone holds the power where it counts.
Might be that she needs a little reminder of how their old song really oughta go.
Persephone rummages around in her bag, making sure that she’d remembered what she’s looking for - packed in a hurry, no fucking thanks whatsoever to her wife. If it ain’t here then it’s in her bedroom, and if that’s the case, then she’s testing the limits of her immortality and throwing herself off of the train. The notion of even the shortest summer under Mama’s eye if she finds it is less pleasant than death by half.
But her fingers make contact with her blessed cargo, and she rises to her feet with her bag on her arm just to see if it sparks any reaction from Hades. Unsurprisingly, it does not. So she walks herself to the furthest end of the carriage and ducks behind the luggage rack to set about unpacking her new toy.
A highlight of her summers, really - pulling herself up to speed with modern-day disciples of Sappho. Persephone found it almost comical, and Hades found it a downright insult, that the pair of them have spent half the planet’s lifetime up to the same tricks, and yet it’s a sweet lil earthly poet’s name committed to history for developing the first hunger for another woman. That’s just what Hades gets, she supposes - so set in her patriarchal ways that she’s managed to get herself written up in the annals of myth and legend as a man.
Worshipped the wrong priestess perhaps, but these mortal tribades are devious little creatures. Fascinates her to no end to learn every year what new uses they’ve found for her bounty, and this one is such that she’s kicking herself over not coming up with it first. Smooth, shining polished cherry wood, almost the colour of her very own skin; neat little leather harness to match. Had barely been sure there was much point to it when she picked it up, but she was taken enough with the novelty - even if it was likely to spend the rest of its days cast to the bottom of a drawer somewhere.
Hades - trying to cling to some precious little pretence that it’s her in control - had been the one to craft just about every ornate cock to enter her. Favours polished quartz of all fucking things; the unforgiving coldness of it must feel right at home in her pussy. Seems only right on this day to fuck her with a creation of the very domain which she clearly thinks so lowly of.
Persephone hikes her dress up, wriggles - presumptuously - out of her panties, and reaches to fidget the thing onto herself. Fits snug around her hips, though it’s going to take a strong attempt at walking all ladylike to keep it concealed between her legs until the deck is stacked adequately in her favour. One more glug of summer wine for good luck, and then she struts down the length of the ritzy little carriage with her thighs pressed tight together. Struts right down to where Missus Hades is sat buried in her registries.
“What?”
Crude oil from the woman’s mouth, dark and slippery. Doesn’t deign to look up - again.
Doesn’t look up until Persephone snatches the wodge of papers from her grip and sets them flying loose over the carriage. Hades scowls, incandescent rage resplendent on her face. A low growl rises in the back of her throat, vitriol pooling as she readies to strike.
Before fang can pierce flesh, Persephone takes her by the root of her argent hair, yanks her head right back and goddamn makes her look her in the eye. It's impossible to spend forever and a day living with an old rattler like Hades without getting wise to her.That low thunder dissolves in Hades’ mouth, and she swallows it, hard.
And then Persephone seizes her into a deep, sucking, starved kiss - spit and teeth, tongue fighting its way between her snarling lips. Ain’t pretty, but it hurts in just the right way. Hades - not willing to surrender just yet, stubborn old hellcat - tries to pull herself away, to subdue her flushing cheeks and salvage some precious little composure.
And so Persephone decides it’s time to show her hand. Straddles her legs, lets the head of the strap-on nudge ever-so lightly against the softness of Hades’ stomach. Hades’ breath quivers as she looks down at the unfamiliar bulge to Persephone’s skirts.
“Got your attention now?”
“Lover,” Hades chokes out. Ain’t sweet - a sticky, treacherous, furious lover that’s usually reserved for bitter disputes, silk cloaking steel.
Persephone shuts her up good and proper before she can say anything further, crashing their mouths together like ships to wreck against a rocky shoreline - catches Hades’ lip between her teeth and pinches it hard enough to elicit a sharp hiss. Bites a deep mauve bruise into the pale flesh above her collar, then another at her jaw - marking her territory, as damned well should be her right after this infraction. The pulse in Hades’ jugular throbs hot and agitated against her tongue, squirming like a hooked fish beneath her.
And then, a little sugar to chase the heavy-handed acid, grazes a gentle hand over Hades’ cheek - trails it down to the trembling swell of her breast. Toys with a hardening nipple through the layers of her clothing. Hades makes some strangled, desperate little noise that she’d clearly tried to choke down before it escaped. Persephone releases her hair - thumbing at her through her shirt with a gentility she doesn’t deserve.
Weak woman, her woman. It doesn't take all that much to start chipping away her rock-face. Hades, white flag in the air, whimpers - mouth hanging open, eyes wide and glassy.
“Lover…”
That one goes down a whole lot smoother, sweet retsina. Breathy and beautiful, a minuscule peace offering.
“You’ve got some nerve, lady,” Persephone says through her teeth - not quite purr, not quite growl. “Some fuckin’ nerve.”
“You were gone so long,” she says pathetically, breath hitching.
Persephone twists soft pink flesh between thumb and forefinger, dulled as her touch may be through satin and twill, and Hades gasps down a razored lungful of air.
“Not long enough,” she spits in return.
And now she’s got one thigh between Hades’ legs, and Hades moans long and hushed at the tiniest rub through the fabric of her pants. Must be some entirely unprecedented sort of starving, coming apart like this for so little. Persephone echoes the noise; a mocking, nasal whine.
“Barely laid a hand on you, lover.”
Hades grinds out another sharp-edged mewl through her clenched jaw.
Persephone feels the serpentine cloying of fingers at her breasts, Hades trying to mould her to submission. Ha. Seems her lady - lady of oil, lady of coal, lady of cutting off her nose to spite her face - is more of an ignorant mule than even Persephone would give her credit for. Should know by now that her wife is far more capable of waiting for it than she ever will be. She grips her wrist tight - can barely clasp her palm the whole way around it, between her titanic brawn and her big, stupid watch - and pulls her away.
“Please.”
It’s small and pathetic, and part of it curdles the already-acrid contents of Persephone’s stomach. Can’t bear this woman, needs her like she needs a goddamn bullet to the head - but hell, if she’s not finer than a vintage wine in her contrition.
“Please?” Persephone lilts high and horny, mocking her again. Tries to ignore the little flash of hurt that crosses her wife’s face.
“Please touch me. ”
A pretty, private normalcy - Hades begging. One knee in a long-gone garden, pity on her heart - same old verse and metre. Persephone’s deft hand lifts to loosen her tie, slips it off as easy as water flows. She watches her chest heave - presses to the heat of her with her thigh, gives her a little precious friction.
“So, you got it in you to ask for what you want now?”
Persephone unfastens the button at her collar.
“Gonna act all high-and-mighty when you got an audience-”
Second button. Hades’ cheeks flush pink and desirous. Third. Waistcoat.
“But here-“
Opens her right the way up with torturous grace.
“Here, I get a shamefaced lil slut pleading with me?”
Hades is not wearing a fucking thing beneath her shirt - pert little tits bared to the walls as she snatches for breath. Hasn’t got so much as half the handful that Seph is blessed with; really, she herself was better endowed when she was half-grown. Found that enchanting, once - every harsh line and angle of Hades so unlike her, despite sharing in so much of her blood.
Persephone takes one budded nipple between her lips and sucks like she’s trying to pull the very soul from Hades’ body, and the noise that escapes Hades in return can be described only as a howl. Her febrile skin smells like ash and tastes like salt.
A spidery thread of saliva connects Hades’ breast to Persephone’s tongue as she picks her head up. Gods above and below and everywhere in between, is Hades in some fucking state. Pomade disturbed by Persephone’s hand, short scruff of her hair sticking every which way to her misted brow. Mouth open, eyes pleading. Persephone grips a hand to her belt buckle.
“Ain’t all that high-and-mighty now, are you?”
Hades’ face twists like she’s being tortured. For all the world, she is. Persephone grinds against her with the strap-on - not permitting any contact more enticing than a nudge to the pubic mound. Belt clinks open. Persephone traces a hand down south, stroking the length of her feather-light through her underwear. She’s soaking wet - hot and aching. Persephone can feel it through the cotton as Hades bucks into the heel of her hand.
“You’re a goddamn mess,” she intones an inch from her ear, abating enough to slip beneath her waistband and trail two fingers through the slick heat of her.
Hades keens, a delicate sound that’s anything but chthonic. It’s bizarre, the girlish little melodies capable of escaping a woman usually so rich and resonant.
Glides into her - one finger, then two. Keeps them a gasp away from where she knows Hades wants them. Hades’ abdomen tightens, trying to pull her in deeper. Just manages to fit her lips around another too-delicate plea, every inch of her quivering.
“How I would just love for some other fool to see you like this,” Persephone continues, pressing deeper into her, crooking her fingers. The bottomless pools of Hades’ eyes shimmer, intoxicated and longing. “Think anyone would fear Lady Hades quite so much if they knew what kind of a whore she is, hmm?”
The carriage has been darkening at a steady pace for a good while - they’re too deep down below for a living soul to see them, and not deep enough for a dead one. But ain’t it a sweet thought, some little mortal catching a passing glimpse through the window, catching Hades half-naked and half-melted. Would love even one soul - even if they’re doomed to the machine of Hades in the end, as they all are - knowing what she truly is. Weak woman. Weak, weak, weak.
Strokes her inside and out for a delicate moment, tender enough that she knows Hades ain’t getting a lick of satisfaction from her. Fingers pulsing just short of her sweet spot - thumb circling her clit but daring not to make precious contact. Likes it heavy and hard, her lover, just like everything else - piston and automation, Lady Spring crashing into her with abandon. Petting her like this is just winding her up tighter, and it shows in the agonised twisting of her face. Little half-formed murmurs that take the vague shape of please or more or harder, hands clawed into the upholstery and pulse thundering in time with the rhythm of the rails.
And then Persephone cuts her off without a word. Hades groans like a wounded animal; hands outstretching to her, trying, trying to pull her back. Shirt flung open, slipping over one shoulder to show the first bricks of her big fucking stupid, ugly tattoo - trousers falling somewhere around her bent knees. Some fresh type of pathetic, this.
Loathes the woman, and yet loves her. Fun as it is to watch her suffer, Persephone wants more desperately to watch her melt beneath her like a fistful of snow.
Persephone tugs herself out of her dress, dropping it to the floor in a velveteen puddle. Not wearing the most attractive brassiere, unprepared as she’d been, but Hades is going to have to suck it up. And she ain’t looking anyway, eyes locked on Persephone’s appendage - panic and wonder, chest heaving.
“Get up,” Persephone orders. Hades lies where she’d been left dumbly, half rage and half shot deer - barely seems to register the demand for what it is. “Get up.”
Hades does not waste a second in complying this time - compliance and contrition now, contrary old bitch - and her upper layers go straight to the floor with Persephone’s gown. Persephone grants her no mercy, no tenderness - shoves her down gracelessly to the table. Hades’ back crashes against the wood. Yanks her pants the rest of the way off, discards them to whatever far corner of the carriage. Her heavy boots thud to the floor one after the other.
Persephone takes her by the hips. Relishes in Hades like this, naked and huffing after so much sharp-dressed bravado up top. Hades - desperate fucking dryad - offers her carelessly spread legs to her woman with a sickening trust.
Can’t stand it. Just cannot gods-damned stand it. But well, she makes a pretty sight all stretched out and supple like this.
She’s slick enough by Persephone’s estimation to take it - she aligns herself with Hades’ opening and presses into her deep and slow, gliding without a hint of protest. Hades’ short nails claw the table like the alley-cat she is, spine arching with every inch that Persephone pushes inside her.
“Fuck.”
The word slides from Hades’ lips like a devotion, quivering and holy. Starts her slight and gentle, Persephone’s hips taking up a rhythm so calm it can barely be called such. The full sum of Hades’ lust glistens sticky on her thighs, and Persephone feels her contract around the agrarian cock.
Feels it, like she’s never been able to before, and a spear of arousal pierces straight through her abdomen, her power pulling her body into tune with the appendage. Unexpected, not sure if it’s entirely welcome. She’s never put the fruit of her labours to this type of indelicate test. Always Hades’ rock and rubble, always her kingdom. Tight and pulsing, push and pull; every movement like it’s being done unto herself, and yet not. Makes her knees weak one way or the other.
Maybe that’s what softens her. Maybe that’s what leads her to explore a tracing touch over her lover’s body - Hades’ withered, aching heart in her hand as she caresses her chest. Maybe it’s why, when Hades’ own wandering fingers stray to her breasts and fondle her through overworn lace, she lets them. She falls into a tempo with her thrusts that sates them both - harder, heavier, straight to the core. Hades makes it clear as cut crystal when she hits her mark, throwing her head back and emitting a moan that seems to shudder straight up through her from the ground below.
Backs arch, skin burns hot on starved, sweaty skin. Hades pulls her in, Persephone lets her - lets the tide of Hades’ quaking arousal wash over her. Feeling, well - feeling. Virginity anew; the tightening of Hades’ pussy around her stoking her fire as though she’s the one on her back with her lover buried in her to the root. Hadn’t bargained for this. Persephone finds her front teeth sinking into her lip, trying to hush herself - trying, for the second time in a day, not to let Hades see her flinch. Drops her head down low, drops her body down lower - aching for as much contact with Hades’ ancient flesh as she can glean.
Hades grips her waist, keeping her buried deep. Her broad hips buck up against Persephone’s own, pressure to her own little pearl in a way that drags the smallest, most strangled little utterance out of her. New and old, mixing the finest ambrosia-wine cocktail of familiar delicacy and fresh indulgence. Burns like a fire between her legs, and now Persephone has the feeling that the temperate sap between them ain’t entirely Hades’ own.
Is this how a man feels it? She half-wonders to herself in some small space between gasps, and then the weight of Hades grinds hard against her clit through the layers of it all and drags her by the scruff straight back into the moment. Ain’t one thing and ain’t another, but it’s filling her cup to the brim and then some.
Hades is a squirming mess beneath her, face contorting prettily. Fucks her hard, as hard as she’s got - pulsing through her, filling her cup in return, generous bringer of bounty that she is. Hades’ panting fervour is a sure sign that she’s close. Tightening around her, trying to speak. Through her shaking, she exhales:
“I missed you.”
And gods, does it make Persephone want to throttle her. Harder, harder - shut her up, make her feel her fury. But that only spurs something along within her own womanhood, and she strangles for breath. Can’t speak, can’t do a thing - the capacity’s left her.
“Persephone.”
Tighter, tighter, and then release. Hades blossoms around her, pulling her close, so impossibly close, as her climax rocks through her. Shuddering and fluid, shock after shock, and then Persephone hits her own like it’s a blow to the back. All her contracted murmuring tumbles out of her in one exclamation, goddamn screaming Hades’ name in return. Has her choked and shaking, blooming straight from the tips of her toes and glowing throughout the whole of her.
And then, like always, it’s over. The scales fall away from her eyes, and nothing is there and nothing ever was. Whatever Persephone had been feeling - all that hatred, all that venom, all that thirst for penance - has been thoroughly startled out of her, taken aback as she’d been by her own orgasm. Nothing left in her now but chasmic nothingness. And it felt a damn sight better to be full of rage than entirely bled empty.
She slides out of Hades’ sex, and Hades clenches her stomach, bearing down on the ghost of a fullness that’s already gone. Persephone scrapes her empty vessel off of the table; goes to leave Hades face-up on its surface like it’s a mortuary slab, throw herself back into her clothes, and drown herself in what’s left of her bottle. A well-versed routine, a void clanging hollow between them where so much life had taken to bud not a moment before.
Hades, with a gentility that feels centuries old and centuries away, takes her by the wrist and holds her in place. A spring waltz, pleading without words for her to stay.
Persephone stands facing her as Hades leans up on her elbows - her dark eyes sad and pathetic to the very pits of them. Her fingers thread through Persephone’s. Still catching her breath, still laid out and naked and raw.
“Really did miss you.”
Whole and sincere and piteous - eyebrows knitted in sorrow. Persephone looks around at the chaos, the papers littering the carpet and the empty flask that sits mired in her discarded dress.
Hades sits, and then stands. Puts her hands on Persephone’s hips, looses her buckles and lets her cock drop to the floor. Tries to pull her into an embrace, and all that Persephone feels is deep, rattling emptiness. Her arms will not embrace Hades, hard as she tries to make them. Hollow affection must be better than nothing at all, but she ain’t got it in her. Too sick to pretend, too tired to change. How far gone are they, that she can barely stand to hold her lover after all that? How long has it been, that it now feels so alien? How long, how long?
“Lover, talk to me.”
“Was damn cruel what you did, Hades.” It’s all she can summon. “Folks are gonna die. It ain’t right.”
A flower had fallen from her hair in the furore and been trampled underfoot by one of them, reduced now to little more than orange mush on the carpet. Yet more life snuffed out by their crumbling union. One more tiny, meaningless waste.
“Gonna die one way or the other.” Trodden-down and hollow, a thin justification that Hades herself doesn’t even seem to believe. A calloused palm caresses her cheek, and Persephone closes her eyes, trying to hide away from it. “Hurts, Seph. Being without you.”
“You been doing it long enough,” Persephone says bitterly. “I ain’t any happier about it than you are. But this…” she swallows back something wet. “You can’t do this again. Please, Hades.”
Hades doesn’t apologise. Doesn’t promise. Her lips twist in silent war, and Persephone can hear the words that go unsaid. That she knows she’s miserable down below - miserable with her. That Hades doesn’t have her six months of the year any more; she barely has her a moment, beyond the platform, and then she’s despising her out loud with methylated breath when she ain’t ignoring her entirely. That the millennia have putrefied between them, and now it’s moonshine and fruit of the vine and Hades’ blessed children all the way down. That she resents Persephone just as much as Persephone resents her right back, and that neither of them - not the bringer of life, not the maker of machinery - know how to even begin to fix it.
Persephone picks up her dress and rezips it around her clammy form. The dregs of Hermes’ goddamn toilet-tank wine call her name, because it’s easier to bear that bitterness than her own. And Hades watches her for a moment, begging with her eyes - one knee in a garden, hands and knees. Can’t say the words to fix it, to even parse out the blighted root of the problem, and so she says nothing.
Persephone slumps into her seat, sick at the sight of Hades and sick of herself. Uncorks her bottle, gulps it down and prays for it to turn her vision black.
Hades smooths her hair. Buttons herself back into her stupid, preening finery. Slumps into the seat across from her with something moist and wretched glazing her expression. Doesn’t touch the papers.
Hates her. Hates that she hates her - misses how impossible that notion once felt. Aches with homesickness; not for above and damned sure not for Hadestown. For the old-world calm of the underside, the splendour of the asphodels and the blanket of lasting night before smog and furnace overtook it all. For Hades as she was - for the self that she lost somewhere on this long, winding road. Queen and woman-king, hand in festering hand.
How long? Too long? Is there such a thing, among their kind? Persephone sips joylessly at her wine, feeling it burn right down through her as the darkness starts to hum sickening cathode bright. Almost home, or as close as she’ll ever be again.
She loves Hades, and yet she can’t remember how to. Too old, this song of theirs. Slipping through the cracks of their memories and turning the world they once spun to dust.