Notes: No, this is not a new story. Sorry about that.

Written for the Fight to the Death Competition in the Percy Jackson Fanfiction Challenges Forum. Taken down due to personal issues, reposeted due to resolution of said issues and also due to an archive binge of Thalia's Musings ( /table-of-contents/), which all of you Greek-Mythology liking people should go and read already.

Now maybe I can get on with writing that Aphrodite spinoff.

persephone

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1.

She wakes up to her mother's face, brown and freckled and beautiful, and grasps at her hair with all the delight of a newborn goddess. Her mother laughs back, and names her Kore, and tells the world that of all the things she ever grew, her daughter is the most precious.

2.

Kore loves spring. Life springs up around here and she creates flowers and plants, She is her mother's golden child (harvest child, her mother calls her, laughing), the Maiden of Olympus, and she knows she has found her place in life.

But she is also fair of form and prettier than all her creations, and the gods of Olympus battle for her affections, much to her mother's despair.

3.

Father Zeus does not do anything as prosaic as battle for a girl's affections (not that this queen would let him), Father Zeus takes.

4.

Her mother tries to stop him, of course. Whisks her away at the word of a prophet and hides her away in a cave. Kore is only half-wary, used to her mother's all-encompassing protectiveness; and she spins on her spindle and waits for this surge of protectiveness to dry out. But then the drakon comes, the walls of her cave trap her, and she surrenders before it even reaches her.

5.

Later, she remembers Aphrodite cornering her one day, while her mother was busy elsewhere. Looking at her, head tilted quizzically, and remarking in a tone of surprise that she never thought Demeter's maiden daughter would be one of hers. It's hard to not recall, when she lies panting and sated upon the coils of the drakon, her lost maidenhood mourned less than her lost pleasure.

6.

Her mother cries and wails. Her suitors, seeing Demeter's anger and misery, along with Zeus' triumphant eyes, withdraw. Lady Hera avoids her. Cousin Athena and Cousin Artemis pity her and appoint themselves her new guardians. Her mother refuses to let her out of her sight, refuses to let any man near her at all. Demeter cannot (will not) rebel against her King, and so she turns her wary eye to everyone else.

7.

Demeter's daughter is more confused than distraught at her mother's despair, but her mother was all she has ever known before Zeus. And Zeus is faithless, a fact every child on Olympus (and beyond) knows. So she continues to call herself Kore (a lie, the nymphs whisper) and clothes herself in flowers and green, and pretends that all was like it was before.

8.

It does not work. The life which seemed so full to her before is now not enough. Her mother upsets her, with her forced smiles and cheery laughter, all her being mourning a daughter who feels far from lost. Her lack of suitors (which would have seemed peaceful before), is now whispered about by the nymphs in tones of pity. Athena and Artemis guard her like a feckless young child with a tendency to hurt herself, and most of the gods avoid her eyes- yet another maiden rendered impure by their lord.

Kore feels like she wants to scream and to break free, and go back to the the cave with the drakon. At least there, the ignominy was laced with pleasure and satisfaction.

9.

She confronts Aphrodite, eventually. (It is at the Winter Solstice in Olympus, and her mother is barely half a room away.) Accuses her of shaming lord Zeus more than her, rending him helpless at her feet, unable to control himself for any appreciable amount of time.

"Father Zeus does what he wills," Aphrodite tells her, "I cannot be held accountable for his actions. If it were so, I would have time for nothing except to orchestrate his every move."

Kore has to admit it's a good point.

10.

She can't, however, quite unsee the gleam in Aphrodite's eyes, triumphant and mocking, as she watches the King of the gods at his throne. His queen sits stiff and unamused beside him, the nymphs watch him with expectant gleams in their eyes, and the gossips of Olympus (which is to say- Hermes and Apollo) are clearly watching the scene and placing their bets, probably deciding who the King of the gods would make a fool of himself for this time.

The goddess was clearly bent on a rampage born of fury, and getting placed in her way would only entice her to use Kore as a pawn again in her games against Zeus. Best to keep away from her.

11.

Nevertheless, the damage has already been done. Kore spends her days in a haze of spinning her spindle and pity, and it is enough to drive her (ever implacable) to anger and paranoia. Enough that when she catches her first glimpse of Hades (here to pay respects to her mother because the mortals hadn't died of famine this year, and being Hades doing it at a time her mother is horrendously busy with her duties), she curses Aphrodite under her breath. That little demoness should know by now that Kore will not be taken in so quick by her wiles ever again.

12.

Hades is dressed soberly in dark shades, and he is far removed from every other god in Olympus. Nothing about him is boisterous or changeable or loud or flighty. Even Demeter recognizes this, deigning to go for the planting even before Hades fully takes his leave. She assumes Kore (precious, darling child so frightened by her first encounter) will hide in her rooms till she goes away, ans she knows that the lord of the Dead is about as deceitful as your average rock.

13.

But Kore is tired of her room with the spindle and the windows blacked out, and this never-before-seen uncle intrigues her. When she corners him outside of her mother's altar, with a smile and an amphora of wine set aside for guests, he is startled but polite. She asks of him what has been happening in Olympus (and discovers, sadly, that he only knows as much as he does), and in the Underworld (…a surprising lot, as it turns out) and neither of them notice that the day is long gone until Demeter's chariot sounds in the sky.

They have done nothing untoward or out of bounds, either of them. Nevertheless, they meet each other's eyes a little frantically and hastily say their goodbyes. Hades disappears into the shadows and she into her room, and they both pretend to Demeter that they have not met the other.

14.

It starts awkwardly enough- she calls him up to inquire if he has reached home, he thanks her for her concern. He calls her the next day to ask if she is well, and to inform her that his dog (Spot) has lost yet another ball, she tells him that she is fine, and that she has been thinking of making a new plant that is mostly black. And so on.

Iris, is one of the few godesses who prefers to keep her own counsel, so the fact that Demeter's well-guarded daughter and the morose lord of the dead use her services to talk to each other on a near daily basis goes unnoticed by the rest of the world.

15.

It is nearly half a year (small enough, in immortal terms) before Hecate appears at her mothers home to pay respects and to see Kore, her dearest friend. And once Kore decides to play along ("We met at the last Winter Solstice, mother. I was frightened, and Hecate took care of me.") and leads Hecate to her darkened room, she is presented with a wry smile, and congratulations on besotting the unbesottable.

15.

Hades does not necessarily appear in Olympus- he has no throne there, and people dislike seeing the lord of the dead amongst them. ("There is gloomy," she hears Dionysus confide to Hermes, "And that is bad enough. But then there is Hades, which is far worse.") This year, however, he does. And after a lot of awkward shuffling and lurking in the shadows, he finally confronts her, and Kore smiles like she has not in nearly a year.

16.

Unfortunately, this is not the field behind her mother's home, this is Olympus and somebody is always watching. Demeter stalks her way over to them, lies a possessive arm on Kore's shoulder. People are watching, and giggling and talking, and Kore reminds herself that this is Olympus and everything has to be shrouded in masks here, for fear of letting yet another person see your weakness.

She sees Aphrodite mouthing "Really? Him?" at her, and she wants to scowl, but instead she manages to look confused and distraught and hurt. It is not fair to Hades (he somehow looks even more confused), but she needs time to solve this, to find some way to convince her mother than Hades is not yet another Zeus.

17.

Three days later, her time is up. Mostly because Hades appears to her in a golden chariot drawn from the ground, and before she can do more than shriek in surprise, grabs her by the waist and throws her into it. She barely has the time to think that her mother is going to be furious before the shadows bend around them and they are in the Underworld.

For the first time since they have met, she can feel a surge of irritation at the man.

18.

Hades is, as it turns out, irritable and occasionally irrational, also prone to being driven by his emotions. Part of her is, to be honest, flattered that the unshakable lord of the dead panicked enough at the idea of being denied her company to act like Zeus. Other parts of her are annoyed that a god she trusted to think in the long term ended up being just as short-sighted as all of the others.

Exasperated, she figures she might as well enjoy whatever little time they have together before her mother brings down her wrath on Hades' head, and demands that he show them to their bedroom.

19.

For all that Hades is less experienced, she likes being with him better than being with Zeus. Perhaps its because he likes him, most of the time. But Hecate cannot distract her mother forever, and one day Hades comes to her and says that Zeus has ordered him to give her back.

20.

Kore is uncertain about what to do. She loves her mother, as constricting as she is, and she likes Hades, loves his realm. When he speaks of her staying here forever, she feels her skin crawl- not because she dislikes it here, but because the idea of being a prisoner to another god makes her angry.

When she accuses him of planning to keep her here the same way Demeter keeps her above, he assures her that she would only be a prisoner as much as he is. While she is here, he assures her, she will rule all that is living and dead, have all the rights of a great god. He's not offering her love as much as he is offering her power, he knows by now which one of the two she lacks, and badly desires.

Kore is impressed enough by this to laugh, and ask for a pomegranate.

21.

She eats barely six seeds before her mothers appears in the underworld, her robes in disarray and her eyes furious, and carts her back up to the world while Hades watched unmoving, from the shadows. She rages when she learns that her daughter has been tricked into eating in the land of the dead, screams again at Zeus that this is all his fault, that he is a bad example, that she will not go back on her word and that she will bring death and destruction on all the land unless he gets her daughter back.

She learns, even, that the mortals in their fear have named her Persephone, the death-bringer. It's not a name of maidens, perhaps, but she has not felt like a maiden for a long time now.

22.

There is a Council before Olympus, not even Zeus can refuse an angered Demeter (she feels a fierce pride in her mother, at that), and there are people arguing. Zeus and his cohort are making their decisions on her life, attempting to appease Demeter and cast Hades in the role of the villains, and she feels her power slipping away-

"No," she says, and the room falls quiet.

She is not the girl who stood here before, and everyone can see that. Persephone stands taller, straighter, more unyielding. Her eyes are cool and her voice is resonant, and she realizes that she has made the Underworld part of herself, even without deciding on it. She does not want to be their victim, be confined to what they think she should be. Either Demeter's ever helpless daughter; or the girl abducted to a realm nobody desires.

23.

Persephone (she likes her new name) knows what she wants now. She spends half a year above, in life and spring and her mother's embrace. She spends the other half below, with spirits and jewels and Hades' rare smiles.

She is herself, only split into two, called both the maiden of life and the iron queen, and things are just as it should be.