A Heart For Death

Oraios Greek Verse

Summary: Persephone is the cold hearted queen of the underworld. That is what the other gods believe because of Zeus. Due to certain evil acts against mortals, she becomes chained to the underworld and unable to leave. After her punishment is finally laxed she's able to mingle among mortals again, and when she meets the god of spring Hades both of their worlds get turned upside down.

Author's Note #1: Welcome to part two of "A Heart For Death" everyone. I hope you all enjoyed part one, and will enjoy part two as well!

Book One: "A Heart For Death"

Part Two

With what little freedom she now had, Persephone left the underworld for the world of mortals after eighteen hundred long years of isolation. She noticed right away that instead of getting to Delphi as she normally would have, she found herself in Alalia where humans had very little colonization. She took a deep breath and sighed to herself. A part of her had expected this to happen. She felt like nothing more than a bird locked in a gilded cage of someone else's design. Not only did Zeus refuse to listen to her, but it was clear he had no trust in her and kept her on a short leash even now.

Zeus made sure that even with the cursed being laxed she wouldn't be around anyone. When it came to him the pain of betrayal and being alone only became that much stronger.

With the day still young Persephone took her time exploring the spring meadows and valleys, wearing a slime white layered mermaid dress and white heels. Her dark red tresses curled against her pale cheeks in the breeze. It had been so long since she felt the warmth of Helios's sunshine, the scent of Chloris's flowers, the feel of Demeter's earth, and the scent and feel of Spring in the air. Before her isolation she never realized how much she would miss all of it, or how much being away from it would affect her.

As a new breeze swept past her a single tear trickled down her cheek, and within seconds she was bent down to her knees in the middle of a small patch of white daisy like flowers. Her incredibly dark green eyes slowly cast downward in time to see one of the flowers slowly turn black then another. Within seconds the entire patch of flowers turned black and wilted; further proving her lack of control to herself, as if to affirm that Zeus would never lift the curse.

"Please don't cry."

The sweet tender words at first surprised her. No one had ever spoken so nicely to her in ages. She lifted her head away from the wilted plants and found a middle-aged man holding onto a grass basket of wheat looking down at her from nearly three feet away. He was well muscled, his complexion rather tan compared to her own, bare chested wearing a toga from the waist down, dark gray eyes, full lips, and unruly black curls down to the nape of his neck. He was...beautiful.

"Touch me and I will kill you."

His stormy gray eyes widened in an expression of pure surprise. "Oh, uh...I will remember that." He smiled at her and it was just as sweet as the sound of his voice.

"Who are you?" She couldn't say she recalled him from before her forced isolation.

"I'm Hades, son of Demeter."

"Demeter never had a son named Hades."

He cleared his throat a bit sheepishly. "I'm, uh, actually still pretty young, honestly."

"Have you even stopped aging yet?"

His full lips thinned into a line. "...not yet," he muttered after a moment.

Just like that the corner of her lips lifted and the tears failed to continue falling. "Do you even have a title?"

His eyes quickly moved back to hers. "Of course!" He smiled. "I already had my coming of age trials. I'm the god of spring and fertility."

With a body such as his..."Of course you are," she commented with a small breathy chuckle.

He sat in the grass in front of her just outside the blackened patch with his basket of wheat nestled in his lap. "May I ask who you are?"

"Persephone. Goddess of the underworld."

"Oh! You know, you're not as cold hearted and cruel as the rumors make you out to be. Someone as cold hearted as that wouldn't be on their knees in a flower patch crying tears of pure sadness."

Her deep green eyes turned toward the high noon sun. "There's...a lot more to it then just that," she sighed.

His expression softened, and his stony gray eyes seemed to become a liquid silver filled with a warmth she had trouble believing was for her. "Why are you looking at me like that?" She asked tentatively.

"There's so much sadness bottled up inside you. Makes me wish I could take it away for you."

She softly scoffed, pushing wild red curls behind her shoulders. "You don't know the first thing about me," she told him with a more gentle and sincere tone then an insulted one.

"But I want to know."

She never found herself holding back her built up storm of emotions as badly as she was now. The desire to come clean about everything: her anger, frustrations, sadness, and depression - the walls she'd spent millennium building up that were easily beginning to crack simply because someone showed her a hint of kindness. She had no reason to trust him, and she'd had enough betrayal to last her a couple thousand more years. She couldn't bring herself to get close to him only to have it end in more misery.

"You'd be better off listening to those rumors and staying pretty far away from me," she finally told him. "I'm sure even a kid like you has heard the stories about what I've done."

"I'm actually full grown."

"Until you stop aging you are a kid."

"Not too sure how to argue that one." Hades admitted, setting aside his basket of wheat. "But I have no reason to listen to those ungrounded rumors. They're nothing but lies. You're not what they portray you as."

She shook her head. "Stop it Hades. You're trying to get close to me, but it won't work. We can't be friends. We can't be anything."

"Please don't say that..."

"Look, it was nice meting you - " She pushed herself up to her feet, dusting black wilted pieces of plant from the lower part of her dress. "But I need to get going. Besides, I can't travel much further than this. Tell Demeter I said hello."

The instant she stood he jumped to stand with her. His silhouette reached a good eight inches over her, and before she could turn away from him his large arms circled around her, hugging her firmly against his bare warm chest. Though his hold on her was firm, it was also soft and comforting. Her hands balled into fists down at her sides, ready to strike him down as she had earlier promised, but...

"You can kill me if you want to, but I know you need this, so it will be worth it."

"Don't touch me!" Her voice broke on her, and his fingers gently slipped through her hair to cup the back of her head. "I said get off!" She yelled even as she stood perfectly still against him.

"Look, I know we just me and everything, but I do actually care about you. Whatever happened to cause you this anguish, this torture...it couldn't be your fault."

Heat smacked the backs of her eyes and ran like rivers down her slender cheeks. She had always been told it was her fault with every incident she'd been in. Neither of her own brothers ever told her she was not at fault. "Just stop...I have to go."

She pushed him back so she was no longer being held, and with tear soaked eyes averted away from him she disappeared in a black cloud that spiraled around her from her feet to her head.

"Thank you..." She whispered before she vanished in the cloud completely.

Author's Note #2: Thank you everyone so much for reading part two of book one! If you enjoyed it, feel free to leave a tip or pledge as that helps me to continue writing more and more of the series.