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schizoauthoressTitle: Pherein Phonon
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Wonder Woman v4 #9
Warnings: suicide imagery (canonical, thanks a lot Azzarello and Chiang), dense prose with run-on sentences.
Word Count: 1696
Summary: The aftermath of Diana's shot.
Word of the Day: decathect verb: To withdraw one's feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss
Pherein Phonon
"Tisiphone, Alecto, Megaera," Persephone calls out to her daughters, the Erinyes. They had attended their father's wedding in her place -- she had the right to refuse, after all. For all his insensitivity, Hades would not force her to watch him replacing her with another of Zeus's daughters.
They do not answer. The silence, after the cacophany of Wonder Woman's... refusal, is thick and oppressive. Persephone busies herself with winding fresh silk bandages around her wounded arms. She is just tucking the end of the second bandage under the last loop when she hears the gunshot. Somehow, somehow she knows that it was meant for her husband -- and somehow she knows that it has found its mark.
She finds him in darkness, on the shore of the Lethe, with one hand pressed to the bullet wound over his heart and the other resting lightly on the gift Hephaestus had given him for the wedding that wasn't. There is a smear of his own blood on his chest, half-hidden, and she has a perverse impulse to cast a curse of unhealing on it, to match the wounds on her forearms. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, approaches her husband in silence, as quiet as a forgotten thought. She is often a forgotten goddess, and she finds herself ultimately unsurprised at her husband-uncle's attempted unfaithfulness. He has ever been greedy for that which he cannot possess and should not even long to -- she herself is proof of that.
"The Amazon was not so easily taken as I," she murmurs as she stands over him. He flinches at the sound of her voice, but she will not fall silent for his comfort, "but then, I was a maiden of sunshine, who knew naught but peace... and thus poor practice for ensnaring a woman of war. Wasn't I, husband mine?"
The endearment -- if such a bitter phrase could rightly be called that -- is both goad and reminder of how they are bound together. Persephone is long past struggling against their bond, but also she will not see it severed. She has bled for it, for ages, first through her own desperate desire for freedom and his own cruel, perverse desire that she never forget the uselessness of the action. But long after he lifted the curse that kept those deep, vicious cuts open and unhealed, Persephone let her blood continue to flow. The very sight of her serves as a reminder of his own capacity for spite, so like the family that he disdains -- indeed, he has avoided her much of late.
There had been truth enough to her words, when she spoke to Wonder Woman. Just... not the whole truth.
"You are more like her -- more cunning and more woman -- than you will admit," Hades replies, soft-voiced, as though speaking the words pains him (or perhaps it was the wound of Eros's weapon), and the last word is more of a sigh, "wife."
"Yes, 'wife'!" Persephone shouts, and the blackness all around them rings with the cry, resounds with her anger. "The wife you coveted, the wife you stole, the wife you renamed and reshaped, as you reshape your kingdom to your whims! The wife you would not let go," she gestures, and a few drops of her blood splatter against the exposed part of his cheek. Hades flinches again, as though burned, and her voice rises, "though you never loved me!"
"No," Hades agrees, quiet in the face of her rage, "I never could."
That is different from all the times before, and the difference gives her pause. He has always spoken in present tense about his inability to love, no matter how many times she gives voice to her ancient grievance. Every time, his answer has been, 'I cannot'. In the eternity they have spent, that has remained unchanging. Until now.
He sits up under her gaze, seemingly content to wait for a reply regardless of how long it takes. The mirror glitters in his hand, another bit of wealth for the god whose realm is already full of material riches. Persephone doesn't know how to answer and it reminds her of their first eons together... of how she hated being younger and weaker than he.
He does not smile. When he speaks, he does not even sound amused, as he sometimes does when he's bested her somehow -- but he reaches up and touches her bandaged arm, right where she's bleeding through, with his bloodied hand. It is Persephone's turn to flinch.
"We have done nothing but wound each other in all this time."
"That?" she says dismissively, striving to match the coldness that often fills his voice, "That is nothing." (She does not quite succeed. He is part of a deeper darkness than she, with her memories of sunshine and springtime, can comprehend. But her years at his side bring her close.)
"No. You do not show the worst of your wounds." He lets his hand drop as he angles his face toward hers. His eyes remain unseen but she knows he is looking right at her. "Do you, Kore?"
She doesn't know how to handle how he's looking at her -- as though he were seeing her for the first time, as though she rivaled Aphrodite for beauty -- let alone his use of her old name. "Kore is dead," she says steadily. "Kore was murdered by Hades and Persephone long ago."
Amusement does color his voice for a moment as he retorts, "Recall, wife, that all the dead belong to me. Perhaps your words are ill-chosen."
"They are not," Persephone says simply.
He regards her with shock, and it is doubled because he had believed nothing could surprise him thus anymore. Until this moment, he has been certain he knew her heart -- that it was closed against him. She shrugs and says nothing. For a time, he only watches her blood darken the silk bandages on her arms with a spreading red-black stain. She follows his eyes, and then the bleeding seems to slow, or perhaps stop.
"The Lord of the Dead may not be able to love, but I learned otherwise in time," Persephone whispers. "Why else would your lack of love cut me so deeply, Hades?"
"And now you hate me."
"It has been an easy thing to hate you," Persephone admits, kneeling beside him. "To stop loving you... that has been far more difficult. I think I love you even now, you proud, self-centered fool. I think it would not hurt so to imagine you with Wonder Woman or any other, if I had only stopped."
Hades isn't sure if he will be allowed to touch her, isn't sure if he has the right. (Zeus would never worry about such things, but of all things, Hades is definitely not his brother.) Persephone is beautiful. Hades is not sure when he stopped seeing that, when her beauty became commonplace and ordinary to him, but now he thinks he's been a fool for far too long. He has thought himself loveless, unloved, and alone; he has wallowed in gloom and believed his own self-pity. Persephone has given him much, as the mother of his children and otherwise, and for too long he has made himself incapable of returning the thing which mattered most to her.
'No longer,' he thinks, 'no longer.' The ammunition of Eros has pierced his cold heart and opened his eyes.
"Spring comes," she says.
Hades knows that no seasons break the endless dark months of the Underworld, and of the mortal world he cares little, but he seems to recall that it had already come. But Spring and its time are her domain, for all that she has not taken an active interest in it for some time. He is silent, in deference to the knowledge she has which he lacks.
Her gaze holds steady. "I would visit my mother."
He is surprised once again. It is a request she has not made for a long time, since his cruel punishment was laid upon her. He had refused her many time, even before then, but he has no will to refuse her now.
"It is your right," he answers.
Persephone nods as though she had expected that reply. She twists one of the slim silken strips that binds her arms, curling the mottled white cloth around her fingers. "Hades..." she says, soft and low, and he licks his lips at the memories the sound of her voice recalls -- all the stronger than before. Does she notice the gesture? Does she guess at its meaning? She seems to, looking at him from beneath her long, dark lashes, "Hades..."
"Yes...?" Hades prompts.
"If you can love me, then make me a promise."
He says nothing, but gestures with one hand for her to continue. Her eyes brighten, as they have not for many years.
"When I leave, you will stay and you won't come for me," Persephone says firmly. "If you can love me now, I want you to burn for me until I return, as helpless and as hopeless as Kore learned to burn for you." A smile finally forms on her lips, wicked and beautiful and tempting and -- oh, how could he have forgotten this side of her, the side that scatters baneberry and belladonna among the flowers that bloom at her mother's feet, the side that tends hellebore and hemlock in her own dark gardens? She traces a fingertip along one of the waxy trails on his face and he tries to lean into the touch, biting back a whine when she pulls away. "And we shall see, husband mine, if there is indeed a fire that can light the darkness of this realm."
Persephone rises to leave, and the bloodstained silk unspools from her arms. Hades catches a glimpse of the soft flesh on the inside of her wrist, unblemished and unbroken, like a promise itself. And then she is gone from the Underworld, with only the delicate scent of flowers to mark her passing.
Author: D.L.SchizoAuthoress
Rating: PG
Spoilers: Wonder Woman v4 #9
Warnings: suicide imagery (canonical, thanks a lot Azzarello and Chiang), dense prose with run-on sentences.
Word Count: 1696
Summary: The aftermath of Diana's shot.
Word of the Day: decathect verb: To withdraw one's feelings of attachment from (a person, idea, or object), as in anticipation of a future loss
Pherein Phonon
"Tisiphone, Alecto, Megaera," Persephone calls out to her daughters, the Erinyes. They had attended their father's wedding in her place -- she had the right to refuse, after all. For all his insensitivity, Hades would not force her to watch him replacing her with another of Zeus's daughters.
They do not answer. The silence, after the cacophany of Wonder Woman's... refusal, is thick and oppressive. Persephone busies herself with winding fresh silk bandages around her wounded arms. She is just tucking the end of the second bandage under the last loop when she hears the gunshot. Somehow, somehow she knows that it was meant for her husband -- and somehow she knows that it has found its mark.
She finds him in darkness, on the shore of the Lethe, with one hand pressed to the bullet wound over his heart and the other resting lightly on the gift Hephaestus had given him for the wedding that wasn't. There is a smear of his own blood on his chest, half-hidden, and she has a perverse impulse to cast a curse of unhealing on it, to match the wounds on her forearms. Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, approaches her husband in silence, as quiet as a forgotten thought. She is often a forgotten goddess, and she finds herself ultimately unsurprised at her husband-uncle's attempted unfaithfulness. He has ever been greedy for that which he cannot possess and should not even long to -- she herself is proof of that.
"The Amazon was not so easily taken as I," she murmurs as she stands over him. He flinches at the sound of her voice, but she will not fall silent for his comfort, "but then, I was a maiden of sunshine, who knew naught but peace... and thus poor practice for ensnaring a woman of war. Wasn't I, husband mine?"
The endearment -- if such a bitter phrase could rightly be called that -- is both goad and reminder of how they are bound together. Persephone is long past struggling against their bond, but also she will not see it severed. She has bled for it, for ages, first through her own desperate desire for freedom and his own cruel, perverse desire that she never forget the uselessness of the action. But long after he lifted the curse that kept those deep, vicious cuts open and unhealed, Persephone let her blood continue to flow. The very sight of her serves as a reminder of his own capacity for spite, so like the family that he disdains -- indeed, he has avoided her much of late.
There had been truth enough to her words, when she spoke to Wonder Woman. Just... not the whole truth.
"You are more like her -- more cunning and more woman -- than you will admit," Hades replies, soft-voiced, as though speaking the words pains him (or perhaps it was the wound of Eros's weapon), and the last word is more of a sigh, "wife."
"Yes, 'wife'!" Persephone shouts, and the blackness all around them rings with the cry, resounds with her anger. "The wife you coveted, the wife you stole, the wife you renamed and reshaped, as you reshape your kingdom to your whims! The wife you would not let go," she gestures, and a few drops of her blood splatter against the exposed part of his cheek. Hades flinches again, as though burned, and her voice rises, "though you never loved me!"
"No," Hades agrees, quiet in the face of her rage, "I never could."
That is different from all the times before, and the difference gives her pause. He has always spoken in present tense about his inability to love, no matter how many times she gives voice to her ancient grievance. Every time, his answer has been, 'I cannot'. In the eternity they have spent, that has remained unchanging. Until now.
He sits up under her gaze, seemingly content to wait for a reply regardless of how long it takes. The mirror glitters in his hand, another bit of wealth for the god whose realm is already full of material riches. Persephone doesn't know how to answer and it reminds her of their first eons together... of how she hated being younger and weaker than he.
He does not smile. When he speaks, he does not even sound amused, as he sometimes does when he's bested her somehow -- but he reaches up and touches her bandaged arm, right where she's bleeding through, with his bloodied hand. It is Persephone's turn to flinch.
"We have done nothing but wound each other in all this time."
"That?" she says dismissively, striving to match the coldness that often fills his voice, "That is nothing." (She does not quite succeed. He is part of a deeper darkness than she, with her memories of sunshine and springtime, can comprehend. But her years at his side bring her close.)
"No. You do not show the worst of your wounds." He lets his hand drop as he angles his face toward hers. His eyes remain unseen but she knows he is looking right at her. "Do you, Kore?"
She doesn't know how to handle how he's looking at her -- as though he were seeing her for the first time, as though she rivaled Aphrodite for beauty -- let alone his use of her old name. "Kore is dead," she says steadily. "Kore was murdered by Hades and Persephone long ago."
Amusement does color his voice for a moment as he retorts, "Recall, wife, that all the dead belong to me. Perhaps your words are ill-chosen."
"They are not," Persephone says simply.
He regards her with shock, and it is doubled because he had believed nothing could surprise him thus anymore. Until this moment, he has been certain he knew her heart -- that it was closed against him. She shrugs and says nothing. For a time, he only watches her blood darken the silk bandages on her arms with a spreading red-black stain. She follows his eyes, and then the bleeding seems to slow, or perhaps stop.
"The Lord of the Dead may not be able to love, but I learned otherwise in time," Persephone whispers. "Why else would your lack of love cut me so deeply, Hades?"
"And now you hate me."
"It has been an easy thing to hate you," Persephone admits, kneeling beside him. "To stop loving you... that has been far more difficult. I think I love you even now, you proud, self-centered fool. I think it would not hurt so to imagine you with Wonder Woman or any other, if I had only stopped."
Hades isn't sure if he will be allowed to touch her, isn't sure if he has the right. (Zeus would never worry about such things, but of all things, Hades is definitely not his brother.) Persephone is beautiful. Hades is not sure when he stopped seeing that, when her beauty became commonplace and ordinary to him, but now he thinks he's been a fool for far too long. He has thought himself loveless, unloved, and alone; he has wallowed in gloom and believed his own self-pity. Persephone has given him much, as the mother of his children and otherwise, and for too long he has made himself incapable of returning the thing which mattered most to her.
'No longer,' he thinks, 'no longer.' The ammunition of Eros has pierced his cold heart and opened his eyes.
"Spring comes," she says.
Hades knows that no seasons break the endless dark months of the Underworld, and of the mortal world he cares little, but he seems to recall that it had already come. But Spring and its time are her domain, for all that she has not taken an active interest in it for some time. He is silent, in deference to the knowledge she has which he lacks.
Her gaze holds steady. "I would visit my mother."
He is surprised once again. It is a request she has not made for a long time, since his cruel punishment was laid upon her. He had refused her many time, even before then, but he has no will to refuse her now.
"It is your right," he answers.
Persephone nods as though she had expected that reply. She twists one of the slim silken strips that binds her arms, curling the mottled white cloth around her fingers. "Hades..." she says, soft and low, and he licks his lips at the memories the sound of her voice recalls -- all the stronger than before. Does she notice the gesture? Does she guess at its meaning? She seems to, looking at him from beneath her long, dark lashes, "Hades..."
"Yes...?" Hades prompts.
"If you can love me, then make me a promise."
He says nothing, but gestures with one hand for her to continue. Her eyes brighten, as they have not for many years.
"When I leave, you will stay and you won't come for me," Persephone says firmly. "If you can love me now, I want you to burn for me until I return, as helpless and as hopeless as Kore learned to burn for you." A smile finally forms on her lips, wicked and beautiful and tempting and -- oh, how could he have forgotten this side of her, the side that scatters baneberry and belladonna among the flowers that bloom at her mother's feet, the side that tends hellebore and hemlock in her own dark gardens? She traces a fingertip along one of the waxy trails on his face and he tries to lean into the touch, biting back a whine when she pulls away. "And we shall see, husband mine, if there is indeed a fire that can light the darkness of this realm."
Persephone rises to leave, and the bloodstained silk unspools from her arms. Hades catches a glimpse of the soft flesh on the inside of her wrist, unblemished and unbroken, like a promise itself. And then she is gone from the Underworld, with only the delicate scent of flowers to mark her passing.