she traded daffodils for dead kingdoms

by apotelesmas

Summary:

If those of lower birth were to rise high, high, higher than she ever would—she could sink to the depths just as easily. What match was stubborn earth for persistent vine? She found that she did not have to love it to own it, after all; what mattered was that she had chosen, that she had conquered.

Persephone chooses the Underworld, but not because she likes it.

Notes:

—title inspired by "Pomegranate Seeds" by Julian Moon

“Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.”
—algernon charles swinburne, the garden of proserpine

I. “Kore,” they called her; maiden, daughter, girl. It fit the dancing in the sunlight and the weaving flower crowns and the running barefoot through the grass, she supposed. She wondered if they knew she hadn’t much of a choice when it came to dancing and weaving and running. She wondered if they knew how much she wanted, how much she was refused.

She was born of force and lust, tears and disgust; she was born to the most nurturing love with lightning in her eyes and flowers at her fingertips. That was a pity, because lightning and flowers did not go together—she was the exception, of course, but only the first; how was anyone to know? (A different sort of misfortune, that.)

So the lightning was nipped in the bud, if you will. Later, she’d wonder whether her life would have been different if she’d been allowed to choose what part of herself to kill. Whether the part she’d chosen would have truly died.

It is near impossible to destroy what is immortal, after all, and she, daughter of a king and his sister, is immortal enough.

But she played the part, and played it well—all sunshine and smiles, love and laughter. No one noticed the withering flowers that trailed behind her as those of lesser birth rose high, high, higher than she ever would.

Twin bastards sauntered among those of her father’s court, while she had only the nymphs for company (and fine company they were, too—smiling, smothering, simpering girls who ran at her mother’s beck and call). A young debauchee had vines, a throne and a staff, while she twisted daisies into crowns too light, too powerless, too ephemeral.

She gasped and grasped for control, watched and waited for the least reprieve. She slipped into glens, pulling curtains of tendrils up behind her, and she ran over hills, hiding in the river marshes. The nymphs always found her soon enough—too soon, too soon, too soon—and turned her desperate ache for freedom into a child’s play of hide-and-seek.

Who has ever known a lonely girl to want solitude so?

 

 

II. “Wife,” he said, laying on her the claim most sacred with a voice more primordial than himself, and she shuddered. Shuddered in spite of—or because of, perhaps—the nervous, hopeful smile on his face. No choice here, either. He’d gotten what he wanted, had always gotten what he wanted, she knew. Why couldn’t she, ever, for once?

Flowers were meant to be pure, innocent, and hers to control—not cruel, not deceptive, not his.

It had been lovely, his cruel, deceptive blossom. The unmarred white of the petals was delicate, was brilliant, amidst the rich hues of the land, and it had drawn her gaze even at a distance. Perhaps that was the first sign of danger; perhaps the kinship she felt to the lonely flower, a raven among doves and a dove among ravens, was nothing but a feigned hope for understanding.

She had liked it, enough to reach down and lightly brush it. It had been lovely.

The crushed mass that lay in her palm, wilting at her will (at her anguish, at her fury), was anything but. She liked it better, now that she had marked it as her own with curled fingers and searing tears, now that she had taken the life she was meant to give.

There were thorns in her throat, in her mind, in her eyes, clawing their way through her, prickling, pounding. She choked on them, breathless and sobbing until voiceless screams erupted into savage walls of gnarled barbs around her.

He could not part them, master of the realm though he was. Had the audacity to seem upset, as her lips stretched thin in a mockery of an unfeeling smile. Through tangled locks of hair and thick overgrown vines, she made her promise, that she would never be his and he never hers. He waved his hands at her and her briar at that, and said some things about love, some things about cages.

She snarled her resolution back at him—her resolution to be free, her resolution to choose, her resolution to be bound to no thing and no one. Her cage—no, sanctuary—curled inwards, protecting the powerless vengeance that burned like wildfire, like lightning, in her veins.

And then, alone, again. He would return, as he always did, simple hope written on his tongue. It was inexplicable, how his relentless optimism had survived where nothing light did.

She wondered absently, then hoped he had poured a little of his soul into the corpse of the flower that she still clutched. It would be gratifying to know she had killed a piece of him—an inconsequential victory, perhaps (it is near impossible to destroy what is immortal, after all) but a victory nonetheless.

 

 

III. She plastered a smile on her face as he whispered and she echoed, “Mine." It looked natural enough, what with all her years of practice; the part might have been different, but she played it just the same. She could have laughed at how quickly relief and happiness flooded his features—naïve, so naïve for a judge of souls—almost did laugh. Almost softened, too, and would have not that long ago, but her days in the dark had hardened her heart. If the Underworld had to have a Lady, after all, a flower princess who simply wanted would not do.

(She could barely remember the sun, now.) The honey tones that once bathed her skin had long melted into a skeletal ivory. There was an unearthly purity to it, she supposed, inherent in its lifelessness. She hated it, hated it. It wasn’t like she had a choice—she could accept it, true, but acceptance meant resignation, to a king who was not hers and a land that was not hers.

But detestation—detestation meant strength, and challenge, and resistance. It meant everything she had harboured secretly all her life, a seed protected but not nurtured. Well, it would flourish now.

Hopelessly, viciously, hopefully, she buried it in the unforgiving terrain of the Underworld. It took root, drawing life from the dead and breaking through the rock with twisted resilience, reaching towards the unattainable heavens. Flowers bloomed pale and so white, from stems darker than ichor, darker than blood, darker than ink.

If those of lower birth were to rise high, high, higher than she ever would—she could sink to the depths just as easily. What match was stubborn earth for persistent vine? She found that she did not have to love it to own it, after all; what mattered was that she had chosen, that she had conquered.

 

 

IV. Her mother’s first words died on her lips as she emerged from the depths of hell. She knew what she’d been going to say, and she didn’t smile. The women looked at each other, the older starting again—“Persephone?” The lady of the grain, but perhaps the bringer of death, too. The name had always been hers—the name had been bestowed upon her by the very goddess before her—the name tasted strange on that tongue and the goddess faltered as she said it—the name was a victory. She did smile, then, and roses bloomed in her cheeks as they used to, but she carried herself differently and her mother noticed. Euphoria and despair warred on her features as triumph and remorse did in the daughter’s heart; they embraced as equals.

The husband was very quiet and very affectionate the day she was to leave. Always had been, but there was so much despair and want in the wells of his eyes, and the curve of his smile, and the brush of his lips, that her resolve broke. This fool of a god irked her, but her mother had raised her well and her conscience wouldn’t bear her grieving him, and her resolve broke. She knew, trusted that she would fight tooth and nail for herself, and for him, but she never had won before—so, her resolve broke.

Her last few moments as queen (only for a while, only for a while) were come and she spent them securing her place. She slipped away to the dim orchards of the Underworld, searching for a glint of vivid red amid the dark greens and whites and greys. There! long fingers reached out and plucked a single plump fruit.

She stared down at the orb; did it know of the power it held, to bind an ichor-blooded, divine-born Immortal to a world that was not hers, that she did not wish to be bound t— but she did wish it. 

She wished, had always wished, to be free to do as she pleased, and here, of all places, she could. And so she decided. The fruit split open, crimson running down her porcelain-pale arm like mortality, and she picked out several small, jewel-bright arils, all her own choice. She placed each between sharp teeth, all her own choice. She revelled in the burst of juice and tart flavour, all her own choice.

(Chains are but necklaces if one chooses them, after all, and she took the strength of the pomegranate and made it her own.)

The husband was overwhelmed, overjoyed, overcome. The mother was distraught. Half-full, the fruit wielded a different sort of power, it seemed—or perhaps it was her blood-red, ruby-stained smile.

 

 

V. “Goddess,” smiled the earth, her greatest-grandmother and her greatest subject, as she walked the well-known paths of her girlhood with a heavier tread. Everything blossomed at her touch, hungry for the life it had been denied too long, and for the first time she drew as much strength from it as it did from her.

She had it all, now. She had sunshine and smiles, love and laughter; she had solitude, she had lightning, and she had control. No longer under her mother’s dominion—they were equals—and the nymphs held no power over her.

The earth had never put forth a more bountiful welcome, they said, as they smiled cautiously at the girl-woman, the dead-living, the maiden-queen. It was glad to have her back.

(She simply returned their smiles, inclining her head in acceptance of what she barely believed were compliments. The earth bloomed because she made it bloom, with her paradoxical existence.)

Everything was different, and nothing was. She might have fallen to her throne, but those up above little cared for the going-ons of below until they faltered at the threshold. Her mother still fussed, but there was more than love behind it, and she was glad she was more than a girl, daughter and maiden, now. She still wove daisy crowns on clear afternoons, mind wandering on fairer shores. She had lost nothing but her innocence, and gained nothing but respect.

It was different, though, and it was enough.

(It had to be.)

 

 

VI. The darkness welcomed her home, and the flowers of the dead that sprung up behind her did not force it away. Her husband’s arms were waiting and warm; she didn’t hate them, and maybe she’d missed what they signified. She wondered if there was a change in her eyes as she took his arm and pressed close, perhaps not entirely for warmth. “Queen,” the Underworld breathed, and she smiled upon her realm.

A trail of wilted petals cut through the obsidian darkness, skeletal white drawing him along to the cold, sing-song voice that murmured in distant shadows. He had heard it before, somewhere, floating on a languid breeze through sun-soaked fields, but that had been a mellower sound; a warmer sound, a happier sound.

But she was not sad here. He loved these words, too.

She sat draped gracefully over the arm of her gilded throne, a princess at ease in her realm. He followed her gaze to her fingertips, which brushed a flower so familiar, and yet not. It had been his first gift to her, and she had brought it back to him—resisted, at first, it is true, but she had yielded soon enough.

(That is what she liked him to think.)

But the flower she now toyed with, and the ones that littered the ground between them, were fuller and more beautiful than anything he could have ever created, and he watched spellbound as she flicked a petal off. Loves, loves not, he heard, and he smiled at the childish play before his immortal heart twisted in his chest.

“I love him,” she said, and she turned to face him—his queen, not a princess, not a princess, not a princess. The words were so flat, and her eyes were so stony, and there was only one petal left.

“I love him not.”

Notes:

I've been working on this for so long it's almost embarrassing, but I've been in love with this idea ever since it crept into my mind. Leave kudos and comments if you like; they make my day!