(log) Persephone & Hades // Decades
Are we still who we were then?
Both of us awkward and bitter,
But I can't let you get close again.
Persephone
Hades
Hades pulled the black jacket sweater closed, zipping up its front. The weather here was cold, not as cold as the Arctic, but cold nevertheless. The notebook that he'd been working in was held loosely in his left hand, his head bowed as he walked on down the pathway out of the library. The snow had stopped temporarily but all around, Countshire was blanketed in a brilliantly bright layer of white snow. Hades pulled his collar up and reminded himself to buy a scarf one of these days. And gloves he thought as he flexed his fingers, mentally wincing at the cold that had immediately set in. Human bodies were much more affected by the changing weathers of this world and moving here with money was easy- he always forgot to pack more than basic clothes though, when he moved from location to location. He was so distracted by the comparison of the cold here with the memories he had of the Arctic a few decades ago, he barely had time to pull himself up short when he realized he'd nearly walked into the one person he'd been trying to keep from bumping into him here. His feet froze so abruptly that the notebook slipped and fell in front of him into the snow. His eyes though, were preoccupied.
Persephone began her slow walk back to the dorms from the music practice room, her cello case strapped onto her back securely. She was bundled up for the most part--a wool scarf around her neck, and nice, secure boots for her feet. She breathed out a sigh and continued her stroll back to Eir, when a dropped notebook on the snow caught her eye.
She blinked and looked up to meet a stranger's eyes, who... didn't seem like a stranger to her, at all. She gazed at him for a while before leaning down to pick up the notebook that she assumed was his.
"Here," said Persephone, handing it back. At least she felt civil enough.
He felt like a deer caught in headlights as she looked into his eyes. Her hair was dyed but her eyes, they still were exactly the same, large, brilliant, sadder and there was a wariness about the way she moved and looked at people. He'd watched her from afar, usually within a crowd to keep from being noticed. But now, she was too close and there was not another soul to distract, spirit or human, in sight. He stood there for a few more long seconds before reeling to his senses. It'd been years, millenniums since he'd last stood this close to his wife.
He had to squash the feeling that arose from inside with an iron fist. He did not sacrifice all these years, all this time for nothing. He reached out and quickly pulled the notebook from her hand, dipped his head and turned heel to walk away.
She tilted her head slightly to the side, wondering what seemed so familiar about this stranger. There was an old, but an oddly accustomed feeling about him. Had she seen him before somewhere, some years ago? Was he a spirit? But then--
The way he quickly dipped his head made her stop and question herself. It was such a commonplace gesture, and yet his back as he walked away looked almost habitual, a routine that she had seen so long ago. Persephone, against her better judgment, quickened her steps to catch up and eventually stood in front of him, blocking his way.
Her grip on the cello case shoulder strap tightened as she recognized his stature, the color of his hair that hadn't changed, and lastly his eyes. She momentarily inquired after her own sanity. After all, it had been too long, much too long. She had believed that he had died; that way, she didn't have to think about why he left that day without saying a word to anyone--that way, she didn't have to wonder if she was the cause of it all.
Her eyes swam with confusion and nostalgia. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Hades...?"
The name was what must have given him away. There was a visible flinch, his eye pulling away from hers to the left before he forced them back again.
"Bastien." He forced himself to calm down- stop racing, heart, you knew this was going to happen eventually here. "My name is Bastien." His throat felt dry.
She shook her head almost instinctively. It was him. It was the shade who took her away from her home, who wed her and called her his wife.
Her stare did not leave his face. "Do you know who I am?"
Here's where he would have to be careful. He slipped his right hand into his trouser pocket, the other holding the notebook at his side. He looked her over purposely, slowly, as if trying to think over who she could be.
"Should I?" He'd been going for nonchalant and somehow had ended up a little too heavy on the bitter. Damn. But it was too late now.
She took a step back and cast her eyes on the snow near her feet. It had always been this way, hadn't it? Always her asking questions and him answering with another. This pattern, to, was an all too familiar feeling.
She tried to control the emotions that seemed to overflow and pour out of her. She sensed the sharpness in his voice, but there was hardly any doubt now as to who he was.
"I thought you were..." her mouth could barely form the word, "dead."
He refused to let himself show any gentleness, any kindness in his expression. He squared his shoulder, eyes focused on her mouth.
"Wished it so?" He wondered if she'd given her favour to anyone else in these long years. Another spirit? A human?
If he had thought that she wished him dead, he was a fool. She didn't hesitate to answer him, though her voice was still quiet.
"No." She didn't bother asking about his pact-makers--were they dead, then, instead of him? Did she care?
He made himself look at her eyes again.
"Pacted? Or did you finally get strong enough to be on your own?" This was starting to go beyond awkward. He'd wondered, pretended in his head how this was suppose to go. So far, nothing was on track.
A pact? She hadn't had one in years, not after the last one had nearly killed her, too.
"A pact? Not if I can help it." The hidden anger surfaced a little in her tone. She bit her lower lip. She should be the one to ask him why he left. She should be angry with him for not letting her know anything of his plans when she was his so-called wife. But nothing came to mind except her mind silently reprimanding her own actions. You shouldn't have followed him. You shouldn't have placed such trust in him.
She lowered her head, trying her best to stop the tears from coming. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't.
Ah. That face. He hated that face and he knew he needed to force himself not to give in.
"After so long, you can only cry? How typical of a child, Persephone." He wondered if the old jab would have as much impact as before.
Her shoulders shook at his accusation. Who was he to tell her not to cry, when she had almost forgotten what tears felt like on her cheeks? Who was it that had left her and made her so jaded, so against the world?
She let out a breath that she didn't know she had been holding and raised her hand to slap him across the cheek. She looked up, not bothering to hide the tears that threatened to flow. Her eyes held anger, the kind that wondered, why are you doing this? as she looked at him once more.
His hand grabbed hers as it came towards him, purely out of self-defensive instinct than real fear that she would hurt him. Her wrist was tiny in his hand and he couldn't stop his fingers curling automatically around. He jerked his hand away, flinging her arm down, touching her shaking him more than anything else so far.
"Violence? How unlike you. And should I be surprised though? How else have you changed in these years?"
"Unlike me?" She echoed, a small, bitter laugh escaping her mouth. She didn't wipe her cheeks that were now starting to be stained with a tear here and a tear there. "Truthfully, you shouldn't be surprised at all."
"Shouldn't be surprised." He echoed back. His fist clenched in his pocket, digging his nails into the palm of his hand.
"No. I guess I shouldn't."
"Why?" She asked immediately after, visibly shaking every now and then with anger, sadness, and the feeling of being betrayed--over and over, by humans and by him. "Why are you even here?"
Hades shrugged.
"This whole city is centered on a large portal. The constant traffic of spirits is high. It seemed good enough a place." He hated himself for what he was about to say.
"You couldn't possibly think it was because of you, could you?"
Her eyes fell to the ground again, but not before her gaze had turned rather hollow with shock and--as she despised to admit it--hurt.
"Of course not," she managed to breathe out after some seconds of silence. "Don't ever think of me as such a fool again."
"You should probably stay away then, Persephone." He forced himself into a half leer, hoping that in her distress she wouldn't notice how terrible an actor he was right now.
"Unless you were hoping for a kiss? Come now, do you have a kiss for me, wife?" He leaned forward. If she struck him this time, he would not block.
His mocking tone of affection did make her raise her hand again, but she stopped it in midair and let her arm fall to her side without much effort. If she struck him, then what? It wasn't going to change any of this--the fact that they unfortunately met after so many years (unfortunate on his part, at least).
Instead, she stepped back and retorted, "Do you still have the nerve to call me your wife?"
"Despite the fact that you show no sign of treating me as your husband? I see no problem, wife". He leered again. The notebook's spiral binding dug into his hand.
"Don't play coy, Persephone. Why else hang around this area but to find another?"
Her eyes snapped up at that. They held a look of disbelief and a growing, but confused, contempt.
"You really are despicable," she whispered.
"It is a shame it took you this long to notice." He forced himself to keep looking into her eyes. Anger, confusion. Yes, keep going, keep hating.
Persephone closed her eyes and attempted to leave it at that. As difficult as it was to believe, the person standing in front of her was once her husband, someone she thought she couldn't live without. She took a deep breath and let it out, trying her best to calm herself down. When she opened her eyes again, they were surprisingly blank in the way she viewed the world nowadays: unemotional, detached, in one way or another (but she failed to hide the touch of sadness in them).
"It was unwise of me to have ever followed you."
Follow you.
He'd asked her that time if she'd be willing to follow him, leave her mother, leave Asgard, come to this strange and different world that he'd been living in to dwell amongst these humans.
"I'm glad we have things cleared up then." His eyes were cold as he hid his own feelings behind an anger at himself.
No. I was the foolish one for ever bringing you here, for asking you to follow.
She flinched at that again. She needed to stop remembering, make the revisiting memories cease. It only made her feel more miserable and kept the tears flowing. The last thing she wanted him to know was how vulnerable she'd become, how she still spent some days crying sometimes because she didn't know when she came to be all alone.
"That will be all, then," she said, before finally putting her coat sleeve to her face to wipe the residue of tears. She made sure the cello case was secure on her back and walked past him, on the path of return to Eir.
It took an iron will built from millenniums of living to keep from turning but Hades resisted. He closed his eyes and listened to her footsteps as she trudged away though before finally unclenching the fist he'd made in his pocket and walking away as well. The first would be the worst he hoped.
It was all for the better.
Both of us awkward and bitter,
But I can't let you get close again.
Persephone
Hades
Hades pulled the black jacket sweater closed, zipping up its front. The weather here was cold, not as cold as the Arctic, but cold nevertheless. The notebook that he'd been working in was held loosely in his left hand, his head bowed as he walked on down the pathway out of the library. The snow had stopped temporarily but all around, Countshire was blanketed in a brilliantly bright layer of white snow. Hades pulled his collar up and reminded himself to buy a scarf one of these days. And gloves he thought as he flexed his fingers, mentally wincing at the cold that had immediately set in. Human bodies were much more affected by the changing weathers of this world and moving here with money was easy- he always forgot to pack more than basic clothes though, when he moved from location to location. He was so distracted by the comparison of the cold here with the memories he had of the Arctic a few decades ago, he barely had time to pull himself up short when he realized he'd nearly walked into the one person he'd been trying to keep from bumping into him here. His feet froze so abruptly that the notebook slipped and fell in front of him into the snow. His eyes though, were preoccupied.
Persephone began her slow walk back to the dorms from the music practice room, her cello case strapped onto her back securely. She was bundled up for the most part--a wool scarf around her neck, and nice, secure boots for her feet. She breathed out a sigh and continued her stroll back to Eir, when a dropped notebook on the snow caught her eye.
She blinked and looked up to meet a stranger's eyes, who... didn't seem like a stranger to her, at all. She gazed at him for a while before leaning down to pick up the notebook that she assumed was his.
"Here," said Persephone, handing it back. At least she felt civil enough.
He felt like a deer caught in headlights as she looked into his eyes. Her hair was dyed but her eyes, they still were exactly the same, large, brilliant, sadder and there was a wariness about the way she moved and looked at people. He'd watched her from afar, usually within a crowd to keep from being noticed. But now, she was too close and there was not another soul to distract, spirit or human, in sight. He stood there for a few more long seconds before reeling to his senses. It'd been years, millenniums since he'd last stood this close to his wife.
He had to squash the feeling that arose from inside with an iron fist. He did not sacrifice all these years, all this time for nothing. He reached out and quickly pulled the notebook from her hand, dipped his head and turned heel to walk away.
She tilted her head slightly to the side, wondering what seemed so familiar about this stranger. There was an old, but an oddly accustomed feeling about him. Had she seen him before somewhere, some years ago? Was he a spirit? But then--
The way he quickly dipped his head made her stop and question herself. It was such a commonplace gesture, and yet his back as he walked away looked almost habitual, a routine that she had seen so long ago. Persephone, against her better judgment, quickened her steps to catch up and eventually stood in front of him, blocking his way.
Her grip on the cello case shoulder strap tightened as she recognized his stature, the color of his hair that hadn't changed, and lastly his eyes. She momentarily inquired after her own sanity. After all, it had been too long, much too long. She had believed that he had died; that way, she didn't have to think about why he left that day without saying a word to anyone--that way, she didn't have to wonder if she was the cause of it all.
Her eyes swam with confusion and nostalgia. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Hades...?"
The name was what must have given him away. There was a visible flinch, his eye pulling away from hers to the left before he forced them back again.
"Bastien." He forced himself to calm down- stop racing, heart, you knew this was going to happen eventually here. "My name is Bastien." His throat felt dry.
She shook her head almost instinctively. It was him. It was the shade who took her away from her home, who wed her and called her his wife.
Her stare did not leave his face. "Do you know who I am?"
Here's where he would have to be careful. He slipped his right hand into his trouser pocket, the other holding the notebook at his side. He looked her over purposely, slowly, as if trying to think over who she could be.
"Should I?" He'd been going for nonchalant and somehow had ended up a little too heavy on the bitter. Damn. But it was too late now.
She took a step back and cast her eyes on the snow near her feet. It had always been this way, hadn't it? Always her asking questions and him answering with another. This pattern, to, was an all too familiar feeling.
She tried to control the emotions that seemed to overflow and pour out of her. She sensed the sharpness in his voice, but there was hardly any doubt now as to who he was.
"I thought you were..." her mouth could barely form the word, "dead."
He refused to let himself show any gentleness, any kindness in his expression. He squared his shoulder, eyes focused on her mouth.
"Wished it so?" He wondered if she'd given her favour to anyone else in these long years. Another spirit? A human?
If he had thought that she wished him dead, he was a fool. She didn't hesitate to answer him, though her voice was still quiet.
"No." She didn't bother asking about his pact-makers--were they dead, then, instead of him? Did she care?
He made himself look at her eyes again.
"Pacted? Or did you finally get strong enough to be on your own?" This was starting to go beyond awkward. He'd wondered, pretended in his head how this was suppose to go. So far, nothing was on track.
A pact? She hadn't had one in years, not after the last one had nearly killed her, too.
"A pact? Not if I can help it." The hidden anger surfaced a little in her tone. She bit her lower lip. She should be the one to ask him why he left. She should be angry with him for not letting her know anything of his plans when she was his so-called wife. But nothing came to mind except her mind silently reprimanding her own actions. You shouldn't have followed him. You shouldn't have placed such trust in him.
She lowered her head, trying her best to stop the tears from coming. She wouldn't cry. She wouldn't.
Ah. That face. He hated that face and he knew he needed to force himself not to give in.
"After so long, you can only cry? How typical of a child, Persephone." He wondered if the old jab would have as much impact as before.
Her shoulders shook at his accusation. Who was he to tell her not to cry, when she had almost forgotten what tears felt like on her cheeks? Who was it that had left her and made her so jaded, so against the world?
She let out a breath that she didn't know she had been holding and raised her hand to slap him across the cheek. She looked up, not bothering to hide the tears that threatened to flow. Her eyes held anger, the kind that wondered, why are you doing this? as she looked at him once more.
His hand grabbed hers as it came towards him, purely out of self-defensive instinct than real fear that she would hurt him. Her wrist was tiny in his hand and he couldn't stop his fingers curling automatically around. He jerked his hand away, flinging her arm down, touching her shaking him more than anything else so far.
"Violence? How unlike you. And should I be surprised though? How else have you changed in these years?"
"Unlike me?" She echoed, a small, bitter laugh escaping her mouth. She didn't wipe her cheeks that were now starting to be stained with a tear here and a tear there. "Truthfully, you shouldn't be surprised at all."
"Shouldn't be surprised." He echoed back. His fist clenched in his pocket, digging his nails into the palm of his hand.
"No. I guess I shouldn't."
"Why?" She asked immediately after, visibly shaking every now and then with anger, sadness, and the feeling of being betrayed--over and over, by humans and by him. "Why are you even here?"
Hades shrugged.
"This whole city is centered on a large portal. The constant traffic of spirits is high. It seemed good enough a place." He hated himself for what he was about to say.
"You couldn't possibly think it was because of you, could you?"
Her eyes fell to the ground again, but not before her gaze had turned rather hollow with shock and--as she despised to admit it--hurt.
"Of course not," she managed to breathe out after some seconds of silence. "Don't ever think of me as such a fool again."
"You should probably stay away then, Persephone." He forced himself into a half leer, hoping that in her distress she wouldn't notice how terrible an actor he was right now.
"Unless you were hoping for a kiss? Come now, do you have a kiss for me, wife?" He leaned forward. If she struck him this time, he would not block.
His mocking tone of affection did make her raise her hand again, but she stopped it in midair and let her arm fall to her side without much effort. If she struck him, then what? It wasn't going to change any of this--the fact that they unfortunately met after so many years (unfortunate on his part, at least).
Instead, she stepped back and retorted, "Do you still have the nerve to call me your wife?"
"Despite the fact that you show no sign of treating me as your husband? I see no problem, wife". He leered again. The notebook's spiral binding dug into his hand.
"Don't play coy, Persephone. Why else hang around this area but to find another?"
Her eyes snapped up at that. They held a look of disbelief and a growing, but confused, contempt.
"You really are despicable," she whispered.
"It is a shame it took you this long to notice." He forced himself to keep looking into her eyes. Anger, confusion. Yes, keep going, keep hating.
Persephone closed her eyes and attempted to leave it at that. As difficult as it was to believe, the person standing in front of her was once her husband, someone she thought she couldn't live without. She took a deep breath and let it out, trying her best to calm herself down. When she opened her eyes again, they were surprisingly blank in the way she viewed the world nowadays: unemotional, detached, in one way or another (but she failed to hide the touch of sadness in them).
"It was unwise of me to have ever followed you."
Follow you.
He'd asked her that time if she'd be willing to follow him, leave her mother, leave Asgard, come to this strange and different world that he'd been living in to dwell amongst these humans.
"I'm glad we have things cleared up then." His eyes were cold as he hid his own feelings behind an anger at himself.
No. I was the foolish one for ever bringing you here, for asking you to follow.
She flinched at that again. She needed to stop remembering, make the revisiting memories cease. It only made her feel more miserable and kept the tears flowing. The last thing she wanted him to know was how vulnerable she'd become, how she still spent some days crying sometimes because she didn't know when she came to be all alone.
"That will be all, then," she said, before finally putting her coat sleeve to her face to wipe the residue of tears. She made sure the cello case was secure on her back and walked past him, on the path of return to Eir.
It took an iron will built from millenniums of living to keep from turning but Hades resisted. He closed his eyes and listened to her footsteps as she trudged away though before finally unclenching the fist he'd made in his pocket and walking away as well. The first would be the worst he hoped.
It was all for the better.