[*] Profile
[Character Name] Persephone
[Character Series] Greek Mythology
[Family Name] Break
[Housing] 341 Brady Lane
[Job] Babysitter
[Age] Ageless (but for all intents and purposes, has the appearance and maturity of a very bratty, now angsty, seventeen-year-old)
[Background]
[Wikipedia | Theoi]
Persephone was the product of the coupling between the goddess of nature, Demeter, and the ruler of all gods, Zeus. She spent some of her early childhood upon Mt Olympus, but despite her mother having a palace upon the mountain, most of her long life was lived out on Greece, constantly wandering the countryside with Demeter.
Though later she would have many siblings, most would come after her time spent in the Underworld, the only one she knows of being the immortal horse Areion, sired by Poseidon, who was raised far away because of the manner of his conception.
Before coming to Mayfield, Hades had asked his brother Zeus for a wife and he had offered up one of his daughters, Persephone. At the moment she was dragged into the earth from her field of flowers, she disappears from that world and into another.
[Canon Update]
Persephone was returned to the exact point at which she was taken, during her kidnap by Hades. Unable to remember anything from Mayfield previous and with her senses weak and dulled from lack of sunlight in the dark Underworld, Persephone is tricked into eating six pomegranate seeds, tying her to Hades for half the year.
Zeus, who had originally given his daughter to Hades at the request of a wife, demands that his brother return the goddess after Demeter refuses to vanquish winter and right the world at the loss of her child.
Despite having to return to the Underworld and to Hades for part of each year, Persephone refuses to accept her new role as queen of the dead and doesn't acknowledge the death god as her husband beyond title. She still clings to the life part of the cycle that she represents (and this won't change until later, when Orpheus and Eurydice make their way to the Underworld), her stubbornness helping her to preserve.
During one of her stints above world, she is seduced by Zeus in the guise of a serpent and from their coupling is born the godling Zagreus. The boy is left in the care of Zeus as Persephone is returned to the Underworld. Hera, jealous of the son not born to her, tricks the child off the throne of Zeus with the promise of toys before dismembering him with knives (later, he would be reborn to the mortal woman Semele as Dionysos).
Figuring that since the first time didn't go so well, Zeus, again in disguise (as Hades this time), seduces Persephone again and from that is born the goddess Melinoe. Upon figuring out that it was not Hades she had the child with, frightened that this one would meet another awful fate should her husband find out, Persephone gives Melinoe to the dark goddess Hekate to care for, making her part of her entourage. (Melinoe and Hekate are synonymous with each other in some myths, so.)
It's around the second loss of her child that Persephone is returned to Mayfield, older and a little more screwed up.
[Appearance]
[X]
Stands at around 5'9''. Very long, floor length, bright orange hair (think the colour of leaves during autumn). Rather scrawny. Big ears. Light, grey-blue eyes. Carries herself elegantly, though with the loss of her powers, has become clumsy and awkward (moves mostly by the feel of the ground beneath her).
[Personality]
As a goddess of nature, Persephone is certainly not afraid of getting herself dirty or running completely wild across the countryside with her nymphs. Those nice robes she was wearing? Stained with mud and wrinkled after swimming and then laying on the bank of a river with a group of Naiades. The twigs and leaves stuck in her hair? From riding deer with the Dryads through a thick forest. Her sense of adventure knows no limit and she’s more than willing to test boundaries, whether they are physical or personal.
Raised mostly in the countryside of Greece, the ragamuffin goddess doesn’t tend to form many attachments to the creatures of myth that she meets. (Her status of divinity is also an attribute to this, believing that all other things except her kin are below her.) Humans are a source of curiosity and amusement, but other than running with the occasional farmer’s child through fields, she stays away from them, preferring to watch and wonder from afar. Her curiosity about the world and its workings, beyond that of the divine, is insatiable.
Though Persephone lacks some social skills, often prying into things that aren’t her business, she is generally a sweet and playful girl. That is, if you do what she says. Defying her will often result in a very angry little goddess who will threaten a good smiting, despite not being at that level yet (she can’t even turn a beetle into a twig, for crying out loud).
She can be stubborn if she doesn’t get her way and unbelievably cruel to those that cross her, unleashing the wrath of nature down upon their heads. Tributes greatly help in appeasing her and she rarely, if ever, turns down gifts or flattery.
[Abilities]
* = earned back powers
[Lifespan] -- As a goddess, Persephone is immortal and will live for as long as there is belief in herself and her pantheon, no matter how small. (However, the belief greatly affects their overall abilities.) Even as a goddess, though, she may still be killed, but once becoming the wife of Hades, she will simply be returned to the Underworld as she will have no thread to cut.
[Sunlight] -- Being a nature goddess, sunlight plays an important role in Persephone’s biology. In addition to belief, the sun is another source of her power. She is stronger during the daytime than at night and once the moon rises, the goddess will simply shut down once her energy has run out and sleep. As she gets older and more powerful, this will no longer be a problem.
*[Plants] -- Persephone has control over plants, sending the gathered sunlight within herself to make them grow or taking it away to make them die. She can also bend them to her will and command them, from making trees rearrange their branches so that they are easier to climb to using thorned vines as weapons. Her mother has the ability to make entire forests get up and dance if she so chose, but Persephone is far from that level, the bringing up of a single tree still making her woozy.
[Telepathy] -- The goddess has a sort of low grade telepathy. It currently is only functional between herself and plants, but if it ever crossed her mind (and with a lot of practice), it could be extended to people and other animals. It functions without words, communicating with mental images and the emotions attached to them, as well as feelings in general. The connection between herself and the plants is constant, their feelings a low swirl always in the back of her mind. When the connection between them lessens or grows silent, she has the tendency to panic greatly.