Greek Mythology - Being Queen
Title: Being Queen
Rating: PG
Summary: Persephone learns how to rule.
Author's note: Something rather experimental, a short piece written for a prompt at halfamoon. Thanks to geek_mama_2 for looking it over for me.
Being Queen
by Hereswith
She did not dream of halls such as these, or the cries of the dead, when she was Kore, the maiden, and in her mother’s care (under her mother’s watchful eye). When she walked in the high, bright sun, the meadow spilling over with colour, flower heads nodding, and she reached down (the ground cracked like a bird’s egg).
But she learns how to rule. She dons the responsibility like she dons her chiton, her himation, until it becomes as familiar, and her hands as sure at the task (she holds them steady). There is a growing sense of accomplishment in the draping and the girding, and something, she thinks, of purpose. Between the throne and the palace and the underworld lands, she finds her own power (her voice is heard), the grace of it and the hardship, the gravity, here, where the shades wander and the asphodels bloom so pale.
She has faced the unknown dark, and the strength she feels, that carries her, it is a kind she had not looked for, laughing with her friends beneath the blue-polished sky (how she has changed). This is she, Persephone, among the black poplars and the willows, and Cerberus quiets at her touch, Hades bends his neck (did she guess at the fruit, did she know).
“My poor, sweet girl. How can you bear it?” Demeter says, meaning the gloom and the depths and the reign, the marriage, and she answers her mother that she can, that she does (she has no regret, now). As the seasons turn, she lives, herself divided and made whole (she is queen).
Rating: PG
Summary: Persephone learns how to rule.
Author's note: Something rather experimental, a short piece written for a prompt at halfamoon. Thanks to geek_mama_2 for looking it over for me.
Being Queen
by Hereswith
She did not dream of halls such as these, or the cries of the dead, when she was Kore, the maiden, and in her mother’s care (under her mother’s watchful eye). When she walked in the high, bright sun, the meadow spilling over with colour, flower heads nodding, and she reached down (the ground cracked like a bird’s egg).
But she learns how to rule. She dons the responsibility like she dons her chiton, her himation, until it becomes as familiar, and her hands as sure at the task (she holds them steady). There is a growing sense of accomplishment in the draping and the girding, and something, she thinks, of purpose. Between the throne and the palace and the underworld lands, she finds her own power (her voice is heard), the grace of it and the hardship, the gravity, here, where the shades wander and the asphodels bloom so pale.
She has faced the unknown dark, and the strength she feels, that carries her, it is a kind she had not looked for, laughing with her friends beneath the blue-polished sky (how she has changed). This is she, Persephone, among the black poplars and the willows, and Cerberus quiets at her touch, Hades bends his neck (did she guess at the fruit, did she know).
“My poor, sweet girl. How can you bear it?” Demeter says, meaning the gloom and the depths and the reign, the marriage, and she answers her mother that she can, that she does (she has no regret, now). As the seasons turn, she lives, herself divided and made whole (she is queen).