THE CRUSHED PETALS BETWEEN MY NIMBLE FINGERS STAINED THE TIPS A VIVID CRIMSON.

"Now, child, try harder," Mother sighed heavily. Her words descended on my shoulders like a stifling blanket, watching me coax life into a cascade of wildflowers.

The tender bloom curled and shriveled itself into death.

"I can't," I whispered in bitterness.

Demeter closed her eyes, their light sepia sinking in sadness as she critically regarded the dry fallen petals. Her sight fell on me, scrutinizing every movement, her expression desolate - like the day we'd gone foraging for violets and I ended up lost in the ruins of a cemetery.

"One more. Try," she coaxed gently, wearily, her eyelids drooping with unmet sleep. Another young rosebud was pushed into my hands. "Here, try to make this one bloom."

The poor little flower dangled helplessly, innocently unaware of its cruel fate, a fresh, rich shade of magenta. So young, so young the tiny rose bud was. Don't even try, whispered a neevil in my head. You'll kill this one too.

Slowly, my eyelids shut in despair and my lips kissed the slender green stalk. Mother and I stood waiting, seething, blooming.

The flower bud drooped and died.

"Oh lord, child. That was your hundredth blossom. How many of them will you kill?"

I slowly curled unto myself and looked at my lethal hands.

"Answer me, Persephone!" Mother demanded, and her hands rose to lift my sorrowful chin, tilting it up to meet the fire in her eyes.

"I can't do it," I echoed quietly, hollowly. A huge gulp of shame in my throat obscured speech, so ashamed did I feel. "You teach me how to make things grow, Mother. But all I can coax from the ground are dead thorns that devour the entire garden. I can't do it," I cried out, nearly close to a stream of tears.

She sat down and rested her delicate head in her palms.

"You have to," Mother said sternly. There were fresh lines of grief on her young face. "What am I going to do with you, Persephone?"

"Stop trying to make me like you, Mother. Just... stop. I can't be like you. I will never be. Is that want you want of me? To be crafted out of pretty little lies and fragile golden hands?"

"I am the Goddess of Growth, child," she replied, her demeanour forbearing. "From the dust of my fingers grow stalks of wheat whose brilliance rivals even that of the sun, child. My power alone sustains the appetite of men. You are my daughter, Persephone-"

"I am not."

Her eyes darkened to orbs of disappointment as my tongue ran dry. Unsatisfaction. This was what is tasted like. I'd brewed it day after day, over and over, and drowned myself in a cauldron of it.

"What did you just say?" she asked in the barest of whispers. I'd never been one for lashing out but today frustration had got the better of me. "What did you just say?"

"I said I'm not your flower, mother. I am not your spring breeze. I am not your pretty little garden of violets. I love the sweet, chalky bitterness of the mud. I love the ivory sheen of the clouded moon on a starless night. I love the dark, deep forests - the way they hide secrets inside them wearing a thick cloak of silence. I will never be in love with your perfectly tended rosebuds as you are. Don't you understand, mother?"

In the raw silence, she looked at me, aghast. My shoulders shook violently with pent up frustration, and feeling leaked out of my eyes and rolled down my cheeks in sheer emotion. Her face was white, whiter than dew in the morning sun, and my heart let out terrible pangs as I registered how badly my words had hurt her.

"Go to your room."

Quietly, silently, my feet shuffled to the oaken doors of the living chambers. More salt laden tears slipped to the floor, pooling around my feet as I ran into the coverlets of satin, burying myself in a silent grave within them.

"Zeus has called a council at Olympus. I must go now, child," Mother's voice travelled in from the halls. "We will speak of what trespassed when I return." Her voice held the weight of dissatisfaction, again.

Dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction - ah, how it gnawed and ate away at the edges of my being.

Another moment, and then the careful flutter of her lips brushed past my ear as she pressed a soft kiss to my head.

Her touch was gone as quick as butterfly's wing, replaced by nothing. The last thing in the silence was the sound of her robes as she walked out of the cave.

"Stay safe. Until I return," she called. Something stood out to me in her voice making my heart leap out of my chest.

"Mother!" I cried out. Tangled limbs lept out of the confines of my bed as I ran out to find her ready to leave. She turned around, grief still etched on her face. My arms wrapped around her and she gently pulled me in a hug. "Come back soon, Mother."

She tucked a lock of hair behind her smoothened ear, smiling radiantly as the winter harvest.

"You know I always do, my little flower."