IT HAD BEEN OVER HALF A YEAR.

Half a year since the horrors that went down in the Underworld.

Half a year since my daughter lost her son, since my brother lost his family.

All this while I sat on this gilded throne of lies, hand resting on the golden armrest, deep in precarious thought. Around me, courtiers went on babbling about their tragic, loveless lives over the gurgling water fountains. Golden bells rang in the temples and over the hills, marking the beginnings of the harvest season.

"Go," I shooed the mortals out with a dismissive wave. "Come back tomorrow."

Around me, what was left of the broken Council got to their feet. Poseidon was flirting openly with one of the attendants fanning Hera. My other sister, Hestia, was pointedly glaring at Aphrodite, busily seducing Ares with her dove eyed gaze. Her crippled husband, Hephaestus, looked on sullenly, his scowl sourer than rotten curd. Apollo was missing after I banished him, probably gone off wooing some other helpless maidens with Hermes trailing behind him.

The Council of gods was a mess, just like this damn year.

"Athena," I found my daughter tersely observing the entire chaos with a calculating fascination in her eyes. "Go find Persephone."

She shrugged, stalking out of the room. The others took the cue, beginning to clear out. I only needed the original heads of the Council here, Hera and Poseidon. For what I was going to speak to Perse about. For what I was about to ask of her. As we waited, Poseidon leaned back in his seat, biting his lip as Hera leaned closer to hiss something in my ear.

"The harvest starts today. That means Demeter is back! Surely you could wait for her to go before dragging Persephone here. Do you have any idea what that child is going through?"

"Demeter will be gone soon. It is urgent that I speak to Persephone today."

For it had come to my attention that she had brought spring back to the barren, void wasteland that lay in her mother's wake. I had not seen my daughter's face in a long time. I did not even know where she was. For all of Hera's shortcomings, I knew she would keep her safe and away from those with ill intent. I knew for a fact that she wasn't alone, not with Athena or Artemis missing their duties to go with her wherever she wanted.

There were quick footsteps outside the doors, as I leaned forward, fingers crossed, expectant. She must be here at last.

But the doors opened.

And it was not Persephone standing there.

But Demeter.

Not her again, damn it. I told her to go do her job. And yet there she stood.

She was thinner than before, and paler. Dark shadows danced under her eyes, which seemed permanently stained with red from tears. She stood there with her torch, her face an emotionless mask of ice.

Hera was hissing furiously at my side, her face red.

Demeter stared at me with the stare of death, shaking her head.

"Give her back to me," she said quietly. "Please."

"Dear sister," I looked at the goddess of harvest. "You were told to stay off the grounds. Permanently."

"Zeus," she croaked again, her voice softer this time. "Zeus, please."

I only glared at her, face cold.

"Let me see her, Hera. I'm begging you!"

"She's better off nowhere near you," my wife spat, throwing her a look of distaste. "She will never forgive you. Never. So for the good of you both, stay away from that child."

"I know she will forgive me!" Demeter argued, recoiling like a snake full of venom in the pit under her tongue. "If you would only let me-"

"The only way your daughter would ever forgive you," I cut through, voice sharper than brittle glass, "even after you ruined her life - would be if you gave her your blessing to go be happy. You broke her heart. You killed her husband, and her baby. You took away every last bit of joy she had found in those few months - you took it away and made it your weapon. Our brother is a good man, Demeter. Admit to what was wrong, confess. Apologize. And she might one day, in that broken heart of hers - find it to forgive you. Or perhaps even that might not be enough."

Demeter's mask melted away, the facade of emotion crumbling to give way to simmering rage.

"Here we go again," Poseidon muttered under his breath at my side, as she turned her attention to curiously preening Aphrodite who was just about to leave.

"You," she hissed at Aphrodite, then stared at me. "You convinced him to marry her!"

"Demeter-"

"Yes, I did," Aphrodite's pale white doves fluttered in her wake. "Yes, I did. I am the goddess of love. It is my job to make people fall in love. There are too many here in Olympus who fight my power and decide to remain chaste. I'm talking about the two of you," she shot Artemis and Athena a glare. "And then, there was your little friend. Persephone, who was determined to follow in your footsteps. So I intervened."

I sighed deeply. Aphrodite and I both knew that the only reason she wanted Persephone to marry Hades was the fact that she wanted Apollo to herself - Apollo, who had been hellbent on instead wooing my little flower.

"You put those filthy thoughts in his head-" Demeter began again. "You blackmailed him to take her from me by killing people!"

"Your daughter's darkness was just a flower waiting to bloom. And you? You were the weed who choked her where she was planted - before she even saw the light of day. If you had only peeked under those petals once - once - you would have seen the darkness yawning in her like a sky of stars, far too similar to the ice cold lord of death. Like calls to like, Demeter. I did my job by getting them together! And you know what? I am done here," the lady of love snapped, red lips moving in a torrent of curses.

And then she pulled Hephaestus out of the room, ignoring his protests before vanishing in a whiff of rose scented smoke. The doors slammed open again, revealing-

"Persephone!" Demeter cried, eyes wide as she moved to her of her own accord, before Artemis blocked her path with a click of her tongue, bronze spear in hand.

Behind her and Artemis, the woman who stood with her feet planted on the ground was a statue.

"She refuses to eat a single thing, Zeus. Talk to her." Hera leaned in closer to whisper in my ear.

Now nearly six months pregnant, Persephone's belly was swollen, making the weight she had lost since she left Hades even more pronounced. Her face was more bloodless than ever, her cheeks touched with the barest tinge of pink. Never had I seen her look so tired, or so emotionless. Even then, when she moved, there was a certain weariness, albeit a certain elegance - the calm, patient walk of a person who had lost all their battles and was tired of fighting.

"Come back to me, child. Please," her mother found her voice again, pleading. "Persephone. Daughter. My sweet girl," she implored. "Please."

Her daughter did not deign to answer. Did not even meet her gaze.

"You called me, father?" Persephone asked quietly.

She wore her now platinum white hair tightly in a neat braid, a single black rose fastened at the knot. A few strands fluttered about in the breeze, gleaming like a river of silver. Eyes darker than ever, she stood observing me with a gaze that was near black, the sleeves of her ink coloured robes nearly touching the floor.

"Yes, I-"

"You come back with me this instant!" Demeter screamed, moving to grab her arm before Perse deftly moved a step back, Athena's spear back in place. "Persephone! This childish behaviour ends now!"

Finally, she met her mother's gaze, and the cold hatred in her once sweet face broke my heart.

"He would have let me go if I asked," her lips moved, bitterness in her voice. "I only had to say the word - and he would let me go. Is that what you wanted to hear, mother? Living proof of the fact that there is a way of loving someone that does not include locking them up like buried treasure? That there is a way to care without destroying someone else?"

She took a step closer, and the ice in her voice made Demeter flinch.

"Is that it, mother? Unless you're happy, I can't be happy too? You," Persephone hissed, "you have never spared one moment to care about my happiness. So don't expect me to care about yours. I would prefer dying to spending a minute with you. I would prefer living in that place you called hell for eternity to speaking to you. I often wonder," she bored her endless gaze right into Demeter's wide eyes, "how can a giver of life be so heartless?"

She placed a soft hand on her mother's cheek.

"What happened to you? What made you such a monster? What made you forget the true meaning of what it was to love and be loved?"

Demeter was quivering now, breath coming in short gasps.

"He enchanted-"

"He did no such thing. He flew me down into his immortal kingdom, watched me pass out, and tucked me into bed. He wed me, yes - but not with a dagger to the throat and a knife to my heart. He wed me when I sank to my knees and begged him for that deadly crown. I made him take me to court. I made him show me off to his beautiful, damned creatures. I walked into the gates of hell and plucked the fruit I wanted. I saw this emptiness in him, and he fell in love with the glimmering darkness in my heart, mother. I saw the naked want of him, and he saw the pool of fire in me. He is the end of me, and the beginning. He is the first love, and the last. So I pulled him by the nape of his neck and kissed him, and sinned with him in all ways that exist. And I did it again, and again, and again. Except that he wasn't my sin. He was my salvation."

Demeter stood agape, watching her - as if seeing a completely new person. Her mouth shut and opened and shut again, wordless.

"The world - the world is a place full of horrors. Terrors unimagined. Persephone... all I ever wanted was to keep you safe."

"I know."

"Please..." the lady of the harvest begged. "Come back to me."

"Not in this life."

And then tears glittered like brittle diamonds in Demeter's eyes.

"You should go, Dem," Poseidon muttered. "Go... do your... harvesting. Crop growing."

Athena and Hera shot him a pointed look, Hera trying hard to stifle her giggles.

"You are my daughter," there was real helplessness in her voice now, one devoid of all last hope. "You're the only family I have. My baby."

Persephone quietly leaned forward, and then pressed her pink lips to her mother's cheek in a soft kiss, light as a butterfly's wing. And when she drew back, moisture glittered in her eyes.

"I have no mother now."

Demeter looked at her daughter one last time, and there was real feeling in that gaze. Something which looked like love - or a twisted version of it. Something far more dangerous than what actual love looked like. And in that moment, I almost felt sorry for her.

And then she was gone.

If Perse had felt any pain, she surely hid it well before turning to face me.

"You wanted to ask me something, father?" she asked slowly, gaze darting to Poseidon first, then Hera, her eyes narrowing suspiciously as she wiped a sleeping tear.

"Two things, actually," I got up, rising from my throne to climb down the steps. I quietly made my way to her, her pale face slowly crushing my heart into pieces. "But first," my hand was on her shoulder, feeling her thin frame under those layers of silk, "tell me how you are."

"I'm fine."

"And the baby?"

"She's alive," she replied curtly. The sharpness in her voice threw me back as I realised something - she cursed her misfortunes so much that she was afraid she'd lose the second child as well. "Well?" she crossed her arms, curling into herself, "what was it?"

I looked at Hera once, who nodded. Poseidon grinned from atop his fancy ocean blue chair.

"I want you to take Demeter's seat on the Council."

My daughter froze for a moment, to the point where I was about to find her a place to sit and a lady to fan her - gods, that thick silk must be stifling - before her eyes widened, barely registering the shock.

"What?"

"Why not?" Hera called out to her, popping a luscious grape into her mouth. "You have ties to both Olympus and the Underworld. You brought back the spring to a dead land. Your abilities extend far beyond that, as we all know. Your presence here ensures that the Underworld's voice will not go unheard. That Hades will not go unheard. You will represent him here, and never again will lunatics like Aphrodite pull off such stunts with you in this seat."

Persephone looked at the floor, tilting her head to stare at the tiles, her voice heavy.

"Hades... he - I do not know," she concluded. "I do not know if I am made for this. There is no way I could possibly balance - even more so after the baby is born. But then..." her voice wandered off, lips curving into a curve. "What was the other thing? You said there were two things."

"You must eat," I put my arm on hers. "Hera says you have lost your appetite after all that has happened. I understand that, but you must eat - or you will starve. And then..." then there would be no baby left to deliver at all.

"Starving?" Persephone chuckled. "Who said anything about starving?"

She held out her hand, and all of us leaned in to look at the remnants of Hades' last token of affection to her. The fruit that had stained her lips red.

There were seven red pomegranate seeds in her palm.