Thread by @iiastriferii

Day 23: Mythology

// @shkmevents #shinkamimonth2022

Tags: Hadestown inspired Hades/Persephone AU, strained marriage, suspicions of cheating (no actual cheating happens), alcohol use, reconciliation, angst with a hopeful ending

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ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕀: 𝕎𝕚𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣'𝕤 ℕ𝕚𝕘𝕙 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕊𝕦𝕞𝕞𝕖𝕣'𝕤 𝕆'𝕖𝕣

“...you shall rule all that lives and moves and shall have the greatest rights among the deathless gods: those who [..] do not appease your power [..], reverently performing rites and paying fit gifts, shall be punished forevermore." Hades to Persephone, Hesiod: The Homeric Hymns

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The air is still warm, and songbirds have not yet settled into knolls for want of shelter against a chill.

The Goddess of the Harvest stands resplendent in all Her finery, browned by the sun and wrapped in a gown of gossamer, wheat and bougainvillea.

There are shallow lines in Her forehead and cheeks, and Her flaxen hair floats about Her head as though suspended in water.

A gentle breeze rolls over the vast plain of fields and flowers and gardens. This year has been plentiful, and there is more yet still to be done.

More still that was supposed to be handled not by her, but by her most beloved companion.

She looks down at him, her son, her beautiful one. Kore, she called him in the Time Before, when he was young and sweet and unspoiled by the worlds both Above and Below.

She studies his face and his hair, his pretty golden hair that they’ve shared since he was born. It’s roughly tied, adorned with flowers and butterflies in contrast with his fine green suit, the peony pinned to his lapel.

His face is unreadable. She cups his cheek with long, fine fingers, guiding him to look up at her. “We can turn back now, yes?”

He refuses to meet her eyes. “If only it were so simple.”

She sighs. “Kore-“

The smoothness of his brow gives way to a wrinkle, not unlike loose earth breaking beneath heavy rainfall. He brushes her hand away. “Denki. I told you, Mother.”

Whatever displeasure she feels, she tries not to let it show too heavily on her features.

Her beloved one is already enduring enough, and time has taught her how much better it is to not push too hard.

“Denki,” she amends. “It is still warm. Birds still sing in the trees and there is yet wheat for us to thresh. Love is a thing of many splendors, my son, but I wonder if…”

She trails off. She can feel it now, under her feet. The rumbling of the earth.

It never gets easier. She pulls one of the flowers from her dress, tucking it into his hair. “Ah. Nevermind my ramblings. All that matters is whether or not your belief in Aphrodite’s power stands firm..”

The rumbling grows, widens, scares the birds into the nests and the animals into their hiding places. The line of her son’s brow has dropped.

When the first crack splits its way through a patch of wildflowers, he sighs and says, “Funny. I once asked Orpheus something real similar.”

Her shoulders fall. Another crack splits the earth, and heat wafts upwards. She cannot look Him in the eye, even after all these years. So, she parts with her son in the same way she does every fall. A kiss to each cheek and a smoothing of the hair.

Her dress melts into the reds and oranges of fall, and a chill is dispersed over the land.

The mortals will have a difficult winter this year.

“Be well, my love,” she says, and melts back into the grass and trees.

And so, he is alone.

Denki can already feel the cthonic call, the ache in his bones made of pomegranate seeds and age old ichor.

A bird lands on his shoulder and he pets it, scratching its little head as he says. “Hear that high and lonesome sound, friend? Gonna be a long six months.”

As if in answer, the earth gives a final, mighty rumble. The ground splits, spits rock and dust and heat and fire. The baying of black horses silences everything else in nature, and even his bird friend has no desire to stick around.

He crosses his arms, turns away from the click of iron hooves, the roll of the chariot wheels. Takes one last look at the fields he’s tended so carefully these last few months.

The chariot has come to a stop. The horses stamp their feet and froth at the mouth and he knows, he /knows/ he has to turn around but /fuck/ when did that become so difficult?

The cuffs of his pants and sleeves are already sparking, latting off little shoots and blackening the green. He looks over his shoulder, just a smidge, and rolls his eyes.

The One Under All is a smug motherfucker in the smooth way he removes his shades, leans on the wall of his chariot.

His smile is long and smug and easy, too easy, why the fuck is he smiling like that?

The years have done nothing to his looks, his slicked back hair and immaculate sense of style. Denki presses his lips together, turns around, and stares his husband in the face.

Hitoshi merely steps aside, bends at the waist and holds out a hand.

He tries not to think of the before, when he was hardly a god in the presence of his sweet nymphs with naught but poetry to pour out of his lips day after day. When he would play and taunt Lord Zeus, and dance in the thunder and lightning.

Hitoshi’s eyes are like jewels, deep as Under The Earth and expectant. The seasons are turning, whether he wants them to or not. He takes his husband’s hand, and the vapours of Tartarus sweep up to greet him.

His suit burns away, fizzling and sparking as lines of fire move up his sleeves, his pants and waistcoat and lapel until every inch of him is clad in sleek black.

Even his hair has been tied back tighter, girded with laurels the color of blood, and the peony at his lapel has been replaced by a golden pomegranate brooch with garnet arils.

He braces his feet in the chariot, and crosses his arms over his chest. Nature sings a mournful song at his back as Hitoshi picks up his reins, and Denki cannot resist the tiniest token of his displeasure.

“You’re early,” he simply says, low and from the bottom of his throat.

Hitoshi never stops smiling, but it doesn’t meet those eyes. He leans down as though for a kiss.

Denki keeps his gaze firmly forward, and pretends he does not shiver when that richest of voices simply says, “I missed ya.”

Any retort is quickly silenced by the snap of the reins, by Hitoshi’s sharp “Hyah!” and the sudden, steep downturn of the chariot. The horses holler and bay as they break down through the mantle, and Denki is still all the while.

He chances one final look upwards, a last glimpse of sunlight.

Then, the earth closes overhead.

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(It's finally time to show off this INCREDIBLE illustration I'd commissioned from @/fuckme_kat for this fic, it's been SO HARD holding onto it! But the time is here, and I hope you all love it as much as I do and give Kat all his flowers!!!)

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~𝟚,𝟘𝟘𝟘 𝕐𝕖𝕒𝕣𝕤 𝔸𝕘𝕠~

Eleusis may guard many of her mysteries with a tight fist and locked chest, but the greatest of her bounty could not be kept hidden even by the Titans themselves.

The little God of Spring bounds through his mother's fields, wild lines of flowers and vines springing from the earth after every step.

He is laughing and gay, soaked in rain from an earlier spry and racing the nymphs with tied chitons and grass stained legs.

They follow hot on his heels at the behest of his mother. She is tight fisted when it comes to his whereabouts, and escaping anywhere without an escort is a chore and a half.

"To the river!" he calls to them, picking up his pace. As he runs, even the saplings he passes by gain a boost of nutrients and grow so fast their trunks can hardly keep up. "Last one there is satyr shit!"

The nymphs all exclaim in disgust and he laughs, wild and irreverent as he runs and runs until they are but dots behind him.

Branches and leaves bend to avoid whipping his soft skin, the earth holds firm under his feet and does not sling mud all the way up to the hem of his chiton with every step.

Gaia today is his friend and secretkeeper, for she must know why he outraces his chaperones.

There's a dirt path through the trees on the way to the river, and the heavy shrubbery he grows behind him as he takes it ensures that it will be well hidden.

He runs until his lungs burn, until his eyes pulse in his head and the ground grows white with sprigs of asphodel.

Denki runs until he cannot anymore, until he is suddenly stopped in a flurry of dark robes and deep laughter as his feet are swept out from under him.

"God of Spring!" says his most beloved one. "Are you in danger? Is there a monster on your heels that I need to defeat?"

He buries himself into Hitoshi's grey himation with more laughter and tears that smell of lemon blossoms.

His smile is so big he fears his face may split, and his heart feels as big as the world.

"No monster I couldn't defeat by my own self!" he cries, fisting dark fabric and rubbing his face back and forth in it.

Gods, Hitoshi smells so good. Of ash and earth and the juice of pomegranate arils that runs down his arm when he breaks the fruit.

Those arms hold him tight and /oh/, bless Aphrodite and all her gifts, he is in /love./

"Of course," says the King of the Underworld. He sits down in a patch of those red veined flowers, cradling Denki in his lap as though his godling is a sack of precious gems.

Though, even gems are worth little to the King Under the Earth, but for his lover, he would wage a war greater than the Titanomachy.

Denki's kisses are sweet, little bird pecks that leave the vapours of spearmint across his cheeks and lips.

He talks through his kisses, telling Hitoshi about everything that's happened since they last met and, above everything else, how much he missed him.

"When will you take me?" he kisses into his lover's jaw. "I'm ready, I've been ready, it's almost fall and I can hardly hold Mama off any longer!"

Hitoshi sighs. He tries pulling Denki away, but the young God is implacable. So, he settles for, "I'd wanted to do this right, you know. Demeter already doesn't like me, and I don't think-"

"It hardly matters! I'm grown, and she's just...holding on too tight! I wanna see the rivers, and the Fields of Asphodel and the shades and-!"

Hitoshi silences him with a kiss, and another, and another, until they're holding each other's faces and kissing like the other is life-giving ambrosia.

Grass stained legs leave streaks on Hitoshi's fine chiton, and Denki's thumb leaves a smear across the gold broach keeping his himation in place as he yanks it away.

Hitoshi laughs like he hasn't since he was new, hands gripping his beloved's small waist and pulling him as close as the Night is to Darkness.

"I want nothing more," he breathes into the centimeter between their lips. I want to give you everything, let you be everything-"

Denki's hands press hard to his cheeks. His breath is laboured and his face is ruddy from the way he rubs himself along the line of Hitoshi's body. "Will you make me like Hera?"

Hitoshi kisses him again, tastes the line of his tongue and teeth. "Greater than Hera," he swears.

"Amphitrite?"

"You would be held above everyone and everything." They kiss again, and in the spaces between, Hitoshi promises.

He promises to be the best of men and best of husbands.

He does not tear at Denki's clothes but holds him sweet and whispers all they will make together if only Demeter would part from her most closely held of possessions.

"Take me away," Denki begs, his sweet little fingers dragging along the lines of Hitoshi's sleeves. " Make us one, make me cthonic, I am of the Earth and Under is where I wanna be, with you."

His pleading breaks Hitoshi's heart and mends it back stronger.

There is the sweetness of nectar upon his lips, and he his, ruinously, only a man.

He holds Denki close, kisses his face and hair and prays to the Fates that They'll smile on this union.

They hug and kiss and whisper sweet nothings long into the hours. Denki conjures dates and figs and feeds them to him, and he licks the sweet syrup from his lover's fingers.

So wrapped up are they that the first breaking branch doesn't even register. It isn't until the second, until a stuttering gasp and scream draw their attention to an errant nymph.

The poor thing is white as a sheet, and already poised to run away.

Denki holds up both hands, but even then, refuses to leave Hitoshi's lap. Gold eyes go wide, and though his smile tries to placate, it is also full of nerves.

"Silopei! Don't-!"

"DEMETER!" she wails, nearly in tears as she takes off through the brush.

Denki recoils back into Hitoshi's chest and around them, the greenery starts to wither black. He looks up at Hitoshi, panicked, and throws his arms around his lover.

"Take me, please!" he says, voice tremulous. "She'll take me away, make me like Daphne! I'll never see you again, Hitoshi, /please/!"

History will forget that that's all it takes. The thought of Denki forever immobilized, "preserved" into a tree like that nymph unfortunate enough to be sought by Apollo.

He'll rot in Tartarus before he ever lets that happen.

He takes Denki's face in both hands, meets his eyes and feels the power of the Underworld flare around him.

"Denki, God of Spring, will you be mine? Will you let me be yours, and call you my husband and my King."

Denki's smile is tremulous but /beautiful/. "Yes!"

He kisses his husband, harsh and adoring, before pressing their foreheads together. "Hold tight to me."

He takes one of Denki's hands, laces their fingers together and with them joined, strikes the ground three times.

It feels like coming home, the way the Earth opens up to cradle them, to hold them and bring them down into her fold. He smiles as dirt falls onto his face, holding tight to Hitoshi.

As the crack seals above them, he closes his eyes, and pretends that what he hears is merely a trick of the ears and not his mother's blood curdling shriek.

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ℙ𝕒𝕣𝕥 𝕚𝕚: 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕣 𝔼𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘 𝕀 𝕕𝕠, 𝕀 𝔻𝕠 𝕚𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕙𝕖 𝕃𝕠𝕧𝕖 𝕠𝕗 𝕐𝕠𝕦

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There are new walls around the Iron Palace.

They stretch up up, up until he can barely see the highest towers and windows and spires, wrought from black marble and granite and slate.

The gate has their emblem emblazoned on the front, and he's not sure he's ever hated seeing it more. A vine, twirled around a raw hunk of gemstone. Meant to be cradling it, but on this cold metal, it looks more like strangulation.

Mercifully, Sero is there to meet them when the chariot finally comes to a stop. He floats over on his winged sandals, bows to both Denki and Hitoshi and takes the chariots reins when handed to him.

"Welcome home, Den- Your Highness," he says, casting a quick, nervous glance over at Hitoshi.

Home. He looks up at the walls, wrings his hands and picks at his fingertips. Finally, he looks at Sero, does his best impression of a smile, and says, "Good to be back."

Hitoshi's already walked up to the gate, holding out a hand to coax it into opening. In his absence, Denki leans over to his friend.

"I told you, no formalities."

Sero shrugs helplessly. "I know, but Boss has gotten kind of..."

Denki rolls his eyes. "Say no more."

It's an awkward sort of silence there for a second, until Sero mounts the chariot and gestures his eyes upwards.

"It feels like springtime's grown longer."

Denki rubs his hands against a new type of chill, and says, "Not long enough if you ask me."

Sero lingers only a moment longer, long enough for Hitoshi to look back and call a quick “Denki” with a forward nod of his head.

A gesture to follow, quick and impersonal.

The psychopomp knows better than to stick around.

So, it’s with an awkward, sympathetic half-smile that he draws on the reins and takes off with the chariot.

Again, there creeps in that odd feeling of being alone.

Denki never stops wringing his hands, pulling one over the other in some poor rendition of a water wheel as he follows his husband across the threshold.

It feels…wrong. The garden he’d curated in front of their estate was in a constant limbo between life and death, as it was wont to be in the Underground, but now it was even more wan than normal.

More than that, no shades wander the grounds and take refuge on the benches or near the fountain.

They had always opened their home to souls passing through, letting the ephemeral bits of mortals wander around and marvel at all the wonders of the Underground before they were assigned an afterlife.

He presses his lips together, saying nothing of it as they enter the foyer.

There’s a rack for his jacket, thankfully, and he hangs it up with little ceremony.

Hitoshi does the same, leaving him only in his black turtleneck and slacks, but Denki hardly sticks close in admiration.

Tapestries line the walls of the great hall, all the stories mortals tell to their children and grandchildren about the deathless ones.

Denki pays them no mind, instead heading straight for the crystal decanter and fine glasses laid out next to the stairs.

“I had a dinner prepared,” says Hitoshi finally. “To…to welcome you back.”

He looks anywhere but at Denki pouring and downing himself a glass of kykeon, savoring the familiar taste on his lips and the corners of his mouth.

He pours and drinks another glass before finally wiping the back of his mouth and heading off towards the dining room. “Alright. Let’s eat, then.”

It’s another moment before Hitoshi simply sighs, and follows.

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Dinner is… nice.

There’s an assortment of delicacies; figs, dates and olives soaked in their own brine, paired with cheese. Lamb and potatoes, dripping with juices and smelling of rosemary.

There are even sweets that smell of ambrosia, little rolls of dough covered in white glaze, dusted with dried rose petals and pistachios.

Denki pushes around what little he’s spooned onto his plate, nibbling at a piece of lamb for the longest time before giving up and reaching for one of the sweets.

Hitoshi’s been watching him this entire time, cutting his food into even pieces and eating silent as a mouse.

He points to everything at the table, eats another piece of lamb before he says, “Not hungry?”

Denki picks a too-brown pistachio off of the sweet roll before biting it in half. “You know Mother and her feasts,” he says around the explosion of sweetness in his mouth.

He licks the sugar from his lips and shrugs, looking up at Hitoshi for the first time since they’ve sat down. “She made sure I was taken care of.”

His husband pauses. Something passes between them then, some half formed and unpleasant thing. Hitoshi sets down his fork.

He leans most of his weight on the dining table, one elbow and wrist supporting his face while the other hangs limp in his lap. He has that crease between his brows.

He’s thinking, Denki knows.

“Are…”he finally starts, “you…glad to be back?”

Isn’t that a question. Denki stabs at his potatoes and simply says, “Eager to get back to work, if anything.”

The crease between Hitoshi’s eyes deepens. “Work. Don’t you want to…I don’t know, take a break? Even a short one, you’ve been working Topside for six months-“

“Five and a half,” Denki corrects, quick and sharp as a sickle, with a smile to match.

Hitoshi blinks, and sighs. “Yes. Five and a half.”

It's a while before they speak again after that, Hitoshi finishing his dinner and Denki picking and eating the pistachios off of another sweet roll.

There's an emptiness to the air that they both loathe but right now, neither quite knows how to refill it.

Hitoshi tries, just a bit. From under the table, he produces a wooden box. It's finely carved with their insignia and Denki's initials, and floats blithely above his hand as he clears his throat.

"I also...got you something. I hope it's to your liking."

Denki sucks the remnants of glaze from a pistachio as he watches the box float over to him. He wonders what it'll be this time, and plucks the box out of the air.

When he opens it, tiny fireflies made of ruby and diamond fly out and dance around his head.

His lips twitch. Not a full smile, but an acknowledgement of the thought and panache his husband so often puts into these lavish gifts.

The fireflies hum, dance and flicker as he pulls earrings from the box, turning them around to inspect the fine branches of rose gold filigree.

Then, to his surprise, the little bugs all go back to the earrings, each landing on a branch and solidifying into a glowing bauble.

@threadreaderapp unroll