darknessbloomed:
❛ Enjoyable is perhaps not the word anyone would select, ❜ her smile is grim and sharp, crimson tainted at the corners, the same she uses when a particularly horrid soul arrives in the underworld for judgement. ❛ Impressive enough, albeit a bit overdone and gaudy, ❜ Persephone offers. Tyndareus knows how to make it all appear splendid and decadent, but that does not prevent her from seeing through to the iridescent viscera and rot below, and oh, how this place the very symbol of hubris and decay.
Persephone is aware she had asked no easy questions, but this is not the time for those pleasantries. She knows Hera enough to know that both of them will treat each other on equal footing, because there is a considerable power they wield, not a visible one perhaps, not the bloody and gore drenched war some favoured, nor the blazing fight and festering chaos of others, but it was a power all the same, and it is still deadly. ❛ Ah. ❜ she acknowledges, a single syllable worth of pronouncement that still manages to say nothing.
❛ So they all say, ❜ Persephone’s smile is vaguely amused, but beneath, plunged, far, far beneath the surface, is a vein of exhaustion and irritation that would rival the fires of Tartarus in its rigid and unwavering fury. Her aunt is no fool, and surely she knows of the complicated position she is currently in — Athena is a dear girlhood friend, Aphrodite has the potential to become closer because of various sordid events, and Hera herself is aunt, her own blood.
❛ I am aware. ❜ The three words are curt, an indication of how she understands what Hera wants, but whether she will acquiesce to it is a whole other issue altogether, ❛ Word travels fast, no matter what realm. And without the noise of mortal chatter, some things are heard far more easily. ❜ The underworld was not completely detached of these affairs, and although Persephone has little care for these fights, Hades does. ❛ And the question becomes, what do you make of it, or better yet, what do you intend to do ? ❜
She will make no promises until she can at least gauge the situation for what it is, and even then her hands are still tied — but if Hera will not at least offer her thoughts, her true ones, leave no space for honesty and candor — they have precious little to discuss.
Persephone cuts straight to heart of the matter, unafraid of the sharpness required to do so. Hera does not shy away from it. Hera may know well the art of weaving fine words, placation and provocation alike, but there is a value to directness. Hera knows it well. Persephone smiles, but perhaps no one knows a false smile like the Queen of the Gods. She knows her niece is not in an easy position, but little about ruling has ever been easy. Such is the way of the world.
“I intend to keep order,” she says. A simple statement, for what will likely prove a complex goal. She does little to mask the bitterness that comes with the statement, it is an insult that such a thing is necessary at all. It is not a secret, the disdain she holds for this scheme. Athena and Aphrodite have their places, on battlefields and in bedchambers, but neither of them belongs on the throne, too blinded by the gleam of a golden apple to see it.
She sighs, a rare admission of the weariness that comes with her station. The crown has often been a weight heavy upon her skull, never more so than now. “Athena and Aphrodite are each powerful in their own respects, but I see neither fit to rule Olympus. I do not believe anyone, themselves included, would benefit from either of their plots succeeding.” She frowns, an honest thing she rarely lets herself do, always carefully poised. She does let her walls down completely, but now, because Persephone is her blood and because she is simply tired, she hides less than she is accustomed to. So much has been taken from her already. She will not Olympus, in it’s carefully crafted balance, be next.
“Eris seeks to sow chaos.” She doesn’t like to speak of it, what the fates decided for her discordant child. It was an ugly thing, what was necessary to do, but ‘necessary’ was always the pertinent word where ruling was considered. Casting out Eris was the price for peace. There was no decision to made, only action to be taken, ugly as it may have been. “They are playing directly into her hand.” Hera tucks the thought of Eris away. They might be the source of this problem, but Athena and Aphrodite are the matter at hand.
“I take no pleasure in the thought of war. I would prefer to see their bids for power end quietly.” She tucks a non-existent stray hair behind her ear, straightens her already perfect posture. She does not speak dishonestly, though perhaps with false optimism. The ambitions of a god are not so easily abandoned. Persephone, she knows, is caught between forces of nature in the most literal sense. What Hera must ask can not be easily given. But they are blood, and they are both fated for thrones. Should someone seek to unseat the queen of the dead, Hera knows exactly where she would stand. “But if it should come to battle, I shall not hesitate to fight.”
“However, a rebellion requires support.” Hera would know, it was hers that won Zeus his war of revolution. Still, this is the ask, the place where words must become pointed, where explanation shifts to request, if only implicitly. “I intend to see that they do not get it.”
