Warning: implied Marital Rape and reference to repeated spousal abuse - nothing explicit or detailed
Its only 2 centuries into her marriage and Persedione is drowning.
Hera and her mother Athena do what they can but even as Olympians and Council members there is little they can do to protect her from her husband.
They had tried ofcourse but Zeus had made it clear that marital disputes were not the Councils problem.
Though, if the concerned looks her grandfather had begun to send her were anything to go by, the man was beginning to regret that decree.
As it stood only her father had the right to make demands on her behalf to her husband and Poseidon is... busy.
Rhodes marriage had fallen apart not long after hers began.
Helios had outed his Mother In Law to her husband at the Wedding Celebration and been cursed by Aphrodite for it.
Not even a few days later their once happy marriage had been in ruins as Helios galavanted off to follow an arrogant mortal around like a lost puppy.
Hephestus had divorced Aphrodite for her infidelity but not before embarising her and Ares before the whole Pantheon and making them both a laughing stock.
Two marriages destroyed. One joyous, the other already on the rocks.
Two centuries later and Rhodes was still furious over the situation.
The enchantment had eventually broken but Helios refusal to cast asside the children and grandchildren he had sired during his infidelity had Rhodes roth with rage.
Her Temper was egged on by their Father and his Lady Wife, both of whom were furious over their daughters treatment at the hands of her husband.
The seas themselves responded to their rulers rage. Even two centuries later, ship wrecks and drownings at an all time high
With so much death and horror taking place within the Seas currents, Perse had been at first unable and later unwilling to draw her Oceanic parents attention to her own predicament.
There was little her father could do and his intervention would not be worth the innocent lives it cost.
And if a part of her cried over her Fathers indifference and negligence towards her well being, she never voiced it. After all, better to suffer in silence then risk discovering that Poseidon had known and simply hadn't cared.
Apollo's behaviour hadn't been too terrible at first, the sun god content to ignore his new Wife's existance for the first decade of their marriage.
They hadn't even consumated the union!
Persedione had tentatively begun to accept the idea that she should treat their relationship as a rather odd vow of chastity that came with a absent boss when Apollo came barelling back into her life.
The god had been consumed by wrath, convinced that she had somehow betrayed her marital vows to sleep with another.
Her desperate pleas of innocence had fallen on death ears and it hadn't been until the god felt her virginity shatter under his own ministrations that he believed her.
Her Lord Husband had been apologetic in the aftermath, tending to her every injury with gentle hands and gentler words but the damage was done.
Intentionally or not Apollo had set the tone for their relationship with his jealous rage and need to own every part of her.
Noone who knew what he had done would be suprised by what followed, for as much as Apollo was lauded as the god of Healing and Poetry he was also the god of Plagues and Curses.
Divine retribution was an artform that he had perfected.
Apollo began taking an interest in his wife but where once Sweet Persedione of the Tranquil Waters would have tentatively encouraged and welcomed her Husband's presence, now she dreaded every interaction.
Every moment between them was marred by violence as Apollo's jealousy and need for control took root and grew into something ugly and cruel.
The Sea did not like to be restrained and Apollo wanted a wife who would submit, not a Riptide that would buck and fight every command.
In the aftermath of that first night Perse had fled to Hera. The goddess had held her as she broke apart before piecing her back together into something presentable that could face her mother without shame.
Athena may be a virgin goddess but her primary Domain was Wisdom for a reason, all it had taken was one look at her daughter to understand what had occured.
Athena had raged, cursed and fumed. Only the knowledge that her daughter needed her more than vengeance had kept her from enacting violence upon her half brother in that moment. - that and the knowledge that if her brother chose to punish her daughter for her mothers behaviour there would be nothing Athena could do to stop him.
Once her little dove slumbered in her Stepmothers embrace Athena had attempted to hunt down her daughters no good father to no avail.
Poseidon refused to answer her calls, most likely believing she was there to 'talk sense' into him over his bastard and her jilted husband. Fool.
With the men proving to be less than useless Athena and Hera worked together to come up with reasons for Perse to leave Olympus and when all else failed, spirited her away to places where Apollo couldn't find her.
By the end of their first century of marriage all of the Olympian Council save her Father were aware of the tragedy her marriage had become.
Apollo had grown sloppy about healing his wifes bruises and it become near impossible to justify how her father had remained ignorant.
Persedione told herself that this was a good thing, her fathers wrath could drown whole continents and she could not bear to carry so many deaths upon her conscience. But the part of her that would always crave her parents love could not help but question why her suffering was so easily dismissed by her sea born kin.
Eventually even Zeus became concerned for the petite goddess, partnering with Hades to grant her a Chthonic domain.
He claimed that it was so she could help clean up after her fathers tantrums but the all saw the satisfied glint in his eyes as he ignored Apollo's silent fuming to softly explain to his granddaughter that the domain allowed her to guide drowned souls and any who died without proper buriel rites to the Underworld for judgement.
It would be alot of extra work, far away from Olympus.
Perse was exstatic, forgetting decorumn for a moment to hug her grandfather tightly as she professed her thanks. No one commented on the tears that spilled from sea green eyes, just as noone had commented on the burnt bronze band of bruising still visoble on her wrists.
It was not just the escape from her hisband that had the Sea goddess so excited, but the fact that these new duties allowed her to help her poor sister Kymopoleia who had been terribly overworked these last century as the only Chthonic god able to gather drowned souls.
The 2 had always gotten along but quickly became close working togethwr as thwy realised how kuch they had in common. Kym's feelings of isolation from the family were a mirror to her own and the storm goddess's position as an outcast from the atlantean court placed her firmly within Perse domains and made her easy to relate to and love.
Kym brought out the rebellious part of her and never shied away from the more wild parts of her nature.
In the long hours thet worked side by side it was easy to admit to her troubles and worries.
Kym was the only member of hwr Sea born kin to realise the state of her marriage and often caused storms to batter Delos as retribution for Apollos brutish behaviour.
The realisation of her younger sisters state and how their parents had failed to pick up on it due to their focus still being on Rhodes furthered the divide between Poseidon and the eldest of his children.
Kym had never quite forgiven him for dismissing her anger over her forced marriage so readily. The fact he was indulging Rhodes as she shrieked about her husband but had little time for Kyms concerns over her own marriage had hurt. Learning that his continued indulgence of her least favourite sibling was not only causing her more work but had left Perse ignored and vulnerable to a husband who had turned violent turned that pain into seeds of hate, not that their father had noticed.
By the end of Perse's second century of marriage Rhode final began to calm and their parents were able to look away from their middle child long enough to realise that it had been almost 70 years since either their youngest or oldest daughter had visited atlantis
