The morning came too soon. She didn't even need to see the sunlight overground to know her time had come. Like a death sentence, Kore was always living on borrowed time. That's how it felt, anyway. Underground, ticking down the hours. Overground, counting down the days. Anxious either way. After these thousands of years, in truth, she preferred the darkened halls and hallowed grounds of the Underworld where she was Queen. She preferred the touch of her husband, hands like cold milk, who was at his most peaceful in sleep.
Kore's dark honey coloured eyes became hounds over his skin, roaming with desire and longing over his sleeping form. They'd been up late, especially last night of all nights. The shortest night of the year; ironic that they should want it to last the longest. And each year they tried to survive the night without sleep, and each year their love wore out even their godly temperaments. They always surrendered, huddled into one another, to that final night wrapped in one another's arms. Sleeping of a time when this sentence would no longer be necessary. Maybe in another thousand years, Kore thought wryly. After all, this winter had been mild. Maybe her mother was warming to the marriage, finally.
Kore slipped herself out from under Hades' heavy limbs, kissing him into consciousness, waiting for his storm-blue eyes to open. She could hear ghosts wandering the hall and knew that she would take more than a few into her own body before she left. The ghost of who she was when she was here. The ghost of who she was when she was with him. She would carry these ghosts close to her when the sunlight hit, not letting the bright rays fade them into invisibility. When Hades roused, he looked at her and pain was the first thing he registered. He grabbed her face in his hands and kissed her until she had no breath left to breathe. Silent tears slipped down her cheeks as she kissed him back, hoping against hope that they could go on, and yet knowing that they could not.
It would be months before they would see one another again. Months before Kore might be able to steal one day. Even that was no promise.
"Six months is not so long for us, my love," she whispered to him between the warmth of their sheets. "We have lived far longer than this and we will live for many more," Kore said, trying to gather her strength, also to be strong for him as well.
Hades nodded gruffly and sat up, putting his arm around her. "Six seeds got us here. Six months. And who knew that this would be the outcome." His sigh echoed through their bedroom. Kore shook her head, her copper hair playing shadows. Certainly not her; she had not guessed this outcome after her very first night here. She'd been kidnapped and scared out of her mind and distrustful of him. It had taken months to overcome that and find him to be the sensitive, somewhat insecure, but very noble man she now knew him to be. She kissed him on the forehead. "Six. Six will be fine." Kore entwined her fingers with his and then got up from the bed to change clothes.
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