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As always, Demeter watches.
The world is vast, but she is the Goddess of Seasons. Regardless of the vacuous limitations Zeus has tried to impose on the Olympians, there’s a part of the world that will always belong to her, whether it is verdant and alive or remains somber and cold.
She watches the whole world: but there’s a place where a part of her soul will always reside, not only watching, but waiting.
One day the door to the Underworld will open for her dear daughter, and she plans to be ready. One day they will be together once again. That thought is the only one that has kept her alive, for a measure of the word, all this time.
So when the wind and the trees carry a whisper back to her about a disturbance near the gates, she turns part of her divine senses to them. However it is the odious Lord of the Underworld himself who emerges. She beats down on her anger, still raw and ugly and painful, at this man who took everything away from her. Any other time she might have let him be, forcing his whole presence out of her senses in her disgust.
This is, however, what makes her pay attention: he is wearing the Helmet of Darkness. Even after the eons that have passed them by, she recognizes it, but the once reassuring sight now only inspires dread. Whoever is coming through the temple now, it is either someone powerful enough to warrant its use —and the men of her family, with the exception of Hermes, are so afflicted by hubris that she doubts anything less than a Titan would drive Hades to such precautions— or it is someone he wants to keep in his realm, at all costs.
Her heart hammers inside her chest, even as she berates it to remain calm and firm. She shouldn't permit herself the indulgence of believing, even for a moment, that her beloved Persephone might be the one to emerge, at last, after all this time.
It is no use. She glides unseen and unnoticed to bear witness to whatever is about to happen. They do not have long to wait.
The one who emerges is a young godling, barely more than a boy, and against her will she feels a renewed stab of pain that makes the pine trees shake and wither a little further. She had believed, after all.
She closes her eyes, desperate to flee from this place and this man who betrayed her like no one else had. Still, there's a call deep in her soul that stops her spiral of depression and makes her take a closer look at the boy.
He has stopped just a few steps away from the gates, but not in fear or doubt. On the contrary, there’s wonder in his eyes. Humans used to look at her creations like that, back when she hadn’t yet been broken, but it has been a long time since the mantle she casts upon the world has been so well received.
The boy doesn’t seem to notice there’s something not quite right in the landscape around him. Instead he whirls around, with his neck craned up and a sound of delight rising to his lips. A smile breaks through the soot decorating his face and the grimness of his expression, and Demeter feels... something. It is a different ache that the one she is used to, one that is almost pleasant.
He turns with his whole body, with his weapon hanging limply on his arm, still unaware of his audience. He looks at his feet where his movements have disturbed the snow and sinks a hand until his fingers touch the dormant ground. Persephone used to have that same wonder, Demeter remembers now, and the thought brings fresh tears to her eyes, though she is too proud to let any more fall.
Too soon, he notices Hades waiting in his full regalia and he stiffens, gripping his weapon more firmly once again. There’s resolve there, but also pain, the pain that isn’t inflicted all at once but in increments, like water wearing down rock.
Hades wastes no time to berate the boy, Zagreus, mocking him with the venom that seems to be all he has left inside. The boy responds, calling him father. Demeter moves a bit closer. Could it be…?
But no, she will not ask, even to herself. If she could not avoid the trap of believing Persephone might be free at last, she must not fall into this one, the one that would well and truly destroy her. He’s probably the son of that woman, Nyx. The Goddess of Night’s children have always been willful as well, and powerful; though perhaps not powerful enough against an opponent such as the one the boy now faces.
Still, he’s a clever one, this little prince. From his stance it is clear that he knows he’s outclassed and still he clings to life like jimson weed used to do in the warmth of summer. He endures some blows, moves through his father’s troops with graceful but deadly precision. He weaves and ducks under his father’s attacks, barely stopping long enough to launch a counterattack before he’s moving again.
(In the glint of the morning sun, she sees her niece’s blessing flare and protect him before it fades again).
The familiarity she had felt to the boy who had smiled at the sun and the sky shatters, replaced by something she recognizes far more clearly. In this desperate, on-going fight, all at once she can see the resemblance to his father, to Zeus, to Hestia: more importantly she can also see a mirror of herself.
Once, long ago, they had been just as young, just as bitterly angry as the prince now is. She remembers how the blood had surged in her veins as they rallied against their murderous father, each wielding a weapon too big for them, each knowing that they might not survive but also that there was no way for them to live other than seeing the battle through to its bitter end.
She observes now and she knows that Hades looms over his flesh and blood as Cronus once did, and she wonders when her younger brother forgot what it had been like, to be so lost but so determined.
She wonders if she’ll ever remember what it had been like, to feel the kind of foolish hope that only those who deep down still believe themselves to be invincible can feel.
Zagreus is headstrong, brave and exceptionally well-trained; but it isn’t enough. They were six, and he is alone. As the sun climbs steadily in the sky, his breath starts coming heavier, forming white puffs of mist with each labored intake of air. His attacks start becoming sloppier, missing their mark more often.
The prince perseveres valiantly, in spite of the pain his sluggishly bleeding wounds must cause him, and she can see a flash of… not quite fear, but growing apprehension in Hades’ eyes that makes her want to sing.
“I will not… go back!” The prince says, more to himself than to either of them and Hades scoffs derisively in response but Demeter can see that Zagreus shall not be cowed.
The warrior inside her sees it a moment before it happens. Fatigue, ill luck and the unfamiliar terrain combine and the boy stumbles at the end of his dash, losing a precious second as he tries to right himself. Anywhere else on the battlefield he might have rallied; but in that moment one of his father’s wretched louts manages to crowd him into a corner, and Hades lunges.
She has a split second to decide and she is making her move before she consciously realizes what she is about to do. A tendril of her spirit burrows into the earth and snakes back up, winding around the prince’s ankle, disappearing just as the God of the Dead strikes down.
“How disappointingly predictable an outcome.”
Demeter purses her lips, because that is not what she has just seen. Young Zagreus has been sent back to the House of Hades with a shout and a burst of red, but in their newborn connection she can sense that he has not surrendered. He will be back outside, one day, sooner or later.
After the fight is over, in the unnatural stillness Hades dismisses the shades of his tortured servants with a brisk hand. He makes as if to go inside and suddenly stops, looking around.
Demeter startles, realizing that her disguise had started to fall, but she recovers swiftly enough that his eyes pass over her form without stopping. He looks pained, pained and far too old for the child that she had loved once when he had still been innocent; but she doesn’t call out to him. Her compassion has long since dried away, along with so many other beautiful things.
Still, that boy, who has her daughter’s laugh and steel threaded through his soul. Perhaps, for him, she can still find something beautiful to give after all. Now that he has come into her notice she will aid him, sending him her boons of winter so that they might ease his passage through the sweltering depths of Tartarus.
She can’t allow herself to have hope and even if she did, she fears that she no longer knows how; but if young Zagreus reaches her one day… then, perhaps, she will allow him to teach her.