The Consort

Sacrifice

The deepest, darkest pit of Tartarus held within its caverns the most dangerous gods and titans to have ever existed. Even a few humans had been horrible enough in their short lifetimes to be admitted amongst these evil beings. I shivered, drawing my arms across my chest to contain the small amount of warmth I still had. 

A sound in the cell opposite me drew me attention, and a large woman neared the golden bars, her eyes thoughtful and almost motherly. I stopped in my path, unable to step away from the woman. She did not bare any constraints as I had expected, but seemed to live in an amount of luxury. As if to demonstrate, the woman leaned on the bars, a book hanging from her long fingertips.

“I assume you are the one the walls whisper about? The one they name as Persephone?” The woman drawled, her accent seemingly a mixture of all others. I stared at her a moment longer before nodding. The kind woman smiled knowingly. “You are going to meet with my husband?” She asked, the thought of the woman in front of me being married to that man frightened me, and I wondered what scars she held beneath the surface. 

“Yes.” 

“Are you prepared? For sacrifice, and pain, for everything he will do to you?” Rhea asked stoically and I turned away, unable to answer in the affirmative without lies lacing the words.

The woman before me stretched languidly, like a tiger, revealing paper-thin lines on her stomach. I stared unabashed. Rhea saw my stare and looked down at herself, as if for the first time realizing the marks there. 

“It takes a lot to physically mare an immortal. But my husband…” She paused, lightly painted over the scars with her nails. “He has perfected the technique over the centuries.”

Fear gripped my heart, turning my veins to ice as I considered the words. She made a noise in the back of her throat, her eyes kind and careful as she reached through the bars to brush my arm gently. “Perhaps it would be better if you go.”

I straightened my spine, the ground below me responding to the act, a tiny yellow flower popping up between us. Ducking I plucked the flower, smiling at the Goddess in front of me before placing the flower in my hair. Even in the deepest, darkest pit of Tartarus the Earth responded to me. A reminder, to the God as much as myself; I would not be intimidated. My power came from the Earth - came from Gaia herself, who was far older than he. 

“No. I don’t think I’ll be going.” 

As the words echoed down the long hallway I heard an unwelcome laughter. Cronus had heard me, and he was waiting.