It was no longer summer. The sun shone with a lessening intensity, but it was still warm as ever when there was no shade to block it. The ocean upwelled from the deep; cold, nutritive waters lapping at the shores of the continent. This seeped into the land, which seemed to grow more and more verdant as the season waned on. Every nook was alive with scent &

sound. The wind billowed, and the rains moved through their pulsing cycles. It was all beautiful and distinctly, dreadfully, dolefully indulgent.

Bored, Ampoule could never be. Ampoule could smell the changes on the wind and in the water. Seeing as she was beholden to no one and knew loyalty to no lands, she moved away from the beach. She poked around the inland treeline, tracing the designs in brine that marked the treebark. Then she climbed, the sloping earth taking her upwards and closer to the sky, so that she might become of the clouds themselves and drift free across the land, truth untethered.

She found herself at a cascade. It was not large and grandiose as some she had heard of, but its waters trickled in force and created a mist in the churning bowl below. The siren gazed over the precipice, blinking at the light that danced, sparkling, gleaming back towards her like dancing searchlights. Ampoule smiled, taking a deep breath, and felt peaceful in this place. The roar of the falling waters was like a balm to a spirit, a metronome for her that gave her place in this moment – purpose. Perhaps somewhere in the back of her awareness, her body was experiencing hunger.

But hunger took a backseat to the splendor and wonder of the world that ran like a treadmill beneath her feet. She was hungry for so much more than food. She craved to experience everything that his corporeal life had to offer her.

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Tag: Hades

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The mountains felt nearly like a respite. Nearly. Perched above the world, bared to the open sky, lifted free of so many sorrows. But the echo of grief rang in Hades' ears ever still and despite the serene morning, his mind wouldn't stop feeding him so many terrible things; the image of Persephone's still form sprawled in the snow, the way she still smelled of the asphodel he had so delicately crafted just for her, and how he could still smell it now because she was a part of him so deeply he smelled of it.

The stygian coalescence stood on the edge of the world, and even in the face of Mythris' beauty, all he could do was tilt his face skyward and see his little brothers kingdom. The god knew Zeus couldn't see him, but that didn't mean he wasn't still glowering up at the heavens all the same. Zeus, he might've been Mr. king of the heavens, but that title wouldn't protect him from the growing red-hot wrath of Hades if he ever found his way back to Olympus. Persephone always counseled to find another way, to lift the heaviness from the hand that sentenced each poor soul. She'd expected him to be merciful, beat it into him, really, but it wasn't natural. She'd always been a cut above the rest, fashioned with finer material and a love that spread across the world like the blooms she so cherished.
The gods have no mercy -- that's why they're gods. He and Zeus, all they knew was the battle. That heavy hand had protected them more than once... and now, Hades felt the need to protect himself, to soothe his aching heart. He didn't know how, but frustration bubbled within him day after day and he didn't know what to do with it. He didn't know how to move on, what to do now that Persephone was gone. He couldn't even slink back to the Underworld where he belonged, to wallow in his misery with Cerberus at his side in...In the palace he should've been bringing his wife home to. The home he'd spent so long exploring, creating, mastering; the one he'd made his own through millennia of work and dedication, the home that one brought him some semblance of comfort that now felt cold and empty. Without her warm rays, it just felt cold, and empty, and quiet.

The lump in his throat grew, the scowl on his features deepening.

He turned away and kept moving. The sun would never feel warm against his back again. He would never feel whole again.

Pluto didn't know how long it was that he simply walked. Little Ember was quiet, soaring along above him with everlasting loyalty -- the poor little scrap must've been getting tired, but he still didn't settle anywhere to sleep. Eventually, he might perch upon the gods back, but he seemed all too aware of the lupines distress, the need to just keep moving and not stagnate. He might've been a guest of Jakten, but that didn't mean he had to be there all the time.
He thought he should bring something back, though. Help out. He hadn't been anything but lord of his own lands for as long as he could remember, but a gift if not helping to pull his weight seemed appropriate.

Lost in thought, grimacing at the thought of setting his teeth to some dirty animal, he was --for some reason-- surprised to see someone else. Had his isolation been some deep-seated instinct to protect himself, a decision however unconscious made? The pale, slender creature was standing there so serenely, staring out over a waterfall with a smile brightening her features, that Hades had no doubt of her sentience. Whether she was friendly or not could still be debated, he thought.... but wasn't that true all the time, everywhere?

He kept walking and rumbled a soft chuff, hoping not to scare her as he approached from the side if she hadn't spotted him yet.

There was a sound that reached her, somehow sounding louder (or perhaps just differently) than the aqueous chiming, the rolling roar of water turning unto itself, turn after turn after turn. Ampoule too, she turned in order to know what created a sound so distinctly alive that it sounded more solid and significant than a grandiose split in the earth, clearly the doing of the gods themselves. It was a man.

Ampoule did not immediately return his greeting, but instead stood and observed with a mindful look on her face. Somehow, she immediately assumed that he would not mind being her subject for the moment; possibly that he was already used to such things. After all, like recognized like. Magic recognized magic, and deities could recognize deities even if it was the perception of energy and pernasiveness alone. Her ears were specifically attuned to regard those who were like her, and he drew her attention and kept it.

But of course, she let on that she knew nothing, except perhaps an unfurling of herself away from the water, and towards him.

She let on nothing, until it was her turn to speak.

I am at your most humble service, she acquiesced with exquisite ease, with almost no prompting on his part, drawing her chest back and down into a bow that showed the propriety she knew was innate in this interaction. For as much as she had grandiose ideas about herself and her place amongst her people, she was a lesser god; a nymph, meant to steward the lands and the seas and everything in between. Whatever this man was, she knew it was greater than she. Perhaps her piousness might win her favor in these strange, new, blazing lands.

Thus, that was how Ampoule became the prostrate supplicant, a role that suited her as comfortably as the role goddess did.

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