She was, in isolation, almost an unassuming goddess. Almost, because her dark hair was dark like the blackest mahogany wood until the sunlight set a deep red fire through its veins. Almost, because her eyes were brown until they were golden like rich amber. She did not have Apollo’s sunny glow, or Iris’s dew-drop glisten, but she had gravity. A quiet and irresistible fire. Hope, twined in the dark locks of her hair, and rebirth in the soft pink flush of her cheeks. Everything turned toward Persephone.<br/><br/>Helios put extra fire in the sky when she smiled below, Poseidon made the sea glitter with shoals of prismatic fish if she took to the waves. Even the earth offered its bounty. In her footsteps, flowers blossomed. Birds sang her arrival. It was beautiful, and it was blinding. In her endless summer, the young goddess had never known cold, or loneliness, or death. Born of Demeter, bountiful mother, Persephone had lived in the soft radiance of unquestioned privilege. She walked in the light, she walked where she willed, and she walked in life.<br/><br/>So it was, wrapped in her flowers, that she did not see him for many years. Walking in her favorite meadows, below Mount Olympus, she had never thought to question why she existed to renew the earth. Persephone had never wondered from where her purpose came. And then, she saw him. Not<i>him</i>, but his fingerprints. A flower captured in frost, suspended in a half-wilt with a tragically lovely sort of pallor. A chill breeze tugging colored leaved from their branches.<br/><br/>The first time she thought she’d caught a glimpse of him, she’d grown a rose bush on the meadow’s edge, where the shadows grew longer. Cast in the twilight, her hair drawn in shades of inky black, she waited at a distance in the tall grass. And then, it became a game. Curious thing, seeing a being beyond herself, beyond her warmth. She strayed closer to the trees and hummed songs for her silent companion. She was never certain if he noticed, or realized her songs were for him.<br/><br/>“I think I’ve made a friend in my meadow,” she told her mother once, sitting by the hearth in their warm home on Olymus’ summit. Demeter had frowned, listening to her daughter’s story. “I leave flowers, and come back to find them dust, or caught in frost. It’s strange and beautiful, in a way.” Demeter had insisted Persephone leave her visitor alone. Stop singing. Stop straying so close to the shadows. Stop leaving gifts.<br/><br/>“It’s dangerous. You’ve been kept safe by everyone who loves you on Olympus, but you don’t know all the gods. They aren’t all meant to be your friends.”<br/><br/>Persephone heeded her mother’s warning, for a time. It left a small ache in her heart she didn’t understand. She’d never tried to reach out before. She’d never had to. Somehow, to be told to stop this effort in its infancy was incredibly sad. So, the goddess began to leave flowers again and did not tell Demeter; she began to try to draw her mysterious companion out in earnest.<br/><br/>As twilight crept across the meadow, bathing the whispering grass in violet hues, Persephone sat with her knees drawn to her chest, staring into the inky black of the forest beyond. She could make out a silhouette, familiar to her now, and sighed. “You can come out, you know. It’s not like I don’t know you’re there.” She said, inclining her head. She’d been speaking directly to him for some days now, but there was little evidence she was making any progress. “My mother thinks you are a god, like me, I think.” She said. “She told me not to talk to you, but I don’t think you’re here to be dangerous.” Persephone smiled. “If I had to guess, it seems like you just like my flowers.” She perched her chin on her knees. “I wish you’d come out and see me, if you can. I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody like you.”