. . .
“Death doesn't discriminate between the sinners and the saints,
It takes and it takes and it takes, and we keep living anyway
History obliterates, in every picture it paints
It paints me and all my mistakes
I survived, but I paid for it
Now I'm the villain in your history”
―Lin-Manuel Miranda
. . .
His words inspires violence.
It was on purpose; they both know this already. And yet… and yet, of all the things that Proserpina can and should do–
The goddess of shadows laughed.
Dionysus did not even react as he watched her laugh, first quietly, under her breath, as if startled by the accusation. Then loudly, madly.
As if the very idea was absurd. Utter foolishness.
But at the same time…
The longer this outrageous laughter of her’s goes on, the god of wine cannot help but think that somehow, in some way…. her laughter sounds like a child’s cry.
Proserpina has gone insane.
No, he quickly amended, as he watched her laughter die down into mirthless chuckles… she was already insane when he first met her. She had long since lost it—now, she’s just getting serious about it.
Dionysus should know.
He is a god of insanity, after all.
“Yes,” Proserpina says quietly, once she’s done, nodding slowly, almost speaking more to herself (or was it to the other god?) than him, “Yes, I think I can see why you see it that way…”
“Really, now? Well… congratulations!” he tells her, his voice laced with sarcastic cheer as he spread his arms theatrically. “You have regained some basic human empathy. Good for you, sweet poppy! Now, go get yourself a fucking drink once all is said and done.”
She casted him an annoyed glance, “My point still stands.”
“What? That you think you did the ‘right thing’?” he snapped, even making air quotes with his fingers just to mess with her further.
“I do not think it’s right; I know it is.”
Dionysus, despite facing the full-brunt Proserpina’s anger (9 out of 10, he seriously won’t recommend it to anyone with faint of heart), was equal parts pleased and concerned at once to see none of the darkness lurking about in her eyes just seconds ago. 
Thanatos seems to have backed off.
For now…
(But for how long?)
Did the goddess of shadows even realize that the god of death can appear at will? That Thanatos was the one in the front seat of her consciousness just now and not her?
Was she aware?
Did she… even care…?
“…and it is what he deserved.”
Dionysus jolted at that, giving her an incredulous stare. “Wait. What he deserved…? I’m sorry, but are you even hearing yourself? For one second, I want you to think, Proserpina. Just think! Does Rei deserved to be murdered in cold blood in a place he believed himself to be safe?”
“I did not murder him.”
“You had him killed,” he retorts.
She quickly open her mouth as if to rebut.
Then, just as quickly, she snapped her mouth shut. He waits and watches her grit her teeth, as if restraining herself from saying something.
In the end, she didn’t say anything about that.
No defense, no excuse.
He snaps, “Why is ‘make it dead’ your solution for everything?!”
“It is not–”
“Then what the fuck are you doing?!”
“…he knew, Dionysus.” Proserpina finally bit out as she clenched her fists, almost shaking with barely concealed rage, “He knew the truth all these years… and he had refused to speak of it until I pleaded with him. All along, he kept this from me even if he has no right…!”
Dionysus frowns.
He has literally no idea what they had argued about… but surely it couldn’t be bad enough that it seriously angered Proserpina enough to kill an old, family friend? The man was practically more her and William’s grandfather than the real deal!
“Has it never occurred to you, for a single second, that the old man did it for your own good?” he retorts, “…that he has good intentions?”
“Upon what right does a mortal get to decide what is ‘good’ for the goddess whom they serve, Dionysus? Upon what right?!”
“He’s practically your family!”
“No, HE’S NOT!” she yelled, absolutely livid.
He froze as she glared at him. Oh, but if only looks can kill… immortal or not, Dionysus would have been a rotting corpse already.
“He lied to me, had stolen from me!”
Stolen…?
Dionysus narrowed his eyes at her, his face stiffening. “Is this about what happened with William when you were kids? Proserpina. You do realize that your brother is not a thing to be stolen?” …too late he realized this to be poor. Choice. Of words.
“Not a thing to be stolen? Not a thing to be stolen?!” Proserpina raged almost instantly, like a volcano erupting, genuinely looking like seconds away from marching over to grab him by the collar and shake him right off of his feet, “Don’t you dare lecture me about that boy! Not when even until now, despite your promises of aid, he is STILL MISSING!”
He glowered at her, refusing to admit his own failure.  It’s not like he hadn’t even tried to help. He did. He really did!
But Dionysus is no fool.
For even as an Olympian god, the king of vampires is still not someone for them to underestimate. Roman’s older than Dionysus. And it was said that monster had slain a goddess, after all…
“Maybe Rei has known all along that you never should have come anywhere near whatever information he had kept from you… maybe because you were the one who didn’t deserve to know,” he taunts, the words careless and biting, the words escaping his mouth before he could even think better of it.
He had fully expected her to rage at that.
But he never counted for her actually slapping him.
He didn’t even see her hand coming, not even as his face snapped abruptly to the side at the force of the backhanded blow.
There was a faint ringing in his ear.
Distantly, he can feel his cheek throbbing.
Blankly, he turned his head to look at her again.
She had been the one to strike him without a warning, but Dionysus was faintly surprised (and very indignant) to see something that looked too much like hurt in her eyes, as if he was the one who had struck her in the face.
Proserpina abruptly lowered her still-raised hand before clutching it close to her chest, as if shocked that she had actually resorted to physically striking him.
Well, he thinks, dryly, this is new.
He sneers, “Go on, hit me again, I dare you.”
It was a warning and a threat, all at once.
She bit her lip, looking very much like the guilty child that she is as she stares and stumbles a few steps back away from him, “D-Dionysus, I… I d-didn’t mean to…”
“That’s because you know I’m right!”
“No! You don’t know what you are talking about-!”
“Well, how am I supposed to know?” he countered, taking an angry step towards her, petty satisfaction lighting through him when he saw her flinch, almost imperceptibly. “How was anyone supposed to know?! You have Alastor, you have Demeter and your stepmother, you have your followers, your mercenaries… heck, you have so many people that cared or wanted to care about you but you… you push them all away! You don’t tell them ANYTHING! NOT EVEN ME!”
Tears suddenly welled in those dark eyes of her’s, eyes that looked too much like the shadows lapping at their feet, momentarily snapping Dionysus out of his anger.
“I…” she swallows, “I just w-want to… p-protect…”
“What…?”
Protect…? Protect what?!
Then, he sobered a bit.
The kid…? William?
“I don’t want to hurt anyone when I’m gone!” Proserpina all but suddenly cried, her voice crackling with years’ worth of grief. “And I don’t want to get hurt or lose anyone again, I can’t… I CAN’T!”
“Are you serious?! You’ve already hurt everyone that cared!” Dionysus raged, willing himself not to look too closely at the grief in her eyes that he knows too well. He had been struck, so he struck right back, reflexive at this point. “Look around you, Proserpina! Look at yourself! Just look at the things you're about to do! At the things you've already done!”
She angrily wiped at her eyes before the tears could even dare to fall, the sorrow in her eyes quickly giving way to anger. Because even Dionysus can admit that it is so easy to hate than to grieve.
“You want me to look at the things I have done?” Proserpina mocked, something like incredulity and spite mingling in her sorrow, “I see a world where monsters die or live in fear of death. I see a world where demigods can live happily compared to how it was ten years ago!”
“Happily? You traumatized the son of Athena and had the son of Hypnos murdered! How is that happy? How is that happy?!”
“…They brought it on to themselves.”
“And yet, you still think things have actually gone for the better?” he spat, not wanting to think of the children and loved ones he had to give up during that senseless purge.
That so-called Righteous Purge… just the very thought of that decade-long slaughter still made his stomach churn. He would rather bury the memory and everything that he lost or else he will truly go mad in his grief.
“What? So, you really think the world has become a peaceful place for them just because of… you?” he shook his head, chuckling derisively. “You’re delusional.”
“I never said anything about peace,” she hissed, like the word was something so vile, “But thanks to me, to my efforts, the world was almost free of monsters. That the demigods don’t have to fight for a chance at life anymore. That they don’t have to live in fear of the gods!”
“And at what cost, Proserpina? At what cost?! How many men, women, and children had to die before you could create this world?!”
Something like pain and guilt flickered in her eyes for a very short moment, no doubt remembering her own many hunters, her faithful worshippers who had pledged themselves and died in such gruesome deaths, all under her hopeless cause…
Then, just as quickly, her gazed hardened like ice.
“You know perfectly well that in order to achieve something, some sacrifices need to be done,” she said coldly, her voice losing whatever emotion there had been.
“Was it worth it then?” he demanded.
“Of course it is–”
He didn’t care to hear whatever she had to say anymore. “Was it worth it to sacrifice your own fucking humanity, huh, Proserpina? What about your soul?!”
“It never meant anything to me…!”
“Was it worth it to become the monster you swore to end?!”
Because that is what she is bound to become if she kept on walking this path. That is the end of the road he can see so clearly, even without the use of Apollo’s damned oracles. For Proserpina is nothing but a misguided child at best… and an unstoppable force at its worst.
Because power… it can be a dangerous thing.
Power is enthralling, seductive when pursued. Too difficult to hold on to, addictive no matter the one who has it has actually good intentions or not. Regardless, once you do get a hold of it… only there and then will you realize that power is not enough. It could never be enough when everything that mattered is lost along the way.
Being a god could never be enough.
“Its’s always humans who kill monsters,” he reminds her, his voice dropping to a pained whisper. “…but it's always, always humans who becomes them. Or have you forgotten?”
“How can I?” she asked, as she wrapped her arms around herself, a wet sounding laugh escaping her for the second time, “…when I was never truly one in the first place? All I know is that I have yet to kill the monster after all this time.”
“You don’t have to, Proserpina.” his eyes never left her’s, a cold violet, brutal, ringing with nothing but the cruel truth: “… I feel like I’m already looking at one.”