. . .
 
 
 
 
 
 
“But we can't go back. We can only go forward.”
―Libba Bray
 
 
 
 
 
 
. . .
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Proserpina tore her gaze away from Dionysus and stared at the blade pressing firmly upon his chest. She can feel herself tensing, her grip a second away from driving in deeper to his heart.
 
She can feel Death wanting to end this life now.
 
“What…”
 
“Proserpina.” Dionysus breathed out.
 
“Dionysus…  I …”
 
“Proserpina.” Dionysus says her name again and he is not pleading. He’s not pleading, yet something in his voice sounds so close to begging.
.
Proserpina slowly turned towards Dionysus, and saw true horror written all over his face, for the first time since she has known him. His stance, usually so relaxed, was so rigid as he pressed himself backwards to the tree behind him, as if to flee from her.
 
She had scared him.
 
She had almost killed him.
 
“W-What was I… what was I doing…?” Proserpina whispered as she abruptly pulled Thanatos away from the older god.
 
Immediately, the very idea of what she had been doing. Of what she nearly did made her sick as it crashed down on to her in one, quick wave. She… she nearly used Thanatos against him. She nearly stabbed him. She had wanted to, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to kill him. She wouldn’t!
 
So why did she feel like she did?
 
“Do you see now?” the god of wine asked quietly as soon as the sword was sheathed away. Despite the look on his face, his voice still came out firm and unyielding. “Do you understand what I am trying to tell you…? Proserpina. Do you see?”
 
Proserpina couldn’t bear to look at him in the eye as she allowed Thanatos to fall to the shadows. “I… see, Dionysus.”
 
Dionysus stared at her, cautiously.
 
“…I understand,” she says, sounding almost defeated.
 
The two were silent for several moments as the commotion began to calm around them, the storm lingering overhead but no longer as violent as it had been before.
 
Neither of them made a sound as the sea of trees returned to its deathly stillness. The goddess of shadows still couldn’t meet his gaze as she watched the faunas around her finally stop dying. She couldn’t meet his gaze and look on the other god’s face. That gentle, knowing, compassionate look.
 
As if he truly knows (or at least, suspects) all of her worst secrets and fears and weaknesses and could now no longer bring himself to condemn it.  As if he now feels something worse than pity and disgust.
 
Resignation, a resigned sort of acceptance.
 
Dionysus let out a weary chuckle as he buried his face in his hand, “What the actual fuck are we even doing, Proserpina? What are we doing…”
 
Resignation is what happens when every single feeling there is has become pointless. When you lose out hope of something and has now become so thoroughly numb of it. That you accept it is what it is. The infuriating belief that it is a part of one’s fate that must simply be accepted and endured.
 
Despite the senselessness of it all.
 
She should know, she felt it sometimes around Roman.
 
“I confronted you, knowing all too well that this conversation will turn really ugly, and yet here we are. And I am surprised with just how bad we let it get.”
 
Proserpina merely stares at their feet.
 
He sighs, “Why does it always, always gets worst?”
 
She doesn’t answer.
 
“But we did it anyway. We hurl and hurt each other with old wounds just because we want to prove we’re right. We made it past everything and here we are. Two, old demigods who couldn’t really make a good difference in the end…”
 
Nothing.
 
“Poppy, please. Just say something.”
 
Briefly, she closed her eyes.
 
“Is this how we’re going to be? By hurting and nearly killing each other out of anger? Is this really… what we’re all going to be?” he whispered as he watches her effectively curl in on herself.
 
Walls falling back in place, shields rising up in defense. A secluded corner, a safe space. All of it, he can practically watch her retreating back into it… all because the issues he had all but forced out in the open is too painful and too shameful, even for her, to look at.
 
“You know what? There’s no need for this conversation to get longer.” Dionysus muttered. “I've said almost everything I needed to say.”
 
This time, Proserpina looked at him.
 
He can clearly hear the exasperated ‘almost?’ from the weary look in those eyes. Had it been any other time, he would have laughed.
 
Now, he just nods.
 
“Yup… because the only other thing I have left to say to you is that you can go ahead and keep up with all this fuckery if you want, but it will never lead you anywhere good. It can't.”
 
“You sound so certain,” she comments.
 
“Because two wrongs don't make a right,” he retorted as he looked at her directly in the eye, “Someday, you'll come up against something that will make you see that. It's easy to convince yourself of a lie when you feel like you’re in control, but when everything falls apart… well, you’ll cross the bridge when you get there.”
 
The god of death’s cold presence, lingering but still there, in the back of her mind had never felt so invasive in this moment.
 
But Proserpina had been so used to the idea of sharing a mental space with another god (not like Thanatos usually makes himself known, anyway) that the feeling passed as easily as it comes. She couldn’t bear to be left alone with her thoughts.
 
Even if Dionysus, on the other hand, didn't seem to believe that there should have been another with her in the first place.
 
“And what will this be then?”
 
He shrugs, “I don’t know. I don't know what kind of disaster it will take for you to get there… or what kind of tragedy you’ll have to face, but I know it will happen sooner than you think, and you will understand by then.”
 
Those violet eyes, like grape wine and wisterias had never unsettled the shadows more than it did when he finally deigns to tell her:
 
“The shadows will rise, when Death dies..”