The sorest eye

[gwenchan]

 Fandom: Hadestown

Personaggi: Persephone; Eurydices

Rating: General

Additional tags: Post-canon, Greek Mythology

Prompt: Cielo

The sky is what she misses the most. She shouldn't remember it, no damned soul in Hades's factory should, but they do. She does. She remembers the blue of those rare sunny days and the habitual grey she has seen for most of her short life.

"You know, you can take a glimpse. Free of charge," Lady Persephone winks, half-drunk glass of wine shining ruby in her hand. Another glass glints silver near Eurydices, still full to the brim. Moonshine, a secret recipe as Lady Persephone said while pouring one. This will help, she said

"I doubt it," Eurydices sighs, traces circles on the glass brim. A low but clear note reverberates from the crystal, filling the ambience.

"What about a glimpse, then?" the Goddess renovates her offer, with a conspiratorial whisper even though no other soul is present to eavesdrop on them. Especially, there is no Lord Hades here. He doesn't mingle with mortals and doesn't set foot in Persephone's parlor.

Eurydices shakes her head again, the pale liquor reflecting her deep contemplation and her sadness. She'd give anything for a chance to see the sky again, to feel the wind on her skin and the warmth of the sun. 

She longs for the cold and for the snow, for the freezing days and for the storm. Anything that could make her still feel something, still feel alive. 

"A glimpse is no sin, dear," Lady Persephone insists. Eurydices takes a sip, says nothing.

A glimpse would not be enough. She'd want more afterwards, she's certain. Far for satisfying her hunger, a glimpse would whet her appetite and soon she'd be demanding more and more, a slave to the Queen of the Underground as she's already to its King.

"Tell me about it instead," Eurydices prays. She ask about the world above every day and, happy to defy Hades's law, Lady Persephone complies.

When she returned from the upside world, she did with her suitcase full of sun, flowers still smelling of summer, jars of gold honey and bottles of dandelions wine. Souls swarmed around her like flies, begging for a sip of drink, to smell a daisy, to hear a story. Those who remember ask for their loved ones, those who don't, linger around them with curiosity and uncertain.

Eurydices didn't approach, barely lifted her head from the machine  she was working on that day. She would talk with Lady Persephone later. Some things are not to be shared with others. 

"It was beautiful, my child," the Goddess describes. "Cornflower blue above endless green."

Eurydices nods, closes her eyes. Colours are the first thing that slip by Hadestown's poor citizens' mind. But Persephone brings with her glimpses of that too. She opens her fist and on her palm are two squares of cloth, blue silk and green cotton. 

Eurydices stares at them till her eyes burn. Then, she tries for a question she doesn't dare to ask. Lady Persephone reads her mind and shakes her head.

She doesn't know. For how much she'd like to tell her, she has no idea where Orpheus is now. She heard he walks the Earth with his guitar and his pain, forever running away from the Furies. They accompany his every step like the Fates did with Eurydices. 

"But now humans have spring again," Lady Persephone adds, a mere consolation. Now she can stay longer with humans and Earth has hope of healing. Now Hades remembers love amidst the coldness of his machines. Now his subjects can aspire to have an identity again.

A faint smile stretches Eurydices lips. 

Orpheus couldn't save their union, but maybe he rescued another. Maybe his real mission was never to retrieve her, but to open the Gods blind eyes to their past love. Maybe she had to die so that Earth and them all could be saved.  

It's little consolation, like are the tales about the above Lady Persephone provides. She describes till Eurydices feel to have absorbed enough of it to face another day in the mill.

"It is almost time for me to close."

It feels like hours have passed when the Goddess croaks the warning, many more glasses spread before her and Eurydices' still half-full. "You sure you don't want to take a look?" 

Eurydices twists a lock of short hair, lower her eyes and refuses. She who once would have taken anything, now has no reason anymore. 

"Can I just stay here a little longer?" she dares to ask, hands cupped around the still cold glass. She needs a moment longer. Lady Persephone's smile has a shadow of sadness and guilt. 

"Of course my child, of course."