The gardens of the Underworld were still—eternally in bloom, yet untouched by wind or time. Beneath the silver-leaved tree at the center, he sat, legs stretched in the moss, eyes closed, face turned to the false sun that glowed soft above them.

Persephone approached in silence, her steps leaving no mark upon the dark soil. She paused a few feet away, just watching him.

The boy she had cradled, fed, sung to in the quiet of Hades’ halls—no longer a boy. Now grown into a man of impossible beauty. Adonis. Limbs long and golden, mouth full like ripened fruit, lashes casting soft shadows over his cheeks. He was sunlight captured in flesh. And he had no idea.

She sat beside him without a word, folding her gown beneath her legs. For a while, she only listened to the hush of the garden and the slow beat of her own immortal heart.

Then, softly, her voice broke the stillness.

"You used to cling to my hand when the shadows frightened you. And now look at you."

She looked at him again. Not as the boy she raised—but as something else. Something terrifyingly tender.

"I don't think the gods knew what they were doing when they gave you to me."