i can see the stars again. ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ zoë's pjo au.

francine p.
daughter of hades.

Do you remember your death?

I do, little one. A sick joke from my brother to strike you with lightning. My favourite. My most intuitive daughter. Shunned by your peers, your  jealous siblings, an outcast of outcasts - and yet. You did not run from the dead. You did not cry as a babe, save for when they left your side. No, you embraced them; my child of the forest, the last to leave the orphanage. Unwanted, and yet you knew it was not the living who needed you the most. 

I remember when he struck you down. The way the underworld screamed so loud it rattled even the thunder in the skies above. You were supposed to be safe there. From the monsters that hunted you down as you followed the voices of ghosts through the forests, across borders and state lines, to the outskirts of New York. And you were safe from the monsters. I helped you, as did the dead, yes. But you arrived on your own accord, barefoot and shivering in the cold with a skull blazing above your head so they all knew and I thought you safe. 

Little one, I nearly started a war when he struck your chest with that lightning in the middle of the forest camp. 

I remember your death as if it were my own. I felt that white-hot light and heard the screams, the rage of my subjects, and did what I had to do. Else every creature in the underworld might have marched on Olympia that day. They were furious, the others, with both of us. Zeus, for the breach of safety. And I, for what I did next. 

I raised the dead, little one. I spoke to the core of the earth as it pulled your body even deeper toward me, down down down into the heat, into the place you belonged. And I commanded it to stop. 

All your ghosts scrambled when I gave the call, so desperate to give up their lost souls for yours. I had never seen anything like it, my child. My daughter. Death lined up not to take you for themselves but to send you back to earth whole and unbroken. They need you, child. You are their connection, their way to keep feeling alive whilst embracing death. 

One by one they touched your heart. One by one they vanished to somewhere beyond even the underworld. And bit by bit did we bring you back, and child if I could have cried I would have.

When you were ready, I brushed my finger against your forehead and sent you back. And you climbed out of the earth, gasping for air, not a scratch on you. No mark of Zeus, no trace of the lightning bolt that seared you inside-out. Olympia could not undo it then, and with grimaces considered the settle scored. Oh, the look on Zeus' face. You should have seen it, my daughter! 

But Little One, what stirred this blackened heart the most was pride: watching the terror on their faces when you crawled out of your makeshift grave and, soil between your teeth, grinned.

"I'm back."