Mousai's POV

As we fall I brace myself for the coming impact, only to be lead astray as we're comforted by the thickness of rose petals and overgrown flora. "The thir-"

Persephone interrupts me, "Third layer of the Underworld, why yes you are. Be privileged your eyes have even been able to set foot upon my true garden." She slides down the long assortment of colours, gracefully landing onto the mossy stone terrain where her heels click with each minor movement.

I follow behind, watching as the Zs each find their way down just as we did. With two passed out, that leaves only Zagreus to speak for them all as he attempts to carry them both on his own. "Let me help!" I cry out, attempting to help them but Persephone clicks her fingers.

"Oh please, they'll be much safer here." She twists vines around each of their bodies, much against Zagreus' will but nonetheless he doesn't fight it. Burying the two into two similar soil pits. "I'll recall them once their hearts have stabilized and we've achieved what we needed. You should be ashamed to have struggled against a human such as that, Zagreus." She digs at him.

"If there's layers, then what's with the level we were just on?" I question with interest.

She quickly clicks her tongue in a disapproving manner, "Tss tss tss, that's where we all gather to rest but believe it or not, we barely see each other as all of our layers typically require our presence every now and then. This place is the Elysium fields, anyone who died with a righteous soul has a right to ride with Charon towards this rewarding end." She continues explaining, "Anubis' Duat, where Ma'at resides as the souls are weighed for their existences. My husband's Tartarus where as you'd know, Hades resides with the worrisome souls have taken refuge and finally...Helheim where Hel's frozen wasteland exists to torture those who step out from their truth." She finishes.

"And we avoid them for a reason whenever we meet..." Zagreus slyly adds on.

She waves it off with sass as she looks onward to the golden souls that flourish along with her flowers, some posing under a false sun while others simply lay there in the soft grass as they bath in their afterlives. "We're very much aware of your meetings but we quite frankly don't care enough to do anything about it, so do whatever you deem natural." She looks back briefly, and whether it be a mistake or not, I'd like to think she smiled.

My eyes lock onto them all stripping themselves of armour and discarding swords as their wars have ended. But among them, I can't help but notice one in particular staring dead at me. "They can't see us, right?"

'They're staring'

"Technically speaking yeah I guess so, but it's not like we're of any interest to them." She explains to ease my thoughts but I can't help but see them all, turning one by one to face me in particular.

'They're coming'

"Persephone, why are they approaching?" I walk closer to her, not wanting to be the centre of attention anymore.

She clicks her fingers once again, twisting vines around their feet to hold them in place. "There, happy now that you've disturbed the peaceful death of those around you?" She sighs.

'They'll keep coming'

"Persephone..." I watch as they re-grab their swords, slicing at the vines and continuing their approach.

She spins on her heel to fully look at the same display of souls as me. "What are you doing Mousai?"

I put my hands up in defence, "I promise I'm not doing anything."

She squints as if not believing me, stepping ahead and stomping her foot like she did above. "You will obey!" She warns, twisting them up once again in thorn covered roses in hopes of keeping them there.

'It won't'

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And even spite their screaming pain, they cut, cut and cut. The noise almost physically hurting Persephone as her eyes spiral with hate, "COVER HER FUCKING EYES ZAGREUS!" She screams.

"Bu-" He tries to fight her but he can't disobey one of the royalty, a purplish chain swerves around his arms as his pact made in a much previous life remains in tact.

Gently, he puts his hands over my eyes. And so we wait amongst the sudden silence that grows more eerie by the second. "Open them." She orders him and allowing him to let go of me. "It's you." She slaps me across the face, an action I had no time to prepare for or expected in the slightest.

I ever so slightly eye the dead soldiers in the back, noticing they've stopped advancing towards us all of a sudden.

"It's no wonder why I've continued to feel those same eyes from above weighing deep on my skin." She vents, aggressively walking along the path in a far quicker pace than before.

As we approach what appears to be a dome carved out of seasonal flowers much like the tree, she can't help but something off her back. "Each of these layers are practically our bodies themselves, each carrying their own personalities and minuet details, some of which I desire to keep hidden." She sways her hand in a particular motion, removing the thorns from her pathing and allowing us two to follow in behind her.

We enter a large enclosed space with nothing but a large petrified flower capsuled within a stone soil all to itself. "Ow!" I shout as she intentionally causes me to prick one of my arms along the repositioned thorns. The pain feeling sudden to me, almost as if my senses weren't entirely there for some reason.

"Oh shut up." She holds onto my arm, showing her own bleeding state and forcing me to join in on whatever she's preforming. "You left Elysia, the heavens...on your own accord after they called your love tainted, correct?" She turns to me with a gentle smile.

"Yes." I firmly nod alongside Zagreus as he too allows his blood to drip over the same stoned plant.

"So then you'll understand what I mean when I say I too left for a similar love?" Her smile turns from one of a gentle nature to something hideous, a switch so quick I barely recognised the person in front of me.

I quickly snatch my hand back in fear of her, leaning back as I notice the petrified flower begin to crack ever so slightly, showing of a piece of its luminescent blue petal underneath. 'It was probably beautiful...a portrait of colours displaying itself across a canvas of leaves, turning all it devoured into nutrients for itself-' My thought paints the rest of the flower with my imagination as I begin to realise just what it is.

"That's-"

"The Eternal Flower, Sonia. The one that Persephone sought out and betrayed the gods for." Zagreus explains, looking almost defeated. "She's kept it here against their wishes and feeds it our blood to keep it standing, but nothing more."

"Until now." Persephone finishes. Walking closer to the stone, in order to read a nameplate of sorts. "You see, for some reason. Long before I became a queen, my layer had always existed. A place that was once called the Garden of Eden. A name I had never even began to understand but nonetheless one that was engraved right here in stone. So naturally I assumed there was a deeper meaning to it. And day in day out I nurtured it to perfection, the singular seed that began this entire heaven." She spreads her arms out to exaggerate the Underworld.

"But it was killed, was it not?" I ask, every now and again looking upwards at the shedding flower.

She walks closer to me, placing two hands along my cheeks and meeting eyes with me. "That's what we're going to find out, just how far can your imagination go?" She ponders out loud.

"What d-" I attempt to ask but she slaps me from both sides of my face to keep me locked into her own.

"It was blue" She begins describing it.

'It was blue' I feel my thoughts begin repeating her.

"The edges were violet tipped with a vein like structure that grew towards the pure white centre"

'The edges were violet tipped with a vein like structure that grew towards the pure white centre'

And as my head continues repeating her description, I can't help but notice the darkened figure in the back, leaning against the peeling flower as his lips move along with my thoughts.

"The flower that could swallow the very gods themselves"

'The flower that could swallow the very gods themselves'

"A primordial chaos built in the guise of a simple wish from the Underworld's Queen"

'A primordial chaos built in the guise of a simple wish from the Underworld's Queen'

She lets go of my face with a sinister grin as she backs up closer to the flower. "The potential you hold is limited by nothing more than your own consciousness Mousai. With this, you could do 𝘢𝘯𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨" She poorly explains.

I panic as the flower begins swaying with life, "What do you mean!?" I shout.

She winks, fixing her false hair in this frantic environment, "Oracion's dreaming alright, but he's not dreaming of himself. Meet me at the palace, it's not far from here, I'm sure you two can make it with some luck." She closes her eyes while facing up at the flower as its teeth plant themselves into her wooden doll and removing what few drops of blood she carried inside of it.

"Quickly!" Zagreus grabs my arm without a further warning.

The roots entangle themselves, thickening by the second as they tear up the stone with clear preparation to move. Releasing a sharp howl to my ears as it spreads lumen pollen throughout the dome.

I tear my hand from Zagreus, re-grabbing him and running at my own speed as I notice him already beginning to falter at being separated from pieces of himself. An action that Persephone better believe won't get one of us killed, for her own sake.