Persephone held on tightly to her bag as her and Eris walked through the busy streets of Olympus. There were many people around, busy shops, cars everywhere, different voices and sounds from every corner, and it was all making her feel incredibly noxious.
Persephone suddenly felt a gentle hand intertwine with hers, and when she looked up she saw Eris smiling reassuringly at her. "Don't worry, I felt the same way when I first moved here." For a girl whose outfits were dark and gloomy, she had a heart as bright as day.
Persephone nodded in gratitude and the two of them continued walking down the side walk until they reached the door of a large store.
Eris plastered her face on the glass window of the store and gasped in amazement, "oh my gods look at that dress! We have to go in there and try it on!"
Before Persephone could even get a good look at the dress Eris was taking about, she was already being dragged through the doors of the clothing store.
The young goddess walked slowly while admiring the different dresses and shoes that were on display at every corner of the store. Then, she spotted it, the dress that took Persephone's breath away, if she was going to leave this store with anything, it would be with that dress.
"Persie come here!"
Persephone took one last glance at her dream dress and rushed to where Eris was picking out clothes. Her goth roommate pulled out a purple strapless dress with a bare back, the top and bottom of the gown was littered with little black stones that shimmered when the light hit them.
"What do you think? Isn't this dress just made for me?" Eris plastered the dress on her body and glanced at her reflection in the mirror. "I don't even have to look any further, this is the one."
"It really suits you," Persephone agreed. Considering that Eris was a little goth.. okay she was very goth.. dark colors like purple, blue or black suited her perfectly.
"And I have the perfect shoes for it," Eris added on, "I'm going to kill at that party." She then turned to her friend and smiled slyly at her.
"What? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"I saw a pretty little number that will have Tekos paying for all the drinks," Eris responded with a sinister chuckle. "Wait right here." Eris rushed to some dresses that were displayed on some hangers and came back holding a short tight fitting pink dress with long sheer sleeves.
"You know what they say about sheer don't you?" Eris whispered menacingly as if she was cooking up an evil plan in her head, "it keeps the men on their toes."
"It does?" Persephone responded nervously.
"Yhup.. because they want to see more but they can't.. shear clothing is a tease."
"But I don't want to tease men," Persephone responded while inspecting the tiny dress. The point was to keep men away, not have them gawking at her.
"I'm not going to let Tekos touch you of course, just get him excited enough to do everything you want," Eris explained before clearing her throat and rephrasing her statement, "get him excited enough to do everything I want, using you as bait". But when Eris looked up at her flowery friend, she could tell that Persephone wasn't happy with her choice of outfit. "You don't like it?"
"I think it's beautiful," Persephone responded, "but it's not really what I had in mind."
"Really? Hmm.." Eris studied the clothing Persephone was wearing. The young goddess was wearing a white skirt, white sandals and a pink floral crop top. "I could have sworn you'd go nuts over that dress. Alright then, why don't you pick out the dress you like, a pair of heels and we can be on our way."
Persephone's face lit up almost instantly, this was her chance to get the dress she had been admiring before, and to top it all off, Persephone had seen a pair of shoes that would go perfectly with it. "Thanks Eris, just give me a minute!"
"That doesn't mean I'm paying for it!" Eris called out to her friend who was running excitedly towards the other end of the store.
*
The two girls walked out of the store talking excitedly about the outfits they had purchased for the party. For Persephone this would be her first ever social gathering other than the ones her mother would arrange for her birthday. She wouldn't really call the ones her mother arranged 'parties' though, because they only comprised of her mother and sisters drinking wine which she could never taste, eating cake and exchanging gifts. But for this particular one, it would have different people she didn't know, the thought of it made her both excited and anxious at the same time.
As the two girls walked and talked excitedly, someone who was crossing the street accidentally bumped into Persephone causing her to lose her balance and fall butt first onto the pavement.
"Hey watch where you're going!" Eris yelled at the stranger while helping Persephone up.
The stranger paused and turned to the two girls, "pardon me, I didn't see you there." He was late for his gym session and was in such a rush that he didn't notice them. Also to be fair, the girl he had bumped into was fairly small, way below his line of sight.
"What kind of lousy apology is that?! Who the hell do you think you-"
When Eris looked up at the stranger who had bumped into Persephone, all the words she was about to utter scurried back down her throat. Out of both fear and shock, Eris accidentally let go of Persephone who she had been helping to stand making her fall onto her bum again.
Hades threw his gym bag over his shoulder and reached for Persephone, "I hope you're not hurt."
Not knowing who the man was, Persephone innocently took his hand and allowed him to help her to her feet. "No please don't worry about me, I've always been a little clumsy."
Eris whose face had gone pale at the sight of the man quickly picked up Persephone's shopping bags and bowed to Hades. "I'm so sorry for bothering you, we'll be going now!" Eris grabbed Persephone's hand and practically ran down the side walk.
Hades watched the two girls hurry away before trailing his eyes down to the hand that had made contact with Persephone. "Strange.." he muttered before securing his gym bag and making his way to his overdue workout session.
"Eris! Eris wait why are we running?!"
The goth goddess pulled Persephone around a corner before slowing down and leaning against a wall to catch her breath.
"What's going on? Was someone chasing us?" Persephone asked feeling a little concerned and confused.
Eris took a minute before she responded, she was breathing heavily and her face looked like she had just seen a ghost. "Persie…"
"Yeah..?"
"Is your hand okay?" Eris asked between gasps.
"What do you mean? My hand is fine, Eris what's going on? You're starting to scare me."
"Do you know who that was?"
Persephone was confused, was she taking about the man from before? "No I don't, what about him?"
"That's Hades, king of the dead."
Persephone stared blankly at Eris as she processed what her roommate had just said. That was Hades? She had heard of him before, mostly from the scary stories her mother would tell her when she was younger. She would say that Hades was a dark and scary being with horns, skin as gruff as the earth, and eyes that burnt like the fires of the underworld. Her mother would tell her that Hades devoured people who were bad and those who crossed him, and they would spend all of eternity in his belly.
But the man Persephone had just seen, he didn't look anything like those terrible and horrid things her mother had described him to be. She didn't really get a good look at him, but from what she did see, the man was actually a little aesthetically pleasing to the eye.