Cora Larson slouched in her chair to avoid the proctor's gaze. She never turned her tests in, first. The young woman tabbed away from the course page on the school laptop. She opened Wikipedia to a random page. Cora read about Norse mythology, and from there to Sumerian legends, to Greek. Her glazed eyes skimmed over an explanation on how Christianity wasn't the only religion to grab aspects of pagan faiths to convert laymen; the definition of "pagan" changed with the culture. Greece was more ambitious than pine trees and rabbits when it welded Demeter and Persephone into its mythology to incorporate the older cult into the new Olympic religion. Cora slid upright. Her eyes narrowed, and--
"Miss Larson!" And Cora closed the laptop.
They did not sit at either end of the long, long table, ignoring each other, fighting to be heard over the distance, or struggling with passing the condiments. Instead, they sat across from each other. By the way she leaned back in her chair, they would have been more comfortable at either end of the marble table. She did not toy with her food. He pretended to occupy himself with his own while he stared at her sidewise.
"Is the meal not to your liking?" he said.
"No," she whispered.
"What would you prefer? You need but to say it, and we will--"
"Nothing," she said. She stared at him with her amber eyes, stared at him through hanks of her wheat-blonde hair. For a moment, ire flared over his fine-boned face. He took a slow breath, but she continued: "Nothing is edible. Nothing is--is right, here. You know it."
"I know it," he said. "But this is not our first winter. We will do this."
"It is our first winter," she said, "And our second. And our thousandth. What has changed has changed to be what has always been--but it does not change me." Her dinner companion extended his bone-white hand toward her.
"The human imagination will change anything," he said. The woman drew back. Her chair screeched against the floor as she rose.
"It won't change me," she said. She turned and began to stalk away.
"Kore," he said, soft and low. She whirled on him. In her anger, she came closer to him than she ever had. He did not reach out.
"Don't call me that," she said. "Don't ever call me that." He stared up at her. Her rage lit her like a summer's day; it was the first time she hadn't been a wilted presence near him. She was passion, and fire. He could not help himself; he rose--suddenly realizing too late just how close he was, and how much he loomed over her. She startled back from him before he could do anything else. She bit off something else she would have said, and turned. He watched her back as she stalked away. Her blonde hair contrasted with her white silk chiton; that had been the purple of summer wine, when he gifted to her. Her presence was leeching away the colors.
Persephone's summer spirit was not meant for these dark halls.
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