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They do not drink together.Hades never was one for the fermented wonders blooming out of the earth, always kept his water pure, straight out of the rock. But a long time ago, when she was more coy and she still thought she could tease the things she wanted out of him, Persephone used to share with him. He would barely drink, and whatever had gotten to his lips she would kiss the wine off them.Even the gods were once young. She herself struggles to remember that.Her mother had seemed an old woman, when she had been only a girl running through the fields into the arms of a man who smelled of minerals and sulfur. Old and wary and too distrustful, though she had accepted the compromise in the end. She did not seem so old now. Her mother with the corn-gold hair, who had known no husband and only had the skies to answer to, more radiant then than Persephone felt now.She had been so sure this wouldn’t be a mistake. Youth makes such certainty so easy.Now she’s sitting in her husband’s office, up on that big wide desk where he counts numbers and draws plans. The walls, for all he is obsessed with them, don’t drown out the noise of the factories outside, encroaching as ever on their intimacy. “Are we happy?” she asks.There was a time this wouldn’t have been a question. At the beginning, she couldn’t be parted from him without feeling like the sun was burning through her without his cold touch cooling her feverish skin. She’d been wrapped around him like the vine on a stake, growing stronger by the stability of him, ready to bear fruit that would burst on the tongue and induce jolly songs in the hearts of musicians.And she does love him still—she would not come back time and time again if she didn’t. They still do kiss when they go to bed, in the bright room with the electric spot shining above and coating them in white hot light. They still make love, hurried or slow, but Persephone has to admit that the thrill of it has dimmed somewhere along the way.“Of course, we’re happy, Hades says to her. “Don’t I give you everything you need down here?”He’s a giver, that she can’t begrudge him. He lavishes her with amber and gemstones, strings gold around her neck and wrists, kisses jewels to her ears, wrings silver to her garter and slips metal to her fingers. She married a wealthy man. She did not marry him for this.Persephone used to think of love as a tree, growing by the years, getting stronger and wider, ample with branches and deep with roots. Now, it rather resembles a fruit—sweet when it’s just been gathered, but rotting if left alone too long. From this spoiled love, she’s been making wine and drinking, admittedly too much. But no one can blame her for trying to take every last spill of this love she’d given everything for.Her youth, her mother’s tender embrace, the warm grass under her feet—all of this she abandons when the time comes, every year, every time. it used to cost her much less. But now she things of the roaring machines down there, the fire heaving into the foundry, the sniveling rasp of power coursing through wires and pipes, and doubt steps in.It used to be worth it. Cold stones and the mumbling of magma under her feet. A quiet sort of darkness where she could lose herself and know he would be waiting—catching her into his arms, leading the way in the dark, to a bed where they would love each other loudly, to make up for the lack of light.It used to be worth it. Now, she’s not sure anymore.“Can we be happier?” she doesn’t ask, because she’s not sure she’ll be liking the answer.