Persephone VI: Waters of Mnemosyne

The single bead of water reached some seed in Persephone as it broke and became part of her mouth, her body.
Listen.
In the shifting shadows and light, Persephone's ears filled with silence reflected from the earthen walls and ceiling. As she listened to no sound, her mind set a rhythm of emptiness between heartbeats. In the space she remembered Hades' injunction, which had been reiterated in different words, body aches and situational pains since: I don't know if I can give you what you need.
After being forgotten again and again, Persephone had forgotten herself, looking only at all the reasons that Hades was too busy. He has so much on his mind, so many responsibilities, she said to herself. But part of her remembered herself, gathering pieces of who she had been and who she was now, reassembling them again. Growths like emotional spurs had cropped up, needing new places and causing new feelings, shifting what she now was.
Exhausted, Persephone sat by the bank of the pool and wept. Each tear rippled tiny rings of light over the surface. Her hands gripped the earth, and she squeezed dirt through her fingers. The smell of ground after a rainfall filled her, and she inhaled deeply, drying her warm tears with the back of her arm.
Coming to her senses, she saw what she had been blind to before: the edge of the pool was green with a riot of plants, weeds jostling for position at the water. This was the only place she had seen the sun-loving beings, some of whom she was now seated very comfortably upon.
How was it possible? Even the reflected light that bounced through the caves and passageways didn't have enough strength to wake seeds from their slumber. When she had first arrived, Persephone had collected the seeds she found caught on her clothes and in her hair, hoping to grow a garden. Watching the fall of the light for days, she built a small plot where she buried the seeds of a garden, but nothing grew. Here, though, stalks and leaves bristled with life around the pond. What was different?
That night, she gathered her seeds, what was left, and found some roots that could be used as tools to dig furrows. When Hades came to her in bed that night, he bent to kiss her, working his way across her body. As she looked down at him, she caught a shade of some kind of hesitation in his eye. With a sinking heart, she prayed an answer would grow in her garden.
With planted rows in crescents around the pool, Persephone watched and waited, but nothing sprang from the black soil. Water. They needed water. With nothing around her to help bucket the stuff, she risked putting her hands in the pool, scooping wetness onto the dirt. The stuff stuck to her, as though her skin were thirstily drinking it in as she bathed the seeds. Once all the rows were soaked, Persephone sat by the pool, suddenly exhausted by the work. The cool ground felt comforting on her cheek and she sank into sleep.
Across the water, Persephone saw what looked like a tall lily with thick spiraling leaves and a nodding head. False Hellebore. As she watched, the lily turned, and its shape shifted to become a bare-chested Hades. As she looked toward him he looked back, a distant look in his eye as though he was looking at something behind her. Not believing it was him she looked back to the garden. Was it him? She looked again, and there he was. As though he felt her eyes on him, he turned his head toward her again. Odd, she thought.
With a start like a sudden fall, Persephone jerked from her sleep. The dream had seemed so real. So real.