Apricity

When there is a Mother below, there is no Daughter beside, and Mother beside mourns her.

People move on with their lives.

They don't forget--of course they don't forget--but the things that consumed their lives take up smaller pieces. We are born to survive, and though that is true of creatures bound by more traditional rules of evolution, it is particularly true of those who are immortal.

Immortals are not known for reproducing regularly. They live, individually and eternally, or they do not exist.

The seasons follow Mother beside's moods. She does not always force this, though she can. Often, it is simply the natural way of things. Often, none but Mother beside could say whether the moods follow her weather, or the weather her moods.

When her daughter is away, she mourns, for she knows her daughter's hurt, and for this is the closest thing to death that Daughter beside is likely to experience.

Yet, still. People move on with their lives. Mother beside is no different in that.

There is winter, and there is snowfall, and these reflect her moods. The weather reflects her emotions. The gods give us names for many things, and concepts for more. Though the word is not named after her, there is a word for Mother beside's happiness in the midst of her mourning.

Apricity.

Persephone, Kore, Prosperina

She was taken, a long while ago, longer ago than any could remember. Her mother found this, and so flew into a rage, or fell into a depression, but the important thing is that her mother was moved to an emotion, and that her mother was the mother whom we may call Mother Nature, Mother Earth, Harvest.

Mother lost her child, lost her to the barren below, and so all above became barren. Unlivable, nearly--not truly unlivable, as you know for we are not all dead, but many died, and many other prayed to Mother and to Father and to anyone above who might listen.

Father above came down to Father below on behalf of Mother beside, and asked Father below to give Mother beside her child.

The child was strong. People forget that sometimes. They take her image and dissolve it into one of tears and suffering and silliness, forget what she did. Sometimes we forget that the ability to endure is a virtue. Or we focus on the fact that she ate six seeds--six seeds of fresh fruit, when she had gone without any food, of above or below or beside, for so much longer than the months that we wait until harvest. She made one mistake, and that was important, but its importance is no reason to forget her strength.

The ferrier, the one who fed Persephone-Kore-Prosperina-Sleeping Beauty-daughter-child the pomegranate seeds, told Father below that she had eaten. Father below was pleased, for eating food of a realm binds one to that realm, and so now the daughter of Mother beside would stay with him.

Father above mediated, and decided that the daughter should remain below for one month for each seed she had eaten, and above for the other six. Half the year she is Daughter beside, and half Mother below.

Half the year she stays happily in her mother's place for her, where she dances in the light, and her mother makes light for her.

Half the year she sits by the one who stole her, and though her mother is moved by emotion, she sits unmoved by anything, and she endures.

(There was one good thing, in Father below's home. A young man came through, who had the power to move her to tears. But that is his tale, and this is hers.)