Trial by Frost

Deity

Character

Muna

Persephone

Common

I brush the snow off a stump and sit down. The forest all around me is calm… almost too calm. It's a far cry from the sounds of the Katkera, which was quite the raucous commotion in comparison. Between the chirping, chattering, roaring, clucking, squawking and mewling, there wasn't much room for silence. Even Nutsuwa Forest, peaceful as it was, made plenty of noise if you knew what to listen for. But the taiga is like a muffled desert, devoid of sound. I'm in the heart of the northern forest, where the trees seem the oldest. And something is bothering me. There are dead trunks everywhere and trees that would normally never be found in such an arctic environment. It's as though winter had suddenly swept into a once-temperate region and stayed there long enough to kill off its previous inhabitants.

Is that why I'm calling on Persephone, whose arrival is said to herald the return of spring? Because of the profound melancholy I feel as I extend the filaments of the Skein? The goddess appears at the same time as the stele she's seated on, book in hand, as though I had interrupted her reading. But I know where that idea comes from. It belongs to my memories, when Turuun would take a break. During breaks from our traveling, she would often pull out a book and tell me to buzz off so I wouldn't bother her with my incessant questions. Persephone looks around her, and as the snowbanks begin to melt in her presence, the old spirits awaken: a manifestation of an oak tree here, and that of a chestnut over there. The soul of a beech tree joins them, and they approach the goddess as if to ask her whether spring has returned and if it's time to wake up…

Also known as Kore, or Proserpina in Roman mythology, Persephone is the daughter of Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture and the harvest. After Persephone was kidnapped by the god Hades and kept in hell as his bride, Demeter came to an agreement with the god of the underworld: Each year, Persephone would stay with her husband for six months, then spend the other six on the surface and on Mount Olympus. In spring and summer, Demeter's joy at being reunited with her daughter allows nature to flourish, but the pain of losing her again brings on autumn and winter.