Persephone Meets Valkyrie

I did not expect them.

That night the veil between realms thinned—not because of ritual or invocation, but because the cosmos has a habit of slipping its seams when it grows restless. One moment I was walking the quiet banks of the Styx, the next I was staring at women astride winged steeds, their armor singing with the smell of iron and thunder.

The Valkyries.

Choosers of the slain. Odin’s huntresses. The kind of women whose laughter sounds like the clash of steel, whose hair is tangled with the smoke of battlefields.

They looked at me—the reluctant queen draped in shadows, pomegranate stains on my lips—and tilted their heads like wolves who have caught a scent they can’t quite name.

First Impressions

I confess: I envied their freedom. They were not stolen into their roles as I was. No one dragged them down to their fate. They ride toward it with a cry, blades lifted, deciding who among the dying is worthy of glory.

But I could also see the leash about their necks, even if it was gilded. They serve a father-god as much as I ever served the bargains of Olympus. Their wings beat to another’s will, the way mine once bent to my mother’s grief and my husband’s hunger.

Different cages, same song.

Hades and Valhalla

They told me of their hall—Valhalla, where chosen warriors fight and feast until the end of days. A death rehearsed on repeat until Ragnarök swallows the sky.

I almost pitied them. At least in my realm, the dead find rest, or punishment, or something resembling peace. In theirs, eternity is another battlefield. Perhaps that is why their eyes glimmer with exhaustion, even when they smile.

When I described the Underworld—the meadows of Asphodel, the golden fields of Elysium, even the depths of Tartarus—they grew quiet. I think they recognized that not all endings need to be drenched in valor to have meaning.

A Conversation Between Queens

We argued, of course.
They mocked my cyclical life, my seasonal return to the surface. “You are half a queen,” one sneered, “a prisoner who can only rule for half the year.”

I laughed, low and bitter. “And you are half-free,” I replied. “Wings on your back, yet always flying where he sends you.”

The silence that followed was not hostile but heavy. Recognition, like a bruise we both pressed.

Common Ground

And then—something softened. We spoke of what it means to be powerful in pantheons built for men. We spoke of the taste of blood and fruit, of the weariness that comes with always holding life and death in your hands.

They admitted, quietly, that sometimes they envy me—the way the earth blooms when I ascend, the way mortals pray not for glory but for my return. And I admitted that sometimes I envy them—their strength, their certainty, their refusal to bow their heads.

We toasted to it all. They with mead, I with wine. The taste lingered like smoke and seeds.

What I Learned

If there is ever another thinning of the veil, I hope it brings us together again. Because I left that night knowing this: Persephone and the Valkyries are not opposites but echoes. Queens of two different deaths. Women who refused to stay small.

And if the worlds ever burn or freeze as the prophets foretell, I would want them at my side. For who better to march into the dark than those who have always made their homes there?