Persephone understood. She loved me, and we knew that winter would come, would be whole and complete and eternal in itself, if it was allowed to be so. I was wiser than any who had come before me, because I understood the vitality of the wheel, and she was wiser than any who had come before her, because she saw the wisdom of the winter, and the freedom it could yet afford to her. She came to me willingly. She comes to me still.
