so i stayed in the darkness with you; a hades/persephone, lito mythfic.
(AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is another in my series of "mythfics", to borrow the term from my darling etzyofi. In order to fully appreciate these, be sure to look at my Greek Gods in Modern Times casting picspams ( Part One, Part Two, and Part Three). I'm also including a "cast list" at the beginning of the fic just as a refresher as to who's playing who.)
FEATURING:
so i stayed in the darkness with you, hades/persephone pg-13
Hades has always been a hard and selfish man. When he dares to kidnap the beautiful Persephone, will her innocence change him for the better?
There was no challenge in ravishing Persephone here. He wanted her-badly enough to snatch her from Demeter’s side and risk the wrath of those above on Olympus-but it wasn’t that simple. He wanted her to stay, to rule beside him, and a willing captive had more charm than one that despised him. (6,712 words)
Everything was darkness.
She was confused, and she was frightened. Where was her mother? She had been only an arm’s-length away. Hadn’t she seen the ground split beneath her daughter’s feet, seen her fall into this pit of cloying shadows and unfamiliar blackness? Her body ached from the fall, her thoughts had scattered like petals in a wind, and she clutched at her dress, desperate to touch anything familiar.
It was as if she’d been blinded in the rush of heat and earth-she could make out nothing in the deep shadows around her, shadows that seemed to breathe and move like living creatures. All she knew was that this was not home. She wanted to see the sun and feel the grass again, and she wanted her mother so badly tears were stinging at her eyes.
There was a quiet sound behind her, the whisper of cloth against stone. She turned sharply and stared into the pitch, willing herself to see something-anything-before her imagination could go wild with horrific fancies.
“Is there someone there?” she demanded.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” a husky voice said from the darkness, startling her. It was much closer than she had expected, practically against her ear, and she flinched away immediately. “Much prettier up close.”
“Who are you? What is this place?” Her voice shook almost as badly as her body, and in a rush she wished she could manage more of her mother’s hauteur and self-possession.
He studied her in silence for a moment, admiring the fall of red curls over her shoulders, the bright blue of her fearful eyes, the gentle curves barely concealed beneath her pale green dress. She was soft and white and fresh-just looking at her made him ache.
“You don’t know who I am?” he demanded, stepping closer. She could not see him in the gloom, her eyes too accustomed to the natural light of the living world, but she felt him near. Immediately she stepped backwards, stumbling slightly over her sandals until her back was flush against the rocky wall. “Have they forgotten me entirely on Olympus?”
“…Hades?” she whispered, eyes widening in shock. She remembered him, oh yes-those sharp, fierce eyes, the handsome angular face always dark with anger, the coal black hair and large hands. She remembered the way he had raged at Zeus and Poseidon, the battles between them that shook the halls of Olympus and echoed down to the mortal world. And she remembered the day he was banished, the moment his ploy for the throne failed and he was exiled to the realm of the dead. She remembered the bitter, burning expression on his face as he left.
They had never spoken to each other. Her mother had warned her to keep away from him-Demeter thought him dangerous and cruel and ill-tempered. Every glimpse Persephone had ever stolen of him had been from behind pillars, from afar, and every glimpse had only confirmed her mother’s opinion. Hades had frightened her. Something in his eyes and face had given her shivers of unease. And now she was standing before him, utterly as his mercy…
“Very good, Persephone. Do you now know where you are, or must I explain it?”
“But, I can’t be-how could you?” she said, breath catching painfully in her throat, the tears hot against her cheeks. “Please, let me go.”
“Let you go?” He laughed. “But I’ve only just caught you. Where would be the fun in that?”
“Why?” she demanded.
“Why? Why would I do such a thing to poor, innocent Persephone? Why does any hunter track a hart? Why does any man pursue a beautiful woman?”
He stepped even closer. The fold of his robes brushed against her arm. She tried to breathe.
“Because I can,” he murmured, inches from her face. “And because I wanted to.”
“My mother-”
“Cannot touch me,” he interrupted sharply. “She has no dominion over me or my world. She cannot enter here-none of them can, save for Hermes, and if you believe Hermes could save you…” he laughed. “Let him try.”
“She will go to Zeus,” she said with a flash of defiance, an unfamiliar fire of anger flaring to life in her breast. “Even you won’t defy Zeus.”
“Precious, naïve little girl,” Hades said. “I would defy him with my every breath. My brother made a grave mistake when he exiled me to this realm-he gave me a power not even he can touch, a world of my own to influence. I have far more devotees and subjects here than Zeus can boast on Olympus. I have a power he could never fathom.”
“There isn’t any power in death,” Persephone said. “We can only take strength from the living.”
“That’s true-for you, perhaps,” he said smoothly. “But I think you will come to see the strength of death, girl. In time.”
He could take her right there, satisfy the hunger that had been growing inside of him since the first moment he began to watch her. It would hardly be difficult. She would put up no struggle-at least not by his standards. And afterwards, well, she could hardly return to her mother then…
But that would be far too easy. There was no challenge in ravishing Persephone here. He wanted her-badly enough to snatch her from Demeter’s side and risk the wrath of those above on Olympus-but it wasn’t that simple. He wanted her to stay, to rule beside him, and a willing captive had more charm than one that despised him.
Besides, he thought to himself as he admired the spark in her eyes, the soft waves of ginger-hued hair, the porcelain-smooth and equally pale skin-it would be so much fun to corrupt this innocent beauty.
A dark blue light flared suddenly, dazzling her and casting glittering after-images. She raised a hand to shield her eyes until the black candle in his hand came into focus. Slowly her eyes traveled up his arm and over the broad shoulder, finally coming to rest on the same dark, sharp face she remembered.
He was smiling at her, but there was nothing friendly or reassuring about his smile. There was far too much of the lean and hungry wolf to it, the predatory grin of an animal about to strike. She felt every nerve in her body screaming for escape and realized that if he was the wolf, she was the lamb.
“Come with me,” he ordered, turning towards a huge doorway.
“If I refuse?” she demanded, hoping this uncommon streak of defiance would not desert her.
He didn’t reply, at least not with words-suddenly his arm was around her waist. Before she could react, even with a scream, he had thrown her roughly over his shoulder and started down the dark hall.
“Put me down!” she shrieked, punching ineffectively at his back.
“Scream like that again,” he warned brusquely. “And I’ll gag you.”
“I may not be anything to you,” she cried. “But I am still a goddess!”
“And I offered you the simplest option,” he said unapologetically. “You did not take it. Thus, we do this my way.”
“Where are we going? Tell me!”
“To your quarters, milady. What you shall be calling home in the future.”
A cold wave seemed to wash over her. “You can’t be serious. You can’t mean to keep me here forever.”
He stopped short. Persephone found herself back on her feet, unable to avoid meeting his eyes as he leaned in close. “You will leave if and when I allow it,” he said harshly. “I am your Lord now, not Zeus. You are here at my pleasure. Do not forget this.”
She swallowed nervously and broke the gaze with an effort.
“You’ll be joining me for dinner. That is not a question. Do not make me come and fetch you.”
---
Her chambers reminded her of a mausoleum. Cold, harsh marble everywhere, a large bed encircled in velvet drapes that would only be suffocating and claustrophobic when pulled tight, the rest of the furniture highly polished and of dark ebony heartwood. There was a somber and grave quality to the sparse furnishings, and a palpable chill in the air.
Standing in this strange, dreary place, Persephone wanted simply to cry. She wanted to hide in some dark corner-of which there were many-and sob until her chest ached and her eyes were dry and smarting. She wanted to give full vent to the confusion and fear and bewilderment she was feeling.
But that would do her little good. It would only exhaust her, and she needed what little strength she had to call upon if she was going to survive all of this. She had to straighten her back and steady her nerves and prove that arrogant, unfeeling Hades wrong. Somehow, she knew that he saw her as nothing more than a naïve and emotional girl, a mere plaything to toy with, prone to hysterics and fainting. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being right, and she would not allow this dreadful place to lessen her.
She was Persephone, and her mother was Demeter, and she was stronger than him. He had only this world of shades and emptiness to rule; without her the world above would be in chaos.
Persephone took a deep breath. Threw back her shoulders. Stared at her pale reflection in the dark mirror.
“I can do this,” she said.
---
It was easy enough to find her way to the dining hall-a line of lit torches, blazing with an unearthly blue flame, led her down the appropriate hall, flickering into and out of life as she passed.
There were no windows, no sign that this palace of marble and stone was surrounded by an outside world. She both wanted to know what lay beyond and feared to see it-she had always pictured the Land of the Dead as a colorless, horrible place full of desolation and tears. But, she reasoned to herself as she walked on, there were the Elysian fields and islands-this place could not be entirely without happiness or light.
Her determination quailed somewhat when she finally stepped into the dining hall, so full of echoes and shadows. A long table was laid out with all manner of gilt plates and silver platters piled high with breads and meats and fruits. There was a throne-like high-backed chair at the head of this elaborate table, and at its right hand was another, slightly smaller chair.
Hades had already sat down to his repast, and looked up with heavy lidded eyes as she crept in mouse-like. “How good of you to join me,” he said dryly, standing sharply with a startling bang of his chair. He pulled hers out with an exaggerated bow of courtly aplomb. “Milady.”
She took a breath and lifted her head before crossing the room and sitting down, stiff backed and staring straight ahead.
“No need to be so icy,” Hades said with a condescending chuckle. “You shouldn’t play the aloof princess-that’s more Aphrodite’s mask. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
“You expect me to be all smiles and gaiety?” she demanded, jaw tightening. “After you kidnap me and tell me I’m to be your prisoner? Apologies, but I don’t feel much like laughing right now. Not in this horrible place.”
“Horrible?” he echoed, lifting a quizzical eyebrow. “What’s so horrible about my palace? How is it not to your tastes?”
“It’s cold and dreary and colorless,” Persephone said. “Full of echoes and shadows and nothing else. There’s no life here, no energy, no warmth.”
“You demand quite a lot, to expect ‘life’ and ‘warmth’ from the Kingdom of the Dead,” Hades said. “Those are qualities that can never exist here.”
“Then what will happen to me?” Persephone asked sharply. “I cannot live without growing things and sunlight and the energy of life. If you keep me down here, I’ll fade away into just another echoing shadow. Would that make you happy?”
“Nothing of the sort will happen,” he said dismissively with a wave of his hand. “You will grow accustomed to life here.”
“Surrounded by the dead? I’d rather not,” she said obstinately.
“You don’t have a say in the matter,” he said harshly, setting down his silver goblet with a clatter. “Now eat.”
She glanced down the table, eyes roving over soup tureens and baskets of yellow rolls and steaming slices of ham atop ornate platters. She was very hungry, and perhaps a meal would fortify her spirits…
But no, she would eat nothing of this world. She remembered the warnings her relatives had given to questing heroes-to eat the food of the dead would forever trap you with them. Immortal goddess or not, she could not afford to risk it.
“I am not hungry at the moment,” she said primly.
“Even we need to eat,” Hades said after a moment spent studying her intently. “You will begin to fade away if you don’t eat.”
“Now I’m to believe that you’re concerned for me?” Persephone said. “As if you have my best interests in mind?”
“What good would you be to me if you were nothing but a shade?” Hades countered, that wicked and wolfish smile reappearing and sending an unusual shiver across her skin.
Persephone looked away, hands tightening around the fabric of her dress.
“Come now, Persephone,” he said a moment later, sopping up the sauce on his plate with a hunk of crusty bread. His tone was pleasant enough, almost conversational. “Try to look at this with a more cheerful perspective. The others up there-” his features darkened momentarily with a scowl before his forced cheerfulness reasserted itself. “May think very little of me, but I’m quite powerful. I rule over an immense kingdom. Many a woman would envy your position, and my attention. I could have any woman, dryad, or nymph that I wanted-and I chose you. Aren’t you flattered?”
She hesitated, because through the fear and the unease she realized she was, in a strange and frightening way. Was it because, all those years ago, when she peered at him from behind pillars and trees, she had always felt a stirring of pity for him? Pity, and a strange longing, for Hades was handsome, and something in his darkness called out to the light in her-as magnets yearn for their distant poles.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked hesitantly. “…Find a woman like that? One who would immediately say yes to you?”
“Why would I want one of them when I could have you?” he said, without the slightest hint of sarcasm. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” A smile crept across his face. “How sweet-you’re blushing. Not used to getting such compliments from men?”
“No,” she said simply and honestly.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t-not with that overbearing mother of yours. Tell me: has she ever let you go anywhere by yourself? Speak to anyone without her at your elbow?”
“My mother loves me,” Persephone said. “She has only ever had my best interests at heart.”
“You’re a grown woman now, Persephone-time to do what you want, not what your dear old mother tells you to want.”
“What I want to do is go home,” she said as firmly as she could manage.
“Couldn’t this be your home?” he countered. “If it truly repulses you, I could redecorate.”
“No,” Persephone said, with a tinge of sadness. “I could never stay here. I couldn’t live without life and plants and my mother. I’m sorry, Hades.”
He moved so quickly, she hardly had time to catch her breath before he was leaning over her, hands tight around her forearms and face inches from hers. “I could take you, whenever I wanted,” he murmured. “I could make you mine. The others could do nothing about it-you would be my wife, and this would be your kingdom. I could have you right now.”
“Please, don’t,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
“Why not?” he demanded silkily.
“I don’t want to hate you,” she replied quietly, gasping in an inaudible breath.
He released her suddenly, as if burned, and stepped back with an indefinable expression. She tried to meet his eyes steadily, to prove that she wasn’t going to be intimidated or frightened, but looked down almost immediately. No matter how much she wished it, she would never have the courage or Artemis or the determination of Athena. She was only Persephone…
“I apologize,” he said quietly, his voice husky. “That was cruel of me.”
“…Apology accepted. May I be excused to my room?”
He nodded sharply, then sighed. “You needn’t ask for my permission, like a scolded child. I was sincere when I said this could be your home-go wherever you wish.”
That night was not an easy one. She spent it tossing in her huge bed, plagued by the unfamiliar surroundings and the dull edges of her fear and the image of his dark face so close to hers, eyes flashing with a hungry fire desperate to consume her.
---
The next morning she found a contrite and respectful Hades waiting at the table, the plates before their chairs laden with fruits and rolls drizzled with honey.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you,” she lied politely, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. He stared at her, as if transfixed, until she cleared her throat slightly.
“I thought I’d show you around the palace today-give you the grand tour, as it were,” he suggested, biting into an apple with a loud crunch.
“If you wish.”
“…Will you eat something?”
“No thank you.”
“Starving yourself won’t do any good,” he said. “A hunger protest won’t make me send you back to Olympus.”
She said nothing, and stared straight ahead.
“Persephone. Please.”
“You’re asking me to forsake everything I’ve ever known or loved.”
“I’m asking you to eat something.”
“And be trapped here forever? I may be silly, and naïve, and a child still, but I’m not a complete idiot. I know the rules of the Underworld,” she replied readily.
“Fine,” he said with resignation. “Starve yourself. But I-” He stopped himself, before pushing back his chair and standing, offering his arm. “This may seem a dark and dreadful place to you, but it still has its grandeur, and small beauties.’
They walked the long, chill halls in a strange silence-on her part, it was a mixture of unease and nervousness, and on his it was the silence of thought. Hades glanced over at her often, half-wishing she would turn and her periwinkle-hued eyes would meet his. It was strange, how one evening, one moment of confrontation, could make him look at her in a different light. She had always been a paragon of fresh and innocent beauty in his eyes-something fair and unapproachable, always to be admired from afar. When he had dared to grab her, to have her within his arm’s reach, he had been too flushed with success and desire to see beyond his previous image of her: she was still a prized object, something to be enjoyed and set upon his throne, a very pretty ornament to brighten up his dark and dreary kingdom.
And then he had put his hands on her, had made explicitly clear his wishes and desires, and she had not shrunk away from him completely-no, she had looked at him with tears that were not entirely for herself, and when she had pleaded with him it had not been for her purity. I don’t want to hate you. She pitied him as much as she feared him, and in that moment he fully saw her as a true goddess and woman, his superior in many ways, and he had faltered slightly.
He had no skill for apology and little understanding of forgiveness. He had been born harsh and unrelenting and centuries of fighting with Zeus and Poseidon, those elder brothers so blessed and favored by the others, had only served to harden him further. He was beginning to see, though, that Persephone required a softer touch, a certain sweetness of temper that he had never cultivated. She demanded it without ever saying so much as a word. Her every movement, graceful and gentle, reproached him for his brute and callous strength.
For the first time in thousands of years, Hades knew the bitter burn of repentance.
Persephone had spent the sleepless hours of the night-when she had been able to push aside the hot image of Hades-steeling her heart. She knew he would try to impress her with his kingdom, try to sway her into finding something beautiful and worth loving in this land of the dead. She thought of the green fields she loved, the scent of wildflowers, the feel of summer rain against her skin. With these memories fresh in her mind’s eye, she looked at the grand rooms and artwork, and tried desperately to find them all wanting in comparison. She was grateful when he’d closed the final door and her heart was still unmoved-nothing in this great palace of his had touched her.
“You find my taste in décor still lacking,” he said blandly, without a hint of disappointment or reprove.
“Your house is a fine one,” she said. “But not to my liking.”
“I have never had a delicate eye for art and furnishings,” he conceded. “But this empty place is not the extent of my domain. Perhaps you would be moved by my subjects?”
And before she could voice a protest or pull away, he’d taken her arm and drawn her through the immense and cavernous entrance, the heavy and iron-braced double doors swinging open ponderously as if by the hands of invisible servants.
Eyes wide and stinging, Persephone looked fully upon the Land of the Dead for the first time. The five great rivers of the Underworld met before the hulking palace, drawing together before a wide and cobwebbed pier. The large ferries, drawing in the newest immigrants, creaked ponderously on the water. Their occupants were silent and still, the only sounds that of the creaking wooden hulls and dull splashes of water as each of the ferrymen punted inexorably forwards. The new arrivals stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast decks of the ferries, packed in close like cattle, and gave no sign of awareness.
Gathered along the banks of the rivers, stretching off into infinity, were similarly silent shades. Pale, ghostly, and human-shaped but with faces almost blank and undefined, their movements were stilted and lethargic, as if they were slowly forgetting the usage of their limbs. And everywhere was smoke and fog, the cloying and oppressive scents of lilies and dust and the stale air of forgotten places. Persephone’s breath hung suspended before her, a foreign intruder in this land where nothing breathed and there was no longer any warmth for such condensation.
“My kingdom,” Hades said, with a strange mixture of pride and bitterness. “This is what was left to me by my loving brothers. While they enjoy grand sacrifices and holy days full of laughter and wine, I remain here. Where speech has been forgotten and my subjects cannot be touched, made of little more than smoke given shape. Nothing could live here that is not immortal like us-not even honest flame.” He gestured sharply at the torches that lined the pier, flickering with the same eerie blue light that lit the rooms of the palace. “Zeus would not allow it. I am to have nothing of the world above to comfort me here, in my exile. Even the food at my table is only half-real-just enough to keep my strength and power, but no more. Not enough to allow me to return to a world of sunlight and summer breezes. I am trapped here just as much as they,” he said with a wave at his silent subjects. “Can you fault me for snatching you when I could? You, who are beautiful and vibrant and have a clear voice and eyes that can still see?”
Persephone covered her face with her hands and tried to muffle the sobs that gripped her. Never in any of her nightmares could she have imagined such a hollow and sorrowful place. Her mother had never allowed her to witness death-she had no knowledge of that secret and mortal thing. To be faced with it so suddenly, and in such numbers… She knew that mortals could be good and kind and just, that they could love and act even more nobly and bravely than those of her blood, the immortals who were so often caught up in petty jealousies and bitter rivalries. To see, to know, that for all of their beautiful and brief moments every mortal would become like this and forget all that made them unique and worthy of love… It was almost too much for her heart to bear.
“Please,” she whispered, tears shining on her face. “Tell me this is not all there is. Tell me there is something better, for those who have earned it.”
Hades stared at her, and she could only stare back, unwilling to look again upon the wretched shades below them. And as she watched, it was as if an unseen hand was smoothing away some of the harsh lines of his face, gently reshaping his features into something more sympathetic and comforting.
“The Elysians,” he said quietly, taking her hand with a gentleness than surprised her. “Come.”
She had no recollection of walking, or of any great passage of time. Suddenly they were standing on the sandy shore of a small island, and in a rush that almost overwhelmed her she felt sunlight and warmth again. She blinked, dazzled, and almost laughed with relief and joy. There were trees and flowers and tall grasses only feet away, growing with luxurious health, verdant and colorful, swaying in a gentle breeze. All of the gentle sounds of life-running water, distant birdsong, the rustling of small animals in undergrowth-filled her ears.
“This is wonderful!” she cried happily, stepping forward. Hades’ hand slid from hers, and she hesitated, looking back. “This is the Elysian island?”
“One of them,” he replied with a short nod of his head. “There are many of them, and to the west is the great Elysian field. This is the paradise all great heroes and artists can expect. Any mortal who lives a valorous and inspiring life will be rewarded here in death.”
“But you said nothing could grow here, that there was nothing of the world from above,” Persephone said. “And yet I can see the trees and flowers plainly! I can hear the calls of songbirds.”
“Can you?” he asked softly, an indescribable emotion on his face.
“Yes, of course I can.” She knelt and plucked a small purple flower, holding it out to him.
“I see none of it,” he said, looking at the outstretched hand, unable to see the bloom she offered him. “When I step foot onto Elysian land, I am blind. I can see you, Persephone, but everything else is blackness.”
Persephone looked up at him and in that moment felt no fear. He was diminished. No longer the imperious and arrogant Lord of the Underworld, not even Hades of the cruel smile and passionate eyes. He was simply a man, hardened by disappointment and failure and bitterness. He had strived for power and lost, and perhaps the punishment his brothers had meted out had not been entirely even or justified. How much of Hades could have been finer and nobler and better, if he hadn’t been knocked back at every turn, his every desire and ambition thwarted? How much of his anger and cruelty was affected, a protective cloak he had pulled on centuries ago and forgotten how to cast aside?
She stood and brushed out the wrinkles of her dress, calmer and more composed than he had ever seen her before. “Wait,” she said, and there was no question that he would do so for as long as she required.
Every step, every sensation, she tried to savor. She committed to memory every brush of grass against her ankles and the caress of the warm breeze through her hair. She drank everything in as if dying of thirst, as someone would who knew they would never again experience such delights.
When she came to the tree, she stopped. And looked up. It was an incredibly old pomegranate tree, twisted and gnarled and heavy with ripe, red fruit. She reached up with a sure and steady hand, chose only one of the fruits, and plucked it from its branch. There was a call to her left, the distant hail of joyous greeting from someone who was friendly and inviting, and she glanced over her shoulder. A tall and golden young man dressed in white robes, his face flushed with athletic exertion and good spirits, a handsome boy who was no doubt worthy of her company-he could only be one of the valiant fallen, a lost hero come to his final reward in Elysian.
But Persephone only smiled and turned away, walking quickly back to the beach and her dark and brooding Lord.
---
There was a garden in Hades’ palace, at its very center. It was, like everything else in the Underworld, a dead place. The trees were blackened as if by fire, the ground around their exposed and flaking roots was more ash and clay than honest earth. The few flowers that still clung to skeletal stems were withered and bleached.
“There used to be life here, in this one place,” Hades explained as she stepped around the pathetic debris. “It was the one bright spot allowed to me. Then I quarreled with Zeus again, over the soul of one of his mortal ladyloves, and he blighted this place like the rest. Turned it all to cinders and ash.”
“What grows in Elysian is just as much of this world as the other, though,” she said firmly, confidently, as much to convince herself as him. “And I may be a minor goddess, but I am still a goddess. Plants listen to me.”
She dug into the dry, coarse dirt with her fingers until she had finally scraped away the useless ash. There was still good, damp earth below. He crouched down beside her, offering her his knife as she picked up the dark red fruit. The crimson juice trickled through her fingers, dripping into the small hollow she’d uncovered, glistening more like blood than juice as it fell.
“It will grow,” she said, lying aside half of the pomegranate and plucking out a single worthy seed. She pressed it into the hollow, covered it with a small mound of dirt and sat for a moment with her hand pressed down in benediction. “It will grow.”
Persephone pulled away her hand and stood, and as Hades looked up at her she began to glow with an inner radiance; it was as if a star had kindled to life within that beautiful and delicate form. In that single moment out of eternity, the unearthly blue light of his world faded away, eclipsed by this sunlit beauty, and he could feel the warmth of her against his skin as if she were cradling him in her arms.
And then she was smiling down at him, a smile of pure happiness and joy, and it struck his heart like an arrow-the sharp pain robbed him of breath and thought, but when it faded he realized just why she had smiled so. For a small green tendril had unfurled beside him, the first hardy sprout of what would become a healthy and grand tree.
She had done something he would have thought impossible. She had defied Zeus, no matter how indirectly, and brought life back into his world.
“Why did you do this?” he asked her. They were sitting side by side, watching as the tree literally grew before their eyes, the slender stem thickening into a trunk, the delicate tendrils resolving to become branches.
“Because this place deserves to be beautiful again,” she said shyly. “And because it wasn’t fair.”
“Wasn’t fair?”
“To punish you so. You may have said cruel things in anger, you may have lashed out as Zeus and Poseidon, but you are not evil. You are not like Eris, who hurts for pleasure, or Ares, who hurts because it is a part of him. Everything you’ve become, Hades, is because of their treatment of you.” She looked to him. “I used to watch you, you know. When I was very young. I’d hide behind trees. You were intriguing-Mother said you were harsh and mean-spirited, and that I was never to speak to you. And you did frighten me sometimes. You frightened me often,” she admitted, honest as ever. “But Zeus frightened me, too, just as loud and brash. He could be just as merciless and careless. And now that I’ve seen this world they’ve imprisoned you in, I think I understand you better. I understand a lot of things now.”
“I have been cruel to you,” he said heavily, his regret audible. “Spiteful. Vindictive.”
“You lashed out because you hurt, and because I was the only one you could strike at,” she said.
“You are everything I miss and long for,” he confessed. “True beauty and warmth-sunlight and fresh air. The embodiment of a world I will be forever denied.”
“Perhaps not forever,” she said softly. “We cannot afford to speak of nevers; mortals can, perhaps, but not us. Things change. They always change. And who is to say that the next time they change it will not be in your favor?”
“My favor? I was not meant to be favored,” Hades said bitterly, his voice sharp with an old pain. “No, not I. The third of a set, always last, always least wanted. Zeus and Poseidon will never let me rise from that position.”
“Perhaps there will come a day when their word is not absolute law,” Persephone continued. “Or perhaps there will be a time when they are not so important to you.”
“Such blasphemy,” he chuckled. “What would your mother think, if she heard you speak in such a way?”
“My mother is not here, and on this matter her opinion is none of my concern,” Persephone said, and the force behind her words surprised him.
He studied her, taking in the small and subtle changes. It was in every graceful line of her body; she held herself differently, and there was a new edge of confidence and maturity around her guileless eyes. “You have changed,” he said. “In less than a day, you are different.”
“Everything changes,” she said, smiling. “Even us.”
Silence settled between them as they turned back to the tree, and for the first time it was a comfortable and easy silence. As the tree grew and the quiet deepened, Hades realized how mistaken he had been. He had coveted and desired Persephone for her beauty, but as they sat there he realized there was another quality he appreciated far more than her lovely face. When she was at peace, it was impossible to not feel soothed and reassured. It was as if she could envelop the world in her grace. Any penitent could find absolution in her presence, and Hades felt all of his transgressions and misdeeds clamor for the release of confession. She was his superior in every way: kind and forgiving when he was too rough, understanding when he was arrogant, sweet when he was bitter.
As the first fruit began to darken and swell on the branch, Hades broke the silence with a voice made harsh with regret and sorrow. “I am sorry, Persephone, for the wrong I have done to you.”
“There’s no need for you to apologize again-I’ve already forgiven you,” she said.
“You forgive far too easily, then,” he said, eyes dark. “You would be flawless but for that.”
“Hades, you are too hard on yourself,” she said gently.
“Too hard? After stealing you from the world you love, after imprisoning you here and treating you so callously? I have said and intimated unforgivable things-I meant to have you, body and soul, whether you willed it or not. Greedy, selfish, evil-”
“Everything you did you were driven to,” she interrupted desperately, reaching out a pale hand to cup his cheek. The touch silenced him as her words would not, and he stared at her with a face bared and naked, all of his surprise and wonder clear to see. “You have been mistreated for so long, and were shown no better way to be. You were lonely and afraid and desperate-I forgive you every ill-intention and misdeed. I forgive you, Hades-and you must learn to forgive yourself.”
“I am… unworthy,” he whispered hoarsely, lifting a hesitant hand to press against her’s, still cupped at his cheek.
“Then change,” she said. “Change for the better. You owe it to yourself.”
“I owe it to you,” he said. He drew in a shuddering breath and drew away his hand, pulling away from her touch. “I release you, Persephone. I will call for Hermes, and he will take you home. You can return to your mother and your sun, and be at peace.”
He stood, his body stiff and resolute even as the pain gripped him, knowing he would never again be blessed by such light and sweetness. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, and he turned to go before she could see the sorrow on his face.
“Hades. Wait.”
And as before, there was no question but that he would obey her. He froze, still turned away, his broad back a straight and unforgiving line.
There was a quiet rustle of leaves, and at the unexpected sound he finally looked over his shoulder. Persephone had pulled a pomegranate from the tree, her face serene and assured. “May I borrow your knife again?” she asked.
He offered it wordlessly. She sliced into the fruit, returned the blade, and carefully removed one of the large seeds, the juices trickling down her white hand. He watched as if mesmerized as the seed slipped between her pink lips.
“You should not-” he said abruptly, coming back to himself with a jolt.
“Shouldn’t I?” she asked with a smile, raising another seed to her lips. When she had swallowed the sixth, she let the fruit fall from her hand.
“Why?” he demanded, rougher than he had intended.
“Perhaps I’ve found something beautiful here, after all,” she said quietly. “Something that the world above doesn’t have. Perhaps something in this dead world of yours has touched me, Hades. And I’m not ready to say goodbye to it forever.”
“Your mother?” he asked.
“Everyone has to leave home eventually,” she replied calmly. “And make a new one.”
She took his hand in hers and smiled, the breaking of a new dawn, and something loosened within him-the falling away of a great weight.
“You want me to stay, don’t you?” she murmured, a girlish blush coloring her cheeks.
“Persephone… you undo me,” he whispered. “And remake me. Marry me.”
“Yes.”
Their lips met, and everything was changed. Persephone was never again the pure innocent to be swayed by her mother’s opinions; Hades would never again unleash a tempestuous outburst to provoke his brothers’ retaliation. And even as they two were reshaped and made anew, the reverberations of this moment would echo into the centuries to come. And so Persephone was proven right: things always change, and there would come a day when the word of Zeus would not be absolute law.
But that was all to come, in a future so distant not even the Oracle could yet glimpse it. For now there was a wedding night to be consummated and a divine tree to be tended.
FEATURING:
so i stayed in the darkness with you, hades/persephone pg-13
Hades has always been a hard and selfish man. When he dares to kidnap the beautiful Persephone, will her innocence change him for the better?
There was no challenge in ravishing Persephone here. He wanted her-badly enough to snatch her from Demeter’s side and risk the wrath of those above on Olympus-but it wasn’t that simple. He wanted her to stay, to rule beside him, and a willing captive had more charm than one that despised him. (6,712 words)
Everything was darkness.
She was confused, and she was frightened. Where was her mother? She had been only an arm’s-length away. Hadn’t she seen the ground split beneath her daughter’s feet, seen her fall into this pit of cloying shadows and unfamiliar blackness? Her body ached from the fall, her thoughts had scattered like petals in a wind, and she clutched at her dress, desperate to touch anything familiar.
It was as if she’d been blinded in the rush of heat and earth-she could make out nothing in the deep shadows around her, shadows that seemed to breathe and move like living creatures. All she knew was that this was not home. She wanted to see the sun and feel the grass again, and she wanted her mother so badly tears were stinging at her eyes.
There was a quiet sound behind her, the whisper of cloth against stone. She turned sharply and stared into the pitch, willing herself to see something-anything-before her imagination could go wild with horrific fancies.
“Is there someone there?” she demanded.
“You’re a pretty little thing,” a husky voice said from the darkness, startling her. It was much closer than she had expected, practically against her ear, and she flinched away immediately. “Much prettier up close.”
“Who are you? What is this place?” Her voice shook almost as badly as her body, and in a rush she wished she could manage more of her mother’s hauteur and self-possession.
He studied her in silence for a moment, admiring the fall of red curls over her shoulders, the bright blue of her fearful eyes, the gentle curves barely concealed beneath her pale green dress. She was soft and white and fresh-just looking at her made him ache.
“You don’t know who I am?” he demanded, stepping closer. She could not see him in the gloom, her eyes too accustomed to the natural light of the living world, but she felt him near. Immediately she stepped backwards, stumbling slightly over her sandals until her back was flush against the rocky wall. “Have they forgotten me entirely on Olympus?”
“…Hades?” she whispered, eyes widening in shock. She remembered him, oh yes-those sharp, fierce eyes, the handsome angular face always dark with anger, the coal black hair and large hands. She remembered the way he had raged at Zeus and Poseidon, the battles between them that shook the halls of Olympus and echoed down to the mortal world. And she remembered the day he was banished, the moment his ploy for the throne failed and he was exiled to the realm of the dead. She remembered the bitter, burning expression on his face as he left.
They had never spoken to each other. Her mother had warned her to keep away from him-Demeter thought him dangerous and cruel and ill-tempered. Every glimpse Persephone had ever stolen of him had been from behind pillars, from afar, and every glimpse had only confirmed her mother’s opinion. Hades had frightened her. Something in his eyes and face had given her shivers of unease. And now she was standing before him, utterly as his mercy…
“Very good, Persephone. Do you now know where you are, or must I explain it?”
“But, I can’t be-how could you?” she said, breath catching painfully in her throat, the tears hot against her cheeks. “Please, let me go.”
“Let you go?” He laughed. “But I’ve only just caught you. Where would be the fun in that?”
“Why?” she demanded.
“Why? Why would I do such a thing to poor, innocent Persephone? Why does any hunter track a hart? Why does any man pursue a beautiful woman?”
He stepped even closer. The fold of his robes brushed against her arm. She tried to breathe.
“Because I can,” he murmured, inches from her face. “And because I wanted to.”
“My mother-”
“Cannot touch me,” he interrupted sharply. “She has no dominion over me or my world. She cannot enter here-none of them can, save for Hermes, and if you believe Hermes could save you…” he laughed. “Let him try.”
“She will go to Zeus,” she said with a flash of defiance, an unfamiliar fire of anger flaring to life in her breast. “Even you won’t defy Zeus.”
“Precious, naïve little girl,” Hades said. “I would defy him with my every breath. My brother made a grave mistake when he exiled me to this realm-he gave me a power not even he can touch, a world of my own to influence. I have far more devotees and subjects here than Zeus can boast on Olympus. I have a power he could never fathom.”
“There isn’t any power in death,” Persephone said. “We can only take strength from the living.”
“That’s true-for you, perhaps,” he said smoothly. “But I think you will come to see the strength of death, girl. In time.”
He could take her right there, satisfy the hunger that had been growing inside of him since the first moment he began to watch her. It would hardly be difficult. She would put up no struggle-at least not by his standards. And afterwards, well, she could hardly return to her mother then…
But that would be far too easy. There was no challenge in ravishing Persephone here. He wanted her-badly enough to snatch her from Demeter’s side and risk the wrath of those above on Olympus-but it wasn’t that simple. He wanted her to stay, to rule beside him, and a willing captive had more charm than one that despised him.
Besides, he thought to himself as he admired the spark in her eyes, the soft waves of ginger-hued hair, the porcelain-smooth and equally pale skin-it would be so much fun to corrupt this innocent beauty.
A dark blue light flared suddenly, dazzling her and casting glittering after-images. She raised a hand to shield her eyes until the black candle in his hand came into focus. Slowly her eyes traveled up his arm and over the broad shoulder, finally coming to rest on the same dark, sharp face she remembered.
He was smiling at her, but there was nothing friendly or reassuring about his smile. There was far too much of the lean and hungry wolf to it, the predatory grin of an animal about to strike. She felt every nerve in her body screaming for escape and realized that if he was the wolf, she was the lamb.
“Come with me,” he ordered, turning towards a huge doorway.
“If I refuse?” she demanded, hoping this uncommon streak of defiance would not desert her.
He didn’t reply, at least not with words-suddenly his arm was around her waist. Before she could react, even with a scream, he had thrown her roughly over his shoulder and started down the dark hall.
“Put me down!” she shrieked, punching ineffectively at his back.
“Scream like that again,” he warned brusquely. “And I’ll gag you.”
“I may not be anything to you,” she cried. “But I am still a goddess!”
“And I offered you the simplest option,” he said unapologetically. “You did not take it. Thus, we do this my way.”
“Where are we going? Tell me!”
“To your quarters, milady. What you shall be calling home in the future.”
A cold wave seemed to wash over her. “You can’t be serious. You can’t mean to keep me here forever.”
He stopped short. Persephone found herself back on her feet, unable to avoid meeting his eyes as he leaned in close. “You will leave if and when I allow it,” he said harshly. “I am your Lord now, not Zeus. You are here at my pleasure. Do not forget this.”
She swallowed nervously and broke the gaze with an effort.
“You’ll be joining me for dinner. That is not a question. Do not make me come and fetch you.”
---
Her chambers reminded her of a mausoleum. Cold, harsh marble everywhere, a large bed encircled in velvet drapes that would only be suffocating and claustrophobic when pulled tight, the rest of the furniture highly polished and of dark ebony heartwood. There was a somber and grave quality to the sparse furnishings, and a palpable chill in the air.
Standing in this strange, dreary place, Persephone wanted simply to cry. She wanted to hide in some dark corner-of which there were many-and sob until her chest ached and her eyes were dry and smarting. She wanted to give full vent to the confusion and fear and bewilderment she was feeling.
But that would do her little good. It would only exhaust her, and she needed what little strength she had to call upon if she was going to survive all of this. She had to straighten her back and steady her nerves and prove that arrogant, unfeeling Hades wrong. Somehow, she knew that he saw her as nothing more than a naïve and emotional girl, a mere plaything to toy with, prone to hysterics and fainting. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being right, and she would not allow this dreadful place to lessen her.
She was Persephone, and her mother was Demeter, and she was stronger than him. He had only this world of shades and emptiness to rule; without her the world above would be in chaos.
Persephone took a deep breath. Threw back her shoulders. Stared at her pale reflection in the dark mirror.
“I can do this,” she said.
---
It was easy enough to find her way to the dining hall-a line of lit torches, blazing with an unearthly blue flame, led her down the appropriate hall, flickering into and out of life as she passed.
There were no windows, no sign that this palace of marble and stone was surrounded by an outside world. She both wanted to know what lay beyond and feared to see it-she had always pictured the Land of the Dead as a colorless, horrible place full of desolation and tears. But, she reasoned to herself as she walked on, there were the Elysian fields and islands-this place could not be entirely without happiness or light.
Her determination quailed somewhat when she finally stepped into the dining hall, so full of echoes and shadows. A long table was laid out with all manner of gilt plates and silver platters piled high with breads and meats and fruits. There was a throne-like high-backed chair at the head of this elaborate table, and at its right hand was another, slightly smaller chair.
Hades had already sat down to his repast, and looked up with heavy lidded eyes as she crept in mouse-like. “How good of you to join me,” he said dryly, standing sharply with a startling bang of his chair. He pulled hers out with an exaggerated bow of courtly aplomb. “Milady.”
She took a breath and lifted her head before crossing the room and sitting down, stiff backed and staring straight ahead.
“No need to be so icy,” Hades said with a condescending chuckle. “You shouldn’t play the aloof princess-that’s more Aphrodite’s mask. It doesn’t suit you at all.”
“You expect me to be all smiles and gaiety?” she demanded, jaw tightening. “After you kidnap me and tell me I’m to be your prisoner? Apologies, but I don’t feel much like laughing right now. Not in this horrible place.”
“Horrible?” he echoed, lifting a quizzical eyebrow. “What’s so horrible about my palace? How is it not to your tastes?”
“It’s cold and dreary and colorless,” Persephone said. “Full of echoes and shadows and nothing else. There’s no life here, no energy, no warmth.”
“You demand quite a lot, to expect ‘life’ and ‘warmth’ from the Kingdom of the Dead,” Hades said. “Those are qualities that can never exist here.”
“Then what will happen to me?” Persephone asked sharply. “I cannot live without growing things and sunlight and the energy of life. If you keep me down here, I’ll fade away into just another echoing shadow. Would that make you happy?”
“Nothing of the sort will happen,” he said dismissively with a wave of his hand. “You will grow accustomed to life here.”
“Surrounded by the dead? I’d rather not,” she said obstinately.
“You don’t have a say in the matter,” he said harshly, setting down his silver goblet with a clatter. “Now eat.”
She glanced down the table, eyes roving over soup tureens and baskets of yellow rolls and steaming slices of ham atop ornate platters. She was very hungry, and perhaps a meal would fortify her spirits…
But no, she would eat nothing of this world. She remembered the warnings her relatives had given to questing heroes-to eat the food of the dead would forever trap you with them. Immortal goddess or not, she could not afford to risk it.
“I am not hungry at the moment,” she said primly.
“Even we need to eat,” Hades said after a moment spent studying her intently. “You will begin to fade away if you don’t eat.”
“Now I’m to believe that you’re concerned for me?” Persephone said. “As if you have my best interests in mind?”
“What good would you be to me if you were nothing but a shade?” Hades countered, that wicked and wolfish smile reappearing and sending an unusual shiver across her skin.
Persephone looked away, hands tightening around the fabric of her dress.
“Come now, Persephone,” he said a moment later, sopping up the sauce on his plate with a hunk of crusty bread. His tone was pleasant enough, almost conversational. “Try to look at this with a more cheerful perspective. The others up there-” his features darkened momentarily with a scowl before his forced cheerfulness reasserted itself. “May think very little of me, but I’m quite powerful. I rule over an immense kingdom. Many a woman would envy your position, and my attention. I could have any woman, dryad, or nymph that I wanted-and I chose you. Aren’t you flattered?”
She hesitated, because through the fear and the unease she realized she was, in a strange and frightening way. Was it because, all those years ago, when she peered at him from behind pillars and trees, she had always felt a stirring of pity for him? Pity, and a strange longing, for Hades was handsome, and something in his darkness called out to the light in her-as magnets yearn for their distant poles.
“Why didn’t you?” she asked hesitantly. “…Find a woman like that? One who would immediately say yes to you?”
“Why would I want one of them when I could have you?” he said, without the slightest hint of sarcasm. “The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.” A smile crept across his face. “How sweet-you’re blushing. Not used to getting such compliments from men?”
“No,” she said simply and honestly.
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t-not with that overbearing mother of yours. Tell me: has she ever let you go anywhere by yourself? Speak to anyone without her at your elbow?”
“My mother loves me,” Persephone said. “She has only ever had my best interests at heart.”
“You’re a grown woman now, Persephone-time to do what you want, not what your dear old mother tells you to want.”
“What I want to do is go home,” she said as firmly as she could manage.
“Couldn’t this be your home?” he countered. “If it truly repulses you, I could redecorate.”
“No,” Persephone said, with a tinge of sadness. “I could never stay here. I couldn’t live without life and plants and my mother. I’m sorry, Hades.”
He moved so quickly, she hardly had time to catch her breath before he was leaning over her, hands tight around her forearms and face inches from hers. “I could take you, whenever I wanted,” he murmured. “I could make you mine. The others could do nothing about it-you would be my wife, and this would be your kingdom. I could have you right now.”
“Please, don’t,” she whispered, tears in her eyes.
“Why not?” he demanded silkily.
“I don’t want to hate you,” she replied quietly, gasping in an inaudible breath.
He released her suddenly, as if burned, and stepped back with an indefinable expression. She tried to meet his eyes steadily, to prove that she wasn’t going to be intimidated or frightened, but looked down almost immediately. No matter how much she wished it, she would never have the courage or Artemis or the determination of Athena. She was only Persephone…
“I apologize,” he said quietly, his voice husky. “That was cruel of me.”
“…Apology accepted. May I be excused to my room?”
He nodded sharply, then sighed. “You needn’t ask for my permission, like a scolded child. I was sincere when I said this could be your home-go wherever you wish.”
That night was not an easy one. She spent it tossing in her huge bed, plagued by the unfamiliar surroundings and the dull edges of her fear and the image of his dark face so close to hers, eyes flashing with a hungry fire desperate to consume her.
---
The next morning she found a contrite and respectful Hades waiting at the table, the plates before their chairs laden with fruits and rolls drizzled with honey.
“Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, thank you,” she lied politely, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. He stared at her, as if transfixed, until she cleared her throat slightly.
“I thought I’d show you around the palace today-give you the grand tour, as it were,” he suggested, biting into an apple with a loud crunch.
“If you wish.”
“…Will you eat something?”
“No thank you.”
“Starving yourself won’t do any good,” he said. “A hunger protest won’t make me send you back to Olympus.”
She said nothing, and stared straight ahead.
“Persephone. Please.”
“You’re asking me to forsake everything I’ve ever known or loved.”
“I’m asking you to eat something.”
“And be trapped here forever? I may be silly, and naïve, and a child still, but I’m not a complete idiot. I know the rules of the Underworld,” she replied readily.
“Fine,” he said with resignation. “Starve yourself. But I-” He stopped himself, before pushing back his chair and standing, offering his arm. “This may seem a dark and dreadful place to you, but it still has its grandeur, and small beauties.’
They walked the long, chill halls in a strange silence-on her part, it was a mixture of unease and nervousness, and on his it was the silence of thought. Hades glanced over at her often, half-wishing she would turn and her periwinkle-hued eyes would meet his. It was strange, how one evening, one moment of confrontation, could make him look at her in a different light. She had always been a paragon of fresh and innocent beauty in his eyes-something fair and unapproachable, always to be admired from afar. When he had dared to grab her, to have her within his arm’s reach, he had been too flushed with success and desire to see beyond his previous image of her: she was still a prized object, something to be enjoyed and set upon his throne, a very pretty ornament to brighten up his dark and dreary kingdom.
And then he had put his hands on her, had made explicitly clear his wishes and desires, and she had not shrunk away from him completely-no, she had looked at him with tears that were not entirely for herself, and when she had pleaded with him it had not been for her purity. I don’t want to hate you. She pitied him as much as she feared him, and in that moment he fully saw her as a true goddess and woman, his superior in many ways, and he had faltered slightly.
He had no skill for apology and little understanding of forgiveness. He had been born harsh and unrelenting and centuries of fighting with Zeus and Poseidon, those elder brothers so blessed and favored by the others, had only served to harden him further. He was beginning to see, though, that Persephone required a softer touch, a certain sweetness of temper that he had never cultivated. She demanded it without ever saying so much as a word. Her every movement, graceful and gentle, reproached him for his brute and callous strength.
For the first time in thousands of years, Hades knew the bitter burn of repentance.
Persephone had spent the sleepless hours of the night-when she had been able to push aside the hot image of Hades-steeling her heart. She knew he would try to impress her with his kingdom, try to sway her into finding something beautiful and worth loving in this land of the dead. She thought of the green fields she loved, the scent of wildflowers, the feel of summer rain against her skin. With these memories fresh in her mind’s eye, she looked at the grand rooms and artwork, and tried desperately to find them all wanting in comparison. She was grateful when he’d closed the final door and her heart was still unmoved-nothing in this great palace of his had touched her.
“You find my taste in décor still lacking,” he said blandly, without a hint of disappointment or reprove.
“Your house is a fine one,” she said. “But not to my liking.”
“I have never had a delicate eye for art and furnishings,” he conceded. “But this empty place is not the extent of my domain. Perhaps you would be moved by my subjects?”
And before she could voice a protest or pull away, he’d taken her arm and drawn her through the immense and cavernous entrance, the heavy and iron-braced double doors swinging open ponderously as if by the hands of invisible servants.
Eyes wide and stinging, Persephone looked fully upon the Land of the Dead for the first time. The five great rivers of the Underworld met before the hulking palace, drawing together before a wide and cobwebbed pier. The large ferries, drawing in the newest immigrants, creaked ponderously on the water. Their occupants were silent and still, the only sounds that of the creaking wooden hulls and dull splashes of water as each of the ferrymen punted inexorably forwards. The new arrivals stood shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast decks of the ferries, packed in close like cattle, and gave no sign of awareness.
Gathered along the banks of the rivers, stretching off into infinity, were similarly silent shades. Pale, ghostly, and human-shaped but with faces almost blank and undefined, their movements were stilted and lethargic, as if they were slowly forgetting the usage of their limbs. And everywhere was smoke and fog, the cloying and oppressive scents of lilies and dust and the stale air of forgotten places. Persephone’s breath hung suspended before her, a foreign intruder in this land where nothing breathed and there was no longer any warmth for such condensation.
“My kingdom,” Hades said, with a strange mixture of pride and bitterness. “This is what was left to me by my loving brothers. While they enjoy grand sacrifices and holy days full of laughter and wine, I remain here. Where speech has been forgotten and my subjects cannot be touched, made of little more than smoke given shape. Nothing could live here that is not immortal like us-not even honest flame.” He gestured sharply at the torches that lined the pier, flickering with the same eerie blue light that lit the rooms of the palace. “Zeus would not allow it. I am to have nothing of the world above to comfort me here, in my exile. Even the food at my table is only half-real-just enough to keep my strength and power, but no more. Not enough to allow me to return to a world of sunlight and summer breezes. I am trapped here just as much as they,” he said with a wave at his silent subjects. “Can you fault me for snatching you when I could? You, who are beautiful and vibrant and have a clear voice and eyes that can still see?”
Persephone covered her face with her hands and tried to muffle the sobs that gripped her. Never in any of her nightmares could she have imagined such a hollow and sorrowful place. Her mother had never allowed her to witness death-she had no knowledge of that secret and mortal thing. To be faced with it so suddenly, and in such numbers… She knew that mortals could be good and kind and just, that they could love and act even more nobly and bravely than those of her blood, the immortals who were so often caught up in petty jealousies and bitter rivalries. To see, to know, that for all of their beautiful and brief moments every mortal would become like this and forget all that made them unique and worthy of love… It was almost too much for her heart to bear.
“Please,” she whispered, tears shining on her face. “Tell me this is not all there is. Tell me there is something better, for those who have earned it.”
Hades stared at her, and she could only stare back, unwilling to look again upon the wretched shades below them. And as she watched, it was as if an unseen hand was smoothing away some of the harsh lines of his face, gently reshaping his features into something more sympathetic and comforting.
“The Elysians,” he said quietly, taking her hand with a gentleness than surprised her. “Come.”
She had no recollection of walking, or of any great passage of time. Suddenly they were standing on the sandy shore of a small island, and in a rush that almost overwhelmed her she felt sunlight and warmth again. She blinked, dazzled, and almost laughed with relief and joy. There were trees and flowers and tall grasses only feet away, growing with luxurious health, verdant and colorful, swaying in a gentle breeze. All of the gentle sounds of life-running water, distant birdsong, the rustling of small animals in undergrowth-filled her ears.
“This is wonderful!” she cried happily, stepping forward. Hades’ hand slid from hers, and she hesitated, looking back. “This is the Elysian island?”
“One of them,” he replied with a short nod of his head. “There are many of them, and to the west is the great Elysian field. This is the paradise all great heroes and artists can expect. Any mortal who lives a valorous and inspiring life will be rewarded here in death.”
“But you said nothing could grow here, that there was nothing of the world from above,” Persephone said. “And yet I can see the trees and flowers plainly! I can hear the calls of songbirds.”
“Can you?” he asked softly, an indescribable emotion on his face.
“Yes, of course I can.” She knelt and plucked a small purple flower, holding it out to him.
“I see none of it,” he said, looking at the outstretched hand, unable to see the bloom she offered him. “When I step foot onto Elysian land, I am blind. I can see you, Persephone, but everything else is blackness.”
Persephone looked up at him and in that moment felt no fear. He was diminished. No longer the imperious and arrogant Lord of the Underworld, not even Hades of the cruel smile and passionate eyes. He was simply a man, hardened by disappointment and failure and bitterness. He had strived for power and lost, and perhaps the punishment his brothers had meted out had not been entirely even or justified. How much of Hades could have been finer and nobler and better, if he hadn’t been knocked back at every turn, his every desire and ambition thwarted? How much of his anger and cruelty was affected, a protective cloak he had pulled on centuries ago and forgotten how to cast aside?
She stood and brushed out the wrinkles of her dress, calmer and more composed than he had ever seen her before. “Wait,” she said, and there was no question that he would do so for as long as she required.
Every step, every sensation, she tried to savor. She committed to memory every brush of grass against her ankles and the caress of the warm breeze through her hair. She drank everything in as if dying of thirst, as someone would who knew they would never again experience such delights.
When she came to the tree, she stopped. And looked up. It was an incredibly old pomegranate tree, twisted and gnarled and heavy with ripe, red fruit. She reached up with a sure and steady hand, chose only one of the fruits, and plucked it from its branch. There was a call to her left, the distant hail of joyous greeting from someone who was friendly and inviting, and she glanced over her shoulder. A tall and golden young man dressed in white robes, his face flushed with athletic exertion and good spirits, a handsome boy who was no doubt worthy of her company-he could only be one of the valiant fallen, a lost hero come to his final reward in Elysian.
But Persephone only smiled and turned away, walking quickly back to the beach and her dark and brooding Lord.
---
There was a garden in Hades’ palace, at its very center. It was, like everything else in the Underworld, a dead place. The trees were blackened as if by fire, the ground around their exposed and flaking roots was more ash and clay than honest earth. The few flowers that still clung to skeletal stems were withered and bleached.
“There used to be life here, in this one place,” Hades explained as she stepped around the pathetic debris. “It was the one bright spot allowed to me. Then I quarreled with Zeus again, over the soul of one of his mortal ladyloves, and he blighted this place like the rest. Turned it all to cinders and ash.”
“What grows in Elysian is just as much of this world as the other, though,” she said firmly, confidently, as much to convince herself as him. “And I may be a minor goddess, but I am still a goddess. Plants listen to me.”
She dug into the dry, coarse dirt with her fingers until she had finally scraped away the useless ash. There was still good, damp earth below. He crouched down beside her, offering her his knife as she picked up the dark red fruit. The crimson juice trickled through her fingers, dripping into the small hollow she’d uncovered, glistening more like blood than juice as it fell.
“It will grow,” she said, lying aside half of the pomegranate and plucking out a single worthy seed. She pressed it into the hollow, covered it with a small mound of dirt and sat for a moment with her hand pressed down in benediction. “It will grow.”
Persephone pulled away her hand and stood, and as Hades looked up at her she began to glow with an inner radiance; it was as if a star had kindled to life within that beautiful and delicate form. In that single moment out of eternity, the unearthly blue light of his world faded away, eclipsed by this sunlit beauty, and he could feel the warmth of her against his skin as if she were cradling him in her arms.
And then she was smiling down at him, a smile of pure happiness and joy, and it struck his heart like an arrow-the sharp pain robbed him of breath and thought, but when it faded he realized just why she had smiled so. For a small green tendril had unfurled beside him, the first hardy sprout of what would become a healthy and grand tree.
She had done something he would have thought impossible. She had defied Zeus, no matter how indirectly, and brought life back into his world.
“Why did you do this?” he asked her. They were sitting side by side, watching as the tree literally grew before their eyes, the slender stem thickening into a trunk, the delicate tendrils resolving to become branches.
“Because this place deserves to be beautiful again,” she said shyly. “And because it wasn’t fair.”
“Wasn’t fair?”
“To punish you so. You may have said cruel things in anger, you may have lashed out as Zeus and Poseidon, but you are not evil. You are not like Eris, who hurts for pleasure, or Ares, who hurts because it is a part of him. Everything you’ve become, Hades, is because of their treatment of you.” She looked to him. “I used to watch you, you know. When I was very young. I’d hide behind trees. You were intriguing-Mother said you were harsh and mean-spirited, and that I was never to speak to you. And you did frighten me sometimes. You frightened me often,” she admitted, honest as ever. “But Zeus frightened me, too, just as loud and brash. He could be just as merciless and careless. And now that I’ve seen this world they’ve imprisoned you in, I think I understand you better. I understand a lot of things now.”
“I have been cruel to you,” he said heavily, his regret audible. “Spiteful. Vindictive.”
“You lashed out because you hurt, and because I was the only one you could strike at,” she said.
“You are everything I miss and long for,” he confessed. “True beauty and warmth-sunlight and fresh air. The embodiment of a world I will be forever denied.”
“Perhaps not forever,” she said softly. “We cannot afford to speak of nevers; mortals can, perhaps, but not us. Things change. They always change. And who is to say that the next time they change it will not be in your favor?”
“My favor? I was not meant to be favored,” Hades said bitterly, his voice sharp with an old pain. “No, not I. The third of a set, always last, always least wanted. Zeus and Poseidon will never let me rise from that position.”
“Perhaps there will come a day when their word is not absolute law,” Persephone continued. “Or perhaps there will be a time when they are not so important to you.”
“Such blasphemy,” he chuckled. “What would your mother think, if she heard you speak in such a way?”
“My mother is not here, and on this matter her opinion is none of my concern,” Persephone said, and the force behind her words surprised him.
He studied her, taking in the small and subtle changes. It was in every graceful line of her body; she held herself differently, and there was a new edge of confidence and maturity around her guileless eyes. “You have changed,” he said. “In less than a day, you are different.”
“Everything changes,” she said, smiling. “Even us.”
Silence settled between them as they turned back to the tree, and for the first time it was a comfortable and easy silence. As the tree grew and the quiet deepened, Hades realized how mistaken he had been. He had coveted and desired Persephone for her beauty, but as they sat there he realized there was another quality he appreciated far more than her lovely face. When she was at peace, it was impossible to not feel soothed and reassured. It was as if she could envelop the world in her grace. Any penitent could find absolution in her presence, and Hades felt all of his transgressions and misdeeds clamor for the release of confession. She was his superior in every way: kind and forgiving when he was too rough, understanding when he was arrogant, sweet when he was bitter.
As the first fruit began to darken and swell on the branch, Hades broke the silence with a voice made harsh with regret and sorrow. “I am sorry, Persephone, for the wrong I have done to you.”
“There’s no need for you to apologize again-I’ve already forgiven you,” she said.
“You forgive far too easily, then,” he said, eyes dark. “You would be flawless but for that.”
“Hades, you are too hard on yourself,” she said gently.
“Too hard? After stealing you from the world you love, after imprisoning you here and treating you so callously? I have said and intimated unforgivable things-I meant to have you, body and soul, whether you willed it or not. Greedy, selfish, evil-”
“Everything you did you were driven to,” she interrupted desperately, reaching out a pale hand to cup his cheek. The touch silenced him as her words would not, and he stared at her with a face bared and naked, all of his surprise and wonder clear to see. “You have been mistreated for so long, and were shown no better way to be. You were lonely and afraid and desperate-I forgive you every ill-intention and misdeed. I forgive you, Hades-and you must learn to forgive yourself.”
“I am… unworthy,” he whispered hoarsely, lifting a hesitant hand to press against her’s, still cupped at his cheek.
“Then change,” she said. “Change for the better. You owe it to yourself.”
“I owe it to you,” he said. He drew in a shuddering breath and drew away his hand, pulling away from her touch. “I release you, Persephone. I will call for Hermes, and he will take you home. You can return to your mother and your sun, and be at peace.”
He stood, his body stiff and resolute even as the pain gripped him, knowing he would never again be blessed by such light and sweetness. His hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, and he turned to go before she could see the sorrow on his face.
“Hades. Wait.”
And as before, there was no question but that he would obey her. He froze, still turned away, his broad back a straight and unforgiving line.
There was a quiet rustle of leaves, and at the unexpected sound he finally looked over his shoulder. Persephone had pulled a pomegranate from the tree, her face serene and assured. “May I borrow your knife again?” she asked.
He offered it wordlessly. She sliced into the fruit, returned the blade, and carefully removed one of the large seeds, the juices trickling down her white hand. He watched as if mesmerized as the seed slipped between her pink lips.
“You should not-” he said abruptly, coming back to himself with a jolt.
“Shouldn’t I?” she asked with a smile, raising another seed to her lips. When she had swallowed the sixth, she let the fruit fall from her hand.
“Why?” he demanded, rougher than he had intended.
“Perhaps I’ve found something beautiful here, after all,” she said quietly. “Something that the world above doesn’t have. Perhaps something in this dead world of yours has touched me, Hades. And I’m not ready to say goodbye to it forever.”
“Your mother?” he asked.
“Everyone has to leave home eventually,” she replied calmly. “And make a new one.”
She took his hand in hers and smiled, the breaking of a new dawn, and something loosened within him-the falling away of a great weight.
“You want me to stay, don’t you?” she murmured, a girlish blush coloring her cheeks.
“Persephone… you undo me,” he whispered. “And remake me. Marry me.”
“Yes.”
Their lips met, and everything was changed. Persephone was never again the pure innocent to be swayed by her mother’s opinions; Hades would never again unleash a tempestuous outburst to provoke his brothers’ retaliation. And even as they two were reshaped and made anew, the reverberations of this moment would echo into the centuries to come. And so Persephone was proven right: things always change, and there would come a day when the word of Zeus would not be absolute law.
But that was all to come, in a future so distant not even the Oracle could yet glimpse it. For now there was a wedding night to be consummated and a divine tree to be tended.