Persephone

VII

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE BEWILDERED HOSTAGE // THE ENLIGHTENED SOVEREIGN

Their wedding was an event of grand splendour.

It had been presided by the Fates themselves with the blessings of the King of all, Zeus. Never had the Underworld shone brighter than when lovely Persephone, in her golden attire, gracefully accepted her new duty of Queen of the Underworld and wife to its King.

Persephone had never felt so placid, so content as she did in that very moment.

It had been many days since that night, and as the days passed, her newly acquired love for the dark realm and its ruler only intensified. What had been in the beginning a dubious engagement resulting from her desperate desire to escape her mother's clutches had bloomed into something genuine, something that had not been born from hate but love. She sometimes wondered if she was only deceiving herself if her love for Hades was nothing but a sham if her hunger for freedom and liberty had led her to believe herself in love. At first, she admitted to no one but herself, but now it wasn't just about doing this to spite her mother, or because she wanted to be gone from those dreadful meadows. She truly had grown fond of the Underworld, and she loved being Queen.

Her eyes examined what was currently before her. She felt proud of her work, examining the once void terrain, now brimming with life and colourful vegetation. Her very favourite exhibition stood in the very middle, a ring of fully bloomed roses. Bloodied roses.

It was a peculiar place, the Underworld. There was no sunlight, and that was perhaps the one thing Persephone missed the most from the world above. It had been weeks since she had stepped along Hades on his chariot, since she had taken her place as Queen. Her skin had paled considerably, and her now black locks accentuated her fair skin even further. Due to the lack of sunlight, Persephone now had to focus much more of her energy on keeping her plants alive. It often left her exhausted. In the nights, after attending her marital duties, she was fast asleep, her head on his chest, as he cradled her. With Hades, she never felt vulnerable, she never felt like a child.

A cold arm she had grown to find warmth in wrapped around her waist and pulled her back against an even colder, yet so familiar chest. "What is my beautiful Queen contemplating?" He asked her, words spoken softly against the shell of her ear. A shudder ran through her, drawn forward by his proximity. Persephone leaned further unto him, humming in satisfaction. "You have done a lovely work with the gardens, my dear." He crooned. She smiled at his words, turning around in his arms to face him.

"I recall mentioning to you once that your sweet-talking wouldn't take you anywhere with me, husband." She was buzzing with happiness, brimming with it. Persephone felt unlike herself. When had she ever been this happy? Funny, she thought, how a man so cold had managed to melt the ice lodged in her veins.

"You did. I was hoping that after our wedding, that would change. Are you certain, Αγάπη μου*, that there is nothing I can say to persuade you into coming with me?" The clever bastard. She could not deny him more than she could deny herself and even that would have been equivalent to it, for Hades, the Unseen One, had become half of herself. Was she weak for allowing her knees to quiver at the mere sound of his voice? Was she feeble by allowing him to have such an unfaltering effect on her with only his presence, let alone his touch? No. Doubt tried to climb into her mind like poisonous vines. She had been pondering on it for a quite a while now, but she would not let her fear of captivity ruin this for her. The one true place where she felt free, where she felt powerful. She was powerful, but not because Hades had granted her a crown and a realm to rule over.