The Colour Of Pomegranates

Chapter 50

Spending time with the goddess of Witchcraft, Persephone enjoyed the trickle of rain on her skin. Hecate was sitting on her doorstep where the rain couldn't touch her, while Persephone laid on her back in the meadow.

'You are a weird girl, did you know that?' the ancient goddess scoffed. Persephone chuckled.

'Because I asked him to make it rain for me or because I'm enjoying it to the fullest?'

'Both.' They spent their time in silence for a while. Persephone contemplated going up to see the colours of the trees change, but she was scared of what she might find.

'Have you ever witnessed Autumn or Winter?' she asked Hecate softly.

'Of course I have, I've been around almost as long as your mother. She used to be very fickle, that one. Take away something she liked and boom it started snowing. Kick her in the shin and tada the leaves already crumpled up. It takes a while for a goddess to mature, you know. Why in Tartarus do you think you're called the goddess of Spring?' Persephone shrugged, pink creeping up her cheeks.

'Demeter always said it was because Spring equalled life and new beginning. I hadn't the faintest idea of what it meant to the seasons. Imagine the world being covered in snow and darkness for as long as it's been summer.' 

Hecate snorted. 'Persephone dearest, as intelligent as you may be, you have no idea how the world works. Your mother has kept you in that bubble of a cottage for too long. Hades has been down Below for thousands of years. Before that, he and his brothers walked the Earth. Even then he was already older than you are now.'

'What was that like? Gods roaming the Earth?' Hecate shrugged.

'Much of the same. Yet the Titans ruled over them, keeping them in check.'

'What are the Titans like?' She bit her bottom lip thoughtfully. 'Everyone Up and Above tells me they are horrible creatures of days past, living off revenge and innocent blood. I understand that this is not the whole picture, but I have yet to meet them.' The rain stopped and Persephone sat down beside Hecate.

'Why haven't you asked your lover? He knows everything, right? He is the one who keeps them in chains. His brothers and he are the ones who put them there.' She didn't pass judgment, she merely spoke truth.

'Exactly.'

Hecate's lips turned into a smile. 'The Ancient Ones aren't evil, nor are they good. They are neutral. For mortalkind that means they don't care and I guess, in a way, they don't. They were the gods of light and dark, of water and land, of war and peace. They ignite what's already there and don't dwell on the wants and needs of mortals. Or of simpler gods, like the Olympians. We all had our issues with them. Sometimes we needed sun instead of cold and they wouldn't listen to us. We needed food and shelter and they wouldn't care. They are our parents and like all parents and children, their kids wanted to rebel against them. Mortalkind is far more forgiving, I'll give you that. They normally don't eat their own offspring.' They laughed and Persephone rested her head against Hecate's shoulder.

'If they're neutral, why won't they be released?'

'Wouldn't you like to have some revenge on the creatures that locked you down here for centuries?'

Hades was sitting in front of his fireplace at the Tartarus mansion, staring at the colourful flames. Within minutes Persephone and he would walk into the pits, which were tall ravines where the Ancient Ones were kept prisoner. Persephone looked at him from a small distance, hugging herself, thinking to herself he looked like home to her. When he felt her gaze, he looked up and smiled. She loved him, ardently.

'Are you ready?' he asked, and she nodded. The two of them walked out of the manor and into the barren lands. When she first met him, Persephone might have feared the God of the Dead who walked beside her. She knew about punishments like acid dripping onto your naked flesh for eternity and pushing up a rock against a hill for eternity. There were a lot of eternities down in Tartarus. However, as soon as she learned it was Zeus who spoke judgment over those creatures, she wondered about the God who treated her with such loving attention in the bedroom. He placed her upon a pedestal and worshipped the ground she walked on. He was the god who told his prisoners to solve an unsolvable puzzle or throw ball with his three-headed dog for eternity. It made her wonder about herself in a way as well. 

'Here we go', he said in his characteristic soft voice, and he let her walk in front of him, into a stone corridor without ceiling. On the sides there were creatures in chains. They should have scared her, but they didn't. Curious, her eyes wandered over each and every one of the Titans who still resided in Tartarus. Hades watched her from a small distance, curious to know what was happening inside her mind. He could feel she wasn't scared - Persephone didn't seem to be scared of anything.

Then, as the Titans looked up to Persephone, the goddess of Spring, bringer of Chaos in the Above world, Queen of the Underworld, daughter of Demeter and the Supreme God - she bowed for them. She fell down on her knees and spread her arms before her, her nose almost touching the sandy floor. Hades blinked and saw how the Titans looked at her unfazed. They bowed their heads ever so slightly to the woman who illicited their respect. He had never seen something like it before. But then again, there was only one who could be Queen of the Underworld.