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.
No.
She was the fury of Spring, the tender touch and vitality of life and the sweet smell of flowers. Her beauty no longer angered her, for she had learned that with it, came power of its own accord. She had no crown on her head when she rendered the mighty King of the Underworld to his knees before her.
She wasn't weak for loving him. The extents to which she would go to remain by his side, away from Olympus and her mother...By loving him, she had become a force to reckon with. No harm would come to her King, to their kingdom, to the frail, blooming existence of whatever monstrous thing they had created together.
"I have already followed you to the entrails of the Earth, darling. There isn't a place in the cosmos I wouldn't follow you to." She whispered against him, placing a soft kiss against the robes covering his chest. Being with him was pure bliss to her, better even than an eternity in the Elysian Fields. Hades trembled, for his fearsome Queen held the same, if not stronger, swaying effect he had on her. His beautiful bride.
"Very well." His voice trails as he mindlessly traces the curve of her jaw to the hollow of her throat with his fingers. "It has come to my attention, that despite being mistress of the Underworld, you are yet to visit its entirety, yes?" He questions her, holding her chin in his fingers, tilting her head to meet his gaze. Persephone meets his challenge, straightening her back. She feels the crown perched on her head slide to the side.
"You haven't given me a tour." She snarks, shrugging.
"You haven't asked for one."
"You're the Lord of this realm, are you not? You have been an inattentive host, Hades." She tsk-tsked, a sultry smile on her lips as she laced her arms around his neck. "One could say, you've been preoccupied with other matters regarding your Queen." Persephone nuzzled the crook of his neck lovingly. From her position, she could feel the soft rumble of his laughter against her as it shook his chest. He untangled her limbs from his neck and placed a tender kiss on the corner of her mouth.
"You are relentless, Persephone. So it is not ever said I am an undeserving host, I will take you around your kingdom now." He spoke and she hummed in satisfaction.
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Waves.
The sound of waves was the first thing to greet her as soon as they materialised wherever he had taken them. It was a soft, serenading sound that encompassed the peaceful silence they were now surrounded by. Her ears perked up, straining to detect any other sound, there was none. She turned her head to look at her husband, he stood right beside her, as he always did, a strange look of tranquillity overcoming his features.
It almost felt wrong when she opened her mouth to speak: "Where are we?" Her voice disrupted the quietude. She glanced around, noticing for the first time the extending fields of land reaching as far as she could see, all covered in apparent ash. No. She took a step forward, a small frown on her face. It wasn't ash. A sudden gust of wind rushed through the field, rustling the stalks of what she now realised were pale, white asphodels. A smile weaved on her face as she stared at the flowers. A piece of who she was growing in all he was. Beautiful. With the greyish colour of its leaves and its yellowish flowers, they spoke of the gloom of the underworld and the pallor of death. She brushed the flowers with her fingertips, a garland of asphodels flourishing from the top of her head, around her crown. She immediately realised where she stood. Hades spoke nevertheless.
"The Fields of Asphodel." He made sure to murmur the words, to not disrupt the shades wandering about the meadow. Persephone noticed the shades as well, in varying degrees of grey. Some seemed to be fading away, the oldest ones, she realised. They walked separately, none of them stopping to interact with any other, none of them talking. They just walked, not seeming to know where they were headed to or whey the came from.
The sound of waves again.
This time, Persephone glanced to the side. She stood awestruck. A pale light seemed to irradiate from nowhere in particular, just like in Hades' palace, yet this light shone brighter in a mock depiction of Helios. Just not quite as bright, more like the glow of the moon. In the distance she noticed the shores of a long riverbank, its waters swayed slowly, creating the lulling sound she had first noticed upon her arrival. The river Acheron, the river of pain.
"It's so peaceful here. It's beautiful." She remarked earnestly. Hades only nodded and grabbed her by the hand, guiding her even further onto the field.
"This is were the souls of those who weren't good enough for Elysium nor bad enough for Tartarus dwell. They don't know who they are anymore, they can't remember. They have all drank from The Lethe willingly. Some chose to reincarnate, others don't. Mortals are peculiar beings, Persephone." There seemed to be certain admiration on his voice as he walked her through the meadow. She could understand it. Mortals weren't bound by eternity. They lived and they died. It gave their existence a unique value none of the other immortals could ever understand. "Charon, the ferryman, delivers them from the other side of the Acheron." He added, then he motioned Persephone to turn around. Another mass of water.
"That's the Lethe. If you follow it long enough, you might come across the cave of Hypnos, where he dwells." The Lethe was considerably still. No waves whatsoever, the shades near it all stood still as well. The river of forgetfulness. She couldn't even begin to fathom why any mortal would choose to drink from it and then decide they wanted to stay here in Asphodel. Their existence was limited, why would anyone want to forget about it? Forget the faces of those they loved, those they hated. The feel of the wind on their skin or the sun against their face. The smell of flowers on Spring, the taste of barley and honey. Forget who they were. He turned her to her side, she felt dizzy. "Over there, that's the Styx. It circles the Underworld seven times. Come." Persephone obeyed and laced her arm with his, she could understand the feeling of hatred. It was sour and bitter and she knew it all too well. She had fed off it for years.
And although she knew the taste of it upon her tongue, she was not prepared for the smell of it.
As they walked closer, the number of shades became scarce. They were nearing the Gates of the Underworld, she could feel it.
"Why are you bringing me here?" She stopped walking suddenly, a knot in her throat, a lump in her stomach. It coiled inside of her and threatened to spill out of her mouth. Hades froze and eyed her carefully. He realised what ailed her.
"Persephone, you have left all of that behind. It is not your burden to carry anymore. Your mother will not harm you here." He whispered, reaching for her. She stepped back. It was not her mother she was afraid of. She hadn't been in a long time. It was the emptiness that came with the feeling of hatred. She had hated and hated and hated for such a long time it became what she was. It left her empty, like a rumbling cymbal.
"You don't understand. It isn't my mother I fear, I once asked you how to kill a god, and your answer pleased me. This is how you kill me, you kill me by reminding me of how I felt when all I knew was hate. How powerless I was because of it." It felt like a burden had been lifted off her shoulders. It felt liberating to finally express her feelings. Would he mock her for it?
He never did.
Instead, he took a step closer and hugged her, she let him. "I understand." Was all he said. "Forgive me." She already did.
She closed her eyes and lifted her head from his chest. She thought of her mother and the all-consuming fire of abhorrence lodged inside her heart. She still hated her. That hadn't changed. Although now, she understood, she couldn't allow it to consume her anymore. It was no longer worth it. Not when she had a kingdom to run and a husband to care for. "I love you, Hades."
Finally, she felt at peace.
A sudden shudder overcame her, a strange coldness crept up her spine. Somewhere in the back of her head, she could hear the faint sound of wails and screams. A small pull in her hair. She thought nothing of it.
"Can we continue our tour, I'd love to see Tartarus." She beamed at him. He chuckled.
"Of course we can, my Queen."
Unbeknown to them, their little haven of peace was about to be cracked into pieces.
*αγάπη μου: my love