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Kore shoots an unimpressed look in Zeus' direction. “Yeah, well, I doubt my mother would let you kill me or banish me. She knows I’d enjoy it too much.”
Zeus grins in response, stepping closer to Kore as he looks around the garden. Kore wonders what he’s thinking, as he gazes at all of Demeter’s neatness. One of his tan hands touches the petals of a pale pink rose. “Hera was right. I’ll never admit that, of course, but she was right…your garden was prettier.”
Kore laughs, but the sound lacks amusement. He breaks a branch in his palm, watching as the bark and leaves crumble away to nothing.
“Honestly, that doesn’t make me feel better,” Kore admits. He releases a harsh breath and stares out across his mother’s work, while irritation crawls across his skin.
Zeus releases a sigh, one of his hands pushing through the light strands of his hair. Zeus seems younger, unsure, when he speaks. “You know, Kore, the Underworld will never give you gardens like these.”
Kore snorts, his answer a jarring sound in the stillness between them. Outside the garden, Olympus moves with noises Kore thought he’d miss when he first arrived in Hades' realm. Now, they grate on his skin, itching over his senses as he tries to block them out.
“I don’t need gardens,” Kore replies, after minutes of tense silence. “I want Hades.”
Zeus closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes, Kore sees a storm dancing in the changing colors of his irises. Violet, dark blue, and gray swirl together as flashes of lightning spark—a miniature storm lives in Zeus' eyes. Consuming darkness lives in Hades', and Kore misses her more while he stares into her brother’s face.
“I can’t go against Demeter on this,” Zeus says. “Defying her will draw forth other unrest, and I can’t do that. Not even for my darling sister.” Zeus glances toward his palace, staring at the gilded architecture with an inscrutable expression. “I can’t move your fate, Kore. That doesn’t meanyoucan’t.”
Surprise colors Kore’s face, and he follows the line of Zeus' gaze. He finds Hera, leaning against a pillar, watching them both with curiosity furrowing her golden brows.
Kore remembers their legends—the ones he learned in his study on mortal mythologies—and he wonders how wrong those mortal stories are. Kore wonders if Zeus battled the Fates for his queen. He wonders if Hera was a willing participant in her crown, or if she was a prisoner of circumstances.
Zeus leaves him, in the garden, with those thoughts. As he walks away, he says, “Remember, Kore, man will never know of your true sacrifices, but the gods will know. They will remember your story, so make a good one.”
Zeus leaves Kore’s presence, and Kore turns; from this vantage point, he can see his mother’s greenhouse—an immaculate structure that takes up a corner of Olympus with glittering glass, crystal pillars, and a lone statue of Demeter and herdaughterstanding at the top of the structure. Ruling over the earth, growth, and harvest. Everything about that building is a lie rooted in his mother’s desire to project a perfect image. Everything about that greenhouse makes Kore simmer with unfettered rage, and he feels the stir of darkness in his veins as he marches toward Demeter’s pride and joy.
30
Demeter
Persephone enters Demeter’s greenhouse while Demeter tends to the first buds of asphodel.Food for the dead,Demeter thinks with a grim expression.Here I remain, feeding dead dreams.Persephone is the embodiment of her unfulfilled ambitions, and he mocks her with the image of health and happiness while he dares to be male.
What Fate did I offend to warrant such a child?
Demeter crushes the small buds beneath her palm, drying them out and forcing them through the natural cycle of birth and death at a rapid pace. Thanatos isn’t the only god who understands the call of death. He’s just the one the mortals remember to fear.
Imbeciles.
“You came faster than I thought. Were you glad to leave the frigid bed of a horrible queen?” Demeter asks him with a taunt woven through her words.
Persephone doesn’t speak. He marches closer, and the sight of him disgusts Demeter.
“You know, Mother, I can serve you and remain by Hades' side.” Persephone straightens his spine as he says this to her, and Demeter curls her lip in annoyance at his attempt at dominance.
“No, you can’t. You can serve one or the other, never both. Choose, Persephone. With me, you will live in the sun and have the assurance that war will never wage. With Hades, you will wither in eternal night, and will suffer the crushing defeat of a war you can’t hope to win.”
She releases a mocking chuckle when his shoulders droop. “Good boy, you understand your place.”
Demeter turns back to the asphodel, atskclicking behind her teeth as she looks upon the ruin of her work. Her palm glows, golden like the sunlight, and the flowing warmth of life pulses within the glow. Demeter moves her hand over the crushed blooms; a genuine smile lighting her face as she watches the stems turn from blackened bits to shiny green stalks that bud with the first tell of new life.
“Why do you hate me?” Persephone asks her. The question steals the smile from Demeter’s face.
She stops her work—appraising tight buds which threaten blooms in a day’s time—and turns to Persephone with an annoyed expression.
“Do you believe I think of you enough to hate you, Persephone?” she asks, watching her words land harsh blows against her son’s frail self-worth. With a mocking glance up and down Persephone’s large body, Demeter releases a cruel laugh. “I don’t think of you. I don’t have the time.”
Demeter dismisses him with a wave of her hand and turns to a tray of wet bulbs, waterlilies harvested from one pond for another. Hera donated another building for the university, and Athena wants to honor her stepmother with an infinity pool full of sacred blooms. It is a shallow show of worship that Demeter knows better than to comment on.
She works at the bulbs, inspecting them to see which bulbs are worth planting and which are doomed to fail. The failures go into a drum at her side, one Demeter fills with the dying blooms and bulbs. A scent permeates through the compost and causes Demeter to wrinkle her nose—rot that’s faintly saccharine.
