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She groaned and threw her head back, her neck already sore with the beginnings of a stress headache. She spun back to the column and slammed it hard with the sides of her fists until they ached and burned. The stone was cool as she leaned her forehead against it, grabbing the sides and fingering the divots for stability.
Maybe she should marry him.
Even if it meant she could never be with Pelops again, at least he would be alive. He wasn’t planning on marrying her anyways, she knew what he was going to tell her that day. Knew it before she opened her mouth, before she let the words slide off her tongue and land on his uncaring ears.
Pelops didn’t love her, not enough…he had told her a year ago and she ignored it.
But, for whatever reason, Hades wanted to.
He probably just needed a wife – a queen, he’d said – to help shoulder the burdens he takes on as the King of the Dead. It can’t be easy, judging every soul that comes down to the Underworld, sentencing them and torturing them for eternity. He’d have to check on them periodically to ensure the torture was taking, that the souls truly felt damned.
Could she be his Queen? Queen of the Dead did have quite the ring to it, and Persephone had been imaging herself as the queen at Pelops’ side. It couldn’t be much different; mortals were already pretty vile creatures, it’s why they ended up here, after all.
She started pacing as she thought, her sandals scuffing lightly on the black floors.
The biggest thing holding her back from her decision was love. She didn’t think she could ever love Hades.
Not with everything he had done. The innocent people he had killed and then tortured for his own amusement. Humans were horrible, they were selfish, manipulative, immoral, and so so much more, but he had let children die. Had taken children from their parents and the joy of life too soon, taken them here before they had even lost that innocent glow that ignorant children have around them.
But there had to be something redeemable about him, if this was going to work. Women rarely married for love, so Persephone always knew there was a slim chance she would be in the lucky tiny percent who did – even Aphrodite didn’t marry the god she loved.
She loved Pelops, with all her heart. It hurt to be away from him, her stomach was twisting in knots just thinking about it. She would love him forever, there was no room in her heart for Hades, it was already full of Pelops.
First loves don’t disappear, they get buried deeper in the folds of your organs, deeper in the flesh of your heart, but never forgotten. Morality may take them away, but immortal minds love forever.
At least that’s what she believed. She hadn’t had a chance to ask her aunt about it yet, but she was pretty sure she was right. Feelings can’t be wrong.
Persephone sat down at one end of the table, her back facing the burning hearth. She dropped her head to the table, the cold biting her skin.
She was going to marry Hades.
Demeter was going to kill her. She could already see it playing out:
Demeter would make the land barren across the world. Nothing would grow, no wheat or olives or grapes, no grass for the livestock so the meat would run out in a matter of weeks. She’d grip Zeus by the balls, forcing him to comply with her demands of an unending drought. The harvests would fail year after year, until there was only the ocean for food.
By that point, the humans would have prayed for forgiveness and aid from the gods countless times, and as their suffering continued, they’d have cursed the gods for their treatment. Blaming not only Demeter, but every single one of us, because she would never let them save the humans from her wrath. Never.
Then they would die, and soon the gods would follow them to the Underworld without worship and offerings to sustain them.
Her mother would end the world.
Unless she could convince her that this was what she wanted. That saving Pelops was worth it because he was all that mattered. And that she could handle living with Hades in the Underworld, in this dark palace.
Maybe she could even lie, tell her she’d fallen in love with the King of the Dead.
Or, ensure he gave her time above annually. She was a goddess of the earth after all, he couldn’t keep her here.
§
When Hades returned from outside, Persephone was sitting at the head of his table on the only bright coloured chair. It’s wooden frame was painted red, the only colour Hades’ seemed to allow in his home other than gold and black; the cushion black as night, and firm under her. All the others disappeared as she sat, leaving only the one across from her; the wood so black it looked charred, the cushion the matching half to her own.
Persephone didn’t know where he had gone or particularly care. This was the Underworld, she could only imagine the horrible things he had been off doing. Probably getting off to some poor soul’s never-ending torture in a dark corner of the realm.
She watched him walk out the maze of roses, the decanter in his hand empty, his lips stained a sensual deep purple. He replaced his blackchitonfor a wine-purple one, and no longer draped it over his shoulder, but pinned it around his hips instead, displaying his large, muscled chest, the black hair there looking as soft as the curls on his head. Softer, maybe.
His eyes trailed from her face to her chest, where the table cut the rest of her body off, his eyes lingering on hers. She realized she had been staring at his chest, dreaming about running her fingers along his body and under thechiton, and quickly looked away.
He chuckled at her reaction as he sat down across from her. The sound made her shoulders tense up and she sat up straighter, her back flush with the chair, looking straight down the table at him.
