Lady Hera, Queen of the Gods, wife of Zeus (who is absent- what else is new?) walking down the pathway of her garden behind her palatial home that only she and a few select handmaidens live in any more, hears a snuffling sound. Not quite tears, just odd muffled sniffles and gasps. Lady Hera is never in a good mood when the absences of her husband stretch on like this, and so today is feeling particularly uncharitable. "If someone has broken into my garden, I will send them straight to Tartarus," she thinks viciously as she opens the gate. Following her ears, she wanders along to path until she comes to a grove of pomegranate trees, her symbol. She likes pomegranate trees. They remind her of when she was not so bitter and spiteful. Back before she made the biggest mistake of her life and married Zeus, and was given a new symbol, the peacock. Crumpled on the ground in a heap of smudged white dress is Lady Persephone, her niece. She knows Demeter has told them all on Olympus, time and time again she has told them, to call her precious daughter Kore, and most do. Admittedly, so does Hera, but she cannot help but think of her niece as Persephone. That is the name Hera herself had given her, in a short burst of prophetic love for her newest relative at her birth.
Persephone and Hades have been married for some years now, over three centuries, and still Lady Demeter has not come to terms with the fact that someone could think they have a claim to her darling girl. Therefore, every summer, Persephone stifles in the heat of the little cottage they have always occupied. When Demeter realizes that Hades has been visiting Persephone every night after she was asleep, she begins sending Persephone to Olympus for the weeknights and spending every spare second she isn't farming with her. Hera still smiles, vaguely, sadly, a tarnished, worn out version of the smile she once wore, when she thinks of all that Hades had gone through to keep his Persephone by his side, going so far as to threaten to storm Olympus itself. The poor girl is probably crying because she misses her husband. All feelings of anger dissapate, and Hera thinks that perhaps a round trip ticket to the Underworld is just what this particular uninvited visitor to her garden needs.
She sits down next to her, instantly feeling cooler in the shade and dewy grass, fully aware that dirt is seeping into her blue robes, and wraps her arms around Persephone's tanned shoulders. She loves this girl, enough to let her sob into the cup of her neck, sometimes even more so than her own children. A few moments later, Persephone looks up, watering brown eyes locked onto sky blue. "I w-was t-t-terribly loud, w-wasn't I?" she sniffles, happy to be curled against the other woman for support. "Not so very loud," Hera disagrees softly. "What is it that makes you cry so, niece? Spring has just begun, and you have only been away from you husband for but a few days. Surely you cannot be missing him already?" she asks gently, stroking her dark waving hair. This brings on another outbreak of sobbing. Persephone calms herself and says, "That is just the problem. This morning I was working in my garden, and Lady Aphrodite walked by. I know it was unkind, but I shrunk back and hoped she would not notice me. You know how she can be, telling you unpleasant facts about yourself that are naught more than distorted shreds of gossip, that 'she thought you knew, darling,'" Lady Hera nods, only too familiar with her most lovely relative's vindictive tactics toward anyone she feels rivals her place in the heart of all men.
"But she saw me, and told me. . !" Persephone breaks off, eyes bright with tears. "She told me that Hades had taken another woman!" She sobs and moans into her aunt's shoulder. "I just didn't want to believe it, but why would she lie about something as important as that? I suppose that it must be true, but I find it hard to believe Hades would do something like that to me! He knows how much I love him, so much my heart bursts from it, . . . d-doesn't he?" Hera feels melancholic. She can remember a time when she, too, sat in this garden and sobbed into her Aunt Tethys' shoulder, because she couldn't believe Zeus would be unfaithful to her, even though the physical proof that he was sat right in the throne room, laughing and smiling for all the world like it wasn't a demonic, filthy creature whose mother stole her husband. A simpler time, when she had all the faith in the world in her husband, and her heart, too, had burst with love. By now she has lost both love and faith, and look what it has made her: a rancorous, jaundiced ice queen. She cannot let Persephone go the same way. But then, she has been made this way, after millennia of infidelity, and Hades, simply by constraints of his job, doesn't have time to chase skirts. This is more likely than not a one-time thing. He'll cheat on her every few centuries, she'll flip her lid, but always, always, they will come back together. But now Hera has to phrase that without sounding uncaring or callous.
"Persephone, my dear, there are different levels of infidelity. This. . . event most likely happened only once, after your mother sent you to Olympus to keep him away from you. It's more than likely that he picked said woman simply because she reminded him of you. That could be classified as not even infidelity, because that woman meant nothing to him." Persephone looks a little more comforted, but starts back in, voice shrill with fear, "But what if he no longer wants a flower-bride he can only have half the year, what if he discards me, and takes a new wife? What could I possibly do?" " You would live here with us, of course, overindulging and being as mindless and crass as you could possibly think to be, and then we'd make her life a living nightmare." Hera promptly responds. This draws a startled burst of laughter from Persephone. "It's not in Hades' nature to abandon something he fought for, and you, my sweet, he fought for tooth and nail."
Persephone's eyes glow with worry. "What if he keeps me but is unfaithful to me every other week?" Hera strokes her nieces hair once more "It's happened to other women, and we aren't dead yet," she says dryly. "Something you must realize, sweetheart, is that to recognize beauty is deeply ingrained in Hades, and indeed, in all gods who descend from Uranus. Men are like two year olds. They see something shiny and beautiful and they instantly want it for their own. When thoughts of whoever the other woman is fade from his head, he will be ashamed. He will crawl to you, begging for forgiveness. Remember this above all, Persephone. No matter what it is about a woman that draws him to her, they are peasants and you are a queen. She can claim but a fingerhold in his mind, whereas you can claim his entire heart. The appeal of another woman will always be fleeting, and it will never last. Only your appeal is eternal. There will never be a time when he won't return to you." Persephone smiles, at last, asking softly, "You really think?" Hera smiles sleepily at her beloved niece. "I really know. Now come along," she sings out, helping Persephone off the ground. "We must go get you cleaned up before anyone else sees you, with tears staining your pretty face. You are much too beautiful to cry, my dear." Both women, Lady of Sky and Lady of Underworld, lean on each other as they walk, arms tangled around each other in a simple gesture of no-strings-attached friendship. Both women know that all will be right soon enough.