I lived a blessed, uneventful childhood, only ever at my mother, Demeter's, side on Olympus; that is, until I came of age. Hermes, Ares, Apollo, and Hephaestus... they'd all showered me with gifts, as I grew to adulthood. Mother didn't like that, she never wanted to have me spoiled; I was hers, and hers alone. I never wanted it different. She hid me, and I lived a peaceful life, far away from the other deities, a goddess within Nature itself before the days of planting seeds and nurturing minding my own, picking flowers with the Nymphs, Leucippe and Oceanids, in a field in Enna, The Unseen One, Hades came to abduct me, bursting through a cleft in the earth, and pulled me to his Underworld, leaving the living one behind. Life came to a standstill as mother, goddess of the Earth, searched everywhere for her lost daughter. Helios, the sun, who sees everything, eventually told Demeter what had happened. Finally, Zeus, pressed by the cries of the hungry people and by the other deities who also heard their anguish, forced Hades to return me to the Living lands. However, it was a rule of the Fates that whoever consumed food or drink in the Underworld was doomed to spend eternity there. Before I was released to Hermes, who had been sent to retrieve me, Hades tricked me into eating pomegranate seeds,my favorite fruit, forcing me to return to the underworld for a season each year. When Mother and I were united, the Earth flourished with vegetation and color, but for some months each year, when I returned to the underworld, the earth once again became a barren realm... And whilst in the Underworld, I was reluctant to be the wife of Hades, Determined to remain only his bride.