The Original Curse
Disclaimer: I do not own Once Upon a Time.
Summary: They disdained that which they did not understand, and feared it even more. And so they cast it away, banishing it to the deepest depths they knew, far away from Olympus. There was only one problem: there was no one to guard it and all the souls that entered it.
For this story, I'm not interested in getting all the facts of Greek mythology right. I just wanted to write a story with Hades from Once Upon a Time.
Chapter 1
The gods were immortal, and that meant life eternal, but that didn't mean they couldn't die. Certainly, very few things could kill a god, but those that could were feared by those gods of lesser character. In fact, anything associated with death was treated with disdain. It was such a mortal concept, such a human one. The majority of the gods wanted only to indulge in decadence, to eat, drink, party, and simply enjoy their eternal lives without having to worry about responsibilities or the world at large beyond what amused them.
Olympus and its inhabitants had not always been this way. There was once a time when Olympus had been a place where order reigned, and each god carried out his or her duty with care and precision. Over the centuries, however, the authority figures in Olympus began to lose themselves in their vices, retreating from the world, and neglecting their duties. They prompted the lesser gods to follow their example as well, lest they be deemed an outcast, or worse—forced to suffer the same fate as him.
In the beginning, many of the inhabitants were displeased with the way Olympus was being run, but none of them were brave enough to go against Zeus and his decrees. Especially since they knew what would happen if they spoke out, they could only follow the deity's examples. And so the glory of Olympus slowly deteriorated as its inhabitants' apathy increased.
It was the same argument they had had a thousand times, and he was truly loath to enter into yet another, but what else could he do?
"I can't live in the Underworld. It is the realm of the dead. If a living being stayed there long-term, it would upset the entire balance of the realm," Hades stated for the thousand-and-first time.
"Yes, of course you're right, brother," Zeus conceded.
"Yes, you stubborn idiot, it would—" Hades broke off and stared at Zeus in shock. His brother never agreed with anyone so easily. He was the type who always had to dominate an argument, even if he was clearly in the wrong. No, he must have misheard.
"What did you just say?" he asked, certain that Zeus would respond by telling him he was a god, he could live in the Underworld if the king of the gods demanded it, laws of nature be damned—or something along those lines.
"I said, you're right," Zeus repeated, much to Hades' confusion. Maybe his brother was finally coming to his senses a little. Well it was about damn time.
Feeling a little disoriented from shock, but determined to plow on, Hades said, "Good. Maybe now we can start to figure out a way to handle this problem."
"I agree. I trust I can leave this task in your capable hands?" Zeus asked. Hades thought he detected a hint of sarcasm in his brother's voice, but decided to ignore it, since they seemed to finally be making progress on this issue.
"I'll draw up some plans, but as I've said before, the most effective course of action in the long run is to slowly integrate the Underworld back into Olympus."
"We can discuss everything at tomorrow's meeting," Zeus said, then waved airily in Hades' general direction, indicating he was dismissed.
Hades glowered at his brother in annoyance, and had to consciously stop himself from starting an argument with Zeus. For one thing, it wasn't worth it. For another, if he did start an argument now, he wasn't entirely sure Zeus wouldn't actively impede all of Hades' efforts to solve their Underworld issue just to spite him. Sometimes, the bigger picture came before petty sibling rivalries. And so, Hades turned on his heels and left, smirking to himself as he heard Zeus' grunt of annoyance that he hadn't risen to the bait.
The next day saw Hades with a large scroll rolled up beneath his arm, returning to the great hall where his brother liked to hold council. When he entered the room, he noticed that Zeus was speaking with another person in low tones. They both sat at the long marble table that ran the length of the hall; Zeus was positioned facing his general direction; the other person sat with his back turned to Hades, but even turned away from him, Hades was able to recognize his brother Poseidon.
He glanced at his other brother suspiciously. Poseidon had never joined their discussions before. Why would he be suddenly taking an interest now?
Zeus' eyes flickered over to Hades and the conversation seemed to have come to a conclusion. He figured Poseidon was only there to see Zeus about a matter regarding his oceanic realm. Now that their business was concluded, he expected his other brother to leave and return to his underwater kingdom. However, as he stopped before the two gods, Poseidon gave no indication of leaving.
"Hades! I haven't seen you in ages!" Poseidon greeted.
"I saw you just at the turn of the century," Hades stated. "It hasn't even been a decade."
"Is that so? Well, what do you know…" Poseidon laughed halfheartedly. He made to pat Hades on the back before seeming to realize what he was about to do and his hand changed course to scratch his head instead.
Although he tried to hide it, the slight flinch on Poseidon's face was not lost on Hades, but he merely ignored his brother's less than subtle cover-up. It was nothing new. None of the gods touched him if they could avoid it. Some of them couldn't even handle being in the same room as him—not since he had been charged with watching over the Underworld. It was an occupation which required him to spend copious amounts of time around the dead, and every time he returned to Olympus after a period of time governing the souls in his realm, the rift between himself and the other gods only grew.
At some point, he discovered someone had replaced his proper title Lord of the Underworld and renamed him as the Lord of Death instead, as if he were the cause of that particular affliction, or had any control over it. Death was a force of nature all its own; he merely provided guidance for those it had claimed. He found the name a mockery of his duties and detested it. He suspected Zeus was the culprit, but his brother continued to deny it. Of course, that didn't stop him from using the address whenever he felt like annoying Hades. At least no one besides his brother dared use it in his presence—not after small tremors shook Olympus the one time someone was careless enough to let the name slip when addressing him. Still, he knew that was how they continued to view him in their hearts and minds.
Their treatment had been disconcerting, even hurtful, at first, but he had since grown accustomed to their unease. At any rate, it didn't do any good to dwell on these things. Not when there were more important matters at hand, such as the fate of the thousands of souls in his charge.
Moving over to stand beside Zeus, Hades took the scroll he had brought along and unfurled it onto the table before them. With a wave of his hand, four weights materialized to sit on the four corners of the scroll. Spread before them was an intricate diagram depicting the Underworld. Another wave of his hand caused the diagram to rise off the scroll and take on a three-dimensional form.
"This is the original Underworld, what we started with when it was carved out of Olympus." Hades pointed to the center of the image, which depicted a circular cavern several hundred feet underground at the base of the magical diagram. Included in this category was aboveground area over the cavern.
"These," he continued, gesturing to what appeared to be several tunnels sprouting from the central cavern, as well as the corresponding areas aboveground, "are the areas that we have had to attach onto the original. The souls entering my realm are increasing at a rapid rate, and soon I will have to add on even more extensions."
"I don't really see the problem," Poseidon commented. "Why can't you just continue building onto the Underworld to accommodate them?"
"Because the further these outliers are from the realm's core, the less stable they are. It takes an enormous amount of my magic to keep everything from falling apart, and I have had to remain there for longer periods of time each time I return. The last time I was there, I was unable to leave for fifteen years."
"That isn't so bad. I've been underwater for decades at a time. You're just upset because you never wanted this job in the first place."
"No…" Hades ground out. "I may not have wanted to oversee the souls of the dead, but I take my duty seriously."
Poseidon shrugged. "So what's the problem with spending a few extra years down there?"
"Your situation is different. Your domain is still a part of the living world. Mine was meant to house the souls of the dead for eternity. For a living being to spend years there—decades—it would upset the balance of the natural order. If the realm had been allowed to stay in its original location, the natural magic of our home would have facilitated the Underworld's growth as needed, and I would have been able to govern my domain and its inhabitants without upsetting the natural balance. This realm was never meant to be separated from Olympus."
Hades stared pointedly at Zeus as he said all of this, but the god of the skies seemed unperturbed.
A small smile crept its way across the god's face as he said, "Well, Hades, you'll be happy to know that I have given this problem a great amount of thought, and I think I've found the perfect solution."
"Zeus thinks you should kill off a few thousand of the mortals, that way it'll slow down their population growth." Poseidon blurted out. Zeus shot him an annoyed look, probably for stealing his thunder.
Hades was speechless. Turning to Zeus, he said, "You can't be serious."
"They're mortal. They die," Zeus responded. "A couple decades sooner or later hardly makes a difference."
"Think about it, brother," interjected Poseidon. "Yes, there'll be an influx of souls now, but it'll slow down the rate at which the population grows for a few generations. It wouldn't even be that hard. You could cause a few earthquakes; that ought to take care of a couple hundred; and I could create a couple of floods if you wanted—"
"Enough!" Hades exclaimed. "We are not going to massacre hundreds—possibly thousands—of people."
"But—" Zeus placed a hand on Poseidon's shoulder, cutting off his protest.
"You see, Poseidon? Didn't I tell you? I knew he wouldn't agree to that strategy. Which is why I have already come up with an even better one."
Hades was about to ask what this so-called perfect solution was, but suddenly felt a crushing pressure attacking him from all sides at once, binding his limbs and threatening to crush his ribs with their force.
"What is going on?" he gasped out. He struggled against the binding both magically and physically.
"He's strong. I don't think I can hold him long," Poseidon said, voice slightly strained.
"Well, we'd better get on with it, then," Zeus responded.