A/N: A random thing which popped into my head, after reading too much Greek Mythology. I thought of turning it into a retelling of the myth, but that's been done already, many times, by better and less busy authors than me, so here's your oneshot, and oneshot it remains. Reviews are welcome!
It started with the smell of lavender.
Hades had been standing in one of the many gardens splashing bright color amid the pale marble of his brother's palace, watching Persephone dance.
He, of course, was cloaked in darkness; the garden was unlit, and shadows had always flocked to him, but she… she was a creature of light, the girl who was called Kore, maiden. Dressed simply, in white, with a wreath of flowers resting on her golden head, flowers which were out of season at this midwinter council. Of course, when your mother was Demeter, your ornamentation was not limited to what grew on earth naturally.
She danced in the bright pavilion, whose walls were open to the dusk of mount Olympus, flitting from Apollo's arms into the embrace of Hermes and away again, young, beautiful as life itself, new and joyful as the spring. He stood in the dusk, tall, dressed in black, his angular, somber face that looked as if daylight had never touched it carrying a strange intensity. Hades watched the woman he could never have, and turned his gaze away only when the smell of lavender wrapped around him on a warm breeze.
"Aphrodite," he said, expressionless as always, acknowledging the goddess who now stood beside him. She looked up into his face, gorgeous blue eyes meeting the black gaze of the Lord of the Dead. She smiled, almost lazily. The subtle perfume remained, matching the purple of her dress.
"Hades," she said, inclining her head with polite grace. "You're out here all alone."
He didn't give that obvious statement a reply, but Aphrodite, as confident as she was tempestuous, was not discouraged. She smiled again. She was fond of smiling.
"Perhaps you dally here because someone is coming to meet you? A sweetheart, maybe? Come now, Hades, I am ever encouraging of romance."
He gave her a glare that would have made Hercules quake in his sandals, but there was the sound of light laughter from inside and he turned his head to see Persephone, her lips curled upwards in amusement, listening to a very attentive demigod who had just told her a joke. He felt a sudden longing to make her laugh like that himself.
"Ah," said Aphrodite softly, who missed nothing when others ventured into her divine jurisdiction, "So you're smitten with a girl? Young Persephone has melted some of the iron cold of the Underworld? I must admit, Hades, even I have sometimes wondered if you were capable of desire."
"You doubt the reach of love, you who are its patron?" Hades said coldly. She had provoked him into speech.
She did not rise to the bait; Aphrodite was having too much fun.
"All I am aware of is that you alone of all the gods have never cast a glance at me. From Dionysus to Poseidon, all others have looked at me with desire."
"Looked, and more," Hades murmured under his breath. He was not altogether fond of Aphrodite; she made him nervous, though he would never admit it. The dead have no need of lust, and so it holds no sway over them. He had though himself the same.
Aphrodite's huge, translucent eyes flashed suddenly with annoyance. It occurred to Hades, who hadn't until then been fully concentrated on the conversation, that calling the goddess of love a whore had not been the best idea.
"You do think yourself so aloof, my Lord," she said, her voice still calm and leisurely though there was an edge to it now. "So far above the rest of us here on Olympus, we who are preyed on by mortal passions. We shall see."
Then she smiled again, and it was almost as if the irritation had never been there.
"Farewell, my lord," she said. "I shall give your regards to Persephone."
Aphrodite walked away, the skirt of her gown swaying a little with her hips. She tossed a lazy smile back at Hades as she went.
Then the goddess of love was gone, back into the celebrations, and Hades was alone again, staring again with awe and longing at the lithe young figure dressed in white, his dark eyes following Persephone's dance.
He pushed aside the words of Aphrodite. She would forget about him. There were more interesting people to cause trouble for.
Hades had never been more wrong.
It is said, sometimes, that the reason the lord of the dead carried away Demeter's daughter to the underworld and unleashed endless winter and the grief of a goddess for the sake of love is because Cupid, Aphrodite's son, shot him with one of his infamous arrows.
It is not true. The lady of Cyprus needs no henchman to do her work, not in the delicate cases. All she needs is a little suggestion; a little pulling up of the human impulses present in everyone, a little reminding that being alone is not always a pleasant thing.
Even gods sometimes have human impulses.
A long time later, Hades would remember the smell of lavender whenever he thought of the night he first laid eyes on his wife, Persephone, who had long ago ceased to be called Kore.