De Inferno Prægnanti
A/N (Edited as of 6/13/10): Partially written as a final project for my Classical Mythology class, and partially as a submission to Qoheleth's "The Great Malachy O'More FF Challenge". Edited to include contest rules, as can be noted directly below. Reviews are still appreciated as ever!
The Rules (as quoted from Qoheleth's profile): 'You may be familiar with a list of Latin phrases, generally two or three words long, that were ostensibly written by St. Malachy O'More as prophetic descriptions of every pope and major antipope from Celestine II to Benedict XVI. (For instance, Pastor et Nauta, or "Shepherd and sailor", is given as a description of Beatus John XXIII, God only knows why.) What I'd like to do is set up a writers' challenge: you contact me to express your interest, I will randomly assign you a motto, and you then have to write a fic that uses that motto as its title. What nature that fic takes doesn't much matter; it can be a story, a poem, or something else entirely. The only requirement is that it has to fit its title. (See my C2 archive for examples of how this can work out.)'
Disclaimer: I am not Greek, and I would most definitely never claim to have come up with the myth of Hades and Persephone. Due credit should go to the appropriate sources.
It was lovely, I suppose. This place, I mean. Not beautiful in the traditional sense and definition of beauty. It was darker, more…elegant. Perfect because it was imperfect. There was depth here; every shadow had layers.
I don't suppose many would agree with me. After all, it was the Underworld. Most people stopped at the name, didn't try to go beyond that. What else could there be? Death was death.
I frowned slightly at this thought. I didn't like to admit it, but I was slightly ashamed—not that I would ever tell him that—that I too had once thought like that. I didn't like to think that I was a shallow person.
Mother would have given me one of those smiles, the ones that irritated me. Fond, but half-amused, and half-exasperated. She always told me that I think too much, that I read too much into things. As if I were a toddler pointing out an imaginary friend, seeing things that weren't there.
"Kore," she said. "My daughter, you must understand that some things just are. There's nothing more to them."
Though I never did, I had always wanted to argue the point. Perhaps she didn't mean it the way she had said it, but somehow the idea seemed so…limited. How could things possibly just be? It had never made sense to me.
He had smiled at me too, when I said as much to him. But his smile was different than Mother's. It was thoughtful, as if he really was interested in what I had to say.
As if it were important. As if it mattered and meant the world to him.
Damn him. It was things like that that made it so hard to hate him like I should.
Fortunately for me, he seemed to have the unique capability of saying all the right things, and then ending them by putting his foot in his mouth. So his response, "You're absolutely right, Persephone. [Fond smile] I have indeed picked a worthy Queen for the Underworld," served to remind me of my righteous indignation.
Queen of the Underworld, indeed.
But he really did make it hard to despise him.
Mother said I was stubborn. He had merely grinned at me, shrugged, and then told me that he liked that about me. It, and I quote, "showed that I had personality". Mother said that I over-thought. He countered that I was compassionate.
I'll give him this. He certainly had a way with words. And his eyes, and the way he looked at me as if I was the only thing that existed. Like I was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
Which was ridiculous. There were plenty of other, more beautiful things than I in this realm.
He had given me a sad smile. Sad that I apparently couldn't understand. "Maybe so," he said in that quiet voice of his, the kind that commanded your attention, "But none of it is you, my dearest Persephone. Nothing ever could compare." His smile had still been wistful, but there was then a tiny hint of wolfishness about it. "And I will only ever want you."
He had made that only too clear from the beginning. He had lavished much on me, to prove that there was nothing—save the one thing that I wanted—that he was unwilling to give me. He had even taken me to see Tartarus upon my obstinate request, to prove his point.
My chambers had become quite familiar to me in the time I'd been here. They were at once both a sanctuary and the underline of the differences between this place and the one I'd left behind.
I could still smell it. The fresh air, with a tang of the sea, mixed with the sweet perfumes of the flowers. The heady smell of the sunshine on warm, dancing waves of grass. The cool scent of the refreshing shade beneath the tree canopies. The rich, earthy smell of the soft, flaky dirt.
In many ways, it wasn't all that different down here. True, there was no sun, nor the sea, but there were rivers. There were the Elysium Fields, filled with grass and trees and sweet scented air. There were gardens here, and the flowers just as lovely, if not lovelier, than those on the surface.
But it wasn't the same. How could I stay here? That's what I didn't understand. How did he expect me to stay here? How could it ever work? I was the Goddess of Spring; surely I would wilt like a flower without the sun. What made him so sure I could rule the Underworld by his side? The last time I checked, a spring goddess was a far cry from the Queen of the dead.
The symbol of this whole situation was sitting on a carefully positioned table, placed so that it was clearly visible from every corner, every angle the room had to offer. It seemed innocent, that silver bowl of fruit. Present for my own comfort, which under other circumstances I would have appreciated. I loved fruit.
With this fruit, however, there was just the tiniest problem that eating the food of the dead would bind me here for eternity.
The bowl of fruit on that carefully placed table, therefore, was just another of his attempts to lure me into temptation. And to top matters off, every time he entered the room and saw that the bowl had not been depleted in the slightest, he had the nerve to give me this slightly wounded look. As if I'd hurt his feelings.
Somehow, though, I don't get the sense that he expected any differently. But I suppose he couldn't suppress the hope. The hope that maybe, just maybe, I could accept him with time.
I wondered vaguely how he had known that I had a particular liking for pomegranates. Oh, I understood that he had watched me (it was stalking, and you and I both know it) for quite some time before my abduction, for he had never been one to act upon a whim. I knew that he had carefully timed and executed everything. But it did surprise me that he had managed to pick up the nuances of my behavior. No one had ever paid that close of attention to me before.
But this time, as I sat staring at that conspicuously placed bowl of pomegranates, this time was different. For how long had I waited, wished, yearned for rescue from this dark place? And now that the moment was finally upon me, I was hesitating. Requesting a moment alone to let it all 'sink in.' I had even addressed this room as my own, words I would never had realized had passed my lips until I caught the faint gleam in his eyes.
Damn it all to hell. Oh, wait, I was already there.
I had never felt so confused in my life, baffled at the betrayal of my own self. I did not want to stay here. I wanted to go home, and home was where the sun shone and the earth pulsed with life. I was Kore, daughter of spring. I should be happy. I was going to be reunited with my beloved mother again. I was leaving, and that was the end of it.
It therefore didn't make any sense that my heart was breaking. It didn't make sense that I was gazing around this room with fondness and nostalgia, with that funny little ache at the knowledge that I wouldn't be waking up to any of this tomorrow.
What on earth had he done to me?
I unfortunately knew that answer. He had wormed his way, centimeter by centimeter, into my heart, and now I was having a hard time dislodging him. The Fates had a really sick sense of humor. I hope you realize that, Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos! This isn't funny, because I'm not laughing!
If they had heard me, they would probably only have snickered at me. Hell, for all I know, maybe they could hear me, and they were having a quiet laugh amongst themselves. Silly Persephone. Comedic entertainment of the Underworld. I make the dread deities who live here chuckle on a daily basis.
That's what he claims that I bring to the Underworld. Light. I am meant to be the light in the dark. But if I'm the light of the Underworld, then what's going to be my light? That's my point of contention that he feigns not to understand. He pretends he doesn't get it because he knows that I'm right, and he just doesn't want to admit it.
I'm avoiding the issue at hand. I am leaving. On the count of three, I am going to get up and walk out of this room and go with Hermes back to the surface world. One, two, three…
And of course I don't move. Because I am just brilliant like that. My logic is so infallible.
I wasn't so naïve as to think he would just let me leave. He hadn't put up any resistance when Hermes had come marching down here, insisting that I return with him to my mother. But he hadn't gone through all that trouble of kidnapping me for nothing. I liked to think that I knew him well enough to know that he had something up his sleeve. That's why I would be on my guard, when I finally left this room and these ridiculous feelings behind.
Try and sneak up on me again, Hades.
The Underworld had an ominous silence about it. The darkness almost seemed to be a sentient being, with invisible, non-existent eyes following its master's footsteps. Everything from the pebbles of Tartarus to the blades of grass of the Elysium Fields seemed to be holding its breath. Even the eternally punished had paused in their labors, curiously listening.
He would not lose her. He was determined about that.
Sharp nails pierced. Blood-red beads welled up. Skin peeled back. Insides exposed, seeming to pulsate in the half-light.
Silence. De inferno prægnanti.