The Last Bite
Chapter Seven: Wishing
Disclaimer: I don't own the Greek myths and all that shindig
I am so sorry this took so long to update! My internet crashed and I just now got it back up so immediately I'm sending this to all of you who love this story! Speaking of which, thank you, thank you thank you for all the reviews! I hope this chapter answers some of your questions and such! Enjoy!
Although no one had told him about it, the god of the underworld had his sources; he knew that there was a meeting occurring up on Mt. Olympus. He just had no idea what it was about.
That was the problem with nymphs, he mused; they could never remember more than the bear minimum of information, their heads too wooden, too full of joy and love to think hard on anything else. Wasteful creatures, the bunch of them; it really was a no wonder that they loved Mt. Olympus, they belonged there.
Hades had never been a bitter man. Back all those centuries, millenniums ago when he had gotten the shortest straw and became the king of the Underworld, the place where the dead go, where all dies and darkness creeps, he had not been bitter. He had not let Zeus big plans and triumphant smirk get to him, had not let Poseidon's mocking get to him.
He had just went down to his new domain and started his job as the ruler without bitterness, envy, or any of those other ill emotions that people always thought him to be. He did have a bad temper at times, even he could attest to that, but beyond that…What reason had he to be jealous, to be bitter? He liked his cold shadows, he liked the seclusion. To be social a meaningless endeavor; to be full of wisdom, to know all parts of the world, to have control of power…that was far better.
So if he had it so much better in his cold dead land, why was he sitting in his throne now, glaring up at the ceiling and wishing, for the first time, that he could be up there among them in that perfect social setting, away from all the things that he loved. Because to be away from all of his wondrous darkness, all his countless riches, would mean that finally, at long last, he would be near her, the woman he was beginning to love above all of his dark land, all of his wisdom and wealth. He would trade them all in just to see her face, the face of his lovely Persephone.
He wondered how she was, sitting up there among those peacock gods and goddesses, and how they were treating her. And that was when he entered another phase he was unfamiliar with: jealousy. She was the fairest of all goddesses, in his opinion; certainly the gods would be ogling her by now, especially the messenger, Hermes. The blood began to burn in his veins at the mere thought of the boy. Before he had no reason to bear a grudge against Hermes, and now he definitely did. His rival in love…
It was still so odd to think that way, to think of love at all. Love had always been an area which had eluded him, among so many other happy things. His brothers, he knew, carried little affection for him; they only respected him for what he was, for what he controlled. They only respected him because he controlled the land all mortals feared and all gods loathed, the place where the moans of the dead echoed hollowly around, filled ones ears with the very essence of death. His home, so far from love…
When she had lived with him in his dark palace, her light, the sheer radiance of her, had driven off all thoughts, all feelings of death from the palace. She had made it into a place he hadn't really recognized, but enjoyed nonetheless. A place that he wanted always with him, as much as he wanted her always with him. To get rid of the darkness and fill it with her light, as she was doing to his soul, the hollow recesses of his heart. A palace once so barren slowly coming into the light…
Oh god, he was thinking of her again, thinking of her without meaning too. It had been happening too much lately, especially now, after she had met his eyes….
He was reliving it again suddenly, that stolen moment only a few minutes—or hours—ago, he in the shadow, she in the sun. That backwards glance over her shoulder, those lovely blue eyes, as clear as the sky he never really saw, burning into him, wide, inviting...
And that was what had gotten to him, what was still getting to him. Her eyes… They had held, as they met his own, as she beheld him, no traces of the disgust he had prepared himself to see, no traces of her previous anger towards him.
That anger… It seemed like ages ago, that brief conversation in the meadow of narcissuses that had gone so horribly wrong. She had wanted to see him, and he had insulted her, scared her away again, the poor lamb fleeing from the wolf. He still had not forgiven himself for that. He wished he could talk to her again, attempt to apologize, explain, but in his dark heart he could not find the will to hope.
Although…
His mind flashed back to that brief look, that one instant where he had seen her again, that gaze devoid of hate, of any emotion of ill will...
He could not understand it; wasn't she supposed to hate him? After all he had done to her, he deserved nothing less than her hate. Kidnapped her, forced her to be his bride, tried to trick her into staying forever…
He still regretted that, that pomegranate. Surely she had asked about it, and surely her mother would have given her the proper answer. A way for her to never leave, an eternal life with her held in the seeds of the blood red fruit that held such sweetness. That had been all he wanted, and everything she feared.
He still had mixed feelings about that pomegranate, what he had tried to accomplish from it, the result of her not eating it. In a way he was glad; if she had eaten that forbidden fruit than she would most likely hate him no matter what he did, forever cursing him to eternal damnation in the hell he ruled. And he simply would not have been able to bear that. Her anger at him in the meadow had been bad enough, and he was almost, in the slightest way, happy that she was angry at him, away from him. He simply could not trust himself around her.
Somewhere in the distance a soul was crying. He could hear the deep sobs that would tug at any mortal's heart; but he was no mortal. He sank down farther into his throne, into his thoughts of her—those delicious, forbidden thoughts—as the cries persisted, pressing a hand to his skull, to his cold forehead. Dead inside, dead outside, dead all around.
She probably hated it here, in this darkness among this screaming. Who wouldn't? She was the goddess of spring, and the Underworld was as far from spring as one could get. He had never blamed her for hating it; in fact, on some days when the cries went on for hours, when the flames hurt his eyes and the darkness grew too silent, he actually hated the place, felt like one of the mortals trapped here, preparing to face their fate, their punishment. But all of this was his punishment, and she was his worst punishment of all.
Sitting here, just pinning for her, still wondering what was happening far above him, through the earth, through the clouds, to the place in which he was forbidden. What was she doing? What was she wearing? Was she happy? Sad?
The questions never ceased, as loud and urgent as that far off cry of desperation, of despair. He couldn't know…
….Or could he?
A plan was forming, a risky plan borne from nothing but love. It blossomed in his brain like a flower in spring, and pulled at the edges of his mind, urgent, restless. There was a way…
But it was wrong, so wrong. If they didn't want him there, he shouldn't be there. But then, there were ways to be there, but be unseen…
The scream silenced as Hades stepped down from his throne and, with eyes sparkling like fire, left the room to retrieve the one thing that would bring him to her.
--
Persephone was frozen in her seat, and, she was vaguely sure, frozen in the chest. Her heart, immediately preceding the announcement, had simply stopped. She didn't know what she was feeling as applause rang out, as her mother's beaming face obscured her view of the grinning Zeus, the pleased looking Artemis, the interested Apollo. Everything was spinning suddenly, and she felt so miniscule, so lost within it all as she struggled to find her footing, to get past the barrier of her shock to just say what she felt.
…What did she feel?
Through roaring ears she heard the rest of the announcement.
"The challenge, gods, for Persephone's heart is not simple, I must admit. There are several tasks in which one must accomplish and these tasks can even make an immortal quake."
There were mutters of excitement, ripples of intrigue. Persephone felt as though she were sinking into an ever widening hole.
"The first challenge involves a special friend of mine," Artemis smiled, "A friend who never wishes to be caught. Arbela is a special sort of animal, a doe made of pure gold and fire. That is the first challenge."
More muttering, but this time Persephone could not hear it, her mind drifting at the word fire. Fire that leapt in a black castle, fire that smoldered in the darkest red eyes… Fire that heated the earth miles beneath it, with a god who possessed as much danger and intrigue as it did…
"And what's the second challenge?" Hermes spoke up next to her, and her thoughts of him were gone. A cold feeling seemed to grip her gut at the odd urgency she heard in Hermes voice, as though he couldn't be more intrigued…
"Patience, Hermes, is a virtue," Zeus laughed from his throne, "But do go on Artemis, what are the other challenges?"
"Well, there is only one more challenge after that, but it involves a great deal of work. For the last challenge, the god must seek out the Underworld and once there must steal, under Hades' own watchful eye, the prize he covets the most: his helmet of invisibility. Once the god has accomplished this, they must then use the helmet to steal some of Hades' riches and give them to the goddess Persephone as a gift, along with the helmet. After these tasks have been accomplished, the god may then take the lovely Persephone as a bride."
There was speaking again, shared ideas, looks of interest thrown at her, but Persephone was ignorant to it all. The moment they had said his name she had been lost; the challenge had involved, of all beings in this eternal world, him. It was so ironic, bitterly so; to involve her husband, the god who she was feeling strange feelings towards, the man who she had tried to escape from and now yearned for…
That was it, wasn't it? She yearned for him.
As her mother grabbed her hand and squeezed it in happiness, as the other gods and goddesses intently began to talk about their immortal lives, she could only think of him, only saw his face amid the masses, only heard his voice in the prattling of the others. Only him, only him, only him…
"Persephone?"
It was Hermes that drew her away from him, his voice a little too close to her ear. As she looked over with cold eyes she was startled by how close he actually was, how happily, how intimately, he was smiling at her. The alarm bells went off in her head before she even realized it.
"Yes, Hermes?" He flinched at the coldness of her voice, and she found that she could not feel regret. Hermes was her friend, but still… He was so uncomfortably close, and what he had said about Hades… Why did she find it so hard to forgive him for that?
"Persephone, I just wanted to let you to know that…I-I…"
But he never got to tell her what he had planned, for that moment Demeter interrupted as the meeting was adjourned.
"Persephone dearest, let us return home, I wish to garden some more before Apollo sets the sun."
Who was she to deny her mother? With legs that shook slightly Persephone stood, her eyes lowered to the ground as she felt the stare of many gods on her. She felt like a piece of meat as she followed her mother away from Mt Olympus, only vaguely aware of Hermes following them on his winged feet.
So many feelings, so many things she could not understand… She was suddenly yearning for the presence of the god of the underworld, the same god who had kidnapped her and forced her to be his bride. Didn't she have any sense left? He was crude, he was… He was completely in love with her…
She could never forget the way he used to gaze at her, even when he knew that she had hated him. It had been so loving, so adoring, that it had made her uncomfortable back then, but now, as a woman… She yearned for it.
She wasn't aware of Hermes and her mother conversing, didn't even see where she was walking. She only knew that miles under the ground she was walking on he was there, in all his dark eternal beauty. He was there…
She went straight to her room when she arrived home, not hearing Hermes calling her name, not seeing her mother's concerned look. She wanted to talk to Demeter, but she couldn't right now, not with her head so jumbled.
Challenges to win her hand… She fell on her bed with a groan. Why did all of this have to happen to her? And why… Why couldn't the gods realize that she already had a husband? At least… She liked to consider it that way. How had she gotten here? From despising the man to almost…maybe…
She couldn't say love, not yet. Persephone had never loved anyone but her mother, but that love was natural, something that just happened. But this kind of love, the love between lovers, between husband and wives… For just that, she almost wished she were considered a child again. For now she only knew that she wanted to see him, sometime soon.
She got up from her bed only to take from her wardrobe a small, flat flower, pressed between the pages of an old diary. The petals had lost their brilliance, but the color had not faded, a deep midnight blue, just as the scent of it, although lessened still remained. So lovely, her new favorite flower, the narcissus…
She laid back on her bed with it pressed to her heart and the taste of, oddly enough, a pomegranate in her mouth. Outside her window she watched the sky darken, and under the flower petals her lips curved into a smile. As soon as night fell, she knew what she would do; she wanted to see him, and she refused to be deterred, not now. She had to talk to him, had to tell him that…
That night, Persephone, with the flower on her heart did not think once of the upcoming challenges for her heart, but of the god who was already winning it.
Oops, hehe, another cliffhanger, sorry! But I will say that in the next chapter Hades plan will be revealed and you might just get to read his reaction to the challenge… And, of course, another meeting in the forest between the favorite couple! But yes, don't worry, I hope to update soon, hopefully by next week! Thank you for all that reviewed and just generally read this, you guys/ girls gave me the desire to write more! Thanks!