Again, so so sorry for the wait. This isn't edited terribly well so I apologize for any errors in grammar, content, continuity...all that. So without further ado, the poem is the first bit of "The Soul's Expression" by Elizabeth Barret Browning.
With stammering lips and insufficient sound
I strive and struggle to deliver right
That music of my nature, day and night
With dream and thought and feeling interwound
And only answering all the senses round
Chapter 28
Hades.
Left in frustrated silence I stepped back out of the passage behind my throne. I couldn't help but smile to myself, Persephone was not bad. Not bad at all. Her first judgment, and likely one of the few she would ever have to make because of the Three Judges, went off stunningly: it was ironic, bittersweet for me, probably shocking for her. Yes, shock is what I read on her face. It was disbelief that she could slip so easily into her new role, one that typically demands unfeeling precision, but one that she brought just the right amount of personality to. I could still taste the seductive tinge of vengeance in the air, the perfect symmetry between crime and punishment in all its delicate intricacies. She wove all that into the very air I breathed without even realizing what she was doing to me. To Discord, rather. It was hard to remember that Discord was in the room; to rip my eyes away from Persephone's work would have left me bereft and incomplete. There was no doubt that she had talent. And what's worse is that she knows it now, maybe not the full extent, but she knows something—which she proved by denying me. As that excruciating ease increases and becomes natural to her, so will the control it takes to simply watch my wife.
I shifted my legs uncomfortably in my seat, crossing and uncrossing. This just won't do. She will have to give in soon. I'll see to it personally. Very personally.
Persephone.
Nyx and I, after a long catching up, were walking into the main hall, chatting animatedly about some fresh gossip I had missed out on during my stay with my mother, when I saw Hades stoop to pick up a large cream envelope. He examined the outside carefully without opening it, and then held it out at arm's length.
"What is he doing?" Nyx asked.
"As if I know what goes on in his head. He's my husband, to be sure, but verbose he most certainly is not," I said. "Wait, is that…?" A gold glint from the envelope caught my eye. "Hades wait!" I shouted across the hall. I recognized the gold circle of Zeus' seal stamped on the flap of the envelope and that could only mean important business. But Hades was already gathering an impressive fireball at his palm, and I didn't need the help of the maniacal gleam in his eye to figure out that the invitation was about to get it.
"Hades! Wait that's important!" I yelled, as I dashed across the hall. He didn't hear me, or more likely, he was ignoring me. Just in time, I reached up and shoved his arm and the fireball away from the message. "Ok, Ares, what's with the fire works?" I asked as I tried to snatch the envelope away.
He smirked and moved it quickly just out of my reach. "I already know what it is."
Arms directly overhead, I jumped up to grab the envelope, "Well then what is it?" My voice strained as I prepared for another jump. "Why do you keep doing that?" I asked, exasperated, "I just want to see what it says."
Hades just stood there, hand on hip, the other holding the envelope over my head, "If you want it, just take it," He snickered.
"Hades," Jump. "This is," Jump. "Ridiculous!" I huffed indignantly as he stood there and smirked an absurdly handsome smirk. If he wanted to play children's games, I would play children's games. I made like I was going to jump once more, wound up, and kicked him heartily on the shin. A small gasp and he bent down to hold his leg. On his way down I swiped the envelope. "Thank you darling," I smiled.
He grumbled under his breath as I started to read the message aloud.
Hades. Before you destroy this message like you did the last—which was not the least bit amusing—I ask you to read through it once. Or at least give it to your wife to read, and then do with it what you will. No fireballs. No dark energy. No swords either.
Put it down.
Nyx's tinkling laugh echoed across the hall, "Hades, I believe your brother is trying to tell you that you've become predictable after all these years."
Hades stood beside me and slid an arm around my waist, scowling, "What do you expect I'd do with an invitation from my dear brother?" he retorted to Nyx over my head. "Keep reading." He said, placing a kiss on the top of my head.
This time the greeting was amended: Persephone, I hope this reaches you well, regardless of your, situation, shall we say. I know that the past few months have been difficult for you and your mother, so to honor and congratulate you both, Hera and I have decided to hold a more official reception of your marriage.
It is to take place in three days time, with your consent of course. If I don't hear from you in one day I will send another invitation in hopes that it will not meet the same fiery end as this one.
Zeus
"That's really informal isn't it?" I wondered aloud.
"It's as close to asking permission as he'll ever get. That isn't an invitation really, he just wants to make sure the namesake of the party will show up again," Nyx commented dryly.
"…Congratulate you both…" Hades said, mostly to himself. "…Completely ignored me the husband…He still hasn't gotten over the nose incident," he mumbled darkly.
"Nose incident?" I asked turning to look up at his face.
"What are you going to tell him?" he dodged.
I made a mental note to ask about it later, "Do you want to go?" I asked. Hades gave me a look that told me I already knew the answer. "I'll take that as a no then." I said. He grimaced and I tossed a pointed look at him and traipsed over to Nyx and in my best sympathy eliciting plea, complete with heart-broken watery eyes, I cried "Nyx did you hear? I have no one to accompany me to my own reconciliation."
Her face was astonished as she exclaimed at Hades, "No!"
I sniffed, "Mm-hmm, It's true." I theatrically closed my eyes as I rested my head on her shoulder, except her small frame made her shoulders about a foot too low for me, "He doesn't seem to want me…"
Hades said something under his breath I didn't quite catch.
I continued, sighing, "And now I shall be all alone. Aphrodite will have a troop of the most beautiful attendants, handfuls of starry-eyed boys; Hera will have her entourage, and Athena is so used to being solitary that it only suits her that much more—so elegant and austere," I finished in a huff, "And then there will be me, looking as if I only came for the food, staggering off to find the saddest corner of the room to settle down with my drink. As if I married my drink…"
Nyx tutted, shook her head somberly, "Such a shame."
"Unless…" I stood abruptly, "Unless you were my date."
She searched the room for someone else and then jabbed a slender finger at her chest mouthing, me? It looked so strange to see Nyx playing along with me, making exaggerated faces.
I grabbed both her hands in mine and jumped up and down in mock excitement, eyes huge, "Oh would you please?! Please go with me," I shot a look over my shoulder at Hades who looked as if he was choking on something and turning a truly alarming shade of pale.
"I would be ecstatic, no, honored, floored, no no—overjoyed," my voice rose in crescendo, "Absolutely mad with happiness, pleasantly surprised even—"
"Alright, I'll go!" Nyx's clear voice rang out, "You've convinced me!"
And without one parting look to Hades, Nyx and I flew out of the hall. As we swept down the hall I swore I could feel Hades' eyes boring into the back of my head. A niggling feeling crept into my stomach and I indulged the nervous impulse to smile to myself. I felt like I was initiating a chase that could only end one way, the way a wolf lets a rabbit get a head start just to make things interesting. But if I left him hanging, waiting, getting a better jump than he anticipated, he might actually get mad. What fun that could be, I thought.
My body felt incredibly light as Nyx and I sprinted and spun around the last corner before my bedroom. Airy laughter sprung from the corners of my mouth but floated away as we continued our flight past my bedroom door. My slowing had put Nyx in the lead and now she was dragging me, to places I recognized at first but after several more twists, flights of stairs, turns and slopes I was completely disoriented.
After a time I thought my feet would never touch the ground again longer than the time it took to push immediately off. We skidded to a halt, Nyx with cultivated grace and I with passable balance, in front of an unassuming stone door. She opened the door and it was as though I stepped into a place that came into existence at precisely the same moment I did. And that connection in time through chance, or maybe fate, was rewarded with an uncanny likeness in spirit as well.
At first I imagined that the other side of the doorway sat somewhere in the upper world, but I knew that nothing like this could exist up there; this was too inhumanly beautiful, too coy and shadowy to exist anywhere other than the Underworld. I had come to accept its contradictions and inverted beauty, where my sunlight and richly colored butterflies seemed pale, grown numb to the sensation of terrible and dark magnificence. The shock of eyes adjusting to a suddenly dark room had long passed, but this place shook me. I had the strangest feeling I had been here before, and that I ought to remember at the risk of being very rude to someone I likewise ought to remember. I looked at Nyx inquiringly, mouth hanging open a bit. She only smiled and said, "Come with me, there's something you should see."
"But what is this? Where are we?" I asked, whipping my head this way and that, turning quickly as I could with Nyx pulling me down a thin crystalline path. It was an indescribable room. They were all here: the beginning, the end, time, space, love, hate, war, peace, like every great character from every human epic had leapt out of their pages to gather together in one place. Each strangely unfamiliar to one another, used to fitting comfortably in their own tales, but mutually acknowledging that this is and was their source. They hovered around like vapors, primordial suggestions of form floating through the snaking jasmine that covered an arching crumbled stone ceiling. I could barely see the path it was so overgrown with tangled flowering vines that seemed to come down straight from the top of the room like rain. Looking from side to side as we went I saw suggestions of color darting through the thick foliage, I slowed to get a better look but they stayed always in my peripheral vision. Nyx's grip tightened around my hand, "Hurry, would you?"
"But you still haven't told me why we're here! What is this place, what are those things that keep flashing around, wha—?" I stopped mid sentence at about the same time Nyx stopped, whirled around and abandoned her hold on my hand. We faced a deteriorating stone artifice unlike anything I had ever seen. Its arches were shaped like an inverted tear drops, one large in the center and two smaller ones on each side, each separated by a jagged downward spike. Through these arches was a raised stone court yard surrounded by chipped brown stone pillars. I imagined the effect was to make the space feel more open, but it only exposed the space to the lush exotic growth on the outside that pushed right up to the temple, threatening to swallow it up in only a few more wet seasons. A thick floral scent wafted down the wide, uneven steps beckoning us forward.
Nyx skipped lightly up the steps, turned around and motioned for me to follow. With trepidation, I stepped past the spikes, letting my fingers trail across them as I went. They were deceptively rough looking, and when I touched them, had I not been looking right at them, I might have guessed I was running my fingers over feathers. How strange, I thought, how strange this whole place is—I have this feeling that something is hiding here, something that even Hades doesn't know about. There was one more surprise waiting when Nyx and stepped out onto the court yard: I had failed to notice, or maybe they weren't there the last time I looked, but there were dozens of pristine white marble statues positioned around the courtyard. Alarmingly life like, I supposed at first that they were shades or some odd sort of nymph but they were far too imposing; or at least some of them were. I stepped up to the nearest one, the figure of a woman about my height, standing in a proud, warrior-esque pose that made me wonder if I even had enough pride in me to evoke half such a response in the people who looked upon me. Unconsciously I lifted my chin and pulled my shoulders back. She made me feel like a small child again even though she appeared to be about my age. Her eyes were staring at some distant goal, one that I fully believed she would have reached had she not been cast in stone, and since she wasn't looking I didn't feel quite so bad for touching her well-shaped arm. I jumped back; the stone was ice cold, the warmth of my fingertips caused them to bond slightly with the frozen marble so that it stung when I snatched my hand back.
I looked accusingly back at her, and said to Nyx, "These statues are frigid but it's so warm in here…"
"Oh they aren't all like that, Athena just has a sort of cold way about her" She responded airily, waving her hand at various other figures.
I squinted back at the statue lady, scrutinized her face more closely and realized that she bore an exact resemblance to the Goddess Athena. I liked Athena, she was the wise type, stern but kind. She actually reminded me a lot of Hades: they had the same quality in their gaze, as if they were literally reading between lines and through farce, seeing the truth directly and quietly, but Hades had more edge than she did. There was intensity in Athena's eyes, the statue's eyes anyway. It's tricky: telling the difference between the model and the real thing, I thought.
Reaching up, I ran the backs of my fingers against her cheek. They were warm! Faintly, anyway—in any case they were warmer than the frozen stone of her arms. I leaned in closer and touched the corner of her mouth, and for a split instant, so briefly it seemed falsely imposed on her face, the corner of her mouth inched upward in a smirk. I blinked and it was still gone. Either I was hallucinating or there was something odd going on here. I left Athena and approached another statue.
"Nyx come here!" I yelled. I wanted her to be here in case a statue moved again. It hadn't occurred to me that she would already know about this place, but I subconsciously assumed that she wouldn't tell me even if she did. Nyx was at my side by the time I reached the statue of a wilting young man holding a lyre, with his chin angled somberly downward and his hand supported by his collarbone, seemingly in the midst of reaching around to his neck.
"Orpheus?" I asked.
"Orpheus." She said.
"He isn't a God."
"No, but he, along with Apollo, has music in him. Feel for yourself."
Curious, I firmly placed my fingers over the hand near his neck, almost expecting it to be repelled by some invisible force. Instead I felt water, but thicker, smoother, definitely running. Just under the surface it felt like music was swimming around my fingers, past my palm and down his elbow where it rejoined. For a moment I shared what filled him up. Nyx pulled my hand away, but I was still mesmerized.
"It was so sad; it's everything that's ever made me cry." I whispered.
Nyx smiled gently, "He has that effect on people. I'm sure you know the tale."
I did. We moved on to the nearest statue, Nyx had apparently figured that I wouldn't simply let this drop. The next was the figure that I was familiar with: it was lion-esque and velvety beautiful. Her hand was placed suggestively on her hip, shoulder curved conspiratorially inward. The opposite hand was motioning come-hither, and her cheekbones lifted around sultry eyes. The momentum of my curiosity was rolling and without hesitation I touched her face. "Ow!" I yelped. The marble skin was on fire.
Nyx tsked. "That's what happens when you touch love too quickly. Aphrodite is rarely gentle with the rash."
My face was torn between a smile and a frown, and an idea struck me then. I laid my hand on her face again, this time much slower, more cautiously. It felt like the plush insides of a rose petal and was overwhelmingly sweet. "I think I may enjoy the burn better, Nyx." I remarked.
She smiled knowingly, "It's different for everyone of course."
"What about you? What do you feel when you touch Aphrodite?"
"When I touch love, or when love touches me?" she asked.
"What's the difference?"
She closed her eyes and gracefully placed her hand in Aphrodite's come-hither palm. A ripple swept over her delicate frame.
"What do you feel?" I asked, and then feeling a bit outspoken I added, "If you don't mind."
Eyes popping open to reveal deep dark irises she said, "Not at all. Her skin feels like sunshine to me." That was all she said before she passed by Aphrodite and moved toward the back middle of the court. I didn't understand what her response but I followed her, puzzled at how night's love could feel like sunshine.
Nyx called out to me from the back, "The statues rearrange for each person who enters here."
"Wherever here is," I mumbled under my breath.
She continued, "And I think there's something in the middle you might be interested in seeing."
I hurried toward the sound of her voice. When I got there I noticed that there was a distinct separation between figures in the outside of the ring and those on the inside. From the corners of my vision I noticed the grand figure of Zeus, the matronly figure of my mother, whom I made a note to examine later, and even the more remote figures of Hermes, Ares, Artemis and Eros. But my breath stood absolutely still when I came upon the two figures in the center. Nyx had drifted into the background and I was aware of none but them.
Closest, but with her back toward me, was the statue of a woman. Her face was turned over her shoulder, as if she was looking for something. I circled slowly around, feeling an eerie sense of familiarity increase as I went. One arm was extended down her side, fingers relaxed and waiting; the other was bent gracefully near her chest, palm facing the opposite direction of her face. The bottom of her robe seemed to be rippling out behind her, hinting at bare feet, the way it might if she was standing on a ledge. By the time I was at her side, I was certain I knew who it was: it was like looking into a mirror that refused to look back. This statue was a perfect likeness of me. I put both hands on her—my—face and traced the outlines of my nose, cheekbones and ears. But I didn't feel a thing. Disappointed, "I don't feel anything, there's nothing there, nothing in me: no love, music, strength. Why? Why do I just feel like stone?" I cried to Nyx.
But Nyx's voice did not answer me. Instead it was a voice that sent a warm shiver down my spine: it was a woman's voice, so ancient and sweet that it seemed to transcend the range of typical voice, human and god alike. "You haven't yet realized what you are, dear Persephone. To see yourself in a mirror, there has to be a reflection."
I looked at my face again. Her eyes were closed. I slowly turned my head to look at the source of the voice, and I knew instantly why I felt I should know this place. I had seen this woman in my dreams, or at least impressions of her. "Mother" I breathed.
She laughed softly, "That is what they call me." In my dreams I suppose I never saw her as a woman, sometimes she was the bone smooth bark and pale green leaves of a willow tree. But here in front of me, she looked young, much too young to contain such an ancient voice. She was long-limbed and unusually tall, with long pearl colored hair that had baby's breath tangled down its length. Her skin was a shade of sea foam green that made her wide, shallow set blue eyes shine.
"I've seen you before…" I whispered.
She nodded. I continued, "My mother told me you were—that we all…" I struggled for a moment. "She told me that you were the mother of us all. But if that's true, then why are you hiding down here?"
"I am called Gaia, and I know your mother," she gave me a wry sort of smile at this. "The age of my power has long since passed, my place is here now."
"I've been meaning to ask, since Nyx never seems to give me a direct answer, what is here, um, exactly?"
Her old soul seemed to peek through her smile, revealing the well used resolution of frustration at not being able to share the things she knew. I imagined I wouldn't get the answer I wanted from her either. She was present, and even responsible for the beginning of all things, and accordingly I presumed the possibility that I would get a simple answer was slim. She sighed and I knew I was right.
"Nyx and I are guilty of the same fault, forgive our tired old minds."
I had to laugh at this, if there were two words I found least fitting for Nyx they would be "tired" and "old."
"All I can say about this place," she motioned around the room, "is that it is beyond time, and beyond space. Each being that you see represented here has a representation in your world as what you might call an element."
"Like Love," I said, "and music."
"Indeed, but fear lives here as well, and hate, and vengeance, and jealousy." Suddenly she appeared several feet to my right, indicating one of the sculptures.
"H-how…"
"There are unpleasant things as well," she commented.
The sculpture she stood in front of was a likeness of Agony, one of the beings that I had only seen pictures of in books. Gaia's hand hovered over Agony's jagged frame, "These of course, are more recent additions to my collection: human inventions." She arched her fingers and seemed to shove the sir downward. Agony's statue crashed to its knees, hands clutching its frail chest, it face contorted and mouth drawn back in a silent wail.
I rushed over to it, "What did you do!"
She gazed down at me, trying to decide something. "Was I wrong?" she asked, narrowing her gaze.
She wasn't menacing but there was something behind her question. I didn't answer.
"Tell me Persephone, how do you make agony well? How do you resolve its pain?" she asked again.
"One cannot resolve the essence of agony," I clenched my fists, "but that doesn't mean one should send it further into itself—into agony."
Gaia smiled again, it did not make me feel any better, "Persephone these elements do not exist independent of each other. They may be statues here, but their dramas play out on your stage, anything but isolated."
Nyx startled me from my thoughts by leaning out suddenly from behind Ares' mighty sculpture, swinging lightly around using his bulging bicep to hang on to. "You understand this better than you know."
I turned back around to Gaia and Agony, but instead of Agony, there was a sculpture that I thought at first was an extremely warped tree trunk. To my immense shock, it was a sculpture of Discord in the thorny vine prison I had made for her to wear. "What then do you make of this?" she asked me.
I was nonplussed, "It is her punishment" I said simply.
"Are they different?" she watched me closely.
"Yes they are. By the nature of her being she wronged me, and by the nature of mine I wronged her. But you are a mother, a protector!"
A gleam came into her eyes, "You are half right!"
I was taken aback by the surge of energy she displayed. Her dignified reserve seemed to wash away as she ushered me toward another sculpture. "Close your eyes," she commanded. She led me to a sculpture, took my hands and said, "Prepare yourself, dear Persephone."
"For what?" I asked blindly. She didn't answer; she just placed my hands on the statue's face.
The instant my fingers made contact with the stone I felt my knees buckle and my head fall back but my hands were still firmly upon the face of the statue. I sucked my breath in hard as candlelight gold exploded behind my eyes, making me feel like I had opened them as wide as they would go—and it was warm, so warm that it started to burn and burn furiously. I felt like I was dying, like everything around me had faded to nothing and for the rest of time I wanted nothing more than to be consumed by this burning. My longing for it ran deeper and deeper until the gold melted through dusky lilac and violet into midnight blue and then black. Still I clung, without the heat I felt a euphoric cool. I had melted into ecstasy and was now revived; however inexorably connected I was to the stone my fingers were grasping for.
I had to open my eyes. I panicked, wanting to cut this feeling off, knowing intrinsically that if I let it come to its full height that I would never in my life experience anything that perfect again. I reached for the surface, and gradually, like feather light streams of gauze lifting off blind eyes, I rose.
I wrenched my hands free from the face and fell backwards onto the courtyard floor, heaving for breath. "What…" I panted, "…was that?"
Nyx helped me up and said, "See for yourself."
I looked to Gaia, who merely nodded. Cautiously, I stepped up to the towering figure that looked dark despite being made of pure white marble.
"Oh…" I whispered. The sculpture's head was inclined, looking slightly downward, and its left arm was away from his body, held strong but bent at the elbow, palm facing into the direction he was looking. The sculpture was an impeccably realistic portrait of Hades himself. His expression was stern but not cold, austere but not cruel, there was tension in his brow but no snarl on his mouth. I wanted to press my lips to the marble of his face, but had no idea what would happen if I did.
"He's beautiful" I said to no one in particular, "It's heartbreaking, even as a statue…" Then I noticed something looking back and forth between the statue of me and the statue of Hades: the palm Hades had facing inward was the opposite of the one my statue was holding up, and if he was to stand behind me…
Gaia and Nyx watched as I wedged myself into the open arm of the sculpture. Holding my breath, I let my hand graze his palm quickly, expecting exploding stars and shooting flames. When nothing happened, I matched our palms and looked over my shoulder to see his face, my fingers relaxed and waited. This time there were stars. Light shot from our joined palms and washed the entire courtyard in brilliant white and as it died down it left stars: shimmering little lights suspended in the air, and then they faded too. "What does that mean?" I asked, stepping slowly out from Hades' and throwing him an incredulous glance.
"You've got a reflection." Said Gaia, "…so now you have to go."
"Well what does that m—wait, what? Now I have to go?"
"Yes, I think you'll be surprised at how late it is once you return, if my guess is correct, Nyx?"
Nyx nodded, "Very late actually." She steered me toward the arches at the front of the courtyard and I walked with her, mouth opening and closing like a fish with something to say and no words to say it with. "But—why—when…" I stuttered. I broke from Nyx and sprinted back through the sculptures, hoping Gaia would still be there. I nearly ran headlong into her somewhere around the statue of Artemis, her grip on my forearms steadied me but she didn't remove it once I had my balance. Her pale blue-green hands looked strange holding my own white-ish skin. She said, "You see, you were half right: yes by your nature you punish, but by your nature you protect as well!"
Still confused, I quelled my other questions for now, "But how can I balance both?"
She grinned, "That's what you have to figure out. Now go! You have a power struggle to get back to." She winked at me.
I gaped like a fish again, "But will I ever be able to find this place again?"
Her face slowly fell into an expression of sadness, "If you need it you can, just wait."
Hades.
Where the hell is that girl.
