There was an error so I reposted this story (5/6)
This was a rather popular story I published in Japanese, so I thought, 'hey, why not translate it into English?'
So, here I am.
PS. I would ignore all requests that have something to do with 'translate this story' for obvious reasons. I'm not going around publishing stories that aren't my own, so go ask the authors themselves.
If you can read Japanese, go to ハーメルン. A lot of fanfics (including mine) are up there. I don't think I'll translate much unless this story is REALLY popular, which is unlikely with only one chapter lol. The translation is exhausting even if I wrote the words myself. ...Cultural phrases and so on...urgh.
Anyway, here we go!
Greek mythology.
It is a system of mythology that has had an immense influence on the creation of the modern world and is still vastly known and supported by a wide range of people from various cultures, among the past and present.
Among the three main gods of Greek mythology, there is one god that is treated most differently.
If Zeus, the mighty god of thunder and lightning, was the central point of Greek mythology, and if Poseidon, the champion of the oceans and the earth-shaker of the wild tides was his equal in everything but name, then Hades, the god of death, the master of gold, silver and treasure, the master of minerals and agriculture, and the king of the underworld, was in a sense, treated rather unfairly.
Yes indeed, he was shunned. He had powers that rivaled those of Zeus and Poseidon, and yet he had never once acted arrogantly or committed a single atrocity. He stayed in the depths of the earth, gave up his freedom, took charge of the strict selection of souls, and continued to silently fulfill his duty in the empire of the dead.
But then again, he was no different from the raging gods of Greek mythology. There were some things that Hades had forcibly acquired.
Persephone was one of them.
Persephone was the daughter of the great god Zeus and the goddess of fertility, Demeter. Her original name was the fair maiden Korē. She was a loving goddess who was worshipped as the true queen in the Greek heretical cult of Orpheus, where she was said to have the power to help the earth bloom, giving life to flowers and all life.
The most famous myth of Persephone is her "descent into the underworld," in which she was kidnapped by Hades.
Long ago, Persephone was living happily with her mother Demeter in Sicily when she caught the eye of Hades. Hades, weary of the dark and sorrowful underworld, immediately fell in love with the goddess of flowers, who was the brightest and most vibrant goddess on earth, and decided to take her to his domain as his wife.
Demeter wandered grievously in search of Persephone, and eventually learns from Helios, the sun god standing in mid-heaven, about the truth that Hades has taken her to his dreadful underworld, and went to Zeus to protest.
Zeus, however, declared that Hades, one of the kings of the three worlds, is not lacking and that the marriage is one that he has approved. Some say that Hades asked Zeus for permission before carrying out the abduction, and that the abduction itself was instigated by Zeus, but it mattered little to Demeter who was so enraged by this declaration that she hid in her palace, and the land, deprived of the grace of the goddess, became desolate and the people starved.
Meanwhile, Hades and Persephone did not get along well at first, and Persephone did not respond to Hades' gracious treatment.
But as the months went by, Persephone gradually warmed up to the cold king of the dead and opened up to his pure and kind attitude, and finally, just as Persephone was about to give her heart to Hades, Hermes arrived.
The winged messenger of the gods told her of the horrors that had befallen earth and thus, Hades reluctantly sends Persephone home.
It is said that Hermes recommended the pomegranates to Persephone, or that Hades, who wanted to keep Persephone in the Underworld, made her eat them, but the truth is not clear.
At any rate, if one ate food from the underworld, even a single bite, you were forced to live in the underworld as its dweller. This was the law of the gods. Hades and Demeter fought fiercely over what to do with Persephone, but finally, Hestia came up with a compromise: "Since she has eaten four of the twelve pomegranates, she must spend one-third of the year in the underworld."
While Persephone was away from the earth, Demeter grieved, and the earth became cold and desolate, and thus, was the beginning of winter. Every year, Persephone's return brought flourish to the earth, and she became to be known as the goddess of spring.
After this incident, Persephone became somehow even more attracted to Hades, and she loved and cherished the name Persephone, which Hades gave her, and acknowledged it as her true divine name.
The fact that Hades, unlike Zeus and Poseidon, was an incredibly faithful male god in Greek mythology standards was probably one of the reasons for their happy marriage. However, there still was one such story about Hades and his little affair with a nymph.
Persephone was so enraged with jealousy that she trampled down the nymph in question and turned her into an herb called mint, thus marking the first of its kind.
As you can see from this story, the two pillars were basically a happy couple, but Persephone was a very affectionate woman and had the characteristics of a modern-day Yandere.
When she and Aphrodite fought over a boy named Adonis out of maternal love, she was disappointed when Adonis said, "I would rather be with Aphrodite".
So disappointed, that she sent Ares to kill him without a second thought, gleeful that the boy shall now truly belong to her, and her alone. For eternity.
This myth, begins with Persephone's "If".
What if Caenis, one of the most beautiful women in the Greek world, begged Hades to give her an immortal body and the strength to defeat male heroes?
What if the gorgeous maiden seduced him with her buxom body, and he fell to her temptations?
What if, as a result, she became immortal and conceived a baby, and Persephone kidnapped the baby out of sheer jealousy?
It all starts from here.
-scary.
That was the first emotion the baby felt.
Pure fear, as if his flesh would tear and his very blood would freeze.
Stiffening himself, the baby opened his eyes thinly and saw the source of his fear.
"Oh, my God, oh, my Lord, O' child of sin! I hate you, I envy you, I pity you, I resent you!"
There, with bloodshot eyes wide open, teeth clenched, and long black hair trembling, was the Demon herself. The woman looked as if she was trying desperately to hold on to the baby in her hands, as if to prevent the infant from being crushed by her very own hands.
'Aha, ha, hahahaha! But, alas! Even though this child was born from the womb of a filthy whore, it is a boy who carries the blood of my beloved Lord Hades. I can't just kill him. ...!
The baby's mouth dropped open, and he shivered slightly. For some reason, the baby had some knowledge of Greek mythology (albeit fragments of them), a natural ability to understand Greek, and modern ethics that is common nowadays.
From this limited batch of knowledege, the baby reasoned and came to a conclusion about his current situation in a very rational and reasonable way.
'If I don't do something, I will be killed.'
The baby decided to take a gamble of a lifetime. He had no way of knowing that this gamble would twist his destiny, bend the world tree, and eventually alter the human race.
Therefore, he never reconsidered his decision.
"Mama!"
"... What?"
The underworld. The forbidden realm where the empire of dead reigns, a place where new life shall never ever sprout.
Therefore, it was only natural that Persephone, a woman who loves her husband deeply and desires a token of his love, to crave for a legacy of his as her own.
A legacy she would have never obtained, hindered by the very nature of her husband, never to give birth to a new life in his realm, thus, forever damned as a mother.
Her mad love and obsession with the beautiful boy Adonis were due to this sad and inevitable reality, and thus, tragedy was inevitable.
Yet, in her haze of fury, she hears a call, a word, that was never meant to be used in her presence.
"Mama!"
"... Aha! Ahahahahahahahahaha!"
Persephone shuddered and wailed, breathing hotly as if she were overcome with raging emotions, torn apart by her own destructive passion.
A spark of madness lit up in the chest of the loving goddess who was never to be called by her name, who was never to bear children in the future, and in the twinkling of an eye, she was emerged in Hellfire.
A 'crack' appeared on the face of Persephone, the chaste goddess who was never meant to bear children.
-Ferocious yet beautiful smile split across her face.
A crescent moon, ominous yet so very enticing. A smile of madness, a smile of love so deep, it bore insanity within.
'How ridiculous of me to be so troubled. Wasn't there a means of achieving both revenge and longing in these arms all along?'
The love-crazed Queen of Death laughed.
"I shall make that whore's baby into mine, inscribe my mark on it, and pour my blood into its veins! This child is not hers from this time forth! He is mine and yours, our child intertwined with the pact of divine blood! Now-"
She picked him up as if she were nursing a fragile creature on the edge of death and whispered in a gentle, loving voice.
"Come, come, little one. I swear to you. I swear it on the ancient river Styx, which flows through the land of my Dark Lord."
The Queen of the Dead kissed the newborn life and planted a holy vow on his head.
"Thou art my son. My legacy, my very own treasure of death. Thy divine name is..."
Persephone took a deep breath. With that, like a curse, like a blessing-
-The baby's fate was eroded and twisted by her own desires.
"Korēcres; Glory for Persephone."
Review, and I might update!
X-kalibuuur, over and out!