Epitaph Empress
Author's Note: I updated! Thank the Gods! To all my reviewers: I'M SO SORRY! I didn't mean to abandon this idea. I feel so low! It's just that I've begun work on my very own novel, so naturally, I haven't had hardly any time for fanfiction. I've been so excited about writing a novel - and still am! - that I almost forgot all about this! The updates are now going to be more few and far between, because I'm throwing myself into my original work, but I'm really going to try and finish this off. I hate to leave stuff half-finished! Please, if I start slacking again, feel no qualms about sending me a brigade of e-mails telling me to update; it'll give me the kick up the backside that I deserve.
Epitaph Empress
Chapter IX
Persephone no longer possessed tears to shed. The loneliness was a presence, like a pallid stillborn baby still floating like a dead leaf within her womb, its kicks cold and harsh. She could feel it draw its frozen bony hands over her heart and slowly crush it within its grip of iced shadows and impenetrable gravity.
The festering grip of frozen loneliness also possessed dark Hades as he gazed with love and longing upon the object of his affection. His heart ached and writhed to see her so small, so sad. She crouched like a lost child, her rich earthly locks spilling over her sweet face, reddened by tears and marred by defeat. His heavy-lidded eyes gazed at her mournfully, tinged with despair; eyes as black as the abyss that he had belonged in until now, were bewitched by the sight of her. She was still so beautiful, so tearful!
He felt such love fill him, such a desire to ease her pain and such a longing for her to ease his own pain. He saw a desperate reflection of his own loneliness and solitude in her. Suddenly, he felt so very low. But why? He would be kind to her, had his own sufferings not made him deserve her?
He wanted nothing more than to give her comfort, to earn a look of kindness from her, to make her feel better. He only wanted her happiness. She had refused him, rejected him and he had never felt more alone or repulsive. He longed for the strength of will to return her, to give her what would make her happiest of all but his iron will dissolved into nothing once his eyes of blue shadow fixed upon her. He could not relinquish her. Her beauty still entranced him and suddenly a burst of wild hope would consume him and the Lord of the Underworld would dare to dream that such a fine goddess could one day look upon him not in fear, anger and disgust but with gentleness and love. It was too thrilling a possibility to risk by returning her. Surely, in time, she would love him?
She sat, her skin drained of colour and fleeting dreams and replaced with an ivory pallor, her thick hair - gloriously dishevelled, as though he had run his cold hands through her locks - draping her shoulders with such warmth and depth to its texture that it resembled a warming cape. Her eyes shone a glorious green still. Her lithe young body, one that had just crossed the innocent outskirts of childhood into the first tender paces of womanhood was trembling as she held herself fiercely in protective rapture. She was so moving and bursting with life and heart, even when overwhelmed by the passive darkness of his dreary domain. Her mouth shook with indignant, terrified passion as she sat, quiet and still, like a slumbering earthquake, natural and sinless but with movements that could shake and stir a small patch of the earth. Her small hands occasionally clasped each other for strength over her shaken heart in a fleeting movement that made his heart burst.
Even in darkness, out of her own element, she was not diminished in his eyes. She was still beautiful and all the lovely goddesses he had laid unfeeling eyes upon paled to dim figures against the radiant reality that was Persephone. So mournful she was, so lost and splendid that he could help but be melted to such tenderness, despite how her words of refusal wounded him. Her beauty was like a naked candle in a twilight room and in that still moment, Hades could not have looked away had his immortal life been at stake.
She knew that look, that wide-eyed look of wonderment. She could not comprehend why he stared at her so. She was only Persephone. There was little to stare at. She had nothing no other goddess possessed, the were fully-formed and young, as was she. So why did he stare at her so?
Yet his look unnerved her and made her more uncomfortable than she ever had in her life. She remembered with a chilling shudder how he had once reached out to her and touched her hair, his long fine fingers so close to her face. . . She pulled her arms closer over herself, huddling in the reflection of his darkness. She wished he would not give her those looks. She did not need to meet his gaze to know what would be in his eyes, how he would try to hide with shame how he stared so stunned, burnt and wide-eyed, like one struck down by lightning. Sometimes by accident her face would turn around to look upon him, as though her eyes were being pulled without hope or resistance to his face. Her eyes would meet his and she would feel her disgust melt away into pitiful confusion and how the look of the growing warmth in his eyes at such a look from her would freeze her, akin to Medusa's gaze. She was certain she felt her reluctant limbs stiffen into stone as they shared a look, a look that frightened and worried her deeply. It was not right.
Always she would tear her mesmerised eyes away, with revulsion and anger would well up within her once more. How could he look upon her so warmly and yet not give in to her pleadings? She did not need to see his face to know the look he would wear as she tore his filthy form from her sight. He looked like a madman whose moon had been taken away. Such looks were not right and she wondered, both curious and repelled, why he looked upon her in such a fashion.
Wondering about another being helped erase the dark a little, like a shot of light. It aided in shunning the cold of her surroundings and eased that crushing feeling of being so very alone.
She had been left within the main hall, where shortly, she was to be wed. Hades reclined rigid and stony with his soulless throne, inviting her to take her rightful place at his side, attempting in vain to comfort her and trying - even more so in vain - to guide her vulnerable spirit towards his reasoning. She refused to look upon him, freezing him out, shutting all warmth away in the tightest regions of her heart. She needed the warmth for herself; she needed to protect it from the hungry darkness all around her. She sat upon the sharply cold slate of the floor, ignoring her dark suitor completely.
She no longer felt like herself, like the child she was. She felt that the stain that had washed over her features, now so pale and fearful, would never be completely removed. She wished everything would revert to the way it once had been. She didn't like feeling the way she did; abandoned and alone without her mother to draw warmth and love from. She didn't want any of this to happen. The abhorrent darkness of this terrible world crushed her own light with ease and without that and her mother's influence, she felt so very weak.
Shivers danced down Persephone's spine as she crouched, knees drawn up in a tight ball, as if trying to create a shell to protect her from all that was happening around her and lull her with false security. Yet it could not duplicate warmth. She was trapped; alone and terrified in a dank prison built from hulking slabs of shadow. She was alone, abandoned, forsaken by the light. She now dwelt in a kingdom of nightmares and loss. A thick globe of fear rose within her chest, constricting her. But more than the fear lay anger, surging forwards and propelled by the sense of complete betrayal that thwarted her well-known nature of love and forgiveness. If love could be as vile and sickening as it was in deathly, treacherous Hades, if it could cause as much heavy, thick misery, if it had the power to shatter her ideals of light, life and happiness and destroy the one bond she treasured more than anything, then she couldn't bring herself to want any more to do with the false, double-edged blade that the feeling was. She felt all her beliefs crumble apart, leaving only pitiful rubble in its place. She was alone and torn. She could almost feel where her skin could've split, could almost hear the hissing shriek of the split. She had nothing to draw comfort from, not even her old ideas of love.
Except his cursed love.
She could barely bring herself to gaze at him. She was loath to look up him. There was the one who had snatched her away from all she held dear, who had betrayed her and had forced a wedding upon her. The shadows glided and slid down shivering walls with imperious grace; Hades' shaded servants making the preparations for a marital ceremony. Already, it was clear that any attempt to escape would be thwarted, that those still shadows would be charged with black energy and enchain her before she had the chance to reach very far. Still she felt overbearing frustration at not even trying, however doomed the attempt would be. Surely it would be better than doing nought? She would not wed him, she vowed. She could not.
She felt a sudden surge of hot anger penetrate her: how dared he do this? What right had he to encase her in his vast, dark tomb, kingdom of nightmares and despair? How could anyone bring such misery upon another so knowingly? She longed to hate him.
Any other that experienced as much grief, as much shock from being ripped away from all they knew and love to be imprisoned in an ever-shrinking cage of all she despised may have wished for death. But she could not. She was already dead, dead in heart and spirit. Death did not grant oblivion or release, all it granted was what already surrounded and choked her. What she longed for was not death, but life. She wanted to live.
She wanted her mother. She wanted to go home. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg. She wanted to demand. She wanted to run away. She wanted to lash out. She wanted to see some sunshine. She wanted to feel some life.
All that existed here was repulsive to her, cries of despair that robbed all courage from her and consumed her with dread and panic filled the echoed silence instead of cries of laughing joy, warm and radiating with light. She had been so accustomed to the soft scent of flowers but now all that reached her nose was the repugnant stench of decay, of old rock harbouring cold cave waters and that lingering hint of fresh corpses. She had loved life, had simply rejoiced in the freedom that it gave, had been overjoyed to simply be alive and to be able to bask in sunshine. Now, there was no life. All that was here was the aura of something powerful enough to destroy life and crush happiness without mercy.
She gazed outside a window, a window that had been created for her, as the dark Lord Hades had no interest in gazing upon his kingdom but had fancied that she, with her devouring childlike curiosity would find such expansive views pleasing. She gazed forth with weary eyes, scanning with renewed horror at the kingdom that was shortly - too shortly! - to become her home. The castle, perched upon mountainous rocks of gaudy gold, was of dark rock, with unknown depths, shaded cloisters harbouring one terrible vision after another, halls where the mould of a shadow could well be some horrific demon, nightmarish chambers, terrifying towers, tortuous turrets, staircases leading to doom after doom, dungeons filled with unimaginable torment and dark recesses that were nothing more than one abyss. All was shrouded in perpetual darkness and heavy shadows that slunk after every moving creature, haunting their steps, straining to push a little further out of the darkness to snatch the next unlucky figure and drown them within their agonising depths of heartless, total black.
The sight of it was the most frightening thing her naïve eyes had ever beheld. The entire place of death seemed to howl through her soul of an unspeakable anger and loneliness. It reached deep within her, brushing against her soul, burning deep black welts into it. No matter where her eyes - once as bright as deep green forests caressed by stray sunlight, now muted to the dying green of struggling grass during a harsh storm - turned, she could never release her mind of the sight of it.
The sight of the kingdom beyond the castle of unreachable and irredeemable shadow was far worse. It was a desolate land of little more than upturned gravel. Persephone almost wished for the skies to be the playing ground of a black tempest of unimaginable fury that scarred and scorched the sky and earth - at least it would be a show of life. As it was, there was no storm. Only a terrible stillness. The air was stale and putrid, with rare sounds to break its stagnant stillness, like that was of a puddle that was more thick mud than water. All she heard was the sound of her own heart thumping and the ragged sounds of her own breathing, crushed by the bosom of the burgeoning night. It was too still, with too many unexplored reaches that betrayed all the torments of the Underworld and too many wandering ghosts and above it, forever hovering through the liquid litany of unlit space was the eternal darkness without edge or form.
The pallid rivers of the Underworld flowed on cast crag and ravine under a sky of freezing rock and lead. There was no big, blue sky that played and frolicked with large and friendly clouds, no wild breezes to kidnap loose strands of her long hair and no large beaming sun to bathe her in kind light nor a wise moon to whisper and weave its rich love upon a sleeping earth. All there was the jagged onyx and grey dank rocks and walls, full of trapped flotsam and jetsam, that formed a huge cave, gaping and impenetrable, a prison. It formed a false sky canopy that slurped against the castle's battlements and creaked against the darkness. There were no woods or flowers, only fields of waste.
The heavy knowledge then hit her with its full force - these fields of waste, crawling with the moans of lost souls was all she would ever have. She would never again see flowers. She would never again see joy. She would never again see the sky. She would never again see the sun. She would never again see life. She would never again see her mother.
Everything mixed into grey.
It was too much.
She stood up proudly, her small body rigid and determined. At her move, Hades also rose from his throne with the graceful movement of a rising shadow. His features first warmed with concern and then hardened and froze as he guessed her motives. He raised an eloquent eyebrow as he gazed upon her, his look soft rather than crushing and suffocating, as it had been moments before.
A question dripped from his lips. "What is amiss, Persephone?"
Her green eyes glowed with determination. But she did not answer, her icy silence - so difficult for her to mimic and master in order to face him - was a defiance.
"Persephone?" He questioned further, keeping her name hot and fresh on his lips as if by repeating it he possessed it and her.
"I am not yours." She said quietly, speaking her thoughts aloud.
"Persephone, I offer you all. I offer you my realm, my riches, my throne and my heart." He said.
"But I want none of it. I want nothing that you have so generously offered. I find your dark and deathly realm fearsome and abhorrent and I want it not. I have no love of riches or jewels an want them not. I have no desire for the power a throne offers and I want it not. And your heart. . .tender a it may be, it is corrupt and has caused me nothing but pain. I want it not and would not wish the gift of such a heart upon any goddess."
She spoke her words with crushing sincerity and his face contorted suddenly, flinching in response. It was a small gesture, subtle and instantly repressed but she had caught it. She suddenly felt an awkward pity for her captor but refused to surrender. A terrible prospect began to burn viciously in the mind of Hades. She could very well hate him. It was an idea to be feared more than anything.
His voice was controlled. "What do you want, my lady?"
"Lord Hades, I only want what you have taken from me. Please. You do not understand how much I need the light, how all my world is made complete when I see the blossoming of a new flower. And you know not how I suffer - I shared a bond with my mother and now it has been shattered upon my entrance into this dank domain. I am alone! I am alone and afraid here!"
His voice was soft. "You are not alone."
Her voice was caught with a sudden flare of feeling as she cried out, "You are not listening! I am alone! I do not have my mother! You cannot comprehend what it is to lose her as if she never were, to always have another by your side and to suddenly be utterly alone! I feel less without her, as if I am a mere shell, without her warmth I am incomplete and hollow and it tears me apart in ways you cannot imagine as it is to bring myself to look upon a lifeless world. You do not understand."
"I know the feeling of alone. I know what it is to love."
Raw anger burned with a green flame within her soaring eyes. "How dare you? How dare you speak of my love like you have experienced love like mine? You have never known such a love and cannot miss it!"
His voice quietened to low determination. He could not let her leave. Not now that she was here. He loved her.
"Will you not release me, even if I must beg you?" she pleaded.
"You are my only warmth." His voice with edged with despair and love. "You are my only dream. I love you."
His words hurt her to hear but still she tried to push past them. "If you love me, then why am I not happy? Why do I feel so cold?"
"Sweet Persephone -" he began.
"Nay, say nothing. I love you not, my Lord. There will never be joy in this; only pain. You cannot wed an unwilling bride for a marriage outside of love is no true marriage. There would be no hope of your feelings ever being returned and we would both be trapped. If you love me, then release me. I do not want to be a part of your dream."
"You do not understand how I adore you. You are all I have ever longed for! I love you as the shadows love this castle."
"If you release me, I shall admire your courage and strength of will always. I invite you to wander out into the sunlight and I can show you all I love. I would do that for you were you to let me be free from this cage. I can teach you in the ways of the flowers and the big sky. You can learn to dance and be free. Please. Please, let me go. We will both wither here. Please, I cannot bear to remain here any longer. I want to go home."
The childlike sincerity in her kindness was even more striking in her kindness than in her rebuke of him. For a moment, he quailed and his face softened towards her.
"Please. . ." she begged, blinking back what had the potential to become tears. She did not want to cry in front of him.
He considered. How terrible would it be to return her? He loved her - how could he stand being so cruel to her? Every inch of her misery was like a dagger in his heart. He envisioned her looking upon him in kindness in the sunshine, how brightly she shone in her own element. He could do it, it was not too late. . .
"My Persephone. . ."
Interrupting, a shadow servant slithered into the frigid hall with careless disregard for the debate within. Its voice was not a voice, but the sound of torn material rustling against the cold floor, forming letters and audible words.
"Lordship. Ladyship." It whispered, its voice creaking against the silence. "The Chamber of Promises is prepared for the marital ceremony. We await you patiently."
It changed Hades, that one moment, those few words. He awoke to the truth that he had Persephone now, ready to become his bride. Why should he give her up now? He wanted nothing but her happiness. He would prove her wrong, he would show her how he could make her happy. He could not give her up. He could not relinquish her to the light, not now that he got to be so close. How could anyone give up their only light? Always she was there inside him, eating away and now he had a change. She could be his. She would be his one dream.
Persephone noticed the chilling change in his fine features and it sent a cold wave of raw fear washing over her, drowning her in surmounting dread.
Hades' voice was low and decisive. "It shall be done. We shall arrive presently."
He turned away so she did not have to see the look of betrayal in her face, to the growing warmth get stamped out and erased by hurt. He did not want to see her look as if he had struck her, as though he had flung the deepest heart she had revealed back in her face. He did not want to see the resigned despair, the hope that he had crushed. Nor did he wish to see how her eyes had filled with hope for him, the belief that he could be brought back to the light, destroyed. He did not want to see himself become a monster in her eyes.
"Please," her voice entreated, hoarse and on the verge of tears, "do not do this."
He lowered his guilt-filled eyes. "I am sorry." He whispered.
It was done.
At Hades' command, the shadows swarmed around her, weaving their magic upon her muddied and damp gown of pristine white. She felt their influence make her gown flux, move and change form as their power flowed around her in a serpentine tango, spangling her body with meteor dust as they wove a new gown for her. Their breath as they chanted their shadowy conjuration felt like a thousand butterfly wings flapping against her skin. She shut her eyes tightly to block it out. She did not want them to take her gown. Not her white gown, the one her mother wove! Anything but that! She did not want that taken from her too! She trembled but made no move against them. There was no hope no. No matter how she struggled, the Lord Hades would be triumphant. She had no heart to battle this newest violation of her identity as the Daughter of Spring.
She the darkness retreated, she realised they were in another chamber altogether. This circular chamber was small and secluded, the floor magnificently tiled with black and white, making beautiful shapes and patterns as the darkness and the light gently wove into each other. A peaceful blue light illuminated the room, casting it in a pale glow not entirely different to moonlight. Other than the floor, this chamber was plain and nondescript, apart from the small altar in the centre of the chamber.
She gazed without awe upon her gown of shadows interwoven with dusk and night's rich raptures. It was created from the finest and softest of materials and was heavy and long, trailing behind her like a perpetually cast shadow of her own. It glittered with devastating blackness, consuming and wild as the bleakest of nights. It flowed, clinging to her, dictated by her softly curved feminine form, glittering with onyx gemstones, each one reflecting a million minuscule facets of light that covered it in a pattern that suggested flowers. The arms and shoulders of the magnificent gown was also laden with jewels; black sapphire and black pearls, set in ornate frames of dark gold. Her hair, now looking richer and softer than ever, had been built up, braided and twined in more jewels.
It was nothing like the simple dresses she was accustomed to. She was glorious, a true creature of night and wealth in such a masterpiece.
She hated it.
She felt nauseous.
Hades looked at her helplessly. She was magnificent. The green of her eyes sparkled the more against the shrouded black of her great garb and he felt his awe of her expanding with every gaze. Even garbed in black, painted with darkness, she shone with the uniqueness of the light. She was every inch a queen, whether or not she was willing to admit such a thing.
"You shine like the sun, my lady." He said, shocked into sincerity by her loveliness. "Come," he beckoned, leading her, his powerful arm linked in her own dainty arm "fear not what lies beyond."
She knew too well and was full of fear. They were to be wed. She was about to marry the darkling Hades. She struggled as vigorously as she had upon first entering his shrouded realm, but she was too uneasy with the weight of this alien gown for her protests to be of any consequence.
"I shall not be yours!" she cried, but to no avail. "You may be bound and promised to this body in matrimony, but it will not be me. It will not be me!"
He dragged both their bodies upon the carved altar and forced her to stand upright next to him, his grip on her like frozen iron. It was only desperation that pushed him forwards, that drove him to selfishness. He tried to block out her struggles. Soon, it would all be over and they would be wed. He kept his arm around her waist and held her to him so she could not break free.
The room groaned with the music of a thousand voices and it reduced Persephone to trembling silence. She could not win. She was certain she saw three haggard faces stare at her in the corner of her eye. She froze. She remained still, knowing the Fates were watching.
Hades spoke, his voice ringing strong and true with imperial dignity and the grandeur of the God that he was.
"I, Hades, eldest son of Cronos and Lord of the Underworld do decree that I have selected Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Goddess of Spring as my bride. Before the Fates and all the powers that bind the man and the woman I do with all my power bind myself to my chosen and do bind her to me in marriage. Everlasting love shall reign as I take Persephone as my Queen, to hold her by my side for all eternity. This I pledge."
He turned to Persephone, placing his chilled hands on her shoulders reassuringly and gently turning her to face him. He spoke again, his voice gentle and tender. "With a kiss, I do bind us as King and Queen and do honour the one I love with my realm, my wealth, my throne and my heart."
He was hesitant, unsure as he leaned in to kiss her and bind her in marriage. It was a moment he had burned for - to be the husband of Persephone and to finally be able to touch those soft, young lips with his own. He looked into her eyes, suddenly vulnerable. Would she accept his kiss? He was caught up in a feeling both sickening and thrilling; the nervousness and fear mixed with the hope and anticipation of being able to kiss her, to be able to taste her lips, her love, her light. . .
Persephone was gripped with dread, a dread that robbed her of movement, like a mouse in the presence of a snake, knowing that the snake it there and that it is dangerous, yet being too afraid to run. She felt the terrible anticipation make a tide of nausea rise within her. Her body was rigid as he neared her and began leaning in closer and she remained as taut as a bowstring. She did not relax but only became more tense and fearful. This was something others did, not her. She did not want this. She screamed inwardly to move or struggle or cry out but fear robbed her of the ability to do so and all she could do was watch, powerless to stop it.
He leaned in closer until their lips were mere inches away. Persephone was terrified. At the last moment he paused, again unsure, fearful for both of them. But the moment was too delicious for him to delay, their breath was intermingling and her ripe young lips were too close for him to bear to resist. And so, gently, he completed the distance between them in a tender kiss. She did not respond, but remained inert. He demanded nothing, his kiss as chaste as ice. It was enough. It was paradise. It was Persephone. Her lips were as warm and soft as his were cold. Persephone. . .now his radiant Queen. As their lips touched, the chamber blazed momentarily with light, then diffused. It was done. They were bound by marriage.
He withdrew and saw her, still rigid, almost lifeless, her eyes empty of light and joy. A single tear slid down her cheek, leaving a stain like a snail's path down her creamy face. Hades was suddenly overcome with shame. What had he done? Why had he wed her when she had begged so much? How could he have put himself above the one he treasured above all things? A tide of remorse swept over him but it was too late. He reasoned, nothing could change it now - why not leave things as they were? She would be happy in time.
Gently, he escorted her outside, as a doorway appeared in the shadows. She walked with him without resistance, mute and stunned. She had been married. He had betrayed her. She was led alongside her new husband to an obsidian balcony that overlooked the entire Underworld. She gazed in horrified awe at the parody of a kingdom that lay below her. It was disgusting. No life, now plants. Only death and nothingness. She fell off the edge of despair and into the abyss, her last hope extinguished with that icy kiss that bound them.
Hades took her hand in his own and proclaimed, his voice penetrating throughout the Underworld, "Behold Persephone. Behold your Queen!"
Suddenly, waves of voices, croaking and despairing in death rose in a monotonous chant, each more powerful than the last, until the final wave of voices reared up in a frenzied tempest of lifeless celebration, roaring with all the souls of the dark realm rose and crashed upon Persephone's ears, speaking the one word she never wanted to hear.
Queen.
Author's Note: I updated! Thank the Gods! To all my reviewers: I'M SO SORRY! I didn't mean to abandon this idea. I feel so low! It's just that I've begun work on my very own novel, so naturally, I haven't had hardly any time for fanfiction. I've been so excited about writing a novel - and still am! - that I almost forgot all about this! The updates are now going to be more few and far between, because I'm throwing myself into my original work, but I'm really going to try and finish this off. I hate to leave stuff half-finished! Please, if I start slacking again, feel no qualms about sending me a brigade of e-mails telling me to update; it'll give me the kick up the backside that I deserve.
Epitaph Empress
Chapter IX
Persephone no longer possessed tears to shed. The loneliness was a presence, like a pallid stillborn baby still floating like a dead leaf within her womb, its kicks cold and harsh. She could feel it draw its frozen bony hands over her heart and slowly crush it within its grip of iced shadows and impenetrable gravity.
The festering grip of frozen loneliness also possessed dark Hades as he gazed with love and longing upon the object of his affection. His heart ached and writhed to see her so small, so sad. She crouched like a lost child, her rich earthly locks spilling over her sweet face, reddened by tears and marred by defeat. His heavy-lidded eyes gazed at her mournfully, tinged with despair; eyes as black as the abyss that he had belonged in until now, were bewitched by the sight of her. She was still so beautiful, so tearful!
He felt such love fill him, such a desire to ease her pain and such a longing for her to ease his own pain. He saw a desperate reflection of his own loneliness and solitude in her. Suddenly, he felt so very low. But why? He would be kind to her, had his own sufferings not made him deserve her?
He wanted nothing more than to give her comfort, to earn a look of kindness from her, to make her feel better. He only wanted her happiness. She had refused him, rejected him and he had never felt more alone or repulsive. He longed for the strength of will to return her, to give her what would make her happiest of all but his iron will dissolved into nothing once his eyes of blue shadow fixed upon her. He could not relinquish her. Her beauty still entranced him and suddenly a burst of wild hope would consume him and the Lord of the Underworld would dare to dream that such a fine goddess could one day look upon him not in fear, anger and disgust but with gentleness and love. It was too thrilling a possibility to risk by returning her. Surely, in time, she would love him?
She sat, her skin drained of colour and fleeting dreams and replaced with an ivory pallor, her thick hair - gloriously dishevelled, as though he had run his cold hands through her locks - draping her shoulders with such warmth and depth to its texture that it resembled a warming cape. Her eyes shone a glorious green still. Her lithe young body, one that had just crossed the innocent outskirts of childhood into the first tender paces of womanhood was trembling as she held herself fiercely in protective rapture. She was so moving and bursting with life and heart, even when overwhelmed by the passive darkness of his dreary domain. Her mouth shook with indignant, terrified passion as she sat, quiet and still, like a slumbering earthquake, natural and sinless but with movements that could shake and stir a small patch of the earth. Her small hands occasionally clasped each other for strength over her shaken heart in a fleeting movement that made his heart burst.
Even in darkness, out of her own element, she was not diminished in his eyes. She was still beautiful and all the lovely goddesses he had laid unfeeling eyes upon paled to dim figures against the radiant reality that was Persephone. So mournful she was, so lost and splendid that he could help but be melted to such tenderness, despite how her words of refusal wounded him. Her beauty was like a naked candle in a twilight room and in that still moment, Hades could not have looked away had his immortal life been at stake.
She knew that look, that wide-eyed look of wonderment. She could not comprehend why he stared at her so. She was only Persephone. There was little to stare at. She had nothing no other goddess possessed, the were fully-formed and young, as was she. So why did he stare at her so?
Yet his look unnerved her and made her more uncomfortable than she ever had in her life. She remembered with a chilling shudder how he had once reached out to her and touched her hair, his long fine fingers so close to her face. . . She pulled her arms closer over herself, huddling in the reflection of his darkness. She wished he would not give her those looks. She did not need to meet his gaze to know what would be in his eyes, how he would try to hide with shame how he stared so stunned, burnt and wide-eyed, like one struck down by lightning. Sometimes by accident her face would turn around to look upon him, as though her eyes were being pulled without hope or resistance to his face. Her eyes would meet his and she would feel her disgust melt away into pitiful confusion and how the look of the growing warmth in his eyes at such a look from her would freeze her, akin to Medusa's gaze. She was certain she felt her reluctant limbs stiffen into stone as they shared a look, a look that frightened and worried her deeply. It was not right.
Always she would tear her mesmerised eyes away, with revulsion and anger would well up within her once more. How could he look upon her so warmly and yet not give in to her pleadings? She did not need to see his face to know the look he would wear as she tore his filthy form from her sight. He looked like a madman whose moon had been taken away. Such looks were not right and she wondered, both curious and repelled, why he looked upon her in such a fashion.
Wondering about another being helped erase the dark a little, like a shot of light. It aided in shunning the cold of her surroundings and eased that crushing feeling of being so very alone.
She had been left within the main hall, where shortly, she was to be wed. Hades reclined rigid and stony with his soulless throne, inviting her to take her rightful place at his side, attempting in vain to comfort her and trying - even more so in vain - to guide her vulnerable spirit towards his reasoning. She refused to look upon him, freezing him out, shutting all warmth away in the tightest regions of her heart. She needed the warmth for herself; she needed to protect it from the hungry darkness all around her. She sat upon the sharply cold slate of the floor, ignoring her dark suitor completely.
She no longer felt like herself, like the child she was. She felt that the stain that had washed over her features, now so pale and fearful, would never be completely removed. She wished everything would revert to the way it once had been. She didn't like feeling the way she did; abandoned and alone without her mother to draw warmth and love from. She didn't want any of this to happen. The abhorrent darkness of this terrible world crushed her own light with ease and without that and her mother's influence, she felt so very weak.
Shivers danced down Persephone's spine as she crouched, knees drawn up in a tight ball, as if trying to create a shell to protect her from all that was happening around her and lull her with false security. Yet it could not duplicate warmth. She was trapped; alone and terrified in a dank prison built from hulking slabs of shadow. She was alone, abandoned, forsaken by the light. She now dwelt in a kingdom of nightmares and loss. A thick globe of fear rose within her chest, constricting her. But more than the fear lay anger, surging forwards and propelled by the sense of complete betrayal that thwarted her well-known nature of love and forgiveness. If love could be as vile and sickening as it was in deathly, treacherous Hades, if it could cause as much heavy, thick misery, if it had the power to shatter her ideals of light, life and happiness and destroy the one bond she treasured more than anything, then she couldn't bring herself to want any more to do with the false, double-edged blade that the feeling was. She felt all her beliefs crumble apart, leaving only pitiful rubble in its place. She was alone and torn. She could almost feel where her skin could've split, could almost hear the hissing shriek of the split. She had nothing to draw comfort from, not even her old ideas of love.
Except his cursed love.
She could barely bring herself to gaze at him. She was loath to look up him. There was the one who had snatched her away from all she held dear, who had betrayed her and had forced a wedding upon her. The shadows glided and slid down shivering walls with imperious grace; Hades' shaded servants making the preparations for a marital ceremony. Already, it was clear that any attempt to escape would be thwarted, that those still shadows would be charged with black energy and enchain her before she had the chance to reach very far. Still she felt overbearing frustration at not even trying, however doomed the attempt would be. Surely it would be better than doing nought? She would not wed him, she vowed. She could not.
She felt a sudden surge of hot anger penetrate her: how dared he do this? What right had he to encase her in his vast, dark tomb, kingdom of nightmares and despair? How could anyone bring such misery upon another so knowingly? She longed to hate him.
Any other that experienced as much grief, as much shock from being ripped away from all they knew and love to be imprisoned in an ever-shrinking cage of all she despised may have wished for death. But she could not. She was already dead, dead in heart and spirit. Death did not grant oblivion or release, all it granted was what already surrounded and choked her. What she longed for was not death, but life. She wanted to live.
She wanted her mother. She wanted to go home. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to beg. She wanted to demand. She wanted to run away. She wanted to lash out. She wanted to see some sunshine. She wanted to feel some life.
All that existed here was repulsive to her, cries of despair that robbed all courage from her and consumed her with dread and panic filled the echoed silence instead of cries of laughing joy, warm and radiating with light. She had been so accustomed to the soft scent of flowers but now all that reached her nose was the repugnant stench of decay, of old rock harbouring cold cave waters and that lingering hint of fresh corpses. She had loved life, had simply rejoiced in the freedom that it gave, had been overjoyed to simply be alive and to be able to bask in sunshine. Now, there was no life. All that was here was the aura of something powerful enough to destroy life and crush happiness without mercy.
She gazed outside a window, a window that had been created for her, as the dark Lord Hades had no interest in gazing upon his kingdom but had fancied that she, with her devouring childlike curiosity would find such expansive views pleasing. She gazed forth with weary eyes, scanning with renewed horror at the kingdom that was shortly - too shortly! - to become her home. The castle, perched upon mountainous rocks of gaudy gold, was of dark rock, with unknown depths, shaded cloisters harbouring one terrible vision after another, halls where the mould of a shadow could well be some horrific demon, nightmarish chambers, terrifying towers, tortuous turrets, staircases leading to doom after doom, dungeons filled with unimaginable torment and dark recesses that were nothing more than one abyss. All was shrouded in perpetual darkness and heavy shadows that slunk after every moving creature, haunting their steps, straining to push a little further out of the darkness to snatch the next unlucky figure and drown them within their agonising depths of heartless, total black.
The sight of it was the most frightening thing her naïve eyes had ever beheld. The entire place of death seemed to howl through her soul of an unspeakable anger and loneliness. It reached deep within her, brushing against her soul, burning deep black welts into it. No matter where her eyes - once as bright as deep green forests caressed by stray sunlight, now muted to the dying green of struggling grass during a harsh storm - turned, she could never release her mind of the sight of it.
The sight of the kingdom beyond the castle of unreachable and irredeemable shadow was far worse. It was a desolate land of little more than upturned gravel. Persephone almost wished for the skies to be the playing ground of a black tempest of unimaginable fury that scarred and scorched the sky and earth - at least it would be a show of life. As it was, there was no storm. Only a terrible stillness. The air was stale and putrid, with rare sounds to break its stagnant stillness, like that was of a puddle that was more thick mud than water. All she heard was the sound of her own heart thumping and the ragged sounds of her own breathing, crushed by the bosom of the burgeoning night. It was too still, with too many unexplored reaches that betrayed all the torments of the Underworld and too many wandering ghosts and above it, forever hovering through the liquid litany of unlit space was the eternal darkness without edge or form.
The pallid rivers of the Underworld flowed on cast crag and ravine under a sky of freezing rock and lead. There was no big, blue sky that played and frolicked with large and friendly clouds, no wild breezes to kidnap loose strands of her long hair and no large beaming sun to bathe her in kind light nor a wise moon to whisper and weave its rich love upon a sleeping earth. All there was the jagged onyx and grey dank rocks and walls, full of trapped flotsam and jetsam, that formed a huge cave, gaping and impenetrable, a prison. It formed a false sky canopy that slurped against the castle's battlements and creaked against the darkness. There were no woods or flowers, only fields of waste.
The heavy knowledge then hit her with its full force - these fields of waste, crawling with the moans of lost souls was all she would ever have. She would never again see flowers. She would never again see joy. She would never again see the sky. She would never again see the sun. She would never again see life. She would never again see her mother.
Everything mixed into grey.
It was too much.
She stood up proudly, her small body rigid and determined. At her move, Hades also rose from his throne with the graceful movement of a rising shadow. His features first warmed with concern and then hardened and froze as he guessed her motives. He raised an eloquent eyebrow as he gazed upon her, his look soft rather than crushing and suffocating, as it had been moments before.
A question dripped from his lips. "What is amiss, Persephone?"
Her green eyes glowed with determination. But she did not answer, her icy silence - so difficult for her to mimic and master in order to face him - was a defiance.
"Persephone?" He questioned further, keeping her name hot and fresh on his lips as if by repeating it he possessed it and her.
"I am not yours." She said quietly, speaking her thoughts aloud.
"Persephone, I offer you all. I offer you my realm, my riches, my throne and my heart." He said.
"But I want none of it. I want nothing that you have so generously offered. I find your dark and deathly realm fearsome and abhorrent and I want it not. I have no love of riches or jewels an want them not. I have no desire for the power a throne offers and I want it not. And your heart. . .tender a it may be, it is corrupt and has caused me nothing but pain. I want it not and would not wish the gift of such a heart upon any goddess."
She spoke her words with crushing sincerity and his face contorted suddenly, flinching in response. It was a small gesture, subtle and instantly repressed but she had caught it. She suddenly felt an awkward pity for her captor but refused to surrender. A terrible prospect began to burn viciously in the mind of Hades. She could very well hate him. It was an idea to be feared more than anything.
His voice was controlled. "What do you want, my lady?"
"Lord Hades, I only want what you have taken from me. Please. You do not understand how much I need the light, how all my world is made complete when I see the blossoming of a new flower. And you know not how I suffer - I shared a bond with my mother and now it has been shattered upon my entrance into this dank domain. I am alone! I am alone and afraid here!"
His voice was soft. "You are not alone."
Her voice was caught with a sudden flare of feeling as she cried out, "You are not listening! I am alone! I do not have my mother! You cannot comprehend what it is to lose her as if she never were, to always have another by your side and to suddenly be utterly alone! I feel less without her, as if I am a mere shell, without her warmth I am incomplete and hollow and it tears me apart in ways you cannot imagine as it is to bring myself to look upon a lifeless world. You do not understand."
"I know the feeling of alone. I know what it is to love."
Raw anger burned with a green flame within her soaring eyes. "How dare you? How dare you speak of my love like you have experienced love like mine? You have never known such a love and cannot miss it!"
His voice quietened to low determination. He could not let her leave. Not now that she was here. He loved her.
"Will you not release me, even if I must beg you?" she pleaded.
"You are my only warmth." His voice with edged with despair and love. "You are my only dream. I love you."
His words hurt her to hear but still she tried to push past them. "If you love me, then why am I not happy? Why do I feel so cold?"
"Sweet Persephone -" he began.
"Nay, say nothing. I love you not, my Lord. There will never be joy in this; only pain. You cannot wed an unwilling bride for a marriage outside of love is no true marriage. There would be no hope of your feelings ever being returned and we would both be trapped. If you love me, then release me. I do not want to be a part of your dream."
"You do not understand how I adore you. You are all I have ever longed for! I love you as the shadows love this castle."
"If you release me, I shall admire your courage and strength of will always. I invite you to wander out into the sunlight and I can show you all I love. I would do that for you were you to let me be free from this cage. I can teach you in the ways of the flowers and the big sky. You can learn to dance and be free. Please. Please, let me go. We will both wither here. Please, I cannot bear to remain here any longer. I want to go home."
The childlike sincerity in her kindness was even more striking in her kindness than in her rebuke of him. For a moment, he quailed and his face softened towards her.
"Please. . ." she begged, blinking back what had the potential to become tears. She did not want to cry in front of him.
He considered. How terrible would it be to return her? He loved her - how could he stand being so cruel to her? Every inch of her misery was like a dagger in his heart. He envisioned her looking upon him in kindness in the sunshine, how brightly she shone in her own element. He could do it, it was not too late. . .
"My Persephone. . ."
Interrupting, a shadow servant slithered into the frigid hall with careless disregard for the debate within. Its voice was not a voice, but the sound of torn material rustling against the cold floor, forming letters and audible words.
"Lordship. Ladyship." It whispered, its voice creaking against the silence. "The Chamber of Promises is prepared for the marital ceremony. We await you patiently."
It changed Hades, that one moment, those few words. He awoke to the truth that he had Persephone now, ready to become his bride. Why should he give her up now? He wanted nothing but her happiness. He would prove her wrong, he would show her how he could make her happy. He could not give her up. He could not relinquish her to the light, not now that he got to be so close. How could anyone give up their only light? Always she was there inside him, eating away and now he had a change. She could be his. She would be his one dream.
Persephone noticed the chilling change in his fine features and it sent a cold wave of raw fear washing over her, drowning her in surmounting dread.
Hades' voice was low and decisive. "It shall be done. We shall arrive presently."
He turned away so she did not have to see the look of betrayal in her face, to the growing warmth get stamped out and erased by hurt. He did not want to see her look as if he had struck her, as though he had flung the deepest heart she had revealed back in her face. He did not want to see the resigned despair, the hope that he had crushed. Nor did he wish to see how her eyes had filled with hope for him, the belief that he could be brought back to the light, destroyed. He did not want to see himself become a monster in her eyes.
"Please," her voice entreated, hoarse and on the verge of tears, "do not do this."
He lowered his guilt-filled eyes. "I am sorry." He whispered.
It was done.
At Hades' command, the shadows swarmed around her, weaving their magic upon her muddied and damp gown of pristine white. She felt their influence make her gown flux, move and change form as their power flowed around her in a serpentine tango, spangling her body with meteor dust as they wove a new gown for her. Their breath as they chanted their shadowy conjuration felt like a thousand butterfly wings flapping against her skin. She shut her eyes tightly to block it out. She did not want them to take her gown. Not her white gown, the one her mother wove! Anything but that! She did not want that taken from her too! She trembled but made no move against them. There was no hope no. No matter how she struggled, the Lord Hades would be triumphant. She had no heart to battle this newest violation of her identity as the Daughter of Spring.
She the darkness retreated, she realised they were in another chamber altogether. This circular chamber was small and secluded, the floor magnificently tiled with black and white, making beautiful shapes and patterns as the darkness and the light gently wove into each other. A peaceful blue light illuminated the room, casting it in a pale glow not entirely different to moonlight. Other than the floor, this chamber was plain and nondescript, apart from the small altar in the centre of the chamber.
She gazed without awe upon her gown of shadows interwoven with dusk and night's rich raptures. It was created from the finest and softest of materials and was heavy and long, trailing behind her like a perpetually cast shadow of her own. It glittered with devastating blackness, consuming and wild as the bleakest of nights. It flowed, clinging to her, dictated by her softly curved feminine form, glittering with onyx gemstones, each one reflecting a million minuscule facets of light that covered it in a pattern that suggested flowers. The arms and shoulders of the magnificent gown was also laden with jewels; black sapphire and black pearls, set in ornate frames of dark gold. Her hair, now looking richer and softer than ever, had been built up, braided and twined in more jewels.
It was nothing like the simple dresses she was accustomed to. She was glorious, a true creature of night and wealth in such a masterpiece.
She hated it.
She felt nauseous.
Hades looked at her helplessly. She was magnificent. The green of her eyes sparkled the more against the shrouded black of her great garb and he felt his awe of her expanding with every gaze. Even garbed in black, painted with darkness, she shone with the uniqueness of the light. She was every inch a queen, whether or not she was willing to admit such a thing.
"You shine like the sun, my lady." He said, shocked into sincerity by her loveliness. "Come," he beckoned, leading her, his powerful arm linked in her own dainty arm "fear not what lies beyond."
She knew too well and was full of fear. They were to be wed. She was about to marry the darkling Hades. She struggled as vigorously as she had upon first entering his shrouded realm, but she was too uneasy with the weight of this alien gown for her protests to be of any consequence.
"I shall not be yours!" she cried, but to no avail. "You may be bound and promised to this body in matrimony, but it will not be me. It will not be me!"
He dragged both their bodies upon the carved altar and forced her to stand upright next to him, his grip on her like frozen iron. It was only desperation that pushed him forwards, that drove him to selfishness. He tried to block out her struggles. Soon, it would all be over and they would be wed. He kept his arm around her waist and held her to him so she could not break free.
The room groaned with the music of a thousand voices and it reduced Persephone to trembling silence. She could not win. She was certain she saw three haggard faces stare at her in the corner of her eye. She froze. She remained still, knowing the Fates were watching.
Hades spoke, his voice ringing strong and true with imperial dignity and the grandeur of the God that he was.
"I, Hades, eldest son of Cronos and Lord of the Underworld do decree that I have selected Persephone, daughter of Demeter and Goddess of Spring as my bride. Before the Fates and all the powers that bind the man and the woman I do with all my power bind myself to my chosen and do bind her to me in marriage. Everlasting love shall reign as I take Persephone as my Queen, to hold her by my side for all eternity. This I pledge."
He turned to Persephone, placing his chilled hands on her shoulders reassuringly and gently turning her to face him. He spoke again, his voice gentle and tender. "With a kiss, I do bind us as King and Queen and do honour the one I love with my realm, my wealth, my throne and my heart."
He was hesitant, unsure as he leaned in to kiss her and bind her in marriage. It was a moment he had burned for - to be the husband of Persephone and to finally be able to touch those soft, young lips with his own. He looked into her eyes, suddenly vulnerable. Would she accept his kiss? He was caught up in a feeling both sickening and thrilling; the nervousness and fear mixed with the hope and anticipation of being able to kiss her, to be able to taste her lips, her love, her light. . .
Persephone was gripped with dread, a dread that robbed her of movement, like a mouse in the presence of a snake, knowing that the snake it there and that it is dangerous, yet being too afraid to run. She felt the terrible anticipation make a tide of nausea rise within her. Her body was rigid as he neared her and began leaning in closer and she remained as taut as a bowstring. She did not relax but only became more tense and fearful. This was something others did, not her. She did not want this. She screamed inwardly to move or struggle or cry out but fear robbed her of the ability to do so and all she could do was watch, powerless to stop it.
He leaned in closer until their lips were mere inches away. Persephone was terrified. At the last moment he paused, again unsure, fearful for both of them. But the moment was too delicious for him to delay, their breath was intermingling and her ripe young lips were too close for him to bear to resist. And so, gently, he completed the distance between them in a tender kiss. She did not respond, but remained inert. He demanded nothing, his kiss as chaste as ice. It was enough. It was paradise. It was Persephone. Her lips were as warm and soft as his were cold. Persephone. . .now his radiant Queen. As their lips touched, the chamber blazed momentarily with light, then diffused. It was done. They were bound by marriage.
He withdrew and saw her, still rigid, almost lifeless, her eyes empty of light and joy. A single tear slid down her cheek, leaving a stain like a snail's path down her creamy face. Hades was suddenly overcome with shame. What had he done? Why had he wed her when she had begged so much? How could he have put himself above the one he treasured above all things? A tide of remorse swept over him but it was too late. He reasoned, nothing could change it now - why not leave things as they were? She would be happy in time.
Gently, he escorted her outside, as a doorway appeared in the shadows. She walked with him without resistance, mute and stunned. She had been married. He had betrayed her. She was led alongside her new husband to an obsidian balcony that overlooked the entire Underworld. She gazed in horrified awe at the parody of a kingdom that lay below her. It was disgusting. No life, now plants. Only death and nothingness. She fell off the edge of despair and into the abyss, her last hope extinguished with that icy kiss that bound them.
Hades took her hand in his own and proclaimed, his voice penetrating throughout the Underworld, "Behold Persephone. Behold your Queen!"
Suddenly, waves of voices, croaking and despairing in death rose in a monotonous chant, each more powerful than the last, until the final wave of voices reared up in a frenzied tempest of lifeless celebration, roaring with all the souls of the dark realm rose and crashed upon Persephone's ears, speaking the one word she never wanted to hear.
Queen.