For who could ever learn to love The One who doesn't know love?
By Asso
Chapter Sixteen
Inside
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To him, first of all. Yes. Right to him.
To her... august brother.
To her maligned seducer.
To Zeus.
To her daughter's father.
He... he had to know.
Or, at least, he would have been able to know.
Was or was he not he the Lord of all and of all things?
Demeter shook herself.
For eight long, endless days she had searched everywhere.
In vain.
Unaware of what had happened, unaware of the chasm that had stretched from the forest of nothingness towards her daughter, only aware of the fact that the horrible presentiment that had suddenly caused her to get up in anxious flight on the lawn where she knew that surely her daughter was had translated into the horrible reality of her disappearance, she had sought.
She had looked for her. Her daughter. Persephone.
And she had not been able to find any trace.
Now it was time to do what she had promised herself to do.
It was time to find who could have the answer.
Zeus... he...
Yes, he could have that answer or, anyway, could have the means to get it.
And also to bring back Persephone. From wherever she was.
From the clutches of anyone who could be her kidnapper.
Because on this Demeter had not the slightest doubt.
Persephone had been kidnapped.
Never would she have voluntarily left her, her mother!
Never.
NEVER!
Of course. N… never. S… sure. Was this something to be doubted? Was it?
WAS IT!?
And so...
So to Zeus.
Yes.
To Zeus.
And to Zeus Demeter flew.
Squeezing deep down in herself that... that annoying, disturbing thought...
That thought…
That nagging thought.
How was... how was it possible that Persephone had disappeared... kidnapped... yes! Kidnapped!... with that enormity of surveillance she was subjected to?
Right... right by Zeus?
Who, almost obsessively, had forced her, Demeter, to never lose sight of Persephone.
As if he...
As if he knew...
That something could happen!
And that 'something' had happened.
But...
But so then...?
So then, where had Zeus ever been, while that something was happening?
And Demeter could not help but hear again in her ears the dull and powerful rumble she had heard, as she... exactly as she was hurtling through the air, lashed by the horrible unconscious suggestion that something horrible was happening; to her Persephone.
She could not help but feel again the dismay she had felt in the deep and inexplicable darkness that for long moments had overshadowed everything.
She could not help but hear again in her ears that voice, which had resounded in that darkness, in the storm that had risen - it too, incomprehensible - as if being... as if being giving breath to her fears, to her anxiety, to her... to her tremendous premonition.
Demeter could not help but remember, hear again, that powerful voice... that roar of anger... huge...
As only the angry voice of Zeus could be.
But angry… why?
Because he, the supreme God, had not been able to... to prevent that 'something' from happening...
Or because... because he...?
Why was that voice angry?
Why that darkness?
That storm?
The storm... the storm was the prerogative of Zeus.
HE WAS THE MASTER OF THE STORM!
Possible that... possible that he... that he had something to do with... with...?
That thought - unheard-of, atrocious - crept into the depths of Demeter's soul, while she darted through the air towards the dwelling of the Supernal Gods.
Towards Zeus' palace.
"Here, we have arrived. This is my home."
In front of Persephone... now...
An immense thing.
A... a palace.
Yes.
A palace.
A royal residence.
Of stone.
Black.
Dark.
Yet sparkling with a thousand lights. Similar to those she had seen on the high stone vaults, on the huge rock faces.
Hades' hushed voice spoke again.
"My palace, Persephone."
It kept quiet a moment.
Then… even more hushed…
"Ours, if you will want it, Persephone."
Persephone's mind was too full with the wonders she had seen...
The Stygian swamp... the asphodel fields... the Blessed island, just glimpsed from afar, yet so enthralling, so magical...
Too full was her mind with the things she had seen in their quiet journey...
In that darkness which darkness was not; mysteriously dimly illuminated by that light which light was not...
In that frost which frost was not; arcanely tenuously heated by a heat which heat was not...
Too full was her mind with those things that she would never imagine she could even imagine...
Too, too full.
And too full were her eyes with those otherworldly wonders, with those wonders so imbued with a sense of eternity...
A sensation of eternity so different from the one you could feel above...
So solemn...
So... so steeped in eternity!
Too filled, her mind. Too filled, her eyes.
Too full of the vision, in the darkness, of that palace made of darkness and of gloomy light.
Too full, for her to realize, for her to be able to capture what Hades' words meant.
Their deep meaning.
Too much full her mind; too much full her eyes, for her to be able to understand that Hades had just told her that he would want to make her not his woman. Not simply this.
But rather...
His bride.
His queen.
The only thing she could see, that she could try to internalize, now, was that palace.
That immense palace.
Larger than the abode of her father. Of Zeus.
Dusky.
And bewitching.
And its huge portal.
A double door portal.
Absolutely unadorned.
Of gray and dark stone.
Which rose so high as to seem to want to invade the world above.
In front of it, on what looked like a hugely large forecourt of gray terrain facing it, the black steeds stopped their quiet trot.
Persephone felt Hades' gaze on her.
Almost unconsciously, her head moved.
It nodded.
Slowly, the immense portals began to open.
Silently.
They burst open wide.
Beyond the threshold...
Nothing.
Nothing could be seen.
The deepest darkness.
Persephone shuddered.
Hades' arm squeezed her.
Why? Why ever did she feel reassured by that arm?
Why? Why ever did her head nod again?
The reins snapped softly.
The chariot started to move slowly again.
The very high top of the portal seemed to recede behind them as the chariot proceeded through the threshold.
It seemed to observe her.
Now the doors were behind them.
They began to close, slowly.
Now they were closed.
Completely.
Persephone held her breath.
She was inside, now.
Closed inside.
Inside!
Into the cold darkness of the gloomy dwelling of her captor.
Of Hades.
Of the King of Underworld.
End of Chapter Sixteen
TBC
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