For who could ever learn to love The One who doesn't know love?
By Asso
Chapter Twenty One
The future.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Demeter stepped forward.
She looked at Zeus with a quiet, hard look.
Her voice rose.
And it wasn't wavering at all.
"Helios wants to tell you, o Supreme" - Zeus frowned abruptly. Was there by chance a subtle note of lashing mockery, in that way of calling him? Zeus? The biggest of Gods? - "that he knows who kidnapped Persephone."
Demeter's eyes narrowed. They looked like cracks from which a sinister light filtered.
Her voice sounded soft.
Yet sharp.
"He can put you in a position to punish the kidnapper from the height of your power."
Demeter's voice rose again, stronger.
It grew very louder.
"And to force him to return my daughter - our daughter - to ..." - The voice hesitated a moment. A very rapid moment. - "... to your and my affection."
Zeus managed to smooth his face in a flash.
He mantled his eyes with something... something...
Hera watched him. Despite everything, in real admiration.
There was surprise, in that look of him.
And hope, even. Almost… almost timidly shown.
And suspicion. Timorous suspicion.
As if he feared he could be deluded.
And all this while she knew very well that he was in difficulty.
Because he - like her - knew very well that Helios really could know.
But never would he - like her - have believed that Demeter could think of resorting to him - to Helios - extracting him from his own world to bring him into their world.
Never would he - like her - have believed that Demeter could think that he, Zeus, - in his infinite wisdom - could have neglected in his quest to turn to the only God to whose eyes nothing of what happened during the day could escape.
Helios.
Who, now, was there.
To reveal...
To reveal...
"So reveal me, my friend." Zeus' voice was low. And yet it was a thunder. A menacing thunder. "If you know, reveal."
The voice became lower.
A remote, scary rumble of thunder.
While Zeus' eyes seemed to get blurring with gray clouds.
"If you know, let me know from whom I must take Persephone away to bring her back to us."
A low, frightening, threatening rumble of thunder, the voice of Zeus.
"If you know, tell me whom I must punish."
Zeus' voice rose. It became a loud, stormy, thunderous noise.
And his eyes blazed.
"But you must be sure of what you say, Helios."
And there was some kind of threat in that voice.
Ed Hera knew why.
It was the last bastion.
Her husband was warning Helios.
Surreptitiously, he was cautioning him against revealing what he knew.
Because if Helios had revealed it, he - her august husband and lord - would have to come out into the open.
He would have to accept to clash with his brother.
With Hades.
Would have to accept to unleash the most terrible of wars.
A war with a completely uncertain outcome.
Because the curse that he had launched on the obscure abductor of Persephone nothing could against the darkest of the three Big Brothers. There was no curse that could affect one of them.
And so only the fight - the war - could have been Zeus' answer.
War.
Against his own brother.
Against a dark and fearsome brother.
This, Zeus would be forced to do.
Or…
Or he would have to accept that things remained as they were.
But this was not possible.
At that point, after everything he had said, it was no longer possible.
Unless he had accepted to disclose that he knew already. Which was tantamount to admitting that he had lied.
And why? Why would he have had to lie?
The truth would necessarily be brought under everyone's eyes.
The truth.
Namely that he had been consenting!
And all this…
All this was even less possible.
So the only way for him was to get Helios keep quiet.
To make it so he didn't reveal anything.
But...
But Demeter ... - Hera's gaze darted to her sister - ...Demeter wouldn't allow it.
Hera looked down.
She did not appreciate the show anymore. It was no longer to her liking.
Every road was barred.
And the future would be ...
What?
What would it be?
A future of... of war?
Against...
Against Hades?
"And now, without further ado, my love."
My love!
She, the splendid Persephone, had called him "my love!"
Hades was no longer able to be Hades.
He could only bask - barely conscious it was true - in what his ears were hearing; in what his eyes were admiring; in what the heart, that he had thought he could not possess, was beating for.
Above him, Persephone's gorgeous and fresh face lit up with an expression...
Saucy?
Was this the term?
Her eyes were laughing.
Her fleshy mouth was smiling.
"My dear Al... do you remember? This is your name, for me... tell me everything about you. Tell me about your past. And tell me about your..."
Persephone stopped talking abruptly.
Her magnificent, luminous eyes became serious.
Her luscious lips stopped smiling.
Her voice grew serious.
"...tell me about your future."
Then those star eyes smiled again.
That beautiful face lit up again.
And that silvery voice laughed again.
But a shadow of worry - of fear, perhaps? - glistened in those laughing eyes.
A shadow of fear, of insecurity, resounded in that laughing voice.
"Tell me, my love… my Al... tell me what you want it to be my future."
The shining eyes blurred a little.
The silvery voice cracked a little.
"Tell me, I beg you, if you want my future to be ..."
The voice became a sigh.
"... the future of Hades".
"I've seen no one, o Supreme Zeus!" Helios' voice resounded loud and shrill. "No one!"
Zeus didn't move a single muscle. His face was made of stone.
Though within his mighty chest his heart were beating tumultuously.
But of stone rang also his voice.
"No one?"
Hera's eyes had snapped up towards Helios.
Like those of Demeter.
Who suddenly felt getting suffocated.
Her composed attitude dissolved abruptly.
She rushed towards Helios.
Her furious eyes darted over him.
Her high-pitched voice overwhelmed him.
"Helios, remember who you are!"
Demeter's voice rose even more.
"You are the Lord of the sun!"
Even more.
"A powerful and ancient God!"
Even more!
"You can not be a..."
EVEN MORE!
"...cowardly God!"
They were scathing and scornful words.
Words that hurt.
Ed Helios reacted.
Strongly.
Cowardly?
How did that newcomer of a Goddess dare? That parvenu?
Cowardly?
He?
Helios?
The one who drove the course of the sun long before that she and her brothers and sisters appeared in the world?
COWARDLY!
How did she dare!?
Helios straightened up with majesty and pride.
HOW did she dare!? !
He... he would... he would...
But, suddenly, he remembered of whom he was supposed to reveal the name.
And, at the same time, he realized that Zeus - the mighty Zeus - did not seem at all eager - even, not at all pleased - of coming in knowledge of the name of the kidnapper of Persephone.
Very far from him the idea of trying to understand the strange Zeus' behaviour, but it was still a very strange behaviour.
Dense of... dense of danger.
So then...
So then...
Damn!
On one side the scary Hades!
And together, strangely, the mighty Zeus!
And on the other side...
On the other side... Demeter!
May she be damned!
And, in the middle, him!
Helios!
Who risked being crushed!
And who...
Who did not want to - could not! - to pass for a cowardly!
And this would not happen!
It was time to show who he was!
It was time!
With remarkable effort, Helios managed to keep his proud attitude.
He looked straight into Zeus' eyes.
Into those cerulean and sure eyes.
And threatening.
That choked the words in his throat.
But he had to talk!
He had to talk!
He had to show he was Helios, the conductor of the sun chariot!
He had to reveal whom he had seen...
Seen?!
Suddenly, Helios realized.
Seen?
He...
He had not seen anyone!
What he had seen was...
And strong and confident resounded his words.
"O mighty Zeus, Lord of all Gods, I shall tell you what I have seen."
Helios turned his gaze to Demeter, then addressed Zeus again. With confident doing.
"I have seen Persephone, uselessly sought from above by her mother, by Demeter, rashly approach the grim forest that is the prelude to the realm of the dead."
He paused an instant.
Then resumed talking, in a loud voice.
"I have seen her go into it."
Another intense pause.
"I have seen her penetrate - incomprehensibly - into the thick and obscure tangle of its immense twisted trees. And then..."
One last, tense pause.
"And then I have seen her run desperately out of it. And the earth open up behind her. And the immense and obscure cleft that had chased after her from the forest, as if to swallow her."
Helios' eyes watched intensely Zeus.
"I have seen her disappear into the abyss that had opened beneath her."
His gaze sank into Zeus' gaze.
"This, I have seen."
Tension reverberated powerfully in the air.
"This."
There was silence.
A long, tense silence.
Then Demeter burst out.
"Damned! May your chariot plunge into that same abyss!"
Such was her fury that Helios found himself thrown to the ground.
But Demeter did not pay attention to him at all.
She ran to Zeus.
She threw herself at his feet.
She hugged his knees.
"You do not need to know the name, my Lord! You do not need that that worm of Helios says it!"
Her eyes lifted tearfully to the bearded face of Zeus.
"It's Hades, Zeus! It's him the kidnapper!" Helios hasn't wanted to say it openly, but has made it perfectly clear! "
Demeter stood up.
She straightened up in front of Zeus.
She looked at him with eyes both proud and pleading.
"Persephone is in the clutches of our dark brother!
Her eyes filled with fury.
By fury trembled her voice.
"You must take her away from him, Zeus! You must prevent her future from being a future..."
Horror. Pure horror. In her suddenly feeble voice.
"... with Hades."
End of Chapter Twenty One
TBC
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The future.
Of Persephone.
Of her mother.
Of Zeus, of Hera.
Of Gods and Mortals.
The future of the world.
The future that Hades will want it to be.