For who could ever learn to love The One who doesn't know love?
By Asso
Chapter Twenty-Two
Love
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"It's not me to have to decide, Persephone. It's you the one who has to decide to be willing or not to share my destiny."
Hades had stood up, him too, to say this.
He had gently grabbed Persephone by the shoulders.
And his eyes made of everything and nothing was fixed in hers.
As serious and profound as his voice.
"What I told you is true, Persephone. Only if you want, you will share your destiny with mine."
Persephone tried to withstand that look that came from different worlds.
Other worlds.
Worlds made of soundless eternity.
Of dark emptiness.
Worlds that were not the world of flourishing beauty in which she had lived.
Until then.
Persephone felt fear.
A fear...
She...
Did she really want those dark worlds to become... her world?
She...
But she had given herself to him.
What did this mean?
What...?
It seemed that Hades had read her mind.
"You gave me the only joy I ever knew."
Persephone looked up sharply.
She looked at him as if she wanted to penetrate through his eyes into his mind.
"Yes, Persephone. Joy. You taught me what 'joy' means".
Persephone did not realize it, but she was holding her breath.
"You, Persephone, gave me the greatest thing. You gave me yourself. You ..."
Persephone felt her heart beating tumultuously in her chest.
"...you gave me love."
Persephone felt as if getting nullified in that look so empty and so full; so cold and so hot, so far and so close. In those words... 'different' ".
"You gave me the possibility - the capacity - of understanding it."
Her heart!
Stop! Stop heart! Stop! Do not burst!
"And its warmth."
STOP!
"You gave me... life."
Stop! Stop, my heart!
"Life. To me. To the one who knew only death."
Persephone realized that her mouth was ajar.
As if she wanted to drink his words.
And it was so!
"Life."
Hades' voice became a whisper.
"Love."
An almost painful whisper.
"Love. To the one who does not know love."
A whisper that resounded as a repressed marvel shout.
"The one who… did not know… love. And who now… knows."
There!
It had happened!
Her heart had burst!
Persephone's hands snapped to rest on his arms.
They squeezed them.
Strongly.
But the whisper of Hades' voice rose again.
"But my joy does not have to be your damnation."
Persephone almost choked.
Vain her attempt to utter a single word.
"Wh…wha…?
Hades gave her no quarter.
"The marvellous, single moment of love you gave me, Persephone, can not be the premise of an eternity of blackness for you."
Persephone tried to speak, to retort, to rebut Hades' assertion. But she did not succeed. She, overwhelmed, found herself unable to speak.
And Hades kept hammering her soul and her heart.
"Mine is a destiny of emptiness and darkness. I can not - nor I want to - rush you into my darkness if you don't are really convinced and willing to do so."
And, at those words, finally Persephone found voice.
She snapped. Almost furious.
"Your joy was also my joy!"
Such was her fervour that she was having trouble talking.
"I told you… I told you… I told you that I understood! What my destiny is. And that… and that… that I accept it completely!"
Hades stood quiet for a few moments, his eyes, luminous of dead light, fixed in Persephone's eyes, luminous of vivid life.
And then he spoke.
"Destiny overpowers us, Persephone. Neither God nor mortal can oppose his will."
Hades' voice resounded with the depths of his immense, empty realm.
"But what really is his will?"
His words were stones.
"Are you sure you understand Destiny's will?"
Stones!
"Are you sure that Destiny wants yours to be my destiny?"
STONES!
"Are you sure you want to give up your world of light to share my world of darkness?"
Persephone remained silent, her gaze fixed on his.
Then she lowered her eyes.
Then she lifted them up to him.
She looked at him intently.
Slowly, she got close to him.
His hands always on her shoulders, hers on his arms.
Her eyes still fixed on his.
She understood.
She understood he wanted to be sure.
She understood that if she had agreed to share his destiny, her life would be a dark life.
Not the life everyone had thought it would be for her.
And she understood his firmness.
And... the greatness of his soul.
A dark soul.
And yet shining by a righteousness... a righteousness...
An otherworldly righteousness.
Hades the dark.
The rigid, inflexible, incorruptible, aloof, unapproachable, unmentionable Hades.
Cold like diamond.
Hard like steel.
With anyone.
Even…
With himself.
Persephone understood.
She understood he wanted her to be really willing – glad. Happy! - to accept being part of his world of darkness.
She.
Just she.
Who should have brought a new light into the universe. Even if she could not even understand what light it should have been.
Yes.
She understood everything.
And she understood she should go further.
She understood she really had to understand if she really wanted to be part of his world.
She understood she had to know - really - his world.
Hera stood up.
And so things had come to the point. Demeter had taken the lid off the vase.
And from that vase the truth had come out violently.
And now?
Denying was impossible. Her husband knew very well that he could not do it.
So then? Would he take the field against his brother?
In what would have become a war with a not at all granted outcome?
And how could he not do it?
Would he reveal his connivance with Hades to avoid it? His deal with him?
But not even this - least of all, this - he could do!
Also bringing to light all the lies that he had said!
Not even... not even his undisputed and acknowledged authority would save him from the public ridicule!
Poseidon's guffaws would echo in the depths of the seas; they would spread everywhere; they would come to the surface of the waters; they would leap out; they would bounce until the sky!
That sky which was now the dwelling of him, Zeus, as well as of her, and, by extension, of all the Gods.
And symbol itself of his power!
A power that... that could be nicked - even collapse - under the weight of those laughs.
Which could infect everything and everyone!
Which could mark the beginning of the end of Zeus' power! And therefore also of her own power.
Because power is based on strength, but also on credibility.
If this is lost, strength is no longer sufficient.
And Poseidon lived in the seas, but did not disdain the sky.
And he was powerful.
And, perhaps, not immune from being tempted, if the opportunity would occur, to subvert the ancient covenant between the three brothers.
Maybe even siding with Hades, exchanging Persephone with supreme power.
Slowly and majestically, Hera advanced, placing herself beside her husband.
The moment was serious more than ever and she had to make him feel she was with him.
She slid her smooth, shapely arm under the muscular and powerful arm of him.
She had to instil confidence and courage in him.
She had to inspire in him her faith that he would know how to get by, that he would find the right way.
And she succeeded.
"The moment has come, my Lord."
Her hands had loosened their grip on his arms and now rested quietly on them.
His eyes were staring questioningly and perplexed at hers.
"Let me know your world."
A quiet, determined whisper, her voice.
A light of vivid amazement in his eyes.
"Accompany me in your world, protecting me from its dangers, as you said it would be necessary to do if I had wanted to venture into it."
Hades did not speak.
He was staring at her.
Was staring at her.
Was staring at her.
"I want to do it, Hades."
WAS STARING AT HER.
He felt her warm hands on his arms.
"Your world will reveal to me all I want to know about you."
Her hands held his arms.
"Your past."
They squeezed them tightly.
"And my future."
"Hades did what he did with my consent, Demeter."
The world stopped.
Hera stopped breathing.
Helios stopped at half his rising up from the ground.
And Demeter stood still, motionless, her eyes staring at Zeus and wide open like her mouth, looking for air.
The grave and powerful voice of Zeus rose.
It filled the air.
"I felt, I have always felt, that Fate had in store for Persephone the light."
It boomed low and severe in it.
"But also the shadow."
The air seemed to be made of the same words themselves of Zeus.
"And I had understood."
Stone words.
Words that smelled of knowledge.
"I am Zeus."
Unearthly knowledge.
"I had understood that the shadow hanging over Persephone was Hades' shadow."
Zeus stood quiet.
Slowly and majestically he shook his head topped by his thick hair.
He looked at Hera for a moment and then turned, taking his arm away from hers.
He folded his hands behind his back and, without looking back, spoke.
"I decided I had to oppose the will of Destiny. This is why I wanted Persephone never to be left alone. This is why I have consented that her childhood and girlhood had to take place in the saddest of loneliness. This is why I acquiesced that you, Demeter, oppressed her with your suffocating and exclusive affection."
If Demeter resented these words, it is not known.
All is known is that she was listening to what Zeus said with the expression of the person who strived to understand without being able to understand.
Slowly Zeus turned.
He folded his arms across his chest.
He looked at Demeter with grave and sad eyes.
"But Destiny is Destiny, Demeter, my sister. It sooner or later presents the bill. Sooner or later it shows its face, a face that is different from time to time."
Zeus' eyes seemed to become two deep pools.
"And it presented me the bill with Hades' face."
Hades' face became even more diaphanous than it already was.
His eyes widened.
In the attempt to grasp at full the meaning of Persephones' words.
His voice resounded stifled.
"You... you want me to accompany you out there?"
A whisper, the voice of Persephone.
"Yes."
"You want me to show you my world?"
"Yes."
"It's the darkness world, Persephone!"
Almost a scream, his voice.
"DARKNESS!"
A scream.
"MY DARKNESS!"
A sigh. An extremely low, an extremely sweet sigh, hers. Her whispered reply.
"I want to know if your darkness is my light."
"Hades' face is the face of darkness!"
Demeter had recovered.
So to speak.
And now she was reacting.
And was screaming.
"The face of an obscure and dark monster!"
Standing upright, clenched fists, livid face, she was screaming.
"The face of the one who does not know love!"
Zeus grew livid.
Black clouds thickened aloft. In the dark sky.
Clenched fists, him too; angry face; he shouted in turn to Demeter's face.
"But maybe Persephone can teach him what love is!"
Demeter goggled her eyes.
It almost seemed like she was suffocating.
Finally she managed to speak.
With a shrill and strident voice.
"You are crazy, brother!"
"Persephone, you are... you are crazy!"
"Crazy?"
"Yes, Persephone. You are..."
"Crazy! Yes! I am crazy with love for you!"
"Eh? Ph ... Pers ..."
"And I'm so crazy to want to know your world in all its respects! In all its darkness!"
"Persephone!"
"I want to know if my destiny is to enlighten your world with my light!"
Persephone threw herself into Hades' arms.
"And I will succeed!"
She hugged him tightly. Her face in his chest.
"I will bring..."
For the first time - In full. Completely - she understood what it meant to be the Goddess of Spring.
What was her task of goddess.
"I will bring spring into your dark world."
Yes. She understood that.
"In your dark soul."
She understood that!
"Because only your darkness can turn on my light."
SHE UNDERSTOOD THAT!
"Take me out, Hades, my love! Take me out into the darkness of your world! Let its darkness - your darkness - enter into me! Let your darkness vivify the light that is in me! "
SHE UNDERSTOOD THAT!
"Let me know if your darkness is my destiny!"
SHE UNDERSTOOD THAT!
"Let me be free to fulfil my destiny!"
No one had ever dared so much.
The clouds in the sky swelled up.
They exploded.
With lightnings and thunders and thunderbolts.
A pandemonium.
Then, all of a sudden, everything went silent.
And Zeus' face was dead calm.
Like his voice.
"I made a deal with Hades, woman."
Demeter drew back abruptly.
"A... a deal!"
"Yes. He put me in front of the evidence. In front of the will of destiny. So I made a deal with him. I agreed that he could take Persephone in the only way possible. By kidnapping her. Because, even with me consenting he had her, he, like me, knew perfectly well that you would have opposed fiercely, up… well yes… up to the extreme consequences. Certainly never you would have consented to any request in this sense from him." Zeus' eyebrow rose a little, as in disdain. "As well as from anyone else, in truth."
Zeus' voice grew grave and intense.
"Therefore he would kidnap her. And in our agreement it was tacitly established that neither you nor anyone else would ever know who the kidnapper was."
"But... but..." - A stutter. - "...but how did you... you... how did you... how could you..."
Zeus decided to go all the way.
He had to do it.
"Or the pact or the war. And I do not want a war between me and Hades. I do not want a fratricidal war. I do not want to upset the world order once again."
Hera looked at her husband with amazed admiration.
He really deserved to be Zeus! The Lord of the world!
Saying and not saying. Lying and yet being truthful at the same time.
Say what it's needed. And which is true.
And do not say what is not needed. Leaving to understand what you want to be understood.
This was Zeus. Her spouse.
And who else could have been like him?
Certainly not Poseidon. Who could never have held up the fate of the world with such a flexible hand.
Hades?
No! No no no no!
Not him!
Not the bleak king of nothing!
Her husband had acted well! Yup! He had acted well!
Everything! EVERYTHING! Even coming to terms with Hades! Even being in agreement with Persephone's abduction! With the glisten of her new light in Hades' dark world. Everything! In order not to risk a war that could also have ended with the affirmation of his dark world!
Zeus' low, powerful voice tore Hera away from her thoughts."
"I've substantially stipulated with Hades the deal that he would abduct Persephone without me opposing. And I facilitated the kidnapping by loosening surveillance on Persephone at the appointed time. Letting her enjoy a moment of freedom. Far away from me, from her overseers, from her nymphs. From you."
Demeter - wide-eyed - mumbled between the livid lips.
"You ... you ... did this!"
"Yes. I did it, Demeter, because it was the right thing to do."
"You..."
It was a hoarse cry, that "you". An indictment.
And Zeus retorted angrily.
"Do not doubt my choices, Demeter. Do not you dare!"
But Demeter was not even able to grasp Zeus' sever warning.
"You dared..."
The black clouds thickened again with scary fastness, booming. Covering whatever Demeter could have in mind to say.
Then, they quickly dispersed again.
Zeus had managed to regain calm again.
But a low roar was his voice.
"Persephone will choose. The choice of her fate will be hers. Hades will make her his and will hold her with him only if she wants it."
Demeter felt her heart burst in her chest.
"But... but how can you believe that Hades respects such a pact? How can you believe that that abject monster can..."
"Hades never lies, sister."
Demeter opened her mouth wide. But nothing came out of it except the hiss of her frozen breath.
"It's his damnation, sister. Hades is damned to being sincere, up to be hateful, as if all for what he's hated were not enough for him to be hated. He's the Lord of the kingdom where falsehood can not exist."
And, at that point, Demeter exploded.
"Not as you did, eh, brother? Not as you did! You lied! Shamelessly! To me and to everyone! You told an avalanche of fibs! You have..."
"My intent was to protect Persephone, sister! She had and has to be free to make her choice. It was not lies, mine. Was tutelage."
"Tu... tutelage!"
"Yes. It was to be no interference from anyone. And least of all from you, Demeter."
"I am her mother!"
"And I am her father. And I am Zeus. And so I have decided!"
"You have deceived the world, Zeus! You have deceived me, your sister, your lover, your daughter's mother!"
"The world is mine, Demeter. And the world will understand."
The cerulean eyes of Zeus pinned the delirious ones of Demeter.
"Make so you too can understand, sister."
Demeter gasped.
Then, almost suddenly, her face flattened.
It seemed to become rock.
And rock was her voice.
"The world is yours, Zeus. But Persephone is mine."
There was something in that voice...
Something that made Zeus' powerful heart tremble.
"I do not care about your deal with the monster who snatched my daughter."
Almost with effort Zeus tried to reply.
There was something in Demeter's voice.
Something...
"Demeter ..."
Something chilling.
"The world is yours, Zeus. But my power is not."
And nothing else, there has been.
Demeter got up in the air suddenly.
She soared aloft.
In the dark sky.
A small dot up there.
Far away.
She vanished into thin air.
There was a long silence.
Long.
Dense.
Bated.
And then, finally, Hades smiled.
Hades smiled!
The brightest smile in the world!
"You are free, Persephone. Free to choose. Your destiny."
Persephone looked at Hades with attentive eyes.
"And so?"
"So, my dear, if you wish to know my world, who am I ever to oppose your desire?"
And the smile bloomed on Persephone's lips.
And in her voice.
The smile and the roguish fun.
"An answer worthy of Hades, of his well-known sarcasm. The Lord of the vast kingdom of the Underworld, the mighty Hades, one of the Gods of the High Triad, who says he can do nothing against the desire of a poor, helpless, defenceless girl."
Ed Hades laughed.
He laughed out loud.
"Poor? Helpless? Defenceless? May Destiny protect me from such a poor, helpless, defenceless girl!"
A hint of pout - a delicious pout - rippled Persephone's beautiful mouth.
"Do you really want Destiny to protect you from me, Hades?"
Hades remained dumbfounded.
Yes. The obscure Lord of the Underworld remained dumbfounded.
Then he recovered.
And he laughed.
Again.
Gently.
And gently laughed his harsh, deep voice.
"No. I do not want it, but I fear Destiny does not know how to protect itself from you."
Persephone smiled quietly, the fun in her eyes.
"Will you accompany me to your world, Hades?"
"Sure. When you want, Persephone."
And Persephone's eyes widened.
And she spoke excitedly.
Stammering.
"At... at dawn! At the dawn of your world!"
"At dawn?"
"Yes! At dawn! I... I want to have some more time!"
"Some more time?"
"Yes!"
"For what, Persephone?"
"For loving you!"
And suddenly...
In the love ...
Passionate...
Impetuous...
Ardent...
Suddenly everything else disappeared.
Far away.
It vanished into thin air.
End of Chapter Twenty-Two
TBC
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The love.
Everything gets annulled in it.
It disappears.
It vanishes into thin air.
But reality exists, however.
It exists.
Ready to claim its scot.