Interlude

Demeter

She was glad the war was over. Fighting stressed and hardened her. But the earth, the dirt and the plants, they restored her. She spent the first millennia after her new found freedom exploring the land and testing her powers. It pleased her to do as she wished, when she wished.

She missed none of her siblings. Poseidon had quickly disappeared beneath the waves before she had even a chance to speak to him. Zeus and Hera were absorbed in one another, not to mention that she and Hera were too much alike to get along well. She didn't miss Hestia, whose self-sacrificing ways seemed to her to be more self-righteous than otherwise. She thought Aphrodite was unmaidenly, flaunting herself the way she did. A woman did not need to use her body to get what she wanted.

And Hades. Hades had spurned her.

The memory of it still smarted, though she knew he had done it unknowingly. She never told him of her feelings, but in every conversation she could sense that he wished to be finished, the sooner the better. So, she had felt no remorse or regret sending him into exile. He deserved it, and she would pine no more.

The world, she discovered, was far more beautiful than she could have imagined. Even so, she found she could improve it. Barren areas flourished under her hand, rocky plains turned to lush forests, deserts bloomed, and she was happy.

Then the mortals awoke and realized that they were more than simply mud. They thought and worked and worshipped. Their worship strengthened her, strengthened them all, and she could feel her powers grow with their prayers. She loved to help them. Not just for the piety that it invoked, but for their honest gratitude.

So, she helped them for another millennia and a half. She enjoyed every moment of her service. The more she served, the more they worshipped, the stronger she became. She soon became one of the most important and powerful goddesses, despite the ever growing pantheon.

One day, she walked through her woods. She often did so, but this time was different. This time she felt lonely. She came to the edge of her woods and saw a field. The hard brown earth was being overturned by a young mortal man. A voice called from across the field and a woman came out to him. The man dropped his plow and ran over the dirt mounds to scoop his wife in his arms. Their love and companionship was painfully easy to see for the solitary goddess watching them.

She walked away then, but returned almost every day to catch a glimpse of them. Sometimes, she would see the man by himself, sometimes with his wife, and sometimes, no one. Each scenario hurt her.

That's when he began walking in her woods. Zeus had changed from the early days. Instead of the look of a youth, he was a man in his prime, with white and gray locks and beard replacing his golden ones. His beauty had been tempered with the burden of many cares. Perhaps that is why she felt pity for him.

He was warm, courteous, open. He complimented and flattered her and made her feel as if she were the only woman in the world. She knew of him, knew of his past, but she fell for him anyway.

He didn't come back after that.

She bitterly regretted opening herself up to heartbreak. More so, she regretted more the pain that was brought sharply into focus after being relieved for a moment. She wept for a while in solitude. However, she could not ignore the pleas of the mortals for her help. She rose to do her duties again. They brought no joy to her numb heart.

One day, she returned to the woods and the little field with its two mortal caretakers. There was the man, tending his little plants. Then came his wife, a bundle in her arms. The wife called out to the man again and, again, their happy reunion was watched by her from a distance. She raised her hand, ready to smite the couple out of anger and jealousy, to curse them for her own pain's sake.

The moment before the fatal strike, the woman handed the bundle to the man, revealing for the first time that it was a child. It was a beautiful babe. And she could see the love that the couple, but especially the mother, felt for it. She resolved to curse these mortals for their happiness, but almost as if in response to the love emanating from the couple, she felt a new life stirring within herself. She realized that she would soon be happy in a similar way. Her hand was raised now in a blessing.

In a little less than nine months, she held her own child in her arms. A lovely girl with hair as golden as her father's had been. But when the child opened its eyes, she felt the coldness of dread come over her. Its eyes were as black as death.

The Fates were called. One look, and they pronounced that the child's black eyes would see things other eyes couldn't. The true present, the future, even the souls of the dead. And they also gave the child a new name: Persephone, bringer of death.

She felt fear more acute than any she had ever felt before. Her child's future could no longer be trusted to fate, so she took matters into her own hands. She retired with the child, whom she called Kore, deep into the country. She kept other influences far away. There, she raised the young girl in the way she saw best.

Being a mother was more difficult than what she had been prepared for. Kore was willful and carried a streak of independence that drove her mother wild. Her worry for her daughter turned her harder than ever. She did not care how the dangerous spirit of freedom was quelled in Kore, so long as it was done. Her love was shown in her goals, not her methods. And it almost worked.

Kore was quieter in her later years than she had been in her earlier ones. The girl stopped challenging her mother's authority at every turn. She was proud of her work with her daughter and now knew that there was only one thing that would keep her from danger forever: marriage to an Olympian god. But who was worthy? That question kept her from choosing a groom for her daughter for a time. Too long of a time.

The summonings came from Zeus for all to come to a banquet. She fretted and worried about what such an occurrence might bring, but could not ignore the command of the King of the Gods. She vowed to keep an eye on her daughter the whole night, but her vigilance wavered for a single moment. Oh! How she rued forever afterwards her moment of weakness.

Her daughter was lost to her.

When she found out what Zeus had done, how he had let their daughter, her daughter be kidnapped, she didn't weep. Weeping would not bring Kore back, only action would. So, she acted.

Zeus loved his precious mortals so much, and so she would take them away. Let them see the rage of the Goddess of the Harvest. Let them see the power of a mother's love.

She withdrew her power from the world. The plants died, and with them the mortals. The world turned cold, cold as her heart, and ice fell from the Heavens. No pleading would move her heart. She would teach the world the lesson it had been begging for from the beginning.