"To understand Demeter's heartache,
Think of every mother who broke her own heart
Time and time again to give her children a better future.
The mothers who walked away
from abusive spouses,
the mothers who faced danger
for their children
the mothers who broke their backs
just to give their children a better future,
the mothers who chose their children's comfort
over their own every time.
And all this at the same time as nurturing us
from root to sapling to trees to forest.
There is no greater love.
There never will be."
- Nikita Gill
A scream ripped out of my throat. I flailed my arms and legs, too far from the opposites sides of the chasm to grab onto anything. Tumbling dirt turned to black stone right before my eyes, and I screamed and screamed until I was falling so fast I couldn't get a sound out.
All I could see in front of me was impenetrable blackness that I was speeding through, moving faster than I ever had. And then I hit what must have been the bottom, the very center of the earth, except there was no magma and I wasn't boiling alive in it. I hit so hard all the bones in my hands felt like they broke as I held them out to catch myself. But it was useless; I rolled, still with so much momentum from falling so far that I felt my shoulder come out of the socket when it hit whatever it was I'd fallen onto. My teeth rattled in my skull, and I was still screaming.
I laid in what I was starting to think was very coarse sand, knowing - knowing and absolutely dreading what I had to do next. I rolled to my stomach and did my best to push myself up onto my knees without my hands, spitting sand out of my mouth. They hurt bad enough without touching anything, and I tried not to look at them for fear that some bone had pierced through my skin.
I don't know how, but I was on my feet, and my eyes were still adjusting to the darkness. I made some sort of noise, I don't know what, and gritted my teeth as I threw myself down on the ground with as much force as I could, shoulder first.
Black spots blotted out what little I could see, and I thought I might pass out from the pain and the relief that putting my shoulder back in brought me. I didn't notice I'd stopped screaming until just then, laying again in the sand.
I blinked at the dim light above me, and became suddenly aware of the noises.
All around me.
Groaning and moaning, and maybe worst of all, the hissing. A shadow descended over me, and I was again in darkness. "Pretty thing," it hissed, and my heart beat like it never had before.
I was going to be sick and I was going to die and I didn't know where I was and what was happening to me and my mom would never know, either -
Without thinking, I held up my hands, mangled though they definitely were. I - I trusted my Mom, wholeheartedly, even if she spouted some crazy shit sometimes, so I was going to trust her here and reach deep down for something, anything inside me that had the slightest chance of saving me.
The sand beneath me began to shake, and adrenaline pumped into my veins, preparing to run - not again, I thought. Please, please - but, wouldn't anywhere be better than right here right now?
So I stayed exactly where I was, pushing myself to my knees easily because suddenly my hands didn't hurt so much, and let the Earth tremble. "Pretty thing, delicious thing," it said. I couldn't see it, but I felt the hairs on my neck and arms rising, instinctively knew it had to be getting closer.
I put my hands out again, reaching for some sort of power again, and the ground trembled even worse, absolutely shuddering, until with a great heave that knocked me to the sandy ground - trees burst forward, the leafy limbs wrapping around whatever the Thing was, and I imagined it choking as the trees - where they mine? - wrapped tighter and tighter until it had no hope of ever getting free or drawing breath again.
I staggered to my feet, spitting out more sand, and giving whatever the Thing was the finger. On both hands.
I walked onwards, having no idea where I was going, but I kept hearing noises, and so I kept holding my hands out to my sides, imagining the same thing happening to everything that made those noises that made me jump out of my skin.
How was I ever going to get out of here? Especially when I had no idea where here was? I stared listlessly ahead, wishing I'd just stayed in bed and slept on my troubles, wishing I'd just gone and talked to Mom.
Suddenly, I felt something wet and cold pooling around my ankles. I let out a startled scream, scampering back and looking frantically down. But - was that - it was only water. I held my hands to my face, sighing into them.
"Do you need help, Miss?" A voice asked from a distance. I jumped again, swinging my head side to side to try and find the speaker. "In the boat, Miss."
Sure enough, there was a long boat floating on the water, the rising mist parting around it. A man stood in it, seeming to paddle with a long stick. I cleared my throat, but my voice was still raw when I spoke: "I could...I could use some help." The boat came nearer, and I apprehensively climbed in. "Where am I?" I asked hoarsely, looking up at the man who was shrouded in a hooded black cloak.
"You should know that if you're here, shouldn't you?" He returned as he began moving the wooden stick in long, even strokes that barely seemed to disturb the water beneath the boat. When I said nothing in reply, he looked hard at me from under the hood, though I couldn't see his face, really. "You're in the Underworld."
I stopped short. The Underworld...hadn't my Mom said that Hades...ran the Underworld? "Take me to Hades, please."
The man laughed. "Souls don't get to see the Lord of the Underworld -"
A soul? Holy shit. "I'm not a soul," I told him. "I'm a goddess." Who cared if it was true? Right now, I didn't.
"No wonder you came out of Tartarus intact," he muttered and steered the boat in a different direction than we had been going. I had no idea what Tartarus meant, and I wasn't sure I wanted to know, so I just focused on my hands, and how they, thankfully, didn't hurt almost at all anymore. Maybe I hadn't broken them after all.
The man and I didn't speak further until the boat bumped gently against a wooden dock. "Best of luck," he said as I stepped onto the creaky dock, and paddled back out into the water until the mist rising off the water blocked him from my sight entirely.
It wasn't so dark in this part of the Underworld, not at all. In fact, it was almost...sunny. If the sunshine was very fake and simulated. Where to go from here? I thought. Well maybe the King of Hell would be in the giant castle in front of you, Persephone. Let's try that.
I walked until I found a door, and pushed on it. It didn't budge. I let out a frustrated noise. I needed this door to open, because I needed to see Hades. Needed him to tell me what in the world was going on, because if anyone would know it would be him.
I'd lost my flip flops somewhere along the way, probably when I fell into the abyss, so I kicked at the door with my bare foot, putting as much force behind the move as I could. And did it again, and again, and again, until my feet were sore and then I resorted to banging my hands against the door.
Finally - finally! - the door swung inwards. A brown-haired girl stood before me. "Hi, Persephone."
I blinked at her, stunned. "You - how do you know my name?"
She gestured for me to come inside, and after I did she shut the door. "Name's Cassandra. Apollo cursed me with prophetic visions, I died in the Trojan War, and here I am." She shrugged.
I let out a gasp at the opulence of the inside of the castle. "Trojan War?" I asked her absently. The room, whichever room it was, was all white and sparkling marble, with veins of black and gold running through it. There were pillars of it, and it was so bright to look at it hurt my eyes.
"Yeah, it killed a lot of people. A lot of them deserved it, though. Well, guess it depends how you look at it - anyway, follow me." We went down a darker hallway, and it seemed to stretch forever, with doors every now and then. The floor was now made of stones, and it kept getting darker.
"I need" - I swallowed thickly, the sand rough and painful on my throat - "I need to talk to Hades."
Cassandra grinned back at me, her teeth bright in the darkness. If she was dead like she said, she should have been a corpse, not walking, talking and smiling. "Oh, yeah I know. Saw you coming from a mile away, choking evil bastards in Tartarus with tree branches. Didn't really believe it when I saw it."
"Do you see everything?" I asked, just so I didn't have to listen to myself breathing and my heart pounding against my ribs in the silence and think about how everyone I'd seen so far should have been skeletal.
"No," she shook her head. "I just see the important things in the world. Disasters, usually. Sometimes things about the Gods."
We came out into a dark room. Not dark because there was no light, but just - everything was black. The dais, and the throne on it, the pillars and the great doors and -
"Hades!" I shouted, at the sight of a tall lean figure heading towards a small door at the right of the massive room. The figure stopped, and I yelled again: "Hades!" This time it turned, and electric eyes met mine.
Suddenly he was in front of me, like he'd moved without me seeing. "Persephone?" And then, "Cassandra, what the hell is she doing here?"
Cassandra held up her hands. "I'm out." She turned, leaving the room the way we'd come.
Hades stared at me, eyes wide and worried and afraid and kind of...pissed off? "I...fell."
"You fell," he repeated.
Suddenly it all came out of me in a rush: "My Mom told me I'm different and then instantly matured a tree and said you were different and then I got out of bed to think and thought 'Hey maybe Hades will know something about this stuff and I can ask him' so I went looking for you down the path - you know, the one I met you and Cerberus on this morning? - and I didn't hit a dead end like I usually do, and then I saw moonlight and a glowing flower and I picked it and the ground opened up. Naturally I fell, because, you know, gravity, and I dislocated my shoulder I think and I thought I broke my hands but I didn't - I was in a giant sandpit and I think I swallowed some and I think something wanted to eat me so I imagined choking it with tree branches and then there was a boat and a guy and then Cassandra -"
His hands wrapped around my shoulders and he crouched down to meet my eyes. "Persephone," he said and I stopped talking. When he looked me in the eyes, I realized I was all right. Scared, sure. But intact. Suddenly, I felt like crying. "Are you okay?"
I swallowed around the lump forming in my throat. I nodded.
Hades cocked his head, expression serious. "You don't look okay."
I shrugged, feeling the weight of his hands on my shoulders. I cleared my throat, mustering a smile. "I have to admit, falling into the Underworld wasn't the best way to find you."
Something flickered in his expression. "You were looking for me?"
I nodded again, "Yeah."
"What could you possibly need me for?" His voice was soft, and so was his face, all of a sudden. His eyebrows weren't furrowed anymore, he didn't look pissed off. He looked...I couldn't place it, but I thought it might be a contributing factor to why my heart was beating so fast.
I took a deep breath, turning my face away so he wouldn't see the tears in my eyes. "I had questions, and I thought you might be able to help."
His voice was still soft when he asked, "What do you need help with? I'm here."
I gave a laugh, but it sounded pitiful and about a second away from tears. I took another deep breath, trying to reign in the tears with it. "I - I - my Mom said...God this is going to sound insane but what do I have to lose, right? The ground just swallowed me whole and -" I had to stop to collect my thoughts, rake my hand back through my hair to get it off my face. I wished desperately for a hair tie right then. "Goddess. She said I'm - me and her, are goddesses. Is that...that's not complete insanity, is it?"
"No, it's not," he replied simply, and I sucked in air like I was suffocating. I gently detached his hands from where they still rested on my shoulders and began pacing the insanely big room. Everything was insane right now, wasn't it? I flexed my fingers, feeling for any pain, but there was nothing. I leaned my back against one of the endlessly tall pillars and let myself slide down it until I was on the floor.
It was quiet, and I don't know how long I sat there, really, before I noticed Hades sitting against the pillar adjacent to mine. He met my eyes. "I'm sure that wasn't your only question."
It wasn't. Not by a long stretch. And sure, there were more important questions, probably, but, I knew enough about Greek mythology and… "So...you would be my Mom's...brother?" If so, there was all kinds of messed-up going on in my head.
"Technically speaking, I suppose. But the original Olympians weren't born. We were created, so no, we don't share any genetic material. Whereas take you, for example," he said, "Demeter gave birth to you."
Well, then. Now I knew my birth certificate was actually legitimate. However, I didn't care right now. "So what can I do?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted. "We'll figure it out in time. I'd guess, though, that you inherited more of Demeter's talents than Zeus'."
I swung my head around. "Pardon? Zeus?"
"Your mother and Zeus had a bit of a fling," Hades shrugged. "It's unsurprising, but still made Hera furious."
I dropped my head into my hands. What the fuck? a small voice in my head whispered. Hera? Zeus? My Mom shacking up with Zeus?
Hades was studying me. I could feel him watching me, so I turned to meet his eyes. They were so blue, the most beautiful colour of eyes I'd ever seen. He got to his feet and offered me his hand. I took it, and he pulled me to my feet. "How about you sleep, and we can talk more in the morning?"
I felt anything but tired, in fact I was wired and still pacing, but Hades looked like he was worried for my sanity, so I agreed and he led me out the normal-size door on the right side of the grand room.
So that was...a lot. I had hella fun writing this chapter, and I hope you all liked it!