Before Hades could do anything else, the door burst open. Crius whipped around, and before he knew it, he was suddenly hovering several feet above the ground. And not in a fun, superman-like way, but a crazy, I-have-no-control kind of way.
"Storm spirits!" Hades shouted. "To think Zeus goes to such extent to oppose me!" It was clear that he was about to do something when he suddenly stopped.
"No… no!" Hades suddenly screamed. He stood up, but then suddenly collapsed. It was like he was having the most severe headache of all time.
Before anything more could be done, the storm spirits whisked Crius away. Crius used to think that flying would be fun, but this was the exact opposite. The storm spirits certainly did not fly smoothly, and they kept tossing Crius about along their way.
There was nothing Crius could do. For the first time, he was feeling the power of winds. The only thing that he could do was try to keep his last meal in him.
Suddenly though, the winds dropped him. Crius had no idea why, he just knew that he was suddenly tumbling towards the earth. He expected his fall to be painful, but oddly enough, he landed against something soft. Once he had overcome the shock, he looked up at the ceiling of Hades. The storm spirits seemed to be gone, and he saw that he was standing on what appeared to be a giant sunflower. That was weird. Don't sunflowers need the sun to grow?
"But goddess magic works equally well," a voice said. Crius peered down. The sunflower was only a few feet above the ground, the only part of it that was enormous was the top.
There was a woman there, but Crius had the feeling that she wasn't human. He jumped down, and took a good look at his surroundings. He seemed to be in some sort of garden, though he was still supposed to be in Hades.
"Good evening," the woman said. "I am Persephone, and I generally get thanks when I save someone."
"Persephone?" Crius asked. He remembered something. "But it's summer right? Why are you in Hades?"
Persephone frowned at him. Great, another immortal is mad at me, Crius thought.
"Well, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you," she said.
"Me?"
"Yes. But perhaps it would be best if you sat down before we talked," she said, and a table and two chairs appeared out of nowhere. Crius sat down, though his head was reeling with so many questions that he found he couldn't say one of them.
"My handmaidens aren't here," Persephone said. "They only come in winter, but what can one do about things like that? Anyway, those storm spirits won't be harming you anymore. A bit of toxic flower pollen can do that to them."
"So why did you rescue me?" Crius asked.
"Isn't it obvious? Because my husband was far too busy to do anything," Persephone said. "Zeus may not be able to enter the Underworld, but he sent a lightning bolt through one of the openings that lead to the world above. It damaged a great region of Hades, and so, being a god, my husband was struck with the most severe headache as his domain had been severely damaged. He went instantly to repair the damage, in other words, he had been incapacitated for a few minutes. However, he obviously wants to save you, so I decided to intervene."
"Why?" Crius asked. "I mean, didn't he imprison you here for so much time?"
"That's true, but he is still my master. And what he did for you," Persephone said, shaking her head. "After five thousand years, he had finally gotten his place among the Olympians. And it took an entire war for that to happen. He wanted a place on Olympus so badly, and he received it. And yet, he sacrificed it within a heartbeat in order to save you. Do you even know what that means? It means that none shall worship him above the ground, and that he had broken all ties with his family. His children will be treated as outcasts among other demigods, and the Olympians will forever regard him with hatred. Knowing that, he still did it."
Persephone looked at Crius with renewed interest. "So, tell me, who are you? I would guess that you would be one of his children with some other women, but you don't look like that." A dark look passed over her otherwise kind face. "But it doesn't matter if you are. If he was willing to give up a throne to help you, I suppose I will as well."
"Um, no, I'm just a mortal," Crius said. "I really don't have any idea why anyone is even bothering with me." Crius told Persephone all he knew. Persephone seemed to think he was telling the truth, but there were a lot of gaps in his story.
Just then, Hades appeared. Crius had no idea how; he probably had just emerged from the shadows. And Hades did not look good. He seemed to have aged thirty years, and his scary eyes now seemed weak.
"Give this to the boy," he said, and even those few words seemed to cost him a lot. He slipped back into the shadows again.
"What was that?" Crius asked.
"His domain appears to have been damaged a bit more than I thought," Persephone said. "And he expanded a lot of power in fighting off all of Zeus' minions, and probably also in quelling some of his rebellions here. It doesn't appear that he has the time to tell you what you need to know, but at the very least he left you this." Persephone held up a sword. Crius vaguely remembered something about a sword being mentioned by both Hades and Zeus.
The sword seemed to be made out of stone, and was a dark gray. The moment Crius touched it; it turned into a deep shade of emerald instead.
The sword kind of reminded him of a pine tree, especially since it was green. It wasn't a single straight blade, but had numerous branches at various points. It felt oddly nice in his hands.
This sword belongs to me, Crius thought.
"Well, what is it that you plan to do next?" Persephone asked. "I believe that you have received a sword which you have no idea what to do with, and the only person who seems to know anything about this whole murky affair is currently fighting off somewhere. I suppose I will aid you, but what is it that you want?"
Crius thought about it for a while. What was he supposed to do? There didn't seem to be any easy answers.
"I think… I think that I want to return to the surface," Crius said. He didn't know what made him want to go back, but his instincts were telling him that he should.
"There will be danger outside," Persephone said. "Zeus himself hunts you, and many of the Olympians will acquiesce to his wishes without much quarrel. Yet, are you prepared to go?"
"Yes," Crius said. He couldn't understand why exactly, but he just knew that it was the way to go. "I want to go back to the forest where I was before."
Suddenly, the world blurred around Crius, and just as quickly everything shifted back into focus. Crius was back in the exact same spot where Zeus had taken him from. There was no sign of Persephone anywhere, and he could have dismissed it all as a dream if it wasn't for the sword that he was carrying.
Now he knew exactly why he came back. The sword reminded him of the forest; it had the same, dark, mysterious hue as the trees. Somehow, he had the feeling that if he wanted to find out about well, everything, then this forest was the right place to start.
He suddenly remembered his parents and was struck with a deep desire to meet them, but then he remembered Zeus and the other Olympians. They probably wouldn't hesitate in striking his house with a lightning bolt.
What really annoyed him was that he wasn't sure what it was that he was supposed to be looking for in this forest. Sure, it was mysterious and all, but for the first time he felt impatient in the woods.
It was when his concentration faltered that it happened. Something grabbed his foot, and he was suddenly yanked into the air. In a moment of sheer stupidity, he had managed to drop his sword. He looked around and saw that it was the tree that had grabbed him.
Impossible, he thought. Then he remembered that he was in a world where gods existed, so moving trees didn't seem so implausible. He looked down to see a woman who hadn't been there before.
She's a god, Crius thought. He didn't know how he knew, he just knew.
"And they say trees are useless," the goddess said. "But Zeus will be rewarding me handsomely for your capture and for that sword as well."
Crius racked his brains for ideas. If he was being suspended by a tree, then the goddess was most likely-
"You're Demeter," he said. The goddess made no response but Crius was sure that he was right. "Look, your daughter, Persephone, she helped me, so uh, could you help me too?"
"Sure she helped you," Demeter said. "She was undoubtedly swayed wrongly by that fool Hades. But that will not save you from me." Her eyes were merciless, and Crius realized that if he didn't do something quick he was going to end up dead. Or worse.
"Let me go," he muttered unconsciously as he tried thinking of something. Surprisingly though, the tree did let him go. Five feet above the ground, that is. The fall was painful, but he instantly grabbed his sword.
Demeter looked surprised. "How did you…"
Crius then realized that he was the one who had made the tree drop him. He grabbed his sword tightly, and though he had no idea if what he was about to do was going to work, he tried it anyway. He looked at the deep shade of emerald that the sword was made up of, so similar to the shade of the trees that it was impossible for it to be a mere coincidence. Crius was never going to believe in coincidences again, not after what he had been through.
"Bind her," he half commanded, half begged the sword. Demeter seemed to have gotten over her shock, but she was still surprised when a tree root bound itself around her.
"No, there's no way that you can-" she began before even more roots began binding around her.
Crius had the feeling that the roots weren't going to be binding her for a long time. He ran in what seemed to be the safest direction as fast as he could, and tried not to look backwards.