Chapter Five

“My mother will kill me the moment she finds out.” She screams in frustration as she presses her face into the pillow.

She managed to reach Hade’s bedchambers and slept the whole night. She woke up at Andromaca opening the curtains of the window.

“Hades is a very powerful God. If I were your mother, I’ll be thrilled”

“To be Hades’ pet friend?” Andromaca ignores her irreverence and instead proceeds to dress her.

“Lover is the word you’re looking for. And you’ll be very lucky; he might decide to make you his wife.”

She protests by loudly scoffing as Andromaca pins the collar of her dress behind her neck.

“It would be a privilege no one’s ever had. You’ll be queen of…”

“Hell.” Nice prize.

“I meant to say Underworld but it’s the same. Do you know how many women would be honoured if they were in your own position? He didn’t even touch you yet, it means he is serious about this.”

He is constantly trying but she can’t say this out loud, it’s too embarrassing.

“I’ll give you the honour. I want to go back to my beloved mother. She’ll be worrying sick for me.” She reaches from the strands near Persephone’s cheeks and pulls them back braiding them into a tress that she leaves to fall on top of her loose hair.

“I’m just a soul he decided to promote to his maiden for my devotion to my late husband. He would never marry someone like me. You, on the other hand…”

“He made me swear that I’ll stay here to keep him company and then seal everything with a kiss. Do your people use this barbaric tradition too?” Andromaca hands stop working and she tenderly looks at the naïve girl, feeling grateful that she finished into Hades’ hands instead of Zeus’. She would like to tell Persephone the truth but cannot risk angering her master so she keeps working on her mistress.

“Where did he sleep?” The girl wonders as if it was normal conversation.

“With Cerberus.” Andromaca sounds very amused by this and to be honest, it is. The God of the death slept with his dog, who would not be laughing at this?

“He means well.” She repeats as the door swings open revealing Hades.

If you look at him, you would not tell he did not sleep one second the whole night, but if you glance carefully, you can notice a darker shade in his amber eyes as if a shadow is hovering over them.

“Come with me little annoying lamb.” Persephone, as her usual, storms out of the room but before she can take one step, a little cloud appears under her feet lifting her up.

“Hades!” She growls as his majesty, this time fully clothed in a dark-red armour and a golden crown around the back of his head, solemnly strolls down the staircase with his prisoner right beside him.

“Put me down.”

“You’ll call me majesty or don’t dare to talk at all.” He teases so Persephone attempts to get down from her ride risking falling.

“Be still, you molested spirit.”

“You let me go, kidnapper of innocent maids.” Hades takes a long breath before returning to her, chill and calm. It takes a lot of patience to deal with humans, they have so much life inside of them, he wonders.

“Turn around,” he begins and she comply. “Kidnapper of innocent maids…” he mutters behind gritted teeth as he clips a necklace around her soft skin.

“Whatever happens don’t take it off, understood?” Persephone touches the purple pearl recognizing it immediately. It’s the one he gave her when she was underwater or better, the one he used to lure her to almost die so that he could save her and own her life. However, we can’t tell her this.

Before Persephone’s could protest, Hades sets her on her namesake horse, mounting himself behind her soon after.

“Can we take two separate horses?” Hades rolls his eyes and holds the rein in his white fingers, ignoring the little bug in between his arms. He has rings all over them; some are thin circles of amber, some other big piece of jewellery.

“I guess not.” He trots through a slippery slope and in no time, the sun is peeking on Persephone’s skin again. As soon as they emerge, Hades’ hair turn into white strings made of ashes hanging on his pale face as he keeps driving his horse like nothing happened.

“Why do your hair change colour?”

He trots, enjoying the sun and the sight of his lover’s skin glowing in the living world. He feels a little guilty that she is forced to be in such a sorrowful environment but he is stuck there and cannot help it.

“Hades…” she taunts and so he just blurts out.

“These way mortals know who I am and keep their distance.”

“What are we doing here?” Hade’s unmounts from his horse and offers his help to Persephone but she decides to try and do it herself. Useless to say she ends up slipping and almost breaking her neck but somehow, manages to make it.

“I thought you’d enjoy being amongst flowers for a little while.” Her smile is so wide that Hades literally stares at her in disbelief. She throws herself into the grass, so thankful to him for bringing her to the living world.

“We won’t be here long, so go crazy.” Persephone snorts but does not let his sarcasm get in the way.

She starts to make a flower crown that she skilful knits into her hair. Hades sits safely far from her but close enough to have a good look at her face while she focus on her fingers.

“How do I look?” she inquires and Hades mouth ends up being dry and short for words.

“Beautiful like a Greek sculpture.” He embarrassingly admits.

“Like Aphrodite?”

Hades waves his hand making a very disgusted face. “Aphrodite...” his tongue clicks in dismay. As if the most beautiful women was the one who came out of his father’s genitals thrown into the sea.

“I like to think of you as Helen of Troy.”

“Oh, so now I’m an unfaithful woman who starts conflict all over the world.”

“No.” He licks his lips and tries to phrases it the best he can. “But I definitely would start a war for you.”

She is a little uneasy around this declaration, something in her chest shifts and she finds herself closer to him. To dissimulate, she ends up passing him a little daisy.

“Put it in my hair, don’t just stand there.” Hades slides his gloves off his fingers setting them aside and with trembling hands, he locks the tiny daisy in the middle of her braid.

“Done?” he nods in approval and so Persephone stands, she is full of flowers, just like he wanted her.

“Here take this.” She hands him a flower crown made with red flowers and little white daisies. Persephone knees in between the god’s legs, only inches from him. Her sweetness makes the great God of death blush like a normal young man. If this is how it feels to be human, Hades wishes to be one for the rest of his life.

“You look so adorable.” She seems so happy while tugging a strand behind Hade’s ears. They are pointy, like nymphs’ ears.

Just right when he is about to lunge for her lips, he freezes. His gaze is lost in the distance and widely fixed on the horizon. This scares Persephone a little and she decides to take some steps back.

He rips the flowers from his hair and takes her hand, which totally catches her off guard as he drags her behind him. They reach a river where many women are washing their cloths.

Persephone is suddenly thrilled by the idea that she can finally talk to somebody else, someone alive and breathing but Hade’s arm snaps forward before she could even move her feet.

“They can’t see you. You don’t exist in this world anymore.” It sounds so sad to the girl’s ears. Hade’s talks about her as if she is dead and does not know it yet.

“You’re bound to the Underworld. You can see the living world only because I want you too.”

Her eyes sting at the thought that, if she ever gets the chance to meet her mother again, she will not be able to see her. Yet Persephone does not let any weakness slide form under her control. Instead, she stares into Hades’ eyes with resentment. She is ready to pick a fight with him but for the first time since they met, he is not looking at her.

They walk along the stream and reach a little waterfall where a mother and a little kid are playing splashing each other. Persephone’s stops on her track, cold washing over her as she stares at Hades advancing towards the pair, slowly and inevitably. Like the death.

“What are we doing here?” her voice trembles while the god’s strips out of his human gaze, his eyes turning pitch black as the little boy slips on the rocks and falls into the water, carried away by the current.

“No.” his mother shouts as she starts running along the shore. Hades disappears and Persephone decides she has to save the boy’s life so she dives into the water. She sees the child and lends him her hand but he cannot see it and disappears.

Again, she inhales a big breath but strong arms pull her out sitting her on a stone before she can do anything else.

“No.” she protests and rushes to follow the voice of the screaming woman.

When she gets there, it’s too late. The mother is leaned on the lifeless body of her boy, crying all her tears.

Persephone cannot help herself. She sinks into her legs and starts to sob. She could have saved him if only she was not stuck. If only she did not put her life at risk for a stupid dare.

Among her tears, she peeks at him, standing there near the mourning mother.

“Hades.” He kneels and reaches for the boy. Persephone knows, it’s now or never so she lunches towards Hades and pushes him away from the body.

“No.” she cries out. He tries again to move her but she is as firm as a mountain.

“No.” she repeats snivelling to prevent her tears to suffocate her.

“Persephone. Move from there. I need to collect that life or it will cost someone innocent theirs.”

“Take mine, I don’t care.” She threatens making Hades voice grow so deep and dark.

“Don’t be stupid. Move, now.” She shakes her head. Gods, if she is stubborn and fierce.

“I won’t accept this exchange and you know this. There is nothing you can do, the boy is gone already.” He tries to reason with her so she embraces the mother and the son burying her face in the mother’s hair. She cannot let him take the boy. It could have been her and what would happen to her mother if she dies? Demeter would be destroyed by it. She can’t stand there and watch so much pain being unjustly caused.

“Let the boy live.”

“No.”

“I’ll give myself to you. You’ll have my life.”

“I already have it.” He refuses to listen to her, she needs to think and find some other way.

“I’ll stay forever with you.” And before Hades could protest, she adds.” Willingly.”

She moves from the pair and slowly makes her way towards him. He reaches for her face to caress it, touched by the tenderness of her heart. Instead, he finds her lips pressed against his.

“I promise,” she whispers right before sealing their vow like he taught her to.

And so the lord of Death gives life to the boy who starts to spit water out of his lungs.

“Oh Blessed Zeus, my boy. You return to me.” The mother now cries tears of happiness as she hugs her boy tightly.

The boy’s eyes glances at the tall gods who graced him and he bows his head. Hades is too busy staring into Persephone’s eyes as she smiles at the returned balance.

He still has her face in between his hands and somehow, even thou he is a little mad at her, a tiny smirks emerges on his lips. He quickly let it die and drags the naïve maid away from the river and back to his horse.

“You will run out of things to promise me, if you keep this pace.” He mocks her.

“I still have few left”

“Don’t tempt me woman.”