Persephone Lied - ✿ dusk blossoms ✿

Persephius

It was cold. Even before my vision returned. I suddenly understood why Mother strictly forbade me from drinking. This sensation rattling my skull must be the closest thing to a hangover. I shook my head like a deer springing from a river.

My head still throbbed, and the freezing cold persisted. I felt completely buried in an ice mountain. It wasn’t just the chill. Even my nose had gone numb and stopped working.

All the scents I had known since birth, the abundant daffodils and noisy primroses, the familiar fragrance of crushed honeysuckle, had completely vanished. Only then did goosebumps crawl up my spine. I rubbed my eyelids hurriedly like a shepherd boy. I needed to know where I was.

Through my blurry vision, I could see a tall throne. Everything swayed in darkness, pallor, and jellyfish-sad blue torchlight. Probably because my eyesight hadn’t fully returned. I had never seen such gloomy flames in my life. I shook my head once more and rubbed my eyes.

The darkness became clearer. In the darkness, I could see bone-white, thin figures. And I saw the owner of the knife-cold silver throne. It was a uniquely shaped throne. Decorated with silver poplar leaves like an awning, it cast an even deeper shadow in the darkness.

The deity sitting there immediately captured my gaze.

I marveled. Was it because I had never seen such white skin with such black hair?

Her expression was gloomy and tired, looking as though she had never once seen sunlight in her life. Strangely, I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Her plum-colored lips parted and sighs poured out like thorns. I stared at the sight like an idiot.

“So, is this all done now?”

A tall man standing near the throne broke the silence. He was a man with terribly red hair and beard. His pouting expression looked just like a bull dragged out against its will. Was he talking to me? No, that couldn’t be. I was about to ask directly.

“There’s been a slight change from what I initially told you.”

Hermes, who had brought me to the Underworld, stepped forward.

“Changed?”

The throne’s owner spoke sharply at Hermes’s words. The voice sounded somehow familiar.

“Then why bring them to the Underworld? If the conditions for Demeter’s child staying in the Underworld have changed, we should renegotiate. Yet you act on your own without telling me.”

Demeter’s child? My mouth tasted bitter. I have a name, and if I had stayed in the Underworld for some time, surely that beauty sitting in the high seat would know my name.

Why wouldn’t she call me by name, a handsome blonde youth as tall and good-looking as myself?

I couldn’t hide my disappointment and drooped my shoulders. Just like a child. But something strange happened. Even though she wouldn’t properly call me by name, the moment I made a sullen expression, a look of embarrassment crossed her pale cheeks.

Regardless of my confusion, the commotion quickly grew. The red-haired giant, seeing his opportunity, lost his temper.

“That’s right! First they dump this child on us, and now they change the agreement without warning! We absolutely cannot let this slide!”

“Lord Thanatos, don’t worry. It hasn’t changed in the way you’re concerned about. In fact, you might welcome this change with open arms!”

When Hermes deflected with his characteristic charm, she frowned.

“What?”

“As you know, Persephone is Demeter’s only daughter. Whether Persephone ate Underworld food or not, she said she couldn’t bear to send her only daughter to the Underworld forever. Moreover, she brought up her oath on the Styx that she wouldn’t put grain in living mouths until she found Persephone.”

She held her forehead. Even the hand covering her forehead was long and white like marble.

“Yes, Demeter clung to an oath made for a completely different matter. I can imagine how Olympus must have been. So?”

“Persephone ate six pomegranate seeds from the Underworld.”

Hermes glanced at me. I shrugged my shoulders and stepped forward.

“So Zeus told me to stay in the Underworld for just six months.”

The moment I continued speaking, all the gods in the Great Hall looked at me. But I wasn’t one to be intimidated.

“Six months I go back up to be with my mother, and after that, I go up and down like this.”

“Knowing Demeter as you do, this was truly the best compromise.”

Hermes quickly nodded.

It had been a long battle. Before departing for the Underworld, I looked straight into my mother’s eyes. I didn’t want to avert my gaze like a fleeing child. I wanted her to know that I was becoming independent by my own will, that even if I returned after six months, she would never again be able to dress me in pink peplos and confine me to narcissus fields.

Mother gave me a bundle full of new clothes and new shoes. When I refused, saying I had enough with empty hands, a sickly sadness immediately shadowed her eyes.

My heart ached too, but there was nothing I could do. I was no longer Demeter’s virgin daughter, the protected Kore.

The six months without me would certainly not be pleasant for humans. But they would learn to endure the unfamiliar season without grain.

I wore a chiton as vivid as a cornflower and wrapped a himation as red as the torch I would light. It was clothing for a neat yet vibrant young man. In the midst of the all-black and ash-colored palace, only I would shine intensely. Would she see me that way too?

“I’m speechless. Since when has the Underworld become such an easy place? Going up and down every year?”

She rose from her throne. She was a goddess as tall as I had expected. Her forehead would reach about my chin. I could tell at a glance. I eagerly watched as she took a step forward.

Her chiton was black, too dark for even starlight to illuminate, but the shawl draped over her arms was a deep, subtle dark green. Her hair, not tied up, flowed down like a waterfall, blending with the dark green silk in a mesmerizingly beautiful way. I wanted to touch that straight black hair right away.

Hermes showed his palms, trying to appease her.

“What can we do? We can’t let all the living mouths on the surface starve to death. Lord Hades must understand.”

“At this rate, I wonder who will fear the Underworld. Having a child go up and down with the seasons.”

“What are you saying! It’s a place so strict that even Demeter, who adores her daughter terribly, had to surrender and send her away. Of course everyone will look up to it. Perhaps Persephone might even help. By spreading some terrifying rumors when she goes up to the surface after six months.”

“It’s not terrifying here at all.”

I shouldn’t have interrupted, but my mouth moved before I knew it. She and Hermes turned to me simultaneously.

Ah. Her eyes were an unbelievably vivid green. A lovely emerald green unlike any vegetation in mountains or fields.

“You say it’s not terrifying at all?”

I nodded.

“Yes. It’s just cool. If you allow me, I’d like to look around gradually.”

From somewhere, someone made a sound of disgust. But she just stared at me intently.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Well, if the name Hermes called you is correct, you must be Lord Hades?”

“Is that all?”

“Could you possibly not be?”

She made an expression impossible to describe in words. Even her attendants exchanged glances while exhaling sighs that could have been either shock or admiration. What’s wrong with them?

Then Hermes approached me and whispered, “Did you know that Hades is a goddess, narcissus?”

Ah. Only then did I open my eyes wide.

“No, I had no idea! Now that I look, you are indeed a goddess!”

“Whew, I was surprised because you seemed so nonchalant, like you already knew!”

“Indeed.”

Hades is a goddess? Neither my mother, nor Zeus, nor Hera, nor anyone had ever given even a hint that Hades could be a goddess. But why? Why wasn’t I surprised?

I tilted my head for a moment.

“Strange. It just felt natural to me. Perhaps some memories remain faintly since I had been in the Underworld before.”

“That’s impossible. The waters of Lethe erase everything. It’s impossible to erase only parts or erase incompletely.”

“Then I must just have an open mind. You can tell by my name.”

Hermes rebutted with a look of disbelief, but I had nothing more to say. If even clever Hermes couldn’t figure out this strangeness, what could I know?

I was a young man who had just become independent from my mother’s embrace. A newly flown bird, a horse that had just run out of the stable.

“Enough.”

She sighed. Then, turning to Hermes rather than me, she said:

“What use is there in arguing? You’ll have to stay here for half a year anyway.”

“You’re right.”

“You’ve safely brought Demeter’s child, so your mission is complete. Go back now and report to Zeus.”

At her words, Hermes gracefully bent his knee. He winked at me and disappeared instantly with a lively sound of wings.

As soon as Hermes vanished, the interior became as quiet as a tomb. The gazes of unfamiliar gods made my face burn.

Where would I live now? What would I eat? Belated questions popped up one after another. It would have been much easier if I had asked Hermes when he was here, but I’m always a beat too late.

Suddenly, I looked at the goddess before me. The king of the Underworld, Hades! She was also looking at me. She was unbelievably young to be my aunt and living secluded underground was a great loss to the whole world. If people knew how beautiful death was, they would surely accept their mortal fate more easily.

My heart raced. Could the Underworld king standing before me be my woman?

If she was such a black and white goddess, it might well be so. Before I knew it, my mouth moved.

“You’re beautiful.”

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T/N: The beginning of this chapter is the same as the first chapter, but the second part is different. Just in case anyone is confused.