“Back at the beginning, when the Titans were defeated and put in Tartarus, it was up to us gods to take over ruling. We suddenly had a lot on our plates. We assigned a ruler to each of the biggest realms, and those rulers became known as the big three. Zeus became the god of the sky, Poseidon became the god of the see, and I was assigned the underworld. We split up and went our separate ways, beginning our reign in our realms. We quickly realized that ruling our realms by ourselves was a lot to handle, so we decided it would be best if we married, and gave our realms a Queen to help us rule, and to divvy up the responsibilities. Zeus was meant to marry Hera, which he did, and they’ve ruled the sky together all the years, despite Zeus’ many transgressions. Poseidon was meant to marry Hestia, though Hestia decided to never wanted to marry, so Poseidon went back to his realm to begin searching for a better match before he finally met his wife, Amphitrite. As the last two left, Demeter and I were paired up, meant to marry each other and rule the Underworld together. While not overly thrilled at her prospects, Demeter was ready to fulfill her duty. She had planned out how she would be Queen of the Underworld, while also controlling agriculture on the Earth. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she was up for the task. I could not do it, though. Shortly before we were to be married, I called off the arrangement. It was a union of convenience, and that’s never what I wanted. I wanted to marry for love. I wanted my marriage to be one of happiness and love, so I would never end up like Zeus. When I told Demeter this, she became very hostile toward me. She couldn’t accept my reasoning. She thought I had something against her personally. It got to the point that we couldn’t attend Olympian functions together, because she would always cause a scene to try to get a reaction out of me. Then, one day, she disappeared. Nobody knew what happened to her for years, until she started bringing her daughter, the goddess of spring, to Olympian events. That’s when everyone realized she had disappeared to raise you through your childhood.”
“Wait. You were going to marry my mother at some point?” I can’t wrap my head around this. Hades and my mother? At some point, he broke up with my mother, and then, even though it was many years later, began dating her daughter? My thoughts are spiraling out of control, and my breathing is growing erratic and I start to panic. She’s never going to approve of him. Do I want her to? Our whole relationship just became severely messed up.
“Persephone, take a deep breath,” he coaches me. I can’t. I can’t even remember how to take a deep breath. I just keep repeating in my head, over and over again, Hades and my mother. He can see the panic getting worse through my eyes. “Persephone, look at me,” he commands. He pulls my chin so that I’m forced to look into his eyes.
Looking into his eyes is like stepping into an ice bath. It’s an immediate shock to my system, and it works to begin calming be down. He coaches me through taking deep breaths until finally I’m breathing normally again, though my thoughts are still frantic. How did I never know this?
“I told you, it was never a match from love. It was all arranged, because we all thought it would be best to marry to help our realms. The assignments were random, too, though I suppose Zeus chose Hera because she was deemed as the most eligible. I could’ve just as easily been matched up with Hestia and I would have made the same decision.” His words are meant to soothe me, but there is still one big problem.
“Doesn’t this make our relationship… wrong?” I emphasize the last word. “You were betrothed to my mother. My mother, Hades.”
“Imagine if someone had come to you, years ago, and told you that in order to strengthen the sea realm you had to marry Poseidon and be the Queen. You have no feelings towards him. You agree to please the people that think this would be best, but realize you can’t go through with it because you want to marry for love, not duty. Then a few years down the road, you meet me, Poseidon’s brother, and we fall in love. Would that be wrong?” He’s pleading with me to see this from his point of view, so I step out of mine and into his. He’s not doing this to spite my mother, or to make her angry. When we met, he had no idea who I was. It took for us to see each other at a few parties and begin writing letters before he learned that I’m Demeter’s daughter. Why would that change anything if he never had feelings for her in the first place?
“I understand where you’re coming from, Hades, but this is a lot to process. I expected a simple answer, like you burned her favorite field of grain, or you wouldn’t let her have one of your dogs. Not that you almost married her. I think I need to be alone for a little bit.” I quickly get up from my chair and look over at him. His shoulders are slumped, and his eyes dull. He looks defeated.
“I’m not leaving,” I promise him. “I just need to think about this, and wrap my mind around it. This also gives me a lot more questions about my mother, like whether or not she was once in love with you and that’s why she’s held this grudge for so long. I just need to think about what I’m okay getting myself into, and what’s too much for me to handle. Please just give me this time. I will find you when I’m ready to talk some more.” He nods his head, and with that, I leave the dining room.
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