Chapter Text
His mother explains the details of her plan as they pick pomegranates in her garden. Persephone had called to him and Zagreus had rushed over, only to have the many empty crates cheerfully dumped into his arms. "This might take a little time and I hate to simply stand around and talk when I could just as well be doing something. Help me, won't you, Zagreus?"
"Of course, Mother." Oh well, it isn’t as if he necessarily had to go tearing through his father's realm at precisely this moment. The shades of the underworld can have their reprieve of an hour or two.
The purple vegetation that carpets the garden smoulders faintly beneath Zagreus' feet, reduced to soft, sweet-smelling ash. It’s nothing like the iron-heavy tang of the rest of Tartarus, nor the acrid smoke of Asphodel and the soporific mists of Elysium. Truthfully, it feels more like the garden Persephone had kept up in Greece than anywhere else in Hades. It should feel lonely and a little desolate—the shades know better than to enter uninvited, after all, and there are few places in Hades without a spirit or two lurking in the shadows—but instead it feels peaceful. Even the light is a little gentler.
Regardless, his mother seems pleased with it. She smiles up at the fruit-laden boughs above her and doesn’t seem to be missing the land above at all.
They pass by the squat bushes with their black berries and Zagreus sets the crates down in the cover of one of the trees. "So, tell me how we're going to convince our relatives on Olympus not to start a war with Father over your abduction," he says.
"When you put it like that, it seems almost difficult," Persephone notes wryly. She plucks a pomegranate and rolls it between her palms, before judging it ripe enough and setting it in a crate. Zagreus follows her example, though he has little idea of what he’s actually looking for. If there are any fruits in the garden that are not perfectly ripened, juicy and red as freshly spilled blood, he can’t see them.
"It's just the impression I get, you know, seeing as how Father kept my existence a secret from everyone, including you. And then tried to prevent my leaving, to the point of setting every shade from here to Styx on me. And then actually personally fought me to the death, not once but multiple times." Zagreus places the pomegranate in the crate. "Just the feeling I've been getting through all of this."
Persephone's laughter rings out through the garden. That too is like nothing else in all the Underworld as far as Zagreus knows.
The sound of his father holding court pauses, seemingly mid-sentence, before he resumes speaking again.
"Yes, I suppose that would give you that impression," she says, her voice bright with her unabashed smile. "The gods on Olympus can be fickle, quick to anger and slow to forgive, and entirely too keen to exact vengeance for any perceived slights. I understand his caution but they are still our family and we cannot hide from them forever, so it's very important that you listen to what I have planned."
Persephone lays out the details, even over Zagreus' astonishment and not a little scepticism. The thought that everything can be resolved with a party and a clever retelling of the truth doesn't seem realistic to him, but then his knowledge of the rest of his extended family is limited.
"Your mother won't be happy that you left," he knows enough to say with certainty. They'd both seen the cold wasteland her grief has created.
"I'll deal with her," Persephone responds. She then, with a straight face, proceeds to concoct the most outrageous lie Zagreus has ever bore witness to. An astonishing feat considering he is also friends with Hermes, who manages about as many lies per sentence as he does truths.
"I hope you've told Father all of this, you know he hasn't the face for lies."
"If they ask him, he'll only tell them that the pomegranates grown here are infused with power." Persephone holds up one of the fruit in question, looking it over with a critical eye. "Another true statement on its own. They're different, the ones grown here than the ones back home. Something about the soil, perhaps. There's a little of your father's power in each of them, and a little of my own."
Zagreus hums in thought as he picks at a pomegranate, the red flesh giving beneath his nails. Perhaps that's why, when he eats them during his runs for the surface, his strikes hit that little bit harder. He hasn't thought much on it, honestly. "If this is to be a true family gathering," Zagreus says, a sudden thought occurring to him, "surely the other half of our family should get invitations too?"
Persephone looked at him for a moment, uncomprehending. Then she sighs. "Would they even want to? Those on Olympus have never made any secret of their feelings for those that live in the Underworld and Erebus. This is supposed to be a chance to build bridges, not burn them."
"How can they build bridges if they're never allowed to meet? It would help with the pretence," Zagreus says, insists. He doesn’t know why it’s important to him suddenly that the other Chthonic gods be invited. "Nyx probably wouldn't curse anyone, and a number of the Olympians have told me how much they admire her."
Persephone takes the pomegranate he's been quietly mauling from him and produces a knife from within her chiton. With a couple of deft flicks her wrist, the pomegranate is cut neatly into sections and half offered back to him. "You're right. As your foster mother, the one who raised you, Nyx has more than earned the right to meet with the other gods. You can ask her if you think she will accept. I trust you also if you want to invite any others." She pops a handful of pomegranate seeds into her mouth. "Perhaps Thanatos would be interested?"
Zagreus turns away from that too-knowing look on his mother's face, inexplicably shy. "I'll ask, but he's just as likely to scoff at me and tell me it's frivolous and he's busy and don't I have more important things to be doing than attending a party?" Pomegranates don't have enough fruit to feasibly prevent him from speaking, but he shoves an entire section in his mouth anyway.
Persephone gives him an indulgent smile and waits until he'd choked down the seeds and pith before saying, "I don't know. If it was you that asked, he might be able to find the time." Zagreus makes a low noise and she laughs at him again.
They've drifted away from the pomegranate trees, caught up in eating the fruit they’re supposed to be collecting and discussing their plan to keep their divine relatives from tearing each other apart. They’re almost to the entrance archway, close enough to see Nyx in her corner of the House. "They really have been very good to me, the Chthonic gods," Zagreus says. They can hear Hypnos chattering away to the shades emerging from the pool of Styx, Nyx supervising their comings and goings. Her pale eyes flick over to them for a moment and her whole face softens before she nods in greeting. "I know they're a little different to the others on the surface and sometimes they can be... strange. They didn't understand why I wanted to leave and they still don't, not entirely, but I think they can see now that it's important to me. Maybe that's what determines what a family is."
"I think so too. I hope so." Persephone turns from the Main Hall to look at Zagreus but stops, glancing around at the garden. "I thought I saw something, just now. There, by the pomegranate trees."
Zagreus walks back, not really fearing whatever his mother thought she'd seen in her garden. What can he possibly have to fear in the House, but he casts his gaze around the roots of the pomegranate trees and the leaves above. There’s no one else in the garden, and nothing to be seen, and Zagreus is already turning back to reassure his mother when Persephone lays a hand on his arm.
"Zagreus, where's the crate with the pomegranates?"
There’s no one else in the garden. There’s no reason for the crate, safe in the roots of the pomegranate trees, to have disappeared so completely. Zagreus crouches down, still more curious than worried. "Where could it..."
The grass had been flattened beneath the crate, slowly crumbling into ash simply from the weight. But leading away from where Zagreus had set the crate, drag marks, forming a line from where they stand to the garden wall. They follow where it leads and find the crate, overturned, but the pomegranates that had been inside are nowhere to be seen.
Considering Zagreus' main preoccupation these days is ransacking the Underworld, it takes until that moment to consider that the fruit might have been stolen. "Oh no," he says after a moment to consider what that means. "Oh, Father's going to hate this."