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All mortals arrived in the Underworld eventually and as such, Persephone had met her share of stupid men - as a matter of fact, by the natural course of things, was likely to meet them all, sooner or later. But most of the stupid men she met were dead, often as a result of their stupidity. To meet not one but two still-breathing men in the Underworld spouting so much foolishness was much rarer. Perhaps that was why she couldn't help the urge to briefly humour them.
'Explain why you are here,' she commanded.
Her voice didn't appear to have its usual withering effect on the two men. Admittedly, she normally practiced it on the dead, so perhaps it didn't work on the living.
'Lady Persephone! I am King Pirithous of the Lapiths,' the shorter of the two proclaimed boisterously. Persephone briefly tuned out as he droned on about who he was - she was uninterested in the affairs of the living while she presided as Queen of the Underworld - until he finished with, 'and I am here to make you my queen!'
'I already have a husband,' Persephone said, but neither men heard her. At any rate, the one who had not propositioned her was urging his friend to make a move before Hades returned, so it appeared that they already knew.
'Come, my lady!'
Pirithous seized her by the hand and began to drag her away.
On the whole, a very poor abduction, Persephone reflected critically. Where were the jewelled chariots, the horses of fire? Of course, the mere mortal had no ability to make the earth shake or the ground to open up, but surely he could attempt a horse? He was just walking her out of the throne room! And now they had reached the River Styx where Charon had apparently been bribed to loiter about on the wrong side until the men arrived, to ferry them in the opposite of the appropriate direction ... it was disappointing to one who had experienced the best. Also, perhaps they should do something about Charon's propensity to be bribed, not even a king should be able to get away with this sort of behaviour, surely ...
'You lucky bastard, Pirithous, I can't believe this is working!' the other man (who was named Theseus, but Persephone had not been paying enough attention to realise that yet) crowed as they ran. 'You must be a son of Zeus after all for your stars to be so blessed!'
So this king was her half brother? What a terrible tendency she had for attracting the offspring of Zeus, Persephone thought, recalling the early days of her youth before Hades had claimed her. All of her birth father's sons had proposed marriage to her, and he'd only had a fraction as many sons back then as he did now.
Persephone felt the shaking of the ground and heard the low growl before either men did. Smiling to herself, she called out, 'Here, boy! I'm over here, Cerberus!'
The dog leapt into view as if bursting out of the ground, two of its heads snarling in each of Pirithous' and Theseus' directions; the third bent down to lick Persephone affectionately on the chin. As Cerebus dealt with the men, another deep sound crested into hearing and Persephone was delighted to be scooped up into the strong arms of the King of the Underworld and onto the back of one of his flaming horses. Hades was even in full regalia, a magnificent cloak of red around his shoulders and his spear in hand.
See, this was how you did things. With grandeur, and ceremony.
'Well, that was an amusing episode,' Persephone said, straightening out her dress as Hades let her down inside the throne room. 'It took Cerebus a little longer to catch them than I expected, but I suppose he's not as young as he used to be.'
'You went with them,' Hades said. She turned to him, surprised by the low, cold note in his voice.
'They took me away,' she said.
'It is easily within your power to resist them. They were only able to take you so far because you went with them voluntarily.'
'Well ... yes. I was amused by their antics and wished to see what they were doing.'
'So you would be willing to leave with any man who amused you?'
Persephone frowned. 'What's the matter with you, Hades? Are you angry at me because they came all the way down here? You should bring that up with Cerberus or with Charon, not with me!'
'You left,' he said, sounding downright petulant. 'The man wanted to make you his wife and you left with him. Are you tired of my company? Have I done something to upset you?'
He was hurt. The idea that Hades could feel injured by the nonsensical behaviour of the two mortal made Persephone want to laugh, but she saw the look in his eyes and it was completely serious. Suddenly, she was extremely annoyed.
'I couldn't leave even if I wanted to,' she bit back sharply. 'I ate your pomegranate seeds and I am bound here for half the year until the end of time, am I not?'
'Then the only reason you remain with me is by divine law? Would you have left me long ago if not for that?'
'Perhaps I would have!'
Unable to bear speaking to him for a moment longer, Persephone turned on her heel and stormed to her room. The fact that Hades did not so much as call out to her only made her all the angrier.
-
Hades was far from the most peaceable man and Persephone was accustomed to dealing with his difficulties from time to time. There were times when he would stew in his wrath, roused by nothing more serious than the trivial request of a shade or some stupid message from one of their relations on Olympus, for days, saying very little to her and nothing at all to anyone else. But he had never picked a fight with her, had always preferred to keep his distance from her if he felt himself unable to treat her well rather than vent his anger on her. It wounded her deeply to be on the receiving end of his anger now.
He had asked if he had done something to upset her, but what had she done to deserve his distrust? Had she not always been a loyal, loving wife? Had she ever given him reason to disbelieve her love for him? Thinking of his accusation that she stayed with him purely due to ineluctable law, tears rose to her eyes, and she wanted to scream. If he wanted to be pedantic about it, then it was true after all. If he had allowed her to leave on the day Demeter came to take her out of the Underworld, she would have soon forgotten about him, never spared him another thought once she saw the sun and the earth again.
The thought that this was probably not really true gave her no comfort whatsoever.
In all truthfulness, she would have easily forgiven him, even thought his jealousy touching, if it weren't for the implication in his words that he did not have complete faith in her love for him. That was what cut her most deeply. What did it matter if she only loved him because she had no choice? She didn't think him any less marvellous a man for it!
For an entire day and a night, the passing of time in the darkness marked only by the shifting of Mother Night when nightfall came to the world of light, Persephone avoided Hades' company entirely. She didn't have the ability to detect every change, the movements of every individual within the Underworld, as Hades did, but she had a little power to know where each person in the House happened to be, which she used to stay away from him. It did not take her long to decide that she would approach him first, but let him feel her wrath for a little while. She might be so much younger than him, so much less important to the natural cycle of the Earth and the ruling of the Underworld, but he had made her a queen, made her imperial and powerful, and she would let him feel her power over him.
To her surprise, however, he beat her to it. She was sitting in her bedchamber, awake despite the late hour, and did not feel the disturbance until he was knocking on the door of her room. He was still the King after all, his power so much greater than hers.
She contemplated ignoring him, knowing he would respect her wish to maintain their distance. But she had missed him too. The feeling overpowered the anger that had simmered in her heart for the past day. Still, she couldn't give him everything he wanted without so much as a word of apology, so she opened the door and subjected him to her chilliest glare. Hades looked back at her steadily.
'Persephone,' he said gravely. 'May I speak to you?'
'Get down on your knees and I'll think about it,' she said imperiously.
He stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Before she could snap at him for barging in without her permission, he began to kneel before her, and she hastily said, 'Oh Hades, I was only joking! Why do you have to take my jests so seriously?'
'As King of the Underworld, I answer to no one, Persephone,' he said, looking up at her despite her best attempts to pull him to his feet. 'No one but my Queen. I will always defer to you.'
'Yes, well, the Queen would like you to stand up now, please! Come and sit with me.'
He obeyed, his massive frame shifting like a mountain as he climbed to his feet and followed her to the sofa. The moment he sat down, Persephone threw her arms around his neck, sitting down on his lap. He held her tightly.
'You're very sorry now, aren't you? You know that I love you with all my heart, whether I am here in the dark or up there in the light, don't you?' she said.
'Yes. I'm very sorry.'
She would have been content to forgive him right right there, was about to kiss him to show it, but he had not finished speaking.
'Persephone ... I need you to understand that there is nothing I believe in and no one I love but you. No one can betray me but you. Do you understand that?'
'Betray you!'
'When I saw that you had left - not only gone, but left of your own accord - I felt that I had lost everything. If you had been taken by force, I could believe that you still loved me, and that would be enough reason for me to bring you back. But if you had left because it was your wish to do so, the only reason I had to punish the mortals who did it was their impiety to the gods.'
'You mean that if it wasn't for that, you wouldn't have rescued me?!'
'I would believe - did believe - that it was your wish to leave. You know that I would never act against your wishes.'
'Hades!' Persephone was rendered temporarily speechless. She couldn't gather the words to explain to him how very, exceedingly wrong he was.
'What was I to think?'
He looked so serious, so injured, that Persephone was torn between staring at him in disbelief and covering him in reassuring kisses. How could he think something so ridiculous? But it was exactly because he had never loved anyone else that he didn't understand. While gods and mortals above mated and reproduced, he had sat alone in the Underworld after it had been given to him, without any intimate company, until the time she, Persephone, had caught his attention, and he had emerged from the earth to claim her as his own.
'I want to call you a fool even though it's not true,' she said. She stroked his face and he covered her hand with his own. 'But you are a fool in certain matters, it seems! Can't you simply believe that I love you? That I will always love you as long as you love me?'
'Yes. I understand that now. But why did you go with them if you did not mean to leave me?'
'I told you that I thought them amusing! Such a silly scheme, coming in here to take me as his wife! It would be bad enough if he was risking only your ire, but all the mortals know that I am bound here now, that I cannot reach the surface before my half-year is over. Too brainless to think of something so simple! That man was my half-brother too, it seems. Those children of Zeus are never good for anything.'
'There is one of them who is alright, I think,' Hades said. She giggled.
'Even if I love you because I am bound to you, that doesn't mean I love you any less, Hades.'
'I understand.'
'Kiss me if you do, then.'
Hades cupped her cheek and pressed their lips together. She kissed him back enthusiastically, satisfied that peace had been restored between them.
'What did you do with them? Something very terrible, I hope?' she said.
'Cerberus ate the one who proposed to you,' he said and she laughed heartily. 'The other one, your cousin, I left in the Chair of Forgetfulness. When your brother reconstitutes, he can join him in the same fate.'
'The other one was my cousin! So many children of the gods amongst the mortals. You're the only one of your brothers who hasn't populated the human race with your offspring.'
'Yes, well, they all turn out so poorly, it seems to be a bad idea in general.'
'And where would you find a mortal woman half as beautiful as me?'
'Indeed.'
At least he agreed with her, even if he hadn't been the one to say it. Persephone laughed to herself, pleased to have thought of yet another way in which Hades had distinguished himself as the best of his brothers in her eyes.
'Persephone.' She looked at him when he said her name. 'I have not slept in a few days. May I join you tonight?'
'I had no intention of allowing you to leave this room until the morning, Hades.'
He scooped her up in his arms, getting to his feet, and Persephone laughed as she thought of him gathering her up onto the back of his horse the previous day.
'You were so dashing when you came to my rescue, Hades,' she said as he carried her to the bed. 'What if I run away with more mortals just so I can see you bursting onto the scene to pick me up and sweep me away?'
'I won't mind it anymore now that you've told me the reason. Only try not to do it when we are busy. I hear that Ares is readying to cause his mischief up above so the River Styx will be inundated with crossing souls soon enough.'
'I'll make sure to only do it as a hobby then,' Persephone said, then settled in for the night, enveloped in her husband's embrace.