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Would one pomegranate seed count?
If she stayed conservative, her mother could litigate the entire situation away. “A taste is not a morsel,” she would argue, and it was a morsel that would damn Persephone to a life in the Underworld. Anything less than that, and she’d return to Olympus without consequence.
The ruby seed-gems winked at her from their cushion of pallid pith.
Certainly, Persephone would look foolish if she sneaked too many. Or worse—it would look purposeful. Mother would wail and wail about her darling Kore breaking her heart. Persephone couldn’t do that to her. Especially not after promising she’d remain a maiden like Artemis and Athena.
The promise to remain chaste had been easy to make when all her options had seemed the same—arrogant, brash, uncouth. She’d thought that was all manhood had to offer. What a waste of time that was. Much better to remain at Mother’s side than to be ground like chaff under a husband’s heel.
Hades, though—she thought again, as the ebon-shrouded god swept into her cell—was not like the other Olympians.
Five pomegranate seeds. Perhaps that would be enough.
“You can’t keep me here indefinitely,” she protested. Could he hear the hollowness in her taunt? “Mother will find me, eventually.”
Come now, Hades. Don your kothornoi, and play your part.
“She already has,” he said wearily. “Hermes just arrived with word from Zeus. You’re to be released immediately.”
“That is… much sooner than I expected.”
Too little time. She scrabbled behind her for a fistful of seeds, juice staining her hand as she plunged her fingers into the fruit’s tender heart.
Luckily, Hades was too caught in his own indignation to notice. “This could have been yours. You could have ruled the entire realm with me. Have had ultimate power over every mortal who ever lived and ever shall live. You would have been my queen, equally feared and respected.”
“Perhaps if you’d grown a beard, your offer would be more persuasive.”
Hades covered an abortive reach for his clean shaven jaw with a sweeping gesture toward the door.
Persephone smiled to herself as she preceded him through the onyx halls. For though her escort loomed like a shadow behind her, he could not see her pop her trophies into her mouth one by one.
But the owl-eyed nymph who tended the garden beds along the path to the surface could. His lips moved soundlessly as he counted her transgressions, “Four… Five…”
Six.