Hades and Persephone Ch. 21

"Apparently."

"I fear that despite all your efforts the mortals will never really understand anything about me, or this place, and that things will only grow worse."

"They may," she said. "But that might depend upon you. Come above. Be who you truly are to them— Plouton— the God of Riches and Fertility. The God of the Earth."

He gave her a strained smile. "I can try."

"Be my husband in this," she said, grasping his hand. "If you detest the way things are above, then help me change those things. Look at what I did in six short months. Mere words to a handful of people. I thought they didn't believe me, but they know the truth now: death is not the end."

He examined her, watching her eyes flare with possibility. "I will. I'll be your husband, your king and your consort. In this and in all things."

She laid her cheek on the pillow and relaxed when he stroked her back. "Tell me your thoughts on the ceremony."

He nestled closer to her. "Which part?"

"The full ceremony."

* * *

"Cerberus! Cerberus, down!"

The great guard dog skidded to a halt in front of his mistress and sat on his haunches. Persephone gathered up the little black lamb that huddled at her feet for protection. It shook, wobbly legged, and curled up against her bosom. She patted its head and it gave an indignant bleat to its pursuer. Cerberus barked again, snarling, his fangs bared. The lamb squirmed in her arms.

"No! Stop scaring him," she commanded her husband's dog. Cerberus flopped to the ground, resting his center head atop the other two. He let out a rumbling whine. "You can chase after the others, but this one is Menoetes' pet! You know that, you adorable beast."

Persephone reached for one black head and scratched behind his ear. Cerberus' tail thumped on the ground, shaking the Fields of Asphodel and scattering the shades away from them. He stretched his back legs and yawned, then shook himself and trotted away to watch over the Acheron.

"Aristi! Aristi," the bondsman called out. His shepherd's staff smacked against the tall stalks as he ran. Menoetes was out of breath by the time he stopped, and hunched over. "Thank the gods you found him, my queen."

"You should really build a better fence for little Rodi," she said, smiling.

He chuckled and took the tiny lamb from the Queen's arms. "This little one continues to be nothing but trouble. You know that he was the reason I ran into Askalaphos and discovered your half-eaten fruit, milady?"

"So the King told me," she said with a smile. "How is your mother, Menoetes?"

"Still feasting, along with the rest of the nymphs," he said as they strolled back to the gardens. "You were most generous, sharing everything the world above gave to you with all the nymphs and daemones in the kingdom."

She laughed. "Did you expect me to eat a palace full of fruit by myself?"

"Well, no," he said sheepishly. "But Askalaphos and I also weren't expecting that you would give us so many olives. He's quite fond of them, milady."

"I heard he's been sharing them with Nychtopula."

"Ahh, yes..." Menoetes said with a smile. "If he can stop lamenting that he cannot get olive trees to grow in Chthonia, and if he can get it through his thick head that she wants more from him than olives..."

"Perhaps I should tell him there will be more next year." Persephone opened the garden gate and walked ahead of Menoetes. Rodi drifted to sleep in the crook of his elbow, content to be home. She looked at the pomegranate grove, the fruits ripe and red, and took a deep breath. Aidoneus stood within, speaking with Hecate. He glanced in Persephone's direction and she could feel him smiling at her. They had spent the last few days opening their thoughts to each other, even further than they naturally could. They were able to feel each other from across the palace, across the Fields, even on opposite sides of the Styx, just as easily as they could when they were intimate. She smiled back at him.

"Pardon my asking, but shouldn't you be preparing for tonight's ceremony, my queen?"

"We have been preparing all week." Persephone had spent the first few days sleeping, trying to readjust herself to the cycles of day and night in Chthonia. The rest of her time she'd spent consulting with Hecate and Nyx, and practicing the vows and words of the ritual with Aidon. After discussing the details of the ceremony and the hieros gamos, Aidoneus and Persephone had agreed to abstain until the night of the wedding.

It hadn't been easy, especially with their thoughts consumed with the details of the ritual. Three nights before, they'd awoken flush against each other, and without thinking Persephone nipped at his lower lip. Aidon firmly kissed her back, their mouths greedy for each other, their tongues rehearsing the motions of lovemaking. His hands had swept across her body, touching and electrifying every inch of her skin, liquid fire spilling from her womb. His phallus was as hard as stone between them. He delighted in her moans, teasing her mercilessly with quick fingers, no matter how much she tried to gyrate out of their path. Her body wanted something besides fingertips.

When her nails dug into his flank and pulled him closer, he'd separated from her with a growl and leapt out of bed. Aidon stormed over to the wash basin and quickly doused himself with its contents. Persephone barely suppressed a laugh when he yelled and cursed at the shock of cold water. He stood drenched and breathing hard, his passion dying down, then mumbled something unintelligible and grabbed his himation, slamming the door behind him. Persephone lay on the bed, letting her heartbeat slow, and drifted off. When she awoke, she found him curled uncomfortably on the divan outside their bedroom, his cloak muffling his snoring.

The following night, Persephone decided it was best to retreat to her old room to avoid temptation. She hadn't been there in months— not since they began sleeping beside each other. The memories of their fight and reconciliation made Persephone toss back and forth for half the night. In the wee hours of the morning, Aidon threw open the bedroom door, naked as the day he was born. Despite her protests, he hoisted her squirming body over his shoulder and carried her all the way back to their bedroom. Aidoneus tossed Persephone on the mattress and pulled the covers over them both, then promptly fell asleep, his arm heavy across her waist.

She smiled and opened the door to the palace. The new tapestry hung above it from the high ceiling, depicting husband and wife in an emerald field with an azure sky, framed by the pomegranate grove, the center portrait encompassed by a meandros of narcissus and golden arrows. In each corner was a scene from the past year: Kore standing in a newly-sown barley field, a butterfly in her hand; Hades pulling her into his chariot; Persephone holding a pomegranate in one hand and six seeds in the other; and lastly a portrait of her mother and father, her husband and herself reaching the Agreement and completing the circle of the year. The tapestry of Hades and Persephone's marriage was complete, buffeted on all sides by the seasons— summer and autumn, winter and spring.

"My queen?"

She turned to see Hecate behind her.

"It's time."

* * *

In the end, they created their own ceremony. Aidon didn't want the marriage ceremony of the cityfolk of Attica— 'the slave rite', as he called it— that ended with him dragging her by the wrist into his bedchamber. And Persephone joked that there wasn't enough time before the full moon for him to fight all the Olympians and thus prove himself capable of protecting his new bride like the Lacedaemonians did. Their ceremony was to be a coronation of the King and Queen of the Underworld as much as it was a wedding ceremony.

Nyx and her sons would witness, and Hecate would prepare Persephone and preside over the ceremony. The Witch Goddess led Persephone to her old chambers, where they'd first met. She undressed the Queen and helped her stand in a large basin, then doused her with warm salt water before drying her with fresh linens and plaiting her hair into a coronet of braids. The white witch rubbed a perfumed oil infused with frankincense and sweet bay laurel into every inch of her skin, then scraped the excess off with a metal strigil. Persephone knew that Aidoneus was undergoing similar ritual bathing and preparation with the help of Thanatos and Hypnos.

We're gods. To whom would we swear ourselves?

"You decided on a ceremony with few vows," Hecate noted.

"Our vows will be the hieros gamos itself." Persephone shivered, rubbing her arms. The oil was warming, but not enough to stave off the pervasive chill of the palace.

Hecate unfolded a short chiton so heavily dyed with saffron it was as dark as the little orange anthers from which it drew its color. The finely woven garment shimmered and slithered over Persephone's curves almost weightlessly. Hecate held two fibulae in her mouth and gathered up the cloth, pinning one shoulder, then the other, before standing back to admire her handiwork. "A wise choice. You and your counterpart see the hieros gamos in a very different light than your mother did."

"She was only doing what she thought best," Persephone said. "When Demeter chose Zeus, she was acting out of love." Hecate wound a simple sash of saffron cloth around her waist as a girdle.

"Indeed," she answered flatly, unfurling an even greater measure of cloth to drape over Persephone's shoulders as a mantle. The edges met the floor. "Is your hieros gamos to be only an act of love? Or is it to be something greater?"

Persephone knitted her brow. "From what everyone has told me, the Rite by its very nature produces 'something greater'." She met Hecate's gaze. "I was the product of my parents' union, after all."

"Are you suggesting that this could mean children for you and your husband?"

Persephone looked away.

"Do not be afraid of hope, Persephone. Hope is a hard-forged blade, keen and shining. Used recklessly, it will maim and scar; but wielded with finesse, it will give you the power to carve a destiny of unsurpassed glory."

"The Fates said that we might have three children."

"That may well be," a lilting voice said from the corner of the room. Nyx appeared from a haze of darkness and floated across the room. "But beware their favor and prophecies. It is not meant for creatures like us to fully grasp what ananke has in store for us."

"What should I expect?" Persephone asked nervously.

"Nothing you could expect, dear," Nyx said. "Even I know not what. Erebus and I, on our first Rite, believed we would unite our souls, but we also received a child. The first child born from our generation. And each subsequent union produced more still. Your mother sought out love. She birthed the Queen that had been foretold since Ouranos' downfall. You, Persephone, already have love. This rite will create more than the sum of what either of you alone possess. Remember that tonight."

Nyx and Hecate took either side of a bright saffron veil and tucked it gently into Persephone's braids, leaving her vision unobscured. Nyx then produced two crowns of olive and laurel, narcissus and pomegranate leaves. One wreath was woven with asphodel.

Your bridal crown is beautiful...

Persephone froze. She had tucked asphodel from the grove into the wreath Artemis had woven before Hades had taken her. And the night she ate the seeds, before Persephone ascended back to the living world, her dream featured the very crowns Nyx held.

They were lying in the pomegranate grove, entangled in each other's arms, markings gouged into the ground around them...

This night, like every twist and turn of her life, had been both freely chosen and preordained. She nodded, finally understanding.

Hecate stepped back and clasped her hands together, her eyes sparkling. "Wisdom and beauty. Your husband is a fortunate man, indeed. Come."

Persephone took Hecate's hand and walked down the winding steps. With a flick of her wrist, Nyx opened the great doors leading to the garden and the pomegranate grove beyond. Hecate led their way. Persephone felt like Nyx, euphorically floating toward the grove as her feet glided down the pathway, her heart beating harder the closer she came to Aidoneus. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. The Styx lit the mists of the Underworld in a dazzling array of golds and purples.

Gravel crunched under her toes and poked at her heels. This time, Persephone barely noticed. She watched as dark red seeped into Hecate's trailing robes, bleeding over the white and signaling the apex of the full moon.

Nyx brought up the rear of their small procession, carrying the wreaths and soundlessly floating inches off the ground. The darkness that twined about her grew and spread above them, becoming night in the Underworld. Torches smoldered along the palace walls and on the tops of the garden enclosure, illuminating their path in gold. Moonlight turned the grove silver. Leaves rustled as Hecate parted them.

In the midst of the grove stood her lover, her husband, her king, barefoot, clad in the same saffron as her, but with a deep purple, gold-embroidered himation wound about him. His hair hung loosely down his back and he gripped his staff tighter when their eyes met.

Morpheus and Charon stood to either side of him. The Lord of Dreams was unmoving, his face hooded. He held an obsidian knife in one hand. Charon's head was also hooded, but he swayed gently like the motion of his boat, his hand wrapped tightly around a kantharos of water from the Styx. He shifted his stance and smiled at her.

Hypnos and Thanatos parted, allowing Hecate to lead Persephone to Hades, then took their places, each wedding guest standing in front of a tree in the grove. In their right hands, each of Nyx's sons held half a pomegranate plucked from the sacred grove.

Aidoneus straightened as she approached, and Persephone could feel his nervousness, his heart beating out of his chest and overflowing. I love you, she said, and felt him calm.

And I love you. His face remained serious.

She gazed up at him. I'm going to become one with this man, she thought, her stomach fluttering.

Indeed, sweet one.

You heard me... She smiled at him. That means that all of your innermost thoughts...

...are an open scroll, he finished for her. Naked. All you need do is read me, as I can read you.

Hecate took her place before them, waited for Aidon to hand her his staff, then motioned for them to turn. Persephone and Aidon slowly walked toward Nyx hand in hand, their bare feet padding through the moss and soft grasses of the grove. When they reached the Goddess of Night, they knelt together, their heads bowed.

"Before the Tyrant, I ruled this realm with Erebus as my consort and husband. Freed by Aidoneus the Liberator, I passed on the Key, abdicating my power over the Underworld to the first born son of Cronus, hero of the Titanomachy, and fated consort of the Queen. The world below was ever meant to be ruled by a Queen, one who had been promised to us since the downfall of Ouranos. That time has come, by the will of the Fates."

A smile teased the corner of Persephone's mouth and she grasped Aidon's hand.

"But the Fates do not always reveal themselves in the manner we think they ought. Clotho, Lachesis, and Atropos revealed ananke to our prophesied Queen, and told her that she and her husband share equally in the rulership of this realm, in their fate, in their responsibility to the souls above and below. And it is with this knowledge that I ordain not just a Queen and her consort, but a King and Queen to rule side by side."

Nyx lifted the crowns over her head and placed her slender fingers on Persephone's scalp.

"Persephone Praxidike Karpophoros Chthonios, Queen of Asphodel and Tartarus, Goddess of Life and Death, do you accept responsibility over all the souls above and below as the Queen of the Earth?"

"I do," she said.

"Do you pledge yourself to them and promise to rule by your husband's side as his consort and equal for all eternity?"

"I do."

"Hades Aidoneus Plouton Chthonios, Receiver of Many, Lord of Souls, God King of the Underworld, do you accept responsibility over all the souls above and below as the King of the Earth?"

"I do," he said.

"Do you pledge yourself to them and promise to rule by your wife's side as her consort and equal for all eternity?"

"I do."

Nyx placed the wreaths on their heads and drifted back from them. "Rise as one— as the Rulers of the Earth," she said. "Make your vows, and consecrate your union as King and Queen."

Hades and Persephone faced each other, then walked to their respective attendants. Persephone took three seeds from the pomegranate held by Hypnos while Hades took three from Thanatos; then the queen took three more from the fruit held by Charon and the king received his from Morpheus. They returned to stand again before Hecate.

They each cradled six seeds with their fingertips, held aloft and offered to one another.

Their priestess spoke. "As these seeds bound you to this world, let them also bind you to each other as husband and wife."

Persephone lifted her seeds to Aidon's mouth as he did the same to hers. She felt a shiver course from her wrist to the pit of her stomach when his lips touched her fingertips and felt a similar frisson echo within him. Hecate took the stone blade from Morpheus and held it with its point down before the King and Queen. They interlaced the fingers of their left hands around its blade. Hecate took the kantharos from Charon and held it aloft.

"As the water of the Styx bound you together at your betrothal, it binds you now, a second time," Hecate said. The Priestess pulled the knife out of their grasp quickly, scoring their palms, blood against blood, and shook it into the water, washing it clean.

Persephone kept her eyes locked with Aidoneus and bit back a whimper. The only sign that he'd felt the cut was a momentary tightening of his jaw. He grasped her hand tighter, silently lending her his strength as they bound themselves together—flowed into one another. The wounds healed. Their rings smoldered with a faint red glow and Persephone felt her heart beating in time with his.

The water in the cup darkened and tinged red, imbued with their combined essence. When it purified itself and reflected the moonlit clarity of the great River, Hecate continued. "When you take these vows you will bind yourselves a third time, everlasting and eternal through the sacred rite of hieros gamos. But before that consummation you must consecrate yourselves to each other, and drink from the Styx as you swear upon it." She handed the kantharos to Aidoneus first. He held it between them and spoke his vow.

"I swear upon the Styx to love and to cherish you. To honor and protect you as your consort, your king, and your beloved. With this oath I bind myself to you eternally, and by drinking the water of the Styx, I become your lord and your husband."

He brought the cup to his lips and drank. His brow furrowed. The Styx was pure yet bitter, a reminder of the gravity of any oath made upon it. Aidoneus passed the cup to his wife and she drew in a ragged breath.

"I swear upon the Styx to love and to cherish you. To honor and protect and you as your consort, your queen, and your beloved. With this oath I bind myself to you eternally, and by drinking the water of the Styx, I become your lady and your wife."