by Eileen Glass
He helps her up out of the dust.
“There will always be those things to be done,” he answers. “And Mother, the date has been set—”
“But half the slaves have died already! We have more work to do, and less than half the hands to do it! Seph, you are holding this farm together—”
Seph begins walking, though now he guides his mother alongside him. Hecate heaves a little unhappy sigh, letting him know her opinion about these last minute dramatics.
He agrees. But he is more patient. In a way, his own mother is his subject too, no different than any of the humans he’s looked after while he’s here.
“Buy more slaves if you need more slaves, Mother. There aren’t many on the market, it’s true, but their prices are lower than they’ve ever been. The slave masters have to feed their families. And if you wander to the poor places of town, you will find mothers willing to give away one of their children for a loaf of bread.”
“The hunger is not averted, Persephone! Humanity is still in great danger. Not everyone will get to eat, and the winter may bring the flu. You realize the winter will be hard, don’t you? Without you here—”
“It has been a long summer, Mother. The winter will be mild and short, since I will come back after the first snowfall in Greece—for this winter. I think it will be a decade of long summers to bolster humanity and make sure the Earth is thriving again. But then there will be long winters too. There will be times when Hades has beautiful homes sitting empty, and those will be the times that the harvest is in the underworld’s favor.”
“Seph, you’re killing children,” his mother says, as they climb a cobblestone road up a hill. It is too early to see other farmers heading into the city market. They are glutting and stashing their own feast from the tax collectors before they share with everyone else. But no fruit, vegetable, or strip of meat will go to waste for many summers.
Ahead, at the top of the hill, the shadows from the trees grow long and dark. They are slanted slightly wrong, as if there is a prick in the fabric of the world that draws them that way.
Hades will be just over that hill.
“Seph, did you hear me?!” She grabs him by the arm and tries to stop him. She also eyes the hill.
Seph does not hurry, but he also will not be stalled anymore.
“Why should the deaths of children bother me? I love children. Hades does too.”
“Oh, I see. You don’t care about the babes now? You don’t care about slaves suffering or mothers so hungry they’re willing to trade their babies for grain? What happened to you? Is Hades so evil he’s been able to penetrate your heart?”
She is sounding desperate now and heartbroken. She stopped walking beside him, and so Seph allows himself to turn back and address her. Only because he cares about her.
She is about twice the height he was expecting, and looking levelly at him, though she stands at the bottom and Seph has started climbing the hill.
“Mother, I love you. I’m not leaving to hurt you. Someday you’re going to come to the underworld with me—with all of us—and you’re going to see all the beautiful things Hades and I have made together. You’re going to look back on this moment with regret for discouraging me.”
“Why don’t you care about the children? Where is your heart for the slaves? Convince me, Persephone, my son, that this man hasn’t gutted you of your good qualities.”
She doesn’t say it, but Seph can read the unspoken threat in her eyes. Or I will send Zeus after you. His father may not like him, but if Demeter continues to blame the marriage for the summer season not returning, Zeus will care enough about the entire world to make some sort of nuisance. The agreement Seph has reached with him will not hold.
And though Demeter might be defective like him, no god magic has been able to harm her when she is in her giant form. So Hecate likely cannot subdue her either.
The only one who can get through to her is Seph himself. And he has tried.
“Mother, nearly half the children who die go straight to Elysium. They are the best kind of souls, actually. They have no ambitions, and so they usually do well in a world where achievement is at its end. There are many orphans in Elysium who await their mothers. And there’s great happiness there, for the little souls love babes to look after. As for the slaves—there are none in Elysium. No one is truly a slave, not even here.”
“He’s brainwashed you!” she exclaims, and Hecate taps on the whip in her belt. She wants to try. But that would unravel more family dramatics that Seph is trying to avoid.
“Sefkh, one of my sons in the afterlife, explains a concept where the afterlife is sort of a mirror of Earth, but with a lot of dead people in it. I think it is the opposite. I think all humans are connected, and somehow, through their essence, the knowledge and ideas gained from the ones who stay in the underworld reaches the ones who are reborn here. And I believe that together, all of Gaia’s children will reach wisdom and happiness. It is not my job to care about the slaves. Humans will resolve the issue themselves.”
She has become her normal size again, a tall-ish but disheveled noble woman at the bottom of the hill. And Seph can see the familiar look of loss on her features. It is times like this he knows he speaks in a way that her old son never would.
So Seph holds out his hand to her. “Come see me off. Please.” And he waits for her to catch up to him.
Then they go together toward Hades, who waits on the other side of the hill. Seph wanders off the road, following the ever-darkening shadows, and finds an overhang from a rock ledge nearby, where Hades has parked the horses.
Demeter hugs Seph and gazes coldly beyond him.
“He left me to burn. I was only a babe.”
Hades says nothing and makes no gesture. But Seph knows it is only because he can’t correct what is already done.
“If there was a way to take it back, he would.”
“Then why hasn’t he said so himself?”
“Would you like to hear him say it now?”
Her answer is to turn away. Gods do not forgive for a long, long time.
As Seph reaches his husband, embracing him also, they hear her yell from the trees, “Take care of my son this time! Or I will crush this entire Earth in my fist!”
Seventy
“Welcome home, my stallion,” Hades says in his ear, and Seph feels a smile against his neck. He reaches up to grab his husband’s shoulders and to feel his hair as well, that wonderful sweet winter scent taking over the smell of earth and sweat in his own clothes. And a little bit of horse manure. Seph thought he picked something clean from his room, but he must have been mistaken.
He won’t wear these clothes for long anyway. He sighs and leans into his husband and they kiss.
Somewhere Hecate makes a single smooching sound, but otherwise her attitude is properly submissive.
“Master, may I meet you there?” she asks after a long time has passed, and Seph is not nearly done kissing Hades yet.
He makes a waving hand gesture behind his back. And since he doesn’t hear another word or an impatient sound from her again, he assumes she’s disappeared somewhere. If anybody knows how to travel in and out of the underworld as easily as Hades, it would have to be Hecate.
“I’ve prepared a wedding feast,” Hades says, smiling more than Seph has ever seen as they stumble and fondle and kiss each other back to the chariot. “Have you worked on your vows for me?”
“I was only going to say how I miss your ass in leather. And that I’m weirdly attracted to your hair soap.”
“Don’t worry. Verah conspired with the poets to write you some short, traditional vows. This is more of a party than a marriage, and everyone is brainstorming a name for the holiday. Right now they’re calling it Persephone Comes Home Day, but don’t worry, it may not stick.”
“I like Persephone Cums Day,” Seph says with a grin as his husband picks up the reins. The horses make a sharp turn to face a break in the trees, and then Hades snaps the reins on their ba
cks and they charge. The chariot plunges directly into what should be solid earth, and the ground rolls with ripples out around them. There is a race of wind and colors and a cold sensation. Like jumping into a lake from a far height, something that Seph did this summer.
And then there is so much vastness underneath him. The air is clean of heat and smells. The light is no longer in his eyes.
Seph leans far over the chariot and scans the dark woods for wandering souls, finding their way to the docks where Charon will guide them. Or for the occasional animal who shows up.
There is nothing to be seen. No birds and no flowers even. Hades has to cultivate anything unique. There is no color or light out here in the endless unclaimed woods.
But Seph stares down into barren land and feels excitement.
“The Earth is going to grow very old,” Seph says, and already he’s thinking he might like to add this to his speech later tonight. “We are going to grow fabulous things down here and up there both, happening at the same time. And this eternal world is going to be the most vibrant, beautiful, and complicated place.”
Author’s Note
November 2019
Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this modern and classic blend of Hades and Persephone. I became interested in the myth when I saw a reddit post criticizing this picture for romanticizing rape:
deviantart.com/sandara/art/hades-and-persephone-2-210920648
And when one of the comments refuted it, explaining that abduction is part of the ancient Greek wedding ceremony, I became curious and started doing research.
This was while I was finishing up Pykh 1, over a year ago! I waited patiently to start this novel.
The number one thing that called me to write this story was Hades’s character. A bad boy with a soft heart? Who doesn’t love that? But also I became more interested in Seph as I realized his modern depiction doesn’t suit him at all. (Or her. LOL)
Persephone is usually represented as the good side of Hades, the one who reins in his evil. But in truth, Persephone is the bad bitch you call for curses and morbid favors. She usually sees to the punishment of men.
Or, that’s how it was. Nowadays she’s a flower princess, always depicted as the damsel in distress.
From the very start, I wanted to show Hades and Persephone as equal kings, being a perfect union. I did not want Seph to become Hades’s moral compass, since I felt like that would lead to him overruling and overpowering his husband. I wanted the older interpretation, in which they are partners, not opposites.
Though, I suppose Seph does tempt Hades to be a little better. And Seph does sort of overpower him in the last act. But overall, I hope I wrote two badass gods who complement each other. Their setting is morbid, but hey, it’s the underworld.
This is likely to be my one and only dabble in the world of Greek myths. I hope I did a good job! I’ll be starting Pykh 4 very soon, which is a humorous scifi and nothing at all like Hades & Seph. But I have at least one more dark fantasy world I want to write someday… an underwater world full of monsters. Styx would approve!
You can follow my blog to see what I’m up to, and I’ve also started a Patreon page. I’ll be posting chapters of Pykh 4 there in December.
- Eileen Glass
eileenglass.com
patreon.com/eileenglass
(No deleted scenes this time. I accidentally deleted them permanently. QQ)
Also by Eileen Glass
Chapter 1
Breeders Wanted.
Exchange your ordinary life for Luxury, Family, and Space…
The words are imposed atop the photo of a smiling human man hugging a pink-haired baby with the moon behind them. The first word on the sign changes every couple of years from ‘Breeders’ to ‘Omegas’ and back because the Earth and the Moon bicker constantly over what it should say.
“Not thinking about getting your ass pounded, are you?” Cory laughs. “Remember, as bad as it gets scrubbing toilets, nothing is worse than that.”
He touches his stomach and shudders. All men have the same reaction, mental or physical, when they stare at it for too long. Most don’t even look at it anymore, but the signs are posted everywhere. Every business of a certain size is required to display them in highly visible areas. They also have to keep them in good condition, clean of graffiti.
Thus, there’s a man currently climbing a ladder with scrub gloves and a wash bucket. Someone drew a dick over the baby so that the man seems to be cradling, and smiling at, an enormous prick. They also added ASS CUNT over ‘Breeders’.
“You seem quiet, man. Everything alright?” Cory asks.
“Yeah,” Rourke says, distracted, as the woman at the pharmacy counter calls for next in line.
He gives her his identification card, which she scans to pull up his record. The pain medication is for his mother, but he’s an authorized buyer on her account. She scans the list of the many medications he’s allowed to pick up.
“You’re here for…” She guesses the one that’s low due to the bottle capacity and the time of his last pick up. They monitor these things exactly to stop dealers.
“Yup,” he confirms. Usually, she’d be off to retrieve the prescription. He sees her about three times a month for different things. But just this once, she lingers on her computer, her eyes affixed near the top of the screen. She clicks once.
Rourke’s heart picks up a beat. What could she be looking at? Could he be approved so soon? He checked his account status on his lunch break, and it was yellow—’In Review’.
Her glance from Rourke and back to the computer screen could be coincidental.
Cory leans backwards against the counter, oblivious. “Remember Rourke, as it bad as it gets mopping floors for the corporate slaves that keep laying us off to save their paycheck… at least you aren’t spitting babies out of your ass. It’s a good thing they put those signs everywhere to keep life in perspective, huh?”
Rourke drops his eyes, unable to look at either of them. Everything Cory says is true. He and Cory have joked and talked shit over so many lunch breaks and just hanging out. BS-ing their lot in life always comes with a footnote: At least we aren’t spitting babies out our ass for the alien overlords.
In Rourke’s city especially, when life gets hard there’s pride in never taking the easy way out. Suicide is preferable, Rourke heard in school once, and the whole class ‘hmmed’ with agreement. The teacher didn’t chime in, but he looked proud.
Earth, in general, protests against the alpha aliens’ rule. But Rourke’s city is where they brought the harem towers down. Where they killed several alphas and alpha children in a war. Where they suffered massacres as a result.
Death before slavery is still the motto.
The woman—Audrey, her name tag says—gives the back of Cory’s head a very long and obvious stare. She knows. It must be on her screen, the little infinity symbol next to his citizenship ID.
His application got approved. Rourke’s thumbs itch to bring out his phone and check, just to be doubly sure, but he can’t with Cory watching.
“Who the hell even calls that number?” his friend muses aloud with a bored sigh.
Almost no one… and Rourke. Their city has the highest number of omega-compatible humans and the lowest number of applicants. What would Cory say next if he knew?
“I’ll get this from the back,” Audrey says and leaves the computer. Her tone is neither friendly nor unfriendly. Rourke is probably reading too much into it, but it did seem that she was a little more personable before.
Thankfully, the law prevents anyone, professional or otherwise, from outing an omega status on someone’s personal record. Rourke remembers his mother throwing a fork at the TV when they announced the alphas’ ruling ten years ago. Protests were held for months, but the Earth Coalition backed the ruling due to the violent ‘bitch hunt’ that had happened.
Audrey returns. “Here you go.” She passes the bag across the counter and interlaces her fingers,
making an attempt at a polite smile. “Do you have any questions about the medication or anything?”
“No,” Rourke mumbles and produces his wage card.
She looks at it and opens her mouth. Rourke can see the words forming. That’s not necessary.
He cuts in. “Please.”
Alpha government is absolutely efficient. The moment his application got approved, he doesn’t pay for any medications, government services, or even housing. The allowance is temporary, until he gets auctioned. His winning alpha foots the bill when it all gets finalized.
It’s illegal to charge an omega for these services. She looks at his card like she can’t figure out what to do with it. Cory, who still has his back against the counter, looks over his shoulder to see what’s up.
The card wobbles in his grasp as Rourke prepares for the worst.
“Oh! Of course!” Audrey play-slaps her forehead and breaks into forced chuckles. “Man, it’s been such a long day…”
“We hear that,” Cory remarks.
Rourke exhales with relief and gives her a grateful smile. She gives him a little one in return, tapping away on her keyboard. She slides his wage card, and a short receipt prints for the bill. Rourke takes a pen from the cup on her counter to sign his name. Then she trades the little receipt for his invoice.
“Have a great day! And thanks for being honest.”
Rourke crams the invoice and the pills into his coat pocket. A whole half sheet of paper for the secure purchase of one tube of lip balm. Fortunately, Cory has no reason to be suspicious and doesn’t demand to see the bill.
“Hey! Let’s hit up the game store next,” his friend says. “I want to try out Quests and Mages on the Perception console. I hear it’s kick-ass.”
That is one good thing about the alien alphas taking over Earth and enslaving the human race to have babies. With their advanced technology, video games have become amazing.
Omega Society Auction >>