Week 2 Storytelling: The Queen of the Dead

My story is not for the faint of heart. But its morals are clear: sometimes, what we need comes to us disguised as disaster.

It started one fine day in Spring. I was out gathering flowers with my friends in the glade next to the Pergus spring, known for its magical waters. The sun sifted through the trees to shine down speckled onto the flowers and shrubs below, hiding my friends and me in golden camofluage. My skirts were already filled to the hem with crocuses, lilies, violets, dandelions, and those prized Tyrian purple flowers. My heart was light and happy, in the way only a girlish heart can be.

But deep within that girlish heart was a fierce longing. Though I was still young, my first blood had come and gone and by that rite I was already a woman. My mother, proud Demeter, refused to acknowledge that the time had come for me to go find my own path, to pave out my own trail of greatness as she had eons ago. I played the part of her little girl, but the wildness in my heart grew with each passing day.

"Gathering Flowers" by Albert Lynch

Image: Medea's Lair

The daydreams which dared to take me away from my girlish prison drowned out all my other senses and in that moment that same wildness in my heart manifested itself in the form of dread black horses whisking a chariot that moved deathly silent. I saw not my kidnapper’s face, but I felt his strong arms encircle me and snatch me from my childish daydreams. I cried out in surprise rather than fear as the flowers tumbled out of my skirts and into the waters of the fabled spring. Like an ill omen, I knew those trampled flowers marked the end of my childhood.

My captor and I raced across the countryside, going so fast that my vision blurred and I struggled to see where we were going. The winds tore the cries of help from my mouth and I beat uselessly upon his chest with my fists.

A beautiful nymph tried to stop him, to dissuade him from taking me, but my captor was merciless. With one blow from his scepter he commanded the Earth to open and we plummeted down into darkness, the dank earth swallowing my cries for help.

Beyond that, nobody on Earth knows what happened next. Most think the worst of my husband, my Hades, but he did not force me as Zeus forced so many other women. He gave me a room that was a section of a cave and did not speak to me for days.

I wept bitter tears during that time. Mourner’s tears. I wept for the true end of my childhood, for the unknown future, for my surely distraught mother. I was sequestered away somewhere in Hell with no way out.

After several days - I cannot tell you how long - I ventured from my room to explore. My door was a tangle of vines which wove together to make a green curtain. Outside was a long corridor lit by glowing orbs of light. My room was the only one with a ‘door’, and the rest seemed unoccupied.

I explored for several hours and discovered that the Underworld really was not as horrible as the Olympic deities had made it out to be. There was an ethereal glowing quality to everything, even to the river Styx which glided silently by.

I came upon an orchard and realized I couldn’t remember the last time I had eaten, so fraught with grief and shock I had been. Without thinking, I plucked a ripe pomegranate from one of the trees and savored the juice from seven seeds before the crack of a twig made me turn around.

There he stood - solemn and quiet, tall and foreboding in his black cloak. His face betrayed no emotion but his eyes burned with quiet fire. Silently, he knelt and presented a bouquet of the exact same flowers I had been picking when he stole me away.

“Your mother is scouring all of Earth looking for you. She misses you dearly,” he started, glancing upwards.

“I know.” I answered quietly, accepting his offering.

He stood, taller than night, taller than Olympus and clasped one of my delicate hands in his cold pale ones. A heavy silence hung between us.

“Forgive me. In all my eons of existence, I have never felt such passion, such reverence, such devotion, as when I set these tired eyes on you,” he confessed, sighing as his thumb stroked the top of my hand.

“I know this is not a world you are used to,” he continued, those eyes of cold fire searching mine, “but here you would rule. Here, you would stand with me, and together we would have a kingdom of the dead. No one would be able to force you or command you. You would be your own person, and….” he stopped, his gaze lowering... “Hopefully, my Queen.”

I tore my gaze from his and looked at his underground kingdom. The orchard, though in the domain of the dead, was alive and fruitful. There were springs, rivers, and even small flowers. Everything I had learned about Hades had turned out to be lies.

Queen. Queen of the Dead, Queen of a domain none of the other Gods, save for Hades, could govern.

“I accept. I will rule by your side,” I whispered, trembling. “But give me time. I am not accustomed to you or your world, yet.”

“For you, I would give all the time since the formation of the Cosmos.”

Hades and Persephone

Image: Puistopulu

My love story is not typical. One could say it started off with a bribe, but it continues to be one of the best things to have ever happened to me. I make my own rules and reign over a kingdom which even the highest of Gods trembles to visit. My fate was not so terrible as the myths made it out to be.

Author’s Note: So, if you can’t tell, I like taking stories that appear to have a dark theme and then telling them from a point of view which makes them seem not so bad. Here, I told the story from Persephone’s point of view. Maybe in the myths she truly was forced by Hades and had an awful time in the underworld, but what if that wasn't the case? What if she was just looking for a way out from under her mother’s protective wing?

It was difficult for me to tell what happened to her after the initial kidnapping because I didn't want to stick to how the original myth was told and have him 'take' her. For one, that would be very difficult to write, just because of the emotional scarring it would cause and second, I wanted to make this more of a happy story. Thus, I just had him toss her in a cell so she could figure things out.

There were many ways to tell this story; I had originally thought about telling it from the point of view of Hades, but I can't imagine kidnapping anyone, so I wouldn't be able to follow his thought process realistically. I've been hit by one of Cupid's arrows before, but not quite so thoroughly as Hades had.

I also had a difficult time conveying the color of their eyes, their composure, and just overall demeanor because these are Gods I'm writing about. To me, it's impossible to describe their beauty, the actual color of their eyes, or the grace with which they walk. That was one of the larger road blocks I ran into while writing this.

I know the writing style for this is really cheesy and prose-like, but I felt an ample helping of cheese helped to tell the story better. I promise not all my re-tellings will be this way. :)

Bibliography
Title: Dis and Proserpine 
Book: Ovid's Metamorphoses
Author: Tony Kline
Year: 2000