I love Lore Olympus and I love Punderworld, but there’s just something that bothers me with both. So here’s a fic!
First, you have to understand family.
When the Earth reached up to the Sky, and he embraced her, their commingling gave rise to the Titans. There was no birth and there was no relation, save for the relations that would beget the first.
So Rhea and Cronus simply were. And they simply begat.
It was difficult for me to think of the rest as siblings. Cronus swallowed us like his own seed, taken in after the fact. Perhaps that was the start of it; some paternal urge not to totally destroy his children. But either way, fatherly intent or not, we were taken in. We grew in the dark but did not germinate.
And anyway, none of us then knew Zeus.
He was a stranger and unknown to us. He was our hero.
(I would later come to despise Odysseus on principle.)
After we returned, our expulsion, another act of birth - and certainly our father cried out as if in labor - the war began.
It was won, as such things are, and we were given our parcels.
I was bidden unto Gaia, twice now a lovers’ traitor, and clearly in need of a sentry. It was because of my calling to sacred law; I would uphold the justice Zeus had laid out. Things would follow their proper routes, from life to death. No longer would fathers fear their sons, as they would only look at the blowing wheat and fear impending age.
Not the Gods of course. The Gods had no such fear.
(Yet was it not fear that made wise Hestia choose her sacred virginity?)
Fertility was something I only considered tangentially. I cared about the budding of flowers, not breasts. Menstrual blood did not occur among the cereals, but I knew plenty about flowing seed.
Let Hera go to the mortal women. Let her birth War from her loins. My work was maintaining the garden of plenty, my Cornucopia.
(Perhaps I should have worried about other things. Of more earthly things.)
I could smell earth, I could taste pollen, and I could see the result of my perpetual labor.
(I don’t think they’ll ever talk about the flowers I sent to him. They always died when I cut them.)
When a child is born to the gods, does anyone consider the pregnancy? A Goddess is pregnant for precisely as long as is required. But if a God cannot bleed, what trickles out as the babe is born? Is it ichor? Or salty water, as many were who came from Oceanus?
I wouldn’t really know now, would I?
What was I, before Zeus came to me? Don’t any of you know?
But it’s not his season yet in this story.
For all of his name, I saw him plenty.
The grain that spilled out from my hands after the harvest became silver coins in his. A mortal transition made this alchemy possible and it delighted me. We discussed that, among many things. Or really, he would argue with me.
“They sustain themselves on the death of my plants, and they pay for the privilege of staying alive.” I said.
The harvest sunlight was the most Hades could handle, staying in the Underworld as often as he did. His helm caught no light, however, and became a permanent shadow that never looked quite like it belonged.
“The cost of the grain goes down the less life it has in it. So really, they’re paying for life to extend their own.” He replied.
“Either way, death comes.” I said.
“Death comes for them all, either way.” He said.
(I know what the stories say, but he was my friend. If I had thought about it, I would have said I loved him for that.)
Back then, there was no winter. My grief had not frozen the world. I had not begun to hate it yet. Instead, I took a break as I watched the mortals celebrate. Hades kept me company and we both relished no longer being in the darkness. Neither of us did very well with the others of our brood.
And perhaps it was because of our watching that we began to understand. We understood power, and watched as Ares ripped through the mortals like a fire through dry wheat. We understood lust as the mortals and Gods both tore themselves apart when Aphrodite walked through a room. We understood rape when Apollo and Artemis were born.
(I did not tremble when Hera went to Artemis, and Artemis became a sacred virgin. Nor when the not-yet-Pallas Athena did the same. I did not know.)
We never suspected what would happen when Zeus stood between heaven and earth.
Or, perhaps he did, as he knew Zeus better. But I was naive.
I am not vain, but I know I look my best at midsummer. I know this because the stone fruits are near bursting with juice, the bees are constantly drunk, and the air smells like ambrosia. I am the cycles of the earth after all, and what is in me is reflected upon it.
He found me in my garden.
He stepped beyond my boundaries.
He crushed my blossoms beneath his heel.
He struck me and I could taste cherry wine.
The earth drank in my ichor and my salt water.
He took of my fruit and left my pit on the ground.
Nothing quickened in my womb.
That’s the joke you see. I was charged with being midwife to the greatest womb of it all, and was barren myself.
What need of a womb has a God? Aphrodite sprung up from the testicle blood of my grandfather. Athena split open Zeus’s head in full armor.
I didn’t care, but Zeus saw it as a deformity. And thought to torture me, but I loved my job.
I was Kore, the Maiden.
Hades found me, split open and glistening with countless pomegranate seeds. He covered me in his shroud, so that I might be invisible. He bade Thanatos to cut the wheat, threshing a much humbler death for once.
He carried me down into the Underworld, where the darkness was cool and the water made one forgetful. He washed me and I met his dog.
(What God counts souls and coins, and names his dog Spot? Another thing for him to count I think.)
I napped as he cared for me so gently.
But what happens to my body so happens upon the earth.
I was cold, so the earth was cold. I was in darkness, so the earth was in darkness.
My maidenhood was gone and so the budding spring would not come. I could not tend to the fields, so nothing would grow. With the fields barren, there was no harvest.
Mortals died by the thousands.
Hades only left me to take his accounts. The souls required their shepherd. And it was that, not all of the Gods pleading for my return, that made me leave. I had become bitter fruit from their ill attention.
“Persephone!” They lamented to me now. They accused me, but recognized my power. Nothing would survive without food, and without my blessing there would be only death.
“I love you.” Hades told me, pressing his forehead against my own as he held my hands. Of course he would love that which brings him meaning to his domain.
“I love you.” I told him, closing my eyes and feeling myself breathe. Of course I would love that which opens space for new growth and takes such precise account.
“You are leaving the world of the dead. Do you know what this means?” He asked me. I opened my eyes and looked at him, looking at me.
“You are reborn.” He said. He held my face and kissed my tears.
“I let you go, and you are Kore once again.” He said.
I still was changed, and we knew that. Kore emerged from the Underworld and was, in fact, reunited with her mother. Gaia was, in mortal terms, the one who gave me life from her own body. I returned to her and planted seed. I tended them and as they matured, so did I. I was wary of men and kept them away, allowing only women to attend my festivals. I became Demeter as I spoke of the richness of the earth and of the cycle that plays out slower in themselves than the barley and amaranth.
For the harvest, Hades joined me. The mortals celebrated the mask of death, recognizing it for the essential part of the sacred cycle. They bade farewell to Persephone and hoped that Demeter’s watch was not too bitter- or else the winter would see them suffer all the more.
The winter was none of my concern; I left that to Boreas.
He was the most gladdened to see me, as he waved me off and had free reign over the mortal lands. Some cycles my feet wouldn’t even touch the ground as he tossed me toward the cavernous gates.
Hades would count the freckles on my skin till I laughed, then scold me for ruining his count. He would clothe me in silver and gold, making me the only star in this underworld night sky.
He called me Queen.
Ultimately, his work would add up. And Zephyrus would whistle for me. I would leave and Hades would linger.
(I make no apologies for any late spring, or hurried winter.)
I am the Maiden, I am Demeter, I am the Death Bringer. I am the sacred cycle of life.
