The Seed and the Sickle

“And the Sun, in turn, burned twice as bright, which is where the cycle of the seed and the sickle, and the lives of the people, and the birds in their flight, singing lalalalala…”

The Sun was blazing as the wheat grains swayed in the wind. A young woman walked through them, her long, flowing hair rocking back and forth with the wind’s sweet melodies of whispers and song. Her name was Kore, though it isn’t anymore. Now, she is known as Persephone, the bringer of death and destruction. Now, she is a figure of darkness, not of a bringer of light. 

Persephone lay down, her light brown hair strown out across the grass. Her olive green eyes told stories she’d never share, tales of longing and woes, of sorrow and desolation, of loss and of finding. She was just one deity of many in the world, but she was special, for her love controlled the material world. Her love for Hades, if she could even call it love anymore, the king of the Underworld, controlled the afterlife, but her love for her mother and for her home kept the seasons intact. The entire world rested on the shoulders of her heart.

Persephone remembered the first time she had seen Hades. He was talking to her mother, making arrangements for the harvests. Nothing truly stood out to her about him, just his calm demeanor. From all she had heard about the king, she half expected someone cold and heartless, and she supposed he was to an extent. But all she could tell from watching him was that he was calm and collected.

She wouldn’t lie and say she loved him from the moment she saw him. She knew for a fact he didn’t, either. She was just another deity out there, another soul wandering through the mortal world that would eventually come into his possession, though probably later rather than sooner. Perhaps they would even die together with the rest of the classical world they lived in. It didn’t matter. The point was, there was nothing inherently special about her, especially not to someone so powerful. And, to her, there was nothing especially special about him. Persephone was no stranger to the wind and the seas, no stranger to the intense worlds of the gods and men. She had met people like Hades before. It was only after they began to talk that she could feel anything towards him, and even then, she wasn’t sure if it was love.

“Hello, Kore,” he had said with a grin. He treated her like a little girl, like her name suggested. “I’m Hades.”

She remembered sighing, twirling her long hair in her fingers, hair she’d later cut to her neck, keeping a more adult look. She remembered her reaction to him well, but not his response. She remembered telling him to go away and then wondering why she did, why she would ever send away someone so fascinating, someone with so much knowledge of the world, knowledge she could devour. 

“I know who you are.”

“Then you probably know that I’m not welcome here.” His demeanor shifted here as he realized how she didn’t appreciate his words. 

She didn’t, but she wouldn’t let him know that. For all she knew, everyone was welcome in the mortal world.

“Sure.”

He had sighed, obviously calling her bluff. “Demeter doesn’t tell you much, does she?”

Persephone remembered this aggravating her. Of course, she still loved her mother more than she might ever love Hades - there was a reason why the mortals preferred spring to winter - but she knew he was right. Demeter didn’t tell her much about the world, only what she needed to know. It was why after she had sent Hades away, she was so disappointed in herself. Because she knew that this could be one of very few opportunities to learn more about the world of the gods, not just the world of the mortals and the nymphs.

“I supposed not.”

But then, feeling bad for her mother, she spoke up. 

“I think you should leave.”

He sighed again, obviously annoyed with the ways of the mortal world that Persephone and Demeter controlled the harvests of. Annoyed with the harvest itself, even, as he later told her. Annoyed with the gods and their control. 

Years would pass before they’d speak again, but years mean very little in the world of the gods. Persephone still remembered their first conversation, though at that time she didn’t know that the busy Hades did as well. She didn’t know that he would even remember her. 

“Hello, Kore,” he had said, once again. “I’m Hades.”

“I remember who you are.”

“You do?” he said curiously, his deep brown eyes tilting towards the sky. 

“Of course.”

“It was a long time ago that we first spoke.”

“I think we both know what time means to our type.”

“I supposed we do,” he sighed again here, thinking of what to say next. An awkward silence came over the two as Demeter came by and shooed him away, silently muttering something to Persephone - Kore, then - about being careful who she spoke to. 

But that wasn’t the end of it all. He came back in the dead of night. It was dark and dreary, the wind that was once calming, giving Persephone the rush of adrenaline she felt during the harvest now becoming a rush of motion in the air, of whispers and shouts, of longing and of hope. It was cold and chilly, the wind adding an extra layer of doubt in her mind. 

But then, Hades appeared out of the wind, turning what was once leaves flowing from branches of trees and vine into smoke. He was holding a flower in his hands. It was a red poppy - a wildflower in the mortal world, but a symbol of death to the gods. A sacrificial flower, one that he had probably seen a lot of from mourning mortals and their souls who wander throughout his plane of existence. 

Persephone had never really thought about how ironic that was - that they were both surrounded by flowers everyday, but the ones that surrounded her were all full of life, while the flowers around him were symbols of death - death and hope. 

Hades turned towards her, her hair blowing once again in the wind with the leaves and the birds, their wings floating through the air. “Hello, Kore,” he said for the third time. 

“Hello,” she responded, shivering through the cold air. 

And then, they talked. They talked and they talked until Helios rode his great chariot up with the Sun, and day had finally broken through the dark skies. 

“What’s life like in the underworld?” she had asked, twirling her fingers in her hair. 

“It’s dark, like the night sky. Cold, yet warm at the same time.”

“Why are you here?” she had said, though words were not needed for her eyes said it all. 

“Because,” he responded with a cold tone. “I could tell that you wanted to know about the world. Because I hadn’t had a conversation like that in some time.”

“But time must mean nothing to you,” she had replied.

“It may not mean what it does to mortals, but it still means something. Moments still pass, like whispers in the wind. I still feel Chronos’s grip on my future, and I still have memories of my past that will never fade, no matter how hard I try.” He had paused here, taking a deep breath. “Time will still go on, no matter what. It’s one of the few constants of life, especially in the Underworld. It’s one of the few things you can rely on to always happen - people will always die, the wind will always blow, and time will always pass.”

Persephone remembered feeling distant at this point, yet also like she completely understood what Hades was saying. Time would always pass; it was something she could always rely on in the world up above, as well as he could rely on down below. But it also meant something different to him - it meant that he was truly a god and truly a deity, truly someone of Olympus and also someone of the Underworld. He was nothing like her.

She was no stranger to the wind and the seas, but she was a stranger to the ways of the gods. She was no stranger to nature, but the gods aren’t natural. 

She talked with him until dawn every night for months while the harvest went on. He spoke to her of the ways of the gods and the ways of the Underworld, and she spoke to him of the ways of her mother and of the nymphs and the people of the mortal world. They spoke and they spoke, of time and its ever changing nature, of the wind and how it held time in its grasp, and of the worlds of gods and men.

And each day, he would come back at night, telling her stories of the Underworld and the lost souls she could guide back to their happy places if only she was there, of the gods and their bickering that caused the great wars in the mortal world. Of love and loss. 

“Why are you the god of the Underworld?” she remembered asking him.

He sighed, planting his face on his palm. “It wasn’t my choice. But I guess I’m stuck with it now for eternity.”

At this question, Hades resigned. It became clear to Persephone in that moment how much time had truly affected the gods, how she in her own little realm of the nymphs and the people could hardly compare to where her mother and Hades came from - from the great stories of old, from the hopes and dreams of the world rested on their shoulders, just like the seasons would later rest on hers. And even then, the worlds of the gods would never really compare to the Underworld, the world of lost souls and monsters. Of good, and of bad. 

“Would you rather be the god of something else?” 

“Oh, gods, yes,” he said, exasperated. “But I do love my life enough to keep it going. I can keep up the act, pretend I truly love it, but I’ll always wish for the world up above.”

What about you, Kore? Anything you’d rather control than the flowers?”

Persephone was resigned at that, herself. No one had really asked her such a question. Of course, she would have said yes, a thousand times. Of course, she would have wanted to become the goddess of anything else. To experience any other way of life, where time didn’t have the same symmetrical meaning as it did to mortals.

“I guess,” she had responded, darting her eyes around, looking to make sure no one was eavesdropping. If her mother caught her with Hades, she’d be punished severely. “I guess I’d like to be the goddess of anything, as long as it’s not here. As long as I’m not so...trapped.”

“I’d offer to invite you down underground, but I have a feeling you’d be even more trapped down there.”

Persephone sighed, then smiled, her olive eyes crinkling. “I think I’d like that,” she said, her voice growing lighter with the wind. She thought of all the lost souls she could guide, all the people she could help. She thought of the world Hades came from, the world of the gods, but also the words the spirits who came to him came from. She thought of the perfect balance the Underworld had of the two parts of her life, her immortality, yet her being distinctly more human than the nymphs or her mother. She was not dead, but neither was Hades, and neither were the red poppies like the one he had been holding earlier, now strewn out on the grass frields. As long as they were properly cared for, they could survive - thrive, even. 

Hades laughed and smiled, his face turning a bright red. “Well,” he said, his voice growing heavier again, not heavy like the boulders Sisyphus rolled up Mount Olympus, heavy like the wind at night, like its whispers and shouts, blowing the flowers away. “Maybe you could.”

The reality of the situation started to sink in. Persephone could truly escape - she could really just leave, leave behind everything she ever knew and start her own life over. She could really, actually leave, and with someone she loved, too.

At this point, Persephone did begin to truly love Hades; through their talks at night, she learned more about him then she could have ever told anyone. She knew about his doubts in his mind, about his trials and tribulations, and his hopes and desires. She knew them, and somewhere, in the back of her mind, she began to appreciate them as something she could share. 

Was she in love with him? She wasn’t sure. Perhaps. But what does that truly mean? She didn’t have an infatuation with him, like the way the sand loved the seas, or the way the seas loved the skies, but she could safely say that she cared about him, that she wished Helios would take longer to ride his chariot, so she could listen to his words in his deep voice that grew lighter with the wind and it’s songs. She wanted those words to last forever. 

“How?” she had asked, her own voice growing lighter with anticipation and hope.

“Well, I mean, you could marry me.” his voice sounded strained, as if he wasn't sure he really wanted to say the words coming out of his mouth. The wind wiped by, cleansing Persephone of her initial confusion and doubt, making her only feel numb to the world, numb to everything except his words, his beautiful words that flowed like a whisper in the wind. 

“Okay,” Persephone said, feeling lost in the moment, lost in the fields of grains under the stars in the sky, the red poppies sprouting around her. “Okay.”

He took her back to the Underworld the next night, showing her the river Styx and the lost souls wandering the abyss, showing her the land of the dead that she could bring to life. 

It was ironic, she thought, for the first moment in her life where she felt free to be in the land of the dead, but it was true. Here, she was away from her boring old fields of grains, from the cruel grip of time, from her mother’s grasp.

Wait, her mother’s grasp?

Her mother?

How could she have forgotten? How could she have forgotten her poor mother, left alone in the mortal world, wandering like the lost souls, searching for her? How could she have forgotten the time that they shared together, the time that could now be completely lost? 

“I need to go,” Persephone said, letting go of Hades’s hand. “I need to go back up above.” 

“Wait,” he said, opening his wrist to reveal a single pomegranate seed in his palm. Bright red, the fruit of the underworld. Like the poppy flower he had first given her. 

“Eat this.”

“But then, I may never be able to leave!” she flailed her arms, trying to balance herself, trying to keep away tears. 

Hades sighed, and placed the pomegranate in her mouth while she spoke, letting her swallow it. She tried to spit it back up, but it was too late. The fruit was gone, deep down into her stomach. 

She cried, tears of sadness and loss, weeping with the spirits around her, letting her tears drip into the river Styx, watching them flow downstream deeper into the depths of the Underworld. 

“Why?” she yelled, tears falling down her cheeks. “Why would you do this?”

Hades sighed, a tear leaving his own eyes as well. “Half of the year. You can stay here for half the year, and go up above for the other half.”

The shaking started to stop, and her surroundings stopped weighing in on her. The tears stopped streaming down, and Persephone inhaled a deep, long sigh. She thought about Hades, and how she clung onto his voice, clung onto his words. She thought of her mother, whom she also loved, and the nymphs and mortals she had once wanted so badly to escape from. She thought of the two worlds she was a part of, the world of the gods and the world of men, and she thought of how the Underworld was the perfect balance of the two. But mostly, she just thought of Hades and her mother both, of those two people she loved. 

She thought of the worlds she would be leaving behind no matter what would happen. She thought about all the possibilities for her life, and the way the wind would just blow this moment away in time. 

“I guess I don’t have a choice,” she said, hope in her voice, thinking of the love she felt for the two worlds in her life, and the people of each world whom she felt so many emotions towards.

“I wish you did.” His words had the same deep voice attached to them, the same voice that made her cling onto his words before. “I wish you did.”

“And Kore-”

“It’s not Kore anymore,” she replied, blinking away yet another tear. “It’s Persephone.”

Persephone wasn’t sure if she could ever entirely love Hades the way she once did, but she knew that this was the right choice for her. She knew this was what she should be doing. 

She was not Kore anymore. She was Persephone. The bringer of chaos, a bringer of darkness, not a symbol of light. She was the one who controlled the seasons now - the weight of the world on the shoulders of her heart.