Twilight of the Gods (Part 4)

“Do you love me?” Hades asks.

“I’m your wife.” I reply.

He looks up from his book. “I kidnapped you and tricked you into living with me.”

“You tricked me into living with you part-time. I’m the one that decided to stay with you for the full year.”
My mother was still making the seasons go around, but that was only because the mortals had learned to rely on them. She’d accepted that sometimes children get married and leave at this point. 

She’d mainly been working on Global Warming with Zeus as a warning for mortals to stop hurting the planet. 

It didn’t, by the way. 

Honestly, my mother hadn’t been doing too well lately. She’d barely reacted when I told her Ragnarok was coming. 

I don’t think she cares. 

I care. 

I’m not fated to die in Ragnoarok, I’m one of the few that survive. 

I still dread it even more than my mother, for both she and Hades will. 

“Fair enough.” Hades said. “I just want to spend our last few years together as happy as we can be. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Hades has grown awfully insecure in the past few years. 

He comes to me for surety on everything, as if I am the God of the Underworld.

I don’t know what the root of his insecurity is. I’m considering having Hestia take a look at him, but she’s busy dealing with Aphrodite. 

“Why don’t we go on a date in the mortal world?”

“Huh?” 

“A date. In the mortal world. We haven’t done that since...well, we haven’t done that in a while.”

“Okay. Sure. Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t know. Let’s use the internet to find out.”

I don’t have a phone, but Hades does. We only recently built cell towers in the Underworld. Except Tarturus. That place has no cell service or WiFi. 

Sometimes I like to revel in the bad people’s pain. It’s fun to watch Hitler perform Jewish Traditions in order to receive his daily dose of air. 

If there’s one thing I like Hades coming to me for, it’s ideas for punishments. 

I pick up Hades’ phone, which he left on the table, and look up “Best restaurants in the mortal realm.”

I find a restaurant I think I will like and we surface there.

“I’ll have the steak.” I say. Hades, the Lord of the Dead, orders soup.

Honestly, of all times to know that he was going to die soon, this might have been the worst.

If I ask him what’s wrong, he’ll say he’s going to die soon, but there was something off before that. 

I was always bad at being Hestia.

“So...we haven’t really talked in a while. What…..what’s been happening in your world?”

“I’m dying soon. That’s pretty great. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to push my problems onto you.”

“You’re not pushing your problems onto me. Hades, I want to hear about your problems.”

Hades sighs.

“Please, tell me what’s wrong?”

“Fine. I...I spend all this time trying to be benevolent. I try so hard to get humanity to like me, because I care what they think. I always have. So, I’m generous. I punish the people they don’t like, and reward the ones they do. How do they repay me? I become some cartoonishly evil. I let some young fool’s lover come back to life if he completes one of the easiest tasks imaginable, and they repay me by making it seem like I devised some meticulous plan, that nobody could resist looking back, that I’m some greedy wealthy man. Zeus and Apollo go after countless women and men without their consent, and it’s overlooked, but I kidnap you once and suddenly it’s all people remember about me.”

“It’s alright to care what people think, and you’re right, it’s not fair how vilified you are, especially when it comes to me. I love you, Hades. Maybe that could be enough?” 

“I don’t know. Maybe, but you were so happy all the time before you came down here. You were so...different. You liked things like frolicking, and, I don’t know, happy things. Did I corrupt you?”

“Hades, I was what people expected a child of Demeter to be. I wanted to live up to those expectations, but that’s never who I was. Do you honestly think I’d be stupid enough to eat those seeds if I didn’t want to stay in the underworld with you? It’s the only place I felt like I could really be me.”
“Maybe you should be the God of the Underworld, then.”

“Even if I wanted to do that, I don’t have the kind of control over it that you do. Sisyphus is almost to the top of the hill. He’s been getting closer and closer for the past few years. It doesn’t respond to me as it does to you. It needs you. Plus, I need you. I want to make the most of our last few years together. I know I survive, so I shouldn’t get to be sad…”

“Of course you should get to feel sad, Persephone! Losing so many people is going to be hard for you? What are we doing here? I don’t like being in the mortal world. As much as I love the people here, their restaurant service is slow. Let’s just summon our dinner and eat it in front of Tantalus.” 

I shrug.”That sounds fun.” I say, and we disappear.