Tree

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Demeter howled. Her shrieks could be heard from every corner of the earth and pierced through the clouds of Olympus.

She swore her daughter had been stolen.

She knew the cost of having a daughter so perfect from the hand of Zeus, and yet could not bear parting with her child. Persephone was her finest creation. Demeter, the first goddess of grain and growth who grew a beautiful miniature of herself. What she did not foresee in her daughter was the curious will of Zeus.

For years, Persephone had been a dutiful daughter. She followed instruction quickly and efficiently and became a leader to the younger nymphs. She was precious and kind to mortal children and mothers. She was a happy child who grew into a fine daughter. Demeter believed giving Persephone space to lead the paths of grain and growth was wise in allowing her to make her own choices. Demeter thought those would be choices in governing her lands and providing nurture to the mortals. She refused to believe the other nymphs who claimed Persephone was always looking for something.

Any idea of Persephone needing more made no sense. She had the world at her fingers. She was imbued with the power to create as she wished and who could want more? No. Surely Hades coveted Demeter's daughter and stole her when Demeter turned her back.

Demeter thought Zeus would be on her side. This was also one of his own children and stolen by his older brother! But Zeus laughed in her face with Hera at his side. He saw Persephone as a minor goddess and thus a minor inconvenience. Hades needed a wife anyways. He had gone centuries alone, perhaps a little green thumb would be exactly what he needed.

Demeter seethed. Her cool green skin turned brown in her ugly hatred of Hades. She began to see evil in many other members of her family. Any who would not listen or try to help her was the enemy and doomed her golden child to the wrath of evil Hades.

She spun the rumors to the mortals as she continued to seed their lands. They tasted the sour of lemons in her grain and began to burn her crops. But they believed her story. The humans feared death above all and were easy to manipulate against the god who judged their death sentences.

Demeter's slow spiral in her grief struck the humans. They begun to change their prayers from life and fertility to those of wards and protection; gaining the watch of Hecate. Hecate who flitted between realms as she was prayed to, was compelled to reason with Demeter by Zeus, as he could not. When Hecate found Demeter, she too was as struck as the humans. She had never seen the goddess so turned!

Seeing Demeter in such a state was all she needed to join in the search for Persephone. Hecate lit her torch at night to continue when Demeter tired during the day.

All the while, Hades held the hand of Persephone as he led her through his dominion.

He showed her the green glow of the River Styx that matched the glow in her raw emeralds. He led her through the desponded Fields of Asphodel, where a tear streamed down her face. The spirits seemed unaware of their own crises, but she felt all the same for them. He revealed Elysium to her "a rarity from me," he assured her. She smiled at the silver shining spirits who seemed to revel in their good fortune for the afterlife. Finally, he brought her to his own palace, Erebus.

The palace was ivory, as bone. The magic of Hades was a light blue that created a shimmer in this part. He was excited to show her this. The opposite of anything on land.

There was a short ivory bridge with a pool of memory to their left and a pool to erase memory to their right. Here, her steps created violet blooms he had never seen before, and her breath created fireflies.

The palace must have been as large as Olympus, making Hades' Underworld the largest of the realms.

"It grows to fit the souls of mortals," Persephone deduced as she walked with him. She expected this world below to smell of the stench of death; instead she was met with a light and comforting scent she couldn't place.

"It does." Hades grinned at her. "This place was never meant to be an execution, but a dreamland. Don't you see room for exploration and creativity that the mortal realm could never have?"

She looked up at him.

"There you created plants as you owed to the mortals. Here you created life!" He gestured to the fireflies. "Here is where the mortals owe us. I don't know what your kind of power could create here, but I knew when I saw you it would be great. And unique."

Persephone's mind started run with the idea of this freedom. Not just food or pretty flowers or even grass. She saw the night nettle in her steps and the lilies and the violets, but also the moths and fireflies that flew lazily around. They belonged here.

She reached her open hand out, to the engraved door ahead of them and thrust what power she could at it. A nymph of deep purple skin rose from the ground, swirling in Persephone's pink magic.

Her heart fluttered, she was restricted from creating more than greenery above. Her fertility did not extend past the blessings upon her followers. This was power unexpected.

She looked up again at Hades, who was already reaching out to her nymph. The small thing quietly took his hand, then Persephone's. She could get used to this.

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