"O Mother, look! The fields seem so scorched and sad," a young girl groaned, her face was marred with distress. "They need more tending and growing. Please allow me, mother. I promise I will be quick."
The older woman sitting behind her sighed softly. She leaned forward and whispered into a small delicate ear.
"My sweet child, not today," she said, her hands were still busy braiding the girl's beautiful golden lock. "You will tend to your fields after our return."
The woman, whose blonde head was crowned with chaplets of corn, was Demeter - goddess of the cornfield, mistress of planting and harvesting, and lady of the fertile earth. With only a clap of her hands, the grapes sprung forth along the low lines of the arbor and the wheat ripened like a golden carpet. She was adored by the people of Greece. They would bow and pray, "O, Demeter, Mother of fertility, bless us with a bountiful harvest this year." They would bow and toss flowers at the feet of her statue. In her temples, sacred groves were offered on the altar.
The lovely girl on her lap was Persephone - the maiden of the beautiful ankles. Demeter loved this daughter above all things. Persephone was raised amongst flowers and looked like a flower herself. Her body was as lithe as a stem, her skin as soft as petals, and she had pansy bright green eyes. The young maiden took charge of flowers for her mother. She was adept at making up new kinds and naming them.
Persephone was growing up fast and free, always running beneath the sunshine and azure skies. Her glowing beauty was so ravishing that it attracted all sorts of gentle creatures wherever she went. She loved cavorting with rabbits, fawns, and other animals from the grotto of her favorite cousin Pan, god of the wild. Now the girl was on the verge of womanhood, being pampered even more so by the Barley-Mother herself.
The two goddesses were resting under a fragrant green bower while listening to the hum of praises and prayers from mortals through the vines. Then Demeter reached her hand over and plucked a newly-formed bud on the ground. The bud quickly blossomed into a beautiful white flower -a narcissus. Its golden pollens emitted a pleasant fragrance. Everything her mother touched came alive and beautiful. Persephone was in constant awe of her.
"Mother, you must teach me that!" Persephone exclaimed. Demeter smiled kindly as she placed the flower in her daughter's silken hair, which she had done braiding and oiling. Normally, this was the task of the Seirenes, the nymphs who had been Persephone's handmaidens since childhood. But this day was a special occasion. The earth goddess turned her child around and admired that sweet innocent beauty she saw. Demeter smiled fondly at her beloved daughter.
"In due time, my dear girl," Demeter said, "Now, we must not keep the other gods waiting."
Persephone nodded, though she had been dreading this meeting for quite some time. The young goddess mostly wanted to be left alone with her flowers. She would rather wander about with her mother's wood nymphs or play with the pups of wild wolves. She could stay in their perfect gardens, among the trees in the Immortal Forest -their home -and let the earth cradle her as its own child.
But not today.
They were readying themselves to meet the other Olympians. It was her first time entering the Pantheon of the Gods. Demeter shall present her to the King of Heaven - her father.
Zeus, the youngest son of the Titan Cronos and Rhea, was her sire. He was the King of Gods. The other gods in the Pantheon were also his children. Together, the twelve chief gods, including Demeter, had reigned for some three thousand years now.
The young goddess had never seen the Sky Lord in person, let alone the rest. She had heard tales of the king through the gossiping birds. Zeus would come down to earth in pursuit of wood nymphs. Hera couldn't provide him with pleasure, or that she simply loathed his ego too much to even care. Once or twice, Persephone even chanced upon a nymph who had just narrowly escaped his lust in her mother's wood. The incidence left her running into the arms of her mother, trembling with a kind of fear she had never known. Now the thought of going to his palace awoke deep anxiety within her heart.
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