Daughter of Hades

Chapter 12

Dracon

I've lived in Hell my whole life, but torcher here takes on a whole new meaning. Going to class after class makes me regret accepting this mission from Hades. The people are immature at best and the lectures are repetitive and time consuming. The only saving grace I see in spending all this time on going to classes is that I get to see Meline at lunch, which thankfully begins in 10 seconds.

As the bell rings and everyone shoves each other to get at the door, I hang back to wait for the crowd to thin out. As the last person shuffles out of the room I pick up the notebook I brought and head towards the door. What I see leaning against the wall makes me stop in my tracks. Meline is leaning against the wall with her head looking far down the hallway. When she hears my footsteps, her head snaps up.

"Are you waiting for someone?" I ask.

"Yes." She replies offering no further explanation as to who she waiting for.

"Are you waiting for me?" I ask more specifically.

"Yes." Again she answers with only one syllable. I look at her pointedly.

She sighs, "Can we go somewhere more private?" she asks as a group of guys passes by. One of them turns around and wolf whistles at us. She turns bright red and ducks her head. I just nod at her completely ignoring the group of boys. I motion for her to lead the way and she practically runs down the hallway.

Once were outside she motions for me to sit at an abandoned picnic table. I look around and notice that no one else is anywhere to be seen and I take a breath knowing that this is going to be a difficult conversation.

"I didn't believe you," she whispers, but I catch the way she says it in past tense and not present tense.

"I can understand why," I say gently.

"Can you, though? One moment the craziest thing about me is that I have to pick a college and now a complete stranger walks up to me at a party and tells me I am the long lost princess of the underworld! Can you imagine that, Drake? If that's even your real name," She says this with force, but she wasn't yelling so he was going to that as a good sign.

"Its not," I whisper.

"Its not what?" She asks confused.

"My names not Drake. It Dracon," I tell her.

"Of course it is," She says with sarcasm.

"I am, I guess you might call it, Hades right hand man," I explain.

"What does that even mean?" She asks throwing her hands out to her sides.

"It means that I create Hades armies. I train his soldiers and in turn I am his best soldier," I sigh.

"Armies, he has armies? I figured he was powerful enough to not need armies," She asks, dumbfounded, but she poses it rhetorically. "If he's my fa-father, then who is my mother?" She stumbles on the word father.

"Have you never heard the story of Hades and Persephone?" I ask. "Your mother Persephone is the goddess of fertility and agriculture. She would roam the fields where eternal spring occurred, but she caught the eye of Hades and he decided he wanted her. He rode into the eternal fields of spring on his chariot and scooped Persephone up. He opened a portal to the underworld and took Persephone with him. When Demeter, Persephone's mother, came to collect her daughter, she was nowhere to be found. She was furious and heartbroken when she couldn't find her daughter. She spent nine days straight looking for her without food, water or a bath. On the tenth day another goddess told Demeter that Persephone was taken in a chariot, but she didn't know who's chariot it was. Demeter refused to come back to Mount Olympus and hid among the humans, she took her powers with her and refused to use them. Any food that was growing for human consumption stopped for a year and human began to starve. They stopped praying to the gods. After the year Zeus couldn't stand it any longer and promised Demeter that he would find Persephone and bring her back," I stopped to take a pause and get my breath back.