Hades and Persephone

A Meeting at His Place

On Thursday afternoon, whilst Persephone was at Aphrodite's, Hades was sat his table in the corner of the bar at work, filling out some paperwork. He was getting agitated sitting alone in his room, so he came down to the bar, partially for a different atmosphere, and partially for the pomegranate flavoured ambrosia—it took too long to wait for it to be delivered personally to his office. As established before, Hades was not a fan of ambrosia, but sometimes the occasion was called for, and he would always opt for pomegranate flavour if necessary, as that was the only flavour he could typically stand. Though, sometimes he did fancy a good strawberry if pomegranate was unavailable or if he simply needed a change.

Across from him sat Hecate, leant back in her chair, her clipboard laying untouched in front of her. She may not have been physically filling out forms, but Hades knew her mind was still at work as she blew black bubble gum until it popped. The only sound at their table was the tapping of her long, blood red nails.

That was until: "Hey, fancy seeing the two of you here."

"Hermes," Hecate said slowly, and she remained entirely still as her eyes darted over to him. "Aren't you supposed to be working?"

Seeing as there was no chair at the table, Hermes pulled his legs up so he was sitting cross-legged in the air, and he balanced a full pilsner glass precariously on one knee. "I could say the same to you."

"I was working," Hades said, and he tapped his pen against his paperwork, "until you interrupted. Why are you not at Psychopomping?"

"Sheesh, I'm entitled to a break guys," Hermes said, and he took a sip of his drink. "It's unusual to see you two down here though."

"We're entitled to a break too," Hecate said, and she idly tapped his knee. He wobbled slightly, but not enough to lose balance. Hecate sighed when he was quick enough to swipe his glass off from his other knee before it split.

Hermes took another sip of his drink, then in a low voice he said, "I heard Aphrodite knows."

Keeping his voice as cool as possible, Hades asked, "Knows what?"

"About you and Persi," Hermes said, and he paused to take yet another sip. "And about her trips to the mortal world."

"And how would you know this?" Hecate asked coldly.

"Because she's one of my best mates? I've known her since she was a kid, you know," Hermes huffed. Hecate's eyes narrowed slightly, but she remained silent and simply blew a bubble at Hermes instead. "She's been texting me regular updates, obviously, like every five minutes."

This bothered Hades a little, since he had not been getting regular updates, but he was not the type to get too jealous; Persephone was entitled to text whomever she wanted about whatever she wanted.

"How would you know she's been texting you every five minutes," Hades asked, "if you are meant to be working?"

"For starters, each text message comes with a time stamp," Hermes said, "and secondly, you know I'm always on my phone anyway, but I'm still the best psychopomp you've got regardless, so who cares?"

"I care," Hecate said. "And I'm a better psychopomp than you."

"Hades, mate, you really need a politer secretary because your current one sucks," Hermes said, and he ignored Hecate as she flipped him her middle finger. "Anyway, as I was saying, I hear Aphrodite knows. If Ares and the rest of Dite's family know, I have no idea, but it seems that the whole pantheon might know sooner or later. I mean, I know, Aphrodite knows, Dio knows..."

"Dionysus wouldn't know if you hadn't told him," Hecate said briskly.

"I told him about her name, she told him about her trips to the Underworld," Hermes said, and though he spoke the truth, he was potentially withholding some too. Just because Persephone told Dionysus about her trips to the Underworld, did not mean Hermes had not also done the same.