Hades + Persephone

Persephone began her day just like any other, collecting fresh flowers. Her mother, Demeter, goddess of the harvest, insisted that the house always be filled with the boldest and most aromatic wildflower cuttings. Demeter ruled the domain of plants, ensuring their growth and health. She raised her daughter as she nurtured her plants – lovingly, but not without routine. Each day, Persephone wandered further and further, looking for the best flowers she could find. On this day, she set off into the forests, watching her feet and looking for new blooms, until she looked up and found herself in a clearing she didn’t recognize, face to face with a stranger. 

Hades looked up from his pile of chariot pieces, startled by Persephone’s arrival. His horses wandered nearby, grazing on the flowers Persephone had come to collect. Though he was a powerful god, he spent most of his days in the caverns below the earth, conversing only with the dead. This beautiful, radiant woman before him simply took his breath away. He managed to choke out a quiet greeting, just enough to break the ice. 

“What are you tinkering with?” Persephone asked, her eyes flicking from Hades, to the tools he held, and back again. 

“I broke an axle coming down the road. I can fix it, but I think I’ll be stopped here for quite a while.” 

“Well, in that case, do you mind if I sit with you?” 

And so she sat, braiding flowers into a crown while Hades worked on his chariot, each enjoying the beautiful day and the company of the other. As the hours passed and the sunlight waned, the conversation never did. Finally, Hades twisted the last screw into place, just as the sun passed over the horizon. Their day together had come to its natural conclusion, but neither wanted to part. 

Hades and Persephone stared at each other, both wanting to stay with the other, but neither willing to suggest it. After what felt like an hour, Hades broke the silence just as he had that morning. “Would you come home with me?” 

Days passed. The lovebirds hardly noticed, drunk on each other. They spent hours in bed, only getting up to enjoy lavish meals together, and never once did the conversation cease. Their bliss could not last forever, though. 

Above their heads, Demeter scoured the area for her daughter. All she knew was that Persephone had left home for flowers and never returned. Her panic spread as she searched, plants wilting under the goddess's feet as she walked. Eventually, she stumbled upon the clearing where Hades and Persephone had spent their day. She recognized the abandoned flower basket, left at the start of the chariot’s tracks. With her first glimmer of hope in days, she started down the path. 

Hades and Persephone found themselves startled out of their love-addled haze by the sound of screaming. Demeter, fighting with the guards at the gates of Hades’ palace. Persephone ran to greet her hysterical mother, hoping to quell her shrieks, but they only turned from worried to angry. Demeter demanded Persephone return home with her, but Persephone would not go, refusing to leave her beau. In an act of what can only be called defiance, Persephone cracked open a pomegranate grown in the gardens of the underworld. The sacred fruit, once consumed, bound its enjoyer to the depths of Hades’ realm. 

Demeter screamed as Persephone palmed the seeds of the fruit, vowing to her love that she would not abandon him. Hades pleaded with Persephone to stop, that they would find another way, but she swallowed six juicy seeds before he could even catch his breath. 

Persephone was immediately filled with regret, worrying she had bound herself to a man who didn’t want her to stay, but his eyes filled with concern, not anger. And so, the three struck a deal – Persephone would remain in the underworld, ruling beside Hades as his queen, for six months out of the year, one for each seed she ate. In the opposite months, she would travel back to the home of her mother. Thus, Persephone became the bringer of spring, when her mother Demeter knew all to be right and balanced in her home, and as such, in her garden.