2.09: The Kindness of Persephone

Location: The Fifth Gate of Tartarus

Time Remaining: 25 Years

It was the virtue of compassion that had betrayed Nemesis in the end; Zeus and Aphrodite had staged a trap to capitalize on the weakness, and Nemesis ran into it blindly. After Zeus left there was pain, of course, both tangible and intangible. That was at the front of Nemesis's mind. There was also despair, at being cast aside and abandoned by her master, conflicting with fear that he might yet decide to come back and continue where he left off. Nemesis was also dragged down by humiliation and anger with herself, a carefully forged killer who’d somehow become a compassionate fool bleeding on the carpet. When she recovered from Aphrodite’s poison, Nemesis had gone outside and waited for Andesidora to return. She couldn’t bear to go back into the house, so she stayed outside that night, waiting. She sat and waited for a day and a half, but Andesidora never returned.

At a loss for what else to do, Nemesis sought out help in the only place she felt safe. There were many entrances and exits from the underworld realm of Tartarus, but Nemesis had only ever had occasion to use one: an ebony portal set into the rocks above the head waters of the Acheron. Nemesis had brought countless heretics to their perdition through this door, dragged them kicking and screaming, beaten into submission, or bleeding out, so that they could meet whatever brand of eternal justice Zeus had decreed necessary within the most brutal parts of Hades’s realm. Now she stood before that same portal, herself a victim of Zeus's 'justice', trying to decide whether to announce her arrival or to slip away. For most of her life, moments of indecision had been rare or trivial, but now they seemed frequent and debilitating. Nemesis didn't know for certain who to trust - after all, Zeus and Hera had tormented her, and Apollo and Andesidora had both abandoned her when she needed them. Nemesis was dwelling on the uncertainty of life when a blue light appeared above the door, and a towering ethereal figure shimmered to life in front of it.

"Nemesis, beloved," the deep voice rolled from the floating visage, "I have not seen you in years."

"Hail to you, Tartarus," Nemesis stumbled a bit over the words, and kept her eyes to the ground. Nemesis was uncomfortable with having emotions, more uncomfortable with sharing them, and most uncomfortable with the idea that people could discern them with a glance at your eyes – even if that ‘someone’ was an ancient, incorporeal intelligence responsible for a subterranean kingdom.

"Nemesis?" Tartarus asked, "Are you alright? What's wrong?"

"I... I need to talk to Queen Persephone - could you summon her?"

Tartarus paused for a moment, which meant he was probably already talking to Persephone, "Her highness welcomes you to come to her."

"I-I don't want to impose..."

"I can make it a formal summons," Tartarus said as the massive stone doors ground open, "if that would alleviate your concerns."

"No, thank you Tartarus, I'll come in," Nemesis walked into the cavernous opening and descended to a metal platform where Charon V waited with his boat. Charon studied her for a moment, his gaze sweeping a red glow over her face to confirm her identity, and then beckoned her aboard.

Tartarus was a strange realm - Persephone had told her that Tartarus itself had once been a great ship that sailed further than any of them could grasp, and it had been buried by their ancestors to keep it safe. If that was true, any recognizable part of the vessel must have been beneath the inky black waters of the subterranean lake that consumed most of the realm.

What were truly strange were the six rivers that flowed into Tartarus from around Greece. They flowed normally above ground but each had a subterranean branch that converged at Tartarus. These rivers allowed quick access to Tartarus from every corner of Greece. They met like spokes at the center of a wheel, their confluence a waterfall unlike any other in the world. That waterfall fed the lake at the center of Tartarus, though Nemesis had no idea where or how the lake drained from there. Although the falls were visually very impressive, the truly remarkable aspect of the rivers rolling into Tartarus was how they covered the final mile of their journey to the falls - one of the ferrymen's riders could look over the edge of their boat when it neared its destination, and see the realm of Tartarus - a massive void in the earth, beneath the water. Pinpricks of shimmering light in the subterranean city shined up through the underground rivers above, giving the appearance of stars dancing in the water.

The ferryman's boat arrived at the top of the falls, where another metal walkway hung out over the space between the rivers - Lady Persephone, queen of the underworld, was already waiting for her at the floating platform. Oftentimes when Nemesis had come to see her, the goddess was dressed in royal finery. As much as Nemesis didn't care about aesthetics, Persephone's style had always pleased her - its colors and designs shifted to complement the seasonal change in the woman's hair color, and Nemesis found the non-arbitrariness, the predictability of Persephone's clothing, comforting. However, instead of a fine autumn dress, today Persephone wore a simple brown shirt with matching leggings. Evidently, today Nemesis had caught her in the midst of her gardening - dirt and mud obscured the orange and burgundy trim on her simple brown clothes, and even smudged her face, bringing out the warm chartreuse undertones beneath her distinctive nyanza skin.

"Nemesis!" She shouted, "It's been so long since we've seen you! All of Zeus's prisoners come by way of his wife's grotesque bounty hunters or his mercenary children, now. Crude and churlish men, all of them. Are you coming back to work?!"

Nemesis climbed out of the boat calmly, again, keeping her eyes averted to retain some measure of emotional privacy, but Persephone rushed over and embraced her. Nemesis had no real experience with such interactions, and the feeling of being confined by the goddess's pinning arms suddenly disquieted her. She struggled from Persephone's grasp, breathing anxiously.

Nemesis was immediately embarrassed by her reaction, and expected Persephone to be grievously offended, but instead the queen of the underworld began apologizing to her, as if she'd somehow done something wrong.

"Nemi..." Persephone stepped back, "... what happened dear? No one's heard from you in ages."

"I've been cast out of the Constellar Palace..."

"Oh, honey... well, you've finally come to the right place then. Tartarus is where all of the best outcasts hang their cloaks, isn't that right Tartarus?"

"Indeed, Madame," the booming voice of Tartarus came from nowhere in particular, "I have instructed the servitors to prepare a casual meal to be delivered to the guest quarters. Shall I draw a bath there?"

"Yes, Tartarus," Persephone said, "That sounds like a lovely idea."

Nemesis gave her a bewildered look.

"Six months out of the year I live in the underworld," Persephone said, "I don't get to see the sky, but I do get to enjoy one of Tartarus's most underappreciated perks - the bathes drawn from geothermal hot springs. Hades says they're hot enough to turn a mortal to soup, but I think he's being silly..."

Persephone chattered on anxiously as she gently led Nemesis down into Tartarus and to the guest rooms. The rooms were unlike anything in the overworld - almost none of the furnishings were made of any material readily available to the people above ground, the major exceptions being some fur blankets and decorative flowers. Everything about the rooms' construction was sleek, simple, and elegant - it was beautiful, but there was no ornamentation, no unnecessary waste of space, beyond the potted plants that expressed one of Persephone's greatest joys. Nemesis immediately felt comforted by the familiar, secure, and uncomplicated surroundings. She sat down on the edge of the bed, and after a moment she curled up on the fur blanket, hands around her knees.

The autonomous servitors clanked into the room to deliver a platter of fruits, cheeses, and bread, as well as wine. Persephone began to take a cup of the wine, but then glanced at Nemesis's abdomen and sent the servitors back to obtain some juice and water instead.[JNM1] 

Persephone started to sit down on the bed with Nemesis, but thought better of it. She sat down on the floor next to the bed with one leg folded over the other, her back leaning up against the wall.

"How are you?" the queen asked.

The question frustrated Nemesis to the point that she felt like she might start crying - which frustrated her all the more. "I don't know," Nemesis finally said, "I... I... I'm not sure how... I don't know what that question means. How am I supposed to be?"

Persephone nodded, "That's okay," she said, "that's okay."

"Shouldn't I be able to answer that question though?" Nemesis said, "Any mortal could, couldn't they?"

Persephone smiled at her, "You know, the reason why Hades loves it here is because he doesn't have to see people - mortal or otherwise - very often. It's not that he dislikes people, he loves them, but trying to navigate the intricacies of social etiquette as well as the feelings of others exhausts him. It's made our marriage a bit... complex, but I like it."

"Why?" Nemesis asked.

"Our communication is very deliberate," Persephone said, "We both have to put a lot of thought into how we say things to each other and listen patiently when the other speaks, but... it's good."

"Most people would probably say that sounds exhausting," Nemesis observed.

"It's a lot of effort, which can be a bit much at the end of a long day, but I wouldn't have it differently. Anyway, lest you get too concerned about difficulty answering a seemingly simple question, you should know that when I ask Hades ‘how he is,’ about half the time he either doesn't know how to answer, or he spends five minutes deliberating on an answer, and then ten minutes trying to explain his answer before finally recanting it and just saying, 'I'm fine.'"

Nemesis had registered that Hades sometimes seemed awkward and high strung, but it was hard to imagine a god-king flummoxed by a simple point of conversation. "But... Lord Hades is a god..."

Persephone snorted as if she'd immediately found something funny, but had deemed it inappropriate to laugh, "Dear," she finally said, "No man is a god to his wife. You can't maintain an awe-inspiring sense of divinity when you share a toilet with someone."

Nemesis's mouth twitched into a brief smile, "Are you a goddess to him?"

"Oh, he says I am," Persephone said proudly, "In bed, anyway. But most of the time it's 'sweetie', 'dear', or 'Percy' if he really needs to get my attention."

"Percy? I've never heard him call you that."

"Well, there's a silver lining for you - if you're not in the employ of the Constellar Palace any more, we don't have to put on airs for you."

"Airs?"

"Oh yeah, all the pomp we throw out when any of the Olympians deign to sully their boots by visiting us here. Lots of ribbons, elaborate fruit displays, tiny cakes, and using 'thee and thou' and so forth. Actually, the tiny cakes are good, but you realize it takes fifteen fucking minutes for Hera to open a door?"

Nemesis shook her head, "It only takes her three minutes and forty two seconds, on average," Nemesis said.

Persephone laughed, "How is that a thing you know?"

"One of my training parameters was vigilance for assassination windows. Ironically, one of the biggest dangers in the Constellar Palace were the actual windows - Hera frequently stops to assess her appearance in the reflection of the glass panes, placing herself at considerable risk if we ever went to war with an even-footed enemy."

"Well, that is an answer," Persephone laughed, "So, how long does it take you to open a door?"

"Does the door need to be intact afterwards?" Nemesis asked.

Persephone laughed, but before she could answer they were interrupted by gentle, hesitant tapping.

"Oh, that would be my man," Persephone said, "You want me to tell him to go away?"

Nemesis thought about it for a moment, but she shook her head.

"You sure?" Persephone said, "It's your decision, and he won't be offended."

"It's fine," Nemesis said as she pulled herself up to sit on the bed.

Persephone opened the door to let Hades in. The man was obviously anxious about something. In truth, he was deeply unsettled because he knew his brother well enough to suspect that Nemesis hadn't simply been discharged from her duties.

"What's wrong?" Nemesis asked.

Hades began to stammer through a reply but Persephone cut him short, "He's afraid he'll say something stupid or insensitive that will upset you, and the stress of worrying about that is threatening to cause him an anxiety attack."

Hades looked obviously embarrassed, and gave his wife a facetiously squinty glare.

"Why?" Nemesis asked, "Why would that worry you?"

Hades was a bit dumbstruck by that, "Well... wait, do you mean, ‘why would I worry about upsetting you?’"

"Yes - why should the Lord of the Underworld worry about the feelings of insignificant, lesser beings?"

"Huh.... Okay, well, for one thing, you're not insignificant, Nemesis. You're the goddess of divine retribution. You're a hardcore badass - you always have been."

"I'm not anymore, though," Nemesis said, "I don't have a purpose anymore. I was created to do one thing, and I failed... and... I can't stop feeling things, and it makes me sick."

"Well, even if that isn't who you are now, you're still our friend, right? So you're still significant to us," Hades said.

"What do you mean when you say you can't stop feeling things?" Persephone asked.

"Emotions," Nemesis said, "Before the day I was cast out, I thought I only had a couple. I tried to keep them under control, because I was afraid they might compromise my completion of a mission - which is basically what did happen, actually. But since that day... I've had lots of emotions, more than I can count, often several at the same time. Sometimes it makes my head hurt and my stomach ache."

Persephone sat back down on the floor next to the bed, "What emotions have you had?"

"Fear, shame, and guilt; the day I was cast out, I felt those. I felt fear most of all, and then I felt ashamed for it..."

"Why were you afraid Nemesis?" Hades asked.

"I don't know. Lord Zeus decided he wanted me to bear him children, but... I didn't want to.... for some reason... I don't know why... maybe I'm broken..."

"Oh... honey..." Persephone tried to come up with something to say, while her husband had become deathly quiet. "There's nothing wrong with not wanting to have someone's children," Persephone said.

"But Zeus was my master - the wise and benevolent lord of all creation."

Hades stood up quietly, his fair skin turning red as it strained tight around his furrowed black brows. He walked back out into the hallway for a moment while they continued their conversation.

"It doesn't matter who it is," Persephone said, "You... how do I explain this? Having children, it has to be something you do for you, or - maybe in some greater sense - for the good of society. But you don't have to do it for someone else."

"But producing children for Lord Zeus would be for the good of the world, wouldn't it?"

With that there was a loud wham against the wall, followed by some muffled, hushed cursing.

"Did Lord Hades just... hurt himself?" Nemesis asked.

"Yep," Persephone nodded.

"Why?"

"Because like most men, when something is wrong or broken he wants to fix it, but he and I have talked many times about the fact that 'fixing' needs to come after listening. So, because of that, he's listening to this conversation from the hallway, where you can't see him having a meltdown."

"Oh... but... why is he upset?"

"Because what Zeus did was wrong, Nemesis," Persephone said.

"But... didn't Lord Hades... I mean... he took you against your will, brought you down here to marry him... Is that any different?"

"Oh... ha," Persephone patted her knees, "Uh, well, that was actually a bit complicated... See, most people don't know this but Hades and I were already involved... intimately. We played it close to the chest though because we knew my mother wouldn't approve. She wouldn't want me moving down here away from the sunlight, partly because she doesn't like Tartarus and partly because she doesn't like Hades."

"Why not?" Nemesis asked.

"Mom likes men who are more... eh... manly? And I don't mean that in a good way. They need to be about as complex as wheat for her to be happy. And the more salt-of-the-earth they are, the better - farmers, fisherman, ranchers - all good in her book, but she didn't like that Tartarus didn't produce anything. She accused Hades of being a lazy, soft-handed, up-stuck oaf."

"Demeter's actual words, by the way," Hades shouted from the hallway.

"There were a few expletive thrown in, actually," Persephone whispered, "Especially when she sensed that I was no longer the chaste little girl she wanted me to be, and was in fact pregnant. She tried to marry me off to Poseidon - she always liked him better than Hades - and hoped that if the marriage went through fast enough then Poseidon would be too dimwitted to realize he wasn't the father of the coming child. Hades found out from Hestia, of course and being somewhat dramatic, snatched me up while I was on an outing with Artemis and Athena. Mom pitched a fit, Zeus sent Hermes to get me, but Hermes dragged his feet a bit, and by the time he got down here, my little Pomegranate was showing. Which sort of blew my mom's whole plan."

"How is Melinoe?" Nemesis asked.

"She's good, she's been spending a lot of time with Apollo. She's really interested in studying psychology. She drifts through, terrorizes the kitchens ever so often, and then goes back to the Overworld to study the mortals."

"Are you glad you had a child?"

"Of course," Persephone said, "Well, I should say that I'm glad I had a child with a man I loved. Who has proven to be a terrific father, by the way. It wasn't how we planned things, obviously but it was still our choices that decided our fate - not my mother's choices or Zeus's choices. Everyone deserves that at least."

"Even if they spurned the god of gods?"

"Doesn't matter who's trying to tell you what to do with your body," Persephone said, "it's your body, your life, your future."

"I still feel guilty..." Nemesis said.

"Well, I felt a little guilty leaving my mother, but it had to be done. I think guilt's like any sort of pain," Persephone said, "Sometimes you continue feeling it even when you know, rationally, you shouldn't be feeling it. So, you declined Zeus's offer, and then you... left?" Persephone fished for clarification, "He threw you out?"

"No, I ran. I was afraid, first of what he was going to do, but then afraid of what he might do because I had refused to let him... and because I assaulted him when he tried to force me..."

"You... you attacked Zeus?" Persephone said.

"Yes..." Nemesis nodded.

There was a clap and a foot-stomp in the hallway.

"It was... deeply irreverent of me."

"Well, yeah," Persephone said, "But totally kick ass girlfriend; did you hurt him?"

"Enough to escape for a while."

"Only... for a while?"

"I sheltered for a night with some worshippers of Hestia, and she tried to protect us, but I had to run away. So then I went to Apollo’s temple, at Artemis’s suggestion, but he told me he didn’t want me putting his worshippers in danger. Then I went to one of my temples and Hera showed up. She burned my temple, and tortured my priestess, so I gouged her eyes out with my thumbs…"

“Shit…” Persephone was clearly stunned.

“Well, it didn’t stick,” Nemesis said, “I knew it wouldn’t, so I ran again, and kept running.”

"Whoa, so, wait; were you running all this time? Is that why no one has seen you since you left the palace? Where did you go? How did you stay hidden?"

"I was trained to blend in with the humans so that I could carry out my duties, so that's what I did. I tried to stick to the cities, where it's easy to get lost in a crowd, and then when I felt like I was getting too comfortable, I'd blend in with a flock of birds and move onto another city."

"So you've been living as a human for most of the past few years?" Persephone asked.

"Yes, it's been... interesting," Nemesis said, "Watching them deal with their own emotions was... educational. I started trying to follow their example."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, the humans change their emotions readily," Nemesis said, "A woman could lose her husband one day and still smile at her children the next, even with tears in her eyes. Humans can express happiness or even elation in objectively abysmal conditions - poverty, sickness, misfortune - no matter the circumstances, humans were almost never sad all the time. Or angry all the time. Their emotions change with the situation, and they often change the situation to effect a change in their emotions.”

“Well, gods aren’t really any different in that regard,” Persephone said.

“But I am,” Nemesis said, “I never felt so many things, and what I did feel I compartmentalized as a threat to my overall efficiency. But since I was feeling so many things, I decided I needed to take control of myself the same way the rest of you do."

"What did you do?" Persephone asked.

"I started trying to act on what I wanted. To do things that would bring me happiness. I even considered... looking for a partner. I never knew that was something I wanted, but the more I saw humans in love, the more I longed to feel that way about someone."

"But you were afraid of what might happen to them if Zeus caught up to you?"

"Yes," Nemesis said, "So I made a few friends here and there, but I avoided getting too close to anyone, until I found myself in Rhodes. I made friends with a foreign slave girl, and she introduced me to a wise woman, a healer. I lived with her for… over a year?”

“What was that like?” Persephone asked.

“I was… happy, I think. I had work to keep me busy, work that didn’t involve hurting anyone. And I learned a lot from her. But, one day... I came upon a swan being attacked by an eagle. I've killed scores of mortal creatures," she explained, "But when I saw that swan’s terror and pain, it made me think of how I felt in the palace that day, and how much I wished there'd been someone there that day to... help me. So, I drove off the eagle. Unfortunately, I was afraid Zeus might detect me if I shifted into my natural form, so I remained in human form, and the eagle was able to cut me badly with its talons,"

Nemesis showed Persephone the angry scars on her arm - the goddess could tell that they couldn't have been more than a couple of months old[JNM2] . No good deed goes unpunished, Persephone thought. "I'm sorry."

"The swan was injured too, though, so I took it home. Ordinarily I would have been more cautious, but it was suffering, and I couldn't shut its pain out of my mind, so I did my best to treat its wounds. As I finished, though, I realized my own wounds were growing warm and numb..."

"Aphrodite," Persephone whispered.

Nemesis nodded, "I realized that it must have been her in the guise of the eagle. Her magic made my muscles feel weak and tired, my mind dull, slow, and... apathetic. It didn’t render me unconscious. Unfortunately.”

"Aphrodite was never of a merciful disposition," Persephone said with disgust.

"Anesidora came in as I was succumbing to the poison, but then the swan revealed itself to be Zeus in disguise. He threated to hurt her, and she left me. She ran. So, Zeus did it right there. Next to the dinner table I’d eaten at hundreds of times, right in front of the hearth I had stoked and warmed myself next to for months. He... fulfilled his intentions, slowly and... harshly. Morning passed into evening before he finally left. When the poison wore off I went outside and waited for Anesidora to return, but she never did.”

"I'm so sorry..."

"The last thing he said as he left was that, I had 'failed him as a hound,' but he'd thought I might still 'make a good bitch,' but after having me, he knew I wasn't of any use to anyone."

Persephone was quiet for a long moment before excusing herself to the hallway. Nemesis assumed the woman wanted to talk to her husband, but there was another loud wham of a fist against a wall, followed by more quiet cursing. Persephone walked back in calmly, cradling her right hand - the knuckles were bruised and skinned, her chlorophyll bleeding to the surface.

"I'm sorry for that," Persephone said politely, "I just, I needed a moment. What did you do then?"

"I was afraid he would decide to come back, so I left again and started moving around more frequently," Nemesis said, "but I got really sick - I was throwing up every other morning or so...[JNM3] "

"And then you realized you were pregnant?"

Nemesis nodded, "I'm sorry, but I didn't know where else to go..."

Persephone started crying and sat down on the bed next to Nemesis, "I'm sorry you didn't come here to begin with, Nemi; we would never have allowed this to happen to you."

"No... I couldn't have put you in that position... Zeus would have destroyed anyone who got in his way."

"Heh," Persephone shook her head, "He might have tried," she said, "He wouldn't have succeeded. No, this place - this is haven for you, okay? If you're ever in trouble again, afraid or... even just really tired... you come here, right? Anyone comes here to mess with you, they come courting death. Okay?"

Nemesis nodded, "Thank you."