❛THEY WOULD TELL YOU OF A KING WHO STOLE ME HELPLESS FROM MY SUNSHINE GARDEN.❜
They won't tell you about the woman who came to him sublime, lily eyes and lily lips. A king does not ask permission from his prize, but she, oh she, she knelt, kissing m...
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GATE OF HADES, THE UNDERWORLD.
PERSEPHONE
“IT HONOURS ME TO KNOW YOU DESIRE TO MAKE MY ACQUAINTANCE, MY QUEEN,” A GLOOMY VOICE EMERGED FROM BEYOND THE RIPPLING WATERS.
The hair on my skin stood up on hearing it, it was dreadful, the tone of those words was akin to nails screeching on walls of iron.
He was a bag of bones, skeletal and miserable, with eyes like pits of fire in a hollow skull.
“This is Charon,” Hades said quietly, his jaw tightening with something that looked like concern as he noted the way my body tensed. The thin, skeletal figure tipped his tall, conical hat to me before sweeping low in a polite gesture, the dark black robes on his figure kissing the dirty floor of his dinghy boat.
“My King,” the man rasped, “my Queen.” He rapped a dusty oar on his boat, while the other hand steadied himself on the stern. It was a withered, old thing - and made me shiver when I thought of how old the being might be.
“Hello, Charon,” I said, trying to keep myself from shaking while slowly inching a bit behind Hades. “I… uh-”
“No wonder she’s appalled. How long has it been since you had a bath?” the mighty god held me close to him, his steady hand keeping me from falling, holding me secure.
“Filth suits me, Polydegmon,” Charon cackled, a smile slipping through his stern face, like marble being polished after centuries of glom. Then he looked at me, and the fire in his eyes burned deeper, like deep pits flickering in the darkness. “Fear not, my lady. I will not hurt you,” he said gallantly, with a cracked grin on his face.
“Charon is my ferryman,” Hades turned to me. “He carries the souls of the dead across the River Styx river in his boat. But he will not take you across without payment.”
“Payment?” I echoed.
“Any soul that enters this realm must have a coin with them to pay for passage. When a person is buried, they usually place a coin under their tongue so that it carries into their next life as sustenance for their soul and a fare for me,” the boatman rasped. “If they cannot pay the fee or are unburied, they wander the shores for a thousand years.”
It was then that I noticed the shrill, agonizing cries of the cloudy, gloomy souls waiting on the river bank, weeping and howling in misery and beating their fists on the ground. Their cries struck something in my heart, filling it with eternal sorrow. I reached to comfort them, to console them - when Hades pulled me back, securing me in his arms.
