A week later...
"I am going to miss you, you know," Jessica embraced her friend. With the Owl's Roost closing for the foreseeable future, Dion's wine business and Jessica would relocate to Greece temporarily. Persephone's best friend looked particularly unmotivated to arrive at the airport on time.
Persephone sighed as she stepped back. "I will miss you, as well. But, on the bright side, we are both going to be able to see our families--I will get to meet my aunt and uncle and countless cousins for the first time, and you will be able to see your family for the first time in two years." The goddess knew that her friend's relationship with her family could easily be considered "prickly."
Jessica's eye roll was her only response for a few seconds. "Yes, and balancing my ultra-traditional, ultra-conservative family with Dion's craziness? I might as well have married the guy from Plenty of Fish, sight unseen. It would have made my dad happier." Her bitterness was evident as was her hurt.
Dion stepped up and curled his fingers lightly around Jessica's shoulder blades. "It's time to go, Ms. Drivas. Our plane takes off in an hour-and-a-half." His unusually formal tone and suit-clad body shocked both friends into silence--and Jessica into capitulation. With one last mournful look, Jessica followed Dionysus to his custom purple-hued Porsche.
As Dionysus's vehicle zoomed away, Persephone's earthbound garments faded away to be replaced with a chiton that matched the one in her dreams. More than a little alarmed, she glanced around, her eyes stopping on Athena's knowing gray gaze.
"We better return to Olympus," Demeter's tone was brusque. She, too, was wearing the more traditional garb of her youth, a pale green chiton, her wild waves, restrained in a knot atop her head. "And get this over with," she muttered under her breath.
The owner of Owl's Roost shot one last look at her creation that had brought the Olympians on Earth together before casting open a portal to allow passage to Olympus. Unlike when Hades opened a path to the Underworld, the ground did not crumple beneath Persephone's feet; rather, a near mirror-like window opened before her. She stepped resolutely forward, mindful that she walked toward her future.
A future without Hades.
* * *
Three days later...
Disquieted in his slumber, Hades roused the tri-headed demon dog who slept at his feet. Cerb, in response, growled, teeth flashing white with menace. Hades, deep in the torturous nightmares that wracked his body, was unaware of how his tumultuous movements upset his hound.
His dreams of Persephone had become nightmares. The hurt look in her eyes, too stricken for the tears that flirted with her lashes to shed, diamond-trails, down her soft cheeks. Then, the dreamworld twisted further, mocking him, revealing her futures with other gods and how she worshiped their bodies, showering them with her unbridled passionate love.
No--lust. Even in his somnolent state, Hades rushed to thwart the possibility of her love capturing his mind. That pattern of thought led to folly, to mistakes, to madness. He was not worthy of Persephone, and no one would see him as so.
The dream closed with Persephone, coyly coiling her hand around his rampantly erect cock. Dream Hades and sleeping Hades broke into a sweat as she expertly handled him, manipulating his flesh to a spurting orgasm.
Hades awoke, sitting up, gasping for breath as his mindless dick continued to release ropes of his orgasmic fluid.
"Every night," his voice was little more than a growl that matched Cerb's. "Every single fucking night these dreams have tormented me." This one had been worse than most. In all of the other dreams, Persephone never touched him, never teased him to a pinnacle of agonizing pleasure.
With a start, he remembered why that night's dream would be different. Persephone and Demeter--and the entirety of the Olympians who conducted business at the Owl's Roost--had returned to Olympus a few days earlier. Hera's special welcome home party for them was scheduled for that very week. And he, Hades, had promised to attend.
And had promised himself, and stated unequivocally to Persephone, that he would not seek her to be his, that he would instead stand by while she married and mated with another.
Sometimes, he really hated his life.
* * *
"He is, arghh, insufferable!" Persephone held the phone away from her ear, grateful that Hermes had managed to make it possible for her to talk to Jessica via the phone.
"Dion?" Persephone guessed, deciding she had an even chance of it being Jessica's boss that she referred to. Athena, from the sofa, glanced up, an amused grin softening her normally placid features. Demeter rolled her eyes as she and Hera continued to "discuss" the plans for the evening and for Seph's matrimonial path.
Seph frowned. The two sisters, always competitive, continued to snipe at each other since she and her mother had returned. It did not help that Zeus had made clear his intentions to pursue Demeter again.
Thinking back to their arrival three days earlier almost gave Seph a headache.
Stepping onto the ground in mainland Olympus, she was visually dazzled by a massive manse of nearly blinding marble, not quite as gigantic as Hades's palace in the underworld, to be sure, but still majestic.
The home of the king and queen of the gods.
Her smile wavered on her lips as she approached her aunt and uncle. Hera and Zeus.
Everything about the two emanated regality. While the other goddesses wore a far less formal version of the chiton, the dress that concealed and revealed Hera's curves in a wash of purple silk left no doubt of her status. Twin peacocks flanked her as she stepped forward to greet her.
"Persephone, you're here at last!" Soft hands, tipped with burgundy nails, that belied their strength curved around her chin. Hera's hazel gaze held Seph's, the hauteur giving way to familial affection. She slid her arms around her niece, hugging her tightly.
Within moments, Persephone felt her aunt's arms grow almost vise tight around her. "Demeter," the queen of the gods addressed her sister for the first time in millennia.
"Sister." Hera stepped back to receive the awkward pecks on the cheek from her sister.
Zeus looked at the scene with humor. Eschewing the chest-baring wrap of his youth, Zeus instead wore robes reminiscent of Hades, silvery to his brother's more somber tones. "Demeter," he grinned approvingly at his old mistress, his gaze lecherous as he stared her up and down.
Her mother did not ease the awkwardness. "Zeus!" she cried, clasping herself to him and kissing both of his cheeks.
Hera's eyes grew stormy. Persephone decided to do what she did best in all things that involved her mother and placate the situation. "I am so glad to be here, Aunt. Uncle," she acknowledged Zeus who seemed to be more focused on undressing Demeter with his eyes.
The reminder of her plans for finding Persephone a partner seemed to distract Hera. Persephone glared at her mother, a gaze her mother blithely ignored. Seph couldn't decide if her mother actually wanted to fuck Zeus or did this simply to enrage her sister.
"I'm glad, child," Hera smiled upon her niece. "Now, we must talk, your mother, you, and I. Hestia can join us, as well," she added as an afterthought. "Zeus, darling, do make sure that Hephaestus is settled in and that your other children are assigned their usual rooms," she dismissed her husband as if he were no more than a servant.
Another goddess, whom Persephone could only infer to be Hestia, stepped forward. Her chiton was simpler than even Persephone's modest one, a deep russet color that highlighted the golden waves similar in hue to Seph's on blonde strands.
"Hestia, this is our niece Persephone," Hera introduced Seph to her other aunt, and Persephone felt wrapped in warmth and a faint aroma of woodsmoke as Hestia held her.
As Hera strode imperiously to the front doors of the palatial manse, Persephone remembered another pair of doors that she had entered recently. She knew Hestia caught her wistful sigh because she saw her aunt's eyes widen.
After they were settled in a sumptuous luxurious parlor, Hera got down to business. "First of all, I want to stress how happy I am to have my dear sister and niece returned to us. I hope, with Persephone getting married, Demeter will continue to want to stay here on Olympus. With that in mind, I have a few ideas of potential suitors for my sweet niece.
"I think Hermes is an obvious choice," she started her list, but Demeter's response burst forth.
"No! Hell, no!" Persephone, seated by her mother, winced at the Earthly epithet.
"I know you have problems with that idea, sister, but you should surely be able to see that the problems you have with him show that he is an excellent candidate. He is attracted to Persephone--who wouldn't be--and they seemed to have enough chemistry to act on what you saw the results of."
Persephone's cheeks flushed crimson in embarrassment. She knew that Hera had to be aware of what happened to have known to send Hades instead of Hermes to invite her mother and her back home, but she had wished that some of the more salacious details had been kept discreet.
"Hermes and I have always been--friends--and have always gotten along well. Friendship is an important component of a strong marriage, right?" Persephone glanced around at her aunts and realized she did not know of a strong marriage among the Olympians.
Zeus was a patented manwhore with Hera as his jealous wife. Aphrodite's exploits were almost as overt as Zeus's; the only difference was that Heph turned more of a blind eye to them. Dionysus couldn't commit to a goldfish for its lifetime, much less a romantic partner, to Jessica's disappointment. Her mother had never settled down with a partner.
Sure, she knew of human attachments made of loving, long-lasting partnerships. She sold flowers to members of those relationships daily when at the Owl's Roost. But Olympian marriages seemed doomed to happen, or at least doomed to heartbreak and unhappiness.
"And," she continued, blushing anew and glaring at the plush velvet cushion on the couch beside her and purposefully not staring into her mother's narrowed gaze, "he and I seem...compatible. Kissing and stuff, that is."
