For Persephone - Chapter 16 – Slave of Desire

Not only did Zeus kidnap the girl and almost kill her father, but he also rejected Hades’ request to inform her father of his daughter’s whereabouts. Zeus was well-versed in all sorts of seduction—girls with mixed blood, young women, married women, maidens—he had no trouble in getting his way.

Shortly after the end of Titanomachy, it was thought that it was only for the sake of the foundation, but over time, chasing tail became a force of habit. Objectively, he was the cause of his kind-hearted sister, Hera, being criticized as a jealous goddess. It was not a hidden fact that Hades was not fond of his ways, but this time he had gone too far.

T/N: Titanomachy is the war of the titans.

One day, Zeus and Hades had an argument:

-All of this has nothing to do with me.

-I know you don’t like being too loud and messy, but do it as a favor to your brother.

-You’re the one who chases tails for pleasure, and there is no reason why I should always be the one to clear up your messes.

-Hey loosen up, will you? Find a girl or two. It’s not important to find a warm-hearted girl. She won’t survive surrounded by all these dead people, anyway.

It was insulting all right, but if it had ended there, Hades wouldn’t have cared. But Zeus wasn’t one to give up so easily. Soon after his talk with Hades, he pulled a trick. He approached Thanatos, who had authority over souls before Hades displaced him.

Thanatos was fooled by the lies Zeus told him. “Your master is too busy to control the underground world, so you should do his share instead.”

He went to reap Sisyphus’ life and to trap him in underworld. What Zeus and Thanatos didn’t expect was that Sisyphus was uniquely clever among humans. Taken to the mere temptation of a human, Thanatos was imprisoned in his own chains by Sisyphus.

T/N: Thanatos is death. Without him, there would be no more death, that is why the Acheron river is devoid of souls during Persephone’s recent visit.

Consequently, death had disappeared. People stopped dying; an old man who was about to die stood up, those who had a deadly disease suffered while hovering between life and death, children didn’t drown even if they spent all day underwater, and a man burned alive walked around with nothing but bones left.

That was the reason of the absence of dead in the underworld.

Hades, standing on the balcony, was stunned that the situation under his command resulted from a kidnapping of just one girl. His mind wandered to another victim of Zeus’ infidelity. Semele. She was the princess of Thebes who died after being struck by lightning in return for seeing Zeus’ bare form, whom she believed to love.

Hades didn’t have anything against desire. Desire was the driving force of prosperity; the prosperity of the earth and the prosperity of the underground were shared in some ways. The headcount on earth has to increase for the headcount in the underworld to increase.  However, it was quite annoying when such problems arose across the earth and the underworld.

That was why Hades withdrew himself from ‘her’ even though he foresaw that there would be considerable regret in his heart. On the day he had the urge to kiss the girl, the day he realized his want, he retracted from her. Hades didn’t want to be like his brother, a slave of his own desire.

There are many ways to confine the undead to the underworld, but they were wrong; kill someone, or feed them the food of underworld. But forcefully killing the living rather than sending back the dead leads to a more troublesome tragedy, and Hades has enough knowledge to predict the future. As the rules of the underworld remain that way, he must abide by them.

He tensed as he heard a rustling sound behind him, and turned around to look.

A presence scraped across the platform. Hades looked up at the landscape painting on the plaster wall and found Hermes again. He went to take a seat on his throne and warned implicitly.

“I don’t think there’s a day we’re going to let the blind watch over this place.”

“I wasn’t going to steal it. What’s wrong with you?” Hermes threw his arms out.

“I’d like you to respect your aesthetics of turning a blind eye to thieves as much as you respect the underground rules.” Hades smirked as he added. “But your hands should be quicker.”

“If you’re so suspicious of me, should I give you a heads up?”