the forbidden fruit pt. two
the forbidden fruit
PART TWO: the downfall
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THE DOWNFALL
The first months after Hades learned of The Prophecy, he swore that he would be content being the ruler of his own dominion. He knew the consequences and the privileges that come with ruling over a kingdom of your own, even if it is full of dead people. He swore he would be grateful to his brothers for the gift they’d given him. After all, it’s not every millennia that you get your own dominion.
“My apologies, little brother,” Zeus helps his youngest brother sit up when he comes to.
When Hades can see again, he holds his brother by the bicep to steady himself. He blinks slowly, eyes bleary as he gazes around, “Zeus, where are we?”
“The Depths,” Poseidon answers on behalf of the eldest. He swallows thickly, across at his two brothers, “We brought you here for your own safety, Sweet Pea.”
“You know how much I hate that,” Hades pushes himself away from his brothers. He swipes at the ash and dust on his tunic to busy his hands and then kicks his boots against the ground. “What do you mean ‘for my safety’? Am I not safe on Olympus, with the two of you by my side? None of this makes sense.”
“No, brother, you are far from safe.” Zeus crosses his arms over his chest and looks his youngest brother in the eyes, “There has been a horrible prophecy foretelling your downfall. We have brought you here to keep you safe. Only those whom you permit to pass are allowed in.”
“Brother-Mantle, what is going on? I-I want to go home.”
“I know, Sweet Pea,” Mantle puts his hands on his brother’s cheeks and tries to hide his own fear. He swallows, his throat bobbing, “But this is your home now. You can make it your own – do whatever you like with it! Rule it with an iron fist, make those who would come across you into your subjects. It’s a beautiful gift.”
Sweet Pea angles his head towards him with tears in his eyes and the eldest brother feels the knife in his chest turn just enough to hurt. It is not every day that you banish your brother to the Underworld. Mantle wraps his brother in a hug and pats him on the back, reassuring him with gentle whispers in his ears, no matter how false they may be.
It did take time to get used to living by himself, guarding the wayward souls and keeping the Underworld safe from outsiders. Charon watches The River, and The Guardians are his second-in-command. The Judgers send the souls to their respective fields, leaving Sweet Pea with little to actually do. Roaming the Underworld is tiresome and boring after a few repetitive years, and there’s only so many times you can play chess with yourself.
There once was a time when Sweet Pea would visit the other realms, Olympus and Earth alike, but those days have long since passed.
“Brothers and Sisters!” he shouts as he pushes his way up the stairway to Olympus. He chuckles, out of breath, “I know it has been a few years, but I-ow!”
Sweet Pea’s body flies backward, knocking the breath from his lungs when he lands. He rolls over, cradling his throbbing abdomen. It is only when he glances up at just the right moment does he notice the shimmering field protecting Olympus from Outsiders.
“Zeus?” he shouts in panic. “Poseidon! Aphrodite?!”
Anxiety overwhelms Sweet Pea’s body and he brushes his hand through his hair, trying to calm himself. The sweat glitters on his brow as his forehead crinkles in confusion. He attempts to make sense of it all – why would the shield bar him from Olympus? From his family?
The shield only comes on when there are intruders, those banished from Mount Olympus.
Sweet Pea wonders, theorizes, that he has been labeled as exiled, unable to return to the Heavens because his name is on The List of The Forbidden. To test his theory, he boldly reaches out with one palm and swats where the field is glimmering. His palm stings as it snaps back to his body, pulsing.
It makes no sense that he would be barred from Olympus. He has not completed any of the Abhorred Acts; he has done nothing to warrant exile. Sweet Pea begins to rack his brain to try and understand what might explain why he has been banished from Olympus. Exiled.
‘The Prophecy,’ Hades remembers. He ducks his head and forces himself away from the steps that would usually take him home, take him to his family, and instead he walks down to The Surface. ‘Mantle is protecting me from The Prophecy.’
The Surface is just as haphazard as it was the last time he visited. There are humans lying on the edges of the roads, their bones showing through gaunt faces as they beg for spare coins with an empty bowl.
Sweet Pea reaches to hand him a drachma, but the skinny man withdraws his cup and scatters like a rat. The young god tilts his head in confusion but puts his coin back in his purse and continues his exploration of The Surface.
It seems that every time he shows his face to a mortal, they are quick to run away from him, or they begin to form groups and he can hear their whispers as he passes by. The weight of the world sits on his shoulders as he makes his way through the marketplace of The Surface. He has never felt this sense of dread hanging between his brows before. As if it were palpable, but just barely out of his reach.
“E-Excuse me,” a small voice pipes up from his side. Sweet Pea turns to look at the young woman dressed in little-to-nothing who is currently draping herself over his arm. He smirks and leans his body down to meet her halfway, “Yes?”
“I-uh, I need a favor,” she drops him a wink.
He nods in response and she bites her lip, “Well, you see, Lord Hades, I-I have someone who needs to be taken care of. And I’ve heard you do that sort of thing – could you help me?”
Sweet Pea narrows his eyes and disentangles himself from the harlot, “Excuse me, woman?”
“I-I’m sorry, my lord,” she ducks her head, “I was told that you were the Lord of the Dead, I-I thought you could assist me in my-”
“I am not a killer,” he seethes, snatching her by the arm. She cowers in fear and he watches as her pupils envelope her blue irises. He can smell the fear taking over her body and so he lets her go with a quick thrust of his wrist.
“Do you not know that it is against the law of the gods to directly murder a mortal?” he asks her indignantly. She whimpers before turning on her heels and running off to hide behind a street corner.
Sweet Pea scoffs, rolling his eyes as he makes his way further into the marketplace. The eyes boring into him from all angles makes it even more difficult to walk in a straight line. He can smell their fear – it is palpable in the air and it sticks to his nostrils as he breathes it in. The stench of their fright courses through his airways and pushes his hair upward at the follicle.
Finally, he can bear it no longer and he turns on the mortals, growing three times in size to better reach them all. His figure towers over them and they cower in fear.
“Is that how you see me, mortals?!” Hades’ voice bellows. He looks down at the people, his arms held out in vulnerability. “You see me as some almighty executioner?”
As to be expected, none of them answer and he is left with mere silence.
“If that is how you wish to be, then so be it.”
Hades waves his arms, dark smoke twirling around his body as he reduces himself back to his human-size. The onlookers grow in numbers as the smoke spins like a tornado, picking up nearby carts and merchandise. The mortals hold on tightly to the nearest object to avoid being swept up into his deathly cyclone. Then, after another moment, the smoke slowly dissipates into nothingness, only a shadowy figure standing in its place.
And then their worst nightmares are realized.
Screams echo from the crowd, piercing cries splitting lips as fingernails are digging at their eyes. Hades crosses his arms over his chest as he looks into the fearful minds of those around him. If the fear was not palpable before, it is now. The emotions coat him like a blanket, searing into his skin as he looks at them panicked before him.
The man in front of him sees a terrifying beast foaming at the mouth, it’s skin burning into flakes as it’s white eyes glare deep into his soul. A woman to his right sees a tall figure with blue skin and burning hair, worms crawling from his teeth and snakes slithering around his arms like bracelets. A young child sees a black shadow with white fangs, a golden crown seated atop his head – a true prince of darkness.
“There you go,” he whispers in defeat, his head hanging. Despite the chaos, he pushes through the crowd and marches back to the entrance of Hades. Sweet Pea loads into his chariot, his beautiful black stallions bucking at his arrival. He pats their backs and settles into his seat, the reigns between his fingers.
“Let’s go home,” Sweet Pea murmurs as he slaps the reigns.
The horses thunder down the road until the ground splits open and swallows them back into The Depths.
Now the god of the Underworld sits on his throne built from ash and obsidian, and he looks down at the dominion he’s been given charge of. The River flows through, dark and dangerous, as Charon floats his passengers to their respective dwellings. The Guardians – Grief, Anxiety, Diseases, Old Age, Fear, Hunger, Need, Death, Agony, and Sleep – hold steady at the entrance to Hades.
Even though he has this entire domain to rule as he pleases, and minions to order into submission, Hades is lonely.
Sweet Pea spends his time reminiscing on his life from Olympus – and it seems so far away now. It feels like it was eons ago that he, Zeus, and Poseidon would wander through the clouds and banter with one another; that he would feel Aphrodite’s touch upon his cheeks as her warm skin radiated against his own.
Instead, it was eons ago that he was confined to The Depths. Even though it was for his own survival, his own safety, Hades cannot come to terms with the exile. He is falling down a hole from which he fears he can never claw out of.
Hades stands from his black throne and walks down the pile of bones to the path that leads to Nowhere and Everywhere all at once. His sandals trudge through the ash of those long past, kicking their remains into the air only for them to settle once again.
The path takes him through a winding hall, built to the top out of the bones of the mortals who now reside in Hades. Truth be told, he is no longer sure of where this place begins and he ends. He caresses the wall, looking up into the soulless eyes of someone who once had a life and a purpose, something to live for.
“There is no purpose here,” he echoes somberly as he opens the door to The Forbidden Chamber.
When Zeus and Poseidon locked him away in The Depths, they told him of this chamber. They told him of it’s great power, and how he was to never allow another soul to enter it, for inside The Forbidden Chamber was The Forbidden Fruit. There are none who know of its full potential, of its full power, but Zeus did warn him that if there was to be a soul who ate from it, they might be trapped in The Depths for eternity, and whatever follows after.
The door gives way to the warmest room in The Depths. There is light here, and Hades believes that it is all because there is a soul living in The Forbidden Fruit. He swears he hears its heartbeat the closer he steps towards to The Fruit.
He recalls when his brothers first brought him down to this room; he remembers walking these halls with them as they warned him of the treacherous fruit that resided there.
“The one who eats of the fruit will be doomed to this place forever, Sweet Pea,” Poseidon warns as they break through the doors. “The number of seeds you ingest is the number of months per annual cycle you are beholden to this world. Those who want you in danger or out of their way will try to use it to poison you, to force you to eat of the fruit. This is precisely why you must never tell another of this place. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Jughead,” Hades uses the name like a weapon. He cuts his eyes at his brother, “I think I understand.”
Poseidon rolls his eyes, scoffing, “I swear, I get my head stuck in a wine jug at one festival, and the two of you can’t-”
“At least it isn’t Sweet Pea,” Hades argues, crossing his arms over his chest. He takes a look at the fruit and becomes somber at a memory of the origin of his name. “I couldn’t help it that I loved those flowers, they reminded me of Mother.”
Sweet Pea brushes his hand over the glass that contains the powerful fruit, a seemingly innocent object that could be his very undoing. Should anyone find it, should anyone understand of its power, they could chain him here forever.
A many years later, after Hades has seen countless souls pass through The River, the loneliness that began to plague him has yet to subside. There have been attempts to take The Underworld from him, but he has quelled them with the slashing of his sword and the flick of his fingertips, unleashing his dark magic on those who would oppose him. He enjoys the game, the bloodshed, and he does not fear for he has kept The Fruit hidden.
“We need a new protector,” he thinks to himself as The Guardians clean up the wreckage from a recent attempt to break a demigod from the pits of Tartarus. Hades walks around the planes of the Underworld, dragging his boots through the caked ash as he ponders.
He smirks before waving his hands through the air, contorting his fingers in all directions as incantations fall from his full lips. A dark being materializes from nothing, starting as a shadow and turning into something else. Hades pulls on thin air, teeth and hair and blood emerging from a tiny shadow wavering in thin air. Dragging his arms further and further apart, Hades creates what will soon be known to the mortals and gods alike as Cerberus, the Three-Headed Protector of the Underworld.
“C’mere boy,” he climbs onto the back of the middle head, scratching the dog behind his ear. “Let us show them what we are made of.”
Even still, as he and Cerberus wreak havoc on The Surface, it is not enough. The carnage and the retribution are not enough. Cerberus is an animal, incapable of speech no matter how much feeling he reciprocates with the looks in his eyes. Hades loves the beast, but he does not satiate the void for kinship, even if the animal can quench his bloodlust.
Years following the birth of Cerberus, Hades wanders the earth in search of a companion. He cannot find another who reciprocates his diplomatic sense coupled with the need for chaos and vengeance, but in his search, he does find a serpent at his feet.
He knows the animal is hated, feared, all for no reason other than its defensive mechanisms. He picks up the animal by its throat and stares into its eyes. Upon seeing into the void, he smirks and drags the animal back to the Underworld with him, strangling it in the process.
Hades buries the dead animal in the dirt beside The River and takes a deep breath, digging his hands into the soil. His eyes roll back in his head and a soft spell falls from his lips as he imbues the ground with the body of the snake, and the blood of his magic.
“Rise,” he speaks finally, his eyes opening to see a group of dark spirits in front of him, growing by the minute.
They smile in unison, revealing fangs and black eyes, “Yes, Maker. How may we be of service?”
-----
Hades allows the demons to roam the earth confined in their natural form, that of a serpent. When they return to The Depths, they are free to walk as human-like creatures, with bodies that can be either male or female.
“Why did you pick a serpent?” his favorite of the demons asks one day.
“Fangs,” Hades smiles and extends a hand to his friend’s face, the skin cold and scaly to the touch, “Serpents are hated on The Surface. They are avoided like a plague, treated as monsters. I saw them and I sympathized with them. And so, the one begat many.”
“And the many is us,” another female serpent raises her voice. She crosses her arms over her chest and flicks her tongue out before approaching Hades on his obsidian throne which burns endlessly, “Right, Maker?”
“Correct, Topaz.” Hades confirms with a sly grin. “And I allowed you to choose your own names because I believe in freedom. That is also why you are allowed to roam The Surface in your serpent form.”
Hades runs his fingers over his neck, which brings Fangs and Topaz’s attention to his skin where an image of a continuous serpent is burned into his flesh.
“That is where our essence resides, is it not?” she asks, unsure if she wishes to know the true answer.
Her Maker nods, a somber look in his eyes, “With every curse, every magic act, one must pay a price. When I created you, I lost a part of myself, the symbol of your existence stitched onto my skin for eternity.”
And so, the serpents and their Maker reside in peaceful amnesty. They grow close, forming bonds that will last more than lifetimes of the mortals who live above them. They tell him what has become of the earth, for as more time passes, Hades retreats further away from civilization and society.
Despite his newfound family, Sweet Pea grows bitter as the years pass. His family, his blood, do not visit, they do not call out to him. The mortals become increasingly defamatory of his name, blaming the Prince of Darkness, the Lord of the Underworld, for their loved ones’ deaths. They blame him for the wrongs of the world, the sins that they refuse to atone for.
And if they are not blaming him, they are praying to him. He hears pleas echoed with bloodlust and trickery. The only prayers that come to his ears are that of murder and wrong doing.
“Do they forget that I am also the god of invisibility, the god of riches?!” Hades slams his fists into his throne, cracking it. The divine properties of the throne allow it to repair itself before Hades even takes another breath.
He seethes through his teeth, “I am not a mercenary to further their cause. Do these incompetent mortals not understand that a god cannot directly kill a human? Do they not know of the law?”
Eventually, Hades makes the decision to curse his own ears so he can no longer hear the greedy human’s prayers. He removes himself from his temples, refusing to listen to their cries of death and mischievousness.
Their evil thoughts plague him no longer, and he refuses to admit that he sometimes misses the idle chatter of the insolent beings of The Surface.
The demigods visit him to try and trick him into releasing the objects of their quests from the pits of Tartarus. Every time, he gives them the option to turn around, to keep from crossing him, and yet every time, they choose to swing their blade.
The serpents notice the callouses growing on their Maker. He is becoming cruel, increasingly judgmental as he throws souls into the Fields of Asphodel, cursed to wander there. They fear for their own existence, for if their Maker cannot satiate his lust for injustice with the mortals of The Surface, what is to stop him from taking out his hatred on them?
There is a day, a long while after Hades begins to set like concrete, where his façade falters and he smiles for the first time in decades. Topaz notices it first, and she alerts Fangs. They watch together as a grin turns his lips skyward as he sits idly on his throne, a musical instrument in his hands.
“I do not understand,” Fangs whispers, his lisp catching the word. He looks up to his female counterpart and blinks, “I-Is everything okay?”
She nods, sneaking a glance at their Maker. Topaz swallows and reaches out to cup Fangs’ cheek, “Something is changing.”
A few months pass before it happens again. Hades is feeding Cerberus when Joaquin, another serpent with brown skin and blue eyes, notices the slightest of upturns of his Maker’s lips.
Immediately, he confides in his serpent family, whispering in their ears about how he’s never seen Maker’s teeth unless he was shouting at a wayward soul.
“I believe that Aphrodite has been visiting,” the tallest of the Serpents speaks with a smirk. Topaz waves her hand, “Regardless of who is visiting, it is none of our business to meddle with The Maker. Let him have his happiness.”
And so, the Serpents leave well enough alone. It is only when Hades has smiled for the third time that Topaz begins to question things. She has been by his side most days, also accompanied by Fangs, and so she knows there is no way a goddess could be slipping into his bed.
“We need to go to the surface,” Topaz whispers to Fangs one night after the other Serpents have slithered into their bed holes. “There must be an enchantress trying to lull him into some sense of calm before she lays claim to the throne of Hades.”
Fangs takes a deep breath before nodding, “I’m right behind you, my friend. Lead the way.”
The ground opens up near the Statue of Hades, and the two serpents slither out from it. They disentangle themselves from one another and move around from the back of the statue, surveying their surroundings.
In the distance, they see a small girl picking flowers, but she is the only human presence they can sense for miles. Even so, Topaz leads Fangs further into The Surface, and together they search for any potential threats to their Maker.
It takes hours, but the only mention of Hades from the mortals is that in passing, mentions of how to accuse the god of the underworld for their misfortunes. They finally return to the underworld, both agreeing not to speak a word of the possible threat to neither their Serpent family or to their Maker.
There is a lapse in time where the Serpents can feel their Maker’s temper begin to flare again. He has returned to his calloused ways, his judgment swift and the punishment unfair. For a fleeting moment, Topaz and Fangs wish the threat would return even if just so they can be reprieved from their Maker’s unkind behavior.
The moment is fleeting, but the Maker is taking a trip down The River when Topaz sees the warmth of a smile spread over his cheeks, his eyes averted to the bottom of the boat as he soaks in the feeling. She wonders if he even knows that his expression betrays him, but there isn’t time to ponder over such things.
“Surface. Now.” Topaz orders to Fangs.
They slip between the crevice in the ground, slithering to the front of the statue. They wander through the temple, searching for any signs of danger. To their surprise, they are met with a womanly figure, her hair braided away from her face and a plethora of flowers in her dark hair.
“Sweet peas,” Topaz speaks to Fangs in a language only they can hear. “Look familiar?”
Fangs glances up at the girl aging into a woman and he is sure that she is just as familiar as the flower. It has been years since their last trip to the surface, but he distinctly remembers the backside of a young woman fading into the smoke.
The backside of his tail flicks to hit Topaz, “She is the girl.”
Topaz turns to look him in the eye, her tongue flicking out from between her fangs. She cocks her head in questioning, but he merely gestures with a glance to the young woman sitting in the temple, singing a familiar song.
The song was written when Hades cut himself off from the world, disallowing humans to speak to him directly through prayer. Lyrics speak of death and dismay and she sings them with a smile on her face while twirling a sweet pea stalk in between her fingers.
“Oh!”
Topaz and Fangs expect her to try and stomp on them, to snap them at their necks. But what she does next surprises them.
“Why hello there, little ones,” she smiles with bright gray eyes. “Are you lost?”
Fangs turns to his serpent friend and then back to the human in front of them, completely dumbfounded. Hades had told them that serpents were cursed on The Surface, that humans detested them.
“Oh don’t worry,” the young woman reaches down to touch the tops of their heads with just the pads of her fingers. “I won’t hurt you. You’re too pretty.”
Later, when Topaz and Fangs return to the underworld, they still feel her warm touch bleeding from the crowns of their heads to the bottoms of their feet.
Fangs shakes his head, “There’s no way. The Maker cannot hear prayers. She wasn’t praying, she was just-existing. How is this-”
“Coincidence,” Topaz interrupts him. She shakes her head, “It is merely coincidence. Nothing more.”
-----
It takes years for The Maker to smile again like he used to. In the midst of the time between his last smile and his next, Topaz and Fangs scour The Surface to find the source of the warmth. They visit every spellbound place, every spot on The Surface that is imbued with magic. Their search always has them return emptyhanded, no less confused than they were when they began.
This time, his smiles are consistent. It is twelve days in a row with the soft expression on his face before Topaz pushes her way back to The Surface again.
She sits, waiting for the next day that someone will grace the Statue of Hades.
It is another three days before a woman with dark hair and grey eyes returns to the statue.
“Oh hi, little one,” she reaches down and pats Topaz on the top of her head ever so gently. She grins, “I have missed you and your friend these past weeks. Do you wish to stay with me while I talk to him?”
Topaz flicks her tongue as she considers the young woman’s words. She smiles with bright white teeth, sharp at the edges, and sits down on the temple floor, “He is the only one who understands me, little one. Sweets and I are the same.”
And suddenly it all makes sense.
----
a/n: i hope you guys liked meeting hades!pea - he is a treasure to write! i’ve decided i’m going to post a new part every friday around this time in the evening :) so be looking out for part three next week! and in the meantime, let me know your thoughts on the current parts that have been posted!
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