The Wedding // 🗡🗡

[excerpt // Hades & Phe]

There was a ringing in my ears.

Everything had blurred and slowed, and someone was speaking to me.

Mara’s face came into view, her pale eyes wide and full with concern. Her hands were on my shoulders, and… she was saying something.

I blinked.

“-can she not hear me? What’s wrong with her?” Her voice came out in frantic murmurs; half speech, half sobs. She turned to a man to her left, and Nox appeared in my line of sight.

He muttered something, but I couldn’t make it out. I turned my head and met his fire-colored eyes. They were lined with worry.

“She’s gone into shock.”

~*~
Hades was dressed in dark black robes, an intricate meander stitched in gold at the seams. His robe was fastened to one side with an ancient-looking golden brooch, and it was probably the most color I had seen on him. His hair was combed neatly and parted with gilded laurel at the sides.

He did not smile.

His eyes watched the room carefully with a dark set of eyes, his expression difficult to read. I approached him on shaky feet.

It was strange.

Bloodshed, I could do. Lying. Stealing. But walking towards him, knowing that I’d be tied to him for all of my mortal existence—

I was shaking.

As if he sensed it, he reached a hand to my lower back to anchor me.

“Breathe,” he whispered against my hair, turning and walking me towards the large, ornate altar where Zeus stood.

My body trembled as I stood next to him, my heart erratically beating against the delicate skin of my neck. The crowd blurred, a sea of shadows all watching me, waiting for me to falter.

I focused my attention on Hades’ hand— the warmth of his skin seeping into mine. It didn’t claim or linger. Only steadied.

Breathe. It told me.

A gentle hand took mine, and slipped a thin, golden band onto the ring finger.

He mimicked the movement on his own hand.

“Do you take this mortal woman, to be your lawfully wedded wife?” Zeus’ voice ripped me out of my stupor, and all the blood in my face drained. “Until death, do you part?”

There was a strange tone to his voice, and if I had been more myself, I would have noticed the sly look he gave his brother.

There was a beat of silence, and for a moment I thought no one would speak. After a few painful seconds, Hades’ voice rang out, his voice grave.

“I do.”

“And do you, Ophelia,” Zeus turned to me, the blue of his eyes piercing me through like the tip of his blade, “Take my brother, Hades, to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, until death do you part?”

Blood rushed to my ears, muffling all sound except for the frantic beating of the poor organ caged inside my chest. I thought it would give out, right here, in front of everyone.

Hades’ hand gently prodded me, and I turned, meeting his eyes.

His face was cold and sterile. There was no light there, no kindness. I saw my future, locked away as his prisoner in a world underneath. Mara’s face flashed in my vision right before the words left my lips.

“I do.”

The crowd surged into a fitful of cheers and howls, and I barely caught the next words.

“I now pronounce you god and wife— you may kiss your bride.” I flinched inwardly, but forced my body to comply.

A murderous glint entered Hades’ face as he stared at his brother before carefully, slowly, turning to me and leaning in.

The kiss was quick. Unromantic. A peck on the lips, and he was taking my arm, pulling me from the crowd. I no longer felt or heard anything at all.

I was barely there.

Zeus was saying something, the crowd a static noise peripherating at the edges, dissolving into a vile, grating hum. In my head, a poem rang out, the words both foreign and familiar. They flittered through my memory now, in an ancient tongue no longer spoken.

“And in return may the gods grant you your heart’s desire; may they give you a husband and a home, …since there is nothing more noble or admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends…”

[Odyssey 6.180, Odysseus to Nausicaa]

I hadn’t recited poetry in over ten years, the last of my lessons with my tutors. I had no inkling as to why this particular poem came to mind now. I stared out into the crowd, a shadow of faces, all blurring into one. I half walked, was half dragged down the aisle as music played. Somewhere far away, people cheered. The last I remember seeing was Mara’s face in the crowd, her eyes wide with fear. I tried to call out to her, but her form vanished before the words could escape from my lips.

“May the gods grant you your heart’s desire….”

Someone took my hand and pulled me further and further into the abyss.

“Ophelia.”

“...since there is nothing more noble and more admirable….”

“Ophelia, look at me.”

I looked up to meet a pair of silver eyes. No kindness, no warmth.

A chasm.

My vision blurred.

“You’re going into shock, and I’m going to help you,” his voice was dark, but gentle, “but you need to breathe.”

Millions of stars danced across my vision until suddenly—

Everything was dark.

And somewhere, the gods were laughing.

~*~

[ Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?

Am I to leave this haven of my rest,

This cradle of my glory, this soft clime,

This calm luxuriance of blissful light,

These crystalline pavilions, and pure fanes,

Of all my lucent empire? It is left

Deserted, void, nor any haunt of mine.

The blaze, the splendour, and the symmetry,

I cannot see—but darkness, death and darkness.]

{Saturn is fallen, am I too to fall?}

-Hyperion, John Keats (lines 234-242)

~*~

I awoke to colors on the ceiling. Violet, lavender, blues, reds.

I turned my head and saw a stained glass window, depicting the sun. A man with golden hair stood with it, the sun outstretched into the middle of his palm. In the other, he held the moon. A rosy sky painted delicate pinks and clementine oranges across a bedroom wall.

The room was large and ornate. It felt ancient—like I had stepped back into time.

A vase of wilted narcissus flowers sat on a table in the middle of the room.

….

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First draft of the wedding scene between Hades & Ophelia is here. It’s just structural framework for now, but I wanted to integrate two literary poems into the text, as a way to fuse the modern and the classical. Ancient power observed through a modern lens. Thoughts & feedback always appreciated <3 Thanks for reading :)