spartan ancestor

A drunken troubadour attracts the attention of the tavernkeeper.According to the rules of the tavern, the person at the table is responsible for the drunkard at the table, and Hyacinthus can only open the room for the other party and help him upstairs.

When putting people on the bed, the drunk was still chattering, sometimes saying that he wanted to become a human being, sometimes saying that he really wanted to die.

Yacintos threw the quilt over speechlessly, and was just about to leave when he was pulled back by a drunkard who sat up and said, "It's so sad! Life is so painful, and death is worthless. It's hard to become the most wanted to do bard Poet, there is no good story to tell. If I was killed by some prince or king, in order to thank him, I will definitely write a long poem and let him be famous in the underworld!!"

The drunk raised his fist excitedly.

Hyacinthus: "..."

The prince or king might not be happy either.

He put the drunk back under the covers, and considering that the other party had told a lot of information anyway, he still asked, "What's your name?"

"Huh?" The drunk hiccupped, "I don't have... no name. My mother left after giving birth, and I've been called 'Hi!' or 'You' all my life. I don't want to have a name either. , no need... I'm not human, am I? But you can call me Nameless, doesn't it sound like a troubadour?"

"...Yes, yes. Very troubadour." Yacintos coaxed perfunctorily, "Take a good rest, I have paid the room fee, thank you for the news."

Before going out, Hyacinthus extinguished the candles by the way.

The door was half closed, and a faint, sleepy question came from inside: "You...do you believe what I said?"

"..." Yacinto paused for a moment.

To be honest, Yacintos still believes in the first two.After all, whether it is hair color or assassination, it can be matched with his cognition, and the logic makes sense.

But the so-called invisible person is watching, and Hermes' welcome is a reward... He still has reservations about this for the time being.

There was a low snoring sound from the door, Yacintos swallowed the answer that came to his lips, closed the door and went downstairs.

Just as he sat back at the wine table, the door of the tavern was pushed open.

The maid of the Elysee Palace stood at the door, looked around the room, her gaze settled on Jacintos, and she waved with a little doubt and joy: "Come on, Your Highness the Empress of the Underworld has called you into the palace." .”

…………

According to the contact in the morning, Hyacinths thought that Persephone didn't like to socialize, maybe he could save the chatting with her tomorrow, but he didn't expect that after half a day, she was called into the palace again.

On the way to the palace, Jacintos tentatively checked the information with the maid: "I remember, His Highness the Empress of the Underworld should be the daughter of His Highness Demeter and His Majesty Zeus, right? These two gods don't seem to have black hair and black eyes?"

"Oh, this." The maid said indifferently, "It's really not."

"His Highness the Empress of the Underworld was blond and blue-eyed when she was the God of Spring on Mount Olympus, but she is the Empress of the Underworld when she enters the Underworld—that is, the God of Hades! So not only will the godhead change, but this change will also be reflected in the appearance. Don’t you see me too? I have black hair and black eyes in Hades, but I’m also blonde when I’m out of Hades.”

Hyacinthus pondered: "Then, is this process painful?"

"?" The maid raised her head and thought for a while, "Maybe it's the first time it hurts, and then it doesn't go away. I have to change it every year, do I still have to live if I hurt every year?"

The maid joked and led Hyacinthus into the palace.

Persephone seemed to like staying in the garden very much, and Hyacinthus followed the maid, and still met Persephone in the small garden.

I don't know if it was Jacintos' illusion, but the other party's face was even paler than before, and the blood on his hands was blurred, making it almost unbearable to look at.

The maid jumped in shock: "Your Highness! I've only been out for a while, why did you have a new injury on your hand?"

Persephone didn't respond, she just looked straight at Hyacinthus, and told the maid, "Go out and close the door. Don't let anyone in until we finish chatting."

"..." Hyacinthus's smile froze when he saw Persephone's eyes, and he almost wondered if this was the prelude to wearing a cuckold for Hades, but the maid just responded and stepped back to close the door, Persephone Ear Sephone shook slightly, and almost fell into the reclining chair behind her.

That scene was really scary. Hyacinths began to turn his suspicion from "cuckold Hades" to "framing me for an assassination and taking the opportunity to commit suicide". Just as he was about to step forward, Persephone raised her hand, and with a strong The gesture stopped: "I'm fine."

She paused for a moment, contrary to her silence in the morning, she took the initiative to lead the topic: "Do you know why I summoned you?"

"..." Hyacinthus pondered whether he should respond decently, or be humorous and straightforward. He glanced at Persephone's face, which was no different from that of a dead person, and weighed for a moment to choose the latter, "The maid said, because my Hue?"

Persephone's dull face really showed a bit of speechlessness, she raised her head to look at Hyacinthus, and added a bit of vivid popularity to her pale face: "You—"

The Empress of the Underworld probably wanted to speak savagely, but she didn't know whether she had no experience of venomous tongue or lack of strength. In the end, she paused for a while, and then forcibly brought the topic back to the original place: "Because I heard that There are rumors about you. You want to leave the underworld, and unlike others, you just talk about it."

She suddenly began to praise Jacintos: "You have the guts, and you have enough mobility and strength to implement the plan. As far as I know, you have stopped Hades six times."

"—It seems like you want to mess around, but in fact, you want to estimate the strength gap between the soldiers of the underworld and the guards in different regions in an open and honest manner."

"..." The smile on Yacintos' face faded.

Persephone fiddled with the golden rose in her hand, probably aware of Hyacinthus' tense nerves, and her tone of relief lightly said: "No one realizes this. After all, if it is not for the same disease, no one can understand us. This situation. Naturally, we can’t imagine what we can do for it.”

"Us?" Yacintos raised his eyebrows, "You also want to leave the underworld? But I heard from the maid that you have no feelings for His Majesty Hades. To be honest, I was still guessing your changeable emotions on the way here. Because of what, if we really feel sorry for each other, do you plan to share your illness with your fellow patients?"

Persephone wasn't annoyed by Hyacinthus's stinging speech, she just raised her head slightly: "I called you here because I was going to say this. But are you mentally prepared?"

How strange.What day is today?Two people on the front and rear feet asked him the same thing.

Yacintos wanted to laugh a little: "Of course."

In order to express his sincerity, Yacintos spread his hands and took the initiative to share his experience: "I have observed all the points that should be stepped on, and there are only two most important levels left, one is the River of Styx and the other is the gate of hell. There are Guarded by Charon and the three-headed dog, even if I lose half of my soul, I won't be able to get out."

Persephone sighed faintly: "Look, you don't understand." Her brows and eyes were full of melancholy, "With my help, these are not problems."

"The real and biggest enemy, you don't know yet."

"He's called—"

Persephone raised her finger and made a silence gesture before her lips, and the subsequent words only stopped with a silent mouth shape: "Fate."

Before Hyacinthus could speak, Persephone's pale hand covered Hyacinth's lips, and whispered in a low voice: "Don't call him by name. Be careful, the wind has ears."

—It seems that something is staring at me.

Be careful, the wind has ears.

At this moment, the drunken words of the troubadour intertwined with the whispers of Persephone.

Hyacinthus suddenly shuddered.

·

Persephone didn't know about Wuming's conversation with Jacintos, but she was surprised that Jacintos entered the state so quickly.

Originally, she thought that she would have to spend some time convincing the other party that she was not hallucinating because of self-torture. Before she could say anything, Yacintos had already assumed a serious state of talking about business.

But this is just right, and Persephone didn't bother to ask why: "Where do I start? From—the third day I entered Hades."

"You humans have heard this story, right? After I was snatched back to Hades, my mother Demeter got angry and made all the plants on the earth wither, and the first winter was born. Zeus had to come forward to negotiate with Hades , I was supposed to be taken back to Mount Olympus, but because I ate the underworld pomegranate and became the god of underworld, I must return to the underworld for a certain period of time every year."

Persephone was not emotional, smiled lightly, and suddenly turned to another seemingly irrelevant topic: "Actually, I am a person who is very afraid of pain. When I am with my mother, if I fall or get hurt If a flower thorn pricks your hand, you can cry for a long time."

"So after eating the pomegranate, it's the same."

There was some sigh in her tone: "I was so afraid of the pain, I woke up from the pain."

"After waking up, I realized that I was holding the Nether Pomegranate in my hand. That pomegranate is really big, and it is bubbling with black gas. Unless you are blind, you can't see the spirit of the underworld enveloping it."

"But don't you think it's strange? I just didn't see the breath of the underworld on this pomegranate before it turned into the pain of Hades."

"So that when Thanatos, who sent the pomegranate, faced my mother's argument, he could say with confidence that the underworld did not use any tricks. I clearly recognized the underworld pomegranate, and it was my own volition. eat it."

"Why didn't I see it? How could I eat the Ming pomegranate without even thinking about it?"

"Later I understood." Persephone said lightly, "Because in this world, someone has already written my life into a drama. I am just a character in the drama, walking unconsciously. He arranged for me script until I woke up from the pain."

The pain of transforming into Hades is too unbearable, and the future life of becoming Hades makes Persephone even more terrified.

"So after the transformation was over and the pain subsided, I fled to the River Styx and begged Charon to send me out of Hades." Persephone smiled, "I saw him by the River Styx."

A very ordinary-looking figure wrapped in a black robe.

The only extraordinary thing is that he is suspended above the river Styx, and it seems that even Charon has not noticed his existence.

He posed like a spectator in the stands of a theater. After making a boo gesture to Persephone, he stared at the ferry boat in the middle of the Styx with great interest.

In addition to Charon, there is also a living soul on board.

About halfway through the journey, this living soul looked much more relaxed, and turned to talk to Charon with a smile on his face: "You also said that no living person can successfully reach the shore after such a long ferry, it scared me a lot Jump. You see, this pier is so close that I can jump over it, and I may be the first living person to cross you successfully."

Of course, the wharf is not as close to the ship as the living soul said, which is just an exaggeration.

But Charon, the unsmiling ferryman, smiled briefly: "I hope so. Since my duty includes the item of 'transporting souls back to the other side', I hope that I can fulfill it successfully once or twice. "

Above the ferry boat, that black shadow seemed to have been poked into something funny, and laughed while clutching its stomach, and even slapped its legs a few times as if laughing hard.

"Then, I just heard him talk to me: 'Do you think I should let them get what they want? No, no, who remembers a drama with a perfect ending? Then I'll give half of their wish.'"

The ferry sailed through several waves without any risk, and sailed to the pier.It was really only a short distance from "you can jump directly over it". A new undercurrent vortex suddenly appeared on the river surface. upside down.

"I never knew anyone could laugh like that." Persephone looked into the distance, her eyes a little out of focus because of the memory, "I almost doubt that he will die laughing on the spot in the next second."

At that time, a chill rose in her heart, and she had a vague premonition.

"It took him a long time to reflect on the tragedy he personally led, and he didn't float to me until Charon started the ferry again."

A physical disgust appeared on Persephone's face: "I don't want to go into too much detail, but the general idea is to tell me that, just like the ferry boat that was doomed to capsize just now, my life is also doomed. I am doomed to be Hades' Queen of the Underworld, but He is very kind, and only needs me to stay in the Underworld for a quarter of the time every year, and I can return to my mother from spring to autumn."

"However, He has always been very clear about rewards and punishments. I actually want to destroy the script he has worked so hard to design, which makes Him very angry. Very unhappy. So as punishment, every winter after that, I return to the underworld and transform into When you are in the underworld, you have to feel the pain of transformation again, and the duration will be longer than this year."

At this point, Persephone thoughtfully picked up a cup of warm honey water from the small tea table at hand, and stuffed it into Jacinthos' hands, offsetting part of the chill in Jacinthos' heart: "Then... …He knocked on my forehead once, and I completely forgot this memory, and also forgot about the painful experience of being transformed.”

"What happened later should be the same as you know. I followed the trajectory He arranged for me without knowing anything, and fought for freedom with my mother. In the end, because I ate the pomegranate, although I was allowed to go back Go to mother's side, but you must spend a quarter of your time in the underworld every year."

"..." Hyacinthus took a sip of the warm and sweet honey water, and suppressed all the emotions in his heart, "And then? Haven't you forgotten your memory? How do you remember it now?"

Persephone glanced at him and smiled slightly: "You really think His punishment will be that simple?"

She didn't answer Jacintos' question immediately. She looked away, and continued with her previous words: "It is true that I ate the pomegranate, and my mother has no way to argue. We have to accept this arrangement. I followed Hades back To the Underworld."

"Actually, to be honest, Hades is a good husband. His looks are not bad, and his strength is not to be picked. Most importantly, except for the endless official duties, I don't have to worry about it like Hera or Amphitrite. He cheated on anyone."

Speaking of this topic, Persephone's eyes sparkled for the first time, which could be regarded as a sincere smile: "Except that he doesn't know much about romance, he almost responds to requests, so in just a few dozen days, I don't care about my marital status." Dissatisfied, even after returning to her mother, she often weaves some flower crowns for Hades. Don’t you think it would be very interesting for him to wear black and wear a delicate flower crown on his head?”

"..." Hyacinthus took another sip of the honey water, looked away, and wisely kept silent on this question.

Persephone didn't intend to ask Hyacinthus to answer. After asking, she said to herself: "Even when autumn is approaching and I am about to return to the underworld, I comfort my mother, saying that my life in the underworld is actually not that difficult."

"--I was wrong."

"It's not so difficult because I forget everything."

Persephone shook her head: "The moment I was brought back to the underworld by Hermes, the pain began to explode in my limbs, I fainted a few times from the pain, and immediately recalled my experience at the River Styx last year. "

This is punishment, but also teasing.

Fate deliberately gave her three-quarters of the year so that she could not remember everything, experience the beauty without any worries, and even have a secret love for Hades with a girlish heart.

Then in the last quarter, he awakened her viciously, making her realize that the previous carefree, even the secret love affair, were just scripts arranged by him for her.

"It's like this every year." Persephone wiped the blood on her fingertips, "In the first few years, after I woke up, I would try to find ways to leave the underworld, such as sending letters to carrier pigeons, asking Charon for help, and making an appointment Using the golden rose as a token, he will send me out of the underworld. But every time I am ready, and as soon as I step out of the palace, all the recovered memories are forgotten again."

Restarting once a year, she seems to be caught in an endless cycle, repeating forgetting and waking up.

Fate used this to make a mockery of her: so what if she was allowed to be sober once a year?She can never escape from the trajectory He set.

Persephone said indifferently: "So there were hundreds of years in the middle, so I simply gave up. After all, it is useless to resist. Once the memory is erased, any escape plan is useless. If I don't escape, at least I can stay awake for a while. Time...Anyway, even when I was awake, I didn't have a bad impression of Hades."

"——then the accident of Mingta happened."

Beside Persephone's hand, the mint grass trembled slightly in the wind, and a few dewdrops dripped from the tip of the leaves, like tiny tears.

"I don't think the provocation is Mingta's own will," Persephone said, "After all, I have contacted her, even though I am jealous of my relationship with Hades, after all, our marriage has passed the Ming road , how could she be willing to intervene in the middle? The only good thing is that even though I finished playing the scene of fighting rivals under the manipulation, I still instinctively dug the mint grass into the pot and brought it into the garden, Mingta was able to survive until the winter. To be recalled, not to be trampled to death by some soldier or ghost on the edge of the lawn."

Persephone shook her head: "I don't care about my own life, but who knows if there will be a second Mingta? According to his malice, think about his act of overturning the ferry at the last moment. What can he do? Come out? It's like a boot that only fell off. Even though there has been no second Mingta tragedy for thousands of years, I still dare not say give up. Just the idea of ​​​​running away, I think it's okay, do it But no, no matter what method is used, it will always be reversed by various accidents and completely fail."

Hyacinthus looked at her for a long time: "So, are you going to change someone to escape for you?"

Persephone's eyes shone slightly: "I'm going to change someone to completely break His restraint for me. Have you heard of Hercules' golden arrow?"

"What?" Yacintos didn't quite understand.

"A golden arrow that even Hades can't resist." Persephone leaned on the handle of the recliner and straightened up slightly. "When you heard the story, didn't you think about it? What's so strange about this golden arrow, obviously He has a mediocre background, but he can defeat even Hades."

"I noticed this by accident during the planning process about hundreds of years ago. It happened that Hercules and the centaur Chiron who gave him the golden arrow were both in the underworld, so I tried to find a way to invite Chiron Rong came to the palace to talk for a while, and even Chiron couldn't tell what was wrong. Don't you think, does this description sound familiar? There is no reason, saying that it makes you successful means that you can be successful."

"..." Hyacinthus looked at Persephone, "You mean, the golden arrow may have...that divine power attached?"

Persephone: "That's what I thought. But Hercules guarded the golden arrow very tightly, and I never had a chance to get it to prove my guess. All I know is that Hercules is very good at gambling." , is also very good wine, but the tavern where he gambled is very secret, I sent maids or guards to look for it, but I couldn’t find it.”

"You said... If the golden arrow is really blessed by him, what will he bless? Will it have the same effect on him?"

Hyacinthus took a deep breath: "Sounds like a big project."

And it's full of uncertainty.

"That's right." Persephone blinked her eyes, and her always indifferent expression finally became a bit sly, but the words she said were not so witty, with a kind of cold humor like a horror story, " But if you can, you'd better hurry up... I've been in pain for a long time, and I'm almost used to it. Maybe in a few years, even in winter, I can't remember these things..."

She paused, looked at Jacintos and said softly, "When the time comes, please help me remember."