Chapter 4: Home Sweet Home?

                                    

                                          
The chariot ride was silent and tense. Katherine sat quietly next to the handsome god, sparing him no glance, paying more attention to the fields of Elysium down below, watching the children play as their mother and father watched with joy. From the descriptions of the Underworld, it was divided into three regoins, Elysium being what Christians believed as heaven, and Tartarus being hell. There were lesser gods in the Underworld that helped run each sector, but Hades was the overall god over the dead.
                          
Soon after, the bright and sunlit fields were replaced with a more typical look with small homes and average looking people. This must be the Asphodel Meadows, where souls who were both good and evil resided. The souls here were human, not perfect. They did wrong, but they also did right. Hades had explained to the human that most souls go to Asphodel Meadows, as the more innocent and heroic went to Elysium.
                          
The Asphodel Meadows soon faded away and as they came across the entrance to Tartarus, Hades commanded the horses to avert from the entrance.
                          
"Was that Tartarus," Katherine asked.
                          
"And the girl speaks," Hades chuckled, trying to lighten the mood. The human rolled her eyes. "But yes, that was the entrance to Tartarus. It is a place you don't want to visit."
                          
"Are the Titans down there?"
                          
"Yes. My father Cronus and many other Titans are down there in sleep by Nyx, Goddess of the night, and her son Hypnos, God of sleep. My mother Rhea is the only Titan that still lives on earth. She takes on human forms and travels from place to place every century. But she does a great job of hiding; no one knows where she resides now."
                          
Katherine nodded, taking in the information. Though she knew little of Greek mythology, she knew that Hades was the brother of Zeus and Poseidon, and were swallowed by Cronus as he feared that they would take his rule over the humans. Zeus had tricked their father into drinking a potion and Cronus threw up Hades and Posideon, along with their sisters Hera, Demeter, and Hestia. That had begun the war between the Gods and the Titans.
                          
Katherine knew that Hades was a private man. He didn't talk about his family, and whenever she would ask a question about them, he either ignored her or changed the topic.
                          
They ended the tour shorty, and soon they landed back at the palace. When landing, Katherine had noticed the beautiful garden below, the flowers bright with vivid colors. She could've sworn that they twinkled and shined like jewels.
                          
"I see you've noticed the garden," Hades asked.
                          
"The flowers are beautiful. May I take a look at them?"
                          
Hades shrugged. "I don't see why not. But I am coming with you; a lost soul sometimes wonders off and they aren't always the friendliest."
                          
Together, they walked down the conjoining staircase from the balcony they landed on. 
                          
Katherine's eyes widen as she looked at the flowers. They were in fact twinkling and reflecting lights the artifical sun from above. Taking a closer look, the flowers were made of solid crystals instead of natural petals and stems. 
                          
Walking down the small path, the human marveled at the jeweled flowers as the god kept his distance.
                          
It made him slightly proud to see someone seeing his garden. He had orginally made it for Persephone when she missed the world above during her stay. It was a shame that he could not grow natural flowers; he was the god of death. You can't grow things in the land of the dead.
                          
Hades watched the girl become infatuated with one particular flower. It was the first of its own as he created an orignal flower for Persephone. The stem was a dark and shimmering green and the It was in the shape of a rose, but it was a dark blue instead of a traditional red or pink. In the light, it shimmered will many colors, while it turned black like coal in the dark.
                          
"It really is a beautiful flower," she said. 
                          
Hades could see that the girl truly liked the jewel. It made the ghost of a smile form on his lips in pride.
                          
Bending over, he was careful to not pluck it too hard as it would shatter, and held it out for Katherine.
                          
The small and sweet gesture from the god shocked Katherine. "You didn't have to do that."
                          
"You obviously marveled it. Take it as my way of apologizing for my behavior earlier. You had caught me in a rather harsh mood."
                          
"You are forgiven." With shaky hands, Katherine went to take the flower from Hades. As she grasped the flower, her fingers lightly brushed against his palm as it sent small shivers up her spine. It was hard to say if the god felt it too, but Katherine merely shook it off and thanked him for the gift.
                          
~~~~
                          
The day had went by quickly. The artifical sun was beginning to set in the massive cavern. Both she and Hades had spent the day in the graden and had taken a tour of the palace. Katherine knew she would never remember her way around.
                          
Now alone in her seperate chambers, her mind was digesting the fact that she was indeed in the Underworld. At first, she had laughed it off, thinking that Hades has an escapee from the nut house playing make believe. But seeing the different afterlives, the souls, and even the entrance of Tartarus, she now knew that it was reality.
                          
She began to wonder if her parents had even noticed that she was gone. Probably not though. Dean and Rachelle Bakers had stopped caring about their own daughter after Namie's death, stuck in their own grief. 
                          
Wait, was Namie here in the Underworld? If she was, was she in Elysium or in the Asphodel Meadows? Was she happy in her afterlife?
                          
"Why don't you just ask yourself?"
                          
Katherine snapped out of her thoughts at the very familiar voice, a voice she hadn't heard in five long years. Looking up, she saw her sister standing in the doorway, a bright smile etched into her face.