The Fallen Queen

This is not the story of how a woman ascends to greater authority, but rather, how she descends from her grace to become a queen...

I was brought into existence as old as time itself. That is to say, I do not recall much of my youth, yet my immortality has preserved me as though I am a living portrait. My mother ruled the lands with her green thumb. And my father, well, there’s not much that I can tell, for I did not know him at all. Was he nothing more than a womanizer? Or perhaps he was indeed the king of all the gods as legend proclaims.

Regardless, being a descendant of such divine beings, one would think that I had only eternal bliss and not any unpleasant thoughts cross my mind. Such is the absurdity that springs from the fountains of the minds of stupid mortals. Their foolish reasoning would not be able to comprehend our deific intellectuals. For that, I pity them.

The ichors that flow through my divine veins boil and seethe with my rage. Every living being, mortal or god, were expecting me to take over my mother’s mantle. So what did it matter if I had no interest in governing over the land of the living? I knew I was destined for a greater ordeal. The words of my mother, despite the comfort it was supposed to bring, only fuelled my wrath.

Everything has a time and season. And where one falls, another will grow to take its place. That is the way the living live upon.

The fates were especially cruel to me. Instead of taking my place amongst my kin in the heavens, I would first descend to the depths of hell. I hated my mother. And I hated my very existence. But sometimes, it is so easy to mistake such loathing for something far greater than that.

When I first met my uncle, I admired everything that was him. Tall, dark and gaunt, he was not exactly fashioned out of the greatest of appearances, but my heart fell for him. The stories he told, I drew in with great fascination. He fought alongside his siblings in the Great War against the tyrannical rule of their father, resulting with their laurels held triumphant. How he was deceived to draw the worst bet amongst his brothers over who would dominate the mortal realms. And the punishments he meted out for sinners with the blackest of hearts – worse than facing death itself.

Even so, he was kind and gentle to me, ironic for his reputation as king of the underworld. It wasn’t long before I knew I had given my entire heart to him. How I longed to escape from it all and be with him for eternity. My dark angel.

And so it was carried out.

He was the executioner. But I am the mastermind; the architect of my own escape and salvation.

It was all part of the plan. The first thing was to get my overprotective mother out of the way. I concocted a ruse to fool her, saying that I would be gone for a while to gather some wildflowers. I would have none of her nymphs trailing behind me. Away from watchful eyes, I waited anxiously. Then, he came from the shadows and swept me off my feet and into his dark, harrowing dominion. We were doomed souls struck by love’s arrow indeed.

Those inferior mortals who know of our relationship have nothing less than their instincts shrouded with suspicion. Some actually believed that I was the innocent victim of a demented, necrotic paedophile. Incest, that very word spits with hatred from their mouths like raging wildfire. They can call me for what I am; a whore, or a low-life slut being the least. But all I did was to simply act out of my heart’s desire. Is that really so wrong?

For a period of time, I sat on my black obsidian throne as queen of the dead. As morbid as death which I sat by his side, nevertheless I was content with my place. But the ghost of my mother’s words had returned to haunt me. Everything has a season of its own. Including the humane emotion that is love.

As the weeks rolled into months, it had come to my notice that while my husband still cared for me under his wing, his heart was just the same as those of his subjects – dead, lifeless and stoical.

I asked him if he still loved me. He said that it did not mean anything, but he didn’t know. What difference would it have made anyway?

And my mother – what would she think of me? Would it break her heart to know that her precious, only daughter had been snatched from under her watchful gaze; never to return to her side?

I could picture her now.

She is garbed in a black veil, roaming endlessly to the ends of the earth. Where her tears drop, so falls the first flakes of snow. The cold, cruel air channels her sorrow to all corners of the land. So cold; it breaks the hearts of all who can feel. Even the trees have lost the will to live as they shrivel up and die.

I could not possibly return to a former life where I had slaved away my dignity and happiness. My dark angel had saved me from that. Perhaps he could liberate me forever from this torment.

Through my tears of deceit and persuasion, I told him that he meant the world to me – lower or above. I would never leave his side. Nor could I possibly bear the fact of returning to the land above to care for nature’s gifts which had its lease, but of that I did not tell. Fortunately, he told me, not every problem had to be overcome by being a god or goddess of wisdom.

The solution came in the form of a ripe, juicy pomegranate which he placed delicately in my palm. I stared hungrily into its trove of bright, sparkling rubies.

“Eat it,” he says. “No one who has touched and consumed the food of my domain shall be allowed to leave this place. Just a few seeds, my love, and you will be my queen. For as long as we shall live.”

For as long as we shall live. Those sweet, melodious words of his have led me to deliver my own verdict.

With every seed I sink my teeth into; it bursts into juice that course through my alleviating body. Each one is indeed a mirror; a reflection of the cause and effect I will bring upon my choice.

One for sorrow, two for joy.

I cringe at the thought of the wretched hurt that I have cast upon my own mother, but it is for the sake of my happiness.

Three for a girl, four for a boy.

Like peeling the layers of an onion, I have discarded my childhood innocence. And I have willingly welcomed the intrusion of another being into my sacred body.

Five for silver, six for gold.

Despite the underworld being many a mortal’s final resting place, it is also a host of limitless wealth. Materialistic riches and spoils for a woman of my status.

But before I can take a bite out of another seed, an epiphany dawns upon me. No matter how much I try to hide myself from the world above, they will come for me. I cannot do this.

Seven for a secret never to be told.

I had eaten the forbidden fruit from the garden of my paradise. And it should have been that I was to be condemned to reside forever in this fiery limbo. But while we enjoy casting the dice with the humans’ fate at stakes, we simply cannot allow them to die in vain.

So it was the will of the gods.

When I return to my mother’s company, a smile of pretence is greeted with tears of joy. In my mother’s eyes, I am her innocent daughter. Yet in her presence, my heart secretly pines with lament. I cry not for the short, pathetic mortal lives of plants, but because my time here seems like eternity.

Then six months slip away, like sand in an hourglass. The time comes for the tides to change.

I watch over the kingdom of the fallen with my husband. The only things that grow here are the pomegranates that I plant with care – a souvenir of my little victory. The trees here are the ones fashioned from the suicides, their corpses hanging from the limbs. Birds with hideous women’s’ faces tear profoundly at the bodies with the hopes of being able to nest. The lakes are nothing more than rivers of fire, washing away the sins of the damned. Their screams of agony trash about in my ears like echoes in a cavern. But it is a small price to pay, considering how low I have sunk to achieve my goal.

I am the Lady of the Underworld. The Queen of the Fallen.

And I know that I am definitely not making a mistake.

P.S: In case you were wondering, this is my version of the Persephone myth. ;)