The Renegade and the Lodestar

The beginning is not the falling in love, the way Persephone catches Hades' eye with her compassion, goodness, and wild beauty. Nor is it when Hades' lean dark grace and visionary mind captures Persephone's love. The story of Hades and Persephone begins when Persephone is killed. And Hades tears the Underworld apart to find her.

Hades descends into the Underworld in search of his beloved. He leaves a trail of righted-wrongs in his wake as he searches for Persephone, who is a prisoner of Sisyphus, King of the Underworld.

Hades sent Sisyphus to the Underworld for injustices he committed on earth. Now in the Underworld and partnered with the god of war, Sisyphus will have his revenge. He wants the life Hades had above, including having Persephone as his wife. For the Underworld has no rules. No justice. And the worst kind of men can be king.

And yet, Persephone is not unlike the flowers she creates. Flowers with thorns, with poisons, with defense mechanisms, to keep predators at bay. As Hades becomes more unsteady in the dark, hopeless labyrinth, the Underworld brings Persephone to life. It gives her a beating heart. She is needed. She is loved. She finds she can bring comfort to those who need it most.

This reimagined Hades is like a lawman in the Wild West. He's a tightly-coiled dispenser of justice who tears through the Underworld in pursuit of his love. Persephone, terrified and longing to be reunited with Hades, finds strength she didn't know she had in the dark of the world of shades.