Pomegranates

“Some stories say that Hades kidnapped Persephone while she was picking flowers in a meadow during spring, married her, and tricked her into staying with him for six months by having her eat six pomegranate arils. Others say they fell in love with each other, were willingly married, and that she ate those six pomegranate arils because she couldn’t bear to stay away from him for a whole year. Isn’t that a more romantic side of the story than the original?” she remarks, splitting open a pomegranate and picking out its seeds.

“That’s just a silly notion. The gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks and Romans had nothing better to do with their time, so they created fake deities to occupy their time,” he replies, opening a bottle of honey wine and taking a sip. “Besides, if I was Hades and you were Persephone, I wouldn’t want to spend any second away from you even more than I have to.”

He leans over, buries his head into her shoulder and breathes in her scent. “What would you do if you were her?” he asks.

She smiles. “Pomegranates would be the only fruit I’d eat for the rest of my life.”