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CALLIOPE: Hephaestus, for all her solitude, had always been fond of her uncle. He, like her, was an outsider to Olympus and became the closest thing to a father she had before her mother married Poseidon. Today, we will start our story in the Underworld, a niece coming to ask her aunt and uncle a question.

Welcome, dear listeners, to Forged Bonds.

You may recall, dear listeners, that we are approaching a wedding. A wedding for Hephaestus, in fact, which is very important to her reasons for entering the Underworld on this day.

PERSEPHONE: Phae! It’s so lovely to see you, darling, how are you? Besides being busy, of course. Hera told me there’s a wedding in progress.

HEPHAESTUS: I’m good, Sephie. Great even, I can’t… Can I ask you a question? Before getting Hades in here?

PERSEPHONE: You can always ask me questions, Phae.

HEPHAESTUS: When does it… start… (sigh) When does it start feeling real? Like, when you knew you were going to marry Hades despite what your mother said, when did that start feeling real instead of like a fantasy.

PERSEPHONE: (fondly) You and Poseidon have a way of asking the most difficult questions, do you know that? I know you said you wanted me to answer before we brought Hades in but I think this is a question that’s best suited for both of us. Come on, I’ll make some tea and get my beloved husband and we can answer your question.

HEPHAESTUS: Did Poseidon ask you something similar?

PERSEPHONE: Before he and Hera got together, he asked me and Hades what it felt like to fall in love with each other. He was so worried about hurting her, if you can believe that. (pause) You do know he wouldn’t hurt her, right?

HEPHAESTUS: I know, Sephie. I know. He… He’s so sweet with her. Every time I see her she’s smiling and laughing and it’s so great to see. He made my mom a ring of sea glass and promised her forever and I actually believe he means it. 

PERSEPHONE: I know Si’s reputation isn’t exactly squeaky clean, but he’s become a better person.

HEPHAESTUS: I don’t doubt that. Just like I don’t doubt that he loves my mom. He loves her the way she deserves to be loved.

(footsteps)

HADES: Phae! It’s good to see you! And many congratulations on your engagement, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Hera so excited before. Which is saying quite a lot given that she was living here still when she and Zeus got divorced.

PERSEPHONE: Hephaestus has a question for us, darling. I think you’ll enjoy this one.

HADES: Is that so? Is everything alright, Phae?

HEPHAESTUS: I’m getting married soon. I’m getting married soon and every day it feels like I wake up expecting it all to be a dream that I had– Aphrodite disappearing from my life like she had never been there. How… You two had your fair share of struggles when it came to your relationship and marriage. How did you handle that? When did it start feeling real?

HADES: Oh, I see what you mean, Sephie. This is… I know exactly what you’re talking about Phae. And I imagine Sephie and I will have very different answers. Beloved, would you like to begin? 

PERSEPHONE: Of course. For me, I think the moment it felt real was when I was packing my belongings in my mother’s house in the dead of night. The entire time she thought that I wouldn’t do this, that I wouldn’t leave to chase my happiness with the man I loved. So I put all of my belongings into a suitcase, and for the first time in my life it felt like my life was my own. In terms of when it felt permanent, though, that was when your mother did the marriage blessing. It wasn’t a formal wedding, not really, just us two, your mom, and Cerberus. But once she did the blessing, it couldn’t be taken away from us. No one could come in and force me home, no one could say that our marriage didn’t matter, no one could hurt me anymore. And then it felt like a dream in a good way, in a ‘this is the life I’ve always wanted’ way. Not in the ‘oh gods when will I wake up and have to face reality’ kind of way. Every day I wake up and I see my husband and I know that I made the right choice. That this is real and permanent and everything I wanted. That I’m allowed to have this, despite everything my mother had said. Despite everything my mother had done. 

HEPHAESTUS: …Did Demeter try to take you back?

PERSEPHONE: Of course she did. It was a lot of (mocking) ‘I need her help with maintaining the weather and the harvest! She should be up here six months out of the year or I’ll destroy the whole world!’ And, unfortunately, for a while we did that. I would leave here for six months just to spend the spring and summer with my mother and wouldn’t get to see Hades until the fall began. And I’m sure it’s not hard to imagine, but I was miserable and I know everyone could feel it. It must’ve been like the sun was burning too brightly with my fury and eventually Zeus took me aside and he told me that as long as I could do my duties in the spring without issue, I could return home for good. My real home, down here. I’ll visit the mortal realm a couple times a year now, but never for more than a couple of days despite what my mother wanted. 

HEPHAESTUS: Zeus… Took your side?

HADES: No one was more surprised than the both of us, I can assure you. Of course, this all turned out to be a ploy for him to start sleeping with Demeter the first time, but it worked out for me and Sephie at least.

HEPHAESTUS: (laughing) That makes more sense than him doing something out of the kindness of his heart. What about you, Hades? 

HADES: My answer is a little less… It’s hard to explain. There has never been a moment in our marriage that I have doubted Persephone loves me as much as I love her, and yet there is also part of me that fears the day that will change. From the moment I saw her, everything between us has felt real and vivid and lively in a way I hadn’t experienced in centuries before meeting her. But that doesn’t stop me from believing that she could choose to leave me. Our wedding was the happiest day of my life and proved how much she loves me, but things could always change. So to your question of when did it feel real, it always has– since the moment, Persephone slipped from Demeter’s side to talk to me at a solstice festival to right now. It doesn’t stop the doubt though, as much as I want it to. 

HEPHAESTUS: Yeah, it’s the doubt I’m worried about. If she changed her mind… I don’t know what I’d do. I mean, moving back to Olympus and getting married and all of this just feels impossible but I want it so bad. And that scares me. 

PERSEPHONE: Phae, darling. I don’t think she’d change her mind, really. I have never seen Aph be like this before, not for anyone. And in some crazy, alternative reality if she did, you would never be alone. Hades and I are here, your mom and Poseidon are here. Now that Hera is out of Zeus’s hold, there is absolutely nothing stopping you from living with her if things go wrong. You know she’d always love to have you stay with her, even if it was for a moment. 

HADES: It’s not going to go wrong though, Phae. You two are definitely more me and Sephie than Hera and Zeus. 

HEPHAESTUS: Thank you, both of you, for that I just… It’s terrifying, being in love.

PERSEPHONE: Oh, it is. But that’s half the fun of it, isn’t it.

CALLIOPE: We shall now go and check in with the other half of our brides to be. Aphrodite is currently on the couch with Ares and Hermes– herself and Hermes each laying against one of Ares’s shoulders– flipping through the photos from Ares and Aphrodite’s wedding.

APHRODITE: Oh gods, I didn’t know they got pictures of the two of you dancing together! Look at you! 

HERMES: (teasing) You were right, Aph, Dipper is definitely the better dancer of the two of them. (pause) I wonder why they took this picture, it’s not like we were the center of attention with the wedding or anything.

APHRODITE: You wouldn’t know it by looking at this picture. Look how happy you both look– Air has never smiled at me like that. He was marrying me that day and he still looks more in love with you than he ever did with me.

ARES: (lost in thought) And I didn’t even know it at the time. Gods, how could I have been so stupid for so long.

HERMES: Air, you weren’t being stupid–

ARES: Wasn’t I? I mean, look at us, Hermes! It couldn’t be clearer on my face how I felt about you and I just… I didn’t know. You know, for the longest time I knew there was something that I was feeling for you but I never looked at it close enough to figure it out. It’s like I was scared or something, but that doesn’t make any sense at all and now we’ve wasted so much time that we could’ve spent together.

HERMES: We didn’t waste time, Ares. We just took a different path to get here. 

APHRODITE: If I had fallen in love with you and we had gotten together, would you consider the time before I realized as a waste, Air?

ARES: Of course not! But that’s different, you could label what you felt for me. I– I forced a label of friendship onto me and Hermes without even stopping to consider that it could be something else. That I could let it be something else. And by the time I noticed, Hermes had been in love with me for so long–

HERMES: And that’s okay, Air. I told you this before and I’ll tell you again: I don’t have a single regret about loving you for as long as I did. If you never felt the same, I still wouldn’t have regretted it.

ARES: I know.

HERMES: So what’s actually going on here then? 

ARES: I just… Feel like I should’ve known earlier. I mean, look at all of these pictures! Every time you’re in the same shot as me, Herm, all I’m looking at is you. Not my wife who is also my best friend, but you. Don’t you think I should’ve put things together sooner?

APHRODITE: You weren’t ready to.

ARES: But–

APHRODITE: Take it from me, Air: you can’t rush love. When you do, it gets messy and fragile and cracks under any bit of pressure. Taking your time, waiting until you’re ready to see what’s there, that isn’t a bad thing. Sometimes love– real, true, purposeful love– is falling immediately and building the foundation together. Sometimes it’s building a foundation separately and realizing later that they fit together. Neither is better or worse than the other– your relationship isn’t any lesser because you didn’t notice you loved Hermes sooner. You love him, right?

ARES: Of course I do. I love him more than anything else in this world.

APHRODITE: Then it doesn’t matter how long it took to get here. You can look at that picture of yourself from our wedding and feel regret, or you can look at it as laying the foundations. I don’t wanna speak for Hermes, but I can guess how he’d want you to look at it.

HERMES: No regrets, Ares. Not a single one. 

APHRODITE: I doubt he’d be marrying you if he had any regrets.

ARES: (laughing) I guess that’s true. Next time we get a picture like that, it will be at our wedding. (pause) Well, probably at Aph’s wedding now that I think about it, but it will be us actually together instead of me being an idiot.

HERMES: A very lovable idiot!

APHRODITE: And an idiot who is in love!

ARES: Oh, so now I’m allowed to be an idiot?

APHRODITE: Us calling you an idiot and you calling yourself stupid are very different. It’s my job as your best friend to call you an idiot and you know this. 

HERMES: And it’s my job to remind you that even if you are an idiot I’ll still love you. I love you more than words can express, Ares.

ARES: I love you too, Hermes.

APHRODITE: And I love that both of you love each other! Now can we get back to looking at pictures? I want to keep playing yes or no for me and Phae’s wedding.

CALLIOPE: With that, dear listeners, we shall draw this episode to a close. The countdown to the wedding has officially begun, as has the countdown to the end of our story. I hope you enjoy what is left of our tale as much as I enjoy knowing what lies ahead. Until next time, and as always, thank you for listening.