The Imp woke just before dawn, cold and wet on the ground of the burrow. Hardly a suitable bed for an attendant of Hades. He was sure to look like the hell he felt, but then he was supposed to look like he'd woken from a long hibernation.
As the Imp crawled through the narrow tunnel up to the weak dawn light at the entrance, he willed his transformation: scaly skin sprung a thick brown coat of fur, pointed ears rounded and flattened against the side of his head. Cloven hooved feet and clawed hands became harmless little paws and his sharp face rounded and softened to teddy bear cuteness.
He emerged, slowly and sleepily, from the burrow and waddled into the early morning light. As expected, the meadow was full of humans, gawking and oohing and using all manner of gadgets to capture his image. These humans were so cute in their childish glee at seeing their little modern weather myth literally playing out in front of them. Never mind that this "meadow" was artificial, rigged up in some city park specifically to stage the local Groundhog Day event. No need for them to know that an Imp of the Underworld was impersonating their meteorological rodent in the service of Hades.
Wiping paws across his muzzle and eyes like he was waking from slumber, the Imp/groundhog sat up on his haunches and raised his head to the sky. Human heads and recording devices turned to look in the same direction; more squeals and ahh-ing and even some applause as they watched the thick clouds gathered above. One human, dressed in some sort of ceremonial garb that ended in a black high hat, stepped forward and garnered the attention of the crowd and their devices.
"Hear ye, hear ye," the pompous human intoned. "It is official; Gregory Groundhog has failed to see his shadow, which means Spring will come early this year!"
The crowd broke into applause and cheers, but the Imp had already tuned them out. Instead, he continued to gaze at the skies: he used his higher senses, seeing patterns and energies in the air above that no mortal could ever fathom existed. His ears searched for messages from other immortals that had not been able to reach the Underworld these past few months. He stored the information away to be repeated to his master below, as he had done for countless ages. Most years his news was glad; but what he had gleamed this winter's day saddened his heart.
The pompous human started to stride toward the Imp/groundhog, stooping and reaching out his arms like he wanted to scoop up the weather messenger. The Imp squeaked out an indignant whistle and spun around, waddling fast enough to escape down the burrow, changing his form back as he descended.
When he reached the proper level below ground, the Imp cast the spell to cross from the mortal plane and into the etheric; into the Underworld. Home.
The Elysian Fields were as beautiful as ever, and the Imp longed to curl up on the soft grass to get a proper sleep. But he had a report to make, so he padded across the field to the majestic gazebo where Hades and Persephone spent their leisure hours.
The Imp climbed the marble steps, as silently as his hoofs would allow, not wishing to disturb the royal couple. They lay together on their golden bed, arm in arm in peaceful and loving repose. No other immortals were so perfectly beautiful or so perfectly devoted to each other. He uttered a polite throat clearing, and waited for the love birds to rouse themselves.
Persephone was the first to greet him, calling in a voice of silk and flowers, beckoning him to her side of the bed for an embrace and warm kiss on his forehead. Hades reached across her from his side and grasped the Imp's hand in welcome.
"How goes the mortal world, old friend?" Hades asked; voice of honey and soft leather. The couple sat themselves up against their bed pillows and received morning mugs of coffee from quickly flying in cherubs. The Imp pulled up a stool and accepted a mug of his own; along with a warm glazed donut- bless the humans and their culinary ambrosia!
"Good news and bad news, Lord and Lady," the Imp answered, swallowing a bite of pastry. "Spring will come early this year, closer to Ostara than the Equinox. The constant cloud cover is sufficient to capture Sol's rays and speed the warming of the earth; which means you will be back in your mother's loving arms all the sooner, my Lady."
The groans from Persephone and the chuckles from Hades announced the beginnings of their annual Banter of Regret. The Imp hid his smile in a slurp of the coffee, a fine Jamaican roast, and waited for the show.
"Oh, Gods, do I have to go back to that old crone so soon? Why can't she just accept we're married and let us live with the dead in peace!" Persephone cried dramatically.
"Because she'll just sulk and let the world freeze over until she has her way," Hades replied in mock earnest.
"Can't you get your brother to make Mom cut the cord and let me live like an adult?"
"I'm just the baby brother and Zeus is your Dad; Demeter can still wrap him around her little finger like a vine. He'd still like to tap that too, you know."
"Puh-leeze, that's my Mother you're talking about!" Persephone threw her arms around Hades and pressed her forehead to his. "Of course, if you hadn't panicked when Mother surprised us that day we were flower 'plucking' and drug me down to the Underworld instead of just asking her for my hand like you'd been promising me you'd do for hundreds of years, then she wouldn't have gotten pissed and demanded I spend Summer with her and Winter with you."
"AND if you hadn't shushed me and agreed so quickly," Hades injected. "I could have gotten my army of lawyers in Purgatory to write in a loophole so we could have bounced between hemispheres each season and always been living in Winter!"
"Well, you just had to send one of those lawyers to Zeus to beseech clemency anyway. Didn't you know that once Mom got wind of that she'd demand something further, like cutting your communication to Olympus while I was with you?"
"You haven't complained too much about our 'having' to be stuck together half the year, have you?" Hades purred, hands drifting down Persephone's back toward her ample rear. "At least we get the occasional report from our shape-shifting friend, here. He never complains."
The Imp coughed slightly, then muttered: "Scales growing into fur do itch a bit..." And scratched an armpit for emphasis.
The lovers laughed at the umpteenth repeating of this banter, then sighed with resignation. Persephone broke the embrace and fluidly rose from their bed. "Well, I suppose I need to unpack my grubby clothes and get ready for her to put me to work. When the Spring is early, Mom really doubles her efforts to wake the plants and get them to pollinate their stamens out." She eyed Hades with hungry lust. "Maybe we can do a little 'pollinating' of our own later before I go, to get me in practice."
"I doubt your mother will object too much to a short delay in taking up your duties." Hades suggested. Then he caught the Imp's eye, and the somber silent hint at the news the Imp had for his master.
"But then, I should let our friend here make his report, so that he can seek some rest. And you can hasten to your mother's side for her report to you on how the world of the fauna fares- "
"I know what to expect from the surface," Persephone softly declared, her countenance suddenly somber. She casually reached overhead to a blossom laden vine wrapping around the lattice above them. "The roots of the plants above carry messages for me to the flora here. Mother did allow me a loophole after all." And she caressed the vine lovingly as the Imp would caress a kitten's furry neck.
"We will be repurposing the flora to survive an ecological apocalypse, I'm afraid."
And she was gone in a mist of dew drops. Hades gazed after her for a moment, and then turned to the Imp with solemn eyes.
"An early Spring was the 'good' news, wasn't it old friend?" he asked.
The Imp sat a few moments and looked down into the liquid in his mug, steeling himself to share what he had learned above.
"Persephone won't just be aiding Demeter with the blooming of Spring," the Imp confirmed. "Change is in the air, bad change. Artemis has made good on her threat to bring down humanity for its determined path of destruction. Demeter, all the Spirits of Gaia, are preparing for the end of this era. Another massive die-off event, worse than the Toba volcano of seventy thousand years ago. All the worse because the die-off won't come from lava and ash, or a meteor; but mankind's waste and arrogance."
"So sad," Hades commented. "I was so fond of the flora and fauna of this era. "
"Do you think Persephone is strong enough to handle the heartache?" the Imp asked his master. "She's the youngest of the new Spirits; she wasn't even born before the last extinction event. She and the other youngsters identify with the humans and may not survive seeing them die from their own poisons."
Hades mused aloud, almost to himself. "When humans sprang forward from the rest of their simian ancestors, we saw both their potential and their fatality. We knew they could probably bring about their own end, and there was little we could do to make them change. We could have just let matters play out as we always have through all the extinction events, whether seventy thousand or seventy million years ago. Gaia always brings life back, and we always assist the rebirth.
"But we, um, 'gods' still longed to help; so, we created our new children to watch over them directly. Persephone, Aranyani, Eostre, Sif, all the others have only known this era, the era of humanity. Zeus and I and all the elder Spirits had hoped our children could reach the hearts of mankind and keep them in touch with Gaia!"
"Not all of the first gods agree with you that mankind is worth saving." the Imp reminded Hades. "Artemis has been calling for the Elders to enact justice for her charges for years now! So she's stopped waiting for all of you to take action."
Hades looked up, sober and focused on the Imp's words.
"She continues her plan to invoke the microfauna?"
"Her message was in the wind, clear as a battle cry to me. During a recent past winter, she arranged the sacrifice of infected animals with a benign illness; benign to those animals but capable of mutating quickly when ingested by humans."
"Ingested?" the Lord of the Dead stifled a laugh of irony. "Prefect. Greed and Gluttony; the unstoppable twins. Let me guess, imperfectly cooked 'Krusty' burgers?"
"Not even that much class or style," Imp answered, also feeling the irony of Artemis's plan. "Raw meat from an illegal food market.
"Even now hundreds of thousands of humans have died and millions more are sickened. The plague has circled the earth with the speed of Hermes and no easy cure possible. While many nations have tried to contain the spread of the plague, managed inoculations to counter the disease, many of their people have all but started armed rebellions against even the most common-sense measures!"
"Chief among those people being the populace led by that man that Bacchius had an influence in placing on their throne?" Hades bowed his head in sadness. "I knew there was more to my brother's intent than merely playing a 'joke' on Eleutheria and her concept of Democracy! My bet is on Artemis enlisting Bacchius in this plot, too.
"And to see the insane lack of common sense displayed as this pandemic plays out!" Hades paused and looked at the Imp. "Artemis put madness into the mix of the disease, am I right?"
"As you said, their lack of common sense, of the basic desire for self-preservation, follows with the spread of the illness... I haven't even mentioned that the climate damage the humans created has accelerated-" the Imp started to add.
"Yes, yes, yesteryear's news!" Hades spat out. "Persephone has told me that her summers have become less waking the Spring and more preparing for the coming perpetual Winter. Even if the humans all died out next week, the world may be doomed to a Phoenix death and rebirth... Not the first time Gia has had to mount a reset, though, as we just said.
"Maybe some of the humans will survive this, they do seem resilient."
"Or homicidally stubborn," the Imp muttered. "Maybe Pandora can coax Hope out of her box one last time?
"I wonder what the theme of the alpha species will be next go 'round," the Imp sighed. "I miss the form of the dinosaurs; velociraptor suited me. Maybe the Rodentia will have a turn? I've grown to favor groundhogs, truth be told."
Master and servant shared a saddened chuckle. Persephone choose to reappear at that moment, her face clean and freckled, hair in plaits and form draped in overalls- without a shirt under them. Her coy smile faded as she saw the somber look of her husband.
"You understand?" she simply asked. When Hades nodded slightly, she strode up to him and exchanged a long kiss and embrace. She broke away and turned to the Imp; instead of a peck on the forehead she leaned down to press a quick smooch to his lips. She then caressed the Imp's check, turned to gaze a silent good-bye to her lover, and vanished in a haze of rose petals. Hades sighed.
"Well, if it's to be a long Winter, then I can spend more time in Persephone's arms until Terra is reborn. I will miss the symmetry of this form, though." And Hades began to shimmer from within; his sold body dissipated like a morning fog and his shapeless true self started glowing from within. "Groundhog, eh? Maybe we should give the arthropods a turn. I've always loved the structure of the bees and their hive existence."
A voice came from the smaller yet no less vibrantly glowing orb besides Hades. "You know that Artemis is threatening to elevate the cockroaches?"
THE END