Persephone peeked into her sons' room. Past, the oldest of the three brothers, shifted slightly, tightening the ball he was curled into. Across the room, Present slept soundly. His long, thin tail flicked back and forth, occasionally thumping Future's bed. Wait a second. Where was Future? Footsteps sounded behind the goddess. She turned to see a small boy about 4 and a half feet tall holding a glass of purple liquid. His black tail swished happily. "Hi, Mom." Persephone smiled at him, then nodded toward the glass. "Where'd you get that?"
"The kitchen." he said simply.
"From the refrigerator?"
"No."
"Then where did you get it?"
"Well I saw a bottle on the counter that looked like grape juice and-"
"Did you drink any?" Persephone asked suddenly.
"A little," Future said, his floppy ears flattening against his head. "am I in trouble?"
His mother shook her head and grabbed his hand, taking the glass. "This isn't what you think it is."
"Oh." he said quietly as they re-entered the kitchen.
Persephone carefully poured the wine back into its bottle, muttering about how Hades can't put things away. "Here," she said, handing Future the wine bottle. "smell it."
He cautiously sniffed it. The goddess put the wine away in a cabinet. Then she took some grape juice from the refrigerator. "Now smell this. See, they're very different." The boy nodded. Persephone poured him some grape juice turned to leave the kitchen. "Mom,"
"What?" she said, turning around to face him.
"You're leaving in the morning, right?"
"Yes. Tomorrow is the first day of spring and Hermes will take me to Olympus." Future sighed and frowned. "But I'll be back in a few months." She knelt and lifted his chin. "I'll always come back."
"Why do you have to leave, anyway?"
"Future, you know why. Winter can't last forever. Everyone would starve."
He sighed again. "If you can't stay, then I'll go with you. Hades and Past and Present don't like me anyway." His tail flicked side to side at the prospect.
"How will you leave without anyone knowing?"
Persephone asked doubtfully.
"We'll think of something." Future said matter-of-factly. For almost an entire hour, they planned. Afterward, Persephone sent her son to bed, certain he'd be too excited to sleep.

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"Persephone!" Hermes called. It was the first day of spring and a certain goddess needed to be at Olympus. She appeared with Hades behind her. After quickly saying goodbye to him, she turned to Hermes. He took her hand and nodded toward Hades. Opening his ivory colored wings, he began to ascend out of the Underworld, Persephone in tow. He briefly looked down and saw a tree rapidly rising out of the ground. What was Persephone doing? A moment later, something appeared in it's branches and lept out just as Hermes broke through the sulfuric cloud cover. Wrapping his wings around both of them, he closed his eyes and bright light surrounded them. "No!" he heard Hades yell distantly, and something crashed into him. Before he could see what it was, they had flashed out of the Underworld. Normally, Hermes would take Persephone and himself directly to Olympus but Hades' outcry and the mysterious weight had puzzled him. He paused on a grassy hillside in Central Park and turned to Persephone. "Okay, what was the tree and the yelling and that thing all about?"
"Uh..." The goddess looked away. Hermes followed her gaze to a boy standing in the shadow of a skyscraper.
"Is that-"
"Aren't you supposed to take me to Olympus?" Persephone asked quickly, snapping him out of his thoughts.
"Oh, yeah. Right..." Still suspicious, he wrapped his wings around her again and they disappeared in another flash of light.

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Hades narrowed his eyes in anger. Everything was perfect until that stupid mutt decided to jump into a tree. Persephone had grown a tree in the middle of the palace, which seemed like both an odd time and place to do so. But whatever, Hades didn't really care where or why his wife grew things. The thing was, Future had shadow-traveled into the tree. Hades' three children knew they were not allowed, under any circumstances, to show themselves to anyone other than Hades and Persephone. If Demeter found out... Hades shuddered at the thought. Future had jumped from the tree onto Hermes just before they flashed away. After the light, all three were gone. Hades called Past and Present, his two obedient sons. They were loyal to him and he knew they wouldn't fail. "Past, Present, bring Future back here. Don't hurt him too much, but do what you have to." With that, he sent them off to hunt down their brother. They were more than happy to do it, and besides, they hated Future.