Six Seeds v2.0

I don't own Ghost Hunt, and I don't make any money off of this, so don't sue my broke self, thank you very much.

Title: Six Seeds
Length: 874 words

Summary: The usual "stuck in a small space after a romp in the rain" tale. Light Naru x Mai, no spoilers, bonus Roman mythology included.
Warnings: None

"Ahh…CHOO!"

Mai awoke with a start and a sneeze. A moment later a hand proferred her a box of tissues, which she took and wiped her nose perfunctorily. As she finished, she noticed that instead of her clothes, she was wearing a sheet. She must have collapsed as soon as they got into the shed, she thought, and flushed when she realized that Naru must have removed her rain-soaked clothes and wrapped the sheet around her.

He was going to be mad at her, no doubt. She'd woken up from one of those naps and run out the door, into the rain and through the forest surrounding the giant mansion, desperate to help the ghost she had seen in her dream. By the time Naru had found her, shivering from the wet and cold, neither of them was sure where the main house was on this giant compound.

So they'd walked to keep warm and find shelter, which they'd found in the form of a small, abandoned-looking caretaker's house…almost more of a shed. Mai glanced around the small room. Naru had managed to build a fire in the small fireplace - what, had he been a boyscout or something? And clearly there had been tissues, so someone must have been there not too long ago.

"Well, the owner did tell us that the first victim had been the caretaker, after all." Mai started, only just then becoming aware of the fact that her boss stood next to her. And that she'd been talking out loud.

Mai turned to reply and found herself staring at Naru instead. He seemed taller and more imposing than normal, standing while she sat, wrapped in a giant sheet.

He offered her his usual half-glare. "What are you staring at?"

"N-nothing," Mai stuttered as she dropped her gaze to the fire. "I guess you just looked kinda like…" A wistful grin spread across her face even as her blush deepened slightly. "You look like some kind of Roman god, wearing a toga, with that sheet." She let out a nervous giggle.

Naru raised an eyebrow as he seated himself next to her in front of the fire. "Even I don't think of myself as a god, Mai," he said.

"I don't believe that for a second," she retorted. She mused for a moment and then said, "but you'd have to be Pluto. The god of death."

As usual, his face registered no surprise even as his words expressed it. "You're familiar with the Roman deities?"

Mai nodded, still staring at the fire. "My parents read them to me instead of the usual fairy tales. I loved the stories." She glanced sideways at Naru. "Dark looks, dour disposition…definitely Pluto." Mai thought she saw the slightest hint of a smirk on Naru's face for just a split second before it disappeared. They were silent for a few minutes, before Naru spoke.

"Then you would be Proserpina," he said flatly. "Pluto tricked her into eating pomegranate seeds and she had to spend half of every year living with him in the Underworld. I tricked you into working for me that one time, and now you spend half your life in haunted houses."

Mai blinked. That had to be the longest non-work-related thing Naru had said to her since…well, maybe ever. As her astonishment subsided, she pondered his words.

"I never liked that story as much as the others," she declared after a moment. "I like my version of it better."

Naru's eyebrow lifted once more. "Your version?"

Mai nodded, and explained sheepishly: "Proserpina was a goddess, right? So she was immortal; she'd never get to see the Underworld. I think she was curious about it, and went to visit. And when she got there, she wanted to stay." Forgetting entirely about her audience, Mai lay back on the floor and stared at the ceiling, or through it, as she remembered explaining this version of the story to her own parents.

"But she didn't want to abandon her mother, Ceres, forever. So she ate the six pomegranate seeds and had to stay in the Underworld for six months every year…I mean, I can't believe that she was so dumb that she'd eat them by accident or because she didn't know she'd have to stay if she ate."

Naru remained seated, taking his own turn staring at the fire. "Why would she want to stay in the world of the dead?"

Mai was barely registering the conversation now, lost in her own memories. "There must be some interesting dead people there," she said dozily. "Or maybe she just wanted to stay with Pluto. Or…maybe…" Trailing off, she fell back into unconsciousness.

When Naru realized that she had stopped talking, he examined her to reassure himself that she was merely sleeping, that nothing was wrong. He put a hand to her forehead and the other to his own to compare - no fever. And then he let out a sigh.

"Or maybe she was just a complete idiot," he muttered, dropping his hands. He let his eyes dance over her face for another brief moment and decidedly ignored the slight increase in temperature he felt in his face. The rain had better stop soon, he thought.

Boy, Mai sure is sleepy in this story, isn't she? Nap, run, faint, wake, nap…

Right, anyway. I kind of gave Mai one of my own habits in this one - I'm a huge devotee of Greek mythology, and my parents really did read me more Greek myths than fairy tales when I was a kid. I decided for no particular reason that Mai would know them as Roman myths though. I guess just to keep myself a step apart.

Naru was a little talkative in this one too, wasn't he? I hope it's not too OOC. In my mind, when he talks about how Mai spends half her life in haunted houses, he kind of feels it's a bit regrettable. She's got too much life in her to spend all her time worrying about the dead, he thinks. But she's proven to be pretty helpful, so he'll be damned if he fires her for some stupid sentimental reason like that.

Of course, none of that comes across in his tone of voice because his emotions never really do. And Mai is completely oblivious that he might feel that way. She thinks he's making fun of her, but is really more surprised that he's even talking to her.

Does it give away too much if I give all these notes at the end? I don't normally do these kinds of things but I wanted to explain the Pluto/Proserpina story, so here it is for those who don't know it:

Proserpina (or in Greece, Persephone) was the daughter of Ceres (Demeter, the goddess of the harvest), and a goddess of spring and flowers and sunshine and rainbows and kittens or something like that. One day Pluto (Hades) spotted her as she frolicked in a field and he drove his big black chariot up to the surface and abducted her.

He took her to the Underworld and made her his Queen. Meanwhile Ceres was searching the globe for Proserpina, and had stopped doing her duty, so the entire world experienced a long winter - everything was barren. One day she finally asked Sol (Helios, the sun) if he had seen what happened to Proserpina, and Sol told Ceres that Pluto had kidnapped her.

Ceres went to Jupiter (Zeus, king of the gods) and demanded that Proserpina be returned. Jupiter told Pluto that he was going to have to return Proserpina the next day, and Pluto agreed. That night he told Proserpina that it would be their last night together and so they should dine together, and Proserpina ate nothing but six seeds from a pomegranate.

The next day, Pluto told Jupiter that Proserpina had eaten the food of the dead and had to stay with him. Jupiter decided that Proserpina would stay in the Underworld for six months of every year, one for each seed she had eaten.

Those six months are supposed to be fall and winter, during which time Ceres pines to be with her daughter and lets all the plants die. But I kind of think that during those six months, the Underworld is probably a nicer place to be, no?