Dionysus (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
vineleaves) wrote2024-08-31 11:20 pm
vineleaves) wrote2024-08-31 11:20 pm
Interlude: And you're back again only different than before
Dionysus wakes up in bed with still-damp hair. It takes him a moment to fully understand why – it would be easy to pass that off as a dream. He did, after all, just wake up. But there’s none of the usual haziness that comes from a dream, or even from one of his hallucinations. Everything about yesterday feels as blade sharp as if it had just happened five minutes ago.
This is all before even getting into the question of the cup. Gripped tightly in his hand is one of the clear glass cups from Étienne’s room. That mind-boggling room full of glass and paper. This is actual proof. He could be led to believe none of it really happened, that it was all a sort of intense hallucination, but a hallucination wouldn’t leave behind a physical object.
He glances at the table beside his bed, where one of the servants left a goblet of his morning medicine. Nasty tasting liquid he’s grown accustomed to that inspires drowsiness. If he has an episode while he’s tired it’s less likely he’ll hurt anything. Best case scenario is he sleeps through it and nobody’s even aware. He doesn’t have time for that today. It’s been months, perhaps even a year since he truly had an episode anyway. Dionysus quickly dresses, stows the glass - as well as a few other things, intending on leaving soon - in a satchel and heads down the hall to his mother’s room. Despite the circumstances, he catches himself singing the song Étienne taught him as he walks. The bits and pieces of it he could remember, anyway.
He gathers from Semele that he was missing from his room for most of the night - it has been normal practice for some time now for a guard to check in on Dionysus every half hour or so, to make sure he isn’t somehow accidentally hurting himself or something valuable, so they have a pretty good idea of how long he was missing. He can’t figure out how everything he did in that other place fit into one evening, but that’s hardly the weirdest thing about it all. His mother seems incredibly worried at first, assuming he was somehow having another episode, but when he shows her the glass, and when he mentions Apollo, she presses a hand to her chest in relief.
“You were visited by the gods,” she says, nearly in tears. “They have decided you’ve been cursed long enough, that they want to bless you, and have given you a gift as proof.”
“...Uh,” says Dionysus, not really sure that’s, you know, what happened, but also not wanting to upset his mother when she finally seems so relieved by something. “Sure. Let’s go with that.” Apollo did actually bless him, he remembers. So she’s not terribly far off. He’s at least 65% sure Sagramore and Étienne aren’t gods though.
There is a knock on the door, and one of the servants enters holding a tray with the medicine Dionysus ignored earlier.
“Thanks, you can uh, just set it down,” Dionysus tells her.
She doesn’t move, but instead looks at Semele and says, “The king ordered me to be sure he drank it, your highness.”
That’s not good.
“The king?! My father told you that?” Semele asks, her disbelief and anger apparent in her tone.
“Well – no, your highness, the new king–”
“My nephew is not the king, and until next week I still outrank him.” Semele rises to take the tray from the woman. “Thank you for bringing us his medicine, you may tell Pentheus if you see him that I will make sure Prince Dionysus is looked after.” The woman bows and leaves. Once the door is shut behind her, Semele throws the tray across the room.
“This is bad,” Dionysus says, staring at what is undoubtedly poison spilling out onto the floor. “We need to go now. Before he realizes I didn’t drink that.”
Minutes later, Dionysus and Semele have shoved a few things into another bag and are making their way down the hallways when they, of freaking course, nearly run right into Pentheus. He practically does a double take when he notices – “Dionysus?”
“Cousin,” Dionysus says in acknowledgement, trying to stay calm. “Nice outfit. Is it new?”
Pentheus absentmindedly glances down and fidgets with his blue tunic, before staring back at Dionysus. “What are you doing here? You should be – I mean.” He coughs, completely transparent. Dionysus has to roll his eyes, it’s so stupid. At least act like you’re not trying to commit a murder, jeez. “When did you get back in last night? I trust you had fun sleeping around in town?”
Dionysus blinks. “You think I – hold on. Let me get this straight. You think I snuck out of the palace, in the middle of the night, so that I could go into town and have sex?”
“Well didn’t you?”
“Uh, no?” He got transported to the future and had sex, there’s a distinct difference there. “Look, Pentheus, we were –”
“Why else would you have left at night then?”
This causes Dionysus to actually laugh. “Oh, sweetheart, if you think someone needs to sneak out at night in order to have sex I feel sorry for you.” He probably shouldn’t have said that with his mother standing right there.
“Dionysus!” she says. Yeah, he definitely shouldn’t have said that with her standing right there.
“Sorry. Look, Pentheus, we were just going to – “ Like flipping a switch, whatever confusion had been playing on Pentheus’ face disappears, replaced only with a certain hate-filled look Dionysus has seen too many times. He notices the flash of a blade in Pentheus’ hand (where was he hiding that?) too late, as Pentheus jabs his hand toward Dionysus’ abdomen.
There’s a bright flash of very warm light that surrounds Dionysus, and Pentheus falls back, the knife clattering to the floor.
“Apollo,” Dionysus breathes. There is a moment where everything is quiet, he and Pentheus just staring at each other, before Dionysus grabs his mother’s hand and takes off at a run, Pentheus’s voice yelling for guards behind him.
Dutifully, three guards come running, blocking Dionysus and Semele from the door to the palace, spears at the ready. “Oh – for crying out loud!” He turns to look behind him, where Pentheus has now summoned two more guards. The wall he is standing beside is a perimeter wall.
“Mother,” he says to Semele. “I’m sorry if this doesn’t work.” He forces that tight feeling in his chest, just like Magnus showed him, and the wall starts to shake before finally cracking open with a blast of dust and rubble. Everyone, Dionysus included, yells a bit when it happens, but he does manage to guide Semele out the… new door. An hour later, they are both outside the city, and confident that even if Pentheus is sending soldiers after them, they’re nowhere near yet. They head west - to Delphi.
This is all before even getting into the question of the cup. Gripped tightly in his hand is one of the clear glass cups from Étienne’s room. That mind-boggling room full of glass and paper. This is actual proof. He could be led to believe none of it really happened, that it was all a sort of intense hallucination, but a hallucination wouldn’t leave behind a physical object.
He glances at the table beside his bed, where one of the servants left a goblet of his morning medicine. Nasty tasting liquid he’s grown accustomed to that inspires drowsiness. If he has an episode while he’s tired it’s less likely he’ll hurt anything. Best case scenario is he sleeps through it and nobody’s even aware. He doesn’t have time for that today. It’s been months, perhaps even a year since he truly had an episode anyway. Dionysus quickly dresses, stows the glass - as well as a few other things, intending on leaving soon - in a satchel and heads down the hall to his mother’s room. Despite the circumstances, he catches himself singing the song Étienne taught him as he walks. The bits and pieces of it he could remember, anyway.
He gathers from Semele that he was missing from his room for most of the night - it has been normal practice for some time now for a guard to check in on Dionysus every half hour or so, to make sure he isn’t somehow accidentally hurting himself or something valuable, so they have a pretty good idea of how long he was missing. He can’t figure out how everything he did in that other place fit into one evening, but that’s hardly the weirdest thing about it all. His mother seems incredibly worried at first, assuming he was somehow having another episode, but when he shows her the glass, and when he mentions Apollo, she presses a hand to her chest in relief.
“You were visited by the gods,” she says, nearly in tears. “They have decided you’ve been cursed long enough, that they want to bless you, and have given you a gift as proof.”
“...Uh,” says Dionysus, not really sure that’s, you know, what happened, but also not wanting to upset his mother when she finally seems so relieved by something. “Sure. Let’s go with that.” Apollo did actually bless him, he remembers. So she’s not terribly far off. He’s at least 65% sure Sagramore and Étienne aren’t gods though.
There is a knock on the door, and one of the servants enters holding a tray with the medicine Dionysus ignored earlier.
“Thanks, you can uh, just set it down,” Dionysus tells her.
She doesn’t move, but instead looks at Semele and says, “The king ordered me to be sure he drank it, your highness.”
That’s not good.
“The king?! My father told you that?” Semele asks, her disbelief and anger apparent in her tone.
“Well – no, your highness, the new king–”
“My nephew is not the king, and until next week I still outrank him.” Semele rises to take the tray from the woman. “Thank you for bringing us his medicine, you may tell Pentheus if you see him that I will make sure Prince Dionysus is looked after.” The woman bows and leaves. Once the door is shut behind her, Semele throws the tray across the room.
“This is bad,” Dionysus says, staring at what is undoubtedly poison spilling out onto the floor. “We need to go now. Before he realizes I didn’t drink that.”
Minutes later, Dionysus and Semele have shoved a few things into another bag and are making their way down the hallways when they, of freaking course, nearly run right into Pentheus. He practically does a double take when he notices – “Dionysus?”
“Cousin,” Dionysus says in acknowledgement, trying to stay calm. “Nice outfit. Is it new?”
Pentheus absentmindedly glances down and fidgets with his blue tunic, before staring back at Dionysus. “What are you doing here? You should be – I mean.” He coughs, completely transparent. Dionysus has to roll his eyes, it’s so stupid. At least act like you’re not trying to commit a murder, jeez. “When did you get back in last night? I trust you had fun sleeping around in town?”
Dionysus blinks. “You think I – hold on. Let me get this straight. You think I snuck out of the palace, in the middle of the night, so that I could go into town and have sex?”
“Well didn’t you?”
“Uh, no?” He got transported to the future and had sex, there’s a distinct difference there. “Look, Pentheus, we were –”
“Why else would you have left at night then?”
This causes Dionysus to actually laugh. “Oh, sweetheart, if you think someone needs to sneak out at night in order to have sex I feel sorry for you.” He probably shouldn’t have said that with his mother standing right there.
“Dionysus!” she says. Yeah, he definitely shouldn’t have said that with her standing right there.
“Sorry. Look, Pentheus, we were just going to – “ Like flipping a switch, whatever confusion had been playing on Pentheus’ face disappears, replaced only with a certain hate-filled look Dionysus has seen too many times. He notices the flash of a blade in Pentheus’ hand (where was he hiding that?) too late, as Pentheus jabs his hand toward Dionysus’ abdomen.
There’s a bright flash of very warm light that surrounds Dionysus, and Pentheus falls back, the knife clattering to the floor.
“Apollo,” Dionysus breathes. There is a moment where everything is quiet, he and Pentheus just staring at each other, before Dionysus grabs his mother’s hand and takes off at a run, Pentheus’s voice yelling for guards behind him.
Dutifully, three guards come running, blocking Dionysus and Semele from the door to the palace, spears at the ready. “Oh – for crying out loud!” He turns to look behind him, where Pentheus has now summoned two more guards. The wall he is standing beside is a perimeter wall.
“Mother,” he says to Semele. “I’m sorry if this doesn’t work.” He forces that tight feeling in his chest, just like Magnus showed him, and the wall starts to shake before finally cracking open with a blast of dust and rubble. Everyone, Dionysus included, yells a bit when it happens, but he does manage to guide Semele out the… new door. An hour later, they are both outside the city, and confident that even if Pentheus is sending soldiers after them, they’re nowhere near yet. They head west - to Delphi.