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HE CONTINUED, “ASCLEPIUS is a sucker for a mortal, so he won’t say anything. But I’ll need to disguise you.”
Ariadne tilted her head to the side and smirked. “To get me off?”
Dionysus leered at her. “I will definitely get you off. But I was thinking, if you're alright with wearing a disguise you could stay up here, with me.”
Ariadne didn’t want to misunderstand that he was offering. “You mean to have sex?”
He shrugged, flipping a hand back and forth. “That too. Have some fun together.”
“I’d love to.” She smiled him, feeling shy. “I was going to go with the camp anyway, before I was caught.” Ariadne ran a hand through his long hair, curling it around a finger and gently tugging it. “Sticking closer to you is hardly a hardship.”
The smile she received was blinding and she was suddenly pulled to her feet. “This is going to sting a bit.” Dionysus warned her before the sensation of bee stings covered her skin head to toe.
She barely had time to yelp in pain before it stopped. Dionysus propped a materialized mirror in front of her. In the mirror a male satyr with her face wearing her dress looked back in shock. She had tiny curving horns sweeping back from her temples, and small horse ears almost lost in the fall of her hair. She twisted around and saw the tip of a horse tail is barely visible under the edge of her skirt.
She looked down at herself and saw her normal self. “How does this work?”
“Magic.” Dionysus told her solemnly before he cackled at her expression. “Nah, it just makes you look and feel like the image I constructed. To everyone but you, that is.”
“Even you?” He nodded and she ventured to ask, “Why am I male?”
“My maenads are lovely, lovely women but they are also mortal and thus utterly forbidden to be up here.” Dionysus pointed out with a brief sigh. “Satyrs are both male, immortal and generally found in my company. The perfect disguise.” He finished with relish, tweaking her tail and making her jump at the phantom sensation.
She swatted his hand away from her tail. Then curiosity overwhelms her and she asked, cheeks heating, “How does this work for sex, if I’m the only one to see or touch my real self?”
Dionysus smile widened to all teeth and large eyes narrowed hungrily and Ariadne feels herself grow warm. “I was hoping you would ask that.”
* * *
DIONYSUS introduced her as Ampelos, his new companion. No one batted an eye at this or the fact the male satyr wore women’s clothes.
No one really looked at her much at all. Apparently, satyrs are below the give a shit threshold of the more powerful gods and the lesser ones trying to seem more powerful. Her lover on the other hand, was quite popular, and he dragged her everywhere with him.
She heard one god tell another that ‘Ampelos’ was Dionysus’s newest accessory in front of her face. He held her tightly on the nights he was not passed out in another lover’s bed. Ariadne felt more like a teddy bear to be honest and liked it enough she was worried about when she would lose his attention eventually. All mortals were only temporary to the gods, a fact she saw reinforced the longer she was on Olympus.
The sheer desperation in Dionysus’s frequently to tight sleeping hugs worried her. So she didn’t struggle to break free unless he was actually impeding her breathing. She tried stroking his hair and back gently, and that helped the fierceness of his grip.
But what helped most of all, she learned by accident.
“Did you have a nightmare?” Dionysus asked her, sleep slurring his speech as he petted her hair gently.
“Yes.” Ariadne admitted, feeling her fingers dig into his flesh as she pulled him and his heat closer to her.
He hummed and continued stroking her hair. “Do you want to talk about it?”
She did. She didn’t. “Maybe.” She conceded.
He dragged his nails across her scalp and goosebumps ran down her arm. “That felt amazing. Do it again.” She ordered with a happy sigh.
“Tell me about your nightmare.” Dionysus countered.
Ariadne huffed, but conceded the head scratching was worth it. “Walked right into that. Fine.” She took a deep breath, “I dreamed Theseus got me pregnant. And that I died on that stupid island he abandoned me on giving birth to twins. Alone. In the dark. During a horrible storm.”
The head scritches stopped for a moment then resumed. “Well. That is definitely a nightmare, I’ll give you that. But, no worries, you are safe and sound here with me.” The god sounded especially smug at the last part. His fingers began to gently comb out her sleep braid into what would be a nightmare of knots in the morning.
She didn’t say anything, relaxing and dozing as he made a mess of her hair. She didn’t let go of him either.
The sun began letting in watery predawn light through the huge open windows in the room. She fell back asleep as the last of the dark faded.
* * *
AFTER that, Ariadne realized holding Dionysus tightly made him relax. The whole time she held him after a nightmare, he relaxed his grip into something that could be defined as cuddly instead of the previous almost uncomfortable grip. She made the effort to glue herself to his side whenever she woke up at night.
She wasn’t sure he was even aware that he did it, so she never mentioned it. Gods and more to the point, men could be delicate about people seeing their weak points.
As she learned about his history through blatant eavesdropping, more became harshly clear about his idiosyncrasies and their sources.
Child gods were not much less powerful than fully grown gods. But their control was that of children. Dionysus was not just the god of wine and parties.
He was also a god of madness. One who had grown up in the mortal world, where they were so much more fragile than the immortals of Olympus. Apparently, the stories that Hera took exception to her husband’s bastard and destroyed his life were lies. Lies told to spare a child the horror of knowing what had happened had been his fault.
What happened specifically was never mentioned, apparently harsh enough even the immortal gods shied away from talking about. But the fact it happened multiple times came through loud and clear. That struck Ariadne as stupid and unintentionally cruel. If Dionysus didn’t know it was him, how could he learn to prevent it happening again and again? He couldn’t.
The harvest goddess Demeter apparently had the same thoughts as Ariadne, because she had taught him control. Given her experience with her mad father, she was probably one of the best choices for the job.
* * *
ARIADNE leaned over as she handed Dionysus a fresh bunch of figs to snack on and said in a low tone. “Is it because I’m a satyr?”
He followed her glance to nearby where a couple nymphs were giggling at a rude story about the King of the Gods that was really quite inappropriately detailed. It was likely accurate, given his reputation.
Dionysus grinned at her, face open and full of mischief. “You haven’t figured it out then? They don’t think you speak the language.”
Ariadne blinked at him. She spoke the Titan language more than Olympian but they were close enough she was picking it up quickly. But then, both were languages used exclusively by the gods and chosen immortals of Olympus. Her mother, being the daughter of a Titan had passed the knowledge down to her children, occasionally against their will. A mark of prestige Ariadne had thought, but was coming to wonder if her mother had just missed her homeland.
She leaned in to kiss his cheek and ask, “What about you then? Why do people speak so openly around you, who does speak their language?”
He pulled her onto his lap for a full kiss, lazy and affectionate. He pulled back to answer the question after several long distracting minutes. “A mix. I’m always drunk, full of bad ideas that are too fun to say no to and, well. This is what most of them see when they talk to me.” Dionysus gives her his dopiest expression.
While adorable, to the unwitting it gave the impression he was not the most intelligent person. He probably had more blackmail on the entirety of Olympus than personal messenger to bullshit Hermes did.
Ariadne kissed him again, before she licked his lower lip and pulled back. “Do you think I could pull that off?”
Dionysus considered. “No, you have such sharp eyes it wouldn’t work. But too foreign to understand...” He waggled his eyebrows at her.
Ariadne frowned at him, brows knitting together. “Is that an immortal thing?” She asked hesitantly, looking down at him through her eyelashes. Her unsure voice was at odds with the confidence her hand was moving across his chest.
Dionysus grinned, sharp and pleased. “Exactly.”
* * *