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DIONYSUS CAME BACK at the end of the winter, noticeably paler and calmer. He came back with a woman who was breathtakingly beautiful and looks like his sister. Ariadne ached suddenly for the loss of her twin and the possibility their fates could have been anything but what they were.
“This is Ariadne, mother.” Dionysus said, fairly glowing under the more solemn expression of his mother. His conspicuously not dead mother. Beside him, Persephone gave Demeter and Ariadne both a hopeful look, glancing back at Semele pointedly.
Ariadne had come around to Demeter’s don’t ask don’t tell policy over the winter. She was seeing the benefits to it. She was also desperate to get away from canning preserves.
Semele raised an elegant eyebrow. “I wasn’t aware you picked favorites among your followers.”
Dionysus looked surprised. “I don’t. Ariadne’s not one of my followers.” This gained Ariadne a sharp look from two goddesses and a former corpse. “She’s a lot of fun.” He finished lightheartedly, diffusing some of the tension.
“Fun. I’ll tell you fun. I’ve spent so long canning and pickling things the next time I see your dick I’m liable to pickle it by habit.” Ariadne gritted out through a pleasant smile.
“She’s actually pretty good at it.” Demeter praised
Persephone asked with a laugh, “Have you two had to pickle many genitals this winter?”
Ariadne gave the queen of the underworld a thousand yard stare. “Just mine. Your mother may be very attractive but I suspect she only has sex to make babies. I had cobwebs in my underwear.” She finished plaintively, making Dionysus laugh and sweep her into a possessive, groping hug.
Ariadne hadn’t been kidding. There had been cobwebs in her underwear as spiders had laid a horrific sized egg sack in a pair that had been squished in the corner of the drawer.
Demeter shuddered. “I admit, that was unnerving, even for me.” She said under her breath to her daughter, who looked delighted and intrigued.
Dionysus pulled back from the hug to tug a strand of her hair free from her braid and study it. “Are you going silver?” He asked seriously before mock gasping and covering his mouth with his free hand. “How long was I gone?”
Ariadne’s stomach sunk to her toes. She was going silver. Granted, it was a side effect of her mother being an immortal with moon related powers, the early silver hair. Not that Ariadne was considered young, marriageable or anything else a woman was supposed to be, not any longer. She failed that stage of her life and thus, every one after it. Nailed it.
Semele rolled her eyes and reached over to swat her son’s hand. “Don’t make her self conscious. Very few women are immortal, but many are beautiful nonetheless.” She smiled at Ariadne, who could suddenly see the resemblance between the two of them. Their genuine smiles were identical.
Unfortunately, Ariadne’s bisexual brain decided to kick in and remind her that a beautiful woman was smiling at her. Semele’s visual similarity to Dionysus dressed as a woman just made it worse. Ariadne immediately avoided eye contact with the other woman.
“Sorry, sorry.” He apologized, dropping Ariadne’s silver hair to plant a kiss on her forehead before whipping out a flower crown from one of his ridiculously oversized dress pockets. He settled it on her head, tongue poking out from the corner of his mouth.
Dionysus had made her a crown of asphodel. From the Underworld. Ariadne decided to be flattered instead of nervous at the implications she would be dying soon.
”Thank you.”
He turned to his mother and smirked. “See, I told you she would like it.”
Semele gave Ariadne a confused look. “Why do you thank him for that? It’s flowers from the world of the dead.”
Dionysus didn’t give other people flower crowns at all and it made her feel special. Ariadne shrugged and defended as best she could. “Flowers are pretty. No place is untouched by life, just as no place is untouched by death. Pretending it doesn’t just sucks the joy out of what time you do have.” She’d learned that one with the labyrinth and the days there that never seemed to end.
Semele just shook her head. “He has you wrapped around his finger.”
Ariadne grinned, feeling a surge of wickedness. “I wouldn’t say it’s his finger that I wrap around.”
* * *
THEY stopped by the traveling camp, spreading the word of what Dionysus had done. Ariadne still couldn’t quite believe it, despite seeing the formerly dead woman daily for several weeks. No one had ever come back from the Underworld. No one.
Well, except Sisyphus, but that had been trickery and he had paid the price for that. Still was, likely enough in the depths of Tartarus. Semele, on the other hand would soon be made an immortal. Dionysus would never lack for a trusted face on Olympus again.
Semele was so very different from her son. She was similar in many ways, but the wild untamed edge that always lurked under the surface of him was absent in her. Dionysus played stupid exceptionally well, and she was almost entirely inscrutable. Even when Dionysus revealed his plan to have Semele made immortal, his mother merely smiled mysteriously.
Ariadne still couldn’t get a read on what the woman thought of her. Semele’s eyes were frequently on her, but she never confronted Ariadne over anything. Except once.
Semele had cornered her one early morning after Ariadne had a bath. The rest of the camp still slept, thoroughly hungover from the previous nights festivities. Ariadne had realized with some bemusement she couldn’t remember the last time she had a hangover.
“Dionysus sleeps around.” Semele noted in her usual neutral tone of voice as she settled in, sitting next to Ariadne on the log. No hello or other form of greeting, just straight to the point. Except not asking anything directly. How the other woman knew about her son’s sexual activities, Ariadne wasn’t sure, but was placing her bets on the ramped up gossip that came with a divine miracle.
She waited for Semele to actually ask a question. She had learned by watching and falling victim to it herself that Semele would simply give no response and let the other person babble on. Ariadne’s hair slowly unknotted with her patient strokes of the brush as she waited. She had grown tempted to shear it all off, but it would be difficult to hide her growing streak of silver that way.
Semele inclined her head, as if Ariadne had said something instead of giving the woman a blank stare. “Does it bother you?”
Ariadne considered this. She had of course done so before, but given that this was Dionysus’s mother newly back from corpseville, it gave the question new weight. “I want him to be happy.” She said finally.
“But does it bother you?” Semele pressed, turning to face Ariadne more directly on the wide log next to the tranquil stream.
“Why do you care?” Ariadne returned, not quite comfortable revealing her feelings to someone not her lover.
“Because you have no friends to ask you to have you think of yourself.” The woman responded promptly and Ariadne dropped her brush. She stared at the other woman and felt the strong urge to burst into abrupt tears. No one had ever told her to think of herself. Only of her parents, their family honor, her duties, then later on only of her lover.
She swallowed the tight knot in her throat and picked up her hairbrush. “I love him, more than I should, I know. Gods are...” Ariadne sighed, unwilling to say fickle and violent and frequently uncaring of the mortal lives as more than amusements. “You understand.”
“I do.” Semele agreed dryly.
Ariadne bit her lip. “I could leave him if I truly wanted to. If I found someone who would be faithful, marry me, that sort of thing. But I like him as a person, not just a lover.” He was, to Ariadne’s surprise, her friend. It had never even crossed her mind after she had first found out he was a god. Yet, here she was.
Semele repeated her question for a third time. “Does it bother you?”
Ariadne was quiet for so long that her hair began to dry. “Yes. I feel replaceable.” She admitted, feeling as if she had committed blasphemy. She took a breath. “That’s good though.” She told herself. Semele’s eyebrows raised at her statement.
“It would be stupid to forget it.” Ariadne told the older mentally but younger physically woman tiredly. It was strange to realize all over again that Semele would be immortal soon.
Semele reached out and smoothed Ariadne’s unruly hair out of her face. “You undervalue yourself. My son cares for you deeply.”
“No, I can do the math. How many mortals make it to Olympus and become immortal? How many have faithful partners? How many are loved and then set aside as they age?” Ariadne pulled open the thick trail of her hair to show Semele her growing streak of silver. The light caught it and it began glittering madly in the morning sunlight.
Semele sat back, lips pressed tightly together, but did not argue.
“My suggestion is once you reach Olympus, find yourself a woman for a lover. They have a better record for pleasing women, in every way.” Ariadne advised her wryly.
“Dionysus told you, then.” Semele sighed, rubbing her forehead. “I do not know how he expects this to work. Back from the dead or not, Zeus does not hand out immortality like candy and most especially to his former lovers. In front of his wife, no less.”
“Guilt trip.” Ariadne summarized instantly. “After the awful nightmare of Dionysus’s childhood, he’s got a lot of emotional blackmail credit. There is also the rumor Zeus felt bad about the whole accidentally killing you thing.” She finished awkwardly, realizing as she did Semele might be triggered by the mention of her death.
“No amount of emotional blackmail will soothe his wife.” Semele pointed out with a shake of her head, seemingly unbothered. “He will please her in this matter first.”
Ariadne paused. She thought about the way Dionysus clung to her in his sleep. “I wouldn’t put any bets on that. By the way, I’m coming with you to Olympus. But not in the way you’re used to seeing me...”
* * *