....
Darkness fell like a curtain, but was shattered by the blazing light of a morning sun reflecting off of marble cobbles, the young Dionysus standing in an alleyway with a bag over his shoulder. Between the onlookers and him, as if they were themselves members of the crowd, were three boys about his age. One of them, a large boy with curly blonde hair, brandished a knife.
"My dad says you're the reason everyone's dying. He says that if you die, everything will be fine."
A boy with auburn hair crossed his arms defiantly, "Yeah! My mom says that you do dark magic. She says you raise the dead and curse the living. She says that you're the one who put Melissa in a coma! She says you raped her and put her to sleep so she couldn't tell anyone!"
Another child through a rock at Dionysus, though it went wide without him having to dodge.
"Why don't you just leave!?" He shouted. "No one wants you here!"
The young demigod examined his surroundings with a cool head, "I'm the son of the king. If you've got a problem with me, you can take it up with him."
"Yeah, right!" The third child chirped, "Everyone knows you're not really the king's son!"
The second child spoke up again, "Yeah! They just don't want us to know that Autonoe's a man-crazy slut!"
"You're all idiots."
"What was that!?"
"If you were smart," His cold, violet eyes locked on the boy in front, "You would've done this somewhere with witnesses."
The gold-haired boy took a step forward, "Is that a threat!?"
"Try me."
"I'm gonna kill you! And when I do-" He readied his knife and charged, "Everyone will call me a hero!"
He slashed out with his blade, Dionysus simply standing without reaction. The knife cut into his neck, and as a red ribbon decorated the white marble, another boy, the second who had spoken, stood in his place. He stood in shock, grasping at the blood that fell like raindrops from his neck, pooling in his hands and slipping through his fingers. All three stood shocked and in awe as the boy's strength left him, and he fell- dead- onto the cobbles.
The other two turned and saw Dionysus standing where the other boy had been.
"What did you- argh!"
He thoughtlessly charged again, positioning his knife like a lance, and sending it into the chest- of the other boy.
As the other boy fell, the blonde boy watched his own, shaking, blood-covered hands.
"What- what did you do!?"
"Nothing," Dionysus said, appearing behind the boy, "You did it all by yourself."
With a mighty roar, tears and snot streaming down his face, he raised his knife above his head and plunged it down- into his own chest.
With a whimper and a cry, he doubled over and fell into the growing pool of blood that was filling the alleyway and forming rivers between the cobblestones. Dionysus let his gaze linger for a moment, and then turned on his heel and walked away- removing an apple from his bag and taking a bite as he did.
The scene went dark, the shadows turning and shifting into a bedroom, where the sickly Macris lay silently. Dionysus was thrown into the room, landing on his bottom, and the door was slammed shut- the sound of grating wood revealing the bolt being turned behind it.
The half-sleeping girl raised her eyelids just enough to see her brother.
"Nysus? ... Did Mom get mad at you again?"
He picked himself up and dusted off his tunic, "All I did was defend myself against some thugs. What did she want me to do, exactly!? Was I just supposed to sit there and let them kill me!? ... No, I bet that's exactly what she wanted. She hates me."
"Mom doesn't hate you, Nysus. She loves you. She loves all of us."
"Of course she hates me! Everyone hates me! And for what!? What did I do to them!?"
"It's just because they don't understand you. You spend all your time up here, in your workshop, studying. They just don't know you."
He scoffed, "You know what? You're onto something. They hate me because they fear me. They're jealous of me, of my power."
He formed a runic circle in his palm, a shape of swirling violet light.
She offered her brother a gentle smile, "What if you used your powers to make people happy? Maybe then they would like you- understand you. Then Mom would be happy, too. I know it."
A dangerous light flashed in his eyes as he clenched his fist, crushing his incomplete rune.
"Use my power to make people happy...?" A wide smile broke across his tense features, "Macris! You're a genius!"
She smiled.
He marched towards the door, "I need to get to the workshop, now! Immediately! I can surprise Dad before he comes back from his trip!"
"It can wait until morning. Besides, the door's locked."
"No, it isn't."
"What?"
He places a palm against the door, his expression going flat.
"The door is unlocked."
"Stop talking nonsense. Get some rest. You need it."
"I said, the door is unlocked."
She watched him closely, noticing a change in the air.
He pressed his palm deeper into the wood.
"The door is unlocked."
His final declaration echoed as if through a large, empty space, and the door swung open with the creak of a barren tree in the winter wind.
-
The candlelight flashed to show the cityscape on a cloudy day. The streets were barren except for rubble and scorched charcoal. Among them, Aristaeus was looking on in pale-faced horror. Beside him was another man with a sharp and elegant face, perhaps handsome once-upon-a-time before advanced age stole his beauty away. He was furious.
"What on earth happened here!?"
The usually graceful, most excellent Aristaeus stammered helplessly, "I-I don't know. It doesn't look like an attack- more like... an abandonment? An evacuation? Where could they have gone?"
"I swear to Zeus and to all the Olympians that if anything happened to my daughter, I'll-"
"If anything happened to Noe, I'll do the honors myself, I assure you." He reached into a satchel and pulled out a handful of small honeybees, "I'll scout the area with these."
The bees flew out above the city, and the mage hung his head.
"It was a mistake to hand my Thebes to you, much less my daughter."
"Perhaps. That's why I'm relying on your wisdom now, Pentheus, so that we can- Hold on." He raised a hand, "The city square. But it doesn't make sense."
"What doesn't? What's going on?"
Aristaeus forced himself up with his staff, and began to run as fast as his hobbled legs could carry him.
"Aris- Wait!"
Pentheus hurried after him, and the two old men rushed towards the center of Thebes, sounds being carried on the wind. Sounds of laughter, merriment, revelry, and something else as well.
Rounding a final corner, the two of them came face to face with a raging bonfire, but it was not the bonfire which caught their eye, but rather the people around it. Some wore ragged clothes, others were totally naked. Some danced in mad revelry. Some stood or meandered in a daze. Others laid still- practically dead- on the ground. Some ate. Some drank. Some copulated right in the streets for all to see. Humanity was laid bare in front of them, creating a scene altogether inhuman. The only thing these revelers had in common were their wide smiles and eerie, empty, violet eyes.
An older woman sat on a stool nearest the newcomers, seemingly entranced by the festivities.
The most-excellent mage ran over to her, "Agave! What's going on!"
He seized the woman by the shoulder, turning her to reveal a wide smile that pushed the limits of her withered cheekbones, and violet eyes that ballooned from her skull. Seeing him, she began to laugh a discordant and haggish laugh that cut through the sounds of madness and pleasure.
Pentheus's face went pale with shock, "Agave-!" and then red with anger, "What have you done to my wife!? Aristaeus!"
He marched forward, seizing his son-in-law by the collar and launching a right hook directly into his jaw, dropping him onto the marble cobblestones.
Around them, silence fell over the revelry, and all dancing came to a halt, the only movement coming from the squirming mage nursing his bruised jaw, and the only sound was the cackling of the old woman.
From among one of the bacchic masses of flesh, a shadow darted out like a wolf in the night, moving low and fast in a blur of raven-black. Before anything could be said with certainty, the wolf pounced on Pentheus, a fountain of blood emerging from his neck as it pinned him to the street, breaking his head over the rocks and killing him in a second, then continuing to feast on his blood.
The mage rose shaking to his feet, seeing that the creature was, in fact, a human, a woman, with long, matted, raven hair and torn clothes that hardly counted for decency. Her fingernails and feet were covered in blood, while every other inch of her was covered in dirt, sweat, grime, and whatever else. As if sensing his eyes upon her, she turned to face the mage.
Autonoe saw her husband, and she smiled.
"Enough!"
Aristaeus slammed his staff against the earth, his face pale as bone, tears threatening to burst from his eyes. Blue-gold light centered underneath him, spreading like a spiderweb across the stone streets. One strand circled the mad queen and, just as she leaped towards her husband, fingers out like claws, a wall of translucent force came between them, trapping her a cylinder of light that she beat helplessly against, laughing and wailing all the while, like a dog in a kennel, or a patient in an asylum.
A dark shadow emerged from an alleyway, unnoticed at first, "Dad-! Hey, you're back!"
The mage turned, air around him crackling with energy.
"Dionysus?" his eyes went wide with realization, and he whispered, as if pleading with fate that his conclusion was wrong, "What have you done?"
"Huh? Oh-! Grandpa!" Dionysus noticed the corpse and raised his hand, violet runes carving into the air, "It's okay. I can fix that-"
"You will do no such thing! Explain yourself! Now!"
The runes faded away, and the boy- a teenager now- let his face fall into a grim expression.
"I used my power to make people happy. It turns out-" he looked over the crowd, "Happiness is a state of mind. If you want to make people happy, you could waste time trying to alter their circumstances, or you could just cut to the chase and change their mindset. It's efficient. What I've done, Dad, is solve the issue of human existence. Turns out-" He shrugged, "Food, drink, and copulation solve about half the problem. Maybe more, actually."
His adoptive father's face was locked in horror and disgust, "You've turned men into beasts!"
"Why is that such a bad thing? Dogs are more easily contented than most. Why shouldn't we learn from our betters?"
"What you've done is an insult to the gods!"
He snarled at the mage, "I've done more for these people in a day than the gods have in all their eternities combined!"
The mage lashed out with his staff, catching his son across the face. The snarl disappeared- replaced only with surprise.
"Go." The air around the most excellent king surged with energy, the mana in the air gathering into orbs that buzzed like bees around a hive, "I said go! Leave! Monster! Demon! Curse!"
Dionysus turned on his heel and fled in fear, looking back only once to see his father glowing with power, blue-gold energy flowing throughout the city. Yes, the whole city was his mage's workshop.
Tears fell from his radiant-white eyes, "Go... Don't make me kill my own son."
The old satyr's smile never faltered, "The people of Thebes never fully recovered. Some were healed, and returned to their normal lives. Others, including the queen, were left broken shells of their former selves. Others still never broke free of his control, perhaps because they were too far gone, or, more likely, because they simply didn't want to. They remained in his thrall. His worshippers, his devout, the carriers of his gospel. What else, being bound to the demigod removed their own humanity. They had inhuman strength, mystic prowess, and lived for many years longer than they ought. No longer mere men, they were henceforth referred to as-"
"Maenads."
He turned to his fellow shadow, "Very good. You know your myths."
"I should. I- or, my former self in any case- did plan to summon a god as her Servant. I hope you won't bore me with things I already know."
"I should hope as well, though the final chapter of our story may be more familiar than you hope."
He turned back to the destruction unfolding before them, ignoring the scowl embedded in her face, "The young Dionysus lost the only home he had, the only family he had, the only father he had. Any sane man would say it was his own fault, but he was not a sane man, and thus he blamed the gods, and continued to curse them with every breath he took, even as he was soon to be revered as one of their ilk."
Bursts of light sprouted throughout the city like weeds, growing and twisting like trees, and then solidifying into exactly that. The onlookers now stood in a forest, with no sign of civilization in sight.
....