"Wait a minute…I thought you'd brought me here to bring merriments to your cult! I was assured there would be merriment! I did not sign up for fighting any sort of…angry sounding... thing. I could have stayed with my mother and done plenty of that." Sirius stormed at his father.

"Yes merriment was the plan but son, the winds of fate are ever changing" Sirius saw a pointed look between his father the god and his friend the mortal. He didn't understand at all. "And as it is, you need to get dressed for travel. We're to meet Helios presently."

"...Helios? What's he got to do with anything?"

"Well, he'll be giving you a ride of course! He'd like people to think he's sooo impressive and ancient but really he's more or less a divine chauffeur." Dionysus looked around as if Helios might have overheard, "Don't tell him I said that."

"James, what do you have to say about all of this? You've been awfully quiet." Sirius held his friend's gaze, trying to convey the gravity of this whole thing, but James looked away, anxious and fidgeting.

Sirius thought perhaps being around gods was too much for pure mortals to tolerate for long. It was quite difficult enough for a Demigod. Or perhaps that was just a matter of Dionysus's personality.

"Well, you see… the thing about that is that James will be unable to accompany you on this journey. He's very," Dionysus paused, as if he was trying to think if the right word, "killable. The Minotaur would make an afternoon snack of him. He's too pretty to be a Minotaur's snack. I could maybe take just one tiny nibble myself but he doesn't seem so inclined…"

"So you're sending me to kill a man-eating beast?" Sirius' eyes widened. "You know the main advantage I have over James is that I can make vines grow? What am I going to do? Grape him to death? This is absurd, Father!"

"Sometimes absurdity is what Fate has in store for us, dear boy." Dionysus looked in another direction, the way a squirrel did every now and then. He'd had some sort of idea, and now he'd probably forgotten all about the fact he was sending his newfound son into a death trap.

"Oh! I know! James! I know! Come, lads, follow hence. I will talk and you will walk." Dionysus, inhumanly beautiful and powerful, was ...skipping? Sirius questioned the fabric of reality as he followed the pair of them through the doorway, and into the buzzing streets.

"Onward onward! We can't be late for Helios, but I have someone you just have to meet. Where oh where… hmmm…" he looked around the crowded outdoor market, scanning through the various mortal faces and forms. His eyes stopped upon a woman with dark red hair. Hair that shouldn't have been able to grow out of a human head that color. Perhaps her head wasn't really human?

"Lily my love! Lily! Over here you must come hug your dear father, it's been too long, how are you?"

"Father! So glad you've returned to us at last, who are these charming young men you've got following you?" Her attention seemed fixed on James. "You always get all the really beautiful ones. It's unfair you know."

Even Sirius could see that the scowl on the girl's face was a mockery. ...had she called him father?

"Well these two aren't mine, I'll have you know. Or rather. This one" he put a hand atop Sirius's head in an absurd sort of gesture of indication "is your brother it turns out. So he is mine in a manner of speaking. Sirius, meet your sister Lily. She's half mortal as well. You'll get on like a lit fire when you get back from your whole beast slaying thing…"

"Lovely to meet you, sister. I do hope we meet again. I am afraid that my dearest friend is unable to accompany me, and will be rather bored here in Dion in the meantime." Sirius smirked, he knew that look in any being's eyes.

"Which is why I brought him here to you, my darling girl. James, my daughter Lily would be diverting company for you, I think. Lily?"

"I'd be happy to show you around…"

Sirius chuckled at the befuddled look upon James's face when Lily took his arm.

"Good luck?" James wrapped Sirius in a tight embrace. "Come back to me safe alright, Sirius?"

"Yes, yes… I'm sure I'll show the Minotaur who's boss and all, what with my fruit and dog-related supernatural powers. You have fun, friend. Drink and be merry and think of me?" Sirius attempted to smile and avoid the dreaded farewells. If he could pretend he'd be back then this would be much easier.

"I do believe your sister will give him much distraction." The god of revelry smirked at him as he led him further along down the way.

Sirius had to no idea where he was going nor did he have the foggiest notion of how he'd gotten there once he had, in fact, arrived.

But he was fairly certain the chariot in front of him belonged to the Sun god, Helios. There were others present who he hadn't expected, but he had to start getting used to the lack of expectations one needed to function around Dionysus. He was a lot of fun, but he was not much in the way of planning.

"Sooooo…" Dionysus trilled his vowel all over the musical scale. "Sirius, son, this is Lady Moira, she's pretty much in charge of how everyone lives their lives and how they die… so maybe be nice to her? Right." He clipped the final consonant and shifted his weight back to his heels then rocked to and fro, nodding as if this was all completely commonplace for him. "And this beautiful young woman, though a stranger to me, I am certain is her daughter?"

The pair of women—if you could call them that, as Moira was the least human-looking person he'd ever laid eyes on, and he'd spent a fortnight in the company of Dionysus—bore a strong resemblance. Their most striking feature was the vivid blue in their eyes, which stood out in contrast to the sandy brown of their skin and the pitch black of their hair. Their eyes were haunting, almost; if you could be haunting while also being stunningly beautiful.

"You are correct, my Lord Dionysus. This is my daughter Marlene. She'll be catching the same chariot with you to your destiny."

The most notable difference between mother and daughter on the surface was that Marlene's hair grew upwards and outwards in a mass of spirals. But upon a second glance, anyone would be able to see the rather more human qualities in the daughter which the mother was entirely lacking. Sirius had been met with a world full of beauty in these past weeks but Marlene, daughter of Fate, was perhaps the most magnetic of all the beautiful people he'd encountered.

Which made no sense at all in conjunction with the fact that he was annoyed that she was here at all...

"Moira is always going on about Destiny. I thought you two were headed to Athens to piss off King Minos… but in either case, good luck fair youths! We shall meet again. I'm sure of it! Oh! Sirius, my boy, here," he pulled a segment of grapevine from the air and fastened around Sirius' neck. "This will help, or at the least make you look fabulous, so good either way!"

Before Sirius could get a word out, Dionysus had thrown his arms around him. Then pressed a kiss atop his hair, as if he were a dog at this very moment which he was quite sure… well… fairly sure, that he was not. But that was just Dionysus, it seemed. He might not be particularly paternal, but he was a measure more pleasant than Mother.

"Until we meet again, father." Sirius embraced him.