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Summary: Amelia Babineaux died in a sea of wine, as a daughter of Dionysus she lived again. Self-Insert/OC-Insert

Have fun.

The Grape Garden

Chapter 3

Sweet Dreams

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Where She Glimpsed A Better Future

"Only in the darkness can you see the stars."
― Martin Luther King Jr.

Diana woke up once again and just for a second she was lulled into a magical sense of security that made her believe she might have actually reached her true destination this time around. A bright light blinded her eyes, making her wondered if this was how heaven looked.

Unfortunately, her infant eyes soon adjusted to the light and forced Diana to face her new reality.

She was still alive.

Someone had saved her. Taken her from that cold, cold ground into a warm room. She was laying in the middle of a double bed, the sunlight shining through the window blinding her violet eyes.

Her head hurt. Diana wasn't cold anymore, no, she was burning. Throat dry and scratchy, tiny body hurting everywhere. It felt as if her head would soon split in two.

An unbidden whimper escaped her rosy lips, soon followed by loud cry.

Even though her throat hurt, Diana wailed. Tears streamed down her red cheeks and she felt as if she were in that abandoned alley again. Alone and unable to fend for herself. Instead of cold she felt way too warm, as if she was burning in some kind of hellfire.

And yet she wasn't truly alone. Diana did not notice the foreign presence immediately. Eyes closed too tightly to see anything, wailing too loud for any other sound to register in her ears.

The touch of a hand on her stomach alerted her to his presence.

Violet eyes snapped open. They were full of fear, relieve and disbelieve.

Her infant eyes were still too underdeveloped to see anything that was farther than a hands length away from her face clearly, however, she could see the man in front of her face perfectly.

He was leaning over her, his face inches away from her own. A few locks of dishwater blond hair touched her forehead and her eyes met a pair of surprisingly green ones.

What made her pause were the real looking goat horns and ears on his head. Any other time Diana would have thought him to be some kind of cosplayer, but after dying and being reborn it wasn't so easy anymore.

The thoughts that went through her head at that very moment were completely inappropriate for children and had Amelia's grandmother actually heard them, well, there would have been no happy ending for the young girl. Ever.

Starting to feel scared of the strange man above her, Diana whimpered quietly. Warily, she watched his eyes widen in panic and body snap upright.

''No, no, no. Don't cry again. I'm sorry.'' The man waved his hands in a placating manner. ''You probably don't feel so well, do you? What should I do? Shit, what should I do?''

He moved away from her and towards a bag that was laying next to the big bed. ''I got a baby bottle for you earlier, but I don't have anything for you to eat. Some water should be enough for now?''

Diana cried out in pain and confusion. What was going on here? Who was this man?

God, her head hurt so much.

For what felt like the thousandth time, Diana's wails echoed through the motel room.

Ichneutae felt like crying too. The situation was slowly getting out of hand. Many things he might have known, how to care for a child was not one of them.

He knew better than to complain out loud, but those bitter thoughts still danced across his mind. Couldn't Lord Dionysus have told him about what was truly awaiting him here?

How was Ichneutae meant to take care of a child, if he didn't even have any of the much needed products. The child was too young to feed it with anything but milk. There wasn't any in the small dingy motel. He had been lucky enough that the motel clerk had a small bottle for infants, otherwise the young demigod couldn't have even gotten anything to drink.

The man with horns on his head moved away from the infant and towards a bag laying on a red chair next to the opposite wall. Out of it he took an untouched bottle of water.

The lid was screwed open and some of the water soon filled the previously acquired baby bottle.

Diana, unable to even try lifting her head, saw none of what the stranger was doing. Was it relief or panic that filled her at his abrupt disappearance?

She never managed to find an answer to that question because soon all she felt was exchanged with surprise. Brown appeared in her vision and the next thing the girl knew was that someone, most likely the horned stranger, had stuck something into her mouth.

Reflexively, the muscles in her face moved. A cool liquid touched her tongue and and soothed her burning insides. Water, someone was giving her water to drink.

She gulped down one sip after another. Her actions so fast that the foreign man had to take the bottle away from her to stop Diana from chocking on the liquid.

Her tiny arms immediately reached out towards the small bottle. They were too weak and slow to actually grab it.

A few precious droplets escaped the corners of her mouth.

''That has to be enough for now.'' The stranger was talking in English. Amelia had been born in France and the only English she learned was the one at school.

She had never been all that good in that language. However, at the moment she was glad for at least having some basic knowledge about it. Some sentences might have sounded a little weird or grammatically wrong after she translated them, but it was better than not understanding anything at all.

Her tiny arms fell to her side and she tried to send the man a murderous look. Instead of intimidating, it looked ridiculous and maybe even cute.

''I'm pretty sure you don't understand a word of what I'm saying.'' Well, at least the girl managed to convincingly play the role of an infant. Maybe she should become an actress in the future. ''But I still feel obligated to tell you that you're safe now. We will soon be leaving the country and then your father will decide the next course of action.''

Her father? And who the hell was that supposed to be?

Diana could only hope the man wasn't too much like her new mother. Otherwise, she might just end up dead once again.

It took dying to finally fulfill one of her biggest dreams.

Traveling the world.

In her first life she never left France. Amelia had been born there, had lived there and died there. As Diana she had been born in a country she had never seen before―Not that she actually ever planned on going back to Iceland. Considering all that has happened, Diana thought it was quite understandable.―and after a few days she found herself in the middle of an airport in the US.

LaGuardia Airport. New York City.

How she got there in the first place wasn't something the young girl knew. What she did know was that after she succumbed to her infant body's weakness once again, the stranger managed to get her out of a country without any legal papers and yet somehow failed to notice that she really needed to eat something.

Diana was hungry. The girl did not think that she had ever been so hungry before. Her stomach was empty and her mouth dry.

Did the man even know how to care for a child?

Slowly, she was beginning to believe that her supposed 'father' was trying to kill her. Why else would he send such an idiot to get her?

Fortunately, one of her problems was soon solved by the stranger shoving the water filled baby bottle into her mouth. It felt almost as heavenly as the first time around.

Now she did not have to worry about dying of thirst. What a relief.

''We'll be home soon, Diana.'' The stranger whispered into her ear, a slight stubble scratching her skin in an uncomfortable way. ''There will be people who know how to care for children. Everything will turn out alright.''

Home? Where exactly was this home meant to be?

And the more important question, how did a man with horns on his head manage to smuggle a most likely unregistered child out of Iceland and into the US?

Diana wasn't sure if she really wanted to know the answer to that.

Something she would have wanted was to see and admire New York. However, her poor eyesight made that impossible. All she could spot was a blur of colors.

Her ears weren't any better. The loud sounds that surrounded her threatened to overwhelm them.

Luckily, the stranger managed to get them both into a car, most likely a cab, where the loud sounds were dulled.

He adjusted his hold on her. ''Get us to the Farm Road 3.141.''

And off they were. The driver did not even wait for the stranger to fasten his seatbelt. He drove through the traffic like a mad men and made Diana fear for her life.

Had she focused on what the stranger had said before, then the girl might have been a little more prepared for what was awaiting her.

But she didn't and only some minutes later she would come to loath her own stupidity.