Chapter 3
29th April, 2006 - about a month before canon PJO
Thoas looked at his watch - three o'clock in the morning. He put his feet up on his desk and put down the magazine with a sigh. Ten years ago, when he was about fifteen, he'd dreamed of opening a nightclub when he finally left the half-blood camp - he'd imagined people drinking, dancing, having a good time - and making a tidy little sum for himself. Today, barely thirty, he owned a dozen nightclubs up and down the East Coast. Berghain-style nightclubs, swingers and libertine clubs - and even a large bunker that was the center of New York's house scene, the Olympia. He had accomplished his dream, huh ? And he was fucking bored. The son of Dionysus was fucking bored out of his mind. What was next, another strip clubs? An eleventh nightclub? Bo-ri-ng.
"Boss! We've got a problem."
His thoughts were interrupted when one of his guys, a reliable fellow from the Bronx he'd hired as a bouncer a few years back and who'd ended up in charge of security at Olympia, the biggest of his nightclubs, burst into his office.
"What's going on, Jams? If there's a problem, I'm paying you to fix it - because I don't want to be bothered!"
Thoas hoped the event would at least be entertaining.
"Yes, but this is... uh... you'd better come and have a look, boss. Come and see."
Descending the stairs that led from his office to the club's largest room. With its low ceiling and robust concrete walls, it was the ultimate house music sanctuary, resonating with the thumping beats that pulsated through the crowd of about four thousand ecstatic bodies. Thoas thought that indeed, this wasn't very ordinary - not exactly in those terms:
"Holy shit! What the fuck?"
He'd seen some wild stuff in his time, degenerate, strange, and kinky, but the madness unfolding before him surpassed even his expectations. Naked bodies writhed and danced, and Thoas couldn't fathom where they'd found instruments. Saxophones played, people sang, and the primal energy in the air was palpable. Some guys were doing coke - in public - in a corner. On the other side of the room, there was a fucking public orgy.
Then came the weirdest part—a chant rose from the crowd, "Big D! Big D!" In the center of the chaos, a man in a purple toga grappled with absurd catch prizes, simultaneously taking on about ten people.
"Big D, you're a damn legend!" someone shouted.
Was…Was that his father ? The god Dionysos ? In a purple toga - well, he was half naked as the toga started falling ? Doing a wrestling technique borrowed from the Rock, to a mortal ?
The toga-wearing maestro grinned, effortlessly catching a red bull mid-air. "Gotta keep the damn energy flowin', my peeps! Who's up next?". Then, "Big D" swung a rubber chicken like a nunchaku, deftly knocking away a barrage of plush toys launched at him. "You gotta be quick, my friend!" he chuckled, launching a rubber ducky at his opponent.
Amidst the laughter and chaos, another voice chimed in, "Hey, Big D, show us that move with the inflatable banana again!"
Just when Thoas thought he'd seen it all, his godly Father grabbed an inflatable Banana and a feather boa and began a provocative dance-off, gyrating his hips while successfully evading a flurry of flying objects. The crowd erupted in a mix of cheers, laughter, and ecstatic howls - people were still fucking in a corner, creating a spectacle that left Thoas utterly speechless.
"Pull-up DJ, Pull-up - Shut the fuck up" - Thoas ordered the DJ to stop, and when he didn't obey, he hit him with his fist, knocking him unconscious. He took his place behind the DJ booth and stopped the music. He looked out at the crowd. His father, whom he'd only seen three times in his life. If anything, he was bored. Why not die gracefully - transformed into a dolphin?
"Why are you here, Dad?"
The room fell silent. Oddly enough, the orgy participants had stopped in the middle of the act, curious to see what was going on.
"A god? Who dances and makes a mess? What the fuck ?! You should be responsible! As you should know, according to Uncle Ben, with great power comes... getting fucking smashed!"
Thoas ripped off his shirt, opened a bottle of beer with his teeth, grabbed the DJ's headphones, and dropped the sickest beat of the night. The crowd cheered, and his Father looked proud. At last, one party that wasn't fucking boring.
30th April, 2006 - about a month before canon
Dionysos
Where the hell were these maenads? He knew his mythology inside and out because he'd been reincarnated - and he had the memories of a fucking Greek god. It's easy, Dionysus had domains - drunkenness, celebration, freedom, tragedy, fertility - symbols - ivy, the vine, the Phrygian bonnet, the cheetah - and followers - nymphs, but most of all, his close guards: satyrs and maenads. The satyrs? They were always there, in the camp, searching for demigods, reduced to shadows of their former selves, far removed from the cruel, joyous, festive, chaotic creatures of yore. But what of the maenads? Where the hell had the maenads gone? His memories were hazy, but he remembered screams, fire...an island...he would have to think about all that. But before, he had to deal with the fucking satyrs.
[spoiler=NSFW Pic - Maenad - AI generated for this story ][/spoiler]
Fuck, he was truly alone. Ariadne had faded - as Pan would in two or three years if he did nothing. a goddess of wild vegetation in the tar age and in the United States. All the more so as the Mesoamerican pantheons had a grudge against the Greeks, and it had been impossible for Ariadne to escape to the continent's great green expanses to buy herself some time.
Dionysus finished his bowl of Maté in one gulp and waited for a satyr to bring him another. He was standing in the middle of a clearing deep in the forest that bordered the Camp. All the satyrs in the camp, about a hundred and fifty of them, surrounded their god. About fifty wood nymphs shyly looked at the strange assembly, hidden behind the trees.
Facing Dionysos, looking at each other uncertainly, stood the three old goats of the Council of Cloven Elders. Fucking
"Ô, Dionysus, we answer Your summons! The Council of Cloven Elders met in plenary assembly yesterday to prepare for this meeting, and the agenda established…" began to narrate Silene, the oldest of the old goats.
Damn, this was going to be long. Selene, the Mad Satyr, the one who had partially raised him, one of his Father figure (well, if you did not count Hermes, even if technically, he was his daughter). And he had fallen this low...
For the first time, Dionysus decided to leave some of his autonomy behind and embody one of his Domains in greater depth. Fury, intoxication and unbridled joy suddenly filled him.
"Silence!"
A shockwave spread around the god, and some nymphs screamed as they retreated into their trees, while several Satyrs pissed themselves in fear and terror.
"Meetings!? Plenary assemblies!? Shame on you! You are satyrs! You should be embodiments of nature's own fury! Of music, joy and dance!"
"And you will awaken this fury, become again what you are, or die fully embodying what you have become! If you are the shadow of what you were, cross back into the Light - or join the shadow forever! "
With a feral sweep of his hand, Dionysus summoned forth a colossal drum that erupted in the heart of the enchanted glade like a primeval beast. This mythical instrument, an embodiment of Dionysian revelry, bore the savage hide of a leopard, stretched and pulled taut. Its frame, not delicately crafted but born of a wild genesis, was entwined with sacred vines that writhed and clung to the roots of ancient grapevines.
"Dance!"
Stirred by an ancestral force, the colossal drum awakened with a life force of its own. The drum started playing, as if activated by invisible musicians. Its beats were not a mere rhythm but a summoning, resonating with an untamed energy that defied the ordinary. The leopard's skin, stretched fiercely across the drum, pulsated with each thunderous strike, sending wild shockwaves through the air. The vines, alive with a primitive power, hummed as conduits channeling the very spirit of Dionysus himself.
"Dance!"
The satyrs, drawn irresistibly like predators to a scent on the wind, closed in around the drum. The hypnotic melody seized their senses, awakening a deep, feral force within them. It wasn't a surge of fury or anger; it was an unbridled, rugged energy—an ancestral roar erupting from the very core of their beings.
"Dance!"
Compelled by the relentless pulse, the satyrs succumbed to the call of the untamed dance. Hooves pounded the earth in a savage cadence, synchronized with the drum's relentless beating, and their laughter harmonized with the wild rhythm. Emerging from the shadows like spirits of the ancient wood, the wood nymphs, entranced by the ethereal cadence, joined the dance with a raw, untamed grace. Their lithe forms moved like primitive forces, weaving through the glade in an otherworldly dance.
"Dance!"
"Dance", the satyrs joined Dionysos in chanting the word like a leitmotiv.
As the dance unfolded, the untamed energy surged, reaching a fevered pitch. The satyrs, caught in the throes of the Dionysian spell, embraced their primitive instincts with ferocious intensity. Yet, within their midst, some succumbed to the overwhelming force. Weaker, unable to fully embrace the raw power of the music, they faltered. Among them, it was especially the elders, those who had lost touch with the primitive essence of what made them satyrs, that succumbed to the intoxicating embrace of the ancient rhythm. The glade echoed with the raw, untamed energy of the revelry, a celebration that stirred the very core of the primitive soul.
"Dance! Sing!"
As the rhythmic trance deepened, the satyrs and nymphs became vessels of the untamed spirit, dancing with abandon under the moonlit canopy. Their movements grew more primal, limbs intertwining in a wild display of fervor. The air pulsated with their untethered energy, and guttural songs erupted from their throats, as if the very earth was singing through them. The satyrs, eyes ablaze with a feral light, unleashed guttural chants that reverberated through the glade. Their voices, possessed by an ancient force, harmonized with the primal beats of the drum, creating an eerie and mesmerizing symphony. The wood nymphs joined the cacophony, their voices blending with the primal chorus. Even more satyrs fell on the ground, dead, their corpses drying as their energy was sucked up by the most powerful satyrs around them, the ones dancing the hardest, singing the loudest.
Dionysus, draped in a vibrant purple toga, descended into the midst of the wild dance. His divine presence electrified the glade with an otherworldly aura. Gripping a Pan flute, he played a melody that propelled the ceremony into a frenzied abandon. As the wild dance intensified, the satyrs, fully immersed in the untamed cadence, surrendered further to the primal spirit. A surge of raw energy coursed through their veins, fueling chaotic bouts of savage combat. Laughter and primal roars echoed through the glade as they clashed, finding camaraderie in joyous, guttural laughter after each skirmish.
In the midst of the chaos, the satyrs and nymphs, liberated by the intoxicating atmosphere, engaged in an unrestrained display of desire. Voracious kisses, fierce and primal, melded with the beats of the drum and Dionysus' hypnotic flute as they continued fucking the nymphs and fighting between themselves. A young satyr stopped moving, dead at the fists and hooves of another. Dionysus reveled in the chaos, his eyes gleaming with feral delight. Playing his Pan flute with divine finesse, he wove through the untamed symphony of the night. Amidst this untamed revelry, three nymphs shed their garments, their naked forms becoming an integral part of the wild dance. Their lithe bodies moved with unbridled grace, their wild locks of hair trailing through the air like strands of moonlight while they approached the dancing god. He took off his toga. It was good to be Dio.
30th April, 2006 - about a month before canon
The bartender, a one-eyed old man wiping a glass like in a movie, glowered at him as Dionysus entered the old tavern deep in Texas. Where, in the half-blood camp, he'd displayed his divinity more clearly from the height of two meters, with his black beard, grapevine crown and white-and-purple toga barely masking his bulging musculature, this time he'd donned his human persona, "Dio", which he took to interact incognito with mortals. A beardless face in his thirties, olive skin, rather handsome - extremely handsome, in fact, but with a rough, rugged, manly beauty that contrasted with his very urban outfit, which seemed to be a strange mix between a suit and a sports tracksuit. He looked very much like an urban manhua character.
The bartender grunted a greeting, while Dionysus sat down next to the only other customer, who was sipping a quadruple whisky at the counter.
Dio whistled.
"Ah, if only someone had told me that one day I'd end up counting among alcohol enthusiasts the infamous J..."
The other customer interrupted him:
"Don't use that name! I don't care who you are. It's behind me. Behind me."
He looked really banged up. Like, old, former handsome man who'd been divorced twice, and had been forced to left all his money to his former partner. He smelled a bit of booze, and his scraggly beard was unwashed.
"You can call me Dio."
The tramp turned and a gleam of recognition and fear - then resignation and defiance - passed through his eyes. Dionysus smiled approvingly at the defiant gleam, and orderer a whisky and a redbull to the old man behind the bar.
"So if you don't want me to use your name, I'll give you another. Hmmmm...Rock! So, tell me your story, Rock..."
Dionysus snapped his fingers, and the tramp's coaster transformed into a playing card displaying a laughing joker.
30th April, 2006 - about a month before canon
Thoas
The sound of police sirens woke Thoas from his slumber. Holy shit. The hungover was going to hit hard today. He opened one eye and saw his trusty Jams talking to the police. Probably trying to explain why the local zoo was missing an elephant. He'd get a hefty fine, but hell, considering the party, it had clearly been worth it. Best night of his life! And to think he'd underestimated his old man!
He grunted as he stood up and massaged his head. His memories were jumbled - a dance battle, an elephant arriving in the middle of the club, an orgy, glitter and disco. And ducks. A lot of ducks.
He felt something at the bottom of his pocket and reached in. He pulled out a strange game card, a jack of diamond, stamped with a thyme and vines, with an address and a date. What the hell was this? He had vague memories of his father explaining something to him, but... Bof. At worst, he'd check it out. What did he have to lose?
He groaned as a second police car pulled up. Fuck. They must have found out about the missing llamas.
AN : Mythology Explanations
[Mythology - Maenads]
The maenads of Greek mythology are the devoted companions of Dionysus. These creatures are women possessed with the gift of personifying the orgiastic spirits of nature. They are often accompanied by satyrs, forming a Dionysian procession. Their heads are adorned with ivy crowns, possess a majestic scepter (thyrse) and are often dressed in animal skins or leopard skin (Pardalide).
Most of these fantastic beings are the nurses of the gods entrusted to them by Hermes.
The maenads wear tattoos or marks on their faces as camouflage. Unaware of the seriousness of their actions, they sing of the joy of hunting goats. But sometimes they can go mad; their pity disappears and they cruelly dismember poor innocent travelers, feasting on their raw flesh (like Orpheus).
Delirium is a great characteristic of them; sometimes they eat poisonous ivy berries, but psychodysleptic in small doses, as well as hallucinogenic mushrooms such as fly agaric and many others.
[Mythology - Satyrs]
In Greek mythology, Dionysus, the god of wine, fertility, and revelry, is closely associated with satyrs. Satyrs are mythical creatures that are part human and part goat, featuring the upper body of a man and the lower body of a goat, including goat horns and sometimes a goat's tail. These beings are known for their mischievous and lustful nature, often portrayed as followers and companions of Dionysus.
The connection between Dionysus and satyrs is rooted in the god's cult and the stories surrounding his adventures. Satyrs are believed to be the loyal and rowdy followers of Dionysus, accompanying him during his journeys and revelries. They share a love for wine, music, and dance, embodying the untamed and wild aspects of nature.
Dionysus is often depicted in the company of satyrs and maenads (female followers), engaging in ecstatic celebrations and spreading the worship of the god through festivals and rituals. Satyrs play instruments like the panpipes and participate in lively dances during these festivities.
One famous tale involving Dionysus and satyrs is the story of his journey through the East, where he encountered the wine culture and its cultivation. During this expedition, satyrs accompanied Dionysus, contributing to the lively and uninhibited atmosphere that characterizes the god's worship.
Overall, satyrs are symbolic of the primal, instinctive, and unrestrained aspects of human nature associated with Dionysus. They embody the wild and chaotic forces that the god represents, contributing to the vibrant and joyous nature of his cult and celebrations.]
[Mythology - Ariadne ]
Originally, Ariadne served as the wife of Dionysus, referred to as his "feminine double" in ancient mythology. Hesiod, in his Theogony, depicts her in this role, explaining that Zeus elevated Ariadne to immortality as a gesture to please Dionysus, her husband. The passage states, "Dionysus with golden hair took the fair Ariadne, the daughter of Minos, for a flourishing wife, whom the son of Cronos has forever saved from death and old age."
The bestowment of immortality upon Ariadne is seen as a reward for Dionysus, Zeus's beloved son. Scholars Louis Séchan and Pierre Lévêque suggest that this divine gift echoes the idea that Ariadne originally represented an Aegean goddess of vegetation. In this context, her association with vegetation implies a cycle of death and resurrection, mirroring the natural life cycle of plants. The union of Ariadne and Dionysus further supports the notion that, in the early myth, both deities symbolized arborescent vegetation, suggesting that the romantic episode involving Ariadne and Theseus was a later addition to the narrative.
[Mythology - Dionysos and Hermes - and more of Hera's hatred]
As per Nonnus' narrative, Zeus entrusted the infant Dionysus to the guardianship of Hermes. Subsequently, Hermes handed Dionysus over to the Lamides, the daughters of Lamos and river nymphs. Unfortunately, Hera induced madness in the Lamides, prompting them to attack Dionysus. Hermes intervened, rescuing the infant from harm. Following this, Hermes took Dionysus to Ino, instructing her attendant Mystis to foster him and impart the mysteries to him.
In the account by Apollodorus, Hermes advised Ino to raise Dionysus in disguise as a girl, aiming to shield him from Hera's anger. Despite these efforts, Hera discovered Dionysus' true identity and threatened to unleash a flood upon the household. Once again, Hermes intervened, taking Dionysus to the mountains of Lydia in the guise of Phanes, the most ancient of gods. Hera, acknowledging Hermes' divine form, allowed him to pass. Hermes then entrusted the infant Dionysus to the care of the goddess Rhea, who nurtured him through his formative years.
AN : I hope the bit with the Satyrs and the mythology dump info wasn't too hard to read!