Log: Mordred and Dionysus
Dionysus is sprawled out in a clearing in the woods, very distinctly... debauched, for lack of a better word. His clothing's a grass stained mess, there are leaves in his hair and vines curling up around his fingers, and yes, that's probably a dead and mostly eaten rabbit off in the bushes. (Dios are not tame.) He's humming to himself and trying to decide if any of the clouds merit immortality as constellations.
Mordred has been farther afield than usual, on the far side of the lake, and consequently finds it simpler to cut straight through the woods rather than circle back to the main path. He's paying more attention to his direction than to his surroundings, and nearly walks in rabbit remains as a result.
"Watch it, kiddo," Dio says idly, staring intently at a cloud off to his right. Is it a rabbit? Or possibly Elton John - who knew it was so hard to tell? He'd rather it were Elton John.
Startled, he catches himself against the nearest tree, and slants a wry look at Dionysus. "Right."
"I was considering finishing it later," Dio explains. "Come on and sit down."
"Sorry." Mordred can't quite repress a grimace. "I've got to get home, but thanks anyway."
Dio takes the effort to roll his head to one side. "I wasn't planning on feeding you leftovers. Sit."
Now he's well and truly wary. Things this insistent generally do not mean you well. "I really can't. Sorry." He gives a little, placatory half-bow and edges away.
And here we have a Dio sitting up and rolling into a crosslegged position. "For all love, child, sit," he says, and he's not really glaring, but he is looking very intent.
Mordred freezes, watching him with eyes dark and bright and fascinated as the rabbit's were, a little while ago. He says nothing.
Dio is really very annoyed, but his voice is warm and pleasant. "Or I could simply send you on your way," he says, rolling the thought around his mind, a small vine reaching up to curl around the toe of Mordred's shoe.
He frees it with a convulsive movement, but that seems to take all the energy or will he has; he stays where he is, deathly pale now. "I--"
"Well?" Dio says, brisker now, but still pleasant voiced, "Please make up your mind - I think that cloud is about to blow away, and I'm still not sure if it's a rabbit or Elton John."
Slowly, he drops to the ground.
Dio smiles, bright and genuine. "Oh, good. Hello, I'm Dionysus. And you?"
Silence.
The smile falters a little. Dio looks genuinely hurt and confused - like a child trying to mask pain at a rejection. "Oh, come now," he says, lightly enough, "That's not polite. What's your name?"
A gleam of defiance surfaces amid the terror. "Find it yourself."
"That's not the way it works," Dio chides, but he tilts his head to one side, and his pupils fill nearly all of his eyes, and he looks. Dio is good at looking. "Oh," he says. "It's on your shirt."
"Is it," through gritted teeth.
"On the back, in the collar," Dio says. "Why write it, if you won't be polite and give it out?"
Mordred says nothing.
Dio sighs. This is not being fun. He doesn't like people being afraid of him, and he's honestly not certain why Mordred is. "I think perhaps you should leave," he says, but as he says it he gets an idea. There's something inside Mordred, all curled up and choking something off, and Dio thinks that maybe he could take it away, and then - oh, he suspects Mordred wouldn't like it, but with it gone Mordred wouldn't be afraid of him either, which would solve that problem and also make them even very nicely. "I could take care of that for you," he says.
"--what?" before he thinks better of it.
Dio leans forward, his eyes deep and glittering. "That thing. In your brain."
Mordred jerks away, but there's nowhere to go but into the brush. (His mind is racing with words, bits of charms, bits of prayers, nothing coherent enough--)
(It wouldn't work anyway, all being meant for demons, trows, the dead and half born, not for a divine creature born over and over and over again.) Dio leans forward further, nearly off balance, but not quite, and brushes his earth and blood stained fingers gently over Mordred's forehead. "There," he murmurs. "All gone. You can thank me now."
--and there are no words, none, there's torchlight and steel and soot and blood-- God! -- blood in the courtyard, years and hearts and falling, falling. "God, no!"
And Dio's still there, far too close for any sane respect of personal boundaries, but this is Dio so what does he care. "Well," he says, as if it's nothing more to him than a memory of a rabbit or two, "you did ask."