I have recently revised my old stories I put here, and now I've decided to give anybody who cares to read this some more stories. It has been a nice long while. smile
Dionysus
Great Grandmother was old, older even than the sky-brights, and tired. But she had a duty to perform. Tomorrow is the Day of Separation from the Family, when all the young boys would be driven from their mothers and aunts, and it was her own great-grandson she would be forcing to leave. If she hadn’t this more times than there are days in a season, she’d be sad. But tomorrow it was going to be the same as any other Separation. After a short ceremony, the females of the Family formed a ring around the males, slowly walking them away from the camp, looking not at their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As she lay down for the night, arranging the weeds and flowers that grew on the Plains of the People, she listened to the low rumblings of the Family, wishing each other good sleep and pleasant dreams.
The dawn of the new day arrived to find Dionysus awake and worrying. He’d only been away from the Family once in his life, and that was when his mother had died. He was naught but a baby then, but despite his age, he could still remember her comforting scent, the low growl of her humming voice, and the feel of her hand entwined in his. He was startled from his reverie by a large bugle from the Second Grandmother, Alma. The Family gathered in one large group, and in the cool of the morning started to eat and drink what was near. The young males of the Family were allowed more food than usual, so that they could have more strength for the ordeal to come. Dionysus rumbled a goodbye in his high young voice, and then he and the other two males of the Family huddled together. This would be the last time any of them ever saw one another. The Great-Grandmother called them over, and then began the ceremony. And so Dionysus began his life of solitude.
Three days had passed since Dionysus had left the Great Family. He'd been looking for a watering hole to use; there were none near where his Separation was held, and he felt himself getting thirsty. When he left the Family, he headed in a north-westerly direction, where all newly Separated males journeyed first; towards the great mountains rising above the mists that engulfed the forest it surrounded. These were called the Firstborn Mountains, because when Legend told of the creation of the world, it was these mountains that were created before all other things, for who can walk on air? None but the birds, and obviously, the Ancestors were not birds. As he plodded onwards, increasingly thirsty, he pictured in his mind the route he would be taking towards the mountains. As he searched his mind for any memories of this area, he realized that he’d never been this far north before. He knew that if he were to go southwards, he’d soon be within the territory of the Hungry Beasts who Tore, and he wondered to himself if they had nests further north, as well as below.
Dionysus knew that he would not need to drink for many more days, and so he decided to put up with his thirst until he no longer could. He walked slowly to the edge of the pool and plunged in his arm, sucking up the cool liquid and spraying it over his head. The small blood-picker birds started at the fountain, hopping from his back and winging quickly away.
It was then, as he lay tired in the grass that K`koro`an appeared for the first time. At first Dionysus thought he was so dehydrated he was seeing mirages. But this thing had a smell. It was small and brown, and walked on two legs, like the baboons when they hid from the Dusty Huntresses. It carried a long straight stick thinner than Dionysus' tusk, and one end of it glittered as the sunlight struck it.
And when K`koro`an saw this Greattusk before him, he counted himself lucky, for he was leading a hunting party for his starving village, and he knew that if he brought this beast to his people, it could feed them for weeks. And so the last thing Dionysus saw was the dull end of the brown baboon-thing's stick speeding towards his head. And then there were voices. High-pitched, small, soft voices. They clamored and spat at each other, and made Dionysus’s head ache. Unable to open his eyes, he made to move himself, but the second he did, his side split with pain. The pain spread like a virus, up his neck and down his arm, and all he could do was stop trying to resist. The voices stopped when he had tried to get up, but when he found himself unable to move, they started up again, more quietly this time. Suddenly, screams rang around him, and the pain spiked in from all points, and Dionysus almost lost consciousness again. But from somewhere within him there spoke a voice, a deep voice, deeper than the oldest among his Family. And it was the strongest voice he’d ever heard. And as this voice spoke to him, he felt his body moving. He stood up with the ease of a horn-deer, and shook with the power of ten of his own. By instinct, he thrust his head left, then right, and he heard and almost felt the screams as his tusks dug in and split flesh. Yet more pains sprouted in his sides, and this only made the voice louder and deeper. It was so deep now that he could hardly hear it, but it was still commanding him as he raised himself up on two legs and slammed down again. More screaming. More yelling, more pains. But through this, Dionysus could still hear the voice, and still fought. "OPEN." Boomed the voice, louder and lower, "OPEN." Dionysus's eyes opened and he found himself among corpses. Some fifty corpses lay around him in a great circle, and all of them were the small, baboon creatures.
Dionysus was asleep again, an uneasy drifting sleep, yet a dreamless one. And though it was dreamless, the voice still spoke. He could not understand its words; its babble sounded similar to that of the monkey-things that he had killed. But the voice was rich, deep, and more like that of one of his Family than a monkey-thing's. Then the voice faded quickly, and the pain returned. The dull throbbing was all over his body, but suddenly on point, spiked, and was gone. And then another, and soon, most of the pain was gone, and Dionysus could open his eyes. But what he saw was another of the monkey-things, wielding a long glittering-tipped stick. But when it saw that he was awake, it set the stick down slowly, and reached out to touch him. Dionysus didn't like the smell of the thing; it smelled like the one that had first hurt him. It was the one that had first hurt him! But by then it was again at is side, and this time, instead of plunging a stick into his side like the others, it pulled out one of the ones in his side. Again, pain spiked and disappeared. Dionysus saw that the thing was helping him, and though still leery of the thing, he allowed it to continue. As it did, it spoke in its high-pitched squeaky voice, and Dionysus was finally able to recognize it as speech, which meant that the things strewn around him had been more that stick-wielding lions-on-their-hind-feet. They were more than beasts. Perhaps they could understand each other, given time?
Dionysus tried to communicate, he rumbled low and high, and did all but trumpet to the thing, "Speak, you thing of Apes! I see your intelligence, I know you have a mind! Now see mine!" but nothing would help. He reached out and took the stick from the ape-thing, and tossed it away. There was a small glimmer in its eyes, but he was not sure it understood that he was intelligent. Trying once more to demonstrate his self-awareness, Dionysus picked up another stick from the ground, and set it in the hands of the ape-thing. No, he set it in the hands of a Man.
-Fin-
GoldenMan_713 Community Member 
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