Witch Doctors Inc: SEASON TWO (Ongoing)

Part 2.1

Where The Sun Makes A Dent
KADREA

The demon coils around itself. A swirl of ruby blades and shadows, it seethes with restrained fury. A ham-sized paw scratches at the floor.

"I told you to be still."

Scion's emerald eyes appear in the mist, dangerously sharp.

Dionysus growls. He had been stuck in that orb for so long, his own preferred form felt foreign to him. It was all he could to do writhe. Writhe and forget.

"You're making it worse," Scion warns. "If you don't stop, the whole place will come down."

There are scorch marks on the floor where Dionysus's paws had touched down. Spits of flame sizzle on the walls of his cage, pockmarking the bars with steaming indents.

When the ice seal on the Orb of Ariadne had cracked open, Dionysus hadn't known what was happening. He had been sleeping for so long, waking only to blissful darkness. The darkness was like salve on his war scars. He remembers the war now, and the memory hurts him. Brother with brother, against brother. His planet of fire scoured with ice. Their planet of ice scorched with flame. And their children, who should be one, now two.

After an eternity of rest, he felt the seal cracking. Through it he sensed one of the children, lost and angry. So he pulled the child to him. He held him close.

But the child did not want to be held close. He wanted to rage. He had war in his heart. Dionysus's peace was broken.

Then came the light.

So much light.

Like the old days, before the war.

He still doesn't know why the Phaedrean released him. The Phaedrean did not bring freedom, but a different kind of prison. One in which Dionysus did not know how to move or control the fire he had once wielded with ease.

"You are weak," the child had said to him, disappointed.

Yes. He was weak. And still, the child was weaker. He simply did not see it.

"The Phaedrean will not hold us much longer," Scion says to him now. "Our spy will make sure of that."

The spy's eyes shift to Scion. Dionysus can see them in the dark, but Scion cannot. They brim with resentment. "I am only helping you for one reason."

Scion responds with a shrill laugh. "I do not care why you do things. I only care that they are done."

The spy's lips form a grim line. "The witch - you will get rid of her?"

"Of course I will. She thought she could trick me, pretending to be Lazarus, but I remember her now. She cannot seal me away like a bad memory."

The child continues to rant. Lazarus, he says, deserved destruction. All the Phaedreans did.

Dionysus wonders if, had the one called Lazarus acted differently, the child would not be so far from home. If he could have rebuilt the bridge that Dionysus and his brothers broke.

Scion continues to ramble.

The spy frowns in the dark.

Dionysus closes his eyes and waits for the next war.