Forever and Always

2

Eyes danced across the floor, huge chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, alight with different colored flames. Alfred stood at his side, hanging onto his arm, his eyes studying everything happening around him. Rulyn stood at his other side, her arms crossed over her chest. Her long dark brown shawl dragged on the floor, and she was in her wolf form. Her yellows eyes squinted in the light, being much better at seeing in the dark.

"Rulyn, get more chardonnay," Alfred said, and she left without saying a word into the dark hallways of the house.

It had been three days since that conversation, and he was starting to wonder what Alfred thought about it- or if he'd just forgotten about it.

Alfred growled under his breath and Ivan looked down at him, watching as he opened a makeup pallet and started fixing his lipstick. He didn't know why he cared so much, in his opinion he was already beautiful and didn't need it, but apparently no one else thought that, so he wore the makeup and fixed his hair. He'd grown it a little longer, it hung around his ears now.

Someone started walking over, and Ivan studied him for a second. He wasn't wearing a shirt, only a white pair of pants with a snake-scale patterned cream skirt hanging around his waist like a belt. Olive skin, and long, dark hair with two pieces in the front braided. Two black horns came from his forehead, just above his eyes. They were painted with little vines in golden paint, and a gold crown designed to look like vines curled around them, and his head.

The most important thing to note was that his eyes were completely dark purple, with no whites left. He'd seen him before, but his eyes had still had their whites, which meant now he was drunk.

"Dionysus," Alfred said, his voice practically in a purr, "good to see you, how are you?"

"Wonderful," Dionysus replied. The glass of ambrosia vodka in his hand swished as he moved, and he took another sip. Ivan knew to be wary, he was at his full power at the moment.

"You truly are a master of these," he said after some thought, "I mean, Ninkasi is fine at them, and Bacchus and such, but you truly know how to bring the party to life. I wonder what it is."

Alfred smiled, looking around. Ivan knew how he did it, why he had to watch so closely. Because he got different pantheons to interact, using his siblings as sacrifice. Then he liquored them up, and had marijuana smoking from the rafters and such, just to keep them docile. And when everyone was docile, everyone had a good time.

"A touch of magic," he said, tapping Dionysus' nose. Glitter flickered off, and Dionysus laughed.

"I'd believe it!" he exclaimed, and Plutus walked over slowly, limping, grabbing blindly before grabbing onto his brother's arm.

"What is it?" Dionysus hissed, his mood shifting quickly. Plutus barely responded, the child-god looking up.

"Mother wanted you to take care of me."

Plutus couldn't see. That was the most important thing about him, besides the fact he also could hardly walk. It was Zeus' work, so he would distribute wealth equally among everyone. The god had wings, but they rarely worked, with so many broken bones. In moments of high stress he could heal them, only for them to break again after he was okay again. Persephone almost always carried him, or had one of her children or husband care for him.

Dionysus groaned, before pointing, "Look, it's Macaria. Go bother her."

"Um..."

He grabbed the child's head and moved it in the proper direction, towards the orange-haired god with pale skin.

Alfred and Ivan took this moment to walk away from him, Alfred finding that Bast and Artemis were getting snappy with each other and Ivan not wanting to bother himself with it.