Dionysus Vinum D8 {Finished!}

Dionysus is a cherub of a child, thirteen years old, though he looks about nine. He has glossy black locks which fall in silky ringlets round his infant cheeks. His black eyes sparkle merrily like a thousand stars in the winter nights. His skin is a ruddy olive with a glowing reddish flush, the child has spent long days under intense sunlight. His aristocratic nose swoops royally down his face, giving just a hint of slightly awkward yet quickly blossoming maturity to his otherwise childish features. His eyebrows are thick and dark, alternately knit in youthful thought or raised in easy amusement. His lips are thin and nimble, their curves fluctuate seamlessly into countless expressions. Everything about the Dionysus’s face is lithe and expressive, the face of an actor.

At five feet, Dionysus is perhaps a bit overweight. Not much, certainly not like a Capitolite, but enough to set him apart from most children his age. Anyway, his features are so youthful, that it really does just look like baby fat. Although a bit large, Dionysus is far from out of shape. Driven by his love for the waning remnants of nature in District Eight, Di has spent most of his young life exploring the surrounding geography. He’s very fit, an excellent long distance runner but a pathetic sprinter. Di also has very impressive arm strength for a boy his age. Youthful health glows from every pore of Dionysus’s cherubic physique.

From the Creative Writings and Daily Journal of Dionysus Vinum

I’m sort of a…conflicted person. It’s less of a split personality, that’s too strong a term for it, and more of a personality that has been split. Does that make any sense? You see, it’s not like I have two people living inside my head or anything, it’s just that there are sort of two sides to the one person I am. Which, I guess is true in some ways for everyone in the world. It’s just really exaggerated in me.

For instance, I’m insanely moody. Chalk it up to puberty if you want to, but I mean I’ve literally always been this way. I’m naturally an entertainer. I’m an excellent observer; you have to be if you want to please the crowd. So I’m pretty aware of myself, my circumstances, and those around me. I also see the funny side of life. Ridiculous things people say, their awkward habits, their odd blunders, even ironic circumstances, I capitalize on all of these to keep people laughing…and on their toes. Actually, after a while I think it annoys the heck out of them to have me constantly re-enacting their worst (and so naturally most hilarious) moments. Not like I care. While I do have some sort of inborn need to please, I don’t care about most people’s opinions, just a select few. I know who I am and I’m pretty confident in that. Except for in those really weird times when I have major mood swings. Which, like I said, happens a lot.

So I’ll go from the happy, charming, you could almost say debonair, version of myself to an insanely ballistic or gloomily melancholy or drugged-up crazy version of myself in a split second. I really have no idea why. But it’s the little things that trigger me. Little things that most people wouldn’t notice. Like the way someone looks at me out of the corner of their eye, or the way storm clouds roll on the horizon, and the smell of wine. Always the smell of wine.

There are certainly parts of me that annoy people. Besides the mood swings and teasing, I’m not exactly what you’d call “mature”. I genuinely enjoy things too much for self-control, and I tend to act before I think. I also am still defined by some remnants of my young life. I try to avoid these things, but they tend to resurface nonetheless. For instance, I tend to be selfish, and I really really hate it when I don’t get things my way. It’s not a control freak thing. It’s a if-I-get-my-heart-set-on-something-I’d-darn-well-better-get-it thing. Fortunately there’s not much that I let myself get my heart set on anymore. Except for maybe Persephone.

Last thing about myself that everyone should understand and no one does (and I’ll keep it brief): Alcohol is my kryptonite. Alcoholism is built into me, but I hate it so much. Yes, even at the young age of 13 I know the taste…and the affects. I love and fear it. My parents, the people who I’ve learned to pity and detest, repulse me from it. How can I sink to their level? I won’t. But I’m programed to need it. Anyway, the fight against alcohol defines my secret life.

Dionysus grew up in a wealthy family for District Eight. In each district, there is the class which provides for the Capitol, sort of the lower class, and the class which provides for the district residents, the upper class. It seems backwards, but it actually makes perfect sense. The lower class which provides for the Capitol is paid whatever the Capitolites want. In other words, not very much. The upper class can charge whatever they want for their services from the lower class; there’s no competition. The upper class includes occupations like baker, butcher, grocer, seamstress, carpenter, and others depending on the district. In Eight, one of the upper class occupations is plantation owner. That’s what Dionysus’ parents did. They owned a cotton plantation. The soil in Eight wasn’t as good for that sort of thing as in a few of the southern districts like Eleven (the Capitol’s cotton was grown there), but the cotton produced was good enough for the residents of Eight.

Anyway, Dionysus’ parents, Semele and Amun, were one of the few residents of the middle and lower districts who not only owned large amounts of land, but also could afford to employ workers. These workers came for the pay, not for the treatment. Semele and Amun idolized their beautiful baby boy, but they were abusive and cruel to the workers. They were also drunks. For Dionysus, it was a recipe for disaster: spoiled, taught cruelty, raised by drunks. Unfortunately, the recipe turned out exactly the results it foretold; by the age of seven, Dionysus was one of the most awful children in Panem…and that included the Capitol and Career kids.

One day, Dionysus was out with the workers in the fields. One of his favorite passtimes was to terrorize the workers, and that’s exactly what he was doing today. Suddenly, a young girl, older than Dionysus by about two years, confronted him. She wasn’t one of the workers, she was just a girl passing by. The girl, Persephone, gently reprimanded Dionysus for his cruelty. Her kindness, her gentleness, the general angelic nature of this seemingly divine visitor took Dionysus greatly off-guard. He had never met anyone like her before. The two only had one conversation, but it changed Dionysus forever. Over the next year, Dionysus slowly reworked his young, and therefore still easily fixable, life. By slowly becoming more aware of himself and those around him, he slowly learned how awful his parents were, how terrible his circumstances were, and most importantly, how abominable he was. That was when he ran away to join the Olympians.

Dionysus was only nine when he joined the Olympians, so he doesn’t remember much. He does know that they were reluctant to accept him, that Zeus took him under his wing, and that eventually these companions helped him to grow out of his old circumstances. But Dionysus would never forget the cruelty of his parents, or stop running from his inborn need for drink.