Moonlight and Merlot

The continuing saga of the lives, loves and heartbreaks of the residents of Dion Valley, CA.

As with all the best things in life, this is for adults only.

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According to the tome Lela found, the God of the Grapes was a complex deity, reminiscent of the Greek god Dionysus. Aren’t they all really, Lela thought as she stared off into the night. She has wondered before if they are all in fact the same god or different ones. If each variation didn’t create an entirely new being with its own likes, dislikes, personality.

Either way, Dion Valley’s very own god was primarily a fertility god and in the earliest days of the Valley,  offerings were made to him on the old Witches Alter in the forest to ensure bountiful crops, nourishing rain, rich soil. What these offerings may have been was not stated but Lela got the impression that they involved blood. She mostly felt that way because the God of the Grapes had a dark side as well. Drunkenness, madness, lowered inhibitions and unrestrained sexual frenzy were things he symbolized, embraced, encouraged. Magic and rebirth, death and madness, these were all part of the rites, the ritual, the way to appease the taciturn and powerful entity.

The madness was well documented in the grimoire, relayed with loving, explicit, obscene detail. People wearing animal skins, carrying wands and knifes and swords and cudgels bound with grapevines and ivy. People in a self-induced trance, dancing to the beat of drums, drunk on wine and spiritual frenzy, tearing apart animals and maybe even humans with their bare hands, spilling blood, soaking  the hungry, waiting earth.

And through this sacrifice, this mad ecstasy, the god was supposed to emerge and bestow blessings on the faithful. Ensure the harvest for the year. Grant power to the believers. Punish the blasphemers, the sinners, the unbelievers.

Or so it was said.

And now, with the sun and the planets and the stars all aligned right and her own personal devotion combining with the flighty energy of Phoebe, the grounded Zach, the mysterious and darkly powerful Nick, He would return.

At least, that was the plan.

[Until next Tuesday…]

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