“Yes, of course. If you wish, kýrié mou.” Thyone answered after a beat of wrestling with curiosity at the god’s odd reply and his politeness. She had half-expected him to simply vanish once he had confirmed that she was alright, because while he seemed the decent sort, she had rarely met many gods with the patience to wish to speak with her for long periods of time once they realized who she was. But perhaps he didn’t know. Why would he? If he was the god of thunder, then he had to be of some importance amongst his own people, and yet she knew nothing of him to color her view either negatively or positively. Whereas she was a minor goddess, ancillary to her son’s cult, barely wielding any influence outside of it. Therefore, there was a great deal of chance that he knew as much of her and she knew of him.
The thought was a liberating one, easing some rigid, sore wound under the surface. Too often she was high on her guard around others, knowing what they saw when they looked at her. His smile, also, was lovely. So stunning that if she had been younger and sillier, she might have stuttered naively from the impact of it. There were sharp metal weapons out in the world that weren’t half as dangerous as that smile. Thyone nodded in the direction of the temple, guessing he might have wanted to examine it first before moving on to something else, as it was the focal point of the peaceful scene, still gleaming with that pearlescent sheen that was so characteristic of her temples.
It had never been a grand affair, though for a local temple, it was graciously constructed with fine lines and material. Though the plants had been victorious in taking it back for their own use once the nearby town that had worshipped there had been stricken with a plague that had bereaved them of most of their elders, it had suffered little from the abandonment. It remained structurally sound and was large enough that a priestess and an acolyte had once lived within, brought food and supplies by grateful townspeople, never needing to leave the woods. The last priestess had been a good, kind person, and Thyone had enjoyed sitting with her and speaking about many topics, much as she had once enjoyed with her sisters, unlikely as it seemed. Due to the nature of their cult, Dionysus and Thyone were perhaps one of the few gods who regularly revealed themselves to mortals and interacted with them with no noxious or prideful intent. Unsurprising in the light that they, along with Ariadne, Ganymede and Hercules, had all been born and raised mortals before ascending. She did not speak for anyone but herself but sometimes she wondered if she was the only one who felt awkward about that.
“Did I interrupt you in some task you were undertaking at the market?” She asked suddenly, twining her arms loosely behind her back since she had yet to master the art of what to do with them otherwise while walking. It gave her an oddly young air, though she’d stopped being that ages ago. She genuinely wanted to know because if he was not able to go back to that market to complete his errand, then the least she could do was take him to another market to make up for it.
Thyone glanced ahead at the temple and then stopped, reaching out to snag his sleeve. She placed a finger over her lips as an answer, shaking her head. The deer that had nested there were apparently gone but the temple was not empty. Thyone had seen something staring at them with gleaming eyes from under a bush. Something small and unmistakably adorable, meaning, its mother and possibly some siblings wouldn’t be far away. It was still so young that half the snout was starting to push out from the leaves along with the gleaming eyes.