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08-26-03, for Dryad
A Bacchus Celebration
The Taverna looks different tonight. Instead of barstools, there are mossy tree-trunks. Instead of a scarred oak floor, there is waving grass, with tiny flowers. A stream runs through the grass, and the low chuckling sound it makes fills the sweet air. Vines hang from the ceiling, and the scarlet trumpet-shaped flowers on them tickle the ears of the patrons, who seem to have abandoned their usual beverages for rich red wine.
Suddenly, everyone can hear singing. It's coming from the back. And what's that stamping of feet? Not sneakers. Not loafers. Cloven feet.
Through the door crowd the most unusual people (people? Are they people?) the Taverna has ever seen. Shirtless men with rippling muscles and… and… the legs and feet of goats. Women with strange blue eyes, wearing robes that might be made of cloth-of-silver, or of water. A group of dark-haired, dark-skinned women with fierce faces and wild hair, singing and dancing in a line.
One enormous man, carrying a pottery jug full of wine, sitting alone and watching the crowd with wise eyes, vines curling around his temples.
The singing grows louder, the dancing wilder, the spinning madder. Euan, euan, oi-oi-oi-oi! Grapes fed into eager, laughing mouths. Wine on sticky breasts. Spilled gravy and extended tongues.
In the morning, the strangers are gone. The only ones left are Our Nymph and her companions (a Nymph Princess, in fact. We'll meet her another time). They pull tendrils of vines aside long enough to say:
Happy Birthday, Dryad!
