The Faithful Retinue.

It starts with an itch. I can't define where it is. It becomes annoying. Then it is a thirst, and it gnaws. Then it is a buzzing that won't cease. Then it is a call, subtle and sweet as music. It is the music that is the most maddening.  I wrap myself in my ritual robe, I slip my blade into it's sheath, and I run - barefoot - into the woods.

First I run. I run like a hunted beast. Then I dance, dance to the music only I can hear. Then I sing, shaping the tune with my voice. It is a song of summoning, of seduction, of fearful prey. Then I cease to sing and only bellow. The bellowing becomes a howl. And I find myself on all fours. I can only howl, and moan. My mouth hangs open, and I am drooling onto the soil.

I tear at the robe, and hunch naked on the ground. I am beyond sensation. The spirits are coming. They are on me, in me, over me, beside me. This is what the Maenads felt. Were there more than me in the woods we would rip at each-other with our teeth, and fuck like animals.

I am aware of only my eyes, and a spot somewhere above and behind them. I cannot communicate with the rest of my body - it is no longer just mine. It is Him. And it is something else entirely. It is a sensation like the rolling waves of orgasm, but it does not cease, does not plateau, does not decrease. It grows ever-stronger, and begins to consume me.

But it is not me. And I twist, and fall, and slither on the ground. I dig my fingers in the loam, worms crawl up my arms. Torches flickering, lamplight, owls hissing and screeching in the trees, wine runs from my lips, satyrs run through the undergrowth - the world around me dissolves into thousands of years of revelry. Vines grow through my skin, using my bones as their trellis. I am utterly broken down, into dust, into loam, into mold.

And suddenly there is a stillness and clarity in the chaos of my destruction. My mind slips itself, and becomes another. Fluid flows through me, and my limbs come alive. I begin to see through other eyes, and hear through other ears. I speak with a voice that is not mine... and I don't understand. Suddenly the whole of creation is alive around me, with figures darting here and there. They are the pipers of the circle, my faithful retinue.
Because, I am no longer the witch in the woods, nor the maenad in the leaves. I am the god who comes.