Dio Meets Ariadne

Well, I've drawn Dio and his first love, Ampelus, so about time I draw Dio and his wife, Ariadne. Now, Ariadne had a pretty messed up life. Her father was King Minos, who pissed off Poseidon, who decided to punish him by punishing his wife in a pretty horrific way. Said punishment resulted in the Minotaur, who is technically Ariadne's half-brother. One of her other brothers went off to compete in the games at Athens... and was murdered by a bunch of jealous Athenian guys. So, of course, Minos went to war, whipped the Athenians but good, and demanded they start paying a tribute either every so many years or every year (accounts vary). Said tribute consisted of seven young men and seven young women to be tossed in the Labyrinth to entertain and feed the Minotaur.

When the third tribute rolled around, the Athenian hero Theseus arranged for himself to be included so he could be all heroic and kill the Minotaur. First, though, he met Ariadne, who fell madly in love with him and decided to help him beat the Labyrinth and kill the Minotaur. Theseus was successful and, as he'd promised, took Ariadne with him. She was ecstatic.

Unfortunately, things went south pretty quick for Ariadne. There are several versions of what, exactly, happened, but in all accounts, the couple parted ways when the ship stopped at Naxos, Ariadne ended up on shore, and the boat left without her. Personally, I go with the version in which Ariadne, suffering from sea/morning sickness, went to rest for awhile on shore. Theseus, being pretty much a consummate jackass (seriously... his "heroic" acts also include kidnapping a VERY young Helen with the plan of marrying her and tossing his best friend under the bus in the Underworld), decided he didn't want to be saddled with a refugee princess for a wife and told the ship to set sail as soon as Ariadne was asleep. (In my version, his buddy Pirithous brought up the fact that the daughter of the guy who razed the city and regularly sacrificed the beloved youths of Athens proooobably wouldn't be the most welcome girl in the world, which would make Theseus look bad, and really, did he want the hassle of all the negative press?)

In any case, Ariadne woke up on the island to find that her ship and her sweet prince had sailed off without her, leaving her in a pretty bad way. Fortunately for her, Naxos was an island Dio frequently visited, and when he found her, he managed to talk her out of heading off to the afterlife prematurely, and eventually, they fell in love and he made her his wife. By every account I can find, they were pretty happy together.

Those accounts are also why she's a blonde. Nearly all the sources I found that mentioned her appearance referred to her "golden" hair. I figure it's because she's the granddaughter of Helios.

So yes, a picture of Dio's first time meeting Ariadne, who hasn't realized she has company yet.