Look, I knew nothing else except being a half-blood.
Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. All you had to do was ask Octavian or Jason or Meerholz or Annia or Augustus or Dakota. (Though I killed that last one, whoops.)
It was the only thing I have ever known until I had been punished with eternal life. Immortality had once been a never-ending nightmare that plagued me even in my waking hours, but now it was nothing more than a dream worth living.
Lupa taught me that death in battle is honorable.
But where was the honor if I was as deathless as she. I never asked for this. If I could go back in time, I would.
This was always my fate though. My husband said so all those years ago. I am twenty-three years old now. I was no longer a kid.
Still-
I appeared in New Rome, taking in the way my home had moved on without me. It was a sobering thought. I passed by Kalina's shrub invisible to the eyes of the mortal campers, stopping to pour nectar over her leaves.
King Jupiter allowed one person to be in my retinue. And since my boys were gone, Kalina was the only friend I had left.
(I could have asked Leila or Daniele or Chelsea or Pranjal or even Esra, but- I haven't spoken to them since the Second Gigantomachia. I was afraid to see how they would view me now and; besides, they would want to move on.)
(It would be another seven years before I could add another and I was retrieving Jason from the underworld.)
I looked over the areas in which I had once found immeasurable joy that now brought me nothing but pain. I didn't like the feeling and it was the reason why my visits were always so sparse.
I flashed away to appear at the boundary line. Terminus could still see me, I knew. Still, I said nothing to him as I handed my weapons over even when I was no longer required to do so.
I only answered to my king, my father, and my husband after all. Not even those damned greeks had control of me.
I continued on to the house that Octavian had bought as soon as he turned eighteen. It was still filled to the brim with his family's artefacts that were safe and preserved as neither I nor Apollo would allow anyone to steal or harm them.
I waved my hand, getting rid of the graffiti that had been placed on the outer walls while making a note to have my husband scare the preparators in their dreams. Even if they were foolish to dislike Octavian, they had no right to insult Augustus or Annia's name.
They were foolish to invoke her own wrath.
I opened the door, eyes zeroing in on the box that had been sitting on the table for two weeks. I didn't want to open it, but- it has been ten years.
Footsteps caught my attention and small pained filled smile danced across my face at the owner. She was only seven years old; blonde hair swinging around in ringlets with eyes almost the same shade as my own.
"Aunt Livy," the girl cheered as she barreled into my legs. I looked up to see Kalina leaning across the door looking at the child with her own pained but loving eyes. Livia's other daughter, Kalen, was asleep in her arms. Looking back down, I pulled the girl up into my arms, "Salve, Okto. Quid agis?"
Octavia Aelia was the splitting image of her Father before her. I had gone to great lengths to keep her hidden from the people of New Rome after everything.
