It almost worked ✸ Apollo ¹

XXXVI. You found me

The feeling of death hit her hard, Lydia thought'd she never wake up again. She dreamed of her friends continuing their adventure to find Grover. But she realized that it couldn't have been just a dream, because she wasn't there with them. Where did she go? 

Maybe this meant she was really dead, and her friends had to move on without her. Lydia felt like laughing. She worried so much about prophecies and her future for her just to die in the sea of monsters. But she stopped laughing when she realized what her mom would do. Did she really leave her mom behind?

It wasn't so funny anymore to think about that. She watched as her friends arrived at the island where Grover was hiding as a female Cyclopes. There was big fight against the fleece. And Grover cried when he found out Lydia was dead. She hated herself for using so much of her power.

Lydia should've just found another way to help, a way that wasn't so dangerous. But it was too late now. Her friends saved the fleece and sent Clarisse back to camp with it on a plane. Luke finally came back and fought with Percy on a beach, but they were saved by Chiron and his crazy centaur brothers.

Tantalus was sent back to the underworld, and everything was okay when they put the fleece on Thalia's pine tree. Lydia was happy for them. But she didn't get to see anything more. Because she was waking up.

Lydia opened her eyes to see the familiar god Apollo, with his shoulder length blonde hair, curled just right to make the men and women fall in love with him. She looked around and realized she was in her cabin at camp half blood.

"So..I'm not dead?" Lydia asked slowly.

"No." Apollo sighed "Definitely not, but at least you woke up on your birthday."

Her mind was spinning. She was dead, and it was also her fourteenth birthday. And Apollo was somehow allowed in her cabin at camp. What the hell was going on..

"Wait..what?" Lydia sat up "It's my birthday?"

Apollo laughed "Yeah. Happy birthday, Lydia."

The sun god took her hand. Lydia felt the familiar feeling of warmth and joy, but she was still confused about what happened. So Apollo explained that she used a lot of strength in the sea of monsters. He managed to save her from the wreckage before death ate away at her soul completely.

Lydia has been staying her at camp healing ever since, and a lot of time has passed too. "So what now?"

"My diagnosis is that you should take a break from using your powers for while. Let them cool down." Apollo told her "You almost killed yourself."

He mumbled something after that "Or else Zeus would've killed you instead."

"What? Zeus wants to kill me?" Lydia asked, Apollo was surprised that she even heard him.

He looked like he didn't want to explain what he meant. So he was quiet for a while. Lydia had a bad feeling something was worrying him, and she didn't want to find out. Yet she needed to.

Apollo sighed "About 45 years ago, a child of Dionysus was born. A girl with the same name as you. And I guess, she was also promised by the fates too. With a fate of strong power. More powerful than children of the big three. Like Percy Jackson and Thalia."

Lydia always believed Dionysus rarely had demigod children, but a powerful demigod like her. With the same name but born decades before her. Why has she never heard of this before?

"The original Lydia had a strong personality too, and she was the hero of many previous quests. But during these quests, Zeus saw how dangerous she was. The big three had already taken the oath to no more demigod children. So Zeus saw Lydia living as unfair." Apollo continued, his tone dark "So..he ordered Lydia's death. A brutal one at that."