Blue hair ✸ Apollo ²

II. Family line

The last time Lydia ever saw her great grandmother, she was a seven year old girl. Their family; only including Lydia, Her mother Allison, her grandma Nancy, and her aunt Vanny. We're having a short reunion with Dawn who was supposedly on her death bed. She was frail and empty back then.

Lydia always remembered Dawn's death, a horrific thing to witness as a seven year old girl. Yet her family rarely spoke of it again. Probably to look forward in their lives without being overly emotional about the old woman. Dawn was at least seventy five years old, born in 1939. But it was impossible now.

Because Dawn was now standing in front of Lydia, and she only seemed in her late forties. She was speechless "I-"

"I know, I know." Her great grandmother just laughed "You're probably confused, but I'll feel more comfortable explaining more inside."

Lydia wouldn't be so eager to trust her. Even if she was family, she was still alive and told nobody. It made no sense that nobody would know the truth. They were family, and they believed she was dead for years.

They all saw her die, crying that she'd miss her daughter and her wonderful life. Yet she abandoned them and lied about it. Just to look almost thirty years younger and hiding out in a magical protected place?

Dawn reached for Lydia's hand, but she lightly pulled back "How do I know I can trust you?"

"Because I'm the same old woman I've always been, my dear." Dawn cupped Lydia's face with her hands "It's just I've stopped the aging process for a while. Pretending to die was the only way to keep all this away from you for now."

So that's how it was. Dawn lied to protect them from all this? Which meant she must've knew about Lydia and Dionysus the entire time. It made her remember what she saw when she took a trip to the underworld. She saw her great grandfather's dead soul.

After that horror moment with the underworld's puppy, Lydia and her friends entered the fields of asphodel. It definitely wasn't a place to brag about being in during a quest. The black grass was flattened by thousands of years of the dead walking all over it. A horrible smell of mud and rotting things went through the air. Lydia wondered how even a dead person could stand this?

But all of the dead here were people that lived of no reason. They didn't do much good or bad, they just lived hopelessly. Lydia walked with her friends, slowly scanning the crowd for security ghouls. Nobody seemed to notice that they were the only living souls down here. Well, until a dead soul stared right at her.

"I thought they couldn't see us that well." Annabeth mumbled "Lydia, what did you do?".

"Nothing! I was just-" She stopped. The moment of realization came to her, this dead soul was someone in her family. Someone she never met but only saw in old photos. It was her great grandfather, and the person who everyone missed.

Her great grandfather stared "Nancy? Have you seen my Nancy?"

Percy turned to Lydia "Who's Nancy? Does he know you?".

But Lydia didn't respond to him. She responded to her great grandpa "Yeah, Nancy's my grandma. Are you her dad? She talks about you a lot."

He started to cry softly "Is she safe?"

Lydia nodded "She's safe, and happy with us. I- I can tell her something for you. Do you want that?".

The man wiped his dead and sunken eyes "Tell her that she'll always be my baby. And I'm sorry I died so soon. I miss her so much."

"Alright, but I have to go now." Lydia saw her friends waiting on her "I'll make sure to tell her everything when I see her, okay?".

The man nodded happily "Thank you, my great granddaughter. I always believed you'd be something one day. I saw you, in visions before I died. I saw your mother. She raised a powerful voice."

Lydia couldn't cry now, but she let him go. She didn't know why she wasn't expecting to see dead family members in the underworld. But she felt better now that she did. She could tell her grandma about her dad.

"Why- why would you lie to all of us? Even your own daughter?!" Lydia raised her voice "My grandma was never the same!"

"I know! For the last time!" Dawn closed her eyes, obviously getting angrier now "But can you hold your little ass when you don't understand why I did all of this yet? Hear me out before you start talking."

Lydia wanted to scream even more, but she let Dawn take her into the huge manor that stood before them. Maybe it would be better for the to yell outside.