This was originally going to be a back story for Willow but when I started writing it cam out more like a journal entrie, looking back on the darker side of her life. I thought it would be something different that might possibly play in to AGTHS and then might not.

It will currently stay a one shot but if there is a lot of demand for more chapters I will consider.

Enjoy! P.S. She writes her diary on lily Pads, hence Dear Lily.

Dear Lily,

The nice thing about being a tree is that you never have to worry about living quarters. Everything is there for you. You don't have to worry about hair or clothes because you just come out of your tree picture perfect. Or as "perfect" as someone like me could be.

I've killed people. Do you know what its like to have that sitting on your conscience? The battles. So much blood shed. It never seemed like it would end but then poof. And it was all over. Finished. Done. The monsters would come back of course but the half bloods? Gone forever. Their lives destroyed just like our world would have been if Kronos had taken control.

But at least they died a noble death. They can say they died fighting for the good of the world. They will achieve Elysium and will be happier there. They will live very different and maybe not totally pleasant lives but they'll be fine in the end.

Isn't that just it though? Isn't death better in some ways? I sometimes feel that I would rather be dead than have to live with people's deaths clinging to me like fly paper. I dream about them. I see their lives, the battle from there eyes. Sometimes, I see myself, ready to kill. That's the worst. Looking form someone else's eyes, the person you killed. Feeling their pain, their sorrow.

I didn't want to kill them you know. I didn't want to do that. I was forced to, they were trying to kill me and my friends. But does that really justify what I've done? Sometimes, I get so into the moment, ready to kill, that I forget that I am committing murder. Killing someone who might have been my friend.

I don't know why compassion evades me in battle. It just flees, the moment I strap on my armor and done my helmet. I become a different person, and a bad one at that.

People told me to talk to someone. I tried. It doesn't work. They don't get it. They don't understand how awful I get. They've never faced me in battle. Trust me when I say this, I don't need Aegis to terrify people. I've seen it in the dreams of others.

Some people understand though. He's killed more times than me, but he still finds it in his heart to care for me. Grover, who has taken care of me like a little sister ever since I came to the camp, escaping from a logging company. I discovered that if a dryad takes a seed from her tree and plants it and grows she can survive even if her full grown tree is cut down. I ventured far with nothing but a knife and a little potted willow tree. When I came to camp, looking about 7, really 14, Grover took my little potted Willow tree, planted it, and used is nature magic to turn it into the full sized willow overlooking the creek where I live now.

You know, some people would call me lucky, surviving battles and on my own, but I disagree. I rather think I was dealt the wrong cards and had to learn to cope. I adapted, yes, but not without great damage to my soul. Damage that will probably never heal. Permanent. Forever.