If Octavian was given a choice to gauge his eyes out or go back to the underworld, he would pick the first one. He hated the underworld, the heat, the darkness the feeling you're going to DIE even though you're already DEAD. It was torture. So he had been given a choice. Be a servant of Rome, a silent lar a ghost watching out for the Roman campers, reporting issues and fixing minor problems and never ever meddling with the lives of demigods.
Humbled, completely, watching his old room be taken over, his old things thrown away except for his stuffed raccoon Augustus which Michael Kahale had found and hid for Octavian as some sort of second thought monument. He watched as his temple, well Jupiter's temple, was empty and devoid of an augur. And what hurt most of all was the things he heard people say about him.
As a human, he'd been scum. At least that was the opinion circulating the camp. No one could see him or knew that he could hear them. No one knew he cried at night. Reyna and Michael said the least bad things about him. Greeks that visited held a general disgusted opinion, Roman's made a game out of making a mockery of him. It had been no different when he was alive, but it hurt more now somehow.
Maybe once upon a time Octavian had just believed that when he had power, when he'd become praetor, he'd have friends. Everyone would want to be hisw friend.
That wasn't how it worked.
Watching now... He saw friendships form and kept wondering how he'd missed out.
How he'd never even tried to make friends. Well that wasn't true. He had tried.
He just had never succeeded.
If there was anyone he'd wanted to be friends with it was Rachel Dare. She was amazing but saw him as a jerk.
Everyone saw him as a jerk and a weirdo. Octavian supposed that couldn't be helped. He'd never had real friends, wasn't exactly sure what it felt like.
It probably felt nice. It looked nice. It looked happy.
The life of a lar was lonely.
But the life of Octavian always had been.
Prize for Alex Clarke who won the pages/Octavian-Teddy-Slayer/329365263928649?ref=hl contest and suggested Octavian's new last name, Octavian Alexander!
Octavian also has a twitter now! /DeadAugur