When Drew was three, she asked her father why she did not have a mother. He told her that her beauty was so profound that wars were fought. That was the first time he read her the Iliad. It was her favorite story.
Beauty and love were the most powerful weapons as they started and finished wars.
When Drew was four, they moved to Boston and she was crowned Little Pee Wee Queen after her father entered her in a beauty pageant. "You're going to break hearts just like your mother," he said. He remarried that same year.
When Drew was five, that was the first time her father… not her father touched her. Her stepmother slapped her for lying when she told her.
Fortunately for the adults, school was on break for the summer. Drew spent the entire summer locked in her room where her stepmother, Hina, beat her and her father, Jin, touched her.
When Drew was six, she learned how to use her charmspeak. No one touched her ever again. Before she turned seven, she was sent to boarding school with nothing more than a black card. Out of sight. Out of mind, but that was perfect for her.
When Drew was eight, Anton the satyr led her to camp. She would meet many people there, one being her favored person… her sister, Silena Beauregard. She would learn that she is the daughter of Aphrodite. She would learn that she has one of her mother's rare gifts. She would learn that she is beauty and love and power.
(Later she would learn that being a child of Aphrodite was not just about immense beauty. It was about swallowing down the rage and hatred as people continuously stereotyped them. It was about people continuously underestimating them as they were "not real powerful forces". She would learned to be ditzy and uncaring. She would learn to be mean and cruel. She would learn that love hurts.)
When Drew was twelve, her brother pulled her to the side to talk. "Hyper-sexualization in teenagers especially young female girls is something that should receive more attention as most of it is a result of sexual assault," he had said. He encouraged her to talk to Lord Dionysus.
She did.
When she returned to school, she was told that her father had been drunk off wine, and in a fit of anger, he poured hot grease over his wife. He then set their house on fire.
Drew made sure to sacrifice to her Mother and Lord Dionysus every day following that.
When Drew was thirteen, she lost all but one sister in that summer. At least she still had Silena.
When Drew was fourteen, she looked at the Hunters of Artemis and a part of her wanted to join them. She gained more siblings that same winter. Mirajane. Lacy. Mitchell. Valencia.
When Drew was fifteen, she lost over half her sisters and brothers and siblings. At least she still had Silena and the others.
When Drew was sixteen, she lost her anchor.
[Drew's eyes were dark as she stared down the two opposing demigods. Lips planted blood red, power on her tongue, grief in her eyes, betrayal ringing in her ears, she spat, "Love hurts." The demigods bled as they screamed as her siblings ignited heartbreak and lust into their very blood like poison. They all watched uncaringly as the demigods cried and begged for release. They watched as one stabbed themselves in the gut as their heart was too broken to stay in the living world any longer. They watched as the other rutted against the concrete, desperate for friction and relief until their body was scarred and bloody and they did not stop as they cried for relief. But there was nothing to soothe that ache inside of them all as their eldest sister died from poison that even love couldn't wash away.]
She was sixteen when she stood over Silena's belongings and was tasked with getting rid of everything. She stood in between dusty boxes filled with her family heirlooms and her love turned to hate.
Drew was a child of love, but she crafted her love into weapons that resembled her half-brothers, Deimos and Phobos.
She was seventeen and she was straining in the shadow of Silena.
She was seventeen and Silena had left her alone. Silena had betrayed her. Betrayed their family.
Everyone called Silena a hero. But—What about all the other campers that they sent off never made it back? What about their siblings? The ones that Silena was specifically picking to go spy on the monsters and all they got back was torn clothes.
Silena was a hero though because she sacrificed herself so that they could win the war. It was okay because she switched sides.
But it wasn't them that she switched back for. She didn't care about them—she didn't care about Drew. As long as her precious Charlie was okay, it was fine to keep sending them off to their deaths. Sitting in Cabin 10 with her feet up already mentally redecorating as they lost another sibling.
She was seventeen when Piper McLean came to camp and-
She hated her immediately. She knew from the moment that she saw her that the girl was her sister. The beauty she was blessed with was too otherworldly for a normal demigod. She didn't need another sister and she didn't need one that looked at the blond boy like Silena looked at Charlie.
When the girl was claimed, she was not surprised.
(She would admit only to herself that she cried as Piper was given Silena's bed.)
When she told the girl about Silena, she sighed deep in her soul to see that look in her eyes that she ignored on the former. Another spy. Another traitor. She sent her off.
"Aphrodite isn't this," Piper had said. Drew wanted to laugh. Her mother was not nice. Her mother was crueler than even she. She only barely managed to stop from throwing the tales of her mother's wrath in her face. From the tale of cursing Tyndareus' daughters to throwing the Iliad at her head which showed a ten year war of her rage.
"Love," she raged as she hid within the archery fields "Love was supposed to be pure and happy. You're not supposed to hurt the people you love." She was shaking lightly, tears streaming down her face. She hoped it was worth it when Silena got to the Underworld and saw all their family… their siblings that she killed!
When she was seventeen, Piper put a dagger to her throat and claimed the title of cabin leader. Drew looked into her eyes, and told her no.
Piper challenged her to a duel, but Drew had fought battles. She had been fighting a battle long before she even knew there was to be one. She smashed her sister's head into the ground and walked away.
When Drew was seventeen, Piper went away on a quest to stop Gaia and Drew prepped her cabin for war.
She was seventeen when that wavy haired blond tyrant with crazed blue eyes stood in front of her home and declared war.
She looked into those blue eyes and all she saw was a kindred spirit.
Drew was there when Octavian was dragged back to camp bleeding from his wounds. She was there when the girl, Omira, looked Percy Jackson in the eye and threatened to sink the entire camp under the sea regardless of who he or his father is if anyone tried to harm him.
She walked into her cabin… she walked to the ceiling to floor mirror of the cabin and knocked five times. She walked past the clothes and shoes and jewelry like walking into a mall. She came across another mirror where she knocked seven times and said: "Sun, sea, the sand and me."
The mirror moved aside and the inside was empty but she paid no attention to that. She walked over to the poster board: OktoMira. She added cute designs with little octopuses holding bows and arrows.
She pulled her siblings into getting the two together even as Octavian drifted around the camp.
Drew spoke to him only once. She had walked up to him one day as he attempted to sunbathe. Percy was not far away, speaking with Omira about politics at sea.
"What did you do," she questioned. Octavian raised a brow and she rolled her eyes. "Ever since you came here, Percy's mother hen tendencies has been dialed to one hundred. And his skin has never looked better."
Octavian snorted as he looked away, "It's because he uses my retinol before he goes to bed and he sleeps on his back now. And he puts sunscreen on before he leaves the cabin." She stood there before quietly whispering, "I've been trying to get him to do that for years and all I got for my efforts was his eyebags having eyebags."
Octavian shrugged as he absently traced one of the claw marks on his legs. "He's been doing it since I started living with him."
She left a bottle of her hand made scar remover outside of the cabin he was staying in.
Drew was there during History Night when she fully and truly realized how thin the line between love and hate was.
Octavian clenched his teeth. "You have no idea how much I have sacrificed, how much—" His voice broke, and he blinked back tears. "My mom, my little sister…" He sounded so devastated that no one knew what to say. One minute he was ready to kill them all. And then in the next, he looked like he needed a hug. The look on his face wasn't really anger, though. It was pain. Deep, incredible pain.
And a depth of love so deep that Drew almost felt drowned by it.
She looked at him and wondered if he was who she was to become even if they lived different lives. Their hatred was still the same.
Drew saw how he let go of his anger… his hatred for love.
All Drew had left was her hatred and if she did not have that, what did she have to live for?
He was once again on the beach, he was swimming in the river. Omira was swimming laps around him, smiling as he tried and failed to catch her.
"You're laughing at me," he complained.
"I am not!"
"You are so not making this easy."
Then she laughed put her hands around his neck. "I am never, ever going to make things easy for you, Okto. Get used to it."
The naiads giggled around them and pulled them under, but hey—when you're the daughter of a sea goddess, you don't have to worry about breathing.
Drew walked back to her cabin… back to the secret room and declared it a success. With a twist of her hand, the room dissolved as if it were nothing.
She was seventeen when she looked into the eyes of Lacy… saw the hope and love in her eyes despite all the horrible things that Drew had done, and she let her hatred go.
She was eighteen when she started taking online classes to become a therapist. She was eighteen when she started seeing a therapist about everything she had faced from her childhood and onwards. She was eighteen when she started prepping Mirajane to take over her title as cabin leader. She was eighteen when she reached out to Piper and asked to mend the relationship she had with her sister.
She was eighteen when she walked into the woods to that hidden alcove she made for Silena and told her sister's spirit that she forgave her.
When Drew was nineteen, she left Camp Half Blood behind and went on her own quest of self-love.
NOTES: Drew is absolutely my favorite child of Aphrodite just from the sheer amount of angst I can place on her.
I looked at her character in TLH and was like: "Why is this child of love filled with so much hate?"
Personally, I truly believe she would have been a better choice to go on the quest. I have it all plotted it out in my head.
I like to imagine that Drew goes on to be a good friend of Octavian after this. Octavian names her Val's godmother even though she doesn't officially meet him until he's six.
She runs a little Etsy Shop called: "Deadly Fashion" in honor of her fallen siblings where she sells customized clothes and candles and jewelry and scent neutralizers for demigods. She's working on her degree in psychology and social work.
Demiromantic. Demisexual. Pansexual.
This was just a personal piece for me.
Also, its stated in Hesiod that Tyndareus forgot to sacrifice to Aphrodite after doing it for the other Olympian Major so she cursed his daugthers (including his stepdaughter, Helen) to be twice and thrice-wed. The curse came into effect when Paris chose Aphrodite to receive the Apple of Discord. She was carted off to Troy to marry Paris and at the end of the war, she returned back to her husband's side.