Look, I knew nothing else except being a half-blood.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. All you had to do was ask Octavian or Jason or Meerholz or Annia or Augustus or Dakota. (Though I killed that last one, whoops.)

It was the only thing I have ever known until I had been punished with eternal life. Immortality had once been a never-ending nightmare that plagued me even in my waking hours, but now it was nothing more than a dream worth living.

Lupa taught me that death in battle is honorable.

But where was the honor if I was as deathless as she. I never asked for this. If I could go back in time, I would.

This was always my fate though. My husband said so all those years ago. I am twenty-three years old now. I was no longer a kid.

Still—

I appeared in New Rome, taking in the way my home had moved on without me. It was a sobering thought. I passed by Kalina's shrub invisible to the eyes of the mortal campers, stopping to pour nectar over her leaves.

King Jupiter allowed one person to be in my retinue. And since my boys were gone, Kalina was the only friend I had left.

(I could have asked Leila or Daniele or Chelsea or Pranjal or even Esra, but– I haven't spoken to them since the Second Gigantomachia. I was afraid to see how they would view me now and besides, they would want to move on.)

(It would be another seven years before I could add another and I was retrieving Jason from the underworld.)

I looked over the areas in which I had once found immeasurable joy that now brought me nothing but pain. I didn't like the feeling and it was the reason why my visits were always so sparse.

I flashed away to appear at the boundary line. Terminus could still see me, I knew. Still, I said nothing to him as I handed my weapons over even when I was no longer required to do so.

I only answered to my king, my father, and my husband after all. Not even those damned greeks had control of me.

I continued on to the house that Octavian had bought as soon as he turned eighteen. It was still filled to the brim with his family's artefacts that were safe and preserved as neither I nor Apollo would allow anyone to steal or harm them.

I waved my hand, getting rid of the graffiti that had been placed on the outer walls while making a note to have my husband scare the preparators in their dreams. Even if they were foolish to dislike Octavian, they had no right to insult Augustus or Annia's name.

They were foolish to invoke her own wrath.

I opened the door, eyes zeroing in on the box that had been sitting on the table for two weeks. I didn't want to open it, but— it has been ten years.

Footsteps caught my attention and small pained filled smile danced across my face at the owner. She was only seven years old; blonde hair swinging around in ringlets with eyes almost the same shade as my own.

"Aunt Livie," the girl cheered as she barreled into my legs. I looked up to see Kalina leaning across the door looking at the child with her own pained but loving eyes. Livia's other daughter, Kalen, was asleep in her arms. Looking back down, I pulled the girl up into my arms, "Salve, Okto. Quid agis?"

Octavia Aelia was the splitting image of her Father before her. I had gone to great lengths to keep her hidden from the people of New Rome after everything.

(And if I fostered doubt around Reyna and Frank for being child-killers then that was no business but my own. It had been no secret after all that Octavian had a surrogate and the child had been born after his death. It was no secret that the child had been abandoned in the nursery and it was no secret that the two visited all kids in the nursery after the war of the half-divine. When the matriarch of the nursery had returned to see nothing but bloody rags that matched the baby… well again, it was no one's business but mine.)

"I am doing good," Octavia replied. "Aunt Lina says my drawings are becoming even better." The girl had a gift for prophecy just like her family before her except she leaned more towards tarotmancy where she made her own cards.

"That's good, little sun," I told her. "How was your day at Lester's boys and girls club?"

Kalina snorted, "Apparently Okto has been running a fight ring. She got into a fight with one of Athena's abominations and won. She and Kalen have been suspended and cannot go on the field trip to Triple G Ranch this weekend."

I blinked. A fight ring? That was something I would have done. I laughed lightly as I smirked at the two, "This weekend? That's fine. We'll see them at the ranch. I'll ask Lady Ceres if she could pack us some lunch."

And though I tried to hide it, my gaze was drawn back to the box on the table. Octavia noticed because of course she did.

"Are you going to open your present?"

I swallowed back my tears as I nodded. It was a good time as any. "Yeah. I'm going to do that while you get ready for bed."

"Will Lord Uncle Mercury read me a bedtime story?"

"If you ask very nicely."

The child cheered and Kalina gave me a sympathetic smile as she moved to help her get ready for bed. I took a deep breath as I approached the capsule.

[ "So this is it," Octavian wondered. "It looks like those time capsules that mortals do."

Livia hummed thoughtfully, "I wanna do a time capsule." Jason placed a hand on her shoulder, "We can do one when we get back to camp. And open it in what? Ten years if we live that long." She smiled as she patted his hand, "Deal."]

I opened it.

It had been separated into three parts. The left for Octavian. The right for Jason. And the middle for me. There was a letter from Jason to me in there. A pair of olivine encrusted daggers from Octavian. The auger had placed a small portrait of the three that had been painted by Annia in there. They were so young then. Less burdened. Less bitter. And most importantly, alive (and mortal). There was a necklace in the shape of a storm cloud with lightning strikes from Jason.

And a letter from my younger self to me of now.

I opened Jason's letter first.

Livia…

It should have been ten years since I wrote this. Hopefully I'm still alive.

(You bastard. You left me.)

I don't know what the future holds. I'm not Octavian but I hope that our future is still us fighting side by side.

(It wasn't. You chose them over your family. Over us. Over me.)

Maybe by now I found information about my birth family.

(You never needed them. We were all the family you need.)

If not, then that's fine also. Am I still doing missions for Juno? Is she still trying to get me to marry Lady Lucina? I think she knows the real reason I kept turning down her proposal. Not even just because I'm currently twelve as I write this, but I think she could see that well…

I like you, Liv.

I dropped the paper out of my hands, unable to read anything more. There was no way.

It was with shaking hands that I picked up my own letter.

Livia Jackson.

(It's Verus.)

You bastard. Somehow against all odds we've managed to reach what? 23. I honestly thought we would be dead by now but hey whatever.

(We are deathless.)

Let's keep this short and brief because you are me and I know me. As much as everything about us is rooted in being unable to let go of the fact that our egg donor abandoned us and our sperm donor uses us as a convenient tool and our stepmother uses a battering ram… we don't like worrying about the past.

(Our Father and our Stepmother loves us. It took shedding our mortality to see how much they hurt keeping their distance.)

I hope you've found our egg donor though. I know I still have dreams of her bleeding at my feet. I hope you got around to doing that. If not, then what's the point?

(We are Rome and we are Loyal. Though she still tries to speak with us. We technically have a little sister now, and we have only just started to speak with Percy. He didn't seem to notice that Apollon was slowly turning him into a god.)

Most importantly, I hope we managed to move on from all of that. With Jason and it looks like Octavian too at our sides, nothing could bother us, you know. Maybe we finally met that elusive twin brother of ours. Maybe we finally earned Father the respect that he deserved from the romans.

(We are Rome and they worship us.)

Maybe we finally had to get married and start a family.

(We do. Two daughters. Octavia Aurelia. Kalen Annia. Our youngest daughter was Octavian reborn. Our brother. Our son. Our friend. She is eternal now.)

Nah that's too hilarious. There is no one on Terra's green earth in Pontus blue sea or Uranus clear sky worthy of our hand.

(Funny. Not even a year later we begin to long for Mercury.)

Still— I have no doubt we have taken some losses along the way.

(Two deaths that have blinded us to anything but our own pain.)

I won't tell you things get better. I know me better than that. In fact, things might actually get worse,

But I want to remind you that we are a child of rome. We are not weak. Nobody's going to play any violins for you just because you're not important.

(We are Rome. We are not weak.)

You can't stop the waves but you can learn to surf but only a dead fish goes with the flow. Get up, Adjust your sword and keep marching forward. We're better than this.

(We are.)

We are Rome. It lives within us and Rome has always been the greatest empire to exist.

(We are Rome.)

We are living proof that it didn't die when those christians started smelling themselves.

At the end of the day, the day has to end.

Keep living and don't bend to any Surface Pressure.

Placing the letter down, I wiped the tears from my eyes and stood to my feet.

It was time to keep living and change my life from a living hell to my own personal heaven.