Chapters referenced: 26, 38, 39
Cabin 4 — Gods
OC (13) — Travis (7) — Connor (7)
Early June 2001
"What are the gods to you?"
Huh? She peers down to see two little boys staring up at her with wide, blue eyes.
"What do I think? I like them enough. They're pretty cool," she answers with a shrug before going back to fluffing up the Big House's decaying flower garden.
Twin eyes stare at her, one wide and curious, the other narrowed and distrustful.
"Why?" they ask together.
"Because they give me life. I don't need a better reason than that."
Lillith cups the dried rose in both her hands and watches it blossom again with beautiful, red petals. She squints and watches the red bleed into yellow. That's better. Yellow roses are so much prettier.
"The powers we have, the things we can do, its leaps and bounds above anyone's imagination. I don't need them to care about me. I don't mind if mom isn't a typical mother figure. It's enough that she gave birth to me. That's all I need. Not to say it's all sunshine and rainbows. There's some bad days where monsters pop up left and right, but it's mostly all good."
"Your reason is so different from Karen's and Rowling's," one of the brothers comments.
Karen's and Rowling's, huh, she ponders. If mom had killed her dad the same way Aphrodite killed Karen's twin… If mom never spoke to her like how Ares never does for Rowling… If she had been born to that spiteful goddess or that egotistical god, maybe her mindset would be different.
Poison ivy crawls up the Big House's wood beams, snaking upwards to the roof and wrapping around the porch railing. She frowns and plucks one of the leaves, the whole vine crumbling to dust.
"She never did anything to hurt me or my dad. And she doesn't ignore me outright so I like her," she answers, "Plus, I think she's pretty nice too. I was claimed within a couple days and mom occasionally sends me gifts on my birthdays and Christmas. You know how she is the goddess of agriculture and stuff? My dad wanted to honor her so he gave me my name Lillith, thinking it means lily or something. But Lillith is actually a demon in the Christian Bible. Oops, right? Any normal person would be angry, but mom laughed. Said she liked the thought behind it."
She tips her gardener hat back. "This hat was actually a gift from mom for my 7th birthday. It's magicked to grow with me. Cool, huh?"
"Dad gave us a swiss army knife for our birthday," the brothers say.
"A toy knife?"
"A real one."
"Oh."
…
"That's pretty useful," she says after a couple minutes. "Definitely easier to keep on you than a bow or sword."
Luke pops up out of nowhere with a scowl, herding the brothers away from her.
"You're supposed to say that's awful and not age-appropriate," Luke admonishes her.
"Yes, yes, Luke. I'm sorry. Whatever you say," she deadpans, not seeing a need to defend herself when she has done so plenty of times and each time it goes nowhere. It's a practical tool. Maybe it's not age-appropriate but they're not normal to begin with. Luke and her are never on the same page to begin with. To be frank, she finds him kind of annoying. Not that she'll let anyone know considering Luke is the most popular camper. That's asking most of Hermes' cabin and Annabeth Chase to be her enemy.
Well, it's not like I'll let them mess with me without repercussions, she thinks and all her hard work of reviving the roses goes to waste as the flower wilts. Venus fly traps grow in their place instead.
Lillith watches Luke guide the brothers away, whispering under his breath but she still hears it loud and clear. 'Lillith is weird. Don't hang out with her.'
Weird? Sure, whatever, but so are they. Karen, Rowling, Lee, and Luke, they all have this same mindset of protecting the younger generation by not allowing them to fight.
She thinks they should be fighting more than they are now. These pansy training sessions they currently have won't teach the average demigod to survive. The exceptional demigods like Annabeth might make do and figure things out on the spot, but not the less talented demigods.
The more they fight, the more they embrace their unusual life and use the tools at their disposal — their celestial weapons, their powers — the more experience they'll gain and that's how the next generation will survive. Within reason, of course. There should be someone older with them to guide them through the way. But just outright banning anyone younger than 13 from going on quests? Going easy on them in training? Not gradually increasing their proficiency at their selected weapon? Not cultivating their godly powers and letting them just figure it out themselves? That's how you create demigods who either die or learn on the spot at their first real life and death situation.
Everybody is against her ideas so she drops it and just follows whatever training sessions Chiron and Luke set up.
Five years later, Luke goes and starts a war involving the so-called younger generation that he wanted to protect.
May 2007
Rowling has always been faster than her, but he won't finish the job. Lillith watches the blade stop short as acid flies from the drakon's mouth and melts Rowling's back. She doesn't need to see Rowling's face to know he's devastated at his inaction. She doesn't need to see to know Rowling shields Silena from the acid. She doesn't need to see Rowling's boiling flesh to know this is the end for him too.
With a twist of her remaining hand, roots as thick as her body spring from the ground and punch through the drakon's skin. With a close of her hand, the roots wrap around the monster's body and with a clench, the roots crush and grind together, the drakon bursting like a balloon and flesh falling around them.
Logically speaking, with her dead, Thalia's Pine is dead as well. The barrier will fall and camp will be left exposed. If she can take out the spy, then that's one less problem for Chiron and Lee. Rowling can't finish the job, but she has no qualms about killing traitors.
She gets to her feet, leaning against the bed as support. The pain and blood loss made her vision spin. Her power is waning fast. But she doesn't have to be precise to deal the final blow. She doesn't need a whole lot to kill a normal human. Just one root is enough to crush their fragile body.
Lillith gathers her fading focus for another attack, a single strike hard enough to break the neck. Quick and painless. Silena is still sitting on her butt, frozen in terror. Literally could not be an easier target.
But she misses by mere centimeters.
Silena is pulled back by the collar of her shirt.
By Luke.
Luke is here. Luke is —
Luke is looking at them with regret in his eyes and disgust bubbles in her. He's sorry? What a joke. After all he's done, sorry doesn't mean a single thing. But Luke is right here before them and if he dies, then this whole thing will be over.
With a surge of energy powered by adrenaline, she sends a root his way that Luke cuts down with a single swing of his sword. She sends another and sucks a breath in. Right before he hacks the root down she bounces forward, taking Rowling's fallen sword on her way. He cuts the root with a single strike again, but his sword is in a bad position. And there. If she just swings now then she could — her bloodied hand loses her grip on the sword. That second she spends on readjusting is a second too much but she swings anyway hoping that maybe Luke will make a mistake too. But Luke brings up his sword just in time to avoid decapitation. Ha…as expected of the ex-best swordsman on camp.
"What the fuck?" Luke hisses, pushing back and she loses her balance. The sword slips from her grip entirely. "You're fucking insane."
She doesn't waste the energy to speak and sweeps her arm in an upwards motion. Another root springs from the ground and hits Luke square in the chest, knocking him straight to the ceiling with enough force to bruise. But not enough to kill. She crashes onto the floor beside Rowling and Luke stands with a groan, already backing away.
She gathers what little energy she has left for another attack but is there a point? She doesn't have enough power left for a finishing blow.
"You're really pathetic, Luke" she gasps out instead, laughter bubbling out as she clenches the bleeding stump that used to be her arm and props herself against the wall, "Couldn't face us head on so you hide behind monsters and a little girl?"
Luke scoffs in indignation but he's still backing away from them. "If you two had just run away like Mikaela, you wouldn't be here dying like this. If it's any reconciliation, I won't go after the others anymore. I just needed you two gone. Lee can't do anything by himself and the next counselors won't be able to do anything either."
You sure? Percy is ridiculously strong, she almost says. But pinning a target on his back does nothing for their cause.
She sags against the wall more as she borders the edge of consciousness. "Guess next time we see each other is in Hades' Realm. You better hope time dulls my anger. I'm going to make your afterlife a thousand times worse than what you have here."
Luke doesn't deign her a response, but she could see the unease in his eyes before he's gone with Silena.
"That's a horrible threat. You didn't sound menacing at all. Could have done better. 0/10," Rowling croaks beside her with a pained snicker.
"Shut up." She nudges what she thinks is an arm. "Go call an ambulance."
"You think you're going to make it?"
"Not for me. For you."
"I'm not going to make it either."
"Then I guess this is it, huh?" she mumbles, focusing best she can past the lightheadedness.
"I guess. Fucking wished Luke had the decency to kill us in a forest or blow up our bodies. This is going to scar my mom and dad," Rowling complains quietly, voice growing fainter by each word.
"I can make that happen."
Roots enclose them and more span out, breaking the walls, shattering the floor, cracking the ceiling. Any evidence of battle, her severed arm and her split blood and the drakon's body and Rowling's sloughing skin, she crushes and grinds to dust. Then she wills the roots to take them and the room down the earth for however long they can. It stops at a measly 20 feet underground. Better than nothing she supposes.
"What… are you doing?" Rowling asks weakly.
"Now they won't know what killed us. A freak structural collapse is better than a murder case, right? And your parents won't see you so messed up."
Rowling snorts. "You're just as much a softie as me."
Nobody is as soft as you, she wants to say. But the words aren't coming so she resigns herself to Rowling having the last word and lets the roots go, the rubble falling on top of them.
Thanks for reading!
