❝ Life Is Not Guaranteed ❞

           A dark cave loomed in Aquila's sight as if it was calling out to her. Aquila walked towards the cave, her footsteps quiet and careful. When she reached the cave's entrance, a strange feeling coursed through her body, ancient and powerful. Aquila felt taller, suggesting this isn't happening in the near future. She stepped into the cave even though in the dark Aquila could see everything clearly. The cave had surprisingly smooth ground, she expected it to be rather muddy and bumpy.

Aquila finally saw a ray of light beaming further in the cave, even though she sensed something bad in the cave, the dream Aquila didn't hesitate before sprinting from where the light was illuminated. She stopped when she saw a podium with a book on it, warm golden light was glistening beautifully. Out of curiosity, she stepped on the podium. There was something written on the cover of the book. The language of immortals.

Aquila turned the glowing gold pages of the book, hoping to understand a word, only then did she realize what it was.

"The book of destiny." Dream Aquila whispered, her voice much older. Maybe it was a miracle, she seemed to somehow understand a few words, words turned into sentences, and to a point where she could understand everything clearly. But someone quite didn't like it, the cave rumbled and Aquila fell down.

"YOU MUST HAVE SOME GUTS TO DEFY THE WAYS OF LIFE!" Bellowed a blaring voice. The Aquila in the dream fell down, out of balance and yelled something back, but it wasn't audible. The landscape melted into nothingness. The dark ceiling of the cave came crashing on her.

~~~

Aquila woke up abruptly, still processing her mind around the dream she just had. A dark cave, the language of Immortals, the book of destiny. What was that all? She blinked looking at the wall in front of her. Here in Astrelaia, it was always night so she wouldn't wake up to the morning light, but the alarm was set. She realized that she had woken up two hours before the usual time.

She then remembered what day it was, the eighth of September, her birthday. Aquila excitedly jumped off her bed. She pulled a from her wardrobe to change, she tried to style her hair which ended up looking like a distorted half-crown braid, she decided to let it loose and made her way to the field of planetary movement and moving stars. Astraeus was doing his usual work, He can either be found in the throne room or here. Being the only active astronomical deity, Astraeus was certainly busy most of the time. Krios, the lord of the constellations was locked up in Tartarus for all his evil deeds, which left Astraeus with a lot of responsibilities.

Asteria didn't help much, she carried on protecting innocent people and stayed in the Virgo constellation. Whereas Vega and Deimos were gods of their own, Vega helped lost souls to find their way in life, and Deimos, was a drama queen who certainly had no love for mortals, but he still was quite peaceful.

Astraeus was nothing like how Aquila defined a Titan, He was very sweet and caring. Astraeus always spoke quietly, soft enough for anyone to mistake him as the god of kindness. Intelligence and uniqueness were overloaded in him, Aquila's only inspiration was Astraeus, her father.

Astrelaia was a world full of fantasy and adventures. There is 'silva tenebris' which means dark forest in Latin. Vega said it's dubbed a forest of darkness in English. It has been said that a lot of star nymphs have gone missing. The forest is dark without any light source, but Aquila could see a little bit of what was inside. Just thick dark trees. Nobody really likes to go in there.

It's rumored that anyone who goes into the dark forest would take a one-way ticket to Tartarus or Underworld, or somewhere even worse. Aquila made a mental note to never go anywhere near the place.

Astraeus definitely cares about his daughter's well-being, but he has a soft for traveling and exploring so he makes either Vega or Deimos take her out to the mortal world and learn new things. Aquila couldn't appreciate him more, what was even more pleasing was the fact he arranged a whole library just for her only. It was always quiet at Astrelaia, but the entertainment was for sure, like those times seeing her godly siblings duel and bicker. She loved this place so much.

The Titan of dusk looked up almost instantly as he heard footsteps approaching, upon realizing who it was, he smiled warmly.

"Happy birthday stellula." he greeted her. Stellula was the nickname he'd given her, it meant little star.

"Thanks, dad," she said, grinning.

"Actually, I mean to give you something..." He began. "and I also have some news."

"Oh, can I hear the news first?" She asked curiously.

"You shall, but before that, I suggest you meet up with Vega. She was planning something for your birthday, rather hectically." He said, chuckling in amusement.

"Oh, where is she though?"

"I have no idea."

Aquila exited the room in her little quest of searching for her sister. It wasn't very hard to find Vega, she was a high-spirited teen, Aquila could guess where she was now.

Astrelaia was a world of its own, from mountains to rivers and buildings. People of the celeste reside in Astrelaia, they've accepted Astraeus as their king and have been living in harmony ever since. Aquila made her way to the garden of Asteria. Just like she predicted, Vega was there with balloons and decorations hanging all around.

"Happy Birthday Aquila!" Chorused Vega and Deimos.

"Aw, thank you. This is lovely," she replied. "Is that a chocolate cake that I see?"

"Yep, but we want our portion of it," Deimos said.

"That's a huge cake, Aquila won't be able to eat it fully even if she wished to," Vega stated.

Aquila smirked. "Oh Vega, you don't know what I'm capable of."

"Told you she's a devil," Deimos remarked.

Aquila chuckled. "Alright, let's just eat the cake for Merlin's sake."

"Who's Merlin?"

"I told you he was the creator of the wizarding world."

"But we are in Astrelaia now!" Vega said.

"Let's go back to the eating cake part,"

"It's mine!"

Of course, the party that her immortal siblings arranged wasn't any typical birthday party you'll always see but it was the best she ever had. Back in the Johnson manor, they wouldn't celebrate it, her so-called family would wish her and give her a gift, that too would be some artifact or just money added to her account on Gringotts.

Bidding goodbye to her siblings, Aquila climbed her way up the west chamber. It was a huge hall full of weapons and Armor. There were axes five times taller than her. They were used by giants and Titans in the Titan War, though most of the magnificent and brutal weapons are in Mount Othrys. Aquila wondered if she could ever wield any of these weapons, she was a nail compared to the giant hammers.

After a few minutes, Astraeus came into the room Aquila turned to face him, a star-nymph carried a full suit of armor and a sword that was about her size. The worker placed the Armour down, he gave the sword to Astraeus, and left the room.

"Stellula, you've turned eight, so I think it's time for you to learn to fight," he said.

"I am not talking about the silly fighting between siblings." He chuckled.

Aquila giggled. She does fight a lot with Vega and Deimos, even for the littlest of things. But as soon as that his expression turned serious.

"I'm talking about the fight for life or death," he said. "The world is full of monsters and those monsters are searching for demigods to kill them, that's why you should learn to fight, not to annoy Vega and Deimos. Monsters can't get into the territory of gods unless they breed there."

"There's this place called camp half-blood, it's a training camp for demigods. A demigod's life is dangerous, they cannot survive unless they learn how to fight off monsters. It's a camp for the children of Olympians. I don't know if they'll accept you, but first, you'll learn to survive here in Astrelaia after that we can decide whether to go camp or not."

"So, you're Indirectly you're telling me that my life is not guaranteed right?" She asked.

He nodded grimly. Aquila's whole view on fighting was damaged. She knew about the bloody wars and how mercilessly they fought but she certainly didn't expect her very own life to be a survival mission. She sighed, Aquila had always dreamed of the world as a good and peaceful place but guess she was wrong she should have known better than to have high expectations from the world.

Astraeus's voice pulled her from her thoughts. "It's okay though, you're a demi titan not a demigod so monsters can mistake you for another monster. But still, you need to learn to fight," he reassured.

Aquila wasn't scared. She was disappointed, she was disappointed in everything. She'd read a lot of fairytales in her life, but they were nowhere close to reality. She was blinded by fantasy.

"I understand," Aquila said.

Astraeus smiled. "But for now, we'll just have fun."

~ • Author's note • ~

Hello, I've added Astrelaia, it is neither in real life nor in the canon of Rick Riordan.

It's a completely fictional place that I made for my story and everything in it. Vega and Deimos are twins. They were born after the first Titan war to Astraeus. They were not born but were kinda created.

Astrelaia is like Olympus and Ogyeia. It's located in Northern Canada it exists in the parallel universe so mortals cannot find it. In Greek mythology the fourth son of Gaia and Ouranos, the elder Titan Krios had three sons with Eurybia Astraeus, Perses, and Pallas. It's not mentioned who is the oldest but my theory is that Astraeus is the oldest because Krios was the lord of the south and constellations he was the only known astronomical deity so it's possible that his oldest son inherited his title and for the sake of my story, I am making Astraeus the first and oldest son.

Pallas and Perses will be mentioned and make some appearances in the story later you will learn about them later.

And Aqualia can speak 6 languages in total. She does not have dyslexia (Greek, Latin, Italian, German, French, and English.) so sometimes she will speak in Latin, mostly in English, and occasionally in the other four. I will give the translation in the chapter or below in the A/N.