[Third Person's PoV]
After their introduction to Medea and Persephone, Lucian and the others were given their own rooms to settle down in.
Afterward, they decided to start exploring the castle together. "You think your father has a torture chamber?" Thalia asked curiously.
"Maybe? Perhaps it's mixed with his sex chamber as well. You know what, maybe his torture chamber and his sex chamber are one and the same."
Thalia and Annabeth both just stared at Lucian weirdly. "Thanks for that; my interest in the torture chamber is now long gone," Thalia said sarcastically.
"You are very welcome—" Lucian turned around and stuck his hand out, conjuring a dark red protective barrier using his magic.
A bolt of magical energy hit the barrier and tried to break through. There was a clash of power between the two forms of magical energy until the bolt started losing its power and dissipated.
Lucian raised a brow as he asked, "What are you doing, Mother?"
Medea, who was the perpetrator of the magical attack, only smiled. "I was testing your reflexes and how strong your magic has become. Got to say, that's a fast reaction time. Good work."
Lucian only smiled as he sent his attack of magical energy. Medea returned his smile and shook her head. She covered her hand in her magic energy and swatted it away, causing it to hit the wall.
"Anyway, come along. Persephone wants to show everyone how the new garden looks," Medea said as she came to fetch them.
"Already?" Lucian asked, tilting his head in confusion.
"Lucian, she's a goddess. She was able to get it done quickly."
"Oh right..." he muttered as they followed Medea out of the castle. They went behind the castle to find a field of flowers, all beautiful and neatly arranged. Instead of looking like a garden, it appeared more like a meadow. In the middle of the meadow was Persephone, sitting at a small white round table with a large umbrella over it. In the middle were cakes and tea, with Hades sitting next to her, one leg crossed over the other as he calmly sipped tea.
Persephone was sitting down with her hands joined together, smiling and taking deep breaths of the air, exhaling in contentment.
Feeling their presence, Persephone waved them over. She went and hugged Lucian, kissing his cheek. "Thank you, this is one of the best gifts I've ever received."
Lucian looked over to Hades smugly, who only scoffed, turned away, and continued drinking his tea.
As they all sat down, Medea gained a large smile. "Now then, I can finally do something I always wanted to do since you were growing up."
Lucian looked at Medea in confusion. "Huh?"
"As your mother, it's my job to show my daughters-in-laws your baby pictures and embarrassing moments I managed to capture over the years. I always wanted to embarrass you in front of them."
"First of all, that's horrible. I'm your son. And second, I have really thick skin. I doubt you can embarrass me," Lucian scoffed confidently.
"Oh, Lucian, when will you learn that you will never win against your mother?" Medea sighed as she pulled out a small bag from her robe.
"Are we really going to see his baby pictures?" Annabeth asked excitedly. Thalia also had a look of great interest.
Medea had a large smile as she nodded. She turned the bag over the table and dumped all the contents, revealing small light crystals piled up.
"They're light crystals, aren't they?" Annabeth asked, looking at the crystals on the table.
Medea nodded in confirmation. "Yup, they capture the light in front of them and store the image in the crystal."
"Get with the times, Grandma. We have a thing called a camera now," Lucian scoffed.
Medea whacked him over the head and glared menacingly at him. "Watch it, young man, or I will make you stay in this underworld permanently."
Lucian massaged his head in pain. "I can't believe you actually threatened to kill me."
Medea scoffed. "Anyways, where was I... Oh right, let's start in chronological order," Medea said, smiling once more and picking out a crystal.
A projection of baby Lucian fast asleep in his crib, wrapped in a blanket, appeared in the air.
"Awww!" Both Annabeth and Thalia exclaimed as they looked at the projection.
"This was Lucian when he was born," Medea happily explained. "Then this was Lucian a month later..."
The next crystal showed an image of Lucian on his stomach with his feet up while he tried to lift himself up, looking up in confusion.
"He always had this look of curiosity around him since he was just a baby, wanting to know the world around him," Medea said lovingly.
She began showing them images from his upcoming months. "This is him at 5 months old already trying to stand up by himself."
The image showed Lucian grabbing a table leg as he tried to pick himself up. Annabeth and Thalia were both gushing over his serious face as he was concentrating.
Even Lucian looked at the picture with a smile. 'It's funny how fondly I remember those moments.'
"Here he was at 6 months, taking his first steps," Medea said as she smiled at Lucian's proud baby look.
"Here he is at 7 months old, saying his first words, 'Mama,'" Medea looked at Hades smugly as if she won a competition. Hades only had an amused look as he was also enjoying looking at the pictures.
"Here's him at 8 months, trying to learn how to read."
It showed a picture of him sitting with a large book on his lap, looking at it in confusion, which earned a few chuckles.
"In this picture, he was still 8 months old but this time with glasses. Isn't he just the cutest?" Medea gushed as she pinched Lucian's cheek.
"Funny enough, I still have those glasses," Lucian smiled.
"This is when Lucian just turned 1 year old. He was helping me bake his cake," The image was of a small 1-year-old Lucian with a dirty face from the flour as Medea was stirring.
"This is him blowing out his candle."
"And surprisingly, that same day was the time he gained access to his magic for the very first time."
Medea then paused and put a hand on her chin as if she was remembering something. "If I remember correctly, I think this was the first time I told you about your father."
"It was. I was there…"
"HUH?" Lucian turned towards Hades, looking at him in surprise.
Hades gained a teasing expression as he said, "If I remember right, I was someone's favorite god."
"I was 1 year old, I was talking nonsense," Lucian denied completely.
Hades didn't believe him for a second as he drank his tea with a smile.
"I was a 1-year-old baby, I didn't know what I was talking about," Lucian kept on denying.
Hades didn't respond to his words and just continued to sit there happily.
"Next picture," Lucian grumbled.
Medea smiled as she kept going, "This was when Lucian was 3 years old, he would not stop practicing."
The image showed Lucian wielding a wooden sword against wooden figures.
"You really did practice since you were very young. No wonder you're so strong. And all this time, I was thinking how unfair it was that you had so much talent at a young age," Thalia said, her respect for Lucian growing.
"Actually, I managed to record a video of something…" Medea looked towards Lucian teasingly as she picked up a crystal that had a bit of a different coloring to it.
The video showed 3-year-old Lucian with a scythe over his shoulder walking with a stride. He spun the scythe between his hands and around his body before pointing it at the empty air. "Any last words?" they heard Lucian's small baby voice.
There was a silence as he raised an eyebrow, "No?" he asked before he began swinging his scythe around once more.
"Then consider your soul reaped," he said as he swung his scythe at the empty air, followed by him dropping to the ground in shame.
Annabeth and Thalia couldn't hold in their laughter, with Hades and Persephone chuckling.
"'Then consider your soul reaped,'" Annabeth and Thalia both mocked.
"Har, har, har. Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," Lucian rolled his eyes.
Medea chuckled as she ruffled his hair, as he was beginning to pout. Medea continued showing them pictures as Lucian grew older and began looking at how Thalia and Annabeth remembered him from when they met him.
"This was when he was five years old and received his weapon from Hades."
The image was of Lucian with an excited look as he wielded his purple scythe.
"This was Lucian at 6 years old, he had just finished making his very first enchanted weapon, a pair of twin daggers."
Annabeth looked at Lucian in surprise, "Wait, the ones gifted to me were the first enchanted weapons you ever created?" She was touched.
Lucian simply shrugged his shoulders, "Maybe."
"Now then, what I'm about to show everyone is what happened a few minutes after. It is the last picture I ever took of Lucian, and if I'm being honest, it is the picture I treasure most," Medea said as she picked the last crystal.
As the image was projected, Hades spat out his drink, while Persephone started choking on a bit of her cake.
Lucian stood up as he looked at the photo, his face turning bright red, "WHY DO YOU HAVE THAT!?"
The picture was of Lucian butt naked in the shower, leaning against the shower wall fast asleep.
Annabeth and Thalia both almost fell out of their seats as they laughed. They had tears in their eyes and kept holding their stomachs as they couldn't stop laughing.
Medea leaned forward on the table, her cheek resting on her hand, as she looked at Lucian's embarrassed expression as he looked down.
"So what did you say about having thick skin?" she said teasingly.
"I hate you so much," Lucian glared.
Medea only smiled and kissed the side of his forehead, "I love you too, honey."
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