³Kingdom Come, heroes of olympus

000.

KINGDOM COME
━━ prologue

━━ ABILENE KNEW WHAT was going to happen—she was going to have a nightmare, and her mother was going to "fuss" at her. ( It felt almost ... silly to say fuss considering her mother wants to destroy the entire human population, but here Abilene was. )

               But that's not what happened. Not even in the slightest—well, except for the fussing part. But Abilene figures the Goddess of Childbirth would be good at fussing over children.

               "Juno," she greeted, her voice wobbling.

               The goddess wasn't seven-foot-tall now ( thank the gods ), and that was probably one for one reason—they were on the front porch of the Briar house back in Montana. Out before them, Abilene spotted the long and windy gravel driveway they had to take to and from ( Abilene hated that driveway ... ). The outside of the house was paneled with white, and she could see the years of wear and tear on them—most if not all, panels had a thick layer of grime and dirt on them. Once, Abilene had gotten in trouble with her father for dragging her fingers through the dirt and drawing pictures or her name in the dirt. Only her stepmother, Raleigh, was what got her out of serious trouble.

               "Stepmothers," Juno spoke suddenly. "How do you feel about your step-mother?" She made sure to put extra emphasis on the word step.

               Abilene shrugged, leaning against the wooden railing on the front porch. When she was around ten, her father had given himself the task of painting the railing white, but he had given up halfway through.

               "Raleigh's ... nice enough," she admitted. "She made a really good apple pie. She even gave me Monroe, my half-sister."

               Juno looked up, her brown eyes swirling with ... Was that blues and greens? Her eyes were swirling with the colors of peacock feathers. "You don't hold resentment against Raleigh?" She asked the question like she couldn't believe there was a kid out there like that.

               Abilene shook her head. "No, Raleigh was nice to me. I mean, for a time, yeah—but it wasn't because of her. When she first started dating my dad, he ... ignored me. I think he liked to forget he already had a family."

               The Goddess of Marriage's face was tight, and half of the reason had to be because of her hairstyle—her bright blonde hair was pulled away from her back neatly, and the long hair was piled on top of her head in a ballerina-esque bun. The expression made Abilene nervous—even more nervous. She couldn't tell if Juno's face was just stuck like that, or if the goddess was shimmering with anger because Abilene has a stepmother.

               "But Raleigh was always really nice to me," she added. "Even when my dad was sort of ..." she took a deep breath and looked out from the Briar house's front porch, "ignoring me. She never made me feel like I was taking up too much space or anything. She also never tried to be my mom, either. I think it's because she has her own stepparents. She knew what it was like."

               She still couldn't read Juno's face, so she looked out—the farm was still the same. The green grass, the rolling hills, the faraway barn that was getting ready to collapse, the newly built barn George Briar used to store all sorts of barncats and farm equipment. She even saw the grazing cows over on the other side of the house, along with the horses in another field that Raleigh had added when she moved in. It made her nostalgic, and she felt the tears start to prick in her eyes. Abilene really wanted to go back home, back to her old life.