AN:/ hey guys! Gosh, i don't even know how to premise this. The first chapter is seriously more of an introductory to my new main character. I know her name isn't even mentioned yet, but it will in the next chapter. I promise i won't abandon this story. I sat down very professionally and outlined a plan of attack. Let's see how that goes.
This is an all-original plotline that fits between the timeframe allowed before The Lost Hero begins, following my three new OCs on their quest. I can promise monsters to be slain and new Underworld-escaped entities. I'm excited, and so should you!
Sunlight streamed steadily through the right most window, its frame set high on the exposed-stucco wall, illuminating the whole of the bedroom and stripping the shadows from the most hidden corners. Tendrils of sun wrapped around the honeyed wood of the open closet door, seemingly stirring the dust into waking as the motes danced in its light. More sunbeams crawled along the worn carpeted floor, warming it as if through a tender caress and kept crawling, over the small bed and plush bedcovers, over the mountainous form, and through curly strands of chestnut hair that lay in disarray, peeking through the end of the comforter. The light twinkled and caught in highlights, alighting them in a shimmering show. But the light kept moving toward the opposite end of the room. The desk, framed in the same honeyed wood, was flooded with light, catching on the many objects littered on its surface. The topmost book on a stack of four or five cast a funny-looking reflection onto the ceiling, it's laminate cover bent and chafed from its many years of use; a haphazardly strewn pair of jeans lay across with its legs fallen off the edge, its gilded button closure so bashed and worn its reflection upon the opposite wall cast a demented little happy face; and at the far end of the desk a rugged tin can sat happily filled with half-chewed pencils, aged and broken crayons, an empty highlighter, and a plaster spatula, but as the sunlight hugged it with brightness, its glint shot off straight through the messy ball of hair and tickled a freckled nose incessantly.
A heartbeat or four later, the figure shifted in a wriggle. A pair of eyes snapped open before squinting its gaze, wrinkling its tickled nose as it peered through the spirals of hair. The tin can winked shamelessly. A grunt reverberated from beneath the covers before the mountain suddenly surged up. Hands wiped at the wild tendrils, forcing them into submission to curl behind ears and down her shoulders, the mountain of covers revealing tan skin and long legs framed by a long t-shirt tangled around hips. She rubbed her face as if to ban the tiredness and suddenly hopped from her warm bed. Reaching over and snatching the jeans from her desktop, the tin can rattled in a tight circle. She offered up a light laugh, her eyes crinkling with humor as she pulled on her jeans in a rush and thought, damn trusty tin can, before hopping toward the door.
And thus began her daily morning routine. Mostly, women of her age, that is to say high school teenage girls, spent the early hours of their mornings dedicated to enhancing - or faking - their beauties and bounties. That's not to say her own morning routine wasn't complicated. As she threw on her threadbare windbreaker, slapped on her galoshes, and tightened her hair into a knot, she heaved a steadying sigh and hopped down the back porch steps toward the estate's acreage. She traipsed through morning dew in the tall grasses surrounding the house, the sun gleaming its morning greeting as it rose over the tops of the barley fields beyond. Coming out to a razed clearing thirty yards in, a small wooden coop screamed decade-old DIY project, though she couldn't help her fond smile. She slung the feed bag off her shoulder, squawking the half-dozen hens away from the coop as she flung feed into the clearing. As the chickens pecked away, she paused and turned toward the climbing sun in the east, soaking its warmth as she stared off at her barley fields that swayed in the wind.
But quickly, she turned on her heel and, while her hens were distracted, grabbed up three eggs from their nests and hoisted up the feed bag over her shoulder. From there, she visited Owen (the trusty oxen who trades perfect ploughs for ear massages and grains), milked Martina the malicious goat (while getting her forearms trampled), trudged up another quarter mile (sweating profusely) to open up the sheep gate, refilled the water while they grazed, and let Apache the lovable sheepdog keep 'em collected. Wiping the sweat from her brow with the back of her hand, and thankful for the empty feed bag, she continued on home.
She was far from finished, but as she stepped back into the mild AC of her rickety home, she breathed a sigh of relief and stripped her outer layers. With a quick wash of her hands and face, breakfast was the next on the agenda. But here, it was quick and very nearly auto-pilot. Set the goat milk on the burner, stir continuously, set aside curds. Boil oats, boil sorghum, set them on low heat. Step away. Shake an egg, crack it on the griddle, make scrambles. Throw it on a piece of rye and - she stuffed it her mouth as she looked at the time. She cursed, grateful for the mouthful, lunging for the hooks at the door, grabbing her harvesting bag and sickle, and leapt past the door. She muscled through the grass jungle again and found herself at the crest of the last hill, in the midst of her pride and joy: the dancing fields of barley. She found herself oddly at peace, her body humming with quiet anticipation, her hands gripping her sickle firmly, so she squared her shoulders and got to it. It was easy going, swiping at the tall stalks, unbraiding the rows and dropping the grains in her bag as she walked on toward the next patch. Cut, unravel, walk. Cut, unravel, walk. Soon, she reached the end of the last cultivar. She blinked, so used to her ministrations she was surprised to find the harvesting bag half-full. She doubled back on the adjacent row, letting her mind wander again as her hands worked.
She thought about her barley fields, how in a couple weeks time she'd have to make that trip into the city to drop off a load to the companies, how her crops always seemed to flourish at any time of the year (excluding the harsher winter months). Since she was a child, she'd been very involved with every inch of the family acreage, and never because she was forced. She seemed to be attuned into the earth and what it needed and she loved every minute of it. Even now, she could feel the field bending and surging up to meet her, as if greeting her and hugging her. She ran her hands through the stalks and watched them trail after her hands.
"Good morning," she said, hearing the smile in her voice.
A hearty laugh was heard through the field as the stalks rustled and crunched and out came a figure from end of the closest cultivar. From a distance, it could possibly be a stereotypical-movie farmer: muck-stained overalls, the snap-closure hanging off one shoulder, a threadbare henley with the sleeves pushed up to the elbows. But then as he hobbled forward, a couple quirks were noticed. One being, he wasn't wearing shoes, just a set of thick camp socks, his pinky peeking out of a hole on the left pair. And then, the fact that he was using a large mixing bowl and a serving spoon to eat. She could hear crunching on the oats and curds she'd left for him.
"How d'you always do that, sugar?" he grinned, straight white teeth peppered with sorghum.
"I could hear you coming from the end of the acre, Da'," she hacked at a barley stalk and stuffed it into her bag without unbraiding it before wielding her sickle threateningly in the man's general direction. "And it's all your doing, walking straight through the cultivars. It's making the barley grow crooked!"
She fixed him with a glare, but her heart wasn't in it. She could go on about how she seemed to be the only one who cared over the outcome of the farm and it's yield and their profit, but in reality it never really needed worrying over. The farm always seemed to take care of itself, her own TLC only an extra fortification. She fully expected him to start up their normal banter of who owned the land and who kept the books and all those other frustratingly witty ways to superimpose his 'supreme parenthood' (his words). But he only laughed in reply, infuriating her but she allowed the matter to drop. She continued her way through the cultivar, creeping closer to him. She heard his spoon clink against the walls of the plastic bowl.
"You remind me so much of your mother, sugar."
His voice was soft, making her falter as she glanced up at him. His face was wistful, his eyes tight with what she could only describe as his personal flavor of happiness. He really was beautiful. His features were centered around a slightly crooked nose, broken once by a goat kick, framed by a strong jaw and equally strong brow. His face bordered on mean-looking as his brow naturally knitted in the middle and dropped, but he had strikingly blue-gray eyes and a smile that pulled up the corners of his mouth that read devilish. The old ladies down the way that shade-bathed in their rocking chairs with tall glasses of prune juice and shared their oxygen tanks with their grandsons' panting sheepdogs called him just that, the devil, because while in his post-fifties (his words), he certainly didn't look it. He had a full head of hair, nappy, but full, and his beard grew uninterrupted. The only thing betraying him was the leathery texture of his sun-worn hands and the limp that favored his right leg, from all the years dragging the oxen through the acres.
"Da', she was like a goddess, you said," her voice rang with derision, but she was mostly laughing at herself. She could only think what she looked like to him now. Her hair always had a mind of its own, as if it'd taken root on her head and every strand was fighting for its time in the sun, and now it was impossibly fighting against the tight knot atop her head and fell out in wisps that stuck to her sweaty face. She had the same strong brow as her father and his sun-squinted eyes, but by his word, the rest she inherited from her mother. The dark umber hair and eyes that shifted hue like freshly cultivated earth, and the golden complexion that seemed to radiate from within, the delicate hands that were better for tending roots and bushes than harnessing oxen and other necessary farming things.
"She is a goddess, i said," his voice was firm, as if warning a child of its hasty promises. She wondered if he was denying the reference that her mother was no longer with them, but his lack of inflection left her a little lost. Since she could remember, it had only ever been her and her dad. There were times, many years ago, when her father would notice her growing up that he would supply her with little snippets of history, until she had a mismatched jigsaw puzzle image of the other parent she never had. Her father never verbalized what ended their relationship. No matter how much you pushed him, he would reply with, "She had to leave this world, sugar." When she was seven, she'd asked Pastor Jacob what that meant, and she cried herself to sleep that very night. She hadn't given it a second thought since, at least, not until now.
She knew better than to push her dad, especially this early. She turned to the east and found the sun had climbed higher than she'd expected. Heaving a quiet sigh of frustration, she glanced up at her dad. "Sorry, Da', but i'm gonna be late for school."
He'd been swallowing a big mouthful of curds and oats as he dropped the spoon in the bowl, swallowing hastily. "N-No," he laughed as he coughed. "Take the old pick-up. It'll give you some time to get pretty, yeah?"
Huffing indignantly, she raised the sickle again to threaten him. She just wanted to hack and unravel that stupid little grin he had on his face. She just knew it was a horrible idea to tell him about that niggling crush she had on an old classmate. But with a roll of her eyes, she pocketed the sickle and shrugged out of the harvesting bag. Her dad traded her the empty bowl for the bag, flashing her his special fatherly smile, and in a sudden flood of emotion, she reached up to cup the back of his head and press her lips to his stubbly cheek in a grateful kiss before burying her face in his neck. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders, sharing no words until he swatted her bottom playfully, murmuring, "Get, now."
She pulled away, her laugh echoing across the field as she ran toward the house. She looked back at one point to catch her father staring after her with an unreadable expression, but it was gone as soon as she looked back again, his hand raised in a dismissive greeting. Her stomach dropped with dread, but she let it fade away as she reached the house. She spared one last glance toward the barley fields over the horizon, but she could no longer see his salt and pepper hair rustling through stalks. They waved at her goodbye.