Kia was stunned when she first saw the goddess.

As Janus was only a moment away from getting Annabeth to make a decision she would likely regret, a brilliant bout of light flooded the room. It was enchanting and celestial, the way the light shed over them like a blanket of diamonds and gold.

Janus shielded his eyes, along with the rest of the questers.

The light started fading, and out emerged a breathtakingly beautiful woman, regality shining from every inch of her. She stood by the fountain, with her graceful self holding up the posture of someone who was in complete control and knew it, her oak-coloured tresses plaited neatly with gold ribbons tied in exquisite patterns. A simple white dress she wore shimmered beneath the light like the capturing of water on an oil-painted canvas, similar to the iridescence of Kia's ring.

Kia swiped her thumb over the ring without thought, finding momentary solace in the action.

"Janus," the woman said like a reprimanding mother, "are we causing trouble again?"

"N-no, milady!" Janus's right face stammered, face red and blazing.

"Yes!" the left face said.

"Shut up!" said the right face.

"Excuse me?"

"Not you, milady! I was talking to myself."

"I see," the lady said with an grain of amusement. "You know very well your visit is premature. The girl's time has not yet come. So I give you a choice: leave these heroes to me, or I shall turn you into a door and break you down."

"What kind of door?" the left face asked stupidly. Was he asking for a literal death wish?

"Shut up!" the right face said, seemingly the smarter of the two.

"Because French doors are nice. Lots of natural light."

"Shut up!" the right face wailed miserably. Kia kind of felt bad if he was going to die because of the left face. "Not you, milady! Of course I'll leave. I was just having a bit of fun. Doing my job. Offering choices."

"Causing indecision," the woman corrected piercingly. "Now be gone!"

The left face muttered something beneath his breath and then he raised his silver key, inserted it into a pocket in the air, and disappeared.

The woman turned to Kia and her friends, eyes alit with a power Kia had never felt before, except for maybe last winter in Olympus. It was so overwhelming that it made Kia want to bow to her in greeting, understanding that this woman was the true face of royalty. Still, somehow, Kia felt this woman wouldn't be as much trouble as Janus yet.

She smiled at them. Kia couldn't understand how a smile could be so cold and warm at the same time. "You must be hungry. Sit with me and talk."

With a flick of her wrist, the Roman fountain started to erupt with water, clean and blue, the mist being sprayed in the air to create small rainbows if one looked at them in the right moment. A marble table lined with a red silk cloth appeared in front of them, silver platters of sandwiches and other munchies and drinks laden.

"Who..." Percy hesitated. "Who are you?"

"I am Hera." The lady's smile widened a bit. "Queen of Heaven."

Kia remembered Hera, of course. The queen of the gods was definitely not missable, even amongst all of the other supremely magnetic deities. Each of them had their own alluring aura, something that felt like a dare: Come see if you dare. Hera was no different.

Although, she didadmittedly look a little different now. Back on Olympus, she looked like someone you simply couldn't withhold, someone who would be worlds away and leagues out of reach, something purely untouchable because of its divinity. She maintained it physically and spiritually, a cutting edge to her beauty as well as power. Now, Kia could only feel it in the air; she was still incredibly pretty, but less like a goddess.

She served them sandwiches and lemonade, which added onto the whole 'mom by day, supermodel by night' thing Hera had going on. She said kindly, "Grover, dear, use your napkin. Don't eat it."

"Yes, ma'am," Grover said, wiping the bits of napkin on his face away with a... well, another napkin.

"Tyson, you're wasting away," said the queen sympathetically. "Would you like another peanut butter sandwich?"

Tyson stifled a belch, hand going to his tummy. "Yes, nice lady."

"Queen Hera," Annabeth said. Seriously, was Annabeth a psychopath? She hadn't even touched her lemonade. "I can't believe it. What are you doing in the Labyrinth?"

Hera smiled enigmatically, evading her question. She flicked her wrist and Kia saw from other the length of her peanut butter sandwich that all the dirt and grime that had made Annabeth's face their home had been swiftly replaced by Annabeth's normally glowing complexion, and her hair magically combed itself and went back to being her usual bouncy princess curls.

"I came to see you, naturally," the goddess said.

Now, Kia didn't know about Annabeth, but she would definitely not be able to hear that from such a gorgeous person—girl, boy, straight, whatever; Kia had long realised she had a terrible weakness for pretty people.

Percy stepped on Kia's foot harshly. She mouthed in poorly disguised pain, What was that for?

He gave her a cautious and warning look. His eyes darted to Hera as he did, then Grover, and back to Kia. She understood the message. Pretty or not, gods 'wanting' to help heroes definitely didn't mean anything good.

Well, Kia decided, it'd be a shame to let all this amazing food go to waste. She could stay wary and eat at the same time, right? Nobody told her anything about them not intersecting on the Venn diagram, so it was totally fine. Everyone, save for the newly discovered inhumanly resilient Annabeth, seemed to share these sentiments; Percy kept stuffing his face with whatever his hands could grope on the table, Grover took chunks out of his styrofoam cup in between every bite, and Tyson was doing no less than inhaling one peanut butter sandwich per minute.

"I didn't think—" Annabeth faltered. "Well, I didn't think you liked heroes."

Hera smiled indulgently. "Because of that little spat I had with Hercules" 'Spat' was just a tiny bit of an understatement in Kia's opinion. The dude's whole personality was like a block of shredded cheese and hating the queen of the gods. "Honestly, I got so much bad press because of one disagreement."

Disagreement about allowing him to stay alive, Kia thought.

"Didn't you try to kill him, like, a lot of times?" Annabeth asked.

Hera waved her hand dismissively. "Water under the bridge, my dear. Besides, he was one of my loving—" Yeah, really getting those Romeo and Juliet vibes there, "—husband's children by another woman. My patience wore thin, I'll admit it. But Zeus and I have had some excellent marriage counseling sessions since then. We've aired our feelings and come to an understanding—especially after that last little incident."

"You mean when he sired Thalia?"

Kia's head turned robotically towards Percy, a very tight-lipped smile on her lips. Percy's face almost immediately twisted in regret of what he'd said. He didn't actually say that right? Kia was definitely just imaging this. There was no way he just said—

Hera's eyes frostily bit on Percy's visage. "Percy Jackson, isn't it? One of Poseidon's... children. As I recall, I voted to let you live at the winter solstice. I hope I voted correctly."

An air of a threat was laced into her seemingly pleasant voice. The sweetness of it in no way was able to contradict the truth of her statement: she was a goddess, and he was a puny mortal with his life being tossed around the 24K gold Olympian pool table.

Hera turned back to Annabeth, her expression not betraying a single inch of the hostility she greeted Percy with. "At any rate, I certainly bear you no ill will, my girl. I appreciate the difficulty of your quest. Especially when you have troublemakers like Janus to deal with."

Annabeth lowered her gaze, frustration taking over her. "Why was he here? He was driving me crazy."

"Trying to," Hera agreed. "You must understand, the minor gods like Janus have always been frustrated by the small parts they play in the universe. Some, I fear, have little love for Olympus, and could easily be swayed to support the rise of my father."

Her eyes turned to Kia. She looked at her with no particular emotion in her face, so it was difficult to decipher what she might have been thinking. "Kia Mitsuho. I believe that is the pronunciation of your name."

Kia nodded, scrambling for pieces of her strength scattered to make direct eye-contact with the woman.

"You're a daughter of Morpheus." Hera's expression twisted slightly in distaste, which Kia found mildly offensive, but knew not to take it personal. "I hope your father hasn't been polluting your mind with those dreams of his."

Her heart stopped for one entire second, and during it, as they looked right into each other's eyes, it was like Hera pierced through her entire existence. Kia didn't like it. She didn't like feeling so exposed. She felt like her entire being was laid out and Hera had gotten access to a microscope. All the pores and imperfections and blemishes and bumps on the surface had been exposed, and Hera could see it all.

She felt a warm and familiar hand hold the clenched fist in her lap. She hadn't realised, but her nails were digging into her palms. Slowly, the hand was able to make her fist relax and collapse; the slight imprint of her nails were still left. The callouses on the hand and the height of his knuckles on his wrinkled skin was something comforting when Kia felt like all her pieces were just blasted to pieces and scattered across the globe.

"Your father?" Percy said after a short silence. "Oh, right."

"We must watch the minor gods," Hera said. "Janus. Hecate. Morpheus." Kia was getting tired of her father being the obvious target of this conversation. Maybe he was right. Kia didn't miss the manipulatory lining in every single damn word Hera was now saying, her mind having been cleared after the queen fucked with it. "They give lip service to Olympus, and yet—"

"That's where Dionysus went," Percy interrupted before she went off on a tangent. "He was checking on the minor gods."

"Indeed." Hera stared at the fading mosaics of the Olympians. "You see, in times of trouble, even gods can lose faith. They start putting their trust in the wrong things. They stop looking at the big picture and start being selfish. But I'm the goddess of marriage, you see. I'm used to perseverance. You have to rise above the squabbling and chaos, and keep believing. You have to always keep your goals in mind."

Perseverance is not the same as tolerating maltreatment. Zeus had proved his nature of infidelity multiple times, and each time, he allowed the other woman, who was only ever just as at fault as Zeus, to be the subject of Hera's festering resentment towards their 'perfect marriage.' Time after time, Hera would settle for misplaced revenge and go back to her 'loving husband.'

"What are your goals?" Annabeth asked.

She smiled. "To keep my family, the Olympians, together, of course. At the moment, the best way I can do that is by helping you. Zeus does not allow me to interfere much, I am afraid. But once every century or so, for a quest I care deeply about, he allows me to grant a wish."

"A wish?"

"Before you ask it, let me give you some advice, which I can do for free. I know you see Daedalus. His Labyrinth is as much a mystery to me as it is to you. But if you want to know his fate, I would visit my son Hephaestus at his forge. Daedalus was a great inventor, a mortal after Hephaestus's heart. There has never been a mortal Hephaestus admired more. If anyone would have kept up with Daedalus and could tell you his fate, it is Hephaestus."

"But how do we get there?" asked Annabeth. "That's my wish. I want a way to navigate the Labyrinth."

Hera looked by Annabeth's answer. "So be it. You wish for something, however, that you have already been given."

"I don't understand."

"The means is already within your grasp." She looked at me. "Percy knows the answer."

"I do?"

"But that's not fair," Annabeth said throwing her hands up in frustration. "You're not telling me what it is!"

Hera shook her head. "Getting something and having the wits to use it... those are two different things. I'm sure your mother Athena would agree."

"Okay," Kia said, much more calmly and steadily than she thought she would have, "then can you give us another? It's still part of Annabeth's wish isn't it? Is there some kind of rule that we can't be granted something we already have?"

Hera's eyes flickered with a bit of anger, but she looked a little impressed, too. "I'm afraid that's not how it works, dear. I cannot give you something you already have, and not can I give it to you twice."

The room they were in shook a little, like a thunderstorm outside. Hera got up, brushing the non-existent dirt off of her perfect dress. "That would be my cue. Zeus grows impatient. Think on what I have said, Annabeth. Seek out Hephaestus. You will have to pass through the ranch, I imagine. But keep going. And use all the means at your disposal, however common they may seem."

Her finger pointed towards the two doors Janus had left without, the metal locks that barricaded it along with the wood melted away to reveal two identically dark corridors. "One last thing, Annabeth. I have postponed your day of choice, I have not prevented it. Soon, as Janus said, you will have to make a decision. Farewell!"

Hera waved her hand, and she turned into a shower of golden dust and white smoke. All of the food did too; poor Tyson looked around for the peanut butter sandwich that had evaporated within his hands. The mosaics no longer glittered, looking dingy and aged, the fountain stopped flowing with water and the walls went back to the old pasty grey. Hera had taken all the magic with her, too.

Annabeth stamped her foot, appearing largely sour about the end of their interaction with the queen. "What sort of help was that? 'Here, have a sandwich. Make a wish. Oops, I can't help you!' Poof!"

"Poof," Tyson agreed dejectedly, looking at his empty plate. This was making Kia feel bad. Why did she not pack something for them?

"Well," Grover sighed, "she said Percy knows the answer. That's something."

They all looked at Percy.

"But I don't," Percy insisted. "I don't know what she was talking about."

Annabeth sighed. "All right. Then we'll just keep going."

"Which way?" I asked.

Grover and Tyson stood up together like they'd rehearsed it, scarily in sync. They chorused, "Left."

Annabeth frowned, unsure of what logic they'd used to determine the answer. "How can you be sure?"

"Because something is coming from the right," Grover said.

"Something big," Tyson agreed. "In a hurry."

"Left is good." Kia looked at Percy, who was nodding his head along in nervous agreement. "Yep, left sounds good."

"Left is sounding pretty good."

Nobody else had anything to protest with, so they all agreed and entered the corridor, plunging further into the deepening madness of Daedalus' Labyrinth.

Kia's getting defensive, huh? That's all I've got, if I'm honest. Enjoy your reading. Stay safe, and as always, good night, good evening, good morning, good afternoon!