Hopelessly lost

9. Time for practice

It was later in the day, the sun had started to set, casting long shadows on the floor and walls of [y/n]'s room. [Y/n] saw on the floor with her back turned towards the open windows of her room. From her spot on the floor the sun was able to cast such a long shadow that it reached the wall across from her. She had been trying to move the shadow for some time now but had yet to see some results. 

The way that Gandalf had talked about her magic had made it seem so easy. 'Just imagine the shadow moving and it would work,' [y/n] thought sarcastically to herself. She wasn't trying to do something extravagant, like completely shaping her shadow into something different, she just wanted it to wave at her without her actually moving a muscle. It seemed like it would have been one of the easier things to do.

Her eyes were still glued to the wall, never wavering from the faceless silhouette. Even if it took a while, she had never been the one to easily give up on things. And luckily so, moments later she jumped up, scared for her life, the shadow had started waving at her.

Even if this had been the thing she had been trying to do for a while, it still scared her to her core when it happened. But when she had jumped up, and was now standing, her shadow still showed her in a sitting position. The girl took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a second, all in the hope to calm her beating heart. When she opened her eyes back open again her shadow was in the same position as her.

She wanted to see if she had actual control of her powers, and that whatever had happened before didn't happen by accident. She moved her arm up and down, while doing so she focussed on the shadow to stay the same. Much to her surprise, the shadow didn't move at all. [Y/n] found that once she had started to move the shadow it was easier to do than when she had first tried it.

Apparently, shadows have the same characteristics as their owners.

Hence why it took forever to make the first movement, [y/n] has never been the one that liked being told what to do. She rather learned from her mistakes than blindly follow the orders of someone. 

Her shadow had refused to work with her because it was just as stubborn as her. But once it saw that she wouldn't give up and that she was determined to make the magic work it decided to play nice. Nothing good was going to come from not working along. Besides now that [y/n] had allowed it to move more freely it wouldn't always be stuck by her side. Of course, it would only be allowed to move when [y/n] told it to, but it was still better than always being stuck mimicking somebody else's movements.

[Y/n] felt bad for referring to her shadow as just that, a 'shadow'. Now that she started to understand her magic a bit more she felt like her shadow had a personality of its own. It wasn't just a shadow, it was another being, something she now had a stronger bond with and she thought it would be polite to call it by its name, but it didn't seem to have any.

It took some time but [y/n] ended up settling on the name 'Dae'. Not seeing any protests coming from Dae themself [y/n] was happy to see that they liked the name. [Y/n] started to feel slightly like Peter Pan with her moving shadow, though she was pretty sure she wouldn't be able to fly like him.

[Y/n] and Dae kept practicing till the sun was completely gone and the moon started to rise. Thanking Dae for their cooperation [y/n] exited her bedroom and went on for a night walk, wanting to see more of the elven city at nighttime.

While the day had been filled with the warmth of the sun the night had a cool touch to it. It wasn't uncomfortable and [y/n] seemed to quite enjoy it, the soft breeze gently touching her skin. She didn't really have a plan as to where she was going, she just let her legs carry her where ever, she was too occupied with the city at night time.