𝐏𝐘𝐑𝐑𝐇𝐈𝐂 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄, 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧

25 - it only feels this raw right now, lost in the labyrinth of my mind

𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪

THE FUNERAL WAS A BLUR. It was a joint gathering, mourning the losses of all the campers who had fallen. There were far too many.

The Apollo kids covered Lee's body in a golden shroud, like woven sunlight, without any designs. It was normally the cabin counselor's job to make the shroud, but a few factors had changed that. First: all the siblings had wanted to pitch in, to create the shroud that would adorn the body of their big brother. Second: every time Elia sat down to start the shroud, she'd end up crying so hard she'd end up on the bathroom floor, vomiting her guts out.

Frankly, Elia wasn't quite all there during the funeral. Her eyes were unfocused, the sounds around her a muffled buzz, her blonde hair dull and tangled. She stood numbly between Michael and Lucia, Will's small hand in hers and the rest of her siblings crowded around her; Kayla, Austin, Ravi, Lily, the twins— Bowie and Blair— and even little Marisol all stood stoically as Michael choked out a few words before lighting the pyre.

Percy watched from his seat with a furrowed brow, his green eyes swirling with sorrow as he watched the sparks swirl into the grey sky.

The sun didn't seem to want to rise that day, baffling mortal astronomers and leaving the cloud-covered sky gloomy and dim, even in the midst of summer. Their father, mourning the loss of a son.

But Elia couldn't afford to be numb forever. She was now the sole counselor of Cabin Seven, and all of her siblings looked to her for instruction. She shifted the infirmary schedule to cover Lee's shifts, and helped Michael take over teaching his archery classes.

Later that week, the Council of Cloven Elders held an emergency meeting on behalf of Grover's new information. Elia wanted to show up, she really did, but she had a date with her doctor, who was her eleven-year-old brother, and Charles Beckendorf. Quite a strange duo.

Losing over sixty percent of her hearing was a jarring transition for Elia. Will was kind as can be about it, comforting in a way that he never should have had to be. He sat his big sister down, telling her that she had moderate hearing loss due to the volume of the explosion she'd experienced and the sensitivity of her ears. He told her about options for adjusting, like learning to read lips, learning sign language, and hearing aids.

That afternoon, she was getting fitted for hearing aids. The Hephaestus cabin had immediately volunteered to fashion them, Beckendorf stepping forward himself, insisting he would take care of it. Elia had cried then.

So there she was, sitting in Cabin Nine with Beckendorf, Will, and a ton of medical journals as they discussed the process. She managed to catch a few words through the muffled buzz of the forges; impression, material, mechanism.

People had been quick to accommodate Elia's changes; many made sure to speak slower and louder, and she tended to stay away from large crowds. She ate dinner in her cabin, or with Annabeth and Percy at the docks. She tried her best to not feel lonely, but the feeling of isolation was a given. She couldn't hear people come up behind her, she couldn't hear someone whisper to her. She began to feel separate from others.

Annabeth was quick to jump into action, finding books on ASL and talking to one of her siblings, who had selective mutism and communicated partially through sign. The three met up for an hour each day, practicing what they could to slowly work out a better way to communicate. Percy joined them sometimes, fumbling his way through the alphabet just enough to make Elia smile a little.

Adjusting to the change in her senses was one thing, but adjusting to the death of her brother was another. She cried. A lot. She cried making Lee's shroud, she cried going through his things, she cried telling his mother her son had died. She cried waking up from nightmares, she cried putting the twins to bed, since Lee used to do that, and she cried while explaining to nine-year-old Marisol that her big brother wouldn't be coming back.