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𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪
IN ELIA'S EXPERT OPINION— aka right around one (1) year of slight experience— shadow traveling sucked. She'd always hated the dark, and she'd never liked being cold, so it wasn't her favorite activity. Additionally, her first experience with it had been right before she'd quite literally died, so she didn't have the fondest memories to go with it either.
When Elia and Nico staggered out of the darkness, the blonde had to yank the younger boy back to keep him from toppling off of the edge of a cliff.
"Gods above," Elia hissed, swaying slightly as her vision went blurry for a moment. She hated shadow traveling. The roaring that echoed in her hearing aids bordered on painful, and she was still getting used to the whole shadow thing in general.
Percy was standing nearby with Mrs. O'Leary snoring in a heap on the ground beside him, and he caught Nico by the arm as the son of Hades stumbled away from Elia. She tried not to linger too long on that— she didn't care.
Taking a glance around them, Elia thought she remembered Luke saying once that he grew up in Connecticut. She assumed this was what some part of Connecticut looked like— lots of trees, low stone walls, big houses. The property they stood on was huge— more wilderness than lawn. The house was a white, colonial-style, two-story, and Elia could see a dim light glowing in the kitchen window. A rusty old swing set stood under an apple tree.
Something like envy whispered in the pit of Elia's gut. She'd never gotten to have this; no house, no yard, no family. She'd lived at camp for most of her life, raised by kids that were still just kids. It all seemed rather unfair.
Nico finally straightened up. "I'm okay," he managed, rubbing his eyes. Elia could feel the same exhaustion tugging at her own limbs, shadows darting over from the cover of the trees and curling around her ankles.
Percy stared at them like they'd pulled off some crazy trick, which was fair enough. "How'd you do that?"
"A lot of practice," Nico replied.
Elia hummed, rubbing her hands over her face to try and wake herself back up. "Death. Dying."
"A few accidental trips to China."
"Mine were to Switzerland."
Glancing between them, and then to Mrs. O'Leary, who was snoring so loudly she might as well have woken the entire neighborhood, Percy cocked his head. "Are you going to take a nap, too?" he asked Nico. Elia also tried not to linger too long on that, either.
The son of Hades shook his head. "The first time I shadow-traveled, I passed out for a week. The first time Elia did, she died."
The blonde rolled her eyes at that. "Thanks for that reminder."
