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CW of sorts for this chapter! if you want to know what it entails, see the end, just above my author's note :)
𓆩ꨄ︎𓆪
WHILE ANNABETH TALKED ABOUT some invention she'd brought in one of the vans, Elia slipped into an empty bathroom down on the first floor of the Empire State Building to finally change out of the clothes she'd been wearing for over twenty-four hours.
Aurora, who Elia would trust to dress her with her life, had shown up and shown out. Luckily, it was all rather practical— she personally didn't really feel like fighting a war in a skirt, even if she'd look damn good.
A fresh pair of jeans was first, some worn out pair that Aurora had probably dug out of the back of Elia's closet, fraying at the cuffs but sturdy enough for... well, a war, she guessed. They were a little loose at the waist, hanging lower around her hips, but it was early August and the summer heat was lingering, so she wouldn't complain.
She traded out her dirty Converse for a pair of white New Balances that were deemed her 'fighting shoes' after they'd been involved in a situation involving Jack's explosives and Kayla's paint. They'd been left a little singed and splotched with yellow and orange, but they were solid and comfortable for running.
There was a mirror on one of the walls, and Elia caught a glimpse of herself as she tugged off her old tanktop, standing in a black sports bra. She'd started wearing her camp necklace as a bracelet, making it easier to fit more beads comfortably— she was about to receive her thirteenth— so only her sun necklace hung around her neck, the pendant landing right at the middle of her sternum and gleaming gold against her skin.
She was paler than she usually was during the summertime, probably just due to stress or something, but her skin still held the perpetual tan that all Apollo kids seemed to have, freckles and sunspots scattered across her shoulders and cheeks.
There was a scar on her right arm from the battle in Daedalus' workshop the summer prior, a puckered slash across the muscle of her bicep, and the scars on her wrists from the shackles at Triple G Ranch were bright white in the dim light of the bathroom. There were others, smaller, fainter marks scattered across her arms and torso, scored into the muscle she'd gathered from a lifetime of training.
Elia frowned lightly at her reflection. She never knew how to feel about marks like that, rough beneath her fingertips. Memories carved into her skin to remind her of all the awful things that had happened. She didn't really like them, most of the time.
She sighed, a soft sound, reaching up to pull the hair tie out of her blonde hair, letting it fall free. She'd neglected having Silena cut it for a while now, too caught up in other things, and it was almost long enough to reach her lower back. Running a hand through the strands, she tried to shake it out, stray locks tickling the bare skin of her spine.
