Chapter 25
The first jump was OK. After we'd said our goodbyes and strapped ourselves into the harness, Nico and I agreed to shadow travel to Albania. "Sei pronto?" (A/N- means "You ready?" in Italian.) he asked. I took a deep breath and nodded. Nico grabbed my hand. "We have to work together." He explained, turning to face me but shutting his eyes in concentration.
"Right. OK." I replied. "Let's go." I closed my eyes and pictured Albania as best I could. I'd never been there in my life before. I could feel the shadows crawling towards me, and I let them. "Take me to Albania." I commanded, hoping that the shadows would understand. With a tugging sensation in my gut, I felt the shadows embrace me, and we were gone.
The first I saw was the ground hurtling up to meet me. The first thing I smelt, was poo. "Ah, shit!" I heard Nico say as he pushed himself up. Reyna jumped to the floor, brushing it off her clothes. Coach Hedge sniffed deeply.
"Hmm," he said, "smells fresh. Healthy. Some lucky person is going to get a good crop from this." I realised what we'd done. Yes, unfortunately, Nico and I had shadow travelled us into a manure heap.
I jumped down next to Reyna, trying to wipe the poo off my face. "This is disgusting!" I exclaimed. "I am so sorry!" Looking at our surroundings, I could see we were in the middle of nowhere. I heard something in the distance. It sounded like a car. At least we were lucky enough to get here at the same time as someone else was passing through. A man in a rusty red truck noticed us as he passed by. He stopped the truck and rolled down his window.
"Je mirë?" He asked (A/N- means "you alright?" in Albanian)
"Po. Kishte pak aksidente." Nico replied (A/N- means "Yes. We just had a bit of an accident." in Albanian)
"You speak Albanian?" Coach Hedge asked, surprised.
"Yeah." Nico said. "I ended up in a lot of different countries when I was teaching myself to shadow travel."
"Cool." Reyna said, looking impressed.
"Më falne? Nëse nuk është shumë për të kërkuar, a mund të marrim një ashensor në qytetin më të afërt? Vetëm, ne nuk kemi një makinë." I inquired. (A/N- means "Excuse me? If it's not too much to ask, could we maybe get a lift to the nearest town? Only, we don't have a car." )
"You speak it too?!" Coach Hedge sounded flabbergasted.
"Yes. I was like seven when Zeus blew up the hotel we were staying in. I think I'm about fifteen now. I travelled a lot in the time between the hotel and Tartarus, and I learnt a lot of new languages."
"English?" The man asked in a heavy accent. "You speak English?" I nodded.
"Yes," Nico interjected, "But we already have a car. Sorry for bothering you!" Reyna nodded emphatically in agreement, and Coach Hedge hummed in a way that said 'yes.'
"What? No we—"
"Yes we do, Lily." Nico interrupted again.
"Lily? Who's—"
"SO we'll see you!" Reyna said. I was thoroughly confused.
"No, no, I insist." Said the man. I began to feel uneasy, and suddenly realised that I'd put my foot in it. The others obviously didn't trust this man, and I was making it pretty clear that they were lying simply to get away from him.
"Oh yeah, the car. My bad, sorry!" I said, trying to cover up my mistake.
"Yeah, so we should be going." Nico explained.
"No, no, come on." The man began to open his door, but Nico kicked it shut again, trapping the man's foot in the frame. At the same time, Reyna drew her sword and Coach Hedge readied himself to play a tune on his reed pipes. The man howled in pain, and two voices from the back yelled
"Babë!"
"Oh my gods!" Reyna said, blushing deeply.
"Crap!" Nico exclaimed.
"Are those... children?" Coach Hedge asked. A young girl, no older than eight, pushed her head through the gap between the two front seats. And then she screamed. I'd heard that some mortals could see through the mist, and she obviously could, because she pointed at Reyna and started yelling
"Shpatë!" (A/N- "Sword!" in Albanian) Reyna, in a panic and not wanting to scare the girl any further, threw the sword behind her. It landed directly in the manure heap.
"Oh, for gods sake!" Reyna yelled, realizing what she'd done. The poor little girl's dad obviously couldn't see through the mist, as he kept telling her
"Jo dashur, është vetëm një shkop. Është vetëm një shkop." (A/N- means "No darling, it's just a stick. It's just a stick." in Albanian) He turned to us, his two daughters till screaming in the back seats, and said "Look, I can't help you. Goodbye." Then, he drove off.
"Oh. My. Gods." Reyna said again.
"Well that was embarrassing." Nico said in agreement.
"Let's just never speak of this again." Coach Hedge suggested, and we all hummed in agreement.
"Let's go see if we can find anywhere to get cleaned up." I said, gesturing to our poo covered clothes and faces.
"Yeah." Nico nodded. We all started walking when I stopped.
"Um, Reyna?" I called, remembering what she'd done earlier.
"Yeah?" she turned to face me, but carried on walking backwards.
"I think you forgot your sword." I looked towards the manure pile. Reyna growled in frustration and stalked off to retrieve her weapon.
A/N- Another chapter! And the next one's already written, I just want to have material to post in a few days time lmao.
As always, REVIEW! It makes me so happyyyyy, and constructive criticism is also appreaciated! (CONSTRUCTIVE, please don't just be downright rude). Thanks for reading!
Alaya