why does it still feel like summer [private]

Bee wasn't sure how long she'd been laying out in the fields now, but by the time she had decided to focus on her surroundings the sun was setting and the earth very, very cool now against her back. Maybe she had dozed off in the warm summer heat while reading her book -- but it lay next to her like she'd shut it and put it down gently by the clump of strawberries, so she must have been awake long enough to put it down.

Hours? Maybe like four or five hours since she'd gotten away from the chaotic mess hall after lunch and went out to read in the fields. The tranquility of her surroundings, the wind blowing through the fields, the distinct buzzing sound of bees nearby had probably lulled her to sleep within the hour. It wasn't like Bee had issues sleeping, but sometimes the cabin was just a very... uncomfortable atmosphere for her.

Sitting up, the daughter of Melisseus rubbed her eyes and looked around the fields; a few indistinct shapes moved in the distances, but most were too far to listen or call out to.

Peace and quiet. She liked that.

Valerie knew she probably should start heading back to her cabin. When it got dark at camp, it really got dark and her night vision sucked so much. On the plus side she could however, look into the sun clearly without being effected by the glare or blinded by the light. No one could hide in the light from a child of Apollo.
The strawberry fields were always a wonderful place to visit, less so to work in as it was boring repetitive work. Sometimes, Valerie wandered up here when she wished to be alone with her thoughts, to think about her lost friends and on more than one occasion let the tears fall. It beat trying her best to cry silently in the relative comfort of her cabin so that her half brothers and sisters would not be disturbed by it.
It hurt her pride to be seen crying, it made her feel somewhat weaker... She needed to be strong, to show the others that she was strong... Yet sometimes the world was just too much, too different for her to cope with. She always hated it when she made a reference to a friend or spoke about someone only to be greeted by blank looks or confused glances. Those were the worst, simply because it always brought home that her friends were no more.

Valerie had been too wrapped up in her own private thoughts to notice her friend sitting in one of the strawberry fields. She bit her lip in an effort not to start crying, she hated crying. When she found herself with the spare time in which to think, she thought about all of her lost friends. To most of the other campers, they had been dead for a long time or were really old or had passed away a few years back.
To Valerie, all of this was recent news, people she knew, loved and laughed with. People who made this place her home, demigods who were more than just a black and white picture of the past... She propped herself against a fence, covering her face as she cried, sobbing quietly into her hands. She missed them all, Max, Fredrick, Juliet... This was not the world she remembered, but the one she found herself in.
She still felt out of place here.
So alone... Even though she often found herself surrounded by friends and siblings.

In the distance, Bee thought she heard someone crying.

Sitting up suddenly, she glanced around; she could just barely see through the dim lighting above the strawberry plants, looking for the source as she sat there, craning her neck to look around her. A few yards from her, the demititan could make out the shape of someone... against the fence? She squinted to make sure her eyes weren't just playing tricks on her, or that she wasn't being pranked or about to get attacked by some human-like monster. (In camp? Sure. She wouldn't put it past the shenanigans this camp apparently got into.)

The shape and crying were definitely human, but Bee wasn't sure whether or not she should go over and comfort them or just sit and wait for them to leave -- because she certainly would attract their attention if she tried to clamber away in the darkness. Would her iPod light work? It was only on ten percent, but she could.... No. She had to at least check on this guy, see if they were okay.

Hesitantly, she looked around to see if anyone else was in the fields who would notice the person by the fence... but no dice. The nearest person to them was far away.

With a sigh, Bee steeled herself for the inevitable reply of emotion as she called out: "Hey, are you okay over there?"

Valerie choked back at sob when she heard Bee's voice, she hated being seen so emotional. It was embarrassing to be witnessed crying, but... Sometimes such a regrettable circumstance was unavoidable.
"Hi." She called back. "I'm fine thank you." She lied, no one started crying randomly for no reason. Valerie could not help but feel out of place here amongst the current generation of campers. No one was from camp when she left on her mission, everything was different, changed... The old camp which she remembered gone, forever. History to most, raw memory to her. Valerie knew that she should try to live as best as she could in this world yet she missed her friends. She had lost everything except her camp and her bed, with a few belongings left behind from when she left. She tried to stop crying yet her body rebelled against her commands, tears still falling down her cheeks like a water fall. Grief pierced young Valerie's heart like an arrow, she still struggled even after all this time to fully come to terms with the situation she found herself in.
It was something which she doubted anyone could truly be prepared for. Her life gone... It hurt her when she allowed her to realise that she would never again see her friends from before the mission, save for in pictures or in the after life.
They might have all died years ago, but to Valerie who knew them all personally, it was a horrible finding out that all those people which she cared about, were gone.

Valerie? It sounded like her, even though the demititan hadn't seen her in a while.

What a rotten liar. Even Bee, who could barely see her in this lighting, could tell she was still crying just from her voice, carried over several yards through the field back to her. She could remember distinctly the daughter of Apollo admitting to her, one day weeks (or even months?), that she missed her old friends from her original time period -- maybe that was the problem here. Bee had offered to help her learn more about the modern era and all it came with, but they hadn't really followed up on that.

"I'm still coming over," she told her, standing up hesitantly and wiping the dirt off the back of her pants. "You, uh, you need tissues? I brought some in case my allergies acted up... but you might need 'em more than me." She patted her pants pockets, feeling the plastic wrap crinkling in one of the front ones -- there were probably, like, three or four of them left, but Bee thought they'd be enough to tide her over.

Valerie wanted to sat that it would not be necessary yet another lie refused to come tumbling out. "Thank you I'd like a couple please." She replied to Bee. Sometimes life just got too much for the Demigod to handle, she became overwhelmed by it all.
A stay in the lair of the lotus eaters was not something she could ever recommend, not unless one wished to find themselves skipping through time. Or at least that was how it appeared, since time past incredibly fast in their lair. Did she age whilst their prisoner? Did anyone age whilst they were prisoners there? Or was it merely the world who fell victim to entropy?

And so, the daughter of Melisseus pulled out the package from her pocket, noting that it felt all crinkled from how she had been sitting hours prior. Glancing around, she reached for her iPod Touch hidden underneath her book and turned on the light, searching for a path to Valerie through the dark: she could just step over all the rows of plants, that should be easy enough.

With a nervous glance at her ever-depleting battery life, Bee stepped over the rows, trying to keep herself from tripping over stray roots or stepping on rotting fruit on her way to her friend. After another few moments, she had reached the daughter of Apollo and held the tissues out to her: "For you, m'lady. Be careful, I think I ripped the plastic a little."

The growing darkness unsettled Valerie, her night vision being famed or infamous for how woefully terrible it actually was. Mortals possessed better night vision than her. Were it not for Bee's light, Valerie would not have been able to see the Demititan offering her the tissues. The child of Apollo accepted the packet gratefully, wiping her eyes with one of the tissues.
"Thank you." She whispered trying to prevent more tears from flowing down her cheeks. "S... Sorry... Could you keep your light on please? I... My night vision has never been the greatest." Valerie added uncomfortable.

"Oh yeah, sure. Whatever makes you comfortable -- but just to warn you, it might die out soon since I didn't charge it last night." Nine percent now. They probably had about five minutes at most, if Tyche was on their side now. Why Bee hadn't thought to ask for a portable charger from her mom, she'd never know -- but now she cursed her lack of foresight, more for Valerie than for herself.

Kneeling beside her, Bee took another glance around: the sun was almost completely down now even though it wasn't more than six pm at the moment -- even Mr. D's weather control couldn't make Apollo keep his chariot in the sky much longer for the winter. "You okay? Did something happen, or...?"

"Thanks... It is part of my gift of Apollo." She replied sought of explaining to Bee why she wished for the light to remain on for as long as possible. Unless Bee wished to be guiding Valerie back to the light, no pun intended.
She shook her head. "I miss my old friends... I never thought that something like this might happen... I... I regret not telling them things before I left... I feel so out of place all of this technology is quite beyond me." She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue.
"It is all too much."

Aah. This. Valerie had spilled the beans to Bee on their very first meeting, about how she'd been trapped in that casino place for so long that basically everyone she knew at camp was dead or had long left -- and the demititan had failed to get into contact with her again, to help her transition. She felt a wave of regret, swallowing nervously as she shined the light at an angle away from their eyes. "Oh. Yeah. I did say I'd help you when we first met, right? So. Um."

She scratched her chin, wondering how exactly she should go about such a delicate subject. This hadn't exactly been the setting she'd imagined, when she thought of helping her. "Vent to me if you want, pretend I'm one of them -- it might help make you feel a bit better."

"It is not your fault both of us were busy.. Or had been busy." Valerie soothed, knowing that she herself had been quite busy lately, but now she found herself rather unoccupied.
"I do not know... I.. I am grateful that you are here." She whispered to Bee. "It is nice to have a friend."

Bee smiled at her sadly, lowering her phone so that it illuminated only a circular area in the ground in front of them -- enough so they could still see each other, but also enough so that the demititan's arm wouldn't get tired at that angle very fast. "Yeah, I.... Yeah. Do you need a hug or something? Or do you want to talk? Get back to camp?"

"Can I have a hug and the talk as well as the walk back to camp?" She choked out. "I won't be able to get back to camp alone as I really cannot see..." She left out that the darkness scared her somewhat, well unsettled her since she could not see.

"Oh yeah. Of course." Had Bee mentioned to her that her iPod was dying of undercharged-battery-syndrome? Hopefully. They'd both be in deep doo-doo when it went out, since the fields were poorly lit -- either they could wait for the moon to appear this clear night, or they could just stumble over the plants and hope they don't die from some curse the Demeter and Dionysus kids put on them to ward off pests. She stood and glanced at her battery: 5% and going lower. "Come on, let's get a start while the sun isn't completely gone."

A tentative voice whispered after Bee suggested getting started. "Hold my hand? Please? I really cannot see very well." Valerie sounded upset that she had to ask, but it was understandably frustrating for her. In the day or rather during it she possessed great vision, however in areas of darkness her vision left much to be desired of.
She wished that she had packed a torch or something to help light her way, for in the event that Bee's light source died both would be plunged into darkness.
Valerie did not want that.

[ooc: annddd sorry for the late reply, i ended up being busier this week preparing to go back to school than i thought]

Hand-holding? Well, Bee wasn't gonna say no to her at this point. Tentatively, she reached out for the outline of what looked like Valerie's hand through the dark, shining her iPod light ahead to check for a path forward through the plants without destroying them. If they turned a bit to the left and walked straight between the two strawberry plant rows, they could get to the large path dividing the two fields and get to the cabin areas thanks to the faint, but existent torchlight illuminating the paths leading in to the courtyard.

The demititan glanced at her battery: 3%, so maybe one or two more minutes of light. "Guess we better get going; I'll lead. Stay straight behind me or you might trip over a plant."

Valerie gently squeezed the demititan's hand once she felt the other girl grasp it. She meant it to be a silent comforting gesture for them both, she was grateful, Valerie hated not being able to see.
It scared her as much as it pained the daughter of Apollo to admit.
"Got it." She replied, determined to do her best to follow the other camper.

OOC: That is perfectly alright, school and rl comes first.

And so with Valerie's encouraging (or nervous) squeezing of her hand, the demititan moved forward, carefully maneuvering herself as best she could in the dim setting sun as she shut off her iPod light, hoping to preserve it until she got back to the cabin to get her charger -- dead electronics took a while to come back to life. The plants rustled as a faint wind blew through the field, the straight path littered with dead parts and some rotten fruit; Bee felt the squelch of one particularly large strawberry under her foot with a cringe.

"You sure you don't wanna talk about it?" she asked the daughter of Apollo gently, whispering for whatever reason; it didn't feel right to talk normally, like she'd be broadcasting Valerie's personal business to the gods.

"What is there to talk about? I like being able to see, not being able to see freaks me out." Valerie replied quickly, already feeling utterly blind and helpless. "Can see amazing in the day but at night not so well."