Chapter Text
Amity's evenings could be considered dull, at least from an outside perspective. The vast majority of her time outside of school was either spent studying for the various quizzes and tests that were regularly assigned in her advanced placement spell classes, training practical magic (again, for those wonderfully enriching, yet time consuming classes), or reading for pleasure.
It was the latter that she was doing now, having found a comfy armchair to sprawl out on in a room in the mostly unused western wing of the Blight family manor. Sure, she'd have preferred to be in her secret hideaway in the library, but it wasn't exactly a "secret" hideaway anymore. It wasn't too much of an inconvenience though. Gary, the elderly head librarian, had more or less taken the young witch under his wing a few years back, and was already preparing a "much more secure getaway package." Amity liked the old man. He was kind and considerate, and knew everything there was to know about the library. Was it a little troubling how many secret rooms and passages the place had? Sure. But that was to be expected from a building as old and storied as the library, and if it meant an escape from the pressures of the outside world, it was worth a little mystery.
Her mind eventually returned from daydreaming to the issue of the old hideout. It was obviously no longer viable, thanks to a certain green-haired duo. She frowned. "I wonder how long Edric and Emira had known where it was?" she half-thought, half-mumbled to herself. According to what she'd learned from Luz, in what was a totally ordinary conversation and NOT a nervously conducted defacto interrogation, the twins had walked straight to the romance section and opened the hidden door without issue.
"They had to have followed me there sometime. There's no other way they would have known," she muttered, before grimacing at herself. She really had to work on her habit of talking aloud when no one else was around.
Glancing back down at the book in her lap, she realized she'd been so lost in her thoughts she had spent roughly twenty minutes without even turning a page. It was the first of a new series from the same author of the Azura books, but it wasn't really holding her interest. That wasn't going to stop her though. She wasn't known to give up on something simply because it was difficult or unenjoyable, so she redoubled her efforts to lose herself in the book, hell-bent on reading on.
Of course, that was precisely the moment a dark blue orb, roughly the size of a fist, floated through the door and addressed her. "A visitor for you at the front door Miss Blight." She jumped, not expecting company or the conversation that came with it. "Y-yes Sinclair. Thank you," she replied, allowing the orb to start to exit the room before she called out again to the family's steward. "Actually, Sinclair?" The orb paused in its movements, bobbing slightly in the air while the young witch formulated her words. "Who's at the door at this hour? And why are they looking for me and not Mother or Father?"
"A horribly sweaty creature," the orb replied, "Roughly five feet two-and-a-half inches tall with darker skin, rounded ears, and an almost irritating aura of positivity." Amity's eyes widened slightly, immediately drawing the conclusion from the, albeit strangely specific information, that Luz was quite literally on her doorstep. The first part was a little weird, and as she paused to parse out why Sinclair would describe Luz as "sweaty" (and maybe to also affirm to herself that she was definitely NOT excited to see her human peer) he continued. "As for the why, she said she wants to show you something."
"That's it? She wants to show me something?" The orb shrugged. Amity wasn't entirely sure how it had done that considering that it didn't have arms or really any type of corporeal form, but she knew that it had happened. "Thank you Sinclair, that is all," she told the orb, making her way out the door and walking the relatively short distance from the western wing to the manor's foyer. Steeling herself, she grabbed the handle of the ornate front door and opened it.
And lo and behold, there was Luz. Breathing hard with her hands on her knees, posture bent as she apparently tried to catch her breath. “Well that explains the sweaty part I guess, ” Amity thought. The weary teen immediately looked up upon hearing the door open, and greeted Amity with a wide smile. "Amity! Hey! How's it going?" Luz exclaimed.
"I'm uh, I'm good," the green-haired witch replied, returning a bemused smile back to her. The smile quickly turned to confusion, however, as she took in Luz's slightly harried appearance for the second time. "Luz, did... did you run here?" she asked.
The darker-skinned teen's smile turned sheepish, and she let out a small chuckle. "Uh, yeah. Sorry I was just so excited and I had to get here as fast as I could! So I ran, but y'know I've actually been doing a lot of running lately what with all the adventures and things that want to eat me, so it's not that really a big deal. I used to run a lot at home too actually! It's really good exercise. Hey did you know your house is really far away from the owl house? Like reaaaaallly far?"
Before Luz could continue on with her (not at all adorable, nope, not one bit) ranting, Amity closed the door and stepped down to the same level as the teen, meeting her on the path leading to her home. "Luz," she said sternly, not as one would do to scold somebody, but to jolt her attention back to where it needed to be. "I was told you wanted to show me something?"
"Oh right!" the Latina exclaimed. Her apparent exhaustion was immediately replaced with excitement, and a proud look materialized on her face. "I," she said, placing her hand on her chest in mock pompousness, "have learned another spell!"
Amity blinked, before a small, but genuine, smile broke out on her face. "That's great Luz! But how? Was there a book in the library about how witches used to cast before we evolved bile sacks? I was certain I'd already looked at all..." she stopped, not wanting to out herself any more than she had, but it hadn't been lost on Luz, who let out a small gasp. "You were looking at books to help me? Aw Amity that's so sweet!"
Amity already had a weak spot for praise, hence her studious nature and general "teacher's pet" attitude, but for whatever reason praise from Luz seemed to fluster her. Was it her? Was the smiling teen standing before her the reason her heart had started beating slightly faster upon being called sweet? No. No it couldn't be. It was just a novelty. People didn't call Amity sweet often, so it made sense that it would be more of a shock to her system when she wasn't used to it. That made sense right?
But all the rationalizing and denying in the world couldn't stop the slight blush that lit up across her features, light pink contrasting heavily against the white backdrop of her face. She coughed, trying to clear up the sudden tightness in her throat. "So! If it wasn't from a book or the library, then how did you manage it?" Amity asked, eager to move on and refocus the conversation on something, anything, that was less endearing than the beaming girl in front of her.
"Oh right! I um, may have sorta kinda a little bit done it by accident?" Luz confessed, looking bashfully towards the flowers growing in the flowerbeds along the front of the manor. Amity stared for a beat, slightly exasperated that Luz somehow managed to keep throwing her curve balls like that, and slightly enthralled by just how adorable Luz was when she was looking bashful. The light of the not-just-yet setting sun cast its weakened rays and framed her head in a halo of light, and even with all that beautiful sunset behind her, all Amity could think was that Luz was prettier.
"No !" she thought, trying to snap herself out of the Luz induced reverie. "We literally just became friends a little while ago! Thinking of her like that won't help either of us." She took another second to collect herself before continuing her thoughts. "It's fine! It's fine it's fine it's fine. I'll just ignore it. I can do that can't I? "
Her attention was swiftly and unceremoniously brought back by the waving of Luz's hand past her eyes. "Yoohoo? Earth to Amity? You there?" she questioned. "You disappeared for a second there! Whatcha thinking about? Ooh is it Azura? Have you read the book I lent you yet? "
Amity blinked, quickly refocusing on the girl in front of her. The girl who was much closer than she previously had been before, having moved to regain Amity’s attention. She immediately felt her face growing hotter, the light pink deepening to, well, normal pink. Realizing she was expected to speak, she stammered, "No I uh, I haven’t yet. Sorry it’s... It’s nothing. Um, how do you accidentally learn a spell?" she finished, mentally high-fiving herself for getting the conversation back on track.
Luz let out a small laugh, a sound that Amity would have listened to for hours if she had the chance to. “It was a surprise to me too! I was just sitting in my room drawing and messing around cause Eda and King were arguing about something dumb. I think it was about dinner? It was probably about dinner.”
She smiled fondly before continuing. “And then I was looking at all my art and stuff, and I thought ‘Hey! That peace sign kinda looks like a spell!’ And it was! This like wave of light came out of it and bam! They stopped arguing!”
Amity frowned slightly, eyebrows furrowing together. “Huh. Hold on, I’m sorry, a what sign?” she asked.
Luz blinked, seemingly not comprehending, before she raised a hand to her forehead in realization. “Riiiight. You probably don’t have those here in the Boiling Isles do you?” She paused, hand on her chin and lips pursed as she thought of a good way to explain it, before realizing that she didn’t have to. “Oh duh! I was gonna show you the spell anyways! You can see what it looks like then.”
Out of nowhere, Luz grabbed Amity’s hand and started pulling her along, away from the doorway and onto the finely manicured lawn. And while Amity wasn’t exactly unhappy with the contact, it didn’t exactly make much sense to her. “Uh Luz? Where are we going?” she asked. “I’m gonna show you the spell!” Luz replied enthusiastically. “It’s probably best I don’t do it right in front of your house though huh?”
“Y-yeah,” Amity replied nervously, becoming more and more aware of how soft and warm the other girl’s hand was in her own, “Good thinking.”
“It’s fine! It doesn’t mean anything! She’s just bringing me along with her, she probably just meant to go for my wrist and missed! ” she thought, simply allowing herself to be pulled forward by the Latina teen. And just as Amity thought she was getting a hold on the situation, becoming accustomed to the weight and feel of Luz’s hand gripping hers, Luz turned as she led the two along, looked her dead in the eyes, and smiled.
Now, it has to be said that Amity was raised very well. As a member of the Blight family she was held to a certain standard, and she held herself to an even higher one. As such, she didn’t misbehave. She didn’t mess around. And she most certainly didn’t curse. But, in an obvious testament to how much sway Luz somehow managed to hold over her, that smile that she received temporarily emptied out every nervous thought bouncing around in her skull with one, very simple one.
“Holy shit. ”
“OK! Here should be good right?” Luz said, bringing the pair to a stop about sixty feet from the house. And for the second or third time today, Amity was suddenly jolted from her thoughts. “Uh yeah! Yeah here is… Here’s good” she replied.
Luz smiled back at her, before quickly whipping a small notepad and pencil out of the back pocket of her shorts. “Right! Magic time!” she exclaimed, flipping through to find a blank page before quickly drawing the glyph. It wasn’t a very complex one, just a circle with three lines in it. The largest line completely bisected the circle, with the two smaller lines jutting out from it before all three finally connected back at the bottom of the circle.
Finished with her rune, Luz looked up at Amity with an excited smile. “Ready?” The excitement on her face was contagious, and Amity would be lying if she said she wasn’t curious. A brand new spell that she’d never heard of? Cast in a way that hadn’t been done for millennia? By a human that had somehow seen it first in the human world? This was doing more than tickling her academic fancy, it was punching it in the throat with brass knuckles made of teeth. Ok, maybe that was a bit much, but still. Nodding her head, Amity gave Luz her affirmation. “Cast it.”
As soon as Luz’s finger made contact with the paper, a light exploded from it. Unlike most other light based spells Amity had seen, it wasn’t blinding at all. In fact, it was almost soothing to look at. It began to move outwards from the paper, quickly flying through the air like a wave before it began to dissipate.
And as quickly as the light appeared, the effects of it followed, hitting Amity like a sledgehammer, if a sledgehammer could be covered in miles of pillows, blankets, and every other soft thing ever conceived. Immediately, she began to relax. The blush slowly crept from her face, returning it back to the immaculate pale it had been before Luz had arrived. Even her body began to loosen up, and the nervousness that had been plaguing her all but disappeared.
What was there to be nervous about anyways? All she was doing was having a nice chat and spell demonstration outside her house with her friend Luz, who was currently spinning in place, watching as the light from the spell slowly disappeared.
“Isn’t that so cool?!” Luz shouted, breaking Amity out of the effect of the spell. She definitely wasn’t as nervous as she had been, the spell seemed to have more or less drained all the tension from her body, but she wasn’t in that completely comfortable euphoria either. And seeing Luz all excited and happy was causing the blush to slowly rise up all over again.
She completed one more spin before facing the young witch with the widest grin Amity had ever seen. “So? What did you think?” she asked excitedly. “It was… interesting,” Amity said thoughtfully, “I’ve genuinely never seen anything like it.”
Luz crossed her arms and gave an obviously pretend smug smirk towards her pointy-eared counterpart. “Yeah, I’m pretty cool.” Naturally, the end of that sentence was compounded with finger guns and a wink, which immediately drew a laugh out of Amity. “Definitely pretty cool,” she said smiling.
The easy camaraderie was broken by the sound of an alarm resonating from within Luz’s sweatshirt pocket. She quickly pulled her phone out and shut the alarm off, but she was frowning as she did. “Ah beans. I’ve gotta head back to the owl house and help Eda with dinner.” She chuckled. “If King hasn’t burned the house down that is.” Her eyes narrowed. "Or Eda for that matter. Man I really shouldn't leave those two alone should I?"
Amity laughed again. Hearing Luz talk about what could feasibly turn out to be accidental arson in such a matter-of-fact tone wasn't the weirdest thing she'd heard about the mysterious owl house and its dynamic, but considering this was coming from someone who actually lived there, it was certainly pretty high on the list. "Yeah, you should probably check in with them," she replied, still chuckling.
"Oh well," Luz shrugged, then quickly enveloped an unsuspecting Amity in a hug. "It was a lot of fun hanging out with you today," she mumbled, the vibrations from her chest as she spoke resonating against Amity's rib cage. "Y-yeah," she replied, already feeling the blush beginning to creep back onto her face. "It was good seeing you too."
It quickly became clear that Luz wasn't going to let go first, so Amity gently removed her arms from the girl and stepped back a bit. "I'll uh, see you later I guess?" Luz asked hopefully. "Yeah," replied Amity, slight blush still present but not as prominent as the smile she wore. "Later Luz."
Following a quick wave goodbye, Luz began to walk away, headed over the grass to the path leading from the Blight residence to the road.
There was a multitude of things left unsaid between the two, Amity realized, but none of them could really be said now could they? They'd have to wait, and see how things developed later. Or, well no, that one could be said now, she guessed. "Hey Luz!" she called, causing the darker-skinned girl to stop and turn. "If I find any books in the library that might help you with magic I'll let you know ok?"
Luz smiled at her, but instead of replying verbally chose simply to do finger guns again. She'd started walking backwards while doing that, for whatever reason deciding that finger guns were more important than seeing where she was going, so she nearly tripped on the road's flagstones. She righted herself, stopped moving, and re-completed the finger guns before turning around and heading down the street as Amity watched with a smile.