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Amity hates the colour brown, so she starts dyeing her hair when she turns twelve.
Even as a child, she had felt how her brown hair made her stick out amongst her family – especially when she looked at the painted portraits that hung in the halls of their mansion. And as a Blight, standing out was good, yes, but being different was bad.
Amity pretends not to notice how her oddity ruins the portraits’ intended perfection. She pretends not to notice how her mother always dotes over Emira and Edric, putting their hair up in elaborate styles while barely sparing Amity’s a glance. She pretends not to notice her hands shaking as she spends hours in front of the mirror, trying to find a way to make the already-dull colour less noticeable.
As soon as she hears about hair dye, how she can choose any colour, she has to do it. She may not be able to change the other things that make her a Different Blight,
[how she befriends the quite, friendly ones instead of the loud and proud. how her magic isn’t up to par. how she loves fictional worlds and people. how she can’t be cruel without wanting to throw up]
but this? This is something she can do.
So she tells Ed and Em (because she knows better than to tell their parents), and her siblings don’t even tease her. In fact, their reactions confuse her. They look at each other, and she can’t read the expressions on their faces, but she could swear they seem...sad? Angry?
But when they look at her, their grins are back. They say That sounds fun, Amity, we’ll take you. And they do. They take her that first time and all the other times after, and no matter how unbearable they get, that is the one thing they never make fun of her for.
It isn’t perfect. The green of the dye is lighter than the green of the Blights. And whenever her roots start growing in, stubborn and brown and different, she’s reminded that it’s all a cover up. Not just the dye, but the pretence of being a Proud Blight when in reality she feels like a False Blight.
It isn't perfect. But it’s better.
***
Amity hates the colour brown, because it’s the colour of her father’s study.
What little time he spends in the house, he spends there. And because Amity goes out of her way to avoid him, the only reason she ends up there, too, is because he calls for her. Considering that he never has time for her unless she has somehow messed up, she dreads every meeting.
He never raises his voice or lashes out, but sometimes Amity wishes he would. She hates standing in front of his table, arms clasped behind her back, feeling so small. She hates the cold that radiates from him, the cold in his voice as he talks about her latest failure to meet standards. She hates the implications of how she’s a disappointment, weaker, different.
Most of all, she hates everything that’s brown in that room.
And it was in moments like those that she missed Willow most – not just for Willow herself, but for Willow’s home, for Willow’s dads, who have never been anything other than nice and supportive.
But she had burned that bridge, the one that connected her there. She had burned it because she was a Blight, because a blight was a disease that ate up good things, living things. She had burned it, and in her mind the flames weren’t orange or red or blue – they were brown.
***
Amity hates the colour brown, but Luz doesn’t.
The Owl House isn’t what Amity is used to – it’s filled to the brim with clutter and noise, warm, a lot smaller than the Blight Mansion, not to mention the fact that it was also a bird-tube called Hooty.
In other words, it feels like an actual home.
Luz invites her there often, mostly after the Grudgby match fiasco. Of course, Luz also invites Willow and Gus. Not that Amity minds. She feels glad about being included at all.
One day, though, Willow and Gus both turn out to be busy – something about having to help clear out a plant invasion in a class of the Illusionist coven. Amity had heard about that, but her leg still hadn’t fully healed, so she couldn’t volunteer to help.
Luz had actually pouted when Willow and Gus told her they couldn’t come over, then quickly turned to Amity.
“You can come, can’t you Amity?”
Part of Amity wants to say no, because the thought of being all alone with Luz was...a little terrifying. But her mouth opens before her brain can catch up, and she hears herself saying “Sure, yeah.”
So she finds herself walking home with Luz.
Despite her fears of being a blushing, stuttering mess the whole time, she has a great time. They don’t run out of things to talk about, and at some point their conversation inevitably turns to Azura, and Amity’s thinking about how nice it feels to actually be herself around someone, when Luz says, “I love your hair.”
It’s so sudden, so random, and Amity’s response is touching her hair and blushing. “What?”
“Your hair, I love it! I don’t think I’ve told you before.”
No you haven’t. Amity thinks. If you did, I wouldn’t forget.
What she says is, “Uh, thanks. I-I’m supposed to dye it again soon, actually.”
Luz looks disappointed. “Aw, man. But those little brown roots are my favourite part of it! They make you look cool.”
“C-cool?”
“Yeah! Like, something about it gives you this unique, I-don’t-care-what-you-think look.”
Amity feels her mind short-circuiting. Partly because Luz loves her hair, partly because Luz loves the brown in her hair most of all, and partly because of the irony of Luz thinking she doesn’t care what others think, when the whole reason behind her dyeing her hair is for her parents’ approval.
When she realizes that she’s taking too long to respond, she stutters out a quick “Oh-wow-really-thanks,” and changes the topic, hoping that Luz hadn’t noticed anything.
And even though she doesn’t love those ‘little brown roots’, she skips out on dyeing her hair this time and lets them grow out a little more. And maybe that’s not a lot, but it’s a start.
***
Amity hates the colour brown, until she’s staring into Luz’s eyes.
It starts out slow – the first time she ever did it, she had only held eye contact in hopes of intimidating the human. But as the weeks pass and they grow closer, her reasons change.
Most times, she can’t bring herself to look for too long, instead stealing quick glances and turning away, blushing.
(Dear Isles, is there a limit to how much she can blush?)
In the few, breathless pauses during their Grom dance, Amity had let herself study Luz’s eyes for a little longer. But it had been dark, and Amity hadn’t been able to see anything she hadn’t already known.
Until the day where they’re all sitting on the roof of the Owl House – all six of them, Eda and King included. The sun had been setting, turning the sky orange, with bruises of pink and purple, and everyone had been laughing – about what, Amity couldn’t recall.
Because when she turns to look at Luz, Luz is looking back, still laughing. Her eyes had caught what little sunlight remained, melting into something so warm and pretty, and for a moment Amity’s heart stops. Because Luz is beautiful, and laughing, and right there.
Her laugh tapers off and she stares at Luz, who is – of course – smiling at her.
You’re my best friend, she wants to say.
I think I love you, she wants to say.
Your eyes are the colour of home, she wants to say.
Amity says none of that. No one is laughing anymore, and the conversation is picking up again. Willow’s looking at her a little strangely, but she only smiles when Amity catches her eye, turning to talk to Eda.
Amity says none of that, and she doesn’t know if she ever will. Maybe a miracle will happen, and she’ll get the courage one day. Right now, though, she’s realising that the brown she hates might still be ugly in her father’s study, might always stain her last name, but the brown of Luz’s eyes, the brown of the Owl House and fading days – that wasn’t ugly. Not in the slightest.