Chapter Text
The sky is fragmented, broken like it never has been before. But for some reason, the vision makes a fascinating experience. Her whole body shudders, as if it knew what those lights meant long before she could even tell. As if part of her had accepted what they would bring. A promise, a spectacle, a vision, an omen, a curse. A fortunate event, a destiny already written. As if that part of her had already lived it and this was nothing more than a memory of some past life of hers. And, at the same time, this scenario is like nothing she’s ever lived before.
With a silent hum, soft and insignificant, hundreds of colored fragments pierce the sky beyond where she can see them. Drawing jagged lines in the turquoise vault, each of them gives off messy sparks of all shades. Blue, pink, green, yellow, orange. The lights dance around their beam that keeps falling, falling.
The choppy sunlight catches these fragments of sky with a thousand other colors in response, until they cross the mountain chain that forms the fluffy coating of clouds.
And it falls, falls. Until there are no more clouds and all the others are lost in the sky. The sparks of light follow this unique fragment of the universe in its descent, along with the silent buzz that it brings with it.
The city below soon glimpses the scene in awe. There’s no doubt, seeing the sky sprinkled with touches that follow the beam of the comet is a unique vision. For years people will talk about how a legendary comet kissed that forgotten village with a thousand colors.
The lights of the city flicker, expectant. And the fragment falls, falls, like fulfilling an old promise that nobody knew how to hear.
Her heart shrinks, expectant. And Luz knows that all her hazel irises now reflect is the glow of the comet.
Luz’s eyes are closed, tightly shut, her senses still find a way to betray her. A voice that she remembers as soft and calming dances in her ears, and a sweet smell tickles in her nose. They both make her feel something that Luz knows well, and her chest shrinks a little.
Nostalgia .
The light filters through her eyelashes, warm and pleasant. Luz opens her eyes.
She finds herself pressed against a person that's very important to her, perfectly fitted, there’s no space between them. Her chest, still a little shrunk, rests on the other girl’s, steadier, and some locks of her green hair carelessly touch Luz’s cheek, almost tickling her. She looks away.
They are bound together in a way that’s difficult to understand. Right now Luz doesn’t feel worry, loneliness or fear, she’s filled with the biggest sense of calm she’s ever felt, a feeling of belonging floods through her chest. Like coming home after a long journey. Like holding the hand of someone you love. Like a much needed hug on a long day. A sweet feeling of having a unique place for her in the world wraps her whole body.
Intoxicated by this sense of calm, Luz gathers her courage and raises her eyes. That’s when the other girl’s sparkling golden eyes find the hazel of hers.
All of a sudden, Luz opens her eyes.
The ceiling of her room is the first thing that she sees. It takes her a few seconds to clear the fog in her mind, blurring the line between dream and reality.
She finds that it has to be morning already; one like any other since she came to live alone in Hexside City. Luz closes her eyes again, trying to grasp the feeling that seconds ago filled her body, now it was fading away.
Hm. I guess I was having a nice dream.
Shaking her head, Luz gets up from the comfort of the bed.
In the two seconds that passed since she opened her eyes, that warm sense of familiarity fades between her fingers, despite her trying her best to keep it – to remember what made her feel like that in the first place.
The feeling vanishes as quickly as it came, leaving no trace, no lasting echo. It happens so suddenly that she finds tears streaming down her face.
Sometimes, when she wakes up in the morning, Luz finds herself crying.
But she can never remember what she was dreaming about.
Sitting on her bed, Amity stares at her right hand that wiped her tears just now. She notices that on her index finger still rests a rebel, immobile tear. Something swirls inside of her when she sees it, but Amity can hardly say exactly what it is. The tears that wet the back of her hand soon dry up and fade away as if they had never been there, just like the dream she had just a few moments ago and that she’s still trying to remember.
That unknown feeling twists inside like every morning, telling her there’s something important. And like every morning, Amity can’t find an answer. This feeling, like the tears, like the dream, will fade if she waits long enough. Still, Amity’s still staring hard at her right hand, looking for the answer to that question that she lost long ago.
She knows there was something important in her hand some time ago. Something so important that her heart shudders with an unknown and terribly familiar sensation.
Amity closes her hand with a reflex motion, as if she could protect that something somehow – until she finds out what it was. Until she forgets again.
She knows there was something important, but what was it?
Dazed and without an answer, like every morning, she gives up. Amity gets up from bed, clearing her mind and goes to the bathroom. The feeling of having lost something follows her for a while.
As she washes her face to finally clear away these feelings, Amity gets the strange impression that she was once surprised at the warm temperature and taste of this water. She shoves aside these thoughts, too, which don’t make sense because Amity’s lived her whole life in Hexside City and she’s never tasted another water.
Her gaze then finds the reflection of her golden eyes in the mirror. Amity makes a high ponytail, pulling the front hair out of her face. She sees the roots starting to grow brown and she sighs, looking at her herself in the mirror. A rather dissatisfied face looks back at her, and Amity still hasn’t gotten rid of the feeling that she’s missing something.
Luz carefully combs her wild dark brown hair while she looks absent-mindedly in the mirror. She’s glad she’s wearing it short again, it’s much more comfortable. The hazel in her irises shines tired, like almost every morning now.
Luz gets distracted looking for something to eat for breakfast and pauses an extra second as she walks past the photo she took with Eda and King last summer. With her bright smile and Eda’s arm over her little shoulders, Luz makes a mental promise to call them this afternoon.
She passes her arm through the sleeves of her spring dress still with her head on the clouds, ready to go through a day like any other. Yet in her mind there are still traces of a dream, of something familiar that Luz doesn’t quite understand but that doesn’t fade away either.
Satisfied, Amity tightens the tie that she’s finally used to knot and she puts on the suit, as aquamarine waves of hair fall neatly down her back. At first she didn’t quite like the suit, but that fancy institute she attended made the students wear, both boys and girls, suits and ties for class; so Amity got used to them. She checks again that the pants are perfectly smoothed and she gives herself a nod of approval in the mirror. A faint gold gaze looks back at her, but Amity ignores it.
Making sure everything is alright and leaving herself a note so she doesn’t forget to call, Luz opens the apartment door.
With a gentle thud, Amity closes the apartment door behind her. The morning light filters through her eyelashes and, like every morning, she rediscovers the landscape that’s now in front of her and that has watched her grow.
In front of her stretches the urban landscape of Hexside City. Luz’s been living in this city for just a couple of years, but she’s always amazed by it. Every day Luz finds herself discovering new things about it. Just as some time ago she memorized easily the name of the mountains where she felt the grass beneath her feet, now Luz can name some of the skyscrapers of the enormous and shiny metropolis that welcomed her. Holding her breath, with that slight feeling always at the back of her head, Luz ventures into it.
Amity’s going fast. The access machines to the station are full of people, and she dives into this sea of strangers lost in her thoughts. Amity’s grown used to sharing public spaces with humans and witches alike. Disputes and discriminations between both races had fallen so much in the last decades thanks to a peaceful equality organization governed by Emperor Belos. Hexside City being the capital, it's much more difficult to see hostile attitudes now, where witches and humans have been working in friendly terms for many years. For this reason, Amity doesn’t cover her pointy ears as she walks through the crowd. She goes down the mechanical stairs…
… And she gets on the train to go to work, like every morning. Luz leans against the door when it closes, starting the familiar rocking of the train at the start of the ride, and she observes the landscape that flows in front of her fast, like a movie. Trains, animals, cars, bikes, shops, children playing, old people going for a walk, young people going to school… Luz’s eyes hop from one to another, distracted, but inside she feels like she’s silently looking for something. It’s been a while since Luz feels like this, always looking for something, someone, in the huge crowd around her, not knowing exactly what she’s trying to find.
Above her stretches a spring sky, faded white tones bathing the scenery that Amity’s seeing through the clean window of the train, beyond her reflection. Even so, her gaze focuses again on her hand for a second, and the sensation bursts back into her chest with sudden force. Amity ignores it with all her might; she doesn’t know exactly what it’s asking of her. She thinks of herself, of the place she holds in this city, in this world. Amity thinks of the people who care about her, and she thinks of the sense of emptiness that she secretly feels inside. Like she’s missing something, someone she doesn’t remember. As if she was alone, completely alone, in a wagon that carries a hundred people. On a train carrying a thousand strangers in a city with thousands of trains flowing through it, Amity observes.
And as she always does, Luz absent-mindedly watches the city. Searching for a feeling she doesn’t remember, but that tightens in her chest with the strength of a forgotten miracle. With the corner of her eye Luz catches her hair reflected on the window, the brown locks of hair intertwining and splitting with ease. Like the affluent of a river, merging and emerging. Like train tracks, with the thousands of people they carry, separating and converging.
Amity’s immersed, trying to make sense of that feeling that flows through her chest and that cries out for her to find something, someone.
… And Luz looks for a person. A single person.