Chapter Text
Running the back of her hand over her lips, Amity feels like she is rubbing off some of the lip-gloss, smearing it on her cheek, and along with the lip-gloss she also smears some blood from a broken lip. Amity looks at her soiled hand, looks around for a mirror to see the damage, but the only reflection she sees is in the honey-brown eyes opposite. These eyes look at her either viciously or with some kind of fright, and Amity can’t understand why the fuck she hasn't yet burned this human girl to the ground. It would be so easy: just a click, a couple of minutes and no one would bother. But… Amity rejected this idea a long time ago, because Crazy Owl Woman would bother, and burning someone alive would attract a lot of viewers, and she has a reputation, and this reputation is “the best student who can solve problems with just a glance."
Was, the eyes opposite mockingly tell her, and Amity bares her fangs, letting out the quiet roar of a wounded beast.
Was, until this incomprehensible human girl appeared at school, with stupid round ears and an excellent right hook. On the very first day of school she broke the nose of the captain of the grugby team and escaped exclusion in some unprecedented way. Amity guesses, why Principal Bump left her in school: because, wow, someone didn't whine quietly in the corner "I'm sorry, here's my money," but stood up straight and fought back, and without any magic. Just one hit - and Boscha squeezes her broken nose, hearing approving cries of the rest of the students (who will then be found upside down in the toilet bowls, but that’s not the point).
The last time Amity fought was in kindergarten, taking away her toy from someone. Then she joins the "good" side, preferring to solve problems "with words" and a little flame in her palm. Violence is for the distraught poor, for the commoners, for the humans.
Luz Noceda is a human, and therefore she didn’t hesitate to kick Amity in the jaw when she tried to intimidate her in the girl's closet. Amity still remembers the dull pain and the look of honey-brown eyes shimmering with anger and fear. Luz understands, always understands that she is just a human. That one spell: and she can be sent home in a coffin the size of a matchbox. But she always goes forward fighting back, and that is why Bump left her at school, like an entertaining pet that sooner or later will be eaten alive anyway. It almost happened a few times already.
Luz has been in Hexside for almost a year, paying for it with new scars and almost daily fights, but now glyphs have been added to just fists, and it has become much easier for her to fight back. Now no one tries to challenge her one on one, because Titan knows what will she pull out of her pocket, what glyph she will fight back with and how much it will hurt. The only one Luz fistfights with, without magic or anything else, is Amity Blight.
Because, wow, taking out stress this way really helps.
It started with a challenge "are you that weak without your magic", and Amity blindly accepted it, shamefully losing to a human girl one on one, but no one saw it, and after the fight Luz smiled as if they had not fought at all, and said that she is good at fighting "for a witch." Amity barely resisted not to burn Luz right there, at the empty parking lot behind the school. And then it became some kind of strange tradition: shoving each other in the corridors, snapping and quarreling from scratch, barking "I'll beat you today at six," and then trying to knock something out of each other. Shit, anger, resentment on each other, themselves of the world. And then, after a fight, when they no longer have the strength to move, they sit near the school wall, in the shade, and Luz takes out human bandages and foul-smelling liquids, and instead of just using her favorite glyphs, she pours something on the scratches, and Amity is once again convinced that people are barbarians and crazy creatures. Luz treats the her cuts and Amity’s, barks to shut up and not interfere, and Amity shuts up, because what if Luz has poison in the another bottle or something worse, and silently lets herself be bandaged with ridiculous colorful plasters.
And after they calm down and just sit next to each other, Luz no longer has this fear, this hopelessness of the cornered animal in her eyes. At such moments, Amity seems that they don’t hate each other at all, that perhaps they could be friends, be on the same side, but after a couple of days of calm, everything repeats itself.
And now, wiping the blood off with the sleeve of her school uniform, Amity sighs, raising her hand in the air: a stop sign. Luz nods, grabbing her by the wrist and dragging her into the shadows, examining her broken lip, and her gaze changes to a sad, guilty look, as if she accidentally hit Amity in the face. In fact, it was an accident, but making excuses is already useless, and Luz simply takes out a cotton pad, moistens it with peroxide* and gently touches it around a small wound. Amity hisses, clutching her shoulder with her fingers, and Luz thinks that new bruises will remain there.
“Hit my face again, Noceda, and I’ll shove you into your own locker, which will digest you in a couple of minutes.”
"And who are you going to vent your anger on then, Blight? Boscha? We both know she can't fistfight.”
Amity purses her lips and immediately winces as the cotton pad hits the wound.
“I’ll find someone. You're not the only one in school.”
“I’m willing to bet there are no other humans on the Islands.”
“Shut up.”
Luz smiles and places a hand on Amity's chin, keeping her still.
“You shut up and let me handle this. It's not my fault that you set yourself up so stupidly.”
Amity clings tighter to her shoulder. There will definitely be bruises.
“My parents divorced,” she says suddenly, and Luz freezes. “Mother has sued most of it, and from tomorrow I have exactly one week to choose with whom I want to stay until adulthood.”
Luz is silent for a few seconds and then, like nothing happened, continues to wipe the blood and lip-gloss from Amity's cheek.
“And what do you think?”
Amity rolls her eyes as if the answer is obvious.
“I’m not going back to the woman who made me dye my hair green just to be like her and the twins.”
Luz removes the red cotton pad and pulls out a new one, pouring generous amounts of hydrogen peroxide on it.
“Doesn't that rob you of your status of the princess of all Hexside?”
“This status flew into the griffin's ass when you first hit me in the jaw in front of the whole school, and then came the next day, as if nothing had happened.”
“Oh, you need to write this on your graduation photo.”
“I'll burn your eyes out now.”
“I dare you.”
Amity sighs tiredly. The day was long and difficult, and only now, having expressed problems to this human girl, she feels relief, and it's strange, because they are not friends, all these months of fighting can’t be called “friendship”, but Amity feels so much easier.
Luz finishes with her scratches and proceeds to hers own, and after a couple of minutes they get up, dust themselves off and look at each other: rumpled, bruised, but Luz smiles softly, and Amity thinks that maybe in a week, when everyone is at school turn away from her, Luz will remain by her side.
A week later, when Boscha will shout out to the whole dining room that Amity is now nobody, Luz will throw an exploding glyph stuck to a watermelon at her, and when Boscha will try to kill Luz in the toilet, Amity will set her jumper on fire and drag Luz away by the sleeve, saying that they will definitely have a fun graduation year.
A fun year on one side.
*peroxide - I'm not sure you guys use that too, but it's someting we use here to stop blood.