Chapter Text
Amity feels it all the time.
Regret.
She lies awake at night, wondering why she’s done the things that she’s done, why she’s made the mistakes she’s made.
Regret is a funny thing, she thinks. You think you’re making the right choice in that moment, and you let a few angry, biting words slip out, and it feels good. You feel satisfied, that you’ve let it out. All the anger, the pain washing over some innocent person who’s done nothing to deserve it. It feels good.
Then, all alone in your bed, you think-
Why?
Amity’s felt that moment of regret many times over the past years.
All alone in her bed, when the anger has died away, she’s wondered why. Why did I do that? Why did I push her like that?
She never used to feel regret. Her words never used to haunt her. With Boscha and Skara by her side, she was untouchable. She’d never feel this guilt. She’d never lie awake at night wondering-
Why did I do that?
So yes, the regret is new, but it’s not. It’s an ever present ache, a constant in her life, for what was it now? Three years? Four?
She never used to feel regret before Luz.
A human.
Soft eyes, an open heart, kind words, innocent. Yes, she can admit it now, the human changed her. Turned her from an ice cold witch, someone who’s gaze could cut people to ribbons, to someone who questioned themself in the mirror. To someone who would wake up in the morning with tear stains and a weight pressing against her chest.
Luz was the only person who made her doubt.
Amity hated doubting herself.
At her core, she was self assured, knew exactly where she was headed and how she would get there. She was always top, first, the best, and everyone knew it. She would be part of the Emperor’s Coven, and then she’d become Emperor Belos’s closest and most trusted advisor. She knew it, her parents knew it, and everyone else knew it. Amity walked the halls with a confident gleam in her eyes, footsteps never halting or stumbling.
She didn’t doubt herself.
Of course, it wasn’t easy to be the best. The pressure from her parents, combined with the high expectations of her teachers lead to a life of work. She worked hard, and eventually clawed her way to the top. And she stayed there.
Until Luz.
The human, somehow, unexplainably, earned Half-a-Witch, of all people, Amity’s top student badge. It was hers, she’d even written her name on the back of it in permanent marker a couple months back. As stupid as it sounds now, she felt she’d lost her soul, or at least an arm and a leg. Something burned through her when the teacher removed her badge and gave it to Willow.
Jealousy.
It was an unfamiliar emotion to her. Amity never had anything to be jealous of.
She hated it.
The green monster roared in her chest, demanding repentance. She’d felt a fury simmer deep in her stomach, begging to be unleashed. Amity swore that if she ever saw the human again, it would.
A month later, the unexpected happened.
For the first time in history, a human had been admitted into Hexide. The news had reverberated through the hallways, spreading like wildfire, exciting students and starting rumors. The monster had curled itself around her heart, spreading green poison through her as it growled. Amity had grabbed Boscha and Skara by the arm, leading them to find the human, fury still bubbling in her.
They’d spotted her, with Half-a-Witch and some kid she vaguely knew as Augustus. She had felt the monster take over, green clouding her vision and her judgement.
Amity roughly shoved the human into one of the nearby lockers, feeling a small spike of pleasure at the pained grunt that escaped her lips. She’d looked up at Amity with wide, fearful eyes.
“Never come near me. Never take what’s mine from me again.”
Oh, how’d she come to regret those words.
Luz had been confused by her anger, by the rage that she hadn’t earned. She’d felt the human’s eyes on her as the three of them walked away, but couldn’t care less. The green monster had purred, satisfied.
Later that evening, an ache had flared up in her when she remembered the fear, the pain in Luz’s eyes. She clenched her teeth, and vowed to forget.
Yes. She would forget.
Yet, because life wouldn’t let Amity have her way, the human had shown up in her abomination class. Amity’s class. Amity’s territory, Amity’s turf, Amity’s refuge and sanctuary. Of course, the human had come and mucked that all up.
Being the good, role model student that she was, Amity ignored her and went on to answer all the teacher’s questions, earning a beaming look when she got them right. She’d felt satisfied. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.
After awhile, Luz started answering questions before her. And getting them right.
It was absolutely unbelievable! The human couldn’t even do magic properly, but could name all the ingredients that allowed an abomination to speak with barely a second thought?
That had been the second time Amity had lost her top student badge. The first time she’d lost it to the human.
The sparks had been lit.
Luz and her became rivals, bitter ones at that. She’d often pull all-nighters studying, hoping to get a leg up on the human, to get ahead where she’d excelled so easily before. The badge went back and forth between them week after week.
The bags under her eyes and the jealousy in her heart deepened.
Oh, the fights they had! Fights over who’s abomination was better, who’d memorized more obscure facts that week, fights that lead to angry words from both sides. Oftentimes, Amity would take it a step too far, and Luz would lean back in her chair, real hurt stinging in her eyes.
She’d see those eyes in her sleep, fear and anger burning in them, a special concoction of hate that she reserved for Amity. The human never looked at anyone else that way, those eyes usually holding a kind softness in them. She’d seen, she knew, from across classrooms and hallways.
She’d feel, late at night-
Doubt.
And regret.
Eventually, the fights that Amity won felt like losses. The pride that had previously filled her turned sour, and she felt sick whenever Luz lost her fighting spirit, slumping over with a dull look in her eyes.
Who could take pride in causing such a sweet person so much agony?
They broke each other down, like two boulders grinding against one another over the course a thousand years, causing cracks and fractures.
Their feud continued on, and in their third year, something terrible happened.
A monster, just as awful as the one living in her chest, broke into school. Events like these weren’t uncommon, it was the Boiling Isles after all, but this one was different. In all the books on monsters she’d ever read, she’d never seen this one. It was a nameless, terrible thing, with boney wings, cracked, bleeding skin, eyes so soulless and dark that Amity felt the life draining from her.
She’d stood in a trace as the monster approached, until a warm hand landed on her shoulder.
Regret.
She’d thrown Luz’s hand off in disgust, summoning a fireball to shoot at the monster’s head. It had shaken the fire off, unphased.
Amity knew then that they were in trouble.
And doubt.
Every bit of magic that she knew, every piece of knowledge learned, she used against that thing. Luz was trying her best, throwing random glyphs against the monster. It still appeared unphased, and Amity became increasingly frustrated, taking out her anger on the human instead of the creature.
“Try harder, will you?!”
“I am!”
“You are absolutely useless . A child could wield magic better than you!”
Luz had turned towards her, pain so clearly written on her face, just for an instant. Then the monster’s tail slammed into her, throwing the human against the wall, and Amity heard a sickening crack.
Luz crumpled to the ground, unmoving.
“No.”
“ No! ”
In a furious haze, she summoned another spell circle, but no spell came out. Instead, it was just… magic. Pure, unfiltered magic.
It was beautiful and terrible all the same.
The magic hit the monster, disintegrating it upon contact, and then there was nothing. No sound, no relief, no anger or fear.
Amity stumbled towards where the human lay, still crumpled. She half knelt, half fell in front of her.
A trickle of blood ran from the corner of Luz’s mouth, and those warm brown eyes were now cold, glassy and unfocused. She felt her own vision blur in and out as she realized.
Luz Noceda, dead at sixteen.
A strangled little sound escaped her lips.
Regret.
How Amity made it home was beyond her.
How she came back to class the next week, empty, was beyond her.
Luz had become her obsession, her break in the monotony of life, a reason to push herself. Their relationship was by no means healthy, but Amity realized that she’d become dependent on the human. They’d broken each other down, but they’d also pushed each other. Now, there was nothing driving her.
Sometimes, late, late at night, when night started to shift to morning, she’d wonder-
Maybe…
Things could’ve been different.
They were incompatible. But, just maybe, in a different world, in a different time, they could’ve been friends.
For the first time in her life, Amity wished for the human back.
~~~
Somewhere in the universe, someone heard her wish, her plea.
~~~
One day, Amity Blight. You have one day to fix this, to change the events you set into motion.
I wish you the best of luck.