Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Amity felt the leaves crunch beneath her feet as she made her way back home from school. Her school books were tucked in her folded arms, along with an azura book Luz had lent to her earlier.

She spotted the manor in the distance when she exited from the forest path and took a deep breath. She had a training session with her father today, and the thought of it made her tense. She always lost, and when she lost she got grounded. It wasn’t fun, but what choice did she have? It was like that with twins, though they were more likely to win because they always fought together.

She approached the door and shifted her books to be tucked under her arm as she opened it and stepped inside, her shoes clacking against the hardwood of the stairs as she made her way to her room to drop off her stuff. She knew her father was already waiting outside for her in their training field, with her mother and siblings.

She dressed as simple as she could get, with her signature heels and a shirt with the sleeves only reaching her elbows, matching with a common pair of pants, knowing she would get dirty.

As she rubbed her wrists and looked at herself in the mirror, she took another deep breath and murmured to herself, “You've got this Amity, just get it over with and things will be back to normal in no time.” she dusted herself off and made her way down the steps, making her way to the back door and spotting her father stretching his wrists as she hopped down the small stairs and made her way over, straightening her posture on instinct the second she spotted her mother staring at her with her usual tight smile.

“Ready?” her father asked, and Amity nodded before going over to her spot across from him and fixing her hair tie so none of her hair fell in her face. She crouched down and prepared to craft a spell circle, yelling in surprise when no warning was given and a large abomination rose from the ground, lumbering right for her. The young witch summoned her own with a flick of her wrist and dived to the side, watching her abomination practically crumble under the force of her father’s much larger creation.

While the man was distracted, Amity crafted a fire spell and shot it in his direction, watching him block it last minute. The witch blinked, diving out of the way when a spell was shot back at her.

It was hard to move from place to place while wearing her heels, but she managed and de-summoned her abomination before making a large arm and grabbing her father’s own creation with it, focusing her energy on keeping the arm stable and trying to squeeze it so it exploded, not seeing her father make another spell and blast it directly towards her until too late.

The spell hit her right as she turned to look at it and slammed onto her left arm, which was raised to control the abomination arm, with an ear splitting bang. The pain seared through her arm and she cried out in surprise as her body hit the ground.

She heard the abomination gurgle and go silent, assuming her father had un-summoned it, and a dull throbbing sensation filled the left side of her torso and arm as she tried to get up.

She saw her siblings turn to stare at their mother, who only silently watched as Alador went up to Amity and asked her if she was alright. Amity’s ears were ringing and she attempted to get up again with her good arm, sitting upright and shaking her head with a groan.

When she tried to lift her left arm to look at it, a pang of fear ran through her body when she couldn’t even feel her arm.

She turned her head to look and saw the cloth of her shirt sleeve seared to a crisp first, then the blood dripping from her scorched arm. Little sparks of magic crackled through the burnt skin, and it hurt like an absolute bitch. Amity could feel her pained tears running down her face as she fought the urge to cry out in pain.

As the twins ran off to get medical supplies ready inside the home, Odalia came over and looked down at her as Alador helped Amity to her feet. “Oh, it seems we may have to put the training on pause.” she said, while Alador asked, “Amity dear, can you move your fingers?”

Amity attempted to do something with her arm, but nothing happened and her father’s brow furrowed in concern.

“That spell you shot off may have been a bit too powerful for her, dear,” Odalia said, before turning to walk inside and her father being left to lead Amity inside, who was silently watching her own blood hit the grass below her.

--

“Nothing’s working, Odalia.”

Amity woke up to her father’s words and didn’t bother moving from her bed, already laying comfortably on her good side.

It had been at least four days since the ‘accident’ and nothing was working. Amity’s arm felt practically numb now, and she hadn’t been able to move it after she had been struck with the spell. What did her father even cast? She wasn’t open to questions anymore, she was just tired from her parents using spells on her arm or head 24/7. She was barely paying attention to what they were saying now, their voices hushed whispers.

She heard her mother walk over and nudge her shoulder, provoking amity to thirdly flick her ear in response.

“Up. we’ve made a decision on what to do.” her mother spoke, and Amity sat upright with a tired groan. Her arm was in a sling wrapped in bandages, and she watched her father reluctantly grab something off a desk from Amity’s room.

While he did something with it, Amity flinched at her mother’s hands cupping her face. “We’re going to fix your arm, dear. You have to be put to sleep but once you wake up you’ll feel much better,”

Amity furrowed her brow in confusion, watching her mother make a spell circle in her direction and spotting what her father was finally holding. A needle.

Before she could ask what was happening, a wave of exhaustion hit her and she blacked out in a matter of seconds. Odalia looked down at her with a tired hum and laid her back down onto the bed.

“Do it.” Odalia spoke, getting up from the bed and watching Alador crouch down next to Amity and take her injured arm. “Are you sure this will work?” Alador questioned, concerned, and hummed when Odalia scoffed.

“It has to. If it doesn’t, we’ll find other ways to do it.” he was hesitant, but he reluctantly stuck the needle into Amity’s arm and watched the potion inside enter her arm. The girl grunted in her sleep but otherwise didn’t respond, and Alador dropped her arm and took out the needle once he finished. He stepped back and watched Odalia grab a sharp blade from the desk, taking it and examining it before going over to Amity’s arm and pressing into it to test it.

Alador looked away when he watched Odalia bring the blade up, and heard the sickening crunch of Amity’s arm bone being cut as her arm was sliced clean off in one swing. She somehow didn’t wake up, and Odalia waited to wrap amity’s arm up and stop the bleeding to see if what they injected would work.

“You did grab the regeneration, didn’t you?” she asked, and Alador held up the empty needle, showing the small healing coven label on it. “Yes, I'm positive.”

They waited, Alador watching in anticipation and the both of them exchanging eye contact when nothing happened.

“I swear to the titan, why didn’t it work?!” Odalia spat, Alador grabbing the bandages and wrapping the empty place on Amity’s shoulder where her arm once was.

He heard the door slam behind him as Odalia left the room, and watched it open seconds later and the twins peeking behind the door, their eyes widening in horror at the sight of Amity and a strangled gasp escaping their throats.

“Oh, what did mother do?” Emira asked, entering the room and averting her gaze when Alador grabbed Amity’s arm from the floor and burned it into a crisp with a fire spell. “...i’m sorry.” Alador said, looking at his youngest daughter before back at the twins, who were now at her bedside and watching her nervously.

“...it’s ok.” Edric said after a moment, looking to the partially open door and lowering his voice when he spoke again. “There was nothing we could do to stop it.” Alador sighed, brushing himself off and eventually leaving the room, leaving the twins with Amity.

They shared a nervous glance once Alador left, and Emira looked back down at Amity again as Edric mumbled, “I’m gonna stay till she wakes up.” Emira nodded, sighing and folding her hands in her lap. “...Yeah. Me too.”

--

Alador shot awake to the sound of a shrill scream filling the air of the home. He got out of bed almost immediately, racing out of the room while his wife spat, “What on the boiling isles?!” behind him.

He heard it again, and the frantic voices of the twins as he approached amity’s room and he practically threw the door open. “What’s happening?!” he asked, the sight before his eyes making him freeze.

Amity was gripping her left arm, which shouldn’t be there, and tears of pain and fear ran down her face as she tried to pull or scratch it off with her dull fingernails.

Alador noticed it was made of abomination goo almost instantly, and the twins were holding medical supplies in their arms, which they dropped the second Odalia came into view. “What on the isles is happening here?” she snapped in anger, Amity still trying to pull whatever was on her shoulder off of her, and Alador approached her without a second thought and tried to see what was going on.

“Amity, calm down, let me see,” he said, but he was ignored as Amity cried almost desperately, “Father, it hurts, I don’t-I don’t know what i did wrong, it hurts,” she paused to take a raspy breath and eventually stopped pulling at it, but it obviously still hurt as her posture stayed hunched and she kept her head down.

Alador turned to the twins and both him and Odalia spoke, “Explain.” The twins gulped, looking between each other and Emira was the one to speak first. “We were in here waiting for Amity to wake up. When she did she got upset about her arm being missing and tried making a fake arm out of abomination goo. It...worked, at first,”

As they spoke, Alador cast another sleeping spell and Amity was out like a light in seconds. He took the abomination arm in his hands and tried to find the part where it ended on Amity’s shoulder, blinking when he couldn’t find it. He was only feeling above Amity’s shirt, maybe he just couldn’t find it because of the wrinkles. Until then, he turned his attention back to the twins as they continued on.

“She said it started to hurt, then it felt like it was burning and she screamed. We think it…” they paused, and Alador caught Edric’s nervous glance that basically spoke for itself; ‘this happened because of Mother’

“...got in her body, latched onto her bones and nerves or something.” they obviously wanted to say something else, but they avoided doing so.

Smart. Odalia would be even more angry if she was told that her methods of mixing magic to heal it were the cause of this. She was always correct in her own twisted world.

Alador got to his feet with a sigh and watched his wife take a deep breath and look over at him.

“Remove it.” she said, walking out of the room and leaving them alone again. Clearly she didn’t want to do it again herself, and Alador reached for the desk to grab the blade, the twins watching with fear in their eyes. They couldn’t interfere, they didn’t even know if they should.

Alador went back to Amity and prepared to strike down on her mutated arm, bringing it down in one swing and shocked when it shattered like glass. The pieces of the blade dropped onto the floor and Alador stared at a silver colored piece of the arm that had somehow shot up and made a sort of shield. It slowly melted back into the arm and the claw-like hands at the end flexed.

Alador gazed down at the broken blade in his hand with surprise, looking at his daughter and watching her stir in her sleep. Amity’s eyes shot open seconds later and she sat bolt upright, staring directly at Alador. He was about to apologise, but something took him off guard. Something was...wrong.

The look in her eyes was different, monstrous.The whites of her eyes had turned a solid black, and her pupil on her left eye looked like it was smudged, smeared to the side and looking odd. Amity lifted her arm and snarled, the twins yelling in surprise when Amity pounced on her father and started snapping at him like an animal.

He used his arm to block her from biting his throat like she was aiming for, and kicked her off while stumbling to his feet. “Amity! What on earth are you doing?” he said, watching Amity back away from him on all fours with her teeth still bared in a snarl.

He watched her monstrous arm dig into the floorboards with what looked like claws, scratching the wood. While the twins attempted to leave the room quietly, Edric stepped on a creaky floorboard, causing both Alador and Amity to snap their heads in the twin’s direction. Alador expected Amity to pounce and was prepared to stop her, but she didn’t.

She simply stared at them and stumbled to her feet, the arm growing sharp pieces along it as she watched them stare at her.

Finally she turned to Alador, and her eyes were somewhat normal again, but her pupil still looked smudged. “...Father?” she croaked, Alador dropping the broken blade as he stared at his daughter.

“Mittens? Are you ok?” Emira said, Amity’s ears perking upright and turning to look at her sister. “...What happened? My mouth hurts…” Amity mumbled, suddenly looking exhausted and stumbling in place. Odd, she never bit anything as far as Alador knew. Why would she have mouth pain?

The arm wasn’t causing her pain anymore as far as they could tell, but it looked...gruesome. It was like a fleshy tendril mixed with the clay-like substance of an abomination, and the spikes it had changed into earlier were shrinking back into it and weaving itself back into the arm like thread.

Alador watched as Edric lunged forward and caught Amity as she passed out, lifting her upright and hissing when a spike from the arm poked his side. “Ow,” he said, laying amity back down onto her bed and glancing back up at his father.

“...I think you guys messed up.” Edric said simply, Emira saying nothing, and the both of them looked faintly surprised when Alador nodded. “...I knew mixing magic was a bad idea.” he said, sighing and debating whether to leave or not. A part of him knew he should leave and go back to Odalia, but another part of him wanted to stay with Amity and make sure she was ok.

“We’ll stay.” the twins said, taking the adult witch off goard for a second before he nodded. “Alright. Update me if anything happens,” he said, watching the twins pick up the dropped medical supplies from the floor before he turned and left the room, entering his own and seeing Odalia sitting at the edge of the bed.

“What went on in there? I heard something crash.” she said as Alador laid back down with a huff. “Amity just... got a bit upset, that’s all. I was unsuccessful in removing the arm.” he said in response, hearing his wife scoff and turning to his side. “I assume we’ll just try tomorrow, then. We must get that thing off.” he simply grunted, staring at the wall until he felt himself drift off. Odalia didn’t lay down just yet, looking at the bedroom door and narrowing her eyes.

“...”

--

Amity was staring at herself in the mirror, the reflection looking back at her striking fear into her soul. The arm was bad enough, obviously, and it looked monstrous even without the spikes she woke up with. Her face, however, felt and looked worse.

Her entire mouth was sore because she had sprouted jagged, sharp teeth along the left side of her mouth going up to her cheekbone, and her regular fangs on her right side were significantly longer.

The arm was latched onto her shoulder, purplish veins under the skin of her shoulder and feeling like they were sucking the life out of her. Edric and Emira were outside the door, the both of them having been there when Amity had woken up this morning to the feeling that her entire left side was on fire.

“...” she reached up and felt at her teeth, turning to the door when it was knocked on and Edric spoke. “Hey mittens, you ok in there?” he asked, and Amity approached the door before slowly opening it, looking up at the twins and her ears lowering at their expressions. “I don’t...think mother’s going to like this.” she said, a slight lisp in her voice due to the teeth. The twins exchanged glances before they sighed.

“No, I don't think she will.” Emira said, watching Amity look down the hall before back at her siblings. “...don’t worry, we’ll…” she stopped. Emira didn’t really know what they would do. They didn’t know how Odalia would react, and as they were going to turn around and get their father, the woman they were just speaking of was behind them and looking directly at Amity, who was already backing up into the bathroom.

Odalia nudged the twins out of the way and too amity by the face, her grip gentle yet striking terror into Amity’s core and her arm spiking up. The action her limb made caused her to hiss in discomfort. Odalia turned Amity’s head to the side and tapped her gnarled teeth, huffing under her breath and letting the younger blight go.

“This won’t do.” was all she said before walking away, leaving the three children to give each other nervous glances. She didn’t react as angry as they expected her to, which took them extremely off guard.

Amity’s gaze was filled with terror while the twins were concerned for their sister’s safety. “Come on, let’s...go.” Edric said, Emira nodding and Amity following close behind them back into her room.

Odalia walked into her study to see Alador already seated at the chair in the corner, reading a book and his gaze flickering upright to his wife as she sat at her desk and took a quill in her hand.

Alador narrowed his eyes at her actions and his ears twitched in curiosity when she rolled up the piece of parchment paper she wrote on.

“Who might you be writing to?” Alador asked, closing his book, and Odalia turned to look at him as she sealed it with a blight stamp. “I’m sending a letter to the Healing Coven leader, obviously. I need to find a way to fix her as soon as possible, I will not have this...accident, taint our family line.” Alador couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but hearing her say that Amity needed to be fixed made him cringe.

“...of course, dear,” he said in response. He couldn’t exactly say anything else without risking her further.

Odalia took the scroll and handed it to Alador, watching her husband take it in his hands and turning on her heel to leave. “You go take that to our messenger, I will figure out a way to keep Amity...contained.” she said, leaving without another word and leaving Alador nervous on what exactly she would do to his daughter.

--

Amity lifted her head when Odalia entered her room, the twins looking up from what they were doing and eying her with concern. “Amity.” Odalia said, seeing Amity’s arm ripple and the girl wince in pain with a glare. “Come here.” she said, watching Amity slowly get up and approach her.

When Odalia grabbed her mutated arm rather roughly, Amity instinctively tried to pull away. The adult huffed in annoyance and yelled in surprise when a sharp point from the arm stabbed her palm hard enough to draw blood, Amity stepping back with terror and Odalia looking down at her hand with disgust.

“How dare you?” she spat, making a spell circle and light blue shaded shackles appearing on Amity’s arms before the girl could protest. “Mother, i’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-” she was cut off by the shackles yanking her forward and Odalia grabbing her face. “You’ve turned into a filthy creature. I’ll be sure to fix this,” she was about to let go of Amity’s face and drag her out when the twins took Amity from behind and pulled her back.

“Mother, stop!” Emira said, Edric noticing Amity’s eyes changing and looking from his twin to his mother with concern. Odalia cast a magic circle and Emira cried out as she was forcefully pulled back and into the wall.

“How DARE you yell at your MOTHER! I ought to teach you some manners when i’m done with your sister!” Edric heard a growl escape Amity’s throat and he blinked, giving Emira a nervous glance before reluctantly letting Amity go and the girl snapping the restraint on her mutated arm. Odalia yelled in surprise when Amity got to her feet and glared at her mother before rushing forward and slamming into her full force.

She brought the woman to the floor who shrieked like a banshee when Amity bit her hand. The Twins grimaced at the sickening crunch of one of Odalia’s fingers being bitten clean off, the woman kicking Amity in the gut with her heel and knocking her to the floor.

Amity glared at her mother with the solid black in her eyes gleaming as she licked the blood off her face with an unusually long, pointed tongue after swallowing the finger she just bit off. In a rage, Odalia Cast a spell circle that caused Amity to shriek as the binds were recast and they crackled with electricity.

The twins could only watch as their sister collapsed on the floor, Alador rushing in just as Odalia grabbed a bandage off the table and wrapped her hand. “Titan, what happened?” Alador said, not being answered as his wife grabbed Amity by the shirt collar and the young witch tried to bite her wrist with a snarl.

With an enraged huff Odalia made another spell circle that latched around Amity’s throat like a collar and caused her to yelp.

“Take her to the basement. NOW!” Odalia snapped, looking at the twins, who flinched before rushing over and taking Amity by the arm and reluctantly dragging her out of the room. Alador watched them leave then turned back to his wife, who angrily looked down at her bleeding hand before up at him. “That brat bit my finger clean off!” she spat, the male witch going quiet before hearing something crash downstairs.

“...” he said nothing, watching Odalia grab a healing glyph and put it on her hand before storming past Alador and down the hall. “Oh...oh dear.” Alador said quietly before going after her.

As he made his way down the stairs, he heard Odalia yell yet again as Amity tore herself from the twin’s grip and charged right past Odalia, causing both adults to cry out in alarm when Amity crashed right through the window and charged towards the woods. It took Alador extremely off guard and he stayed frozen solid even as his wife shrieked in fury like a banshee.

“CURSE THE TITAN, GET HER!” Odalia snapped, the twins yelping before eventually going out the front door to try and go after her. The witch glared at her husband, who was still staring at the window, and she audibly exclaimed her frustration. “I swear this entire family is useless!”

Odalia made her way outside and Alador finally regained his senses and followed, seeing the twins just vanish into the woods. He was worried about Amity, of course, and the fear of what would happen to her if Odalia got her back made him shudder, a part of him hoping the twins didn’t catch her.

--

Amity was running for dear life. She jumped over a discarded log in the center of the forest pathway as the thumps of her sibling’s feet on the ground filled her ears behind her. Her arm burned like it was on fire but she fought through it, ducking sharply to the side and hearing the twins yell in surprise behind her as she vanished from their view.

She continued to run, turning her head to look behind her and slamming right into someone just as she turned her head back around.

She hit the ground with a yelp, tumbling across the dirt and slamming into a tree trunk. Her arm instinctively shot out and grabbed it, the wood splintering under her unnaturally strong grip as she looked at whoever she ran into. The person groaned as they got up from the ground and glanced at her, Their chocolate brown eyes striking Amity with recognition almost instantly before it was replaced with sheer panic.

“Luz?!” she said, getting to her feet and watching the human’s gaze fill with panic as well and look at her in horror. What was she even doing here?! Did she hurt her? Oh titan Amity hoped that Luz was ok, the panic that Amity injured her filling her torso and making her breath quicken.

“Amity?! Oh god you have blood on you! What-” Luz was cut off by Amity perking her ears up when she heard a twig snap. “L-luz, you need to go. Now.” Amity said, hearing Edric call her name and her fear kicking in full force as she turned on her heel and ran for dear life without another word.

“Amity wait!” Luz called after her, attempting to chase her and quickly losing her. “...” Luz turned when she heard the twins come to a halt behind her and look around while they caught their breath. “Luz?! What are you doing here?” Edric said while Emira coughed into her elbow.

“I-I came up here to see if Amity was ok. What's going on?!” she asked. Emira was the first to answer, her brother continuing to look around. “We cant- we can’t tell you right now. Please, where did she go?” the Blight twin asked, Luz sighing and debating what to do. She didn’t even know what they wanted with Amity. They were good witches, sure, but what if they were going to hurt her? Amity looked absolutely terrified. Luz couldn’t risk it.

After a long pause, she pointed in the wrong direction on purpose and said, “That way.” guilt filled her gut when the twins looked in that direction and temporary relief filled their gazes.

As the twins yelled a quick ‘thank you!’, they ran off, and Luz watched them go silently. “...Guess I’ll find out myself,” with that, she ran off in the direction Amity actually went in hopes of at least finding her.

Chapter Text

Everything hurt now.

Sure, it had been hurting before, but it hurt more than before. Amity’s entire left side was throbbing painfully as she sat on the dirt, her mutated, twisted arm resting in her normal hand and across her torso as she stared at it. It was still a shade of purple, like her abominations, and her hand had taken on a more claw-like appearance, her fingertips jagged and crooked. 

She had been spitting out blood for the past hour, her newly sprouted teeth causing major irritation to her gums, so she had just been sitting with her mouth wide open and pointing her head to the forest floor. It almost hurt to breathe from the stabbing pain she would get in her chest, and her breath was coming in ragged wheezing sounds. God, she sounded horrible, she probably looked so much worse. 

The memories of how she got here were fuzzy. She remembered vaguely what happened at the manor, and the memory of biting her mother’s finger off and eating it made her feel ill. 

She got to her feet, slowly but surely, and looked around. It was pitch black outside now, the only light coming from the moon peering through the trees. It was deathly quiet, except for the wind blowing through and rustling the trees, making Amity shiver. She stumbled across the forest floor, trying to find some sort of path and not trip over her feet from drowsiness. 

When she had been walking for a while, she felt odd. Her pain from her arm was becoming dull, yet she could feel it writhing as it changed shape again. The sounds of the wind around her dropped drastically till it was practically deafening, Amity simply standing there like a zombie until her ears twitched and her head snapped to her left. 

She could smell something. It had an odd scent, and she hadn’t sensed it before, but suddenly it flooded her senses and the sound of walking filled her ears. 

Her body moved on its own and she was sprinting across the forest floor before she could blink, jumping up into a tree and peering down at a path she didn’t even know had been there. She simply stared, her eyes glowing faintly in the dark as they focused on what she had heard earlier. 

It was a witch, strolling through the woods with a basket tucked neatly in their arms as they whistled a tune. Amity wanted to jump down, to get their attention and ask for help, but her body refused to move. She didn’t feel in control anymore, she felt like she was being piloted. 

A few more seconds of staring at the witch made a crippling hunger make itself known in her gut, and it was almost painful how starving she suddenly felt. Her head felt blank, and simple phrases were blaring in her mind like sirens. 

‘Eat. eat. eat.’

A low growl escaped her throat, and she watched the witch pause and look around to try and find the source of it. “Hello?” they called out, Amity suddenly leaping and landing on them, digging her clawed hand into their torso and feeling their ribs splinter like twigs when they hit the ground on their back. the witch shrieked before the scream was cut off by Amity’s quick actions of clamping her other hand over their mouth, feeling their fists hitting her torso in desperation.

Before they could cast a spell circle, watching them lift their arm to do so, her mutated arm shot out and grabbed their hand, twisting it sharply and simply ripping it off like she was ripping paper. Before she could blink it was in her mouth and she was feasting on it, leaving nothing behind as she licked her teeth and glared back down at her victim.

The horrible scream that followed afterward from them made her ears ring, and she felt like her arm was being torn and reassembled as she saw a long, sharp blade form at the end where her mutated hand had been resting, along with more sharp points appearing on her shoulder and down the arm. She almost hesitated, simply staring at the witch for a solid second as they stared up at her in horror, about to scream when she cut them off.

She swung her new weaponized limb down and stabbed the poor witch through the torso, hearing them gasp for air as their blood dripped off the end of the blade sticking through their back. She ripped it out and watched them crumble to the ground, the moonlight shining on them as they choked on their blood before falling limp, staring blankly up at the sky with an empty gaze. 

Her arm acted on its own yet again, changing back to a more hand-like form and flexing her fingers before she crouched down, tilting her head like a curious animal before grabbing the body with her normal hand by their shirt collar and tearing into their chest with the other. 

As she pulled out what appeared to be the witch’s bile sack, she simply stared at it for a few seconds before her hunger took over and she devoured it, consuming the fluid inside and eating it in a matter of seconds. It dripped from her mouth when she finished, a mix of the witch’s blood and the bile fluid hitting their shredded clothes and joining the already growing puddle of blood on the ground.

She simply sat there for a long moment, breathing heavily as blood dripped from her mouth and arms, eventually slowly getting to her feet and seeming to snap out of whatever trance she was in. she felt frozen, looking down at what she had done to this poor stranger, and a horrible shriek of anguish left her throat as she turned and ran. 

She felt sick, grabbing at a tree as she leaned against it and hyperventilated, her face to the ground and watching the thick blood continue to drip from her teeth. 

She was a monster. She just brutally murdered someone that didn’t deserve it, and ate one of their organs without mercy, like an animal. 

The hunger was gone, and the pain in her arm had significantly dulled down. It was more of a mild stinging now, but she felt like her stomach had been ripped out. She felt so guilty, so sick with her actions it hurt. She felt like she wanted to puke, but she physically couldn’t.

What was wrong with her? 

--

To say Luz was worried would be an understatement.

It had been two days, and the lack of a missing poster of some sort was filling her with an unidentifiable dread. She knew something was up, due to Amity’s odd appearance when they had encountered each other a few days back. The look of terror that had been plastered on her face haunted Luz, and she wanted to help her as much as she could. 

She turned her head to look at a headline article posted to the news board, showing the bold words of a reported mauling. Someone had found a dead body on a pathway in the woods, their hand ripped off and their bile sack having been torn clean from their torso. 

People were growing paranoid, wondering what creature could have caused this and if they would strike again. Luz was suspicious, and a part of her wanted to explore that area as well. Luckily, she was pretty close to it, though it would be a bit of a walk.

She was currently in the center of bonesborough and its shopping center, buying supplies for Eda again. She wanted to take the opportunity to look for Amity, though she suspected she was in the woods, and going in there by yourself was not the best idea. She had contacted Willow and tried to describe what she had seen, seeming to freak the plant witch out and insisting she help look with Luz. 

Currently, the plant witch was browsing a stand of small plants while Luz purchased a small bag of some sort of powder Eda had told her to get, using the remaining snails she had been lent to pay for it and sticking it into her pocket. 

“Willow,” Luz said, raising her volume so the girl could hear her through the crowd, and watched her ears perk as she set down a plant she had been holding. “Should we get going?” Willow asked, standing up straight and looking at Luz, who nodded. “Yeah,” she started, turning on her heel to make her way out of the area with her friend right behind her. “I want to try and cover as much land as possible before dark.” 

She found herself at the edge of the thick woods in no time, the two girls sharing a glance before stepping inside and the light dimming drastically from the trees covering it. The woods were quieter than usual, making the both of them quite unsettled, and Luz pulled a sheet of paper from her hoodie pocket. It was a map of a section of Bonesborough, Luz having used a marker to mark off areas she had looked close to the busier parts of the island. 

She glanced over it for a few seconds before placing it back into hiding and continuing to look around, finally calling out Amity’s name and hoping to the titan for a response. Willow joined her in her yells after a moment as they went deeper, Luz eventually having to pull out a light glyph and using it as a light source as they went deeper, their hearts starting to drop when they got no response at all. 

Her throat was starting to hurt after at least an hour, so the two of them stopped to rest for a moment. Luz pulled out her map again as she sat down on the forest floor, mumbling to herself as she marked areas on the map with an orange marker. 

As she continued, she looked up at Willow as if expecting her to sit down, but paused when she noticed her friend was staring into the woods behind her. Luz tilted her head before looking over her shoulder, narrowing her eyes, and getting to her feet. 

“Luz,” Willow said, giving her a side glance before looking back into the woods, still shrouded in black despite it being the middle of the day. The human looked tense, trying to find whatever her friend was looking at and failing to do so. “What are you looking at?” she asked, watching Willow point at a tree a large distance away from them. “That,” she said, tilting her finger to the left, directly next to the tree, and that’s when Luz saw it. 

Something, or someone, was staring at them. Their eyes were the only thing visible besides their silhouetted figure, their thin white pupils glowing brightly as they looked like a pinprick from the distance between them. 

Luz tensed, a bit unnerved before she took a breath and shouted, “Hey!” to get them to do something. She heard Willow harshly whisper at her, asking her “What the hell are you doing?!” before their attention was grabbed by them looking back at the figure. The light glyph hovering above Luz’s hand was one of the only things allowing them to see the figure in the darkness of the woods, and it seemed to be dimming.  

The figure shifted their stance, continuing to stare at them before they crouched down and sprinted at them full speed. Luz felt Willow grab her arm and yank her out of the way, the light glyph extinguishing as she felt a gust of wind follow the figure as they missed her face by a millimeter and almost slammed into a tree. Before Luz could pull out another glyph to see what was attacking them, Willow had already started running and was practically dragging Luz behind her. 

“Willow, what is that?!” Luz asked as she kept her pace, yelping when she was pulled to the side and they both hid behind a tree, faint beams of sunlight entering through small gaps in the canopy above but the rest of the area still covered in darkness. 

She could see Willow’s face better without the glyph and watched her hold a finger to her mouth. They both flinched when they heard scuffling feet, hearing the figure run past their hiding spot. Luz almost breathed a sigh of relief, the breath catching in her throat when she couldn’t hear the running anymore. 

The figure had stopped. 

Luz turned her head to try and see them better, a beam of sunlight catching a part of their head and showing their dull green hair with brown roots, partially hanging in their face and obscuring one of their eyes now. 

Luz froze solid as the recognition rang in her mind like a siren, and she turned to her friend next to her, who seemed just as surprised. The human almost got to her feet to try and speak to the figure, but she was pulled down by Willow again, who harshly whispered, “Wait.”

They both watched as the figure, who Luz swears she knows, looked around the area and continued walking, slowly. They stopped again and turned their head to look at the tree the girls were hiding behind, the two of them hurryingly moving out of sight and hoping they weren’t spotted. 

When they heard a low growl and looked to their left to see the figure holding the tree with one arm and staring at them, Luz pulled out a light glyph and slapped it, the sudden burst of light startling the figure and making them stumble backward as the human turned to her friend. 

“Willow!” she snapped, watching her nod after a second and making a spell circle, thick vines bursting from the ground to grab the arms and legs of the figure, their struggling causing them to lose their balance and fall onto the ground. Luz crouched down closer to their level, pulling out another light glyph and using it as a better light source to see for sure who it was. 

She was right, it was Amity. She looked like a mess, her hair tangled and having a few leaves and twigs sticking out of the green locks. Her clothes were in shreds around her arms, Luz hearing Willow gasp behind her when she saw Amity’s left arm and her face, the jagged teeth and sickly purple tendril making Luz shudder. 

She was about to speak when her friend lunged at her, her eyes still solid black except for her pupils as she tried to bite the human’s hand. 

“Shit!” Luz exclaimed, scooting backward as Willow continued to keep her hold on her with the vines. “Amity?” Luz asked, trying to see if she would get a response, and watching quietly as the girl stared her dead in the eye. 

Suddenly, her white pupils dilated, and it appeared like she was crying as thick, black tears spilled from her eyes into the forest floor. As they went down her cheeks, Luz noticed it looked like the black was melting from her eyes, showing her gold irises again as the ‘tears’ seemed to stop when the black was gone. 

Amity looked confused, looking between the both of them before she tried to pull her arms free and she gasped from the pain that flared up her mutated arm. Her vision was somewhat blurry, and her eyes were drooping from exhaustion and having not slept for a solid 48 hours. 

Luz looked concerned and reached out to grab Amity when her eyes rolled back and she fell forward like a limp doll, passing out cold. Willow was quick to undo the vines and help Luz lift her. 

“Ok,” Willow said, as Luz readjusted the girl in her arms so she could carry her easier, more like a somewhat awkward bridal style. “You didn’t say it was that bad!” Willow exclaimed as she quickly made her way to the pathway and pulled the map out of her friend’s pocket with a quick spell, opening it and trying to find where they were. 

Luz leaned over and used her head to nod at a specific area in the map, before starting to walk on the path. “I think I know where we are, we should go to Eda. She may be able to figure out how to fix this,” she suggested, obviously forcing herself to not look at Amity. She couldn’t bring herself to. 

Willow followed close behind, still holding the map just in case, and continued to ask questions Luz answered in single-word, half-hearted answers. The small light glyph she had made was following her, looming over her shoulder as she walked. 

She felt oddly numb and was extremely confused as to why Amity tried to attack her. Was she cursed? Her black eyes reminded her of Eda’s cursed form and she shuddered, shaking her head to try not and think about it. Now wasn’t the time, she had to get Amity help first. The arm looked like it hurt when she tried to even move it, which was deeply concerning. 

When the sunlight started to get in her face as they emerged from the thick area of the woods, she saw the pathway was familiar and she was right, the Owl House was up ahead. She could see Eda’s silhouette in the window, the distance too far to know exactly what she was doing. Willow went quiet before asking a question she had asked earlier. “Luz, do you know what happened?” 

Why she was asking again, Luz didn’t know, but she answered the same way. “...no,” she said quietly, finally getting close enough to the owl house that it was no longer partially obscured by the trees, Amity suddenly feeling a lot more heavy in her arms as her adrenaline wore off. 

She saw Eda turn to look out the window and drop her mug, disappearing before she slammed open the door and Hooty exclaimed in surprise as he hit the wall. “Kid?!” Eda exclaimed, looking down at the witchling in her apprentices' arms and her brow furrowing further. 

“What the hell happened?” she asked, her tone sharp as she held open the door, and Willow speed-walked in. Luz entered and set Amity down onto the couch, sitting down and letting out a deep, shaky sigh. “I...I don’t know,” she answered, looking down at her and swearing she would have thought the girl was dead if her ear didn’t twitch. 

Looking at her jagged teeth and the blood around the bases of them made her stomach drop to her feet, Luz turning her head to look at the floor while Eda crouched down and examined the passed-out girl, reaching out to touch her arm and letting out a startled yelp when it suddenly changed and a jagged point almost stabbed her right through the palm of her hand. 

“It seems to be some sort of...parasite? This doesn’t look like any curse I’ve ever seen.” the old witch commented as she tilted her head to get a better look at the blight’s face. “God, this looks nasty to deal with. Looks like an abomination,” she commented, gesturing to the arm again, which was slightly moving on its own, fingers twitching and small jagged points surfacing and vanishing every few seconds. “Literally,” Eda added, getting to her feet and placing her hands on her hips with a confused sigh. 

“Until she wakes up and gives us the story of what happened, there’s nothing I can do.” she paused, staring at Amity’s shoulder and grimacing. “God that looks painful,” she turned to King and gestured to him to go grab something, the little demon seeming to understand and scurrying off. Luz glanced over at Willow, who was quietly watching from a window with concern lacing her features. 

Eda lifted Amity so she was more upright, almost getting stabbed by her arm as she lifted it slightly to get a better look at Amity’s shoulder. Luz took a quick glance and blankly stared at the black vein-like markings on her shoulder, looking to be both outside and inside her skin. The old witch let the arm down when she finished looking, her ears perking when Amity let out a low groan in pain yet stayed asleep. King ran back into the room holding a potion bottle filled with a bright green liquid, handing it to Eda while he stood at her feet. 

“Thanks,” she said, popping the cork off the bottle with her thumb. “Ok, I’m gonna try something. It’ll hurt her, but I need to act now in case this thing spreads or something.” Luz seemed troubled at the idea of waking her up, but let Eda do whatever she needed to do anyway, watching her kneel so she was level with the witchling’s face. She lightly tapped one of Amity’s jagged teeth with her nail, before opening her mouth to get the bottle above her tongue. 

“Be prepared to grab her,” Eda warned, letting a few drops fall onto the blight’s tongue and closing her mouth. The three of them watched in silence, Eda backing up as she got off the floor. It kicked in almost instantly, the arm flaring up and almost stabbing Luz in the shoulder, cutting the fabric of her hoodie as Amity woke up with a hoarse yell. She looked ready to jump to her feet and run for it, her eyes watering from the stinging pain the elixir had sent through her arm. 

Luz reached out to grab her by the shoulders, her grip seeming to grab her attention almost instantly as she snapped her head to look at her. 

The human could see black creeping up in Amity’s eyes as she breathed heavily and her arm continued to have a negative reaction, obviously not what Eda had expected at all by her shocked expression. 

“Amity, it’s ok,” Luz said, keeping her tone low as she noticed her friend’s ears slowly lifting from their lowered position, having practically pointed to the floor. The two girls simply stared at each other for a few seconds, before the black slowly ebbed away from the corners of her eyes and she seemed to finally recognize what was going on. Her eyes flickered around the room and she murmured in a hoarse whisper, “Where am I?” 

Luz moved her hands off Amity’s shoulders and moved back a bit to give her space, seeing how tense she was. “You’re in the Owl House, Amity,” she responded, seeing her friend’s gaze fill with recognition as she sighed, keeping her mutated arm tucked to her torso. 

Luz tried to figure out how to ask what had happened, but every time she opened her mouth to speak, her words died in her throat. She flinched when Willow spoke up from where she was standing in the room, her friend looking at the two of them with her arms crossed. “Hey, Amity, are you ok?” she asked, her tone filled with concern, and Amity’s disfigured fingers twitched as her brow furrowed. 

“No,” she answered after a long pause, finally looking up at Eda and King resting on her shoulder. Her clawed hand was gripping her shirt now, and if she had apparent knuckles they would be white from how tight her hold was. 

“Can they..?” she started, looking at Luz with faint desperation as she gestured to Eda with her head, who almost appeared offended before she shrugged and left the room. Willow stayed, getting closer now that Eda had left and sitting on the far end of the couch. 

“Do you wanna tell us how…” Luz started, awkwardly looking down at her friend’s arm as the fingers flexed open and closed. “ That happened?” she watched quietly as her friend used her regular hand to touch the fingers on her mutated one, the movements coming to a stop as the girl glanced up at Luz. “I...I don’t want to talk about it,” she mumbled, a bit surprised when her friend nodded in understanding. 

“It’s ok, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” she responded, a calm and understanding smile on her face. Amity almost breathed a sigh of relief before she paused, a familiar feeling lingering in the back of her throat. 

“Hey, do you have anything to eat?” she asked, blinking when her friend jumped up and clapped her hands together. “Yep! I’ll be right back, you two stay here,” Luz hummed, turning on her heel and making her way to the kitchen. When she was out of earshot, Willow turned to the Blight and the two of them sat in a long pause of awkward silence. 

Willow’s gaze was set on the Blight’s arm, still flexing her fingers open and closed slowly as the odd tendrils making up the appendage moved around like uncovered muscle. It was honestly fascinating to look at, its movements reminding her of muscle charts from anatomy classes back in Hexside.

She noticed it started to shake, and she looked up at Amity, whose brow was furrowed in concentration. Her eyes were swimming with unfallen tears, from pain or frustration Willow didn’t know, and she noticed the fingers were still flexing open and closed, eventually coming to a stop in a clenched fist for a few seconds. She kept it there, her arm still shaking with effort before she gave up and her hand opened again, the fingers twitching before continuing their flexing motion. Willow’s gaze flickered from her arm back up to Amity’s face, trying to blink away the tears as she reached up and wiped them away. 

“I...I can’t control it sometimes…” she mumbled, figuring that Willow was wondering what she had been doing. The plant witch had a gentle expression of concern, looking back down at the arm before asking a question that had been lingering in the back of her mind. “Does it hurt?” 

She watched Amity lower her head again and nod, about to speak again when Luz entered the room with a bag in hand, starting to talk as she entered, “ok, so we don’t have anything other than these chip things, I hope this is-” she stopped when she saw the expressions on both of her friend’s faces, slowly lowering her arms and sitting back down on the couch. “...Ok.” She finished, handing the bag over to Amity. 

She grasped it with her non-mutated arm and looked down at her left like she expected it to move, her face falling when it didn’t. She tried to get it to move again on her own, eventually unsuccessful when it didn’t budge from its partially curled position, the blight slumping over in defeat. Luz looked confused, watching her friend hand the bag to Willow after a long pause. 

“I’m sorry,” she mumbled, lifting her head back up yet keeping her shoulders tense when Willow responded. “Hey, it’s ok,” she said, opening the before handing it back. Amity took it, resting it against her leg and struggling to even eat one at first due to her new teeth getting in the way. She found a way around it rather quickly, but she still looked frustrated and on the brink of tears again. 

Luz seemed conflicted, looking from Willow to Amity. She reached up to cover her mouth in thought before she eventually got up and looked between her two friends again. “It’s getting pretty late,” she said, gesturing towards the window where the sun was starting to set below the trees, casting a warm orange light onto the house and inside. 

The three of them did look pretty surprised by how fast the time had passed, but they didn’t question it. Luz glanced over at Amity again and finally seemed to notice how much of a wreck she was. Some leaves and a twig were still stuck in her hair, and her left shirt sleeve was torn up to her shoulder and exposing parts of her collarbone, along with dried blood across the collar of her shirt and on the left side. How had she not noticed that before? She didn’t question it further, out loud at least, and she finally said something after a stretch of somewhat awkward silence. 

“Amity, we should clean you up,” she started, seeing her friend look down at herself and quickly look back up as if she didn’t want to see herself. “We have a bathroom upstairs, and we should have a few spare clothes,” Luz stated, watching Willow get to her feet and Amity following soon after, her mutated arm still bent like it was in a nonexistent sling. “Luz, I should head home,” Willow said, walking over and rating her hands on the human’s shoulders as she continued. 

“Let me know how you both are tomorrow, ok?” she asked, watching Luz nod before she let go with a satisfied hum. She lifted her hand in farewell, seeing Amity awkwardly wave back without a word as hooty opened the door and she left the house. The bird tube turned from facing her after giving his shrill goodbye to the other two girls, Amity looking somewhat defensive as her arm finally rested at her side. 

“Gee, what happened to you?” Hooty asked, getting way too close all of a sudden and resting mere inches from Amity’s face, the girl growling lowly in response and taking Luz off guard for a second. Hooty got the hint and slithered back into the door, saying something along the lines of “Okay, geez!” under his breath before the door closed.

The two girls turned to look at each other, Luz’s hands now resting on her hips. 

“Ok, let’s get you some new clothes.”

--

Odalia sat at her desk, her hands folded under her chin as she scanned over letters saying a message she had heard over and over again. 

She had written to everyone she could think of that her daughter may have gone to, but absolutely none of them had even seen her. She had even gone into Bonesborough and asked around herself, still hearing nothing of her child’s whereabouts. 

She was furious.

She couldn’t let a walking dent to her family line stay out there looking like that. She may be found by more rich families or spread the information on what had happened and the blight reputation would be ruined for the rest of their days. She simply couldn’t let that happen. She would do whatever it took to get her daughter back and take care of this mishap, whether it be searching for a way to reverse it or removing it herself, she would fix this. 

Her head lifted at a knock at her door. Alador entered seconds later, his hands folding behind his back when he finished pushing the door open. “Odalia dear, a friend of Amity is at the door,” he spoke, his wife narrowing her eyes in annoyance and letting one of the letters she had in her hand drop to her desk. 

“Which one?” she asked, only knowing it could be one of the few they had chosen for her. He looked back outside the door for a few seconds before answering. “Boscha,” he answered. Odalia got to her feet, pushing past her husband and almost hitting him with the door as she threw it further open, seeing the witchling in question almost drop her scroll from the door hitting the wall. 

Ah, of course, Odalia remembered Boscha. She hadn’t been here in a while, and it was most likely she was here to question Amity’s whereabouts.

“M-Miss Blight!” the girl stuttered, hurriedly shoving her scroll into her Hexside uniform pocket and looking up at the older woman as she approached. “Why are you here?” the woman asked, walking past the student and gesturing for her to follow, hearing her boots tapping behind her as she followed her down the hallway. 

“I just wanted to ask if you’ve gotten any information on Amity’s location yet, Ma’am?” she asked, walking next to the older woman as she folded her hands in front of her as a sign of respect. Odalia entered her living room and turned to look at Boscha again, who was looking at her with expectancy. 

“No.” She finally answered, her tone sour, and she furrowed her brow in slight confusion at Boscha’s expression as the girl pulled her scroll back out of her pocket. “Well, Miss Blight, I think you may be happy to know,” she started, tapping on something on her scroll before turning it so it faced Odalia, showing an image. 

It was old, probably from a week ago, but it was a social media post. Odalie took the scroll in her own hands to get a closer look, recognition clicking in her mind as she looked at the two girls standing next to her daughter, the three of them smiling as the one on the far left, who Odalia knew for sure was Willow, Amity’s old childhood friend, held the scroll to take the photo. 

The other girl, however, filled the Blight woman with a large amount of rage. Her round ears stood out among her, and her multi-track colored sleeves clashed with Amity’s deep pink and Willow’s green sleeves. 

It was that...that human that had been banned from Hexside weeks prior before she was allowed in like it was no problem, and who had danced with her daughter during Grom after taking her place as Grom Queen.

If Odalia hadn’t handed the scroll back a second later she would have crushed it in her hand. Boscha finished what she had started saying earlier, placing the scroll in her pocket and dusting off one of her yellow sleeves. “I have an idea on where Amity might be.” she watched the Woman narrow her eyes at her before sighing. 

“Let me guess, you want some sort of payment for this information?” the woman asked, one hand resting on the bridge of her nose, and lifting when she got a response she didn’t expect yet again. 

“Thank you, Miss Blight, but I don’t want just money,” she stated. The nervous energy she had earlier was completely gone now, standing tall and acting equal to the woman standing in front of her. She stepped closer and held out her hand, speaking again. 

“Instead, I propose a deal,” she said, Odalia looking down at her hand with a confused yet intrigued gaze. “...Go on.” 

Boscha smiled. “You give me Two million snails and a good word about me to Emperor Belos so I get into the emperor’s coven, and I get you information on Amity and bring her right to you.”

Odalia knew right away the girl wanted more, but she didn’t question it further. This was perfect. If anyone could get the most info of where Amity is, it’s one of her classmates. She had considered the twins, but she knew their unloyal nature, they would never tell her. 

She took the girl’s hand in her own, a spell circle surrounding their conjoined hands as they shook on it. 

“Very well, Boscha. It’s a deal.”