Chapter Text
Luz didn’t have a lot of friends growing up.
All of the other children always called her too weird or too loud or too nerdy. She was always too much of something. She was always just too much.
But she couldn’t help it. Her brain just worked differently from others’. When other people saw King, they only saw him as her family’s lazy pet dog. When she saw King, she saw him as the overlord of all demons. When other people saw Hooty, they only saw him as their loud pet owl that liked to perch itself by the front door. When she saw Hooty, she saw him as the all-powerful gatekeeper that guarded her home. When other people saw Owlbert, they only him as the hatchling her Mom was caring for. When she saw Owlbert, she saw him as her Mom’s mysterious familiar. When other people saw her Mom, they only her saw Edalyn Clawthorne-Noceda, Camila’s elusive wife. When she saw her Mom, she her as saw Eda, the mischievous trickster witch.
Her Mom liked to say that Luz was creative. Her Mama liked to say that Luz was imaginative.
The other kids liked to say that Luz was crazy.
So, Luz learned how to get lost in worlds as crazy as she was. She binged television shows and watched movies and read books, playing a game of Shoots and Ladders with different fantastical universes. Until finally, she came across a novel series that changed her life forever.
The Good Witch Azura.
The reality within the books’ pages was as strange as her own. The Boiling Isles had magic and monsters unlike any she had ever witnessed before. Every time Luz grew tired of the earth she was tethered to, she escaped into the portal door summoned by the words printed in bold ink.
She followed the series all through elementary and middle school, and it was still ongoing. But entire years filled the gaps between each of the novels’ releases. It was only when Luz was in middle school that the latest installment, Book 5, had been made public. And the author made no indication on when the next novel would be finished and out.
But while some fans liked to complain about the writer’s unpredictable update schedule, Luz respected their creative process since it always churned out marvelous products.
However, Luz was also easily bored and extremely impatient.
Trying to find a way to cope with the excruciatingly long hiatus, she stumbled into the spectacular realm that was fanfiction. Glyph Of Our Own, or GO3 for short, was truly a blessing from Titan.
So while she waited for the next installment of the series to come out, she explored this strange and intriguing internet place. Luz had always been a curious person, and in spite of what her old teachers liked to say, she loved to learn. She cannonballed into the odd space that was the The Good Witch Azura Fandom, and was so interested in it that she wanted to contribute to the community.
She was finally able to interact with likeminded people, and she wanted to be a part of it. So, she started writing fanfiction of her own, sharing all of the ideas she had stored in her head that nobody else she knew in real life really wanted to hear. Sure, her moms liked to politely entertain her long rambles occasionally out of the goodness in their hearts, but she could tell that they weren’t as invested into the series as she was. Her Mama even fell asleep during the screening of the movie adaptation.
Under the mantle “Luzura”, she started to share her stories. Luz dove deep into the fandom. She wrote about new adventures Azura and her friends would take, she wrote about them encountering new creatures she designed, and she wrote a lot of cute scenes between Azura and Hecate. She was somewhat nervous about uploading her first ever story, but everyone seemed to really like it.
And that was how she made her very first friend.
Luz had been scrolling through Pennstagram, browsing through a menagerie of Azura fan art, when she got a notification. Someone had just started following her. Her account was linked in her GO3 bio, and she had gotten a few followers since she published her first fic so it wasn’t too much of a shocker.
But then her new follower sent her a message. “WhatTheHecate”. Now that was new.
She warily opened it, knowing that if it was some scam artist or troll she could always just block them. But to her pleasant surprise, it wasn’t a bot or a spam text.
“Hi! Sorry, I don’t normally do this, but I read your fic the other day and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Hecura is my favorite ship and you wrote their dynamic so well! And before I knew it, I made fan art of the training scene when Hecate taught Azura that new spell. I really liked how it turned out and I would like to post it, but I wanted to ask for your permission first. I’d be sure to credit you, obviously. But if you aren’t comfortable with it, then no problem! And sorry if you don’t like receiving messages, I didn’t see anything about that in your bio!”
WhatTheHecate then forwarded the image and Luz’s jaw went slack at how detailed it was. They were able to so vividly capture Azura’s and Hecate’s expressions that Luz envisioned for the scene. Azura had a dopey grin on her face while Hecate was rolling her eyes in exasperation mixed with amusement, with a cross between a sly smirk and a fond smile.
The story had only been up for a couple of days, too, which made it all the more impressive.
Luz fumbled with her phone with shaky fingers as she typed out a reply.
“Hi! Oh My Titan, that looks dope! Of course you can share it, I would be so honored! Your art style is so cool and your technique is awesome and just everything about this is perfect, thank you! And yeah, Hecura is my OTP, too!”
It was only after Luz sent her response wherein she realized that she ended literally every sentence with an exclamation point. She deflated, thinking she scared them off by being too much again, so she jolted when she got a new notification.
WhatTheHecate has tagged Luzura in a photo.
Luz dropped her phone.
Luz followed them back and scrolled through their account. According to their bio, WhatTheHecate used she/her pronouns, was a fan artist, and was open for commissions. Her photos were filled with fan art she made, most of which were from The Good Witch Azura, but there were other characters she both could and couldn’t recognize.
She then glanced at WhatTheHecate’s number of followers and yelped when she saw that she had around 22K accounts following her.
Luz clicked on her profile picture, and she saw that it was of a girl about her age in a cosplay. She was dressed as Malin Gael the Mysterious Soothsayer from The Good Witch Azura Book 4, and she went all out. She painted her skin a brilliant viridian shade and her hair was dyed a saturated celadon hue. The outfit itself was a myriad of pretty green colors that blended perfectly together.
But what drew Luz in the most were her eyes. They had to be contact lenses, it was the only realistic explanation. Golden orbs seemed to gaze straight into her very soul, like spheres of light.
And then the two started talking. WhatTheHecate became Cat, short for Hecate, and Luz became Luzura, as her Mama had always warned her about sharing her personal information to strangers on the internet.
But Cat soon became so much more than just another stranger on the internet.
The two shared ideas for fics and doodles, recommendations of other authors and artists, and even other media. Cat was apparently really into anime and Luz was into video games, but they were both into animated television shows. Cat shared sketches she made of Aizawa and Present Mic from Boku No Hero Academia, as well as Ruby and Sapphire from Steven Universe. And in tandem, Luz gave her entire speeches about Jean and Diluc from Genshin Impact, plus Adora and Catra from She-Ra and the Princesses of Power.
The two often collaborated, too. Cat would illustrate drawings that accompanied Luz’s fics. And because of WhatTheHecate’s massive following, Luz’s own account skyrocketed. She went from having 9 followers to like 515.
But as days became weeks and weeks became months and months became over an entire year, the two began to share beyond their hobbies and interests.
Luz opened up about being friendless for most of her life. How her Mama didn’t always understand her and how her Mom struggled with expressing affection or care.
And Cat shared more about herself, too. She talked about how her older siblings got on her nerves sometimes, and yet kept getting away with it. She talked about how most of her friends could be mean, and her guilt for allowing it to happen. She talked about how she lost touch with a friend once before, and she had never really forgiven herself for it. She talked about how her parents kept comparing her to her older siblings, and how she felt like she could never fill their shoes.
And Cat talked about her fear of them finding out that she was secretly a lesbian.
Apparently her mother was openly homophobic, which was the main reason Cat had broken things off with the friend she mentioned before, although she wouldn’t get into specifics. So she was paranoid of her being outed somehow.
Luz assured her that she accepted her and that she was valid. She even came out to her as bisexual to make her feel better. It was uplifting for her, too, as the only ones she had told before Cat were her moms.
And then, the summer before Luz started high school, Cat stopped talking to her.
Her Pennstagram account went inactive. The last thing she shared was an update on her bio that stated that Cat would no longer be taking commissions for the time being. Her GO3 was dead, too. She hadn’t bookmarked anything or commented on any of Luz’s newest fics.
Luz nearly lost her mind that summer. What had happened to Cat? Had her parents found out about her accounts and confiscated her phone? Had she gotten into an accident? Had she gotten sick?
Or had she just gotten sick of Luz? Had Luz been too much again?
However, right before Luz’s first day of her freshman year, she received a message from Cat for the first time in three months. A cluster of emotions crashed into her. She felt relief, anger, frustration, resentment. But most of all, she was concerned about her friend, so she opened up their chat.
“Hello. I know it’s been a while, and I’m so sorry. A lot of stuff went down with my family that I don’t really want to get into at the moment. I saw all of the notifications from your messages, but I was just too depressed to open them. And then I got overwhelmed by the anxiety of not responding which made me put off replying even further so it just kept dragging on and on. But I’m in a better place and headspace now, and I’m going to try to be active again. I’m sincerely sorry for all of the worry I’ve caused you, and I understand if you are upset with or even hate me. Just know that you are genuinely one of the most important people in my life and I would love for us to still be friends. But if you want to end things now, I understand and I am still thankful for having met you, and getting to know you, and receiving all of your support. I love you, Luzura.”
Luz began crying on the spot.
Both of her moms were at work, so she couldn’t really talk to them about this. So, she decided to get out and go for a walk to think about how she would reply and also get out of her own head. She bid farewell to King, Hooty, and Owlbert, before strolling down the block.
She wasn’t really paying attention to where she was going, and soon enough she found herself at Hexside, the high school just around the corner she was supposed to be attending the next day. Her moms must have walked her here a dozen times during the summer to make sure that she wouldn’t get lost when classes begun. She must have gotten here from muscle memory.
Luz‘s eyes darted around until they landed on a small coffee shop just on the other side of the road from the school. She squinted to read the sign. The Parking Latte. Nice.
She crossed the road and entered the quaint cafe. There were no other customers, but a girl her age was working the register with short brown hair styled in a bob. The brunette’s eyes were glued to her phone, and she didn’t even spare Luz a second glance when she came in.
The other girl continued to frown at her phone until Luz approached the counter, awkwardly coughing into her fist to gain her attention. The brunette finally looked at her with a prominent scowl on her face.
“How may I be of service?” she sneered through gritted teeth.
“Do you have anything that can soothe my nerves?” Luz asked quietly.
“Care to be more specific?” the brunette deadpanned bluntly.
“Uhm. Something sweet?” Luz requested, voice small. “But nothing with dairy! I’m lactose intolerant.”
The other girl sighed before turning to various drink mixers. In the blink of an eye, Luz had a hot chocolate with soy whipped cream and caramel sauce. Before Luz could even thank her, she was already looking at her phone again.
The brunette wasn’t even tapping on it or anything. She was just looking at the same thing. Whatever it was. She didn’t have earphones on, so she couldn’t be watching or listening to something, either.
With a shrug, Luz chose to simply mind her own business and claim a table. She took a sip of her drink. She felt better almost immediately. The cocoa had sugary marshmallow fluff and it had an aftertaste of peanut butter.
As Luz let the sweetness overtake her, her mind wandered back to Cat’s message.
She didn’t know how to respond. She did still want to be friends with Cat, but was it just because she had no other friends? Was she just desperate?
But no. She cared about Cat. Her apology gave an explanation for her actions but she didn’t let herself excuse them. Instead, she promised to actually try and be better.
Luz still wasn’t sure what she was going to say to her, so she started with something she already knew for certain. The thing that meant the most to her.
“I love you, too, Cat.”
When Luz approached the counter to return her cup, the brunette had her back turned towards her. The other girl’s shoulders were shaking slightly as she continued to look at her phone.
“Are you okay?” Luz asked, eyebrows furrowed.
The brunette jolted before swiveling to face her. Her eyes were red and puffy, so Luz silently offered her the tissues she had received with her drink, still untouched. The other girl wordlessly accepted the napkin and started dabbing at the tears that were running down her cheeks.
“Thank you for the drink, by the way!” Luz exclaimed in an attempt to ease the tension and distract the girl from whatever was troubling her. “It really helped calm me down.”
The brunette nodded at her stiffly.
“What’s your name?” Luz asked. “I’m Luz Clawthorne-Noceda! I’ll be attending the school across the street starting tomorrow, so you’ll probably be seeing more of me!”
The other girl raised an eyebrow at her mutely.
Now that she was looking at her directly, she noticed that her eyes looked peculiarly familiar. They glowed like a golden light.
Oh Titan. She had been too much again. She had freaked her out. Normal patrons didn’t talk this much to baristas they didn’t know right?
But the brunette simply rolled her eyes and smiled softly. Luz grinned back.
“I’ll be going to Hexside, too.” She hummed. “And my name’s Amity. Amity Park.”