Chapter Text
“If magic’s all about digging for slime balls,” Luz said, glaring down at the greasy object as she walked, “maybe I don’t have the stomach for it.”
“Don’t say things like that, you can do this!” A voice rang out from behind the treeline.
“Mysterious voice of encouragement?” Luz asked.
“No, Amity. You tutored me for a week and I still don’t get it. I’m going to fail.” answered another voice.
"Mysterious voice of dis couragement?"
Luz moved toward the sound of the voice, on the other side of a line of trees and bushes she found two girls around her age standing in a clearing connecting two forest roads. A bespectacled girl with dark turquoise hair was glaring at some sort of giant pot, while a freckled brunette with golden eyes held onto her left hand.
“No,” Luz whispered excitedly, “ little witch girls! ”
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Amity POV
“Willow” Amity said as she tried again to pull her girlfriend out of her defeatist melancholy, “It’s gonna be ok, I promise. You can’t really have done that bad, and even if you do get a bad grade it’s not a reflection of you as a witch.”
The look on Willow’s face as she turned towards Amity made it abundantly clear that this wasn’t working. “No. I did do ‘that bad’,” she said, “I’m hopeless.”
Before Amity had a chance to respond she was forced to yelp and pull Willow out of the way as the large pot shook and fell onto its side, spilling its entire contents onto the forest floor.
Amity suppressed a wince as she saw the violet slime. Even with her limited understanding of Abominations she could tell Willow was right about how poorly she’d done. It was clearly too runny to hold a cohesive form once animated, and somehow Willow had managed to use the wrong type of eyeball. Amity doubted even her father could make anything of this mess.
“See?” Willow said as she sank to the floor, “Boscha was right, I’m useless. Just ‘half-a-witch willow’.”
Amity’s face screwed up, the mention of her Rival’s name and her treatment of Willow was a surefire way to provoke her more aggressive instincts, but Willow doesn’t need a hero right now, she needs her girlfriend. Reigning in her temper, she fell to her knees in front of her girlfriend and reached out to cup her cheek.
“Willow, look at me.” Her voice was measured and firm, but not unkind. For a moment Willow didn’t respond, and when she finally did look up her eyes were misty with the threat of tears.
“You know that’s not true,” Amity said, “you’re not a 'half-a-witch', Willow. You’re one of the strongest witches I know. Just because abomination magic isn’t your thing doesn’t mea-”
Amity didn’t get to finish. At that moment there was an awkward shout and loud crash from behind her as someone fell face-first to the ground in front of a line of trees and bushes.
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Luz pov
Luz’s face hurt. Actually most of Luz hurt at the moment, but her face was rather high on the list. She had been leaning against a tree as she watched the two girls interact--totally not creepy, thank you very much--when she leaned a bit too far past the tree and slipped, faceplanting hard on the ground just a few yards in front of the girls.
They probably didn’t hear that, though, right?
“Um… who are you?” one of the girls asked.
Aw heck.
Luz popped her head up, faintly registering the taste of iron on her tongue, to see both girls staring at her in bewilderment. “Uh… I’b-”
“Bleeding,” the brunette Luz assumed was called Amity said as she abruptly stood up and ran to Luz, “you’re bleeding.”
“I ab?” Luz asked, leaning back slightly as the girl knelt down in front of her.
“Uh huh. Just, hold still for a second,”she said. As she raised her left hand and drew a bright pink circle in the air directly in front of Luz’s face, the human felt a fleeting tingly numbness in her nose and heard a pronounced * pop *.
“Wow!” Luz said, prodding at her own nose, “it doesn’t hurt at all, that’s amazing!”
“Um. Thanks.” probably-Amity said, looking more than a little flustered, “but it’s just a simple healing spell. It’s one of the first ones we learned in school…”
Luz lunged forward with a happy squeal and grabbed the girl by the shoulders, “Like, magic school? That’s so cool! ”
From behind the brunette, the girl she had called Willow commented “you… seem very easily impressed.”
Rather than respond, Luz let out a nervous squeak as Amity’s face was suddenly only a few inches away from her own. “Your ears are very round.”
Luz squeaked and clapped her hands over her ears, she had no idea how these girls would react to her being a human but she wasn’t anxious to find out. “um. No! No they’re not.”
The brunette raised an eyebrow and Luz suddenly felt like those golden eyes were peering into her soul.
“Yes they are, we just saw them.” Willow said, suddenly standing right next to Amity and scrutinizing Luz with narrowed eyes, before they widened in realization. “You’re human!” she chirped.
“A human? On the boiling isles?” Amity asked, still staring intently at Luz.
“This is astounding!” Willow gushed, “How did you get here? What are you doing here?”
Amity started at the sound of a large bell tolling in the distance and turned towards the other witch. “Uh, it’s time to go, Willow. It was, um, nice to meet you, human...” she mumbled as she gently pulled her away.
“Oh, right. Sorry, human. I have to go--” Both girl’s stopped just before the puddle of purple slime and grimaced down at it, “How are we supposed to get this back in the pot?” Willow asked warily.
“I like your puddle of goop!” Luz said brightly, crouching in front of the mess and poking at one of the eyeballs floating around in it.
“It’s not supposed to be a puddle,” Willow muttered dejectedly as she kicked at the eyeball Luz had been playing with, making Amity frown at her tone.
“Oh,” Luz said, “Well what’s it supposed to be?”
Willow drew a spell circle in the air and a heavy tome suddenly rose up from the busted wagon the large pot had been in and flew to her hands. “It’s supposed to be an Abomination. A big ugly goop monster that talks weird and does my bidding,” she said, showing Luz an image of a humanoid monster that oddly resembled a Pokemon she couldn’t remember the name of. “But I’m terrible at abomination magic.”
After staring at the picture for a moment, Luz’s eyes drifted to the purple puddle on the forest floor as she broke into a grin. “I have an idea!” Luz said, before immediately bending forward to dip her hands into the purple goo and slathering it over her front, “Make me your abomination!”
“ What!? ” both girls asked in unison.
“ I can shamble around and talk weird!” Luz beamed, “and it can’t be that hard to do your bidding!”
“That’s true,” Willow said with a giggle, “Ok, it’s a deal!”
“I’m sorry, what?” Amity said, drawing both girl’s attention, “That’s a
terrible
plan! Why- why would you even want to do this?”
“I- I don’t know,” Luz’s radiant smile visibly dimmed as she looked away, “I just… I’ve never been to a real magic school before but I always wanted to. There’s no way my mentor would let me enroll but… I wish I could spend one day there, and this way we can both get what we want.”
Amity frowned at the girl, “Ok… I, I get why you would want to see the school but this is just too dangerous. They don’t want people sneaking into the school, you could get hurt, Willow could get expelled, or worse. It’s just too risky to try. I’m sorry-”
Amity suddenly felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Willow smiling softly at her, “It’ll be ok Amity. We’ll be really careful and won’t do anything risky. I… I don’t want to take another failing grade back to my dads.”
Amity stared at Willow’s verdant eyes for a moment before sighing. “Okay.” she said, “But please, please be careful. I’ll be all the way on the other side of the school in healing class. If something bad happens I don’t know if I’ll be able to help.”
“Don’t worry Amity!” Luz chirped, “I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”
Willow and Amity gaped as Luz spread her arms and let herself fall forward, belly-flopping into the puddle of purple gunk with a comical squelch.