Chapter Text
The chains were forged when she was young - too young to see what they were, and by the time she had caught on to the way her parents were molding her it was too late. Willow leaves her life in tears, while Amity’s are shed hours later, finally alone and safe to mourn her loss. Nobody had told her to look out for herself because nobody else would, and without Willow there was nobody to tell her it was okay to fight back. Ultimately, Amity acquiesces all too easily - she might be miserable, but she would be a good daughter, come hell or high water.
Amity opens her mouth to speak, and she’s surrounded by… friends, of a sort. Socialite’s children can only ever socialize with their peers, after all, and so she meets a half dozen kids who have been declared acceptable. They’re all nice enough to each other - Skara is probably the most genuine among them - but they’re all serviceable. If it was just a friend circle, it might have even worked, but the shadow her family casts is long, and the desire to get one up on the others runs deep (if you’re going to play grudgby, dear, at least be better than that hack Boscha). Eventually, their orbits stabilize, but there is a lot of distance between not actively fighting each other and supporting one another, and none of them ever quite manage to cross that space.
Amity blinks, and she’s graduating. A Blight through and through, at the top of her class with all those not from families of distinction beneath her. She gives her speech and stares at the sea of strangers in front of her, wondering if everyone else feels as lonely as her (they don’t, and she knows it). She gets her diploma, her staff, and a brief congratulations from Lilith - and she leaves Hexside behind, her name in the record books and an emperor’s coven tattoo on her wrist.
Alador and Odalia leave for a week after she graduates, called to Belos’ castle on imperial business. Amity breathes, for what feels like the first time in years. She breathes, and looks in the mirror, and finds she doesn’t quite remember when her eyes got so sharp, or what her hair looked like when it wasn’t the appropriate family green. She cries that night, no hands gripping her shoulder just a little too tight to hold down the emotion, no cold words and colder faces to remind her that Blights don’t give in to their feelings.
Amity breaks a little bit, and the pieces of her that can’t stay in the shape of a Blight heiress find freedom. But freedom without sustenance is a short road, and when Amity makes her way down the long hall of Blight Manor to the rooms of the only two people who have ever been free from the weight of their names, she finds nobody. Empty rooms in an empty house, cleaned to perfection - there’s not a single mark on the walls, or the floor, no evidence that the twins ever really lived here after all. It is, ironically, the most Blight her siblings have ever been, a parting message with no words.
The next few days are a blur, a raging tempest of emotion. Waves of desperate anger-fear-loneliness-regret batter the Manor, the last rattling gasps of a soul that can feel the impending return of the vise’s jaws. Amity curses and begs in equal measure, but she does not yet know how to direct her words to those that would wish to hear, and the inevitable remains so. Her final day of freedom is spent wrestling herself back into Amity Blight, once more becoming a piece of the Blight puzzle that fits within the larger picture. For Alador and Odalia, there is no perfect, but Amity knows the tricks and the words that can reduce the pain, and she will need all of them in the coming days.
Amity opens the door, and she’s twenty-one. Twenty-one, and still not trusted enough to be alone (and perhaps she never will be, after the twins pulled off their disappearing act), but trusted enough to learn of the true legacy of her Blight lineage. The basement had been off-limits until now, but now she is brought before the doorway with a sincere reverence that does nothing to ease her nerves. The room itself is simple, all shelves and display cases, but what lies within is the true record of the Blight family’s rise and retention of prominence. Chance is so fickle, after all, and when one has access to the fae, who will transmute possible futures into certainties (for a price, always a price) - well, why would any dream of leaving things to chance? It is here that Amity will learn of these fae, who are always listening for those who know what to say, who come with magic beyond the access of any witch or demon. It is here that Amity will learn the words that will seal her fate.
There are dozens of contracts, stretching back into the very beginnings of the Blight lineage. Each one, carefully written out to detail the desired outcome and the price that was paid, each a memorial to the sacrifices of generations past (and another set of levers to control the present). It is important, she is told, to be precise when you make a deal. That the fae are always hungry, that they will push the limits of any deal and take advantage of any weakness that you show. It becomes just another type of magic for her to study (study and master this, daughter, for our future may depend on your ability to make a deal one day), albeit one beyond the ken of the Emperor's Coven.
Amity stumbles, and she’s the twenty-three year old prodigy within the Emperor’s Coven. A distinguished heir, a witch with the work ethic to match her talent and a mind as sharp as the magic that the Emperor wields. She has taken all the steps necessary to ascend to the Blight Industries bar one, and for all her attempts to put this off, her mother will have her way like she always does. A husband, chosen for her, and a date set. One last seal, the final lock on her future.
You owe this to us, Amity. Happiness can be found elsewhere, but a successful and influential family requires sacrifices from all its members.
It is two nights before her sham of a wedding is to happen when Amity gives in. She cannot leave the manor grounds, not without alerting her mother and father, but she can walk the garden, her feet carrying her on a path she’s walked hundreds of times before. This time, though -
This time, when Amity gets to the gnarled tree whose shade has always felt a little bit like a shield, she stops. She stops, and she whispers words into the shadows, and tonight, the shadows answer. The shadows fold, and twist, and coalesce into the form of a witch that could easily blend in amongst the leeches that seek favors in the guise of friendship while celebrating her impending imprisonment. The fae that has answered her summons spreads their arms, a sickeningly sweet grin directed Amity’s way, and asks her what she wants.
It is the first question in a very long time that Amity doesn’t have an answer for. In these twilight hours, Amity can’t find what she wants, but she is certain of some things. She doesn’t want to get married to this stranger whose business interests align with Blight Industries’. She doesn’t want her parents to control her, she doesn’t want her every move to be dictated by someone else. She doesn’t want the world to bind her in her name, to see her as a Blight first and foremost. She is certain she doesn’t want this.
All of these wishes are granted.