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Luz looked nervously around the park, she had been waiting for half an hour now and still no sign of the person she was waiting for, maybe she had forgotten? Maybe she had more important things to do, or maybe…
She didn’t want to face it, but she was aware she had been neglecting her for the past weeks, everything in her life was so convoluted right now that she barely had any time to spend with her
It shouldn’t be surprising if she was mad at her, or if she felt left out, maybe calling her and asking for a reunion had been a bad idea, maybe…
“Luz!” a voice interrupted her
The human got up with a jump and ran towards the other girl, enveloping her in a tight hug
“Willow!” she shouted “You’re here!”
“Of course that I’m here silly” the witch replied “I told you I would come, didn’t I?”
“I thought you could have forgotten”
“I’m not as oblivious as you, Luz, also I was having problems with one of my flesh-eating sunflowers”
When Luz didn’t react at her little joke, Willow shook her gently, but the human didn’t move and then she felt it, a soft droplet of water running through her neck, Willow quickly broke the hug and looked at her friend
“Luz, are you crying?”
“Yeah… Of excitement! Cause we’re gonna have… such… a good time”
The human hiccupped and Willow quickly drew a circle in the air, summoning a giant leaf, she offered it to her friend and touched her head softly, whispering
“Here, take this, it’s filled with fresh water… There you go, drink it slowly”
When Luz obeyed, Willow guided her to a bench and sat at her side with a worried expression
“What’s happening?” was all that she said
Luz had a plan for today, a very easy one, she would spend the day with Willow, talking about the things she did lately, she would apologize for leaving her behind, she would take notes on how she felt about recent… developments in her life and finally and if they had time, she would share some ice cream with her and apologize for another twenty or maybe thirty minutes
But, as usual, her plans went out of the window and as soon as Willow asked what was happening she opened her mouth and let it all out
Every single thing, even the secrets she didn’t told anyone yet and didn’t want to, meanwhile, the only thing Willow did was listen to her attentively, nod occasionally and not interrupt her a single time
“So…” Luz said after a while, taking another sip of the water leaf “There’s that, I made a promise I don’t know if I can keep and I really don’t know what to do next”
“Uh-huh…” Willow muttered
An uncomfortable silence fell between the two girls until the plant witch spoke again
“Tell me the truth Luz, you can’t keep that promise or you don’t want to?”
“I’m not sure I want to… I miss Mami but actually, she’s barely the only thing I miss from Earth… But please don’t tell her that!”
“How could I? I don’t have a portal to the human realm, Luz” Willow indicated with a chuckle
“Huh… You’re right, only I have one of those… And Belos, as far as I know, could have one too, and he could activate it at any moment, and who knows what he could do with it!”
“Hey!” Willow shouted, rubbing circles on her friend’s back “Deep breaths Luz, calm down, you got this…”
“No I don’t” Luz confessed, her breath not completely even “I’m scared and I feel I can’t talk about this with anyone, I really don’t know why I told you all of this, I didn’t mean to do it!”
“Oh” Willow said, sounding a little dejected “You mean you don’t trust me enough to talk about this”
“Is not that!” the human shouted, frantically grabbing her hair “Ugh Luz, you fool, why are you so stupid?”
“I’m going to give you some time to think about what to say next, okay?” her friend said, trying to sound as reassuring “Don’t rush, okay?”
Luz nodded and took a deep breath, she knew what to say and exactly how to say it; she just hoped Willow wouldn’t be too mad at her
“Don’t you feel like I’ve been ignoring you lately?” she finally let out
“Huh?” the witch said and the genuine concern in her eyes made Luz feel even worse
“When was the last time we got an adventure together?”
“Luz, I literally took care of you when you got the common mold two weeks ago”
“That’s not an adventure!” the human protested “I was barely awake and when I woke up I ended up covering you in fungi dust!”
“Yeah…” Willow admitted, shuddering “Not a fan of that, but listen, I know that you’ve been busy…”
“So focused on building the portal back home” Luz continued “that I left you alone, when was the last time we had a friendly conversation?“
“We chat every day”
“Through Pennstagram, I mean a real one, Willow”
“Let me stop you right there, Luz” her friend said, grabbing her hand “You want to go back home, you need to, is natural that you consider that a really important thing, stop feeling guilty about that”
“I can’t help it, especially not when I’ve managed to spend time with Eda and King, and Gus and… Amity”
There it was, one of those difficult topics she wanted to talk about, not wanting to run around the bushes any longer, Luz added
“How do you feel about her… and me?”
“Does my opinion really matter?”
“Of course it does! Willow, you were my first friend on the Boiling Isles, actually, my first friend… ever”
“Surely Eda and King came before me”
“Nuh uh” Luz said, denying with her head “Back when I met you, Eda didn’t fully trust me and I’m pretty sure King was more interested in my cellphone than in me”
Sensing she was getting somewhere, Luz continued
“Without you, I would never have discovered Hexside, or tried so hard to become a witch or finding out so many wonderful things!”
“Love included” Willow said with a knowing smile
Luz scratched the back of her head sheepishly and blushed a little before saying
“That’s why I want to know how you feel about Amity and me being… together”
“I’m honestly surprised and thankful, too”
“About?”
“You surely noticed it Luz, Amity used to be a bully, even worse than Boscha and that was a regular thing for several years at Hexside and then you came along and changed her completely”
“Me?”
“Luz I know you can be dumb sometimes, but not this dumb!”
When the human didn’t respond, Willow chuckled and continued
“Amity changed the way she acted because she met you; she started to like not only hanging around with you, but you. Amity Blight, falling for a human, who could have seen that coming?”
“Well, she may have liked me a little, but…”
“Luz, not a little, she wanted to go to Grom with you”
Something broke in Luz’s brain at the revelation and Willow, ever the observant, noticed it and started to laugh
Even though the whole point of this day was making sure Willow wasn’t mad at her, Luz couldn’t help but frown
“Luz, she kissed you, she’s your girlfriend, remember?”
“So?”
“So, who do you think she had a crush on? Who do you think she wanted to invite to Grom? For whom do you think that pink note was?”
“Me” Luz said, opening her mouth
Willow gave her friend a couple of minutes to recover from the shock before continuing
“It’s sweet you want to know what I think about Amity and you, but the truth is I wanted the two of you to date for months now”
“You knew all this time! And you never told me! You fiend!” Luz shouted
And after that, both girls exploded into giggles
Willow can’t forgive Amity for what she has done in the past, at least not entirely, she was controlled by her parents, but she decided to give in, even if she was saving Willow from being expelled.
She may never be able to forgive Amity completely, Luz knows that now.
However, the little witch also knows that, without Luz, she wouldn’t even consider Amity one of her friends right now. Because that’s one of the reasons why she didn’t threw the Blight girl out of her mind when she and Luz were there. Amity is still her friend and she has to thank the human for that.
After a few more minutes of conversation, Willow let out a deep breath, she didn’t knew how much she need to talk about all of this
Luz hears her and laughs again when Willow tells her she’s the one who made Gus realize Luz had a crush on Amity.
“If Amity hadn’t kissed you” the witch says “Gus and I had a plan to make the two of you confess, it was something out of an old human magazine Gus found”
“Oh, I would have liked that”
“It involved pushing you two into a closet and locking it from the outside”
Luz blushed profusely at that
“Yeah, maybe I wouldn’t have liked it that much” the human said, chuckling once more
When she went silent, Willow patted her back and commented
“But enough about Amity, there’s something else on your mind, isn’t it?”
Luz nodded
“Then let’s talk about it”
“Yeah, but this thing… I don’t think you can help me with it, no one can”
“You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders you know, Luz?” the witch commented “Even if I can’t help you, I’m here to listen”
“I don’t want my problems to be a burden”
Willow acquired the most serious expression Luz ever saw before she said
“I’m gonna turn my hand into a cactus and punch you if you keep thinking like that” a second later, she was back to her usual self, and she added “Talk to me, after all, I am your best friend, remember?”
Luz’s face beamed at that before she started to tell her
Willow struggled a little trying to keep out with everything her friend said, but the last sentence she said broke her heart a little
“A basilisk is better making friends than me, what does that say about me?”
“That you’re not a basilisk, silly” Willow replied, summoning again her water leaf and offering a sip “And that without Vee, your mother would have suffered much more”
“But now Vee is there and Mom wants me back!”
“Because she doesn’t really know how important this place is for you, eventually, you’ll go back to the human realm and you’ll have to make her understand why the Isles are so important to you”
“Or maybe…” Luz said
Willow sighed when she saw Luz was having a ‘I’m about to have a stupid idea’ moment
“Maybe I can keep my promise, if I return home and Vee comes here…”
“Don’t you dare, Luz Noceda”
“It was just an idea, Willow”
“A stupid idea, you are gonna break that poor girl’s heart and your own in the process, not to mention you’ll be cheating on us, all of us”
“But maybe you won’t notice the difference”
Willows eyes turned green in the moment she said
“We will notice Luz and if you try to do something like that, I’ll never forgive you”
The human shuddered at the seriousness of the threat and raised her arms in surrender
“Got it, stupid idea, won’t do it”
“Good, just focus on go back home and talk things with your Mom, like you’re doing with me right now”
“I don’t think it’ll be that easy”
“Why not?”
“Because we can’t generate enough magical energy” Luz explained “We did a lot of tests and we are still so far…”
Willow asked for explanations, so Luz continued
“We need a power source apart from the Titan’s Blood, we tried with King’s magical blast, with some spells from Eda’s Mom, and with the head of one of Amity’s abominations, and that was the only thing that helped me to open the portal and still it isn’t enough for me to fully cross over there”
“There has to be a way…” Willow muttered
“Not any we can think of” Luz let out in a whimper “There’s just not enough magical energy to get me there…”
The human went silent after that, she looked down and stayed there for several seconds. Willow had never seen her friend so helpless and defeated, she bit her own lip, there was something on her mind, she had an idea on how to help her but…
She was aware it was dangerous, so she decided to keep her mouth shut and simply say that they would find a way to get her home
After a heartfelt hug, in which Willow noticed her human friend squeezed her too tight, Luz had to return to the Owl House, Willow reassured once again that everything was fine between them and that they should try to have this type of conversations more often
“I’d like that” Luz said
“See you around, goofball” the witch replied, ruffling her friend’s hair and smiling until she was out of her sight
Then she looked at her hands and Luz’s words echoed on her mind
“There’s just not enough magical energy to get me there…”
Willow’s hands and eyes shined with a green, deep glow until she took a deep breath to calm herself down
What would happen if she used her dormant powers to help her friend? More specifically, she wondered, what would happen to her own body?
If Luz didn’t find a way to get home, then she would leap into action and find out the answer very soon…
After all, she would do anything for that human girl.
Because Luz Noceda was her best friend, too