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Human world is great, you should be grateful for being here Vee Noceda muttered to herself as soon as Camila’s car stopped in front of a building
She got off and waved at the human, but Camila coughed and say
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Mom…” Vee complained, embarrassed
“Mija…” the women insisted, pointing to her cheek
“Bye Mom” the basilisk in human form replied, quickly kissing her mother on the cheek and rolling her eyes
“Have a great day cariño” was the last thing the woman said
You should be grateful for Camila Vee thought, waving until the car was out of her sight, she’s nice enough to give you a place to sleep and she makes you feel loved every day
Vee started to walk and fidgeted with the straps of her backpack
You should be grateful for your friends; all of them accept you for who you really are
But none of those friends were waiting outside of the building, and although Vee thought that was something weird, she didn’t pay too much attention to it
You should be grateful for being here and not spending all your time trapped inside a cage she reminded herself, entering the human school
She knew she should be grateful for human school, but the fact was that she really hated the place, with all of her heart
For starters, she had to replace Luz Noceda of all people, who had already gained a reputation for being a crazy, borderline neurotic, troublemaker (yes, she heard those words directed at her and so much worse)
But even if Vee tried to be a different, improved version of the human currently trapped in the Boiling Isles, the responses were always the same
“There she goes, thinking she’s normal”
“I preferred when she acted like a sicko”
“Quit the niceties, Noceda, you’re not fooling anyone”
Camila always said Luz had some troubles to make friends on school and Vee could now confirm that was an understatement, kids were mean, sometimes without reason; that was bad enough.
Other times, they acted with cruelty because others did the same and Vee felt that was even worse, cause in those times the nicknames, the pushes and the harsh feelings would just pile out endlessly
According to Camila, Vee could talk to adults if things got out of hand, but that wasn’t a viable solution either, most times her protests would be met with affirmations of “I’ll look into it” or “You should be able to defend yourself, Luz”
That was another conflict point for her, everyone, including the adults, kept calling her Luz, no matter how many times she tried to say that no, that wasn’t her real name, kids would just ignore her pleas and teachers would say that she was enrolled at the school as Luz Noceda and they would keep calling her that
At least she had her friends from camp, and Clara too
Although she couldn’t expect the blonde girl to offer a lot of support while they were at school, after all, she had a reputation to maintain and Vee understood that, the last thing she wanted was to drag more people into being bullied like her
So she could go and hang out with Clara after school, and if the thought made her blush and feel all kind of giddy and weird things inside, she didn’t say anything about it aloud
At the very least, her sadness didn’t affect her shapeshifting abilities, she had learn to control them much better in the last weeks, so she didn’t have to worry about basilisk ears appearing spontaneously
Vee spent the classes looking on the chalkboard with as much interest as it was possible, which in her case wasn’t very much, math was tedious and human history particularly uninteresting, but she should be grateful for being here and not in the Emperor’s castle, so she made an effort
Worst part was the fact that none of her camp friends were in class with her today, apparently, an incident invo9lving a “bunch of troublemakers” ended with the three of them locked up in detention for the rest of the day
And to make matters even worse, Clara decided to sit on the back row of the classroom, so Vee was unable to steal the occasional glance in her direction, not like she did that constantly
She sighed, barely paying attention to the teacher, she couldn’t fool herself, she liked to steal those glances, liked to have Clara around and above else, she liked to have gay panics (a sentiment that Luz explained to her when she reflected on the bathroom mirror one uncomfortable morning) involving the blonde girl
Vee decided that she couldn’t care less about George Washington crossing the Delaware when the bell rang and her torture ended
Only for the torture called lunchtime to begin. Today’s menu was apparently mean-spirited people throwing bubblegum at her hair, not even three minutes passed since she sat in the farthest corner she could find and she had already six pieces of that disgusting pink thing stuck in there
She took a card out of her pocket and nibbled it absentmindedly, not even trying to see if there were other people watching her, after all, if nobody cared about her, then she wouldn’t care about them either
Luz was right after all, school was a nightmare and no matter how hard she tried, Vee was sure she would never be able to fit in; at the very least, she could use the silence and solitude to think about her favorite subject
She was wondering if she could work up the courage to ask Clara to go with her to the library, she always wanted to visit the place, but it was something difficult, considering the fact that Camila was always working and Maria was banned because she almost set fire to the occult section
“How’s my favorite basilisk’s doing?” a sweet and known voice asked suddenly, putting a tray in front of her
Vee looked up and blushed at the way Clara was smiling, her mind started to work overtime as soon as she heard the words ‘favorite basilisk’ until she realized that she was the only basilisk the girl knew, so the sentence probably didn’t have a lot of meaning
“Just here… Alone…” was the only thing Vee could say as a response, pressing her head against the table
Her whole body went into shutdown when she felt a couple of fingers dancing around her hair
“Bunch of idiots” Clara said and Vee knew what she was referring to “I’m giving you a haircut after classes”
“You don’t need to do that”
“I insist”
“And I tell you it’s not necessary” Vee said, shaking her head
She looked around for a few seconds and when she realized no one was watching her, she focused on her hair and turned it into water, all the pieces of gum fell to the ground and a moment later, her original hair was back into place
“Amazing” Clara said, clapping a little “But I really wanted to give you a haircut, or at least spend some time with you”
The basilisk tried not to think too much, for a moment, she thought that what Clara was saying sounded suspiciously like a date, but that was stupid, right? A basilisk and a human, just… stupid
Still, she could try her idea; she opened her mouth to suggest spending an afternoon on the library, when somebody else interrupted her
“Clara” a girl said, two other cheerleaders standing behind her
The blonde human merely huffed at the presence, not even saying a word
“The girls and I have been talking…”
“That would be a first” Clara said and Vee snickered, only for the intruder to throw a killing look in her direction
“… And decided” the other girl continued “That if you keep having meetings with Luzer over here…”
Clara’s eyes twitched and in a second, she was getting up, pointing an accusatory finger at the other person
“I know what you’re going to say, I know you want me to stop hanging with her so you can have some control over me, or you can pretend you’re doing me a favor”
“You can’t be having lunch with that weirdo!”
“Vee” Clara said, slamming her hand against the table “Her name’s Vee and I’ll keep having lunch with her because she’s my friend”
“Then I’ll guess you are out of the popular list” the other girl said with a dark chuckle
“I. Don’t. Care” Clara emphasized “Now leave”
The three girls did exactly that, not without throwing a little tantrum that Clara didn’t want to react to, once they were out of sight, Vee touched her crush’s hand and questioned:
“Does it hurt?”
“It just itches a little, don’t worry” Clara replied with a smile
“You should go to your seat before those girls tell the rest that you like to spend time with the weirdo”
“They are going to tell everyone either way” Clara admitted, taking a sip of her juice "And frankly, I don’t care, I told them I was staying with you and I’m doing exactly that”
She coughed, blushed and looked away before adding
“That is, if you want to, of course”
“Of course I want to!” Vee shouted, beaming with happiness
Clara’s blush deepened, but when she looked back at Vee, she got worried; the basilisk had a worried look and she needed to know what was happening, so she gave her a little squeeze on her left hand, silently asking what was going on
Vee understood the message and muttered
“Would you still be my friend when Luz comes back?”
“What kind of question is that?” Clara said, gasping
“It’s just, as soon as Luz gets back here, she’ll take back her own life, I mean, she has to, it’s her life, not mine, so she’ll return here and I… I don’t know what I’m going to do”
“Nothing’s going to change, Vee”
“You can’t know that”
“I’m asking you to not change anything” Clara insisted “Whatever Luz does, I nee- I mean, we need you around, we want Vee Noceda around”
“There are not much of you who think that” the basilisk said, avoiding the human’s gaze
“Me and your other three friends are more than enough” the blonde girl said “We are here for you”
“My camp buddies-“
“Are in detention, I heard” Clara interrupted her “I guess your weirdness is rubbing on us”
Vee opened her mouth to reply, but Clara stopped her with her finger
“And before you say something, we want all of this weirdness in our life, because we- I mean, I like Vee Noceda, very much”
The basilisk was going to respond until her brain registered the last sentence she heard and she stayed there, frozen in time, looking at an extremely flustered and giggling Clara, she was unable to react, even when she heard the bell signaling her little time in this oasis was over
“Well, would you look at that” Clara said, getting up “Time to go back to class!”
Vee started to follow her when Clara stopped and put her hands on her shoulders, making her shiver
“And don’t worry; I’ll make sure you don’t feel alone ever again” she added
When they were back to the classroom, Clara sat at Vee’s left, no one, not even the teacher said a word against it and the basilisk’s heart soar with happiness when she realized she could spend the rest of the day looking at her blonde haired crush and discovering, much to her surprise, that the former coolest girl in school stole some glances in her direction too every once in a while
Vee smiled, taking a little bite of one of her cards and deciding that was going to ask her crush to go to the library with her…
As soon as this boring biology lesson was over.