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Amity tucked her arm around Luz as they enjoyed the small flickering camp fire in front of them, just a little bit away from the Owl House in sort of a impromptu fireside proposed by Luz. Luz anxiously tapped her foot- not just because Amity was touching her, that was fine- she just knew these moments were going to be fleeting as she made more and more progress on the door back home.
She couldn’t not continue work on the door. She had come too far to quit and Eda and herself wouldn’t feel right if all the sudden she stopped working on it. She could, in theory, put it off for a little bit, spend more time with Eda, King, Hooty, Amity, and the rest of the Boiling Isles like she had intended, but after Belos was toppled, how would she break the news?
That was mightily presumptuous anyway, that they would even defeat Belos… like, realistically, could they even do that? Belos had more resources and was working on levels that Luz could not even begin to understand, much less the native inhabitants who cast circles while he casted with spheres.
Amity leaned in to Luz, looking mournfully at the fire and then at the moon. She looked at the black pupil of Luz’s eye, watching it twitch back and forth inside her sclera as she could tell Luz was deep in thought. “Hey, Luz?”
“Huh? What?” asked Luz, looking at Amity and nearly falling off the log they were sitting on.
“You mind if we sleep at the Owl House tonight? In separate rooms, of course… haha,” Amity said. “I could sleep on the couch.”
“Oh yeah, it’s pretty late,” Luz replied. “I figured you’d just fly back to the library or home…”
“It’s… not a good idea to fly at night, for fairly obvious reasons, I hope,” Amity said, pressing her fingers together. “Besides… I like staying with you. A lot more comfortable than home.”
“Oh… why is that?” asked Luz, tilting her head. She never actually pressed Amity for why she didn’t like going home, but she had known this about her for a long time, even before they officially had become friends and well before they had become girlfriends. And yet, she somehow didn’t know a very basic aspect of her life.
“Look… I don’t want to get into it, but my mother… and I guess father to a smaller extent… and my siblings to a much lesser extent than before but still…” Amity replied.
“Ohhh… I see.” Luz said, pressing her fingers together.
“It’s… not that they’re completely bad, like… my dad just does whatever my mom kind of wills a good most of the time and my brother and sister do have my back sometimes… more so than before…” Amity rattled off, looking to Luz embarrassed. “Look, it’s mostly a mom problem, surely you’d kind of understand because your mom wanted you to go to that camp, right?”
“I guess… I… hm.” Luz said, trying to articulate her complicated feelings about all of it. Why she left, how she felt seeing Vee with those kids she made friends with at camp, how her mother made her promise to come back home and to never come back- she didn’t know how much of a life she had carved here. She couldn’t tell her as she was being pulled up- she couldn’t make a case for herself and she was unsure if her mom was willing to listen either.
“What?” asked Amity, clearly telling something was off. Luz shook her head.
“It’s complicated, with my mom.” Luz said. “Maybe I’ll work up the courage to tell you about it someday.”
“Huh?” asked Amity, looking very pressed for answers. “Work up the courage to tell me what?”
Luz sighed as she had let another thing, she didn’t mean to say slip from her mouth. “It’s not pressing, it’s not… really that big of a deal…” Her mind felt like it’s gears had suddenly hitched and stopped.
“What is it?” asked Amity anxiously.
She needed to deflect quickly. This was not the time. “Ummm… huhhh…” she stammered, trying to stall for time. Amity was pressed against her, looking very concerned. “My mom doesn’t know about you and I don’t know how she’d react…” she truthfully lied. “…I’ve never had a girlfriend or boyfriend before so…”
“What, is she…” Amity asked, the word on the tip of her tongue. “Would she disapprove?”
“No! She’s… very supportive of my bisexuality, I just… I don’t know!” laughed Luz, quietly applauding herself for getting out of a very tricky scenario conversationally.
“Well, I don’t think you have much to worry about then. Might be weird, but you can’t be as weird as my parents about it.” Amity suggested.
“Wait, what do they think about us?” asked Luz, wide eyed. “You told them about us?”
“Not exactly…” Amity said, trailing off.
“You’re not spying on our daughter again, are you?” asked Alador as he hung his head towards his wife’s- Odalia becoming startled as he had snuck up on her from out of nowhere. He glared and tsked in a sarcastic manner, although Odalia became annoyed at the mere idea that he would question her, regardless of intent.
“Is it spying if I’m making sure she’s safe?” asked Odalia, squinting her eyes as she looked at her husband. She had been watching Amity and Luz from a crystal ball- tainted blue over the scene of the fireside.
“Right, but that’s not what’s happening, is it?” grinned Alador. “A cursory glance in that crystal ball would be all that you need to know for that.” He knew that he was pushing a couple buttons that he very rarely got to push on her.
“Ugh, fine, I’m seeing if she’s… behaving around the human.” Odalia said as she squinted her eyes, her nails clasped around the crystal ball.
“She’s doing fine, what’s your worry? She’s been improving her grades, I hardly even see it as necessary to spy on her like this.” Alador continued to pull on this thread, much to Odalia’s annoyance.
“I guess I just get lost in it… it reminds me of you, when we were younger…” Odalia sighed as she flicked a nail across it, the crystal ball going black. “I’m glad they seem to be good for each other- back at the presentation, I was a little reluctant to follow your logic… but now…”
Alador wrapped an arm around his wife. “She has a bright future with the human.”
“Uh huh,” Odalia replied. “I just wonder what her true motivations are… surely the human knows that this relationship cannot last, even if I were to stay completely out of it like I have been…”
“It doesn’t matter. She’s happy now, which is not what I could say about her for the past couple years,” Alador replied. “You got so caught up, and you got me ensnared in that, that we needed to surround ourselves around the best, the richest families… and where am I now?”
“You’re working directly for the emperor. Are you not happy with that?” Odalia said, shifting her weight back to the table, her hands against the edge as she turned to face Alador.
“You’re not doing the work.” Alador grumbled.
“Mm… that’s true…” Odalia replied. “We really haven’t been making as much money from the Emperor’s work, now that I think about it…”
“I suppose you’ll have to use your Oracle skills, hm?” Alador remarked. Odalia looked at him and groaned.
“I don’t want my brother on my case again…” grumbled Odalia. “Besides, rich witches like us… we’re not really supposed to be working this hard…”
“Hey, just saying. If you got it, use it.” Alador replied, clicking the roof of his mouth. “I’m going back into the lab, you might wanna find something else to do than pry on your daughter.”
Odalia rolled her eyes as she got up to go to the living room, grabbing a book off the table as she did. Alador quietly turned his attention back to a spider in the corner, watching it in intrigue.
“No… they’re just… I dunno, they like to pry at times. I’m pretty sure they might be doing it right now…” Amity groaned, as she looked over her shoulder and tilted her head upwards. “That’s why it doesn’t really matter if I’m home or not…”
“They spy on you?!” Luz exclaimed. “Are they watching us now?”
“Maybe?” asked Amity, looking around as if it’d help. “It doesn’t really matter… Emira and Edric tell me that they’re actually rather fine with it.”
“Huh, was not expecting your mom to be so cool about it…” Luz replied.
“Yeah… well ‘cool’ is a strong word, I think. We just need to be wary since I don’t know when we’re being watched…” Amity said, wrapping her arm around Luz. “I’m sure we can figure it out though…”
Luz nodded, helping Amity get up as she cast a water and fire glyph combo to send some water onto the flame to douse it. They headed towards the Owl House as the moon beams continued to cast down on the two- from the darkness into the light.
Luz kept quiet to herself- her stomach felt odd continuing to hold such a large secret- a promise to her mother- but she couldn’t tell anyone just yet. Truthfully, it was kind of in her control as to when she’d go back. Now that she knew her mother was safe, she could just go back when she was done with Belos… but would she even want to leave after that? Amity and her family here were just as critically important to her as her old life, if not even more so…
She opened up the door to the Owl House as Amity nodded sleepily, kissing Luz on the cheek before letting herself go entirely onto the couch, laying across it and closing her tired eyes. Luz smiled as she headed to her room, without saying anything more.
Yeah, we’ll figure it out, she thought to herself. There was always another way, and she would find it one day.