Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

     A new day, a new state, a new school. Marcy finds herself staring down the school she’s going to now. It’s not a private school like St. James was, but that might be for the best. While she would absolutely rather still be going there, she had had a hard time with her social life outside of Anne and Sasha. (Technically, she had also had a hard time with her social life regarding them, but not in the way she’s concerned about now.)

     Marcy isn’t sure what to expect from this new school. She hasn’t been to school since she left for Amphibia in May of the previous year, and that was way before she sustained injuries that continue to make life difficult for her. She’s lucky her family has good health insurance, because that allows for the mobility aids she needs to get around most days, like the cane she’s currently using and the wheelchair for her worse days that she covered in stickers. 

     She walks into the school and is relieved to find the front office is right there and she doesn’t have to go looking for it. It’s the front office, so she figured it would be, but the office in the elementary school she’d gone to had been buried in the middle of the school’s maze-like layout, so you never can be too sure. She receives a warm welcome from adults whose names she doesn’t know and isn’t told and she’s given a schedule and escorted to her first class.

     It’s completely and utterly boring. She hadn’t really been expecting to have to go up in front of the class and introduce herself like in anime, but she was expecting a little more notice. Okay, maybe she was expecting to have to introduce herself, just a little. But she doesn’t. The most that she gets is people pointing and whispering about her when her name is called during roll call.

     This attention feels so much different and so much more hostile than the attention she received in Amphibia for her roles and connections. She almost sinks into her chair but when she tries, the edge of the seat’s backrest jabs itself into her spine, which is still healing from being severed just a few months prior. She’s been left with permanent damage from that. Some days are worse than others, she’s finding, but no matter how well she feels it always hurts to touch it. She winces and stills, trying to focus on anything else and hoping no one notices.

     The first hour class is over before she knows it and she absorbed almost nothing about whatever the teacher was saying. Granted, she allowed herself to zone out because she already knew what he was teaching, but still. Off to a pretty bad start. 

     She has no idea where the next classroom she’s supposed to be going to is and this time no teacher or secretary is here to help her find it. She stands in the hallway, frozen, with people rushing around her trying to get to their classes before the bell rings. Surely the English teacher would accept her being lost as a reasonable excuse for being late? 

     Suddenly, she feels a hand on her shoulder and almost jumps out of her skin. 

     “Hey, sorry! I didn’t mean to spook you,” someone says. “You’re new here, right? I didn’t recognize your name on the attendance list.”

     It’s a brunette girl with brown eyes. She wears a purple and white cat hoodie that probably just barely made it through dress code rules against crop tops. 

     “Uh, right, yes. I moved in over the summer,” Marcy says.

     “Oh, nice! We don’t get new students very often because we’re kind of out in the middle of Nowhere, Connecticut. I’m Luz,” she introduces herself.

     Luz reaches out a hand to shake and Marcy takes it. “I’m Marcy. But, uh, you probably already knew that, what with the attendance list.”

     “I did,” Luz admits. “What class do you have next?”

     “English,” Marcy says.

     “Ooh, with Ms. Islington or with Mrs. Bennet?” Luz asks.

     “There are two of them?” Marcy asks. She suddenly is not optimistic about learning the school’s layout in a timely manner.

     “Yep!” Luz says.

     Marcy feels a headache oncoming. “Mrs. Bennet.”

     “Lucky you, that’s the nice one. Follow me,” Luz says. She leads Marcy down the hallway. “I had Islington last year and she hated me. I mean, my sister thinks it’s because I brought in live snakes for a book report presentation, but they were all non venomous! I made sure.”

     “Snakes? For a book report ? What book was it?” Marcy asks.

     “The Good Witch Azura!” Luz says as if she’s announcing something showstopping. “Book one, of course. We were allowed to pick our own books.”

     Marcy grins. “You’ve read that series? I love it!”

     “You do? It’s my favorite series ever ! I’ve only found one other person who liked it before I introduced it to them. And I’ve introduced it to a lot of people,” Luz says.

     “I’ve tried to do that, but my friends aren’t really interested in fantasy novels. Oh! Have you read Cynthia Coven? It’s a bit less popular but its premise is so similar I’d recommend it to any Azura fan,” Marcy says.

     Luz shakes her head. “I’ve heard of it but I haven’t read it. But it’s on my list of things to read! The school library has it.”

     She stops in front of a door. “Well, here we are! What do you have next hour?”

     Marcy checks her schedule. “I have social studies with Mr. Jacobs.”

     “Hey, me too! I’ll come pick you up after the hour ends and take you there,” Luz says.

     “This isn’t your next class?” Marcy asks.

     “Well, no. Actually, it’s in the opposite direction,” Luz says.

     The bell rings, signaling that the period between classes is almost over. “Thank you for leading me but you should go. Sorry for making you late.”

     “It’s okay!” Luz says, already walking off. Backwards, of course, so she can face Marcy as she speaks. “See you later!”

     Marcy waves and walks into the classroom.

     True to her word, Luz finds Marcy again after their classes are over and shows Marcy where their next class is. They talk a little more about the Azura books and Marcy finds out that while Azura used to be Luz’s favorite character, she’s grown to prefer Hecate. Luz finds out that Marcy likes one of the supporting characters and thinks that they should’ve had more screen time. Luz agrees.

     They reach class and soon they’re dismissed for the first lunch period. 

     “You should come sit with me!” Luz says.

     “Oh, no, it’s okay, I don’t want to intrude on your friend group,” Marcy says.

     Luz and Marcy both brought lunches from home because they both agree that cafeteria food probably shouldn’t be considered edible.

     “You’re not!” Luz says. “Anyway, my friends don’t go here. It’s just me and my sister Vee, usually. I’m.. not very popular.”

     “I wasn’t popular at my last school either,” Marcy admits. “I was friends with the captain of the cheerleading squad so I was known by proxy, but that’s about it.”

     “Yea, me and Vee are like that here too. She makes friends so easily and I have a reputation for being weird,” Luz says.

     Luz and Marcy sit at Luz’s usual table and continue talking. 

     “Is it because of the snakes?” Marcy asks.

     “A little bit,” Luz laughs. “But I was the ‘weird kid’ for ages before that. It doesn’t bother me as much as it used to, though.”

     Marcy nods and pokes at her food. She’s not particularly hungry, but she eats while Luz talks because if she doesn’t eat now she’s just gonna be more hungry later. “I get that. I probably would have been worse off if I wasn’t friends with Sasha - the one I mentioned earlier - but I was still a teacher’s pet and people bugged me about it all the time.”

     “Well, I guess us outcasts have to stick together,” Luz says.

     “I guess so,” Marcy smiles.

     Another girl, almost identical to Luz save for the way she dresses and styles her hair walks up to the table and sits down next to Luz. “Hello.”

     Luz gives her a hug from the side. “This is Vee! Vee, this is Marcy, she’s new.”

     “Oh, it’s nice to meet you,” Vee says softly.

     “You too,” Marcy says.

     “What held you up? Usually you’re here before I am,” Luz asks Vee.

     “Ada wanted help with an assignment,” Vee says.

     “Ada..?”

     “The blonde in the drum line,” Vee answers.

     “Oh, that one! I thought her name was Ava,” Luz says.

     “There’s a school band?” Marcy asks.

     “Yep! Are you interested?” Luz asks.

     “No, not really. I’ve done percussion stuff but wasn’t interested enough to actually join the school band,” Marcy says. “But I love going to school concerts and stuff! Live bands are so neat.”

     “Ours is… a little chaotic,” Vee admits. 

     “But it’s fun! Oh, and, every year in late-ish fall we do a play. I’ve tried out for them every year since fifth grade, and I’m happy to report I’ve gotten a part every single time,” Luz says.

     “Ooh, do you have a drama class?” Marcy asks.

     “We don’t,” Luz says. “But we’ve got an after school drama club!” 

     “We have a couple others too, digital media, art, writing, sports, dnd-“ Vee starts.

     “You have a dnd club? Where do I sign up?” Marcy asks excitedly.

     “I can introduce you to the club leader and you can ask them. I don’t actually know how to join the club myself,” Vee says.

     “That would be so cool! Thank you so much!” Marcy says. 

     After lunch, Marcy ends up giving Luz and Vee her phone number and social medias. After school, she gets texts from Anne and Sasha asking her how her first day went. 

I think I made some new friends :)

Chapter Text

     Monday morning, Marcy walked to school. Tuesday morning, she can’t get out of bed. It hasn’t even been two weeks and she’s already missing a day in her new school. She knew having her disability would be hard, but frog , it makes her feel guilty. She knows that it’s unreasonable to expect anyone to have perfect attendance, but she’s always been rewarded for never missing a day and it’s hard to break old habits.

     She buries herself in her blankets as her mom calls into the school to let them know she won’t be in attendance today.

MarshmallowMarbles: ow

Sashhh_: you okay??

MarshmallowMarbles: bad spine day 

Sashhh_: oh 

Sashhh_: sorry

MarshmallowMarbles: it’s okay. Not your fault

MarshmallowMarbles: Why are you up so early? You’re three hours behind me? 

Sashhh_: i dunno, just one of those days where I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep 

MarshmallowMarbles: Nightmare? 

Sashhh_: yea

Sashhh_: one that doesn’t even make sense now that I’m actually awake

MarshmallowMarbles: what happened?

Sashhh_: after we defeated Andrias and went back to Amphibia, the moon started falling? And we fought the moon with these weird magical girl outfits and all of us had Anne’s blue powers but not? 

Sashhh_: and Anne died

Sashhh_: but she was resurrected by Domino, but domino was a god, for some reason? 

Sashhh_: also it was so weirdly unrealistic I noticed for a second that I was in a dream

Sashhh_: but then it just kept getting worse from there

Sashhh_: when the box broke the stones didn’t give us back their powers so when we went home, we could never go back to Amphibia

Sashhh_: then after you moved we all just stopped talking. We tried to stay in touch but we drifted and years passed and I realized I didn’t know anything about any of you anymore 

Sashhh_: and I remember trying to come up with ways to fix it but none of them would work

Sashhh_: and I tried to call you but it wasn’t your number anymore and I couldn’t find any of your new social medias 

Sashhh_: and I was alone

MarshmallowMarbles: oh

MarshmallowMarbles: I don’t know what the future holds for sure but I promise you I will do my best to make sure that doesn’t happen okay??

MarshmallowMarbles: after everything that happened and how hard we fought just to stay together I’m not letting you go

MarshmallowMarbles: and we’ll fix any problems we might have together this time

Sashhh_ is typing…

[Call from Sasha ✨]

[Call lasted 32 minutes]

ABC: wow I am late

ABC: Marcy is right. We love you and we’re not going anywhere.

ABC: uhh I can’t come up with anything else to say that she hasn’t already

ABC: so yea

Sashhh_: it’s ok

Sashhh_: thank you 

Sashhh_: I love you both too

MarshmallowMarbles: ❤️❤️❤️

     The day feels long and drawn out. Marcy tried to distract herself by working on plans for Newtopia’s new law system but she can’t focus on writing because of how much everything hurts. She settles in to mindlessly watch her favorite show for the hundredth time. It makes her feel a bit better. 

     She doesn’t know exactly what time it is when she hears the knock on the front door, but evidently it’s sometime after school has already ended. Whoever it was speaks with her mom and then enters the house. It’s Luz. Or maybe Vee? They have the same voice. “Marcyyyy! You in there?”

     “Yea,” Marcy confirms. “Come in.”

     She does. It is Luz. She’s carrying a folder and a notebook and her backpack. “Hey! How are you feeling?”

     Marcy groans and face plants into the pillow.

     “Oof, I got that. Buuut, I got you some stuff!” Luz says.

     Marcy carefully flips onto her side to better hold a conversation with her friend. “What kinda stuff?”

     “Well, for one, I took notes for you and brought you your schoolwork, but I also brought you pastries!” Luz says. “You mentioned you liked the strawberry ones from the local store.”

     “I can’t believe you actually remembered that, I didn’t even remember I told you until now,” Marcy says, accepting the things Luz gives her. 

     “I just have a really good memory,” Luz smiles.

     “Thank you,” Marcy says.

     “No problem! I gotta go, but I hope you feel better soon,” Luz says.

     “Me too,” Marcy agrees. “I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Or, I’ll text and let you know if I won’t.”

     “Deal!”

Chapter Text

     The first time Marcy and Luz meet is forgotten by both of them because their lives are both chaotic for different reasons. Luz had just gotten back to the human realm for the first time in months and she’s constantly distracted trying to figure out how to get back. Marcy’s alternate dimension adventure is over and now she’s dealing with the aftermath of it. The white hospital bracelet is more than enough proof of that.

     “Mom, let me help, I feel fine,” Marcy says.

     “You just got out of the hospital yesterday . You’re not helping to bring boxes in,” her father says.

     “But I’m healed already! They made sure!” Marcy argues.

     Her dad lifts another box out of the moving truck. “Then why are you still using that wheelchair and cane, huh?”

     “Because my spine was severed , dad. I’m gonna need those the rest of my life, because spinal injuries don’t just disappear once they heal,” Marcy tells him for the hundredth time.

     She’s not even currently using either of them, because today is one of the good days. If she were, she’d be helping move the small things out of the van, or maybe she really would do what her dad wants her to and not help at all. But she’s not and she doesn’t want to waste that just sitting around. 

     “Exactly. Now, go inside and.. I don’t know, do your make-up schoolwork,” her dad says.

     “But I did it all in hospital,” Marcy says.

     He rolls his eyes. “I don’t care what you do, you’re just not doing this.”

     Marcy stares at him for a minute, fuming silently. Then, she walks off to the sidewalk in front of their new house and tries to compose a message to Anne and Sasha, but nothing sounds right. She turns off her phone and sighs. Maybe she should just go to her room and wait.

     “Hey,” greets an unfamiliar voice.

     Marcy looks up. “Hello.”

     “I’m Luz, I live down the street, my mom noticed the trucks and she made food for you,” the girl says. She looks like she’s really trying to be friendly, but her mind is elsewhere. 

     “Marcy,” Marcy introduces. “Thank you.”

     “No problem,” Luz smiles. “You can keep the dish, we have a ton of them at home. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

     She walks off just as quickly as she arrived and goes off to a house at the other end of the street. She’s greeted by a girl with dyed purple hair.

     Marcy has no idea what’s in the container, it’s covered in shiny tin foil, but it’s warm and it smells really good. She pulls herself up off the sidewalk and goes inside.

Chapter Text

     “Marcy! Did you hear? Mrs. Jecleff is holding auditions for the school play!” Luz says excitedly, throwing an arm around Marcy’s shoulders.

     “Should I know who that is?” Marcy asks, looking up from her switch.

     “Not if you’re not taking any music classes,” Luz says. “She’s the choir teacher! She’s also in charge of the school play.”

     “Ohh, okay. Are you going to try out?” Marcy asks.

     “Of course! I love being in the school play! Last year I actually got one of the lead roles,” Luz answers proudly. 

     “Cool! What are they doing this year?” Marcy asks.

     “Fiddler on the Roof. You should try out with me!” Luz says.

     “I’m not really a good actor,” Marcy says.

     “We’ll see about that.”

     “I can’t believe I let you drag me into this.”

     “Me neither.”

     Luz and Marcy stand outside the music room with a handful of other students, waiting to be let in. Marcy has no idea what she’s doing, but she’s trusting Luz to guide her. The door swings open and a brunette woman stands there. “Come on in, everyone!”

     People file into the room, which feels much more crowded than the hallway had. Mrs. Jecleff walks to the front of the room and introduces herself. “What we’re going to do is you will all come up one by one, tell me your name, and sing a little bit of a song.”

     “That’s it?” Marcy whispers to Luz. “Shouldn’t you have to read out lines or something?”

     Luz shrugs. “Probably, but this is all we do. I don’t know why she doesn’t have us do that. I think maybe being able to sing is more important than being able to read the lines because it is the musical version.”

     This doesn’t make a lot of sense to Marcy but she shrugs. She doesn’t think she’s actually going to try out, but Luz was aware of that and still wanted her to join. 

     Marcy sits in the back next to the stack of chairs taller than her. Why Mrs. Jecleff is having them sit on the carpet instead of the chairs is also a mystery, but those chairs are very plastic and very uncomfortable so she might as well be sitting on the floor.

     One by one, the group of students who showed up sing a little bit and then either leave the room or sit back down, maybe to see how others are doing in their auditions. Some are… better than others… Luz is pretty good, and Marcy can see why she got a leading role last year. 

     Mrs. Jecleff makes a final call for anyone who wants to try out to do so now, and when no one does she wraps things up. In this, she mentions that sign up sheets for crew would be on the table by the door. Marcy doesn’t think she’ll take one, but as she and Luz walk past, she impulsively picks up a sheet of paper and puts it in her school binder for later.

Chapter Text

     Practice doesn’t usually run late for the school play, but today is one of the occasions it does. Practice is running late today because the few middle and elementary schoolers with important roles had gotten dismissed late, so Luz doesn’t even need to be in the music room.

     She walks the empty halls on her way to the big gym that doubles as an auditorium, where the play is actually going to be performed. It’s kind of eerie to be alone in the halls after school, but it’s also pretty cool. The lights are off and the halls are decorated for Halloween, so she feels a bit like she’s in a spooky movie.

     Luz arrives and hopes that the door isn’t locked. It shouldn’t be, if Mrs. Jecleff thought it would be she wouldn’t have sent Luz down here to see how the tech and art crews are doing and let them know it was set to rain and might mess with the power. As she expected, the door opens easily and she finds that the power is already off so that the tech crew can mess with the lights. The art crew seems to have already gone home, because there are tarps on the floor in front of the wall that they repaint every year to make a new background set and a sign in front of them that says wet paint, but there are no people working on it.

     She makes her way to the computer room off to the side and finds exactly three people inside, all of whom she knows at least a little. The first is Marcy. She’s working so intently on what she’s doing that she looks up, waves, and then goes back to what she’s doing without any further acknowledgment.

     The second is a girl Luz knows through Vee, her name is Declan. She’s a sophomore, and Luz is pretty sure she was the girl that got blamed for the old art room in the school burning, though it was later proven that it wasn’t really her. 

     The other is another sophomore called Lain who was in the school play the year before as some wise old dude. She wasn’t ever actually friends with them, nor did she really speak with them because she was terrified of high schoolers, but she remembers that they played Megalovania on the music room piano and they were pretty good at it.

     Declan actually greets her. “Heya, Luz. Wasn’t practice supposed to be over a while ago?”

     “At five, yea, but it ran late so I offered to stay and help out with stuff Mrs. J couldn’t get done right away,” Luz says. “She wants me to let you know that the weather might mess with the power.”

     Lain groans and faceplants into the desk in front of them. “Not again. ”

     Marcy actually looks up, evidently having been multitasking listening to the conversation and figuring out what lights go where when. “Do we not have a generator or something?”

     “We do,” Declan says, irritation bleeding into her voice. “It’s worse.”

     “That thing’s been in the basement for decades, it’s practically useless, unless you’re trying to get someone electrocuted. Then it could be real helpful,” Lain explains.

     “We have a basement?” Marcy asks.

     “Ah, I doubt it’ll get that-“

     Before Luz can even finish her sentence, there’s a crack outside and the light in the room flickers out. 

     “-bad.”

     They all get their phones out to turn on their flashlights, because there are no windows in the tech room, or the auditorium, seeing things is something that Luz values being able to do. 

     “So.. what now?” Marcy asks.

     “I guess we go home,” Lain says. “The generator is no use, and it’s already.. 5:24.”

     “Probably for the best, I live like half an hour away from the school, and driving in storms sucks,” Declan says.

     The four of them make their way out of the room. Declan and Lain head towards the parking lot, while Luz and Marcy head towards the music room so that Luz can get her stuff. They almost always go home together after theater stuff ends, so they fall into routine easily. However, it’s usually not raining when they do.

     “Are you gonna be okay going out in this in your chair? I can ask my mom to drive over if you want,” Luz offers. 

     Marcy considers this for a moment, then says, “Nah, it’s okay. It’s only a few minutes away, and I have my rain stuff.”

     “Okay,” Luz accepts this.

     The two set off in the increasingly heavy rain. Marcy remains perfectly dry, as she said, she has rain gear. Luz, however, didn’t check the forecast and didn’t expect it to rain, so all she has on her is Eda’s old sports jacket. In hindsight, this is probably why her mom asked if she had a jacket on her this morning when it was sunny and about as warm as early October is going to get. 

     She almost finds herself surprised that she’s okay with this. She likes rain, when she doesn’t have to trek through mud or anything to that effect, and having spent the majority of the last year and a good part of this year on the Boiling Isles she hasn’t had the opportunity to enjoy it much. 

     She walks ahead a few feet and purposefully steps in a puddle a little harder than she needs to. She feels her shoes soaking through, which she knows is going to be very unpleasant when she starts walking again, but she grins brightly.

     “Are you trying to get wet?” Marcy asks, a subtle smile on her face as well.

     “Yep!” Luz confirms and turns her face up to the sky. 

     Marcy catches up and Luz keeps pace with her this time, shaking out her hair, which is beginning to get soaked.

     “Aren’t you concerned about catching a cold?” Marcy asks.

     “Not really,” Luz shrugs. 

     “Fair enough,” Marcy says as they come upon her driveway. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

     “See ya!” Luz says, continuing to walk down the street back home.

Chapter Text

     “Draw two.”

     “Draw four.”

     “ Eight! ”

     “Why did we decide stacking draw cards was allowed?” Raine complains lightheartedly as they draw eight cards from the deck.

     “Because it’s more fun this way,” Luz says, placing a red six. 

     “Ah, don’t worry, you still have time to win,” Eda says, with two cards in her hand. 

     “Sorry,” Vee apologizes to them.

     The heater hums and casts warm orange light from its fake fire. The winter storm prediction that got Luz and Vee out of school and Camila out of work hasn’t hit just yet, but it’s still really cold, especially considering it’s only mid-October. Raine and Eda had just shown up as Luz’s friends and family from the Boiling Isles often do.

     “Our record is sixteen,” Camila says as she places her next card. 

     “Sixteen? Like, the total number of cards that had to be drawn?” Vee asks incredulously.

     “Oh yea!” Luz remembers. “That was with Dad, wasn’t it? Vee, your turn.”

     Vee fumbles with her cards, trying to find something to play. Ultimately, she has to draw three cards before getting a playable one. 

     Luz doesn’t talk about her father much. It still hurts, even as it’s going on five years since they’ve lost him, but steadily it’s getting easier to talk about. 

     “Mhm, and he was the one who had to draw all of those,” Camila says.

     “I guess we should consider ourselves lucky that I didn’t have anything to stack,” Raine jokes.

     Suddenly, there’s a knock on the front door. 

     “Who would be out in this?” Camila wonders aloud.

     “I’ll go see,” Luz says.

     She stands up and walks to the door, and is surprised to see Marcy there. She wears her usual big hoodie but otherwise is completely unprepared for the weather. The beginnings of snow sits on her shoulders and in her hair, and sticks to the tip of her green cane.

     “Marcy? Wh- come in, you look cold,” Luz says.

     “Accurate to how I feel, then,” Marcy says as she steps inside the house.

     Luz is very glad that there’s a hallway separating the living room and the doorway, because it means that Marcy won’t find Eda, Raine, and Vee and question their humanity. It also means that they can hear her and Marcy speaking and will do something about it before they get back.

     “What’s up? Didn’t you read the weather reports?” Luz asks.

     “Yea, I did. I, uh, may or may not have accidentally locked myself out of the house…?” Marcy says.

     “How long have you been out there for?” Luz asks.

     “That’s not important.”

     “ Marcy .”

     “….. half an hour, give or take?”

     Luz blinks at her, processing. “Okay, well, you’re staying until you can get back into your house. You wanna play uno?”

     “Sure, uno is fun,” Marcy agrees.

     The two of them walk into the living room and Luz is very relieved to see that they listened in well enough to realize that this is a human friend. Vee, of course, knows who Marcy is, and is in her human disguise accordingly. Eda covered her ears with her very large hair, and Raine had put on the jacket Eda had worn over and wears it with the hood up. Somehow, Raine has more cards than they did when Luz left.

     “I win!” Eda cheers, slamming down her final card triumphantly. 

     “ Twenty six cards,” Raine says in a resigned tone, putting their deck down on the table face up.

     “Tw-“ Eda can’t even say it without laughing. “ Raine .”

     “I’m bad at uno, that’s something we’ve learned today,” Raine says.

     “You’re not bad at it, you just got unlucky,” Vee assures. 

     “Happens to the best of us,” Camila says.

     Luz clears her throat to get their attention and succeeds. “This is Marcy! She’s a friend from school. Marcy, this is my Mom, Eda, and Raine, and you already know Vee.”

     “Hi,” Marcy waves.

     Marcy is greeted all around the table. Camila gathers up the cards and shuffles them. “Come sit, we’re just about to start another round.”

     Luz takes her spot next to Raine on the floor. There’s space on the couch for her with Vee and Camila, but reaching the table is more comfortable when you’re sitting on the floor. Camila deals out seven cards to everyone but herself. “I’m going to go make everyone some hot chocolate and see how the food is doing.”

     She leaves the room and Marcy takes the very end of the couch next to where Luz is sitting on the floor and Vee moves closer so that they aren’t awkwardly sitting at opposite ends of the couch. The game begins and Camila comes back soon with six mugs of hot chocolate. She doesn’t join the game officially, but advises Raine and Eda on uno strategy, which eventually leads to team uno after Luz argues that it’s cheating. 

     Luz, Marcy, and Vee end up winning anyway.

Chapter Text

     Halloween is Marcy’s favorite holiday and every year she goes all out for it. She’d even borrowed her mother’s old sewing machine to make her own costume once, her favorite character from Vagabondia Chronicles. Last year she had been in Amphibia where Halloween just isn’t a thing, so she hadn’t been able to do much. To make up for it, she has elaborate plans for this year’s costume.

     The first part of Halloween, which isn’t Halloween itself but the school’s spirit week, is a series of simple outfits up until Friday, which is the day they’re supposed to wear proper costumes. Instead, she wears her casual clothes from Newtopia, because this is the perfect excuse to wear them on Earth. She’d foregone her cloak for two reasons: it was really inconvenient to wear while in a wheelchair, and she didn’t want to risk spontaneous combustion. 

     Her father, who’d been the only one home when she left for school that day, had given her a look she couldn’t quite place but definitely read as displeased. She ignores it. 

     Luz meets her at the street corner like she always does, wearing a cool looking fantasy outfit under her usual sports jacket with her sleeves rolled up and a deep blue cloak over it. 

     “Woah, nice! Looks like something straight out of a movie,” Luz says.

     “I know, right? And look at you! Where’d you get that cloak, it’s so cool!” Marcy asks.

     “Eda actually made it for me a while ago,” Luz answers, looking very proud. “What about you? Is that chestplate real leather?”

     “Mm, for a given definition of real? It’s actually not animal hide like leather usually is, but instead..”

     Marcy infodumps everything she knows about the making of the little bits of her outfit, which is quite a lot because she took a class on Newtopian seamstressing. The two of them arrive at school, splitting off at the entryway so that they can make their way to their respective places. Marcy has some things she needs to wrap up for the play and Luz goes to find Vee, who came early to help the substitute for one of the elementary teachers set up.

     The three of them go home together after dismissal.

     “So, are you guys doing anything for tomorrow?” Marcy asks.

     Saturday is the 31st, and Marcy has been actively looking forward to this since the end of August.

     “Us and some friends from out of town are going out! Ooh, actually, do you want to come with?” Luz asks.

     “Really?” Marcy asks.

     “It would be fun. Didn’t you say that Amity wanted to meet her?” Vee asks.

     “Right! She heard you were another Azura fan and got excited about it. There aren’t a lot of us around here,” Luz says.

     “Cool! Who’s Amity?” Marcy asks.

     “My girlfriend,” Luz beams.

     Oh thank frog. That’s something she’s been concerned about. Small town in the middle of nowhere.. anyone could be homophobic. She’s very, very grateful that the one person she managed to befriend is not. 

     “Ooh, cool! Yea, I should be able to go,” Marcy says. “As long as it doesn’t snow again.”

     Luz kicks at a little bit of muddy slush on the edge of the sidewalk. “Yeaaaah, that would kinda suck. But! It’s only supposed to be cloudy tomorrow, no rain or snow to speak of.”

     “If the weather app is right,” Vee points out.

     “I hope it’s right,” Luz says.

     “Well, if it’s not, we can just do something another day,” Marcy offers.

     They stop moving right in front of her driveway. 

     “Right!” Luz says. “We’ll call you tomorrow and let you know the details.”

     “Okay, bye,” Marcy waves.

     “Bye!”

     “See ya!”

Chapter Text

     “Thith-“ Vee tries to say with plastic vampire teeth in their mouth, “ith very inconvenient.”

     Luz looks over at Vee from her spot sitting on the bathroom sink, carefully finishing her cosplay makeup for her Azura costume and laughs. “You don’t actually have to wear them, you know.”

     Vee takes them out with some difficulty and the lisp goes away. “You said it was part of the Halloween Experience though. Why does my mouth feel weird?”

     “It is! To an extent. Fake vampire teeth aren’t the center of Halloween, they’re just really popular around this time. If you don’t wanna wear them anymore, you don’t have to,” Luz explains to them.

     Vee looks at the fake teeth and places them on the counter. She sighs. “I’ve been here more than a year and I still don’t get human stuff.”

     “Hey, don’t be so hard on yourself, you can’t learn everything about humans in just a year. And hey, you’re really good with what you do have right now!” Luz says.

     Despite the reassurance, Vee doesn’t look very convinced. She thanks Luz anyway.

     Luz pulls them into a hug, which they reciprocate. When they break the hug, Vee asks, “Do you think anyone would notice if I just… shifted my teeth to be pointy?”

     “Nah,” Luz says. “They might compliment you for some really good special effects though.”

     Vee smiles. “I can live with that.”

     Soon, their friends begin arriving, starting with their friends (and girlfriend!!) from the Boiling Isles, Marcy, and then Vee’s camp friends, who’d been a last minute invitation.

     It’s pretty crowded in the Noceda household when all is said and done, but the chilled (and a little slush-y) October streets of Gravesfield are open and full of trick or treaters enjoying the holiday.

     Night falls quickly and they use the lights deMashating the neighborhood to find their way back to the forest, which is extra spooky now that it’s Halloween. To make it spookier, they spend their remaining time before nine (the set ending time of today’s outing) telling “scary” stories.

     “That one.. wasn’t a very scary story,” Willow says.

     “Well I thought it was!” Hunter, the storyteller in question, says.

     Amity squeezes Luz’s hand. Luz doesn’t say anything but she definitely noticed Amity getting spooked by the story and leaning closer to her more throughout it. Perhaps she and Hunter just have similar definitions of scary.

     “Ooh, I have one!” Vee’s goth friend, Masha, says. “Settle in, because this is based on a real story.”

     “Is this another true crime case?” another one of Vee’s camp friends, a redhead with freckles dressed in a suit with a plastic penguin mask, called Kei, asks.

     “Kind of, just listen,” Masha says. 

     They tell an elaborate story about citizens of Gravesfield going missing one by one, and then tells of a man who went out to find what was taking them. He was the only one to make it out alive, and with great regret. What he saw was too awful for description, and nearly took him too.

     “So what’d he find?” Gus asks.

     Masha shrugs. “He never talked about it. People stopped going missing though. I think he scared it off.”

     “That’s good,” Vee says, “Missing persons cases are just.. sad.”

     “The thought that you might never get them back is scarier than any horror story,” Luz agrees.

     “I went missing once,” Marcy says and for a moment everything goes quiet before she really registers what she said and backtracks. “I was okay, obviously! I came back.”

     “What happened?” Gus asks. 

     “Ah, well, it’s not really a scary story, so I don’t think it fits right now,” Marcy says. “But, uh, long story short, my friends and I were at the park and we kinda… got kidnapped? A little bit?”

     “How is that not scary?” Amity asks.

     Marcy shrugs. “Uh, like I said.. long story. Ah, anyway! Who wants to tell an actually scary story?”

     Eventually, they finish telling stories and start just talking about whatever instead.

     “I wasn’t there for it, but apparently my siblings let loose giant beetles all over our school a couple years ago,” Amity says.

     “Is that why sometimes they crawl in through the windows?” Gus asks.

     “Eda said that she and Raine did something like that too, actually,” Luz says. “It took the last principal ages to get rid of them.”

     “You got any tips on bug removal? Our shed is full of them,” Vee’s last friend from camp, June, asks.

     “Oh! I didn’t do this with beetles, but there was this giant ant infestation that I was asked to get rid of and I did it by concentrating unpleasant pheromones that made the ants want to leave. I wouldn’t recommend doing that at home though, breathing it was toxic to humans. And amphibians,” Marcy says.

     “You guys have giant bugs too? I didn’t read anything about that in my books on h-“ Gus starts and Willow elbows him. “I mean. Uh.”

     “Gus is a huge history nerd,” Luz cuts in for him. “And, uh, likes to collect books about the history of areas around here! But yea, the giant bugs aren’t really a thing here in Gravesfield so there wouldn’t be any mention of them.”

     “That was a super obvious cover up for whatever he was actually about to say, but go ahead and keep your mysteries,” Masha says.

     “.. What was it? That you were really gonna say, I mean?“ Marcy asks.

     “Nothing, nothing at all,” Gus says a little too quickly. 

     “Hey, guys! Do you remember that time that Hunter got lost in the middle of a parade and ended up getting arrested on a float?” Amity says, trying to move on.

     “I didn’t mean to get on!” 

     “I still don’t know what you did to get arrested.”

     They stay there for only half an hour more, slipping up a couple more times and catching each other, though a little more smoothly than that first time, before Marcy speaks up. “Hey, I’m not really feeling well, so I’m gonna go home. Thanks for having me.”

     There’s something in the way she says it that makes Luz worry. Something about her tone that sounds too forced. But Luz lets it slide; the group has been walking all day, and she knows Marcy has issues with mobility, so maybe she’s just tired.

     Hopefully.

Chapter Text

     Marcy is absent the Monday following Halloween, for reasons entirely unrelated to her current mental distress. She has doctor’s appointments that take up a few hours and she’s almost grateful that she’s not at home when Luz texts to let her know she left Marcy’s schoolwork in the mailbox, because Marcy doesn’t feel like facing any of her classmates right now.

     She focuses on the bloodwork (they’re still finding notable amounts of whatever that healing fluid was, but at least most of her blood is made up of blood now), on the physical therapist assessing her progress, on the way the hospital smells like nothing and many things at once. When she gets home, she rushes through her schoolwork and collapses into bed, achy enough that she doesn’t think she’ll get up to change out of the hoodie, t-shirt, and leggings she wore out. 

     Saturday was a day. It went well for the most part! But the way that Luz and her friends were so quick to cover things that seem innocent scares Marcy, more than she’d like to admit. She thinks she knows that the voice in her head that’s telling her she was wrong the last time she trusted someone isn’t one she should listen to. But that voice is so loud and she can’t get it out, no matter what she does. 

     She reminds herself that she did the same thing only a few minutes before, and then yet another unwanted voice tells her what she did was different. She has a reason. 

     She tells the voice to go away and hopes that she didn’t retain any of the Core and these voices are her own.

MarshmallowMarbles: either of you up?

Sashhh_: it’s only seven

Sashhh_: are you ok?

MarshmallowMarbles: I don’t know 

[Call from Sasha✨]

[Call to Anne🏓]

[Group call ended]

[Call lasted 1hr, 23min]

-

witchLuzura: Hey!!! Are you coming to school today?

MarshmallowMarbles: yea

witchLuzura: you okay?

MarshmallowMarbles: yea dw, I was just absent for some doctors stuff yesterday 

witchLuzura: oh okay! 

witchLuzura: I’ll meet you at the usual time?

MarshmallowMarbles: that works :)

     Tuesday passes without incident and Marcy starts to get comfortable again. On Wednesday, she’s pulled into a conversation with her classmates in the only class she shares with both of the twins. 

     “I still don’t know how nobody noticed that you weren’t Luz last year,” says one girl, to Vee.

     “Ah, well.. honestly neither do I?” Vee shrugs.

     “What?” Marcy asks.

     “What, they didn’t tell you?” she asks and immediately all of apprehension comes rushing back. 

     Marcy shakes her head.

     “Vee grew up with our grandparents and I stayed with our mom,” Luz tells her. “But last year we switched places and pretended to be each other.”

     “We didn’t even know there were two of them until a few months ago,” one of the other guys says.

     Marcy is still confused but she is glad to hear that they weren’t actively keeping something from her.

     The bell rings and everyone starts gathering their things and leaving the classroom.

     On Thursday, Marcy catches Luz doodling unfamiliar symbols in her notebook during class. When Marcy looks at them, Luz quickly hides them and changes the subject. On Friday, Vee and Luz are speaking, maybe arguing, in hushed tones when they come by to pick her up to go to school together. They seem to pick up the conversation yet again at lunch. Marcy leaves the school later than either of them do for tech reasons (one week left), and is almost grateful for it. She knows that they’re probably not keeping something horrible from her on purpose. It’s not her business. She has no right to pry. 

     It still scares her.

     When she had talked to Anne and Sasha the week prior, they’d both agreed that if this continued to be an issue, Marcy should just talk to her friend. Marcy knows that they’re right. Even if it’s nothing, how’s Luz gonna know what Marcy’s feeling if she doesn’t just tell her?

     Marcy lays in bed with her headphones on, scripting out a conversation in her head with Luz, trying to figure out how to say what she needs to say. Why do people have to be hard to talk to?

     Marcy skips a song on her playlist that she’s been meaning to take off of it for a while now but still hasn’t. She buries herself in blankets and curls up. Everything sucks and the tight nervous feeling in her chest refuses to go away. 

     “Okay. It’s just a conversation. I can handle a conversation. We talk all the time!” Marcy says to herself.

     She pulls up messaging and starts typing out a message. She gets stuck halfway through and decides to wait until later. Sure, today is the best day to do this because it’s a Friday after school so if things go poorly she won’t have to see Luz for another two days, but she’s too nervous to do it right now.

     She decides to continue watching a new show. It goes well for about two episodes when she gets to the season finale and finds out that the main character’s best friend has been working with the villain the whole time. She promptly closes her laptop. She brings up her conversation with Luz again, and her finger hovers over the call button. Before she can convince herself not to, she hits it.

     Luz picks up after a couple rings, which is just enough time to decide that she’s gonna pretend everything is perfectly fine and hope that Luz gives her a believable reason for all of the strange things Marcy has been noticing around her. Unfortunately, her voice’s cracking and quiet tone betrays her when she greets Luz back.

     “Are you okay?” Luz asks.

     “Uh, yea, fine,” Marcy says.

     “You don’t sound fine,” Luz states.

     Marcy’s throat closes up. It takes her a minute to respond. “Um. Sorry. I just wanted to say hi.”

     “What happened?” Luz asks.

     Marcy wants to answer ‘nothing’. She wants to answer ‘can you please tell me about the stuff you’re not telling me about?’. But she can’t. 

     “Are you at home?”

     “Mhm.”

     “I’ll come over there,” Luz says.

     “No, it’s- it’s okay.”

     “Too late, already getting my stuff.”

     “Oh.”

     “I’ll see you in like… five- er, ten, minutes.”

     “Okay.”

     “Bye!”

     Luz is closer to her original estimate of five minutes when she arrives. She’s carrying a weighted blanket and a plastic container with cookies in it. She places the blanket on the bed and the cookies on the nightstand. “I dunno what kind of bad thing this is but I thought these might help.”

     Marcy sits up on her bed and wraps herself in the weighted blanket. “Thanks.”

     “Of course,” Luz says. She sits next to Marcy. “So, what’s up?”

     Marcy takes a deep breath, mostly to stall for time as she figures out where to start. “So.. I.. have some issues with trust. And I’ve been noticing that you keep trying to hide what seems like otherwise random things, and that’s kind of been making me a little nervous? Not that you have to tell me everything! But that thing at Halloween with your friend and the history excuse, and then whatever you were drawing the other day, I just… sorry, I’m not making any sense, am I?”

     Luz sits there with a surprised look on her face for a minute while her brain catches up. “No- no, I get it. It’s okay, I would probably be concerned too if the roles were reversed. I have been hiding something, but not because it’s anything bad. It’s just not the sort of thing that most people would believe.”

     “Oh,” Marcy says. “That’s a relief. I didn’t really think it was anything bad, but the worry is always there.”

     “I can tell you if you want. Like I said, it does sound pretty unbelievable, but I have photo proof, if nothing else,” Luz offers.

     Marcy nods slowly as she considers it. “Okay.”

     “Okay! So, last summer, my mom wanted to send me to a summer camp, but I didn’t really want to go,” Luz says.

     “That’s when you and Vee switched places,” Marcy says.

     “Yes! Actually, that’s a part of this story too. So I was waiting for the bus and this owl stole my book, so I followed it to this old house and through the door and ended up in an entirely different dimension, called the demon realm,” Luz explains. 

     She waits for a response from Marcy, but Marcy doesn’t give one immediately, rather she opens her mouth to say something but she isn’t sure what to say, so she just says, “Okay.”

     Luz continues. “A lot of things happened while I was there, and I actually got stuck there for a while, and that’s where Vee comes in. She’s not actually human, she’s a basilisk, which is mostly unimportant right now except for the fact that they can shapeshift, which is why Vee and I look the same. They saw that I wanted to stay in the demon realm and learn magic, so she took my place in the human realm. But then the portal door was destroyed and I got stuck there for a while and ended up overthrowing the government with some friends and found family.”

     Marcy just sits there and lets all of that sink in. When it does, her first impulsive thought is to wonder what the odds of two people who’d both visited different dimensions and overthrown their governments meeting are. Then she brushes that thought aside because she realizes it’s not the most pressing topic to be on right now. 

     “I did the same thing,” Marcy says, first. Then, “well, not the same, probably, but similar.”

     “You did?” Luz asks. Whatever she was expecting, this wasn’t it.

     Marcy nods, the nervous weight on her chest lifting a little more with each passing second. “My friends and I found this music box, and when we opened it we all ended up in different places in a completely different dimension. We also overthrew the government.”

     “If your experience was anything like mine, good job surviving,” Luz says. Then, without thinking, “Is that where the trust issues came from? Wait. You don’t have to answer that.”

     Marcy lets out a surprised laugh. “Um. Yea, that’s.. exactly where that came from.”

     Luz winces. “Sorry.”

     Marcy pulls her knees up to her chest and shuffles around so that she can more noticeably feel the weighted blanket covering her back. “It’s okay. Not your fault. Me freaking out over everything isn’t your fault either, and thank you for talking to me.”

     “Hey, it’s okay! I get it. Sometimes even just one bad thing can make something innocent seem suspicious. I’ve been there,” Luz says.

     Finally, Marcy doesn’t feel like something horrible is going to happen. She’s still a little worried, but no more than usual. Her hands shake a little bit and she makes sure to hide that under the blanket, but she expects that to fade away, eventually.

Chapter Text

[MarshmallowMarbles created a new group]

[MarshmallowMarbles named the group Victims of the isekai trope]

Sashhh_: ??????

Sashhh_: What’s an isekai and who’s @witchLuzura

MarshmallowMarbles: an isekai is an anime trope where the main character(s) get transported to a different dimension, and that’s my friend Luz :)

witchLuzura: Hi!

ABC: Okay I feel like that’s not a common enough name for this to be a coincidence 

ABC: Luz Noceda????

witchLuzura: Wh

witchLuzura: Yes????? Have we met??

ABC: oh my frog 

ABC sent an image

witchLuzura: ANNE

MarshmallowMarbles: you two know each other???

ABC: we met once

witchLuzura: I was trying out a portal spell to get back to the human realm when the portal door broke except the spell wasn’t quite right so I ended up in another dimension but it wasn’t this one

ABC: it was Amphibia yea!!! We beat up a badger mantis thing together

MarshmallowMarbles: Not the venomous ones I hope??

ABC: those things. Can be venomous?

witchLuzura: so no probably not those!! 

Sashhh_: you didn’t say anything about this before, what’s up with that?

ABC: Ok this is gonna sound mean but

ABC: I completely forgot Luz existed

witchLuzura: AJDJJSSJ

witchLuzura: No dw I did the same thing

witchLuzura: overthrowing the government takes up a lot of your focus, yk?

Sashhh_: yes unfortunately we do know

Sashhh_: okay so. You and Anne have met. You & Marcy go to school together. I still don’t know who you are

witchLuzura: Oh!! Yea!! Okayokay my name is Luz Noceda, and I ended up in a dimension called the Demon Realm, a place full of witches and magic and demons, if the name didn’t clue you in to that already

witchLuzura: It’d take a while to go over everything I did while I was living there but long story short, the boiling isles has a new system of government now

ABC: I’d like to say you can’t just “long story short” that but. Yea honestly that tracks

Sashhh_: I want that story later though

witchLuzura: ofc!!

ABC: OH ok I gotta ask

ABC: are you still able to go back?

witchLuzura: yea, as long as no one messes with the portal door, why?

MarshmallowMarbles: for like,, two or three months I wanna say?? We thought we’d never be able to go back to Amphibia and it was kinda an accident that we figured out we could

witchLuzura: that sounds horrible

Sashhh_: it was

ABC: but! We figured out how to get back and I think it’d be pretty hard to take it away at this point 

witchLuzura: Oh worm?

Sashhh_: worm??

MarshmallowMarbles: :00 yes it’s so cool

MarshmallowMarbles: the music box that brought us to Amphibia pretty much disintegrated right after we opened a portal back home, which is why we thought we’d never be able to go back when we left, but last July Anne accidentally opened a portal and we aren’t totally sure how this happened BUT my running theory is that when the box broke, the magic from the gems that powered it transferred over to us and gave us their abilities because we’ve since found out that Sasha & I can open portals too!!!

ABC: we can’t really test the theory but it sounds right and we don’t have anything else so that’s what we’re going with

witchLuzura: ooooooooh yes that is really cool

witchLuzura: we have to meet up and compare notes sometime

Sashhh_: yea I’m down

ABC: yesss

MarshmallowMarbles: yea!!!

Chapter Text

     No one likes Mondays but it seems that they have had it out for Marcy recently. Last week she was absent from school to visit the hospital for a routine check (for her, anyway), this week makes it exactly one year since Andrias betrayed.. well everyone, really, and she “almost” died. (Marcy doesn’t really believe that she still could’ve possibly been alive at the time of being placed in whatever that healing tank was, but everyone keeps saying almost so she goes with it so that she doesn’t have to think about how she definitely didn’t survive that day.)

     She well and truly expected the anniversary of That to trigger a flare up, but to her surprise, physically she’s fine. Sore, as she always is these days, but otherwise she isn’t doing poorly. Which is why her father still sends her to school despite her request to stay home. 

      The request she made because all she can see when she blinks is Anne’s horrified face as Marcy is literally stabbed in the back by someone they all trusted. Because she can feel the weight of the box in her hands and the electricity-like energy heating her chest. Internally, voices that don’t sound like her own tell her to just give in, it’s okay, you’ll be safe with us.

     She does her absolute best to ignore everything. She feels like just her long sleeve shirt is enough to keep her warm with how hot she’s running today anyway, but she ties a random hoodie around her waist because she’ll probably regret it later if she doesn’t. She realizes after she gets outside that this hoodie belongs to Anne and Marcy isn’t totally sure why it was even in her closet to begin with.

     She stands by the door for a few minutes before she sees Vee and Luz walking down the street towards her and breathes a sigh of relief. She doesn’t want to be alone right now. 

     “G’morning,” she greets, quieter than she intended.

     “Hey!”

     “Good morning.”

     “Are you feeling okay, Marcy?” Luz asks.

     Marcy messes with the hoodie sleeves around her waist and considers putting it on now that she’s outside in the snowy weather. “Not really. Can we have this conversation later? Please?”

     “Of course,” Vee says.

     The school day passes and though Marcy may look like she’s paying attention she has no idea what any of her teachers are even teaching. She tries, she really, really does, because anything is better than listening to her thoughts right now. Still, somehow her thoughts manage to be louder. She feels guilty about it, but she decides she’s going to skip tech work today and just go home. She wouldn’t be helping anyone and she’d be hurting herself, and if she can avoid that, she will. 

     She walks home alone. She considers just opening up a portal to Amphibia and spending the rest of her day there but the mere thought of going back there overwhelms her with anxiety. Not even towards anything in specific, but just going back to where everything happened, back to where she trusted someone she shouldn’t have and got so many people hurt because of it.

     She reminds herself as she’s opening the door to the house that it wasn’t her fault. Andrias was a good actor who would’ve done anything to fulfill his plans, and did. Anyone could’ve been in her place.

     She can’t convince herself. 

     Marcy takes extra care as she locks the door behind her to make absolutely sure it’s locked and she didn’t do it wrong or zone out and forget. She does the same with her bedroom door. Her phone buzzes and she finds a few messages from earlier in the day, and a couple new ones too.

ABC: I’ve been thinking recently 

ABC: just in general 

ABC: and it really sunk in that we spent almost a full year of our lives in another dimension

ABC: not that I didn’t get that before but

ABC: I mean we spent a year doing something that almost no one else can say they’ve ever done or even knew existed

ABC: I guess I was just dissociating really hard lol

Sashhh_: I don’t even know how to respond to that

Sashhh_: you’re right, it does sound really unfamiliar when you look at it like that

Sashhh_: Ig that’s the point though

MarshmallowMarbles: I sure did miss a conversation 

ABC: Marcy!!!! I was kinda worried when you didn’t respond

MarshmallowMarbles: I’m okay

MarshmallowMarbles: or I’m not dead at least

MarshmallowMarbles: shouldn’t you be in class?

ABC: I didn’t go to school today

ABC: didn’t feel well enough 

MarshmallowMarbles: I had to because my parents only let me stay home when I’m literally incapable of getting up :(

ABC: I’ll fight them for you

MarshmallowMarbles: no it’s okay 

MarshmallowMarbles: did sasha go?

ABC: Yea

ABC: we were thinking about all of us meeting up though

ABC: probably just gonna sit around and ride out the day

MarshmallowMarbles: I’m down, where & when?

ABC: I’ll get back to you on that

MarshmallowMarbles: ok :) thank you 

Sashhh_: starting to wish I hadn’t been stubborn and just skipped today

Sashhh_: lunch break just started but it feels like it’s been forever 

MarshmallowMarbles: hi sash welcome to the conversation 

Sashhh_: how are you two doing?

ABC: could be worse

ABC: Staying with the Plantars today

ABC: I wasn’t actually expecting to get a signal through dimensions but I did??

MarshmallowMarbles: remind me to look into that some other day

MarshmallowMarbles: I! Feel bad

Sashhh_: anything we can help with?

MarshmallowMarbles: not at the moment but thank you 

MarshmallowMarbles: oh actually that reminds me

MarshmallowMarbles: Anne I have your yellow hoodie

MarshmallowMarbles: the one that’s missing the drawstring

ABC: I was wondering where that went

ABC: you can keep it

Sashhh_: the hoodie exchange program: sometimes they just appear

MarshmallowMarbles: you joke but now I’m gonna portal to your house in the middle of the night and leave a hoodie for you

Sashhh_: do you still have the black one with the bleached bone design on it

MarshmallowMarbles: djncnsjx yea 

MarshmallowMarbles: Anne what one do you want

ABC: I don’t need to steal a hoodie from you mar

MarshmallowMarbles: it’s not stealing if I leave it for you like santa 

ABC: (to the tune of Santa baby) santa marcy 

Sashhh_: she talked about getting one of the school ones like you had because she associates them with you and she wishes you were still here

ABC: DUDE

ABC: You didn’t have to expose me like that

MarshmallowMarbles: I promise I am only crying a little

MarshmallowMarbles: you can have mine

ABC: I didn’t mean to make you cry are you ok??? 

MarshmallowMarbles: Mhm just feeling many things and its today I was probably gonna cry anyway so

Sashhh_: ok I’ll sneak out and we can all meet up early

MarshmallowMarbles: nono it’s ok get that Education it’s only a few more hours anyway

ABC: I’ll go over there now though

MarshmallowMarbles: I will see you :)

     About two minutes later, Anne lands face first in a snowbank. This is not only unfortunate because it’s snow but also because she is woefully underprepared for cold weather as Amphibia’s season cycle is the exact opposite of theirs and she’s dressed for its summer weather. 

ABC: Marcy I am cold which house is yours

MarshmallowMarbles: 423

MarshmallowMarbles: I see you from my window 

     Anne doesn’t take long to spot the house in question and the door opens just before she gets up onto the steps to one side of the door. Marcy pulls her inside. It’s obvious that she’s been crying, but Anne doesn’t comment on it.

     “You look like you lost a fight with a snowman,” Marcy jokes, trying to sound more composed than she really feels.

     “You should see the other guy,” Anne goes along with it.

     Marcy takes her hand and leads her back to her bedroom, where she’s promptly given a towel and a dry change of clothes (including the discussed hoodie). Marcy leaves the room while Anne changes and uses the time to see if there’s anything they can eat. She comes back with chocolate bread that she microwaved to warm up. 

     So the two girls find themselves cuddled up under a blanket facing each other. Marcy lays with her back pressed against the wall, because knowing it’s covered even when she’s safe just makes her feel better. Similarly, Anne holds Marcy’s hands in the empty space between them as if if she lets go she’ll never see Marcy again. For a long time, they just lay there, resting for all they couldn’t back then.

     By the time Sasha shows up (thankfully inside the house this time) both of them have fallen asleep. She’s not in her school uniform anymore but she has her backpack with her. Marcy sleeps lighter than Anne, and as such wakes up a few moments before Anne does. 

     “What time is it?” Marcy whispers tiredly.

     “Six thirty ish your time,” Sasha says, equally as quiet. “I brought you guys something.”

     Anne turns over to face Sasha, not bothering to sit up as she’s still half asleep. Sasha opens her bag and takes out what looks to just be a bunch of fabric but becomes two jackets when she tosses them at Anne and Marcy.

     “I don’t really collect hoodies like you two do, but I have these, so..,” she trails off. 

     One of them is a light pink with white sleeves striped with the same base pink at the cuffs and the hem band. The other is a dark red with light yellow sleeves and similar striping. Both of them have an S on the left side of the front and the high school’s logo on the upper arm of the sleeves. They’re recognizable as her cheerleading letterman’s jacket and her basketball one respectively.

     “Don’t you have to be on the team for a year to get these..?” Marcy asks.

     Sasha shrugs. “They carried over my cheerleading credits, whatever that means, and I never actually got an explanation for the other.”

     “Too late for them to take it back now,” Anne says and pulls the red one away (just because it’s the one she grabbed first) and holds it to her chest.

     Marcy takes the remaining pink one and holds a hand out for Sasha. “Come lay down with us.”

     Sasha kicks off her shoes and does as she requests. She settles herself in the place in the accidentally larger than intended gap between Marcy and the wall that happened while Anne and Marcy slept and moved closer to the edge of the bed. She drapes an arm over Marcy’s waist and links that hand with one of Anne’s that isn’t holding Marcy’s. Marcy finds herself more comfortable with Sasha at her back than the wall.

     The three spend the next few hours talking about anything and everything.

Chapter Text

     The lights in the auditorium dim down and the buzz of noise in the echoey room slows to a whisper, and then silence. 

     The school principal comes out from backstage through the right side of the stage curtains. As soon as he gets to the podium, not far from where he entered, a spotlight flicks on and shines down on him.

     “Welcome to this year’s Gravesfield High school play. Our students have been working on this for months, so we ask that you be respectful as the audience. No flash photography, no yelling out in the middle of a scene, that sort of thing. Now, without further ado, enjoy our students’ work,” the principal says.

     The light goes off and he walks offstage the way he came. Then, the curtains open and stage lights come on…

     Luz stands onstage in costume as the curtains close after curtain call on Saturday ends. She takes a deep breath and her face splits into a wide grin. The performance went on without a hitch, as far as the audience was concerned. They did lose a cast member or two (they found them again, eventually) and had to fudge some costuming stuff for an actor that had spilled water on their outfit backstage, but the audience was completely clueless about both of those things. All in all, it went great!

     The actors leave the stage in a swarm, though thankfully they have doors out of the auditorium next to the stage stairs that only cast and crew are allowed to use. A good portion of the audience is trying to shove their way through the doors at the back of the room. The other portion are loitering around the doors, seats, and bleachers, looking for their kids. In the (lost looking) crowd, Luz spots some familiar faces and makes her way over to them.

     “I am so glad you guys made it!” Luz says excitedly. 

     Her mom and Vee are here, of course, but also Eda, King (who’s being passed off as a little kid in a costume), Amity, Willow, Gus, and Hunter. 

     “You did great, kiddo,” Eda says and pats her head. There’s agreement all around the circle.

     “How does everyone feel about going out for dinner?” Camila asks.

     Again, not a single complaint to be heard. Though, Luz does speak up to say, “Oh! I need to go get my stuff first, and I told a friend I’d see her after the show.”

     She says her temporary goodbyes and sets off.

     The lights of the hallway are a drastic change to the darkness of the auditorium. It’s crowded with people and Marcy has a hard time pushing through. She’s headed to the doors when she gets a call from Sasha. She picks it up. “Hello?”

     “ Hi Marcy, ” Anne greets from the other end.

    “ Hey! Uh.. okay, we wanted this to be a surprise but we came to see the play and now we’re lost, ” Sasha says.

     “You’re- you’re here? You really didn’t have to, I mean, I’m not even in the play itself..,” Marcy says.

     “ Yea, but we know how hard you worked on it, ” Anne says.

     “ Tech week sounded awful, ” Sasha adds.

     Marcy laughs a little. “It was. Okay, about the lost thing, where are you? I’ll come find you.”

     As it happens, they had somehow managed to make their way to the cafeteria, and had gone past one of the hallways that led to the parking lot.

     “In our defense, we portaled here instead of using the doors,” Sasha says. 

     The cafeteria is mostly empty, with only a couple people using the exit in the elementary school hall. Plenty of people walked past the doorway though to get to the parking lot exit. The three of them sit at the only bench table that isn’t folded up, the one all the way on the end of the row. Sasha and Anne sit on either side of the table and Marcy sits at the head, being the most convenient spot for her wheelchair as there’s no bench there. They only spend a few minutes there before they somehow manage to get into a lighthearted argument about what pizza topping is best.

     “Marcy, I’m sorry but I think we need a divorce. I just can’t be with someone who likes pineapple on pizza,” Anne says dramatically.

     “We’re married?” Marcy asks.

     “How is anyone supposed to survive in this economy with just two household incomes?” Sasha quips, chin rested in her hands. For a brief moment Marcy can make out every shade of blue and silver and the slightest sparkle of pink in her eyes.

     “We don’t have rings,” Anne says, pulling Marcy out of it.

     Sasha seems unaffected by whatever moment Marcy just had and says, “There’s gotta be a store around here with one of those little plastic ring vending machines or whatever.”

     “There’s one in town,” Marcy says. “And if you’re willing to drive for half an hour there’s a Walmart that sells actual rings.”

     “Half an hour? Is there really nothing closer?” Anne asks.

     “Nope. Gravesfield is in the middle of nowhere, just a bunch of trees and stuff,” Marcy says.

     “Okay, here’s my proposal: we buy rings and have a spring wedding. Then, we move to Canada, except we’re kicked out for being falsely accused of a crime,” Sasha starts.

     “What crime?” Marcy asks. There’s gotta be detail to this joke plan, how else is it supposed to feel real?

     “Uhhhhh,” Sasha struggles to think of something, “Arson. Grand theft auto.”

     “We stole a car and set it on fire,” Anne deadpans.

     “We didn’t , but that’s what the police think we did. So we get kicked out of Canada and go through court proceedings in America, and we’re found not guilty and the guy who accused us of stealing his car did it himself for the insurance money,” Sasha says.

     “That bastard ,” Anne says. Marcy nods in agreement.

     “We sue him and get a stupid amount of money in settlement, then we move to Massachusetts and get two dogs and a cat,” Sasha finishes.

     “Why Massachusetts?” Anne asks.

     “Because it’s the only state that legally recognizes polyamorous marriages,” Sasha says.

     “Who’s getting married?” A new voice comes from the doorway.

     The three are reminded that they aren’t just in their own little world by Luz showing up. Her bag is thrown over her shoulder and she’s still in her costume and stage makeup, though her microphone has been removed.

     “Hey, Luz, good to see you again!” Anne says.

     “Yea, you too!” Luz says and comes to stand by the table. 

     “So you’re Luz? Nice to meet you in person,” Sasha says.

     “And you’re Sasha, I’m guessing,” Luz says.

     “I am,” Sasha confirms.

     Luz smiles and then her phone beeps from her pocket. She reads the notification quickly and then says, “I can’t stay too long because I have people waiting on me but I wanted to tell you that you did a great job and say bye.”

     “Thank you,” Marcy says. 

     “See ya Monday!” Luz says, walking backwards out the door.

     “We’re off Monday,” Marcy says.

     “Tuesday, then!” Luz corrects herself.

     “A three day weekend? Lucky,” Anne says to herself.

     “It’s a teacher meeting day.. thing. I think usually they just do half days for it instead of giving us the whole day off, but with the play and everything, it was just more convenient,” Marcy explains.

     “Well, we don’t have that, so how about we take advantage of today being a Saturday and have a sleepover?” Sasha suggests.

     Anne and Marcy agree. The three of them work out whose house works best before setting off to the first real sleepover they’ve had since Marcy moved.

Chapter Text

     “Edaaaaa!” Luz calls through the house as she walks through the door. Marcy follows behind her, trying her best to fish her notebook and a pencil out of her bag one handed, as the other one is using her cane to hold herself up.

     “What? What is it, where’s the fire?” Eda asks, coming down the stairs.

     “There’s no fire, I brought a friend!” Luz says and gestures to Marcy, who’s distracted by Hooty.

     “Are you a bird? Or some kind of snake?” Marcy asks, almost using one of the wooden chests by the door as a seat and writing down… something.

     “I’m a worm!” Hooty says proudly.

     Marcy stares at him intensely for a second and then continues writing. “How does this work? Are you the house itself or just attached to it? Does your.. expand-y thing have a length limit?”

     “You can interview Hooty later,” Luz says quickly. If Hooty gets to talking, he will not stop on his own, and with how Marcy likes collecting information, she likely will not make an attempt to stop him. 

     “Right, right, there’s more general things to know first. But I will be back!” Marcy says to Hooty. 

     She shoves the notebook back in her bag and puts the pencil behind her ear for easy access like a hurried scholar. She picks up her cane from where she leaned it against the wall and meets Luz in the middle of the living room.

     “Oh hey, you’re the card game kid. Mace?” Eda asks.

     “I am glad you remembered my name as something cool, but no, it’s Marcy,” she answers.

     “Close enough,” Eda shrugs and sits on the couch. “I thought you didn’t know about the demon realm.”

     “I didn’t! I found out.. last week ish?” Marcy says.

     “Last week, yep! I would’ve said something earlier but,” Luz grimaces, “tech week happened.”

     “So she’s gonna show me around today instead!” Marcy says.

     “Have fun, don’t get eaten,” Eda says casually.

     “No promises,” Marcy mumbles, having quite a bad track record with getting eaten by things that should not be eating her. She’s always survived, of course, but still.

     “We’ll do our best!” Luz says. 

Chapter Text

     December brings with it several inches of snow that stick to the ground stubbornly. There are days where Marcy can’t leave the house on her own even if she feels capable because the weather would put her in an unreasonable amount of danger of falling and hurting herself. Not that she’s any stranger to accidents, she’d actually once slipped on a patch of black ice and broken her nose back in elementary school. It was not a fun experience and she is not eager to repeat it. 

     On days where it’s possible, her parents drive her to school. Though with her dad’s unpredictable schedule and her mom’s predictably early one, there are more days than she’d like to admit where she wakes up to an empty house. With Gravesfield’s high school being understanding of her situation, and a friend who lives nearby and is willing to drop off her schoolwork for her, Marcy slowly gets more and more used to and okay with spending school days at home. 

     This is one such day, where she feels okay enough to go but there had been a warmer day this week. Things had started melting but froze up overnight and covered everything with an inescapable layer of ice and/or slush. She sits on her bed in an oversized sweater with a portable heater on by her desk. School has probably let out by now, and her mother should be getting home in about an hour. She isn’t sure about her dad. 

     Her phone buzzes.

witchLuzura: I have Paper

MarshmallowMarbles: the kind with numbers?

witchLuzura: mmmno mr d was absent today and we had a sub

witchLuzura: BUT I do have the kind with creative writing prompts

MarshmallowMarbles: oh no :(

witchLuzura: writing assignments aren’t that bad!

MarshmallowMarbles: you, a writer, have no place to speak

witchLuzura: you write too

MarshmallowMarbles: Yes often

MarshmallowMarbles: that doesn’t mean I’m good at it

witchLuzura: I’ll fight you if you keep talking bad about yourself

MarshmallowMarbles: (ง •̀_•́)ง

witchLuzura: OH we’re gonna talk about your self deprecating habits later but I just remembered

MarshmallowMarbles: ?

witchLuzura: I also have the variety of paper with glyphs AND some questions about them I felt would be fun to figure out answers to with you

MarshmallowMarbles: :000 I am down

MarshmallowMarbles: you can just come in when you get here but lock the door behind you please I forgot to lol

witchLuzura: will do!! ETA like 10/15 minutes I think

MarshmallowMarbles: hell yea I will prepare a space

MarshmallowMarbles: are they explody type questions

witchLuzura: I don’t know, we’ll figure it out when we get there 

MarshmallowMarbles: noted! See you soon 

witchLuzura: :D

     This isn’t the first time in the last few weeks since finding out about their respective isekai issues they’ve discussed magic, and it would not be the first time something exploded (to be fair, the first time was entirely nonmagical and an accident), but it is the first time either of them have begun an interaction with the intent to discuss magic stuff.

     Marcy gets out of bed and stumbles a little because she’s mostly been laying in bed for a while, because it’s a “spine said no” kinda day. She’s still able to move though, albeit a bit slower than she would’ve liked. She goes around the room and tidies up any loose bits that are potentially fragile or flammable (read: shove them in her closet or in her desk). Downstairs, she hears the front door open and Luz call out, “Hello!!”

     “Up here!” Marcy answers, pushing the closet door closed with a bit of struggle. She’ll.. sort out that mess later.

     Luz comes up the stairs and knocks on Marcy’s bedroom door. “It’s open.”

     Luz throws open the door dramatically and when it clicks shut behind her again she places a dark blue folder labeled homework on the desk. Then, her theatric act crumbles and she grins. “Magic!”

     “Magic!!” Marcy agrees.

     Luz sets down her bag on the floor and sits down next to it, shoving things out of the way and placing random stuff on the floor to find what she’s looking for. 

     Marcy sits next to her, leaning against her bed frame. She folds her legs under herself and says, “Why do you have so much stuff in there?”

     “Because my short term memory sucks,” Luz answers easily. “I’ll remember to clean it out when I don’t have the time and I tell myself I’ll do it later and actually remember it this time, and then I forget about it three seconds later. It’s an ADHD thing, I think. Here!”

     Luz finds, at the very bottom of her bag, a notebook with a shiny purple cover. Then, she opens up the second pouch on her back and finds what she’s looking for much quicker, a pad of bright, eye searing neon pink sticky notes.

     “So I’ve been thinking: magic definitely is capable of working on Earth, right? Yours, witches, the portals, Vee’s, but so far I think glyphs are the only ones we’ve found that provably and exclusively don’t work in the human realm,” Luz says.

     While Marcy has visited Amphibia recently, Luz has not been there at all - scheduling conflicts and whatnot. But, Marcy did get curious once and tried a light glyph while she was there and it worked with no issue. She and Luz had been ecstatic about this discovery. 

     “Right, right. So the question is, ‘why don’t they?’” Marcy guesses.

     “No. Well, yes, but I think I have an answer to that, and it seems super obvious now that I’ve thought of it. What if the glyphs don’t work because they don’t have a source of magic to draw from?” Luz suggests.

     Marcy pauses and then facepalms. “That is super obvious.”

     “I know! I don’t know why we didn’t think of that before, but I think we should test it,” Luz says.

     “Experiment time!” Marcy grins. “Do we have a source we can use?”

     “I have one!” Luz shuffles around and pulls a couple playing cards out of her pocket. “These are Hexas Hold’em cards, which for sure have magic in them. If they work we can be pretty sure that that was the issue.”

     Now that Vee has unlimited - and safe - access to the demon realm, they don’t really need the cards as a source of magic anymore. Luz had told them about her theory and Vee had given her the cards to test.

     “Let’s do it,” Marcy says.

     Luz picks up a sticky note and Marcy lends her a pen so she doesn’t have to go digging through her bag yet again. Luz draws a light glyph on one of the sticky notes and sticks it to a card. She places the card flat on the ground. “Moment of truth.”

     She touches the inked lines and the sticky note and card crumple up and form into a little ball of light.

     Both girls immediately erupt into cheers. It feels a little ridiculous to get so excited about something so little, but at the same time it’s both literally and metaphorically magical to find an answer to an ongoing question. Then, Marcy gets an idea.

     “Hey! Okay, so, back in.. I wanna say January but I wasn’t there, when Anne got stuck in the human world, she said the way she got back was through a portal that a scientist friend built and she helped power with her blue magic, so maybe we could draw from me as a source of magic for glyphs,” Marcy says breathlessly, half because of the excitement about the light glyph working and half because of how fast she’s trying to get the idea out.

     “Would it hurt?” Luz asks.

     “Probably not,” Marcy says, sounding more sure than she feels. “I’ll say something if it does.”

     Luz draws up another light glyph and Marcy holds her hands out and closes her eyes, pulling a spark from somewhere in her mind and pushing it towards her hands where the sticky note adhesive is only slightly uncomfortable against her skin. It’s comfortably cool, which is ironic considering she’s had the heater on all day to fight off the chill of the air outside. She opens her eyes when she feels it sparking on her palms and nods at Luz, giving her the go ahead to activate it. 

     She taps the glyph gently and pulls her hand away as the paper crumbles up but continues drawing power from Marcy, green light contributing to the orb glowing even brighter by the second. It hisses and crackles softly like a fire. Ember-like sparks begin to fall off the ball of light like water. The two are captivated for another unreal moment before Marcy has the distinct and sudden thought, ‘This is going to explode.’

     The millisecond after she finishes that thought, she’s proven right. It scatters like fireworks, growing blindingly bright and sending glowing bits of magic all across the room. Thankfully, nothing is set on fire. Or affected at all, save for the bright pink imprints in their eyes because they stared at green light for too long. It’s not even painful when it hits skin. Actually, it’s almost like rain.

     Then, without Marcy intentionally doing so, the stream of green light coming from her hands flickers away and then dissipates entirely. Her breathing is short for a painful moment and her chest tightens as the lack of cold feels like an excess of heat, and then it all goes away. Her breathing evens out again and instead of pain she just doesn’t feel the nerves in her legs. 

     “Okay,” she says, breathless for the second time today. “That was… a lot.”

     “Are you okay?” Luz asks, worried. 

     Marcy nods. “Just.. tired. That happens when I use the box’s powers. But actually, that brings up another question- why does casting a light spell take just as much physical energy as opening a spatial or dimensional portal?”

     Luz unzips her backpack and puts the unused cards in, to be lost to time. She takes a blank sticky note and flips through her notebook, bookmarking a specific page. She hands the notebook to Marcy and puts the rest of the sticky notes back in her bag. “I don’t know, and I think for now it’s better to answer that some other time. You look ready to pass out.”

     “Okay… maybe.. the light spell took a bit more than portals do, which is even weirder,” Marcy mumbles. She absolutely is ready to pass out. The world goes fuzzy around her and she has time to be salty about being able to remain perfectly awake after opening portals before “fuzzy” simply becomes dark.

     She wakes up on her own bed about thirty seconds later and she assumes she’s just woken up from a night of sleep until she sees Luz and is briefly very confused as to what she’s doing in her room. Then she remembers that oh yea, she passed out at three thirty in the afternoon because she did some magic. 

     “Hey,” Luz says. “How are you feeling?”

     Marcy thinks for a moment. “…. Ow.”

     “Not bad enough to pass out on me again, are you?” Luz asks, presenting it in a teasing way but she is in reality completely serious. 

     “I don't think so,” Marcy says. “I didn’t sleep for.. I dunno, an hour, did I?”

     “A minute at most,” Luz reassures her.

     “Cool,” Marcy says. She closes her eyes again. “Could you turn the heater off?”

     She hears Luz stand up from her desk chair and a few moments later, the heater clicks off. Marcy has never taken notice of how lightly Luz walks before.

     “Do you want anything else? Water, or something to eat?” Luz asks.

     “Not at the moment,” Marcy says. “But, uh, I don’t mean to sound like I’m kicking you out or anything but I think I will try to get some sleep.”

     “Oh! Yea, of course. I’ll see you later, yea?” Luz asks, picking up her bag which has all her stuff tucked away in, like she expected this.

     Marcy gives her a thumbs up. “Can you get the light?”

     Moments later, the light switch clicks off, the door to her bedroom closes, and she is back asleep.