Chapter Text
A maelstrom of emotions surged through Luz’s head as she walked towards the Owl House. After being beaten up by Mrs. Blight’s Abomatons, every muscle in her body hurt, but it was nothing compared to what was going on inside her head. She’d nearly died. Again! And this time, it was even worse, because she’d nearly gotten Amity killed too! And, sure, it was cool that Amity finally had the guts to stand up to her awful parents, even breaking that necklace which must have been an heirloom judging by how shocked Mrs. Blight looked, but Amity shouldn’t have had to put herself at risk just for Luz.
Once more, she’d charged ahead without thinking about the risks and she’d nearly suffered the ultimate consequence for it. One day, her luck would run out. One day, she’d end up dead. Like her dad. Was that what she was trying to do? Was she deliberately putting herself at risk to join him? No, that was crazy talk, Luz decided. Luz had a hell of a lot to live for. Her magic, her friends, her g – great friend Amity, and her mom. If she ever saw her again. But there was no doubt Luz needed to stop putting herself into so much danger.
But maybe it had been worth it? Amity had been able to stand up to her parents. She did get Willow and Gus back in Hexside in the end. What was Luz was supposed to have done, anyway? Just stand back as her best friends’ lives were ruined because of their association with her? No, of course not! A true hero didn’t do that. Amity hadn’t done that.
Ah, Amity. Luz was sure lucky to have her as a friend. Dedicated, brilliant, loyal, courageous, really pretty…hang on, when did that last one sneak in there? For some reason, her mind kept on going back to their Grom dance. To the way they’d danced in total, utter sync, as if the two of them were one. As if Amity was her girlfriend. But that was so silly, of course! It wasn’t as if Luz had a…crush on her…
Oh.
Well. That definitely complicated things, to say the least. Luz recalled how badly some of her attempts to ask people out had gone in the past. Her attempt at asking out Clara, the head cheerleader at her school, had made her the laughingstock of the school and had also left her outed publicly. In all fairness, Luz had done it in the middle of a crowded hallway, so it was kind of her fault it all went viral in a way. And Clara herself hadn’t contributed to any of her misery. She had very nicely rejected Luz and spoke out publicly and angrily at the people who ridiculed her. But still, not her finest moment.
Luz still wasn’t out to Mami, who obviously wasn’t attuned to school gossip. Or…well, anyone she actually knew and cared about, really. It simply hadn’t been relevant. Aside from her tiny little crush on Emira – which had lasted maybe a couple of hours at most – her bisexuality hadn’t really been at all relevant to her life in the Demon Realm. Luz wasn’t entirely certain how the Demon Realm felt about LGBT people. It must have been fairly positive, since Willow’s dads were together and married. But she couldn’t imagine it was a paradise of tolerance either, not with someone like Belos in charge.
Luz had no idea how Amity stood in that particular equation either. Obviously, the Blight parents had to be homophobes because they were dicks in every other possible way. Amity had drawn a drawing of herself with Malingale, who was nonbinary, but that didn’t necessarily mean she liked girls. Or anything, really. No, the only way Luz was going to know if Amity liked her was just to ask her out. Though Luz couldn’t imagine doing that right now. She’d just realized she had a crush on Amity. Asking her out was beyond her capabilities right now. Besides, she was tired and she needed to sleep. And probably a couple of healing potions.
Finally, she reached the Owl House and mercifully, Hooty let her in without trying to engage her in conversation. There were many times she’d had the spoons to deal with Hooty. This was not one of them. She had a conversation with Lilith and Eda about the glyphs practice, but honestly, she could barely remember what was being said.
She just lay on her sleeping bag, staring at the ceiling, as her thoughts continued to churn in her head. Okay. She needed to focus on what she knew. Fact: Luz Noceda had a crush on Amity Blight. Fact: Amity liked someone else. Also fact: She hadn’t gotten involved with said other person. So maybe that had crashed and burned! Or maybe Amity was just pining from afar. Though Amity didn’t seem like the pining type. Not someone as cool and classy and composed as she!
What would be the consequences of asking her out? When Amity inevitably rejected her, what would happen? Would they still be friends? Or would Amity think she was a sick lesbo freak, as many of Luz’s tormentors had called her? Maybe Luz should just put this aside so she could focus on more important things, like looking for leads on how to rebuild the portal door.
Mercifully, her rapidly derailing train of thought was derailed when Eda charged into the room without even bothering to knock. Which was unfortunately common. Eda and common courtesy were not very good friends. If someone knocked on her door, it was always a sign Lilith was there. “Kiddo, I know you need your beauty rest, but I’ve gotta tell you about what I found!”
“Can’t it wait until the morning?” Luz complained. “That robot thingy really did a number on me.”
“No idea what that is,” Eda said breezily as she sat down on the floor next to Luz’s sleeping bag. “And it’s not important anyway. So we were experimenting with glyphs and it turns out, you can combine them to do other things!”
“I think I like Amity,” Luz blurted. Oh, crap, why had she done that?! She’d just come out to Eda! How stupid could she get? She didn’t have another home! If Eda was homophobic and kicked her out, she’d probably end up getting eaten by something!
Eda just looked at her blankly. “Who?”
Despite the obvious calamity of the situation, Luz couldn’t help but crack a little smile. “Amity Blight? Remember her? She beat up Hooty?”
Eda’s face twisted in a sneer for a few seconds, but it was enough to make Luz’s heart sink. It was true! Her worst fears were confirmed! Eda was homophobic! Oh, God, what was she going to do? How would she escape? No, no, calm. She could backtrack. She could say she meant it in a platonic way.
“Look, normally, I’d love to talk about your teenage problems, Luz, but this stuff’s important,” Eda said after what felt like an eternity but was probably just a normal length of time. Oh. So that was how things were going to go. Eda didn’t take her seriously. She probably thought Luz’s bisexuality was just a phase, a bout of teenage foolishness.
“This is important to me,” Luz snapped. She was just thankful her sleeping bag was covering up how she was trembling in fear.
Eda blinked. “Yeah, sorry, kiddo. Go ahead.”
Luz launched into a long, inelegant, rambling monologue about the day’s events. In her classic style, she got so into the story she forgot that she even had an audience. But after she told Eda about how Mrs. Blight ordered the Abomaton to kill her, she finally looked up and saw Eda was practically vibrating with fury.
Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no…
“Ha, did I say I liked Amity?!” Luz said in a high pitched, unconvincing tone. “I meant, I liked Amity as a friend! For we are platonic, best pals! Gal pals! Who don’t want to do anything more than dressing up…and…and…traveling.”
Eda looked confused. “What? But you said…”
“FORGET WHAT I SAID!” Luz shrieked. “I was wrong, I was mistaken. I was confused! Yeah, that’s it! Totally just confused. Now just…let me sleep, okay? Get out! Please!”
Eda walked over to the door, bewilderment all over her face. “Uh, yeah, sure, Luz. Whatever you want.” She hightailed it out of the room, only pausing to glance back at her with worry on her face. Luz was too busy being frightened out of her wits to process it very much.
Naturally, after a conversation like that, sleep eluded her. She tossed and turned for what must have been hours, replaying every aspect of that conversation in her head. Maybe there was a rational explanation. Yes…but what? What possible explanation could Eda have for hating the idea of Luz having a crush on Amity Blight? Oh, wait a second! Maybe the Blight part was the issue! After all, Odalia went to school with Eda and the odds were very good Odalia had been just as much of a bitch back then as she was now, right? Perhaps Eda feared Amity was just like her mother. And given that her first introduction to her was back at the Covention, where she kind of was, Luz could understand that.
No, she was probably just overreacting. That was pretty common for her. She had a tendency to catastrophize when she was really stressed. Which meant Luz had an apology to make for being so rude to Eda. They’d talk things out. Everything would be fine!
Luz crept through the halls stealthily so as not to wake King or Hooty and heard loud muttering coming from behind the door to Eda’s bedroom. Nestroom? Nah, probably not. She could only catch a few words and phrases, but they were not all that encouraging. She caught the words “my kid” and “can’t believe her” and “when I get my hands on her, she’ll rue the day she was ever born.” Luz’s blood ran cold. Eda must have thought her mere presence was tainting King, because who else could she mean by her kid?!
Luz knew she should have started running, but she opened the door to the bedroom anyway. Eda was puttering away at her potions lab and finally she held up a vial of what looked like mud, only more disgusting, and let out a diabolical cackle, like a witch from the movies. “This’ll fix her good!” she said.
Luz couldn’t help herself. She let out a high pitched shriek and then ran for it in a dead panic. She was amazed she even had the presence of mind to even open the front door. Things were worse than she could have possibly imagined! Eda was so homophobic she intended to try to “cure” her! And Luz was in a magical land. She’d seen impossibilities every single day. Maybe it was possible to magically change her sexuality!
She couldn’t stay under that roof for a single second longer. But where to go? Blight Manor was out of the question. Aside from the terrifying (and appealing) prospect of having to share a room with Amity, it wouldn’t exactly be very smart to go to the house of people who’d just tried to kill her earlier that very day. That left either Gus or Willow. Luz immediately decided on the latter, since Willow’s dads were gay and thus there was no chance of her being homophobic. Not that she thought Gus was homophobic, of course! She just felt a bit safer under Willow’s roof right now.
Luz felt a lot better with a destination in mind. Moving as quick as she could just in case it started raining, Luz ran towards Bonesborough, trying resolutely to keep her mind off of what was happening to her. But it was impossible. She’d been betrayed by the person she trusted the most in the Demon Realm. How did one avoid thinking about that?
When she reached the Park residence, Luz banged on the door as hard as she could, heedless to the rudeness. She’d spent the entire run in a blind panic, terrified Eda would hunt her down, drag her back to the Owl House, and convert her. Her heart was thundering away. If she didn’t get into the house, there was a serious possibility she might die of a heart attack or something before Eda could get her. Okay, maybe not that serious.
Willow answered the door, rubbing sleep away from her eyes as she did so. “Luz!” she said, her eyes widening. “Oh my Titan, come in. You look like a pack of angry slitherbeasts was chasing you! Was a pack of angry slitherbeasts chasing you? Did they want revenge for your adventure on the Knee?”
“Eda…she…she…”
“Did she turn into the Owl Beast again?”
Luz nodded. It was a very good excuse. She felt absolutely crappy about lying to Willow, but right now, she didn’t have the energy necessary to explain the situation to her. She’d do it in the morning. “I was so scared,” she whispered. “I’m sorry, I should go, I shouldn’t bother you like this…”
“Nonsense!” Willow said firmly. “That’s what friends are for. Come on, you can sleep in my room.”
Luz followed Willow up to her bedroom. Willow was so kind and gentle to her. She got her warm smilk and let her borrow one of her plushies and had Luz sleep right next to her. Luz was able to trick her mind into thinking she was just having a sleepover with a friend instead of having just gone through the most terrifying experience of her entire life and, though it had seemed impossible mere minutes before, successfully drifted off to sleep.