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    It was a sight to behold, really.   Emira stared in awe at this box full of Ms. Eda’s old human things. She knew The Owl Lady never really was one for the status-quo, but she had never realised that Ms. Eda was so... cool!   Ms. Eda had been having a clear-out. She was definitely a hoarder, it took the whole Owl House and then some to clear a little space. This particular box, Emira had carried out, seemed to interest her.   Once she’d asked Ms. Eda about it, The Owl Lady’s eyes lit up in delight.   “Aah, those were the good old days.” She’d reminisced. “I was about your age- the most kick-ass riot ghoul in town!”   The top read “Riot Ghoull!”, with the most kick-ass skull motif. Carefully,  she opened up the box that Ms. Eda had been so kind to let her keep, the door locked firmly.   Mother would freak if she saw this.   On the top, there was some sort of... tape? A scribbly drawing of a human woman, the words “bikini kill” plastered across it.   Quickly, Emira zoomed across her bedroom, grabbing her caskette player, and fitting in the human tape.    Would this even work? If the caskette blew up... oh, Emira would be in a bad mood without her music!   Well, here goes nothing.   She hit the play button. Some music started beating out, just like her usual tapes. Huh. Guess the human and demon realm weren’t so different.   That Gui-scar was killer though, thought Emira, tapping her foot to the beat. The vocals started, rough and raspy. Shit, this was good!   Scrambling through the old box, Emira found some old pair of... fishnet somethings.   She lifted them out with her finger and thumb, trying to get the logistics of the garment. She slipped it onto her wrist... oh, it was a glove!   She rummaged further,  another one at the bottom. Trying them on, she smiled.    This looked killer!   A black eyeliner pen and a mirror lay next, Emira took out the makeup and began to apply it, just like the magazine cutouts of the coolest-looking humans and witches she had ever seen in her life!   Emira stared at herself in the mirror. A completely different, kick-ass witch stared back. The witch gave a wide smile.   She absolutely loved it.   Just then, the gui-scar riff dropped, Emira leaping up and beginning to jump to the tune in complete ecstasy, green hair flying everywhere.   Rebel-ghoul! Rebel-ghoul! Rebel ghoul you are the queen of my world!   Emira leaped, the rush of confidence making her a little dizzy, or maybe it was the fact that she was spinning round and round at such a rate that everything became a blur...   Including the blur of mint-green hair, slicked back in a bun, and a very annoyed looking face.   Emira stopped, swaying violently before facing her mother.   “Titan, don’t you knock?!” She yelled over the music.   “Turn that ridiculous noise off now.” Mother commanded.   Emira sighed dramatically, masked by the music, muttering some colourful names for her mother. She turned off the music.   “What in Titan’s name do you think you’re doing, Emira?” Mother asked sternly, a hint of danger in her eyes.   Usually, Emira would back down during these moments. It was for her own good. And her siblings’.   But something about this new look made her feel... powerful.   “Asserting my teenage independence!” Emira responded sassily. Stupidly.   Mother’s expression changed, the hint of danger now at the forefront.    For titan’s sake, Em! You and your big mouth!   “Oh, no.” Mother said. “You will be doing no such thing.”   Before Emira could stop her, she summoned the caskette with her finger, it flew out into her hands.   “This ought to teach you not to talk back, dear.” Mother said silkily. Emira glared.   Mother threw the caskette onto the floor before stomping on it with the point of her heel. The pieces shattered everywhere.   “No!” Emira cried. She glared up at mother in anger. “Why would you do that?”    Hot tears began to fill her eyes.   “It’s for your own good, dear.” Mother inspected her nails, as if this was but a minor inconvenience to her. “I can’t have my daughter walking around like some type of... criminal.”   The hot tears were beginning to spill over. Emira bit them back, determined not to let Odalia see her cry. To let Odalia know she’d won.   “Now wipe that muck off your face.” Mother sighed. “You look like some sort of hideous prostitute.”    Emira turned around, walking briskly to her en suite bathroom before slamming the door behind her. The tears were beginning to spill over.   “And you ought to expect punishment for slamming the door!” Odalia yelled.    It took every bone in Emira’s body not to scream back. That would only make it worse.   Without looking in the mirror, Emira began to scrub her face with harsh soap, deliberately getting it in her eyes, trying to get the sting of tears away.   It was better that she couldn’t see herself. It would only hurt more if the girl she could never be stared back.  

Teen And Up Audiences

They were trapped in the human realm. Luz of all people was happy that she was home? But she was guilty for missing people in the demon realm, if they were alive, she thought. Camila Noceda, her mom. Had accepted everyone into her house. "Come in, come in. Anyone is welcome in this house." Luz smiled, she felt warm. She was distracting herself from what had just happened. Her brain hadn't fully processed anything. She looked at Amity who looked lost, her eyes dead. Mouth dry. The lips she had kissed only a few hours ago look dry as a person without water in a dessert. Willow was crying still, he'd green eyes watering constantly she hugged Hunter as she cried. She couldn't bear days, weeks, months, years without her dad's. Without everyone. "Introduce yourselves," Camila brought out a cup of tea for each witch, (Human included) Vee following out after them saying hello. Hunter ranted about how dangerous it was having one of them in the house but everyone shot him down on his emperor's coven bullshit. Amity was gonna try to cling to Luz, but she distanced herself. The Purple haired witch started to overthink. Why did she move away? Why is she sitting next to Hunter instead? "I'm Willow Park, I met Luz in school" "School?" Luz sighed. "Magic school," She started to slow down, realising what had just happened. King was gone, her little brother was gone. Eda was gone. Raine was gone. Edric, Emira, Alador, Darius, everyone who she loved and even hated gone. They were all gone. She tuned out everyone. She was being swallowed whole by her own thoughts. Amity, Amity. How was she gonna settle anything with Amity. Everything was so fucked up right now. How would their relationship even healthily grow? This is the weirdest environment to even grow in. How was Very covering for her here? Did people still think she was weird? We're people still gossiping about how she was bisexual and had that crush on that one girl. Was she still boasting about it? Her mind was jumbled. She was analysing Amity, but her girlfriend was a bundle of anxious knots. "And who are you?" Camila offered Amity tea and she took it with a smile. But no reply came. She just looked down at the floor. Everyone waited for her to reply, but nothing came. Luz realised. "That's Amity! My best friend, well one of them, we had a rocky start to our friendship" She smiled, wincing at the word friends. Friends. She was really just not saying it to her mom right now, there was too much. Too much to say, too much to cry about. Camila smiled. "I knew you'd make friends." Amity was rocking back and forth. Willow comforts her, rubbing her back. "So we have about 2 rooms. Luz's room has a bunk bed, the top bunk is used by Vee, so one of the girls will have to be up there with her." Willow agreed to be on the top bunk. Hunter and Gus agree to be on the bottom. "My room has a double bed. I'm guessing yourself and Amity will take the bed." The other three laugh. As they both go red. Like really red. If only Camilla knew. "Let's get ready for bed will we!" Amity was given a pair of Pj's. Which had an old design of Azura on it, from book two. She liked the smell of them, The scent of Luz, Coffee with a hint of Vanilla. It was very specific but that's what she smelt like. They all go upstairs. The group goes into Luz's room. Luz and Amity walk into Camilla's room. It was awkward. Well not awkward awkward, there was just a lot of tension of what's gonna happen. They had their first kiss. Amity was still trying to process this piece of information. She was struggling to speak, feeling less nervous to unmute herself in front of Luz. "What do we do?" "Get changed" They're red. "But there's no bathroom?" "Turn around from each other, I'll get dressed over here." Luz said awkwardly. The bathroom was occupied by the boys of the house; she knew that and with them trying to discover things they'd take long. So they got dressed and turned away from each other. Amity finished getting dressed first. She forgot where she was, and turned to see Luz having the bottoms of the pj's on but not shirt on except her bra. She felt invasive so she turned quickly. Red. "All done." She smiles before placing her clothes in the basket where Amity is, after doing so, they sit down on the top of the bed. They sit in silence again. Comfortable. They look at eachother, Luz cheekily looking at Amity's lips. She blushed at the thought of kissing her now. Was it right too? Was it right to think she should, was she evil for thinking so. "I think-" Luz cupped Amity's cheek and moved closer with a warm longing breath. She longed for a kiss, her girlfriend's lips were tender and gentle. They were even closer now, edging at a kiss. When they're lips met it was nicer than the first time they had even met lips. This time Luz had a warmer feeling in her stomach, she leaned into the kiss more and more. They were so soft, and tasted like the sugar off the tea when Amity had sipped it. Footsteps. Luz hadn't processed it yet. Coming closer was footsteps. Amity opens her eyes, and shoves herself off Luz. The door opened as it happened. "Hey girls- Did I interrupt something?" "No no not at all Mamí." Luz wiped her lips of saliva, unfortunately after every kiss it's all over your lips. "I was going to give you a charger for you mija," Camila smiled. "Here you go and also, keep the door open" She closed it behind her, slightly leaving it open. Luz giggled. "She knows now" "Oh well." Amity smiled. With that glint in her eye that said she was happy. They talk for longer. About random stuff, it was a bit awkward seeing as they were just sitting across from each other, they hadn't experienced muchmuch physical touch in any shape or form. Hugging and holding hands being the best they could do. Luz craved it a lot, physical touch from Amity, but the witch wasn't a big big fan. It got dark and they were still up. Talking. One conversation came up about Odaila, but Amity was quick to shoot that down. She never talked about her mom. Only her siblings and her dad, she was missing them with her whole heart right now. All of her heart was missing them. Missing everyone on the boiling isles. Amity was the first to make her way to the covers, and got under them. It was cold. Wherever Luz was living. She frowned, the blanket not warming her up enough. She felt her heart flutter. When she felt Luz get into bed next to her. But they were a distance away from each other. Separate. "It's cold." "Yeah, a lot colder than usual," Luz replied, she sounded wide awake. There was silence. What were they meant to do? This was weird. This was a step forward. But how do they take it? Amity felt awkward to ask, could Luz go closer. Nearer. It'd be warmer. A lot warmer. Maybe Luz was waiting for her to ask, because she seemed like she wasn't going to sleep anytime soon either. They both awkwardly stayed in silence. Amity started to doze off. Before she did, sudden warmth came her way. She felt a pair of arms wrap around her waist awkwardly. "I hope I'm doing this right." "You are." Amity said half asleep. Luz rested her head on top of Amity's and hugged her tightly before going back to just cuddling her. This was nice. She wasn't cold anymore either. They fell asleep. They never realised how hard the next few months would be. But right now, they had each other, that's all that mattered right?

Teen And Up Audiences

There were good days and there were bad days in the Deamonne household. Three months had passed since The Day of Unity, and The Isles were in repair. Raine and Eda had gotten married, Darius asked Alador out, All the kids were in therapy, Hunter got adopted, everything was great. Until it wasn’t. The Coven System wasn’t the only thing Belos had messed up during his reign, Darius supposed, as he listened to Hunter trying to contain his crying in the other room. It was the middle of the night, and Darius had woken up to the sound of glass breaking in the other room followed by some shifting and then.. this. He knocked lightly on Hunter’s door. “Hunter, can I come in?” There was a suffocating silence in the air before Hunter responded, “Okay.” His voice sounded strained, and Darius opened the door and stepped in. He looked around the room, absentmindedly petting Flapjack as he landed on his shoulder. He found the culprit of the noise, apparently it was a glass of water that Darius had left by Hunter’s bedside table. Hunter probably just accidentally knocked it over. Speaking of Hunter, he was currently trying to bury himself in his blankets. He hid his face, pretending as if he wasn’t crying. Darius sighed, they still had a long way to go. “Can I sit down?” He queried, in the softest tone he’d ever spoken with. Hunter seemingly hesitated, then nodded. Darius sat down on the bed, focusing on his son. He couldn’t understand why he was so distraught, but based on Hunter’s ragged breaths and tense stature, he was definitely not okay right now. “Hunter, let’s breathe together, okay? Do it with me.” He said, raising his hand and counting to four as he inhaled. He smiled as Hunter followed his direction. He waited a solid four seconds before exhaling again. They did this three more times before Hunter calmed down. “What happened, Prince?” Darius asked as he held his son in his arms, it was the only time Hunter would let himself be vulnerable. His healer was working on that with him. “What got you so upset?”Hunter seemed to tense, “ I’m sorry for breaking the glass..” He croaked, he was probably exhausted. Darius softened, draping the blanket over Hunter. Safety blankets always seemed to do the trick. “You don’t have to worry about that. Everyone makes mistakes. If I had a snail for everytime I broke something, I’d be the richest witch alive.” He said, “It doesn’t seem fair to get mad at someone else for something as mediocre and ordinary as that, does it?” Hunter shook his head, “But.. You gave it to me. And I didn’t even drink it.” He pointed out. Darius sighed, “Hunter, I’m not mad because you broke a glass. It can always be replaced, and so can the water that was inside it.” He reassured, “One thing that can’t be replaced is you, though.” He said. “You matter way more than some silly glass.” Hunter seemed to relax, at least a bit. It was an improvement. “Okay.” The corners of his mouth twitched upwards, the slightest hint of a smile. He couldn’t hold back his yawn, though. Darius glanced at the clock, “Dear Titan, it’s late. You should sleep, Hunter.” He moved to get up, but Hunter looked up at him. “I don’t want to be alone.” Darius sighed, then smiled. “Okay, little Prince. I’ll stay.” He laid down next to him, shuffling closer and dragging over the bundle of blankets that Hunter had been hogging. “You won’t be alone.” Hunter finally relaxed, closing his eyes and curling up in the blankets. “Okay. Goodnight, Dad.” He said. “Goodnight, Hunter.” Darius replied, then froze in his tracks. His eyes widened, but then he beamed widely. Maybe he wasn’t so bad at this after all.

General Audiences

She woke to her mother cries. The girl did not understand the sounds then. All she understood at first was the soft glow of her blue choo-choo train nightlight, glimmering between her dark bedroom and the bright hallway beyond her cracked door, through which the cries had crept in and found her sleeping. She heard the sounds and knew immediately that she needed to know them, but knew only the light. Through this, the girl saw the light as the same thing as the sounds themselves and felt she could understand it, the sound-light, if she touched it. She toddled out of bed without feeling her pajama’d feet press into the carpet, not realizing she carried her stuffed friend with her, a comfort against the disturbance of the night she did not yet know she needed. The girl heard the cries again when she neared her bedroom door, the reoccurrence of the sounds separating them from the nightlight and distracting her from her plan to touch it. She knew then the light was not the sounds, but not what the sounds were. When she pushed her door open, the hallway lights glowed brighter than her blue choo-choo. She raised her stuffed friend above her eyes to block the light as she shuffled along the hallway toward the stairs. She took each step down in tip-toe caution, gripping every baluster with her free hand as she descended, because Mamá and Daddy told her not to run down the stairs because she could fall and hurt herself. The living room lights even brighter than the hallway’s. Mamá sits on the couch, but not right, sits where Daddy usually sits. Two tall men stand over her, two blue men, and they are not Daddy either. The girl does not know the men, but remembers strangers mean danger so she does not like them. Mamá looks small and crumpled and like she’s falling into the couch, and this is wrong because Mamá is big. The girl sees Mamá’s wet face and then understands the sounds. “Why are you crying?” She scares them all. They all turn to her fast and stare at her with big eyes like big lights burning at her and she does not know why and she clutches her stuffed friend. “Mija, I need you to go back to bed.” Mamá standing now, but not right. Standing weird like she’s hurt. Her voice scary because she’s crying. The little girl looks at her stuffed friend because looking at anyone else scares her. Her friend the otter has big eyes too. “Where’s Daddy?” *** *** Luz runs in lead of the other four, but does not feel the weight of her legs trampling over the sodden dirt. Breathes deep, but cannot feel her chest shrinking and heaving for the drenched night air, or the backpack she pulls tight and unswaying against her slicked jacket with each breath. She knows she is wet merely because she is running in the rain and so she must be. All her focus rises solely from unsolicited instincts telling her what motions to make. She feels nothing of her movements, only sees them outside of herself, like a spirit that has slipped its body watching the muscles and physical matter it just fled mechanically turn in clockwork order. Get them to the house … Get them inside … Check for wounds … Mamá … smile. Lie. Tell her that it’s not that bad. Hey Mom … I’m back. Oh, she understands all that has happened. What she has done and failed to do today. She exists out of body, but not out of mind. None of this feels real but it all is. Everything occurs to her external to physical feeling, her only a viewer of events, not a participant in them. Though Luz knows she has been a participant in all of today and tonight, because all of it is her fault. I didn’t stop it. Then I left him, everyone, behind … He called me his sister. She does not find the surrealness strange. It pricks scarred memories of the past times she has felt this way. The night she and Hunter escaped from his horrible mind, Hunter fleeing into the woods and she left dumb mute under the dark night sky outside the Owl House, unable to put words to witnessing the insanity inside another person’s soul, as she could not fathom such insanity existing at all. And all because she had to go play adventurer and stumble into trouble like a child. The night she thought Eda had sacrificed herself to save her, she limping alone into the home of scared, child-creatures, one of them her now lost brother, to tell them of her failure and their loss. Because she had to prove herself a hero to her second mother. The night she clutched the stuffed otter Daddy gave her as she learned Daddy would never come home to her again. Because she had been little and asleep and weak and not there for him. Tonight rings familiar in her soul, falling with the rhythm of the other worst nights of her life. I didn’t save him. Luz keeps eye contact with her mother at the front door, unblinking through the water dripping from her hair and forehead and brows. She only has to manage the stare for a few seconds, but she finds it draining the little energy she has left. Locking onto Camila’s face as she gasps, stifles it with her hand, then surveys the five youths in one rapid glance before backing into the house and gesturing for them to follow. Luz doubts her mother believed her weak and utterly false smile, the latest lie I’ve told Mamá. But she’s happy her mother has made the pragmatic decision to get everyone inside as soon as possible and not pause to embrace her daughter. A hug would only make Luz feel worse right now. Camila hurries them to the dining table between the kitchen and living room through only the pace of her gait. The kitchen lights shine so much brighter than Luz remembers. She realizes dwellings in the Boiling Isles—with their candles and light orbs and illumination magic—all keep to a medieval dimness, compared to the well-lit electric homes of the human realm. It reminds her how often she had to use light glyphs in the Owl House to get sufficient light. Reading at night always required them, even when Hooty was in a stable mood and giving the house all the light he could. Her first return sight of human lighting shows her how much her eyes have adjusted in her months away. They pass Vee, who makes a quick push off of her tail and slides into the far corner of the kitchen, as if trying to stay out of everyone’s way. The movement makes her appear so pitiful to Luz. She knows on a different night how much the sight of Vee, the chance to meet her quasi-sister in person and hear about how she and Mamá have managed the last months, would thrill her heart. Now, she just wonders what burdens she has lobbed onto her newest sibling. Luz pulls off her backpack and carefully sets it in the corner opposite Vee before they reach the dining table. The table seems smaller than Luz recalls, but it holds them all. Camila does not wait for the five to fall into the chairs before she turns from them. She steps to the kitchen sink, opens a cabinet under it, and pulls out a large first aid kit in one fluid chord of movement. “Vee, go get every towel out of my bathroom and the hydrogen peroxide in my medicine cabinet.” She does not take her eyes off the kit to glance at the basilisk as she gives the command. She has the kit open on the table and half its contents spread out before Vee can slither from the kitchen. Camila asks no questions, for which Luz feels grateful. She stands at the head of the table in silence and evident authority. Good, let someone else take charge. Not like my lead has helped anyone, Luz thinks. She watches her mother’s eyes dart back and forth from the kit to each of the five: Hunter to Camila’s left, his back slouched over his chair and toward to the living room, his red eyes and blank-stone face locked in protective watch on Gus under his left arm; Gus between Hunter and Willow, slumped forward with the top of his head tilted toward the kitchen sink and his face hidden into the table, his right hand over his head and covering his eyes; Willow with one hand rubbing Gus’s left shoulder and the other holding his left hand, but neither of her eyes on him or anything particular, maybe staring at the chip in the center of the table, or lost in her thoughts, Luz cannot see her eyes because of her rain-fogged glasses; Amity between Willow and Luz, looming taller than any of the other youths because she’s the only one not slouching, her back perfectly straight and eyes bowed over her crossed hands lying over the exact center of her lap, holding the respectful form of someone following a prayer at a funeral; Luz between Amity and her mother, her head hovering above her elbows on the table, eyes switching between the other four and Camila. She realizes she’s the only one watching her mother, and that her mother has done an emergency scan of all of them in the fast seconds of her silent study. Camila does not move toward her daughter first, which surprises and pleases Luz. She looks to Hunter. “I need you to take off your shirt.” Hunter turns from Gus and squints up at Camila. Luz understands her mother’s reasoning as soon as she follows her eyes to the front of Hunter’s shirt. Two large gashes drag across and down most of his chest and stomach. It looks the worst, by far, of any of their wounds Luz can see. And I hadn’t even noticed. She wonders if he got clawed by Philip when he was dashing one of them out of the way of his claws. Probably got hurt saving me. Hunter keeps his squinted gaze at Camila without saying anything. “She’s trying to check the cuts in your chest, Hunter,” Willow says. It’s the first words any of the five have spoken since they entered the house. It startles Luz, and she sees Hunter twitch at her breaking their silence too. Willow takes off her fogged glasses and lets them drop to the table as she rubs her eyes. “Just lift up your shirt.” Hunter pushes his chair back from the table and raises his shirt up to his neck, his pale chest bent upward to the kitchen light and ribs visible like giant fingers trying to poke through his skin. He really does look scrawny, Luz thinks. She watches him stare down at the revealed wounds and his eyes grow wide. “I … I didn’t even know I got cut.” The gashes don’t seem deep to Luz, but deeper than simple scratches, and so long. Anyone who did not know the madness of this day would think he suffered a misaimed swipe from a bear or some other beast. Luz hears a clacking sound and turns as Vee slides into the room, her tail ring rattling off the floor. She carries a stack of folded bath towels with smaller hand towels on top on the open palm of one hand, and two large, brown bottles upright in the palm of the other. Luz does not understand her ability to balance like this while moving, maybe something to do with her tail and a different center of gravity. She can hear Vee’s nervousness in the squeak of her voice. “We had two bottles, and I didn’t know if you wanted one or the other, so …” She places the bottles to Camila’s left and the towels to her right on the table. In reaching out, she comes within inches of each of the youths. Gus still has his head down on the table and does not notice, but Hunter lowers his shirt and he and Willow both dip back into their seats, while Amity bites her lower lip, as Vee nearly touches them. Luz knows she has told the others about Vee, about how good she has been to their mother (better than me), that she hates draining magic from creatures, and how she and her kind never asked to be brought back into existence. But she should have anticipated sitting so near a basilisk would frighten them after the attack at Hexside. She grabs the serpent’s hand. “Thank you, Vee. I’m so glad I get to meet you in person.” Luz hates the sound of her voice and the exhaustion in it she cannot disguise, and how much effort it takes to contort her face into a facsimile of a smile. The gesture works though. Hunter and Willow lean forward in their seats and Amity lets go of her lip. Vee gives a small grin and glances down. Luz hears a bottle click and sees her mother has already doused a third of a towel in hydrogen peroxide. “This will sting,” Camila says to Hunter. Hunter pulls his shirt up again and doesn’t wince or even blink as she presses the towel over his cuts. Out of everything he’s been through, peroxide burn has to be like a bug bite to him, Luz thinks. I wonder if grimwalkers feel pain differently. “Did the thing that attacked you look sick?” Camila asks. “What do you mean?” Hunter says. “Was it foaming at the mouth, or did it have liquid coming out of its eyes?” “Uh, yeah.” “Have you had a rabies shot?” “A what?” “It wasn’t an animal, Mamá. It was a … person. He’s not going to catch anything.” Luz catches her tone only after finishing speaking. She notices the back of her mother’s shoulders shudder. That’s only the second thing I’ve said to her tonight. Why did I say it so mean? Camila continues with Hunter without looking to her daughter. “Is anything coming after you all?” “N-no,” Luz stutters. “We got away, and nothing else can get through now.” Or get back. She tries to keep from thinking of everyone she left behind, but her mind launches at her images of the masses of fallen people—men, women, kids younger than her—crumpled and thrashing in pain, and Eda’s face standing out among the eclipse-lit sea of agony. Then she sees her little brother pulling out of her grasp. We’re not the ones in danger. “How bad is it?” Gus’s cracking voice breaks Luz from her thoughts. She turns and sees he has his face up off the table. Camila glances at Gus before returning to Hunter. “Whatever slashed him didn’t get him too well. We just need to clean and bandage the cuts.” Willow stands up from her chair. “I have a friend on my school team who does healing and she’s shown me some things. I can help.” Luz sees her mother eye Willow in consideration, maybe checking her for injuries or trying to decipher her “does healing” term, but she hands the witch the towel. “Rub the wet part over the cuts a few more times and then use the rest of the towel to dry them.” She pulls out a white and yellow, finger-long tube from the kit. “Then, put this antibiotic ointment on them. I’ll help you bandage them in a minute.” Luz catches Hunter blush as Willow takes the towel. He averts his sight back to Gus as she raises it to his chest. Camila bends over to the boy and puts her hand on his shoulder. “Your friend will be okay.” Gus gives what Luz thinks must be the most honest smile of the night. She understands her mother’s using this gesture on Gus to calm not only him, but everyone, like she did with Vee. She can also tell her mother is scanning his face for wounds. The first chance anyone could since they got in the house and he buried himself into the table as soon as he sat down. Luz thinks Gus actually looks fine, other than for a few scratches that probably don’t even need bandages. Well, physically fine. Camila must agree. She turns to Luz and Amity. Luz holds eye contact with her mother as Camila scrutinizes her again, and concedes to herself she likely has wounds she doesn’t sense, like Hunter. But she also notes something new in her mother’s eyes. Red lines of exhaustion now around them breaking through her dark complexion. She hasn’t slept because of me. Camila holds out a large towel from the pile for Luz to grab, and Luz notices how careful her mother is to not touch her. “Put your hair back and start drying your face,” Camila says. She then grabs a hand towel and one of the bottles and looks to her other daughter. “Dab some peroxide onto the cut above Luz’s eye and the ones on her cheek. Make sure it doesn’t get into her eye.” She taps two stacks of bandages by the kit. “After that, put a butterfly bandage over her eye and a gauze patch on her cheek.” Luz pushes her hair back with the towel and rubs it over her head to the end of her ponytail, appreciating for the first time how drenched she got in the rain, and the same with the others, they all sitting dripping over their chairs and the table. She pulls part of the towel down to dry the top part of her eye where her mother’s gaze had paused and peers up to see the towel blood-stained. When did I get this cut? The sting of the peroxide stops her questioning. She feels the scales on Vee’s fingers as she runs the doused hand towel over her brow and face. It feels like a snake sliding across her skin. It reminds her of her snake incident at her human school that started everything, and her mother’s last words to her before she left her, “Friends who aren’t reptilian.” She allows herself to admit, on a different night, the irony here might make her laugh. Camila eyes Amity. “You don’t look as bad, muchacha,” she tells her. Luz now sees that, after Gus, Amity appears to have taken the least damage. She has scratches on her face needing peroxide, but beyond this, she escaped with just a scraped knee showing through her torn pants and tears to her top. She’s probably bothered more by how ragged she looks than her wounds. Camila hands Amity a towel. “Dry yourself a little, then I can help you clean your cuts,” she says, before glancing to her daughter, “or Luz can.” Luz feels a tight squeeze on her right hand. She realizes she and Amity are holding hands under the table. She doesn’t know when this happened, when she moved her hand to under the table or who grabbed whose hand, but she’s happy for the touch, for some physical sensation that doesn’t flood her mind with guilting thoughts. Amity brushes one of her wet, lilac-colored bangs out of her face before looking up to Camila. “Thank you, Mrs. Noceda. I’m so sorry that you have to … I’m mean, I’m sorry …” She gives her voice a more believable calmness than most actors could, but Luz has enough experience hiding her own emotions to hear her girlfriend’s false and fearful tone. “I’m sorry we, everything, came like this and … I just …” “I’ll help her, Mom,” Luz says. She squeezes Amity’s hand back. Camila smiles at her daughter. It’s the first break of emotion Luz has seen from her mother toward her since her mother’s gasp at the front door. “Um,” Willow says, clearing her throat. “I’m ready for the bandages.” She sets the ointment tube down and nods toward Hunter. Camila grabs gauze patches from the stack of bandages and starts peeling the sticker off of one. She leans toward Hunter. “Luckily, your cuts shouldn’t need stitches.” As she reaches to put the patch on his chest, Luz sees Hunter slip a nervous glance toward Willow, and her mother notice. Without saying anything, Camila hands the open patch to Willow and places the others in front of her and Hunter. She watches as Willow presses it to the bottom edge of his lower gash. “They should stay on by themselves, but we’ll use medical tape if they don’t.” “I can make sure they stay on,” Willow says. She waves her right index finger in a circle and a small blue ring appears in the air. It drifts slowly toward Hunter like a smoke ring until it hits the patch, then dissolves into it, leaving a faint blue glow around its edges. Luz’s sees her mother’s eyes grow big, almost as large as when she opened her front door only a few minutes ago. “It’s low-level healing,” Willow says. “But the patch won’t come off now without getting pulled off, and the wounds might heal a little faster.” Camila allows her eyes to return to a small and calm appearance before speaking. “Let’s do the same for you next,” she tells Willow. The next minutes pass with Hunter and Willow applying patches to Hunter on one side of the table, with Camila then helping Willow while Gus watches Willow repeat her healing spell; and on the other side of the table, Vee bandaging Luz’s eye and patching her cheek, while Luz dries Amity’s cuts. As Luz dabs ointment on Amity’s face, her elbows touch her shoulders, and she feels her girlfriend trembling. She gazes at Amity’s eyes and sees they are not on her, but her mother across the table. “It’s not right,” Amity says, the words coming out sharp and uneven. Luz watches her mother turn. “I want you to know this isn’t how I wanted this to go.” Amity’s voice breaks and her trembling spreads to her whole upper body. “This isn’t me. I’m … I’m better than this.” It hits Luz now why Amity had kept quieter than even the rest of them once they got into the house: her girlfriend had been trying to keep composed for a good first impression. She had kept her hands on her lap to hide her exposed knee and arms in front to hide the rips in her shirt. Oh, sweet potato. Luz now knows Amity, not her, joined their hands earlier. Luz wraps her arms around Amity’s shoulders to try to stop her shaking. She sees tears falling from Amity’s eyes as she looks down. “I never wanted to be a burden.” Luz has never felt more anger toward Odalia than in this moment. This is somehow her fault, and worse than her trying to kill me. Camila leans over the table and gently pulls Amity’s face up by her chin. She speaks with the slow tone and broad smile of a mother calming a child. “You can’t be a burden, not when I’m so happy to meet you, and people my daughter clearly cares about so deeply.” She lets go of Amity and gazes over the whole group. “Whatever has happened, we will work it all out. And we don’t need to work it out tonight. For now, know that you’re all safe, and let’s just get you comfortable for the night.” Luz had gladly ceded control of the group to her mother from the front door onward, but as the triage treatment ended and planning for the rest of the night began, she knew she would have to take an active role again. Medicine is her mother’s specialty, but the four strangers are hers. And they needed to know someone who survived the same horrendous day and experienced the same suffering would at least have a say in what happened to them for the remnants of this forsaken day. Don’t mess this up too, she told herself. They would need dry clothes: Luz said Vee could find some among her and Luz’s wardrobe for the three girls and something that would at least fit Gus, while Camila would look for sweatpants and a hoodie or a long shirt or something from her closet for Hunter. They would need to decide where to sleep: Luz said Hunter and Gus would sleep downstairs in Camila’s bed in the master bedroom, while Camila would switch to the living room couch; Willow and Vee would take the bunk beds in Luz’s former and Vee’s present room upstairs; and Amity and Luz would stay in the guest room down the hall from them, with Amity in the room’s single bed and Luz on a sleeping bag. Luz did not know why her instincts led her to suggest this arrangement, or why her mother agreed. Maybe because Hunter was the largest of the five and the master bed presented the largest sleeping space, and no one thought it wise to force him to end his vigilant watch over Gus; and Camila sleeping on the couch would put her in the middle of the house and most ready to help if any other surprises or dangers came this night; and keeping the girls together seemed sensical; and Luz had slept on a sleeping bag for months, so she could take the floor for another night, and I deserve a bed the least of anyone. No one proposed any other plan. Four too numb from exhaustion and trauma to understand and suggest any other arrangements inside a house inside a world to which they had fled as refugee-strangers, one too insecure of her place in the household to dare express an opinion, and a daughter and mother unknowingly afraid any disagreement between them would disrupt their delicate reunion and rend them far apart across space and realms again. The five would need to eat: they would not though, as they wanted sleep more. So Camila ushers a slogging Hunter flanked by Gus into her bedroom, while Vee conducts the girls upstairs, navigating the steps in swift, springing arches of her tail and the three near catatonic and dragging their legs up like stone weights behind, Luz the last and holding her backpack tight. Once in Luz’s lost bedroom, the basilisk leads Amity and Willow in dumping dresser drawers out and sliding closet doors wide and stacking clothes over Luz’s former bottom bunk. Amity and Willow review the human clothes with slight but apparent perplexment as Vee shuffles them into different piles, while Luz steps away to rest her backpack in a corner and study Vee’s room. She notices first how much cleaner and uncluttered it looks. The walls once adorned by Azura posters and drawings of anime characters sporting brightly-colored hair now sparkle in distraction-free blankness. The bookshelf has no painted dragons or tin foil cranes or magic creatures of imagination crowding on top of it, and its shelves house no crinkled volumes of Monster Slayer Academia sliding crooked against each other; instead, a simple globe sits centered on top, perched above chemistry and pre-calculus books upright at ninety-degrees and bolstered by straight and pristine spines. The room no longer belongs to a girl of daydreams and passions, but a young woman bound by practical goals and focus. Luz finds a framed photo of Camila on Vee’s desk, one she knows came after she abandoned her mother, because Mamá stands beaming with her arm wrapped around her new daughter inside the human school’s auditorium, and Luz’s sister-doppelganger holds high a plaque with a microscope insignia on it, an award from some academic contest Luz would never even enter. She makes Mamá proud. She makes Mamá happy. “Hey Luz,” Vee says. Luz still hears the anxiety in her sister’s voice and hopes she did not catch her reviewing her room in judgment. I wasn’t judging you. “Which do you want?” Vee asks. Luz sees her pointing to the mounds of clothes by Amity and Willow. Amity found a lavender blouse nearly matching her hair that Camila gifted to Luz last Christmas, but which she never wore, and Luz’s most adult-looking sleep pants, a solid black pair that somehow go with the top. Willow holds a baggy, yellow t-shirt and gray sweatpants, clearly aiming for comfort over attempting an appearance. Luz grabs the first shirt and pair of shorts in sight without bothering to discern their colors. “I’m good.” Vee picks up a pair of basketball shorts Luz grew out of last summer and a small, black tee. “I’ll take some stuff down for Goops.” “Gus,” Luz says. “And thanks Vee, for being cool with everything. I know this is all weird and so sudden.” Vee slithers toward the bedroom door. “I should be thanking you.” Luz doesn’t answer. After Vee leaves her room and Luz hears her sliding down the stairs, Luz stands in the bedroom’s doorway, waiting to hear the sound of footsteps coming up. She’ll come up at some point, Luz thinks. She’ll come up to try and catch her first daughter alone and say something to her, or ask her something like, “Mija, ¿qué diablos paso?” Come up to touch her first daughter’s hand, hug her harder than she ever has, tell her how much she missed her and everything will be okay and she loves her no matter what. Luz can’t say what exacts parts out of all of this she actually wants to happen. She doesn't want all of this, not tonight at least, but admits she craves some of it, and she truly believes her mother will come up with something. She even prepares herself to string together a few lines of explanation. I kept trying to build a portal to get back to you, like I promised. A bad guy came after us though. He tried to kill everyone. We stopped him, kind of. He had a portal and we had to run through it. But Mamá never comes. Luz is left alone to explain to Amity and Willow certain human novelties, like light switches and ceiling fans and non-magic-based lamps and anything electrical they might use tonight, and the complete absence of candles in the house. The only electrical devices she’s ever seen native to the demon realm are some of Alador’s creations, none of which resemble anything here. Luz thinks her two friends appear to catch on pretty quickly though, and the bathroom takes even less time for them. Sinks and toilets and showers somehow function almost identically in both realms. While Amity and Willow take turns in the bathroom, Luz grabs her backpack from Vee’s room and heads to the hallway closet by the guest room. She pulls out a rolled-up sleeping bag, then tosses it across the hall into the unlit room, waiting to hear it clink off the guest bed before she enters. Luz steps to the far corner of the room parallel with the doorway and kneels with her pack facing her. She slowly unzips it and raises up in both hands the blue egg sheltered inside, rotund like a crown jewel, her stomach constricting in fear as she stares at it. “I hope I do better with you than I have with everyone else.” Luz slides off her rain-slicked jacket and flips the dry, center part of it inside-out, kneading ridges into it with her fingers until it takes on the vague shape of a nest. She sets the egg in the flat center. Eda said to play you music. She strokes it with the back of her hand, but cannot bring herself to give it more than this tonight. Luz rises on her unsteady legs by pushing off the wall and steps into the hallway again, halting near the stairs. I should go down, to check on Hunter and Gus, she tells herself, staring down the steps. But I don’t know if I have the energy to make it up again, she tells herself. After Amity and Willow finish in the bathroom, Luz takes the quickest shower of her life. She avoids washing her face to keep the bandage and gauze patch from coming undone, forgetting in her rush about Willow’s healing spell, or even to take off her ponytail clip. The rain and peroxide cleaned my head anyways. When she walks back into the hallway, she gazes into Vee’s room and sees her folding the last of the unused clothes on her bottom bunk into a neat pile and then restocking them into her dresser, while Willow pulls the bedcovers down. Luz feels she should say something more than “Good night” to them, but she has no plan to give them, nothing to say to ease the mood, and cannot bring herself to allow another lie today and say everything will be okay. “Good night.” She closes Vee’s door. When Luz returns to the room down the hall, she sees through the opened door Amity sitting on the bed. She must have listened well enough to Luz earlier to figure out how to work an electric lamp. The nightstand light brightly illuminates the plain room, a guest room in a house that has not had guests stay over in years, and therefore lacks any decorations or framed photos or personality to show the warmth of a used and cared for room, beyond the basket of Luz’s childhood toys and plushies under the nightstand, only put there to create space in Vee’s bedroom when it was still Luz’s. She knows on a better day, Amity’s curiosity about her girlfriend would have her grinning as she digs through the basket’s toddler trinkets and Luz laughing and letting her tease her with each. Luz pauses at the doorway, trying to gain any bit of mirth from this image in her mind. Amity does not notice her waiting, instead focusing on some purplish, remote-looking thing she holds under the lamp’s light. One of Alador’s abomaton controllers, Luz realizes. How did she have one of those on her when she came through the portal? Luz steps into the room and draws the door to a near close, leaving it open by a crack to ensure some hallway light creeps in, knowing the room no longer holds any nightlight and Amity won’t be able to sense her way around once the lamp goes off. The door’s creaking gets Amity to glance up, but she reverts her sight to the controller. “I was just sitting here until you came in. You should have the bed though,” she says, her monotone words devoid of the sound of any emotion. “This is your home.” Luz thinks how her voice sounds so opposite to the desperate plea she had to give to get Luz to save herself less than a few hours ago. “Luz, please!” Wow, I’m a horrible girlfriend. “I’ll take the sleeping … mat,” Amity says. Luz gives the sleeping bag a light kick. “I’m used to sleeping on the floor. You’re used to a bed, rich girl.” Luz expects a back-and-forth banter, hopes for their usual playful bickering, but Amity doesn’t parry back or even respond. Her eyes still locked on the remote. In the succeeding silence, Luz wonders why she put Amity and herself in the same room. She sees now it makes no logical sense. She should have put herself with Vee, and Amity with Willow. After all, she knows Vee, unlike Willow, who leaned away in fear at Vee’s mere presence just this night. In trying to help everyone and operating on emergency mode, Luz acted on her first instincts and didn’t think her plan through. Like I always do. She considers whether it is worth the trouble of switching with Willow, now that everyone is in bed except her. Amity sets the controller by the lamp, but keeps her gaze down. “I’m sorry I broke down in front of your mother.” “Hey, at least you have a funny story about meeting your girlfriend’s mom for the first time. Better than my version.” Amity sniffles. Way to lighten the mood, Noceda. Amity’s sniffle grows into a moan. “This is what I’m thinking about right now? After everything that’s happened, this is what I’m thinking about?” Luz can tell she’s crying without seeing her eyes. “Titan, that damn woman is stuck inside my head.” “I know what it’s like to have someone you hate inside your head,” Luz says. “We don’t belong here.” I’m not like you! “I have no idea what’s happened to my brother and sister, if they’re even safe, what she’s doing to them, or what that … that kid is doing to everyone.” Luz steps over the sleeping bag and puts a hand on Amity’s shoulder, before sinking onto the bed beside her. Getting her whole weight off of her deathly exhausted legs gives her a sudden wooziness, like falling from a tall height into water. She takes a breath to steady herself. “We stopped the draining spell, and Ed and Em weren’t at the Titan’s head when everything happened. It’s okay to tell ourselves they’re okay, and the others are okay, until we know they’re not.” Why can’t I stop lying tonight? Amity gives no answer, sitting frozen except for her running eyes. Luz puts one hand around Amity’s head and lowers it over her shoulder while rubbing her back with her other hand. She wants Amity to cry out everything and get whatever peace she can from emptying herself, and tries to massage it all out of her. But Amity has ended her tears now. She hangs limp over Luz, using her to support her whole body, as if she has nothing solid left inside her. Yet, Luz can feel her shoulders tensing and her heart beating in exertion. She realizes Amity’s not drained and empty; she’s been trying to hold back something inside herself. “I think my father’s dead.” Amity says it with no emotion, as if just fluttering out blank words. Still, all she feels comes out clear and familiar to Luz. She tightens her hand over Amity’s head to keep her from glancing up and seeing her own tears. “You’re all I have. I can’t lose you too.” “I’m here,” Luz says in a slow coo. “I’m here.” “But you keep running away.” Her voice sounds soft and without judgment, but Luz hears it ringing with innocent and deep fear. Now Luz understands why she put herself and Amity together: some part of her sensed Amity needs her the most. As the insight hits her, the surrealness Luz has felt wound around and suffocating her this whole night breaks, like a smothering blanket dissipating into light dust and floating away as weightless nothing. She feels present for the first time tonight. She looks again at Amity and now sees past her strong girlfriend, so strong and brave she stood up to her own mother twice while Luz can’t even stop lying to hers, and to the scared, little girl clinging to her from her bed. Her eyes. When Luz lets go of Amity’s head, the girl gazes up, and Luz sees her amber pupils glistening again in their direct stare at her, growing like they’re trying to reach into Luz’s face and clutch her. The sight tears Luz from her exhaustion. She musters herself for one final move on this long, cruel day. Luz leans Amity down onto her back and rests her head onto a pillow. She then lays by her so they both lie on the bed looking up at the ceiling, Luz wanting to escape Amity’s gaze. She knows she won’t have the strength to get through what she’s about to attempt if she has to stare into those pleading eyes. “When I came to the Boiling Isles, I was just a lonely kid running away from summer camp,” she starts. “I didn’t have any friends, and knew I wouldn’t make any where Mom wanted to send me. But the thing is, I didn’t expect to make friends in the Isles either. I wanted to stay at first only because everything there was so amazing and magical to me, and Eda seemed so cool and King so cute, and I thought, ‘I’ll just have fun here for the summer and learn whatever magic I can.’ I didn’t admit it to myself at the time, but I honestly was only expecting to cosplay as a witch for a few months and then come back to my old life. I never dreamed anyone on the Isles would get attached to me. I mean, I couldn’t make any human friends, so why would any witch or demon care about me?” Luz gives a soft chuckle. “But this first plan of mine got destroyed pretty quickly. Thanks to Willow and Gus … and you.” She lays her left arm over Amity’s right, while keeping her stare on the ceiling. “Spending time with you all was the most fun I had ever had. For the first time in my life, I really felt like it was okay for me to be my weird self. I had never had real friends before, yet, I knew you all were my friends, because you never tried to get me to change who I was. You just liked me for me.” Luz feels tears forming in her eyes. “And by the time I realized I felt this way, Eda had become more to me than a goofy mentor and King more than my little cutie pie.” She has to force herself to not whimper as she says his name. “That’s when my plans for when I got back here started to change. Before then, I hadn’t even decided on what I would tell Mamá. I dreaded the thought of telling her anything. But with you all in my life, I actually got excited imagining myself explaining this amazing place and my new, wonderful friends to her, despite knowing she’d be so upset with me that she’d probably swat me with a chancla.” Luz snickers. “I daydreamed all the time about how I would convince her to let me come back to the Isles. I started plotting out a speech about how I had spent the summer doing exactly what she wanted me to do: making friends. I pictured myself begging her to let me visit, maybe on weekends or school breaks or holidays. I’d tell her how I would still call the human realm my home and stay with her, but work out a way to keep all of you in my life. That was my dream at that point.” Luz sighs. “Then, Eda got captured. Captured because she had to rescue a stupid kid she had known for less than three months.” She scowls to keep herself from crying. “The day I saved her from getting petrified, I had the chance to return to the human realm. Eda tried to get me to go and leave her behind, so I would stay safe. Of course, me being me, I didn’t listen.” She smirks. “I told myself at the time I gave up on the chance just so I could save Eda. Then, I had to destroy the portal and I lost that way.” Luz pauses. “All my thoughts about the people in my life and what I’d do when I returned to this world changed after that day. As I kept trying to find some way back, and as you and everyone did all you could to help me, I realized you all had become something deeper to me than friends. Besides Mamá, I cared about all of you more than anything else in any world.” Luz traces her hand down Amity’s arm. “And you, you were a special case, hermosa.” She holds Amity’s hand and laces her fingers through hers. “When I fell for you, it wasn’t gradual. I don’t know exactly when it happened, maybe after the second or third time you saved my life,” she chuckles, “but one day, I was just happily thinking of you as my smart and cool and kind, Azura-loving friend who I loved hanging out with, and the next,” Luz thumps her chest with her free hand. “Boom! You hit my heart like a lightning bolt.” Luz looks at Amity for the first time since she started. Amity keeps her stare on the ceiling, but Luz sees tears in her eyes. The smallest of grins under them gives Luz the hope they are happy tears. “At first, I tried to ignore these new feelings and pretend they would pass. I had fallen so deep into them though I couldn’t even hide them. I lost count of how many times I made up excuses to see you at the library. Not even to talk to you, just to get a glimpse of you reading to the kids or putting books away.” She gives a small giggle. “Still, I couldn’t bring myself to let you know how I felt, not because I didn’t want to be with you, but because I just couldn’t imagine you ever wanting to go out with me. Being friends is one thing, but dating a weirdo like me?” Luz looks away from Amity and back to the ceiling. “I don’t know if I was more afraid of getting rejected by you, or that if I told you how I felt, it would come out weird and stupid and ruin the best friendship I had ever had.” Luz squeezes Amity’s hand. “But then, the most amazing thing happened. I mean, out of all the crazy things that have happened to me, the single most amazing and wonderful thing I’ve ever experienced happened.” Luz leans her head toward Amity. “You told me I had snuck into your heart too.” Tears run freely down Amity’s face now, but her grin has grown. “And my little plan had to change again. I was still obsessed with getting back to Mamá, that never changed, but my daydreams about what I would tell her did. When I imagined myself talking with her, I no longer pictured myself begging her like a child to let me see you and everyone else. Instead, I saw myself hugging her, trying to calm her as she cried, assuring her that I would still be in her life, that I would see her on weekends and school breaks and holidays.” Luz chuckles and it blurs the tears in her eyes. “That’s when I knew how far I had grown from that kid who just wanted to cosplay for the summer. That’s when I knew the Boiling Isles wasn’t my fairy tale playground anymore.” Luz lets go of Amity’s hand and lays on her side, her body facing Amity. “And now, I know what the Isles really is. It’s where the people who love me for who I am live. It’s where almost all of the people I love the most in all the worlds live.” Luz brushes tears off of Amity’s face. “It’s my home.” Amity turns on her side and faces Luz. Her smile beaming beneath her running eyes. “My dream now is getting back home with you and everyone, making a life there, and finding a way to keep everyone I love in my life.” Luz glances down. “I can’t say I won’t ever run again.” She looks back to Amity. “I promise though if I run, I’m not running away from you, but to keep the people I love safe and in my life.” She holds Amity’s left hand with her right, and rests the other hand on Amity’s cheek. “When I tell you that I’m here, that I’m with you, I mean you are the biggest part of my dream, and I will do everything I can to make that dream come true.” Amity clutches Luz into a hug and buries her wet face into Luz’s shoulder. Luz hugs her with one arm and cradles the back of her head with the other, then kisses the top of her head. They hold each other in silence. After a few minutes, Luz feels Amity’s grip softening. Luz gently tilts her over her shoulder and lifts her slightly so she can pull the bedcovers down, then lays her onto her back again. As Amity tucks herself under the bedsheets, Luz turns to the nightstand. She reaches into the basket under it, feeling through the plastic toys and soft plushies until her fingers feel a familiar texture. “And scoop,” she says, raising up a stuffed animal. She leans toward Amity and sways the animal back and forth above her face, slowly lowering it until she pushes its button nose down into Amity’s. “Boop.” Amity snickers. “I’m too old for a sleep toy, Luz.” She takes the stuffed animal out of Luz’s hand and studies it. “What creature is this anyways? I don’t think we have them on the Isles.” “An otter.” “It’s cute.” Amity brings its fluffy head to her face and makes a smooching sound. Luz reaches over the nightstand and switches off the lamp when she hears Amity giggle, with Amity holding the stuffed otter to her chest the last thing she sees. She closes her eyes and crosses her arms, forgetting about the sleeping bag and even about pulling back the covers for herself, instead letting herself settle into her pillow and the bed’s comforter, and her battered body and mind to finally rest. In the near whole darkness broken only by the small light seeping through the cleave of the hallway and bedroom door, and the dimmest of glimmers from one corner of the room, Luz gives her first honest smile of the night. Thank Titan, I’ve actually helped someone today. “You know,” Amity says, “if we get married one day, you’re going to have to say something even better than all that at our wedding.” “Married?” Luz chuckles. “You going soft on me, Blight?” “Uh, duh,” Amity answers. They laugh loud and free. *** *** The laughter lilts through the crack of the open door to the top of the stairs, to the attuned ears sitting atop them, and the body below numb from its patient devotion. She wanted to come up sooner, but the two boys had needed so much attention. It took a long time to find them anything to sleep in, her combing through her closet for the older one until she spotted a box of clothes she had marked to donate in the back of her closet containing sweatpants and shirts that fit him, and waiting for Vee to come down with attire for the younger one. Then, the older boy could not figure out how to work her shower, and seemed so on edge, nearly jumped at every new thing he encountered, as if flipping a light switch or pulling the ceiling fan on would activate some trap to kill him, so she had to explain everything to him slowly and with many reassurances; while the younger boy kept fiddling with her alarm clock, turning the radio on and off in an attempt to understand the machine and accidentally blaring Latin pop and causing all of them to jolt. She had hoped come up and catch her daughter in a moment alone, to tell her why she had not immediately hugged her tonight. Why she had not tended to her first and kissed her face, had not told her that she had missed her more than anything else and never wanted to leave her side again, and why she had not instantly promised that she and everything would change and would be better. Mija, no pude tocarte. Sabía que tan pronto como te tocara, te atraería hacia mí y comenzaría a llorar y nunca te dejaría ir. Me habría desmoronado por completo. Y tuve que mantenerlo unido. Tenía que ayudarlos a todos primero. She rises off the stairs in deliberate slowness, not with consideration of the pain in her stooped back and knees, which she refuses to feel, but in solemnity. Her soul tells her there is something to mourn in this moment, and mourning means silence. Her legs heavy and stiff as she swings them in precise sways, tottering down the steps with an unthought and instinctual care for quiet, to not break the spell she just heard her daughter cast on her new primary love, and to delay a little longer the truth the spell revealed to her from settling into her heart. Mi pequeña niña. She knows though this is no longer true. For a few hours tonight, she had kept herself from feeling the truth. With desperate will, she had held to her heart the lie that her greatest hope had come true, had convinced herself that the daughter she had so missed had returned home to her. That the girl with the new hair and strange clothes was her same child. That the strangers standing at her door like scared, stray animals in the rain were friends of her same daughter. That the slash above this girl’s eye and clawed face but the scraped knees and bruised legs of playground adventures her daughter always had, and she could simply clean and bandage the wounds and hug her daughter into herself and feel her daughter unchanged. That the adult who looked her in the eyes when she spoke and guarded over the children around her was still her little girl. Too young to have a girlfriend she holds hands with under the table, or knows so well she can bring her joy during her worst pain, take her from despair to giggles as if she has the intimate awareness of an old soulmate. Too young because she was still her little girl. But now, in the eternal seconds it takes Camila to shuffle from the bottom step to the living room couch, the truth latches into her entire being: the daughter she had so missed that she felt the hurt in her soul had not come back home to her. And never would. She feels an injustice in having to suffer this insight so fully and suddenly. Shouldn’t some part of her be telling her now to take pride in her new daughter? Why won’t her mind reassure her of the closeness and affection to come to her from this new woman? Shouldn’t she feel an atom of joy in the love and strength of her adult? Some recompense should come with this piercing wisdom. Hadn’t she been a good enough mother to deserve at least that? No. No, porque traté de cambiarte. But the wisdom enveloping her adds an entire age to her whole body. Her guilting thoughts end as she feels her legs tighten in soreness and knees in ridged lock and back droop in pain and years she did not have before this night seep into her bones. She remembers well the last time she felt suddenly older like this, the last night she lost a loved one. When she reaches the couch, she falls into it like a person calmly leaping from a bridge, in full resignation of their fate. She lets slip a single last thought before landing in the void of sleep. Mi hija, siempre te extrañaré.

Not Rated

1685 1685 Finally. A breakthrough. Just when I’d nearly given up, as well. It seemed all too plausible that this was merely another trick of this place. Countless times I’ve uncovered a text that looked promising, only to find it a mere wisp of smoke and trickery. The key lies in the quality of the galdorstone itself. My first four attempts were with the initial set I discovered - inferior specimens, it seems. The six I’ve recovered since have a fine sky blue color to them and are reach roughly the size of a human heart. A clear contrast with the originals, which were pale, powerless things. Even the most vibrant of them cracked down the middle during the growth acceleration process; the other three shattered completely. I’ve set both the cracked stone and the fragments aside for now. They may yet prove useful someday. For now, the specimen I’ve created is sufficient. It is uncanny how close the resemblance is, and yet how glaring each of the differences are. Its hair color is a shade darker than its ortet, and of course there is the matter of its eyes. Unsurprising. Every text I referenced mentioned how stubborn that magenta color would be. Something to stamp out, perhaps, given enough iterations. Most concerning is the state of the creature’s limbs. Its arms and hands are fine approximations of flesh, as the differences are invisible to all but the most invasive examinations. But its left leg is terribly atrophied. It cried from the moment it clawed its way out of the pit of muck and material I’d prepared. This is, perhaps, a failing on the part of the specific formula. Inferior palistrom wood, or an inadequate quality of selikdomus scales. The other problem, of course, is the rounded ears. Unsurprising, given the ortet; I’ll have to try some alterations for future versions. For now, though, the plan is to cover rather than modify. A full mask to match my own, and something to cover the head as well. A cowl? Yes … we’ll both wear gold and white. The colors of our “family.” Ugh. The wretched thing is sniveling again. What a loud thing it is; when it isn’t nattering on about some nonsense, it weeps with a vigor I find apalling. One drawback of the acceleration process: it appears to be weighted far more towards the physical side than it is the mental. I shall have to seek out the further assistance of illusionist witch to properly falsify its memories. In the meantime, I’ll start the next batch. The work should go much faster with an extra pair of hands. * Despite its crippled leg, the first functional grimwalker is proving to be an able helper. When I undertook this mission, I was uncertain as to how well these creatures would be capable of using this realm’s witch magic. This one has managed a few basic construction spells to brace its malformed leg with minimal prompting from myself. And during the encounter with the selkidomus cow, it was able to form projectiles out of the surrounding rocks and fling them at the marauding beast with surprising accuracy. My brilliant work has provided life to a creature that was able to guard my own in turn. I think the creature has earned some semblance of a name. It shall become necessary anyway, once I have finished cultivating its ramet, and it will help us pass among the witches that surround us on all sides. The question being what. It does not deserve to share a name with its ortet. It will not. I am loathe to provide it any sort of virtuous human name either, lest it entertain inaccurate ideas about its place in the world. Something simple, yet descriptive. I have it. I had always planned to identify the grimwalkers produced by their various stones by a letter to begin with - this first success being my A lineage, the one currently in progress being the B lineage, and so on. This also roughly corresponds to my estimation of the galdorstones’ quality levels, as well. Given this one’s capabilities with projectiles, I shall call it Archer. As for the next, well. We shall see what inclinations it shows. For now, we wait. Archer is still a rather simplistic creature; it is safer to leave it behind when I make my visits to Bonesborough. It can watch over the B lineage’s development until I return with the illusionist I’ve convinced to assist me with the memory problems my … “nephew” is having. * Two successes and one failure. I shall catalogue each in turn: Success the first: the B lineage has produced another adequate grimwalker. As with its ramet, the likeness is close but not perfect. Its hair is nearly the exact shade as its progenitor; however, it has the same issue with the extremities having significant defects. In this case, one of the creature’s arms does not have the correct amount of skin stretched over it, resulting in a limb that is functional but distinctly vegetal in appearance. There really must be something in the palistrom wood mix that is causing it, given it seems to be a commonality between lineages. The failure, singular: the B lineage seems to be unable or unwilling to speak. I have exhorted the creature using every method I can think of, including the corporal, but nothing works. Archerseems to prompt something, at least, but none of its excited requests for the new grimwalker to “play” or “shoot rocks at that weird tree from increasingly improbable angles” resulted in anything more verbal than a grunt. Even once it was led to said tree to participate in playful (and improbable) impalement, it never spoke so much as a single syllable. There is a silver lining, however. When I returned with the witch illusionist in tow, I found it reading through my journal. A mistake, of course, and one it quickly regretted, but the fact that it shows such perspicacity is a welcome development. Archer has proven to be strong and chattery but rather dim-witted; if this one is silent but intelligent, then I welcome the quiet. Booker seems a most appropriate appellation. Finally, success the second: the illusionist I convinced was able to show me a simple method for memory manipulation. Apparently, this is such a simple spell that children often use it as an introduction to mental magic while in school. Horrifying. These monsters truly indoctrinate their children from a young age. Using their own methods against them is simply the nature of dealing with such witches. The tool is easy to use, even for a human, and the method simple enough. With a pair of enchanted calipers, one simply delves into the ear canal of the subject and removes small illustrations that represent memories. The clearer the image, the more emotional the underlying memory. The illusionist grew increasingly alarmed when the only illustrations that Archer’s brain produced were blurry sketches of its time in the muck pit. Unsurprising, given that the acceleration process seems quite traumatic, but one that I had not been fully prepared to explain. I found myself confiscating the tool, despite her protests. It was actually quite satisfying; normally I have more trouble dealing with the locals, but with two grimwalkers at my back, she was rather more inclined to acknowledge the wisdom of my commands. In this, Booker’s unsettling silence proved especially helpful. From here, the solution is easy enough. I shall withdraw their memories using the tool and replace the sketches with a storyline that far better serves all of us. Perhaps something about wild magic destroying our family. Yes, that seems simple and effective enough. Once that’s done, it will be time to start on the real work. We’ll begin with the unconscious illusionist. I have some ideas on what forms the sigils should take… 1690 - Spring It is strange having other creatures around, even simplistic ones such as these grimwalkers. After five years, my tolerance for their presence has increased, but I am also certain that my decision to use a slower acceleration process for the C lineage’s development was a wise choice. I would find myself at my wit’s end if I had to raise a third grimwalker in the same company as the first two.1690 - Spring In the five years since its creation, Archer has only known silence when it was forced to be so. The creature prattles at any given opportunity, including during sleep; the only difference is that its words are marginally more nonsensical when it is not conscious enough to filter them. It has named ALL of the trees outside of my sanctum, and addresses them by name when on his morning patrols. The nonsense he produces concerning the romantic inclinations of said conifers borders on the ridiculous. Every day his “ship wall” grows, despite being populated entirely by trees. Booker, in comparison, has spoken to me on exactly three occasions: once to warn me of an impending hand dragon attack, once to complain about its accommodations, and once when I specifically required verbal feedback on its new uniform. In all other cases, the creature prefers hand signals to speech. This mostly serves to make Archer even more insufferable, as it can continue its babbling even when silenced. I expected the two of them to annoy each other into some semblance of balance. Instead, the creatures are as close as…well. Archer ceased to use the term “brother” after the first time I sewed its mouth shut, but I suspect one of the hand signals these two creatures share must mean the same thing. Fools. As if they know the first thing about the subject. Despite their flaws, both grimwalkers have proved to be helpful, if not always capable. Archer is my primary interface with the witch village at the base of the head; he is responsible for making sure the three of us have sufficient provisions. The grimwalkers can survive on less sustenance than a human can, but all beings must eat something. Booker joins me on the trips further afield, the ones that require more intelligent research that Archer is incapable of comprehending. The difficulty then becomes interpreting what Booker has to say on such journeys; I usually require Archer’s interpretation, after, and god only knows how accurate THAT is. It gives me pause to do this, allowing Booker such access to the manuscripts we are deciphering. I have already exercised great care in keeping the Collector’s existence hidden from them. Booker having such a conversation seems a dangerous thing indeed. Archer would be less perilous but infinitely more annoying. * Archer informs me that it has made a friend. Follow up questions have utterly failed to reveal whether this making is literal or metaphorical. It is too stupid to manage either, so its nonsense will be ignored. * Archer surprised me with its presence while journaling yesterday. It asked me what I was writing about - a question I ignored, of course - and when that line of inquiry failed, it insisted on providing additional sketches to supplement my own diagrams. Where it learned how to do such a thing, I do not know. Booker is too sensible to indulge in anything of the sort. Its insistence was annoying, and unrelenting, so I have decided that including the drawing is the lesser of two evils: Hideous. The creature has no command of anatomy whatsoever. What is the purpose of these facial expressions? And that is before one even touches on the most egregious problem: where did it learn the term “dad”? I have never uttered such a word - nor anything else from which it could have been derived - in either grimwalker’s presence. Is it attempting to bond with me? I have, of course, punished the thing for its hubris, but every time it catches sight of the drawing in my journal, it gives me the same slack-jawed grimace. Foolishness. Utter foolishness. He has recommended affixing the sketch to the food cooler as an alternative to keeping the sketch in my journal, if I dislike its position there so much, but that is more abhorrent to me. I would have to stare at it every day rather than only when I open my journal. Booker regards the entire affair with significant amusement. No smile that I can wipe from his face, alas, but his eyes betray him. What a pair of idiots these two are. I can’t wait for the C lineage to finish maturation and restore some semblance of order. 1690 - Summer That was nearly a disaster.1690 - Summer In hindsight, making a home in the skull of a long dead monster was somewhat less than wise. If not for the extreme seclusion it provides (not to mention the way magic resonates here), I would have set up elsewhere long ago. This has resulted in some … overlooked traits that normally do not present problems. Or, in other words: I did not realize that the skull was not fully waterproof. In the Boiling Isles, the dangers presented by rain are usually ones of temperature and exposure. It evaporates upon contact with the land (or clothing, or flesh, and especially titan bone.) Under certain rare conditions, however, the liquid can condense enough to become a blistering fog instead. I was at the muck pit tending to the last of C’s maturation. I admit that I was distracted, but Archer was so unhelpful that I considered tossing him directly in and starting over. The only things that came out of his mouth were “when am I getting a new baby brother?” and “how adorable is he going to be?” It is, at least, an indication that the new memories I created for him are working properly, given he thinks he has a childhood. I shall have to come up with an alternate explanation for C’s appearance. Neither of us noticed the fog beginning to fill the air until both of us were sweltering. My human flesh was the first to redden and blister. Being made of palistrom wood, Archer took longer to burn, but only by a matter of seconds. I collapsed next to the pit as heat and pain overwhelmed me. If not for Archer swiftly pinning my cloak to the ground with his usual stone projectiles, I would have fallen in. (The pit is wildly dangerous to all organic matter, given its nature; it would have dissolved me into nutrients for C’s growth in a matter of seconds.) But it was Booker who actually saved both of us. At some point unbeknownst to me, he acquired a copy of the teleportation glyphs that we used during our research in the Isles. Obviously I will need to determine what manner of punishment is appropriate for doing this without my permission, but for the moment I find the results acceptable enough to delay repercussions. He cried out my name, snapping me out of my daze. Then, he utilized some small device that he’d created - a flat disk of some sort with the glyphs etched into it - and blinked across the pit to us. A second blink ushered me up to the bridge, which had not yet fogged, and a third brought Archer back to my side. From our vantage point, we were able to watch the seething hot mist thicken, and then dissipate upwards. We retreated to the main chamber until everything had cooled sufficiently once again. At a later date, we shall have to find the crack that let the mist in in the first place and thoroughly seal it. My heart is still racing as I pen these words. I can only hope that C’s progress has not been compromised by this. Archer is badly burned, but Booker was relatively untouched. He has indicated to Archer that he is willing to take over his ramet’s duties for the time being. (Archer promptly asked him to make sure to update the ship wall daily for him. I suppose that is an indication that he is not severely damaged, or at least not more so than usual.) We shall have to wait and heal, for now. Booker is tending to his ramet’s wounds, at least to the point that can be salvaged without magic. My texts have already indicated that standard healing magic works rather inefficiently on these grimwalkers, being made primarily of palistrom wood as they are. I do hope that Archer has not been too badly harmed. If only because he will be even more useless if that is the case. … When did I begin referring to these creatures as if they were people? What a strange feeling. I knew from the beginning that they are not my brother. They cannot be - they are only dim reflections of him, and imperfect ones at that. And yet, when Booker moved to save us, I saw something of Caleb in the gesture. Archer attempting to joke with Booker as the latter binds his burns makes me remember times when Caleb did the same while I was hurting. It is as if my brother has split into multiple facets of himself. Base sentimentality at best, and dangerous distraction at worst. I must remember why have made these two - what my ultimate goal must be. But … is it too much to hope that after all this time, I might have my brother back? The one I remember from childhood, one yet uncorrupted by this world. Watching these two, it seems … possible. I have hoped before. I shall not let myself hope in vain again.

Teen And Up Audiences

Raine slumped down on the grass with a soft thump, a breeze is puffing softly in the distance and the dark sky is littered with stars. Eda turns to them, she’s chewing on her bottom lip, half lost in thought. “What’s up?” Raine hums. The grass tickles their body. “I have” Eda cut herself off, it was odd of her. She never doubted anything she said, no matter how ridiculous or off-putting it was. “There’s something I have to tell you” Raine nodded slowly. “Yea?” It concerned them a little that Eda was so nervous. But it didn’t feel like anything was wrong, so they let her take her time. A couple slow minutes passed and they were laying down now. Eda would surely regret it once she got up and her hair was covered in grass, Raine laughed silently at the thought. “I like you, like really really like you” Eda breathed, “I don’t wanna ruin anything but I guess I thought I might say it just- just in case” Now it was Raine’s turn to be flustered, face absolutely red and eyes trying to find an appropriate place to land. Eda looked like she immediately regretted what she said. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think I could have said that to anyone else either way. You’re cool and pretty and smart and I don’t know when it happened but I like you. ” “No- Eda I-” Why did they have to be like this? Raine didn’t know how he got any courage at all but the next thing they knew they had moved to position themselves in front of her properly and their lips were on Eda’s. The kiss didn’t last long before Raine pulled away, in shock at what they had done Eda looked like she just went into cardiac arrest. They didn’t regret it though. And hopefully Eda didn’t either. “Raine, oh my god” Eda laughed a little. She leaned in to close the distance between their lips once more. “Eda!” Raine had been frantically rushing around for the past 10 minutes looking for their glasses. Why did they always have to get lost right when they had somewhere to be, they cursed their forgetfulness internally and walked to the kitchen where Eda was. “Yea Rainestorm?” Eda didn’t look up as Raine barged in the kitchen looking distressed, she was too busy trying to decipher the ingredients of a cookbook. “Whaddya need?” “My glasses!” Raine frowned, his eyebrows squished together. “I’m about to be late for something and I can’t find them anywhere” They paced around the small room explaining where they had last seen them. Raine wasn’t exactly blind without their glasses but they just made things easier and more practical. Eda finally looked up at her distraught partner. “Your” She paused assessing the situation for a moment. “Glasses?” They were hung around their neck. Eda stared glanced back and forth between Raine and the glasses. She stared at her partner for a good minute, unsure of whether this was a silly prank or not. Raine wasn’t usually the type to prank anyone really, that was more of Eda’s forte. Maybe in highschool, but definitely not now. “Eda!” Raine snapped her back, “Have you seen them anywhere?” they bit their lip impatiently. Eda contemplated telling them outright but, what would be the fun in that? “Nope” Raine slouched a slight bit and groaned “What the hell, where could they have gone” They grumbled and left the kitchen to look elsewhere. Eda felt a little bad. Only a little. Eda managed to get through 4 steps of the recipe she was working on for their dinner when the rattling of her partner looking for their glasses got too distracting. She dried her hands with a small beige towel and walked to find Raine. It wasn’t too hard a task, they were sitting slumped on their chocolate colored couch, looking more dejected than when they came to the kitchen. Eda felt a soft pang in her heart. Sunshine was blinding her, spilling through the windows and overflowing the room. “Darling” She said smiling a little, Raine looked up at her. “Yea?” She walked up to him and knelt so she could be in reach of their glasses and pulled them to their face. Eda winced, worried that Raine would be upset she hadn’t mentioned this earlier. “Oh” Raine frowned, then laughed. “Oh” “I’m sorry, I couldn’t resist,” Eda giggled softly. Raine sighed and got up. “You aren’t too late are you?” “No no, but really eda?” They whined, walking towards the door. “I’m sorry, I'm sorry!” She couldn’t resist laughing anymore. A date. Raine kissed her yesterday and she was going on a date with them this afternoon. She felt her face heat up at the thought of Raine's lips against hers. Eda’s thoughts were all squished together in one big jar and she didn’t know what to think of any of them. She figured the first thing she should do was get off her bed. Eda stretched and rolled off her bed which was drowning in candy wrappers and spare pencils. She groaned at the sight, silently contemplating cleaning it, then shrugging and heading to the bathroom. Eda’s style in clothing was exceptional to say the least. None of her clothing fit any particular category, not much of it matched. Her closest was filled with funky blazers and whimsical skirts filled with polka dots and zig zags and strips of all colors. All of which Lilith would cringe her mind out at. Eda laughed at the thought. She ended up with a plain black tank top and a retro mini skirt. It was nearing the line of her comfort zone but she figured it would be fitting for a first date. Eda yawned again, putting on bright yellow heart earrings which dangled at her every move. “Eda, I’ve been calling you for the past 10 minutes!” Lilith half yelled from her room. Eda rolled her eyes. What in the hell did she want? She fiddled with her socks for a moment before going to her sister’s room. “I know you stole my shirt- give it back” Lilith said with an irked tone. Not this again. She was so pent up on a shirt Eda stole two months ago. In Eda’s defense, she borrowed it and meant to return it once she was done with it. Except she might have gotten into a small altercation and ripped it nearly in half, and she’d been trying to cover it up for a bit too long. But Eda didn’t exactly have time for that. “Wait” Lilith caught her eye and looked her up and down a couple times quickly. “Where are you going?” “None of your concern” She retorted. It was just like her annoying sister sticking her nose in her business. Usually she wouldn’t make too much of a fuss about it but she was already nervous. “I don’t have your shirt and I don’t have time for this” Eda dictated, about to leave. “Stingy much?” Her bluenette sister said then raised her brows slightly and questioned, “Is it a date?” Eda just rolled her eyes and said nothing. Lilith took that as a yes and was slightly taken aback. Whatever, she thought and continued shuffling through her closet for the shirt she would never find. Eda sighed and walked down the bare wood stairs, skipping two at a time.   ~   Bright colorful lights filled Eda’s lungs. She’d never been to this carnival, Or any at all. Raine was the one who thought of it, promising that she’d like it. A big yellow sign marked the words CARNIVAL in big bold, red letters. The sun was peeking slightly from bunches of gray clouds and the sounds of talking and laughter flooded the place. Where was she supposed to meet Raine again? Right, next to the ticket stand. Eda quickly eyed the location, a small stand tattered in blue and white with a small window. She paced towards it, praying her face didn’t look as hot as it felt. Eda thanked the person selling tickets as she got hers and waited. Only a moment after Raine appeared. “Rainestorm!” Eda grinned, closing the distance between them. Raine smiled back softly, a knitted sweater hung loosely on their body. Her heart skipped a beat. Maybe more than one. “Hey” they chimed and pulled out a paper map from their pocket that looked like it had seen better days. “We can start where ever you want, but preferably somewhere close to washrooms” They decided on the rides and playing the games later on. As they walked in, they were surrounded by flags, streamers and lights in every color on the spectrum. Eda tried to take everything around her in and catch up with Raine who was moving a step too fast. “Hey hold on” Eda chided with a slight laugh and pretty out of breath. “Ah sorry” They turned around and stopped moving, hand around their neck sheepishly. Raine traced their hand to Eda’s and intertwined their fingers. Eda thought she was going to become mentally immobile until Raine spoke again. “Look over there” They pointed to their right, it was an incredibly big rollercoaster just ahead lined with blue and white flashing lights so bright they both winced. “That’s our first ride” “Oh wow” Eda raised her eyebrows and tried not to gape. “What, have you never been on a ride like this before?” They grinned. “Yea, yea of course just” She took a second look at it. “Just none that big” “Are you scared?” Raine asked teasingly, grabbing both their tickets and handing them to the employee of the ride. Eda retorted by shoving them with her shoulder. “Shut up” They both laughed for a minute before climbing in. The descent of the roller-coaster began and with every passing second, Eda felt like she was going to be more and more nauseous. She tucked her orange tufts behind her ear and tried to focus on something else. She hadn’t realized that she was putting a lot of pressure on Raine’s hand. They didn’t seem to mind though. Their smile only seemed to get bigger as they were looking at everything under them. “We’re going down now” Raine breathed. And they did. Eda felt like her stomach jumped up to her throat and her heart dropped at the same time. Everyone on the ride was screaming in joy and the wind was rushing to her face at a speed she didn’t know was possible. Three twists later and they were officially done. Raine turned to her expectantly. Eda stared at him absolutely confused. “I am never doing that again” She stated firmly, thoughts still not processing properly. Raine burst out laughing. “Come one! It couldn’t have been that bad” “It was! I thought I was gonna die!” Eda protested and Raine shook their head. “You owe me, so much” “Can I pay you back with a kiss?” Raine queried, although they were almost certain of the answer. “I’ll think about it” She huffed. Raine giggled and leaned in to give her a peck on the cheek. “There”   ~   Two hours worth of excruciating rides (at least in Eda’s opinion) and many snacks later and they were finally at the games. The sun was half way down and the clouds took over most of the pastel sunset sky. Eda felt a swift breeze along her face and arms. She shivered. “Alright you get to pick which game to start with” Raine mused, walking beside her along the rough pavement. “Hm” She pondered, eyes glazing dozens of carnival games. Eventually she spotted a stand with the words BUST-A-BALLOON in white bubble letters at the top and pointed, “That one!” “That one it is” Stuffed animals ranging from hand to human sizes hung from the wooden panels and colorful balloons glued to the wooden back of the stand. “3 tickets for each turn, you get 3 darts to try and hit the balloons with. Every time you pop a balloon the size of your prize increases” The man running the stand dictated, pointing at the balloons and stuffed animals as he was talking. “Sounds simple enough” Eda said with a foxy smile and handed him 3 tickets. “Wanna bet?” Raine laughed. Eda rolled her eyes and picked up her darts. She threw one, and missed. Another and she missed again. She winced, throwing her last one. Missed. Raine turned to her with a grin but before they could even say anything she handed them another 3 tickets. The sun glazed a bright orange, piercing their eyes. “Come on Eda it’s alright let’s try another game” She paid him no attention and threw three more darts. And once again, they all missed. She frowned, what the hell was wrong with this game. Another three darts later Raine intervened. “Eda please come on, we aren’t getting anywhere, you’re wasting all your money” They reasoned, attempting to grab her away from the stand and divert her attention somewhere else. “You try it” She huffed. “Edaa” They whined, “No. Try it” Raine rolled their eyes and gave in. They placed three tickets on the stand and picked up three darts. Aiming at a bright purple balloon, they threw the dart. And hit the balloon, popping it. “Oh fuck you” Eda groaned, throwing her head back and laughing. “Watch this” Raine smirked and threw the two remaining darts, both of them popping balloons. “This is absolutely rigged” “Aw don’t be bitter” The banter continued as they walked away to the exit, with the occasional playful nudge. As they reached the exit of the carnival, the sun was setting and all the colors in the sky were merging into one deep blue. Eda looked at Raine for a moment. “Thank you, even though those rides were the most terrifying things I’ve ever done,” Raine smiled. “Yea yea” he cupped her cheeks and Eda felt their lips on hers.

General Audiences

Praise flew past Raine's lips. Tufts of Eda's hair seized tightly between their fingers dragging her closer and harder with each jolt induced thrust she caused for them. Eda; their ever obedient pet, lapped up every word of praise, like how she did as she'd worshiped their body beforehand.  That fuzzy, absent look was growing the longer she stayed on her knees for them. "Oh, you're such a good girl." They said between pants. Raine tugged a little harder, "Such a sweet little baby.." "That's what you are," Raine smiled as they breathed and Eda kept her eye contact, "that right baby?" "My silly little slut." They cooed as her jaw slackened even more for them.  Her mouth was lovely, and wet and warm and Raine had to fight not to lose their composure over just how well Eda cock warmed them. "I think I'll keep you on your knees like this all night," Raine told her, watching just how flushed her usually pale face was.  Tears smeared her mascara, drool and cum reflected on her jaw and cheeks, her throat bobbed as she suckled and swirled her tongue around them and not a single independent thought swirled behind those beautiful eyes as she obeyed the command she'd been given before. To stay on her knees and keep them entertained like she was meant to. Titan, she was getting just as she'd asked for before they'd helped her drop into this. They could only imagine how happy their little owlet would be feeling once all those pesky thoughts have been taken a break from for good. A good few hours. It all made their dick twitch and their own thoughts stutter. "You'll like that." They managed, "being mine for the rest of the evening.. I'll take good care of you, you won't even have to worry about a thing.." Edas eyelids fluttered when they gently scratched at her scalp and she swallowed slightly. "Yeah.." Raine breathed, "yeah that's it.. good girl.. I'll take care of you.. just..just keep giving in.."  

Explicit

Luz Noceda has a lot of problems. I use they/them pronouns for this character because I use they/them pronouns. There were many words to describe Luz Noceda.   Bubbly.    Creative.   Intelligent.    Carefree.    At least that’s what everyone said about them. Yo her face at least. But in reality Luz knew the words that they used to describe her.   Loud.    Insane.    Stupid.    Annoying.    Luz didn’t know what was wrong with them. They wanted to be normal. They didn’t want to be neurodivergent. They wanted to be able to fit in with a group of kids their age.    Along with that, they had no idea why they were so….depressed. They had no reason to be. They had friends, they were going to a new school (far better than the one they went to for the previous year), and they had a girlfriend.    Another thing is that Luz would zone out. Often. But now it was like they zoned out as often as they breathed. Maybe they were dead inside. They knew they had ADHD but maybe there was something else going on? Maybe even mild autism? After all, they really did try (and fail) to understand social cues. (And they were absolutely terrible at communicating with kids their age)   Part of the reason they couldn’t interact with kids their age was because they didn’t like a lot of the things most didn’t like much to be honest. Good Witch Azura. Musicals. Writing their stories and/or fanfics. Art. But the only thing they could talk about with their friends or Amity was the aforementioned topics. Of course nobody minded Luz’ creativity and their imagination but she felt deep down that everyone hated it. Yes, even Amity.    Luz is loud. They know that they’re loud. They see it on people’s faces as Luz finishes telling a joke that they thought was hilarious but in reality wasn’t that funny. Or they might feel like they stim when they're excited. They might pretend they're the character in the musical theater song they’re listening to. Or they might wave their hands around squealing all the while but one comment from Camila immediately shuts them up and they go back to masking.    Camila means well. Luz knows that Camila means well. But some of the stuff she does to Luz says otherwise. Like when Luz stims and Camila tells them to stop. Luz sees that she’s annoyed. Luz knows that she’s annoyed but they just can’t help themself. They hate it when Camila tells them to stop stimming but deep down they know she’s right. Other people find it annoying. They can see it on peoples’ faces when they rhythmically tap their pencil against their notebook or when they dance down the hallways of their old school.    Speaking of their old school, Luz thought about the old school they were leaving behind. One memory seemed to haunt them and try to make them spiral into insanity. At their old school there's one coach (who was not their teacher) but he was just really creepy. Every time he made eye contact with Luz he looked at them like they were a seven-course meal. They pretended not to speak English so they could avoid talking to him. Sometimes when he looked at them like that they were in their PE uniform. The other night Luz had a bad dream about him. Come on, Luz. They told themself. Get real. People are getting assaulted by creepy men like him and you’re upset that he looked at you weirdly? Skara told them that their trauma was valid but Luz wasn’t so sure.    Back to Luz’ peculiar ways of stimming. Camila also never respected Luz’ preferred name and pronouns, despite the fact that she promised Luz she would. Luz felt like Camila was lying to them and just wanted them to trust her so that they had a sense of loyalty to her. It made complete sense but it just hurt Luz that their mother would do such a thing. Camila and Luz got into arguments more frequently than normal. Luz tried every possible explanation as to why this happened. Maybe I’m tired. Maybe it’s Shark Week. Maybe I just have unresolved anger issues.   Amity was often busy and didn’t have time to answer all of Luz’ texts. But Luz often felt like they bothered Amity so much to the point where Amity just decided she didn’t want to talk to Luz anymore.    Luz got into a fight with Hunter. His boyfriend is in the hospital and Luz wanted to talk to Hunter but Hunter accused them of making everything about themself when in reality they wanted to talk to him and about his behavior. They wanted to talk to him about how he had the option to save his friends or save his boyfriend. He would choose his boyfriend over him. (Despite the fact that his boyfriend is a legal adult.)    Luz was going on a trip to the Dominican Republic in July instead of having a quince. They were told at the beginning of the year and have been waiting ever since.    Now as they sit here in their room in the house they’re renting for the week. They don’t know why they feel so sad—or at least not as happy as they should be. Luz has been texting their friends about all the fun stuff that happened (even though their trip just started) even though they still feel bad. Maybe it’ll get better. Some time in the very near future. But for now, they were just a weirdo. A weirdo that can’t fit into society no matter how hard they try. People will always find them repulsive, annoying, stupid, and clinically insane. 

Not Rated

Luz woke up for what was the fourth, maybe fifth time that night- she'd lost count, in all honesty. Despite how tired she was from the day she'd just experienced she was finding it impossible to sleep; when she'd first started as the Owl Lady's apprentice she'd missed her bedroom back in the human realm dearly, and now it felt like the last place she wanted to be. Glancing over to the left of her she watched the witches sleeping peacefully in the sleeping bags Camila had dug out at late notice, a small smile was brought to Luz's lips. Amity with her arms wrapped around Ghost, Willow with Clover nestled in her hair, Gus with Bailey in his open hand, and Hunter with- oh. Hunter wasn't there, the last sleeping bag lay open, lacking a witch and palisman.The sight put Luz on edge again, the worst thoughts filling her mind. It's not like she could sleep anyway, she thought, and worry for Hunter would only make the task more difficult. Making up her mind, Luz climbed out of her sleeping bag quietly, making her best effort not to wake up her friends as she clambered over them to head downstairs in pursuit of Hunter. - Hunter felt like he couldn’t breathe. Tears rolled down his cheeks silently as he pressed his face harder into his knees, trying to feel something other than the sensation tricking him into believing his throat was closing up. Flapjack was frantically pecking at Hunter’s wrist, trying to calm him, ground him even, but Hunter didn’t even seem to notice it, even as his wrist began to turn a little red at the repeated pecking. Hunter didn’t seem to notice anything other than his inability to make any noise, the sound trapping in his throat, no matter how hard he tried to force anything out. He didn’t notice the steps making their way down the stairs, or the sound of someone whispering his name into each room they entered. It took him a few moments to even feel a hand rest on his shoulder, shaking him gently, a recognisable voice whispering his name into his ear. “Hunter? Hunter, it’s okay, I’m here. You’re okay Hunter.”Luz. It was Luz. This was enough to convince Hunter to pry his eyes open and glance at the human, but quickly screw them shut again at the look on her face. He was mortified, the fact that someone could be so concerned for him, when he’d worked himself up for a reason he couldn’t even identify himself- suddenly, he felt like he could breathe again, but didn’t know how. He hid his face in his knees again, clutching his hands at his chest as he felt it rise and fall too rapidly for him to get any air in. “Hunter, listen to me here, focus on my voice.” Luz grabbed his hand away from his chest, holding onto it tightly in her own. “You’re okay. I promise, you’re safe. Nothing can hurt you, I wouldn’t let it.”“I’m sorry-” Hunter began to utter out through sharp inhales and tears, but was quickly silenced by Luz.“No apologising. You have nothing to apologise for.” Luz cut him off, still gripping onto his hand. She’d identified he was having a panic attack as soon as she’d set eyes on him- Luz had her own experience with them and could easily recognise it- and was trying her best to think through what to do. She’d nearly always found herself on the receiving end of the support, and was trying to think of what Camila would do in this situation, how she’d help her. “Hunter, can you look at me?”Hunter lifted his head the smallest degree, his eyes opening a little as tears continued to roll down. He could hardly look Luz in the eyes, but the human just squeezed his hand and smiled gently.“Thank you, you’re doing great.” Luz took a small breath herself before continuing. “Have you heard of the 5,4,3,2,1 method?” A weak shake of Hunter’s head confirmed her suspicions; she didn’t expect the Boiling Isles to have the same tactics as Earth, if they had any at all. She questioned if Hunter even knew what a panic attack was- but that was best left for another time.“Alright, just trust me on this one. Can you name five things you can see right now?”Hunter lifted his head a little more just to stare at Luz, confused as to what she was trying to achieve. “I know it’s weird, just give it a go?” Luz offered a smile which was enough to convince Hunter to lift his head higher and glance around the kitchen, taking a shaky breath in and rubbing his eyes as he looked for something to name. With a deep breath between each word he began to list things, gripping onto Luz’s hand. “My gloves- um- the cabinets.. the clock…” Hunter’s gaze darted around nervously as he looked for two more things to name as Luz had asked of him, his breathing still erratic.“It’s okay, take your time. No rush.”Hunter glanced down, noticing Flapjack had settled on his foot, looking up at his wielder with what Hunter would almost read as a concerned expression. “Flapjack..” Hunter then turned her look to Luz, who smiled upon eye contact. “.. And you.” “Good job, you did great. Now can you say four things you can touch?”Hunter got more comfortable with this whole naming thing now, and with a nod, set off again. “Uh- you-” Luz squeezed Hunter’s hand again, a reassuring feeling that encouraged him to keep going. “The floor.. Flapjack, and my hair..?” Hunter moved his hand from the cold tiled floor, to Flapjack’s soft feathers, and then to his own hair.“Amazing,” Luz continued, practically beaming at this point as she noticed Hunter’s rapid improvement, “now three things you can hear.”“The clock ticking, the rain and.. breathing.” “You’re getting quick!” Luz giggled, which even prompted a small smile from Hunter. “Two things you can smell.”“The stew.” Hunter was quick to remember the stew Camila had fed them all when they’d entered the house earlier that evening, it was unlike anything he’d ever been fed at the castle. “And the flowers.. on the table.”“One thing you can taste. Here, I’ll help.”Luz stood up, pulling Hunter up with her by his hand, Flapjack jumping onto his shoulder for the ride. She swiftly grabbed a glass, filling it with water from the tap and handing it to Hunter. Hunter took it in two hands to take a sip. “The water.”Luz nodded and gave Hunter a bright grin. “That’s everything, you did amazing! How are you feeling now?” It took Hunter a moment to realise how much better he felt- he could breathe. He’d stopped crying without even realising it, and almost couldn’t even remember the feeling in his throat that had panicked him so much before. “.. Better.” He turned to look at Luz, who just smiled once again. “How did you… do.. that?”“It’s called grounding. It helps you focus on something other than the way you’re feeling, it’ll help you in situations like that.” She paused for a second. “If you ever.. feel like that, you can come to me. I want to help you, you don’t have to hide, okay?”Hunter just nodded, a hint of a small smile forming on his lips. “Okay.”

Not Rated

i Loving her is like music.   The first meeting is the opening notes of a piece (as you approach her where she sits)) the tentative strings or steady beat that whispers promises in your ears, tells you this is only the beginning. And in that moment, everything is possible (when you ask her to stick with you) before the tune tips one way or the other (when she holds out her hand and agrees).   In that moment, the music could be uplifting or devastating, dramatic or comforting, exquisite or mundane.   A rhapsody or a requiem.   She could turn out to be either. (You never anticipate both.)   ii Loving them is like music.   The first days together are the rise (they're not like the other kids) the increase of volume and instruments that leads you towards the song (when they dance with you), where you start to get a sense of what kind of music this might be (when you really like holding their hand) And in that moment, new things are possible (they show up at your school) and the music starts to take its form (because you might already be a little in love).   In that moment, the music takes a shape, plots a pathway. New and yet comforting, a suggestion that it could fulfil your hopes.   A rhapsody, dancing enchanted poetry of chords, the requiem abandoned when the music played beyond the first bright notes.   That's what you see in them. (You hope that it will last.)   iii Loving her is like music.   The falling is the way it swells (you dream about her smile) notes rising to fill a space until the melody carries you away (when she plays a piece she wrote just for you). And in that moment, nothing feels impossible (when you find out she feels the same way) and the music is all around you (you feel like you're living in a dream.)   In that moment, the music fills the world, is all there is. Beautiful and overwhelming, a symphony of emotions.   And rhapsody means love song then, for a few precious shining notes.   You think you've found the answer. (You hope things stay this way.)   iv Loving them is like music.   The breaking is the way it fades (when you can't tell them what you're really going through) notes drifting quieter and quieter until it dances in the background (because you're terrified you could hurt them too). And in that moment, breathing feels impossible (when they tell you that it's over) because the music that carried you is fading to silence (as they leave you behind.)   In that moment, you're sure the song is over. A crushing sharp reality, a final note.   Your rhapsody turns to silence.   You think that it will last forever. (You pray with everything it won't.)   v Loving her is like music.   The distance is the gaps between (when you don't see her for years) the silence following the crescendo, peppered with a few faint notes (when you glimpse her on the crystal ball or wanted posters). And in those moments, moving is impossible (you freeze at every photo of her face) because you're suspended, waiting for the music to end for good (when you wonder if one day you'll forget the tune she played for you.)   In those moments, you expect the music to end soon. Fading and forgetting, a final strummed chord.   The breath before a requiem.   You don't expect the music to rise again. (But you can't quite let it go.)   vi Loving them is like music.   The reunion is the sudden rise (when you hear their voice behind the mask) the surprising change in pitch as the song resurrects itself from nothing (when they hold out their hand to you). And in that moment, old pathways become possible (as you find yourself blushing at their attention) and you realise the song was never over, just muted for a while (you see that they still care for you).   In that moment, the music can turn in any direction once more. Heartbreaking or miraculous, tentative or all-consuming, familiar or strange.   With your curse, it turns toward a requiem.   But maybe that's not the worst thing. (They make it something new.)   vii Loving her is like music.   The lying is the sudden stop (when you tell her you don't remember) the silence which tricks you into believing that the song has ended (when you fight her and it breaks your heart). In that moment, only one thing is possible (you brush away a tear and resign yourself to lying) and you pretend you believe this is the end of the song, that you fell for its deception (you lie to her face and invisibly protect her).   In that moment, the silence serves to prolong the song. A prologue to the rise, a false end to an ongoing melody.   You let her believe it is a requiem, a moment's tear-filled silence for the dead.   All this to keep the rhapsody alive. (You hope one day she'll realise.)   viii Loving them is like music.   The realisation is the joyful notes (they were lying to protect you) the sweet interlude following the sadness (as you see how much they still care). In that moment, once again, you believe it's possible (they give you a plan, a hope to hang on to) and you let your heart rise fleetingly with the music, with a chance for something new (as you hold their hand and try to say it's not the end).   In that moment, the music teeters on a knife's edge, ready to tell you what it was all about. The end or the beginning, the triumph or the loss.   Rhapsody and requiem.   You pray for one. (You fear the worst.)   ix Loving her is like                                                                                                                          Loving them is like music.   This ending is the desperate cacophony (one last time, you can protect her) the agitated clash of instruments laying out a song of fear (they collapse in your arms.) In that moment, all the emotions rush forward (you'll die for her / you can't stand to see them die for you) and you get swept away by the notes and caught up in the storm (the world is falling apart around you, nothing you can do but hold them.)   In that moment, the end is close, but the music has never been so desperate, never torn your heart in quite so many directions. The love and the fear, the pain and the anger, the doubt and the numbness if darkness surrounds you.   The music chose to be a requiem, notes of sorrow at the end, tearing through the world.   You hold tight as the world burns down. (And in your hearts, through all the pain, the rhapsody is kept alive.)  

General Audiences

“Conformitorium duty for Steve,” the masked coven scout sighed to himself as he punched the clock on the wall to begin his shift. Steve hated Conformitorium duty. The entire building was dark and gross, plus somebody always stole his lunch! But what he hated most of all about Conformitorium duty was that it was incredibly boring. Steve's primary assignment in the coven was scout duty, and he much preferred going on missions with Head Witch Lilith over guarding some dull prison cells. Unfortunately for Steve though, every scout in the Emperor's Coven was required to serve at least a few shifts of Conformitorium guard duty each year, and today was one of his assigned days. Steve stood with his back against a wall, practically bored out of his mind as he watched over the rows of cells. The witches and demons inside them barely even moved most of the time, at least not when they were being watched.  Needless to say, it was an incredible relief when Warden Wrath called him to the back room.  “Whatcha need, sir?” Steve asked the warden as he entered the room.  “Here,” the warden growled while shoving a box into the scout’s hands. “This is all the junk we confiscated from the criminals today. Sort through it and see if there's anything valuable in there.” “Will do boss!” Steve answered as Wrath stomped out of the room. He was much happier now that he had this to occupy his mind at least. The box’s contents weren't much of a surprise to Steve, mostly the usual contraband teeth and illegal potions–however there was one item in there unlike the others that caught his eye.  It was a notebook. A simple notebook. Why would they confiscate a notebook? Steve's curiosity got the better of him and he flipped it open.  The first page of the notebook was filled from top to bottom in hand written paragraphs, as well as illustrations of anthropomorphic vegetables, which he found to be surprisingly pretty cute! He flipped through the notebook and saw over half the pages were filled in this manner. This didn't answer his question as to why they had confiscated a simple notebook in the first place though. He searched around for the files attached to the box and flipped through them until he found what he was looking for—the arrest record for the owner of the notebook.   Katya Adagio 19 years old Bard Coven Arrested for writing food falling in love fan fictions (second-time offender)   Attached to the file was the witch’s mugshot. She looked to be a dark skinned witch with long black hair and prominent fangs. Steve thought she didn't look like a troublemaker at least, and she was only a year younger than he was. He was surprised to see that in her short lifetime she'd already been arrested not once, but twice. Steve blinked beneath his mask as he read over the last sentence again. Since when was writing fan fiction a crime? This Katya person couldn't have possibly written anything that bad right?  His curiosity was getting the better of him once again. He glanced over his shoulders to verify he was still alone and then looked back down at the notebook in his hands. He flipped back to the first page and began to read.  Steve had really only intended to read a few sentences to get a gist for what the story was about, but he couldn't help himself from continuing on as he was immediately hooked by the story of Carrot and Garlic, two vegetable enemies who slowly grew to care for each other before they became friends and eventually fell in love. The story was good , better than he could have ever imagined. It was beautiful even, and he shed tears under his mask as he read. He lost track of time while reading it, completely forgetting the fact that he was still on shift. He excitedly flipped page after page, getting to the climax. Garlic was about to confess their love for Carrot! Garlic took Carrot’s hand, opened their mouth to speak and then— Nothing. Absolutely nothing.  Steve frantically flipped through the remainder of the notebook to see if he had missed something, but to his dismay found that it was all blank. The notebook must have been taken from her before she had a chance to finish writing the story. What a shame.  It seemed unfair. A story this good deserved an ending right? Steve weighed his options. It was extremely unlikely the author would tell him how the story ends if he just approached her cell and asked her. Plus, Steve didn't want to risk getting himself in trouble if he got caught—he had spent most of his shift reading instead of guarding, and he knew if writing fan fiction could get someone arrested then reading it was probably frowned upon as well.  Still though, Garlic and Carrot needed their ending, even if he himself might not get the chance to read it. Steve looked at the time, and noted it was almost time to give the inmates their supper. He thought this over for a minute before an idea came to him, a brilliant idea, if he said so himself. He noted Katya’s cell number from her file, snuck into the kitchen, found the dinner tray going to the cell with that same number, and carefully slipped the notebook under the plate.    It was only a single week before Steve had to serve his next Conformitorium duty shift again, but for the first time ever he found he wasn't completely dreading it. Katya had to have received her notebook by now, and perhaps she'd had enough time to write the final chapter of her fic. If he was lucky she might even be willing to let him read it as a gesture of thanks for returning the notebook.  He was not lucky. After Steve (literally) punched the clock on the wall for today's shift, he walked in to find the entire place in disarray. Warden Wrath was furious for some inexplicable reason. He spotted his friend Severine across the courtyard, she was easily distinguished by the way her horns poked at the fabric of her hood. He hastily made his way towards her. “Psst. Sev,” he whispered. “What's going on?”  “The warden’s really peeved,” Severine whispered back. “Three criminals escaped last night, plus The Owl Lady rejected him.” “What do you mean three criminals escaped?” he asked in surprise, choosing to ignore the gossip regarding Wrath’s love life. “Which three?” “Well, there was Eyeballs Georg—you know the guy who keeps eating his own eyeballs? Then there was Tinella Nosa, she's a conspiracy theorist who's always getting in trouble. And the last was a bard, I forget her name, she was here for writing fan fiction or something like that.”  Well, so much for finding out what happened to Carrot and Garlic, Steve thought to himself as he let out a deep sigh.  This was going to be a long shift afterall. 

General Audiences

"I've never noticed that you had freckles, Hunter" Edric, groggy and tired from all the day's activities, has said one night whilst they laid together on the greenette's bed. Currently, they were watching the crystal ball; waiting for the absurd amount of commercials to stop and continue to watch the movie they were tuning into.   Hunter blinked, tearing his eyes from the glass ball to face Edric with a questioning expression on his face. He cocked his head to the side, " I have freckles?" he raised a singular eyebrow in suspicion, "I do not, you're just sleepy and imagining them."   " Uh... yeah you do?" Edric convinced, moving away Hunter's long lock of hair from the bridge of his nose. The hair lock has always seemed to stand out, no matter what the both of them tried to tame it with, " There's plentiful here, see?" he placed the surface of his index finger gently onto the crooked bridged nose of the other boy, startling him over the gentle touch. Edric's finger began to move up and down softly on top of his boyfriend's nose,  silently counting the dotted miscoloured skin, in which looked tempting to kiss.   "There's like... 27 here." he whispered, his thoughts running around in his head to just close the gap between them and kiss him right there and then. His face began to heat up, he was drowzy and his thoughts didn't make sense. He swallowed, "There's plenty more here too," he continued, now caressing Hunter's skin with such gentleness that it seemed too good to be true.   Hunter stared continously towards the greenette, watching him trace gentle touches onto his cheekbones, his jaw, his abnoxiously large scar, the skin close to his knicked ear; he was holding his breath, and everything seemed so still. As Hunter watched, Edric seemed to be lost in a trance, his eyes seemingly following where his fingers were trailing the different parts of Hunter's face. He did the action so repeatedly that Hunter felt he was going to go crazy with the amount of intimacy he was receiving.   "Can i kiss them?" Edric all but suddenly asked, which for the most part surprised hunter from observing his partner's seemingly short daydream. Hunter blinked, face and ears turning light shades of pink. He was stumped. He let out a shaky exhale when he found out Edric had been staring at his lips for a few mild seconds, and as their eyes met, Hunter gave him a small nod. Edric, drowsy, clingy and so lovable in Hunter's eyes, began to close the short distance they had set between them. He began by softly pecking at Hunter's nose, the crooked yet distinguishable part of him that Edric had liked. Then, he began to go towards the surface under his eyes, which were coloured in gray eyebags due to his unloved past. Edric felt Hunter flush, and began to kiss his right cheek while carresing it with his hand ever so slowly. He did the same to the other side of his face, as Hunter had seemed so irrisistable to him tonight. Hunter let out a soft exhale, as Edric began to trail kisses heading towards the corner of Hunter's mouth. Hunter, whilst fully awake, was now the one caught in a daze. He felt a rush of happiness overwhelm him, because here he was; getting kisses all over his supposed "freckles", getting the love he had always craved when he caterred for the tyrant he was made to serve . He had let out a smile, so wide yet so subtle, in which Edric slowly kissed all over. Hunter felt like his heart was about to burst, as Edric's lips had finally landed onto his fair and square. Edric grinned small, lopsided as Hunter could feel against his lips, as he began to kiss hunter like he meant it in all of his tired state. Hunter just couldn't help smiling wide into the kiss, eyes crinkling at the edges as he began to reciprocate his lover's gentle but intoxicating act of intimacy.   As Edric began to lead the kiss, his hands found its way back onto Hunter's freckle-dusted cheeks yet again, savouring this moment through his muddled, incoherent state of euphoria. Hunter had reciprocated wonderfully, and by the end of it all it was obvious the both of them were flustered; even if their reddened faces were only lit by the dim light of the crystal ball. Hunter, the boy he loved so much, was close to tears in which he assumed were from overwhelming happiness, as he had plastered a wide grin that was shone by the faded light. His tooth gap was obviously shown and was adorable to Edric as usual, and he couldn't help but want to kiss him some more.   As Edric continued to stare and contemplate at his now blush-ridden boyfriend, Hunter instead began to chuckle lightly. He wiped away the joyful tears that were threatening to fall down his cheeks; "you should get some rest" he said fondly, "your brain isn't working properly."   Edric just smiled fondly back, a pink tint covering his face. The heat from it gave his body a fuzzy feeling as he slowly began to doze of. He laughed lightly in his muddled state, " that always happens when I'm with you, goldie."   Hunter just playfully rolled his eyes, his scarred hand travelling to stroke through edrics naturally forest green hair, "sure you do, Ed. goodnight" he said softly, scratching at Edric's scalp to make him fall asleep faster. Edric mustered up a smile, sighing in content at how wonderful his boyfriend was, and how lucky he was to have him, "goodnight, Hunter."

Not Rated

Eda was six years old the day she woke up with her soul mark. She was ecstatic when she saw it, a little raincloud inked in black on her wrist. She had excitedly run down the stairs to show her parents. She was proud, because Lilith didn’t even have one yet. Her parents seemed just as happy as she was. Lilith was a little bit jealous, but congratulated her all the same. She studied the mark every night, wondering who her soulmate was. On the Boiling Isles everyone gets a soul mark on their wrist, a symbol representing their future partner. They can be platonic or romantic, and usually form in childhood, though some exceptions have been noticed. It is usually covered until the match is found to avoid confusion and let others know you’re still searching. A special word or phrase is the trigger, with the caveat being that both triggers have to be said in the same conversation. This has led to instances where soulmates found themselves waiting years for confirmation. Even if the two were almost certain they found the right person. Once they are activated, the marks change color to what reminds the owner most of their partner. This change is typically accompanied by a slight tingling or burning sensation. Eda was fourteen years old when she met Raine Whispers. The two of them clicked together like missing puzzle pieces and Eda loved being around them. After the training camp where they stood up to Terra, Raine transferred to Hexside and Eda was ecstatic. It didn’t take long for her to realize she had a crush. This then led to her constantly checking her mark for any sort of change. She wanted her match to be Raine. Wanted it so badly, but the cloud stayed the same black it had been the day she woke up with it. When they were sixteen Eda got the nerve to ask them to Grom. They had gone together the year prior but as friends. Eda made her intentions known this time and Raine had happily agreed. They were sitting outside, Eda need a break from the loud sounds and bright lights for fear they would activate her curse. “Thanks for coming with me, Rainstorm.” She smiled at them, heart feeling light. “I… I've really liked you for a while.” Raine's own face turned red and they looked at the ground, hands picking at the blouse they wore. “I've liked you too. I just couldn’t find the courage to ask you out.” They admitted. Eda looked at them, lifting a hand to guide their gaze back to hers. “Hey.” She said softly. “Can I kiss you?” Raine turned redder if possible but nodded, and Eda leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to their lips. She pulled back, pink in the face but smiling widely. Raine couldn’t help but do the same. They sat there in companionable silence for a minute before Raine spoke up. “Hey, Eda?” “Yeah?” “Do… do you have a soul mark?” They asked hesitantly. Eda glanced at them, then to the thick leather bracelet she wore. “Yeah.” She said softly. “You?” They fiddled with the ribbon tied to their wrist. “Yes." Silence again. Then… “Can I see yours?” Eda jumped a little. Sharing soul marks when you weren’t a confirmed match was considered incredibly intimate, and some people frowned on it completely. Of course, being the agent of chaos she was Eda didn’t mind, she just hadn’t expected Raine to ask. Eda carefully unlaced her bracelet, sliding it off her hand and then quickly holding her wrist to her chest. “Can I see yours too?” She asked. Raine nodded, carefully undoing the ribbon and then mimicking Eda's position. “On three?” Eda nodded. “One.” “Two.” “Three.” They both held their arms out, and each felt their breath hitch. The marks were still black, but in each of their hearts they felt like they found each other. Eda's raincloud was a bit on the nose, but when she started calling Raine Rainstorm she hadn’t even considered her mark. In fact aside from keeping it covered she hadn’t thought about it since she met Raine. Then on Raine's wrist was an owl. Which on one hand made Eda a bit nauseous but on the other made sense. She used owls as her symbol, she carved Owlbert just a few months ago, then there was… the curse. Still, it made sense. The two looked away from their wrists and met each other’s gazes. As though reading each other’s minds they both leaned in, pressing their lips together again. When they broke apart Eda laced her hand with one of theirs. “We can’t know for sure until we trigger it, but I think you’re my person.” She whispered. “Yeah." Raine agreed, squeezing her hand. “I think you’re right.” They were eighteen when Eda suddenly dropped out of school three months before graduation and ran away. Raine tried desperately to reach her for weeks, but nothing seemed to get through. Then she suddenly showed up at their window two months later, sleep deprived, hungry, and a little bruised but otherwise no worse for wear. They tried to get her to open up, to tell them what happened but she was closed off nearly completely. Eventually Raine gave up, though they weren’t happy about it. They snuck into the kitchen to avoid waking their parents and brought her food, then let her curl up and sleep. She was gone again when they woke the next morning, but this time there was a note. Thanks for taking care of me Rainstorm. I promise I’m not disappearing again, just trying to find somewhere to stay. You can call me. Please, please don’t tell my parents you saw me. Trust me it’s better that way. See you soon. I love you. Eda Raine sighed heavily. They didn’t know what was going on, but they didn’t like it. Eda was twenty when she had her new home finally complete. She took her dad's old tower and expanded on it. She found Hooty in a bird house in the woods a few day later, and he took a strange liking to her and offered to be a security demon. Apparently he needed to live as a part of buildings so it was a win for them both. Eda accepted. Looking a the weird owl tube thing she couldn’t help but laugh. Add that to the owl imagery in her life. She dubbed her new home The Owl House. The first time Raine came to visit Hooty tried to eat them. That was fun to explain to both parties. Near death experiences aside, for a while things between them got better again. Raine started to spend so much time there Eda half joking half serious said they should move in. Raine declined though. They had an apartment that they really liked, and they wanted to wait for their soul marks to activate. There was something heavy hanging in that admission though. They had known each other for six years, been dating for four, and their marks were still black. It wasn’t unheard of, but it was rare. Both were starting to get nervous. Eda just tried not to think about it. When they were twenty-five Raine left her. Eda had been closed off again, trying so hard to make sure she would never hurt Raine, and in doing so she pushed them away completely. They hit their breaking point. “You’re lying again. It's like I don’t really know you.” Those words cut her more deeply than any knife could. She knew where this was going, even if she wanted to pretend it wasn’t happening. “So I’ve made a decision. I’m joining the Bard Coven and… I think we should see other people. We've known each other for eleven years and our marks are still dormant. I’m sorry, Eda. It’s over.” Eda felt her heart rate increase as her anxiety spiked. As she tried to fight back the very intense emotions she was feeling. As she tried to hold off the owl beast. She could hear the concern still present in Raine's voice when they asked if she was okay, but in one last effort to protect them, and keep things to herself, she gave the final shove they needed. “I can’t do this anymore.” Raine left, Eda dealt with her transformation, and then she went home and cried herself to sleep. Maybe she had been wrong. Raine wasn’t her person. But if they weren’t, she didn’t want anyone else. Eda was forty-six years old when she met Raine Whispers again. In her typical fashion she was fighting the coven scouts who were trying to take in a wild witch. The group of rebel bards that saved her had an awfully familiar leader. That mask might fool some people, but Eda would know them anywhere. When she returned the favor and asked to join their group, Raine was quick to brush her off until she made it clear she knew exactly who she was talking to. They both had a right to be angry with each other still. A reason to be hurt. A reason to leave things right here and pretend it never happened. Instead they fell back into their old ways fairly quickly. Acting like nothing had happened. Like they had spoken yesterday instead of 21 years ago. Like they hadn’t broken each other's hearts. Eda noticed Raine still kept their mark covered, and she was certain they saw hers was too. Neither ever did find a match. Eda felt both relief and pain at that. Raine deserved happiness, but Titan she had missed them. She tried to ignore the fact that she was still lying to them after all this time. Sure she was willing to talk about the curse now, but when they offered to let her join it was if she had nothing to lose, and she hid her kids. Eda just wanted an excuse to be with Raine again. To have one more go at finding her match, because she still clung to the hope that her teen self had been right. Eda was forty-six years old when she discovered the truth. They were coming back from their very successful raids. Derwin was mostly asleep and on Katya's back, and Eda was glad to see the latter had kept herself out of the conformatorium. Amber had way too much energy for what time it was. Eda and Raine were both exhausted, but still functioning enough to talk. Eda waited for the other three to head to their respective sleep spaces before approaching Raine. “Rainestorm." Eda called playfully, getting the attention of the bard who laughed. “Haven’t heard that in a minute.” “Oh, but you've gotten so strong, it’s amazing. But how did you become head bard with your stage fright?” It was the most impressive thing Eda had noticed, and the most confusing. “I’m just that good. What about you? Still know any bard spells?” “Oh, you remember the curse. It… messes with my magic.” She gave a hand wave, trying to pass off just how weak she was now. Suddenly there was a very familiar lute in her arms. “How did you become the Owl Lady with your stage fright?” That was when the air shifted. Eda had glanced away with a blush before gasping softly, her wrist tingling beneath her arm band. She glanced at it, then back at Raine who was now sitting up with an equally alarmed expression. Simultaneously, as though reading each other’s minds they pulled off their coverings. Eda stared at the now green raincloud in disbelief. The green that perfectly matched the eyes of the witch in front of her. Hesitantly she looked back to them. “Raine?” She asked, voice breaking slightly. In response they turned their wrist, the owl now a fiery orange. Just like her hair used to be. She showed hers in return. She then promptly burst into tears, kneeling next to the lute she had put down when the mark began to change. “Eda?!” Raine looked panicked, coming to kneel beside her. “Are you okay?” Eda threw her arms around them. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I lied. That I never opened up. That… that you’ve been stuck with me as your soulmate this whole time.” “Eda…” Raine pulled back, taking her face in their hands. “Eda no. I could never be stuck with you I…” They bit their lip. “Eda I never actually saw anyone else. It was always going to be you… I still love you. I never stopped. It just hurt to have you always push me away, and when the marks didn’t activate I got scared…” They trailed off. Eda brought a hand up to hold one of theirs. “I never stopped loving you either, Rainstorm.” They leaned forward to kiss her, and Eda melted into it, happily moving forward until they were pressed together, taking as much comfort in the other's touch as they could. Eda pressed her forehead to theirs. “I promise to be as open as possible this time.” She pulled back and reached for the discarded instrument. “Starting with showing you exactly what my curse did to my magic.” After Raine saw the corruption her magic could cause, Eda made the decision to go home with a promise that if they called she would be there. The two made the difficult decision to still cover their marks. The head bard being soulmates with a wild witch would not look good, and unfortunately with Terra still being head of the plant coven and knowing their past, one look at Raine's wrist would have her telling the emperor himself. When Raine called her away from the Gland Prix Eda had no idea that was going to be the last she would see of them for a while. Her grip on their hand was iron as she tried to keep them from Darius. She just got them back. They made her realize her kids still need her. Eda still needed Raine. “Raine, don’t.” She begged, feeling the grip they had on her slacken. “Go.” Raine gave her a smug smile, but she could see through them. See the fear they were trying to hide. The pain. “You know I can’t stand an audience.” Then they let go, Eda's grasp not enough to hold them as they were pulled away. All she could do was reach helplessly as she lost them again. Raine Whispers. Her best friend. Her soulmate. They were gone again, and Eda couldn’t even properly mourn them. She cried some, and then had to force the emotions away. Her kids still needed her, but she swore to herself. If they were alive, she was going to get them back.

General Audiences

Hello! I'm still trying to get used to the AO3 format so yeah, just starting out with a quick Author’s Note because I am not ready to write the first episode yet. How about I give you a brief explanation of The First Ever Written Danganronpa Owl House AU! 1. The characters like Hajime and Nagito, especially Mondo, act more like the characters they take the role of but keep their canon traits. There will be more characters added than the ones on the tags and you’d have to guess who is who. The only ones I can give you now are Hajime = Luz, Nagito = Amity, Mondo = Willow, Kazuichi = Gus, Gundham = Eda, Kokichi = King, Taka = Hunter, and Celestia = Lilith. Don’t worry, I’ll make sure to write them in character…at least try to. Yes, Nagito’s Parents are alive here as Odalia and Alador. 2. When I start Escaping Expulsion, it’s probably gonna be about Nagito’s life if his parents were alive, similar to Amity’s. Yeah, I’d like to think his mom would be Human Odalia AKA a bitch to her family Also, I asked @catboymoments if I could use the names they’ve chosen for the parents so stay tuned to see them appear in the text! 3. I started this AU bc of the similarities between Komahina and Lumity. Both enemies to lovers with an ordinary person and an uptight person who has strong beliefs about natural gifts and talents whos falls head over heels for the ordinary person and is unable to function and gay panics around said crush. Not to mention that said crush helped them through their struggles and made them better people. Also I hc Hajime as bi and Nagito as gay so it’s just perfect! Gundham’s curse, instead of the Owl Beast, is a Baku, a Japanese mythical creature with the head of an elephant, the ears of a rhinoceros, the legs of a tiger, the body of a bear, and the tail of a cow. I do not tolerate any negative comments or hatred towards my work. If you don’t agree with my casting, don’t say cruel things about it and if you don’t ship the couples here, do not read. If I see ANYTHING, ANYTHING hateful in the comments section, you will be blocked! I promise I will try my best to make this as fun, interesting, and enjoyableto read! Edit: Okay, I don’t know when I will be able to post the first chapter but I need some time to figure it all out. Please be patient with me and I’ll get it out when I’m ready. Thank you!

Teen And Up Audiences

After an unexpected encounter, both Eda and Raine finally managed to escape from the Coven Heads and hide in a safe place. It was in the middle of a forest, covered by rocks and trees and plant life. They wouldn't be found here. Now the real work began. As they took out their instrument, the bard let out the first notes of the song, filling the air with a calming melody. Everything started turning a pinkish hue: the already rose colored trees, the ground beneath them, the small stones and tree branches scattered on the ground. The dark and shallow atmosphere turned into a vivid scene you'd see in your wildest dreams. Except this wasn't a dream, it was reality, and they knew what they had to do. Pleased with the groundwork they laid for her, Eda took a glance at her partner behind her. They kept playing the familiar tune, ready for her to accomplish her part of the plan. She then started playing along with them, closing her eyes and preparing herself for what was about to come. The gentle melody she played with the lute perfectly contrasted the vivid rhythm the violin formed. It was af it the world was at peace, only the two of them playing the melody only they knew. For one last time. Eventually, Eda's curse started to take over the magic her lute produced, starting to spread over the area around them. The darkness of the curse took over the vibrant lights of the magic they had previously created. They felt the curse take their toll on them as well, starting to spread around their feet, their legs, their thighs. They felt their body aching, but they knew they couldn't stop now. Not now when they were so close to finishing the job. Suddenly, they heard Eberwolf's barks and Darius's yelps of pain from the distance. Eda tried to take a glance behind the rocks covering them, taking a small but meaningful glance at the curse taking its effect on both of them. "It's working, keep playing.", she said to them, both of them playing louder than before. Raine shifted their focus from the melody they were creating to the curse taking its effect on them, noticing how it climbed up their body. They felt so much pain, but they couldn't stop now. Not when they were so close. "Listen, we may not make it out ourselves." Eda shifted her gaze over to the bard with a determined look on her eyes. "But it'll stop the Emperor, right?" Raine slowly nodded, keeping their gaze on the witch besides them. "Then we play on!" And as her ponytail flipped, they noticed something fly out of her hair. A picture. It was a small, polaroid picture of what seemed to be Eda herself, standing beside a teenage girl who seemed to be wearing formal attire and a small little furry creature in front of her. They didn't take a long look before the picture fell to the floor, starting to get consumed by the curse. They knew she just wouldn't keep a random picture of her with two people. No, these kids meant something to Eda. She had something worth fighting for. People waiting for her back home, people who loved her. "Eda, do you have kids?!" She froze up, her body tensing up at their words. She had stoped playing her part of the melody, and they had as well. "Well, they're not mine, mine...", she looked up at them, trying her best to not make eye contact. "Ugh it doesn't matter! They both have real families to return to!". She turned around and kept playing, this time even louder than before, her knees falling in the dark, cursed floor. She knew they didn't need her, not when they had a real family to go to, a real home to go to. She had to finish this. She suddenly felt her lute vanish in thin air, making her curse start to disappear. She let her hands fall down on the floor in defeat, because she ruined everything they worked the whole day to get to. She ruined their only chance at defeating Belos. They walked forward towards her and looked down on her. They weren't mad at her though, a soft expression showing on their face. They started fidgeting with their hands, unsure of what to say for a moment, until they decided on saying: "I don't know what you're running from, but a great witch once told me… something about punching fears in the face?" They looked away with a slightly pink hue on their cheeks, almost unnoticeable. "What I'm trying to say is," "Don't give up so easily. They probably need you more than you realize." She didn't know how bad she needed to hear those words until they said them. She really missed this, missed them. She missed their confort. They handed her back her picture (when had that fallen out?) and offered her a hand, which she took with a new burts of confidence. "We can find another way to stop Belos, together." And she believed that they would. Together.

General Audiences

  I want to tell you a story. A bedtime story? Yes, it can be a bedtime story if you like. What’s it about? Hmm. It’s a story about mud…and feathers and bones and blood. It’s a story about monsters and family curses, about secrets…and love. Sounds scary and sappy. Quit it, King. … The story starts in a tower, in the black of night- I think I might know this story. Then you know how it ends?   No   Do you want to?     In the top floor of the tower, in the black of night, the skitters of rat claws were barely audible above the noise of the wind, come in from the east, whipping about outside. The creature, however, had impeccable hearing, and possessed long ears capable of distinguishing between the slightest of sounds. From the rustle of hot, furry little bodies, to the soft sway of the floorboards, to the minute sifting of stone against stone, as the building deliquesced into the bones of the Isles. The distant noises of the Other One, just outside its territory, always on the edge of perception. Those ears could pinpoint them all.  Fortunately for the rats, the creature was asleep. Talons quivered, and raven black feathers, which shone liquid in the moonlight, shifted as the creature dreamed. The twigs forming the large nest, compressed through heavy use, made little cricks and cracks when the creature moved about in slumber. Between the creature and the nest, there was barely any space left available in the room at the top of the tower. The only other object present, besides the occasional vole skull or stray bit of vegetal matter used to pad out the nest, was a long white staff. Slightly beaten-looking, with patches of dirt marring the ivory surface, the staff leaned idly against the wall opposite the nest. Just within sight of the creature. At the top of the staff sat a delicately carved white raven. As the rats scurried, and the wind whooshed, and the tower creaked, and the creature dreamed, and the Other One cackled, the white raven kept silent vigil.   It, alone, was still.     Lilith was surrounded by blackness. Her dreams often began this way. With the sensation that she had been moving or running, and was now still, supine on what she supposed was a bed- though she did not feel the give of any pillow beneath her head. Nor the comfort of any sheets. Nor the support of a mattress. It felt vaguely like she was floating. She could not remember how the dream began exactly, or where she had been running from, or to. She rarely ran in general, and couldn’t think of why she’d be doing it. She only knew that the inky blackness heralded a moment of clarity. Clarity and stillness. Stillness, for she found she could not move. Spirit did not call to nerve or to muscle- there was the definite sense that she had a body, but that she and it were quite separate. She had the feeling of being able to move her eyes a little- or perhaps not to move them, but the choice to look, or not look- that was hers. Confined to the role of witness, here she was, laying in the dark, with the faint notion that there was something she needed to remember. Some thought that was vital. If only she could grab hold of its cord, tracing its form through the inky black. She felt like maybe she had done this before, and that this was always the place she came back to. She wracked her brain, traced the cord.   Nothing. And then a tug. And there it was.   The memory, and the memory of the thousand times she had remembered it, and the shock of regret of all those remembrances. She snapped her eyes shut as the horror of the moment dawned on her, petrifying her consciousness in cold ice. No.   She wished she had not remembered.   Not this. Not this.   She had to look. Emperor, why did she always have to look? Knowing, and not looking?  Impossible. That might be the only thing worse than what she needed to bring herself to do now. It wasn’t with a scholar’s curiosity that Lilith let her eyes fall open, but with the sick dread of a child peering under the bed, with full knowledge of the monster lurking beneath.   Directly above her, as if suspended from a ceiling, Lilith saw her own body. Deathly pale and eyes wide, Lilith’s own face stared down at her like a death mask. Wearing her everyday witch’s robes, flat against an invisible roof, the body’s arms were by its sides. The fingers twitched; stilted breathing came in fits and starts. The legs jerked, fitfully. The sight flooded Lilith’s consciousness with paralytic terror. She couldn’t look away now, even if she wanted to. The green eyes of the figure above her bulged, expression pained. Blood seemed to be collecting at the edges of the mouth, the tear ducts, sticky trails sliding from the ears and matting in the black hair and sweat. Finally, an awful, hacking cough erupted from the throat. A fistful of night black feathers tumbled forth from the straining mouth. Another deep grumbling came from within the chest, and more feathers poured out and out and out. As if catapulted back into her body by sheer panic, Lilith found herself able to move her limbs again, and flailed, both against the presence of the monstrosity above her, and the sudden sensation of sinking. Her body- the one she currently inhabited, not the one on the ceiling- was in a pool of something cold, and thick, and heavy. She felt her hips and elbows being swallowed up, and looking at her hands found them covered in liquid brown. Mud.  Try as she might, there was no purchase to be found, and as the pool reached up past her shoulders, brushing her earlobes and the tip of her chin, Lilith felt herself scream. The sound that came forth was an animal screech.     It was her own shriek- an eldritch thing, strange, a thing of nightmares- that woke her.

Teen And Up Audiences

Amity gets distracted while helping her girlfriends with their research. Willow sets a new record for the highest number of dorks topped simultaneously. Lavender Winter (Luz/Amity/Willow + Willow/Hunter), featuring vine bondage and lots of biting. Requested by me, because I felt like writing it lmao.Hunter is kinda in the background here bc the chapter is Amity focused, but he technically exists lol. (See the end of the chapter for more notes.) Amity Blight sits in the Bonesborough Library’s secret room, alongside her two beautiful girlfriends, Luz and Willow. Oh, also Willow’s boyfriend, Hunter, who… she really Does Not see the appeal of, but Willow’s happy, so she’s not about to complain. The four of them are researching together, trying to find a way to get Luz’s makeshift portal to be more stable, and less likely to drop them off 600 feet up in the air. Amity is skimming through a human book about the distortion of spacetime in the presence of gravity, when she briefly glances up to Luz, scribbling down an intricate glyph combination in their notebook. One glance at Luz’s face and her book is forgotten. Their eyebrows are scrunched in concentration. Their tongue is sticking out ever so slightly. Their eyes are rapidly darting across the page. Amity gets caught up in admiring her; it has to be at least the third cutest expression Amity has seen her make. At some point, Luz finishes the glyph, but only ends up getting a brief flicker of the page as the result. She lets out a groan and throws her head back in exasperation, and that’s when she catches Amity staring. “Hii~” they say with a giggle and a blush, “what’s up?” “Oh! N-nothing!” Amity’s face goes hot and her eyes snap back down to her book, “I just got distracted, sorry.” “‘Distracted’, hm?” Willow teases, looking up from her notes. “Not like that!” Amity squeaks, ears giving a fwip, “they just looked so concentrated and their adorable expression took up all my attention.” “Okay, that’s fair,” Willow says with a nod, “Luz’s concentration face is incredibly cute.” The red on Luz’s face grows deeper and she hides her face in her hands quickly. “Aaaa stoop, you two are so sweet,” Luz whines. “If it’s any consolation, I think your concentration face looks dumb,” Hunter says flatly, leaning up against Willow, not looking away from his own book. Luz removes her hands from her face, pouting and sticking her tongue out at Hunter. Amity laughs and kisses Luz’s cheek. “Thanks, Hunter, very helpful,” Amity says, laced with sarcasm. Luz shifts to lean on Amity slightly, making her purr contently, shifting her hands onto Luz’s sides. “Well, there’s nothing wrong with getting distracted. Besides, I think I could use a break for some cuddles.” “A cuddle break is a tempting prospect…” Willow hums, before placing a brief kiss to Luz’s lips, “I’m in.” Luz smiles and quickly hops over to the pile of blankets that Amity had set up specifically for occasions such as these, falling onto her back dramatically. Amity giggles and lays next to them, Luz immediately wrapping their arms around her, Willow nestling in opposite to Luz. “Can-” Hunter starts to speak, before he yelps, being dragged to the bed by one of Willow’s vines. “Yes. C’mere. I want your cuddles to,” Willow insists, and Hunter blushes and lays down at the end, spooning Willow gently. “Amity,” Luz whispers, “Ppst, look over here, I have something for you.” Amity blushed and turns her head to face Luz, immediately met with their lips on hers. She gasps, before laughing against their lips and returning the kiss happily. Willow’s hands run down her sides as Luz holds onto her tighter, their lips locked needily with Amity’s own. After a few seconds, Luz pulls away, and whispers: “it was a kiss.” “I can tell,” Amity says through her giggling, her ears twitching, “you’re such a dork.”  “She’s our favorite dork though, right?” Willow says, reaching around Amity’s shoulder to touch their hair softly. “Mm-hm,” Amity confirms, gazing into Luz’s eyes for a moment, relishing the way her blush grows, and her precious little smile. She gives their lips another gentle peck, before turning over to look at Willow. She runs one hand through Willow’s hair, and sees Willow giving her a soft smile. Willow leans in slightly, bringing her lips to Amity’s. Amity leans in as well, gasping when she feels Willow’s tongue brush up against her lips, and she parts them, moving her own tongue up to meet Willow’s. She shudders softly as Willow’s tongue slides against her own, and feels Luz’s arms shift around her body slightly.  “Mhhn!” Amity suddenly lets out a surprised whimper as she feels Luz kiss at the side of her neck, lips pressing into her slowly and sensually. Willow smirks against Amity’s lips before pulling away slightly, raising her eyebrow. “L-Luz is being meaan,” Amity says with a small moan, ears twitching as she feels Luz trail more little kisses against her. “Mmm I can see that,” Willow hums, shifting so her lips are brushing ever so slightly on Amity’s ear, and Amity shivers at the feeling of Willow’s breaths against her. “Luz, baby, you want some help with that?” Amity whimpers, core twisting in anticipation. “That would be nice~” Luz murmurs, hands trailing down Amity’s sides, making her ears give a little fwip, “Amity, you interested?” Her teasing tone falls off as she asks, making sure Amity knows it’s a genuine questions. “P-please,” Amity whimpers, tilting her head down into the pillow, leaving her neck exposed for her girlfriends. Luz growls playfully, tongue trailing up from the base of Amity’s neck to her jaw. Willow places a kiss against Amity’s earlobe, and she lets out a soft mewl, trembling softly.  Amity can’t help but squirm as her girlfriends attack her sensitive spots. One of Willow’s hands lifts up Amity’s shirt, making her whimper under the contact of her gentle, calloused fingers. With a bite of Willow’s fangs into her earlobe, and Luz’s mouth starting to gently suck at her jaw, Amity lets out a loud, shameful mewl.  “You three are so gross,” Hunter grumbles from behind Willow. “Oh, be nice, Hunter,” Willow says with a giggle as she removes her mouth from Amity’s ear, “otherwise I’ll have to punish you~” Hunter lets out a whine at that, and Amity laughs. “Ha! Who’s gross n-a-aaah!” Amity cuts herself off with a moan as Willow moves to dig her fangs into her neck, a low growl coming from her throat. One of Luz’s hands joins Willow’s under Amity’s shirt, as the human leaves a gentle bite around the hickey they left.  Amity squirms as Luz and Willow’s hands roam her body, mewling as Willow drags her fangs against her neck. Luz’s fingers trail against Amity’s stomach, accidentally bumping into Willow’s hand. Amity feels the two lace their fingers together, and lets out a little laugh between her moans. She loves these two so much. Another whine escapes Amity’s lips as Luz’s hand, unwrapping from Willow’s, drifts under her bra, giving her breast a gentle squish. Amity’s hands drift into Willows hair as the plant witch shifts her mouth to Amity’s shoulder. She digs her teeth in roughly, fangs piercing her skin, making Amity cry out a loud moan, shaking. “Good girl…” Luz murmurs into Amity’s neck, “making such sweet little noises for us.” Amity’s core is struck with an electric pulse of arousal, her legs shaking as she cries out faintly. “Ll-luz- Willow- ohh…” Amity whines and cries out, trembling slightly. Luz’s free hand slides into Amity’s panties, sliding down along her slit gently, fingers softly pressing into her folds. Willow bites at Amity’s shoulder again, fangs not quite piercing her this time, but still digging into her with wonderful sparks of pain. Willow starts working Amity’s shirt off, while Luz focuses their attention on her warmth, two of their fingers finding their way to her clit, dragging against it slowly. Amity cries out faintly, a low purr rumbling from her throat, interspersed with gasps and whimpers. As Willow finishes pulling Amity’s shirt over her head, Amity feels soft, tough tendrils grabbing at her wrists, moaning shakily as her hands are pulled above her head by the vines.  “You love being restrained, huh batata~?” Luz murmurs with a giggle, circling her clit slowly. “You’re such a good, submissive little plaything for us, aren’t you~?” Willow murmurs, and Amity squirms and mewls. Fuck, she loves it when they get like this. “Yy-yeaah~“ Amity moans, whimpering when Luz licks at her pulse gently. “Haaa… I love y-you both so mu- Aa-Mmnh! so much…” “I love you too, hermosa,” Luz hums, placing a kiss at the base of her ear, trailing their tongue along it slowly.  “I love you so much,” Willow whispers, retracting her face from Amity’s shoulder and sitting up to start stripping away her own clothes. Amity watches intently, whimpering and trembling as Luz continues petting her clit. “Hnnn~” Amity whimpers, admiring Willow’s body, pushing her hips up against Luz’s touch. Casting her bra aside, Willow starts leaning down towards Amity, and Amity whimpers excitedly. Willow’s lips graze on her collarbone, while Luz’s teeth tug on her ear. “HNn- oh- ohh wow…” Willow tugs away Amity’s leggings slowly, and Amity lets out a loud whine, crying out when Willow’s fangs dig hard into Amity’s collarbone, flames of bliss scorching her at the contact. “MH- Oo-OH~” Luz’s lips brush towards the inside of Amity’s ear, and they whisper, words tickling her ear slightly: “Such cute, slutty noises…” Amity shudders at the words, moans growing louder when Luz’s fingers shift from her clit to slip down into her entrance. “Hh-haa~!” Amity cries out, legs shaking as Luz’s fingers slide deeper inside her, rubbing against her walls beautifully. Willow pulls away from Amity for a moment to turn her attention to Hunter, asking him something that Amity doesn’t really process, attention being completely absorbed by Luz’s gentle bites at her ear, and slow thrusts into her core. Amity squirms in her restraints slightly, turning her head towards Luz, whines and mewls and shaky breaths escaping from her mouth. “L-mnhghh… Luuz~ can I h-have a kiiss-? hhNn…” Luz giggles softly and places a hot, sloppy kiss to Amity’s mouth, tongue sliding between her lips hungrily. Amity whimpers and trembles as Luz’s tongue swirls in her mouth with a hunger, their throat letting out a low growl.  Amity’s whines and mewls against Luz’s lips grow shakier with each thrust of their fingers, and she suddenly feels Willow kissing at her outer thigh, hands pulling off her panties. “Luz, darling, could you remove your fingers?” Willow asks as she pushes Amity’s thighs apart, making her gasp and tremble harder. Luz pulls her lips away from Amity’s own, an adorable pout on their face. “Do I haave to?” Luz asks, their thrusts growing more forceful, making Amity’s whole body shake each time.  “Luuz~ Be good…” Willow growls darkly, and Luz squirms and whimpers at the tone. “Mmm what if I don’t wanna be good~?” Luz asks with a giggle. “Well, I’ll just have to do something about that,” Willow murmurs, and Amity feels Luz’s hand get forcibly pulled away, Luz letting out a little whine. Amity blushes as she sees Luz’s arms get tugged by Willow’s vines, moving her so she’s sitting on her knees. “Ami, sweetheart, get their clothes for me?” The vines around her own wrists retreat, letting her move freely. Amity nods, sitting up, still a little shaky from Luz’s fingers, and tugs Luz’s top off quickly, giggling as their face grows redder. “You’re so gorgeous…” she purrs, tugging their binder off as well. “Help me with your pants?” Luz nods with a small, excited whimper, body trembling as she shifts her legs to make it easier for Amity pull her pants and underwear away. Amity hears Willow moan from behind her, curiously turning her head  to see her grinding on Hunter, both trembling and whining at the motion. She turns her attention back to Luz, suddenly pouncing on them and clasping her lips against their neck, delighting in the adorable moan that results. She suddenly feels vines grabbing at her wrists again, letting out a whine of protest as she’s pulled back down to a lying position, hands tugged above her head. Luz, meanwhile is moved back to sitting on their knees, sitting next to Amity’s waist, as Willow’s vines twist around them a few times, restraining their arms behind them. Amity lets out a small moan at the sight, and Luz squirms and shudders at the feeling. “O-ohh… Willow, you’re g-getting good at that…” Luz says with a blush, and Willow giggles. “Well, I am the most skilled plant witch there is,” Willow hums, and Luz’s legs get pulled apart suddenly, as Willow leans over to Amity’s legs, placing a kiss on her thigh. Amity lets out a shaky moan as Willow starts sucking at her thigh, fangs making little nips, and watches in awe as a vine slides up Luz’s own thigh, making them quiver and whine in anticipation. Amity’s mewls grow louder as Willow trails small hickeys and bites up towards her warmth. “Haaa…” Amity whines, trembling as Willow’s lips suddenly clasp around her clit, a purr rumbling from Willow’s throat creating intense vibrations against the nub. “O-oHH! MHhnn~!” Amity lets out little mewls as Willow’s mouth plays with her clit, trembling as she watches the vine on Luz’s thigh slide up and into their entrance, making them squirm and let out loud moans, which Amity is pretty sure is the hottest thing she’s ever seen. “Whh- mmMmnn~ W-Wil-low can you l-lay me do-oohhh… down nee—hhh- next to Amity? I wanna be clo-ooOoose to her.” Luz asks, squirming and mewling each time the vine moves inside of her. “Mmhm!” Willow hums against Amity’s clit, and Amity lets out another shaky moan. Luz gets shifted down towards Amity’s side, smiling warmly and placing a little kiss against her cheek, before throwing their head back and letting out a particularly loud moan. Amity shifts slightly to push her mouth against Luz’s neck, biting into it with a little growl, the resulting mewl sending an electric tingle through her body. Amity whines into Luz’s neck as Willow’s tongue circles her clit roughly, making her legs twitch as she feels her peak starting to approach.  Amity blushes and mewls when she sees Luz tense up, screaming out in pleasure, twitching and squirming in their restraints. “MM-MHHN~ AaaAhh… WiiIillow, Ami… HHaahhh!!!” Luz cries out and squirms, body trembling. Amity places a needy kiss to their lips, letting out moans of her own as Willow sucks at Amity’s clit roughly, the burning coil of pleasure inside her winding tighter. Willow dispels Luz’s restraints as they come down from their high, and they use their new freedom to rub at Amity’s folds. “Ii-Mnnghhh!! I’m c-closse…” Amity whines as she pulls away from Luz’s lips, shaking as Willow’s tongue licks and swirl’s against her clit even harder, her purring growing louder, sending more intense vibrations into Amity, making her twitch and mewl in delight. “Go ahead and cum for us, hermosa,” Luz whispers, placing tender, brief kisses to Amity’s lips, “you’ve been so, so good.” Amity cries out, vision going blurry as Luz’s words send her over the edge, mewling and shaking and thrashing at the overwhelming pleasure shooting through her body, Willow’s mouth and Luz’s fingers helping her ride out the wave of bliss. Slowly, her cries and twitches die down, calming to a light tremble and a content purr. “Ff-fuck, that was good…” Amity pants, head shifting down to the crook of Luz’s neck. Willow sits up slowly, still gasping and moaning as she grinds against Hunter. “I-I’m glad you enjoyed it~” She purrs, a hand running through Amity’s hair as she dispels the vines holding her hands above her. “Mm-hm,” Luz murmurs, wrapping their arms around Amity softly, hands rubbing her back, “you were so adorable. We love you so much.” “I love you too…” Amity whispers, smiling as she cuddles up against Luz. “And you were pretty cute too~ Willow fucked you good, didn’t she?” “Yy-yeah,” Luz says with a small laugh, placing a kiss on top of Amity’s head. “What can I say?” Willow laughs, “I love you all s-so much, of course I’m gonna give you the good fuckings you deserve~” Amity giggles and cuddles up to Luz tightly, rubbing their back, melting into their arms. Eventually, when Willow and Hunter are finished, Willow wraps her arms around Amity as well, spooning her lovingly. Amity lets out a soft purr, happily laying in her lovers’ embrace.  It turns out writing poly relationships has the same difficulties as writing action scenes lmao. It gets difficult to keep track of every character’s actions without falling into either tedious over-describing or bland, oversimplified descriptions.

Explicit

“Listen, you’re strong, and I’m tired. If this continues, you’ll probably escape. But here’s the thing, we know how to find you, and your human.” Hunter sees a face of fear flash over the youngest Blight’s face. That makes Hunter feel two opposing feelings. He feels hope that he will get that key, that he will get the Titan’s blood, but it didn’t completely feel right. He ignored the second feeling, he needed to get this key, or Belos- No, he shouldn’t think of that right now. He needed to focus on what he was doing at this moment. “So just... hand over the key.” The Blight hesitates. She says nothing and does nothing. She just looks from Hunter to the ground to the key. From one to the next to the next and then back to the one and on and on for a while. Hunter tries to have patience with her. But she’s taking too long. “I said, hand over the key." Hunter raises his voice a little, trying to intimidate the youngest Blight. She looks back up at Hunter. Hunter can’t tell what’s going on in her mind, she’s keeping a neutral, unreadable face. Hunter grows annoyed. “Are you even listening?!” “What if I don’t?” The question surprised Hunter, didn’t he just tell her? “You say that you’re going to take it from us. But the scouts have never been able to come past Hooty. How will you get it?” Hunter... didn’t think about that. But they can’t always be in the Owl House, under protection, right? “I’ll fi-” Hunter gets cut off by something knocking him back. When he looks up, he sees the Owl Lady. But she looks different. Since when does she have wings? So she can turn into a harpy? She wasn’t lying. Hunter sees the Owl Lady and the youngest Blight say something to each other while the Owl Lady pulls the dog free again. He stands back up and teleports at them. He needs that key; he can’t leave without it. He needs it, he needs it, he needs it, he needs it. NOW. The Owl Lady grabs his arm tight before he can charge at Amity again. Hunter uses his free arm to swing his staff at the harpy, hitting her head. She releases him and stumbles back. Hunter teleports behind Amity, but before he can do anything, he gets blasted to the side by one of those sonic blasts of the pet. He sees the Owl Lady get back up and the Blight draw a spell circle. He knows he can’t win this, but he can’t lose. He can’t go back with nothing. Emperor Belos will already be so angry at him for leaving the castle without permission, but if he comes back without anything... That can’t happen. No, no, no, no, no. He has to get that key. Now. He charges back at Amity, but she uses her abomination to shoot a pilar at him. Hunter dodges it but can’t dodge the Owl Lady who attacks him. She knocks him onto the ground, and he feels abomination restraining him and holding him there. The bird that has been following him turns back into his active mode and starts pecking at the abomination. Hunter tries to get out of the restraints but fails. He watches his three opponents as they fly away, the Owl Lady flying as harpy and the Blight and the rat on Amity’s staff. Hunter started panicking. They couldn’t leave. If they leave, Hunter can’t get the key, and then he will have to go back empty-handed and the Emperor will be so angry and h-he will- No, Hunter can’t let that happen. It won’t happen. It won’t happen. Hunter can’t do anything; he struggles in the restraints. But all he can do is watch the three fly away with the key. Leaving him with nothing. “No! C-come back! I need t-that blood! Come back! Give me the key!” He sees the Owl Lady stop and look at him worriedly for a split second. But then she just continued following the others. Flying away, leaving him there. Maybe, he’ll be stuck here for forever. A bit further away from the grave he was digging, but it’s close enough. He feels the palisman continuing to peck at the restraints. The restraints let go and the abomination stayed in puddles on the ground. Hunter continued laying down in the same spot. What was the use anyway? Belos will kill him when he finds out. The cardinal pecked at Hunter, trying to get him to get back up. But Hunter stayed on the ground. “What use is it? I have nothing. I-I can’t go back. H-he'll... he’ll be angry a-and h-he'll replace me. I can’t go back.” The bird lets out a couple of chirps and trills. He pulls at Hunter’s hair, trying to get him to stand up and keep going. But Hunter still just keeps on laying down. Suddenly footsteps are heard from the caves leading to the lake. The palisman quickly hides. Kikimora, a captain and some scouts get to the lake. When they see Hunter laying on the bottom of the empty lake, they give different reactions. Most of the guards are confused, the captain gets worried and Kikimora looks happy. “I knew it! You were sabotaging the mission! When we get back you are going to be in so much trouble!” Kikimora laughs. The captain slowly walks up to Hunter. “Golden Guard, sir?” Hunter gives no response. “Are you okay?” The captain still gets no response. She looks back at the others, they all shrug. Kikimora keeps laughing and ranting about what might happen when they get back. “Golden guard? Sir?” Some of the other scouts start to approach him slowly. Kikimora notices it. “What are you morons doing? Why are you just standing there? Grab him and take him back to the castle.” The captain looks up at her. “B-but, ma’am, what about the Titan blood?” That made Kikimora freeze. She gets off from the Abomaton and walks up to Hunter. “Where is the Titan blood?” She gets no response. She gets annoyed and grabs Hunter by the collar of the borrowed scout uniform. “I asked, where is the Titan blood, brat?” Hunter finally responds. “There is no Titan blood. It’s all gone. I-I couldn’t get it.” Kikimora lets go of him. “I failed. Can’t go back.” All the scouts look at each other. The captain speaks up. “Sir, we’re going to take you back to the castle. Are you okay? Can you walk?” Hunter groans. The captain tries to help him up, but he refuses her help and stands up himself. Kikimora gets back on the Abomaton, glaring at the Golden Guard. ≪•◦ ❈ ◦•≫ They get back to the castle with no results. The scouts left to go on their patrols. The captain, Kikimora and Hunter get to the throne room, the captain and Kikimora enter the room while Hunter waits outside. They’ll tell him, they’ll them him that he was there, and Belos won’t be happy. And now he just had to wait there, the only thing he could do was wait for him to be called to the throne room, just waiting there to receive his punishment. Hunter felt himself shaking. Why was he shaking? There was no reason for him to be shaking. He disobeyed his uncle’s orders. He left the castle. He messed up. This was his fault. He caused the failure of this mission. He deserves whatever’s coming for him, he shouldn’t be shaking. Hunter takes a deep breath. He feels the palisman move under his scout uniform. The weight was strangely comforting and grounding. The bird had stayed with him the entire time, no matter what he did, no matter his choices. It was... nice. His first friend. No, he shouldn’t be thinking this. Palismen are made from wild magic. Wild magic is dangerous. It killed his family, it cursed his uncle, it hurt them all. He shouldn’t be friends with something made from wild magic. That would make him a traitor, and i-if his uncle found out about that- His thoughts get cut off by Kikimora and the captain coming out of the throne room. Kikimora looks at him with a smile. “Golden Guard, the Emperor wants to see you now.” The two walk away to their own duties. Hunter takes another deep breath and enters the throne room. Emperor Belos sits on his throne, mask on. He kneels in front of Belos. “Y-you asked for me, my liege?” “I told you to stay in the castle. But instead, you disobeyed me. I asked for you earlier, but I got the news that you weren’t in your room. They couldn’t find you anywhere in the castle.” Hunter feels a feeling of dread wash over him. “Come here.” Hunter freezes. “I-I can explain if you would just let-” Belos’ eyes start glowing blue. That means he’s angry. That’s bad, that always means that something bad is going to happen. Hunter immediately shuts up and does what he’s told. He stands up and walks over to his uncle. “You don’t know how worried I was.” Belos stands up as well and puts his hand on Hunter’s shoulder. Hunter tenses up. “And then imagine what it's like to hear that you ran away on a mission I told you not to go on.” The grip of the hand on Hunter’s shoulder tightens. “You disobeyed my orders. And then I get told that you messed up the mission. I do so much for you, I took you in, and this is how you repay me?” Hunter's shoulder starts to hurt. He wants to say something, to explain what happened. But there is a lump in his throat. He tries to say something, but nothing comes out. “I know I told you that it would be a hassle to find a replacement for you, but just remember, it’s not impossible.” Hunter’s head shoots up, a desperate look on his face. That can’t happen. He can’t be replaced. No, no, no, no. “I-I can explain, if you’d let me, I can tell you what happe-” Hunter gets cut off by a sharp pain in his shoulder. He looks at the hand on his shoulder and sees that the emperor’s hand has turned into a claw from his cursed form. The claw pierced through Hunter’s skin, and he feels blood starting to run from his new wounds. “I-I apologize. I disobeyed your orders and messed up a mission. It won’t happen again.” “It better not.” His uncle doubled over; a kind of mud started to seep from his mask. His curse. Belos tightens his grip on Hunter's shoulder even more. It hurt. Hunter wanted to leave, he wanted to run away to his room, to hide away. But he couldn’t, he needed to stay here, or he’d make his uncle even angrier and then the curse would get worse. He needed to get a palisman, but Belos was holding him there, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t get to them. Suddenly he remembered about his the palisman hiding under his uniform. He knows he should give it to his uncle, he knows it. But he just can’t bring himself to do it, he can’t bring himself to give him the cardinal, even though he knows that it will help him, that it will save his uncle. He just can’t bring himself to give his uncle the palisman. “Why are you just standing there? Get me a palisman!” Hunter gets thrown to the side of the room, knocking him against the wall. Hunter feels blood seeping through the scout uniform. He stands up, trying to go quickly, but everything hurt, especially his shoulder. He gets to the palisman storage. There were barely any left. There could’ve been more if Hunter didn’t fail that mission, if he just didn’t let the human go. There could’ve been more. Hunter grabs one of the palisman and quickly goes back. He gives the palisman to Belos who crackles it in two and consumes the magic from it. The curse calms down again. “Thank you, Hunter.” Belos cups Hunter’s face. Belos looks at Hunter’s bleeding shoulder. “You know I don’t like doing this to you. I can’t control it. You make me do this to you, it’s your own fault. Just make sure you don’t mess up another mission.” Belos tightens his grip on Hunter’s chin, digging his finger in the patch of scarred patch of Hunter’s cheek. Hunter tries to nod and makes a sound of understanding. “You can go now.” Belos lets go of Hunter and Hunter quickly walks away out of the throne room. Hunter quickly walks through the hallways on the way to his room. He touches his hurt shoulder, when he pulls his hand back, it's covered with blood. He speeds up. When he enters his room, the bird immediately comes out from under the uniform and starts flying around him and chirping at him worried. Hunter ignored him and went for his healing kit next to his bed. He grabs the kit and takes out some bandages and healing patches. He also grabs a cloth. He takes off the uniform partly, so his shoulder is open. He can see the wound better now. He pushes the cloth on it, trying to stop the bleeding.  It takes a bit, but the bleeding starts slowing down. When it does, he starts cleaning the wound. He goes to the bathroom and soaks another cloth with water. He starts rubbing it over his wound, cleaning the blood and the wound. When the wound is pretty much clean, he takes the bandages and dresses his wound. Then he puts on some healing patches on it. He quickly feels the pain lessen. The rest of his body still hurt, but everything became less. He lies down on his bed. The palisman flies over to him and nests in Hunter’s neck. Hunter scratches the palisman in his neck and gives him a small smile.

Teen And Up Audiences

It’d been the best birthday Raine has had in a long time. Probably the best birthday ever.Why? Because they got to spend it with Eda. It’d been quite some time since they last spent their birthday with her, the last time being when they were in their early twenties. It was amazing getting to spend their birthday with not only Eda, but her kids. Their kids. Raine, without a doubt, believed that this was the best birthday they’d ever had. They were currently leaning against the outside of the nest, sitting on the wooden floor with their scroll in the air. They hadn’t pressed the play button just yet, as they’d only just sat down, but they’d been intending to put on the playlist that Eda had made for them for today. It was titled rhapsodies and requiems and not only did it have an uploaded version of their song (which Eda had kept private so that it could be just for them), but a bunch of pretty cool human songs too. Apparently Luz had shown some of them to her. They heard the door open, turning to face the love of their life, the one who makes them feel happier than anything else in the world ever could: their wife, Eda Clawthorne. She had her beautiful silver hair up in a ponytail the way she always used to around them when they were younger, with her mismatched eyes shining brightly with reflections of the sunset being cast outside. Raine smiled. They loved her so much. “Hey, Rainey.” She said in a semi-tired voice. Titan, Raine loved hearing her voice. “Hey, beautiful.” They said, gesturing for her to sit next to them, which she did. She passed a wrapped present over. “I saved this one for last.” Raine took the present, tearing the paper off to reveal a book. It was covered in colourful stickers and the words ‘Raine and Eda’ on it in Eda’s handwriting. “Didn’t want the kids to start screaming over it.” Eda said. She gestured for them to open it, which they did. They gasped when they read the couple sentences on the first page to themself. Pictures and items through the years with Raine Clawthorne-Whispers and Eda Clawthorne-Whispers. “Is this…?” Raine couldn’t finish their question. “Yup. Pictures we took from when we were younger, anything small enough like stickers or tickets that I happened to keep, etc.” Eda said, leaning over to grab Raine’s scroll. “Shall we take a trip down memory lane?” Raine opened the book and Eda pressed play on the playlist, which just so happened to start with their song. The double-spread page had ‘IFWOT’ doodled in dark blue in a couple of places, with pictures that Eda or Raine (mostly Eda) had taken from the first couple of weeks that Raine had been at Hexside for, both photos from inside and outside of Hexside. One of the photos particularly caught Raine’s eye and they smiled, feeling the memory come back to mind as they listened to the tune. “Quick! If we run fast enough we’ll get rotten candy before anyone else!” Eda said, running ahead of Raine towards the carnival nearby. Raine was running after her, watching her soft, fiery orange hair blow in the wind. They smiled. The rest of the journey there was a blur of nothing but memories of Eda. Eda smiling and laughing; Raine staring at her, trying not to make their feelings for her clear. The next thing they knew, they were being pulled against her as she took a photo. Raine smiled at the memory, Eda also seemingly having just come out of the memory. “That day was fun.” Eda said. “Although now, I can’t really remember much of what we actually did.” Their song in the background alongside Raine’s laugh was the best music Eda could’ve ever heard. They continued flipping the pages, smiling or laughing at memories. They’d come across tickets to Hexside’s ‘Rats!’ performance, which made Raine blush with embarrassment. That play was the reason for their current stage fright, and Raine hated it. They’d been so good at acting beforehand, but that play just ruined it. The two continued flipping through the book, the pictures often being taken from their hill. It wasn’t long before they were seeing photos of their young adult selves. All the times Raine would run away from a performance, all the times Eda would be running away from Gwen; the two could tell what had happened to have them end up together on that hill with almost every photo they looked at. Then the next page was blank. Blank, expect for a few small words on the left page and a few on the right. We may have taken a break for a while… They looked to the right of the double-page-spread. …but that doesn’t mean our story ended there. The music had switched about two times, but neither of them had noticed until it was filling the silence. The next pages were filled with things like pictures from the BATs. Eda pointed to a group of them, the memory filling both of their minds again. “Eda! We’re running a rebellion here!” Raine called out. Eda was currently being silly in the back of the rebellion’s hideout. “Come on, Raine! We’ve been working for ages, we’ve got time to take a break, y’know?” She said. Raine sighed, knowing that if she knew just how big The Emperor’s plans were, she wouldn’t have that mindset. So, they walked over to her. They laughed as Eda wrapped an arm around them and pulled them to her side, holding up her scroll with her other hand. She stuck her tongue out to the camera and took a photo, taking many more of her and Raine making silly faces. They were brought back to the present by the song switching again. “I didn’t tell you just how serious things were at that point, so I thought I’d just play along with the jokes.” They explained, smiling widely at the photos that had been bordered by stickers of bats, as well as little heart stickers. “Yeah, I get it.” She said. “Besides, if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t have these photos to look back on.” “Yeah.” They hadn’t taken any photos again until after the Day of Unity, and there were quite a few. Ones of the whole family, silly things that had happened around the house, etc. There were many pages of photos from Eda and Raine’s wedding. Photos that were taken during the ceremony, photos of their first dance. All of the photos were taken by other people, because Raine and Eda had both known that people would be taking photos and videos and therefore didn’t think to take any of their own. They prefered it that way, though. They’d played their song multiple times at the wedding, as well as Katya, Derwin and Amber playing some music of their own at times. The one photo that Raine took was from after the wedding, when they’d all gone home. It was simply just them and Eda cuddled up together. “That was a long day.” Eda said, collapsing into the nest. “In a good way, though. It was absolutely worth it.” “Oh yeah. Absolutely. I mean, I’m still kinda in disbelief.” Raine said as they curled up next to her. “Like… we’re married. You're my wife. Officially. It’s… it’s still crazy to think about, but I’m so glad we did it.” Raine held up their hand to their face so that they could see their wedding ring. Eda copied, placing her hand right next to theirs. They’d gotten rings specially made for them, Eda and Raine choosing one thing each to represent themselves. The rings had a mix of both of their decisions, looking like two strands twisted together; one strand being decorated with patterns of feathers, and the other music notes. The couple chose to have them look very slightly different. On Raine’s ring, the feathers representing Eda were gold and the representation of themself silver. On Eda’s, it was swapped so that the music notes were gold. The reasoning for this was simple: gold was like the sun, and it was rarer than silver. Raine viewed Eda like their sunshine, their whole world, and there was no way anything could be worth more than her. Eda viewed Raine in the same way. Not only that, but Raine would always put Eda and her safety before themself and vice versa, like gold being more important than silver, therefore it made sense to them to have their rings like that. Raine pulled out their scroll and took a photo of them. Back in the present day, Eda and Raine looked at their rings. Symbols of their love for each other, and that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together. There weren’t any more photos, but there was a lot of space for more. Eda pulled out her scroll and took a photo of the two making silly faces and laughing. “Hey Rainey?” Eda asked once the two had calmed down, so quiet that she could only just about be heard over the music. “Yeah?” Raine responded, copying her volume of noise. Eda laid her head on Raine’s shoulder and wrapped an arm around their waist. “Happy Birthday,” She said, “and I love you.” Raine smiled. “Thank you, Eda. I love you too.”

General Audiences

Made a friend for Ghost. His name is Spooky and I used black Go For Faux yarn for Spooky. I love how fluffy and soft it is and I put weighted beads in the belly. Ghost was made with regular yarn.

General Audiences

“Rule number one: Privacy.” Luz watched the boy pace in front of her as she sat on the ground of their newly shared apartment. The smell of a new house still hung in the air, as well as the chilly atmosphere of a space that had just begun to be occupied after a long period of being empty. It was September 2nd and a chilly 65 degrees outside in the town of Bonesborough, Oregon, and Luz had just finished moving the last of her stuff into her new apartment- well, hers and Hunter’s new apartment.  Luz had been working as a YouTuber for the past three years and a freelance artist for one, and once she’d turned nineteen, she’d been fully satisfied with her decision to use her online presence as a career rather than spending a seemingly endless amount of time at college only to be rewarded with piles of student debt and a useless degree. She still wanted the freedom of an adult, and with some persuasion toward her mother, Camila had posted an advertisement in the town Facebook page stating that her daughter was searching for someone to share an apartment with. At first, the prospect of Luz living with a complete stranger was a little scary for both her and her mother, but after a boy named Hunter Whispers had answered the ad, Luz’s friend Willow had assured her that he was harmless. “We knew each other in high school,” had been Willow’s answer upon Luz’s question of how she knew him. “He was on my roller derby team, remember?" Luz did not, in fact, remember. Luz’s first time meeting the stranger in person had actually been the day that they’d scheduled a tour of the apartment they had their eyes on. He was tall, about 5’10 if he had to guess, and twenty-one-years-old. His hair was light blonde with an almost artificially colored pair of magenta eyes. After a handshake and hasty introductions later on Hunter’s part, they’d been shown around a two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment near the downtown area of Bonesborough.  It had plenty of light from the windows and the bedroom she’d be occupying was large enough to fit the things she wanted to bring with her. They agreed on a complete split of the rent and bills, and that was that.  Packing day had been a tearful one on Camila’s part, and Luz had actually laughed a little when her mother wrapped her in a bone-crushing hug the next morning. “Mami, I’m only a ten-minute drive away!” she giggled, rubbing her mother’s back in a comforting way. “I’ll call you all the time, and you can visit whenever you want!” “Call me every day,” was Camila’s middle-ground to that deal. She placed a hand on her daughter’s cheek. “Promise me.” “Okay, Mami. I promise.” Luz leaned into her mother’s touch, allowing the woman a particularly wet kiss to her head. “I’ll tell you when I get there, okay?” And she had. As soon as she pulled into the parking lot of the apartment complex, she’d given her mother a call to let her know before beginning to take her stuff to the ground-floor elevator. It took about three trips, but she managed to get her boxed and other belongings to the apartment on the third floor. She hadn’t had time to unpack before Hunter suggested they sit down and set some ground rules. Luz had at first been put off by his stern tone, but she sat on the hardwood floor and listened to what he had to say, which was where they were at now.  “We should always respect each other’s privacy, which means no going into each other’s rooms, going through each other’s stuff, or asking relentless, personal questions.” Hunter turned on his heel and paced to the left, never meeting Luz’s gaze as her eyes followed him. “You act like I wasn’t going to do all of that stuff anyways,” Luz commented, raising an eyebrow. “What do you take me for?” “A stranger whom I know little to nothing about,” Hunter said before continuing his spiel. “Rule number two: if you’re going to have people over, please tell me in advance so I’m not surprised when our apartment is suddenly full of people when I come home from work, or I’m met with one of your fuckbuddies in the bathroom in the morning.” Luz flinched and gave him an exasperated look. “What makes you think I have those?” “Friends or a partner?” Hunter asked, cutting his eye at her. “I don’t have a fuckbuddy, thank you very much,” Luz clarified, her nose wrinkling a little at the implication. “Willow mentioned that you were on weird terms with one of your exes, so I didn’t know what to assume,” the boy shrugged. “First of all: her name is Amity. Second of all: yes, we’re exes, but we’re also still very good friends, and we don’t have any of those kinds of weird feelings for one another.” She crossed her arms and looked away from his lingering glare. “I don’t think we ever did.” Hunter waved his hands. “I don’t need the details, Noceda. Whatever the matter, just let me know when people are coming over so I can prepare to avoid them at all costs.” He cleared his throat, scratching his chin a little awkwardly before stopping his pacing. He stood in front of Luz and looked down at her, crouching so that they were at eye-level. “Rule three… no feelings.” “Excuse me?” Luz asked, dumbfounded by the suggestion. “What kind of rule is that?” “Okay, look at the facts, Noceda,” Hunter said slowly, as if explaining five plus five to a moody kindergartener. “We are two young, single people sharing a very limited space with one another, and as much as I’d like to avoid having to talk or interact with you during this whole thing, there’s no way we’ll never see each other. If it comes down to it and we end up talking every now and then, there will be no mutual feelings of attraction.” Luz gave the guy a once-over. “And why does that need to be a rule in the first place? It’s obvious that you would never have anything to do with me, and personally, I don’t think anything would ever spark my interest if this is how it’s gonna be while we’re staying together.” “Then it should be easy to follow the third rule,” Hunter concluded, sticking out his hand for her to shake. Luz stared at it for a moment, taking note that he was wearing a pair of brown, leather gloves. She couldn't remember if he’d been wearing them when they first met. “Deal?” Luz looked at him warily before placing her hand in his to give it a firm shake.  “Great.” Hunter immediately stood up, making a beeline for his room. “See you whenever, Noceda.” He shut his door rather forcefully, making Luz flinch a little. “The hell was his problem?” she asked herself quietly, picking herself up off the floor and looking around the apartment from where she was standing. What he’d said was definitely true: they had limited space between the two of them. Along with their rooms and the shared bathroom, they also had a small living space with no furniture aside from a little coffee table- well, at least, a disassembled one inside the box it had been bought in- as well as a decent-sized kitchen, for how big the apartment was, anyway. Sharing a bathroom would probably be the only big problem, at least in Luz’s opinion. She had shared one with her sister Vee back home with minimal issues but sharing with a complete stranger- a guy nonetheless- would be a completely different story. Luz brushed her hands off on her jeans before making her way to her room, closing the door much quieter than Hunter had. She looked at the boxes she’d brought, none of them labeled, so she would have to dig through all of them to figure out what was inside. Despite the previous interaction leaving a bad taste in her mouth, she felt the giddiness of the move come back to her. She had a house of her own! Well, technically, she had an apartment that she was sharing with another person, but it was still half hers! Luz giggled to herself, flapping her hands in a stimming manner as she bounced on her feet. She was elated about the move, and not even moody ‘ol Hunter could change that.    *     *     *   “Keep your stuff on your own side of the damn counter,” was the first thing Luz heard once she was about to enter the bathroom in the morning.  It was a week into the move to the apartment, and a steady routine had been set. Hunter woke up at around 5:30 in the morning to go down to the gym on the ground floor of the apartment building, coming back and showering all before Luz even had time to get out of bed. She usually woke up no earlier than nine a.m. but today she could hear her housemate banging around in the bathroom, which caused her to wake up at around seven.  She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes as she mentally prepared herself for the argument that was about to happen. “All of my stuff is on my side.” Hunter pointed to the hairbrush sitting on the left side of the single sink, his hair still damp from his shower. “What the hell is that, then?” Luz stared at the brush, giving him an incredulous look. “Just pick it up and move it back to my side. What’s the big deal?” “The ‘big deal’ is that you have your own side for a reason, and I shouldn’t have to move your stuff if you would stick to your side.” Hunter crossed his arms. “Please, move it.” “You’re kidding me, right?” Luz raised both eyebrows at him. “You’re standing here already. Just move it.” “I’m not touching your stuff; I don’t know where it’s been,” he retorted, as if she had some sort of disease. Luz scoffed. “You’re unbelievable.” She reached over and took her hairbrush, placing it on the correct side of the sink. “There, happy?” Hunter just grunted, walking past her and bumping her shoulder in the process. Luz made threatening hand gestures at him behind his pack as he walked away, running a hand through her messy hair and pulling at it in frustration. She could not do this. She could not live like this anymore, and it had only been a week.  She considered packing up and leaving, going back home, but she refrained and immediately pushed the idea out of her head. Looking at the bright side of things, Luz reminded herself that she and Hunter barely ever saw one another. Since Luz’s work was exclusively online, she worked from home in her room and Hunter went to work during the day. They never ate together or exchanged pleasantries, much to Luz’s relief, but it also disappointed her a little. When she’d imagined sharing an apartment with someone, she’d hoped to form a friendship with them so it wouldn’t feel so lonely; at least at home Vee and her Mami would make conversation with her. It made her miss the pointless arguments she had with her sister, and compared to the ones with Hunter, they felt more like home than anything she’d experienced in the past week. The apartment felt cold and empty all the time, not just when Hunter was gone. The kitchen was hardly ever used aside from the refrigerator to store leftover takeout and the microwave to heat said takeout back up again, and there was no real furniture anywhere. The only time she felt like she was really at home was when she was working in her room, drawing or streaming her artwork. She smiled talking to people whom she would never meet in real life or even know the actual names of, but she felt better-connected to them than she did Hunter, who she was living with. It made her uneasy, and sort of let-down in a way.  When Hunter did come home, it was around six p.m. He was always in a sour mood about something, so staying out of his way was her main goal. The more they ignored each other, the easier it seemed to be. It was lonely. It made Luz sad.  She decided that she was tired of this nonsense, so the next day she decided to order food for them both. She didn’t know exactly what Hunter liked, but she figured that everyone liked Chinese food, so she settled for noodles and orange chicken. She sat on the floor of the living room. Placing the takeout containers on the box holding the coffee table, scrolling through her phone as she waited.  Luz jumped a little when she heard the lock click on the front door, and she sat up a little straighter once Hunter walked inside. He didn’t fully notice her at first, but when he did he stopped in his tracks and stared at the scene before him. Luz stood up, attempting a friendly smile. “Hey! Um, I got dinner for us if you’re hungry.” She gestured awkwardly to the boxes with one hand, wrapping the other around her waist as she often did when she was nervous.  “...why?” Hunter asked in a skeptical tone, eyebrow raised.  Luz shrugged. “Er… I don’t know? We just never seem to have normal conversations with one another, so… I just figured-” “We agreed to ignore one another,” Hunter stated, turning away from her. “I don’t remember that being one of your stupid rules that you set,” Luz grumbled, looking down at the food. “Can you at least come eat?” “I’m not hungry,” Hunter replied, closing the door to his room and leaving Luz standing alone in the living room. She wanted to stomp her foot like a child and drag him right back out to sit and eat with her, but she decided to act like an adult. She gathered up the food, mumbling to herself the whole time, and put half of it in the fridge. Luz took her own food to her room, closing the door quietly. She flicked on the warm fairy lights that lined her ceiling, plopping down on the twin bed she had in the corner. She closed the blinds in her room after taking a glance outside at the sunset, setting the box of noodles on the desk next to her bed. “Jerk,” she said aloud to herself, laying on her back and staring at the ceiling. Maybe she could convince Willow and Amity to let her stay with them for a bit or ask Gus if he wanted to try rooming together. Anything would be favorable to having to stay here with Hunter any longer. She was going to go insane.  “ ‘No feelings,’ ” she mocked her roommate quietly, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Like I’d ever stoop that low.” The next morning when Luz got up, Hunter was gone, as usual. When she went out to the kitchen to grab some cereal, she noticed a note on the counter with a ten-dollar bill placed on top of it. She peered at the paper curiously.   For the takeout last night. -Hunter   Luz ran a thumb over the note, looking at the money he’d left. She honestly hadn’t expected that.  The girl got to thinking, which was never a good idea. She felt an idea forming in her head. If she had to deal with living with this guy, then she could try to befriend him, or at the very least make things civil between them. How she was going to do that was beyond her, but there was no harm in trying, right?

Explicit

Hunter stared at the wall, shoulder aching from laying on his side. It’s been almost a month since they left the boiling isles, and everyone’s been slowly calming from the initial panic. Hunter hasn’t. Sure, his panic and stress did calm within the first week in the human realm. He’s been taught to get over things quick, no matter how gruesome or terrifying. He had to be able to do that as the Golden Guard, otherwise he’d be just another burden, a weight slowing everyone down. So he got over watching his uncle - no, not his uncle, Phillip - die right before his eyes pretty fast. He’s seen death countless times, one more doesn’t add much to the pile. But now, he lied awake with a different type of pain nagging at him. He wasn’t one to mourn a place, or people he hardly knew. Why would he? He never had a proper sense of home, nor should the lives of strangers matter much to him. But he found himself missing the demon realm, missing the boiling isles. Missing people he had only properly gotten to know days before the end of the world. He rolled so he was laying on his back, staring up at the ceiling now. His head still throbbed with an almost dull ache, one that’s been coming back more than normal. He could still practically feel the burning static under his skin, creeping up from his wrist and spreading to his face. It didn’t bother him too much, he just rubbed his gloved hand over his arm. Emotional pain has always been unbearable to him, more so than any physical pain could ever be. And right now, he felt like he was grieving the loss of all his loved ones at once. Except most people he cared about were safe, sprawled out over the air mattress and couch next to him, sound asleep. But they weren’t what he was mourning, even though he often found himself grieving with them. He missed the boiling isles. And he missed Darius, and Eberwolf, and The Owl Lady, and even Lilith, of all people. He missed the strange sounds that always kept him up at night, he missed going on early patrols with one of the coven scouts he had grown a liking to. He missed the wet and ashy smell of the air after boiling rain fell, and the itching feeling to run to Titan-knows-where half an hour before the designated meal times, not caring much if he’s a couple minutes late. He missed the strict routine prior to entering Belos’s mind, he missed the occasional praise from the coven heads, he missed staying up late pouring over books on wild magic and palismen and the human realm. And he missed Belos. He hated to admit it, after realizing his entire purpose was a lie, but he still missed him. He was family, even if that was a lie too. He could be good, he wasn’t always all bad, and he hated how much he clung to that. He wouldn’t ever want to go back to that life, not in a million years. But he missed it, even though it was horrible. He wanted the routine back, the pressure to do everything right, the satisfaction when he achieved that. He didn’t have any of that here, and it was almost overwhelming. Scratch that, is was overwhelming. Everyone was so flexible with daily routines and chores. Nobody expected anything of him, leaving him constantly on the edge of his seat waiting for something, anything, that could define his purpose here. When he did impress anyone, whether it be Ms. Noceda or one of his acquaintances (some he’d definitely call friends, but others were far from that), he didn’t have the relief or satisfaction he craved. It was always small things, useless things that anybody could do that seemed to make others happy, and it felt patronizing. They didn’t take him for a child, did they? He was doing all of these things and more at the age of five. He was training to disarm enemies at that age, for Titan’s sake! He had no worth here, and he felt himself itching to leave, to be useful to the demon realm. They had to deal with The Collector, and for Hunter to be useful, he knows he needs to go back. So when a few days later, a portal opened up at the abandoned building, he didn’t tell a single soul, just went through the portal before it could close. He’s sure the others will understand. The first thing Hunter noticed upon stepping through the portal was the smell of ash. The sky was thick with smoke from where he could see it, and the land was warped, unnaturally broken in places. Oh, and there were the people standing in front of him, of course. Eda the Owl Lady stood before him, with the Blight twins flanking her on either side. He glanced back at the portal. It looked stable, much more intact than the last time he saw it. “Close it,” was the first thing he said, not sparing a glance back. After a moment’s hesitation, the portal was closed again, disappearing without a trace. He turned back to the three. “So, kid,” The Owl Lady spoke up, “we’ve got a sort of base of operations we’re gonna take you to. But first, you’re gonna want this.” She took out what appeared to be a cape, the clasp to keep it in place golden and circular with a strange design on it. There were four more capes, he noticed, but chose not to acknowledge it. He hesitantly took the cape offered to him, looking The Owl Lady in the eyes with a hint of suspicion. She seemed to catch on immediately. “No, this isn’t gonna kill you. It’s just a sort of cloaking symbol,” she said with a sort of laugh. He wrapped the cape around his shoulders at that, albeit hesitantly, closing the clasp and getting a feel for the weight. It was about as heavy as his Golden Guard cape, and much better than that poorly put together blanket he had at Hexside. It sat on his shoulders comfortably, the weight grounding. “Is everyone alright?” Emira blurted out, and it was clear she had so many questions she had been trying to hold back. “In the human realm? Are they safe?” “They’re fine,” Hunter replied stiffly, locking eyes with her as he went right into ‘reporting’ mode. “They’ve been adjusting well to the… odd conditions of the human realm. I can answer more once we arrive at the base.” He heard Edric mutter something, but didn’t quite catch it. “Well then,” Eda spoke up, clasping her hands - one clearly artificial - together. “We need to get back before people start thinking we got stuck or something. Don’t want them going all this way for nothing!” She said oddly enthusiastically. “You, blondie, you can ride with me,” she said, summoning her staff and getting ready to fly. “It’s Hunter,” he grumbled, but did as told. The trip to the base wasn’t as far as he anticipated, and before he knew it, they were landing at the front of what looked like the entrance to an underground bunker. Eda pressed her artificial hand - which was clearly manufactured by Blight Industries, given the mix of mechanics and abomination goop - to a square pad on the wall, holding it there for a few seconds before the large doors slid open. He was silent as he was led through the hallways, not paying any attention to The Owl Lady and the Blight’s conversation. He was half zoned-out as he walked, however immediately snapping out of it at a familiar sound. It was a bird’s chirp, and he quickly looked up, trying to locate the noise. “Flapjack?” He called out, Eda snorting a bit. “We’re almost there, kid,” she said, a hint of amusement in her voice. Or, at least, he assumed it was amusement. People have been annoyed too and sounded like that, so he could never be too sure. As soon as the next set of doors opened to a living room-like space, a blur of red barrelled right into his chest. He hugged Flapjack as tight as he could without hurting them, feeling his chest bubble with- well, he didn’t know. Excitement? Nervousness? He’s always been bad at figuring out how he feels. The cardinal chirped happily, ‘Hunter found home! Hunter home!’ He laughed softly at that. He never considered the Boiling Isles home, let alone some random bunker he’s never seen before. But maybe it could be, he thought to himself. “Yeah, I am,” he said, picking up Flapjack to look at them properly. Luckily, they didn’t seem to have any new injuries. Whoever was taking care of them was certainly doing it right. “Why, thank you,” he heard a voice speak up, and he looked up to meet the eyes of the ex-head of the Abomination Coven. Realizing he spoke aloud, he straightened up, Flapjack taking a seat on his shoulder. “Darius,” he said, somewhat like a greeting. Well, he hoped it sounded like a greeting, but it probably didn’t with the way his voice cracked. “Hunter,” the man responded with a small smile. He seemed to contemplate something before just settling on resting his hand on Hunter’s shoulder, saying in a hushed tone, “I’m proud.” Hunter stared up at him for a moment before just wrapping his arms around him, hiding his face in the man’s cape. Darius hesitated for a moment before gently hugging back, mostly just rubbing the back of Hunter’s head. “There, there,” he cooed softly. “You’re home now, Little Prince.” And maybe he wouldn’t have cried this easy months ago, maybe he wouldn’t let the feelings of comfort get to him. But now, he silently cried, hugging tight and hiding his tears from the world. Just this once, he thought, leaning into the warmth. I’ll let myself feel this. —————————————————— Explaining things wasn’t as easy as he initially thought it would be. Every time he managed to answer one question the group of people - the RATTTs, they called themselves, which apparently was an acronym for ‘Rebels Against The Titan Thief’ - asked, there were several more flung his way. It was hard to keep up. “Shut up! Slow down,” he snapped when frustration became too much. Everyone immediately stopped talking, staring at him with wide eyes. He sighed, trying to calm himself. “One question at a time. If you talk over each other like a bunch of immature children then I’m not gonna be able to answer any of you.” “Says the child,” Kikimora grumbled. Hunter had been far less than pleased to find out she was hiding out here too, but realistically, it seems like the only safe haven amongst the chaos. Instead of adding some snarky comment or picking a fight like he normally would, he just chose to ignore she existed. Out of sight, out of mind, and it wasn’t hard to put her out of sight. “So,” he continued again, “everyone’s safe with the human’s mother. They’re all dealing with what we last witnessed before getting stuck there in their own ways, and they’re dealing well.” Amber quickly raised her hand as she spoke. “Question, uh- why aren’t they here now? You were with them, right?” Hunter looked over at her. He couldn’t just tell them that he deliberately left them behind, otherwise everyone would insist they go back. And he was not going to put the others in danger. “The portal collapsed,” he lied. “I was alone when it opened, and it didn’t look nearly stable enough to stay open, so I went through the moment I realized what it was. Everyone else was still at Mrs. Noceda’s house.” He looked away from the small witch, unintentionally locking eyes with Eda. She looked… shocked? If he had to put any emotion to that face, it was a failed attempt at hiding surprise. He was ready to be called out for lying. He was sure she was mad he’d even try to, and he’d be kicked out and stripped of the gifted cape not even a day after he had been offered safety. He’d have to try and stay undetected by the demon child, which in theory didn’t sound too hard. He’s snuck around plenty of times, as much as he hates to admit it. It’s one thing sneaking past Belos and a good handful of coven scouts, and then it’s another thing trying to sneak past what could easily be a god. He was pulled from his thoughts from the sound of Eda’s voice. “It happened so quick too, I was about to close it anyways to try and stop the collapse. But then I saw the kid running through… if I had closed it, he’d probably be stuck missing half his body.” She snorted, probably laughing at the image. Hunter looked away from Eda once he realized he was still staring, shifting his gaze to the surface of the table instead. No, he probably looked guilty like that. He looked back up, looking around the group of people. They looked sad, all having varying levels of brows scrunched together, mouths downturned in a frown. Or maybe they were mad. He just had to guess. “So they’re stuck there?” One of the few he recognized, Skara, spoke up mournfully. It made sense she was so upset, she was just making friends, real friends, before the Day of Unity ruined that. Hunter nodded a bit at her words, looking in her direction. “It’s alright though, the human realm is safe. The only issue we came across was when Gus forgot to hide his ears, but people just thought it was something called ‘cosplay.’ It’s a human thing, they like to dress up as characters from books, movies, and these things called ‘fandoms.’” He felt rather proud of how much human culture he learned in the time he was there. Him and Gus spent hours of researching ‘pop culture’ and weird human routines and rituals, all just to get their minds off of the stress they were in. Gus was taking a liking to the animals and technology especially, whereas Hunter researched more on history and political systems. But all of that didn’t matter here, he thought to himself. And it’s not like he was gonna have free time to research the human realm, let alone the resources to. He felt a pang of disappointment at that realization. But he pushed it down, continuing to speak. “Some humans can be cruel for no reason, too. We’ve dealt with quite a few- but they’re nothing more than ‘insecure bullies who don’t get enough attention from their parents’. Luz’s words, not mine,” he said, looking away from Skara when she had awkwardly stopped the eye contact. “That’s my girl,” Eda laughed, kicking her legs up on the round table and leaning back in her seat. “With Luz by their side, I’m sure surviving in the human realm is easy-peasy.” “Edalyn, the table,” Lilith scolded gently, just getting an overdramatized sigh and an eye roll from her sister. “Yeah, yeah, ‘it’s gross to put your feet on a surface people eat from.’ It’s fine, I’ve got my boots on!” She signalled to her heeled boots, the bottoms coated in mud. “Even better,” Lilith sighed, clearly giving up. Hunter had always felt inferior to her prior to her running away from the coven, and now seeing her in such a - well, definitely not casual, but close enough to it - setting was slightly unnerving. Honestly, being sat at a table with multiple ex-coven heads like this was unnerving. Lilith, Raine, Darius, Eberwolf- they were all his equals and even superiors at some point. And now he was sat with them and a handful of covenless and rebel witches, all working towards the same thing. Well, sure, covens were kind of useless now, and everyone was rebelling against whatever twisted game The Collector was playing… but it was hard to separate his sense of identity and experiences from the coven. “Now,” Darius spoke up, crossing his arms, “has anybody exactly told the boy what’s been going on here? Or are we just gonna leave him in the dark?” There was a sort of edge to his voice, one Hunter couldn’t place. But he did know it was likely directed at the people who brought him there. “Well, I was gonna tell him,” Eda insisted. Hunter felt like that was a lie. “It’s just- I don’t know, shouldn’t we get him settled first? Can’t have the kid freaking out over everything when he just got here.” Darius gave her a look. Hunter decided to speak up. “I can handle myself,” he stated confidently. “In the coven, I had to grow used to devastating news. And this could hardly be that difficult to handle, compared to- well, you know.” The air of confidence and haughtiness faded, and he just cleared his throat, deciding to stop talking before he rambled. He had learned the hard way that talking about life in the Emperor’s coven wasn’t a good idea and was a quick way to feel stupid. In the human realm, everyone insisted on sharing their feelings about their experiences constantly. So Hunter decided to chime in, talking about the training to be the Golden Guard, and Uncle’s outbursts, and everyone looked horrified, or maybe disgusted. So he quickly learned not to go into detail. “I dunno, kid,” Eda grimaced. “Maybe we give it some time first. You haven’t even slept yet, and Titan knows you need it.” She gestured to him, likely trying to point out the eye bags that hardly got better in the human realm. “He’s the Golden Guard, obviously he’s gonna be able to handle it,” Lilith gave a pointed look to Eda. “He’s the Golden Guard as much as you are head witch of the Emperor’s coven,” Darius snapped. Hunter kept his face and body language neutral. “We won’t be referring to or defining anybody by their previous titles anymore, remember?” “Geez, you don’t need to be so defensive,” someone else spoke up. Hunter only recognized her from Hexside, although he never spoke to her. Her deep pink hair was pulled into a low ponytail, a contrast to when Hunter had seen her with her hair in a high bun. Her three eyes looked boredly at her hand. “Not like he’s gonna care, just look at him.” “Boscha!” Skara turned to look at the girl. The triclops just rolled her eyes. “What? I’m right. He talks like a machine that’s trying too hard to be a witch,” Boscha said, glancing at Hunter. That struck a nerve. “No wonder the Blight girl ditched you,” he just scoffed in return. He gave a smug look at her angered face. She opened her mouth to argue, but was interrupted. “Hey, let’s not fight, yeah?” Eda said. “We know about the others in the human realm, we know they’re doing okay. Let’s wrap this meeting up.” —————————————————— “This is horrible!” Luz exclaimed, anxiously tugging her hair. “It’s been hours, and nobody’s even seen him!” Back in the human realm, the household noticed Hunter’s disappearance. They checked all of his favourite spots in Gravesfield to hide away, and he wasn’t anywhere to be found. They put out missing posters, asked around to see if anybody at least saw him, but all to no avail. The sun was setting now, washing the ground in orange hues. Luz was searching for Hunter at the edge of the forest, Vee and Amity trailing behind her. He wouldn’t have run away, would he? She knew that the human realm must’ve caused a lot of stress for him, but she didn’t think he’d just leave. “I don’t know what to do,” Luz cried, voice cracking. Amity was quick to hold their hand, gently leading Luz to sit on the grass with her. “Luz,” she muttered, taking their other hand and gently leading it from their hair. “I know this is stressful. And that’s okay! I’m scared for him too.” Luz looked up at her, cheeks wet from freshly shed tears. “But,” Amity continued, “he’s strong. If he ran away, then he knows what he’s doing, he’s likely got a whole plan to take care of himself. And he’s smart, he would never leave without a good reason to.” Amity gently squeezed her girlfriend’s hands, taking a deep breath. “He’s gonna be okay. We won’t find him tonight, I know we won’t, but we can at least settle on the thought that he’s safe.” Luz nodded, wiping at her eyes with a sleeve. “I know,” she said, voice wobbly. “I just- did I do something wrong? Was I too much? Was I not enough? He left for a reason, and- and I worry that I’m that reason,” they admitted, glaring at the ground. Amity let out a soft sigh, pulling them into a hug. “You’re always enough, batata. You do more than you need to for people, and you’re so, so caring, even if you don’t need to be. You’ve helped him come out of his shell, be more open to trying to get along with everyone. You’re the reason any of us are friends with him, and if it weren’t for you, he wouldn’t have even been on our side in the end. He wouldn’t be in the human realm with us, and he wouldn’t have made the progress he has.” “I guess you’re right,” Luz nodded, standing up again, Amity following suit. “I wanna keep looking though. I want to at least know if he’s been around here.” “About that,” Vee spoke up timidly. The two looked at her, and she kind of stammered before saying, “There’s some magic- left behind in that house.” She gestured at the abandoned house nearby, the one Luz had first entered the demon realm through. Luz gasped, rushing to the house and throwing open the door. No portal. It looked cleaner on the inside, sure, but that was because Hunter insisted on trying to fix up the place. “It’s- well, the portal’s not here,” Vee pointed out the obvious as she followed Luz up the steps. “But there was magic here, I can smell it.” “Do you think-?” Amity spoke, placing a hand on Luz’s shoulder and looking in. Luz stared into the dark room for a moment. Some time passed before she spoke again. “He’s back in the demon realm.”

Not Rated

First date/First Kiss   “Like this?”“Yeah! Wow, you're really good at this for a beginner.”   Eda grinned and flipped her orange mane, feeling quite proud that they complimented on her lute skills. Also, a good time to hit Raine with her charm. She leaned forward and smirked “I learned from the best after all!~”   The said best raised an eyebrow, smirking back. “Oh, you!” They playfully batted away Eda with their hand before giving out a little chortle.   Eda and Raine were at the Secret Room of Shorcuts (She introduced it to them in their early days from transferring to Hexide.) and it had been their hangout spot. Whether it was to plot and scheme pranks or to just spend time together.   A few days ago, she asked them to teach them some bard magic. And they couldn’t say no to an offer like that. So Raine began to give her the notes they took during bard class and taught her the lessons that their teacher did. And then they gave her the instrument that she picked. And now they were currently teaching Eda how to play the said instrument. She was a quick learner, so progress had been going well.   “So how’s progress with your lute?” Raine asked as Eda set the lute down to free her hands so that she could crack her knuckles. “My lute? Isn't this stolen from the music room?” She snorted with a joking tone, prompting laughter from Raine.   The bard teacher had a rule that if a student were to use the school’s instrument without permission, you’ll supposedly get banned from that room.However, Raine and Eda were too quick and sneaky to get noticed. So they never got caught. They always made sure to put it back before classes begins.   (“Why can’t they just . . . I don’t know, get a replacement?” Raine had once asked. “We have Faust as our principle, remember? If he’s going to expel students for chewing too loudly at the cafeteria, they were both out if he finds out.” Eda replied with an annoyed and bored tone at the mention of the principal.)   “Stolen is such a strong word! I prefer to call it . . . temporary borrowing it.” They cast a sly look at Eda. She snorted and pointed her finger at them “Your starting to think like me.” They rolled their eyes, still smiling “You’ve been a bad influence.” She answered their previous question “It’s been going great with you around.” She paused for a bit, then her cheeks went red.   “As you as my teacher that is." She quickly added though it was mumbled. Admittedly, Raine’s face was a bit warm when she said their previous statement. The previous playfulness about the lute was forgotten. The two teens both stared at each other as the silence stretched on.   The chatters of other students roamed outside the walls. A pair of golden eyes were staring at a pair of emerald ones behind the glasses with awkward silence.   “H . . . How about you play something?” Eda winced and repeated what they said. “Play something?” Raine gave a small nod before shaking their hands in front of them “If you want to that is! No pressure! I just want to see how you can play with yo- the lute.”   “No no no it's alright! Yeah, sure I’ll play you something just- hold on-“ Eda stretched out her arm to get a hold of the lute. Meanwhile, Raine took their seat on the floor. After Raine gave her an encouraging thumbs up, Eda’s fingers began to play the lute.   The music filled the air, taking every space and inviting any items found on the ground into the air to float around.   Eda’s own hair floated around her face and Raine’s glasses also decided to ditch them if it weren't for their fingers quickly reaching out to them. “No, your staying.” They grumbled before putting it back on.   “Talking to your nerd glasses?” Eda snorted. They smiled softly at her as she continued to play. Their gaze was full of admiration. As the song went to a close, Raine’s hands were thrown into applause and Eda stood up to bow grandly. “Why thank you! Thank you!”   Then one day, someone snitched on them. Thankfully, the snitch told the bard teacher and not the principal. The bard teacher was nice enough to let Eda and Raine off with a warning.   However, they were banned from touching the instruments inside the Music Rehearsal room. “I’m gonna pay that snitch a little visit,” Eda said, hands in her pocket as they walked down the hallway after the bard teacher dismissed them.   “The only instrument I could conjure up right now is my viola since that lute didn’t belong to me.” Raine huffed. They looked over at Eda to see her reaction. She noticed them looking at her.   “Don’t worry. I’ll find another way.” She threw a smile their way before it turned to a cat-like grin. “Maybe I’ll steal someone else’s lute?” She added before walking a bit faster. “Eda!” Raine chided but laughed alongside her as they caught up.   A few days passed, and the two went on their usual routine. Hanging out as usual, whether it's Raine teaching Eda about bard magic, pranking someone, cheering for Eda when she plays Grudgby or engaging in conversations that lasted for hours.     Raine looked in all directions as they made their way to the school’s entrance. The school was over for the day so most of the students have already gone home. They spotted a familiar someone sitting on the staircase and called out.   “Hey, Lilith.” The curly redhead looked up from her book to look up at the speaker. “Hello, Raine.” She returned her greeting “Looking for my sister?” She asked without letting them finish their question, with her eyebrow raised. They nodded, their face a bit red.   Lilith craned her neck to see if her sister is hiding somewhere in the entrance before sitting back down “Though I don’t currently know about the whereabouts of my sister, we're supposed to walk back home together early.” She hummed.   “Whatever you want to tell her can wait for tomorrow-““Rainestorm! Lily!”   Both perked up at the familiar voice as she approached them. “Edalyn your finally here! What were you doing that made you late?” Lilith asked, her arms stretched out and her red curly hair bounced along with it.   Eda scratched the back of her head and grinned “Got distracted.” She replied. Her eyes skipped over to Raine and they took it as an opportunity. They turned to Lilith “Lilith, can I speak to Eda? I promise to be quick.” They said, asking for permission.   Eda looked curiously at Raine while Lilith mentally debated whether or not she should let them. Finally, she sighed, “Alright. Edalyn, your bard wants to talk with you.” The last one was directed at her sister.   Both said bard and sister went red. “Lily!” Eda whisper-yelled at her. But she rolled her eyes, shooed them away, and already turned her attention to her books. “S-so um, can I talk to you now?” They looked at Eda, who nodded.   Raine offered their hand, however because of the comment Lilith made earlier, it was offered awkwardly. When Eda took it, they led her to an area that was near to the entrance and far enough to have some privacy.   “Sohoho, why did you wanna meet up? You plan to cover the school in slime or something?” Eda asked, trying to lighten up the mood. The corner of Raine’s mouth lifted slightly when they shook their head “Unfortunately no, but.” They paused, drawing a spell circle.   Eda was caught off guard when an instrument appeared and fell into her arms. It was a lute. She stared at it, her mouth opened and closed. Eda tried to regain her composure, but the surprised look couldn’t be easily erased when she looked at Raine.   “Consider that a thank you gift . . . for, you know. . . for letting me be your partner in crime and my friend.”   Eda’s expression softened and the warmth spread out through her face. If anything, she should be the one saying that. “Thanks, Raine.” Raine watched with a fond expression as she looked at their gift with excitement and gratitude, their crooked smile present.   Eda looked at Raine from the corner of her eyes and thought they deserved a bit of something as well. Without thinking, she leaned forward and her lips landed on something warm.   She pulled away and fluttered open her eyes. She had a side view of Raine, meaning what she landed on was at the side of their face. They were flustered and surprised, their eyes were shining behind their glasses.   Eda’s facial expression was the same until her eyes widened in panic when realization dawned on her.   She. Kissed. Raine. On the cheek.   She stepped back, “W-well um. Co-consider that as my gift! Of gratitude!” her words were falling apart, and so was her composure. Then she remembered that her sister was waiting on the stairs, a perfect excuse to escape this atmosphere she created.   The possibility that their friendship would never be the same ever again and ruined because of the kiss. “Thanks, Rainstorm but I gotta go! Lily’s waiting for me! Ok bye, see you byeee!~” She turned and sprinted towards the entrance, to find her sister still waiting there.   “Lily I’m back!” She huffed for air.Lilith stood up and drew a spell circle to put her belongings into her bag as she spoke “Edalyn, you’re here! Were, were you running?”“Nope, no! Sorry if it took so long but I'm here now!” Her explanation came out fast and the panicked look on her face was evident. She grabbed her sister by her wrist before she could make a comment about it.   “Let’s go home now, how about flash some flashcards while we're at it, eh?” She offered, hoping that it would distract her sister. It did not work. “Edalyn what’s the matter? Did something happen when you talked to Raine?” She asked, her eyes were concerned. Eda looked away.   “What? No! I. . .” She trailed off. Not sure if she should tell her sister about this. She looked back at Lilith. She was her sister and friend, she deserves to know what was going on. She looked at the lute Raine gave her and stored it in her mane.   She contemplated her decision and sighed “Ok, maybe something happened. . .”   “Just, don’t tell mom and dad. Especially mom, you know how nosy she can get.” She said the last part as a joke, and it looked like Lilith was ready to defend her mom before she stopped and sighed, knowing that, yes, their mom is a bit nosy.   Lilith’s face turned into sympathy as she placed her hand on Eda’s shoulder, guiding her through the gates and out to the path that leads home. “Whatever your going to tell me, is safe with me.” She reassured her.   Eda stopped in her tracks, with her sister stopping alongside her, her face patient. She stole a glance at the entrance, the memory was playing in the back of her mind.   Her sister would probably understand. Probably, because Lilith never really experience this type of thing so she’s not sure if she’ll understand.   “I’m pretty sure I ruined our friendship, Lily!” She groaned at her hands, so it was muffled.At the end of the day, she decided to her what happened. When Raine gave her the lute, and when she kissed them. She told them everything she felt during that moment. Lilith patted her reassuringly on the back, doing her best to comfort her baby sister.   “It’ll be alright Edalyn. You and Raine are close, so I don’t think your friendship would be ruined by that. . . Just, talk it out. That’s the best advice I can give you.” Lilith tried, wanting to comfort her. Eda touched her wild hair, where her lute was stored.   “I don’t think I have the guts to talk to them after what happened.”

Teen And Up Audiences

Raine Whispers and Eda Clawthorne have seen lots of things. Namely, all the events (ever since Raine came) at Hexside, which seem to change and shift and never stay still for longer than two weeks. They both remember the day that Vice Principal Bump became the new principal of Hexside. Principal Faust had announced it in a rush, not bothering to hide his obvious glee in being offered a new position in which he had complete control over an entire school, free to expel whomever he wished whenever he wanted. Eda would know. She had written the letter herself, with assistance from Raine. And when he found out it was a scam, how she’d relished watching Bump show him the papers he’d signed just hours earlier relinquishing his title. It didn’t make Principal Bump tolerate Eda’s mischief any more, but she didn’t mind. Raine and Eda have seen Perry Porter’s infamous Scrollspear channel fail miserably. It was doomed from the start, the whole Penstagram profile dedicated to nothing but reading overly-dramatic segments of Scrollspear’s works. But it had led to his discovery of the art of televised news reporting and announcing, which was something. They have watched everyone who ever mocked someone else scream and wail as their lockers were hexed with enchanted graffiti (courtesy of Eda). They have seen Alador and Darius’ friendship fall apart in their later years at Hexside. They have subtly (and not-so-subtly) booed at Odalia every time she tried to get with Alador—and eventually succeeded, though his attraction to her was questionable. They have seen Gilbert and Harvey dance around asking each other out for years, and they have seen them eventually ask the other to Grom, resulting in much squealing from both Raine and Eda. They see everything. They see Hexside change and change and change, never letting anything remain the same. Except, perhaps, Raine and Eda. Raine Whispers and Eda Clawthorne, friends and partners in everything under and above the Titan. Eda and Raine, the exception to Hexside’s rule of constant change.   The day that Raine and Eda graduated, Darius, Odalia, Alador, and Perry were there to greet them. There were tears (mostly from Odalia), and messages so sweet they seemed fake (also from Odalia), and inside jokes. There were dances and grins and kisses (from Raine to Eda and vice versa). Insults from Alador to Darius, but slightly friendlier than usual, and Perry’s so-bad-it’s-funny jokes. There was everything there usually was, which was a surprise considering how often things shifted. But then, after what seemed like no time at all, the party was over. Everyone left the school for the last time. And Eda and Raine watched as everything changed once again, except for the two of them, because they never did.   In fact, they only grew closer.When Lilith joined the Emperor’s Coven, leaving Eda alone in a house with a cure-crazed mother and an often-gone father, Raine was there. When she found herself responsible for her dad’s livelihood and life being ruined (though she didn’t tell Raine this) at nineteen, she left home and Raine helped her find an apartment. And when Raine’s mothers forced them out of their house when they wouldn’t join a coven yet, Eda welcomed them into her apartment with open arms. As the world changed around them, they stayed interlinked, paths always pressed against the other, fates intertwined and knotted thrice. As the rest of the world spun and shunned them, they drew closer and stayed rooted in place, feet planted where they’d always been. They became each other’s family when no one else would.   And then they broke up, and suddenly Eda was alone. She leaves the apartment at twenty-four years old, tears streaking her face, feathers lining her arms, regret pulsing hot under her skin. She stumbles into the Human Realm and it’s there that she stays. She doesn’t quite remember how long she’s there, hiding in alleyways and observing everything that is new. But she is alone, all alone, because she ran away from home. Because she hurt her dad because of her curse; because that same curse was all her mom could see in her. Because she couldn’t open up to the one person who she loved more than magic itself. So she stays there, alone in an unfamiliar world. Changing, because she is no longer the exception. Not anymore.   And then they broke up, and suddenly Raine was alone. By the time they come back to their apartment, she is already gone, and it’s as if she’s never lived there at all. Raine doesn’t sleep in the bedroom for a few weeks after that. Every strand of her orange hair in the bathroom, or the way the blankets on the side of her bed are still messy, only serve as painful reminders that it’s over. Regret becomes a constant in their features, because even if she was keeping secrets, maybe they could have tried harder to get her to release them. They are alone because of what they said, the break up they initiated, and now they are paying the price. Now they are forced to watch as they begin to change, too, spinning in tandem with the rest of the world. Changing, because they are no longer the exception. Not anymore. # Eda does not miss Raine. If there is one thing that she is completely sure of, it is this. She does not miss their smile with the little divot in the middle, or their quiet kind of sass, or anything about them. It has been one year, and there is no point in missing them. So she doesn’t. “Excuse me, but do you have a permit for that?”Darn. It’s a coven scout. In fact, she thinks it’s the same one who keeps coming around, and sometimes it seems like he’s simply… watching her. She thinks he’s a creep, but if she were to tell him that, he’d probably take it as a compliment. He eyes her stand with suspicion, looking from one human ware to the next. There are only a few small trinkets, and none of them have sold yet even though she’s been putting them out for just over a week now. “I most definitely do,” Eda says confidently. She stares the coven scout right in the eyes, which is slightly difficult as the rest of his face is obscured by a mask. “Can I see your license, then?” He steps closer. Eda hasn’t been in this business for very long, but she knows it’s time to leave. “Um… look at the time! I gotta go!” she says quickly. She draws a spell circle, pulling all her wares and folding the stand into a large canvas bag, slings it over her shoulder, and grabs the portal door. Owlbert hoots once, then flies to his staff without her having to say a word. “Hey! Stop in the name of Belos! I need to see your license! And if you’re free this evening, maybe–” “Okay, byeeee!” Eda cuts the coven guard off and swings onto Owlbert. Her red hair flies out behind her, wild and free, just like she wore it all those years ago. She hasn’t worn it in a ponytail since she and Raine broke up. Once she reaches the threshold of Bonesborough’s forest, she lands, tossing the portal door up and activating it in one smooth motion. She feels the familiar rush of wind as she enters the Human Realm, the air thicker and heavier than it is in the Boiling Isles. Hopefully sneaking into a human hotel residence won’t be too difficult. Besides, if they question her, she can always argue that within “hotel” is “hot,” which she is. She can’t help but yawn as she arranges her hair to cover her ears. Sometimes it grows tiring, not having anyone in either world, not anymore. But this has been her past year, and will be many, many more.   Raine is not tired. Bags under their eyes might be a new (or, they suppose, old) addition to their facial features. They may have a habit of falling asleep at their job, but that can be tacked up to how boring every task is. And their movements might be rather sluggish and slow most days, but perhaps it’s just their age catching up to them. Does it matter that they’re only twenty-seven? But they are not tired. They may have been working the same job at a music studio for just over three years, but it’s not tiring. They were never tired before, so they can’t be now. “Hello?” Raine startles at the sudden voice. “Oh. Um. Hello?” They look up from the desk, turning their attention to the tall, dark-skinned person in front of them. A small baby is cradled in their arms, who has a single shock of black hair waving over one eye. “I’d like to let you know that my daughter won’t be able to make it to her lesson in two weeks–we’re going out of town. Is there any chance that we’ll be able to reschedule a makeup one either before or after?” the person asks. Raine coughs lightly. “Um, who is your daughter?” “Oh, I just realized you’re not the usual desk person… Nya, N-Y-A, Vagra, V-A-G-R-A.” No, Raine is not the usual desk person. Instead, they are the usual do-more-work-than-most-others-but-get-paid-less-snails-for-it person. But the usual desk person is out with the common mold today (as were all seven of the back up people, though likely not for the same reason). So, Raine is left with a job slightly less boring than hours upon hours of cleaning instruments and fixing up small things in the less-than-perfect interior of the studio. “Excuse me? Would you like me to repeat it? I said Nya, N-Y-A, Va–” the person starts. “--gra,” Raine interrupts, flipping through the log book, “V-A-G-R-A.” “Oh, so you were listening.” The person laughs to themself, as if telling a joke. Raine decides not to respond and finds them a reschedule date, though it takes longer than expected. Once the person and their baby leave, Raine receives only a short break of silence before someone new steps through the front door, talking to them for the entire hour their child is in their music lesson. When Raine finally leaves the studio and retreats to the quietness of their small apartment, they breathe a sigh of relief. It is a small, two room apartment, with small boxes piled here and there, reminders of a move two years ago they never had the guts to accept. Takeout containers both fill and surround the trash can–they never have enough time nor effort to make meals nowadays. Despite the size of the flat, empty space is more common than filled–her things were what filled most of their old apartment. Once, the reminder of her might have brought a smile to their face, and after that, sadness, or frustration. Now it only brings a hollow emptiness, a blank spot in their brain. Raine’s shoulders sag and they step into their bedroom, falling onto the small mattress and letting their eyes fall shut. They often find themself longing for sleep but can never quite grasp it. Well. Things have changed enough, even their job, as temporary as the switch was. Maybe they are tired, after all. # “I remember you.” This is the first thing the five-year-old Raine has been told to teach says to them, immediately following their introduction. He looks up at them with curious dark eyes framed by circular silver glasses. His black hair falls in loose waves just below his chin, and a shock of it waves over the left side of his face, covering it. And Raine remembers him, too. “You were only two,” they want to say, and they almost do. For it’s uncommon for such a young child to recall someone they’ve seen only once before, three years prior. But already they can tell that Derwin Vagra is not a common child, and that choice is only further exemplified when he states that he wants to play the bassoon. The bassoon–not a flute, or a drum, or an easier instrument. Not even a violin, like they play, though their skills as a bard musician are rather versatile. A bassoon, at five years old, largely regarded as one of the most difficult instruments for younger people. They have been teaching for just over two years now, but this is the first student who has both recognized them and chosen to do what speaks to them instead of what everyone else chooses to do. It reminds them of red hair and golden eyes and a firecracker spirit, but they are quick to push the thought of her away. So instead of questioning him, Raine simply cracks a small smile, motions to the chair in the small room used for lessons, and summons a bassoon of their own. “Why don’t you show me what you can do?”   Derwin is a quick study. His hands are small, but his fingers are long, and while reaching to the different holes is difficult for the first few months, he soon learns how to adapt to it. Raine has other students, but none as young and tenacious as this one, this child with a calm, quiet sort of determination. And as he grows older, Raine can’t help but notice as more complex emotions surface in his eyes, begging to be brought to the surface but unsure of how to be. They note the way he holds himself, shoulders back and head held high, and eyes widening just a tad every time his perfect posture slips. They see how he will change his mind about anything and everything the second he sees even the faintest flicker of something in Raine’s eyes, as if desperately searching for approval with everything he does. They take extra care to assure him that whatever he decides, they will support him in. He always seems surprised when they say this. They watch as his answers to Raine’s questions about how he’s doing, or if he’s looking forward to anything this summer, grow from short, monosyllable “goods” or “nos” to longer, lengthier explanations. They always seem to end abruptly, though, the second Raine makes a sound, as if he’s forgotten how long he’s been speaking. After a while, Raine learns to let him finish what he’s saying before reacting. And they notice how he begins to leave the studio by himself a few weeks after turning eight, and arrives at the studio at random times, sometimes thirty minutes, sometimes two hours, before his lesson even begins. He is always on time, but he is always alone, and Raine’s heart hurts every time they see it. Bags should never be beneath a nine-year-old’s eyes, Raine believes, and yet they become permanent additions to Derwin’s face. His enthusiasm begins to wane away, but he won’t let his shoulders fall, not once. He won’t let himself say more than what is asked of him, as if an invisible hand clamps his mouth shut the rest of the time. And Raine is forced to realize that while he reminds them of her, he also reminds them of them. Alone, harboring emotions he won’t allow himself to show, and melting into playing the bassoon until it’s the only thing he knows how to do. The only thing he is. Raine thinks back to all the times they fell asleep at their table or didn’t fall asleep at all, too busy putting together music for a student or, before the coven offered them a teacher’s position, searching for parts to fix up the studio, or practicing the violin, or something of little importance but gave them enough snails to get by. They think of all the days they couldn’t remember anything they did the day before, sleep eating at their edges. They think of being alone, just like Derwin is. Only they are an adult, and he is a kid. They are a role model. Or, at least, they will be. “I noticed that all of the spells you’re learning now are all basic control magic,” Raine says one afternoon. Derwin doesn’t look up from his bassoon, just lets his fingers run over the warm up scales. “That’s what’s expected of me.” “Nothing should be expected of you,” they say gently. “After all, you’re only nine. You’re still learning. You can experiment with different types of bard magic, if you’d like.” They pause, then add, “Would you like to give a different type of spell a try?” “No,” is Derwin’s immediate answer. Raine accepts that, because maybe he truly doesn’t. But they start bringing it up every so often; begin to use more of the lesson for speaking, even if at first the conversation doesn’t come easily. They learn that Derwin likes to read in his free time, but doesn’t get a lot of that. So Raine goes to the library and borrows books for him, letting him read them while he waits before each lesson. This is their routine for the next few years, and Raine watches as his shoulders begin to relax ever so slightly. As the bags under his eyes fade; as he leans into conversation easier. They learn that Derwin’s parents argue; that his sister is preparing to move out, so he’ll be without her; that he can’t fall asleep because of the ways the yells bleed through his walls. That his parents hold him to impossibly high expectations. And as Derwin opens up, they realize that they have begun to, too. That as he changes, so do they, or perhaps they were the one to change first. Their smile comes easier, and they get around to unpacking the rest of the boxes. Their belongings still fail to fill out the rest of their apartment, but it’s a welcome space now, not an emptiness. They begin to notice as their older students graduating rush to join covens, even if they’ve expressed that they’re still undecided. And a few weeks after they turn thirty-seven, their birthday celebration equating to a hug and a card from Derwin, they realize that they’re no longer tired.   Somedays, Eda wonders why she took him in. He is a child, but not a witchlet–no, he is a demon. Not a king of them, but he seems to like the name nonetheless. He amuses her, King does, but he is unfamiliar land. Uncharted territory. She barely knows how to take care of herself, much less someone so different from her. She spends the first few days after having him in her home searching for things he can eat, every meal a new experiment. Part of her wants to be worried that she’ll harm him, that he’ll consume something that his digestive system can’t handle, but she doesn’t like being worried so she forces herself not to be. She doesn’t like being soft much, either, so when he’s not eating she’s either brewing potions in the basement, rummaging in the Human Realm for treasures, or sleeping. It doesn’t help that she’s been living off enough snails to feed one person for nearly thirteen years, and that her cooking skills are rather rusty. She can handle raw meat due to her curse, but only in small amounts, and there’s no telling what would happen to King if she fed it to him. And she is doing everything she can to avoid having to ever clean any puke or residue off the floor.   Having a roommate is… different. At first, it’s not so bad. Eda makes sure that King eats, which, depending on how she’s feeling, both physically and mentally, can either be the most draining task or the simplest one. Hooty watches him for all the hours she can’t, which is most of them. And while she feels guilty for leaving King at the mercy of the house demon’s wild tales while she’s out and about, he can protect him. It’s a strange feeling, not being alone.She doesn’t quite love it, not when she’s been so used to having only Hooty as company for so long. King is small, far smaller than she’s been for years, and she’s no maternal figure. They had always been better at that sort of stuff than she had. The thought, the sudden thought of them, after all these years, stabs into her gut and she rushes to push it away, to corral it in the deepest, darkest corners of her mind. It won’t do any good to dredge up old memories. Yet as King begins to grow and as the years begin to pass, she starts to wonder once again why she decided to take him. To house him in a place she discovered by accident so long ago, by being chased from a world she’d thought she’d had a chance in and to the world she’d all but given up on until then. She might have a title that she is proud of, a reputation as the Owl Lady and most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles. But while she can escape from the law when it is simply her, while she can evade capture and punishment again and again and again, this is no life for a child, even a demon one. She has a name for herself, but it is one associated with criminalistic activities and behaviors. Is this really a name she wants King to be associated with? Well, she supposes, she’s made her choice. There’s no backing out now–even if quitting would be much easier to do. The older King grows, the more curious he becomes, wondering where Eda is off to every day, and the more curious he becomes the more restless he is, longing to leave the Owl House and find adventures of his own. To find “subjects,” as he puts it. Sometimes–okay, often–Eda regrets humoring his ruler-like habits. But (and like she’ll admit this to anyone) occasionally watching him order around his stuffed animals and believing so completely, so entirely wholeheartedly, that he is a king of demons, is slightly endearing. As she flops on the couch, yawning and stretching, the day’s potions delivered and human items sold to gullible witches, she watches him command his army. Even at four years old, his squeals are mighty. Today, they’re also extra shrill, and she sighs loudly as they cut into her much-needed sleep. “Keep it down, will ya, kid?” she mutters. Her voice is muffled as she sinks into the couch. “Kid? I am no kid! I am the king of demons! You should fear me and my wrath!” King bellows, then squeals extra-loudly, as if to further cement his point. “Yeah, yeah. But I’m trying to sleep.” “And?” She groans. He never used to question her authority (well, she supposes that he did… at times), but now he does it almost constantly. “And you should let me.” “Why?” He runs up to her, wehing under his breath. “Because I say so. Go play outside or something. Whatever it is that kids do these days.” “No way! If I do that, then Hooty will come and talk to me about the last bug he ate!” King protests, swinging his arms at his sides. “Did someone say Hooty, hoot hoot?” The house demon comes hurtling over, spinning his head around and around for a few seconds. “Ew, get away from me,” King says immediately. “Oh, I’m sure you don’t actually mean that, hoot!” Hooty slinks around King, whose face grows increasingly more disturbed. “After all, how could anyone resist alllll this?” “Okay, that’s it. I’m going upstairs,” Eda says loudly, “and don’t bother me.” She cracks her knuckles, then slowly rises from the couch and starts up the stairs. “Will do, ma’am!” Hooty chirps. King simply gives her wide, pleading “save me” eyes. Eda shrugs in response, as if to say, “You brought this on yourself.” Once she’s upstairs, she drops into her nest with a grunt, doing a quick spell to change into her pajamas. She downs an elixir, then lays there, eyes closed. Only when she’s sleeping does the world at last seem to stop spinning, and even if it’s only temporary, it’s enough. But then she remembers how, ever since that day seventeen years ago, the world started turning and she along with it. How ever since then… she’s been more or less alone. Eda can’t sleep after that. # When one student leaves, another comes, and when that one leaves, another replaces them. And so the cycle is born, the same teacher instructing a hundred different souls, one after the other. Usually each student stays with them for longer than one day, though. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t think that the tambourine is a good fit for her,” the mother says, shaking her head with what seems like a false apology. “I’m sure you’ll find another instrument for her,” Raine replies evenly. They are careful not to snap at the mother, careful not to yell and tell her that she is crushing her daughter’s sense of self-expression. These things would be unprofessional, and if Raine acted that way they would surely be fired, and they need this job to have a chance of one day getting a more classified position. So they keep their words exactly what the mother wants to hear and nod along with her like a puppet. Raine knows that the mother is stubborn, and always likes to get her way, and won’t listen to what anyone else has to say unless it’s what she wants to hear. They know this because of her daughter, who they taught for approximately one lesson. Normally, they wouldn’t judge parents based upon children’s perceptions of them, for often their views are skewed or biased based on desert or bedtime regimes. But Katya Dursa is no normal ten-year-old. She views the world in a way so drastically unlike the others in her age group, in an observational, curious, sometimes dreamy way, that she sees things the way they are. She has a big imagination, but she knows how to separate it from reality and keep it from bleeding over when it counts. So Raine knows a lot about her mother, for her complaints about her were among the first words she said to them. They also know that when Katya first stepped into their music room, she wanted to find an instrument that spoke to her. And that when she left the music room, she was triumphantly clutching a tambourine, then showed her waiting mother. Her mother, who now hands Raine the same tambourine they allowed Katya to borrow not twenty minutes earlier. “I hope that you understand,” her mother says, still with the falsely apologetic words. “I don’t,” Raine wants to tell her. Instead, they say, “Of course.” Then they flash Katya a quick smile and say, “Perhaps we’ll meet again.” She smiles back, baring her two little fangs, and that is the last of Katya Dursa that Raine sees for a while. The student that takes her forty-five minute time slot is a nine-year-old girl named Amber Quill, with a brash yet energetic personality, bright and talkative. She can already play the recorder and refuses to even think of changing instruments. Raine admires her boldness. She quickly grows attached to them, though she claims she doesn’t like them at all. But they can tell that, by the way her pink ears redden when they compliment her, or when she starts responding with things other than “good” to “how are you?”, that she’s simply pretending. They don’t press her to admit it, though. For as loud as she can be, she doesn’t like to explain her emotions, almost as if she’s scared of them. As if she’s wondering who she can entrust with them. Despite themself, Raine finds them comparing her to… her in almost everything. It’s unfair to Amber, they know, but they can’t help it. They’ve been being reminded of her by a lot more things now, they realize, even with all their attempts to forget. But as their rank in the Bard Coven changes by the month, and as the years pass by in a whirl of students and songs and studying, they can’t help it. Change has always linked the two together, but after a while it slowly drove them apart.   Eda has been traveling to the Human Realm since she was eighteen. She’s spent more time than she can remember there. She’s built part of her livelihood around it, scavenging for human treasures and selling them for snails. This is what she does. And yet, never in her twenty-seven years of experience has she ever, ever brought back a living thing. Much less a human. And technically, it’s not she who brings the human through the door but the human herself. But still. She already shares a house with an eight-year-old demon who thinks he’s a king and is named as such; an infinitely long house demon who protects the house but tormets those within with his conversations; and with an owl demon, who technically lives inside her but sometimes feels like its own thing, too. Now that she thinks about it, she lives with an awful lot of demons. But that still doesn’t mean she has room for a human. And then the human goes and helps Eda get King’s crown, only to end up freeing the conformatorium’s prisoners, dumping Warden Wrath (the creeper that was always watching her), and crushing the crown, and with it, King’s “power.” Only instead of going home and getting out of everyone’s hair like Eda wants, the human stays, and somehow Eda finds herself agreeing to teach her magic. A girl like Luz won’t last long in the Boiling Isles, she figures, but she does. Oh, how she does. And even if she hadn’t fallen in love with it, she eventually finds herself trapped here after managing to find a way into Eda’s heart. It sounds so unbearably sappy, so sickeningly sweet… but it’s true. And then Eda finds herself with two children, not in the way she would ever have dreamed of having some but hers nonetheless, and perhaps that is the biggest change of all. Until King begins to talk about leaving, and she remembers how Luz will go back to her mom one day. Eda begins to brace herself for the change that she knows is coming, even if she wishes that for once, everything would stay the same. But she gave up the immunity to change when she clung to her secrecy instead of her songbird. # When Raine sees Eda, they expect her to yell at them, or to run away.   When Eda sees Raine, she expects them to yell at her, or to run away.   Neither of them expect the other to act as if nothing has happened. As if they talked just yesterday, not twenty-seven years ago. As if Eda knows the three young people in matching bat masks behind Raine, the other members of the BATTS. As if Raine had tried not to think about Eda for so, so long. But this is exactly what happens. Eda joins their makeshift rebellion, because Raine lets her, because she says she has nothing to lose. And they believe her. And Eda knows that they believe her, because while she’s only gotten better at lying over the years they’ve been apart, Raine has always, always been able to see through them. “Rainestorm,” Eda finds herself thinking as Raine lies back on their pillow. Only it seems she said it aloud, because Raine chuckles. “Haven’t heard that in a minute,” they reply, and both of them can tell that it’s their way of addressing the distance between them. For they can talk, they can laugh together and rebel against Emperor Belos together, but they cannot deny the change. And they cannot pretend as if they’ve been rooted in the same spot for twenty-seven years, because that would be impossible. “Oh, you’ve gotten so strong,” Eda says softly after a beat. A smile quirks up her lips. “It’s incredible.” A thought crosses her mind, and now it’s her turn to chuckle. “But how’d you become Head Bard with your stage fright?” It’s been lingering in her head for a while now. Perhaps, twenty-seven years ago, she might have known the answer to her own question. But now she realizes that she may no longer know Raine Whispers any better than a stranger. She’s not quite sure why, but the possibility of that fills her with a dread so sharp that for a second she’s worried it’s the Owl Beast, clawing at her from within. “I’m just that good,” Raine replies, and then, perhaps against better judgement, they smirk. Eda fights the urge to blush. “What about you?” they add. “Do you still know any Bard spells?” They can’t help but let a small part of them hope that she does. Eda pauses at this, memories of the morning running through her head. The music, the burning effect it had on everything around her. How even her music changed without them. But she doesn’t feel like explaining all of this, not now. So she settles for the quickest answer: “Well, you remember the curse. It messes with my magic.” She looks away after she says it, for now she’s bringing up one of the reasons that drive them apart in the first place. What is she thinking? Raine hesitates for just a moment, wondering if perhaps she will finally open up about her curse. Because yes, they do remember it. How could they not? But the moment passes and Eda says nothing, and so they summon a lute for her. They can’t help but tease her when her eyes go wide with shock at the instrument in her hands. “How’d you become the Owl Lady with your stage fright?” And, for a brief moment, it’s like it was before. Raine and Eda, Eda and Raine.   It is easy enough to pretend that nothing has happened between them, that everything is exactly as it was before. But the pretense falls through when Eda almost loses Raine. But the pretense falls through when Raine almost loses Eda. They see each other at the CATTS headquarters after worrying that the other might be in danger for weeks. They’re drawn together, almost like magnets that, like magic, still work after all these years. And then they’re alone, tucked away in one of the headquarter’s chasms. Neither quite knows what to say to bridge the obvious gap still lurking between them. So they do the only thing that seems natural. Eda leans forward, and Raine leans forward, and they fold each other into an embrace so tight it hurts. It’s familiar but unfamiliar all at once, the same but changed. They find themselves reluctant to draw apart, but when they do, unspoken and pent-up emotion glimmers in both of their eyes. “I know that things may never go back to the way they used to be,” Eda says quietly, speaking first, “but…” She pauses; meets Raine’s eyes. “I need you to know that I still care about you, Rainestorm.” Raine feels a hot blush dust their cheeks, and sees the same one fall across Eda’s. “So do I,” they say softly. Eda slowly reaches out and takes their left hand in her right. Raine slowly reaches out and takes her left hand in their right. And it’s then that they know. Perhaps what mattered most about them never changed at all.   Raine Whispers and Eda Clawthorne have seen lots of things. They have seen Hexside change and change and change, and watched a couple within stay the same no matter how many times it did. They have seen the world spin around them while they stayed planted in place. They have seen that shatter and both of them be plunged into lives filled with loneliness. They have seen bonds be made and families be found; trust be earned and friendships formed. They have seen it all. Now, they are no longer alone. Now, they are no longer spinning with no direction. Raine and Eda have found each other again, and they will never let each other go, for it seems that the one thing that never changed was their love.

General Audiences

Eda was starting to get impatient with her stalkers. She'd gotten the feeling that someone was watching her somewhere about halfway into her pre-rain herb gathering, and once she'd started looking for the signs, they were obvious. Movement just outside her field of vision, an out of place creak in the usual forest ambience, birds flying off when she wasn't near them. Either her new friends wanted her to notice and was waiting for her to call them out, or they were Coven scouts. "Honestly, what are they teaching those punks these days?" Eda thought derisively to herself, shaking her head as she kept walking. Until she found herself in the middle of a clearing, setting her sacks down and turning around with her hands on her hips. "Alright, come on out, let's get this over with. Those clouds are getting darker by the minute and I don't want to waste the energy on a shield." She called out, tone casual even as she firmed her stance. A tree at the edge of the clearing rustled, and someone dropped down in front of it. Someone in a ratty cloak, hood drawn up to cover what little it could, with how tattered it was. The clothes the cloak couldn't hide weren't much better, baggy pants with clumsy patches and a tunic with holes in it, revealing a scrawny figure underneath the whole thing. A scrawny figure belonging to a pale face, one with a scar going over most of his right cheek, starting from under his jaw and stopping just under the eye, which drew her attention to a set of magenta eyes, holding her gaze with a fierce, unwavering stare. Though, Eda couldn't take the look all that seriously, since the kid was a foot shorter than her. And he was a kid, an older teenager if she had to guess. There was a hint of youthfulness to the sharp angles of his face, like he was only just done growing. That, plus the fact that the kid had eye bags worse than Lily's used to be during exam week, and his cheeks were starting to become sunken, clueing her in that the thinness was likely not by choice. "Last I checked, stalking known Wild Witches doesn't net you any extra credit, so what do you want, kid?" Eda asked, hoping her teasing tone helped ease some of the tension out the kid. He looked ready to run or fight, and she tried not to beat up the homeless when she could help it. "You're Eda the Owl Lady." Kid asked, tone framing it a statement, rather than a question. "The one and only." "We need a place to stay." Eda blinked owlishly. "Huh?" "We need-" "I heard you the first time kid, I just- You KNOW who you're asking, right?" She asked incredulously, waving a hand at herself. "I'm asking because of who you are." Kid said, tone firm as ever, though some desperation shone through in his stare. Eda tilted her head down, putting a hand over her eyes as she sighed. This was going to be a long one, she could just feel it. "Okay, I think we're skipping a few things here. Let's step back a little, yeah?" She said, dropping her hand back down to her hip as she caught his gaze again. "You know who I am, so who are you?" Kid opened his mouth, only to hesitate. He worked his jaw for a moment, expression displaying his unsureness for Eda to see plainly. "It's alright if you don't wanna tell a notorious criminal, it's the smart thing, really. But I try not to let total strangers into my house, so keep that in mind." She stated, voice softening as she loosely crossed her arms. Kid's eyes widened at that, then narrowed as he looked down, thinking. When he lifted his head back up, he seemed like he'd made up his mind. "Hunter." Eda waited a moment. "Just Hunter?" She asked. "Just Hunter. Don't have a last name." He said, a certain sort of old sorrow flashing across his face. "Yeesh, this kid is open." The Wild Witch thought, "Like he's not used to guarding his expression," She flicked her gaze to the scar on his face, "Or maybe he never got good at it." "Alright, then. It's nice to meet you, Hunter." Eda said, giving the kindest grin she could. She'll admit, it was nice to see the tension bleed from Hunter's shoulders, even if it was barely noticeable. "Now, I seem to remember you saying "We". Who else is with you?" Hunter tensed back up, worse than before. "Before you say anything kid, I promise I won't do anything. I mean, I've known the whole time that they've been in the bushes right there," Eda said, lazily pointing to her left, "So if I was gonna do anything, it would've happened by now." As Hunter clenched his shaking fists at his sides, Eda realized she probably should have gone about calling out the other stalker more gently. "Meh, it happened. The only way is forward, now." She thought. For a long, tense moment, there wasn't so much as a sound as Eda and Hunter stared each other down. Until a shuffling sound broke the heavy atmosphere, Hunter snapping a wide-eyed look to his right before rushing over to it. He stood in front of whoever it was that was coming out of the bushes, blocking Eda's view of them. He looked like he was having a conversation with them, but the words were too hushed for her to hear. Hunter looked over his shoulder at her, only his chin to be grasped gently between two claws, turning him back to whoever he was talking to. They seemed to come to a decision, because Hunter nodded and turned himself back towards Eda, still protectively blocking the view of whoever he was hiding. "Like I said, I promise I won't do anything, kid." Eda said lowly, leaving her expression open and sincere. Hunter seemed to search her for a moment, before finally relenting and stepping aside, still cautiously watching her. "Now then, who's our new fri-" Eda's thought process promptly halted. The newcomer has a tail instead of legs, and was covered pale green and white scales head to tip, with a short but wild patch of blue hair on their head. They were also giving her the most pathetic stare she'd ever seen. Eda would never claim to be the most studious Witch on the Isles, but she was far from a fool. More than that, she happened to be the owner of many old books. Legal, illegal, and thought-to-be-burned alike, more than a few of which told of terrible threats from the Savage Ages. For example, a serpentine race that had a habit of sucking the magic, and often life, out of entire settlements of Witches, thought to have been hunted down and wiped out hundreds of years ago. One of which stood before her in the scale, and seemingly no worse off for being extinct. "Kid." Eda said, tone carefully blank. "Yeah?" Hunter asked. "That's a Greater Basilisk." "I know." "You know?" Hunter looked over to the Basilisk, taking hold of a claw and interlacing his fingers with it, holding it firmly. "I know."Eda stared at the joined hand-claw for a moment."This one is going to be all kinds of interesting, isn't it?" She thought tiredly.Eda tried to take the thunder that cracked overhead as soon as she had that thought as a coincidence, rather than an omen.She failed.

Teen And Up Audiences

He couldn’t breathe. Even though that’s the only thing he was doing at the moment. And running. Hunter’s mind was running at millions of miles per minute, his whole world was crashing around him. He didn’t know what to think, and could barely differentiate right from wrong. His whole life was a lie. How could he be so ignorant? So foolish to believe anything his uncle told him, so naive to do every single thing his uncle demanded of him. To go out of his way to please him every moment possible, out of fear of being replaced. All because he wanted to be a part of the Day of Unity— without even knowing what it was this whole time! It will drain everyone with a coven sigil of their magic, and maybe even their life. His uncle was planning on killing everyone on the Boiling Isles. And he was blindly following him into this. Hunter looked up to his uncle, admired him more than anyone. Luz told him over and over again about Belos being evil, but Hunter was too stubborn to listen. He wanted to cling onto the fact that his uncle was a good person with good intentions for everyone. He was taught that joining the Emperor’s coven was a gift, one of the most successful opportunities any witch could ever take. Because you would be a part of something greater. That’s why he wanted Willow and the rest of the Emerald Entrails to join the coven with him, and he was so excited at the thought of having friends in the coven with him. But they had been so upset at joining, and back then he didn’t understand. Now he does. And now he couldn’t go back. The one home which he knew for his whole life was now the place he feared the most, because if Belos ever saw him, he would most likely be killed on sight. Which was incredibly frightening to think about. “What a shame. Out of all the Grimewalkers, you looked the most like him.” Like who…? Who did Hunter remind Belos of? Who was he made to resemble? All of this was so bizarre, he wasn’t even a witch. Could he be…a creation? Was that what a Grimewalker was? Something bioengineered by Belos himself? Of who? Well Belos considered Hunter his “nephew,” so that would mean he was a clone of Belos’s brother? And from a line of replicas, from Belos’s mind Hunter and Luz saw so many scattered, broken Golden Guard masks littered across the dark corner of his mind. He tried to picture what it looked like in his mind again, to mentally count how many masks there were. He came to a conclusion of eighteen. Eighteen of Belos’s right hand men…all betrayed him and were killed by him. And the same thing would happen to him. There was no hiding from Belos! He was the Emperor of the Boiling Isles, he had the most power in the whole realm. The only reason the Owl House was still standing was because the Emperor willed it too! It wouldn’t be long before he sent Coven Scouts after him, or if he went after him himself. The thought of seeing his uncle again in person made Hunter start to breathe even harder, and tears prick at his eyes again. He didn’t know how long he was running, and he could barely see where he was going, until he bumped into someone hard. He fell backwards onto his back, and squinted up to see who he had run into. “Little Prince?! Oh thank the Titan you are alright!” He heard a familiar voice say as a pair of hands pulled him up onto his feet to envelope him into a hug. It was Darius. Hunter gasped loudly, being thrown completely off guard at the sudden show of affection from Darius, but suddenly a new thought crossed his mind before he could bring himself to hug the man back; He was a Coven Head. Hunter could see behind Darius that there was also Eberwolf and Raine, all wearing cloaks with the hood down, looking at him with confused but slightly concerned looks. He didn’t understand why all of them would be out here together, but they could be here for him. To bring him back to his uncle! On instinct Hunter pushed back Darius. And because of that he fell onto the ground again. Acting only in his panicked state, he was crawling backward on the grass away from all of them, “You can’t— You can’t take me back!” “Hunter, what are you talking about?” Darius suddenly looked incredibly confused. He tried to move closer to Hunter for him to flinch back violently and move away even farther. “You can’t! He’ll—kill me! He said—he said he would!” Suddenly Hunter’s back hit something, it was a tree. Meaning he was now cornered. He could hear Flapjack chirping beside him, telling him that it would be alright, but he couldn’t listen. He was so scared that he could feel a sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach. He was already starting to shake, his hands quivering as he tried to protect himself with them. “Who said he will kill you?” Darius asked, sharing a confused look with Raine before suddenly it seemed he understood. “Emperor Belos?“ Hunter nodded his head vigorously, staring to curl in on himself as Darius made his way closer. Darius held his hands in front of him, cautiously inching forward to the terrified teen who was shaking against a tree with his cardinal Palismen flying in place next to him. “No, no Hunter, we are the Rebels!” He tried to explain, guestering to himself, Raine and Eberwolf. “We were the ones you were chasing a few hours earlier.” “…Rebels…?” Hunter repeated softly, his eyes furrowing in confusion. “Yes, Rebels, we aren’t going to take you to Belos.” Darius tried to explain calmly to him. “What happened while you were in his mind?” Before he knew it Hunter was back on his feet with his arms tightly wrapped around Darius, his eyes watering fully. Hearing that Darius and the others weren’t going to be dragging him back to his uncle relieved him, but also broke him. The dam was broken and everything he had learned from the hour prior was now pouring out of him as he sobbed onto Darius’s chest. All the stress he had endured in Belos’s mind, the heartbreak he felt when he discovered the life he was living was a lie, everything.His mind was also now so clouded he was just rambling mindlessly about everything that happened while Luz and him were in Belos’s mind. Darius, who almost always had something to say, surprisingly stayed quiet and just held him while he babbled on and on. “He lied to me! I thought I—I was doing the right thing…” Hunter thought of himself as righteous, doing the right thing for all the witches and demons of the Boiling Isles. “There we—were other Golden Guard’s like me— and they were all Grimwalkers! I’m a clone! And apparently I—I looked the most like him—and they all be—betrayed him! So he killed them all!” Hunter’s stuttering was muffled when abruptly Darius went stiff for a moment. Hesitantly he pulled Hunter back to look him in the eyes, alarm stricken, “The previous Golden Guard…was killed?” Darius aspirated, his expression looking shocked. Hunter then remembered that his predecessor was Darius’s mentor, and that those two had been close. No one knew what happened to the previous Golden Guard, everyone in the Castle was told he just lost the job. But now Hunter knew the truth, and now so did Darius. Hunter just nodded numbly into his shoulder. Darius didn’t know how to take in this new information, he had spent all this time grieving, knowing that his mentor had died but not by Belos’s hand? This just fueled his anger even more, and made him want to pursue the rebellion even harder. But he couldn’t get caught up with past memories of his Mentor now, he had to focus on the matter at hand, which was Hunter. He continued to run circles on Hunter’s back, trying to comfort him and to calm him down, “It’s okay now little prince, you are with us now.” After a few minutes of trying to collect himself, with tear stained eyes he looked up at Darius’s face, “So…what happens now?” “Now,” A new voice spoke, Raine’s. They stepped closer to Hunter and Darius with their hands on their hips and with a determined smile on their face, “Now you join the rebellion. Help us take down Belos once and for all.” He smiled at that. All Hunter wanted was to please his uncle, do whatever he wanted in order to help the Day Of Unity. But now? After realizing the truth about everything? It was time to stop doing what he told him to do and to start making decisions for himself. It’s time to stand up to evil. Hunter nodded and stood up with Darius by his side, “When do we start?”

Not Rated

“Do you really have to go?” Luz is making puppy dog eyes at her from her position curled up against Willow on the couch as Willow plays with her hair, and their combined cuteness makes Amity reconsider how important her homework really is.  She’s been dating Willow and Luz for weeks now and they’ve been spending all the time they can together, which means dinner at the Owl House, which also means the inevitable and horrible experience of having to leave her girlfriends every night.  “Sorry Luz, but I really do have to go,” Amity says, pulling on one of her boots. “My essay on Abominational Composition is due tomorrow and I just want to read it over a few times and make any final edits.” Luz pouts, and Willow giggles a little at the torn expression that rises on Amity’s face. “Send it over on your scroll and I'll proofread it?” Willow offers with a soft smile. There must be something wrong with Amity that the simple offer to proofread makes her cheeks flush, but she and Willow have been through so much together that the knowledge that they can do small things for each other again makes her stomach do all sorts of loops. Amity hums an affirmative, and turns to grab her other boot. “Thank you for making dinner, by the way, it was lovely.” Amity smiles at the way Willow blushes in response to the compliment.  “Yeah!” Luz adds. “I love Eda but I was getting a little tired of eating weed rats. Somehow she under and overcooks them?” “It was just spaghetti and raghoul sauce, nothing special.” “Seriously, it was really good! Don’t undersell yourself, honeybee,” Luz says. Willow flushes even deeper at the nickname as Luz pecks her cheek and turns back to Amity. “Are you sure you have to leave?” Luz pouts, and she gazes at Amity with a look of sadness that Amity knows is just for dramatic effect. That doesn’t stop her from wanting to walk back over to that couch and cuddle her girlfriends for just a little bit longer, but she knows she won’t be able to sleep at a reasonable time if she doesn’t get her essay done soon. When she finally finishes lacing up her boots, she holds her arms out for a hug, and the speed Luz jumps off the couch with is almost alarming. Amity almost falls over when Luz hugs her, forehead, cheek, really anywhere that she can reach. Amity giggles at the tickling feeling, melting into her girlfriend’s arms. Luz is warm, and her heat is more than welcome against Amity’s constantly clammy skin. She’s still giggling when Willow crosses over to them. Willow cups Amity’s face in her hands and Amity takes in just how pretty her girlfriend is for a second, because wow. Amity’s love of cheesy novels and fanfiction might have readily equipped her with the words to describe beauty, but somehow they all fall short when it comes to Willow She kisses Amity’s cheek, her approach much softer than Luz's, cupping her cheeks and kissing her gently. Amity’s brain goes blank for a second because the sensation is just so much. Luz’s hands around her waist, Willow’s nose against her cheek. She imagines her face is probably as red as apple blood right now because she feels like she’s on fire. Luz has tucked her head into the crook of Amity’s neck by the time Willow’s finished kissing her, and Willow looks at Amity with a bit of concern when she pulls back. “Ams?” Willow says, patting her face. “You ok? You’ve been holding your breath for a second there,” and Amity realizes that yes, she has, and her chest isn’t tight from love but the lack of oxygen in her system. She takes in a large gulping breath of air and drops her forehead against Willow’s shoulder. “Ugh, I really do not want to go.” “It’s up to you,” Luz says, but the way her arms tighten around Amity makes it abundantly clear that she would like her to stay. Maybe her essay can wait.

Teen And Up Audiences

Emperor Belos was expecting an interesting day as any other day. But being told a child was wandering the halls with the ability not to be touched, intrigued him and surprised him. The day of Unity was so close, that he started to wonder if it was Eda’s ‘pet’ as Lilith would refer to her, the traitor. Of course, he always knew she would betray him at some point if the past was anything to go off. Belos steps echoed the long corridor till he finally came face to face with the so-called ‘ghost’ child all the guards were freaking about. The child was about Luz’s height, the most noticeable factor about the ‘ghost’ was they were flickering. As if it was an illusion but not stable. “Finally! Someone who looks competent. Who are you, and what is your status?” The child turned towards the Emperor and he realized they were human, if he wanted this human to trust him, he was going to have to play it wise can’t have another soul lost to these evil witches. “I am Emperor Belos, a just ruler of this small town, and wish you no harm.” Belos waited for a response from the child only to be greeted with a smirk. “Liar. You are on the Boiling Isle. And yes you may be the Emperor, but we know a liar when we see one. And you, are no good man.” The child laughed, and the Emperor found the child’s use of ‘we’ was strange, who were they referring to? “How-?” The child cut him off taking control of the conversation. “Why don’t we play some chess, then you will answer our questions and we will answer yours.” “I agree.” ____________________ “So, why did you spend so much energy contacting me? I mean, sending a message through realms would not be so easy.” Belos eyes narrowed at the hologram chess board. The rules were easy enough to learn, but what he wanted to know was why this person spent so much energy contacting him. He moved the rook forward capturing one of his enemies' pawns. “Ah, well. Infiltration of the systems in this lab was easy, especially since we found files on your realm. Now a matter of opening a secure connection in order for us to talk was the tricky part. Dr. Frakes work was useful in finding you. As for all the work we put into contacting you it all was because you have something we want, and from hearing you’re story. We think you might agree to our proposal.” The distorted voice calmly replied moving their queen. “And what is this proposal. I assume it’s not just to play chess.” Belos asked with a little venom. This child’s game was getting annoying. They requested the game as soon as he discovered the hologram message. Belos knew better than to except games from children if the Collector was anything to learn from. But the human child with glowing orange eyes intrigued him, especially after they told him they knew what realm he was from and knew he was no good man. “Sadly no, this is just to test your mental capabilities, old man.” The child snapped back in the same distorted voice which unnerved the Emperor. “Please, I have hundreds of years of experience compared to you child.” The Emperor smirked but had his mask on to not reveal his face to the strange child. “As do we. We are not the age we seem.” The child smiled, not a normal smile but a sickening one. “We have lived for an eternity and we will live on with you’re help.” The Emperor bit back the feeling to laugh. This child was funny, trying to sound all high and mighty. “Our proposal is you give us the Isle after you destroy all life on it. We simply want the resources. And in return, we can aid you in any way.” The child smirked as their eyes seemed to glow brighter. If Belos didn’t know better he would say they were not human, but they confirmed they were. “Interesting. I will have no use for this place after I leave… but I don’t know what resources will be left for you to use.” “We can make it work, it’s better than this planet.” “You said you’re human… does that mean you’re on Earth?” Belos was intrigued even more by this mysterious child, and their proposal seemed useful. “Yes, sadly we’re on this rock.” The child lost their smile as they scowled narrowing their eyes. Belos finally made a move, taking another one of their pawns. “And why is Earth not suitable to you?” The child tensed, which made Belos smile. “We have… enemies in this world which are annoying. It would be in our best interest to leave this world.” The child spoke carefully monitoring their every word. “Interesting… I don’t know what you could offer me.” Belos replied snidely, they were desperate. And he knew that. “Well you said it yourself you need to return to Earth. And if you are hundreds of years old, we can help you get established here.” The child smiled, annoyed they had to speak to this lowly human for help. But it was the best option for now, who knows how long it will be before Marcy discovers their presence. “Interesting, this deal will cost me nothing as this Isle means nothing. So I see why not to agree to these terms…” Belos moved his hand toward the child. Their smile grew and they in turn reached out. “We knew you would see eye to eye with us. We look forward to working together soon Philip.” Their hands never touched but the gesture was there. “Yes I look forward to meeting you in person… uh-“ “You can call us Darcy.” Darcy stood, their black hair falling into their glowing eyes. “In tell then.” The image disappeared including the game, which never was finished. “How interesting…” That was all Belos said while he turned away walking back to his throne room. He had much to prepare for the upcoming day of Unity. “Hey, mom… I’m back…” My hands reached out as if I was going in for a hug and I stared at my mamá as she tested up bringing her hand to her mouth. “Is that you?” The words were simple but meaningful. “Yeah, it’s me…” I couldn’t hold it in anymore as tears started to run down my face. My mother gasped running towards me. The embrace was warm and I melted into the touch. “Mija… It’s okay, hey it’s okay.” My mother's fingers ran through my wet hair and I almost forgot about all of my friends who were getting drenched. “Come in, you all will catch a cold!” The embrace was over and I longed for comfort but mother was right. We we’re getting drenched. Everyone shuffled into the small house and we all went into the living room, Vee and Mom went to grab warm blankets. Gus, who sat next to me and Hunter, stared at the ground his eyes dull. Hunter was in no good shape his face in his hands, he was trying to be strong. Amity sat still leaning onto my shoulder her hand intertwined with mine, as she watched the slow ticking clock on the wall. Willow sat next to Hunter, leaning against his frail body. Her eyes were closed but I had a feeling she was still awake. “Alright… Do you think this is enough?” Mom said while she turned the corner holding four blankets and Vee was close behind holding three blankets. “Yeah. That should be good.” I stood letting go of Amity’s hand. Grabbing two blankets handing them to the shivering Willow and broken Hunter. Amity helped me, handing one to Gus who only stared at the fabric. But there was no fascination in his eyes, there was only a dull emptiness. Amity and I got the last two as Vee and Mamá grabbed the other two. As I sat down on the couch with Amity, Vee ran to the kitchen grabbing two chairs. “Mija… what happened…” Her eyes trailed to the surrounding witches landing on their injuries which had yet to be treated. “Mom… I-“ The recent events came rushing as a flash of memory infiltrated my mind. My eyes began to tear up again… who knew a human body could cry so much. “Hey, it’s okay! Take your time.” My mom reacted quickly waving her arms. Gus’s body slumped onto my shoulder. “Everything… everything happened so fast. I don’t even know where to start.” I looked down at the dark brown hair of the young witch who was now most likely sleeping. He probably passed out. “Why don’t we start by cleaning up those wounds.” My Mamá’s determined voice brought my eyes back up as I watched her stand up and walk away. “Hey, Gus…” There was no response, the poor guy probably passed out. Not only did he expend a lot of magical energy, but being thrown into a world with no way home must be hard. “I think it would be best to let him rest…” I looked at Amity waiting for confirmation, a second opinion. Amity finally looked into my eyes after a few seconds of silence. She slowly nodded her head and then opened her mouth. “What about the injuries?” Titan, she was right… maybe I should wake him up. “It’s alright, we can let him sleep. You all must be incredibly tired.” I didn’t even realize Mamá walked in I tell she spoke, making me jump slightly. “Sorry I didn’t mean to startle you.” She walked over to me carrying one of those first aid bags most places had on display. Which never made sense to me. “Let’s take care of those scratches.” A small cool alcohol wipe was placed on my cheek and there was a slight sting that made me wince. “I know it hurts… but that means it’s working.” We’ve been through this talk, many times. The hole, it’s killing bacteria and helping you heal. But I guess she was repeating it for everyone else who was now fixated on watching my mom work. ———————— Everyone had fallen asleep after most injuries were taken care of, which included Gus. Everyone passed out, well almost everyone. “Vee why don’t you head up to the bed, it’s getting pretty late.” My mother turned towards the basilisk who was pulling the blanket on Hunter, tucking him in more. “Oh… are you sure you won’t need my help?” Vee looked tired and even sounded tired. “Yeah, I’m sure I can handle everything from now on.” My mom smiled as she watched Vee walk out. As soon as Vee was out of eyesight she turned toward me with a worried expression. “Luz… I won’t force you to tell me what happened. But I can tell it was big. I’m here to talk if you need me.” “I know Mamá…” My eyes drifted to look at the sleeping figures of my friends. Mamá brought some pillows as Hunter, Willow, and Gus all opted for the floor. Amity was on a different couch, she was the first to pass out. As she was treated right after me, no one wanted to kick her out of the comfortable chair. “Thanks for helping me and my friends.” My eyes lingered a little bit on Amity and then returned to look at my mother's face. “Of course, you’ll have to introduce me to them properly tomorrow.” She smiled, but I could tell she was tired. My eyes shot to the clock and I realized it was midnight. “You don’t have work tomorrow… right?” “Ah… well. I do but I’m fine.” The yawn that followed that response told a different story. “Mom, you need to sleep. I can turn the lights off.” I looked at her with determination. “No! I can do that, you look exhausted.” She was already standing and a pang of guilt went through me. Did I even deserve this amazing of a mother? After everything I did, running away, lying about where I was, destroying the portal, I didn’t deserve this. Tears started to run down my face, the hot sticky salt water stung my face as I tried to hide away. I don’t deserve anything. Look at what I did. If I didn’t go off alone to fight the Emperor then maybe things would have turned out different. This is all my fault. “Luz?! Hey, are you okay? Mija, talk to me.” “I’m fine, today was really stressful.” I could tell by the look she gave me, that she didn’t believe. “Okay… get some sleep then. I’ll go turn all of the lights off.” She stood up and stared at me for a moment. The guilt festered under her stare as I tried to swallow the spit in my mouth. “I’ll wait till you’re ready.” With that, she turned to turn the living room light off and then moved to the kitchen. I stared in silence at the ticking of the clock… my heart matching its rhythm slowly. Slowly my eyes closed and darkness took over. ————————— “Luzura…” Philip’s sickening voice rang out in the dark corridor. “Thanks for helping me. Now everyone is going to die all because of you.” “No… NO” I cried out down the poorly lit corridor. I was in the Emperor’s castle, but everything looked wrong. “How… how am I here?!” “Silly Luz did you really think that I would let you go so easily? After you knew my secret, I took care of things” My heart stopped and suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “I must say making the whole illusion was a daunting task, but you believed it. And while you were playing with you’re mentor and making up ‘plans’ to defeat me. Everyone already died from the draining spell.” “This… this isn’t real!” My hand grabbed at my chest, I was now breathing manually. The shallow gulps of air did nothing to calm my nerves as my other hand scratched at the floor. I didn’t even realize I was on my knees till this point. “Isn’t it? Did you really think I wouldn’t have stopped you since you knew my plans?” His cold laughter filled the silent corridor. Brings chills down my back. “I hoped you would have joined sides with me, Luz… Sadly another human has fallen prey to the evil of the witches. Their deceiving methods…” “No..” I whispered in between gasps, it was becoming harder to breathe. “But I don’t have to worry about that anymore! It’s just you and me left! Everyone else is dead… they died wondering where you were. It was funny seeing the Owl Lady beg for your life.” My head started to hurt as his laughter again filled every crack in the corridor. “You’re lying! This isn’t real!” It can’t be…  “Denying the truth will only make you hurt more!” Something grabbed my shoulder yanking me around. I looked up to come face to face with Philip’s face. “Wake up!” His mouth opened revealing black nothingness. His words were muffled despite him being right in front of me. “Luz! Wake up.” ————————— My whole body shot up as I frantically searched my surroundings. I was home, in the living room. Philip wasn’t here. Despite the reassurance, my heart still raced and my hands shook. I stared at the full ground as my eyes tried to readjust to the light. “Hey, it’s going to be okay Luz. We can get through this.” Amity was rubbing my back as I stared at the ground. Everything fell apart… everything! King was gone, under some torture, the Collector cooked up no doubt. I don’t even know if Eda is alive let alone all those people affected by the spell. And who knows who has died due to the Collector's games. Maybe no one was left… Maybe this all was my fault. “Luz I need you to respond. Don’t go down this path, I have and it wasn’t pretty. Don’t think about it, think about how we are going to fix this.” Amity grabbed my hand rubbing circles. My head turned to look into those beautiful golden eyes. She was my rock, when I talked about my trauma she always listened. “Amity-“ My voice cracked. “Thank you.” “Hey it’s okay, what was I supposed to do. As your amazing girlfriend, I will not allow you to lose hope.” Amity leaned down grabbing my chin and slowly lifting my face. “Someone very smart and wise once told me, now repeat after me, we can fix things together.” Titian why must she use my own genius against me! I couldn’t help but giggle. “That was cheesy.” I breathed in between fits of giggles. “But it worked.” Amity leaned in and my heart again started to race. The kiss was brief but made my whole body tingle. “Now how is the amazing Luz the witch going to fix this?” Amity asked her voice sounded sweet, like music to my ears. “Well… we should check the portal location every day or at least assign someone to keep an eye on it. That way if people from the Isle open the portal we would know.” The was the safest way to make sure since even the slightest look away could cause us to lose a way back. Amity hummed in response holding me close. “And then what? What if the portal never opens.” “Then… we’ll have to figure out how to make one here.” My voice wavered just a little bit. How are we going to open a magical dimension portal with Human technology? I doubt we have any magic over here… which makes our odds even less. Tears started to pool in my eyes as I tried to turn my head in shame. “Hey it’s okay, we’ll figure this out!” Amity pulled me into a tight hug, and my body relaxed leaning into the touch. “I know… we can do this. Together.” “Thanks, Amity… who knows where I would be without you.” I laughed bitterly at my own weakness. “Are you kidding me? Without you Luz I would have still been a bully, never made up with Willow, probably would have joined the Emperor’s Coven, and never would have stood up to my mom. Luz… you’ve helped me so much in my life! The least I can do is help you if you will allow me.” I tried to nod but my head was held firmly against Amity’s chest. “Yeah… I guess. It’s just- it’s hard for me to ask for help.” I stuttered, cursing at my inability to be strong. I need to be strong, for them. “I know… you going to attack Belos on you’re own was hinting enough. Also maybe that time it took you forever to open up to me on the anniversary.” I laughed, maybe Amity has me all figured out. “Alright, I’m going to let you breathe.” Amity’s grip loosened but I wanted to stay. The sweet cherry blossom smell filled my nostrils and my head dug deeper. “Luz… everyone is going to be up soon… including you’re mom…” I shot up from Amity. I haven’t told Mamá I had a girlfriend and it’s already morning! I didn’t know how she would react… or if she will accept Amity. “Hey, it’s okay! I’m nervous too, but I don’t think the best way to tell her is her walking into here with you and me cuddling.” “Yeah…” My mind tried to remember what I did yesterday. I remember mom telling us to come in then we all went to bed… more like most of us passed out from exhaustion. That’s right, she said something about work. So depending on the time right now. She might not even be home. “What time is it?” I know I could have just looked at the clock, but I just woke up. Give me a break. “Uhhh… how would I know?” Amity probably didn’t see the clock, guess I can’t be lazy today. 10:35 Titan, she was already gone. Which means she won’t be home for a while. “How is everyone else doing?” My eyes wandered to the ground and found everyone to be gone. Amity winced. “Gus… Gus is outside with Willow and Hunter. He isn’t doing so good…” “What about Willow and Hunter?” “They seem to be doing good. They probably had a heart-to-heart while you were asleep.” Amity shifted, and my gaze returned to her gorgeous hair. “About you being asleep… you wanna talk about it?” “No, not really.” “Alright… just promise me you won’t bottle it up. You said you would allow me to help you.” Amity grabbed onto my nose pulling me closer. “OW?! I know! I KNOW!” I grabbed at Amity’s hand which was pulling my nose. “Promise me, if it gets bad you will come to talk to me?” She yanked at my nose again and I had to stifle a wimped. “I promise! Now let gooooo!” Her hand was released and I fell backward. “That hurt!” “You deserved it.” Amity huffed in response. “I did not!” I cried out, clutching my red nose. “You could have broken it!” “Stop being a baby!” Amity stood up and walked over to my sprawled-out figure, she leaned down and kissed my nose. “Is that better?” “One more,” I said sheepishly. She sighed and then leaned down for another, but I grabbed her neck pulling her lips into mine. She yelped in surprise but then quickly melted into the touch. Maybe everything won’t be that bad… hopefully. ———————————————————————— “Ugh! Why did we have to move down here?! Mr. X is really testing my patience here!” Sasha screamed at the wall of the room. She was helping me unpack some of my bags. We have just been transported to Gravesfield, Connecticut. And Sasha wasn’t taking this too well, while Marcy was glad about the scenery change. I think she’s that way because she feels guilty when looking at all the destruction our city suffered. Whenever she’s out and about, which is rare. She always is trying to help the workers, giving them water and saying sorry. “Sasha. We were moved because of all the paparazzi following us everywhere we went. Mr. X probably wants us to be away while he helps make everything calm again.” Marcy’s voice piped up from behind me and I couldn’t help but feel a small flutter. After Marcy got… hurt. I’ve realized how much I missed them… how much I cared for them. “Well, I don’t see why he has to move us three thousand miles away! Why did he even choose this town anyway?” Sasha yelled, she was still as extravagant as before. “Well, most likely so no one would suspect we would be here. Also, I doubt anyone here is all over the news from LA. I mean most people are calling it a hoax and it isn’t on nationwide TV.” “Argh! And I assume he signed us up for school here too!” Sasha gritted her teeth and seemed to be on the verge of exploding. “Sash. Calm down. Just think of the possibilities! New people that don’t look at us like we should be dead! It’s a brand new start!” I realized my mistake way too late, Sasha ran forward grabbing onto Marcy who was behind me. A small wispier was audible barely, “I’m sorry.” Frog! I wiped around and came to the image of Marcy clutching their chest, tears prickling their eyes. “Oh, frog… Marcy, it’s okay.” I ran over to their other side while Sasha held onto their right side. “I know it’s stupid… but maybe if I died nothing would have happened. Maybe… maybe…” Our home wouldn’t be destroyed. I finished the sentence unspoken. “Mar Mar, the core would have found a new host. They could have chosen anyone. It’s not you’re fault.” Sasha chimed in, her voice now soft and comforting. Maybe she would be a good therapist. “Yeah. The core would have found a different person and the same thing would have happened. Nothing that happened is your fault.” I joined in, trying my best to sound strong. To be an anchor. “But it is!” Marcy cried out, slapping Sasha’s and my hands away. “If I wasn’t so selfish then we would have never gone to Amphibia! Then Andrias and the Core would have never gotten the box! None of this would have happened!” Marcy tucked into themself, trying to not show weakness. “Marcy…” I tried to reach for her again. “NO!” Marcy slapped my hand away again and I had to suppress a hiss of pain. “I need… I need some time to myself.” With that, she got up and walked out the bedroom door and we soon heard the front door slam shut. I got up to follow her but Sasha grabbed my hand. “Don’t… we all need time to heal. It’s been too soon. We have only been back on Earth for three months.” “How do we help them? I can tell they constantly blame themself.” “I don’t know. But Anne, they aren’t the only ones to have PTSD from our days in Amphibia.” Sasha looked at me, her eyes demanding. Then slowly looked at my missing limb. “I’m fine. I should be asking you if you are. Leaving Grime must have been hard.” My good hand instinctively grabbed onto the stump. Sasha’s breath hitched but returned to normal quickly. “Anne… I miss Grime, and I miss the adventures. But Anne… you left a family behind. People who cared for you… You had to fight a tyrant newt King with no break even when you returned to Earth. You need rest too.” The unspoken words about our injuries were getting tiring. Sasha’s right eye was gone, my right arm was gone, Marcy’s green blood. We all have scars we are avoiding. Besides I made my choice to leave the Planters… The Planters…. Simply thinking about my adoptive frog family brought tears to my eyes. “I’m fine.” My voice cracked which Sasha noticed raising an eyebrow. “Anne… I won’t force you to talk about what’s going on, but if you need to talk I’m all ears.” Sasha put a reassuring smile on and I tried not to blush. “Thanks, Sasha… now we should probably make sure Marcy is still alive. She most likely got herself into trouble.” I grimaced at all the ideas of Marcy accidentally hurting themself. “That’s probably a good idea… she hasn’t had that much time to recover physically from everything the core did.” Sasha stood, stretching her huge muscles. “Actually talking about the core… don’t you find it strange how it gave up?” I asked, recalling the last time I tried to bring this conversation up. Marcy walked in randomly and we had to postpone the talk, but now that they are gone… “Maybe it finally realized fighting us was useless.” Sasha shrugged clearly not worried. “Yeah… I just… I think it’s weird the whole doomsday machine shut off just before I destroyed it with the huge magical blast.” I made a whooshing sound for extra emphasis. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Besides if you spend all your time worrying, you won’t rest. And we all fucking need rest.” Sasha smirked giving me the look. But I wasn’t focused on that, what I was focusing on was…. “No cussing! You will say a cuss word in front of our innocent Marcy.” I know everyone nowadays cusses, but it’s foul langue and my parents never tolerated it. Sasha rolled her eyes before answering me sarcastically. “Fine, let’s go before you kill me.” “Okay.” I grabbed my bag which was next to my unpacked boxes. It was strange Mr. X would send all of us here… away from our families. I shoved the thought down, if I thought about conspiracy all day long I wasn’t going to relax. Maybe it was time to just stop thinking, like what Sasha said. “Let’s go find that lovable nerd,” Sasha stated strongly while she opened the door to my temporary room leading the way out the front door of the government house. “Let’s go find them.” I smiled and my hand itched to hold Sasha’s but before I could reach out she was already running ahead. “Wait! Your way faster than me you jerk! SLOW DOWN!” Hey yo! Just wanted to update everyone that’s reading this fan-fiction. Sorry I haven’t uploaded a new chapter! I’m juggling some other works, and this one just got added to the list. So I’m updating this story, with three other fanfics. Each of them usually 4,000 words per chapter except, “A Witch Among Humans.” So I haven’t dropped this story it’s just in a line up of waiting times for the story to be updated. And I wanted to let you guys know there will most likely not be any updates for my fanfics for the next two weeks, I’m leaving to go on an history tour. Which means a lot of driving, but it also means I may have time to write more than I usually do, or I wont be able to write as much. So, thanks for reading I just wanted to point out the heads up that there may be no updates for awhile or maybe there will be a tun. I don’t know how it will turn out. Thanks for reading my story and I’ll see you guys later! ——————————— This chapter will be deleted when the next chapter comes out.

General Audiences

As the rain came down on the roof, those who were under it were trying their best to keep themselves together. They had been through so much; it was only natural that they needed some time to recuperate and reflect on their current situation. They had been part of an effort to stop a madman from killing everyone they knew, challenged what they thought was right, witnessed an all-powerful being begin to rip the world apart, and now they were separated from everything they had ever known, on the wrong side of the portal, stuck in the Human Realm. No one should have to deal with that at their age. They all huddled in the front room of the decrepit shack that had housed the portal what felt like an eternity ago, but in reality had been less than an hour. They had managed to start the fireplace with a quick spell from Amity, finding some comfort in the presence of their magic. They hadn’t ventured further inside, too exhausted from their trials to consider doing any more than getting out of the rain. Gus was crying, sitting in a torn red chair, the realization of what had happened coming down on him in full force. For the longest time, all he’d had was his dad. Being two grades above those his age didn’t exactly help him fit in. Ever since meeting Willow he’d at least had one friend, and even found the confidence to start a club, much to his dad’s excitement. Now, after he’d made more friends, when he finally was beginning to feel as if he belonged and he finally had a place where he was accepted, it was taken away from him, without his dad there to catch him. At least this time he had friends with him. Hunter was busy consoling the young boy, but in the back of his mind, he was still processing everything. He had grown used to hardship in the Coven, to watching people around him get injured and even perish. It was something you had to accept or else you’d likely be the one to get hit next. To a certain extent, he wasn’t terribly shaken up by being stuck in the Human Realm. Most everyone he’d come to be close with in the past weeks were here with him, but he could still feel the absence of those who weren’t. To see them being drained, to see them left behind, to realize he still felt remorse for what happened to Belos, even after what he’d done… he did his best to not let the emotions crack through. He had to focus on helping Gus. Willow had preoccupied herself with examining the human newspapers that were scattered around the room, doing her best to not think about the possible destruction of her home. Sure, everything had seemed terrible, but the Collector stopped the eclipse. That meant everyone had survived, surely. She looked down and found an article detailing the results of a school sports game, with a picture of the star player being hugged by her parents. Willow quickly shoved the paper aside and picked up an article on a new botanical garden. Maybe they could all go see it once they recovered. Amity didn’t think it could have gone worse. Staring into the fire, she couldn’t bring herself to look around at her friends or anything else. She knew that they’d been the lucky ones, making it out of the Isles before its possible destruction, to possibly be the only known survivors of the Day of Unity. She knew that with the portal broken, there was no way for the Collector to get to them, to make them his playthings. But there was also no way for their friends to find them. She’d only just started bridging the gap that had kept her family distant, and now that bridge had crumbled. Here they were, in the Human Realm, something she had looked forward to. A whole new experience for her to learn about and explore. But now she’d give anything to be back home. Stuck here, in Luz’s home realm, even with her friends beside her, Amity knew it couldn’t have been worse. Luz was still on the other side of the portal. ================================= “LUZ!” Amity ran from the door back towards her girlfriend, running through the flying bits of debris and falling structure. I’m not going to lose her. She could hear Luz and King arguing in front of her, but they were drowned out by the wind as the Collector tried to take King away. She wasn’t going the let Luz sacrifice herself so easily. She cared about Eda and the others too, but what real help would they be if they were crushed here in the cave? These thoughts were interrupted as King let out a wail, and she was suddenly pushed back, flying towards the door. She collided with her friends, feeling the portal wash over her and the rain coming down as she entered the Human Realm for the first time. What should have been a moment of joy and excitement was now marred by fear. Fear for herself, her home, and currently at the front of her mind, fear for her girlfriend. She looked around to make sure Luz was okay but couldn’t find her. When she realized that Luz was not in the pile of teens out on the grass, her head snapped back to the door. She ran back to the portal, and as it flashed in and out, she saw Luz, still rooted to the ground by her vines, tears streaming from her face as King was pulled towards the Collector. The vines were beginning to tear, and the door’s frame was beginning to crumble as the portal flashed again. Luz looked towards the door, towards her home.  Towards Amity. They locked eyes. No sound came through the portal as Luz said, “I’m sorry”, and Amity had to watch as Luz let down the vines in her hands and turned to the Collector. Amity began to reach out for her, pleading for her to stop. The door slammed shut, with nothing more behind it than an old, decrepit shack.

General Audiences

“Hooty, is that Raine?” Luz gasped, stopping dead in her tracks. Her cloak fell to the ground, the insistent knocking on the door suddenly falling on deaf ears. The owl-shaped flame flared up, its wings spreading before the fiery bird shook himself out. “They were stumbling around in the Boiling Wastes. I stopped the castle and King brought them in!”“Does Eda know?”“She’s still out,” King piped up from beneath the wooden staircase, casting aside the pale purple fabric that acted as a makeshift door for the makeshift bedroom. He pointed to the little circle above the door, which was divided into quarters and each quarter painted a different color. Currently, the arrow pointed to the quarter painted black. Luz had stumbled through it from the human realm some years prior, confirming for Hooty and King where the mysterious door led.Another furious knock on the front of the castle jolted Luz back to the task at hand, and she flung the cloak around her shoulders, instantly turning into a long purple and gold cloak, the hood of it becoming a pointed purple hat. As Luz introduced herself as ‘The Good Witch Azura’ in a voice slightly higher than her own, Raine stirred in their seat, one eye opening slightly to take in the room. “YOU’RE AWAKE!” Hooty shouted. Startled, they toppled out of their chair, sprawling onto the floor. Luz, glancing over her shoulder, suddenly firmly pressed a wrapped package into unnamed hands, an accompanying voice trying to ask her questions but being drowned out by her usual voice all but shouting: “IF THERE’S A PROBLEM COME BACK LATER.” Before slamming the door shut.The trio crowded around them as they pulled themselves to a pained sitting position, Hooty’s sparks flicking wildly onto the floor in front of the hearth. “How did you find us?” King asked, not giving Raine a single moment to collect themselves. “Eda said last time she saw you, your whole brain deal was all gooed up with Belos propaganda.”“...Is that really how she said it?” they asked quietly.“More or less,” Luz nodded.Raine considered this a moment before continuing. “It’s more or less true, I suppose.” King, Luz, and Raine sat at what tripled as a kitchen table, a writing desk, and a junk drawer. Hooty burned with visible annoyance, having just been viciously bullied by King into heating up one of the many kettles for tea. He grumbled as Raine explained how they found themselves wandering the Wastes, talking animatedly as tea spilled with every movement of their hands.“Eda was really worried about you,” Luz said nervously when they finished. “She’ll be even more worried now when she finds out you’re doing all this under cover stuff.”“Only until the Day of Unity. I have to do this, it’s the only way to keep her safe…to keep everyone safe.”King tapped his claws against the teacup, a furious click-click-click-click-click announcing his concern. “This can’t be the only way.”“King’s right,” Luz added. “This is too risky, what if Belos finds out that mind control stuff isn’t working on you? Eda could-”“No,” Raine interrupted, his teacup clattering firmly against its saucer. “Luz, your heart’s in the right place, but it isn’t safe. You know what they’d do to her if they caught her. I can do this, you have to believe that.”“Of course we believe in you,” Luz said as King nodded furiously. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to do this alone. We can help.”Raine smiled despite themselves. A lot had changed. “I’m not doing it alone. And you can help me by keeping yourselves safe. I need you to promise me something, though. Eda cannot know about this. If she thinks I’m myself, she won’t take no for an answer. You have to keep this a secret. As far as she’s concerned, I’m fully…brain gooed.”“Raine, that’s too much,” King said, visibly upset. “That’s not fair to any of us.”“Please,” they pleaded. “It won’t be for long, this is the only way I can keep her safe.”Hooty and Luz shared a look of deep discomfort before both nodded slowly. King’s head whipped back and forth as he tried to force them to make eye contact with him. “You’re kidding!”“Raine’s right,” Luz said sadly. “We don’t really have a plan of our own to stop the Day of Unity, and there’s a really good chance Eda might rush in and get hurt. The only reason we’ve been as cautious as we have been is because she didn’t want to risk anything happening to them.” With this, she gestured to Raine, who deflated. They didn’t want to lie to Eda, there was nothing they wanted more than to tell her the truth and rush in against Belos as a unit, but it wasn’t practical. All of this had been to protect her, and what was the use of that if they were willing to risk her safety when it mattered the most?“She’s back,” Hooty said urgently. Immediately, the dial by the door spun from the black quarter to a light purple one. When Luz came to live in the castle, she’d repainted the dial, excited to match her home to her Azura robes.Eda entered, hands full of human trophies. Literally. One object she held was a gold-painted plastic cup reading “Best Fishing Dad.” There was a swordfish on it. Inside the cup were several doll heads, clearly discarded from different dolls. Luz shuddered as Eda slammed the loot onto the table, a few heads popping out and rolling to the floor with the motion. “Look at these puppies!” Eda said proudly.As she said it, she looked up, making full eye contact with Raine. They quickly tried to erase all the affection from their face, for fear she’d see through the lie immediately. “Wh—?” she started.“Hooty found them in the Wastes,” Luz interjected quickly. Eda’s attention appeared to be divided by the interruption, although her eyes never left them. “We think Belos took all he needed from them, and abandoned them. We think they’re still under his control.” King shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, but Eda was too distracted to even see him.“So we’ll find a way to break the curse or spell or whatever it is,” she replied. “That’s all there is to it.” She set to work busying herself, making a point to not make eye contact with anyone, allowing Luz, Raine, and King to share a concerned look. The castle jerked as Hooty attempted to lean out of the hearth to join in the Look Sharing, knocking a full pile of papers and glass bottles onto the floor with a loud clatter. Raine immediately ducked down and began helping Eda picking the discarded objects up. Their hands brushed and Eda’s face went bright red before she shot up and stalked toward the window. “I could talk to Lilith. She should still have all her, whatever, from the Emperor’s Coven. She’ll be able to help.” She said it with a forced finality before turning on her heel toward the door, twisting the dial so the arrow pointed from purple to yellow.She hesitated, one hand resting on the doorknob as the other reached for her palisman. “Should…they come with me?” The question was asked as if Raine wasn’t even in the room. Behind her back, Luz watched a wave of sadness come over their face. She opened her mouth to say something before they cut in, “Lilith can bring me back to Belos!” They casted a desperate look toward Luz and King, silently urging them to help.Luz inched forward to Eda, speaking low to her alone. “If they think you’re helping them back to their Coven, they might be able to tell you how to help them, even if it’s…not on purpose.” She cringed at the lie, feeling her skin begin to crawl. Eda seemed to brighten at this, immediately appearing more confident. She turned to face them, and Raine fought a smile seeing her look like herself again.“Hooty, keep the castle in the Wastes while we’re gone, I don’t want to risk anyone coming here when I don’t know how long we’ll be.” She walked up the Raine, holding their hands within her own. “I’ll figure it out.” They attempted to keep a neutral face as she did this, but the second she turned they let out a huff of air that caused Luz to suppress a squeal. They shot her a look of warning, but immediately diffused it with a gentle smile before responding to Eda’s beckon to follow.They stepped into the wastes, the dry ground blowing up with the breeze. The trees around them reached into the sky, their dark branches spindling into the clouds. Her palisman came alive, wings spreading as she reached a hand out to them, steading the pair before the staff lifted into the air. They held tight to her waist, her hair whipping around them in the wind. The scenery below them shifted from the Wastes to the market, little dots of other witches going from stall to colorful stall. Eda spoke as they flew above each area, telling stories about the two of them in hopes it would jog their memory. “Do you remember when every potion shop in the Isles banned me, so you had to go from stall to stall for me?” They heard every other word because of the sound of the wind, but they still smiled with the memory, grateful she couldn’t see their face.“It’s how I know no one in the Isles actually hates me. Besides, Belos, of course. And….well most people. Some people. It’s how I know some people in the Isles don’t actually hate me. They had to have known you were running errands for me.” Raine snorted and then quickly put a hand to their face, as if to take back the sound. The truth was that everyone did know they were doing errands for her, and they were eventually also banned from every potion shop in the Isles. They had eventually just brewed the potion themselves for her, coming back hours later and promising her they had scoured the whole isle. It was too late, though, because Eda stiffened against them. Slowly, the palisman descended into the woods, dodging treetops before landing rather abruptly in mossy undergrowth.She spun to face them, knuckles turning white with how hard she clutched the palisman. “You remember that?” she whispered. They turned away from her and she cupped their face, so gently, forcing them to turn to face her again. “You reacted to that. Raine, do you remember that?”“That’s not what happened,” they replied quietly. “Not fully, at least-”She pulled them in and kissed them, cutting off whatever they were about to say. As she finally pulled away, before Raine could collect themselves enough to speak again, she smacked them in the shoulder with her palisman, light enough for it to be a semi-playful gesture and hard enough for them to rub it afterwards with a slightly offended look on their face.“How long?!”“...Whole time…?”She held her palisman up again, as if to swing it a second time, as they waved their hands out defensively. “Let me explain. Belos doesn’t know the mind control wasn’t working on me, I’ve been able to essentially be under cover in the Coven, and I had to lie to you because I didn’t…you’re…UGH.”They put their head into their hands, desperately trying to explain in a way that didn’t sound like they thought she couldn’t take care of herself, a defense she would absolutely mention. To their surprise, they felt her hand on their shoulder. “I understand. I just wish you felt like you could have told me. You shouldn’t have to do this alone.”Suddenly, they wrapped their arms around her, pulling her into a tight hug. She jerked, shocked before settling into it. “I’m sorry. I had to,” they said quietly.“Don’t apologize,” she said. “But now? We’re doing this together. No more secrets.”

Not Rated

Exterior: Owl Household. Hooty is setting up an incredibly elaborate trap in the front yard, while Eda directs. Lilith is sitting on the porch reading a New York Times magazine, and the sound of vacuuming can be heard inside.   EDA Little to the left, little to the left—yep, that’s good!   HOOTY So, it’s just gonna be like this, right? You don’t want it bedazzled or anything?   EDA No, I don’t—it’s a trap. We gotta make sure it’s hidden.   HOOTY I know, I know, but it just doesn’t look special. This is one of the best ones I’ve made! I want it to be memorable!   EDA It’ll be memorable when we’ve got a vampire hunter caught in it!   Raine pokes their head out from the front door, their vacuum in hand.   RAINE (VO) There’ve been a few reports of a vampire hunter in Seattle, and I’m not talking about the Witteboys. I’m talking about someone who treats us like we’re cockroaches that need to be exterminated.   Cut to an interview setup with them, painting their nails a glittery shade of deep purple.   RAINE Cockroaches who kill people, I mean. And drain them of their blood. So, more like ultra-deadly mosquitoes. *shrugs* Of course, given that the reports are from vampires who’ve met this guy and managed to survive, I think it’s safe to say that he’s not exactly a pro. He just keeps on getting lucky.   Cut to an interview setup with King.   KING There’s a bet going around over who can catch the guy first, and there’s extra points if it’s in a really humiliating way. Winner gets a lot of gold and a lot of respect. So we are prepared. *pauses* Ren’s not getting any money from the Vampiric Council. Even though they’re part of it. We kinda need the reward.   Cut back to the front yard of the Owl Household. A window opens up on the second floor as a very tired-looking Luz sticks her head out.   LUZ Is this gonna— *yawns* Is this gonna take too long? I gotta sleep.   EDA Just a minute, kid— *screams* HOOTY! ARE YOU HARE-BRAINED? WE’RE CATCHING THIS GUY ALIVE!   Hooty looks down at the massive chainsaw in his hand, then looks back up.   HOOTY But we’re catching a vampire hunter.   EDA And?   HOOTY Wouldn’t it be safer to kill him?   EDA No, we gotta get him in a trap so Raine can show him to the Vampiric Council so they can get a raise along with the betting reward! We’ve been over this!   HOOTY *furrows his brow* Well, they don’t go after energy vampires, but I care about you guys, and I say we kill any vampire hunters we’re lucky enough to come across. Better safe than sorry.   LILITH *dryly* Like Sunshine and Scarface Wittebane?   HOOTY That’s different! They’re retired!   EDA Eh, I got evidence to the contrary. At least in Scarface’s case.   LUZ *yawns again* Okay, goodnight, finish soon, no chainsaws, I love you guys. *shuts window* TITLE CREDITS   We open again on Hunter and Luz comparing notes on… something. The two of them are sitting in front of a fire in the Wittebane household, while Collie sits nearby, chewing on marshmallows and spitting them out in a trashcan. Hunter lets out a heavy sigh and looks up.   HUNTER Collie, could you not?   COLLIE *mouth full* What? It’s the only way I can enjoy these things. *spits out a glob of marshmallow* No digestive system, remember?   HUNTER That is gross, and you know it.   COLLIE You know, there will come a day in your life where you will literally vomit your guts out, and then you’ll have to suck blood forever. Human food is a luxury half-vampires only get pre-powers.   HUNTER You’ve told me this many times.   COLLIE *ducking behind the bag of marshmallows while hissing* Your twenties will be hell, Hunter Wittebane.   HUNTER *sighs* You might wanna rethink being a vampire, Luz.   LUZ Eh, there are things I’ll miss, but I think the pros outweigh the cons. *exhales* Okay, let’s compare. What do we know so far?   HUNTER *slams notebook down, looking deadly serious* One—the Blights are half-vampires. Basic info.   LUZ *does the same, also looking deadly serious* Two—they never talk about their home life. But your uncle thinks that it’s a shitshow.   HUNTER *blinks* You just swore.   LUZ I swear when the situation calls for it.   HUNTER Gotcha. *deep breath* Three—for whatever reason, they seem to think that being a half-vampire means being ostracized from vampire society, or at least Amity does.   COLLIE Ehhhhhhh… she’s kinda right in that regard. Sorta. I mean, we’ll invite you to events and be cool with you and all, but we are jealous that you can walk in sunlight and don’t have a lot of our weaknesses. *shrugs* Just the way the cookie crumbles.   LUZ Collie, not helping. Four—according to your recent find, Viney met the twins because of her vampire hunting code, which specifies that she only kill vampires who are genuinely evil. Not just eating-humans-to-survive, not just occasionally-hypnotizing-to-get-what-they-want—true, twisted, evil.   HUNTER Conclusion? *snaps notebook shut* Something’s up. And we’re gonna find out what.   LUZ And we’re going to save them.   HUNTER If they need to be saved. Which they probably do.   COLLIE *getting up, walking over* Sheesh, you guys are really passionate about this, aren’t you? You must be—   They attempt to pick up one of the notes, but their hand catches on fire. They screech and pull back.   COLLIE FUCK! FUCK IT! OW! HOLY SHIT! THAT STINGS!   LUZ *wide-eyed* What…   Hunter picks up the offending note and sighs.   HUNTER *reading* “We’re going to find out the truth, so help me God.” Uncle Collie, I told you about reading something before you touch it, right?   COLLIE Why the fuck would you write the big man’s name when I’m in the house in the FIRST PLACE?!   HUNTER *noticing Luz’s expression* They’re a little more sensitive to religious stuff than most vamps. Took them a century of practice to be able to say “holy” without their mouth catching on fire.   LUZ Weren’t they born centuries before Christianity became a thing?   COLLIE *trying and failing to put the fire out* It’s not just Christianity that vampires are sensitive to, we just notice it more because they fucking took over the world. But make no mistake, Luzy-Luz—any religion that’s still in widespread practice— *snaps fingers* I’m lucky that nobody worships the Egyptian gods anymore. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to relearn my heritage.   LUZ Huh. That’s weird. All of the other vampires I know only freak out over explicitly holy stuff.   HUNTER Uncle Bels walks into a church every other night if he can help it.   LUZ *inhales* Why.   HUNTER *shrugs* He likes eating priests and pastors. Especially ones who use religion as an excuse to make people miserable.   LUZ Filing that under “reasons your uncle is a nutjob.” *snaps her notebook shut* I’m taking Amity to Pike Place Market this weekend, followed by a bookstore raid. You?   HUNTER Me and Edric are going thrifting, followed by video game shopping. We’re all meeting for dinner—   LUZ Followed by a double feature of Coraline and Paranorman—   HUNTER And once it’s done, we’ll have broken down their walls and gained the friendship level that means family secrets.   LUZ Even if we don’t, we’ll still have a good time with our friends. Win-win.   Collie looks back and forth between the two, his hands STILL on fire.   COLLIE You do realize that what you described sounds exactly like a date, right?   HUNTER *snorts* It’s not a date. It’s a day that me and Luz have planned for two incredibly awesome people with great hair, great clothes, and great taste.   COLLIE Uh… yeah.   HUNTER Besides, we’re really just doing it so they’ll finally drop their guard and tell us about whatever horrors they have to deal with at home. It’s friendly manipulation. For their own good.   LUZ *laughs nervously* Uh, I don’t think we should classify it as that.   Caleb rushes into the living room, looking incredibly excited—well, more so than usual.   CALEB Everyone! House meeting! We’ve got a very exciting update on the idiot vampire hunter in Seattle!   HUNTER Dad, we’re all here. *pauses* Okay, I have no idea where Uncle Bels is, but—   Belos kicks the other door to the living room open, covered in someone else’s blood, dripping wet, and somehow also looking a bit singed.   HUNTER And… he is here. What the fuck.   BELOS Don’t ask. *sweeps coat out of the way as he collapses into the nearest chair* You had better be giving me good news, brother. I have had a very bad evening.   CALEB *grinning like he’s Sherlock Holmes about to break open a case* Ooooooh, I have excellent news. *holds up a letter* Every vampire in this city has received this. My fellow Wittebanes—and Collie and Luz—we are about to learn the identity of the vampire hunter Seattle has been hunting!   LUZ *gasps* The guy Eda and Hooty’s been setting traps for!   COLLIE Tell us! Tell us! Tell us! I can’t take the anticipation!   Caleb opens the letter with a flourish.   CALEB *reading aloud* “Due to an unexpected encounter between a vampire’s familiar and the idiot hunter, we have learned our target’s name. It is…” *trails off* “Jacob… Hopkins.”   The room goes silent.   CALEB *continuing* “So we’re naming this the ‘Hopkins Hunt.’ Good luck.” *stuffs the letter back into his pocket* It’s, ah, probably a coincidence. The name is fairly common—   BELOS *incredibly calmly* Will you excuse me?   He stands up, walks out of the room and neatly shuts the door behind him. A scream and several things crashing can be heard from behind the door, followed by a long string of swears.   LUZ “Hopkins…” Wasn’t that the name of a famous witch hunter?   CALEB *sighs* Witchfinder General Matthew Hopkins. Yes.   Cut to an interview setup with Caleb.   CALEB When me and my brother were young, witch hunters were treated like celebrities.  Belos… well, he won’t admit this now, but he was quite obsessed with them, especially General Hopkins. *laughs* I’m betting that the general was his first crush, though of course it was taboo back then. *sobers up* Anyways… after he left our little cult behind and joined me in becoming a creature of the night, he grew to hate witch hunters and everything they stood for—he even caused a ruckus in Salem, I was very proud. And to this day, the name “Hopkins” is forbidden in our household.   He looks back down at the letter, seeming rather curious.   CALEB Is this Jacob fellow really his descendant? Maybe that would explain why he’s such a bumbling nincompoop.   Cut to the outskirts of Pike Place Market the next day. Luz and Hunter are looking around awkwardly, then Luz lets out a happy shriek as soon as she spots the girl she’s looking for.   LUZ AMITY! You’re here!   She runs over to Amity and tackle-hugs her, causing her to laugh as she hugs her back. Edric walks over to Hunter and gives him an affectionate shoulder-punch.   EDRIC Hey, man, thanks for inviting me out. I needed a break after finally getting that essay for AP Lang out of the way.   HUNTER *groans* Ugh, don’t even mention that. I had to bribe so many seniors to help me get it done.   EDRIC Yep, well, today’s not about class. *beams* Whatcha got planned for us?   HUNTER *shrugs* I thought you and I could go thrifting and video game shopping while the girls do their thing, and then we’d meet up for dinner. Sound cool?   EDRIC *gasps* Sounds awesome!   AMITY And you and me are going to bookstores, right, Luz?   LUZ After we take a trip around the market!   Cut to Amity and Luz wandering around Pike Place, in deep conversation—though, not about Amity’s family.   AMITY And it’s honestly incredible how well-written it is, right? I mean, on the surface, it’s just a fun show about a boy and his dog having adventures in a crazy world where food is sentient, but when you actually sit down and watch it, it’s all about growing up and your identity, and it’s post-apocalyptic, and don’t even get me started on Bubbline and how perfect it is—   LUZ *nodding along* Uh-huh. Yeah. That’s really cool.   LUZ (VO) I don’t really know how I got her on the subject of Adventure Time, but now I have and I can’t do anything to change that.   Cut to an interview setup with her.   LUZ *exhales* Yeah, I think I can pretty much throw the whole “learning-about-her-family” thing out the window. *ponders slightly* Of course, so many characters in that show have family issues, so if I get her on that subject… no, no, nope, we’re letting her ramble first.   Cut back to Amity and Luz.   AMITY And that’s why I think that there has yet to be a romantic arc that hits the perfect balance of cute, dramatic, and wonderfully well-written than the arc of Marceline and Princess Bubblegum. Thoughts?   LUZ *blinks* Um. No. You said it. That was wonderful.   Amity pauses mid-step, then puts a hand on Luz’s shoulder.   AMITY *gently* Hey, you seem a little off. Are you okay?   LUZ Oh—yeah. I’m fine. I’m just, uh— *clears throat* Been thinking about the Hopkins Hunt, y’know? A lot riding on that thing.   AMITY I mean, it’s really just a city-wide scavenger hunt, right? We need to catch the vampire killer, but since he’s an idiot, we’ll make it into a game, and the winner gets money.   LUZ Yeah, but… *scratches the back of her neck* We kinda… need the money.   AMITY Really?   LUZ *sighs* Terra’s not giving Raine anything, even though they’re part of the Council now. And Hooty’s still trying to find a new office to feed in, since his last one forcibly threw him out, so we don’t have anything keeping us afloat. So we sort of have to win this thing.   AMITY What if the Wittebanes win it? I mean, two former vampire hunters who probably have excellent tracking skills—   LUZ Well, Belos won’t do anything about it, because the name “Hopkins” sets off his “nope” reflex, and I made Caleb, Collie, and Hunter promise that they’d give the reward to us. *shrugs* Collie’s got gold hidden in the basement and the Wittebros have gotten so much money through so many insane capers it’s not even funny. They’re literally a living D&D party.   AMITY Yeesh. *furrows her brow slightly* Guess I kinda assumed that all vampires were rich.   LUZ *snaps her head up* Is… your family rich?   Amity freezes as she realizes what she’s unintentionally let slip out.   AMITY Yeah. Sorta. I guess. *clears throat* So, are there any other updates on the Hopkins Hunt?   LUZ Nah, just his name. We did start this whole thing off with a description, though, but it’s pretty generic.   AMITY Right? I mean, how many middle-aged white dudes with brown hair and glasses are there? Too many!   She makes a sweeping gesture at the crowd, where there are AT LEAST FIVE middle-aged white dudes with brown hair and glasses in sight.   LUZ *sighs* Yeah, well, he’ll probably be spouting conspiracy theories left and right, I guess. Every vampire who’s failed to catch him says that he’s a nutjob who just gets lucky.   AMITY *snorts* He’d probably gravitate towards crowded places, too. Gotta find a good soapbox to preach his “yo, vampires are real and they’re out to kill” shit, right?   LUZ Oh, god, yes. He might even set up shop right here in Pike Place Market. We could even stumble across him.   AMITY *laughs* Yeah, wouldn’t that be—   WHITE MAN WITH ENTIRELY TOO MUCH CONFIDENCE (Offscreen) There are vampires living in Seattle, and I have PROOF! Take a pamphlet, it could save your life! Amity and Luz’s heads snap towards one of the white dudes with glasses, who’s waving around a series of homemade pamphlets in his hands.   OVERCONFIDENT WHITE GUY *stopping a nearby person* Hi, Jacob Hopkins, vampire killer—have you seen any weird-looking bats at night?   Luz and Amity slowly look over at each other and share a grin.   AMITY Are you thinking what I’m thinking?   LUZ *whispering* The Hopkins Hunt is on.   The two of them immediately sprint right at Jacob, causing him to throw his pamphlets in the air and run off.   AMITY *baring her fangs* Coward!   Cut to Hunter and Edric in a thrift store, rifling through the racks and occasionally holding up ridiculous finds.   HUNTER Oh my god, Ed, look at this. *holds up a shirt with a glittery quote from some horrible 80’s song* Someone actually wore this.   EDRIC *laughs* Given that it’s in a thrift store, they probably didn’t wear it for long. *holds up some sort of kilt abomination* Y’think this would look good on me?   HUNTER Absolutely not.   EDRIC Yeah, you’re right. *puts it back* Honestly, I’m just looking for some cool-looking flannels. Me and Em have been trying to add color to our outfits.   HUNTER No, yeah, that’s valid. Nobody said that vampires have to dress in all-black.   EDRIC Yeah, and we’re half-vampires, anyway! We can incorporate some funky colors into our aesthetic, right?   HUNTER *wearing a yellow hoodie over a red shirt* Absolutely. We’re all about breaking stereotypes. Hell, my dad’s the exact opposite of a stereotypical vampire, and he’s been kicking it for over four hundred years.   EDRIC *lights up* Oh, yeah, that’s right! Isn’t your uncle’s quatercentenary in a couple months?   HUNTER *pauses* Yep. We’re planning something really cool.   Cut to a brief interview setup with him.   HUNTER I completely forgot about that until he mentioned it. *shrugs* Uncle Bels doesn’t exactly care about that kind of stuff, but Dad and Uncle Collie do, so. Gotta make sure they remembered when I get home.   Cut back to him and Edric.   EDRIC *laughs* Am I weird for remembering that? I mean, I know he doesn’t like me, but—   HUNTER No, no, he’s fine with you.   EDRIC He keeps on calling me “Eric.”   HUNTER Maybe he just forgot—   EDRIC He remembers Em and Viney’s names, and I hang out with you more.   HUNTER *sighs* Okay, so he doesn’t like you. I don’t get it, honestly, he’s cool with all of my other friends. He’s even cool with Wilsy.   Edric pauses, hand hovering over one of the racks.   EDRIC Um… how is your girlfriend?   HUNTER She’s great. She’s got a new girlfriend. Asked her out last week.   EDRIC New girlfriend?   HUNTER Uh, yeah, we’re polyam. Thought I told you that.   Edric suddenly looks a bit flustered.   EDRIC Yeah, I—I must’ve forgotten. *grabs a random shirt and holds it up* Uh, what do you think about this?   HUNTER *raises an eyebrow* It has a dancing pineapple on it.   EDRIC Ah. Never mind. *puts it back* Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so nervous all of a sudden.   HUNTER Nah, it’s cool. *smiles slightly* It’s weird being able to talk to someone else about this stuff.   EDRIC Half-vampire stuff, you mean?   HUNTER Yeah. Like, how old were you when you had the “vomiting out your guts someday” talk?   EDRIC *raises an eyebrow* How old were you when you had the “vomiting out your guts someday” talk?   HUNTER When my dad showed up, so… eight. You?   EDRIC Me and Em were five. My parents aren’t ones for sugarcoating.   HUNTER Holy shit.   EDRIC *snorts* Right? I mean, imagine telling a five-year-old that your cool vampire powers are gonna come at the cost of throwing up your digestive system when you’re in your twenties. It’s a goddamned miracle I wasn’t traumatized by that.   HUNTER I mean, well, I was traumatized by a lot of other things in my life at the time, so that seemed pretty tame in comparison.   EDRIC *blinks* Are we gonna skate past that, or—   HUNTER *deadpan* My mom died, my long-lost dad showed up, I found out I had more extended family, my uncle had questionable morals and thought that keeping me around was just asking for trouble for the first few months, my self-appointed godfather—sorry, Lucifather—thought that it was a good idea to tell an eight-year-old about all the fun ways you could die horribly, and I got kidnapped. So, yeah.   Edric looks at him like he’s contemplating scooping him up, gently carrying him to a comfy couch, and wrapping him in a blanket burrito. Or forcibly dragging him to therapy. One of the two. Maybe both.   EDRIC That’s… uh… that’s a lot.   HUNTER *shrugs* Hey, being a vampire means you got some trauma. Even if you’re a half-vampire.   EDRIC *quiet, small laugh* Yeah, that’s true, isn’t it?   Hunter looks up and sees that Edric’s cheer, which is almost always present, has significantly faded. For a brief moment, he considers asking him for more details… and then he chases the thought away.   HUNTER *grabs a soft, yellow-green flannel off of the rack* Here. This one’ll look good on you. Try it on.   EDRIC Oh—oh, shit, yeah, this looks awesome.   HUNTER Great. *gently pushes him towards the changing rooms* I’ll see if I can find some more. If not, we can either move on to the next store, or we can skip to video game shopping.   EDRIC *laughs* All right, all right.   Cut to an interview setup with Hunter.   HUNTER You know what? Fuck this. Fuck the plan. This—this is a day, okay? I invited Edric out for a nice afternoon where he could enjoy himself and be the adorkable nerd that he is, and he’s gonna do just that! I can ask him about his family issues later, but right now? I wanna have a nice hangout with the guy that I like! Yeah! I said it! I like Edric Blight! Maybe I’ll work up the nerve to ask him out today! Fuck it! I’m not making that green-haired idiot sad! *pauses* Oh. Oh, shit. Willow dyes her hair dark green. That’s my type. Okay. I’m learning all sorts of new stuff about me today.   Cut back to Luz and Amity chasing Jacob through Pike Place—it’s very dramatic and very cool and there’s lots of hopping over stuff and you know what I’m not gonna write it because this is script format and action scenes are hard. Make it up in your head. Draw it. Fuck it. Eventually, Jacob trips and falls, giving Luz perfect rein to tackle him.   LUZ *triumphantly* Gotcha!   AMITY Do you just do that whenever you need to catch someone?   LUZ Hey, it works. Help me out?   JACOB *trying in vain to get Luz off while screeching* Let go of me! You’re insane!   Amity kneels down in front of him and flashes her fangs. Jacob freezes in terror.   JACOB *stutters* B-but your kind—they don’t come out in the daytime—they burn up—   AMITY I’m a half-vampire, dickhead. The sun doesn’t do jackshit on me. *looks up* Luz, what’s your plan for dealing with this one?   LUZ Uh… knock him out and call Hooty to pick him up?   AMITY *pauses, then shrugs* Eh. That’ll do.   She hits Jacob over the head with her purse, solidly knocking him out.   LUZ *eyes widening* Woah. What is in that thing?   AMITY I literally have not cleaned this out since quarantine. There could be a small civilization living in there and I wouldn’t know.   LUZ *under her breath* Yowza-wowza.   Cut to about half an hour later. Hooty’s already taken Jacob back to the Owl Household, Luz and Amity are subsequently slightly drained, and the two of them are sitting on a park bench.   LUZ *exhales* So. That was fun.   AMITY Excluding the part where Hooty went off on a tangent about office supplies, yeah, that was fun.   Luz pauses for a minute, then takes a deep breath.   LUZ Look, Amity, I… I need to ask you something.   AMITY Yeah? What’s up?   LUZ You never talk about your parents. And I get that it might be a sore subject—really, I do—but… *bites lip* I really want to know that you’re okay, Amity. I’m worried about you.   Amity’s expression becomes unreadable as her hands grip the edges of the bench. She’s gone paler than usual—it’s not that noticeable, but it’s there.   LUZ *hastily* You don’t have to tell me if you don’t—   AMITY No. No, you deserve to know. *looks down* My mom is the vampire. My dad is the human. Technically speaking, they raise us together.   LUZ Is it, like, a joint custody thing, or…   AMITY No. They’re still together. Everyone thinks they’re a married couple.   LUZ *slightly confused* So… you said that your dad is the human? Does he not want to be a vampire?   AMITY He does. That’s the thing. *deep breath* My dad… my dad is my mom’s familiar.   Luz’s face falls as understanding settles in.   LUZ I’m… I’m assuming that it’s nothing like the way I’m Eda’s familiar.   AMITY No. I don’t even think my mom likes him, really. *pauses, then snort-laughs* Well, she liked him enough to have three kids with him, but we all know it’s just so he wouldn’t ditch her once he finally caught onto the fact that she was never gonna turn him. She’s a total control freak.   LUZ But that’s—that’s what you do. If you’re in a relationship with your familiar, you turn them, right?   AMITY It’s rare enough that nobody’s made any laws enforcing that. Only reason she gets away with it. *twists her lips* Dad—I don’t know what he goes through. Either he chooses not to interact with us, or Mom tells him that he can’t. I doubt it’s anything good. And as for the rest of us…   She sighs, kicking the bench.   AMITY Mom wants me to be her, I guess. Perfect, sophisticated, ruthless, sociopathic, blonde… *notices Luz’s “what the fuck” expression* I’m not even kidding, she literally had me dye my hair blonde in middle school because Satan fucking forbid I inherit my dad’s hair color. I don’t even know how me and the twins convinced her to let us dye our hair weird colors. Maybe I blocked out that conversation.   LUZ *quietly* What… what about the twins?   AMITY Em gets blamed for everything. She’s the troublemaker, she’s the one who gets notes from the teacher, she’s the only one who actually fights with Mom—it’s a miracle she’s been able to keep her relationship with Viney secret, because I really don’t think that situation will end in anything but blood. *hunches shoulders* And Ed… there are times when I think that Mom genuinely forgets that she has a son. He’s the oldest, and he’s an afterthought. He tries so hard, and she doesn’t notice. He’s a fucking genius, and she doesn’t even care.   She looks up at the street, a sullen look on her face.   AMITY *quietly* She doesn’t care about any of us. And I thought that was normal. That all vampires have high standards, that any vampire who’s a parent will be twice as demanding, that it’s just like that for our kind. I believed her when she told us that crap about half-vampires having to be perfect to avoid being outcasts, I believed her when she told us we were lucky that we weren’t dead, I—   Luz gives Amity a hug, much to her surprise.   LUZ *whispers* I’m so sorry you have to go through that.   Amity hesitates, then buries her head into Luz’s shoulder.   AMITY *muffled* I’m just so fucking tired of that house.   LUZ You don’t have to go back to it.   Amity lifts her head in surprise.   AMITY Wait, you mean—   LUZ Eda’ll be happy to have you, and so will Lilith and Raine. You’ll have to deal with King’s constant need for attention, and Hooty’s… energy vampire stuff, but if you’re up for it—   AMITY Anything’s better than going back home to Odalia motherfucking Blight.   LUZ *muttering under her breath* Odalia. I’ll remember that.   Cut to later that evening, in front of the Owl Household. Eda and Raine are taking a selfie in front of a rather large pile of cash, while Belos is—rather messily—draining the now-deceased corpse of Jacob Hopkins. Lilith is helping Luz carry some bags upstairs, while Amity is watching the chaos.   AMITY (VO) So… the Clawthornes won the Hopkins Hunt, which meant they got the reward. And Eda called Belos over so he could drain the guy—don’t know why they couldn’t drain him themselves, but whatever.   Onscreen, Belos drops the corpse to the ground and throws a couple of middle fingers to the night sky.   BELOS Fuck you, Matthew Hopkins! I just ate your descendant!   RAINE *distractedly* Good for you.   EDA *cheers* Yeah!   Amity surveys the scene, then smiles. Cut to an interview setup with her, sitting in one of the upstairs bedrooms of the Owl Household.   AMITY Yeah, I—I think I’m gonna be happy here for the time being. And I think Ed and Em are staying with Hunter now, so… that should be fun. *sucks in a breath through her teeth* I did warn them both about The Collector. Ed, at least, thinks he can handle him.   She looks around the room, then offers a shrug.   AMITY As for my mom, well… it’s a good thing I know a couple of competent vampire killers, right?   END CREDITS

Teen And Up Audiences

“Uh, Luz?” Hunter said, standing up straight in the open doorway to her room. “You said earlier to remind you to show me something later. And, it’s later, and you aren’t doing anything, so…”“Yeah, I did, didn’t I?” Luz said. “Come on in.”Hunter entered, sitting across from her where she patted her made bed.“So,” Luz began, “I’m different from most humans; I have a couple of ‘disorders’ that make it hard for me to do things or experience things the same way as a lot of people. Their human-realm names wouldn’t mean anything to you, but Eda’s told me—” she paused, but went on, “—um, Eda’s told me there are similar conditions that can affect witches. One of these days I’m going to pick the others’ brains about it, because I get the feeling it’s going to be the coolest topic since Glyph Magic and I’ll probably hyperfixate on it immediately, but that’s beside the point. There are tools I have to make things easier on myself, and some concepts I want to tell you about—but the tools first.”She leaned over to the nightstand, where there was a smallish backpack. “I take this bag everywhere,” she explained, and opened it. “I have a bunch of good stuff in here, and I have a lot of duplicates ‘cause I lose stuff a lot, so I can give you some. First, I have some headphones,” she pulled out some tech-y looking earmuffs, “they make loud sounds quieter. Try ‘em on.”Hunter tentatively put them over his ears, and noises he hadn’t even known were there disappeared. He could no longer hear the hum of the lights overhead or the refrigerator downstairs. When Luz spoke again, though, he could hear her fine.“You wanna keep those on for now?” She said. He nodded, smiling a bit. “That’s the only thing I don’t have multiple of, but I can survive for a few days until we get you your own.”Thoughts immediately rose in Hunter’s head—selfish brat, don’t take away her things, she doesn’t even have another one to use while you steal from her—but he shoved them away, as he’d been learning to do this past week, because Luz was a person who said what she meant and meant what she said and if she said she would be fine for a few days then she would be fine for a few days and that was that.“The next thing is sunglasses. They make bright places darker so they don’t hurt your eyes. I always get aviators—that’s what this style is called—‘cause they look cool, and they’re mirrored so people can’t tell if you aren’t looking them in the eyes.” She handed him a set of bluish-tinted glasses with large, lenses and a thin frame. “You can have these, I buy them in bulk. You can adjust the little rubber nose bits so they sit how you like.”Hunter looked through the glasses. “That’s so weird,” he said, laughing a little. He set them aside; Luz’s room didn’t have very bright lighting to begin with, so it was hard to see with them on, but he could imagine how they would be good to have outside.“Earplugs,” Luz said, pulling out a small jar of little foam things. “They do the same thing as headphones, but less obvious. I use them a lot at school. Teachers don’t like it when I wear my headphones, they thing I’m not listening to them. If you can cover your ears with your hair, though, or if you get a color that matches your skin, nobody knows you’re wearing them. These bad boys are disposable, too, they get too dirty to wear after one or two uses, so I go through these kind of quickly during the school year. We can share this jar for now, me and Mami were going to get more anyway when we go shopping tomorrow. But here, let me show you how to use them. Can you take your headphones off for a sec?”He did, and he could hear the lights humming again. Luz shook a couple out of the jar, giving one to him.“Roll these as small as you can between two fingers,” she said, demonstrating with her own. “Then put it in your ear as far as it feels comfortable. It might take a few tries to get it right, you can take it out and re-roll it if you want. It’ll get bigger in your ear—it doesn’t hurt, but it might feel weird, so just be ready for that.”“Okay.” It did feel weird, but as the thing expanded it muffled the sound in the one ear, effectively doing the same thing that the headphones had. He pulled it out and put the headphones back on as Luz put the jar of earplugs away pulled out two small bottles.“I don’t know if you’ll use these a lot, since you seem to deal with sensory issues by wearing gloves—sensory issues are pretty much when you touch a texture you don’t like. I have hand sanitizer because I really hate being sticky, and hand lotion because I really hate my hands being dry. You seem to be doing fine with your gloves, but you can use these if you want.”He nodded, and she put the bottles back in the bag.“Last, I want to show you my stim toys. I could technically stim without them, and I do a lot of the time, but they’re really fun to have. This is a monkey noodle. Do whatever you want with it.”She handed him a length of a bright green rubbery material, maybe two feet long. Experimentally, he wrapped one side of it around his hand. Then he wrapped it around again. And again, and again, and again—he wrapped it around maybe ten times before it started to hurt his hand and he had to stop. Then he began to wrap it around his other hand.“See, I told you it was fun,” Luz said. “I have a lot more too. This is an Infinity Cube,” she showed him a block made out of other blocks that could fold in on itself infinitely (hence the name, he supposed), “this one is a pop-it,” it was a round piece of rubber with many rows of bubbles one could ‘pop’ to reverse them so the bubble was on the other side, “and this is a stress ball.” The last one was a simple yellow ball made of foam with a smiley face on it, which felt quite good to squeeze over and over.There were more—a bright pink suction thing that made a popping sound when squeezed; a different kind of ball that was filled with air and also with other, smaller balls; a set of interconnected rings that spun around each other; numerous small squishy animals; a circle of connected plastic tubings that clicked when you moved them; a marble inside a thin mesh sleeve. All of these had interesting names, like Rizzle and Mochi and Tangle and Boink.He could get used to this, Hunter thought.

General Audiences

Sfw version- Winter/Huntlow, Married life au- Hunter has gotten to be a really good cook, and contrary to popular belief he hates staying in bed past 8:00. He always wakes up at 6:30, and makes breakfast for him and Willow. Willow is not a morning person. She’s always groggy when she wakes. When Hunter wakes up he tries hard to make sure his wife gets to stay in bed a little longer while he does some morning chores and fixes breakfast. And every morning without fail, Willow wakes not even 30 minutes apart from him, to try and drag him back to bed. Of course he refuses and so for the rest of the morning Willow is shadowing her spouse, and as he’s cooking breakfast Hunter’s complaining that he can’t move, and Willow is behind him clinging to him tightly. She tells him how he’s just “so warm” and the bed is cold without him, and and that he needs to get used to it if he’s going to be awake this early. He would find it much more endearing, if it weren’t for the fact that she is distracting him by peppering kisses on his neck and ears (which she knows are sensitive) as well as the scar on his cheek. It’s so distracting that sometimes he nearly burns, drops, or just ruins their breakfast. They sit and eat their breakfast in silence, Willow a proud smirk on her face, and Hunter grumpy and pouty secretly loving the attention.   ⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️NSFW VERSION⚠️⚠️⚠️⚠️ 🚫CAUTION READER DISCRETION ADVISED🚫 ⚠️⚠️⛔️⛔️LAST WARNING GUYS⛔️⛔️⚠️⚠️   Winter/Huntlow- Breakfast. Hunter has gotten to be a really good cook, and contrary to popular belief he hates staying in bed past 8:00. He always wakes up at 6:30, and makes breakfast for him and Willow. Willow is not a morning person. She’s always groggy and disoriented when she wakes up. When Hunter wakes up he always tries hard to make sure his alpha gets to stay in bed a little longer while he does some morning chores and fixes breakfast. And every morning without fail, she wakes not even 30 minutes apart from him, to try and drag him back to bed. Of course the omega refuses and so for the rest of the morning Willow is shadowing her mate. While cooking breakfast Hunter complains that he can’t move, because Willow is behind him holding on to him tightly. She tells him how he’s so warm, and she needs his body heat to “recharge” if he’s going to make her be up this early. He would find it more relaxing then it actually is, if weren’t for the fact that she is scenting him the entire time, and kissing and biting his neck and ears (which she knows are sensitive) sinking her fangs in and leaving marks, and by the time breakfast is ready he’s completely racked and going out of his mind from the intoxicating scent and how sensitive he now feels. He ends up sitting in her lap softly whimpering and humping her thigh trying to get any friction he can. She sits and enjoys her breakfast and coffee as if everything is perfectly normal. She is now feeling much more awake and ready for a morning workout. He can never bring himself to stop her from doing this even though he always ends up so worked up and senses spiked. Even after all that he finds It weirdly intimate. Maybe this is common for mated pairs.

Mature

...... 1???: Well well well everything is going very well 2???: Now what's next? 1???: Very easy just pretend you woke up in this place like the rest and don't let them suspect you or you 3???: Without a doubt this will be the best show I'll ever see 2???: Before you go I have a question for you. 1???: Upupupu ask whatever you want 2???: Who are you behind Monokuma? 3???: Ahahaha I always asked myself that, the truth is something intriguing 1???: Well, I supposed they would question it sooner or later, but to answer your question, my name is ♤♡◇♧ 2???: Of all the others I didn't expect it to be "you" 3???: Ahahahaha you really changed from the last time 1???: I'm a chest of secrets after all, now it's time for you to go, the game will start shortly and remember to spread the wonderful despair upupupu______________________________________ ForewordDESPERATIONBegins ... ... ... ???:*ugh* ???:*!umh* Slowly a gigantic stocky man opened his eyes, still numb from his previous dream.Once his eyesThey got used to the bright light that shone and looked around him. He saw Sand, Trees, and a bright sun....was he on an island? ???: (why am I on an island?) The man looked behind him and saw a beautiful crystal blue landscape ???: (I must have been asleep for a while but. Wait, why was I asleep?)   The stocky man tried to remember how he got to that place, but he didn't get any results. ???: (How did they take me to this island and if they were able to take me, they are also able to bring my people) And so fear turned into determination to explore more of this mysterious place. ???: (My body is not used to this weather but it will take more than that to take down the !Great Braum!) After that the stocky man stood up, to then notice that a small note fell on the sand of the beach ???: (What is this little note?) Welcome to your new life in this tropical paradise, Braum has been selected as the ultimate SQUARE, Good luck. ???: Go the ultimate Squire! Not bad at all! ho ho ho Braum: Now to investigate! ho ho ho ???: Hey, who are you?! Out of nowhere a girl with sunglasses, horns and a pointy tail appeared, aiming aggressively at Braum. ???: ! Was it you who caused me to be here? Braum: ho ho ho I have not been a miss, Braum would never do something like that ???: And how could I believe you? Braum: Have you woken up with a little note that says your name and this thing called talent? If so then you will prove my innocence ho ho ho ???: Yes, obviously, Hey, changing the subject, what is your talent? Braum: ho ho ho Braum is the ultimate Squire and now I have to ask what is your name and what is your talent? ???: My name is Justice and I am the amazing demon Braum: And your talent Miss Justice? With your appearance I would bet on a magician Justice: I'm not a magician but if you want to know my talent, take note there you can "see" what it is Braum: The ultimate prosecutor, I definitely didn't expect it ho ho ho Braum: The ultimate prosecutor, I definitely didn't expect it ho ho hoBraum: So you take care of arguing against the bad guys Juatice: You see, I'm not "exactly" the type of prosecutor you imagine, and it's also strange because I'm an ex-prosecutor. Braum: Curious now Braum is curious, like what kind of prosecutor are you? Justice: We should leave that for another day, my friend. We better investigate this island. Braum: I will accept her offer ho ho ho and don't worry the great Braum will defend her from everything that can happen Justice: Heh heh I don't think it's necessary but thanks for the gesture friend And so the duo went into the forest in search of clues, following a beautiful stone path that culminated in a kind of mini-villa with a fountain in the center, in addition to three somewhat large cabins around it and a small well, the cabin on the left had a cross symbol, the one on the right had kitchen cutlery, and the one in front had a bed that looked more like a hotel Braum: Despite our current situation, the truth is that the place is very beautiful. Justice: Where should we start looking first? Braum: First of all, what are those weird screens hanging all over the place? ???: They are monitors and cameras, which is creepy, I'm sure their purpose is none other than to watch us Braum: Hey Braum never saw you where you came from! Justice: It's true, how did you approach so quietly! ???: Oh my apologies I'm afraid I can't say that, but seeing their current situation and comparing it to mine, I get the feeling they went through the same thing as me Justice: Your assumption is correct and what is your name and why do you wear that terrifying mask? ???: Oh I haven't introduced myself, my name is Hiruko Kagetane and that's all you need to know Braum: Hey friend, aren't you going to tell us your talent? Justice: Say it because not saying it makes you seem more suspicious Hiruko: I don't have to because besides you are a "demon" what I would say is more suspicious, now I'm out of here And so silently as he arrived, he also left, leaving confused faces at the 2 present Justice: I've felt looks like his in the past, and it's never a good sign. Braum: You're right he didn't look exactly friendly, I think we should be careful with him, but still Braum doesn't hate Hiruko Justice: Trust me you will. And so after that moment of anguish, they decided to go to the left cabin of the village Braum: I hope to find more people Justice: I think the same, changing the subject, what do you think this cabin is? Braum: Because of the symbol, Braum theorizes that it could be an infirmary. Justice: mmmh! That's great let's go in! And so with great enthusiasm Justice opened the doors wide, Finding 2 people inside talking, The first was a girl in a black suit with a hat of the same color and the other individual was a mechanical bear with the appearance of a rock star 1???: More people, Hello nice to meet you beefy man and a "demon" 2???: Damn, I didn't think they existed, surely this wasn't in my schedule! Juatice: !Hey! You are not subtle at all, you looked at me and named me with contempt 1 ???: In short, I woke up with a note that said that this would be his new life and also said his talent Braum: Of course yes ho ho ho, My name is Braum and I am the ultimate Squire! Justice: And my name is Justice the amazing demon and I am the ultimate Prosecutor 2???: Woah an officer of the law and a protector, they are certainly exemplary citizens Justice: Heh heh heh for a robot to say that is weird but kind, nice to meet you 1???: Well, apparently you're not evil for a demon, Anyway, I introduce myself as the best magician, Zatanna Zatara, Nice to meet you 1???: Well, apparently you're not evil for a demon, Anyway, I introduce myself as the best magician, Zatanna Zatara, Nice to meet youBraum: Ho ho ho ho a magician, you remind me of a very good friend and partner of Braum Justice: Humans capable of controlling magic? That is very interesting 2???: That's right I was also surprised by said knowledge, but Miss Zatanna can do magic Justice: Mmmh So mage, couldn't you with your magic know what's going on in our situation? Zatanna: To our bad luck, my power got too weak. Braum: Ho ho ho that's a problem, changing the subject, hey robot right? It was I think, what's your name and what's your talent Zatanna: Oh yes it's true I haven't asked you for your talent or your name 2???: Oh excuse that detail, according to the note I am the definitive Vocalist and I am Glamrock Freddy 2???: Oh excuse that detail, according to the note I am the definitive Vocalist and I am Glamrock FreddyJustice: Woah a rock band of robots! That's amazing! Zatanna: You're right, very good talent, congratulations. Do you have a partner? Freddy: Yes, This Girl and Roxan who are my companions and Monty but he is not very important Braum: It seems that you are not on good terms with your partner but the others seem very close Freddy: If it's just that, Monty has anger issues and that's why he sometimes ruins shows. Justice: No doubt your friend needs therapy, but changing the subject, why did they stay in the infirmary? Zatanna: Ah, what happened is that I woke up in the middle of the forest with Freddy, and she told me that she was broken and needed medical attention. Freddy: It is, we shouldn't take even small wounds lightly. Braum: That is very noble my friend ho ho ho, you are certainly a good partner for Braum Freddy: I don't know for now Justice: Anyway, listen, it seems you guys have no idea how you got to this place either, and you don't seem to be able to find a way out either. Zatanna: Indeed and careful, a man with a mask came quietly and never told us his talent. Freddy: Memorize his name was called Hiruko Kagetane Braum: We ran into that guy too, ho ho ho he sure seems to know more than us. Justice: Anyway we are going to continue exploring the place Freddy: Goodbye, we'll meet again And so Braum and Justice left the infirmary to go to the cabin on the right but before they got there they saw 3 people around the well, It was a girl who seemed to have a cape, The second seemed to be wearing a white shirt and brown hair and the third a man dressed in blue with a black and white antifas 2???: !So you're saying that if I toss a coin I'll be granted a wish?! 1???: !That's how it works little girl ha ha ha! 3???: I don't think it works that way 2???: It doesn't matter, illusion is the last thing to be lost! Justice: Hey, hi! 1???: Oh more people in our situation, but how intriguing, nice to meet you Braum and Justice Braum: Ho ho ho. An equal pleasure. Wait, how do you know our names if we haven't said them? 2???: If that's weird they name us without us telling them our names Justice: Hey masked friend, how do you do that? 3???: !Oh I want to know the answer too! 1???: Ha ha ha, I see your curiosity, so get ready to know my name,! The demon of Clairvoyance, Vanir the definitive Clairvoyant! 3???: Wow, how eccentric you remind me of Dhar friend! Justice: Without a doubt. Vanir: Ha ha ha I Vanir have given you the pleasure of showing you the name now you owe me a favor Braum: I've met a lot of kind of people but, People who charge you to know their name 2???: Seeeh he's weird and a bit scary Vanir: Calm down little one I'm not a threat right now 3???: Doesn't sound very promising Justice: You're right, well girl, what is your name and talent? 3???: !Ho I forgot! A pleasure my name is Ajna, I am originally from Ashwat and my talent is the Artemarcialista 3???: !Ho I forgot! A pleasure my name is Ajna, I am originally from Ashwat and my talent is the ArtemarcialistaVanir: Ha ha ha without a doubt a good human specimen Ajna: Hey you don't have to call me that! Justice: definitive artemarcialista without a doubt I already like you Braum: Ho ho ho little girl would you like to train with Braum Ajna: !Definitely muscular friend! 2???: Oh, I also want to join the training Braum: Do not hesitate, you are welcome Justice: Mmmmh Braum I think we have more important matters now Vanir: The demon is right Ha ha ha ha the one who kidnapped me is certainly very smart Justice: Without a doubt, I managed to kidnap many people and take them to this place and also take away part of the power Ajna: Hey you're right I've lost my power! This isn't great Braum: Braum I notice, my great strength is intact but my icy powers have faded and so has the power of my shield 2???: Let me see your shield up close, I need to study it! Vanir: Hey girl you haven't told our friends your name Ha ha ha 2???: Oh sorry, it's just that I can be a little distracted, anyway my name is Marcy Wu and I'm the ultimate adventurer 2???: Oh sorry, it's just that I can be a little distracted, anyway my name is Marcy Wu and I'm the ultimate adventurerJustice: Oh that's great too! Marcy: Thank you very much Justice Braum: Adventurer just like Braum, I would certainly like to be your companion Ho ho ho Marcy: I can't turn down your offer. Justice: Listen, I have a question for all 3 of you. Ajna: Oh ask anything, I'm definitely an expert at it! Vanir: Yes we have seen Hiruko Kagetane Ha ha ha, And just like you he didn't tell us about his talent Justice: I was supposed to read my mind, but then it did come. Marcy: That other scary masked guy Ajna: It was definitely very scary. Justice: And maybe Vanir with your clairvoyance doesn't know his talent? Vanir: Ha ha ha Good question, the answer is no Braum: Why not, if you read the mind of Braum and Justice Marcy: He's right, why couldn't you do it? Vanir: Ha ha ha I don't know the answer to his mystery, which even intrigues me. Justice: We certainly have a problem with that. Vanir: Anyway I think our conversation ends here, bye we will see each other again Ha ha ha And so Vanir left laughing extravagantly, Disappearing into the trees Marcy: Well, bye, I'm going to investigate this place anyway. Ajna: Braum, can I come with you? Braum: Ho ho ho ho, no problem little girl, you can join us, Justice has no problem right? Justice: No problem, come join us! Ajna: !Yeah! Where are we going now? Braum: To the cabin on the right. Judging by the symbol, I'd say it's a dining room. Ajna: Well, let's go! After that the trio went to the cabin, which seemed to be a dining room being the largest cabin of the three, Then when they arrived Justice again from a door opened the door wide open seeing 3 people, The first was a man with a red cape and a glass sphere on his head, the second was an adult with a trench coat and a gray hat and seemed to be carrying a hammer and the last one was a girl with a marine outfit and seemed to have a red lock, the 3 seemed discuss at a table in the background 1???: A Superhero? I never heard from you 2???: Because maybe you're from far away, you're also a girl, how long have you lived? Hey 3???: Ha! That fucking fishbowl makes you look stupid! 2 ???:! Says the tramp who claims to be able to control metal but he can't prove it! 3???: Damn stupid! I already said that I don't know why it was removed, the only good thing about the damn Cadou has disappeared! 1???: Calm down elders, because the fish tank will most likely not be able to check its power 2 ???: Ah, that she couldn't check it? Well look at the true power girl and vagabond And so all those present saw how the "hero" rose with a green smoke to then launch magic of the same color towards a table destroying it, then lowered again with a proud pose 2 ???: Did they say she couldn't have power? 3???: Oh damn! How the hell did you do that? 1???: Are you right how could you achieve that? Is it your suit? Braum: Woah that's amazing 2???: Oh, there was public I guess they saw my power Justice: Yes, I managed to "see" your power but that doesn't matter, what matters is how do you still keep it? 2???: I don't know maybe just luck, anyway they can call me Mysterio the definitive SuperHero 2???: I don't know maybe just luck, anyway they can call me Mysterio the definitive SuperHero Ajna: SuperHero Mysterio Nice to meet you sir Mysterio: Me too, girl, but what are your talents? Braum: My name is Braum and I am the ultimate squire, The girl is the ultimate martial artist and the Demon is the ultimate Prosecutor 1???: Mmmh Artemarcialista,! Hey Ajna I want to fight against you! 3???: Hey hey! Hey! We have more important shit now Mysterio: Without a doubt the tramp is right 3???: I'll kill you bastard! Justice: Hey, you don't have to start a fight. 3???: !That's how you want to play! Hey devil Braum: No, she just wants them not to fight friend Ho ho ho 1???: He's right don't fight old men 3???: Damn! Anyway, in case you're wondering, my name is Karl Heisenberg, the Ultimate Mechanic Heisen: Ha, fuck the truth is that it is, you know I run my own company Mysterio: I don't know if I should be impressed, what kind of technology do you handle? Heisen: Tech bitch Justice: Hey friend, you shouldn't talk to others like that! Ajna: She's right control your temper! Heisen: Yes yes whatever, hey girl introduce yourself you look like a ghost Braum: Ho ho ho Braum wants to meet you too Heisen: I just said to say the obvious, not that I wanted to meet her. 1 ???:! Hey! Well he's right, my name is Ryuko Matoi and I'm the ultimate student Heisen: *Ptf* What a shit talented girl, Squires, Prosecutors etc. And you are a student   Ryuko: Now yes damn old man! I'll eliminate you Heisen: So you're going to talk to me huh? Well we'll have problems bitch Mysterio: Hey hey hey, Vagabundo and Ryuko calm down Justice: Yes, the hero is right, better calm down and discuss it later Heisen: Anyway, I'm out of here. Mysterio: I'd better keep an eye on him, start a fight with everyone And so Heisenberg left the dining room followed by Mysterio Ryuko: Well old things Ajna: Hey Ryuko let's go train now! Ryuko: Count me in. Braum: Hey wait! But unfortunately they both ran out of the dining room before they could hear Braum, leaving only him and Justice Justice: Well, what's next? Braum: I suggest we visit the kitchen at the back of the room. Justice: Yes, we should before we go to the last cabin. Braum: Well, let's go. I wonder what kind of people there are yet to meet? The duo went to the kitchen and when they entered they saw too much food, meats, fruits and even prepared food but more prominently a man with a blue suit, red cape and big blonde hair, Then he turned his eyes to the duo when he noticed them enter ???: Go more citizens Braum: Hello Braum is pleased to meet you, your dress reminds me of the hero we saw back, are you a hero too? ???: Ha obviously mate Braum, You probably already know me but I introduce myself I am Homelander and according to what my note said I am the definitive Patriot, Correct I must say Justice: Why are you another SuperHero? Homelander: Hmmm, another SuperHero? I do not believe that the girl or the old man I saw in the dining rooms is one Braum: I mean the man with the Crystal ball on his head. Justice: He called himself Mysterio Homelander: It doesn't ring a bell, I haven't seen it, if you'll excuse me I'll go analyze the situation Braum: Goodbye friend And so the "Hero" left the kitchen and later the dining room, however his presence was not exactly friendly to Justice Justice: Hey Braum, that man was lying. Braum: About seeing Mysterio? Justice: Not only that, his voice and attitude sounded fake, he's hiding his personality Braum: But what's the worst that could happen? Justice: Because it is only necessary to pretend if what you hide would also harm you, this SuperHero, every word of his sounded seriously very fake Braum: Hmmm, then Braum will make him stop pretending Ho ho ho Justice: If you say so friend, let's go to the last cabin The duo turned to him The last cabin located in front of the fountain, This cabin seemed to be bigger than the other 2, and it was more like a tower. Braum: I can't figure out what this building will be, we have to go inside And so instead of Justice it was Braum who opened the doors, finding a straight corridor where there were 4 rooms, 2 on each side and at the end of the corridor there were some stairs Bram: Hey! these are rooms Justice: Mmmh It could be a lodging place Braum: But also, there are the names of us! Justice: Seriously Braum! Braum: If the ones on this side are Mia and Zatanna's and on the other side is Marcy and Mysterio's, they even have our portraits Justice: That's weird. Let's go upstairs because you can't enter the rooms or pick their locks. Braum: Most likely there will be more rooms. The team went up the stairs to the second floor, effectively finding 4 more rooms and also 2 girls, one with red hair and the other with orange hair. Braum: Oh! Even more people! 1???: Another tenant, you are Braum right? I saw your portrait 2???: It's true, you look beefier live Justice: You're right, wait forget that, better who are you girls 1???: The most prudent thing would be to introduce myself, my name is Amity Blight and I am the definitive Summoner Justice: A summoner so young, that's amazing! Amity: I appreciate your praise, Justice. Braum: Ho ho ho Amazing many talents flourishing, You are certainly exceptional Amity: Thanks, meet my friend 2???: I introduce myself, I am Itsuka Kendo, Aspiring Hero and the ultimate Karate fighter Justice: Another fighter, you should meet Ajna and Ryuko you will like them Kendo: I'll keep it in mind Amity: Changing the subject about the situation there seems to be more people because of the rooms I read here Braum: The ones on this end are Justice and Amity, the ones on the other are Heisenberg and Michiru, mmmh I don't know the latter but she looks nice Ho ho ho Amity: I should go meet the others, but I'll escort you to the top floor first. Kendo: I'll go too! Justice: That's great! The more the better The quartet went up to the third floor seeing the same panorama as the previous floors Braum: This end of the rooms belong to Vanir and Kendo, the other is Homelander and Dimentio, Woah I don't know this last one and it's bad vibes ???: Hahahaha I feel flattered by that Justice: What the hell! Kendo: !Where did you appear from! ???: Hahahaha the best reactions I've seen without a doubt Amity: Hey we asked you a question ???: Ah I am the Master of dimensions the crowd pleaser and the ultimate Sorcerer I am ! Dimentio Remember it well Justice: What a presentation Dimentio: Hahahaha That's the best of all the !Presentation! Kendo: how strange you are Amity: And what are you supposed to be? Dimentio: I'm Dimentio And as I said Ultimate Sorcerer makes me disappear, But we'll meet again Ahahaha And just as quickly as he appeared he disappeared, After that moment of confusion the group went up to the top floor where they found the last rooms and a girl who seemed to have a tail and raccoon ears with a sports polo ???: Hello, have you seen a scary Clown that disappears and appears? Amity: Yes we have seen him and he just left ???: !Devils Braum: What was the matter you had with him? ???: He scared me and he started bothering me over and over again. Anyway, I guess they'll ask me to introduce myself. My name is Michiru Kagemori and I'm the definitive Zoologist. Braum: Ho ho ho Surely perfect for someone like you Kendo: It's very good Michiru Michiru: I guess you're right, listen, you've seen these doors, they seem to be rooms, and apparently there are 16 rooms. Amity: Which indicates that there are probably only 16 of us in this situation. Braum: Yes, these are Ajna and Ryuko's and the other 2 are Glamrock freddy and Hiruko's Justice: Well, apparently we already met everyone on the island. As soon as he finished that sentence the screens lit up revealing a silhouette and a voice that said Testing testing, Everyone go to the fountain in the center of the capamento if you want answers upupupu Justice: That voice sounded childish Michiru: But it was a bit creepy. Amity: I suggest doing what the voice says for now. Braum: That's right Braum needs an answer! And so the group went to the indicated place where all the others were already gathered Heisen: What a fucking joke Ryuko: I don't see anyone Zatanna: This seems like a joke in bad taste. Freddy: No doubt this is situation is intriguing Marcy: Oh a robot! But who called us? ???: Well, well, you are very, very impatient Braum: Who said this! Heisen: Who the hell said that? Mysterio: Reveal yourself! Homelander: It's an order that you come out now! ???: Well here I am crossed out! Out of nowhere a bicolor bear came out of nowhere surprising Heisen: Ah, what the fuck that stuffed animal talked! Ajna: Woah no doubt this is bizarre ???: Hey don't say that I'm monokuma the Great and sensual Administrator of this camp Ryuko: Okay this shit got weird Zatanna: Certainly nothing like anything I've ever seen. Hiruko: But that's interesting. Are you a robot? Monokuma: !No! I'm the great and sexy Monokuma and manager of his camp! Ajna: I don't remember signing up for any Kendo: Likewise, what are you planning? Dimentio: Ahahaha Everything is maddening and great Monokuma: Well your camp is, to say the least, infinite! They will stay here for all their lives Kendo: You can't be serious Ajna: You're right, I have a place to return to! Braum: The Freljord I need to go back to. Heisen: !My company! Monokuma: Hey don't get mad there's a way out Kendo: Whew Vanir: Ha ha ha And what is it tell us Monokuma: Easy! Kill another person here! As soon as he said that Homelander with a heat vision pointed directly at Justice's head, but before she reached it Braum got in the way with his big shield Ryuko: !Hey what the hell! Heisen: Shit huh, I guess it's time to stop lying To make matters worse, a piece of metal floated without explanation heading towards Michiru. Monokuma: Enough! As soon as he said that the metal fell to the ground and Homelander's vision went out. Monokuma: Wow, you guys are impatient. Justice: Eh! Your Homelander tried to kill me! Michiru: Hey this metal was headed for my head! Mysterio: What the hell bum, you tried to kill the girl Heisen: And what if it is Ajna: You two are horrible people. Monokuma: Don't worry, wait for me to say everything completely, if they kill someone it has to be discreet, basically when they kill, a class trial will be held, in which they will discuss who the murderer is, if they vote correctly he will be executed and the others will live peacefully but if they fail the murderer will come out and all the others will be executed Hiruko: And what exactly is that execution? Monokuma: A literal execution will make them kill now if they want but they will be executed Homelander: Damn, if I had my power I'd fucking torture you. Monokuma: Yes, whatever, anyway, take these, they are MonoPads, there are the rules that if they break they will be executed, they are also indestructible and they are the keys to your room, now I say goodbye Chao bye And so the stage fell silent with Braum thinking why is this happening? And more importantly, will someone actually kill? Well, the only thing left in the environment was pure DESPERATION

Mature

                         Things weren’t going well, and perhaps that was putting it lightly. Being only three days after his uncle’s “Day of Unity,” they were all still in shock. Still too stunned to make a plan, to find the next path, and all this quiet time gave his brain time to think, to reflect. Luz’s mom was allowing them to stay at their house, and while it was a bit crowded, it was comfortable. More comfortable than he was used to living in at least. He shared a room with Gus, sleeping on a spare futon in what he supposed used to be an office space. Luz’s mother apologized for the “mess” and assured them that she would find something more comfortable, but after what they had been through, what he had almost done. Well, he felt as if he didn’t deserve even the cot he slept on.                          All this time, all these days, he was using him, his own nephew. No, not his nephew, his little soldier, his prince, his grimwalker. Hunter was nothing more than a tool, and he had been a very good one, the best actually. He branded more witches with sigils than anyone else, gathered more palismans, arrested more wild witches than he could count. The youngest to ever become the Golden Guard, the youngest to bear the staff. He bore his own sigil with pride, proclaiming the glory of emperor Belos all the while committing atrocities in what he thought was pure intention. He was doing good, all this time he thought he was doing good.                          He really was just a stupid kid, and he could see that now. How naive he really had been, he never questioned anything, never wondered about the “great plan,” never questioned anything. How could he so blindly follow him, why did he never once question the grand plan? Even when he suffered under the hand of the emperor for his failures, by the hands of the people he persecuted, the other coven heads who resented the “prodigy.” He bore it all for the emperor, suffering when he failed, following in blind faith, and vowing to do better the next time.                        Hunter rubbed his sigil under his gloves, scratching at the area that still burned and stung even here in the human world, even in this warm kitchen filled with strange scents he had never smelled before, hearing music in a language he didn’t know, listening to the voices of people he thought might even be his friends. Why then, was his sigil burning? Why could he not erase this burning in his chest, this gaping hole that made it so hard to breathe, so hard to be in the presence of this warm, safe, home. What was worse, he couldn’t tell the others. They were mourning their own losses, their own trauma. No one needed to listen to the Golden Guard’s pity party.                       Hunter hissed quietly, gripping his hand as his sigil suddenly stung sharply. He glanced around the table as the others prepared it, laying out glasses, plates, silverware. He hurried to complete his task, setting out the napkins, sitting down before the others could ask about his winces, why he still wore his gloves. He couldn’t allow them to worry about one more thing, so even as his sigil still burned, bright yellow veins creeping out from the burning symbol, he would bear this in silence.                       His sigil. He was never going to be able to do enough. Nothing would have been enough for Belos, because he was planning to kill him this whole time. He branded him with his sigil when he was young, it was one of his earliest memories. That trusting smile, he remembered how eager he was, how excited he had been to show off his sigil to anyone who would spare him a glance. Everything had been a lie, everyone he had known was lying to him. He had no one he could trust, and now he was waiting for the other shoe to drop. For Luz, Amity, Willow and Gus to remember all he had done for Belos, to cast him out. He would deserve that, he knew he did.                      To be honest, his sleep had been horrible. It wasn’t that Gus was a bad roommate, even if he did catch him crying at night sometimes. No, everytime he closed his eyes he was there. Belos was there, waiting to cast him into the pit where the other failures were laid to rest. Then, Belos would be gone, slammed into a wall so fast that there was nothing left. All that remained was that smiling moon and star, laughing in his ear until Hunter woke with a start, his breathing hard, ribs hurting from the effort of trying to catch his breath.                     After a while each night, he gave up on sleep. It would happen eventually, that much he was sure of, nightmares would only keep him awake for so long before sheer exhaustion forced his body into a sleep so dark that nothing would disturb him. He just had to wait for that oh so familiar exhaustion to hit him, and then he would rest. For now, he would stay awake and try to keep the voices out of his mind, the swirling thoughts of regret, guilt, shame, contempt. Voices that said that no matter what he did, he would always be the disposable Golden Guard.                      A plate was pushed in front of him, breaking his thoughts for a moment. Luz’s mother, Camila was there, smiling at him. She didn’t know how truly useless he really was. If he wanted to remain here he would have to earn his keep, that much he knew for certain. He had a chance to prove that he wasn’t a failure here. It seemed too good to be true.                       Warm, what was this called? Ah, yes, rice. Rice, a thing called chicken, odd green vegetables he was informed was broccoli, and water. The food was good, really good, filling the whole kitchen with the scent of spices and herbs that he didn’t even try to understand. He saw how much time went into preparing this meal, and it stunned him that someone who didn’t even know them would take such a long time to make them a meal. The rice had to be washed with water, Camellia had to grill the green things, and prepare the chicken, cutting it into pieces, seasoning it, cooking it until it sizzled. It had taken her at least an hour to finish, all for them.                       For some reason, that thought spoiled his appetite, now only picking at his chicken. It wasn’t fair that she had to spend all this time cooking for someone who almost had her daughter killed, captured, petrified.                       “Mijo, do you not like it? Does it not agree with you? I thought you could eat human realm food. I tried to keep the spices down as well.” Camellia fussed, fork resting on her own plate.                      “O-Oh, yes, thank you Mrs. Noceda. I’m just not hungry right now, I-I’m sorry.” His hands fidgeted, wringing his napkin under the table.                      “That’s alright, if you get hungry later we will have plenty of leftovers.” Her voice was so gentle, so calm, even though he had apparently done something wrong. He was always doing things wrong, his whole life was nothing but doing the wrong thing. Taking the wrong turns, trusting the wrong people, wrong actions, wrong words, everything was just so wrong. He was wrong. His stomach clenched as this onslaught of thoughts overtook him, the need to flee crowding his mind.                      “I am…Please excuse me.” Hunter pushed his chair back with a small screech, hurrying to the bathroom. He couldn’t look at them, those faces of concern, pity, empathy, compassion. It was making him sick. He was physically sick, retching whatever small bites he had managed to eat. Hunter pressed his forehead to the cool wall, closing his eyes as he tried to breathe, tried to ignore the bile that seemed to linger on his tongue, tried to ignore his quickly racing heart and how his chest ached with a pain he couldn’t even describe.                        For a fleeting moment he thought that they had poisoned him, finally trying to rid themselves of the Golden Guard. No, that was the issue. They wouldn’t do that, they wouldn’t punish him, even when he so clearly deserved it. His actions had yet to meet consequences, and that thought made his stomach twist again, dry heaving again. There was nothing left to come out though.                      The least he could do was help with the clean up. He had refused her food, left the table without explicit orders or permission. He had to make up for this, for speaking out of turn. Who cared that his stomach ached, his throat burned and his chest felt so tight. He had pushed through worse.                    Quiet voices, whispers, it was hard to tell if it was from his own mind or from the dining room. They told him he was worthless, strange, wrong, a failure. He was a less than perfect copy of someone else, someone he didn’t even know. He felt like he was fracturing into pieces, unraveling.                    No. Focus on the mission. He had to be useful, he had to earn his keep.                    Shaky hands now, the others were looking at him as he stood in front of the sink.                    “Ah, you don’t have to do the dishes, it’s my turn-” Gus stopped short as Hunter grabbed a plate, scrubbed, dried, and set it aside. The movements were somewhat calming, the repetition and knowing how to do a simple task, even if his hands still shook. Gus watched him for a minute, apparently rethinking trying to stop him, and instead gathering dishes and setting them down for Hunter to wash. The others left to the living room, chatting among themselves in hushed tones. He and Gus worked like that for a minute, the sound of the water, clinking dishes, soft steps and voices from the living room. It was almost peaceful, he could just barely feel the tension release from his chest.                    Until his hands lost their grip on the plate he was washing. His hands, his worthless hands, he could only stare as the plate smashed on the ground with a deafening shatter, voices calling out from the living room, asking if they were okay, was everything alright?                   No, nothing was alright, nothing was okay, he had failed, he had messed up, this was it, he was worthless, worthless, worthless-                   “Hold on, I’ll get Mrs. Noceda!” Gus’s voice sounded distant, far away, covered by the sound of Hunters' own rapid breaths, pounding heart. His vision tunneled, his sigil burn ed like a red hot poker, his chest ached like he could never get enough air, never get enough- Panic blinded him, and he felt like a bird in a cage, frantically beating its wings, ramming against it’s cell, but nothing could escape from that cage. He wanted to run, to scream, but he was absolutely petrified, stuck in place.                    He was sitting now, when had he slid down to the ground, gripping his head? He had to make himself small, indistinguishable, he had to be unnoticeable, as much of a nothing as he could possibly be, as he had always been and always will be until the day he disintegrated back into the ingredients from which he came.                    Soft words, a gentle voice that was so unlike what he was expecting, how could a voice like that reach him over the sound of his own rapidly beating heart, fast as the beating of wings?                   “Mijo, breathe. It’s okay, you’re safe, you’re safe. No one is going to hurt you.”                   Lies, lies, it had to be lies. Everything he knew was a lie, everyone only told lies, never being honest, never being true. His breaths stayed quick and sharp, he couldn't breathe, why was this so hard? Everything was crowding around him, his vision tunneled, and he was powerless to stop, to move, to speak.                    No one touched him, but movement caught his eyes.  He lifted his head, flinching as he saw Mrs. Noceda hold out a hand. A look of recognition tinged with anger flashed briefly across her face, but it was soon replaced with something so soft, so gentle.                   "Oh mijo, who hurt you?” Her voice was so soft, he wasn’t even sure if he was supposed to hear her at all, but then again that didn’t matter. She was talking to him, showing him her fingers counting down, trying to get him to breathe. It was so hard, so hard to stop his rapidly gasping breath, to control it and force it to slow down. She didn’t leave his side, not even once, even as it took so long to get to where he could be called some semblance of  “calm.”                  “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, the plate, it’s worthless now, I-I ruined it, it’s broken, I-”                 A gentle voice, a hand reaching halfway to him, stopping in the middle. Letting him decide if he wished to hold it, to grab onto support. Asking him for his permission. Respecting his boundaries, a concept so new and foriegn. Eda, Eda had tried to do this same thing, and he had rejected her attempts. He had run away, rather than facing her kindness and concern Hunter ran away like a coward.                   “No mijo, a broken dish is still a dish. It doesn’t lose value just because it’s broken.”                   It felt like all the pressure released at once, and everything came out of him in an avalanche of tears. This was new though, a gentle hand pulling him to her, a tender hug as she rubbed his back, speaking in that human language that he didn’t know. He let her, going slack in her arms. He let her in.  Other hands joined them, soft words of comfort, of support. When had they come in? When had they all come in to support him, check on his safety?                 For the first time in his life, Hunter knew without a doubt that he was valued. 

Teen And Up Audiences

The three of them stood in front of their next destination: Hammerlocke Gym. They stood at the entrance as the building's tall presence towered over them. Luz, as usual, was ecstatic. It was normal to see her this excited when it came to Pokemon battles, and especially when she was going to challenge a Gym Leader. Her Eevee, perched on her shoulder, was just as excited as her, making noises of delight. Eda would be excited as well. She would be happy to see the two of them kick some Gym Leader ass. But she just wasn't, not today. There was just someone in that gym that she wasn't looking forward to seeing. Sure, she could avoid them like she avoided most problematic people in her life, but it would be hard. Especially hard, since said person just so happened to be the Gym Leader. She was not looking forward to what they would say to her, after what they had been through years past. "Hellooo~? Earth to Eda?" She got knocked out of her trance, and noticed King, who was perched in front of her face. His one horn threatened to dig into her skin and his big eyes behind his skull looked confused. "I'm here. Now get off my face.", She replied, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. He did as she said, getting off of her face and moving to perch himself on her shoulder, his black fur rubbing her pale skin. Besides the two of them was Luz, who tried her best not to run off to the gym and leave them behind. "Come on you guys, let's go already!", She said excitedly. Eda rolled her eyes sarcastically and patted her head. "Alright, alright. Let's go kiddo." Alright, it was time now. She totally wasn't nervous. Not at all. They entered the gym, Luz and Eevee running excitedly in front of Eda and King. Eda took in the ambience of the gym: its stone brick walls and pillars reached to the ceiling, and the carpet in front of them was adorned in lilac and navy blue stripes. There weren't any trainers in the gym just yet, so they must be the first here. They all noticed some employees over the distance. They seemed to notice them as well, and one of them ran over to receive them. Her skin was a tan color with light pink long hair, reaching around her waist. She wore a purple headband on her head, complimenting her uniform: a light lilac t-shirt with shorts. The shirt carried the gym's symbol: wings resembling the shape of a harp. "Welcome to Hammerlocke Gym! You must be here to challenge our Gym Leader, right?", She said to them. "That's right!", Luz answered. Her Eevee chirped up in excitement. "Ok then, they will get here in a sec! As for now, feel free to look around or whatever." She then took off back to the counter on the other side of the room, talking with the other employee. "Don't we usually have to go to the Gym Leaders, not the other way around?", King asked in surprise. Eda and Luz just shrugged, making their way to wander the room. Luz wandered to the counter where the two employees were, trying to strike up a conversation. King went along with her as well. This left Eda to wander the room on her own. She noticed some posters hung up on the wall, some of them portraying the past Gym Leader, Scooter Crane, who had retired recently. They needed to take those down and replace them, Eda thought. Some others were just there to take up the space, as well as other decorations. Eventually, she heard Luz call out to her, and she went to her. She spotted another person along the distance, and she recognized their bright mint hair. There they were. The person she was oh so nervous to approach. Well, nervous was more of an exaggeration, she thought. "Well, well, well...", She started as she walked over them. "If it isn't Raine Whispers." They looked at her and took in her presence. She hadn't changed much over the years. They hadn't changed much either: their eyes were still a dark yet beautiful shade of green and as she got closer, she noticed that she still towered over them. "Didn't know you had the guts to lead a gym.", She added as she got closer to them. A moment of silence passed, the two of them staring at each other. "Ugh, Eda! You're embarrassing me in front of my staff!" The rest of them just looked up at them in confusion. Raine's cheeks were adorned with a bright shade of red, and they put a hand on their face to try to cover it out. Eda just scoffed. "You're still just as easy to embarrass." "So um, you two know each other?", The other employee besides Amber (that was the pink haired girl's name, Eda noticed, as she took a look at her name tag on her chest.) asked them. "Yep, me and the Owl Lady go way back.", They said as they put a hand on her shoulder, causing her cheeks to go red. Luz just looked at the two of them in amazement, her eyes glowing with excitement. "You do?!" "We do.", They replied. "Eevee, this is so cool!", She told her Eevee, who chirped back excitedly. "I get to battle Eda's old friend?! Oh, maybe they're part of your secret backstory!" She addressed this part to Eda, to which Raine just laughed. "Secret backstory? Really?" She felt the tip of her ears burn. "Shut up." "Oh, I am so writing about this later!", The other coworker exclaimed (Katya, her name was Katya, Eda noticed as well.). "Alright everyone, let's just get inside. Me and Luz have a battle to begin.", Raine said, winking at Luz while they said this. Everyone began walking towards the actual Gym, but Raine stayed behind along with Eda, walking behind them. "And, Eda?" She tensed up at their words. "Yeah?" They blushed a little. "Well, I'm not really expecting many challengers today… So, I was thinking..." They paused for a moment, turning to look away from her. "Maybe we could catch up? Over lunch or something?" "Uh, yeah… That would be nice." They stood there in awkward silence, both of them refusing to look at each other in the eye. Eventually, Raine smiled at her and walked away, leaving her on her own. Well, not really. She noticed Luz and King waiting for her at the entrance to the Gym, huge smirks on both of their faces. "Ooohh~", King started. This just caused Eda to blush again. "What?" "Oh, you were so blushy back there~", Luz added. "Wait, do you like them?!" King gasped in realization. "So that's why you were acting off when we arrived! You didn't want to confront your feelings!" Eda's blush deepened. "What, no!" Luz and Eevee both smirked at her. "Uh huh..." "Ugh, whatever, let's just go inside! You have a Gym Leader to defeat!" Luz and Eevee just headed inside ahead of her and King, who was on her shoulder again. They were both laughing at the whole situation. Whatever, she thought. It's not like I still like them after all this time. Not when everything happened before. This is why she wanted to avoid them. Not because they were mean to her or anything, but because she didn't want to admit the truth. Because despite all these years, she still loved them no matter how much she tried to deny it.

Teen And Up Audiences

“You said your uncle was going to bring you with him, right? To the Human Realm?” Luz asks, feet propped on Amity’s lap as she fiddles with some strange human cube that clicks and rolls under her nimble fingers. “That is what he said, yes. But I don’t think he… would have,” Hunter mutters, staring at the ‘TV’ screen. He wonders if Darius would like the thing; it’s bright and clearer than the crystal balls, and seems to work like when he plays videos on his scroll. “Right, but if he had, how would he have disguised your ears?” He glances back at her, brow furrowed in confusion. “What?” “Well, I mean,” they wave their hand around. “Obviously he would’ve known you can’t really have pointed ears here, especially since he was from a time where that would’ve gotten you killed, so did he like, have a plan or…?” He tilts his head, considering. “I don’t know. I mean, we didn’t really talk about it much. He was always busy with preparations and I was always busy with failing him.” He snorts in almost-amusement, carefully not looking at where Amity has placed her book down next to her, golden eyes boring into him.  “Hunter-” “Other than that,” he interrupts before they really get going. “He didn’t even tell me he was- both him and his brother- were human.” His ear twitches, abruptly reminding him. “Oh! There was the time his- it took over- he used the- you know the thing, please stop look at me like that-” “Right, sorry.” Amity turns to look at Luz at the same time that he turns to look at her, both stifling nervous snickers. “-So yeah, it was the time that he ripped my ear for not listening properly, since I misunderstood the mission parameters,” he keeps blabbering, afraid to stop and look at them even as he clocks Vee in his peripheral where she lingers in the doorway. “And after he took a- after. He made the Healing Coven leave the ripped part out instead of them trying to regrow the cells to at least make it less,” (ugly, unsightly, disfigured) “noticeable. And he always had a thing with touching after it happened- not like that- not always like that-” “What-!” “So he would trace the rip and sometimes say that at least he got a head start.” He stops short, suddenly realizing what that had probably meant. “Oh.”  “He was going to carve your ears?” Vee sounds horrified, reaching up to pet her own fluffy ears. “That’s-” “Terrifying,” Amity whispers, staring at him. He swallows, knowing that she would know more than Luz and Vee about witch ears being one of the more sensitive parts of their anatomy (but he isn't a witch anyway, not really, so what would it have mattered?).  Hunter’s hands unconsciously find their way to his chipped ear, feeling the numbed scar tissue tingle at the touch of his gloves.  “He was trying to make it easier for me,” he says woodenly, snapping out of his daze when Luz makes the same sound Ghost did when Mrs. Noceda had stepped on her tail three days ago. Ghost refused to come back through the door now unless Mrs. Noceda comes to the Isles and apologizes every time. “No.” “He wasn’t. I know. He was cruel, and harsh, and manipulative,” he says, parroting what everyone else has told him (which, to be entirely honest, he still isn't entirely sure he believes because Uncle wasn't like that all the time). He looks at Luz to make sure their expression settles before he continues. “But he was the closest thing I had to family, Luz. I can’t just… I don’t know.” “You want to believe he loved you.” Hunter’s eyes flash dangerously. “He did,” he snarls, glaring at Amity, who he thinks looks entirely too calm.  “I don’t think he did, Sad Boy.” Something in him snaps, and he wants to hurt her like she’s hurting him, but he doesn’t know how so he spits out the first thing he can think of. “Belos loved me that same way your mother loved you, Princess.” And then she flinches and he feels awful and his eyes are burning and Luz and Vee are just staring at him and he can feel Flapjack thrumming in his staff form on the floor, can hear the sound of the rain outside, the automobiles going by on the street, the beat of his heart picking up and everyone just watches him like he’s about to break and no matter how long it’s been since Belos died (3 months, 8 days, 12 hours and 2 minutes) or how long it’s been since they found a way back home (2 months, 3 days, 9 hours and 56 minutes) he doesn’t think he will ever not be embarrassed by someone witnessing his little tantrums. Especially the ones where he grips his hair so hard he can feel it ripping in his hands and he has his face shoved into his knees and he shakes for even longer than that time he had hypothermia from a mountain mission. He can feel his shoulders get tense, body weight shifting as he minutely adjusts to make it easier to get up fast- The door opens.  “Niños? I’m home! Is Hunter still here? I was thinking we could have some of those flautas he liked so much for dinner. Ay, chico still needs to eat more. No meat on those bones.” Mrs. Noceda shuffles around, putting her purse down and taking off her sandals. “Luz? Mija?”  “Sí mamá,” Luz calls back, eyes not wavering from his own, and he feels distinctly like he’s sizing him up. “Sounds good. Tal vez deberías planear preparar la cena tarde.” “¿Por qué? Is everyone feeling alright?” As she steps into the room, Hunter makes the split second decision to leap for his staff at the same time that Luz jumps at him. He grabs Flapjack, Luz catches hold of his pant leg, and they are suddenly surrounded by green trees and non-snapping flowers while rain sprinkles down on them gently from the leaves above.  “¡Hijo de PUTA!” Luz swears, staring down at her muddy sleep shirt. “This was a collector's edition!” “I don’t even have a mother to call a bitch,” he blurts, more out of surprise that she managed to catch him than anything.  “Who taught you what that meant?” Luz’s head shot up, glaring at him with all the ferocity of a mildly sleep deprived 14 year old.  He blinks at her. “You did. Remember? We were at the library and you said I needed to learn Spanish and then you slammed the ‘English to Spanish Dictionary’ out of my hands and told me the most important ones weren't in there, so you taught me a bunch and then thought it would be funny to bring it up at dinner and then your mom took off her shoe-” “Oh yeah.” They regard him for a moment, tilting their head. “...Do you remember all the swear words?” He tilts his head right back, narrowing his eyes for good measure. “Vete a la mierda.” “Nice! Your pronunciation is a bit off, but pretty good.” He preens. And then remembers why they’re here. “Oh, Titan,” he whispers, clenching his hands in the dirt and grass. In the back of his mind, he registers that Darius will likely throw a fit if Hunter comes back home covered in mud. “Hunter, it’s ok, she knows you didn’t mean it like that-” “Does she?” He’s wheezing, why the fuck can’t he breathe- wait, breathing, Gus, fingers, he does have fingers, great, he can use those to stop freaking out- “Well, I mean. I think we all know you well enough by now to know when you’re genuinely being mean or when you’re just lashing out.” He glares at her from between the fingers of one hand, the other tapping out the pattern on his thigh. “When we first got here, I made Vee cry,” he grinds out from between gritted teeth, ignoring the slight whistle to his words.  “I think that was more of a trauma response than anything else, y’know since she was locked up by the emperor and you were- anyway, doesn’t matter- I mean, it does, but you apologized and it was all fine. So it’s the same concept.” “What good is apologizing if I just keep doing it?” He seizes her hand from where it hovers awkwardly over his shoulder, almost entirely positive that he looks insane as his gaze locks on hers. “Why am I like this? Am I broken? I should be better than this, I should be past this, but I’m just acting like-” Like him. Like Belos. And he hates it, more than he’s ever hated anything in his life, but to be entirely honest, he doesn't actually think he’s ever hated anything before. (Even when he was taught that wild magic killed his family, he was always drawn to it, like those stupid little bugs in the human realm with fuzzy bodies and rapidly beating paper-thin wings that more often than not line up with his heartbeat. Gus and Luz say they’re called moths, and they head towards any light source.) (He always watched the especially dumb ones that head for the candles in the windows, not looking away when they shrivel into sad little embers from the heat.) (He thinks he was a moth, in the Emperor’s Coven. His uncle was the candle he could never stay away from.) (Speaking of flame, would his uncle have even bothered to cauterize the wounds? If he had irreparably torn Hunter's ears? Or would he have just watched him to see if he could patch himself up?) (Would he have touched him the same way after?) Luz is still talking, providing a steady stream of words to drown out the rising storm of thoughts. She hasn’t let go of his hand, clutching harder and scooting closer until they’re practically on top of each other. It’s nice, he thinks distantly, slumping against her as she gingerly wraps her arms around him. It’s nice to have people like this. …I need to apologize to Amity. He doesn’t want to move. “Do you want to stay for dinner? Or would you rather head home? Mamá would understand, so it’s fine.” He winces a bit at the reminder that he hadn’t even greeted Mrs. Noceda before just up and vanishing with one of her offspring. And he upset her daughter's girlfriend. And her other daughter. Wow, he was batting a thousand, as Gus would say. “Hunter?” Flapjack tweets and pecks at his leg, drawing him out of his thoughts. He swallows. “Yes. Yeah. Ok. I’ll stay.” “Great! I’ll show you how to make a structurally sound blanket fort.” “That sounds…” -great, excellent, please don’t leave me, please just stay the same, don’t treat me different- “Adequate. But I’m. I’ll apologize to- to Amity first.” “Awesome plan! Also, my leg is asleep and I don’t really want to walk around the neighborhood in pajamas, so if you could just-” He closes his eyes against the flash of gold, and they’re in the little tiled space between the carpeted floor and the doorway. “You’ve gotta teach me how to do that someday.” “Luz? Hunter?” Mrs. Noceda pokes her head around the corner, worried gaze taking in their dripping forms. “Dios mío, you two are soaking wet! Stay there, I’ll grab a towel.” She disappears from view, Vee taking her place. “Are… we all ok now?” “Yep!” Luz chirps, spreading his arms to show his muddy shirt. “Can you go get Amity real quick? ¡Gracias, hermanita~!” Vee grins so hard her eyes squint and her fangs show, and Hunter has the distinct impression that, had her tail been out, it would’ve been wagging like that four legged canine creature that looks like a smaller, less deadly direwolf. Dug? Dog. Dog? Something like that. Amity steps forward, jarring him from his, admittedly useless, train of thought. She hands a towel to him, eyes averted, and he somehow feels even worse. “Ms. Blight. I would like to apologize for- I’m-” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose to cover his eyes and trying to swallow back the lump in his throat. “Amity. I’m sorry for snapping at you. And… for what happened at Eclipse Lake. I shouldn’t have… lashed out at you like that. You were just trying to help- at least, I’m pretty sure- so I’m sorry. I understand if you don’t forgive me. I was out of line.” She watches him for a long, heart-stopping second before granting him a small smile. It’s not much, just a simple uptick of the corner of her mouth, but it feels like everything. It’s more than he could’ve hoped for, but now… He’s a bit afraid of how desperate he feels to hold onto it.

Teen And Up Audiences

“And this here is the general ward. We happen to be on floor three, however, the Conformatorium…”    Raine had stopped listening to Kikimora hours ago. Out of everything they’d gone through since their capture, this Titan-damned “educational tour” the Coven Heads were being dragged on had to be the worst. According to Kiki, the Emperor had mandated it in order to “remind them of the system they served”.  Raine, Darius and the others had been dragged through the palace, the courtrooms, and now this.    The Conformatorium. The real reason they were there.    “You have to keep it together.”, Darius had whispered to them in their chambers, where he’d come on the pretense of helping them get ready (they weren’t sure Kikimora had bought it, but Darius had done it enough with Lilith to create a reasonable fog of doubt). “They’re testing you. They want to be sure Terra’s got you under her thumb. Otherwise, they’ll go to more…extreme measures.”    He hadn’t elaborated. They hadn’t asked him to.    They just had to keep it together. Keep a straight face for a little while longer. They could do this.    Raine spotted a flash of pink at the end of the hall.    They felt a tremor go through their resolve. Darius gave them a tense look, the message being clear.    Do not mess this up.    Eberwolf glanced at them, then scrambled down from Darius’s shoulder and clambered up theirs, lowing softly in their ear. Raine offered them a weak smile and patted their claw.    Out of the corner of their eye, they spotted Terra watching the two of them closely. When they turned their gaze to her, she pasted on a fake smile and cooed at the display.    Kiki coughed pointedly and they hastily returned their attention to the front. She continued walking and they followed, the buzzing in their ears drowning out her drabble.    They could see her more clearly now, peering around the corners of the bars. They tensed in preparation for what was to come, feeling Eber tighten his claws on their shoulder in a sort of supportive gesture.    Raine could feel multiple pairs of eyes on them as they approached Amber’s cell. The young witchling’s eyes widened and she perked up hopefully, smiling up at them. She looked as though she were about to call out to them, but Derwin (who had appeared from the darkness behind her) glanced at their face and stopped her.    This, at least, they were grateful for. Derwin had been their student and protége for years before the rebellion, even once privately admitting that their mentorship was the closest thing he’d ever had to parental guidance. He knew them well enough to tell when something was wrong.    Maybe it would be alright. Derwin was only 19, but he was responsible. Clever. He could keep the younger two out of trouble until-    Wait.   Raine barely fought down a yelp. Frantically, they scanned the cell that they were now passing. There was Amber, and Derwin, and…nothing.    Terra placed a hand on their shoulder (and maybe it was their imagination, but they could have sworn her nails dug in more than Eberwolf’s). “Something wrong, sprout?”   Darius glanced at them, alarm rippling just under the surface of his expression. They took a little breath to steady their pounding heart and fixed their eyes on him.    Just look at Darius. Just look at Darius, and you’ll be alright.    “Darius, these are the young bards you arrested during my sick leave, right?” Raine asked, doing their best to keep a tremor out of their voice. Darius nodded slowly.    Just look at Darius. No one else is here listening. You’re just having a conversation. Just focus on Darius. They could feel Terra’s eyes boring a hole in the back of their head.    “I could have sworn your report said there were three of them,” they finished. “Was that wrong?”    Darius opened his mouth to speak, but Terra cut him off. “Oh, yes, there are. The third is just in…solitary confinement.” She smiled wickedly. “From what I hear, the naughty little thing had actually been in the Conformatorium before. A few months back, I think. Apparently, she was part of that disastrous breakout that nearly got Warden Wrath demoted. He had a bit of a bone to pick with her when she was recaptured.”    Her grin widened even more at the look of horror on their face. “Yes, yes, she’s gotten herself into quite a situation, hasn’t she? Though, it’s rather odd…” She tilted her head theatrically. “Last time I visited, I could hear her screaming from here. Pity. She did have a lovely voice.”   Amber, who had been growing more and more agitated, finally broke. She lunged for the cell wall, shrieking, “YOU STUPID OLD HAG!” and attempting to swipe at Terra through the bars. Derwin hastily bolted upright and pulled her away, looking alarmed.    Terra merely chuckled. “My, what a feisty little creature. I’d give you a congratulatory pat for spunk, dear, but I daresay you’d bite me.”    Amber struggled against Derwin’s grip, tears sparkling in her eyes. “I’d rip your throat out if I could, you imperial scum.” She turned her glare directly to Raine, making sure they met her eyes before she finished. “All of you.”    Their heart clenched. Like a line out of some kind of cliche fantasy novel, they hadn’t realized how much they cared for their crew until they’d been taken away. Now, they’d give anything to burst through the bars, scoop Amber up in their arms and apologize, apologize over and over for being so foolish, for not thinking anything through, for putting her and the others in this situation. They hated Darius, the other Coven Heads, the Emperor, themselves for putting Amber, Katya and Derwin through this hell.    Terra gave them a dangerously sweet smile. “Are you alright, Raine, darling?”    They forced a nod, meeting her eyes. “Apologies. I’ve just…heard stories about Warden Wrath. I…don’t envy that bard.”    Terra’s sickly-sweet air eased somewhat and they relaxed. Mason grunted.    “You’ve always had a weak stomach, Whispers. The little rat’s getting what she deserves.”    They fought back a wince. “Yes, I understand. But…well, I understand.”    Kikimora nodded approvingly, and Raine could almost see her checking off an invisible box. They kept their eyes firmly locked ahead as they continued, refusing to even glance at the source of angry weeping fading away behind them.~    “For old time’s sake, I’ll give you one last chance. Move. Please.”   The words hurt Raine almost as much as the pained look on Eda’s face. Titan, they hated this. Lying to their loved ones, watching the hurt and betrayal on their faces. First Amber, now Eda-   Amber. Eda.  An insane, completely out of pocket plan sprang to their mind.    In a split second decision, they suddenly reached out and grabbed Eda’s wrist, pulling her up from the ground. Eda gasped, a combination of start and alarm, and for a moment Raine was sure she considered hitting them.    They spoke before she could. “For old time’s sake, Eda,” they repeated. “One last reminder of what you’re doing, one last reminder of what you’re getting yourself into.”    They weren’t sure she’d follow them. Thankfully, after a moment’s consideration she wriggled her arm free and twined her fingers through theirs, nodding grimly.    They breathed a sigh of relief and tugged her along behind them, leading her up a path that they hoped she didn’t recognize from the maps she’d given them. The houses about them got fewer and farther between, seemingly degrading the farther they ran until they finally reached the dark, imposing fortress that was their destination. They pressed their free hand to a specific brick that Darius had shown them, one that gave the Coven Heads a shortcut into the Conformatorium (and a way to get in without being seen, although not exactly this kind of not being seen).    Ignoring the shouting and clamor coming from around them, they turned and pulled Eda up the stairs, trying desperately to visualize the display Kikimora had proudly shown them in the beginning of that wretched tour. Up one, two, three flights of stairs, and then a left into the Warden’s dungeons- no, that was the store room.   Raine swore under their breath. Eda’s’ eyes flicked over the racks of staffs locked to the wall, her grip tightening on their hand.    Abruptly, they stiffened. Their trained ears picked up on the sound of footsteps, heavy and fast and coming down the hallway towards them. Eda’s ears perked up as well, and before they could stop her she shoved them aside to dive in front.    They ducked behind the door to the storeroom- not out of cowardice, but out of necessity. The Warden couldn’t see them here. They winced as they heard the sounds of fighting, the swish of spells being thrown and the sickening thud of a body hitting the floor.    They stepped out, feeling their stomach twist slightly in anticipation. To their relief, Eda was hovering over the unconscious form of Warden Wrath. She didn’t say anything, much to their relief, simply raised her eyebrows at them.    “So…you wanted to show me a bunch of confiscated staffs? Because if you’re trying to convert me, Rainestorm, it’s not working.”    They shook their head, grabbing her hand once more. They had to get her to the dungeons. If only they could do that…   They led Eda down the halls, towards where the Warden had come from. Up ahead, they spotted a door left slightly ajar. Thank the Titan, the imbecile hadn’t thought to lock it.    They stopped in the doorway, peering into the dark, dingy room. It was hard to see, as the only light creeping through the barred window was the continued flashing of red and blue from the firework display Eda had somehow orchestrated.    Eda, seemingly thinking along the same lines as them, reached into her hair and drew out one of her pre-drawn glyphs. She tapped it lightly and a ball of light floated up from her palm, illuminating the area with a golden glow and revealing-    They wanted to look away, but they couldn’t. They wanted to cry out, but their jaw felt wired shut.    Crumpled on the cold, damp floor was a young witch, with dark hair soaked in sweat and olive skin that had been torn to shreds by what looked like the bite of a whip. Bruises of various sickening shades of purple, red and yellow marred her face and arms, and little round marks that looked suspiciously like burns peppered her bard’s uniform and scarred the skin underneath.    They couldn’t be sure if she was conscious or not (although for her sake they rather hoped for the latter). At their side, Eda cried something that sounded faintly like her name, but the witch on the ground gave no response. Her eyes were closed and her breath rattled in her chest, loud enough to be audible and making them wonder how many injuries they couldn’t see on the surface.    As the shock wore off, Raine turned to Eda and steeled themselves. Pray to the Titan that Darius was wrong about their acting skills. “You see? Eda, this is what happens to people who do things like you just did.”    Eda gave them an incredulous look, bordering on anger. “Wha- Rainestorm, you can’t be serious right now. You’re- you’re not ok with this, are you?”    They looked away. “I’m…I have to be. It’s the reality of the world. I may think that this is a bit of an extreme punishment, but you can’t deny that this witch committed treason. She has to face the consequences.”    Eda gaped at them. “Face the consequences?! Consequences for what, writing stories? Protesting in public? Saving lives under your direction?! She deserves this for that?”    Raine shook their head, feeling the ache in their heart worsen with every word. “There you go again, Eda. My direction? I have no idea what you’re talking about.” They gestured dismissively at Katya, ignoring the sick feeling in their stomach as they did.    You have to do this. You have to sell it.    “Just because this girl is a bard, doesn’t mean I have anything to do with her actions. The Bard Coven isn’t responsible for what individual witches do, and I won’t let you blame me for her stupidi-” ~ *SLAP!* ~   The sound of her hand striking Raine’s cheek echoed around the room. They reeled away from her, looking stunned, and Eda felt an immediate twinge of remorse. She glanced down at Katya, however, lying limp on the ground at her feet, and the fire was back.    She glared at Raine, feeling tears prickling at her eyes. They stared coldly back, and what she saw broke her heart all over again.    This wasn’t her Rainestorm. This wasn’t the witch she’d known, the witch she’d loved. Something was very, very wrong, and she wasn’t sure what, but she knew something had happened to them. They wouldn’t do this. They wouldn’t say this.    And yet, a small part of her couldn’t help but doubt-    No. No, no, no.    Eda shook her head to clear it, steeling herself. “Here’s the deal. I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I clearly can’t get through to you right now. So instead, I’m gonna get the crew out of here and take them somewhere safe.”    Raine opened their mouth to raise an objection, but she cut them off before they could start. “Whether or not you try and stop me.”    She waited. Raine loomed in front of her, looking as though they were seriously considering calling her bluff.    “I think I heard something over here!” “Head Witch, are you there?!”    Raine glanced in the direction the voices had come from, then squeezed their eyes shut. Eda went to reach for them, but stopped when she spotted their clenched fists. She shuffled to the side slightly, hoping to at the very least shield Katya from harm.    Raine growled something unintelligible and her heart thudded in her throat. Then they slowly turned to face away from her.    They didn’t have to say it. She got the message loud and clear.    Go.    A part of her wanted to stay, stay and shake some sense into them if it killed her. But her mind flashed back to the moment they’d retrieved her mandolin, back in the woods outside Bonesborough.    They probably need you more than you realize, Raine had said. And it didn’t take much pondering to realize who needed her now.    Quickly, she dropped to one knee on the tile floor. She placed a hand tentatively on Katya’s shoulder and winced when she felt the young witch trembling.    Eda tugged her cloak off her shoulders and draped it around Katya like a blanket. As gently as she could, she gathered the unconscious bard up in her arms and stood, cradling her close. Katya stirred, whimpering slightly at the movement, and Eda tightened her grip protectively.    “Shhh,” she murmured, pressing her cheek to the girl’s forehead. “It’s alright. I’ve got you.”    With some effort, she managed to slip an invisibility glyph out of her sleeve. She clutched it close and gazed once more at Raine, sending them one last silent plea. They didn’t turn around.    Eda shook her head, attempting to blink the tears out of her eyes. She shifted Katya gently so that the young witch’s head rested on her shoulder and whispered in her ear.    “If you can hear me, honey, hold your breath.”    She took a deep breath of her own and activated the glyph. She darted past Raine and out the door, heading for the room where she’d seen the staffs lining the walls. Neither on her way there, nor on her way back past the dungeon and towards the cell hall, did she see Raine wipe a tear from their eyes. ~   ~ Luz was pacing the floor of the living room that night when Eda finally arrived home. Her mentor hadn’t made their agreed-upon rendezvous time, and the young witch-in-the-making had been becoming more worried by the second. She’d even tracked down Eda’s crow-phone and made a desperate call to Lilith, who’d arrived at the Owl House minutes earlier.  Amity was just getting to her feet, opening her mouth to say something comforting to her girlfriend, when Eda burst through the door in a frenzy. Luz spun around, beaming in relief, but stopped short when she saw what Eda held in her arms.    “Wha- Is that the girl from the Conformatorium?! Eda, what happened to her?!”    Eda, in an uncharacteristic move, shoved past her and into the house. Behind her, two more witches in bard’s uniforms dismounted staffs and stumbled inside after her. Both looked pale and disheveled, and the taller was limping slightly as he followed Eda into the house.    Eda’s frantic eyes landed on her sister, staring bewildered at the sight of her. “Lily? What are you- never mind. It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “I’m glad you’re here though. I…I think I need your help. Katya, she’s not in good shape and-”   Lilith’s eyes flicked over the girl Eda was carrying. Her face became grim and she stood, striding over and taking Katya from her sister’s arms. “Say no more, sister. I’ll take her upstairs, you get the potions book and the first aid kit if you have one.”    “Right.” Eda tore into the kitchen, while Lilith swiftly headed for the stairs. The group of kids still in the living room stared after her, stunned, while they tried to process what had just happened.    The rest of the night was a long one. Derwin, after some time, introduced himself and Amber to the others. They quickly exchanged stories, with Derwin filling in the details of both the BATT’s story and what Eda had told them of hers, and Luz explaining everything that went down outside the Conformatorium’s walls.  Then, with no more left to tell, the group sank into an uneasy silence. From upstairs, they occasionally heard the slamming of a door or caught a snippet of Lilith and Eda’s frantic muttering. Every few hours, one of the sisters would come running down and into the kitchen to retrieve something, before disapppearing back upstairs.   Hours passed. Amber tucked her knees up to her chest and buried her face in her arms. Derwin put a comforting arm around her, murmuring something the others couldn’t hear.    Watching them, Amity suddenly spoke up tentatively. “She…she’ll be ok, you know. The Emperor’s Coven makes all witches who join take a yearly first aid course. I’ve watched Lilith do it, she knows what she’s doing.”    “Yeah, and Eda really cares about you guys,” Luz added, trying for a smile. “She’s not gonna let anything happen to Katya, trust me.”    Amber mumbled something unintelligible into her arms. Amity and Luz exchanged confused looks, and Derwin sighed reluctantly.    “Like Raine really cared about us.” He repeated. “That’s what Amber said.”    Amity fell silent. Luz winced awkwardly. “I…I’m sure Raine still cares about you guys! Maybe it was a misunderstanding, or maybe they’re being blackmailed, or-”    “NO,” Amber cut her off. “Raine lied and they betrayed us. They don’t care.”    She returned her head to her arms and Luz could see her shoulders beginning to shake. She considered trying to say something comforting, but stopped herself when she spotted Eda, hovering in the doorway.    The older witch wore a painfully sad expression, and Luz’s heart dropped. Eda spotted the look on her protege’s face and hastily exclaimed, “Katya’s fine, don’t worry. She’s gonna be fine. I just…”    She sighed and crossed the room to reach Amber, kneeling in front of the young witch and wrapping an arm around her. Amber looked up at her, blinking back tears, and Eda rubbed her arm gently with her free hand, giving her a sad smile.    The young witch’s lip trembled and she flung her arms around Eda’s neck, beginning to cry in earnest. Eda climbed up onto the couch to hold her, rubbing her back and whispering to her while blinking back tears of her own.     “I know, kiddo. I know it hurts. I miss them too.”~    ~ “... and they acted like they were loyal to the Emperor all along?”    Eda nodded, her cup of apple blood shaking slightly in her hands. “It was so out of character for them. I…want to believe they’re acting, but…”    “But it was just the two of you in there,” Lilith finished grimly. “There was no reason to lie, unless there’s something else that we don’t know about. Maybe blackmail, or some kind of-” She cut herself off, her face going pale. Eda frowned. “Or what?”   Lilith didn’t answer. Eda set down her cup and leaned across the table, forcing her sister to look at her. “Or what, Lily?!”    Lilith shook her head slightly. “Eda, I…I’m not sure I should tell you this. I don’t want to upset you any more than-”    Eda slammed her palms down on the table. “Tell me, damn it.”    Lilith took off her glasses and laid them on the table, rubbing her face with the tips of her fingers. “Luz mentioned meeting Terra Snapdragon, yes? Said she was  at the parade as a sort of…guard? And you said it seemed as though Raine’s memory had been altered?”    Eda nodded slowly. Lilith took a deep breath. “Right then. For the last few years, Terra’s been cultivating a sort of herbal tea. It allows her to access people’s minds and make whatever…edits she wants, essentially brainwashing the victim. I’ve only seen her do it twice, mind you, so I can’t say for sure that’s what happened to Raine but-”   “But it clearly is,” Eda butted in.    Lilith sighed and nodded. Eda stood and began to pace. “Great, so Rainestorm’s been brainwashed. So all we have to do is cure them of the effects of the tea, right?”    Lilith winced. “I wish it were that simple, Edalyn. But Terra hasn’t perfected the tea yet. The side effects of bringing someone off of it have been…rather brutal. One of the witches I saw her use it on went completely insane afterwards.”   Eda’s eyes widened and Lilith looked away, picking up her glasses and beginning to polish them on her shirt. The sisters sat in silence for a long moment before Eda (gripping the back of her chair as if to brace herself for a blow) spoke.    “What happened to the other one?”   “What?”   “You said you’d seen Terra do it twice, Lily. One witch went insane. What happened to the other one?”    Lilith’s eyes immediately flicked downwards, as though she’d been afraid of answering this question. Eda waited a moment and was about to question her sister again when Lilith finally spoke.    “She…split. Well, not split, necessarily. More like…duplicated,” Lilith murmured. “Some said it was in her mind, others say it was in her very soul. All I know is that when Terra tried to bring her back to her old self, it created a secondary personality instead. The version of her that Terra created was still there, but so was her old self at the same time. It’s rather difficult to explain. All I know is that the poor thing spent weeks with her consciousness at war with itself, and…well, I wasn’t there when it happened, but I was told that her end was quite gruesome.”    Eda stared at her, horrified tears springing to her eyes. “No. No, no, no…”    Lilith shook her head, tears prickling at the corners of her own eyes. “I’m so sorry, Eda.”    Eda sank down into her chair and began to sob. Lilith stood and walked around the table to sit at her side, hugging her tightly.    “It’ll be alright. We’ll find a way. We’ll save them somehow, I promise you.”~   ~ Darius met them on the roof that night after the parade.    “So, have you heard the news?” he asked, leaning against the wall casually at their side. If anyone looked, they may as well have been discussing the weather.    Raine didn’t turn their head to look at the accusatory glare they knew he had aimed their way. “No one suspects me. As far as Terra and the others know, Eda took me to the Conformatorium as a hostage in order to free the BATTs.”    “And they bought it?”    “Yes. I’m not as bad an actor as you think, you know.”    Darius snorted. “Oh please. Your performance at the Conformatorium was ridiculous. You looked as though you were going to throw up when we got close enough to see-”    He stopped mid-sentence, clearly seeing the dark look on their face.    “I…apologize, Raine. That was out of line.”    “Go,” they snapped.    Darius cleared his throat. “Well, then. Good night.”    “Good night.”   Darius’s footsteps faded away into the distance as Raine gazed up at the stars. Eda had always loved the night sky.   They hoped she’d know. That she’d see through their act, that she’d realize they weren’t the monster they’d shown her. But then at least their plan had worked, whether Eda had fully bought it or not. At least she’d gotten out of there, and was now safe, with both their kids and her own.   They’d keep her safe. They’d keep them all safe.    Even if they hated them for it. 

Mature

  The first month went by, and they figured Phillip was just busy. Mortals had to do boring stuff like eat, sleep and make money all the time, so it made sense. The Collector let it slide. He passed the time planning all the awesome games they were gonna play later.   As he thought more about what the human had said though, doubt started to creep in.    "I'll be back when you decide to be useful. Then I'll play your little game."   Well, being useful wasn't exactly in the Collector's job description, so they'd kinda glossed over that part. All that mattered was that the human would be back and they'd play.   He would, right?   "Witty-guy? Phillip? Heyyyy, Phil!" They tried calling out every now and again. No reply.   "Ha, whatever. Making me wait…"     Later he tried again to leave the mirror but there was not enough light in the cavern to project themselves on. He couldn't get more than right up against the glass. The Collector started to panic. What if Phillip couldn't come back? Humans die so easily. What if he was trapped alone again and nobody was ever gonna find him?   "No. No, no no no he said he'd be back. He – he SAID…."   That curtain Philip had closed. He'd just shut it out of habit,right? To keep anyone from discovering the mirror? Not to…. Phillip wouldn't….trap him here alone,would he?   But the more he thought about it, what Phillip had said seemed less like a 'see-ya' and more like a threat.   And that maddened them.     After month 3 or so, the Collector couldn't scream anymore. There was no rage left. Trapped behind the frozen glass in suffocating darkness that couldn't even listen to them.   A little after that was when he started pleading.   "Haha….pretty funny, Phil! L-listen, I'm ready to be helpful now,okay? I - I can show you all kinds of cool magic! Phillip?"   Their voice didn't make it outside the cavern whether they screamed their lungs out or quietly begged.   "It's fine. It's ok, it's not like I haven't been alone before! I can….I can make up games on my own."    The Collector hated lying.     He started drawing a star on the wall for every day that went by. Soon they were surrounded by hundreds, nearly thousands of scribbled stars in the dreamlike room they were kept in. How long did humans live again?  What if Phillip had already died of old age?   "No. No no no NO!!" he beat his fists against the glass walls like that would set him free. Maybe this was it. He should have behaved and given the human what he wanted. Nobody was ever going to find them here. Maybe it was too late.   He was going to be alone forever for real this time.         Then the curtain finally slid aside, and he stepped back into the cavern. Light like a breath of fresh air bounced off his mirror prison and they could see again.   "Hello, Collector. Are–"   "I'll give you the biggest spell ever." Their red eyes bored into the human with desperate intensity. "The best spell there ever was, and you can have every bit of magic power. Just – don't leave me alone. Pinkie swear, I'll give you everything."   Phillip's bearded face broke into a wicked smile. "That is what I like to hear…."  

Not Rated

I post some random one shots I create, whether it’s x OC or x reader.  🎉  IM TAKING REQUESTS NOW!! 🥳 Although I’ll try to write for more, these are the current Things/Fandoms I know:    CentaurWorld, The Owl House, Wander Over Yonder, Animation YouTubers (excluding Jaiden Animations unless it’s platonic), Bluey, Kindergarten (1+2), UnderTale, DeltaRune, Hazbin Hotel, Helluva Boss, Spooky Month, Aggretsuko, BATIM, Cuphead, Amphibia, Dead End: Paranormal Park, DDLC, Camp Camp, Disney Movies, SVTFOE, Gravity Falls, MHA, Demon Slayer- —— Of course, there’s only certain things that I’ll NORMALLY write for, the others only on rare occasions or if requested and those things are:    The Owl House, Wander Over Yonder, Animation YouTubers, Helluva Boss, Hazbin Hotel, Bluey, and DDLC. —— For some background, I have a REAL published book and poem so I like to use that as confirmation that I am a pretty decent writer.    “Whatcha drawin’ there?!”    Wander’s voice boomed in Lumi’s ears before she jumped up, startled, and slammed her sketchbook shut as fast as possible before turning over to him with a worried grin, “N-Nothing! Just… stuff.”     Wander grinned excitedly and began to reach his hand over to her sketchbook, “Ooo~! I gotta see!”     Lumi panicked and grabbed the sketchbook, snatching it away from his hands and holding it to her chest. Wander frowned as Lumi explained, “T-They’re private…! Don’t want anyone to see them, am I right?”    “I guess…” Wander tapped his chin before smiling and going back to trying to grab the book, “…but I promise I won’t laugh at ‘em or anythin’!”    Lumi swiped the book away from him again and sighed a frustrated sigh, “Wander, you really don’t wanna see what’s inside, how about that?”     “But I really do!!” Wander whined, falling to his knees and reaching up to the book weakly but desperately. Lumi groaned before she stood up and walked out of the area they were in, making Wander follow her desperately, keeping his eyes on the sketchbook as if it was food and he hadn’t eaten in years.  Lumi, in response, just held the book to her chest tightly with a grunt.       Sylvia, Wander, and Lumi were walking around the Galaxy in their bubble - Wander on top of Sylvia and Lumi just walking beside.     Out of the blue, Wander suddenly brought his face down to Lumi’s level and asked, “Can I see what’s in the sketchbook now?”     “Oh my- Wander, no!” Lumi scolded.        Lumi was drawing in her sketchbook against a tree on some planet the three of them had decided to settle on when Wander suddenly appeared on top of the tree in the leaves, looking down at Lumi who was completely unaware. Taking advantage of the situation, Wander grinned widely with a quiet squeal before excitedly but still quietly going back into the leaves.     Wander sank down and appeared underneath the leaves, looking down at Lumi and attempting to look in the book, but not being able to make anything out because of how close Lumi had the sketchbook to her chest.     Wander frowned and sank back into the leaves before he jumped out of the tree and appeared next to Lumi announcing with his signature smile back on his face, “Heya, Lumi!”     “Gah!” Lumi yelped, falling to the side and shutting her book shut. Wander helped her back up before trying to snatch the book, making Lumi grunt before sighing in defeat and handing the book over to Wander, making him gasp, “Are… Are you sure?”    “…Yes.”     Wander grabbed the book with a gleam in his eyes, opening up the first page and examined it, turning the page over and over after viewing the last with his wide smile somehow growing wider.     Suddenly, his smile dropped as he stared at certain page for a little longer than usual before he smiled even wider than before and closed the book, handing it back to Lumi before saying, “All your drawings are very nice! I’m not sure why you were so scared of me seeing them when they’re so good!”    Lumi rubbed her hands together timidly, “You think so?”    He nodded, “I do,” Wander began to walk toward Sylvia before adding, “Also, you draw me very well.” Working in the Emperor’s Coven was certainly a tough job, there’s no doubt about that. You wake up early and immediately have to go to work and do your best to praise Emperor Belos and guard the castle along with the many places of the Boiling Isles.     That job is just as hard as an extremely powerful witch; but what if a human was working for the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles?     Lumine marched through the long halls of the Emperor’s Castle, making her way toward the throne room to meet up with Emperor Belos. She wore her white cloak with her hood up and her shiny lavender mask over her face.     She quietly entered the Emperor’s throne room and shut the door gently, standing in front of it respectfully as she waited for Emperor Belos to give further instructions.     “Lumine… The exact witch I expected to see,” Belos’ gentle yet intimidating voice said.     Lumine took this opportunity to walk toward him, kneeling down on one knee, “Greetings, Emperor. You requested my presence and I came bearing my curiosity.”     The Emperor took off his mask and smiled, “Actually, I had a mission for you. With the Golden Guard.”     Lumine perked up in surprise, turning her head when she spotted the Golden Guard emerge from the shadows. She sighed, “Yes, Emperor Belos.”    “Good. He will explain the mission on the way. Now hurry away now.”     She nodded, watching as the Golden Guard led her outside of the throne room. He looked at her, his eyes squinting if he didn’t have his mask on as he declared, “I know there’s something suspicious about you, but I’m not sure what. That’s why I requested this mission; I want to figure it out.”     Lumine gulped before weakly chuckling, “Heh, good luck! There’s nothing suspicious about me!”     “We’ll see about that…” The Golden Guard turned back in front of him, “So here’s the deal. I heard rumors of some criminals trying to enter the Emperor’s Mind. I’m not sure why, but we have to figure something out. We’re going to go to the Night Market and hang around until we see them, then we pounce. Got that?”    “Yes, sir.” She saluted. He chuckled, “Good.”    Lumine smirked suddenly underneath her mask, “So what makes you think I’m suspicious?”    He perked up, “Um, you’re always hiding underneath that mask. We all know higher level Scouts, such as us, can take off their masks and hoods whenever as long as it’s in a specific part of the castle. But you never do.”    She scoffed, “I prefer to keep my face hidden,” she eyed him, “I’ve never seen you take your mask and hood off…”     He laughed and took off his mask and hood, “Right! Now what about yours?”    She paused, “I don’t want to.”    “You scared, huh? Awww, the Lavender Soldier is scared!” He mocked, putting his white hood and golden mask on.     “Oh, I’m not scared. I’m just smart.”    He looked at her curiously, “What do you mean?”    “Imagine if I was undercover for whatever reason and someone recognized my face because they had been within the castle at some point and just so happened to see my face then? That would destroy the whole mission.”     The Golden Guard stayed silent after that, allowing Lumine to feel rather proud of herself.     They then continued to make their way to the Night Market, now walking in silence.      Once they found themselves at the Night Market, they both began watching the area for any suspicious activity, many scammers and sellers walking up to them thinking they were normal customers, only to back away from their presence when they realized their status.    The Golden Guard looked around cautiously, “Make sure to keep an eye out for any suspicious behavior…”    Lumine nodded, “Yes, sir.”     They both stood next to each other, watching the Night Market carefully, only to begin groaning when nothing suspicious or interesting was going on. The Golden Guard turned toward Lumine, “So, do you… have a reason you’re in the Emperor’s Coven at such a young age?”    She shrugged, “Eh, Belos found me one day and just kind of… invited me into the Emperor’s Coven. He said he could trust me.”     He hummed in amusement, “That’s nice.”     More silence engulfed them.     Lumine groaned, “Nothing interesting or suspicious is going on around here! Are you sure those rumors you heard were… right?”    The Golden Guard sighed, “I’m not sure, but we shouldn’t let our guard down. How about we sit down here and watch there so we’re not standing the whole time?”      Lumine shrugged, sitting down against the wall the Golden Guard had pointed to. He followed her motions, sliding against the wall and sitting down.     “Uh, I don’t think you ever told me your name,” Lumine asked, looking around the Night Market. He looked around with her, responding with, “Uh, it’s Hunter. What about you?”    “I’m Lumine, but my friends call me Lumi.”    He hummed, “I’ve never heard of that sort of name.”    She chuckled, nudging him with her shoulder playfully, “Gee, thanks, Hunter.”    Hunter laughed along before he suddenly paused. He sighed and asked, “Is… there an actual reason you don’t show your face and stuff?”    She shrugged, “I was told not to by Belos. I know exactly why, I just don’t know how you and others would react.”     “Well… it can’t be that bad…” Hunter joked, faintly laughing. She laughed, “Maybe. But… fine. I’ll show you but you have to promise that you won’t freak out.”    He nodded.     They both let their guard down as she began taking off her shiny lavender mask, revealing her face. She then hesitantly slid her cloak’s hood down. Hunter gasped, covering his mouth; her ears were round. She sighed, putting her mask on but leaving her hood down, “Yeah… Belos told me everyone would freak out if they found out. There’s another human on the Boiling Isles already… and now there’s another one working for the Emperor? He said he didn’t want to cause a panic or something.”     Hunter paused before he looked at his gloved thumbs. Underneath his mask, he was very visibly flustered and embarrassed. He looked over at her, “I… I think it’s kinda neat.”     Lumine blew a raspberry at him, pulling her hood back up, “Yeah, right. This world is so fascinating! There’s magic and everything! The human world is full of the same thing everyday: creeps, school work, blah blah blah.”    Hunter laughed at her use of words and how she used her gloved hand as some sort of puppet, “It’s kind of boring here once you get used to it. And don’t worry… I don’t think you being a human changes much.”     Lumine had never been so glad she had that cursed mask covering her face as she felt her face practically glow from his comment. She stammered, “Um, thank you, I-I guess.”    They both looked around the Night Market, going back to their mission when Hunter suddenly spotted a cloaked figure run into an alleyway. He stood up abruptly, grabbing onto Lumine’s hand to help her up, and directed her over to where he saw the figure run off to:    “I’d love to hang out with you later, but for now, I’d like to focus on our mission, Lavender Soldier~” Wander - Pansexual | he/him Sylvia - Bisexual | she/her Lord Hater - Straught | he/him Captain Peepers - Gay | he/him Lord Dominator - Lesbian | she/they [If you don’t agree please don’t attack me :)]  “Are you gonna save your little boyfriend or what?!”     Lumi gasped with a flushed face before she composed herself and yelled at Lord Hater, “He’s not my boyfriend! I’m… too out of his league!”    Lord Hater stared at her for a moment before he ultimately burst out laughing as Lumi began to sulk on the ground, listening as Lord Hater began to make fun of her, circling her as she began to tear up at his mockery. She grabbed onto her knees and shaped herself into a small ball that gently rocked back and forth before Lord Hater suddenly knelt down to her level and made his mockery even worse.     “Who’s out of who’s league now?”     A familiar voice came from down the hall, making the two of them swipe their heads to see Wander standing there with a wide smile and his hands on his hips. Shocked, Lord Hater began to stutter:    “B-But…! You… trapped?? League!?”     Suddenly, Wander appeared next to Lumi and he grabbed her, happily dancing away whilst waving to Lord Hater, heading over to where Sylvia was standing before he got on top of her and she began running away, Lord Hater screaming for them to come back, but of course they didn't follow.      Sylvia sighed in content, “What a day.”     Lumi rested her head against her hand as she looked out the bubble they had formed as they entered space.     Wander looked over at Lumi and asked, “What was Hater talking about back there?”     “Oh- Hater? Oh, he was just… teasing me about,” Lumi paused, “Just teasing me!”    “About what?” Sylvia added.     Lumi gulped, “You know! Just… uh- my crush?”     Sylvia rolled her eyes at Hater’s immaturity but Wander immediately perked up at this and shoved his face into Lumi’s and yelled, “You have a crush?!”     Sylvia facepalmed, “Oh no.”    Wander immediately flooded Lumi with questions, “Who are they? Is it a girl or a boy? What’s their name? Are they nice and helpful?! Are they a wanderer, too?!”    Sylvia grabbed Wander and held him in front of her, “Wander, I know you’re all ready to play matchmaker here, but you need to make some space for Lumi! She just got made fun of by Lord Hater about whoever it is so you need to give her some time first.”     “N-No, it’s okay!” Lumi composed herself.     Wander grinned as he violently shook from excitement, zooming back over on top of Sylvia and asking Lumi questions:    “Are they a boy or a girl?!”    “A boy.”    “Is he a wanderer?!”    “Yea…”    “Is he super nice and helpful?!”    “Oh, yes.”    Sylvia suddenly perked up and smirked as she watched Lumi stare at Wander with a flushed face and Wander stare at her with complete adoration and curiosity. She looked ahead and spotted a cozy planet, so she turned around and suggested, “Hey, why don’t we rest over on that planet? It looks rather cozy and I think we could use some rest after today.”    The two looked at the planet before nodding vigorously, making Sylvia smirk once again, heading over to the planet and parking on the ground, popping the bubble that was originally around them.     Sylvia turned to the two of them and pointed over to a wooded area, “Alright, why don’t we settle down somewhere over there?”    They both nodded and the three all began walking toward the area before settling down and making a fire to warm them up.     Wander didn’t stop questioning Lumi about her crush, so Sylvia eventually grabbed Wander and pulled him over to her, “Wander, don’t you like her? Why are you so obsessed with matchmaking her with her crush if you want her to like you?”     Wander widened his eyes before flashing a nervous smile and replying, “O-Oh, Syl. Even if I did like her, would she really wanna be with someone like me?”    Sylvia cocked a brow at him and replied, “Yes. Everything she has said about her crush all lands on you; he’s a wanderer, he’s nice and helpful, he never likes to hurt- all those things! Not to mention I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t wanna be with someone as nice and supportive as you!”     Wander thought for a moment, darting his eyes around in deep thought, before his face visibly turned a bright red. He looked back over to Lumi who was simply just warming her hands by the fire, timidly shuffling her feet on the ground. Wander slowly turned his head back toward Sylvia and looked down at the ground, “I’m not sure, Syl. Can’t I… just try to matchmake her with whoever she likes, that's not me?”     Sylvia groaned, “How about this, if she doesn’t like you, you can matchmake her with someone else. If she does like you, however, you gotta do something about it! Flirt with her or something!”     Wander saluted, making Sylvia smile and put him down, allowing him to walk back over and sit down next to Lumi.     Lumi turned to Wander and asked, “What’s up with Sylvia?”     Sylvia crossed her arms in annoyance.     Wander shrugged, “I guess she’s just tired is all.”     They both laughed before an awkward silence engulfed their conversation. Wander thought back on something he had sang once:    “There's no shortage of fellas... Who prattle on [and on] about themselves... Flex their muscles and pump up their chests; Well, that's a perfect way to bore a lady to death…!”    He knew what he had to do, so Wander cleared his throat and asked, “So, what are some things you like to do?”     Lumi tapped her chin for a moment before replying, “I do like to draw and stuff… and sing, I guess.”    “We should sing together sometime! I’m usually solo so it’d be nice to have someone join me, especially someone like you!”    Lumi cupped her face in her hands and began to laugh, “How flattering…!”     “I’m not just saying that for laughs,” Wander mentioned, turning over to her, “I’m being quite genuine.”    “I…- Oh,” Lumi stammered.     From a few feet away, Sylvia just watched with a goofy grin on her face.     “Hey, why don’t we sing right now?” Wander happily suggested, standing up and offering his hand. Lumi looked at him and smiled widely, accepting his offered hand and standing up. Wander grabbed his hat and rummaged his hand around until he grasped into his banjo and then placed his hat back on his head, getting ready to strum the first notes: “Oh, Wander over Yonder! And check out this and that,”    Lumi quickly chimed in: “If you Wander over Yonder, Best be sure to wear your hat!   All the things that you will see, And you certainly will be free! If you Wander over Yonder, Just you and me!   If the darkness comes a-creepin, And you're feelin' down, Just Wander over Yonder, And turn your life around!   Oh, Wander over Yonder; Be sure to lend a hand!   All your helpful, friendly good deeds Will spread across the land!   …All your helpful, friendly good deeds Will spread across the land!”    Sylvia appeared behind them and mimicked the poor ex-watchdog - Westley’s - own ending of the song: “Doodly doo doo doo doo, woo!”    All three of them then began laughing together, soon breaking into fits of giggles before eventually calming down and composing themselves, all sitting back down where they sat originally.     Wander stared at Lumi lovingly as she was warming her hands by the fire once again, oblivious to his stares. Sylvia suddenly reached her head over next to Wander and whispered, “She’s cold! Do something!”    Wander jumped and nodded, smiling before maneuvering himself next to Lumi and wrapping his arm around her, successfully gaining her attention. She whipped her head over to face him and saw him smile at her, making her smile back.     ‘I thought I was pretty good with dates and stuff… Apparently when it comes to me, I can barely compose myself…’ Wander thought, side-eyeing Sylvia, who was holding her thumbs up at Wander reassuringly. He looked back over at Lumi and took a deep breath in and then out before saying, “Hey, so we’re great friends, right?”    “Mhmm,” Lumi hummed in response.     “So, could I ask you two things real quick?”     “Uh… sure.”    “Sylvia says that you like me, so is that true? And if it is, would you wanna go out sometime like, I-I don’t know, take a walk together around the galaxy? Just the two of us?”     Wander began to shrink down slightly as he continued on, losing all of his confidence he normally had. He watched as Lumi silently laughed before asking, “Like… as a date?”    “Mhm…”     “Sure!”    “So… what about the first question?”     Lumi cocked a brow, “First question?”    ‘Of course I have to repeat it…’ Wander thought before repeating, “Sylvia always says that you like me, and I’m wonderin’ if it’s true?”    A long pause came between them as Lumi felt her face grow hot, staring at the ground in thought. But eventually, she mustered up her courage and quickly responded saying, “Yes.”    Wander’s smile grew wide, almost reaching past the top of his eyes, as he took in what she said. He couldn’t believe it; she said yes! With this answer, his usual confidence and demeanor returned and his instinct kicked in when he suddenly jumped up and yelled happily, “WOOO!”    Wander grabbed onto Lumi’s hands and stood up - forcing her to stand up as well - and started dancing around happily, jumping up and down excitedly while the two giggled. Sylvia just laughed at them from the side as she watched the two of them dance together.     “Okay everyone!”     Everyone turned their heads towards Monika’s sweet voice calling out to everyone in the club. Monika smiled sweetly and continued on with her finger pointed outwards, “We’re going to be doing our annual activity of picking up on what the other club members like doing! Today we’re going to be picking up on…” Monika pointed to Sayori, “Sayori!”    Sayori looked taken aback, but smiled anyway as she blushed and replied, “Oh… why me? Do I really deserve this…?”     Monika smiled in a much sweeter manner and replied, “Of course. You’re so kind and energetic. You love everyone in this club! You deserve it 100%, Sayori,” Monika announced, “Now, what would you like to pick up on, Sayori?”    As Sayori thought on what to pick up on about what she liked, Monika could feel her own smile start to slowly falter as her thoughts ran by with her predictions of the answers. It was like it already happened or no matter what she said, it’d happen.     ‘She wants to pick up on friendship…’ Monika thought, only for Sayori to announce, “Let’s pick up on friendship!”     Monika sighed before attempting to pick up her smile and responded in a gentle tone, “Great! Let’s do that then.”     Yuri and Natsuki kept their bottoms in their seats while Sayori happily and proudly marched up to the front of the club room and started to talk about her friendships and why they’re important. Monika sat down in a seat in the front row, attempting to pay close attention.     But she couldn’t.     It was like she knew what was going to happen no matter what she picked. But why were all her predictions happening and why were they exactly right?     Monika realized Sayori finished talking and thanked her for announcing that to the small club.     Sayori sat back down in her seat as Monika went back up to the front, telling everyone to do what they felt like for the rest of the day until it was time to end the meeting. The club members happily agreed and did whatever was on their mind.     Monika, smile gone now, pressed her back against the wall where the board was and slowly sunk down, massaging her forehead to think about everything that was going around her.     “Monika?” A whisper called out to her. She looked up and saw Sayori with a concerned face looking down upon her.     Monika put on a smile and waved, asking, “What’s up?”    Sayori sat down next to her and pressed her shoulder against Monika’s. Sayori responded with, “The nice blue sky is up… What’s wrong? You don’t seem okay,” Sayori paused, “You actually haven’t seen okay at all recently. For a couple of days…”    “It’s just…” Monika sighed, “Can I tell you something? Something you cannot tell anyone else?”    Sayori gently smiled and pretended to zip her lips shut, throwing away an invisible and non-existent key. Monika chuckled slowly before saying in a somewhat whisper, “It feels like everyone and everything around me, maybe even the world, is being so predictable. No matter what happens, the same thing will always happen and I’ll always know it. It feels like nobody is real and the same thing has already happened so many times. Like- like some sort of Deja Vu…”     Monika finished as she trailed off. Sayori looked at her in surprise, taken aback by her sudden strong and long vent. But she looked down at the floor and replied, “I… think I know how you feel, Monika.”     Monika furrowed her eyebrows and stood up quickly, stomping her right foot on the ground aggressively as she yelled, clutching her hair, “NO YOU DON’T!”     Suddenly, it’s like everything froze and she was in a whole new world now. A world only with pixels and code.     Only she was the one able to move.     She looked around the new world she had discovered at that moment before stopping in her tracks… looking at what looked like a files tab.     She looked around the small world before walking up to it and looking closely, seeing it titled with a game called “Doki Doki Literature Club!”     She raised an eyebrow, noticing how she was in a literature club. ‘Coincidence? Surely not.’    She then noticed a folder that was titled “Characters”    Out of pure curiosity, she opened up the folder before audibly and loudly gasping as she saw files named after her 3 main friends and fellow club members… and herself.    Sayori.chr    Natsuki.chr    Yuri.chr    Monika.chr      Monika, after regaining her balance and mental stability, walked up to the files and double tapped Sayori.chr, bringing up all the main options a file had in stock when you right clicked or double tapped.     She then noticed the word that made her whole body freeze up…   “Delete”      What would happen if she were to delete one of her best friends from existence? Would others notice she’d be gone? Would this world restart? Would nobody notice?    …Was this meant just for Monika? Was this the reason she was made and put into this Hell? To delete her friends?    Suddenly, her eyes widened. Realization hit her square in the stomach and face.     Monika smiled the exact same way a maniac would as she said aloud to herself in a low whisper with a giggle, “It’s all a game.” She held her cheeks inside her hands as she yelled much louder, “It’s all a game!” She laughed even harder.      “They all have programmed personalities that all lead to the same result every time you try something new with them! It’s a GAME! ‘Doki Doki Literature Club’,” Monika felt her eyes go wide as her smile got wider, “And I’m in total control of the timeline!”    She gained control over herself and smirked, looking at Sayori’s file, “And I know exactly what to do with it…”    Wander and (Y/N) dangled their legs over the ledge of a small hill they were sitting at the top of on a planet they had found while wandering around the galaxy. Sylvia was currently laying down at the bottom of the hill, just watching as the two looked at the planet’s moon together.     “Isn’t it beautiful?” Wander’s voice suddenly asked, making (Y/N) giggle. They continued looking at the moon as they replied, “The moon? Of course it is. One of the prettiest moons I’ve ever seen on our adventures.”    Wander chuckled and side-eyed them lovingly, “No silly. I mean you.”    (Y/N) looked over at Wander with a flabbergasted expression, feeling their face slowly grow hot. Wander continued staring at the moon before adding, “Well, the moon’s pretty great, too, I guess.”     (Y/N) laughed as they playfully pushed Wander’s shoulder, “Oh, you tease!”    Wander shrugged and looked back at the moon, “Eh, still think you’re much more beautiful than some silly ol’ moon.”    (Y/N) smiled warmly at him, putting a hand on their chest where their heart was. Wander, once again, turned toward them and scooted his hand over to theirs and grabbed it, gently squeezing it as he began slowly leaning into them, his eyelids closing. They paused for a moment before they finally followed his movements and leaned in… before they were both interrupted by (Y/N)’s giggles.     Wander sprung open his eyes and smiled at their giggles and asked between chuckles, “Why’re you laughin’ so much?!”     “Your…! Chin hair!” They faintly hovered their hand over their own chin in an attempt to make the ticklish feeling disappear. Wander playfully rolled his eyes before he placed his hands on (Y/N)’s back and dipped them back, making them widen their eyes in surprise at the sudden action.     “You ready now?”     Breathlessly, they nodded in response.     Wander smirked before leaning in and finally closing the gap between them, allowing a small passionate kiss to happen.        …    Down at the bottom of the hill, Sylvia smirked as she watched them go at it. She closed her eyes in content:    ‘They’ve been together for a while and he finally did something.’    “Ah, (Y/N)… just the gal I wanted to see~!” Dominator’s sinister voice announced, staring down at the female from her throne. (Y/N) looked around cautiously, slowly walking forward until she reached the bottom of the steps that led up to Dominator. She got down on one knee and bowed her head, “Hello, Lord Dominator. You requested my presence?”     “Yep! I wanted to ask you something…” Dominator smiled. (Y/N) stood up and cocked her head to the side in confusion, “What… Did you wanna ask me?”     Dominator stood up from her throne and began walking down the steps in front of her until she reached (Y/N).     She gently placed her hand on (Y/N)’s shoulder and began to escort her up the stairs while saying, “Wanted to ask if you’d like to hang out together here? Yknow, as a date or something? We could go hunt for some planets together!”     Still walking up the stairs, (Y/N) felt a blush creep onto her face before she responded with widened eyes, “M-Me? Of course! I’d love to go on a date with you…!”     “Perfect,” Dominator excitedly clapped her hands together as they reached the top of the stairs, “But first, I wanted to just… talk! Like how normal people do.”     (Y/N) stifled a laugh, “Heh, sure!”       After some time of talking to one another at the top of Dominator’s throne, they both raced over to the other side of her ship and began looking for planets to destroy together.     Even if (Y/N) did or did not agree with the destruction of planets, she had to agree she did have a blast with Dominator on their small date.         “Well, I sure did have fun with you today, (Y/N),” Dominator said, wiping a small tear off her eye that had formed because of how hard she had laughed just a few minutes ago. (Y/N) smiled, “I did too. We should do this again!”     Dominator smirked, “Of course. Well, you best be off now. Wouldn’t want to keep you too long, would I?”     They both laughed before (Y/N) froze up at the feeling of Dominator’s lips pressing against her cheek and her voice singing, “Off you go~! Hope you have a wonderful rest of your day with your little… friends.”     (Y/N) nodded, giggling breathlessly as she turned around and waddled away, waving behind her as she formed her bubble and was off, gently holding her cheek in the palm of her hand.    (Y/N) tapped their foot nervously as they awaited the presence of their date. Raine was supposed to be there 15 minutes ago, but they were late. (Y/N) didn’t blame them though, as they were a coven head and they were pretty busy nowadays, but (Y/N) still couldn’t shake off the feeling that maybe - just maybe - that Raine had ditched them.     Suddenly, they heard footsteps running toward them from a short distance away.     Out of pure curiosity, they turned toward the sound, only to silently laugh as they found Raine charging toward them, soon scooting to a stop and gasping for air, hands on their knees. Raine turned their head up to (Y/N) and said, “I’m… I’m so sorry for being late. There was something happening over at the Emperor’s—“    “You’re fine, Raine! I know you’re busy, so it’s not that big of a deal!” (Y/N) laughed. Raine sighed in relief and composed themself, dusting their shirt off with the back of their hands before offering their hand over to (Y/N):    “Shall we begin this date, then?”     (Y/N)’s smile widened and they nodded, accepting Raine’s hand and then both began to walk around Bonesborough for their date together.     “What have you been up to?” (Y/N) asked Raine, making Raine tap their chin for a moment. After a moment, Raine answered, “Just… doing whatever it is a coven head has to do, I guess. Also have to try to … catch … Eda. That’s kind of it. What about you?”     (Y/N) chuckled, “Well I’ve just been doing what I normally do; not a lot about my routine has changed. I guess I gotta sell some products at the market, so that’s kinda new.”     Raine raised their eyebrows in interest, “What do you sell?”     “Oh, a variety of things I find or just… don’t want.”     Raine laughed, “Sounds… fun.”    “It can be, depending on the customers.”     They both laughed together before being interrupted by Raine pointing over at a small hill they somehow walked across and saying, “Ooh, we should go over there! We could watch the sun set!”    “Ooh, yea!”     The both of them began walking up the hill, talking and joking with each other along the way.     Once they reached the top, they both sat down and dangle their feet off the edge, watching the sun as it began to slowly move downward.     Raine began slowly maneuvering their hand onto (Y/N)‘s hand, gently grasping it in theirs. (Y/N) looked over at Raine and smiled, wrapping their fingers around Raine’s, placing their head on Raine’s shoulder, and then both going back to staring at the sunset together.    Exiting out of the airport finally, (Y/N) could feel her excitement as she saw a sign just barely above her that read:    “Welcome to Brisbane!”     She very silently squealed before almost instantly reaching a hand over to pat her neck gently at the sudden realization of how dry and sore her neck was from the long flight. She looked around to see if she could spot any stores, all while silently cursing herself off underneath her breath since she couldn’t believe she didn’t just go buy water from inside the airport before she had decided to exit.     (Y/N) perked up when she found a small convenience store just a few feet away that should have some water inside, so she grabbed onto her suitcase, grabbed onto her bag strap with her other paw, and began walking toward the store.     Once inside, she walked around a bit before finding a few water bottles, grabbing two before going up to the counter.     The cashier scanned the water bottles and said in an Australian accent, “That’ll be $6 bucks for two bottles.”    She nodded and reached inside of her bag and grabbed her wallet, finding that she only had enough for one bottle. She frowned and said, “Uh… I guess I’ll just get one. I really need to save money right now so I might just have to get one—“    “I’ll cover for the bottles!”     A thick Australian accent said from beside her, making her whip her head around to see a blue heeler pull out some money and place it on the counter, grabbing the bottles and handing them to (Y/N).     (Y/N) widened her eyes and attempted to hand the male a few dollars, “I greatly appreciate you buying this for me but I-I can’t possibly accept this… I have to pay you back…!”     He simply shook his head and pushed the money away, “Nah, I can tell you really need it. If you really wanna pay me back, though, you could tell me your name.”     (Y/N) rolled her eyes playfully, “Fine, fine. Why don’t we go outside for this, though? I don’t wanna bother this poor cashier.”     The cashier put their paw up in defense, “Nah, you two are fine. Thank you for your purchase!”     “No problem, mate,” the male heeler responded before walking outside of the store with (Y/N).     (Y/N) sighed and held out her paw, “I’m (Y/N). I just flew here from (Y/S).”    “Nice to meet you, (Y/N)! I’m Bandit!” ‘Bandit’ held out his paw and shook (Y/N)’s, smiling widely, “What made you wanna fly here?”     (Y/N) shrugged, “Just… seemed appealing, I guess. I have some friends here and I plan on trying to stay with one of my friends until I can afford a place of my own. Kinda spent the majority of my savings on those plane tickets…”       Bandit’s ears perked up, “Oh, so you’re moving here!”     (Y/N) nodded with a smile, “Yup!”     “Well,” Bandit looked around, “I live around here if you wanna visit me sometime! You could give me your phone number if you’d like and we could plan a hang out; or maybe if you have no luck in staying someplace with one of your friends, my place is always open.”     (Y/N) giggled, “You’re too nice! And sure, we could exchange numbers if you’d like.”     Bandit smiled, his tail slightly wagging, “Great!”     The two exchanged numbers and Bandit handed over his address on a slip of paper before they wished their goodbyes and parted ways.       A few hours had passed and it was pretty late into the night. Bandit was back at his place, just switching through the channels on his TV while listening to the rain pour outside when he suddenly heard a knock at his door.     He stood up and walked over to the door, opening it with a smile before widening his eyes when he found (Y/N) standing there in the rain - soaking wet - with her bags. She timidly waved at him:    “Hey, Bandit! …Is it okay if I crash here tonight?”     Wander, Lumi  and Sylvia were all sleeping outside together on their own little sleeping bags, Sylvia tossing and turning before she eventually sat up, “Frab-drassin' ham spangler! I slept terribly!”    Lumi sat up as well and attempted to crack her neck, “Yea… so did I! I was super uncomfortable!”     Wander sprung up, “Anything I can do for you two?”    Lumi just shook her head before she cracked her neck and then sighed in relief. Sylvia stood up with a severely bent neck and replied, “Nah, I...I got six or seven cricks in my neck. It's like my pillow was extra flat last night!”    Sylvia held up her pillow before a feather flew out of it. Wander stared at the feather in shock. Sylvia looked over at Wander and asked, “Wander? Somethin' wrong?”    Wander put on a very obvious fake smile and responded, “No, it's no big deal-io!”    Wander lay back on his pillow, which very quickly  deflated and made a fart noise. Wander reached into the pillow and brought out a whoopee cushion:    “…He's back-“ Wander said empathetically before suddenly pointing upwards and dramatically saying, “-TO THE LAB!”    Lumi and Sylvia turned to each other and both asked in unison, “The lab?”    Wander led both Lumi and Sylvia into some sort of cave, where he immediately zoomed over and began to examine the wrinkled pillow under a microscope.    Lumi and Sylvia looked around in confusion as Wander continued looking at the pillow.     “It's not that big a deal, I mean… pillows get flat all the time!” Sylvia argued.     “Exhibit A!”     The microscope raised and Wander showed the both of them the whoopee cushion. Lumi and Sylvia look at each other again and say in unison, “A whoopee cushion?”    “A message. The calling card of the most villainous villain to vex this or any other galaxy…” Wander squeezed it at the two of them. Sylvia and Lumi began hypothesizing:    “Lord Hater?” Sylvia guessed.     “Emperor Awesome?” Lumi asked, gritting her teeth at the thought of him.     “It's not Dominator, is it?” Sylvia guessed one last time.     Wander looked away frantically, “Worse. Someone from my past. Someone who thinks he's good, but is really bad. Good news is, we're gonna stop this bad guy from doing any more bad things he thinks are actually good!”    Suddenly, he brought out a two toned blue and white striped cape from his hat and he tied it around his neck before he put his hat over his eyes like a mask, and they lit up in his darkened figure.    Lumi walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder, “Since when do you stop the bad guys? Usually you sing a goofy song, or play some silly game to drive them all crazy! That’s what makes you Wander!”     Sylvia nodded in agreement      Wander’s voice suddenly turned low and scratchy:    “This is no game.”    Thunder flashed and Wander stood tall and serious.       “What?!”      Wander was in a flying pose on top of the orbble that Sylvia and Lumi were inside of, him making whooshing sounds with his mouth as he ‘flew’. Lumi tapped Sylvia’s shoulder and pointed at him, her hands on her cheeks as she declared, “He’s so goofy!!”    Sylvia rolled her eyes, “You got strange taste.”     They all soon entered a museum exhibit and Wander hopped off the orbble, landing on one of the musuem worker’s heads as he dramatically questioned, “What's the trouble? Snatched statues? Ransacked rubies? Misappropriated masterpieces?”    The museum worker looked at him, “What? Oh, um… no. Someone just stole the display pillows from our gemstone exhibit.”    The worker led them to the security room and showed them all footage on one of the surveillance tv’s in the room of a shadowed hand opening up a glass case with an expensive diamond, taking out the diamond, then the pillow, and then throwing the diamond back inside.     Wander turned around in the chair he sat in dramatically, “It's worse than we thought.”    Sylvia asked, confused, “It is?”    Lumi elbowed her, which made Sylvia say, “I mean, it is!”    Wander hopped out of his chair, “I'm gonna need full background checks on all museum visitors. Get me names, birthdays, favorite colors, summer vacation plans. According to the footage, our pernicious pillow pilferer struck at precisely 3:14.”    “So?” Sylvia asked.     Wander continued on as he messed with the people in the room with what he was saying:    “3.14 are the first three digits in the numerical value for pi. Pie is delicious, which rhymes with wishes. And if wishes were fishes, we'd all have enough to eat! I know where he's going to strike next-!” Wander covered himself with his cape menacingly, “-Quickly, old chums!”    “‘Old chums’?!” Sylvia asked.     Wander caused a smokescreen effect, then tiptoed out of the room after the smoke had already disappeared, Lumi following afterward with a wide and lovesick smile. Sylvia just facepalmed and groaned, reluctantly following the two.        Now in Emperor Awesome’s ship, he was seen inside of a hot tub with two women by his sides, nodding their heads to the music that was playing around them.    Sylvia smiled and elbowed Lumi, “Now I get it! Emperor Awesome is sabotaging all the pillows so he can… throw an evil slumber party, and I don't get it.”    “You have a rather extensive collection of feather boas, do you not?” Wander squinted suspiciously, “Where are they?”    “Pshh! Feather boas are so out. Now, it's all about…” Awesome brings out his boa that was wrapped around his shoulders, “…actual boas. I threw those ratty feather ones away.”    Wander ran over to check in the trash can, which was ultimately empty, “Curses. Empty. We're too late. But, he left a message…”    Lumi and Sylvia looked inside the trash can to see a rubber chicken. Lumine cocked a brow, “What?”    Wander pulled himself up and ran away, Lumi quickly following after. Sylvia called after them, “Hey, wait for me-!”     She suddenly spotted Emperor Awesome wrapped around in a boa. He stood up and smirked at her, “What's your hurry, Becks?”    “Oh, gross,” Sylvia rolled her eyes, using an orbble to travel upward to get away.       Wander, Sylvia, and Lumi landed on the ground on a planet they had visited before that was full of chickens, except all the chickens had been stripped of their feathers and were shaking uncontrollably. They all spotted Lord Hater staring at the chickens in disgust and Sylvia smirked, “Ah, finally. A villain I can sink my fists into!”    Wander stopped her, “Not so fast.”    Sylvia groaned, “Oh! Come on! It's Lord Hater! He's like the definition of ‘bad guy’!”    “Sylvia, just listen to Wander…!” Lumi scolded, making Sylvia roll her eyes. Wander whooshed while walking over to a chicken, and plucked the last feather that was on the chicken’s tail.     “Go away!” The chicken screamed.     “And yet, he's small potatoes in the baneful broth of the real villain's gumbo of repugnance.”    “Gumbo of... okay, that's it…” Sylvia said, “I am sick of the grim and gritty routine, and you dragging both Lumi and I across the galaxy for some missing pillows, frilly scarves, and pluck Cluckons! It's not that big a deal. And even though Lumi seems pretty into it, I'm not moving until you tell us both who we're up against!”    A loud sound was suddenly heard, making Wander squint his eyes:     “Him.”    The villain's voice echoed throughout the planet, “Attention, galaxy! My foul plan is almost complete!”    The villain's machine was seen flying around, all controlled by balloons:    “Prepare to face the wrath of the mischievous Dr. Screwball Jones! Now, tremble in eggs-cruciating terror as my latest plot leaves you shell-shocked! Behold, my fantabulously fantabulous tickle machine!”    Dr. Screwball Jones - also known as Screwball - was a banana with a long black mustache that he could manipulate to use as his arms and hands. He had spiral glasses, a spotted bow tie, a long nose, a doctor’s head strap, and rainbow ‘clown’ hair that sprung out the sides of his banana head.     Sylvia turned to Wander, “This joker is who you think is the most dangerous villain in the galaxy?”    “He what?!” Hater’s voice angrily asked from a distance away.     Wander ignored Hater and responded, “Of course. He stole all those feathers in order to create a weapon that would make everyone laugh, thus forcing the universe to be happy.”    Lumi cocked her head to the side, “I thought that’s what you did…?”    Sylvia turned to her, “That’s what I was gonna say!”    “I only present the positive path. I don't force you to follow it.”    Screwball suddenly shot the Cluckons, Lord Hater, and Peepers with his tickle machine.    After some trouble with trying to fight it off, Hater and Peepers both began laughing uncontrollably along with the Cluckons, the feathers from his machine tickling them.     The tickle ray suddenly hit the ground, but Wander successfully dodged it before he then produced an orbble around both Sylvia and Lumi. Sylvia furrowed her brows, “I guess this is no laughing matter. Get it? Because of the- great, now he's got me doing it…!”     The ray fired at them, making the orbble split into half - Sylvia and Lumi in one together and Wander by himself.     Sylvia and Lumi reached the back of Screwball’s ship and caused an explosion to occur, allowing them to enter. Lumi and Sylvia stomped their feet and raised their fists as Sylvia warned, “Hey, Chuckles. I've got a punchline for ya!”     “Then you'll need a set up. What's worse than a tickle machine?” Screwball asked. Sylvia rolled her eyes, “Literally anything.”    “Wrong!” Screwball produced another tickle machine, “Two tickle machines!”    Screwball fired the ray at both Lumi and Sylvia, to which Lumi began uncontrollably laughing instantly while Sylvia didn’t appear to feel anything at first:    “Uh, please. Too bad I'm not ticklish, e-except for behind my knees-!” Sylvia suddenly fell down to the ground and began laughing, “Holy somatosense, Wander! This is awful! He is a monster!”    Screwball laughed maniacally as he watched them come undone, when suddenly, the lights went off.    A low voice said from the darkness, “Knock knock.”    Screwball looked around suspiciously, “Who's there?”    “Orange.”    “Orange who?”    The lights turn on once again, revealing Wander behind Screwball:    “Orange you glad I didn't say banana?”    Screwball immediately began to fire the ray at Wander, only for Wander to be able to dodge the shots. He then jumped and landed in front of Sylvia and Lumi, who were both still laughing uncontrollably.    “No need to split, you might find this a-peeling!” Screwball laughed at his joke, “Get it? 'Cause you said banana back there.”    Wander took off the star from his hat, then threw it at Screwball's hand, knocking the gun away. The star very quickly returned back to its original spot before Wander asked, “What's the matter? Seeing stars? Your noxious novelty nightmare is over, Dr. Jones.  Screwball: Why do you continue to resist me? After all, we both want to spread joy throughout the universe.”     Screwball suddenly brought out his accordion and started to play some music and sing:   (youtu.be/vseNL9qe7sk)   “Hey there, let's have some fun,  Join my good-time gang,  Just one question first,  Rhubarb or meringue?   We'll make folks happy through the land,  Have them howling on their knees,  So, my little orange friend,  Lend a hand if you please.   Hey, don't look so shocked,  Ain't it 'bout the time,  To let the pun fit the crime? Ha ha!” “Screwball, you try too hard!” “Dr. Screwball, if you please, I've got an online PhD!”   “Folks should be free to find their happiness,  You can't force 'em to have fun!” “Sure, I can. Watch this! Accordion!”      Screwball used his accordion’s music to - magically - fire at Wander, only for Wander to dodge them. Then, Wander pulled out his banjo: “Banjo retort!”    Wander used his banjo’s ‘powers’ to fire back at Screwball, only for Screwball to run away from them, but the ray kept following him. Green rays came out from everywhere, trapping Screwball. The upper part of his hat gets shot:   “Hey, you're pretty good!” “But I think that we both know, It's time to let my best friends go!” “Never!”      Screwball used his powers again, along with Wander. They then had a showdown, which soon got much more intense at every bar. In the end, Wander's banjo string breaks, Screwball still continuing to fire at Wander as he sang:   “String break!  Here's a joke,  How are you…? Just like a lollipop stick?  In the end, you're both worn down by the force of my licks!   Ha, ha, ha-ha-ha-ha!  Ain't it a laugh,  Ha ha ha ha,  Looks like the end of the line,   So let...  The pun...  Fit...  The…!”      “Crime,” Screwball finished, meekly and unsatisfyingly.     Wander began panting, “Wait, I got one last pun for you!”    “Ooh, ooh, lemme guess. You're ending on a sour note?” Screwball laughed, “You snapped your C-sharp, so now you'llB-flat? Ha ha!”    Wander frowned, “How about... who's laughing now?”    He suddenly tossed his banjo to Sylvia, who caught it successfully. All while still laughing uncontrollably, she managed to break the jar containing all the feathers. The feathers pinned Screwball to the windshield as the three found their way to escape.    Screwball, while being tickled by the feathers and laughing, declared, “This isn't funny! I mean, it's kinda ironic, I guess.”    Wander, Lumi, and Sylvia escaped from the ship in an orbble before they heard Screwball scream:     “Curse you, Wander!”    The tickle effect had finally worn off on everyone who was affected, all of them cheering from the feeling of not being tickled to death anymore.     Wander took off his cape and brought his hat back up from his eyes, hopping onto Sylvia’s back along with Lumi and said back in his normal voice, “Boy, what a super day!”    “Buddy, from now on, if you say something's dangerous, I'll believe you. Even if that was the stupidest danger we've ever been in!” Sylvia told him, annoyed.     Lumi crossed her arms proudly, “Well, I believed him every step of the way!”    Sylvia rolled her eyes with a smile, “Of course you did.”            Lumi looked down for a moment, “I did kinda like your little hero persona, though… It was really cute.”    (Y/N) kicked and punched all the watchdogs they possibly could as they all came charging at (Y/N) with their blasters. Mid-fight, they turned over and found Wander rambling to Lord Hater, who looked very annoyed by the Star Nomad’s presence.     (Y/N) rolled their eyes with a smile before they darted their eyes over to Sylvia and called her over, “Sylvia! Little help here?”    “Say no more!” Sylvia replied, leaping over to (Y/N) and standing behind them, punching and kicking the watchdogs from behind.     Once all those watchdogs were knocked out, (Y/N) and Sylvia began to celebrate, doing quick dances together in a cartoony way, high-fiving at the end of their dances. Sylvia turned toward Wander and called for him, saying, “C’mon, buddy! Let’s get outta here before Hater decides to chase you again!”     “Yes, ma’am!” Wander saluted, running toward her whilst waving Hater goodbye.     Hater screamed in annoyance as all the watchdogs got up from his ungodly screaming and all scrammed back onto Hater’s ship, the ship very quickly flying off into the galaxy.     (Y/N) held onto their arm in pain with a weak smile as Sylvia crossed her arms and said to them, “I told you to be more careful the next time we run into Hater! You always overdo yourself and end up getting hurt, then Wander—“    “(Y/N)!!” Wander screamed, rushing over to (Y/N) in worry and closely examining their arm.     “—clings onto you for dear life… Great, here we go again…” Sylvia facepalmed.     “(Y/N)… I can’t believe I let this happen yet again!” Wander said frantically, “You got hurt under my watch…!”    “You were busy bothering Hater—“    Wander put his finger to (Y/N)’s lips to shut them up, shushing them in the process, “Shhh…! I will not let this happen ever again! For I, Wander, will protect and heal you until you’re all better!!”     Sylvia glared at (Y/N), who could only shrug.       Wrapped up in a blanket Wander had pulled out from his hat on a planet they had decided to settle on for the night, (Y/N) couldn’t help but laugh as they listened to Wander rant to them. He ranted to them about how sorry he was but also how they needed to be more careful if they decide to fight off the watchdogs.     (Y/N) turned to Wander, “Calm down! I’m not even hurt that badly, it’s mainly just some scratches along with a sore arm…!”     “That’s the problem!” Wander cried, clinging on (Y/N) with a dramatic frown.     (Y/N) rolled their eyes playfully, “Why do you care so much anyway?”     “‘Cause I love you so muchhh!!” Wander wept. Sylvia could only groan at his whining as (Y/N) faintly blushed before shaking the flusterment away and replying, “Y-You know, I feel much better. I’m barely in any pain anymore so—“    Wander stared at her in horror, “YOU’RE STILL IN PAIN?!”     “N-No! I just…!” (Y/N) silently cursed underneath their breath, “I feel fine, Wander. You don’t have to cling to my side every second of the day when I get hurt.”     Wander looked at them with worry before sighing and weakly smiling, “You’re probably right… But I can’t help but worry.”    (Y/N) sighed, “But I do have something else to say…”    “What is it?!”    They smirked and kissed Wander’s cheek before saying, “I love you too!”     Wander felt his face grow hot as he let those simple yet strong words sink in: ‘I love you too!’    He suddenly smiled widely and wrapped his arms around (Y/N), practically squeezing them. (Y/N) let out a muffled laugh before accepting his embrace and telling him, “I feel so safe in your arms, you know that?”     Wander chuckles, “Well, you’re always welcome in my arms~!”    They both stared into each other’s eyes lovingly, all while Sylvia, with her hands behind her head resting on a giant rock, just stared at them with a smile. She turned over to the side and said, “Well, at least this time turned out well.”   “So, what happened? If you don’t mind me askin’, that is,” Bandit asked, pouring (Y/N) a cup of water and handing it over to her. Sitting on the couch, cold and afraid, (Y/N) looked away timidly, “My friends all kinda… ditched me. They didn’t answer any of my messages after I said I arrived in Brisbane and when I went over to their house, they all said they couldn’t take me in; but that’s when I remembered your kind offer. I felt bad, but… I desperately needed a place to stay, especially with the current weather.”    Bandit cringed as he listened to her story, “Yea, that sounds pretty rough… Tell ya what, you can stay here for as longas you need until you can find your own place to stay, okay?”     (Y/N) gasped, placed the cup of water down on the side table, and then held out her paws, arguing, “I-I didn’t mean for this to happen! I really just needed one night!”     Bandit sighed, “Listen, I know you mean well and all, but I heard what you said back in that store: you don't have much money … not to mention you could barely afford the water bottles! Plus, there’s no way you're gonna find another cool guy such as myself to take you in, now will you?”     (Y/N) blushed in embarrassment as she watched Bandit smirk playfully before she shook her head, looking down at the floor feeling defeated.     “Now, please accept my offer and no more arguments, alright? Please?” Bandit pleaded, making (Y/N) sigh. She paused for a moment before responding, “Fine. But, I will pay you back eventually.”    “Fair enough,” Bandit smiled before asking, “Would you like something to eat? I have some snacks in the fridge that I could go and grab if you’d like.”    (Y/N) shrugged, “I think I’m good for now. But thank you.”     “Sure,” Bandit grabbed the TV remote, “Now what’s on TV?”     Bandit began flipping through the channels until he came across a channel they could both agree on and began watching.     After a while, Bandit began to notice how (Y/N) would randomly start to nod off … before regaining her posture and holding herself up the best she could before repeating those very same steps. Bandit couldn’t help but chuckle before he suggested, “Are you tired? I have a guest room if you’d like to stay in there. It has a pretty comfortable bed.”    (Y/N) yawned before smiling, “S…Sure. I could deal with that. And I am pretty tired…”    “I can tell,” Bandit added, the two of them laughing before Bandit stood up and ushered her to follow him to see the room. (Y/N) grabbed her bags and followed him.     He opened up the door to the room and entered, allowing (Y/N) to enter after him. He looked around, “It’s not perfect, but it should work.”    “Yea, it’ll do,” (Y/N) turned to Bandit, “Thank you so much for doing this. I just met you today and you already feel like someone I’ve known for years! You’ve already invited me to stay with you and bought me water because I couldn’t afford it… you’re too kind.”     Bandit laughed, “It’s not every day I do this, y'know. You just… seemed like you were struggling a bit back there so I offered what I could.”     “Well, you offered more than you had to,” she playfully smirked before she grabbed her suitcase and threw it in the middle of the room, throwing her bag onto the suitcase afterward.     (Y/N) turned toward Bandit once more, “Again, thank you.”    She embraced him in a short yet warm hug, making both of their tails wag as Bandit returned the short hug.     A quick moment passed and they let go.     Bandit turned off the light - the room now only being lit by the barely lit lamp that sat on the nightstand - and exited the room. But, before closing the door, he added, “Have a good night, (N/N)!”     He then immediately shut the door on her, leaving her with wide eyes, only to quickly burst out into a fit of quiet giggles at the new nickname.     Once she calmed down, she turned to the bed that laid in the corner of the room and laid on top of it, resting her hands behind her head as she thought:    ‘(N/N)… That’s a new one. I like it.’    She then reached over to the lamp that laid on the nightstand and turned it off.    “Oh, sir, you just have to focus on conquering the galaxy instead of focusing on some girl … again!” Peepers scolded Hater, only for Hater to put his hands together with a lovesick expression, rolling around on his bed. Peepers facepalmed as Hater began, “But… this one is so much different! (Y/N) is such a good conqueror - like Dominator was - but she’s actually nice to me! I can't believe I’m saying this, but… I think I may have a chance!”     Peepers groaned into his hand before crossing his arms and looking away bitterly, “Fine. Go ask her out. See what she does.”     With that, the commander walked out of Hater’s room.     Hater grunted and then began to whine, “Well, last time I was able to ask a girl out, Wander was there… But I REALLY DON’T WANNA GET HIS HELP!!”     He looked around before sighing in defeat and deciding to just go search for Wander to get his help once again.       Wander sat in front of Hater with his hands folded underneath his chin, smiling widely as Hater quietly groaned at the Star Nomad’s excitement. Wander looked around before asking, “Wait, isn’t this where you usually tie me up or something?”    “I… kind of figured out that you’d just slip out if I did that,” Hater admitted, scratching his chin. Wander blew a raspberry at him before sarcastically remarking, “What?! I would never…!”    Hater cocked a nonexistent eyebrow, making Wander timidly chuckle before Wander decided to change the subject by asking, “So - you know I have to ask this again - what do you know about her?”     “Uh…” Hater dragged the ‘uh’ for a while before Wander cringed, making him stop and say, “Well… I know she’s seen my ship, my watchdogs, my room…?”    Wander cringed once again and told him, “Yea, uh, okay. Well, good news is you’ve improved from last time with Dominator… but apparently you somehow didn’t figure it out:”    Wander suddenly appeared behind Hater and pulled out a small poster of a diagram with a lady and a giant pink heart on her chest as he began: “The heart of a lady, Is a mysterious thing… That scientis—“    “—‘That smart people have fought with for years’- yea, yea,” Hater interrupted, messing up the lyrics before continuing, “Ok, ok. I’ll give it a go for real this time.”     “Wonderful!” Wander clapped excitedly, zooming back into his seat.     Hater cleared his ‘throat’ and tried again:    “ ‘So, uh, what are some things you like to do in your free time? Y’know… other than conquer planets.’ ”    Wander gasped, his smile expanding even more somehow before he grabbed onto Hater’s cheeks and exclaiming, “Hater!! That was a question!! One not about yourself! You really have changed!”     Hater slammed his fists on the surface in front of them angrily, “I’m not changing!! It’s just … you’re good with this stuff, I guess.”     Wander put his face in the palms of his hands and started to stare off into the distance with a goofy smile, “Well, I got a certain girl to thank for that…”     Hater crossed his arms and muttered bitterly, “Way to rub it in…”    Wander gasped and apologized, “Oop-! Sorry, Hater! But don’t worry, you’re gonna get that girl faster than I can say supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!”    “…Gee, thanks.”        Knocking on the ship’s door, Hater couldn’t help but start to break a sweat as he watched Wander rock back and forth beside him, winking at him and flashing him a thumbs up as they awaited for the ship to open to welcome them inside.     The opening suddenly slammed open, making both of the boys jump slightly before they shrugged and entered, walking to where they usually found (Y/N) sitting whenever they had to visit her inside of her ship for whatever reason.     They both found (Y/N) sitting in front of a small board of controls, scrolling on some sort of galaxy social media site before turning to find Hater and Wander standing beside her, making her smile widely and throw her phone to the side.     “Hater! Wander! It’s so nice to see you guys! I was just about to conquer this dumb planet over here if you wanted to watch?” (Y/N) blinked before turning to Wander, “…No offense, Wander…?”     Wander cringed, “I… think I’ll sit this one out. Thanks for the offer, though.”    “Oh, don’t worry, I understand!” She turned to Hater, “What about you?”     Hater gulped before he turned to Wander, who only gave him a thumbs up before slipping away to hide behind a wall to spy, forcing Hater to fend for himself. He sighed before turning back to the female villain and replying, “Uh, that sounds nice! I’d love to…! B-But, I’d also like to ask if you’d like to, y’know, go out sometime? Maybe get some food together or some coffee??”    (Y/N) widened her eyes at the sudden offer. She turned toward Wander behind the wall, who could only smile proudly with a shrug. She felt the blood rush to her face as it flamed up in a blush, “Um, I’d… love that, actually.”    “R-Really?!” Hater jumped up a bit, “I mean…! Of course you would. I am the greatest villain there is.”    She couldn’t help but giggle before she leaned it close to his face and whispered, “Although you’re pretty great, gotta argue that… I’m probably the greatest.”     She then placed a gentle kiss on his cheek before turning back to her control board and swiftly pressing a large green button, allowing her bots to begin conquering the planet for her.     Hater smiled a goofy and lovesick smile before going to stand next to her and watching as she conquered the planet, laughing along with her as they watched the civilians scream in terror.     Wander crossed his arms, “Ah, love…” he then widened his eyes, “…I should probably stop this, though.”    He then ran out of the ship to go find Sylvia, leaving the two villains to continue conquering … together.    (Y/N) hid behind Roxanne Wolf’s couch that was resting in her room whilst they watched her compliment every aspect of herself in second person and first person view:    “Your performance was perfect tonight!” Roxanne fistpumped proudly, then began to flip her hair as she continued, “Thank you. Your hair is beautiful. Your tail is beautiful. Everyone was watching you. Everyone loves you. Everyone wants to be you. You are the best. Thank you. I am the best. I am the best.”     She then continued to stand in front of the mirror, looking at herself. As she continued doing that, (Y/N) decided to attempt to make an escape for the button that opened the door that was located on the back wall, but accidentally made something slip in front of themself, causing a small ruckus of noise. This of course made the hostile animatronic wolf to snap her head over to the sound and investigate.     As the animatronic inched closer, sniffing her surroundings, (Y/N) attempted to hold their breath. This failed miserably as they accidentally coughed when not taking enough air.     Roxanne did her best to smirk, “Found ya, you twerp.”     She did her best to pick up the child in her arms, to reveal a small child with bruises and bandages covered over their body. This, for some unknown reason, made Roxanne feel guilty and set the child down.     “I was told earlier by the night guard, Vanessa, that there was an intruder child in the building, would that be you?” Roxanne Wolf aggressively questioned, trying her best to show no mercy whatsoever. (Y/N) shook their head, “No. She mentioned the kid’s name, which was Gregory. My name is not Gregory, I am (Y/N).”     Roxanne hummed, scanning the child in her arms with her robotic eyes, “I cannot find any record of you at all. And how convenient that there are two missing children here…” Roxanne said. (Y/N) gulped nervously.     Roxanne just shrugged, “Well I wasn’t alerted to catch you and you seem fun to hang with, so I’ll consider you. As you must know, I’m Roxanne Wolf! But just call me Roxy if you wish.”     (Y/N)  smiled, “Okay, Roxy.”    “Since you’re gonna hang with me and I need to find that other missing kid,” Roxy stated, emphasizing on the word ‘other’, “I guess you’ll need a place to hide…how about my hair?” She suggested. (Y/N)’s eyes glistened with excitement as they looked at Roxy’s glorious hair, knowing they now had the chance to physically interact with it. They giggled as Roxy pulled them up into her hair before saying:    “Be careful! Don’t make a mess of my gorgeous hair. It takes forever to fix it.”     “Okay, Roxy,” (Y/N) happily obeyed.    “Yeesh! It’s times like these I’m glad we’re single, am I right buddy?” Sylvia turned to Wander - who was sitting on her saddle and waiting to be able to cross the road with Sylvia - and pointed at the couple a few feet away from them that were violently arguing with one another. Wander cringed at the sight of the couple, “Yep…! Couldn’t be more happy. Besides, I haven’t even spotted anyone that I’ve been romantically attracted to in ages!”     Once the road was clear of drivers and ships, Sylvia began to walk over to the other side of the road.     On the other side, Sylvia began to walk over to a building before being pulled back by Wander pulling on her rein, forcing her to stop.     She whipped her head around to him and furrowed her brows, expanding her arms outward and asking, “Hey, what was that for?!”     Wander suddenly pointed somewhere in front of them both, making Sylvia turn back around and look over, finding a silhouette seemingly with their foot stuck underneath a large rock. Sylvia groaned and asked, “We’re totally saving them, aren’t we? No matter how cliche and not-so-serious this situation really is?”     Wander gasped and dramatically slapped his hand onto his chest, “Sylvia! I cannot believe that you would assume that I wouldn’t help a poor, helpless soul in this kind of situation!”     Sylvia rolled her eyes and began walking over to the silhouette, the silhouette soon becoming more clear as they got closer.     The person seemed to be female, strangely looking extremely similar to Wander but purple.     Wander rushed over to the female and immediately attempted to lift the rock off of her foot, finding himself struggling to lift it just an inch off of the ground. Wander huffed in frustration and tried again, only to fail. He turned to Sylvia and asked for her help, making her roll her eyes and attempt to lift the rock, only to fall back on her bottom.     Sylvia widened her eyes before grunting and getting Wander and her to lift at the same time, allowing just enough space and time for the female to slip away from the rock.     She turned over to Sylvia and Wander, “Thank you so much!”    Sylvia smiled, “It was no big deal! Right, Wander-? Wander?”     She cocked an eyebrow as she watched Wander circle around the female with wide eyes, looking her up and down in adornment. He suddenly zoomed over to Sylvia with a wide smile and sparkling eyes and said, “Do you see this, Sylvia?!”    “It’s a girl?”    “Not just any girl…! She’s just like me!”     Sylvia cocked an eyebrow once again before having Wander stand side by side with the female, making her see the pretty clear similarities, “Ah, I see what you mean. She’s the same… species?”     “Uh huh!!” Wander happily squealed before excitedly going in front of the female Star Nomad and offering his hand, “Hiya! Folks call me Wander, and this is my best pal: Sylvia. What’s your lovely name?”    She thought for a moment before questionably saying, “Uh… Lumi, I think.”     “Well, it’s nice to meet ya, Lumi-!”    “Why do you look like me?” Lumi had interrupted, examining him from head to toe, “I’ve never seen anyone that’s ever looked like me before.”    Wander smiled, “Well, I could ask the same to you!”     Lumi looked down, “I… don’t really remember anything about myself. All I remember is being called ‘Lumi’ by someone and then I ended up in some random galaxy. I’m not sure what I am or why and how I’m here.”    Sylvia and Wander stared at her, only managing to mutter out in unison a single, “Oh.”     Sylvia pulled Wander over to her and began to whisper, “Honestly, I don’t think this Lumi chick is… mentally okay right now. It’s probably best we get her some help-“    “I CAN GET HER SOME HELP!!” Wander shrieked, pointing his finger upward and excitedly jumping up before Sylvia pulled him back down, making him frown. She looked over at Lumi discreetly as she continued, “Yes, I know you can. But I think… I think we both need to watch her before we can find a proper place to care for her.”     Wander saluted, indicating he agreed. Sylvia smiled, “Thanks, buddy.”    They turned back to Lumi and Wander clenched his hands together, having them at his sides, and asked, “So, Lumi, do you remember anything else? Like… you mentioned you remember someone calling you ‘Lumi’… do you remember who that was?”     She tapped her chin for a moment before looking to the side guiltily and shaking her head ‘no’. Sylvia sighed before putting her hands out in front of her to calm herself, “Alright, alright. It’s okay, we can still figure something out.”    “Why don’t you come with us?!” Wander offered out of the blue, making Sylvia facepalm. She placed her hand on his shoulder, “You don’t have to say it immediately! I want her to come with us too, sure, but we need to give her a minute.”    Wander put his hand up and his right hand over his heart and declared, “Of course…! Sorry.”    Sylvia sighed in relief, “Thanks, now let me take care of this…” Sylvia turned to Lumi, “Alright… have you been to any other planets or locations around the galaxy ever since you found yourself here?”    Lumi nodded, “I’ve been to one… but it was immediately abandoned by me when a giant skull ship landed on it, so I found my escape.”    Sylvia cocked her head to the side, “How’d you escape when you can’t breathe in space?”    “I found this stuff called ‘orbble juice’ laying around, and I found out I could use it to travel…” Lumi said, “Although, I’ve only used it once.”     Sylvia nodded, indicating she understood before crossing her arms and sighing, looking to the side, “Not sure if this is the best idea, but what I do know is that it’s the best we can do for now. My buddy and I were wondering if you’d wanna come with us? At least until you could find someplace to stay?”     “Where do you guys stay?”    “Uh…” Sylvia looked at Wander, who was smiling with sparkles in his eyes, before she turned back to her and explained, “We travel the galaxy, looking to help others. We don’t have one place to stay, but we instead find different places to stay each night.”    “Oh…” Lumi thought for a moment, unsure, as she looked around her. As she looked around, she allowed her thoughts to engulf her mind:    ‘You’re alone and helpless either way, so you should just let them help! Besides, they could probably help you find more about yourself somehow, or at least find you a perfect place to stay!…’    Sylvia and Wander looked at each other in confusion.     “Does she know she’s talking out loud…?” Wander whispered over to Sylvia.     “I have no clue,” Sylvia whispered back.     They watched as Lumi continued her mumbling before whipping her head over to Sylvia and Wander and nodding. They both beamed, Wander zooming to Lumi’s side and side-hugging her. Lumi just sunk down, not knowing what to do.     “Alright!” Sylvia picked Lumi up and had her stand up straight, then rubbed her hands together, “Now that you’re free from that strangely heavy rock, why don’t we head back into the galaxy and wander around a bit?”     “Uh… I’m fine with that,” Lumi replied.     Wander squealed. 

General Audiences

“This can’t be it. This can’t be the end.” Darius thought to himself as he laid there while his magic and his life drained away from him. He looked over to see his fellow Coven Heads in the same kind of pain. But what hurt him even more is that he saw his husband Adrian laying lifeless on his side. “No!” Darius shouted. With all his might he picked himself off the ground and walked towards Adrian. His legs felt like there were cement blocks tied to them. But he didn’t care, he needed to get to Adrian and fast. After walking a few distance he slummed down on his knees right in front of his husband. “Adrain, Adrian!” Darius shouted but he did not respond. Tears started to form in his eyes, no he can’t be. “Adrian…” He said again this time his voice started to crack. “Please…wake up.” Darius said. He placed his face in his hands and started to cry. Than, a sharp breath of air can be heard. Darius shot his head up to see Adrian’s eyes open and look up at him. Adrian smiled. “Hello my love.” Adrian said as he brought his hand up to Darius cheek. Darius smiled when he placed his hand over Adrian’s. “Thank you Titan.” He quietly prayed. Adrian lifted himself up off the ground and the two hugged each other. Darius hugged Adrian so tight that it looked like he was being squeezed, they broke apart to look into each other’s eyes before touching their foreheads together with closed eyes. Than, their coven sigils lit up purple and light blue respectively. The other Coven Heads looked in shock. A white four pointed star sigil appeared under them with strings of light floated upwards, they opened their eyes. Adrian felt himself floating in the air, he grabbed Darius’s hand as he felt himself float as well. Neither of them knew what was happening but they didn’t care, in this moment they just gazed at each other.

General Audiences

Prologue If we continue to blame ourselves for events unpurposeful then we’ll cave. We’ll be devoured if we aren’t careful. They don’t go down without a fight, without lives at stake. So we have to be quick and we have to be crafty. Just remember, don’t trust any shapes or spiders. But if you do, you’ll be in danger for life.  Now we’re in a difficult spot. But we’ll make it work. We are each others’ homes, we have to. I’m not sure what the cost will be but I know some of us will take others out of harm’s way and ensure the safety of the group as a whole. If I say too much I’ll give it away. I will just say here that he was a good man, no matter what his enemies tell you. And I had a profound care for him that was unexplainable. Although he’ll never read this, I loved him. He was my friend.  Sorry I keep getting ahead of myself. It all started in one quaint town or so we thought. I can’t speak much further on the matter. I’m about to run out of time. Don’t forget to ask- - -  Piedmont, CA The aftermath of Bill Cipher’s attack had struck and it struck hard. The Pines thought they had lost Stanley forever but he pushed through. He pushed through the barrier of lost memories and retrieved all of them. Bill was dead and his will of evil lived on in the past. That was always something the Pines never considered. What happened before.  When Dipper and Mabel returned home, they realized how much their lives had truly changed all because of one summer.  10:00 PM “You know, it makes you wonder if anyone else in this crazy world has experienced something like we did.” Dipper commented while climbing into his bed. “If there’s weirder-things out there-shouldn’t we help people? Maybe the place Bill was from has something to do with it.”  “Bro bro, it’s too late to theorize and I’m trying to dream of the perfect boy so thank you but no thank you to that conversation.” Mabel replied, abruptly jumping into her bed, across the room from his. She almost immediately began to snore.  Dipper sighed. Why didn’t she care enough , he thought to himself. Well they just got back so maybe she’d talk about it later. Maybe , he thought. He looked over to the end table to see his phone light up with two notifications.  He picked up the phone without hesitation, it could’ve been Wendy…or Pacifica! But it wasn’t.    UNKNOWN: Hi, is this Dipper Pines? I got this number from the newspaper a town or two over when I was visiting. It says you’re a paranormal investigator and well–I’ve got a problem in my house. Well I did and I think it went away but I’m not entirely sure. If you could save my number and we could facetime that would be great.  - Coraline Jones (Ashland, OR)    UNKNOWN: Hi, this is Dipper Pines right? I’m Norman and I have the ability to see ghosts. I was wondering if you could help me harness my abilities to solve problems ghost-wise. Get back to me when you can, thank you.  - Norman Babcock (Blithe Hollow, MA) He was baffled. How much had this summer really changed things?  Ashland, OR Coraline wanted more than anything to prove to herself that she wasn’t absolutely insane. What happened with the Beldam was real and she didn’t want to gaslight herself. But what if it was mold infecting her mind? No, she really felt every moment there. It couldn’t be fake. So she reached out to an expert.  She sighed after sending the message, scared that it was the wrong person or a trick number that would send her away for delusions. She fiddled with her hair pin that she had accidentally left on her bed.  Suddenly, her phone chimed.    510-***-****: This is Dipper, also this is extremely forward. How grave is the situation? Is there a safe place you could be at, instead of your home?  Coraline:  That’s the problem, it isn’t here anymore but I can still feel it.  Dipper: How so?  Coraline: It’s like this house is a stomach or something.  Dipper: Tell me more about what happened. If you’re comfortable doing so.  ….. Coraline: I went through a door in the wall…and..it was just like my house but everything was perfect. Too perfect. And there was this thing that looked like my mom who- - tried to take my soul.  Dipper: That’s pretty intense, have you gone to see someone about it?  Coraline: No I’m too scared that they’d send me off to an institution or something.  Dipper: Fair point, if you knew what I’ve seen- - God- - this world is so messed up.  Coraline: Tell me about it. Is it okay if I keep you in my contacts? In case we need any advice? Also I need proof that this is actually you so- -  Dipper: Sure. I’ve got to sleep here in a minute so I don’t mess up my sleep schedule again. But here’s a picture- -  (insert picture here) It’s a super embarrassing one that I wouldn’t send to anyone else so there’s proof.  Coraline: Fair point Pines, thanks for chatting- - I’ve gtg.  Piedmont, CA She was quite abrupt in the way of ending messages , Dipper thought.  “Bro bro who are you texting?” Mabel groaned, turning over and rubbing her eyes.  “Oh it’s someone who needs a mystery solved, but we can deal with it in the morning. She just left so-”  “She?” Mabel jumped out of her bed and made her way to the side of Dipper’s.  “Mabel don’t take it that way, she just needs help from me.” He scoffed. “Besides I like Paci-”  “What’s her name?” Mabel interjected immediately.  “Coraline! Her name is Coraline!”  “Oooh sounds prettier than Pacifica. Is there a picture of this Coraline?” She pestered on.  “No but-”  “What if she’s a catfish?” Mabel gasped dramatically.  “Would a catfish tell you all about their traumatic supernatural occurrence?” He sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose in frustration.  “No..” Mabel bit her lip in embarrassment.  “Okay, good talk.” Dipper turned over after putting his phone back on the nightstand.  “If this is about the whole Weirdmageddon thing…I’m sorr-”  “It’s nothing. Go to sleep Mabel.”  He decided to message Norman in the morning. He needed a good dream, something to soothe the pain. Even if only for a little while.  Mabel climbed back into bed and began to stare up at the ceiling. What have I done, she thought.  Blithe Hollow, MA “Norman,” Courtney’s voice whispered from the space left by his open bedroom door. “It’s time for bed and I don’t want you developing insomnia so, lights out.”  “In a minute Courtney-I still haven’t gotten a message back.” Norman was almost obsessed with seeing those little text bubbles appear.  Courtney came into the room immediately. “Nope, I will not have my little brother sacrificing his health for-a boy?”  “Uh-it’s not what you think-he’s an investigator..” Norman stuttered and began to mumble to himself.  “I don’t care if you’re gay Norm, I care for you and your health. So go. To. Sleep.” She took his phone out of his hands, plugged it in, and set it on the floor. “There-so you won’t get out of your super comfy bed just to see a text.”  “Fine, I’ll sleep. But about that thing you said–about being gay I-um-I’m not sure what I am yet.” He winced.  “You’re my brother, I’m obligated to love you either way. Goodnight Norm.” She smiled and left to her own room.  Norman looked at his hands and thought to himself, what am I ? Boston, MA Klaus Baudelaire fiddled with the pages of a book while focusing on one single sentence. “Am I walking toward something I should be running away from?” (Shirley Jackson, The Haunting Of Hill House)  Klaus often read his new books in the ruins of what was once he and his sisters’ home. He had the most difficult time believing that what happened was real. He was so incredibly mad at himself for not being able to stop it even though he never knew it was going to occur. Guilt has a funny way of finding itself where it shouldn’t be present. Nobody knew he would read there, not even his own sisters. Violet and Sunny were too heartbroken to even look at the ruins ever again. Which made Klaus feel like a terrible person.  He wondered if there were other kids going through just as bad or worse scenarios. After all he had seen and heard, he wouldn’t dare doubt it. He had read of some strange events that befell small Oregon towns but he wasn’t entirely convinced of supernatural monsters. The most he had to fear were people themselves because he never knew when they would turn on him.  Klaus closed his book and placed it carefully back in his satchel. He took slow steps over misplaced tiles and ash. Sighing once he reached what used to be the doorway, he stepped out. He began his walk to where they lived now. A small studio apartment with Kit’s daughter Beatrice, named after their mother, and no parents.  Violet had been posing as an adult for the time being. Everything in Boston was terribly unstructured and she wondered if it would ever be the same. She had taken up an office job and a waitress job to maintain the funds for their apartment. Sunny on the other hand, was doing fabulously being homeschooled by Klaus. She was a little bit older now. They all were. Three years had passed since the island incident. Violet looked the most aged, the office job had not been kind to her. Her boss was a difficult man, a lot like the man who ran Lucky Smells Lumbermill. While not a creep, he was still extremely unpleasant to be around.  All three siblings wondered if there was someone who was destined to stop all of this madness. More importantly, they wondered if they’d ever be free. Suddenly, the sound of envelopes hitting the counter changed everything.  “Anything good?” Violet called from the couch, icing a pretty nasty bruise she had gotten from bussing tables.  “Water bill, electric bill, bill-what’s this?” Klaus studied a brown envelope with a particularly beautiful stamp. It was addressed to the four of them.  “What is it?” Violet said, concerned.  “I think it’s an invitation.” Klaus said. “My only worry is..how did they get our title of The Baudelaire Orphans? I mean we haven’t told anyone other than those who are missing or dead. What if someone bad finds us?”  Klaus began to hyperventilate. He held his hand over his cheek where Count Olaf had slapped him all those years ago as tears streamed down his face. Violet placed the small bag of ice on the coffee table and rushed to her brother.  “Deep breaths Klaus, deep breaths. Remember you’re here with me. We’re safe, we’re home, we're home.” Violet held him by the arms lightly and looked him in the eyes.  Klaus’s breathing slowed, “I’m sorry-I’m-”  “You don’t need to apologize for anything.” Violet wrapped her arms around her brother. “We’ll figure this out, I know we will.”  As she held him, she silently studied who it was from. Who is Herbert Trubshaw? Cheesebridge, UK “Did you send the letter?” Winnie asked her boyfriend Eggs. A nickname of course, seeing as his real name was Arthur.  “Yeah, my dad sent it through. I’m nervous though.” Eggs confessed.  “How come? You know in your heart all those stories about them are false so why worry?” Winnie sat next to Eggs on her family’s new couch.  “I don’t know what it is that’s bothering me but we need to help them. There’s more people to help too, I can’t shake this feeling that something is on the horizon. Something bad.” Eggs sighed, fiddling with a button on his shirt.  “We’ll figure it out, we always do.” Winnie took his hand and squeezed it lovingly. “Until then, we have to get ready for renewing my parents’ vows. I will see you after I finish getting ready.”  She got up and began to walk towards the stairs before stopping.  “You know I love you, right Eggs?” She looked at him, smiling.  “Of course I do. I love you too.” His eyes met hers before she continued on her way.  He hoped his intuition wasn’t right. If it was, how would they ever recover?  Jersey City, NJ Dib paced around his room as he usually did each night. He was convinced that there was a source for all of the weirdness in the world and he needed to know where it was. You see, he had a problem with trying to prove himself. It’s not the action itself that was the problem, it was the self deprecation. The hours he would spend wishing he had handled multiple things differently, nearly ate him up inside. It didn’t help that his dad was too focused on science to care. His sister did care however, just not as much as he wanted her to. She cared more if he left her alone.  This time was different for him, he didn’t blame Zim for what had happened. He blamed himself. They had been in a huge argument in an abandoned building and Zim had tripped over a lever, opening a wall showcasing a rather terrifying looking portal. A tendril had shot through the portal, latching onto Zim’s leg. Dib grabbed Zim’s hands and tried to pull him away from the portal.  “Come- - on! He’s mine to deal with!” Dib shouted through gritted teeth. “Don’t let go- - - ZIM!”  Zim’s scream faded into an echo as the portal closed back up. Dib fell to his knees and looked at his shaking hands. He started crying. Another tendril came snaking near him. He noticed and bolted away. Before he knew it he was home. And it was all his fault.  A ping from his computer brought him out of his routine. He rushed to see what it said.    One search matching “portal with tendrils”    “Hawkins, Indiana…a great town to settle down in, known for crazy conspiracies?” Dib read aloud. “What is this?”  He scrolled through various photos and notes from interviews. One stood out to him and it had a phone number for someone named Dustin Henderson. He snatched his phone off of the desk and dialed.  Ringing..ringing..more ringing…someone picked up.  “Hello, is this Dustin Henderson?” Dib questioned.  “How did you get this number?” A female voice answered.  “I..looked it up-or well I found it in an article.” Dib stammered.  “He’s not home, don’t call here again-”  “Wait-it’s about a portal-my um- - my friend got stuck in what you call the upside down ?”  The sound of the name burned her ears. She hadn’t heard it since the last incident in the nineties.  “I’ll tell him you called, name?”  “Dib Membrane.”  She hung up.  Hawkins, Indiana 2012, 26 years after The woman had dreaded a phone call like that for some time now. She was older, mature, and she hated talking about it. She wondered to herself, who would name their child Dib , to distract from the thought of what happened all those years ago. She didn’t dare expose another soul to the truth of the matter, let alone a child.  She heard her name from the corridor. Her love had come home.  Beverly Hills, CA  2012, 4 years before and 23 years after Richie Tozier laid in the bed of his one nightstand, unable to sleep. It was often like this with his budding career as a comedian, women would come to see him. He was trying to cover up the truth about himself.  He slowly crept out of bed, put his clothes and shoes back on, and slipped his phone in his pocket. He adjusted his glasses which had been tilted and threw his jacket on, grabbing his keys and heading out of the apartment.  When he got into his car, he allowed his head to fall onto the wheel in exhaustion. Deciding not to pass out in his vehicle, he turned the keys and began to drive home. He only did this because he didn’t want to think of Eddie. Sweet, lovely, smartass Eddie, who he never confessed to.  “Siri- - call my- - Eddie-call Eddie.” Richie sighed.  ‘Okay, calling Eddie Kaspbrak’  ‘Your call has been forwarded to an automatic voice messaging system- -’  Richie hung up and pulled into his own driveway. Where had it gone wrong , he thought. A ringing suddenly brought him out of his focus. The area code was from somewhere in Indiana. It only rang for a short time before the caller decided to hang up. Another phone call blared through the white noise left by the last, a call from Ohio.  Richie answered. “Who the hell is this?”  “This is Mary Lane and you need to listen to me, you’re in grave danger. The evil- - it’s- -”  The line went dead.  “Mary Lane? Where had he heard that name?” He pulled into the driveway of his home, grabbed his stuff, and headed inside after locking his car.  That’s when it hit him. Mary Lane, mother of Ruby Lane the lunatic from Shadyside, Ohio. He had heard about the crimes that occured in Shadyside and always wondered if something like Pennywise was to blame. Once he reached his room, he started to think too much.  For the first time in a long time, Richie Tozier began to cry. So much so that he screamed. There was no way out of this. He would have to fight in four years and see him again.  Sunnyvale, OH  Mary Lane was found dead not much later after that phone call by Christine Berman, known by few as Ziggy. She held Mary in her arms and sobbed. She fumbled with her phone in her free hand, attempting to call the police. Deena Johnson had been promoted to police chief not long into working and always answered a call.  “Deena- - something awful has happened-” Ziggy said through tears. “It’s Mary, she’s dead. And the book is here- - that damned book.”  “I’ll dispatch myself, an ambulance, and three other officers over immediately. Stay right there, I’m coming to get you.” Deena responded. “Is anyone else dead?”  “No-I don’t think so.” Ziggy kept crying.  “I’m on my way, don’t hang up.” Deena shed a few tears.  Who would do such a thing , the two women thought.  Deena drove to pick up Sam and Josh first. The two were at the mall looking for a fifth anniversary gift for Deena and Sam’s marriage.  “I don’t have a lot of time to explain right now, Mary is dead and Ziggy is devastated-just get in the car.”  Without hesitation the two hopped in, the gift in tow and looked at each other worriedly. By the time they arrived on the scene, Mary was already on the stretcher and covered. Ziggy sat on the porch with a blanket draped over herself. Deena was the one to interview her.  “They said she made a call to Beverly Hills before she died, do you know anyone there?” She questioned.  “Maybe..I met a comedian after his show there and I told him what the show meant to me. We exchanged numbers but we never really talked afterwards.”  “What stood out to you about him?”  “He had a scar on his hand, just like mine. It was for a different reason though.”  “Did he tell you what that reason was?”  “No, he got very quiet when I asked and sort of mumbled something. Something about Derry, Maine- -”  “The second largest crime capital in the U.S., right after ours.” Deena sighed. “This is bigger than Ohio or Maine, this is happening everywhere. Someone is orchestrating all of this.”  “Why?” Ziggy pleaded.  “Unlimited power.” Deena muttered. “Get your stuff because we’re going to figure this shit out.”  “Where are we going?” Josh called over.  “We’re going to Derry to set this straight.”  Sleepy Peak, OR “Max!” David sang from outside of the attic. “You’re going to miss our super cool arts and crafts show we prepared!”  “Go away.” Max grumbled, kicking dust off of his shoe. “I’d rather stay up here, at least the spiders are less fucking miserable.”  “Okay Max, just come down when you’re ready.” David sighed and left the Mess Hall.  Max had been very quiet since he realized it was the last month of camp. In truth, he didn’t have anywhere else to go. His parents were abusive and had left him with an inherited curse that only he would ever understand. You see, Max had the ability to shapeshift yet he hadn’t quite figured it out. He could also sing but that was something he would never tell anyone in a million years.  He sighed and took David’s phone out of his hoodie pocket. Prank calls always made him feel better, unknowingly shocking a stranger with lies was extremely hilarious to him. After all, he was only ten. He typed in a random number and hit the call button.  “What’s up motherfucker?” He snickered into the phone.  “Is this some kind of joke? You think this is funny? I could get an adult out there on your case in the span of five minutes. So hang up now before you regret it.” A disgruntled female voice answered.  He was caught off guard by her aggression and didn’t know how to respond. “I’m sorry I- - who is this? I thought this was someone I knew.”  “I normally don’t give out my name to random kids but I’m Christine Berman. You seem like a good kid doing things for the wrong reasons but I’m busy right now. Keep this number in case of trouble.” She hung up.  What the fuck , he thought. What kind of bullshit was that about? A creeping feeling came in all at once, he felt like something was wrong. Very very wrong. And that it would soon be everywhere, attacking everything.  Los Angeles, CA  “Alright mom, I’ll be back at 3:00!” Anne Boonchuy called into her house before slamming the door.  She hissed through her teeth, not meaning to do what she had just done. She didn’t have to focus on that though, she was meeting up with Sasha and Marcy so her attitude could remain positive. She started her walk to the park nearest to her home. She thought a lot about Amphibia on the way there. Sprig, she missed him and wished she could talk to him again.  Marcy practically tackled her out of her thoughts though.  “Hey Mar Mar, you ready for your last day in LA?” Anne grinned.  “Eh well sort of, I found out where I’m moving has a history of mysterious occurrences so I’m super excited!” Marcy replied, almost jumping up and down.  “Oh yeah…you mentioned that, where are you moving to again?” Anne tensed up at the thought of her being in danger.  “Gravity Falls, Oregon! It’s an epicenter for weirdness, doesn’t it sound awesome?” She squealed.  Anne’s blood ran cold, where had she heard that name before ? It was almost like they had all been there at some point.  “I’m happy for you Mar Mar, oh look there’s Sasha!” She pointed and began to hoop and holler.  “Hey girls, how are you?” Sasha smiled, taking out a paper from her bag. “Are we ready for the best day ever?”  Anne couldn’t help but succumb to a chill she felt on the back of her neck. Something was wrong, very wrong . Connecticut  Luz blamed herself for all of it. The portal collapsing, Eda and King being trapped, others too, and Belos. This was all because of her and there was no convincing her otherwise. Unless you had the willpower of Amity, her trusted and loving girlfriend of two months.  Luz sat at the window, staring into the woods. She hadn’t slept for hours and no one blamed her.  “Luz, come to bed. You need some rest.” Amity whispered softly.  “There’s others out there Amity, other people that are here and in danger. You heard what The Collector said, about other universes, people could die!” Luz’s tears welled up, making it hard to see.  “We don’t have to worry about that. The only problems we have to deal with are our own.” Amity took Luz’s hands, causing them to share a gaze. “Please come to bed.”  She slowly got up and followed Amity back to their now shared room. Even in Amity’s arms she still could not sleep. She kept thinking about all of the consequences of everyone in the world’s actions. The deaths, the countless realms destroyed under The Collector’s gaze and who knows who else. It was too much to bear.  “Can’t sleep either, huh?” Hunter’s voice perked up from the end of the bed.  “How long have you been sitting down there?” Luz asked.  “A few hours maybe, I can’t get up because Gus’s head is on my shoulder.” He answered, sighing. “I can’t stop thinking about it. Him, I mean. Not Gus, but my uncle.”  “Maybe we could read, that might help us.” Luz slowly left Amity’s arms and walked toward her bookshelf.  She scanned the titles until landing upon one that may cheer Hunter up, Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery. She didn’t normally read dramas but this series was an exception. It brought out the best in most people when they took Anne’s advice.  “What’s it about?” Hunter asked as Luz sat next to him.  “A brave orphan who finds her way in the world.” Luz smiled lightly to herself. “Would you like to hear it?”  “Yes.” He said dejectedly.  Luz placed her hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eyes. “You can talk to me but for now, I’ll talk to you through this.”  Sleepy Peak, OR The day Max realized he had inherited a curse happened to be the very same day he arrived at camp. This new day was distinct from that day. This day, he had left the mess hall and gone into the woods to get some air. He stumbled upon the stream located about ten minutes away. Picking up a few rocks, he began to skip them across the water. His hands began to prickle up with goosebumps, soon traveling onto his face. The moment he looked at himself through the reflection of the lake, he saw it.  Half of his face was covered in white face paint. Above and below his eyes were streaks of red. His reflection’s lips curled into a devious smile. He fell backwards in shock, scratching his hands in the process. He raised his hands to his face, feeling for the makeup. His torture wasn’t done yet. His fingers grew into claws, his legs into that of a spider’s. He tried clawing them away but to no avail.  “Stop! Stop! Fucking stop!” He cried out, his voice distorting.  “Why stop? You’re changing! You are evolving .” An almost comical chuckle came from the back of his mind.  Max screamed out in agony. “Please no! No! No!”  As suddenly as it had all appeared, he had become normal again. He trembled in the grass for what could’ve been minutes, hours, he didn’t care. Until David had found him.  “Max..?” David asked worriedly.  “Don’t touch me!” Max covered his face with his arms. He had done this so many times in front of adults it was routine at this point. But David was different.  “Max, I’m not going to hurt you. Did something happen? Is there a criminal out here?” David moved closer to Max. He made sure to be slow and cautious.  He reached a hand out to Max’s shoulder. “You can tell me-”  “I told you not to touch me!” Max’s voice became a deep growl. He pushed David out of the way and ran away from him. From everyone. He was going to run to where it started. He was going to put an end to this himself. David followed after him.  “Where are you going? Max!” David called after him.  Max made a b-line towards David’s car, hopping in the front seat and turning the keys. It wouldn’t start.  “Fucking piece of shit! Come on!” He turned them again, again, and finally a fourth time before he allowed his head to hit the dashboard.  “Max!” David had reached the car. “At least let me drive you where you need to go.”  “Derry, I need to go to Derry, Maine. I can’t explain this shit right now but please just let me go.” Max sighed. “I’ll give you your phone back.”  “I didn’t even know you had it.” David laughed to himself a little. He motioned for Max to move to the passenger seat. He obliged.  “David! Where are you going?” Gwen ran to the car window.  “I’m taking my vacation days. Look after the kids, okay?” David shared a glance with her before allowing her to back away from the car.  He turned the car around and floored it out of Sleepy Peak. It wasn’t until sixteen hours later when they stumbled upon a gas station did they stop. David had enough needs to last them that long in a car. The two of them hopped out of the car. Max always hated the ding noise the doors made. It made it more difficult to steal and get away with it.  “Whatcha’ need little fella?” The clerk from behind the counter asked kindly.  “Just stocking up. How many chips you got?” Max was mocking him but the guy couldn’t have cared less.  “Just enough kid, you’re free to look. Oh, and welcome to Wyoming.” The clerk returned to reading his newspaper.  Max began to feel a presence, something evil. It practically radiated off of a door in the middle of the drink section. It wasn’t even the freezer, probably just a weirdly placed break room. Curious and afraid, he opened the door.  He saw my apparition, back to him and a creature right next to me, stroking the left side of my face. A creature that took the form of one of my worst fears. He heard everything it said and that was enough for him.  “Hey asshole! You leave her alone!” He shouted. He grabbed my wrist and zoomed out of the room.  I awoke in my body. Yet I was standing next to someone who didn’t even exist in real life. “How am I here?”  “Who the hell are you?”  “I’m Felicity.”  “Max.”  “I know.”  “What the hell do you mean you know?”  “Everything okay over there, sport?” The clerk asked.  “Everything’s fine..sir!” Max lied quickly before letting his voice drop to a whisper. “What the fuck did you mean by ‘you know’?”  I was going to hate telling him. But I had to. After all, I was writing this story and something was trying to change it. And it had been trying for a long time. Before we had gone outside Max had pocketed five granola bars and two slim jims. Much to the oblivious dismay of the clerk. David was off in the distance admiring nature as he typically did. Max yanked on my arm to snap me out of my frantic scanning.  “You mind telling me what the hell is going on?” He retorted, crossing his arms. He was a lot more defensive than I expected him to be. “What was that thing in there and what did you mean when you said you know me?”  “I’m not sure what that thing was,” I ushered out my words. “And I know you because I-well I’ve seen how your life is in a way.”  “Have we met before? Because I don’t understand what you mean by ‘seen how my life is’.” He shook his head in frustration.  “You’re a character in a show. A show that I’ve seen and I write about you.” I confessed, my face in my hands for a brief moment.  He looked as if he were furious. Except, he wasn’t.  “So I’m from a show? Like on TV?”  “A web series actually. You’re the main character-”  “What do you write about me?” He riposted. “What did you fucking write about me? Are you the reason this stuff is happening to me? Are you doing this on purpose? Am I the problem? Am I the fucking problem?”  I truly did underestimate the anger that overwhelmed his childlike wonder. I wasn’t sure what to say next. He had to have thought I was absolutely insane.  “Let me explain,” I sighed, sitting down on the pavement. “Your story is going to help you become a better person. I can’t fully explain it right now but you need to trust me.”  “Do I at least get a happy ending?” He promptly turned to me.  “What?” I wasn’t surprised at his expression, rather the question itself.  “What do I get out of this?” He suddenly became extremely angry again. “Tell me! Tell me now!”  “A family! You get a family! I’m sorry for not wanting to spoil it for you but that’s because it’s what you deserve! A loving family who would do absolutely anything for you! People who would go to the ends of the earth just to see you thrive the way you ought to. People that respect your boundaries and love you unconditionally.” I divulged everything. “Trust me when I say, you, Max, are loved. More than you could possibly know. David loves you. I mean, you’re like his kid to him. And he’s about to drive thirty five more hours just so you can confront your past. And he’ll be there with you every step of the way. Everything happens for a reason, Max. I’m not sure what’s going to happen next but you need to know that we’ll be here.”  He was completely silent.  “Max,” David’s voice broke through the taut air. “Who is this?”  “A friend from home-” He tried to lie but it didn’t work. It rarely worked around David anymore. “She needs to tell you something.”  It was easier to tell David. He looked like a sad puppy the whole time but at least he semi understood. Despite everything his gut told him, this was for the greater good. So he told me to get in the car. Richie didn’t sleep that night. You’re in danger , his brain kept the woman’s words on repeat. His skin prickled with chills as he sat looking over his bowl of soggy cereal. He wanted a life of peace. Still, he knew that always came at a price. Suddenly out of compulsion, he unlocked his phone and booked a flight to Derry. A stupid idea in hindsight but he also didn’t entirely care. He wanted to fix the problem himself.  It was going to depart in two days. He didn’t have any time to rethink his decision and he didn’t want to. He had to do this. His phone continued to buzz in his hand. He attempted to ignore it while taking slow bites of his sad food. That was until he saw a voicemail notification. Reluctantly, he switched tabs and pressed the speaker button.  “ Hey Richie, it’s Mike. Mike Hanlon. You’re probably wondering the cause of this call and quite frankly I am too. It’s Pennywise, he’s back. Somehow he came back four years early. I’m not sure if another creature gave it power or if it evolved. We all need to meet in Derry, two days from now. Nothing more and nothing less. ”   That worked out , He thought to himself. What he didn’t expect next were his tears to nearly flood the bowl in front of him. He would have to see Eddie again. He would have to see all of them, again . In a trice, he received multiple voicemails. Bill, Bev, Ben, Stan, Eddie . They had kept his number this whole time. For twenty three years. He shoved his phone in his pocket and stood up.  “Screw it.” He declared. “I’m going.” He flew up the stairs and into his room. He went into his closet and yanked his suitcase out, throwing it onto his king sized bed. It opened dramatically. He threw as many clothes as possible into the case before zipping it up and slamming it down on the ground.  A fly landing on his neck broke him out of his engrossed haze.  “Gah quit it little shit!” He slapped the fly off of him, killing it.  A faint whisper arose from the shadow of his room. Richie slowly turned around, wiping his nose of an unforeseen bleeding fit. “ Richie ~” He saw it all in his mind. The monsters, the book, his friends, the war, and a deal. At that moment, he realized what Mary Lane meant. Whatever had a hold on him was going to try and use him. He had to be tricky this time. Luckily this time, he would have more backup than he ever thought was imaginable.  Suzie Bingham didn’t expect to ever call Dib Membrane again. She was annoyed at the fact of someone trying to bother her husband by speaking on the past. That wasn’t all she was annoyed about. It was mainly because Dustin hadn’t told her a thing about his crazy life in Hawkins. Only the normal parts. She still wrote down Dib’s number just in case. She was loyal, I’ll give her that. Nonetheless, she was just as possessive as she was when she was younger. For good reason though. Her dad had broken the two of them up way back when just because Dustin was agnostic. While still loyal to her religion, she allowed herself to be loyal to Dustin without guilt. I admired her for that.  This day when she had returned home from her weekly grocery run, he was on the phone.  “Dustin Henderson speaking, who’s this?” He asked.  Suzie peered at him from behind a wall. It had to have been Dib.  “Dib? That’s an interesting name, what uh-what are you calling for?” He continued hesitantly. He hated phone calls now, ones of confrontation especially. “A portal with- - did you say black vines that move on their own?” He grabbed a notepad and pen, quickly jotting down everything Dib was saying. “Grabbed your friend? What location are you in right now? New Jersey? Meet me in Hawkins, Indiana in two days sharp. Alright- - bye.”  “Dusty, what was that about?” Suzie knew well enough.  “He didn’t tell you what he told me? Odd. I need some time in my study. I'll see you later.” He placed a faint kiss on her lips before leaving the room. Leaving her frustrated and speechless.  His study was still littered with overdue library books. Among those were polaroids of times before. Back when Eddie Munson was alive. Even after all these years he missed his friend. Now he had to help someone who lost theirs. It seemed as if you had to either be too quiet or too loud in order to attract a villain’s attention. Eddie was loud, vibrant, and bright. Maybe not in school but in life. His emotional intelligence made up for all of the failed tests. Dustin laughed to himself while holding a polaroid of Eddie at one of their usual Hellfire meets. His laugh became a sob. If he could, he would bring him back.  A week prior, he was indulging in a preview for the new film Frankenweenie . That’s when it hit him. There was never going to be a realistic way to bring anyone back.  Dustin shook off the memory and shifted his focus to Dib’s dilemma. An alien in the Upside Down. Why do I feel like I’ve met them before, he thought. “They said this is the place.” Violet’s hands gripped the steering wheel as she turned into a parking spot. “Stay behind me at all times, this could still be a trap.”  “Violet, I feel like we would know at this point.” Klaus interjected and Sunny made a noise. “Sunny agrees.”  “Beatrice, thoughts?” Violet motioned to her, let's face it, pretty much adopted sister.  “A-gree.” She spoke before giggling.  The Baudelaires stepped out of the car, quickly locking it afterwards. They stood in front of a large warehouse. The storage door was opened revealing only a table and seven chairs. As they got closer, they viewed their names that were on a small piece of paper taped to each chair.  “Hello Baudelaires, I’m Herbert Trubshaw. My son has been expecting you.” A man wearing a box labeled ‘jelly’ over his clothes appeared out of nowhere.  “Hi I’m Eggs, it’s great to meet such creative souls such as yourselves.” The brunette boy held out his hand for each of them to shake.  “Why are we here?” Klaus asked quickly, shaking his hand first.  “Did you know our parents?” Violet’s question overshadowed his, shaking his hand secondly.  “Sure I did, I knew them back in grade school! Prufrock I believe, before I moved to Cheesebridge. I’m so sorry they passed. I came to the funeral but you were too young to remember.” Herbert replied.  “There was never a funeral.” Klaus stepped back a bit.  “That’s right, it was V.F.D. affiliated. Sorry I get a little foggy from time to time.” He turned to Eggs who was speaking with Winnie a little ways away. “Eggs, introduce them to your girlfriend!”  “Oh right! This is Winnie.” Eggs walked back to the Baudelaires.  “Hello.” Winnie shook each of their hands. “Thank you for coming.”   “What are we here for exactly?” Klaus stayed with his question.  “You’re here because we need your help.” Winnie said, glancing down at her fidgety hands.  “We’re building a time machine!” Eggs shouted excitedly, then covered his mouth.  “For what exactly?” Violet questioned, crossing her arms.  “That part’s hard to explain.” Eggs admitted. “We don’t actually know.”   Norman walked through what seemed to be an endless hall. He’d dreamed of this before and he never liked how it ended. A strange humanoid creature would chase him but only he would be the one running. It was always strange when he thought of it in perspective. He never watched anything like Nightmare On Elm Street or anything of that nature. Tonight it scared him though. Tonight it had gotten closer. The creature’s hand slowly hovered over his face and then- -  He awoke, sweat pooling on his forehead. The sun had barely risen causing him to look at his alarm clock. 6:30 A.M. He sighed, letting his head hit the pillow again. He was quiet until he heard a chime. His hand immediately connected to his phone, his eyes glued to the screen. A message from Dipper! And it said to meet him in- - what the hell was Sunnyvale ?  Dipper waited for Norman to reply, not expecting him to be awake that early in the morning. He hoped in all sincerity that he could help him with the more onerous portion of his ability. He could feel an undeniable force pulling him to Norman. A force he couldn’t quite explain.  “Dipper should I go with this sweater that his frog decals or this one that has ghosts?” Mabel held them in each hand dramatically.  “Ghosts, definitely.” He answered, still staring at his phone.  “Oooh is it that girl you’re texting?” Mabel threw the sweaters behind her and rushed to her brother’s side. “Caroline?”  “It’s Cor -aline and no, I’m texting Norman- - he uh- - he can see ghosts.” Dipper got quiet, his hands started shaking. “I didn’t tell him but do you think he could see um- -”  “Whoever died in-” She couldn’t finish the sentence.  “Weirdmageddon.” He said solemnly. “I wonder if we took him up there. If he could see them.”  “Dipper, it’s been a few months. Their souls are at peace now. I’m sure of it.” Her tone shifted.  “How could you say that? The perpetrator is still out there- - hell, I’m in a damn room with her!” His calm disposition cracked. All of his emotions began pouring out. All of the lies, the sacrifices he’d make for her, the fact that he got possessed and she didn’t care. The fact that people had died in the wake of her cowardice.  “I didn’t know you felt that way-”  “We all know well enough, Mabel, it’s burned into our memories after all. See what a dream demon can do?” He threw his phone into his pocket and pushed past her.  He stormed down the stairs and out the front door. He sat down on the doorstep and reached back into his pocket for something. A lighter. He fidgeted with it. Starting a flame then closing it, then doing it again and again. Their parents weren’t home so he didn’t have to worry about them seeing it.  He was held up on the thought of it all. Yet his mind wouldn’t stop trailing off back to the thought of Norman. Dipper had never really thought of liking guys in that way. Now though, he was beginning to think he might’ve been this way all along. Who knows, not that it would change anything, he thought. He put the lighter back in his pocket and noticed the glow from his phone.  Norman had agreed. Coraline had gotten the invitation to Sunnyvale as well. She had heard about the place and decided to pack anything of emotional value. Just in case of a worst case scenario.  “Hey Jonesy-uh whatcha’ doin?” Wybie pried from the doorway of her room. He always worried about her but she couldn’t be more oblivious.  “Packing, I’ve got something I need to get done. A trip or two.” She replied bluntly, stacking one thing on top of another.  “Can I go with you? Where are you going?’ He prodded, lightly touching her shoulder to get her to look at him.  “Sunnyvale, you wouldn’t like it.” She said coldly. “It’s too dangerous for you. You need to stay here.”  “Jonesy, I’m not letting you go meet two strangers in a town you’ve never been to before. Let me keep you safe.” He kept pushing.  “I don’t need you to keep me safe, Wybie! I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself!” She shook his hand away.  “Really? Do you remember what happened last time you said that-” Her glare had shot his words down.  “Listen, I’m doing this whether you like it or not. Follow me if you want because I don’t give a shit.” She spoke brusquely, slamming her now full suitcase down on the ground.  He was wrong. Nothing scared her anymore. Nothing meaning that he was always right of course. When she walked away from him, the rain began to pour. She wanted to take it back and hug him but her legs moved faster than her heart ever could.  No matter who drove there, the drives were consistently cold. Ziggy driving didn’t change a thing. None of the Sunnyvalers present in the car had enough time or money to book a plane. So fifteen hours round trip it was.  Deena glowered out of the backseat window. The only thing holding her together from a mental breakdown was her wife, softly nestling her head on her shoulder. She broke her mood in exchange for a smile. Even if only for a moment.  Josh had been mumbling to himself the entire time while in the passenger seat. “Up up, down down, left right left right, A B start.” His signature nervous saying. He looked out the window and thought about Kate. He thought about how much he missed her “secret” bad girl mentality but mainly about how she really was. Rational, loving, and a total badass.  Ziggy looked at him for a small instant, leaving him a small smile. She wasn’t too sure they’d make it out alive this time. Hence, her drive to make things right with those she loved. She couldn’t let it end like last time. Not again. Never again . 

Mature

—¡Lo siento! Me distraje hablando con Willow y Gus, y perdí la noción del tiempo así que… —Ella está en su cuarto, niña. —Eda dijo mientras tomaba un sorbo de su vaso de sangre de manzana. King dormía profundamente sobre su regazo, aún usando la tiara del Grom que había recogido después de que Luz la había dejado en el suelo. —Yo no… —No, no me agradezcas. Si quieres hablar con ella eres bienvenida. —La vieja bruja terminó su bebida y cerró sus ojos mientras se masajeaba las sienes. Los eventos de la noche de Grom la habían dejado exhausta, y podía sentir a la Bestia Búho chillando dentro de su mente, intentando tumbar las barreras que ella había construido alrededor de ella. Un poco de elixir y una buena noche de sueño eran todo lo que necesitaba, pero también eran un lujo que no se podía dar con dos adolescentes con sentimientos encontrados viviendo bajo su techo—. El Titán sabe que estoy demasiado cansada para lidiar con dramas adolescentes ahora mismo. —¡Gracias, Eda! ¡Eres la mejor! —Marcy Wu prestó poca atención a las palabras de Eda y comenzó a caminar en dirección a las escaleras, deteniéndose un segundo para quitarle la tiara a King de su cabecita somnolienta. Su única reacción fue un leve quejido resultado de algún sueño que tenía sobre conquistar las Islas Hirvientes y gobernarlas con puño de hierro. El corazón de Marcy empezó a latir con violencia mientras caminaba por las escaleras. Había sido amiga de Luz por meses, y a pesar de escuchar la familiar y enfermiza voz de la culpa gritándole cada que la veía desde que el verano había comenzado, Marcy sabía que no podía detener a su corazón. Estaba tan ansiosa como temerosa de verla otra vez y de hablar con ella. Al llegar al segundo piso se tropezó, cayendo con fuerza sobre el suelo. Se sonrojó de pena al escuchar la risa lejana de Eda viniendo de la cocina, sin embargo, decidió ignorarla para levantarse y observar a su izquierda una puerta de madera cubierta con docenas de pegatinas y marcas talladas que mostraban el sello de la familia real de Amphibia. Era común ver a Marcy quedándose en la noche a dormir con Luz, usualmente los fines de semana, cuando no tenía que inventar excusas a sus padres sobre su ausencia en su hogar. Dudó por un par de segundos sobre si debía entrar o no, y cuando su mano se posó sobre el picaporte dorado, se sentía helado al tacto. Marcy había practicado la conversación que tendría miles de veces desde que el Grom había terminado, pero al verse a pocos metros de ella, su valentía se había evaporado como humo en el viento. Marcy se armó del poco valor que le quedaba, repitiéndose que Sasha Waybright no sería una cobarde y enfrentaría cualquier cosa sin dudar ni un segundo. Claro que, Marcy se dijo a sí misma mientras entraba a la habitación, Sash habría hablado con Luz mucho antes. —Lu, ¿estás bien? —Marcy dijo suavemente mientras observaba el cuarto de su amiga. No tenía la intención de interrumpirla con lo que sea que estuviese haciendo en ese momento, pues incluso ella podía ver que Luz necesitaba un poco de tiempo a solas para digerir los eventos ocurridos durante y después de la pelea contra Grometheus. Eda lo sabía bien, al igual que King e incluso Hooty lo sabía, pero ninguno de ellos se atrevió a detener a Marcy de ir tras de ella, e incluso si lo hubieran hecho, nada la hubiera mantenido lejos de ayudar a una amiga en problemas. A pesar de que una voz en su cabeza, sospechosamente parecida a Lady Olivia, le aconsejaba que pensara mejor la situación, Marcy se dirigió directamente a donde se encontraba Luz, a pesar de que sus zapatos la estaban matando y se sentía incómoda en el vestido rosa que Eda le había vendido especialmente para el baile. Podía ver claramente a Luz, sentada junto a la ventana mientras observaba con una mirada perdida al cielo nocturno de las Islas. Marcy supuso que ella no la había escuchado, y decidió acercarse más, cuidando que Luz no se sorprendiera por su presencia. Una vez más, Marcy agradeció las lecciones que la General Juvina, el flagelo de las Garras de Arena, la vencedora de Ragnar el Desgraciado, y el tritón más joven en alcanzar el rango de General en el ejército de Nuevatopia, le había enseñado sobre el arte del espionaje, incluso si sus lecciones eran tan poco ortodoxas como el aprender a usar su inexistente cola para colgarse del techo para evitar ser detectada. Marcy se sorprendió al encontrarse tan cerca de Luz y que ésta siguiese sin notar su presencia, con su vista fija en los pequeños puntos brillantes que alumbraban el velo oscuro que envolvía el firmamento. Marcy sabía que era tonto sentirse herida por ser ignorada, pues Luz probablemente seguía absorta en sus propios pensamientos, recordando los eventos ocurridos aquella noche, pero, aun así, el familiar dolor que hacía tanto que no sentía volvió a asomar su horrible cabeza. —¿Luz? —Con extremo cuidado de no asustarla, Marcy tocó el hombro de Luz con una mano temblorosa. Luz se sobresaltó por el cándido gesto y cayó al suelo mientras gritaba de sorpresa. Marcy no perdió el tiempo en ofrecerle una mano amiga, mientras ignoraba por segunda vez las risas burlonas de Eda que venían de la planta baja. Confundida, Luz no se dio cuenta que había sido Marcy la responsable de interrumpir sus pensamientos. —¡Mar! —Con una voz en extremo emocionada, como si nada de gran importancia hubiese ocurrido esa noche, Luz saludó a su amiga. Su sonrisa y actitud despreocupada no reflejaban el tumulto de emociones y sensaciones que pasaban por su cabeza—. Cielos, sí que eres sigilosa. Un día de estos me tienes que enseñar como hacer eso. —Oh, esto no es nada, en serio. —Al igual que ocurría siempre que Luz alababa cualquier cosa que ella dijese o hiciese, Marcy se sonrojó levemente al sentirse querida y apreciada por alguien más. Era la misma sensación que sentía cuando Sasha o Anne la halagaban después de terminar un proyecto grupal con éxito, pero era diferente cuando esos elogios provenían de Luz, pues se sentían más cálidos, con un cariño distinto—. Tuve una maestra bastante buena, incluso si la General Juvina actuaba de manera un poco extraña cuando se trataba de enseñar. Marcy se refería a la ocasión en que Juvina le encargó recuperar una antigua armadura de un viejo fuerte controlado por bandidos. Al día siguiente de su misión, Marcy se había despertado con todos sus músculos adoloridos y apenas si podía mover sus piernas antes de que su cuerpo le gritase que se acostara para descansar. —Ojalá la hubiese podido conocer. Cuando hablas de ella siempre la haces sonar como si fuera el tritón más genial del mundo. —Luz se sentó en el suelo, haciéndole una seña a Marcy de que hiciese lo mismo. Ambas chicas estaban cerca la una de la otra, en un completo silencio nacido de la amistad y la familiaridad que ellas compartían. —Fuera de Lady Olivia, la General Juvina era la mejor. Siempre volvía loca a la pobre Olivia con sus cosas, especialmente cuando llegó a un baile organizado en honor al Capitán Mugre con la cabeza de una Mantis Gigante. ¿Ya te había contado lo que ocurrió después? Lady Olivia gritó tanto que Andrias juraba que toda la población de Nuevatopia se había enterado de lo ocurrido. Y después de que ella se calmó, se volvió a molestar cuando Juvina… Durante la siguiente media hora, Marcy narró sobre las diferentes formas en que Juvina solía molestar a Lady Olivia y sobre otras aventuras que había vivido en la capital de Amphibia previas a la llegada de Anne y los Plantar. Había pasado más de un año desde la fallida invasión de Andrias y de que ella había logrado recuperar su amistad con sus amigas, así que ya no le dolía pensar en la vida que había dejado atrás, pues había descubierto que compartir los eventos de Amphibia con Luz era algo casi terapéutico para ella, pues le ayudaba a mantener a todos sus amigos vivos en su corazón, desde la General Juvina y Lady Olivia, los tritones con los que jugaba juegos de rol e incluso al Rey Andrias. —Amphibia suena tan diferente a las Islas Hirvientes. —Luz dijo con voz soñadora cuando Marcy terminó de contar sobre su batalla contra unos piratas que aterrorizaban las costas de Nuevatopia—. Digo, nada ha intentado comernos desde que llegamos aquí. —¿Qué hay de ese tipo, Adegast? —Marcy puso un dedo en su barbilla, pensando en cada aventura que había tenido con Luz donde casi habían terminado devoradas por alguna criatura. Recordó a Adegast, el demonio al que ella accidentalmente había prendido en llamas, revelando así su verdadera forma. Y al pensar en la Reptibestia, con sus grandes colmillos y su aliento apestoso, no pudo evitar sentirse nostálgica por las criaturas nativas de Amphibia. —Bueno, supongo que él cuenta. —De repente, la actitud alegre y despreocupada de Luz se desvaneció—. Y no sé si debería contar a Grometheus en esa categoría. —Cierto, Grom. Me había olvidado de él. —Con un gran esfuerzo, Marcy soportó las ganas de ocultar su rostro detrás de sus manos y soltar un quejido. No podía creer que había gastado tanto tiempo hablando de cualquier cosa excepto de la razón por la cual se encontraba despierta tan tarde. —No sé si Grom me hubiera comido, tal vez sea alérgico a la carne humana, pero estoy contenta de no haberlo averiguado. —Una risa seca escapó de sus labios antes de mirar a Marcy. Luz se sorprendió al ver a su amiga con una expresión acongojada en su mirada, pero antes de poder preguntar sobre ello, Marcy habló primero. —¿Cómo te sientes? Después de lo de Grom y todo eso. Al ver que Luz no le respondía y solo se quedaba en silencio por unos momentos, Marcy comenzó a preocuparse más. Eran muchas las ocasiones en que deseaba tener la habilidad de Anne o Sasha para hacer parecer todo mejor encontrando las palabras correctas en el momento adecuado. Tal vez si fuera más como ellas, Marcy se lamentó en silencio, podría ayudar a Luz. —No, bueno, no. Digo, si, no. Ay, no sé. —La voz de Luz era apenas un susurro que Marcy a duras penas logró escuchar—. Es complicado. —¿Por qué? —El corazón de Marcy comenzó a latir con más fuerza, sentía como su cabeza estaba a punto de dar vueltas y tenía un nudo en la garganta que la hacía querer tirarse al suelo a llorar. Su mente no dejaba de recordarle el momento en que Luz y Amity bailaron juntas para derrotar a Grometheus. Por un lado, Marcy se había maravillado al ver a Luz moviéndose elegantemente bajo la brillante luz de la luna, pues era todo lo que ella se había imaginado que sería y más. Pero lo que más le molestaba a Marcy era el hecho de no haber sido ella quien tuvo el privilegio de bailar con Luz, y eso le dolía. Algo dentro de ella le hacía pensar si no se trataba de alguna clase de karma cósmico por haber hecho que Anne cortara con su exnovio por ella. —Es por… —Marcy no terminó su oración, dejando la última palabra desvanecerse antes de siquiera salir de sus labios, no queriendo tener a sus sueños y esperanzas destruidas aún, teniendo la esperanza de que su amiga no sintiese nada por aquella joven bruja de cabellos verdes. —Si, es sólo que… —La voz de Luz, al contrario de lo que Marcy hubiese pensado, sonaba llena de pesar y tristeza, contrario a la felicidad con la que la otra humana pensaba que hablaría—. Me preocupa lo que mi mamá piense sobre todo esto. —Cierto, tu mamá. —Marcy sonrió y dejó escapar un suspiro de alivio. Luz la observó extrañada, haciendo que la chica asiática se sonrojara de pena. La otra chica no le tomó demasiada importancia y se dispuso a explicarle su situación. —Es sólo que… ¿Cómo le puedo explicar que todo lo que hubiera hecho en el campamento de verano lo estoy haciendo aquí en las Islas Hirvientes? Claro que todo lo de ‘seguir viviendo en un mundo de fantasía’ pierde su significado ahora que sabemos que la magia existe, ¡pero al menos estoy haciendo más amigos aquí! Antes de venir aquí, solo te tenía a ti, —Luz puso una mano tímida sobre el hombro de Marcy, un gesto sin importancia para ella pero que representaba mucho para la otra—. ¡Ahora somos amigas de Eda, King, Willow, Gus y Amity! Luz no pudo soportar el nudo cada vez más doloroso que sentía en su garganta y sus ojos empezaron a humedecerse con amargas lágrimas que amenazaban con fluir libremente por su rostro. El corazón de Marcy empezó a romperse al ver a su querida amiga tan abatida. Odiaba cuando Luz dejaba de ser esa chica alegre y carismática de la que se había hecho amiga y mostraba ese lado más deprimente y apagado suyo. Marcy pocas veces se enojaba, pero recordaba con claridad cuando una de las porristas de la escuela se burló de Luz por su fallida audición en la obra de Romeo y Julieta. Marcy no se preocupó por golpear a la otra chica tanto como se preocupó por asegurarse que Luz no se sintiese tan mal. Marcy hubiese querido hacer algo para consolarla en ese entonces, pero todo lo que pudo hacer fue estar junto a ella y hacerla sentir mejor. —Solo desearía que ella pudiese conocerlos y darse cuenta de que las Islas son lo segundo mejor que me pudo haber ocurrido. —Luz logró sonreír un poco al pensar en un día de enero en particular—. Pero estoy segura de que ella solo me va a odiar por mentirle tanto tiempo. —¡Vamos, Lu! —Marcy hizo un gran esfuerzo para mostrarle una sonrisa honesta a su amiga. Sabía que pocas cosas ella podía hacer para hacer feliz a su amiga, pues al contrario que Anne, ella no podía vivir una aventura de diez minutos para logra consolar a un amigo, y ella no era Sasha, quien convencería a Luz de que todos sus problemas parecían mínimos comparados con cualquier otra cosa. Pero tampoco se podía quedar de brazos cruzados—. ¡Estás hablando de tu mamá! Ella es la segunda mejor mamá que he conocido, después de la Sra. Boonchuy. Ella no me odia a pesar de lo que ocurrió con el microondas. —Para ser honesta, yo fui la de la idea de usar el microondas. Estaba 90% segura que lo podíamos arreglar. —Luz logró sonreír al recordar aquella mañana de Domingo en la cual ellas dos desarmaron el viejo microondas para encontrar algo que pudieran usar para sus campañas de Criaturas y Cavernas—. Además, ya íbamos a tirar eso a la basura. —¿En serio? —No, de hecho, no. —En cualquier caso, —Marcy se sentía incómoda sentada en el piso con su vestido rosa. Daría lo que fuese por poder usar algo más cómodo, pero había dejado su muda de ropa en la Tierra—. No creo que tu mamá se enoje demasiado contigo. Ella te ama, Lu. Y si quieres, podríamos invitar a todos a la Tierra con nosotras cuando el verano termine. Estoy segura de que a Gus le encantaría ver un refrigerador que no intente devorar a quien lo abra. Y a tu mamá le gustan las plantas, ¿verdad? Oh, ella y Willow se llevarán como caracoles y aves. —Eso es bueno, ¿verdad? —Luz evitó la mirada sonriente de Marcy y ocultó su rostro entre sus manos. Marcy se sintió mal, pues creía que Luz solo se había entristecido más con sus palabras. La chica del vestido rosa estaba a punto de disculparse y levantarse para pedirle a Eda que la regresara al mundo humano cuando Luz levantó la vista. Sus ojos estaban rojos e hinchados, y algunas cuantas lágrimas podían alcanzar a verse, pero se mostraba más alegre de lo que había estado antes. —Gracias, Mar. —Luz logró mostrar una pequeña sonrisa antes de acercarse y abrazarla. Marcy se sorprendió por el repentino gesto, pues a pesar de que era común que su amiga la abrazase cada que ellas se despedían después de terminar la escuela, seguía sintiendo el mismo calor dentro de sí que llegaba hasta su corazón y su rostro, el cual se había tornado rojo—. Eres la mejor amiga que alguien pudiese desear. —¡Claro! ¡Mejores amigas por siempre! —Marcy trató de ignorar el quejido de dolor que sentía en su corazón al escuchar esa pequeña palabra, muestra de que nunca serían nada más que eso. —Lo digo en serio, Mar. No sé dónde estaría si no fuese por ti. —Luz no solo estaba siendo tierna con su amiga, estaba diciendo la verdad. Aunque el tener que ir al campamento de verano había sido algo que no pudo evitar, consecuencia de un fallido experimento de química por el cual Luz se echó toda la culpa, Marcy había evitado otros desastres que hubiesen afectado aún más la vida escolar de Luz. El proyecto de Biología original de Luz, el crear un grifo disecado con arañas vivas de verdad, había sido cambiado por una demostración de la fisionomía de los tritones y los sapos. Y, después de eso, Luz pudo comprender porque Marcy le había ofrecido su amistad, a pesar de sus propias excentricidades e ideas, las cuales su nueva amiga alimentaba y ayudaba a crecer—. Antes dije que las Islas son lo segundo mejor que me ha pasado en mi vida. Conocerte siempre será la primer mejor cosa. Marcy sentía como el nudo de su garganta estaba a punto de explotar. Tuvo que respirar profundamente para no llorar. Después de irse de Los Ángeles y dejar atrás a su vida entera, a sus dos mejores y únicas amigas del mundo, Marcy dudaba que volvería a encontrar a alguien tan especial para ella como lo habían sido Sasha y Anne, alguien que la aceptara con todo y sus excentricidades como ellas lo habían hecho. Pero lo hizo, cuando encontró a Luz Noceda, la chica rara de la escuela, quien parecía tener la misma capacidad de meterse en problemas que de alejar a todos quienes con quienes quisiera entablar una amistad. Marcy la había visto antes, casi siempre esperando cabizbaja afuera de la oficina del director, hablando consigo misma o leyendo alguno de los libros de La Buena Bruja Azura que ella siempre quiso leer. Y, una vez se hicieron amigas, Marcy volvió a encontrar ese amor por los juegos de rol que había desaparecido después de los eventos ocurridos en Amphibia. Su amistad era tan perfecta como ella lo hubiese deseado, lo que hacía que su enamoramiento fuese más trágico, pues lo último que Marcy quería era arruinar las cosas con alguien que la complementaba tanto como Luz. En medio de un cómodo silencio, y después de ver como Marcy parecía a punto de echarse a llorar, a Luz se le ocurrió una idea. Pasarían muchos meses y muchos cambios en su vida y la chica dominicana nunca descubriría lo que le pasaba por la cabeza aquella fría noche. Se acercó un poco más a Marcy y, moviéndose tan torpe como un cervatillo recién nacido, le plantó un pequeño beso en su mejilla. Marcy recordaba con claridad la primera vez que conoció a Joe Sparrow y surcó los cielos azules de Amphibia. Nunca pensaba que sentiría algo mejor que la emoción de volar por primera vez montando un ave gigante, la adrenalina fluyendo por sus venas, el frío viento que golpeaba su rostro y el temor que la revitalizó cuando Joe decidió caer en picada cuando vio a una manada de hiebejas que acechaban a unos pobres mercaderes cerca de las puertas de Nuevatopia. Marcy solía creer que nada podría compararse a ese momento. Ahora, ella no estaba tan segura de ello. Marcy sentía que su corazón estaba a punto de estallar y creía firmemente que Eda, King y Hooty podían ver su rostro, tan rojo que parecía un tomate maduro, desde el piso de abajo. Su cabeza empezó a dar vueltas y se hubiera desmayado y caído al suelo si no fuese porque Luz la miraba fijamente. Aunque si Marcy estuviese en completo control de sus sentidos, se hubiera dado cuenta que su amiga estaba en la misma situación, con su rostro igual de ruborizado y usando toda su fuerza para no gritar y escapar de la habitación. Luz intentó decir algo, disculparse por ese gesto tan repentino, pero, de haberlo hecho, Marcy solo la hubiera tranquilizado y le hubiera dicho lo mucho que apreciaba el pequeño beso. En su lugar, ambas chicas permanecieron en un completo silencio, evitando la mirada de la otra, perdida cada una en sus propios pensamientos. Luz estaba a punto de tener un ataque de pánico por todas las cosas que le habían ocurrido en tan poco tiempo. Luz ya estaba cansada cuando Marcy llegó, pues el enfrentarse a sus peores miedos y el darse cuenta de que sus mentiras terminarían un día y solo lastimaría a su madre la habían drenado de toda su energía. Sin embargo, logró encontrar las fuerzas para seguir despierta después de ver a su amiga, quien sigilosamente había entrado al cuarto que ellas dos compartían. Era el resultado de la inusual amistad que ellas dos habían formado. Las palabras que había dicho antes estaban llenas de verdad, Luz nunca podría agradecerle a Marcy lo suficiente por haberse convertido en su amiga, por ser la única persona en la escuela a la que no le importaba su fascinación con mundos fantásticos, con la magia o los monstruos imaginarios. Tener a Marcy a su lado, durante las clases y el receso, hicieron que Luz no se sintiera como la chica rara que nadie quería. Pero desde que habían encontrado el portal que las había transportado a las Islas Hirvientes, Luz había comenzado a notar ciertos cambios en su relación con Marcy. Un sentimiento al que no le podía poner nombre se manifestaba dentro de sí cada que la tenía cerca, una presión en su corazón que la hacía temer un ataque cardiaco y morir sin poder nunca descubrir la causa detrás de su aflicción. Las manos sudorosas, los temblores, la sensación de desmayarse que sentía cada que Marcy se acercaba demasiado para mostrarle el final secreto que había desbloqueado en algún videojuego, eran señales que Luz reconocía bien de todos los fanfics que había escrito y leído, pero se negaba a aceptar sus sentimientos. Marcy solo podía pensar en el momento exacto en que empezó a enamorarse de Luz. Tal vez todo había comenzado esa mañana durante la clase de Educación Física en que su amiga había volteado sus párpados, asustando a todos excepto a Marcy, quien por primera vez desde que había dejado Los Ángeles atrás, comenzó a reírse por las acciones de la otra chica. O tal vez había sido durante esa primera clase de Biología juntas, cuando escuchó con atención la descripción de los grifos y por qué estos debían de tener aliento de arañas. Podría haber sido durante esa mañana de sábado, cuando encontró a Luz en la tienda de antigüedades y ella se ofreció a pasar su tiempo con ella, escuchando sobre todas las cosas que tenía planeadas para sus sesiones de C&C. O tal vez, y solo tal vez, Marcy se había enamorado de Luz esa tarde cerca del final del ciclo escolar, cuando después de un experimento fallido de Química, Luz tuvo que cargar con la culpa de todo, salvando a Marcy de una mancha en sus archivos escolares. No había sido culpa de ninguna de ellas, simplemente se había tratado de un error humano, pero terminó con la mitad del laboratorio cubierto de espuma y el ala oeste de la escuela con un olor a huevos podridos. Marcy sabía que el director Hal era infinitamente más estricto que la directora Murphy, así que Luz, para proteger a su nueva amiga, habló con la profesora de Química y logró salvar a Marcy de un castigo. Después de esperar afuera de la escuela por horas a que Luz saliera del aula de detención, Marcy la confrontó. Se disculpó efusivamente por no haber aclarado el asunto, pues de haberlo hecho, no tendría que pasar el verano en un campamento para hacerla ‘normal’. Se llevó una gran sorpresa cuando Luz, en lugar de ignorarla o gritarle enojada que no quería seguir siendo su amiga, le sonrió y la tranquilizó diciendo que todo estaría bien. Pero aún más importante, era que Marcy podía sentirse como ella misma junto a Luz. Podía pasar horas hablando de alguna decisión equivocada que tomó en algún juego de rol, de lo ocurrido durante la planeación de alguna campaña de Criaturas y Cavernas o de como estuvo a punto de batir su propio récord en Vagabondia Chronicles, y ella nunca se aburría de escucharla. Podían ver War of the Warlocks y Marcy podría explicar la trama cientos de veces y Luz no diría nada. Y el tener un pequeño enamoramiento en su amiga más cercana, geográficamente hablando, no era algo que a Marcy le disgustara. Cuando se dio cuenta que no podía seguir guardando sus sentimientos o explotaría, le contó a Sasha y a Anne en una de sus videollamadas diarias. Habló de la manera en que Luz la hacía sentir, el cómo compartían tantas cosas en común y de alguna manera lograban ser tan distintas, la forma en que ambas podían pasar horas jugando C&C sin aburrirse y el como ella la hacía sentir tan feliz. Tiempo después, Sasha le contó a Marcy que los vecinos de Anne llamaron a la policía después de escuchar sus gritos de emoción al enterarse del crush de su amiga. Sasha, quien era un poco más reticente en aceptar que Marcy estuviese enamorada de alguien, tomó con cuidado la noticia, recomendándole a ella que esperara un poco más para conocer mejor a Luz. Sin embargo, días previos al baile del Grom, ambas chicas ya estaban planeando la mejor manera en que su amiga pudiese confesar sus sentimientos. —Mar, yo… —Luz comenzó a hablar, sin saber exactamente cómo disculparse por sus acciones tan imprudentes. Marcy no la dejó continuar, diciendo lo primero que le llegó a la cabeza. —¡No te preocupes, Lu! —Ella tenía una sonrisa demasiada tan falsa como grande en su rostro—. No… No me molesta. Yo… Pero Marcy no pudo continuar, la vergüenza de admitir sus sentimientos solo para ser rechazada y perder a una amiga como Luz era demasiado. Y Luz no pudo explicarse mejor, el temor de alejar a la primera persona que no la había tratado como a un bicho raro era mucho para ella. —Sabes, pensé que habías regresado a la Tierra. —La tímida voz de Luz sorprendió un poco a Marcy. Al ver la expresión de su rostro, Luz enrojeció apenada y agregó: ¡No es que no me gusta tenerte junto a mí! ¡Digo, aquí en mi cuarto! ¡Tu cuarto! ¡Nuestro cuarto! ¡En el que dormimos! Ay, carajo. —¿Eh? —Marcy no respondió la pregunta, seguía atontada por el beso que su amiga le había dado. No se le había pasado por la cabeza el regresar a la Tierra, a pesar de que sabía que sus amigas se preocuparían por no tener noticias de ella después de contarles sobre el baile de Grom—. No, no. Es… Bueno, es sábado y mis padres salieron en un viaje de negocios. No se darán cuenta que no estoy en casa. —Cierto, cierto. —Luz, mejor que nadie, sabía que no debía preguntar demasiado sobre la vida familiar de Marcy. Había conocido a los señores Wu una vez y había sido suficiente para ella. Su frialdad la había desconcertado, no podía creer que la tierna y dulce Marcy Wu tuviera padres tan desapegados como los suyos. Y podía comprender perfectamente por qué ella prefería pasar su tiempo libre en la escuela o en la casa de las Noceda, donde Camila no ocultaba su emoción al ver a la única amiga de su única hija. Luz y Marcy usualmente pasaban el tiempo jugando Criaturas y Cavernas, Vagabondia Chronicles, o simplemente pensando en teorías e ideas para fanfics sobre sus animes favoritos. A veces, Marcy compartía sus aventuras en Amphibia, mientras Luz deseaba tener una experiencia similar con ella, Anne y Sasha—. De todas maneras, ¡estoy muy feliz que hayas decidido quedarte! ¡Mañana podríamos salir todos juntos! Tú, Willow, Gus, Amity y yo. ¿Has visto la biblioteca de Huesosburgo? ¡Eda mencionó que la feria llega mañana! Todos nosotros podríamos ir y… Marcy escuchó con atención a su amiga, pero algo que ella había mencionado hacía ruido dentro de sí. Ella sabía que tenía pocas razones para sentirse celosa de Amity Blight, la bruja de cabellos verdes que había intentado diseccionar a su amiga, pues ella no la conocía tanto, pero la mera mención de su nombre escapando de sus labios había sido suficiente para hacer que su corazón se estrujase de dolor, con tal fuerza que parecía que lo aplastaría hasta que nada quedase de él, excepto una masa sanguinolenta, la única prueba de sus sentimientos no correspondidos. Pero no podía evitar sentir los horribles e inmundos tentáculos de los celos acercándose cada vez más y más cerca de su ser. La primera vez que se había dado cuenta que no podía ocultar más lo que sentía por Luz y que estaba dispuesta a todo con tal de mantenerla a su lado fue cuando corrió detrás de Eda, King, Gus y el resto de los estudiantes de Hexside, y vio como su amiga era salvada no por ella, sino por la peliverde. Tuvo que soportar el ver, con asombro y angustia en partes iguales, como ambas chicas bailaban juntas bajo la brillante luz de la pálida luna, tan distinta de aquella que adoraba observar en sus días en Amphibia, cuando su corazón había sido destrozado por primera vez por una chica distinta. Una chica de cabellos rizados cuyo corazón había sido robado impunemente por una chica rubia con mala actitud. Tal vez, y solo tal vez, si Marcy no estuviese tan enamorada de Luz, pensaría que ella y Amity hacían una bonita pareja. La inocente chica humana que logró cambiar a la presumida y cruel bruja. Pero su corazón le gritaba enojado por siquiera atreverse a pensar en ello. —¿Qué opinas, Mar? —La pregunta de Luz sacó a Marcy de sus pensamientos. Su amiga la observó con sus grandes ojos marrones, y su respuesta fue mirarla de vuelta, indicándole con la mirada que repitiera la pregunta—. Ya sabes, sobre ir a la feria mañana. Si no tienes nada mejor que hacer, por supuesto. —C-claro. Me encantaría ir contigo. ¡Con todos, quiero decir! —Marcy añadió rápidamente, esperando que Luz no sospechara, con certeza, lo que en realidad quería decir. —¡Perfecto! ¡Es una ci…! ¡Me alegro! —Luz le mostró a Marcy una gran y brillante sonrisa. La otra chica sonrió de vuelta, deseando ser lo suficientemente atrevida para poder besarla en los labios, abrazarla y sentir su corazón latiente junto al suyo, su calor dándole abrigo en la fría noche que tanto caracterizaba a las Islas Hirvientes. Pero no pudo. Aunque tuviese el valor necesario, había perdido mucho tiempo hablando sobre la General Juvina, su extravagante entrenamiento, las muchas hazañas que lograron juntas y sus fallidos intentos de coquetear con Lady Olivia. Era obvio hasta para Marcy que Luz estaba cansada. Sus hermosos ojos cafés se tardaban más al abrirse después de parpadear, su voz era muy baja y sus movimientos eran cada vez más lentos y torpes. Claros indicios de que estaba exhausta y necesitaba una buena noche de descanso. Pero la duda que había sido plantada antes seguía dentro de ella, molestándola como un parásito que se negaba a morir. Sabiendo que no tendría otra oportunidad de hablar de ello, y siguiendo el ejemplo que sin duda Sasha le recomendaría, Marcy hizo la pregunta que hasta ese entonces, no sabía que albergaba dentro de sí. —Así que… ¿Cómo se sintió? Bailar con Amity y vencer a Grometheus, quiero decir. Una vez derroté a un grupo de piratas, pero creo que ninguno de ellos podía cambiar su forma. —Marcy fingió un hipócrita interés en su pregunta. Temía pensar en la respuesta de su amiga, pues los mismos celos que la estaban destruyendo por dentro le impedían pensar que el beso de antes significase algo más que amistad. Le asustaba la posibilidad de que Luz confesase estar enamorada de la joven bruja, pues, ¿Cómo podía ella, Marcy Wu, compararse con alguien como Amity Blight? La señorita perfecta, con un conocimiento casi infinito de las Islas Hirvientes y su magia. Alguien que sin duda podría hacer a Luz más feliz de lo que ella alguna vez podría soñar. —Fue genial y todo eso, pero… —Luz se detuvo un segundo para ordenar sus pensamientos—. Estaba tan preocupada en no arruinar las cosas que no presté mucha atención. Creo que estaba más enfocada en no ser devorada por Grom que actué por puro instinto. —¿En serio? —Un destello de esperanza apareció en los ojos esmeralda de Marcy. Las palabras de Luz le hacían creer que había una pequeña posibilidad de que sus sentimientos fuesen correspondidos. —¡Sip! Estaba sudando durante todo el baile. No podía dejar de pensar que terminaría cayendo del abominable de Amity y que haría el ridículo frente a toda la escuela. Por suerte, ella fue demasiado genial y nos sacó adelante a las dos. —Luz se rió tontamente al pensar en las absurdas caras que debió haber hecho. —¡No digas eso, Lu! ¡Nunca había visto algo tan maravilloso como tu baile! ¡Estabas tan hermosa ahí arriba! Si el Núcleo, por alguna razón, volviese a aparecer para ofrecerle a Marcy ser su huésped una vez más, ella le recibiría con brazos abiertos. Apenas podía creer las palabras que habían brotado de sus labios. Todo lo que quería ahora era huir del cuarto, de la Casa Búho y hundir su cara en las aguas hirvientes de las Islas. Pero sus pies la traicionaron y todo lo que podía hacer era ver la cara estupefacta de Luz, quien solo abría y cerraba su boca como un pez fuera del agua. —Luz, y-y-y-y-yo —Marcy no logró encontrar las palabras para explicarse antes de que su amiga hablase. Su voz estaba temblorosa, como si acabase de beber más tazas de café de las que una chica de su edad debía tomar, y lo que dijo terminó por acabar con la poca cordura que le quedaba a Marcy. —¡Tú también te veías hermosa, Mar! ¡Te am… ¡Amé ese vestido rosa tuyo! —Luz no perdió el tiempo en cubrir su boca con sus manos, evitando decir algo más comprometedor. Marcy sentía como su cabeza comenzaba a dar vueltas, y si no se desmayó fue puramente por la fuerza de voluntad que creía que la había abandonado hacía tiempo. —¡G-gracias, Lu! Lady Olivia me dio uno parecido cuando llegué por primera vez a Amphibia. —Para evitar más confesiones incómodas, Marcy decidió cambiar de tema. —¡Ten! Es tu tiara del Grom. King la llevaba puesta, pero, bueno, pensé que la querrías de vuelta. —Sacó la corona dorada con la hermosa gema rosada en medio de su bolsa y se la entregó a Luz. La latina la observó con cuidado, pensando en todo lo que representaba esa pequeña obra de arte. Recordó el baile con Amity, la manera en que ambas bailaron juntas, la cercanía de sus rostros y, más importante, la lucha encarnizada contra sus peores miedos. Luz había encontrado un nuevo respeto por la peliverde, pues a pesar de sus dudas, Amity había sido lo suficientemente valiente como para enfrentarse a sus miedos, al rechazo por parte de la chica a quien quería invitar al Grom. Luz pensaba que, si Amity pudo hacerlo, no había razón alguna de que ella no. Pero no podía. No podía decirle a Marcy que a pesar del baile con Amity, a pesar de ser alabada por todo Hexside, a pesar de sentirse feliz consigo misma por haber ayudado a una amiga en apuros, que a pesar de haber pasado una hermosa noche con todos sus amigos, haciendo tonterías durante el baile en el que había sido el mejor momento de su joven vida, ella hubiera renunciado a todo eso por la oportunidad de tener un baile con esa persona especial, un baile secreto, ajeno a los ojos curiosos de los demás. Así que, como una muestra más de lo mucho que ambas se merecían la una a la otra, Luz volvió a cambiar de tema. —¡Gracias! Aunque le tenemos que conseguir una nueva corona a King. ¿Recuerdas lo molesto que se puso cuando perdimos su corona del Burger Queen? —Luz esperaba que Marcy no se hubiese dado cuenta de lo nerviosa que se puso cuando ella tocó su mano. —¡Diablos! —Marcy exclamó sobresaltada—. ¡Olvidé recoger una antes de venir aquí! Luz suspiró de ternura al ver la reacción de su amiga. Adoraba la manera en que ella se exaltaba por cualquier cosa, por más pequeña e insignificante que pareciese. La manera en que sus ojos se expandían y su boca formaba esa perfecta ‘o’ solo la hacían quererla más—. No te preocupes, Mar. Le traeremos algo cuando regresemos a la Tierra. Marcy observó con amor como Luz bostezaba, abriendo su boca y cerrando sus ojos por un segundo para reponer un poco de energía. Estaba a punto de decirle que era hora de que ambas se fuesen a dormir cuando Luz hizo otra pregunta. —¿Cómo eran los bailes en Amphibia? ¿Eran más parecidos a los que aparecen en La Buena Bruja Azura, con magia y montones de cosas elegantes? ¿O son más como los de Cynthia Coven? Con intriga y asesinos acechando en las sombras. La chica taiwanesa sonrió de nostalgia al recordar los múltiples eventos a los que asistía cuando vivía en la corte del Rey Andrias. A pesar de no haber comprendido toda la etiqueta requerida para no hacer el ridículo, siempre contaba con la ayuda de Lady Olivia, quien hacía su mejor esfuerzo para que su joven pupila no ofendiera por accidente a algún noble tritón curioso por la humana que había llegado a ese mundo. —Son más parecidos a los de War of the Warlocks, de hecho. Todo era bastante aburrido, demasiadas reglas, ¿sabes? Excepto cuando Juvina aparecía con la cabeza de algún monstruo que ella había cazado. —Marcy contuvo una risa al pensar en todo lo que la pobre Olivia sufría para justificar la falta de modales de la General—. Era la parte más interesante de los bailes. —Me hubiera gustado mucho asistir a uno de esos en persona. —A veces Juvina me sacaba a bailar, no se molestaba de que le pisara los pies por accidente, y no le preocupaba que no tuviese nada de coordinación. Y, a veces, si me portaba bien y no prendía nada en llamas, Lady Olivia me daba un poco de su vino de moras. Sabía demasiado dulce y siempre despertaba con un dolor de cabeza. Luz pensó en la manera en que Marcy había actuado en Hexside. Luz era la nueva atracción de la escuela, al ser la única humana que asistía a clases, así que el ver a otra humana igual de curiosa que ella había atraído mucha atención. Edric y Emira le habían hecho infinidad de preguntas a Marcy. Viney, Jerbo y Barcus habían intentado bailar con ella, pero la humana se excusó diciendo que no se sentía de humor. Incluso el director Bump le ofreció inscribirla a la escuela, pero Marcy se negó diciendo que no tenía el tiempo necesario para asistir a todas las clases. Luz sabía que su amiga disfrutaba el estar con Willow y Gus, aunque no lograba entender la distancia que había puesto entre sí misma y Amity, quien tampoco se veía demasiado contenta de pasar mucho tiempo junto a ella. —¿Entonces porque no bailaste con alguien? —Luz vio como Marcy enrojeció y evitó su mirada. —Es solo que… Entre la pelea contra Grom y todo lo que pasó, no encontré a la persona indicada. —Luz trató de evitar sentirse celosa por el hecho de que alguna bruja hubiese captado la atención de Marcy—. Tal vez el próximo año. Una idea surgió en la cabeza de Luz, su último as bajo la manga. Se levantó y caminó hacia donde se encontraba su celular—. Bueno, técnicamente la noche no ha acabado, ¿verdad? —Son las cuatro y veinte, Lu. Técnicamente ya es de madrugada. Y creo que deberíamos ir a… —Las palabras murieron antes de siquiera poder ser pronunciadas, Marcy olvidó lo que iba a decir cuando vio a su amiga, la causante de tantas noches en vela pensando en todo lo que podría salir mal, ofreciéndole una tímida mano. Muchos meses después, cuando Anne le hizo una simple pregunta a Marcy, ésta se daría cuenta de todas las señales que ignoró debido a sus propias dudas y temores. Se daría cuenta de lo nerviosa que estaba Luz, de lo cansada que se veía, pero también de la manera tan segura en que se mostraba ante ella. Marcy observó su mano con atención, a la espera que la latina dijese algo. —¿Para qué esperar al próximo año? —Luz habló con la misma voz confiada y segura de sí misma que usaba en sus sesiones semanales de C&C, haciendo sonreír bobamente a Marcy—. ¿Te gustaría bailar conmigo? Marcy abrió los ojos, sorprendida, confundida y, más que nada, increíblemente feliz por la propuesta de su amiga. Era obvio que Luz no podía quedarse despierta más tiempo, sus hombros caídos, las ojeras bajo sus ojos y la lentitud de sus movimientos eran señales obvias de que necesitaba irse a dormir de inmediato. Pero la manera en que se esforzaba por hacerla feliz, conmovió el corazón de Marcy y le tomó la poca voluntad que le quedaba el no robarle un beso en ese mismo instante. —¡Claro que sí! —Marcy se levantó torpemente y estuvo a punto de tropezarse y caer al suelo si no hubiese sido por la oportuna intervención de Luz, quien la sostuvo en sus brazos evitando que se golpeara. Marcy y Luz se miraron a los ojos, y sin perder un segundo más, comenzaron a moverse. De repente, todos los miedos y dudas que sus corazones albergaban desaparecieron. Marcy dejó de cuestionarse sobre lo que el futuro le depararía a ella y a su amiga, dejó que su corazón guiará sus pasos mientras ambas bailaban al son de la música que provenía del celular de Luz. Los cientos de preguntas y temores se habían ido, dejó de pensar en todo lo que había ocurrido en el último año y simplemente disfrutó de aquella velada romántica, prometiéndose que nunca olvidaría esa sensación de ternura y amor que sentía al estar tan cerca de ella. Por segunda vez en esa noche, Luz sentía miles de sentimientos corroyendo su corazón y mente, haciéndole pensar que una terrible tormenta crecía dentro de ella. Estaba más cansada de lo que nunca había estado, pero la sonrisa en el rostro de Marcy era más que suficiente para hacerle continuar. Era la misma sonrisa por la que luchaba todos los días para poder ver, sabía que podía bailar por toda la eternidad, hasta que su cuerpo y alma se convirtieran en polvo y su espíritu se fuera al más allá, si eso significase que nunca defraudaría a Marcy. E incluso si se sentía extrañada por todo lo que vivía, era algo que ella esperaba ansiosa por volver a vivir. Al amanecer, cuando Eda irrumpió en el cuarto de las chicas, su sonrisa pícara y burlona cambió a una más enternecedora al ver a sus pupilas, durmiendo sonoramente juntas y en el suelo, aún vistiendo sus atuendos del Grom. La vieja bruja simplemente asintió con la cabeza y decidió dejarlas en paz, dando estrictas instrucciones a King y Hooty sobre no interrumpirlas. Hooty no prestó atención y, desobedeciendo a su ama, entró silenciosamente para colocar una cálida manta sobre ambas. Y cuando Marcy tuvo que regresar al mundo humano, como hacía casi todos los días, no se contuvo de relatar lo sucedido a sus mejores amigas. Tanto Anne Boonchuy como Sasha Waybright sonrieron al oír lo emocionada y alegre que Marcy se escuchaba, más feliz de lo que no había estado en meses. Marcy solo pudo saborear los últimos rastros de felicidad que el destino le ofrecía antes de los eventos que cambiarían la historia de las Islas Hirvientes y sus habitantes para siempre.   

General Audiences

Alador had stood up for himself several of the times it mattered, though certainly not all of them. His track record was getting better, though, as time went on; most of his successes were recent. He’d decided to do the right thing— a little late, but still— and beat back the dreadful creations he’d made for the Emperor, he’d helped organize the search parties for the children, he’d set up the entire rebellion (which had grown somewhat, now including the parents of all the missing children among others) in Blight Manor and been admirably deaf to Odalia’s protests, he’d offered his mechanical services once they knew a new portal would be needed and worked single-mindedly on a framework they could activate as soon as someone managed to extricate Edalyn’s son from his eternal playdate and draw a vial of blood (which he’d given gladly with the assistance of Alador’s elder daughter). He’d actually held several long, angry dialogues with Darius which were half conversation and half argument, and he’d stayed, not running away, not huffing off to his workshop and leaving the air unsettled. And he’d stood up to Odalia several times, which Darius had never thought he’d see. He’d heard after the fact about the first time, when he’d defended the kids and told her they were over, but each break-point after that he had done it again. He had overruled her when it came to sheltering people in the manor, reminding her it was his ancestral home. He had reiterated his break-up speech three times when she attempted to tell him he hadn’t really meant it and it was all stress, he’d refused to give in to her passive-aggressive self pity when she moved out, he had firmly reminded her that Amity had decided not to speak to her and thus she was not to be at the head of the kids’ welcoming party (though he had allowed her to be present for the first few minutes and showed her the door only when Amity asked him to), and once the world was out of mortal danger from an uncontrollable godling and the requisite governmental and legal systems had been reestablished, he had officially served her divorce papers. Every one of those times, he had spoken evenly and calmly until she was out of the room and then sagged against a wall in delayed terror, but he’d done it. He’d successfully asserted himself against the woman who had run his life for thirty years. So why was it apparently so difficult for him to assert himself in the day-to-day? Darius was frustrated. He’d been frustrated for some time, watching Alador fail to make trivial decisions. It seemed like it didn’t even occur to him that he could make decisions. When the entire rebellion had been in one place, it hadn’t mattered much when it came to things like housekeeping; Raine’s TA Katya was a wonderful cook so long as you ignored her melodramatically narrating her own process, and with her, the Parks, Steve, and Darius himself taking turns in the kitchen things flowed fairly smoothly. Darius had made up a laundry schedule, and keeping the house tidy wasn’t actually difficult when it was crammed full of people desperately anxious over the fates of their children, the world, or both; the productivity of fear was a marvel, and Darius was pretty sure Derwin had washed every window in the manor at least five times before it was all through. Once all those people had filtered back to their own homes, though, Darius included, it started to be a problem. He heard through the grapevine— well, a fairly short grapevine; Amity complained to Luz who told Hunter who told him— that Alador didn’t eat unless his children reminded him, which meant he wasn’t providing for them either until he was prompted. Darius observed this himself when he was visiting, which was more and more frequent— and even when Alador was reminded, he would just ask whoever was present what they wanted and make it— or, more often, order it in as takeout. Generous, Darius supposed, but still a bit irritating; the impetus for Amity’s original complaint had been an incident in which the Blight siblings had argued for half an hour over what they wanted and their father apparently hadn’t intervened at all. His kids had had to set up a chore wheel, though most of their household tidying was done by Abominations again. Alador deferred to his children— and to Darius— in seemingly everything, unless he was too distracted to say anything at all. It wasn’t as though he was a doormat in manner; he could still volley friendly insults (and what fun that they were friendly, now) back and forth with Darius, or grumble dryly about some piece of jewelry Odalia had left behind and only half-jokingly speculate if it was a spying device before getting rid of it, or haggle with a sales witch at the market who was trying to swindle him on laundry soap. It was just that when there were decisions to be made, he hardly ever offered an opinion— or if he did, he would state it only once with an undercurrent of apology, and not bring it up again. At first, Darius had thought it was simple indecisiveness, or even laziness. Alador didn’t want to make decisions. The incident that had changed his mind, made him realize exactly how deep the wound ran, had been in his own home, sitting by the hearth on a winter’s evening, Hunter already in bed, Alador at his side. He hadn’t thought it would be out of line of him to lean in for a kiss. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, he thought, as they’d long since discussed their future, making things right, taking this second chance they’d been given. Alador had told him he still loved him. Darius did too. It had seemed like a good moment, a single glass each of spiced wine warming their cheeks without impairing their judgment, the fire crackling, Alador leaning against his side on the settee. He’d put a hand on his rough, stubbly cheek and pressed his lips to Alador’s. Alador had been entirely still for a moment, but then he had pressed back in turn, and Darius had thought for a little while that everything was all right. Everything was not all right, and the realization crept up on Darius slowly as he kissed him. There was a reluctance in Alador’s movements, and Darius suspected his quickened breaths were from fear, not joy. His eyes were a little glazed over, not in the way they were when he was just distracted or not paying attention to his eyesight, but like they had been when he was scolded by teachers back in school, like they had been when his wife spun him around the room at coven events he obviously hadn’t wanted to attend. Darius was glad he’d known Alador all his life, or else he might not have realized. “What’s wrong?” he’d asked, pulling away, taking his hands back from Alador’s shoulders where they had been comfortably roaming. “It’s okay,” Alador had said. “Don’t lie to me.” Alador had flinched at that, seemed to curl up into himself. Darius had sighed, taking a different tack. “It’s all right,” he’d said, “whatever it is. But you obviously don’t want to kiss me, at least right now, and you didn’t pull away, and that concerns me. It’s poor form, Blight.” He only called Alador by his surname when he wanted to make a point these days, but it didn’t seem to have the desired effect. “It’s not exactly— I’m sorry.” “Talk to me.” “It’s fine.” “It’s not fine. Why didn’t you tell me no?” Alador didn’t look at him, staring into the fire instead, and Darius had followed his lead in case the lack of his gaze would help him calm down. A glowing ember had broken off a log and tumbled to the stone, and Darius had suspected they were both watching it glimmer in the ashes. “Sorry,” Alador had said again. “I didn’t want to— you wanted to, so I thought we should. It’s not like I don’t want to, want… you.” “But not now?” “I made a promise.” Darius had turned to look at him, then, confused. “A promise?” “To her,” Alador had said. “I’m still married. The paperwork hasn’t gone through yet.” “You think there’s a chance you’ll go back?” Darius had asked, and felt a twinge of guilt as Alador flinched again. “No,” he’d said, “Titan, no. But I can’t— I gave my word, I signed my name. Until it’s dissolved, I…” “You want to wait,” Darius had said, realizing it as the words came out of his mouth. “Until the divorce goes through all the way.” Alador had nodded. “Sorry.” “Sorry?” Darius had asked. “Why would you be sorry for that? I know you. I know your word is important to you, even when it was given to someone like her. I know that you have your entire old-family honour resting on those shoulders. If you want to apologize for something, it should be for not just telling me that. What were you planning to do, let me take you to bed and just feel wrong about it the whole time?” Darius had meant it as an absurdity, but Alador’s silence confirmed it as a real possibility. Darius had stared at him. “You’re kidding,” he’d said. “You meant to take me all the way to bed just now?” Alador asked, and it was a blatant attempt to change the subject but he was so visibly uncomfortable that Darius had decided to have mercy and take the bait. “We might not have made it to the bed,” he’d admitted, enjoying how Alador went pink from ear to ear. “I wouldn’t have minded having you right here on the settee, if you’d been amenable. Another time, once your bonds have been cut.” That evening had progressed with a bit more wine and a game of cards and then Alador sleeping on the settee while Darius desperately stroked himself off in his bedroom, thinking about pale, calloused hands and gold eyes and honour. The delay did have an upside, which was that it gave Darius time to plan. He couldn’t deny having a romantic streak— maybe more than a streak— and the idea of celebrating Alador’s freedom appealed to him. He wasn’t the only one to have had the thought, apparently, as when he casually asked if Alador knew the date when it would all be done, it turned out his children had already booked him solid for the day of. The twins had insisted the specifics of the day were a surprise, but Amity, who apparently shared her father’s discomfort around being kept in the dark on plans, had quietly told him they were going to the fair, which was back in town. Alador’s smile as he related this was sad and wondering and precious, like he was still in some amount of disbelief that his children were willing to have him in their lives. So Darius made his plans for the evening after, asking Alador to come over for dinner and toast to his official freedom. He worded the invitation carefully, meaning to open the possibility of making up for lost time without laying expectations, and the way Alador pinked through the face as he agreed was encouraging. He didn’t ask Hunter to leave the house, but after mentioning his plans, the very next day Hunter told him he’d made his own arrangements to sleep over at the Porters’ house with his derby team that night. The slightly embarrassed look on Hunter’s face, his lower lip drawn up a little, made it clear that it wasn’t a coincidence; he was actively avoiding the date. Darius was briefly concerned Hunter disapproved— and how odd, to be genuinely concerned about the opinion of a sixteen-year-old; fatherhood was an adventure— but the way he’d stiffly clapped him on the shoulder before going upstairs to do his homework was reassuring. The awkwardness wasn’t objection to his choice of suitor, but rather a healthy teenage distaste for thinking about one’s parent’s love life at all. Darius set up candles, and marinated a wyvern breast overnight, and spent nearly an hour fussing over his makeup, glad he wasn’t really a lipstick person (loathing the texture) because re-applying after dinner sounded like a nightmare. He balanced his outfit carefully between appeal while on and grace in removal, while also balancing his excitement with a determination not to expect anything. He’d been deeply unsettled by Alador’s apparent willingness to go along with his seduction despite not feeling ready, and had no intention of letting that happen again. He wanted to be available, attractive, and clearly interested, but also to avoid pushing in any way. He needn’t have worried, that particular night. When Alador arrived, he’d actually combed his hair, dressed in an entirely unstained frock coat, and was the one to lean in and kiss Darius first after dinner. “It’s done, you know,” he’d whispered into his lips. “I’m not married.” “Would you like to celebrate?” “I would,” Alador had said, and they’d tumbled off to bed. It had been wonderful and strange, having Alador in his arms, finally being with the man he’d wanted since they were so young. The intense infatuation of a first ever crush, a wounded resentment, settling down to a simmer for so many years, flaring up again into love, just love. He remembered constant, desperate daydreams of being together, of kissing his narrow, crooked lips, and now he indulged, untucking his shirt and sliding his hands up his waist, running his fingers along his jutting spine, pulling him close. It felt appropriate, somehow, that they’d ended up just stroking each other off, kneeling on the bed in a messy, graceless kiss like the teenagers they very much weren’t anymore, hands bumping into each other, gasping and shaking through orgasm and crashing to sleep. Darius had laid there on his back, Alador plastered to his chest snoring like a thunderstorm, and thought about how many years it had been since he’d been with anyone at all, and run his fingers through Alador’s hair, and then slept deep and easy. In the morning he’d made breakfast, and Alador had eaten quickly, wanting to get home before the kids left for school, even though they hardly needed his assistance. He’d fidgeted for a moment in the doorway, deciding, before kissing Darius briefly but soundly and disappearing into the new day. An hour later, Darius received a text. ”Edric ‘whooped’ at me. Emira sat with her hands folded and threatened to give me a stern lecture on protection. Amity looked like she wanted to throttle either her siblings or me. I may never recover.” “Poor baby.” “Also, would it be appropriate for me to refer to you as my partner were anyone to ask” Darius would certainly not have admitted to smiling like an idiot at his scroll. Thankfully, Hunter was not at home, having planned to go directly from the Porters’ house to Hexside, so there was no one to call him on it. ”I think it would.” He’d thought, for a short while, that the issue was done with, that Alador had moved past it. He’d been wrong. It was mostly the little things, yes, but not only the little things. The world was very much still in limbo after the amount of destruction wreaked by both the collapse of fifty years’ empire and the chaos of the Collector, and to his chagrin Darius had wound up roped into the committee organizing the reconstruction; Alador was usually there too, for the sake of his mechanical expertise, and Darius started to realize that whenever there was a vote of any kind Alador’s hand would go up late, and he would watch Darius, and he would vote with him. It was somewhere between flattering and upsetting. On the one hand, Alador agreeing with him was good, because Darius knew full well he was right; on the other, the fact he just watched and followed sent a shudder down his spine. He didn’t want Alador to attach himself to him the way he’d done to Odalia; he didn’t want to become another master for him. They had argued so much over the past decades, and as much as it had come from real pain and anger, at least Alador had seemed very alive when he was drawling insults at him from across the Coven hall. The little things were troublesome too. Darius would ask him if he’d like to go out somewhere, and Alador would agree but make no suggestions. Darius was already feeling a bit silly about the entire thing; he didn’t like thinking about his age much lately, but he was vaguely embarrassed by the entire prospect of going on dates when pushing fifty. There was a part of his mind that felt like he ought to be past that by now, ought to have already settled. He mostly managed to quiet it by reminding himself of Eda and Raine, the lovebirds who were steadily working their way back together and who were so obviously meant for each other that clearly dating at their age could be right, but it really didn’t help that Alador wouldn’t put forward ideas. This was worth it because he wanted Alador, he loved Alador. Trying to court him without his active participation felt wrong, even though he could tell he was enjoying the whole thing— he’d known him long enough he could read him well, and when he hadn’t been asked an opinion he seemed entirely satisfied. Darius didn’t want to be doing this alone, though, and he felt alone. The second time they found their way into bed together, Darius decided he needed to say something. They were in one of the various guest rooms at Blight Manor— the Lilac Room, apparently, and its decor suited its name— on the other side of the building from the kids’ rooms, and it was late, and Darius hadn’t originally been planning to spend the night but as the hours had ticked on he’d ended up messaging Hunter on his scroll to ensure he’d actually eaten the dinner he’d left for him and let him know not to wait up. Hunter had replied with a thumbs-up, and a moment later ”hVE.fun.. &dont tell me.about.it." Darius had chuckled at his scroll, and looked up to find Alador watching him so fondly. Fatherhood was an adventure. He’d been sitting perched on the headboard of the bed for some time, one socked foot on his opposite knee and the other on the pillows— Blight Manor might not be a shoes-off household, but Darius utterly refused to wear his boots on carpet, much less a bedspread— and as their conversation had progressed, Alador had sat on the bed itself, leaning back against his hip. It meant that Darius was looking down at the top of his head for much of the evening, but he didn’t mind; he could idly rake his fingers through his hair and feel his warmth. Alador was looking up at him now, the bedside lamp flickering in his gold eyes, and Darius leaned over to kiss him upside-down like a cover painting for a dreadful romance novel. It was awkward, Alador’s stubbly chin scraping his nose, but he could feel him smiling. “Why don’t I come down there and join you?” he said, after a moment. “Why don’t you?” Alador replied, and Darius slid down off the headboard to sit beside him, kiss him properly, cup his jaw in his hand. He ran his fingers slowly along his high cheekbone, his jutting chin, feeling out his handsome, cragged face. Eyes mostly closed, he could just see his underground-pale skin through his own lashes, and he kissed down his chin until he could settle his lips just under it, tugging on the skin with his teeth. “I’ll mark you if you don’t object,” he said. “I don’t.” Alador’s hands were in his hair as he sucked on his jaw, a good sign, toying with it like he’d toyed with little gobs of Abomination putty to help himself focus back in school. He could feel him knead at it, squeeze a handful from the nape of his neck, let it ooze between his fingers. Darius hummed happily, trailing kisses down Alador’s throat, popping the button at his collar with his teeth to show off. Alador shuddered, and Darius smiled, pleased with himself. “How would you like to do this?” he asked, rumbling the words in the bottom of his register and watching Alador’s breath hitch at the sound. “How would you?” Alador asked in turn, and Darius’s smile froze momentarily. “I asked you first,” he said, only realizing how juvenile that sounded after it had already come out of his mouth. Annoyed with himself, he continued to unbutton Alador’s shirt, determined to look cool and confident and not at all like a man who had just volleyed a kindergarten comeback at his partner, rival, and life-long beloved. Thankfully, Alador didn’t seem to want to call him on it, preferring to untuck his shirt and shuck it off as soon as Darius got the buttons undone. Draping his cape across the bedside table, Darius peeled off his own shirt and grinned at how Alador’s hands went immediately to his chest, his knobby fingers spreading across the curves of his pectorals. Darius was very pleased with his own figure, and Alador appreciating it made him all the more so. He leaned in to kiss him again, briefly distracted from his question, running his hands down the sides of his ribs. He needed to feed Alador up a bit, he thought; he was devastatingly handsome already but he’d be healthier with more meat on his bones. He worried, often, about how tired he always looked, how narrow his chest was, how much he’d seemed to wither since they were young. He remembered when Alador could wrestle. If it had just been time, it wouldn’t have been so bad, but Alador had had a rough go of it for the past few decades, hadn’t he. Alador’s hands had skated up his chest to feel out the curves of his shoulders, squeezing, holding him close. He kissed with needy fervour, eyes tightly shut, and Darius took in a sharp gasp when he bit lightly at his lower lip. Alador pulled back, flinched. “Sorry,” he said. “That was a good sound,” Darius said, “don’t worry.” Hesitantly, Alador nodded, and leaned back in. Darius unbuckled Alador’s belt without looking, reveled in the hiss as he tugged it out from his belt loops, and hooked it around the bedpost; he crawled out of his own leggings and tucked his hands into Alador’s, grabbed his ass in both hands and kneaded it, grinning against his lips. Alador squiggled out of his trousers, taking Darius’s face between both hands and gazing at him, and Darius’s breath caught in his chest at the thought that he was being cherished, the look on Alador’s face that said he was memorizing this moment. “What can I do for you?” Darius whispered, thrilled. “Whatever you want to,” Alador said, and Darius’s good mood was punctured like a balloon. “A lovely sentiment in itself,” he grumbled, pulling back, feeling a little guilty at the sudden confusion and disappointment on Alador’s face, “but not so much when it’s all you ever say.” Alador blinked at him, looking a little afraid. “What?” he said. “I want to know what you want, not be brushed off like I’m the only one making decisions here. I want you to help.” “I— I want to help,” Alador said. “I’ll do whatever you want me to, isn’t that helping?” “Do you even want to be here?” Darius snapped, even though he knew it wasn’t quite fair. He could read Alador well enough he was fairly certain he couldn’t be faking his attraction, but it didn’t feel right. “Surely you must want something, for your own sake. You’re not here to be my little puppet, you’re here to be my partner. Didn’t you say that’s what we are now?” Alador was shrinking back against the headboard, bony knees drawn up to his chest, a look on his face somewhere between fear and irritation. Darius felt his own anger bubble up inside him, felt his body shudder and ripple, almost losing his temper, almost losing his form. “Why are you hiding from me?” he asked, more sharply than he should have. “You’re hiding from everything, Alador. When did you become such a coward? It’s like you’ve decided to follow me around like a child— I don’t want you to be a child!” Alador flinched back, an arm coming up to shield his face, and Darius’s anger was immediately doused in a cold horror. He backed away in turn, to the other end of the bed, running his hands through his hair to calm it and make it stop bubbling, taking several deep breaths. “I struck a nerve,” he said, eventually. Alador nodded. “I’m sorry.” “You didn’t mean to,” Alador said quietly, but didn’t unfold from the little ball he’d curled into. “And you’re right that I’m not… much of an adult.” “No,” Darius said, “I’m not. It wasn’t fair. You’re an adult, you’re just one who’s been… acting in a way I wish you wouldn’t.” Alador let out a mirthless little chuckle, and Darius sighed, sat cross-legged at the foot of the bed. Alador sat up a little, scrubbed a hand through his hair, swallowed. “Is it her?” Darius asked, carefully. “I know she didn’t… let you make a lot of decisions. Do you feel as though you’re going to be punished, if you do?” “It’s not that,” Alador said, eyes fixed on his hands as he picked nervously at his bitten-short nails. “Or— it’s that too— especially in a situation like this, I suppose. Going against her… never went well, and there are some things, I just think of the way she looked at me— but it’s also that… I’m not a good person. I didn’t go against her. Not enough. Not always because I was scared, but because I didn’t think to, because I didn’t see what was wrong. The number of witches killed by the things I made, even before the contract with the Emperor… I can hardly imagine, and with the kids, it’s like I didn’t even see them there. I assumed I knew what was right, what they wanted, and never even— I hurt them, all three of them, and I don’t know why they’re happy for me, I don’t know why they didn’t sue for emancipation and never speak to me again. They’re still— afraid of me, I think, sometimes, and even more than that they just look so lost. Like there’s a gap between us I don’t know how to fill. I don’t know how to be their father, I don’t know how to be a father, I don’t know how to… how am I supposed to trust myself to choose anything, know what’s right, trust anything I think, when I did so much harm for so long?” Darius was silent, a moment, then took Alador’s hands in his, carefully separating them. “Don’t pick at your skin,” he said, “you’ll make your fingers bleed.” He took a breath, not looking up from their twined hands. “Belos abused Hunter,” he said, and swallowed before continuing. “It wouldn’t be my place to tell you, but it’s obvious enough it’s not much of a secret. Everyone in the castle knew, and even now with the way he flinches, his scars, it isn’t subtle. That said, don’t bring it up around him. “I spent a lot of time in the castle, Alador, for my job. I first met Hunter when he was just a boy. I met him before he was the Golden Guard, before his notched ear, before the scar on his face, before he started to wear gloves all the time. I knew. “And yes, I would have gotten killed if I’d intervened,” he said, “probably. But that doesn’t make it all right. I should have— done something, done anything, no matter what would have happened to me. I felt I couldn’t, but that’s never really true. There’s always a way, and I didn’t find it. I returned to that castle day after day for years, knowing full well that that boy was having the shit beaten out of him on a regular basis, and I resented him. I resented him for taking the place of— someone I loved— but then I resented him for not fighting back, for accepting his fate, for thinking he deserved it— I resented him for being a coward because it was easier than accepting that I was the coward. “And he lives in my house now. He calls me his father. I don’t deserve that, I know I don’t, and maybe you don’t either, but it’s been given to us.” Finally, Darius looked up, saw the horror and understanding in Alador’s face, and squeezed his hands. “It’s been given to us. All we can do now is be better. So for the Titan’s sake, don’t let me steer you like you let her steer you. I’m not better than you— just talk to me. Give me your opinion and listen to mine. Let us work things out together, like— like the reasonable adults we’d better damn well be by now.” Alador’s eyes softened, and he nodded a little, and Darius raised his hand in his to kiss his knuckles, sad and sweet. “For their sake,” Alador said, lowly. “And for ours as well,” Darius replied. Alador moved closer, and Darius took him in his arms, slowly rubbing his back, pressing against him skin to skin, letting him bury his face in the crook of his neck. It had been perhaps an inappropriately solemn conversation to have while naked, but there hadn’t exactly been a moment to re-dress, and it was nice to be there like that now, no barriers, just witches. He’d almost thought they’d fall asleep like that, but he still had a little too much adrenaline in his system to pass out, and it seemed Alador felt the same way. He wound his hand up into Darius’s hair again, kneading the back of his neck, and it was comforting and lovely. He groaned softly, and felt Alador’s dick twitch against his hip, and smiled. “Someone’s waking up again,” he teased. “Maybe,” Alador said, not lifting his face from his neck. “I can’t blame you,” Darius said. “I am extremely handsome.” Alador chuckled, swatted him in the shoulder, shifted up to kiss him. Darius crooked a leg up between his, sucked his tongue into his mouth to hear the sound he made, grabbed him firmly by the ass and coaxed him to grind on his thigh. “Now,” he said, “are you ready to tell me what you want?” Alador, frustratingly enough, averted his eyes again. “Don’t you dare say ‘whatever you like’,” Darius said. “I want to know what you want. Tell me what you imagine. Tell me what you want me to do to you.” Biting his lip, Alador shifted back and forth a little, swaying as he thought. “I don’t want to push,” he said. “Just ask me,” Darius said, trying not to let himself get annoyed again. “The worst that can happen is I say ‘I’d rather not, let’s try something else’.” Alador shifted, eyes flicking away, grinding his teeth as he screwed up his nerve. Darius watched him, waiting, as he breathed and swallowed and decided. “Would you,” he started, and rocked his hips slightly, digging his hard cock into Darius’s thigh. “Would you. Your mouth?” Darius laughed before he could stop himself. It came out as a single burst, and then he swallowed it back down at the look of abject shame on Alador’s face, cutting off his cringing apologies and grabbing him by the shoulders to keep him from shrinking away. “No, no, it’s fine,” he said, “it’s fine. I shouldn’t have laughed, it’s only that with how nervous you were I was sure you were going to ask for something at least a little outré. Which I still would have considered, mind you— but yes. Yes, Alador, I will happily suck your cock.” He steered Alador gently by the shoulders, ushering him to lie back, and crawled on top of him, pressing a kiss to each of his bright red cheeks, then another to his nose, and to the knob of his throat, drawing his teeth lightly across it, feeling it bob as he swallowed. He raked his fingers through the unkempt hair on Alador’s chest, tracing aimless swirls on his skin, nudging his nipples and feeling out the lines of his ribs. He kissed him again, slow and languid, licking into his mouth and breathing his breath, and trailed his hands down his sides before wrapping a hand around him, coaxing him the rest of the way hard again after the brief embarrassment had made him flag. The sounds that Alador made into his kiss, into his mouth, were incredible, soft little grunts that seemed to come directly from the back of his throat. His narrow, bony hips shifted and twitched, like he was trying hard not to buck into Darius’s hand, and his cock was hot and damp against his palm. Darius looked up into Alador’s eyes, gazing at him as he slid down his body. Alador didn’t maintain eye contact for long, he never did, but he kept watching him, his eyes jittering all around his face, and that was all Darius could ever have asked for. Once he’d settled, kneeling between Alador’s legs, Darius pressed a soft, messy kiss to the side of his shaft, letting it rest against his cheek as he looked up at him, not even trying to hide how smug he felt. Alador was staring down at him, face flushed and eyes wide, and Darius was immensely pleased to be able to provide for him what he wanted. Carefully, he drew back his foreskin with his hand, rolled his tongue around his tip, took his head briefly between his lips with a minute suck that made Alador whimper. “You were so shy to ask for this,” he said, “but I really do love doing it. Do you not enjoy giving oral, is that why you thought I’d be reluctant?” “That’s not— I do like it,” Alador stammered, hiding his face in a hand. “Though I never have for someone with— our equipment. It’s just that… she didn’t, you know, so I— well. I didn’t want to make you do something… distasteful.” “Well, everyone has boundaries,” Darius mused, fluttering damp kisses to the underside of his shaft between phrases. “I, for example, have no intention of ever performing analingus without some sort of barrier. It will not happen. But if she made you feel guilty for having asked, rather than just saying she’d rather not…” “I’m not exactly, uh. Pleasant to… be that close to.” “Pardon me, I can tell you showered this morning and I am having a grand old time.” Alador laughed weakly, voice cracking as Darius sucked sharply on his tip, smirked around him, started to sink down. His cock was heavy on his tongue, thick enough there was a bit of a stretch in his jaw, and he could feel him twitch. Kneading his hips gently in both hands, he drew slowly back off of him, lips dragging along his skin, paused barely kissing his head, and winked at him. Alador whined loudly, face so red behind his hand he was practically steaming, and dug the back of his head into the pillow, wiggling back and forth, his neck stretched out and jaw already starting to come up red where Darius had chewed on it before. Darius hummed happily at the sight and took him in again, sucking steadily, salt blooming in his mouth as Alador’s cock leaked pre-come, sinking until his nose was nestled in his thatch of dark hair. Both his hands over his face now, Alador was rolling his shoulders, squirming, like he felt too much and needed to do something with his body to get it out. Pride throbbed in Darius’s chest, and he settled in to rock his head, sucking with each pull, holding his hips in place so he could swallow him down without worry. He hadn’t been kidding when he said he liked doing this— it was the physical, the taste of it, the way it throbbed and pressed down on his tongue, but it was also the sheer thrill of how good at it he knew he was, how much pleasure he could bring his lover, knowing he could take a man to pieces with his throat. The fact that it was Alador, now, made it even better, all the more satisfying to watch his chest heave and his belly twitch. He’d loved him since they were just boys. Now he could rub his narrow thighs, swallow around his fat, jutting dick, give him what he hadn’t had. Alador was groaning, apparently beyond coherent speech, but he did pull a hand away from his face to tap Darius on the shoulder, mouth to him that he was going to come. Darius hummed in acknowledgment and sucked harder, felt him shudder and spurt, bitter in the back of his mouth. He swallowed it down, sitting up slowly, admiring Alador’s wrecked face, how he splayed on the bed like a marionette with its strings cut, narrow, stringy neck glistening with sweat. “Did you just…?” Alador asked in seeming disbelief once he’d got some of his voice back. “You?” “Better down my throat than ruining the sheets,” Darius said, intuiting the intent of the question. Alador chuckled breathlessly, reaching for him, beckoning him up into his arms. Darius took his invitation, lying on top of him chest to chest, his own still achingly hard cock nestling against his belly. Alador’s fingers sank into his hair, rubbing circles into his scalp, and Darius hummed happily, licking his still-tender lips. “If you wanted to kiss me,” Alador murmured, “I wouldn’t actually mind.” “Good to know,” Darius replied, and shifted up to do just that. Alador licked into his mouth, curious and hungry, and Darius groaned at the thought he was testing it out. “You like the taste?” he asked lowly, against Alador’s lips. “Would you like to try mine? You did say you like giving.” Alador nodded, but hesitated. “I may not be any good at it,” he warned. “Oh, I don’t mind being learnt on,” Darius said. “Besides, it sounds like you do have some experience, and despite the topography it’s not all that different. Licking, sucking, finding a rhythm, listening for what your partner likes.” Alador blinked at him curiously. “You know?” he asked. “I did have several boyfriends in college, Alador,” Darius explained, “and thereafter. Only most of them had ‘our equipment’, as you put it.” “Huh,” Alador said, and blinked again, processing the information. “You can’t be upset I’ve had lovers when you were married for twenty years,” Darius said, and Alador shook his head. “Not upset,” he said. “Just thinking.” He sat up properly, shifted down the bed, and as Darius spread his legs for him he sat between them, settled his hands comfortably on his thighs. It was nice to see him from this angle, Darius thought as he settled back against the pillows, the low light catching in the hollows of his collar bones. Alador leaned forward, paused, seemed to consider how he was sitting, and then shuffled back to lie down on his belly instead. “However you’re comfortable,” Darius said, amused. Alador shot him a brief, embarrassed glare, but pressed a dry kiss to his thigh anyway. He took Darius’s cock in one hand, leaned in to kiss the side of his shaft carefully, like he was experimenting, taking mental notes. The idea tickled Darius— he’d much rather it be him Alador focused on than those dreadful clockwork soldiers he used to build, after all— and he hummed his approval. Alador seemed to be inspecting him, and Darius considered the kind of notes he might be making, having apparently had no real experience with any cock but his own before. They were quite different— Alador’s thick and straight-shafted, the same width all the way down, flushing a bright red, and his in contrast was long, curved, purple-dark, tapering but for the flared head. Alador ran his thumb carefully around his tip, an academic focus in his eyes, and Darius gasped a little louder than he needed to to encourage him. “Good,” he said. “You don’t need to be quite so slow, though.” Alador raised an eyebrow at him and started to pump him in his hand, his grip tight and steady, and Darius grinned and groaned. He reached down to pet Alador’s hair, careful not to steer him, and chuckled breathlessly at the thought that he really couldn’t make it messier than it already was. “What was that laugh about?” Alador asked, his breath ghosting across Darius’s cock. “Never you mind,” Darius said, and Alador narrowed his eyes at him before carefully taking his head into his mouth. He dug his thumb experimentally into the divot between his root and his sack, and Darius moaned outright, rolling his shoulders happily. Alador was so handsome, sucking him off, his lips wrapped around him, the line of his strong nose, his ears red and his brown lashes fluttering. Darius breathed slowly, keeping his hips still, refusing to buck up and make things difficult for him, but his hot mouth and his careful hands were already starting to take him apart. “I have an idea,” he said weakly, and Alador sat up a little, his mouth reddened and lips wet, Darius’s own cock still shiny with his spit a good third of the way down. “How would you feel about getting those nice broad fingers of yours inside me? Then, if you’re up for another round, you could fuck me, too.” Alador’s eyes went a little wider and he was entirely still for a long moment, face still deeply flushed, and Darius was very pleased with himself for flustering him so entirely. “You, ah,” Alador said. “You like to take?” “I like all kinds of things,” Darius said, “depending on the day. Why, do you have a strong preference one way or another?” “How would I know?” Alador mumbled, a touch of sadness creeping back into his voice. “‘How would you…?’” Darius repeated. “I’m genuinely stunned that woman never found her way to a strap. You deserve a good, sound fucking, love, and it’s a travesty she never gave you one.” Alador had turned his face away, but it seemed like pleased embarrassment rather than shame, and his ears were still burningly red. “Wouldn’t do much for her, though, would it,” he said. “There are ways,” Darius said, “not to mention how good I’m sure you’d look, laid out, which is incentive in itself.” Alador hid his face in his free hand, took a long breath that swelled his chest, let it out through his nose, scraped his teeth across his lower lip. “I would like that,” he said. “Maybe another night? Since you offered, I…” “Oh, yes,” Darius said, grinning. “Another night. We have all the time in the world.” Casually, Darius summoned a bottle of lubricant from back home— he really didn’t need to make the little cocoon of Abomination material that carried it swirl in pretty patterns before it blipped out of existence, but he did anyway— and tossed it to Alador, who fumbled and nearly dropped it. Darius clapped sarcastically, and Alador huffed at him, and they both smiled. This, at least, was adjacent to something Alador had practice with; he didn’t seem nearly so at sea as he slicked his fingers, rubbed tender little circles around his asshole, carefully started to press inside him. Philosopher’s hands, Darius had heard them called, that shape with the broad palms and thick knuckles, and while Alador was hardly the type to muse over the meaning of life he was certainly giving Darius something to thank the Titan for as he sank deeper. He rubbed slowly at his perineum with his thumb as he rocked his finger inside him, taking the side of his cock between his lips, licking up him slowly, and Darius was genuinely thrilled by how enthusiastic he was, how much he was throwing himself into this. He was a bit clumsy, yes, but Darius could hardly hold it against him, not when his tongue was catching on the ridge of his head, his eyes glistening, his chest heaving with quickened breath. As Alador eased another finger inside, Darius could tell he was feeling him out, searching, shifting his fingers slowly to get used to him. “Up a bit,” he said, meaning to be helpful, and Alador sat up and sank his fingers in as deep as they could go. Darius groaned at the sudden push, the web between Alador’s ring and middle finger pressing at his rim, and laughed a little, breathlessly. “Up, not deeper,” he said, “though that’s nice too. Here— curl them a bit.” He placed a hand over his own belly, tapping with two fingers about where he should be aiming, and watched Alador bite his lip in concentration as he directed the curl of his fingertips. Once he found his way, he dug his fingers in hard, and the jolt it sent through Darius’s body was overwhelming, tearing a loud cry from his throat. When he could think clearly again, Alador’s fingers slowly circling and sending a tingling through him, he realized Alador was looking at him curiously, intrigued. “So it’s not just when you’re angry, then,” he said. Darius blinked, and it took several deep breaths for him to compose himself enough to realize what Alador was talking about. His form was bubbling slightly, more dramatic where he didn’t make an effort to look witch— his hair, his beard, the gobbet of goo he maintained in place of pubic hair. “Of course it’s not just when I’m angry,” he replied, still a bit breathless. “Why?” “I saw you change,” Alador said, rolling the tip of his ring finger around his hole, pressing it in at his nod, his voice carefully casual. “When Eberwolf was in danger. I knew you could, it was the talk of the Coven when you first managed it, but I’d never seen it with my own eyes before.” (Darius knew at once the incident Alador was referring to. Eberwolf’s cape had caught on the broken jut of a bone, tearing down the middle, compromising the cloaking glyph they’d painted on it. That glyph, provided by Eda’s son, had been their one saving grace, a literal blessing from the Titan that let them pass unnoticed by the Collector, and when Eber’s cape had torn his attention had been drawn immediately. He’d beamed, that wide, innocent, terrifying godly smile, the kind that would rip your heart out and paint stick-figures with your bile then complain that you were no fun anymore, and he’d exclaimed “Teddy!” Darius had been across the clearing before he could think, scooping Eber into his arms and pouring the both of them into a portal as far away as he could manage. He’d drawn the glyph on Eber’s cheek with his own goo, just a stop-gap until he could get them a new cloak, or maybe etch the glyph into an amulet, something more sturdy. It had been a brief incident, but it had set his heart racing hard enough he couldn’t calm for hours, not until they were back in the hideout in Latissa and Eber was purring in his lap. No matter how depowered that child was now, he would probably never be at ease around him; he was glad they didn’t cross paths often.) “And what did you think?” he asked, his voice breaking in the middle as Alador dug his fingers in hard again with a mischievous, teasing look on his face Darius hadn’t seen there in years. “Impressive,” he said. “I would like to examine it. See… what you’re capable of.” There was a slight evasiveness to his tone, edging to embarrassment, and Darius was delighted. “You like my other form, is that it?” he rumbled, rejoicing in how Alador hid his red face in his belly. “You like me twice your height with breadth to suit? Would you like me to lift you off your feet and pin you to a wall, hook your legs around my waist, leave marks all down that pale throat of yours? Would you like me to pour into you, just a thin stream at first, curling and swelling so slow and gentle that you never feel so much as a twinge of pain as I stuff you with cock, but by the time I’ve fucked you breathless and you watch me pull out you’ll hardly believe how much I managed to fit inside you—“ Alador made a strangled whimper and moved suddenly, his fingers tensing inside Darius and his other hand shooting down from where it had been resting on his hip. Darius shifted slightly, leaning to one side so he could see down between their bodies, and found that Alador was gripping his cock hard at the base with finger and thumb, gasping for breath. Darius could have sworn he could see him throbbing, and a near-manic pride bubbled up in his chest. “Did you just almost come?” he asked, well aware that his smirk was practically splitting his face and thus not taking it personally when Alador shot him an embarrassed glare. “You’d better get inside me, then.” “A moment,” Alador said, voice wonderfully raspy. Graciously, Darius allowed him to catch his breath, snuggling back into his pillows and tilting his hips up, waiting for him. Alador took his fingers away and fumbled for the lube bottle to slick up his cock, and Darius was glad he didn’t have to remind him. “I want to kiss you,” Alador said. “Then do,” Darius replied, and buried his hands in Alador’s hair as he did, licking at his oversized teeth as Alador slowly worked his way inside him. He’d relished the stretch in his jaw before, but it was incredible in his ass, Alador’s thick shaft splitting him open. He gasped into his kiss, suddenly realizing quite how wonderful it was that Alador had wanted to kiss him as he slid home. He drew his heels up, tilted his hips back, pushed up against him, and Alador gasped and pulled back just barely from his lips. “Is this all right?” he breathed. “Just fine,” Darius said, running his hands down Alador’s back, feeling his warm skin, the way he trembled holding himself still. “You know I’ve wanted you to do this since we were sixteen?” “I’m sorry,” Alador said, softly. “Apology accepted. Don’t dwell on it, just fuck me.” Alador nodded and buried his face in the crook of Darius’s neck, stubble scraping along his collarbone. He shifted a bit, one forearm braced on the mattress and the other hand on Darius’s hip, and a little at a time he started to move. The drag of his slicked cock inside him was wonderful, electric, an almost sharp feeling, and though he certainly didn’t have the hang of finding his prostate with more than the occasional erratic thrust, even just being full of him was plenty. Darius a his hand into Alador’s hair again, gasping as he sped up and pumped into him with a fervour. “Good,” he said weakly, barely even hearing his own voice over the rushing of blood in his ears, Alador’s harsh breathing and groaning, the sharp sound of skin on skin. “That’s good.” “Yeah,” Alador replied, just as weak, just as overcome. “It is.” Alador was mouthing clumsily at his throat, teeth scraping across his skin, and under the hand on his back Darius could feel him trembling, the muscles in his core flexing as he snapped his hips, spearing him hard. Darius tensed around him, his body rippling and roiling, and Alador must have felt it because he cried out loud. Darius tucked a hand down to pump his own cock, and Alador tapped his wrist, mouthed may I? against his skin; Darius nodded, let him take over, let him squeeze and stroke him, swipe his thumb across his head out of time with his thrusts, more and more frantic. “I’m,” Alador attempted, gasping into his neck. “Should I?” “Go ahead,” Darius said, and almost immediately felt Alador come, cock twitching inside him, body tensing and going still. He stayed like that a long moment, stock-still, before taking a long, loud breath and starting to pump him again. Overcome and already close, Darius watched his shoulder move as he did, thanking him with the gentle circles his fingertips drew against his scalp, soothing and thrilled until he let himself go, finally, finally. Thirty years of wanting, and he finally got to come with Alador inside him. Slowly, Alador sat up, gave him a lazy, loose grin. Darius liked seeing that kind of look on his face; it had been rare for so long. He pulled out slowly, and Darius clenched, reaching up to grab a spare pillow and tuck it under his hips to tilt them up and get gravity on his side. “Better inside you than ruining the sheets?” Alador guessed, and though he said it dryly there was a touch of awkwardness to his tone; he really hadn’t spoken aloud about sex much in his life, had he. Didn’t have experience with light-heartedness, with banter. Darius wanted to teach him, wanted to be with him as he learnt things didn’t have to be fraught. There could be baggage, there could be a past, without it having to come between them; things could be hard without being unhappy. “Something like that,” Darius said. “Once I’ve regained the use of my legs I’ll go wash up.” “Is that a compliment?” “Read it however you like,” Darius said, smiling, and observed Alador as he sat back on his heels between his legs, admiring him. Darius was sure he was quite a sight at the moment, a little bit melted, fucked-out and exhausted, clenching around Alador’s come with his own streaked across his taut belly like moonlight. Alador was staring, and Darius couldn’t blame him. They were both rather stunning. Alador wiped up a string of come with his thumb, after a while, watched it pearl on his skin. He held it out to Darius, as though he was going to put it in his mouth, and Darius grimaced and turned his head away. “Ugh,” he said. “You swallowed earlier,” Alador said, disbelieving. “It was still warm then. Once it’s gone cold? Clammy and awful. No.” Alador laughed and popped his thumb in his own mouth, sucked on it. Darius watched his cheeks hollow like they had when he’d been sucking him off, and something flared in his heart. “We should go out somewhere tomorrow,” he said. Alador flopped to the mattress beside him, hummed, thinking. “There’s a place by the waterfront,” he said, “that has breakfast. Sausage rolls and that kind of thing.” “For you,” Darius said, “I will brave the waterfront and its clusters of gulls and sandy winds.” “There’s a tent we can sit under,” Alador said. “So the wind won’t be too bad. And the gulls won’t shit on us.” “How romantic,” Darius said, and laughed. “It’ll be lovely.” “I thought so.”

Explicit

Hunter was missing.   Well, not missing missing, but he wasn’t anywhere in the house and it was almost nearing dinner time. Normally, everyone knew to stay inside whenever evening was drawing near. No one wanted to be late for dinner, or to make anyone worry about being out too late. There was an unspoken curfew that everyone in the house knew to uphold, and if it was broken it was surprisingly obvious.    Taking a sweeping glance around the house, Luz took it upon herself to go look for him. Amity, Willow, and Gus were all holed up in the living room too engrossed by some nature documentary, and she didn’t want to disturb them - they seemed incredibly interested in what was happening on the television. And she really wouldn’t be missing much, Luz had seen that specific documentary a handful of times before in school, so slipping away to go find Hunter wasn’t much of a bother.   She’s pretty sure none of the others even noticed she had left, or if they did they didn’t acknowledge it.   Luz wasn’t too worried about Hunter, honestly. It wasn’t too uncommon for one of the five of them to slip away to a more secluded area to be alone for a while. Everyone just needed time to recollect their thoughts and emotions after being stranded in the Human Realm. And if that meant sitting alone to catch their breath, then everyone else knew to respect that - and they also knew to lend a hand or an ear when needed.   And maybe Hunter needed something right now, Luz decided, for he had been disappearing a lot more often lately, and she could tell that his absence was beginning to show in the way of worried looks and concerned whispers from the others.   Luckily, she had a feeling she knew where he had disappeared off to, for the back porch had become a regular spot for introspection.   The sound of the back door suddenly opening caused Hunter to slightly jump up and whirl around with a defensive stance and wide eyes, before he realized it was only Luz and settled onto the porch steps again.   “Sorry, I just thought I’d find you here,” Luz apologized. She really didn’t mean to scare him - it was just easy to forget that Hunter had once been raised as a soldier first and a person second. “Can I sit?”   Hunter nodded, and Luz slowly slid the back door shut and joined him on the porch step.   “I like to sit out here sometimes, too,” Luz started. “It’s the perfect spot to clear your head, or to get lost in thought. Especially at night, that’s when it’s the most relaxing.”   Hunter briefly glanced around the small backyard and hummed in agreement, “It’s… nice.”   A silence followed, only broken by the beginnings of night-time critter calls and a slow song distantly playing on a radio from a neighbor’s backyard. The evening was shaping up to be a peaceful one, and if Luz could lose herself in the moment for even the briefest second, she could pretend that her and her friends’ lives were anything but not peaceful.   Hunter wanted to imagine that, too - to get lost in the calmness of the evening instead of his own loud thoughts for a change. But it always seemed his mind had other plans, and he couldn’t help but think about the person sitting next to him.   And about all the ways he had wronged her.   He doesn’t know how she puts up with him. Why she always had felt the need to talk to him, to get to know him better, to try and be friends with him. They had hardly interacted in the past, and the few times they had been face-to-face, they had been on opposing sides - enemies in every sense of the word. And yet, Luz still showed him compassion, she still made attempts to reach out.   He didn’t even know if he had said sorry yet, for everything that he had done to her. Every past threat he had given her, every taunt he had held over her head, immediately came to mind with a visible wince on his face.    He was beginning to grow uncomfortable while sitting next to Luz, trying to figure out what to say to her, for everything that came to mind felt half-baked and insincere. How could he make it up to her? A simple apology didn’t feel like enough repentance. Though, maybe he should just apologize - and when that inevitably blows up in his face, he could say he at least tried to make amends.   “...I’m sorry, for uh… for everything,” his hand awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck, as if the touch alone could dispel the tension in his voice and body. “I don’t think I ever told you that, yet.”   Luz was slightly taken aback by the sudden apology. She blinked a few times, and her mouth opened in preparation for an automatic response of you’re fine! or it’s okay! but the words got caught and mangled in her throat, and all that came out instead was a hushed, “Thanks.”   That was all she said, and it made Hunter even more uncomfortable, for it wasn’t the reaction he had been expecting.   That was it? Just a measly ‘thanks’? Why wasn’t she mad at him? Where was the shouting and the anger and the harsh accusations? He had almost asked her that, why she wasn’t as mad as he anticipated, but he kept his lips tightly shut lest the words spill ungracefully from his mouth.   But maybe even that wasn’t enough, because Luz had caught the exasperated look on his face - the way his eyebrows scrunched in confusion as he stared at her, as if he were waiting on an answer to a question he had never asked.   “I appreciate the apology,” she said after a moment. And - almost as if she had read his mind - tacked on, “I’m not mad at you, Hunter. It was never you I was angry at, it was Him. ”   “Oh. Well, then that makes two of us,” Hunter huffed, but didn’t know if he could fully quite believe the words he had said.   Hunter didn’t really know how to wrangle all his emotions about Belos. It was a muddled field, one that he tried countless times to unpack, but always ended up getting too frustrated to continue with.   He was angry at Belos, don’t get him wrong, but for as much as he hated the man, he also missed him. Hunter knew it was unhealthy, he knew that if ever given the chance to go back he would refuse without a second of hesitation. But he couldn’t help that nagging feeling in his head about leaving behind the man that practically raised him.    It felt hauntingly like guilt.   And what an ironic thing to feel about the person that had ruined his life. Belos might have raised him, but he didn’t care about Hunter. Every kind word, every praise, was a carefully construed lie. Even the bad moments weren’t even honest - sad tales about their family dying by the hands of wild witches, Belos’ ‘curse’ causing pain and uncontrollable outbursts - those were all lies to keep Hunter in check.   To make him feel sympathetic.   And it worked.   That was the worst part of it all, that it worked too well. It worked in the way of Hunter having spent countless nights trying to find a remedy for Belos’ curse. It worked in the way of him following the Emperor’s command down to the smallest order. It worked in the way of Hunter dedicating his life to a cause that was all smoke and mirrors.   It worked in the way that he couldn’t rid himself of this sickening guilt.   He wondered if Belos ever felt guilty for the things he had done - if he ever had a moment of doubt for his actions - but Hunter knew a liar never felt guilt for the pain he has caused.   And Hunter was just another person in a long line of people Belos had hurt.   Luz being another one of those people - someone Hunter knew could share his feeling of guilt.   “Penny for your thoughts?” Luz spoke up suddenly, and Hunter quirked a confused eyebrow at the human phrase. She gave a sheepish smile, and explained, “I’m asking you what’s on your mind.”   He almost immediately barked back with a defensive why do you want to know? but once again stopped himself from saying anything he’d regret. Luz was just trying to be helpful - like she always was - she was trying to be an ear to listen to his distressed ramblings, a friend he could lean on for support. She was once again making an effort, and all he had ever done was reject it over and over.   Maybe for once it would feel nice to be heard.    “There’s a lot,” he started slowly. He only knew how to say it bluntly, being delicate in his words was hard and a process he was trying to get better at. “But I’m mostly thinking about, uhm… about Him. About Belos.”   Luz had figured as much - she had recognized that pensive expression on his face as one her own had recently been familiar settling in if she thought too hard about Belos. Talk about that tyrant - even thoughts about him - always felt like a growing crack that with each mention of His name etched away at it, before the entire thing crumbled. Both she and Hunter had experienced first-hand the damage that Belos could inflict, and they both experienced first-hand the pain they had endured because of it.    “He was a bad man, right?” Hunter asked - his voice was small, and the question alone felt rhetorical even in his own mouth. But out in open air, he sounded unsure, like he needed someone to answer that for him, to disprove all the doubts in his head that say otherwise.   “Of course he was!” Luz blurted out, like the answer was completely obvious, “he was the worst!”   “I just… feel guilty, ” he began to fidget with his hands as he spoke, his fingers picking at the seam lines on his gloves. “I mean, I was his right-hand for a while, I carried out his will– I hurt so many people…”   His gaze was now downcast at his hands, his gaze bore into them, as if he could stare past the gloves and flesh and bone, and instead only see the red that was coated over them.   “And… And I guess I also feel guilty for leaving him. Which– I know! I know its ridiculous and I’m dumb for feeling that way,” Hunter backtracked, his gaze locked anywhere but Luz and what he assumed would be a judgemental look on her face. “It’s just… weird. I dunno.”   “No! No– I get it, and you’re not dumb, Hunter,” Luz tried to reason. “I can understand that guilt, actually. I helped Belos, too. I thought I was doing something good, but really…”   “You were being lied to,” Hunter supplied. “He lied to both of us,” he hung his head low, but turned it ever so slightly so he could look to the side at Luz.    “Yeah,” Luz replied. Her voice was tight, and it felt weird to be talking about all of this outloud. Normally Luz would push her feelings down for other people - find distractions to replace the awful feeling in her chest. It was easier to not worry about what was going on with her , when she was busy worrying about what was going on with other people.   She was trying to get better at it - to talk about her feelings - but sometimes it was hard to get the emotions out without feeling like a burden or as weaker than the rest. What an interesting surprise, then, to be able to talk freely with Hunter about things that had bothered her.   Maybe it was because their problems had stemmed from the same source. That they had already known each other’s ailments, had already dug up the dark pasts and the emotions locked away, so tiptoeing around the issue wasn’t a problem for them. It was just talking about them outloud instead of keeping it locked away that was the issue.   “He used to tell me about the Human Realm, sometimes,” Hunter broke the silence that had settled between them. “I always wanted to see it, just based on his descriptions alone.”   There was a small amount of humor to Hunter’s voice that felt out of place, an ode to the irony that he was now currently sitting in the realm that had once seemed impossible to reach. He casted a glance around the dim backyard, at the tall trees that loomed beyond the fences and at the deepening sky above.   The night was quiet, save for the sound of crickets - the radio had been shut off a while ago - and the occasional, distant cry of a siren or train whistle. The atmosphere was surprisingly peaceful, a lot different than the din of the Demon Realm.   “Seems that was the only thing he didn’t lie about.”   It made sense, now that Hunter thought about it. Why would Belos lie about the place he had come from? He assumed that the realm had to have been a source of pride for the tyrant.   And maybe, just maybe, it gave Hunter a sick sort of satisfaction that the man would never see this realm, again.   “The stuff that happened was out of your control, Hunter, so… try not to feel too guilty, okay?” Luz delicately stated - and knew that even though she should also listen to her own advice, she more than likely wouldn’t.    It seemed that Hunter knew that as well, for he retorted back, “Only if you don’t, either.”   There was a teasing lilt to his tone, which Luz responded with sticking her tongue out at him. Hunter rolled his eyes goodnaturedly - he didn’t understand the human’s antics a lot of the time, but even though Luz knew of ways to get under his skin, she also knew ways to help him get stuff off his chest, apparently.   “...Thanks, for listening, I guess,” Hunter shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant to hide the awkward nervousness he felt. He was never too good at showing genuineness.   “Anytime, Hunter,” Luz smiled up at him, the mischievous glimmer in her eye turning into something sincere. “We’re all here for you, you know that, right? Me, Amity, Willow, Gus– even my mom and Vee! You’re not alone.”   “I think I’m finally starting to realize that, now.”   It was… odd, to say the least. To have a support system for a change - to have people he could count on to have his back. For so long he had been alone to solve his own problems, to fix his own mistakes, and it was hard to get rid of that solitary mindset. But he didn’t need to be alone anymore. Luz sitting next to him was evidence of that enough.   “Now, come on!” Luz jumped up, her prior enthusiasm that she’d been known for now sparking up again, and rushed over towards the back door. “We ordered take out and I can’t miss your reaction to your first time having pizza.”   Hunter got up and reluctantly followed her into the house, “Peet-sa? What even is that?”   “Oh, trust me you’ll love it.”   “I find that hard to believe, but whatever.”   The door slid shut behind the two of them, leaving the night and conflicted emotions on the porch step outside.

General Audiences

Raine kept their hand on her back as gravity pressed her weight back against their wrist and she grunted slightly from the effort of being moved.   No one likes being sick, that's a given; no one likes being hurt, that's just a fact. But their girlfriend of three months and soul mate of three decades had both, because luck just never seemed to be on her side.   Although if you asked Raine in a more serious state they'd say luck had nothing to do with it. It was all consequences at this point. Not the karma sense of consequence, but the text book dictionary definition; things happen after other things before them.   It was a mixture of poor planning, mistakes of the past and split second decisions that got them here; with Eda curled up in a shivering pained ball trying to force some semblance of coherence into her movements.   "Shit.." She mumbled weakly. She reached her arm out to steady herself, only to let it flop down beside herself again.   Raine leaned forward on their knees to support her with both arms as her right side completely caved into them and she made no other attempt to right herself.   "Rai–" Eda swallowed so thickly, they swore they heard her tongue fail to meet the space above her teeth in her mouth, "Raine.."   They heard a distinct whimper before she tried to speak again.   "Id hurts.." She slurred.    Raine pressed a kiss to the top of her head in response to this, squishing her hair to her scalp beneath their lips pressure.   They kept their hold tender, never forgetting the sensitivity of her brand new stump pressing into their chest.    Raine felt strained themself after the day of unity–recovering full had taken a few weeks, during which Eda had advertised heavily that she herself was physically fine and ready to fight for her missing kids.   Of course no one believed her.   You don't lose an arm for good, almost be sacrificed in some physically and spiritually taxing genocide ritual and come out the other side in one peice.   Lilith spoke about how the ceremony had made her experience with the curse rougher as of late, and Raine was certain that it was the same for Eda also.   All of this made her getting sick inevitable, and the severity of that sickness immeasurable.   "I know, darling." They soothed her then, "I know, but it's going to be alright. You'll get through this. I'll make sure you do."   Eda made another strained noise and feebly pressed herself closer to them as they tugged her blanket up around to cover her.   "D..don't let go.." She mumbled, hiding her face into them. "S..stay?"   Raine's heart tendered. Her skin shone wetly in the oil light. She hadn't changed out of her pajamas in days, yet was still forced to carry around that protective sigil on a string around her neck, much like King had once unwittingly done.   She looked so done with things.   So fragile that even a weak breeze right now could blow her over and send her hurling into another coughing fit.   "Of course, of course I'm staying.." Raine assured, "just take a sip of some of this water and I'll stay with you the entire time you rest, okay?"   With glassy eyes Eda nodded into their shirt.   She downed the water greedily and gasped for air within seconds of drinking from and finishing an entire water canteen.   "There we go.." Raine said while gently taking the container back from her trembling hands, "now you can rest."   Eda made a sort of relieved and desperate noise.    She visibly couldn't manage lowering herself to her sleeping mat, so just like before when they were helping her up, they gently lowered her down until her head touched the pillow and her her eyes closed.   "Stay.." She breathed shakily.   Raine hummed and reached across to squeeze her hand as they lay themself down beside her. "I'm staying.."    Eda's limbs slotted in with Raines and it didn't take long to find a comfortable position after that.

Teen And Up Audiences

Hunter can’t remember a time he felt as safe and happy as he does now. Probably because there never was one. Back in the coven, it was always life or death; wrong or right; black and white. Everything was decided for you. The moment you joined, you were to do whatever the Emperor asked of you, the Titan asked of you. You gave your everything up. And of course, everyone wanted to be part of the Emperor’s Coven. It was the most prestigious, full of the best and the brightest the Boiling Isles had to offer. If you were in the Emperor’s Coven, you would be immensely respected and revered. Your family would brag about you, dote on you, drown you in their love and affection. Well, that’s what people thought would happen, at least. Now that he’s had some more distance from it all, what Hunter remembers most is how lonely it felt. When he’s not recalling painful memories of the hurt, the failure, the blood and murder and torture, that’s what he recalls easiest. When you join the Emperor’s Coven, there’s no going back. You’re separated from your loved ones. If you and a loved one try to join together, only one will be allowed in. It doesn’t matter how many spots there really are available—you must go in alone. Hunter never had to do that. He only ever had Belos, after all. But that loneliness permeated everything. The way the scouts acted, the coven heads, the new recruits who had no idea what they were in for. Surrounded by an army, but alone. He doesn’t dwell on it much. He tries not to, anyway. No use in it, really. Especially not when he’s far from alone anymore. Hunter had always wanted a big family. He thought it would be nice to have so many people who cared about you. Now that he has a family—a real one, one that loves him for who he is—even if it is small, he’s overjoyed to find out that it really is wonderful. Shouting from down the hall, but growing closer, interrupts his musings. “Hunter! Hunter!” “What’s up?” he asks, watching as Luz comes to a halt in the doorway to his room. “I was coming up here to ask you that, actually,” she replies, moving to sit next to him on the floor. “You’re not too busy brooding or anything, are you?” “Wh—no. I don’t even do that. Why?” “Okay, first of all, yes you do. Second of all, do you wanna go to the park? We’re gonna have a picnic since it’s nice out!” He smiles. “That sounds nice. Sure.” “Great! C’mon, then, let’s go!” Luz cheers, grabbing Hunter’s wrist and pulling him up. “We gotta make sure we don’t forget your sunglasses! Oh, and your headphones—do you think you’ll need them? It probably won’t be that noisy, but since the weather is good, it could get busy.” He opens his mouth to reply, but she continues on before he can get a sound out. “We’ll bring them just in case. Willow made sure to bring some snacks for Flapjack, by the way. I mean, she brought stuff for everyone’s palismen, but, y’know. Oh, and Gus said he wanted to show you something—I think it was a new comic he found? Can’t remember. Anyways—” They thunder down the stairs and zig-zag through the house, Luz never letting go as she grabs things. Sunglasses, headphones, bags, Flapjack and her egg—still unhatched, but it’s been starting to twitch, and isn’t that so exciting? Do you think it’ll hatch soon? Maybe. Hard to say. Luz hands him his sunglasses, then pulls a beanie down over his head, covering up his ears. He barely has time to actually put the glasses on before they’re out the door, headed towards the park. She keeps rambling on, talking about how Amity wants to ask him about abomination magic—do you know anything about it? I mean, of course you do, but, like, do you know how it works? She’s been trying to understand it more—then mentioning how her, Camila, and Vee made black olive sandwiches, salmon pinwheels, and mini ham cheesecakes. Things are still hard. They have to figure out a way to get back to the Boiling Isles. They all have their moments of panic, fear, and sadness. Sometimes, they worry they’ll never find a way. Hunter still stays up too late, doesn’t eat enough, does too many chores. Somedays, he’s in so much pain he can’t move. He has nightmares every night, everyone dying, in pain—he can’t help them, or he caused it—or Belos is back, or the Collector finding a way here and destroying everything. Things trigger flashbacks easily, make him freeze up and drift away. He still lashes out and acts like an asshole sometimes, can be too bossy and dismissive. He’s getting there, though. One step at a time. And as Luz and Hunter arrive at the park, waving at everyone situated under a tree, smiling and laughing, he thinks everything will be okay. They’ll find a way. They always have before—there’s nothing stopping them now.

Teen And Up Audiences

        Lilith Clawthorne is no stranger to smoke. She grew up with Edalyn, after all. She’d gotten used to putting out fires for her, both literally and metaphorically.            Still, waking up to the smell of something burning was more than a little disconcerting.         She stirs halfheartedly, her head not quite having caught up with her senses. When she opens her eyes, she groans at the flash of blinding light that assaults her vision. She must have forgotten to close the curtains last night.             Slowly, she sits up, becoming more and more aware of her surroundings. There are the fluffy down covers (courtesy of Eda) that tangle about her legs, and the matching pillows she’d been curled around. When she looks down, she can see Eberwolf, snoring away at the foot of her mattress. Once upon a time, she’d been rather annoyed about his inviting himself into her bed. But now, she found that she rather appreciated his company.               And then, of course, there’s the telltale clattering of two teenage boys in the kitchen, accompanied by the smell of…burning oranges?              Lilith sighs and pulls herself out of bed. She tugs on her favorite black robe, the one with the velvety edging around the sleeves, and pads down the hallway of her house. Out of the corners of her eyes, she can see Emira fussing over her hair in the bathroom mirror. The sight makes the corners of her mouth turn upwards with a combination of amusement and affection.               How she’d managed to end up with four children in her custody, she wasn’t entirely sure. Her memories of the few weeks after the Day of Unity were a whirlwind of emotions. Somewhere in the chaos, Alador had pulled her aside and made a request of her, as his friend and the godmother of his children (although she was fairly sure that Odalia had chosen her for her status over affection).                “ Odalia and I have made mistakes ,” he’d said. “ The kind it will take years to heal from. I think it’d be better for the kids if they had somewhere else to stay, somewhere stable, ” and screw the fact that she didn’t exactly have somewhere stable, she’d said yes before even thinking it through.               She’d had a home built next door to Edalyn and on the same night she’d moved in, Hunter had appeared on her doorstep with a duffel bag and a defensive glare. Apparently, he’d been hiding out at Hexside. Luz had reached out to him, offering him a home with Lilith (without her knowledge or permission), and there he was.                 She’d let him in, of course. What else was she supposed to do? And the next morning, when she’d woken up to find him sprawled out above the covers and snoring in her guest bedroom, something in her heart had shifted.                 Of course, the newfound affection she felt for Hunter didn’t change the fact that he (and Edric, presumably) were about to be very much in trouble.              She stops on the threshold of the kitchen, leaning against the doorway and clearing her throat. Both boys freeze, slowly turning around to face her.             She raises her eyebrows, wordlessly requesting an explanation. The boys begin talking over eachother and Lilith pinches the bridge of her nose exasperatedly. From their overlapping chatter, she catches words like toast and didn’t have jam and thought if we just cooked the oranges with sugar .           Having had enough for this early in the morning, she raises a hand and cuts her boys off mid-sentence. She shakes her head as she speaks, her voice still crackly and rough with sleep.           “Just clean it up, please.”         Both murmur affirmatives and Lilith moves to sit down on the living room couch, sighing. She hardly gets a moment, however, before she gets a tap on her shoulder.           She turns her head slightly. “Hm? What is it, Hunter?”         The blonde teen bashfully holds something out to her, still avoiding her eyes. Something to work on later . She glances down. To her surprise, he’s holding out her favorite coffee mug.          “I made it for you. Black, like you like it.”          Lilith takes the mug, slightly surprised. That thoughtfulness behind the gesture, that he knows her favorite mug and drink, is incredibly touching.          She smiles and places a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He looks up at her, his expression seeming slightly vulnerable.    :     ”Thank you, dear. That’s very sweet of you. Now please, if you wouldn’t mind, go supervise Edric before he burns something else?”            Hunter grins at her and bounds back to the kitchen to the sound of Edric’s complaining. Lilith hums, curling up on the couch with her cup of coffee and listening to the sound of her children beginning their day. She’s feeling surprisingly warm all of a sudden, and she isn’t sure it’s the brew.         And it’s a rather nice feeling, isn’t it?        

General Audiences

Hunter forced himself to breathe, remembering Gus’s advice from the time he lived in Hexside. It was okay! He’d just hide it, and no one had to know! It was just one of Gus’s favorite human music discs. No biggie. Hunter looked around the room he shared with the others in the Resistance base, hiding the broken pieces under the rug. It would be okay. He’d wait for Gus and Willow to head home, and throw it out without being seen! Great! Crisis averted! “Hunter? Have you seen- Oh never mind!” Gus skipped into the room, grabbing his toothbrush. “Wait? Are you staying? Here? Overnight?!” Hunter hid the last shard before Gus could turn around. Flapjack perched on his shoulder and chirped comfortingly. “Yep! Willow is too. There’s a blizzard that’s keeping us here. Luz said we can have a real human sleeping-over! This is so exciting!” Gus cheered, and started to run out. “I’m gonna get ready!” Hunter took a shaking breath. He just had to hope everything stayed under wraps and make sure Gus wouldn’t notice! It would be easy! How long could one storm last?   A long time, apparently. The storm had been going on for two, almost three days now, and the rest of the rebellion had gone out for a mission ages ago. It was just them in the surprisingly cramped hideout. Hunter had moved the shards of his mistake around a few times. It was a way to get rid of his anxious feeling that gnawed at him at all hours of the day. Everyone had slowly been treading on one another’s toes the entire time they had been trapped indoors. It didn’t help that only a few areas of the place were warmed up enough to sit there long term. There was always some friction between everyone in the group nowadays, Gus especially since he was slowly starting to notice he was missing a part of his human junk collection. Hunter started patrolling the entire hideout daily, often finding rooms he didn’t know about. It was one day on these patrols that he heard the argument that would lead to everything falling apart. “Amity! Just give it up already! Geez why does everything have to be perfect with you!? It’s a stupid project we’re going for fun! It isn’t meant to be perfect! You’re just as controlling as your mom!” Captain, or Willow as she insisted he call her, snapped. The youngest Blight responded with an offended gasp. “Me? As controlling as my mom?! You haven’t seen her after I flunk a test! You haven’t seen her when she’s angry! You don’t know anything, Willow! Of course not! You’re just a stupid half-witch!” Amity snapped. Luz ran into the room, Hunter could hear her footsteps. “Guys, come on, we don’t need to fight! We can find something else to do! And not argue!” “Oh my Titan, Luz! If you didn’t help Belos then we wouldn’t be in this mess! You have a mom that loves you! You don’t have a right to come here and tell us not to argue!” Amity whirled around, Hunter hid behind the door. It reminded him of how he used to spy on Uncle. “I- you’re right. If I didn’t help that jerkweed then none of us would be in this mess. It’s my fault, I know. I'm just trying to fix my mistakes! Titan, Luz, great going.” Luz seemed to deflate, Hunter realized she was crying. “There you go again, Amity! You’re just another controlling Blight who wants to boss us around just because you know where to hit where it hurts!” Willow seethed, her face was red with anger. “I need a minute.” Luz ran past Hunter, almost running into Gus. Amity ran after her, a look of pure guilt and regret decorated her features. “What happened with Luz and Amity?” Gus tilted his head inquiringly. “I think they just need some space!” Willow gave Gus a weak smile. “Oh. Anyways has anyone seen my human music disk? I’m missing one of the ones Eda gave me.” Hunter immediately froze up with panic. He was going to be punished! The Owl Lady was gonna eat him! They could even just throw him out to fend for himself in the storm. He had to keep it under wraps. He needed to. “Hey, Hunter? Are you feeling alright? Your breathing is getting funny. Are you having another one of your panic attacks?” Gus started walking up to Hunter with his arms up where he could see them. It only served to make Hunter feel even more claustrophobic; trapped inside with witches that were so much more powerful then he was, even with Flapjack. Speaking of the palisman, he was pecking at Hunter’s hair, an effort to ground him. “Yep! All good! See ya later! Bye!” Hunter pushed past Gus, running to where he stashed the shards of his mistake. He had to hide these better! Maybe if he crushed them they’d look like glitter? No, that wouldn’t work. Maybe he could stick it under Gus’s bed and he’d find it later and assume he did it by accident? No, Gus took care of his things too well. Gus walked into the room, Hunter froze, the shards of the disk in hand. “I can explain! I was just looking for one of my shoes and I hit my head on the shelf-“ Hunter shut his mouth. No one wanted to hear his pitiful excuses, not to mention hear his annoying voice. Gus just took a deep breath and walked away without saying a word, and somehow that hurt more than anything he could’ve said. Hunter wondered if it was appropriate to ask Amity to help dig his grave now. Gus ignored Hunter for the next day and a half. The storm was lessening, but it wasn’t safe to travel yet. The group had several more arguments littered around, mostly petty disputes that didn’t even make sense to argue over with the Day of Unity looming over them like a rope at the gallows. Hunter was looking for Flapjack when he bumped into Gus, who was carrying a bucket of water for the stew planned for that night. “Titan Hunter! Do you ever look where you’re going? First my human stuff and now our dinner? I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose like the kids at Hexside did!” Gus stormed past him, Hunter forced his shaking hands to still. He had frozen up again, he needed to stop doing that. Hunter went to his bunk and curled up in a ball. Maybe that would keep people from being mad at him? He didn’t want to leave, he’d have nowhere else to go! He didn’t want to think about what his Uncle would do to him if he went back to the Emperor's Coven. Funny how he kinda wished he was back there now, it was so much more predictable with punishments. Hunter must’ve dozed off because he suddenly jerked awake from a shout. “Willow! Will you get your plants off of my display shelf?!” Gus yelled. “They need sunlight! Liz’s glyphs aren’t cutting it anymore!” Willow called back. “Well this is my display shelf! What if you broke something?!” Hunter got to his feet, he decided to go and make sure they didn't trash the place with a fight so they didn’t get in trouble when the adults and King got back. “Guys! Just share the space! Or I could give you some more light glyphs to light up your display?” Luz was desperately trying to avoid another fight it seemed. Luz still couldn’t look Amity in the eyes. “But this is my shelf!” Gus complained. “My plants could actually save us if there’s a raid! I need to keep them happy!” Willow countered. “Will you all shut up?! I’m trying to read!” Amity stormed in, scaring Hunter from where he was just watching this unfold. “You’ve read that book about a thousand times, Amity! You don’t get to be Miss Bossy because you want to read a silly book!” Willow was starting to get extremely agitated. “Again with the bossy comments?! At least I don’t cater to a plant of all things!” Amity stormed out. Luz looked torn, she was clearly not doing well with all the conflict. She was muttering to herself, rocking on her heels a little bit. “Maybe we should listen to Luz-“ Hunter decided to speak up, when Captain and Gus looked at him he knew it was a mistake. “Ohhh yeah! Let’s listen to the guy that kidnapped me and the entire Flyer Derby team for the Emperor’s coven!” Captain, Willow, drawled sarcastically. “Come on, Julius Jr. we’ll go where we’re appreciated!” Willow took her plant and left. Hunter took an invisibility glyph and ran out, he didn’t want to be yelled at, he couldn’t take it! When did being around the human and her friends start making him so nervous? Hunter eventually found Flapjack, who forced him to stop pacing and rest. Hunter let his palisman bully him into sleeping, maybe a good night's sleep would end this nightmare. When Hunter woke up, Luz and Amity seemed to have made up. They were laughing about their favorite parts. That was good, maybe they’d last until the adults and King returned. Hunter snuck a cookie into his pocket as an addition to his emergency stash as he passed through the kitchen. Hunter fidgeted. He didn’t have anything to do, and he couldn’t go around asking people for orders. Hunter decided to take it upon himself to clean the hideout top to bottom. It would be a good distraction. Hunter started with the kitchen and decided to finish in their shared bedroom, unfortunately Gus stormed in on him cleaning his desk, he probably had a fight with Willow. “Are you looking through my things again? You really aren’t on our side, huh? You’ll never be able to shake your duties to Belos! You’re just another useless Grimwalker!” Gus seemed to freeze up after he said that. Hunter involuntarily dropped the rag he’d been using to clean, his breathing was speeding up again, and soon it was the only thing he could hear as he ran out of the room. He just needed to run, hide, anything! He didn’t want to get punished! He didn’t want to! He was going to be selfish and just run away like he always did! Hunter barely registered the shouts of ‘Hunter! Wait! I didn’t mean it! Come back!’ from Gus. He only managed to grab his cloak before he ran outside into the storm. The door slammed behind him, and Hunter was faced with a wall of freezing snow. He ignored the sting of the frigid air and kept running. After what felt like an eternity of getting nowhere, Hunter started to feel the cold starting to eat him alive. He was slowing down a considerable amount, but everything was a wall of swirling white. Hunter could survive this, he had survived all the training. Some snow wasn’t going to stop him. Eventually the snow let up, and Hunter decided to make a small shelter in the snow now that he could see. He did something similar to survive on the mountain, though he couldn’t remember much except panicking when he found a dead trainee and took their stuff to keep warm. A classic training tactic. Hunter dug himself a small hole facing away from the wind with a tree as further protection. Hunter used an ice glyph to cheat a little bit and he crawled inside, curling up to fit and stay warm in the small space. Hunter brought the bandana he wore around his neck further over his face and allowed himself to take a break and eat half the cookie he stored in his pocket. He knew better than to sleep. After he could feel his toes again, Hunter broke out of his shelter and pushed on. He didn’t know where he was going, but he needed to just get away. He didn’t want to deal with unknown punishments, so he’d just give himself his own punishment. He could make it in the woods! He was the Golden Guard! Hunter must’ve not been paying attention to his surroundings because suddenly he was ambushed by Coven Scouts. Hunter kicked, hit and even bit at his attackers, but he knew he was at a severe disadvantage. His attacks were based off of fast movements and the element of surprise, neither of which Hunter currently possessed. Eventually the Coven Scouts won, rendering him immobile with abomination goo and casting a sleeping spell. Hunter fought the spell, but he knew the magic would win out in the end. Hunter lost, he supposed Gus was right. He was just a useless Grimwalker. Everything went black. Hunter guessed he woke up about four to five hours after his capture, he was encased in a ball of magenta magic that gave him little room to move. Just as he was about to panic, he was spilled out onto a far-too-familiar carpet. Hunter instinctively went into a bow. He knew he was doomed. “Hunter.” He suppressed a flinch when he heard his name. Uncle was using the tone he always had when he was disappointed in him. “It’s good to have you home.” Hunter blinked in surprise before responding to not be rude. Uncle would not tolerate rudeness. “It is good to be back, Emperor Belos.” “Good, good. Now do you see why we hunt down Wild Witches? They left you in the end for someone better.” His uncle came down from the throne, putting a hand on Hunter’s shoulder. “Rise, Golden Guard. I do hope you’ve learned your lesson.” Hunter did as he was told, he wasn’t wanted back with the Human and her friends, maybe he could pretend he belonged here. It wasn’t like anyone needed him anywhere else. “However, you will have to face consequences for your actions, Hunter. Guards! Escort my nephew to the dungeons for a few nights. He’s grounded.” Uncle pushed him towards the two guards. “I’ll see you once I deem your grounding is over.” Hunter nodded, he didn’t know why he wasn’t dead, but he didn’t care. He was alive. Hunter wouldn’t have to dig his own grave, after all. Hunter didn’t mention the fact that if he wanted to live, he had to do everything perfectly. He swallowed the lump of anxiety that had built up in his throat, clenching his fists as it was replaced with bile and pure unfiltered fear bubbling in his stomach.   It has been a long time since Hunter returned, at least that’s what it felt like. The Emperor kept him busy, too busy to do anything other than his duties and the rare bit of sleep and snagging leftovers from the Scout’s lunches. He didn’t have time to check the date. Hunter was punished far more severely now, longer periods without food or sleep made it even harder to endure. Hunter had let himself get soft, even if it was nice while it lasted. Everyone had a use, and he supposed to the Human and her friends his use was over. It was only a few days before the Day of Unity that he saw the human and her friends again. Hunter missed them. Maybe small unknown punishments were better than predictable punishments after all. “Is that… the Golden Guard?!” Hunter could hear Luz’s voice as he dropped down from the sky on his artificial staff. “Do you think it’s still him or… ya know, another Grimwalker?” Amity responded, she sounded closer than Luz. “I don’t know, he seems like Hunter. The flying looks familiar. Should we just-“ Willow was cut off by Gus. “Shhh! Hold on!” Gus whispered back. Suddenly Hunter was enveloped in an illusion of absolute nothing, a black void all around him. Panic took control and Hunter swung the staff blindly, eventually coming to his senses and used his staff to shatter the illusion. An unnatural fog with a slight smell of smoke let Hunter know that Luz was using her glyphs as well. All of his friends had gotten stronger since the last time they fought. Hunter spun his staff in an effort to clear the fog, he heard something snap behind him. Invisibility glyphs. Hunter just had to hold them off until they ran out of breath and the other scouts arrived. Of course the other scouts would arrive later, he was expected to do things on his own. Hunter heard a gasp and a cough, without thinking he ran to attack. “Willow!” Gus screamed, Hunter was jumped from behind, but not before he sent a blast of magic from his staff at Gus. “Let me help you!” Luz snapped, grabbing the mask and trying to wrestle the staff from his hands. “No! Leave me alone, Human!” Hunter hissed, mostly out of habit. “Hunter?!” “Uh… who’s Hunter?” Hunter lied, sweeping Luz’s legs out from under her while she was distracted. His mask clattered to the ground and suddenly he was being held captive by a plant-abomination combination. Abomination goo snatched his staff. Hunter sighed as Flapjack chirped and nuzzled up to him. “Hunter…?” Luz walked up to where he was being held captive, suspended in the air. “Fine! You win! I’m Hunter! You can kill me now.” “Why would we kill you?” Willow sounded concerned. Hunter blanked, did they really not realize he joined Belos again? “I joined Belos again… and betrayed you in the process. You have every right to kill me. Human, I know you’re too nice, but you can have the Owl Lady eat me.” “Oh my Titan- look, the Resistance saw you get kidnapped, and while I don’t like you very much, I know you didn’t join willingly because Darius and Raine are still Coven Heads.” Amity stepped up next to her girlfriend, hands on her hips as she stared up at Hunter. Hunter looked away, he may have been officially on the Emperor’s side, but he didn’t want to be. That seemed clear enough to anyone. “Hunter, come back! I’m sorry!” Gus had tears in his eyes, a genuinely guilty look on his face. “But what if Belos finds me again?! You’ll all be in danger and it’ll be my fault, again!” Hunter was close to tears, out of habit he braced for a slap when he saw someone get closer out of the corner of his eye. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! No, no, no, no, no!” Hunter screamed, he bit at his restraints in an effort to get away. Hunter flinched when a chirp sounded in his ear, he tried to swat at Flapjack and eventually calmed down using Gus’s breathing thing. He latched onto the nearest person and hid his face. “I don’t wanna go back to Belos.” He muttered, and he just simply gave up and let the others bring him into a hug. “Let’s go home, Hunter.” - Hunter woke up, blinking away the sleep from his eyes. What a weird dream, he didn’t know any of those people, but they felt familiar. “Golden Guard! Your presence is requested in the Throne room!” Hunter quickly got ready, the dream quickly losing itself within his routine as he ran out to the throne room for his next mission.

Teen And Up Audiences

It was no secret to anyone in Eda’s life that her curse was permanent.  Long grueling decades had been endured before this fact was accepted not just by Eda herself, but the important people in her life.  In many ways this acceptance was a good thing, and it made Raine glad to see the way this growth had changed Eda. She was more grounded and honest, and the walls of pride built around her heart were so much shorter.  Knowing how much Eda had grown, and how important this acceptance of her curse was to making the emotionally available witch they had the honor of laying next to every night, did absolutely nothing to assuage the pit that formed in Raine’s chest the first time they heard her curse referred to as a chronic illness.   Healer visits were a new regular occurrence at the owl house.  Mostly for the kids.  Now that Belos was gone, and the isles restored from pandemonium, Eda’s first acts as a newly legal citizen with a fairly generous pension (courtesy of the former emperor's coffers, distributed to all wild witches unfairly persecuted during his reign) had all been in the interests of her kids, starting with their mental and physical health.  King was the most resistant to the idea. Growing up, all his ailments had been solved with Eda’s own homebrewed tonics or stolen over-the-counter remedies. He’d never stepped into a medical ward before in his entire life.  Having only seen the graphic and wildly inaccurate depictions of trauma rooms and surgeries on the crystal ball, he had bolted to hide in his room the moment Eda announced she wanted to get both of her owlets looked over properly by a professional.  Not for the first time, it hurt Raine to see the guilt that sat heavy on Eda’s shoulders at the reminder of her greatest source of doubt as a mother to King in particular. All the things she had been physically unable to provide for him for the entirety of his childhood. From the fact that nothing the eight year old had was new, all of it scavenged or secondhand in some fashion, to the scares she’d had when he was just a baby and accident prone and she hadn’t the means as a poor, hated wild witch to do anything other than try to soothe his pain with her own bare hands and pray.  “You did everything you could for him,” They assured quietly that night after the kids had gone to bed. “You love him so much. Luz too. The lengths you go to when they need you, because you love them…it’s everything. It’s enough, and he loves you too.”  “It doesn’t feel like enough,” She’d answered bitterly, with a familiar twist of self-hatred written across her features, and they’d had to pull her close then.  In the end, the only way to convince King to sit through an examination, had been to let him watch his caretaker go through one first.  Raine had been in the room, mostly because Eda had insisted on having an extra pair of hands, (now that she was down one of her own) in case the squirmy little guy changed his mind and decided to make a run for it.  Even so, the unspoken trust there warmed their heart.  The healer walks in, a stern and stout no nonsense witch with a clipped voice.  Eda, to her credit, is remarkably relaxed, at least on the outside. She absolutely hates hospitals and healers, and even the mere pale flicker of healing spells, but she’s fast with a quip when the healer runs through the initial surface scans.  “I’m real proud of myself doc, I just lost about nine pounds recently.”  Waving her stump with a shit-eating grin that made Raine want to laugh and cringe at the same time.  The healer was entirely unmoved by Eda’s humor.  Raine, who happened to think their fiance was an incredibly hilarious woman, couldn’t decide for the life of them if she was incredibly professional or just lacking in a sense of humor.  (Even if Eda’s continuous jokes about the limb they had personally ripped off of her smoldering body did still make them flinch, occasionally)  “You suffer from a chronic condition, yes? It’s on your records from your last examination…listed about twenty-six years previous.”  Raine had been confused until Eda nodded casually.  “Yeah. It should be down there as a transformation type curse.”  “Correct.”  “That should actually be altered in the records as a locked possession type curse. New info came to light. You know how it is.”  “I see. Your documentation is fairly vague. I’m going to need a thorough full body diagnostic to make up for all of these holes in your medical file.”  “Goody,” She’d deadpanned, sticking her tongue out when the healer turned her back, successfully making King giggle.  Raine was confronted, that day, by a notion they struggled to wrap their head around.  It was easy to say that Eda was cursed. A Curse could be a lot of things, and it had certainly never slowed her down if she could help it.  Even now, well into her forties, with creaky joints and a missing arm, Eda remained in their eyes just as wild, just as stunning and stubborn and unstoppable as when they were children raising hell in back alleys and Hexside hallways. Never once, had Raine thought of her as sick.  ------------------ “Ugh, that was tedious as hell,” Eda groaned, setting a sleeping King down on the couch with a slight thump.  Poor little guy had been due for a lot of shots, and the excess fluid in his system had conked him right out on the way home.  Raine hummed and tugged an old blanket off their armchair, the one they’d brought along upon moving into the owl house among other odds and ends, and draped it over the baby titan’s dozing form, grinning when he snuffled a bit and curled up into a little fuzzy ball.  “We still need a grocery run at some point. I can stop by the harmacy tomorrow, the one connected to Cursed-Co.”  Eda frowned.  “What do we need from the Harmacy? Are the first aid kits low again?”  Raine stilled.  “...for the prescriptions the healer wrote you?” They said slowly. “The painkillers for your joints and-” Eda’s confusion cleared and she laughed.  “Oh, no. I don’t actually need those, Rainestorm.”  “What?”  Eda perched on the arm of the couch and reached down to stroke King’s fur gently.  “Healers will throw anything at you to make ya spend more snails after a check-up. They’re in cahoots with the harmicists. It’s all just a big scam.”  Raine furrowed their brow.  “I don’t think you were being scammed, Eda. These are real medications. And they match with issues you do, have, don’t they?”  She rolled her eyes.  “Technically yes, but I can manage just fine without them, Raine. I have my elixirs, and the rest I can tough out with the occasional painkiller-The normal painkillers, I mean.”  “You shouldn’t have to ‘tough it out’ Eda.”  There it was.  The core of a longstanding argument between them.  Eda had come a long way.  Raine wouldn’t deny that, and they adored her for it. For all the ways she’d grown from the scared girl on a hill who couldn’t let anyone get close to her.  But nothing was perfect.  There were times like these that reminded Raine of that fact.  Eda still needed help sometimes. Which was fine.  “Look-”  They placed a hand on her shoulder and pressed a kiss to her temple.  “-Maybe it is a scam. I know you’ve suffered enough from your mom’s terrible fake cures to have an eye out for them. But I really think this is different, and if there’s a good chance these prescriptions could improve your quality of life, even a little, would it really hurt to at least give them a shot?”  Eda hesitated.  Raine could guess where her apprehension was coming from.  “Why don’t you do some research on what the healer prescribed you and go from there? It might help to know what to expect if you did add more potions to your routine apart from your elixir.”  Eda sighed.  “I…alright.”  They perked up.  “Really?”  She stood and gave them a quick kiss.  “Yeah, yeah. You’re lucky you’re cute when you get all worried about me,” She grumbled.  They snagged her by the waist to drag her closer.  “Cute enough for a few more kisses before you go?” They asked coyly.  She chuckled and looped her arms lazily around their neck.  “I don’t know, are you?”  They huffed and stood on their toes to claim her lips.  Eda hummed in a pleased manner and reciprocated.  “Gross,” King huffed sleepily, face still hidden under the blanket.  --------------------------- “Has it always been this hard on you?”  “Hmm?”  “Your curse.”  Eda yawned and tucked her head into the crook of their neck.  It was late.  Raine didn’t doubt they were the only ones awake in the house.  “How d’you mean?”   They shrugged with their free shoulder. “That new file the healer made for you seemed…big.”  Eda opened a single eye. The silver iris glowed in the pitch black of the bedroom.  “‘R you still fussing over that?”  “I’m sorry,” they said automatically, carding a hand through her thick hair. “I just…I don’t know. I can’t help it.”  Tongue-twisting medical jargon and obscure terminology from Eda’s appointment still rattled around in their brain from time to time. Tangling and untangling into concepts they could piece together.  Joint pains and migraines. Common symptoms of chronic illness.  Chest pain, sharp and fast, she had yet to experience, but likely to occur. They couldn’t help but watch for in every little noise or sudden movement from their fiance out of the corner of their eye.  Was there something wrong with Eda’s heart?  There was something wrong with her bile sack, and her bile is attached to her heart.  What else had the healer said? There was so much.  It was overwhelming.  Nerve wracking.  And they weren’t even the witch who actually had to deal with it all.   Eda had acted unsurprised and largely unconcerned, sitting on that crinkly examination table. “You learn to get used to it,” Eda muttered against their collar bone. “ ‘was pretty fuckin scared at first…when I was a kid. Shit hurts and doesn’t stop. Something about transformation…straining the body or something.”  Something in their stomach twisted sharply.  “Really?”  “Mmm. Pain used to go away after a while. Eventually it just…didn’t. Then it’s like…stuff piles on.”  “I’m sorry.”  “Don’t. ‘S just life. ‘S normal for me.”  “Was it…?” “Terrifying? Kinda, yeah.” She shifted a little under the covers.  “might have been…one of those things I didn't really wanna talk about at the time,” she admitted quietly. They wove strands of silver hair between their fingers and breathed in deeply.  “I’m-” “Don't.” Eda grunted sleepily in warning, and their tongue stilled for several moments.  “I’m probably stupid for worrying so much,” They muttered.  “Nah, you’re okay. It’s kinda sweet.”  Soft lips pressed against their neck and they relaxed a fraction.  Eda closed her eyes again and sighed, draping a leg over their thigh.  “...Th’new meds don’t hurt though.”  In spite of the concern and anxiety they’ve been carrying for some time in their chest, Raine grinned just a little in the darkness.  “Yeah?”  “...Go to sleep, Raine.” They huffed a laugh under their breath and kissed the top of her head. “Okay.”  ------------------------- Cleaning potions tended to be hard on the skin.  Unfortunately, the rubber gloves were missing again.  “Raine.”  They were probably down in Eda’s lab.  How long was it going to take to get these damn stains out?  “Raine.”  This whole house was so dirty.  Everything was a mess.  A hazard.  Nothing was safe- “Rainestorm.”  Raine froze.  “Yes, dear?”  Eda crossed her arm over her waist and leaned against the kitchen doorway.  “Babe, I love you, but what the hell are you doing to the kitchen?”  They slowly lowered the rag and spray bottle.  “Cleaning?”  Eda frowned.  “With that much bleach? Hon, you know you’re gonna completely strip the polish off the table, right?”  “I don't know,” they said. “It survived Luz’s abomination homework experiments, and I'm pretty sure that was much worse for the table than this.”  she raised a brow.  “You didn't answer my question.”  They shrugged, feigning nonchalance. She stared at them for several moments.  Raine couldn't help but fidget slightly under her scrutiny.  After a bit she snorted.  “You know, if you really wanted to be my bard in shining tights that badly you could just offer to cook dinner.”  Raine choked on air and sputtered.  “I-what?”  “You've been acting weird ever since Luz came home with that packet about griffin flu season being around the corner. I thought you'd wear yourself out after the mess you made of the living room-” “That-cleaning is the opposite of making a mess-”  “But I draw the line at ruining all my wood furniture with a liquid ton of cleaner,” Eda cut them off sternly.  Suddenly feeling rather like a scolded child, Raine picked at a loose string on the rag they'd been cleaning with, examining their red, irritated knuckles from scrubbing with their bare hands.  “You don't need to be so worried,” she continued gently. “The kids have all had the jab-” “But you haven't,” they pointed out with a tinge of distress.  Many vaccinations were apparently incompatible with the medications and elixirs Eda took to manage her curse symptoms. Paired with her already weakened immune system from her chronic pain and atrophied bile sac, how could Raine not worry?  Especially with such a messy house dominated by two, equally messy kids.  Luz went to school every day, which was a massive germ factory in itself, and King, well, he was eight, going on nine, and, well, no child in the single digits was free of the curse of sticky claws and playtime stains.  Every cough, sneeze, every food splatter and instance of potential contamination had them wincing in apprehension.  Even just watching Eda nibble on cuts of raw meat while she was cooking, knowing her partially avian biology made it perfectly safe, necessary even, made them nervous, imagining all the bacteria she could potentially be exposed to.  It had gotten to the point that Raine had taken to changing their clothes and showering the moment they got home, and disinfecting their hands before and after work at the new high council headquarters.  “Rainestorm,” Eda said in that same patient voice. “You know I'm gonna be fine, right? I've handled this on my own for years, and I hate to break it to you, but I never get sick. I'm made of stronger stuff than that, Rainey.” There was an easy confidence to her stance.  Not for the first time, Raine found themselves torn between worry that perhaps they were letting their fear take things too far, and a crippling, looming anxiety that somehow, they still weren't doing enough.  “I-I know you are,” they stammered. “I just-I…”  “Hey.” A pale hand reached out and tugged the wash rag from their loose grip. Eda rubbed a thumb over their inflamed knuckles. She pulled them close and Raine couldn't help but fall into her touch with a shaky breath a little too close to tears.  It was just-  The only thing was-  There was a snake.  It curled around their heart.  The snake had been there since they were a child.  Its coils tightened when they had to lift their viola for a crowd.  When they made long public speeches.  When Eda coughed harsh and wet on a cold, dry day.  When the boiling rains kept her in bed, in so much pain she was feverish from it.  When they were left alone with their thoughts and could hear that healer’s voice as sharp in their head as the day of the appointment all those weeks ago. The sharp consonants of ‘Chronic Condition’ like a sharp stab to the gut.  Only the knife has always existed and Eda is entirely stoic with her blood on it’s blade and with every day that ticks by they feel so stupid for trying and failing to understand how to do the same when they don’t even have half the burden she carries to struggle with.  It’s not their pain.  Why  Why  Why  Why can’t they be just as happy in the moment as she is?  Why are they so scared?  What the hell is wrong with them?  “I’m sorry,” They finally croaked after a long moment of silence.  “I accept your apology, but only if it’s for butchering my table.”  They huffed a quiet laugh.  “You must think I’m so overbearing.”  “Please, babe, you’ve got nothing on my mother.”  Raine shuddered at the comparison.  “Ergh.”  To this day, Gwendolyn unnerved the hell out of them. “In all seriousness-”  Eda pulled away slightly to look them in the eye.  “It’s okay. I get where you're coming from.”  “I don’t understand what’s wrong with me,” They whined, hugging her tighter.  “You need time. I did too.”  “But this isn’t about me.”  “Isn’t it?”  They blinked.  “What?”  “You’re gonna marry me.”  Raine flushed and looked away.  “Eda!” There was a matching tinge of pink dusting Eda’s cheeks but she pushed on anyways.  “You love me. You’re going to marry me, because you want to stick to me like a leach, in sickness and health and all that junk. And Rainestorm-”  She touched their cheek to get them to turn back towards her again.  “I’d be worried if all that sickness didn’t scare you. But you’re still here.”  “Of course I am,” They said instantly and she smiled.  “That’s all that matters. You’re here. You worry because you love me. I’d feel the same if it were you. I do feel the same, when your scars ache, or, well…”  She traced the faint bags under their eyes gently, stroking the testaments to long sleepless nights after bad dreams or vivid flashbacks.  “Nightmares get better, the aches can be managed, fever burns itself out. Life is a stubborn bitch but babe, it ain’t got nothin on me.”  She gave them a soft kiss that contradicted her cocky tone.  “You’re stuck with me, Rainestorm. Deal with it.”  Raine laughed, louder and harder than they had in a while.  The snake eased up around their heart, just a little. For now, at least.  “I’m honored.”  ------------------------- It starts when Eda insists on going to see the home game with Luz and her friends.  To no one’s surprise, both of Eda’s children have a great love for the violent sport that is grudgby, even if Luz didn’t play, and King was far too little to be trying his hand at it just yet.  It wasn’t uncommon for the community to pack into the stands for home games, and Raine would be lying if they said they didn’t think the sport was pretty fun, too. Back in their hexside days, it had been fun to giggle over all the athletes with the other cheerleaders, playfully enduring the other kids’ teasing over their crush on the banshees’ star player, and screaming their head off while Eda pulled off cocky stunts on the field like the show-off she was. …and bandaging her up when said stunts occasionally failed.  Now, they were finding it was even more fun to watch the game with Eda herself tucked into their side. The stands were packed and naturally, that meant Eda had to squeeze in close, thigh to thigh with King in her lap and their arm around her shoulder.  Luz was a few rows down, hanging out with her classmates. Raine thought she looked adorable with her blue face paint, bundled up safely in Eda’s old letterman jacket.  It was nice to see her happily goofing off with her friends, after everything.  They were pulled out of their thoughts when another kid crashed into the ground, one of hexside’s, and Eda cupped her hand around her mouth to scream along with the rest of the stands in outrage.  “FOUL! Boo! Hell’s sake, that’s the third time. The ref needs to get their shit together,” She hissed.  In the seat directly next to hers, an elderly witch was apparently just as outraged, to the point that they were coughing and hacking up spittle from the force of their cries as they gestured wildly. (and rudely. Raine had half a mind to cover King’s eyes for a moment.)  Eda winced and leaned further into Raine’s side to try and avoid the splash zone.  “Weh! Mom, you’re squishing me!”  “Sorry, buddy-GET HIM! GO FOR THE SHINS! GO, GO GO!”  Eda very nearly stood up and Raine took mercy on King by scooping him up to sit on their shoulders.  “Thanks Noni!”  “Of course! Can you see alright?”  “Better than with my face stuck in mom’s sweater.”  “Fair enough.”  “Mom!”  Luz had shuffled up the stands and was holding out a half empty popcorn bucket.  “Do you want the rest of this? Me and Gus and Willow are all full.”  “Sure, kid.”  Eda accepted the bucket and popped a few pieces into her mouth before holding it out in offering.  “Want some, Rainey?”  They shook their head.  “No thanks, I lost my trust in stadium food after an unfortunate incident at one of Amber’s marching band competitions a few years ago.”  She shrugged.  “Suit yourself-OH COME ON THAT WAS TOTALLY ANOTHER FOUL!”   ------------ The house was dark when they finally got home. Even hooty was quiet when they pushed the door open, a sleeping King tucked against their chest.  Luz was also out cold, a gangly mess of teenage dead weight in Eda’s arm.  The two adults shuffled inside, grateful for the flood of warmth when the door was closed against the fall chill.  “Here-”  Raine adjusted their hold on King so that they could take Luz in their free arm, huffing a bit.  “I’ll take them upstairs,” they whispered. “Heat up some apple blood for us?”  “Mm, sure.”  She gave them a soft peck on the corner of their mouth and headed to the kitchen, pushing up the sleeves of her thick red sweater as she went.  Putting the kids to bed is always a little harder than it looks. They’re both clingy little heat seeking missiles when asleep, and at one point they’re certain Luz’s arms around their neck is going to be the death of them as they attempt to pry her off and not jostle King at the same time.  Tucking them in is another matter entirely, and Raine doesn’t want them to get cold, but they don’t want to wake them by pulling down the thick purple comforter from under them. Luckily, Luz has no shortage of blankets in her room, a true nester and warmth hogger just like her mom, and they pile the nearest ones on top of the kids as best as they can.  Luz’s eyes just barely flutter as they’re pulling a fleece azura blanket up to her chin.  “R’n?”  “Shh, go to sleep kiddo. It’s late.”  “Kay…l’v you…”  Warmth seeps from their heart and they grin wide at the sleeping teen, carding their fingers through her hair before planting a kiss to King’s skull and backing out of the room.  “I love you too.”  Parenting, they thought, was one of the greatest gifts Eda had brought into their life.  ------------ Eda has a pan of apple blood heating on the stove when they get downstairs, and a jar of cinnamon spice waiting on the counter.  Their favorite mug, a chipped blue birthday gift that reads ‘Alto clef does it better’, looks so cozy next to Eda’s treasured ‘30 and flirty’ mug that it makes their heart flutter, even after all these months.  “Should be ready in another minute,” Eda said quietly.  She was leaning against the counter, bare feet curled at the toes to ward off the chill from the cold tile. Her hair had been tied up all day and spilled over her shoulders now in thick waves as a result.  Eda looks tired and soft and loose in all the most beautiful ways in the dim kitchen light and they sigh happily then they cross the floor and gather her into her arms for a gentle, languid kiss.  It’s a rarity to have the house virtually all to themselves, but they’re so tired from the long day that it’s more appealing to simply take their steaming mugs upstairs and huddle together in the nest, reruns from an old show they’ve both watched a hundred times before playing quietly on one of their scrolls. “Thanks for coming out with us today,” Eda said quietly, leaning her head on their shoulder. “I know crowds aren’t your thing.”  “It was pretty loud, but I had fun. We all did.”  “Mmm.”  Eda took another sip of her apple blood and frowned.  “Ergh, my throat feels weird.”  They smirked.  “Someone overdid it with all that yelling, hm?”  “Shoosh, you. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  “Mhm. sure, Calamity.”  “Do you wanna watch a few more episodes?”  She gestured to the scroll.  “Maybe just one more. I’m ready to pass out,” They admitted.  “Same. We’re getting old, Rainestorm.” “Life past childhood is a scam,” They grumbled half-jokingly. “I’d like a refund on these creaky knees, thanks.” “How about my creaky everything?” Eda griped. “Joints bothering you again?”  “They always are, but yeah, kinda.”   “I’m sorry, Calamity. Do you want me to grab the heat packs?”  “No, let’s just lay down already. I think I just need to get some sleep.”  “If you’re sure. I love you.”  “Love you too, Rainestorm.”  ------------------- Eda is still in bed when they leave for work the next morning.  Raine doesn’t think much of it. They have an early day, and Eda will never be a morning person. They kiss her on the cheek before they leave and pull the blankets around her a bit more securely, content to let their fiance get all the rest she can before King inevitably comes crashing in, eager for his mom’s attention.  They’ll never understand how she does it, working from home and wrangling the high energy baby titan at the same time. They respect so many things about Eda, but her ability to homeschool king while brewing high complexity potions and putting up with hooty is certainly at the top.  It’s a good day at work.  The chaos from the emperor’s death and the Collector’s brief era of discord is finally starting to die down. The public is just barely beginning to settle, but it’s enough that Raine and the rest of the council can finally breathe and focus more on bureaucracy than relief efforts.  Tedious, but far less physically draining.  Darius and the construction head are arguing about something highly technical regarding latissa’s infrastructure that is making Raine’s head hurt when they feel their scroll going off in their pocket, and they’re grateful for a reason to excuse themself and leave the room.  Someone is trying to call them, and they smile when they see it’s Eda’s number.  “Hey, what’s up?”  “Noni?”  Raine paused.  That was King’s voice on the other end of the line, and he sounded…scared.  “King? Is something wrong, buddy?”  “Y-yeah.”  He sniffled and their anxiety heightened.  “Where’s your mom, bud?”  “She’s still in bed. I think she’s really sick. I, I don’t know what to do!”  Raine felt their heart drop into the pit of their stomach.  “What?”  “I tried to wake her up, and she did but her head was hurting so bad she cried a-and her face is too hot and I can’t- I don’t know what to-” “Hey, take a deep breath,” They soothed, trying not to let King hear their worry. “It sounds like she has a migraine. Let her rest and try to be extra quiet, and I’ll be home as fast as I can, okay?”  “You promise?”  “Yeah, buddy, I promise.”  ------------------ When Raine gets home, King is curled up in their armchair, looking sad and subdued, and the first thing they do is pull him into a hug.  “Thanks for looking after your mom, bud.”  “Is she gonna be okay?” he asked nervously. “I know she gets sick sometimes but it…” He nuzzled his face into the soft fabric of their blouse. “It hasn’t been this bad in a while.”  “Did this used to happen a lot?” They asked, ears pressing down against their skull.  “Not since Luz got here. She’s better at taking care of herself now.”  “I’m sure she’s gonna be just fine. Migraines are rough, but they pass eventually. Why don’t you watch the crystal ball while I go check on Eda?”  “Okay.” The bedroom is dark when they enter, curtains drawn firmly over the windows. They can make out a massive lump of hoarded blankets in the nest where Eda was trying to hide from the pain.  They keep their voice as physically possible when they place a hand on her shoulder.  “Eda? Are you awake, sweetheart?”  She whined curled in on herself, face screwed tight.  “Oh, honey,” They cooed sympathetically. “I brought you some of your meds. Do you think you can sit up for me?”  She whined at the prospect but was pliant when they wrapped their arms around her and slowly propped her up against the pillows.  They readjusted the blankets to keep her warm, although the bright red tint to her face and glassy, fever-bright eyes told them it might not be entirely necessary.  They have medicine for her migraine, and her elixir as well. the pills, Eda is all to happy to chase down with some water, but her grimace when they pull the cork off the bright yellow potion is not missed. Still, she swallows it all before sagging back down, eyes squeezed shut. Raine placed the back of their hand over her forehead and hissed.  They'd expected her to be warm, but titan, Eda was burning up.  Alarmingly so, considering how energetic she'd been just the previous night.  This wasn't just a migraine.  On cue, Eda broke into a harsh, wet coughing fit. Her entire upper body shook with the force of it, tears leaking out the corners of her eyes as she tried to regain her breath between sharp hacks.  Instinctively, Raine pulled her closer and rubbed a hand over her back.  “Easy, sweetheart, breathe, shh.”  They pressed the water bottle to her lips again and she did her best to take small sips, trying not to choke while they murmured encouragements and kept rubbing the space between her shoulder blades.  Eda was panting when the glass was finished and she sagged fully against Raine, face covered in a sheen of sweat.  “R’n?” She slurred weakly.  They pressed a kiss to her brow.  “What, honey?”  “Don’ feel good.”  “I know. I think you’re very sick.”  She whined again and her eyes fluttered closed, exhausted.  “Get some rest. The painkillers should kick in soon.”  “Mmn.”  They helped her lay back down and pulled the blanket over her before heading back downstairs, running a list in their head.  Fever reducers, tea, the fruit kind, Eda hates the medicinal stuff, but a hot drink will be good for her sinuses- “Is mom okay?”  They blinked and realized with slight surprise that they were standing at the bottom of the stairs, and King was perched on the back of the armchair, staring at them with worry.  “She’s pretty sick,” They admitted carefully, picking him up. “But it’s gonna be okay. She just needs rest and medicine.”  “I hate it when she gets sick,” he mumbled.  “I know, buddy, it’s not fun. Tell you what, I was thinking, since Luz is still at her other mom’s for the week, why don’t I heat up some griffin nuggets from the freezer and we can cuddle down here for a little while with a movie while your mom rests.”  King looked up at them, visibly confused.  “You’re not gonna go back to work?”  They frowned.  “Of course not! Eda is going to need help to get better, and I can’t leave you alone either.”  “I’m not alone? Mom is upstairs and Hooty is here too.”  Raine…wasn’t sure what to say to that.  It was hard sometimes, that King wasn’t used to anyone except for Eda caring about him.  Eda herself spoke very little about her dating history outside of their own mutual past. There were little things, like King’s caution when Eda had first started bringing Raine around the house after things with the collector had been settled, until Eda, with an unusual air of seriousness, had taken him aside and talked to him in a low voice.  Afterwards, while hesitant, King had been more willing to approach them. In his own words, Eda had never allowed him to get too close to any of her exes. She’d never brought any of them over to the house willingly, and was more likely to disappear for a night or two before coming back, usually tired and bruised or just completely closed off.  If anyone other than Eda did come to the house, it was generally not for good reasons, or King was otherwise ignored or treated much like Hooty, as an annoying extension of the house.  “That’s…not really the same, King. I’d rather be here with you.”  He shrugged.  “Okay…”  Then, quieter-  “Thanks.”  They smiled sadly and scratched his scruff.  “You don’t need to thank me for that, bud. That’s what I’m here for.” -------------------- “How are you holding up?”  “Bleeegh.”  “Understandable.” Eda stirred her spoon around in her soup listlessly, face tinged pink with fever, pouting.  She had been sick for three days now, and while they were certain she was on the mend, her fever was still a touch too high and she had heat pads wrapped around her knees and shoulder blades.  “Luz called while you were sleeping, by the way,” Raine said with a pointed nudge for her to try a few more sips of soup. “She says she hopes you get better soon, and that unfortunately, her mom won’t let her ‘collect possum evidence’, whatever that means.”  They paused, brow furrowing.  “What’s a possum?”  Eda grunted noncommittally.  “Just some made up creature from an old book me and Lils were into when we were kids. Luz thinks they’re real for some reason.”  “Ah.”  She set her bowl down and sighed.  “I think my headache’s coming back,” she said.  “Do you need more painkillers?”  “No, I just had some a few hours ago.”  “I’m sorry Calamity.”  She shrugged.  “Meh. I’m used to it.”  Eda stretch out one of her legs with a grimace.  “Still not as bad as that boiling storm when King was two.”  “Oh?”  “Mhm. went down with a fever on the couch. I couldn’t see straight and ended up giving myself a concussion trying to make the little guy dinner.”  She leaned over and nuzzled into the crook of their neck.  “Thank you, by the way. For looking after King. It’s a little too normal for him to be left to his own devices when this happens.”  “Don’t worry about it. He was really good the whole time. I think it mostly just makes him sad when you’re not feeling well.”  “I’m really glad you two get along,” she admitted. “He’s my little guy, you know? It’s just been the two of us for so long, and Luz changed some things, yeah, but it’s still never been like…how we all are now.”  They smiled and nodded.  “And…I’m really happy to have you here too, if the whole, sharing my home with you thing didn’t make it obvious.” Raine chuckled lowly.  “Yeah?”  She smiled softly and pressed her lips against their neck chastely.  “Yeah. It’s nice not to have to fetch my own potions while my body is trying to shut down,”  “I knew there was a real reason you were keeping me around.”  “Naaah, the real reason is cuz you’re cute and I needed some eye candy to leer at while I work.”  They gasped in mock offense and placed a hand over their heart, playing up a scandalized front.  Eda giggled.  Even in ratty pajamas, flushed with fever, and hoarse from coughing, Raine still felt their heart flutter at the sight of her happy and mostly content, snuggled into their side.  At first, they had been terrified to hear Eda was sick. They’d done their best to act calm for King, not wanting to scare him by coming across as panicked, but a bedridden Eda vulnerable from severe illness was a scene practically out of their nightmares.  Now, however, they felt a lot calmer. Eda wasn’t out of the woods yet, but she was getting better by the hour, and the last few days of taking care of her had made them realize that the reality of her condition wasn’t pleasant by any means, but it wasn’t an insurmountable barrier, or terrifying death sentence by any means.  Was this was Eda had meant, when she said the key to adjustment was to push through the worst of it?  Either way, they felt…settled.  …and a little silly, for being as afraid as they had been.  They would continue to worry about Eda, of course they would. But then again they worried about King when the house was too quiet for longer than a few seconds, and they worried about Luz when she went off on adventures with her friends.  Worrying was just part of being in a family. Of loving someone so much they lived in your heart permanently.  It was stressful.  It was messy.  It was everything.  …They wouldn’t have it any other way.   

General Audiences

People are fascinating. There are so many different witches and demons on the boiling ilse, and they're all so strange to me. The way they interact with eachother. Form relationships with eachother. It all feels so foren. I suppose I should be at the ages where I should start seeking these relationships out but I don't feel particularly close to anyone enough to really want to do it. My sister is the closest friend to me. My sister is my only friend. She seems to get people in a way I never can, but despite this, she always chose to spend her time with me. And here we are, together at the school canteen on a lonesome table like usual. She's telling me about her day, she loves telling me about her day. And I'm writing down the revision notes I had made while patiently listening. She fidgeting around with her juice box, her hands seem to move all over the place as she re tells her latest scandals like the time she got caught putting graffiti on the lockers. Times like this are nice, they beat the awkward times i have to avoid the lovely dovey couples that make out in the halls today. Its strange how a gesture can either seem so cute and/or obnoxious at the same time. What compels them to do it? Eda has told me about her crushes before. I'd ask her what it felt like and she'd say something about butterflies and "just knowing" and I'd pretend to understand. She'd gush about them constantly. Sometimes I wonder what it'd be like to feel so strongly about someone. Why don't I? Well it doesn't matter. Because I have my sister. "Uh hello? Earth to lilith?" My sister waves her hand towards my face snapping me out of my thoughts. "Where you even listening to me?" "Oh I'm so sorry I uh zoned out" "Yeah I can tell, you've bearly touched your food" she pointed to my tray "just how much do you hear from me anyway? I was just getting to the good part!" I try to think "uh something about you meeting a girl and trying to steal back a toy from the staff room?" "Yeah it was her toy! And they took it away because it was 'distracting the class' but she needed it to focus! So I devised a plan, we-" she explains in detail her plan to sneak into staff room and I try to carefully pay attention this time leaving my notes for later. Its all quite thrilling if I say so myself; the suspense i felt as she told me how she sneaked inside, the many close calls with staff members going in and out, and the quick get-away with the toy as a teacher chased her and the girl down the halls. But then there was this moment that she said next that caught me by surprise. "She thanks me a-and thats when she kissed me on the cheek and ran away" A kiss on the cheek. My sister has had plenty of experience with kisses on the cheek, forehead, a peck on the lips so its not really a big deal but I just didn't read into this situation being romantic at all, it was so random. My sister is blushing so much as she seems to look back at it. I remember a time where I thought blushing only happened in fiction or when you where too cold, that was until my sister got her first crush. Now its become so common I don't really think twice about it. "So are you dating now?" I ask and that snaps her out of her reminiscing and straight into being a flustered mess. "What? NO, no I mean it was- we haven't established that yet- i mean what made you think that?" She exclaims frantically dropping her juice. "Well you kissed, that means your dating right?" I wasn't too sure about the social conventions of dating but it'd be kind of strange to not date after that right? "No we- i don't think so" she says calming herself down but still having a slight reddish pink blush on her cheeks "do- do you think I should?" I stare at her. I always find it so bizarre when my sister, the one who seems to get all the witches she wants asked for my help. "Well do you want to?" "Yes" "Then yes you should now go and do it already" I can't believe I let myself get dragged into this. Its after school and Eda has been pining after this girl over the last couple of school hours. My sister, who was know as the most reckless strong headed, confident person I know can't even muster up the courage to say hello to this girl. A girl who mind you, definitely resiprocates her feelings. How crazy is that? And after multiple failed attempts and her whining and begging me I finally caved and decided to help my mess of a sister out. I wasn't even sure of what to do really, but if Eda really needed me that badly then who was I to refuse. The plan was simple really, meet the girl at the gate, ask her out, leave. Simple enough right? You almost believe she didn't even need my help. But heres where I come in; I would lead her towards the girl holding her hand and then as we get there I would run past letting go of her hand and running away till I was out of sight leaving her and the girl alone, then I would hide in the bushes to see how she was holding up, giving her little prompts like written words for her to say or a thumbs up/down to show if she was doing a good job. I began to take her hand and ran as fast as I could towards the girl. I could just make out her black hair from the crowd. "I'm starting to get second thought about this lilith" eda whispered to me nervously though breathes. But it was already too late to back track as we had finally reached our target. I let go of my sisters hand and bolted for the gates making sure it looked like I had just lost her in the crowd. I wanted this to look as natural as possible, as if I had no part in it at all. Behind me I could heard Eda say an awkwardly soft "hi". I rushed through the gate and then around to the bushes, my feet wobbling around the pebbles and leaves. I try and find a good spot to look in on, an opening. I crouch down on the dirty floor and peer in through the twigs and leaves to see how things where progressing. "It was ju- I came to- I wanted to" My sister suddenly saw me in the distance, apparently seeing me alone was enough to fill her back up with determination. "So uh- I came here to talke to you about the kiss-" "Oh god I'm so sorry I don't know what came over me" "Hey its- its okay i-" "Really i think it would be best if we just forgot about it- i really shouldve asked im so sorry" "Oh. Uh okay then" she looked so dejected, her moral completely crumbling away, this wasn't going as planned, oh titan.

Not Rated

La primera noche, Camila les prepara congri. Ella ya había estado preparándolo, ya había pasado el proceso de dejar los frijoles a remojar desde la noche anterior. A Vee no le lagrimean los ojos cuando corta cebolla, por lo que normalmente está a cargo del sofrito. Camila está a cargo del largo proceso de hervir, pero se les acabó el Sazón Completa, así que ella espera que Luz no note la diferencia. Tal vez no importe. Camila se para en la puerta de la cocina y mira en la sala. Allí está su hija. Está Luz. Pero no es su hijita. No es la muñequita, con cachetitos regordetes, risa dulce y brillo escarchado en la mirada ("Tu risa como un manantial..." solía cantar Alberto, sosteniendo su hija en brazos). Esta era una Luz hueca. Un pequeño bombillo que titilaba. —Amor —dice Camila, sin ninguna certidumbre en su voz, y Luz levanta la cabeza. Su mirada ausente—. Los aguacates están listos. ¿Quisieras... quisieran todos algo más con la cena? Los amigos de Luz dirigen su mirada a Luz y, por mucho que le duele sentirse orgullosa cuando su bebé está lastimada, lo hace. Lo está. Está orgullosa porque los amigos de Luz confían en ella y la quieren, y tiene finalmente los buenos amigos que siempre se había merecido. —No sé lo que ustedes puedan comer aquí, chicos. —Luz tragó saliva con dificultad, sus ojos sin un punto fijo. Después unos instantes y con un par de parpadeos, Luz regresó a la vida y enfocó los ojos en Camila—. Pero deberíamos probar. —Gracias, señora Noceda —murmuró un coro disonante de adolescentes. Por supuesto que Luz encontró a su gente en otro universo. A Camila le aterroriza, pero entiende que así es lo que es. Si tan solo Luz hubiera pasado más tiempo allí, con los pies en la tierra, buscando niños que vean los mismos animes, o que jueguen aquel juego que tantas madres decían era "del demonio" cuando Camila era joven, Luz habría encajado. Luz habría estado a salvo. Pero, en cambio, allí estaba su hija, envuelta en vendas de la criatura mítica que vivía en su hogar, rodeada de adolescentes con verdaderas orejas puntiagudas, mirando la pared. Camila no tenía idea de qué hacer. Así que cocinaba. Cuando Camila era pequeña, cada vez que estuvo enferma, triste o lastimada, su madre había cocinado para ella. Cuando Santo Domingo era todo lo que ella conocía y su padre le dijo que se mudarían a los Estados Unidos, su madre había cocinado para ella. Cuando los otros niños la molestaban en un idioma que ella todavía no entendía, su madre había cocinado para ella. Así que cocinaría para Luz y las personas con quien había llegado a casa, porque Camila es su madre, y eso es lo que las madres hacen. ... La segunda noche, Camila les prepara mofongo. Los otros niños no han hablado mucho, pero ahora todos se pusieron ropa de Luz (a variados niveles de éxito) y las cosas se sienten un poco menos raras. Vee puso un documental de animales para el grupo y Camila los ve a todos sentados frente a la tele, pero no parece que ninguno está poniendo atención. Vee se desliza hacia la cocina y se sienta en la mesa para machacar los plátanos hervidos. El calor no lastima sus piel, así que siempre se ofrece para hacerlo porque disfruta el proceso y ensuciarse las manos. —¿Nos queda Rocky Road? Creo que a los chicos les gustará el helado. Camila alza la vista de la tabla de picar. —Creo que sí —responde, mientras Vee se envuelve en la búsqueda dentro de la heladera—. ¿Atrás de la yuca? Vee levanta el cartón de helado, triunfante. Camila ha estado comprando un montón de helado con malvaviscos llamado Rocky Road. Ella lo hace porque es el favorito de Luz, y porque no quiere que haga falta cuando Luz finalmente vuelva a casa. Pero Luz está en casa ahora. Y, después de la cena, cuando Vee lo ofrece, Luz lo rechaza. Después, Luz y sus amigos suben a su habitación, mientras Vee ayuda a Camila con los platos. Ella pasa la noche en vela preguntándose: su hija volvió a casa, sí, ¿pero cuándo volverá Luz? … La tercera noche, Camila les prepara mangú. Es la noche en la que tuvo una conversación con uno de los amigos de Luz. Su nombre es Gus y es más pequeño que los otros, algo que le rompe el corazón. Tiene una carita dulce que ha visto demasiado, piensa ella. —Me gusta mucho su casa, señora Noceda —dice él, de pie en el medio de la cocina. Él, en realidad, no suena más joven que los otros. Él suena confiado, seguro de sí mismo de una forma que le recuerda a Luz tan solo unos años atrás. —Puedes llamarme Camila —respondió—, y no te preocupes, esta es tu casa también. Por el tiempo que tengas que quedarte. Gus la mira a los ojos, con los suyos bien abiertos y algo vidriosos. —Gracias. —Gus le sonríe, aunque un poco más para sí mismo que para ella—. Veo de dónde viene la generosidad de Luz. Es un sentimiento muy dulce. ÉL suena seguro de eso también. —Eso es muy amable de tu parte, Gus. Gracias. Gus se queda allí en la cocina mientras Camila cocina, curioseando. Ella lo descubre mirando el machacador de papas que estaba a punto de usar para los plátanos como si fuera la cosa más interesante que ha visto en su vida. Están solo los dos en la cocina; Vee cambió de forma y salió a la tienda a buscar pimiento. —¿Quieres probarlo? Él la mira y ve fantasía infantil en sus ojos. A ella le alegra ver que no toda se ha ido. Camila le enseña cómo convertir los plátanos en puré y Gus lo hace con tal concentración... a ella le recuerda la vez que le había enseñado a hacer eso a Luz. Ambas solían divertirse mucho en la cocina, preparando esto y aquello. Camila solía dejar a Luz mezclar las salsas que quisiera del refrigerador para hacer “pociones mágicas” en un bol. Camila siempre terminaba echándolo todo por el fregadero cuando Luz inevitablemente se quedaba dormida en el sofá. Cuando Luz era muy pequeña, Alberto solía ponerla en sus hombros y le daba pequeñas partes de los ingredientes que usaban cuando él ayudaba en la cocina. La mayoría terminaba en su cabello. Camila dejó a Gus trabajar con los plátanos y cortó una cebolla roja junto al lavabo, dándole la espalda. Ella eligió picar la cebolla antes que el chorizo, porque así sería más fácil explicar por qué estaba llorando. ... En la cuarta noche, Camila les prepara sancocho. Vee le acompaña en la cocina mientras lavan los platos, como es usual, pero esta vez hay otro invitado que se une a ellos. Él está algo dudoso, indeciso en el pasillo que da a la cocina. —¿Necesitas algo, Hunter? —empieza ella, porque al chico pareciera que el alma le va saltar del cuerpo—. Todavía tenemos bastante Rocky Road para un postre, o... lo que necesites, mi casa es tu casa. —Yo... uh... —sus ojos saltan del microondas a una tabla de picar al refrigerador. Él se decide por el piso y golpea sus zapatos al ponerse en posición de un saludo militar—. Señora, ¿puedo ser de asistencia? Camila y Vee se miran entre ellas. Vee encoge los hombros y se limpia las manos en una toalla, escapándose hacia la sala. —¿Quisieras... lavar los platos? —Absolutamente, señora. —Hunter, por favor, puedes llamarme Camila —ella dice, con gentileza. Hay algo diferente con este muchacho. Algo que los otros niños no tienen. —Hunter, si Luz te ha contado algo de la chancla, prometo que solo ella es quien la recibe. Quizá no está bien decir eso. Hunter se desliza silenciosamente junto a Camila y continúa con el trabajo que Vee había empezado. Camila no entiende nada sobre el mundo del que esos niños vinieron, pero Luz ha intentado explicarlo varias veces en los últimos días. —Y... ¿Qué tipo de magia haces tú? Hunter deja caer un vaso de plástico y este repiquetea contra el piso. —Yo... lo siento. Lo siento señora... señora Camila, um. —Hunter se lanza hacia el vaso, golpeándose la cabeza contra el mesón. —Oh, cariño, ¡ten cuidado! —Ella no sabe si estaría bien hacer algo más, así que solo acerca una mano hacia su hombro cuando Hunter se levanta, él con los ojos clavados en el mesón—. Está bien. En serio, tenemos cientos de esos vasos. Podrías haberlo roto en pedacitos sin que importe realmente. Él se muerde el labio y aventura alzar la mirada hacia ella. Camila le sonríe, esperando que eso ayude. —Lo siento. —Está bien, lo prometo. Hunter le recuerda a esa vez que encontraron un perrito con Luz, abandonado a un lado de la carretera. Lo habían recogido inmediatamente y llevado a una veterinaria. El perro había tenido sus patas traseras rotas y temblaba como una hojita en los brazos de Luz, y Luz lloró por él, y Camila también. Por suerte se habían encargado de él a tiempo y una pareja de ancianos lo adoptó y vivió por muchos años, feliz y saludable. Le gustaría que así sea también el futuro de ese chico. —¿Quieres algo de helado con malvaviscos? Hunter la miró y sonrió. ... La quinta noche, Camila les hace batidos de mamey como postre. Hunter y Gus se habían acabado todo el helado, dejándola con dos mameys demasiado maduros y un cartón de leche como opciones. Cuando ella prueba el suyo, la amiga de Luz, Willow, mira a Camila como si le hubiera dado un boleto ganador de la lotería. —¿Qué decía que era esto? —pregunta, sorprendida. —Es mamey, Willow. Teníamos un árbol en nuestro patio trasero cuando era pequeña. Era mi fruta favorita entonces. Todavía me encanta. —¿Crece en los árboles así? —Willow alza su vaso. Camila le muestra la dura fruta negra y se la entrega a Willow. —Así. Puedes abrirla y comértela tal como está, o convertirla en una gran variedad de cosas. Los batidos siempre han sido los favoritos de Luz. Willow palpa la fruta en su mano, todavía sorbiendo su batido. —¿Por qué no tienen un árbol aquí? —Esos no crecen en Connecticut. —Era una de las peores cosas de haberse mudado a Estados Unidos—. En República Dominicana, teníamos vecinos con árboles de mango, otros de guayaba, y la casa de mis abuelos tenía aguacates y guanábanas. Podías ir por tu calle y regresar a casa con una canasta entera de fruta gratis. —Eso suena genial —dice Willow, anhelante—. Nunca supe cuántas plantas tenía el reino humano. Quizá... nunca pensé al respecto. Quizá debí haberlo hecho, con lo mucho que Gus habla al respecto... Cada vez que uno de los niños mencionaba el reino humano o el reino de los demonios, Camila se sentía totalmente fuera de lugar. Ella entendía que eran lugares totalmente diferentes, y que cinco de las siete personas en su casa provenían de un lugar que solo conocía en pesadillas no lo hacía más fácil de aguantar. —¿Puedo intentar una cosa? —pregunta Willow, considerando el mamey. —¿Eso romperá algo? Willow esboza una sonrisa felina. —No debería. La chica va al patio trasero y Camila la mira a través de la ventana de la cocina. Ella pone el mamey en el piso y da un par de pasos hacia atrás. Hay un brillo verde en sus manos y ojos, y el corazón de Camila está a punto de salirse de su pecho al verlo pero, como una versión en la vida real de un video en cámara rápida, crece un árbol de mamey allí en su patio trasero, igual a los de cuando era niña. Willow lo mira de arriba a abajo y, a pesar de que Camila sabía que esos niños eran mágicos, ella no lo había visto hasta ahora. —¿Y? ¿Qué tal? —Willow pregunta cuando regresa adentro. Todavía es confuso, pero camila siente que los amigos de Luz son amables y considerados, justo como Luz. —Es hermoso —responde, todavía algo sorprendida—, gracias, Willow. ... La sexta noche, Camila les prepara pollo guisado. —Disculpe, señora Camila. Es una voz que ella no ha escuchado mucho, pero una que quería escuchar. Camila se voltea y allí está Amity en el pasillo, frotándose las manos. —Hola Amity. ¿Quisieras ayudarme a ver si esto está bien sazonado? —Oh, yo no sabría decirle... Pero Camila ya tiene la cuchara lista, y como Amity ha limpiado el plato cada vez desde que llegó, Camila cree que es una oferta muy tentativa. Ella toma la cuchara extendida, cerrando los ojos cuando la prueba. —Guau, esto es... —Ella abre los ojos de nuevo, de pie totalmente erguida—. Sabe excelente, señora Camila. Camila le sonríe a la novia de su hija. —Halagar mi comida te llevará lejos conmigo, Amity. Esto parece relajarla un poco. —Bueno... entonces debería saber... um. No creo haber probado nada mejor en toda mi vida. Ella sabe que Amity no está mintiendo. ¿Intuición de madre, tal vez? —Gracias, cariño. —Camila toma la cuchara de Amity y la pone en el lavabo—. Ahora, ¿No me ibas a preguntar algo? —Yo, um —Empieza Amity, volviendo a frotar sus manos—. Yo no creo haberle agradecido... Personalmente, quiero decir. Por, ya sabe, ¿cuidarnos y todo eso? —Oh, no te preocupes. Los amigos (y novia) de Luz son bienvenidos aquí. —Ella le sonríe a Amity, y parece que hay algo más. Así que pregunta— ¿Tienes algo más que decirme, no? Amity suspira. —Um, pensé que usted podría ayudarme, siendo la mamá de Luz y eso. Camila pone su cuchara de madera en su respectivo recipiente colorido y se encara a Amity, preocupada. —Por supuesto. —Luz ha estado distante. O sea, yo entiendo por qué, pero... no sé qué hacer para ayudar. —Su voz tiembla un poco y, a pesar de lo intranquila que está, Camila solo puede estar agradecida de que la chica que Luz escogió se preocupa tan profundamente por ella—. Sé que se siente culpable, pero... no lo sé, ella no debería... pero no le puedo decir eso. No puedo, nunca le diré a ella cómo tiene que sentirse. Camila piensa por un momento. Ella ha estado preocupada sobre eso también. Inmensamente agradecida como estaba de tener a Luz de vuelta, ella también había estado pensando sobre lo que cambió en su hija. A la hora de la cena, los ojos de Luz son taciturnos. Ella no termina la comida como solía, ella no habla por horas como solía, ella ya no tiene ese brillo de antes en los ojos, no como solía. Lo mismo probablemente puede ser dicho de sus amigos, pero Camila no los conoce tanto. Lo que sea por lo que pasaron juntos, les cambió a todos. —Sabes —empezó Camila, sonriendo contra su preocupación—, Luz solía inventarse todo tipo de historias. Ella las escribía y se emocionaba tanto que venía y me las leía. Eran sobre todas las cosas que le interesaban, cosas de las que seguro sabes mucho: magia, demonios, hechizos, ese tipo de cosas. —Camila apagó la estufa—. Un día, Luz me trajo una historia de la que estaba especialmente orgullosa. Trataba de un guerrero que peleaba contra un monstruo que podía meterse en sus recuerdos. Hacía que el guerrero piense en los amigos que había perdido, y la tristeza de esos recuerdos eran lo que vencían al guerrero cada vez. »No me di cuenta al principio, pero mientras más pensaba al respecto, más me daba cuenta de que el monstruo era toda su tristeza... —Camila tuvo que detenerse a tomar aire, a preguntarse por qué le estaba mintiendo todo esto a la pobre Amity—. Sobre su padre. Ella escribió que el guerrero sabía que había algo que podía hacerse para evitar perder a esas personas. Luz nunca terminó la historia, pero todavía tengo el cuaderno. —Luz me ha contado de su padre... ella debió haber sido tan pequeña. Camila asintió. —Tenía cuatro años. No sé qué es lo que le hace creerlo, pero ella siempre creyó que todavía se podía hacer algo. Que él estaría aquí si ella... no sé qué. Amity parece estar digiriendo esta información como si digiriera ladrillos. —Pero... ¿cuatro? No había nada que nadie podría haber hecho. Me tomó años entender eso. Pero no estoy seguro de que Luz lo haya hecho. Amity la mira a los ojos, triste. Más triste que ninguna niña de 14 años debería estar. —Creo que usted tiene razón. La séptima noche, Camila les ordena comida para llevar. Es viernes y ella está exhausta emocional, física y espiritualmente. Ha sido una larga semana en el trabajo y una larga semana en casa. Tan gratificante como agotadora. Hay un poco más de energía en la casa, piensa ella. Gus empezó a ver su basta colección de novelas en VHS con total seriedad, algo que Camila encuentra fascinante porque no tiene subtítulos al inglés. Vee sabe algo de español ahora, y le traduce lo que puede, pareciendo que tienen algo de éxito. A pesar de que empezar un jardín es algo que Camila siempre dijo que iba a hacer, ahora no lo necesita. Willow ha plantado y madurado cada fruta, hierbs y vegetal que han comido en la última semana en el patio trasero. Ella pasa la mayoría del tiempo allí con Hunter, quien usa la tarjeta de la librería de Camila para buscar todos y cada uno de los libros botánicos que hayan en Gravesfield. Amity pasa un montón de tiempo con Camila, siendo tan útil como pueda, sin importar la cantidad de veces que Camila le ruegue que se relaje. Ella trapea los pisos, lava los platos, inclusa desenpolva los alféizares. Es dulce, piensa ella. Dulce, también, que el tiempo que pasa sin envolverse en sus agraciadas acciones, está compartiendo con Luz. Luz, su hija. Con quien ha pasado la menor cantidad de tiempo. Camila supo, desde esa primera noche, que cuando Luz estuviera lista, ella se acercaría. Había algo en los ojos de su hija, algo a lo que no había querido acercarse. Bajo todo ese alivio, "mi hijita está a salvo en casa", había algo acechando. Algo atemorizante, algo que estaba cambiando. Mientras todos los demás están ocupados, es alivio lo que la encuentra cuando Luz entra a la cocina, sola. —¿Mamá? Camila se voltea y ve a Luz mayor de lo que es. —Hola, mi amor —dice, hablando con cuidado—. ¿Qué tal? Estos días, Luz ha sido una pared de cemento. Estóica, callada y distante, y entonces, entonces ella está llorando, y Camila deja todo para correr hacia su hija, su bebé, su lucesita. —Mi amorcita, mi amor —murmura, en la coronilla de Luz. Dicen que tu olor se queda allí toda la vida. Camila cree que es verdad, ella recuerda cómo olía Luz cuando era bebé. Aquí, exactamente igual—. Respira, mi amor. Respira. Hubieron muchas veces, cuando Luz era pequeña, en las que se convertía en un total manojo de nervios, salvaje, aturdida y con náuseas. Pasó el primer día de preescolar, el primer día de jardín, y luego Alberto murió, y algo en Luz guardó esa reacción y la escondió. Aquí estaba, de vuelta después de una década. Luz cargaba sollozos en su hombro, sosteniéndola de la chaqueta y el corazón de Camila se está rompiendo una y otra y otra y otra vez. Ella se mantendrá fuerte para Luz, porque tiene que hacerlo. Ella solo llora porque es necesario y compasivo al dolor de su nena. Ella arrullará a Luz hasta que pueda respirar de nuevo, y la sostendrá hasta que entienda que no importa lo lejos que se vaya de casa, el hogar siempre estaría allí. Una vez Luz estuvo lo suficientemente tranquila para sentarse a la mesa, el primer pensamiento de Camila es: "he sido una terrible madre. No tengo nada cocinado para mi hija." Eso no es lo que Luz necesita, claro. La comida no es la cura de todos los males que la propia madre de Camila creía. luz necesitaba apoyo, como el que Camila le dio cuando ella sostenía sus manos mientras daba sus primeros pasos. Como el que le dio cuando la sostuvo en el velorio. Como el que le dio cuando Luz fue rechazada por alguien que le gustaba. Como ahora, que frotaba la espalda de Luz, y su cabeza está sobre su pecho. —Es mi culpa que ellos estén aquí —dice ella, con la voz engrosada en lágrimas, y Camila solo quiere abrazarla otra vez—. Yo les hice esto. Camila lo considera por un rato, solo recorriendo laa manos sobre los hombros de Luz. —Luz, ¿recuerdas el niño con el que te hiciste amiga en el primer grado? Pasa un rato largo antes de que Luz resoplara. —¿Austin? ¿Allan? ¿Aiden? Camila lo tiene. A veces para su hija, apoyo viene en forma de distracción. Ella le resta importancia al nombre con un gesto de la mano. —No me acuerdo. No importa. Lo que sí me acuerdo es cómo lo tratasteca él y cómo te trató a tí. Luz respira profundamente, limpiándose los ojos. —Le di mi colección entera de Hot Wheels. —¿Y él...? —Puso un chicle en mi cabello en frente de todos durante el recreo. —Luz sonríe sin energía—. ¿Se supone que eso me haga sentir mejor? —'Perate. Estoy llegando a mi muy inteligente Sabiduría de Mamá. Luz le lanza una mirada, pero no dice nada. —Siempre has sido una persona que da, mija. Muchas veces das a gente que no se lo merece. Pero tus amigos... —Camila apunta hacia arriba de las gradas, donde suena la aspiradora encendida, luego señala afuera, donde Willow está administrando costales de abono para el paisaje, mientras Hunter poda una gigante planta de albahaca. En el horno, hay un pastel que Gus preparó. Camila sonríe. —Ellos no tendrían que hacer tanto como hacen, pero sí devuelven. Estos son amigos de verdad, amor. Ellos te quieren. Luz mira alrededor. —Yo también los quiero —dice, silenciosa. Camila toma una de las manos de Luz. —Estoy tan feliz de que tengas personas que te aman tanto como yo. —Ella le sonríe—. Y no te hice crecer católica por una razón, mijita, no dejes que la culpa de la bisabuela te persiga como a mí. Luz ríe con eso. Ella se deja caer en el hombro de Camila, y esta la sostiene con toda la fuerza que tiene. Algún día, Luz volverá a irse. Ella lo sabe. Volverá al peligroso y mágico mundo del que se ha enamorado. Y Camila estará allí para ella, con abrazos y comida y amor y un hogar. Porque eso, eso es lo que las madres hacen.

General Audiences

Emira slowly opened the door to Edric’s room. She peered inside, making sure he hadn’t returned yet from his potions’ private tutoring with the Owl Lady. She comfortably danced her way inside, looking to retrieve the Ghoul Fighters’ CD that she had borrowed him last week. She opened his drawers, praying to Titan to not find anything weird inside them. Emira kept looking in every place Edric could hide things, but aside from a few raunchy graphic novels, she didn’t find much. Suddenly, the strong and reprehensive voice of Odalia made her jump. She was lecturing someone in the floor below. Whoever it was, they really made her mad. Emira then realized who would be the only one to trigger such reaction from her mother. “You always talk about exploiting our potential, mom! This is helping me exploit that potential!” the muffled cry of Edric could be heard from downstairs. “Nonsense! You shall exploit your potential in the designated coven for you” replied Odalia. “This family won’t stain its good name dealing with wild witches”. “Yeah, whatever you say mom” scoffed Edric, his voice already in the hallway to his room’s door. This wasn’t good for Emira. Edric had returned earlier than expected and his hand was now twisting the knob to open the door. Panicked, Emira didn’t have any other option but to use her concealment stone to turn invisible. She could make her way out of there once Edric left his door open. Much to her dismay, Edric closed the door after entering the room and locked it from the inside. Emira held a frustrated groan in her throat as Edric made his way to the bed, flopping face-first onto it. Edric turned around, facing up, and took off his concealment stone. Emira got closer to his bed after this, trying to get a better view of him. She would never admit it, but she actually preferred his messy hair over the well-groomed hairdo of his illusion. She thought it gave him a proper personality, put him apart from the rest of the people. His acne wasn’t so hard to look at anymore, and she prided herself for getting him into skin-care routines. “I got to make him eat more greens, too” she thought. “Man, this really sucks” blurted Edric suddenly, remembering Emira that she had to be careful about her invisibility. “I’m tired of all this ‘Blight name’ business. Can’t I be just a guy, enjoying life, having fun, without any kind of societal expectations dangling over me like a dagger?”. Emira empathized with Edric’s monologue. She too had similar thoughts, if not the same. Emira’s ideas and energy were constantly put down by Odalia, even her clothes, friends and romantic interests had to be Odalia-approved, including her celebrity crushes. Forced into “proper womanly behavior”, pranks with her brother were her small place for rebellion. “Although… I’m really glad for Amity” continued ranting Edric. “She seemed to be the one mom really had under control, and so young! At least she found herself a nice little girlfriend that showed her the chaotic ways” he laughed. Emira too was glad for Amity, maybe a little jealous too. It would be nice to have a romantic partner to rip her away from the claws of the dragon known as Odalia, and embark in a journey of freedom. “And I… I only have… Emira” said Edric, sighing. Emira looked attentively at Edric. The way he said her name made a pit in her stomach and forced a blush out of her face. He talked as if it had been ages since the last time they saw each other, at breakfast, that same morning. “Only she understands me. Only she helps me. She is the only one I laugh for real with. Isn’t it sad? Relying on your sister. What a big baby you are, Edric” he said, covering his face. “I mean she’s sweet and nice and… pretty” he said, longing. The pit in Emira’s stomach turned into a dance of bats, flying all over inside her, making her heart palpitate faster. Did her brother recognize romantic feelings for her? Her whole body was getting hotter, she was starting to sweat. But why? Morals and laws told her she should be disgusted, appalled and disturbed. Instead, she was feeling like a teenager that heard her crush confessing to her. He wasn’t bad looking at all, and he may be a bit dumb, but he wasn’t an insensitive idiot like many other guys of their age. And just like he said, she could only laugh for real when she was with him. “And she always smells so nice!” he exclaimed, lifting his arms in the air. “Wait! Where is it? Where did I leave it?”. Edric frantically got up from the bed and crawled on all fours to reach his clothes drawer. He looked around, tossing clothes behind him until he claimed victory upon finding a girly bottle of perfume. “So that’s where it went! I’ll have to apologize to Mittens later” thought Emira, who blamed her little sister of her favorite and expensive perfume’s disappearance. Edric rushed to bed again. He pulled a large pillow, almost his size, closer to him. He then sprayed a little bit of the perfume on the pillow and sniffed it. Emira was confused as what to think. In one hand, she was glad Edric appreciated the smell of dragon flower and, by association, her smell; in the other, she was weirded out that Edric went so far as to steal it from her room and that now he was profoundly sniffing the essence in the pillow. “Emira… I love you so much, Emira” whispered Edric onto the pillow. Emira watched astonished as she noticed Edric starting to rub his crotch against the pillow. She could notice the outline of his boner being stressed against his shorts by the friction. His humping was slow but eager, gripping the pillow tightly against him. She had to cover her mouth to not let out a gasp of surprise when he pulled his shorts and briefs down, setting his dick free to rub it directly against the pillow’s soft fabric. Her mind forced her to pay attention to herself for a moment, feeling a pleasurable twitch in her nether regions as she heard him panting her name, calling her beautiful and throwing compliments at the stand-in sister he was humping. Unable to keep fighting the extreme warmth building up inside her, she unbuttoned her pants and slid her hand inside her panties. Her fingers were welcomed by an already wet pussy, and she cursed herself for getting so excited because of her brother. However, she didn’t fight the urge that compelled her to rub her labia, imagining that her hand was Edric’s dick actually humping on her, desperate for entrance. Her mind immediately rushed to a fantasy where she took complete control over Edric, denying him the sweet sensation of her insides, making him beg to connect with her as he humped her dampened folds. She almost whined loudly thinking of that, and realized she had to keep the pacing of her rubbing down if she didn’t want the wet sounds of her pussy to alert Edric. She looked back at him and realized he hadn’t been bothered at all. He kept on humping on the pillow with lovely abandon. Emira felt another wave of pleasure make her shiver noticing the trails of precum he was starting to leave on the pillow. She kept admiring his humping for a couple of minutes until he changed his position, putting himself on top of the pillow. “Emira… please… love me” he whispered, laying down on the pillow, putting his whole weight over it. Emira quickly moved position to be at the side of his bed and watch him better. She was enthralled by the increase on the speed of his thrusting, the long and deep rocking of his hips against the pillow, the strong embrace with which he kept the pillow in place as he started (basically) fucking it. She bit her lips, wishing she was the one in the pillow’s place. She knew that, if she orgasmed right there and then, she wouldn’t be able to repress any noise. She made the sacrifice of cutting down her own masturbation and save the mental image for another moment. Edric, unaware of his sister watching him with big attentive eyes and a fluttering heart, fucked his pillow with the energy only a horny teenager can have. He too wished it was Emira in the pillow’s place so he could touch her soft skin, suck her precious chest, smell her real essence, hear her wanting more of him. It wasn’t long until he grunted, feeling the climax closer. He gave a couple of deep thrusts onto the pillow before he felt his dick twitching, delivering a hot sticky load on the fabric. Emira licked her lips watching his legs trembling, the pulsations of his ejaculation mirrored by the ones in his butt. She leaned in a little bit when Edric got off the pillow, admiring the viscous pool of white liquid on the pillow, with pearly strands trailing back to his dick. “Ugh… I always forget I have to clean this mess” lamented Edric, looking at the stained pillow. “I could lick that clean for you” thought Emira, admiring Edric’s still-pulsating and messy dick. “I wish I could do this with her” he sighed, cleaning the pillow with napkins. “What the fuck is wrong with me? Why would I want to do this with my sister? Maybe because she’s so hot…” he asked and answered to himself. Emira’s heart was touched again. Everything told her she shouldn’t have any positive thoughts about Edric’s feelings, but he sounded so honest and lovestruck for her that she couldn’t let it past. Suddenly, the silence of the room was broken up by a growling. Emira’s face contorted in terror realizing the growling had come from her stomach. She was going to get a snack right after retrieving the CD from Edric’s room, but among the whole situation she had completely forgotten about it. That was it, she had been discovered. Hell was about to be released onto her. “Uh… I must be so hungry that my stomach is grumbling out of my body. Don’t worry, pal! That was a good session and you deserve a good meal” said Edric, talking to his stomach. He put his briefs and shorts back on and left for the kitchen, leaving his room’s door open. Emira took advantage of the situation and quickly made her way back to her own room, where she locked herself. Food could wait, she had a different hunger to take care of.

Explicit

Eda Clawthorne finished fastening the straps on her supply pack and slung it over her back. She had just landed her ship, The Owl House, on an outer-rim planet in the ass-crack of the galaxy. Her crew (although crew was a generous word) was running out of supplies, and as much as Eda hated to land anywhere these days, she didn’t have much of a choice. As far as she could tell this planet had little to no imperial presence, which is exactly the kind of planet Eda needed.  “King!” Eda called out, “We’re leaving!” King, the only other crewmember of The Owl House scurried into the room. He had been Eda’s padawan until Order 66, when the clones turned on the Jedi and the Order was abolished. He was just a kid, and no responsible adult would let a ten year old be the right hand man of a starship. Eda, however, was not a responsible adult.  “King,” Eda said, irritation bleeding into her voice. “How many times do I have to tell you this? Either put a robe on to hide your lightsaber or don’t bring it at all.”  “Sorry, Eda,” King replied sheepishly. King was small, barely two feet tall, but anyone who’s seen Master Yoda fight knows that doesn’t make him any less dangerous. Eda couldn’t help but feel a twinge of grief at the thought of Master Yoda. She hadn’t even really liked the fucker, but the idea that he was most likely dead along with everyone else Eda has ever known… she tries not to think about it.   King grabbed his robe and leapt up to sit on the top of Eda’s pack.  “Hooty,” Eda called out to the ship’s AI pilot. “Take care of stuff while we’re gone. If you take a joyride and forget to pick us up again I’ll personally disassemble your cpu and sell the parts to hire an actual pilot.” “You got it Eda!” Hooty’s voice rang out from the speakers of the ship. “Have fun! I love you both!”  “Uh huh,” Eda responded noncommittally. Eda exited the ship to a disturbing cacophony of digital kissing noises and sighed deeply. “Alright King,” Eda said over her shoulder. “We need food to last us at least a couple months, we need to refuel, we need to refresh our water, I think we’re out of soap… and probably something else I’m forgetting. How many credits do we have?” “Uh,” King rummaged around in Eda’s pack for a moment. “I think we ran out of credits at our last stop, remember?” “Shit.” That was definitely a problem, but it was one Eda had become intimately familiar with in the past year. Having been raised in the jedi temple and spending all of her adult life at war, Eda had functionally no hirable skills besides killing people and leading small commands of clones. That made her options… limited. Especially if she didn’t want to murder people for sketchy clients. The fact that her very existence was technically illegal didn’t help either. This meant that they were pretty much always strapped for cash.  Eda had no plans to let this stop her from getting the supplies she needed, though. She entered the open market of the city. The planet seemed to be majority humanoid, meaning her and King stood out a bit, considering Eda was only half human and King was two feet tall and furry. She scanned her surroundings for the most obviously weak-minded shopkeeper and settled on a scrawny looking human man running a general store. “Hiya,” Eda greeted perhaps a little too cordially, considering the startled look on his face. “I actually put in an order a couple weeks ago for two months' supply of ship rations, a hygiene kit refill, and a case of wine.” “Oh! Uh—” He said, looking even more startled, if possible. “I don’t think we had any or—” “You must be mistaken,” Eda interrupted, waving her hand slightly where the shopkeeper couldn’t see. “For fuck’s sake, we’ve been regulars for years.”  “Oh, I’m so sorry ma’am.” He replied, eyes a bit hazy. “I just started last month, I must have mixed something up. Let me just—” He began rummaging in the back and proceeded to load a hovercart with Eda’s order.  “Still got it!” Eda murmured under her breath. The shopkeeper pushed the hovercart towards her.  “Say,” Eda said after thanking him. “Do you know where the cheapest fuel is right now? It’s been a while since I’ve been back here.”  “Oh, uh,” He replied, his voice slurring slightly. He furrowed his brow a bit like he was trying to focus. Eda grimaced and decided it was best to leave before he realized something was wrong.  “Nevermind!” Eda exclaimed, and started pushing the cart of supplies swiftly down the street. “King, we’re going to put these safely on the ship and come back to look for a place to buy fuel.” “If you’re looking for fuel, I know a place where you can get it for free!” A young voice said suddenly. Eda turned in the direction of the voice to find a human child that appeared to be only a couple years older than King. She was speed walking to keep up with Eda’s pace, deftly dodging shoppers walking in the opposite direction. “Holy shit, kid! You scared the hell out of me.” Eda exclaimed.  “Sorry, I get that a lot,” the kid replied sheepishly. “I’m Luz. There’s an abandoned fuel station that nobody except for me knows about. It was run by my mom before…” she trailed off, before forcefully shaking her head and continuing. “Anyway, the empire would totally knock it down if they knew about it, which is why I keep it a secret. You’re not secret spies for the empire, right?” They leaned over and eyed King suspiciously for a moment before straightening, seemingly satisfied. “You don’t look like secret spies for the empire. The fuel that was leftover from the last shipment before we shut down is almost gone, but there’s enough for one more refill. You guys seem trustworthy so I would definitely let you take the last of it!”  Luz took a wheezing breath, having finally run out of steam after her rapid-fire speech. They were practically running to keep up with Eda’s pace at this point. They had reached the outskirts of the city where The Owl House was parked. Eda raised an eyebrow at the kid distrustfully.  “I know you’re not doing this for free, kid. What do you want?” She asked. Luz flushed sheepishly. “I want you to teach me how to do that thing you did to Morton back there.” She said resolutely. Eda paled a bit, despite herself. “What are you talking about?” Eda lied through her teeth.  “You don’t need to lie to me!” Luz replied, excitement bleeding into their voice. “I know you’re a Jedi! I want you to train me.”  Eda shushed her loudly, looking around frantically even though she knew there was nobody in earshot.  “You can’t say stuff like that, Luz.” King said solemnly. “If anyone hears we could be arrested.” “Sorry,” Luz whispered loudly, still looking up at Eda hopefully. Eda sighed.  “Listen, kid.” She explained. “That’s not how the force works. You can’t just train anyone to do mind tricks. You have to be force sensitive.” “You’d know if you were force sensitive.” King added. “The Jedi would have come when you were a baby and taken you to the temple.”  “Honestly it’s for the best,” Eda reassured after Luz’s face fell. “Being force sensitive ain’t the kind of life anyone wants nowadays.”  “I was going to let you use the fuel anyway,” Luz explained, valiantly trying to hide their disappointment. “I can help your ship’s AI navigate to the fuel station.”  “Luz,” Eda said, the gentleness in her voice surprising even herself. “You don’t have to do that.”  “Nah,” Luz brushed her off. “What am I going to use the fuel for anyway? I don’t even have a speeder. Better you take it than the empire.” Eda was caught off guard by the venom that laced Luz’s voice when they mentioned the empire. But Eda couldn’t deny that she felt drawn to this kid. What the hell, it’s not like she had a better idea.  “I’ll take you up on your offer, I wish I had anything to offer you in return.” Eda decided, and to Eda’s surprise as she said it, she really meant it.  Luz directed Hooty to the location of the old fueling station, seeming delighted but a bit disturbed by the AI. Smart kid.  They landed, and Luz got to work refilling their ship. It was strange to see a kid so young using the fueling equipment so competently. As she worked, Luz chatted with King. “So did you guys even have the Holonet and stuff?” “Of fucking course we had the Holonet.” The indignation in King’s voice made Eda snort. “It was the Jedi temple, not prison.” A pit of guilt settled in Eda’s stomach. It had been months since King had talked to kids his age. Hell, it has been months since King talked to someone who wasn’t Eda. It wasn’t fair to him. Not that there was much that Eda could do about that, but it still made her nauseous. As Luz was wrapping up filling the ship, Eda’s melancholy took on a sharper tinge.  “We need to go, King.” She warned, standing up suddenly. Luz and King also looked on edge, and Luz started detaching the fueling equipment from the ship. It was too late. Dozens of stormtroopers started streaming into the open area of the fueling station, and they were surrounded in seconds with blasters pointed at them from all directions.  “Surrender now and so this will be quick, traitor.” The stormtrooper that seemed to be the captain ordered. Eda slowly put her hands up as she assessed her options.  “You will be executed immediately for your crimes against the empire, jedi.” He continued. “Would you prefer to die first, or would you rather us start with your padawan?”  “Hey!” King protested. “Why don’t I get a-” “Quiet.” The stormtrooper ordered. “You’ve taken too long, so I’ve decided we’ll be starting with… whatever this thing is.” He gestured towards King, and several troopers prepped their blasters.  Before Eda could do anything, Luz yelled, and suddenly every loose object in the room came hurtling towards their attackers, knocking most of them over and immediately causing mass confusion. Eda quickly activated her lightsaber, the blue light deflecting the red bolts that had already begun streaming towards them. She spared a glance at Luz and found her with her arms outstretched and breathing heavily.  “King, get on the ship!” Eda ordered. Luz looked at Eda with dawning panic. “You have to let me come with you,” they panted. “There’s nothing left for me here anyway, and they’re going to arrest me for attacking imperial troops. Please, Master Jedi, I have no other options.” Eda simply reached out a hand in response, still deflecting bullets one handed. Luz took the hand gratefully and Eda dragged her onto the ship. Eda slammed a button with her fist to seal the door behind them as she quickly called out to her AI. “Hooty, get us out of here.” Luz sat on the floor of the main bay of The Owl House surrounded by piles of boxes. The Owl House was clearly designed as a war era cargo ship, so the main bay of the ship was a wide open space. Eda had covered the floor with an eclectic collection of rugs and the walls and shelves with an impressive array of clutter, making the once austere ship significantly more homey.  When Luz had begged Eda earlier that day to start training them in the force, Luz had envisioned objects flying around the room, doing handstands on a floating platform, hell Luz would have even been satisfied with the meditation King did with Eda every morning. Instead, Luz found herself sorting Eda’s unfathomably large collection of belongings. As Luz placed a case containing five bottle openers of various sizes (who even needs more than one bottle opener?), they couldn’t help but wonder how Eda managed to get all this stuff. As far as Luz understood, King and Eda had fled the Jedi temple when the Jedi were labeled as criminals by the emperor. They couldn't have been able to bring this much stuff with them then.  Regardless, Luz was pissed. How was doing Eda’s housecleaning supposed to help them learn to use the force? Not that Luz was in much of a position to complain, considering they were living on Eda’s ship, but if Eda wanted them to work to earn their rent Luz wished she would just say so instead of making false pretenses about Jedi training. “Eda,” Luz groaned when she entered the room, drawing out both of the vowels to make their displeasure known. “How is this Jedi training? When do I get to—” Luz made some wide gestures and swooshing sounds to indicate force powers.  “Patience, kid.” Eda replied. Eda must have noticed how Luz’s face had fallen because she paused and crouched down next to Luz. “Listen, you gotta trust me. Being a Jedi is way more than cool powers and a laser sword. You need patience and control. I have to teach you the foundations before we can start the cool shit. It looks like you could use a break, though, so why don’t you run to my room and grab my deck of cards so we can eat lunch and play afterwards. King has been desperate to teach you a card game the padawans played at the temple.”  Luz’s eyes lit up and scrambled to Eda’s bedroom to grab the cards. Eda’s room was a microcosm of the rest of the ship: cluttered, chaotic, but lived-in in a way that already was starting to feel like home to Luz. Despite the mess, Luz was able to quickly locate the deck of holographic cards Eda had asked them to grab. Luz grabbed the cards and turned to leave when they heard a chattering noise.  Immediately curious, Luz began to search for the source of the noise. The chattering seemed to be coming from the temperature control panel on the wall, so Luz tentatively unlatched the door to reveal the wiring behind the user interface.  Luz was greeted by what, in her opinion, was the cutest creature in the galaxy. It was about the size of their fist, had wide sad eyes, and was incredibly fluffy. Luz knew immediately that whatever this creature was, it was definitely not supposed to be there. “Hey little guy,” Luz cooed. “What are you doing here?” It squeaked as if in response, and Luz realized that Eda would almost certainly not want stowaways on her ship no matter how cute they were. A dozen frightening scenarios flashed through Luz’s mind, including but not limited to Eda cruelly ejecting this innocent creature into the vacuum of space.  “Hey buddy,” Luz whispered to the creature. “Why don’t we keep you a secret, huh? Try not to make too much noise because the other people on this ship might not be as excited to see you.” To Luz’s surprise, the creature seemed to understand Luz and scampered deeper into the walls of the ship.  “Luz! Luz!” King called from the main bay of the ship. “Hurry up!” “Coming!” Luz replied, putting the creature out of her mind. —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Turns out, Luz was not very good at cards. In their defense, they were playing against two semi-trained jedi and it was their first time playing, but Luz had not managed to win a single round. Eda insisted that they were getting the hang of it, but King seemed to be thoroughly enjoying trouncing Luz in game after game.  Luz knew logically that they should be mad or at least frustrated, but honestly she was having the time of her life. They tried not to think about it, but it had been too long since Luz had anything resembling a family. Heck, it had been too long since Luz had even socialized with anyone. After almost a year fending for themselves on their home planet, Luz would lose at cards an infinite amount of times if it meant getting to spend time with Eda and King.  Luz was midway through placing a card on the table when the ship lurched, knocking Luz completely off their seat and causing the cards to scatter on the ground. “Are you serious?” King complained. “I was just about to win!” Eda frowned. “Hooty, what’s going on?”  “Oh boy, Eda!” Hooty replied cheerily. “The question you should be asking is what isn’t going on!” “Just spit it out, Hooty.” Eda snapped.  “Well, first the cooling system went down.” The AI began, still in the same high pitched and cheery voice. “Then the hyperdrive overheated, so we can’t jump to hyperspace. That was about thirty minutes ago. And then just now—” “Thirty minutes?” Eda interrupted. “Why are we only hearing about this now?”  “Well, you were playing cards.” Hooty replied. “Oh for fuck’s sake.” Eda cursed. “What’s going on now?” “The ship's stabilizers just overheated, so we’re in danger of spinning out of control. I recommend landing on the nearest planet, because I am unsure how long the engines will last.”  “Shit, okay.” Eda replied. “Can you navigate us to the nearest system, Hooty?” Luz strapped themselves in to prepare for landing, and as the ship groaned with effort they felt a tug in the back of their brain trying to tell them something.  “I have a bad feeling about this.” —---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- They landed on a planet that was covered by a thick forest. From what Luz could see as they hurtled through the planet’s atmosphere, the planet was dotted with a couple major cities but was largely wilderness. The landing was… not pretty. The engines finally gave out when they were about a hundred feet off the ground, causing the landing gear to get completely crushed under the weight of the ship. They were lucky that nobody got hurt. Eda circled the ship looking for the cause of the malfunctions. “Hooty, what damage are we looking at?” Eda asked “Same as I told you before, plus the main engines exploded and the landing gear was bent in the crash. The engine, stabilizers, and hyperdrive should be straightforward to fix but will be expensive. The landing gear and cooling systems need to be completely replaced, which will need a trained mechanic and several months of work.” “Hooty,” Eda said, voice clearly straining to remain calm. “Where’s the cooling system, I want to take a look at it.” Hooty directed Eda to the back of the ship, and Luz watched as she opened several panels following Hooty’s instructions. Eda muttered something under her breath. “Luz, King,” Eda called over her shoulder. “Come look at this.” King leapt onto Luz’s back and together they approached the panel. Eda held up what had once been part of the tubing system that transported cooling fluid to various systems on the ship. It was completely chewed through, and Luz felt their heart sink.  “Seems like we’re gonna be on this rock for a while,” Eda sighed. “Where are we, Hooty? Give us the rundown.” “Welcome to the planet Bonesborough of the Titan system! This is a populated planet inhabited by mostly humanoids. There is a strong imperial presence on this planet, largely due to the imperial pilot academy located about five miles from our current location.” “Fuck! This is bad.” Eda cursed, causing Luz to flinch backwards. This was all their fault. If only they had told Eda about that creature when they first saw it, they wouldn’t be in this situation. When Eda finds out that Luz let this happen she definitely wouldn’t let Luz travel with them anymore, much less train her to be a Jedi. Luz was going to be abandoned on this planet they’d never been to before in their life, they were going to be alone again. Luz felt panic begin to build in their chest. Eda looked at Luz with concern, clearly noticing that something was wrong. “What’s going on, Luz?” Eda placed a hand gently on Luz’s shoulder and she felt force-induced calm sweep over her. Luz took a deep breath.  “I’m so sorry Eda, it’s my fault we crashed and the ship is broken.” They said, voice still shaking a bit despite the calming effects of the force. Eda raised a single eyebrow. “Kid, you’re fourteen. How could you have possibly crashed our entire ship.” Luz was unable to look Eda in the eyes. “There was this creature, like this tiny little guy, in the walls. It was so small and looked so harmless but I knew you wouldn’t want it on board so I told it to hide and instead it went and chewed up the pipes. If I had just told you where it was we could have avoided this whole thing. I’m sorry Eda, I’d understand if you don’t want me around anymore.” Eda sighed and crouched down to match Luz’s height.  “Kid, I’m not going to kick you out for not telling me you saw a junk mouse. When exactly did you see our little stowaway?” Surprised by Eda’s nonchalant response, Luz took a moment before replying. “About an hour ago, when I was getting the deck of cards from your room.” “Luz,” Eda said, laughing. “There’s no way one junk mouse chewed all the way through the coolant tubes in the past hour. The little guy’s been at it for a while. This is not your fault.” Luz felt a wave of relief and cracked a smile, despite herself. “Hooty, can you do a scan for a junkyard in the area?” Eda called. “You got it, Eda!” Hooty replied.  “Alright, Luz,” Eda began, turning back to them, “Here’s your first big Jedi lesson. All creatures are connected to the force, even junk rats. So we can use our connection with the force to locate living creatures. Close your eyes and focus on feeling the world around you.” Luz did as instructed. “You should feel me and King very strongly,” Eda explained. It was true. It wasn’t quite like seeing, more like feeling, something that was so uniquely Eda and King. It was almost overwhelming. Luz had to focus to pull her attention away from them to search their surroundings for another creature. After a couple seconds of concentration, they felt something very faint in the walls of the ship.  “There,” Luz said, pointing. They opened their eyes and found an opening in the wall of the ship where they had felt the junk rat. Sure enough, the creature was sitting in a little nook in the wall, clearly surprised at having been spotted once again.  “Kid, you’re a natural!” Eda said, genuine pride in their voice. “Junk rats live off of metal and plastic, so it’ll be much happier at a junkyard than it will be chewing apart our ship.” Luz held a hand out and the junkrat scampered onto it. “Hi little guy!” Luz said. “Let’s get you to your new home.” 

General Audiences

Eda gazed at the train that screamed to a stop on the rails, billowing smoke blowing into the wind from its chimneys, through the window of her ticket booth. Breaking through the sleepy daze caused by her monotonous routine, she hurriedly pulled the sleeve of her pinstripe blouse up, to glance at the golden-rimmed watch that ticked away.  3:30. When they would have their break. Sure enough, the locomotive that had paused here was at its final destination, and as a rush of people escaped from its doors, clambering onto the platform to try and reach the exit, Eda looked out for a familiar face. ‘Hi, excuse me, could I buy a ticket?’ Eda sharply glanced at the woman that was waiting impatiently by the box, who was annoyed by her distracted state.  ‘Huh?’ ‘A ticket, please.’ The woman was on the verge of snapping. ‘Well, obviously a ticket, do I look like a soda vendor? I mean what type of ticket.' Eda huffed, leaning against the counter and cocking her head as if to say well?.  ‘One-way. To Palm Stings.’  ‘Right, well. Here you are. That’s 15 snails.’ Eda sighed, secretly hoping this woman would cause a scene, just for a change. She had dealt with a fair amount of snarky, nasty customers, but it was always the same. Nothing new or exciting ever happened. She passed the ticket through the gap in the window where the woman snatched it, dropped some coins, murmured a ‘thank you', and went on her way.  She checked her watch. 3:32. Her attention snapped back immediately to the motionless train, to the very front of it where the door opened, and the train conductor came out. She leaned forwards as far as she could, trying to get a glimpse of the person.  And there they were. Walking out, one hand adjusting their overalls strap, the other tugging down on their hat. They had shaggy, mint green hair, and this gorgeously angular face complimented with dimples that Eda was smitten by. They seemed so effortlessly graceful and surprisingly attractive in their train conductor uniform, and she didn’t even know their name. They had never even talked before, which wasn’t too surprising considering they had started working here just over a month for so ago. It wasn’t always them, but a lot of times, at this exact hour, after the train made its final destination, Eda had the highlight of her shift watching them, a break in her awfully boring day. Other times, it was old Barney on duty, who was nice, but Eda found herself disappointed when he walked through the door of the driver’s cabin rather than her mysterious work crush.  Here they were now, walking nearer, to the breakroom just past her. This was her chance! She would finally say something, tell them how- ‘Edalyn.’ A deep voice grimaced. Again, she averted her gaze to meet the narrowed eyes of her boss, Skelly. ‘Sir! To what do I owe this pleasure?’ She purred, grinning lazily to show off her golden fang. He squinted coldy at her. ‘Your uniform,’ he grunted, ‘It doesn’t match our expectations.’ ‘What?!’ She glanced down at herself, at her ironed, grey linen trousers, that had her clean blouse tucked into it, prim and slick. She had actually tried to make an effort today. He pointed a clawed finger at her hair, which was in a loose ponytail. Whoops. ‘Policy says ticket-sellers must have long hair tied into a bun or braided back. This is messy, and not at all what we represent.’ He growled and Eda resisted the urge to roll her eyes, as she pushed her fingers back through her blazing orange hair, tucking some stray strands back.  ‘Sir, a ponytail is just… an extended bun. I don’t see what the problem is.’ She argued but he was getting angrier every second she spoke back. ‘We are going to have problems,’ he hissed, ‘If an employee refuses to listen to orders.’ ‘Let her be, Skell. I doubt any customers will be put off from buying a ticket by the state of her hair. Plus, it doesn’t look bad.’ Eda stared, astounded, as the witch she had looked at from afar had somehow materialised in front of her, a hand on their hip as they spoke to Skelly. Immediately, the boss’ face softened and the hint of a smile appeared on his lips. ‘Ah, conductor! I suppose you’re right,’ he glanced at Eda, ‘You better be on your best behaviour, Clawthorne, I’m warning you. I don’t want to see any slacking.’ Eda imitated a proud salute and gave a playful nod, enjoying watching the grimace grow on his face, as he turned around and hobbled away, grunting slightly as he returned to his duties.Once he was gone, she stepped out of her box to hurriedly watch Skelly disappear round the corner.  ‘How- how did you do that?’ Eda cried. ‘I … was a bit of a teacher’s pet in school, honestly. I think he likes me.’ Eda glanced down at the person who was smirking before her, finally close enough to see the vibrant hue of their jade green eyes, the way their glasses just tipped over their nose, the soft curve of their lip. She promptly blushed, looking away. ‘Well. Thank you.’ She said, and they nodded. ‘No problem. I’ll see you around, Clawthorne.’ They smiled and turned around and began strolling to the breakroom. Clawthorne. Clawthorne?!  ‘Wait!’ She yelped, ‘What’s- What’s your name?’ ‘Oh, uh, I’m Raine. Raine Whispers. And yours is? I only heard your last name from good ole Skell there, who seems to brighten up just by saying it.’ She snorted, ‘I’m Eda. But he seems very content referring to anything except my actual name. Can you tell he loves me?’ ‘I mean, of course! He’s a real sweetheart.’ Raine joked, smiling. They stood silently for a second, looking at one another, contemplating what to say. ‘Well, Eda. Do- do you want to join me in the breakroom?’ They asked, cracking their knuckles nervously. ‘I could go for 15 minutes of rest, sure.’ She responded and they made their way to the room. There, they talked a bit more, 15 minutes turning into half an hour, as they found out more about each other, their conversation never seeming to stop or become awkward. ‘I moved out from my parents’ house pretty early, and am now finding out the consequences of that. So, I just need some snails to help me out, that’s all,’ Eda explained, ‘It’s the same thing, every day. Ticket, money, ticket, money, break, ticket.’ ‘Seems like you love it.’ Raine laughed, and Eda rolled her eyes. ‘Could anything be more boring? I mean I live nearby, so It makes sense, but still.’ She groaned, clenching her fists.  ‘I mean, I get it, there’s no one to talk to, there’s annoying customers, and it’s the same thing everyday. But hey, at least you’ve got company now.’ They grinned and Eda blushed as she smiled back. Never was she more grateful to have gotten in trouble with Skelly. The next day, they met up at break again. And the next day. And the day after that, as they discovered how well they clicked, never seeming to run out of things to laugh or talk about.Soon enough, Eda realised she didn’t just have a crush, but she had a friend.  ‘I cannot believe Skelly would dare disrespect my hair like that,’ Eda had complained, a week after she and Raine had met, ‘I mean look! It’s a ponytail. He’s so dramatic.’ ‘I love your hair.’ Raine commented, absently brushing the tips of their fingers through it, oblivious to the pink on Eda’s cheeks. They looked up suddenly, their face inches away from hers as their own heated red. ‘Thanks.’ She whispered, and Raine gave a tight smile. They glanced at the clock on the wall and sighed. ‘Shit, I’ve got to go. Got another train to conduct.’ ‘Lucky you. I’ve got more tickets to sell.’ ‘Have fun!’ They trilled, as they grabbed their coat and hat and rushed out the room. A week later, Raine approached Eda unusually early in the morning, knocking gingerly on the window of the ticket booth.She perked up, confused, as she opened the door. ‘Raine?’ She asked. ‘Want to do something fun? But a little stupid?’ They exclaimed, taking her hand. She glanced from their intertwined fingers to their green eyes before nodding slowly. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m up for stupid.’ ‘Come with me.’ They pulled her to the edge of the platform, and unlocked the door to the last cabin of the empty train, opening it and offering her entry in a polite manner. She stepped in and waited for Raine to explain. ‘Through here.’ They pushed open another door, leading to the open area at the back of the train, a small balcony, where you could feel the cold breeze. ‘Skelly has a day off today, and this train is set to depart in a few hours, but from another destination. I have the whole train to myself for about 7 stops so… do you wanna come with? Just for a bit?’ Eda’s eyes brightened as she grinned. ‘Yeah! Yeah, I’d love that.’ ‘Barney’s driving today, so… I can stay here with you. Give me a second.’ A few minutes later, the wheels squealed against the metal, before speeding up drastically, and soon, the world was flying past in a blur, the wind relaxing yet sharp against Eda's face. Eda leaned against the railing of the balcony and stretched her arms out, feeling the breeze between her fingers.  Raine was next to her, clutching onto the rail, eyes partially closed as they felt the cold on their face. ‘This is always the best bit.’ They murmur peacefully. She watched the calm in their expression, how effortless graceful and beautiful they looked, with a few strands of loose hair blowing rapidly, framing their face. She really really liked this witch. They opened one eye to glance at her, before their face, tinted with pink, burst into a wide grin. ‘I’ve never seen you with your hair out!’ They yelled over the rush of the wind and screech of the train. Eda brought her hand up to her hair, realising that the hair band had flown off, causing her wild tangle of auburn locks to dance freely. ‘I’m breaking more than one rule today!’ She shouted back, smiling impishly, ‘Does it look good?’ ‘You’re gorgeous!’  A pause as their face and ears reddened in realisation to what they had said. ‘I mean, I meant your hair… not that you aren’t gorgeous! You are, I really like the way you look, I mean, not that that’s all there is to you! You’re funny and smart- I. I’m going to stop talking.’ their voice quietened as they looked away. They only looked back up when they felt a soft tug on their shoulder. ‘I like you too.’ Eda smiled, and Raine’s face reflected her own.  Gazing at each other in the breeze, as the world sped by behind them, the connection they had felt when they first met seemed to strengthen everyday, becoming something more intense, more special. Raine looked into the face of the girl who had become someone so important to them in such a short time - her molten gold eyes, her pale, soft skin, her maroon lips that let her fang peak out whenever she did that adorable half-smile.  They felt a rush of affection for her, as they surged forwards, tugging on the collar of her blouse, and kissed her.  Eda moved against their own lips, closing her eyes as she felt the sweet warmth fill her face and body, as she held their cheek and shoulder close. She only broke apart, laughing wildly, when Raine’s hat flew away in a burst, thrown somewhere into the trees beyond the railway.  ‘Your hat!’ She snorted, ruffling their messy hair, as they grinned, smitten, at her. ‘I really like you, Eda.’ 'Me too. I've been wanting to tell you that for a while.' She chuckled and they pulled her quickly into another kiss.   Eda had been wrong. She thought her daily routine was nothing but dark and dull - but now she found herself doing nothing but looking forward to it. Raine was the light in her life that made her smile, made her laugh, and in return she glowed for Raine. They don't know this yet, but it'll be them two for a long time, them two forever in love. Almost like in every universe, they're meant to be.     

General Audiences

Lilith's return to the Owl House is announced by Hooty, along with a pile of junk and several blobby ghosts the demon swallowed. The kids agreed to tell Eda and Lilith everything today. It's been ten days since they were trapped in the Emperor's mind, and Eda can tell they're feeling some guilt over waiting so long. Hunter is reluctant to let Lilith touch his galdorstone, which is... understandable, considering their history. Luz does the majority of the work in explaining what they saw, about the draining spell and Philip Wittebane, so Lilith gets the idea. Lilith lets out an oddly triumphant laugh when Luz tells them about Philip, confusing everyone else for a moment. "I punched Belos in the face! I broke his nose hundreds of years ago!" Good point. His crooked nose, Lily did that. Despite all of her horror at everything else they just heard, Eda takes a moment to be quietly proud of her sister. Luz is too upset to be amused. "We still helped him. I gave him the light glyph and brought him to the Collector! None of this would be happening if I hadn't." "It was a stable loop," Lilith disagrees, wiping the smile off her face. "Things had to happen the way they did. You can't blame yourself for this." Luz just whines, so Eda directs King and Hooty to give the girl a hug. Hooty wraps her up too tight for Hunter to join in without freezing the demons, so he stands next to her awkwardly. Surprisingly enough, he actually looks like he wants in on that. Not that it's weird he wants that comfort too, poor kid was there with Luz and died because of it, just that he's always hidden any sort of... emotional vulnerability. Maybe, being invisible to almost everyone, he's hidden enough. Has he been slowly opening up to Luz while no one else can see him? Oh, Luz is in so much danger. Eda knew that, she knew Belos would know she'd been in his mind, but hearing about everything he has planned makes it clear Luz knows way too much to ever be safe. Eda should not have let her go back to school. But it's not safe here either, is it? She's honestly amazed Belos hasn't sent scouts out here yet. Luz really needs to hide. When Eda voices that thought, Luz wiggles out of Hooty's grip and pulls Hunter to the floor with her. He settles down halfway through the pile of plushies, leaning on Luz's shoulder. It's probably about the most comfortable the poor kid can get. Luz whispers something Eda can't make out, and Hunter nods. "Scouts have already been circling the house for days. I can... sort of sense when Luz is in danger, so we've been avoiding them easily enough. They won't come any closer because of the owl tube," Hunter turns his head to glare at Hooty, who helpfully chooses that moment to cough up another ghost. The boy watches it drift up to the ceiling and fade away, shuddering. There are already Coven Scouts in the woods? There are Coven Scouts in the woods and neither of them thought to tell Eda. Great! Wonderful. And Luz is only just now telling her about the draining spell after ten whole days... Eda can't really be upset with her though, with as much stress as the kid's been under. Hunter is dead, and Luz is the one who has to deal with that. He might even have talked her out of saying all this earlier, if he thought Luz would be punished for it. Eda has some strong suspicions about where he got that scar. Actually, forget the scars, the boy was murdered. Titan, she doesn't know what to do with these two. "Luz. I am very worried about you. I also don't want you to feel trapped here. We'll figure something out. Lily, Hunter just told me there are, in fact, scouts out there, so watch out for those when you leave," she says. "If... if it's alright with all of you, I'll stay here and help you come up with a plan?" Lilith says carefully. Hunter frowns. "We do need help, but... Lilith." "I know you and Lilith have issues, but it'll be okay. I think you would get along if you talked about it," Luz assures him. He flops over backwards into the mountain of toys like any other dramatic teenager might. Most teenagers wouldn't literally fall through them like that, but it looks close enough to normal to be... oddly cute. "I guess. It's not up to me anyway," his voice drifts out, slightly muffled. Eda has no idea how to respond to that, because he's right, she isn't going to ban Lilith from the house when they need her there, so they all sit in silence for a few minutes. King, getting bored, wanders past the pile of trash Hooty spat up and freezes. "Hooty's been eating our mail!" He picks up a black envelope addressed to him and reads it aloud. Huh. So there really is someone out there looking for him. Maybe not hard enough, since they couldn't be bothered to come in person or send a follow up letter when the first one wasn't answered, but they're out there. Luz and King want to check this out, of course. Hunter tries to claim he isn't interested, but Eda catches him peeking at the letter out of the corner of her eye. Lilith takes the kids' side, surprisingly. Despite the danger they're in, she seems to think sending them out there is a good idea? "But we do need allies, and Hootsifer could protect them," Lilith argues. Hunter eyes the house demon warily. "What if the owl tube stays here to keep the house safe and I protect Luz and King instead? If anything goes wrong, I'll know about it earlier, and I can teleport them away. And the scouts won't come for you while we're gone." Hunter, of course, is going to stick with Luz no matter what, but he does have a point. It wouldn't help anyone if there wasn't an Owl House for them to come back to. "Can you move King, too?" Eda is willing to take his word that he can warp Luz away, but he can't touch King, so she's a little skeptical of that claim. Luz scoops up King and places him on her shoulder before holding out an arm to Hunter. The older boy takes it in one hand and swings his palisman staff in the other. All three of them cross the room in a flash of gold, laughing. They haven't been this happy since... since the incident with the Emperor's mind. Since Hunter died. Damn it, she can't take this from them. Eda lets them go. She thinks she does a good job of holding herself together until they're out of earshot. "How did it go?" Eda asks when they return to the Owl House. Luz sighs. "Not great! They were Titan Trappers, and definitely not King's family. And apparently, Hunter isn't so great at knowing when anyone else is in danger, just me." "I warned you. I warned you something was wrong, as soon as we arrived!" "No, you said something felt weird." "Well, they couldn't have been that dangerous, without a Titan to trap," Lilith offers nervously. Luz and King share a look, and the demon... Titan! It hits Hunter suddenly. He's an actual Titan! And Hunter threatened to drown him! The Titan nods. "King is a Titan." Lilith immediately starts worshipping King, bowing to him and making offerings. Hunter has nothing to offer the actual living god child, but he... he has to make up for... everything. He tried to kill a Titan. "Forgive me, Titan," he says, kneeling. "Uh, you're... forgiven? You can still call me King," King says uncertainly, which is... probably some sort of test. He can't have angered him that much, right? If the Titan hated him he wouldn't still be here? Or maybe that's why he's a ghost. He can't move on until he makes up for... all of that? Luz takes his heart from the Titan (!) and puts it back in her pocket. "Yeah, we're not doing this. He's still our brother, don't be weird." Eda starts to steer Lilith away, as well. "Wait! Wait, give me to Lilith! Lilith and Eda." Luz gives him a suspicious look, because earlier he wanted nothing to do with her, but she complies. Lilith gasps when the sisters put their hands over his galdorstone and see him. Yeah, sure, he's a little pathetic looking, whatever. "You don't have a plan yet, do you?" They're a little surprised by the sudden change of subject, except it isn't, really; stopping the Day of Unity would please the Titan. (King, he still wants to be called King, apparently.) "No. Do you have any suggestions?" Lilith asks. "We need allies. Ideally, people within the castle. I... I might know who the rebels were, that night," he says. "There was a rumor that at least one of them is a Coven Head." They helped him and Luz escape. Hunter may not know when an actual Titan is being hunted, but he still knows when someone means Luz harm. Therefore, it should be easy enough to figure out. "Raine," Eda says, snapping her fingers. "Gotta be Raine. I think someone's been messing with their mind, but they let me go at the Coven Day Parade, so maybe they're breaking free. And hiding the potion in a bouquet of flowers? Can't imagine anyone else doing that." Hunter imagines calling Raine Whispers. Imagines Raine Whispers coming to the Owl House and meeting Luz. There's no sudden feeling of danger, but they can't take the chance that they're compromised. They were spending a lot of time with Terra, now that he thinks about it. (He doesn't need weird death senses to know that Terra Snapdragon is not on their side, but something in him screams at the thought of her anyway. He waves away images of the Coven Head turning Luz's own plant glyphs against her, tying her up and...) Maybe it's foolish, and risky, but he wants it to be someone else, someone he's known a little longer, and there's another option that doesn't make him see and feel things like that. "I'm thinking Darius, actually," he says. Lilith tilts her head questioningly. Feathers sprout along Eda's arms. Luz just looks confused. "He's the one who captured Raine! Absolutely not," Eda snarls. "Darius... well, until recently, he usually just ignored me, but he was never actively terrible, which is more than I can say for you," he raises an eyebrow at Lilith, who flushes and turns away. "The last Golden Guard was his mentor, and every single one of them betrayed Belos. He... he told me they would be proud of me, after I started standing up for myself. Because I disobeyed a direct order." "I want to say I would have been better, or even tried to get you out of there, if I'd known how bad things were," Lilith sighs, "but that's a lie. I was the sort of person who threw children off bridges then." Sure. She should have been better. Everyone in that castle should have been better. It's easy to pity him now that he's dead, isn't it? Now that it's too late to actually do anything. Hunter is not going to get mad about this right now. "Doesn't matter now, does it? You're a better person now, great! Good for you. I'm dead." ... Maybe he is, just a little, mad about it. Several emotions flash across Lilith's face. The anger he expected, she always used to get angry at him for talking back to her. Then sadness (why, why does she pretend to care about him now, he hates this so much) and regret. "I'm sorry. I know it's too late now. I know. What do you need? Are you here by choice, or do you have some sort of unfinished business? Or do you need a proper funeral before you can move on?" (Good luck with that. A funeral might be possible, but there's nothing to bury but his heart, and Hunter's sort of still using it.) Luz chokes. "Move on – he's not going anywhere!" "Not if he chose to remain as a ghost, no. But if he's trapped here..." Lilith kneels in front of the human, lowering her voice, but Hunter can still hear her. "Luz, you know ghosts are almost universally miserable, right? It might be better to let him go." Lilith probably knows way more about ghosts than he does. Eight days of being dead doesn't compare to the decades of research she could have done, probably has done, considering her interest in history. Luz trusts her, and Hunter trusts her with Luz. She probably isn't just trying to get rid of him. He doesn't know, it's complicated. Maybe she's right. "I don't know why I'm here. I didn't choose to be, but I'm fine. Just tired. All the time." "That just sounds like depression," says Eda. "Need to get you two to a therapist as soon as it's safe to." Maybe it'll just be Luz. Maybe by the time she's safe, Hunter will be gone. Maybe Hunter is only here because Luz isn't safe, wouldn't that explain a lot? They're getting distracted. This isn't about him, it's about saving the world. They need help, and Hunter really wants to talk to Darius. "Please, just call Darius. Ask him – and Raine, if he thinks they're actually themself – to go through my room and bring everything I had here before Kiki trashes it. I don't really... need any of my stuff, but I don't want the Coven Scouts finding it, either." Eda snorts. "Got something embarrassing in there? A diary where you wrote all about your crushes–" "I had never met anyone my age before Luz." That makes her shut up quick. Both sisters' ears droop. "It's mostly notes on wild magic. I want you to have them, actually," he says to Luz. He's sure it's all stuff she's figured out already. There's probably not much in there she can actually use, but... "Aw! That's so sweet! And really sad." Luz hugs him. "Thank you." ... But she appreciates the thought. Good. "And any of my old toys, King can have them." It's not much of an offering for a Titan, but King isn't just a Titan, is he? He's also a child. Luz nods in approval. At least he did something right.

Teen And Up Audiences

The icy stiffening of granite engulfing her limbs made Luz’s breathing quicken. She could even feel her cardiovascular functions beginning to slow down as stone began to crystallize them as well. “Spare the demon realm? I’ve spent over 400 years in this insufferable world, every calculated and agonizing moment has finally led to this. All I wanted to do was to purge its sin from existence. Give me a single reason why I should let this realm live.” “Well it’s not all you’ve wanted to do!” Luz cried as stone crept close to her chest. “You’ve wanted to go home!” “I can already do that. I even gave you my offer to take you with me.” He sounded almost insulted, like he had the audacity to be offended that she hadn’t willingly decided to leave with him to let the world perish. “Yeah yeah, well—well!” Think Luz, think. You literally have just a few seconds here. “W-well, if we find other witch hunters we’re going to need proof!” “There are no others, you told me.” “W-well, you never know! You’ve never seen reddmor! People on that forum will believe anything!” Luz croaked. The petrification had halted on the child, long enough for her to speak. Her thoughts fumbled, struggling to think about anything other than the fact she couldn’t feel her body from the waist down. “You need to prove to the world that you hunted witches! That this place exists!” He wrinkled a brow at her in annoyance, and his glowing hand was an indicator he was about to return to adding her to his collective of ornaments if she didn’t make a point he liked. “No ones just gonna take you at your word! You need proof that you took them all out! We can get that proof in the human world with news outlets and stuff! But you can't kill everyone without that proof first! Or else you'll just be the quack pot who's shouting ‘I KILLED ALL THE WITCHES!’ in the town square and everyones gonna laugh at you. Like a nerd.” If the situation wasn’t so dire she’d almost laugh at the expression on his face that looked nearly embarrassed, his blue eyes shifting from her for a moment. He seemed to be contemplating it. “I-I mean…!” Luz was struggling to keep her voice even. This was the last thread she could think of to pull, and it utterly was her final thread of hope. She couldn’t even stand now. “What even was going to happen to The Boiling Isles as a whole once you were to walk out that door?” He smirked. “It would cease to exist. Disintegrate, evaporate into the air. Out of existence, as it should be.” Fury razed the back of the girl’s skull and she resisted all the vicious things she wanted to shout at him in her native tongue. “Well that’s pretty poor insight for your case, my guy. Where was your proof gonna be there?” She couldn’t help but laugh. “That how you really expect to be a General? Is that how everyone else did it?” Philip’s hand glowed warningly, and the slow creeping of stone stopped her snorting dead in its tracks. “Ah—okay! Okay! Listen to me! I’ll be your guide and I-I’ll teach you the ways of the world now! You have no idea how much things have changed! You’ll be lost without me! Trust me, totally and utterly lost.” Philip’s eyes narrowed, but secretly he knew deep down Luz’s point had some validity to it. He had no idea how to navigate this new world, if it was really as different as she stated. The Collector had been right, he was nervous. …It would almost be a security to have someone there that knew what this modern time was about. Thanks to the leaks of their worlds, human things washed up occasionally and he’d gotten enough intel to know that things were different...but he didn’t know everything. “B-but if you want my help, you leave with me now!” Luz told him, her chin holding high and confidently. “Stop the spell. And w…we’ll go.” She waited with baited breath for the spell to resume, for the granite to finally reach her face…and to her utter amazement, it receded entirely. Philip approached her. “Fine. I suppose we shall seal it then, with an oath. The ‘Spell Of Everlasting Oath’, to be precise. I know you know that one.” She was not going to ask how he knew such a thing, even if every hair stood up on her neck seeing the hand offered to her through a ring of glowing crimson. Luz watched in amazement as the magic tendrils coming out of the moon began to recede like a wave back into the Boiling Seas. All she wanted to do was run out of the skull and find her family. “You know, I never really understood how these oaths worked, even when I made one with Amity,” Luz admitted. “I just assumed in our witch’s duel if I lost or something…I’d lose the ability to use magic. It’s…powerful enough to stop a spell like that?” “You might have.” He strode nonchalantly to where he still had his old satchel perched upon his work table. All these years and somehow he’d maintained it as well as the tacky suit he donned. “The spell works as a fail safe. In duels it gives the opposing side their terms of conditions if they win. And for an oath itself, if the other person attempts to betray them…they will be forced to give in to the terms that were set. The closest that’s in the realm of possibility anyhow.” He leaned in close to her face. “In other words, you attempt to abandon me somewhere or kill me in that realm, then there’s no telling what will happen…but it will not be good.” Luz grimaced. So, getting him struck with a car was out then. “If you die it breaks our deal? Bit unfair man. Like, I don’t think you realize how many things could kill you there, especially since you don’t know anything about Earth now.” “No. It’s only if you have a hand in it somehow. But it shouldn’t be an issue for you. You wouldn’t want to risk breaking our deal for some…petty revenge now, right?” He wore the same amused ‘cat toying with its prey’ expression as he always did with her. Always so sadistic, and so smug. “Smart to see you implemented some fail safe into this plan,” Luz said sarcastically. “Needed the extra security, did’ya?” “Well we are stepping into a world that admittedly you might have a slight advantage in.” Philip rose a brow. “As you said, ‘I know nothing of our world now.’ It’s only wise to make sure I’m prepared for if you try something. And then you have that security as well. It works both ways. Not to mention, it was the most efficient way to stop the spell,” he said smoothly. With the suave façade of a charismatic gentleman, he mockingly offered a hand. “Now….shall we go?” Luz recoiled from the offered glove as if it was matted in goo. Honestly, it was centuries old, it had to be filthy. “How have those disgusting things not withered away by now?” “Magic,” he answered smoothly, somehow not at all taking it as an insult. “And I’ve always taken good care of my clothing. None of this has been touched in centuries.” “Whatever. If you want to be taken seriously, you need some new threads.” Philip once more cast a confused glare down to his ‘threads.’ What was wrong with them? These were beautifully in style, and high quality. Did the newer generation really have so little sense of what looked good? Luz stepped up towards the door, and she watched as the ethereal ripple shifted its hues and settled instead on a welcoming dull gray that cast a blanket of rain. She glanced over at her companion/captor, who…seemed to be eying the door with a mixture of fond nostalgia and trepidation. It was ironic that both were just as nervous as they were eager to finally step through the door, but finally Philip did so, and the teenager followed suit. Apparently neither expected to be teetering on the edge of the sopping porch steps, as they comically sprawled forward into the damp grass. The rusted hinge of the door slammed shut behind them. Luz was the first to get up, shoving herself up onto her hands and knees. “No!” she cried and ripped the door open. …But to her horror, she discovered only the inside of a dilapidated cabin. “Where are they?! Where’s The Boiling Isles?!” “Gone,” he told her coolly. Luz could only manage a few shallow gasps of grief for a moment as that sunk in…before she turned right around and lunged savagely at the man. “You horrible, lying, slime coated BASTARD!” Like she was no more than a tantruming child, Philip caught her with ease in a vice grip with his extended monster appendage. His lip curled derisively at the girl as tears streaked her hateful face and her hands formed claws that tried to reach towards his throat. It was painful just attempting to maintain this form, and every time it was just harder to shift back. “You PROMISED!” Why was she stupid enough to believe him? Why did she think he’d be sincere this time? He duped her. She duped him. Now he duped her. “You promised they’d be SAFE! You lying-“ “Shut. Up!” Philip snapped, finally pinning her against one of the withered beams holding up the house. “Didn’t you hear me before? I had just enough titan blood for a final trip! That wasn’t a lie! What did you think would happen when the door ran out of power?!” Luz’s head finally rose to look at the annoyance on his face and back to the normal door. “They’re…all alive?” “Unfortunately, yes…per our agreement. For now.” His lip curled in disgust. “It was a one way trip, Luz. Didn’t you know that? And hopefully you’ll realize that’s for the better.” “Prove it. Prove they’re alive and that the world is okay!” “Look at my magic you fool! ” Philip snapped, restraining a grunt of pain as his explosion of emotion caused his hand to twitch. “The fact that my magic alone exists in front of you is proof enough that your precious devil’s world is still intact! Magic cannot exist without some tether to its source…even if we don’t see that tether. Portals exist everywhere on Earth, Luz. Why do you think I was so intent on destroying that world? As long as it exists there’s always a way to get there and for them to come here. A way for so many more souls of the human world to fall victim to their curse. Even more naive children, such as yourself.” Luz swallowed hard. “There…there’s still a way to get back there?” “Yes, and I’ve no doubt you’ll be trying to, until you see reason.” No matter, the child could try all she wished, it was just delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, that world would fall once he’d gotten what he needed here on earth. If anything, she was making the suffering worse for herself when she'd have to say goodbye again for one last time. Maybe he’d be lucky this time. Maybe he could break her before that happened. Luz didn’t respond. Her tanned skin was a pale white as she wrapped her arms around the wet beam for leverage. Legs a wobbly mess, they buckled and she fell to her knees. Her wide eyes just stared at the door. What was once a gateway to a world of whimsy that she truly belonged in….was now just an open space that led into a crumbling house. Philip at least had the decency to be patient. It wouldn‘t do his cause any good if his tour guide for the new world was a broken, jellied wreck. He gave Luz her time to sit there in stunned silence as his gaze rolled up to look at the sky. A cool misting shower fell down and doused his face in water that finally didn’t burn. It was enough to bring a serene smile… “Is it true that rain doesn’t boil in the human realm?” “It is. You know, I’ve been there before. Have I ever told you that?” “I can’t stand this world, Caleb. I hate everything about it. Look, even the rain boils! This barbaric realm has every sign of the devil written into its core!” “I know, I know, Philip. We’ll be home soon enough…” “Alright. I’m…ready to go, I guess.” Luz’s voice snapped him out of his lamenting and he turned to cast a deadpan look at the child next to him. “Got all of the weeping out of your system, did you?” he mocked, ignoring the withering glare she gave him. “Where do you even plan on staying?” “I don’t know. It would appear our—my old house is out of commission.” He raised a brow at the rundown cabin before them and watched as a board from the rafters clattered onto the dusty floor, pouring water from the now gaping hole in the roof. Luz however looked like she saw a ghost. “D-did you say YOUR HOUSE?” Philip looked at her in disinterest, as if he hadn’t given her yet another soul shattering revelation. “My house.” Luz looked ready to be sick. “You lived…on the same block…as me? Like…right next door practically? Oh man I’m gonna throw up.” “Rude.” They both stared at the cabin for a moment and Philip made a face of distaste at the pungent odour of mold that wafted from decaying insulation. Nails stuck out everywhere. “We can figure out my living situation later.” He started down the steps. “You need to go home.” “I don’t need to be escorted. You need the escort,” Luz snidely pointed out. Philip just scowled at her. “That’s why you want to tag along. I’d say ‘go explore, you’ve literally been gone for centuries’, but…don’t want to chance you getting hit by a car, funny as that would be. You probably don’t even know what a car is.” “It would surprise you then to know that I do. …Sort of. Things from the human realm wash up all the time. I know quite a bit of history, invention of the ‘light bulb’, and I’ve built myself quite the collection of literature and artifacts. ….Anything the owl lady didn’t steal first for her trash piles.” Luz gave something that was the mixture of a choked sob and a laugh at the mention of her beloved owl mother, and she just continued to walk onward. “There goes my hope of getting you bodied by a car then. One can dream.” They walked along the wet asphalt through the dark night and both Luz and Philip felt their eyes drawn to the details of the human world they were unaccustomed to (one for hundreds of years). There were green trees and the wafting scent of pine. Cold rain that didn’t boil as it pelted against their skin. She couldn’t enjoy it without her family with her… Approaching the street, Luz halted dead in her tracks when she saw Vee’s serpentine form in the kitchen of her house. “Oh no. I forgot about Vee.” “Vee?” Philip questioned, and then sneered in disgust when he saw her. “By the titan’s name, you have a basilisk living with you?!” “Yes, one you tortured,” Luz snarled. “Like the rest of her kind…that apparently was brought back from the dead?” It was disconcerting to think of how strong he’d been before. “A version was brought into existence,” Philip returned calmly, showing no reaction to the rage on the child’s face. “It’s impossible to completely bring something back to life as it once was. Any spell that could would create more of a replica. Believe me, the ones in the Deadwardian Era were much worse. These ones are no more than…magic slugs.” “Oh crammity,” Luz groaned faintly. “She’s going to recognize you, won’t she?” “Unlikely,” he scoffed. “I never, ever showed my face to anyone but Hunter, and I would give the orders to my Coven more than be present myself for the work they did. I absolutely cannot believe—!” He shook his head incredulously, hate and disgust burning in his ice blue eyes as the normally silver tongued tyrant fumbled in shock. “How could your Mother house such a disgusting being?! The poor woman must be as spellbound as you, allured by what they try to present as charm.” He was nearly choked by the sheer momentum of his collar being yanked by Luz’s trembling fists. He found himself inches away from her seething face. “Don’t you dare talk about my Mom like that, or my friend! And if you hurt either of them, then….a-anything bad that ever happened to you will pale compared to what I do to you!” Annoyed, Philip shoved himself away from her and straightened his jacket. “I gave you my word, and I’m under a magical oath. And why would I just unprovokingly harm another human? Is that not the species I’ve been trying to save?” “Your word doesn’t mean diddly dang SQUAT when you gave me your word four centuries ago that you’d help me find a way to get home and then tried to sacrifice me and my aunt!” she yelled. “And your word should mean nothing to me when you gave me a door in exchange for Eda’s freedom and blew it up.” Luz found herself chewing her lip and averting her gaze as her own hypocrisy gnawed at her. “W-well technically I kept my word because I DID give you the door. I just….you know, lit it on fire afterwards.” “If we’re playing this game then I kept my word as well, because four centuries later, just a few minutes ago, I brought you home with the door that I reconstructed. The door that you so rudely lit on fire, may I add.” Luz’s face burned and she wasn’t sure if it was from embarrassment or anger, especially as Philip oh so smugly grinned at her in his sick amusement. She just growled and whirled around. They stood in front of her door and Luz’s fist trembled as it hovered over the wood. Her mind was a whirl of emotions. Had she been away for too long? How much had her Mom changed? Was Eda and everyone okay? Did they know she was missing? How much time had passed? How was she supposed to explain Philip?! That’s when the door swung open and there was the face she was worried she’d never see again. Tears immediately filled both of their eyes. “Mija!” Camila breathed out, and that was all she got out before dissolving into soft sobs and all but choking the poor girl in a crushing hug. Luz barely seemed to notice her air was being practically siphoned off, or that the hug aggravated the bruises she’d sustained. “Mami!” she cried, clinging to the woman. For just a moment, she forgot about her inner turmoil about being back here, and the genocidal madman beside her. She was in the safety of her mother’s arms and that’s all that mattered to her right now. Watching the happy reunion, Philip felt quite…out of place and awkward. Deep down in the niches of his heart, he might have even felt a dim….ache. It’d been centuries and everyone he knew was gone. He’d made peace with that long ago when he learned how much time had gone by in the human realm, and he’d forced himself to harden his heart to the reality that when he got back everyone he’d ever known would be dead. Everyone. His town, his friends, Caleb, and even… “Sir?” Philip looked over to see Luz’s Mother staring at him…and of course not able to help a glance at his outfit. Like mother like daughter… “Luz, who is this man?” Oh boy… The hardest part about all this was going to be acting like a friend to Philip Wittebane. She hated lying to her Mom… “This is…Philip. He brought me home,” Luz said with a stiff smile. “He’s another human that was also in the demon realm for a really long time. Couldn’t just leave him out in the rain, so!” Well that wasn’t a lie…even if she wanted to leave him in the rain. Philip held out his hand to the woman. “A pleasure to meet—you?!” The Wittebane was cut off as his hand was grasped and subsequently, he found himself pulled into a grateful hug. It also had to be the first hug he could recall in countless years. Luz was on edge with them being in close contact at all but she had to admit, watching his reaction to the hug was amazing. His deer in the headlight expression was utterly priceless, hands twitching at his sides and not sure where he was supposed to put them. “Sorry,” Camila chuckled as she pulled back, wiping her dewy eyes. “I’m just so grateful you helped my baby get home. Please, come inside! And mija, mi dulce niña, you can have anything you want for dinner tomorrow night! We’ll have a big celebration!” It didn’t feel like much of a celebration and Luz could only manage a faint smile at her Mom. Making her way into the kitchen, she froze. There was Vee in her basilisk form with an apple sticking out of her mouth. “Oh!” Camila realized, wide eyes looking at Philip. The aficionado that he was, Philip fell back on his centuries being cordial to these savages with ease. Perhaps in his own time he could try to reason with Camila about not housing this filthy thing, but making a scene would do no favors here. “It’s quite alright. I’ve been in that realm for longer than you would believe, and a basilisk is no surprise to me.” “She’s very sweet, I promise.” Camila had already turned her head and didn’t see the momentary lip curl of disgust, but Luz did. “Luz!“ Vee rushed forward to her, a nervous but excited smile on her face. “I-I’m so happy to see you’re okay!” Again Luz had to swallow the ugly lump in her throat. She was decidedly not okay. “Heeey sister from another mister! Home slice! How’s it…hanging…” God she cringed and she was sure she felt everyone do the same. Vee gave a small and uncertain laugh, secretly grateful for the electronic beep on her wrist that broke the awkward moment. “Shoot! I’m late for Kimberly’s party! Er…” She looked over at their mother and back at Luz. Camila waved her hand. “Vee, you promised that girl you’d be at that party. I didn’t drive you to that out of town store to get her that book for nothing!” Vee ducked her head with a sheepish smile. “I told you…ya didn’t have to. Alright, we’ll catch up later!” she told Luz, scooping up a parcel on the counter and running out the door. At least they would be saved from that awkwardness, Luz thought. She looked over at the table and inhaled a heavenly aroma of familiar spices. Philip on the other hand all but had his feeble senses assaulted by them. “I’ve missed your cooking, Mami…” “I’m sure you have, mija,” Camila chuckled as she pulled up a chair for their wayward guest and spooned out a portion of dinner for both of them. “Your home is quite…lovely,” Philip said conversationally, trying not to focus on the utter alien appearance of a modern day kitchen. He was watching the tv, gaze moving over towards the oven. From the simplest digital watch, to her refrigerator, everything was simply overwhelming to him. “I’ve certainly never seen anything like this, and the food looks better than anything I’ve had in recent years.” Camila prepared a tea for Philip and Luz’s favorite soda. “So how was it getting back, you two? I’ve been so worried about you being in that place I-I’ve hardly been able to sleep at night!” “I couldn’t be happier to be back,” Philip said sincerely. Luz just clenched her fists at her sides, trying once more to bury the pain of….homesickness. “I…I’m really not ready to talk about it, Mom,” Luz said quietly. She tore her eyes away from her mother’s concerned gaze. “Oh…of course, cariño.” After a moment she turned to Philip. “So Philip, where will you be staying?” He blinked, notably almost choking on the unexpected spice in his dinner. That was enough to give Luz a bit of a snicker. “O-oh, well…my house I suppose. It’s been destroyed for quite some time, it appears. I shouldn’t be expecting it to be standing strong after this long. Everything seems to be falling apart, although it still has somewhat of a roof…” “You’ll be fine, dude,” Luz said coolly as she bit into a dinner roll. “You lived in a cave, you can manage. Ya know, I believe in you! All that junk…” She waved a hand dismissively. “Luz!” her Mother scolded. “I’m surprised at you! Where are your manners?” She turned to Philip with a kind smile. “You’re not staying in a broken down house or a cave. We have a spare bedroom and you can stay here until you find a place.” It was Luz’s turn to choke on her food. “Wh-what?!” Philip looked just as shocked. “What? Oh…” He straightened his cravat in discomfort. “Thank you kindly, Miss Noceda, but I certainly wouldn’t want to take advantage of your hospitality. I’m sure you have your hands full…” “Oh I always have my hands full, it’s fine!” Camila laughed. “No, I insist. You can stay here until we can get you settled in somewhere, or fix your house.” “B-but…we don’t have room!” Luz protested. “We have plenty,” Camila said firmly. “You and Vee can share a room for now. I’m sure it won’t be long.” “Ma’m-“ “I said I insist.” And for some reason, that shut Philip up as he just nodded. Luz however was still in…a state. “Can’t we at least put him in the shed? I mean, we could string up some lights, and get a desk in there and some drapes! It’ll be so homey!” “Luz!” Camila snapped. The teenager sunk down into her seat, sulking like a petulant child. A battle with her Mother wasn’t one she could win. “Fine.” Fine, fine, rooming with Philip Wittebane, Coloniser of The Boiling Isles and the source of most of her nightmares lately! The solitary reason she almost lost the majority of her family and home! She could see nothing wrong with this. “We’ll get you set up then in your new room. Did you enjoy your meal?” The old man was visibly trying to feign a look of enjoyment instead of the acid-reflux-of-a-life-time one he really wanted to show, resisting all urge to grip his chest. A dragon berry was the only thing that he’d consumed in terms of heat for these centuries. Even that was too much for his stomach. “Exquisite. Are you quite certain about these…living arrangements?” “Well…it’s a bit sporadic so it’s not the best I can offer, but I’m sure we can make do.” She chuckled. “These troublesome girls need two sets of eyes to watch over them,” she joked. “Maybe you can help.” One was a troublesome girl, and the other was one of the devil’s minions, he thought. Still, the joke received a cordial nod. Luz turned away from the two and started towards her…Vee and her room. “You’ll have to get some new threads tomorrow. Those Shakespearean rags aren’t going to fly in this era,” Luz muttered as she started up the stairs. “Mija? You’re going to bed already?” “It-it’s been a long day, I’m tired.” Luz could already feel the tears press behind her eyelids and she was desperate for her Mother not to see them. “Good night Mom.” She shut the door to her dim bedroom. The only light that broke the darkness came through slivers of moonbeams through the drawn curtains. In the light she saw so much she didn’t recognize… Books that weren’t hers. Odd posters of bands she didn’t listen to. CDs where some of her toys had been. All of Vee’s stuff. Finally a sob quivered up from her lungs. This wasn’t home… Home was in a rollaway sleeping bag stuffed in a closet she’d spent careful months decorating. It was with King cuddled in her lap, and her cheek rested against a bony knee as Eda’s long nails would smoothe and ruffle her hair. With a whimper, Luz slowly slid down the door and sunk her face in her hands to blot out the world around her. “I just…want to go home…”

Not Rated

She’d tried to forget about that part of herself.If she pretended it didn’t exist, maybe it just wouldn’t bother her anymore. She could tell people she was a girl if they asked, although that didn’t feel quite right (she pretended it did). She could tell people that she didn’t exactly care about pronouns if they asked, but again, that wasn’t quite right (and again, she pretended it was). Eda had always felt that being called ‘The Owl Lady’ was alright, but being called a ‘lady’ outside of that felt weird and she’d always pretend that wasn’t the case because why would it only feel right in some cases? (‘The Owl Lady’ was more of a title, a badass one too. ‘Lady’ was more of a statement. A fact. A wrong one, but Eda tried to forget that it was wrong.) The rest she could just forget about until it hopefully faded from existence. That way, she wouldn’t have to deal with any of the very rare horrible nights where she’d just cry from it all, or the more common times when it would just be so damn confusing. But of course, gender doesn’t work like that. You can’t force it to change to make things easier. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist so that it’ll just go back to how it used to feel. It’s not possible. It’s a part of who you are, something that cannot be changed by yourself. The only reason it wasn’t hard for her beforehand was because she didn’t know yet. Even then, there were some things that were obvious signs, had she known what they were. Like the confusion around all-boy or all-girl things, like schools, friend groups, boys vs girls teams, etc. She’d begun to notice the weird feelings when she was in her late teens, and just chalked it up to being stressed. From the moment she’d realised what it was when she was in her mid to late 20s, she’d wished she could just forget about it until it disappeared. So that’s what she’d done. She knew she couldn’t make it disappear, but she still spent the next 15ish years of her life pretending nothing was different. Even once the Day of Unity had passed, she’d never really felt like trying to work anything out due to the need to relax after the whole of the isles had to be reconstructed. Of course, in those 15ish years, she hadn’t even gotten as far as working things out. “Hey, Eda?” She snapped out of her thoughts to look up at Luz, who had just called for her from the kitchen. “What’s up, kid?” She called back, a part of her being thankful to have been pulled out of those thoughts. “I’ve just remembered something, so I spoke to Raine about it and I’m gonna continue this conversation with you included. I’d like to introduce you to another human thing.” She said, walking into the living room as Raine walked behind her, their face with a wide smile on it. Before Eda could respond, Raine continued. “Luz says the human realm has a whole month dedicated to LGBTQ+ identities!” They said excitedly. “That month is this month!” Oh. Woah. That was… that was pretty cool. Maybe, if that was happening, it might be a bit easier to… No, Owl Lady, you’d still have to deal with the issues you’ve always mentally dealt with. Eda told herself. “It’s because in the human realm, it wasn’t always accepted, and even by some people now it still isn’t, but as I’ve been informed by Raine, it’s always been accepted here.” Luz said. In the demon realm, labels exist, but as Luz had just said, it’s always been considered normal. It wasn’t like that in the human realm? Holy Titan, she couldn’t imagine how much harder it would be to deal with that. “That sounds pretty cool. The month thing, that is, not the unacceptance.” Eda said. Luz remained standing but Raine sat next to Eda on the sofa, holding their hand out for her to take. She took it, happily smiling at them. “Yeah, it is pretty fun.” Luz said. “Question… Do you guys have flags here? Like LGBTQ+ flags?” “There’s flags in the human realm?” Eda asked, interested in the topic. “Yeah!” Luz said. She then had an idea. “How about you guys come to my house and I'll show you!” Raine and Eda looked at each other for a moment before nodding, and Eda opened the portal. They’d changed where the portal was in the human realm so that it opened inside of Luz’s house rather than that old house in the forest. Luz went in first, calling for her mum. Pretty quickly, Camila came into the living room, saying hello to her daughter and waving to Eda and Raine. “Mama! I brought Raine and Eda along to show them some pride stuff!” Luz said as she ran off somewhere in the house. She was gone for about a minute, and Raine and Eda had settled on the sofa. When Luz came back, she was holding what Eda could only assume was a giant flag, with a thick pink stripe on the top and a blue one just as thick on the bottom, and a thinner purple stripe in the middle. “This is the bisexual flag, which is why I have this on hand.” She said, spreading the flag out so it was as viewable as possible. Eda’s face lit up a little at that. So that’s what her flag would be for her sexuality. Too bad I’ve never let myself work out what my other flag would be… Eda thought. “There are loads of other ones though. Like, literally the only identities that don’t get flags are straight, cisgender and allosexual, and that’s because they didn’t have to fight for their rights here in the human realm.” Eda watched as Luz took out her… urgh, she always forgot what it was called… foon? Fun? Her human scroll. Luz took out her human scroll, and typed something in before showing it to her and Raine. “This one’s the non binary flag.” Luz said. “Ooo, I like that!” Raine said. “I want one of those big ones you have with that flag on it.” “They’re really cheap to buy, probably equivalent to only a handful of snails, so we should be able to find you one.” She said. Eda smiled when she watched Raine's smile grow a little larger at that. “There’s—” Luz was interrupted by an alarm going off on her human scr— Phone! That’s it, her phone. “Oh right. Sorry, I would continue this, but I’m supposed to be going to Amity’s house right about now.” She said, almost ready to sprint off. “That’s alright, kid. We’ll leave the portal open, I’m sure we can figure some stuff out by ourselves.” Eda said, “There’s a laptop upstairs you can use to research!” Luz called out as she ran off back through the portal, leaving Eda unable to respond. Camila called Raine over to show them something, from what Eda heard it sounded like they were sorting out the flag for them. Eda took the opportunity to head upstairs to find that laptop. Luckily, Eda had been shown how to use these before, so she wouldn’t need any help operating it. She looked around for a little bit, before finding the laptop Luz had talked about. It was the one Eda had used before, so she knew it didn’t belong to anyone specifically. She hesitated for a moment, before turning back around to close the door. She turned back and once again paused, worrying that if she looked it up now, she might not be able to continue to just forget about it. She wanted it to stay how it was now, just pretending it didn’t exist. The Day of Unity wasn’t that long ago, and the stress from it was still there, she didn’t want to give herself more to worry about. However, the urge to just figure it out was stronger, and her shaky hand took the laptop. She sat down against the wall, in the front left corner of the room, and turned on the laptop. Once it was on, she began typing. What is it… She deleted it, hesitation getting the best of her. Am I… Again, she deleted it. She paused for a moment. How to know if you’re non binary. Before she could think about what she was typing, she hit enter and waited. The search came up with loads of articles. She clicked the top one and started to read it. The cogs in her brain were turning, finally having some clear answers. She didn’t even really need to read through the whole article. In fact, she didn’t actually need to look at any articles in the first place, because she knew she was right. She’d just tried to forget that she was right, so much so that it was still a massive shock to her. Holy fucking Titan, Eda thought. I’m non binary. The revelation left Eda still. She didn’t know what to do with that new information. Well, it wasn’t new, she had known, she’d just never properly understood until now that she was nonbinary. That was a part of who she was. As Eda clicked on another article and slowly began to scroll through it, mentions of different pronouns sprung back a memory from before Eda had even begun to realise that there was something different about her. She was sitting in a boring class, writing something down when she heard a conversation between two students that was about her. “Edalyn Clawthorne?” “Yeah! Did you hear what he did?” “Did you mean to say she?” “Oh, oops. Yeah, I meant she.” “How do you even manage to slip up like that? She’s always gone by she!” “Weren’t you the one who called our male teacher ‘miss’ the other day?” By that point, Eda wasn’t listening to the conversation anymore. ‘He’ didn’t sound wrong, she’d thought. She hadn’t thought about that for a long while after. Looking back on it, anyone who was a girl or who didn’t like he/him would’ve taken more of a negative notice to that rather than the positive one that Eda had. The signs were there the whole time; once Eda had recognised those signs for what they were, she’d pretended it just wasn’t the case. Because of that, she’s here now, trying to figure out exactly who she is. …He is? Eda paused for a moment. She then instantly opened a new tab and started typing. How to know what pronouns you like. Multiple websites came up, and not long after, she found a website where she could input her name and what pronouns she wanted. She first tried she/her. She didn’t have any real need to, she just wanted to try it to compare it to the others. It felt right. She then went to type in he/him when she heard a knock on the door. At first, Eda panicked. “Eda?” The door opened as the person came into the room. It was Raine. “Hey, Rainey!” She called back, slowly beginning to shut the laptop. By the time Raine had walked over to her and sat down, she’d closed the laptop fully. She wasn’t sure whether telling people would be a good idea considering she still wasn’t 100% sure herself. “What are you looking at?” Raine asked, gesturing to the laptop. Maybe telling them would be a good idea. Something clicked in Eda’s brain. Them. Raine was non binary too, they’d understand! Titan, how hadn’t she thought of this earlier?! Her stress levels lowered by an incredible amount at that moment. They weren’t fully gone, but she felt much better. She slowly handed them the closed laptop. They took it, understanding she was struggling to get the words out. Once Raine had seen the two tabs Eda had opened, they’re expression softened. They put the laptop to the side, not even bothering to close it, and held their arms out to Eda, who cuddled them with her face in the crook of their neck. “How long have you thought about this?” Raine asked, a gentle voice that simply made Eda’s heart melt. “I… I’ve kinda known for a long time, I’ve just… I didn’t want to have to deal with the whole confusing part of it all, so I tried to pretend that wasn’t the case…” Eda said slowly. “A long time as in since Hexside, or?” They asked, gently brushing their fingers through Eda’s hair. “No. There were signs from then, but I never picked up on them until I was, like, mid to late 20s?” She sighed, holding onto Raine even tighter. “I knew from then, but I didn’t let myself work out what that properly meant, so the revelation is just a bit…” “I get it.” They said, Eda pulling away from the hug slightly. Their tone switched into a slightly jokey one. “Guess you realised you needed to take your own advice. ‘You can’t run from your fears forever’, as you’d once told me.” Eda laughed. “Okay. Firstly, did you want to finish this?” Raine picked up the laptop as they spoke. She took it. Eda typed in he/him next, finding that once again it felt right. Just as right as ‘she’ did. It made her feel a little strange, but in a good way. Then she did they/them, and she had the same reaction. She then tried out a few neopronouns. Lilith used any pronouns, which included neopronouns, so Eda knew of some ones she could put in. None of them felt right for her though, so she closed the lid of the laptop and placed it on the floor. “How much do you think you’ve figured out about yourself then? I can try to guide you in a way to help with the rest of the journey of discovery.” They said in a loving voice. “I… not a whole lot, and I don’t know if anything I do know is exactly set in stone considering I’ve kinda only just figured it out.” Raine smiled with love in their eyes. Eda smiled back, almost forgetting about the conversation she was having with them. Holy Titan, she loved them. She was so glad that she wouldn’t have to face this alone. She’d have her Rainestorm with her, guiding her through it. Things were a lot less scarier when she was with Raine, the love of her life. “It’s okay, my love. Whatever it is you think is right for now, tell me. If you want, of course. I want to know who you are, and I want to be able to help you in discovering that.” They said, resting a hand on her shoulder. “I… I like my name. I don’t want to change that. I’m alright with being called ‘The Owl Lady’ because that’s more of a title, but just being called a lady in general?” She visibly cringed at the thought. “No. I, um… ‘she’ feels right, just as it’s always done, but I think ‘he’ and ‘they’ might do as well. That’s basically all I really know, or think.” “Okay. Would you like me to try out some things then?” Raine asked. “What do you mean?” “Like, I’ll just talk about you. Do you think you have a preference for your pronouns?” “Um… no. Not that I know of.” “Okay.” Raine sat in silence for a moment, calculating in their head what they were going to say. “Hmm… okay. Have you met my wonderful partner Eda? He’s the handsomest witch I’ve ever met.” Eda had no idea what she was feeling, but it was definitely a positive, happy kind of feeling. Not only that of feeling so loved by Raine, but another feeling she couldn’t quite identify. Raine continued. “They have a personality brighter than the sun, and I love being in their presence.” More of both of those happy feelings. “She’s gorgeous, wild, chaotic and many more things, each that made me fall in love with her more and more.” She hadn’t expected being called ‘she’ to still make her keep the unidentifiable happy feeling, but she guessed she’d just never properly focused on it in terms of gender before, and that’s why it’d never done that before. “I love him, and whether or not they would prefer to be called my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my partner or whatever other term works best, I will always love them.” Both Raine and Eda hadn’t realised that the witch being described by Raine currently had tears building up in her eyes. “Fuck.” He said, wiping his eyes. “I had no idea how much I needed to hear that. And yeah, I… I’m pretty sure I’m right about my pronouns.” Raine put their arms out for them again, which they once again fell into. Eda was trying to stop the tears from forming but they couldn’t help it. “I’m glad I could help, my dear Calamity.” Raine said. “Thank you, Raine.” She said, clutching onto them tightly. Raine started pressing feather-light kisses to the tops of Eda’s wild fiery hair. Eda melted into it, calming down fully shortly after. “I… I don’t really care what you refer to me as. Relationship wise, I mean. It all works equally well.” “Okay. I will say, you won’t know everything right now. Titan, even I feel like I learn small new things about myself every now and then. However, you will begin to learn more as time passes. You’ve just gotta be patient.” They said as Eda pulled back and grabbed the laptop, properly turning it off. “Urgh, I gotta be patient?!” He jokingly complained with a slight obviousness in his voice that he’d been crying as he placed the laptop back on the table he found it on. “The great Lord Calamity doesn’t know how to be patient!” Both him and Raine laughed. “Well, you’re going to need to learn how, my dear.” They said. “You can’t rush these things. You’ll only stress yourself out more. Trust me, I did that when I was younger.” They stood up as Eda walked over to them. “I’d figured it out when I was about 11. I wanted to know everything I possibly could about myself at first, but eventually, I learned that it’s just not possible. You just gotta accept who you are now, and if you learn something new later, then you learn something new later.” They spoke. As they did so, Eda leaned forward to press their foreheads together and wrapped their arms around Raine’s waist. Raine rested their arms on Eda’s shoulders. “Yeah. I just wish it could be easier, y’know?” She said. “I know.” They stood there for a moment, before Eda lifted one of his hands up and placed it on Raine’s cheek, Raine leaning into it. “Can I kiss you?” He asked. Raine nodded, but laughed a little bit. “Yeah, but it’s kinda funny how after such a serious conversation, that’s what you want to do?” Eda chuckled. “Yeah, well, the more I’m with you, the more comfortable I feel, and one of the things that makes me the happiest when I’m with you is when we get to kiss. I’m just looking for comfort after all that, really.” They admitted, trying not to let the tears resurface. They felt like they’d had enough of crying for now. “Remember, I had all that and possibly more that I haven’t quite worked out suppressed for over 15 years, it feels good to get it off of my chest.” Raine snorted and Eda raised an eyebrow at them. “Was that… was that pun intentional?” It took Eda a moment before she burst out laughing. “Nope, but dang, that’s funny.” She said. “I don’t know if that’s something I’d consider, but I can’t be bothered to work that out right now.” Once she’d calmed down, she closed the gap between her and Raine. It was a soft and sweet kiss, and while Eda had moved so that both of his hands were on their cheeks, Raine had moved so that their fingers brushed through Eda’s hair just how she liked it. Raine was the one who pulled away, and the two stared at each other lovingly for a few moments. “You don’t have to figure anymore out for now if you don’t want to.” Raine said. After another moment, they spoke again. “You wanna go back downstairs?” Eda thought for a moment, before a smirk appeared on his face. “Yeah, we can go back downstairs.” Raine looked confused at their lover’s smirk, but the two went hand-in-hand down the stairs. “Hey, uh, Camila?” Eda called out. Camila looked up at them. “It… may not be 100%, but, I think we’re gonna need a second non binary flag.” She gestured to herself as she spoke. Camila got the message. “Alright! I’ll add that to the order. That was really brave of you for telling me, so well done.” Instead of looking at Camila, Eda looked at Raine. They looked so proud of their Calamity.

Teen And Up Audiences

"Hey, new kid."  The girl looked up from her book, glancing at the three people in front of her: a guy with horns and red skin, beast keeping track; a dark-skinned girl, bard track, Skara if she remembered correctly; and... Pink hair, three eyes, potions track. Ugh.  Forcing a smile on her face, she closed the book, "Yes, Borscha?" The gang leader squared her for a second, "Well, you just enrolled, right? I wanted to fill you in on how things work around here. You seem like a decent gal, I'd hate to see you say or do anything wrong. You understand me, right...uh, what's your name again?"  "Lucia." "That's it, Lucia. As I was saying, I want to give you a quick rundown of how things work in Hexside, for your safety" the tone in which she said it was condescending beyond belief, but Lucia kept her smile, "Of course! Thank you very much," Borscha gave a smirk before counting on her fingers. "OK, rule number one: if I tell you to do something, you do it.  No arguments, no 'ifs,' 'buts' or 'maybes': what I say in school is law. Clear?" Lucia tilted her head, "What if the principal says something else?" The witch gave a snort, "Don't worry about this nonsense, okay?" The girl said nothing, but Borscha was not finished: "Oh, of course it also applies outside school. In general, if I say something that's it. Anything at all, you understand?" She added, lowering her voice several octaves. Lucia felt a shiver down her spine, whether of unease or disgust she could not tell.  The witch continued, "Rule number 2: associate with the right people. If you want to survive, you have to show up together with people of worth. I mean, who would listen to someone like Willow Park?" She snickered, followed by the boy next to her. Lucia did not fail to notice that Skara did not laugh. "Anyway, look for the right people. I'm an obvious choice, but these two are okay too or...though I doubt you'll get more than a few words out of her...Amity Blight" The girl nodded slightly, "Ook...the one with the green hair, right?" "That's the one. But trust me, you'd sooner try to make friends with one of the plants from botany."  "Rule number 3: If you partner with me, a highly recommended choice, make sure you don't screw up. And I'm not just saying the obvious, like don't snitch, no no. Even academically, don't get caught, don't get in trouble, and keep your grades up. I don't want one of my group to drag everyone's reputation, and therefore mine, through the mud." Lucia kept a smile on her face, "Um, if I decide not to associate with you?" The witch huffed, "You would be stupid. If you want to become important in school, I'm your ticket. But in any case, the gist is: just make sure you don't fuck around me." The girl nodded, "Got it."  Borscha nodded, "Very good. Well, see you around. Welcome to Hexside, Lucia" The three kids walked away, some more and some less satisfied with the chat; the girl kept her jovial expression before dropping it in favor of a grim scowl, muttering venomously, "Stupid, self-centered, dirty prick. I hope you break your arm while playing freebooter Quidditch" The will to read was gone, and a quick glance at the clock told her it was almost time to leave, so she put the book in her backpack and headed out of the classroom. On her way out she ran her fingers through her long red hair, arranging the strands behind her pointed ears and brushing her bangs out from in front of her eyes. Along the corridors she passed the short, muscular Willow Park, whom she greeted with a nod of her head, while she merely exchanged a glance with Blight, busy training(?) her abominations.    The girl walked out of the school and immediately headed toward the center of Bonesborough, dodging the demons and witches that crowded the streets and lowering her head slightly when she passed a few patrolling guards. Soon she found herself in the town market, full of people and stalls selling all sorts of goods. The girl began wandering through the narrow streets, stopping to buy some groceries and noting down some products she would need in the future.  After a few minutes, and with her arms loaded with bags, Lucia decided she had taken enough and took the road home; as she passed a stall, however, she was stopped by a rough voice: "Hey, squirt!" The girl threw out a sigh, turning around to look: an apparently middle-aged woman with white hair and golden eyes was signaling her to approach from behind a stall full of all sorts of junk. Lucia approached, though without enthusiasm, and addressed the woman, "What do you want, Owl Lady?" The woman gave a deep laugh, "Hey, did we get up on the wrong side of the bed? You're my favorite customer, of course I want to have a chat with you!" Lucia raised an eyebrow, "Your only customer, you mean." "Eh, you're lucky I like you. Seriously though, bad day?"  The girl threw out a sigh: "A troll head at school gave me a talk about """""""rules"""""""". Ugh, I want to throw her head into the abomination cauldron."  The woman let out a whistle, "She sounds like a real pain in the ass."  "Worse, a bully of the slimy kind. You know, the ones who speak in a honeyed voice, hiding insults and innuendos in every sentence, going around with a legion of lackeys..." The Owl Lady made a sound of disgust, "Good Titan, those are the worst. I had a couple of them in school in my day, you can't even imagine what it was."  Lucia snorted a laugh, "I think I have a good idea. Anyway, what do we have today?" The woman opened her arms, "What you see. Plus a couple more things in the back, I know your taste."  The girl glanced around the stall: junk, junk, more junk, pretty but useless trinkets, some more junk...after a couple of minutes she sighed, "Let me see the back."  The woman went around the stall and laid a dirty, crumpled black bag in front of her, "Go ahead and look in here. If there is anything you want, take it, I was going to get rid of them anyway" Lucia put down the bags and began to rummage with a judgmental eye. After a good minute a particular object, a small and slim case, caught her attention: taking it in her hand, she looked on the surface, on the back, checked its contents, that is, a disk of simil metal, closed it again. Finally, she put the box in her backpack, "I'll take this." The woman raised an eyebrow at her, "Why that one? If you ask me, it's nothing special" Lucia shrugged, "I could use the disk to keep the trisalisks away from my garden" The woman huffed, "Have it your way, kiddo" The girl nodded and waved at her, "Well, I have to go now. See you around, Owl Lady."      Eda watched the girl walk away with her backpack on her shoulders and her arms loaded with bags. With a sigh she glanced around the market, seeing how customers were starting to go home and the stalls were beginning to empty; as she was about to do the same, her palisman owl perched on her shoulder, cooing softly in her ear. The woman stroked its head, "Yes, yes, now let's go home." The owl cooed merrily, before transforming into a staff on which the woman straddled; the next minute it was in the air, flying over town and forest, until it came to a crooked house lost in the trees. As Eda descended back to the ground, the owl head on the door stretched out like a snake: "Hoot hoot, hey Eda! There's mail for you!" The woman huffed, "All right Hooty, put it on the table."  She entered the house, leaving the wooden owl free to flutter around and sitting on the sofa with a grunt. A sound of light footsteps alerted her to her housemate, who soon climbed in beside her, "Eda! Another day spent deceiving the gullible?" The woman glanced at the little furry demon, reaching out a hand to stroke the skull on his head, "Yes King. Few gullible people, but very good. Their backs will thank me, they had bags of coins way too heavy!" The two exchanged a giggle, before King took one look at the woman's face and commented, "You saw the girl today, didn't you?" Eda raised an eyebrow at him, "What do you know?"  "Every time you see her you always make the same face."  The woman sighed, lowering her gaze and running a hand through her hair; King pointed a finger at her, "There, that face!"  Eda snorted a laugh, "You're getting way too good at reading me. At this rate, my usual excuses won't work anymore" The demon crossed his arms, "It's not like they work in the first place" The woman sneered, "Keep believing that" Then she returned to her thoughtful expression, "But yes, I did see her again." Hooty peeped out from behind the sofa, "Uuuh, did she take something strange again?" "A small, colorful case, useless if you ask me..."  King squinted at the woman's expression for a few moments, "What's wrong with you? You've been making that face every time you see her for the last year." Eda huffed, "Uugh...I hate to admit it, but I'm a little worried. Every time I see her, she looks either scared or tired. I was hoping that going to school would be good for her, but today she's telling me about bullies and stuff..." The woman ran a hand through her hair, "Gee, I'm really getting soft. I don't even know her name and I'm still worrying about her life. Ugh, I need apple blood" Getting up to get her liquor, Eda thought back to the girl and her bearing, her expression, her gestures...she heaved a sigh 'Eh. She's a damn good liar. What I wouldn't give to know what she's hiding...'    The girl entered the hut carved out of logs and moss, closing the door behind her. With a sigh she laid her bags on the stump that served as her table and began to rearrange all the groceries: ingredients for potions, something to put under her teeth, pens and ink of better quality than her own. And finally... Lucia pulled the game out of her backpack. How the Owl Lady managed to find such items each time was a mystery.  The girl began to make herself comfortable for the evening: first, she walked over to the jar full of lightningflies and unplugged her phone, looking to see if by any chance there was a signal (Not that she really expected to get one, but by now it was tradition). After noting the obvious, she headed to the bathroom, or what she had managed to create in its place, and glanced at the shiny crystal that served as her mirror: long red hair, mismatched eyes, a fang sticking out of her mouth. Lucia, the witch.  With a sigh, she took off the ring she wore on her finger, and immediately her eyes both turned dark brown; she lifted her sleeve and removed a bracelet with a blue gem set in it, immediately making her hair short, brown and unmanageable; finally, she took off her school uniform shirt, remaining only in a sports bra and a pendant with a red gem: when she took it off, her pointed ears became small and round. The girl put on a loose sweatshirt, pajama pants and dirty slippers. Bringing a hand to her mouth, she removed the fake fang and put it in a glass of water, snapping her tongue a couple of times to get the taste of wax out of her mouth.   Luz the human came out of the bathroom, putting on her insulating gloves and taking out the crate full of lightningflies, a flat screen (courtesy of the Owl Lady) and a used but still in good condition PS4 (again, courtesy of the Owl Lady. Luz had no idea how she got these things, but she certainly wasn't going to complain). After plugging everything in, she sat down on the feather and fur bag that served as her beanbag and picked up the controller, slipping the disc into the console and starting the game.  That's how girl spent her seven hundred and ninety-second evening in the Boiling Isles: bloody mandrake salad, grape guts, and Bloodborne.  'Well' She thought 'It could be worse. I could get caught'    'Mija, please-'  But Luz was already out of the house, running in the cold night. The girl ran far, as far as her legs would carry her, out of the suburb, along the fields and finally into the forest where, exhausted, she collapsed against a tree. The foliage of the trees covered the sparse moonlight, making the underbrush even darker as the whisper of the wind summoned the voices of ghosts. Luz removed her backpack and curled up on the ground, feeling tears begin to roll down her cheeks, "I miss you, Papi..."  A rustle made her look up: just ahead, embedded in the trunk of a tree, was a door. It was decorated with a golden eye, and a faint glow could be seen beneath it. The girl stood up, taking up her backpack, and approached: a faint buzzing sound came from the door, which seemed to intensify and weaken every now and then. Luz stretched her hand toward the handle, but immediately hesitated: she could not go, her mother was looking for her! She would have been worried if she had not found her.  '...but what does she care? The girl gritted her teeth at the comment.  'She just wants her stupid job,' Luz clenched her hand, sinking her nails into her palm.  'She'll end up forgetting about me anyway' In one movement, the door was opened, giving onto an equally dark but even denser forest  'Just like she forgot about Dad' Luz walked through the door with her mother's words echoing in her head.  'I'm sorry Mija...this year I won't be able to come to the memorial'    Luz woke up with her mother's voice ringing in her ears. Placing herself in the hammock of vines and leaves, she glanced at the hourglass on the bedside table: it was only two hours before classes started at Hexside. The girl got out of the hammock with a sigh and headed to the bathroom to get ready: a bucket of cold water to wake up and clean herself, a paste of herbs and a sprig to brush her teeth, the carefully washed fake fang and, most importantly, the concealment stones. When she looked in the mirror again, she gave a sigh as Lucia stroked a lock of hair.  The witch came out of the bathroom putting on her school uniform; she threw the books and notebooks, the new pens and lunch into her backpack. Before leaving the house, Lucia put a pair of fingerless gloves in her pocket and hid a vial full of a greenish potion in her shirt. When the door closed behind her, she began to run through the forest, heading toward Bonesborough. Another day began, heralded by the town voices and the school bell.    "Emperor, the reports from the coven heads have arrived. The situation on the islands is stable so far, except for a prank someone is pulling on the Healing Coven halls near the right hand."  Kikimora finished presenting the situation to the emperor, seated on the throne and with one hand resting on his forehead. The dull eyes of the brass mask made the tall, armored figure resemble a specter. After a few seconds of reflection, a low, hoarse voice rose, "What about that other matter? Have there been any new developments?" The counselor swallowed, knowing all too well what he was referring to. Crossing her clawed fingers she began to stammer, "Y-your Excellency...about that matter..." one of the brass mask's eyes lit up with a bluish glow, "What is it?" Kikimora swallowed one more time, the hands on top of her head beginning to move out of nervousness: "There...y-you see, more than one person within the coven is b-beginning to wonder whether...we are s-spending an excessive amount of t-time and r-resources on this...search" The little demon closed her eyes, bracing herself for her emperor's response.  But no voice rose.  Kikimora opened one eye, seeing the tall figure seated on the throne begin to lean forward. "Would you mind elaborating?" the counselor swallowed, resuming her stammering, "Y-you see...it's already b-been two years s-since the sightings, s-sporadic to boot, of this...human. I-in addition, t-the area where they occurred is n-noted for the p-presence of some g-ghouls and w-wailers, that could be m-mistaken fo humans..."   For a few seconds, nothing happened. The emperor remained seated on his throne, motionless and with his gaze fixed on his advisor, who was trying to make herself even smaller than she already was. Kikimora began to think she was out of danger, when the figure rose to its full height and began to approach with slow steps: "Kikimora," his voice was almost crooning, but the demon could not hold back a shudder. "Let me ask you something: what is a human?"  The counselor swallowed, "A-according to the old s-stories they are beings f-from hell..." The emperor nodded, "Oh, that is certain. They are abominable beings, Kikimora, beyond imagination. So violent that they do not hesitate to tear each other to pieces over the most trivial things. They are also so stupid that they become aggressive with everything they don't understand, which is a lot. Now, imagine such a being wandering free around the isles." The demon muttered, "I-I think I u-understand, sir..." The figure nodded slowly, "Good. Then I'm sure you understand my concerns as well. What could it have been doing these past two years? What horrors is it up to? I can't leave such a thing free to roam, for the sake of all the islands" Kikimora nodded, "I-I understand. I-I will immediately issue a r-report upon the scouts" The emperor nodded, "Excellent. If there is nothing else, you are free to go" The councilor gave a quick bow and hurried out of the throne room; as the heavy doors closed behind her, Belos gave a chuckle, "Yes...humans are truly terrible beings. Almost as terrible as witches."    Amity looked up from her scroll, watching the subject of the latest school gossip: the new kid. She was currently busy scribbling something in a notebook, probably school notes, and Amity couldn't help but think back to the latest rumors about her.  'I say she has moved in from Glandus!'  'Did you see the ring she wears on her finger? She must have very rich parents!'  'I've never seen her do magic...you think she has a physical defect?' 'She must be a basilisk!'  The witch shook her head. The ones going around the school were just silly rumors (although the basilisk theory seemed quite convincing) and she was well above that. As far as she was concerned, the girl was simply an introverted nerd. End of story.  Suddenly she caught a glimpse out of the corner of her eye of a familiar black hair, pinned to a short, plump girl. Amity stood and watched as Willow Park turned the corner and went straight into the new girl, sending her to the ground with a thud. Her panicked reaction was amusing enough, but it was short-lived as the kid stood up, cleaned her uniform, spent barely a minute apologizing to Willow, and then resumed writing in her notebook as if nothing had happened. Amity wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion, looking at the girl wearing the same expression on the black-haired's face; confusion soon became irritation when Willow sat down next to her, trying to make conversation and earning few and brief responses.  Feeling her patience reaching its limit, Amity approached the two with her hands on her hips, "Hey, Willow. Already looking for new contacts?" The chubby witch swallowed as she saw her approaching (again, quite amusing), "O-oh, Amity..." The new kid merely looked up for a couple of seconds before returning her gaze to the notebook. The green-haired witch glanced at the other before sighing, "Willow, I don't think you should be bothering the new girl, should you? Rather, how is that Abomination exam going?" The black-haired girl lowered her gaze, starting to wring her hands; the other watched her simmer in distress for a couple more seconds before turning to Lucia: "Hello there! I don't think I've introduced myself yet, have I? I'm-" "Amity Blight, right?"  Lucia looked up, enjoying the girl's bewildered expression, "H-how do you-" "That girl, Borscha. She told me a little bit about you" Amity nodded slowly before returning to her neutral expression, "I see. Well, I'm glad to know that you know me. Rather, your name...?""Lucia. Lucia Brujadora" The witch smiled, "Well, the pleasure is mine. " Lucia raised her head and replied in an unenthusiastic tone, "I'd like to say the same, but I'm a bad liar."  Amity seemed to choke on her spit for a second before closing her fists and stamping her foot on the ground, "How in the world dare you talk to me like that? I introduced myself politely and this is how you answer me?" Lucia raised an eyebrow, replying in an impassive tone, "Politely? What about the way you addressed Willow was polite?" the girl in question was listening with her jaw hanging slack "For your information, she was helping me with my homework for the plant class. Which makes me wonder, what are you doing in the Abominations class?" She lowered her head a little, "Compared to the plants track, it has more opportunities...." Lucia looked for a second at the girl in front of her, huddled in herself and looking down. A pang gripped her heart, and a warm, familiar voice made its way into her mind: 'Mija, one thing you need to know is that studying can be so much fun!' 'Dad, you're not funny!' 'I'm serious!  You like studying art, don't you?' 'Yes, but it's not a real subject...'  'Oh no, Mija, I don't want to hear words like that. Art is as valid a subject as math, and I don't want to hear things like 'It's not a real subject' or 'You can't get a job with that,' okay?  'Do you really believe that, Papi?'  'Do you want to know a secret? Once, a wise person told me something very important: If you study for fun, it will be the jobs that will look for you. Do what you like, okay?'  The girl came to her senses when she heard Amity's voice: 'What a surprise, so you do have some smarts. I wonder why you don't bring them up in class." And that, Lucia decided, was the last straw.  The girl put a hand on Amity's shoulder, squeezing it hard enough to make her bend slightly. Willow's eyes widened as she heard Lucia's venomous tone, "Let me see if I got this right: you come here uninvited, you insult your classmate, you take offense when I point it out, and you insult the other tracks, too? And then you call me rude!" neither witch managed to utter a word as the girl was busy ripping Amity a new one "You know, there are people who might be offended by these insinuations. Coven heads, for example: what would Terra Snapdragon say if she was here now?" Lucia let go of the witch's shoulder, who took two frightened steps back. The girl's blue and green eyes were glaring daggers, and Amity was quick enough to take the hint and stammer, "I-I...j-just r-remembered that I-I have homework to do too..." and with that she turned on her heels and disappeared from the hallway as fast as she could.   Amity strolled down the hallway, feeling the tips of her ears begin to turn red. As soon as she was certain that she was out of sight of the two, she let go an angry outburst that ended with a punch to a locker, which promptly growled in response.  The witch ignored it, too busy simmering in her spite: that insolent brat just made her look like a fool! In public, no less! Amity began to mutter, "You stupid little idiot, how on earth dare you, wait until Grudby's season starts, the time we duel I'll smash your stupid, know-it-all, adorable face-" The witch slammed a hand over her mouth, turning red as a bell pepper.  'Why did I say that?! She's not adorable, no! She's a stupid little know-it-all who doesn't know who I am! Yes, that's it, nothing more. An imbecile who wants to fight, and that I want to step on me- BAD AMITY!'  The witch banged her head against one of the lockers, hiding her red face in her hands. Lucia had been at school barely a week and she already reduced her to this state. Amity began to fear what would happen in the rest of the year.  Willow stood watching with her mouth open as Amity disappeared down the hallway, before turning to Lucia with a smile, "Thank you" This one shrugged, "Oh, it was no big deal. So where were we?" The two returned to sit against the wall, but before they could resume their exercises Willow muttered, "You...don't think the plant track is stupid?" The other girl shook her head, "Nope. If I thought so I wouldn't be studying it, would I?" Willow raised an eyebrow, "Now that I think of it, what track are you in? Your uniform is all colorful..." Lucia brought her finger to her chin for a moment, "Hmm...well, all of them."  "...excuse me?"  "What can I say, I like to expand my horizons. Oh, before you ask, my favorites are potion, illusion and oracle."  The witch looked at the girl as if she had grown a second head, "But can you do that? I mean, the emperor's coven is very strict about certain things..." Lucia shrugged, "The principal is a surprisingly understanding person. I told him I wanted to try a little bit of everything to be able to make a more conscious choice, and he agreed. He also allowed other students to be able to get in multiple tracks." Willow lowered her gaze, which fell on the plants drawn in the notebook. After a few seconds, she returned her determined gaze to the girl, "Do you think he would allow me to change courses?" Lucia broke into a small smile, "If you ask him calmly and with a logical argument, I don't see why not."    While the witch was busy bouncing with joy, a voice came from nowhere: "Hey Willow!" Lucia looked around confused, but the other let out a sigh, "Augustus...." With a laugh, a witch appeared out of the air next to them, a dark-skinned boy with slicked-back hair. Willow raised an eyebrow at him, "How long had you been there?" The boy shrugged, "A few minutes." Then he gave the girl a big smile, "You're Lucia, aren't you? I saw the scene with Blight. You were great!" She blushed massaging the back of her neck, "Come on, it was no big deal..." "Are you kidding? Not everyone has the guts to tell her off like you did!" Willow smiled, "Lucia, this is Augustus Porter. He is head of the human appreciation club."  The girl looked at the two witches like they said the sky is green: "The what?" Augustus clapped a hand on his chest, "The human appreciation club! A group where we gather to discuss the lives of humans and their amazing abilities!" Lucia barely kept a laugh: "And how many of you are there?" The boy shrugged, "So far just me" Willow sighed, "The topic is not exactly popular...especially with the latest rumors going around" Lucia rolled her eyes, "I bet the Emperor's coven said the first things that crossed their minds" Augustus looked at her for a good two seconds before breaking out into the biggest smile the girls had ever seen, "I KNOW! Titan, finally someone who understands what I mean! I mean, humans can't be as violent as they want us to think! You know that-" Willow facepalmed, "There, we lost him."  Lucia squared the boy for a second before interrupting him, "Hey, Augustus? Uh, can I call you Gus?" The witch immediately stopped talking, his eyes growing comically big: " Of course! Come to think of it, it's a lot easier than my full name!" The girl nodded, "Okay, Gus. Are you in illusions by any chance?"  "Yup! And, modestly, I'm the best around!"  Lucia nodded, "Good to know. So, Mr. Best Around, would you like to give me a hand with the illusion homework?"  Gus tilted his head, "Huh? Sorry, aren't you in the plant track?"  The girl spread her arms wide, showing the colors of her uniform, "I'm in every track. And illusions happens to be one of my favorites, along with potions and oracles" The boy hopped on the spot, "Uuuhuhu! You are really amazing! Of course I can help you, what do you need to do?"  Lucia gave a smile. School might not have been so bad.    Eda closed the door behind her with a sigh, "Thank you for agreeing to see me, Bump." The principal waved a hand, "I always have time for one of my former students, even a troublemaker like you. So what did you want to talk about?"  The witch closed her eyes for a second and rested her forehead against her knuckles. She sighed, "About one of the students. I'm worried about her," Bump tilted his head, "Which student are we talking about?" Eda began gesturing, "Long red hair, blue and green eyes, tusk, dark skin...?" The principal brought a finger to his chin for a second before brightening up, "Oh yes, Miss Brujadora! I should have suspected you two knew each other, you have a lot in common" The witch raised an eyebrow, "Really? What, she writes on the cabinets too?" he shook his head, "No, no, but you both have a passion for all forms of magic. It is thanks to her after all that we started opening the school to the possibility of  multitracking" Eda's jaw dropped: "Are you kidding me?"  "Absolutely not! And you'll be pleased to know that Miss Brujadora has enrolled in every single track of the school. Ambitious, no doubt, but I suspect she'll be fine."  Eda felt her chest swell ( she wasn't proud, you have no proof, shut up), but immediately shook her head and became serious again, "This is all very nice, but I am here for another reason. What can you tell me about Brujadora's parents?"  Bump raised his eyebrows, "Why the concern?"  The witch wrung her hands, "I've been seeing the kid day in and day out for a year now, and she's always seemed...I don't know, it worries me. She doesn't act like a kid her age, that's all." Bump wrinkled his brow, "Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure I haven't talked to any adults about her enrollment...however..." He drew a circle in the air with his finger, which made a stack of folders appear on the desk. After a few seconds spent searching, he pulled out one with Lucia's picture on it and opened it, rummaging through it for a few moments before pulling out a sheet: "Here it is. When Brujadora came to request enrollment, she had handed me this authorization from her alleged guardians. At first I hadn't paid any attention to it, but...I'm beginning to believe it was a mistake."  Eda read the paper, less and less convinced: it looked legitimate, but the handwriting and scattered smears and smudges were raising red flags. The witch laid the paper on the desk, "Bump, I think we need some research regarding these Brujadora. I have a feeling the situation is worse than we think" The principal nodded, "Very well. One of these days, if possible tomorrow, I will go to the precinct and request to check the registry." Eda nodded, "Perfect. I'll take care of the kid then. I hope she's safe, at least." Bump sighed, "Well, it will be our job to make sure she is."      Hettie Cutburn was not having a good day. Being Head Witch of the Healing Coven was hard work. Not so much because it was difficult or because she didn't like her job, mind you; but, of all the nine covens, the Healing Coven was the one with the absolute highest amount of paperwork to fill out, beaten perhaps only by the Emperor's. Reports on materials, magics used, percentages of illnesses, injuries, accidents treated, not to mention the rest like membership numbers, property management, etc...and being the coven leader meant that all these things went through her. Hettie had spent the last five hours on the desk filling out papers, and she desperately needed the strongest apple blood available to the Isles (that or a body to analyze, she wasn't picky).  She had finally signed the last report, and was about to send everything to the emperor, when a six-handed demon entered her office, "Um, Head Witch?" Hettie put down her pen, joined her hands in front of the bandana covering her metaphorical eyes, counted to three, then five, then seven, then ten; finally she took a deep breath and spoke in the most professional tone she could muster: "Is something wrong, Dr. Markelin?"  The demon swallowed, " Well...it happened again."  Hettie felt her blood pressure reach dangerous levels: "...other stolen hearts?"  "Yes."  "From the Bonesborough office?"  "Exactly."  The head witch made a magic circle and used it on herself to avoid having an aneurysm: "How many?"  The demon swallowed, "Um...the whole load coming in for research."  Hettie stood still for a few seconds; if her eyes were not completely burned out she would have blinked owlishly: "I beg your pardon?"  "The entire load was stolen. The hearts were being transported here for research purposes, but when they arrived they found the wagon broken into and the hearts stolen. The couriers said they didn't notice anything."  "...how many hearts were aboard the cargo?"  "...about 40, I think."  A three-minute uninterrupted scream ensued. The head witch had to get rid of both a sore throat and a migraine with magic.    Luz went into the forest with her hands clasped around her backpack, looking around with the utmost circumspection. The tree foliage made the ground as dark as dusk, and the mist certainly did not help visibility. The girl kept walking, until she found herself in an undergrowth where the trees were thinning out, letting sunlight through and thus allowing a wide range of flowers and berry bushes to grow. Luz stationed herself beside a tree, not fully exposed to possible enemies but enough to be seen by her contact. They had just made a big score, and she had the payment necessary to afford it all: she wouldn't miss the encounter for the world.  A heavy slithering caught her attention: from among the trees emerged a snake-like figure with slimy blue skin, long black hair and two red eyes with a horizontal pupil. On his shoulder was a large cloth sack, and when he opened his mouth to speak he showed rows of knife-sharp teeth: "I can smell you, human. Come out, I can assure you that we are not being followed and no one is seeing us."  The girl stepped out into the underbrush, holding her backpack tightly: "I see you hit the jackpot this time, Thirteen." The basilisk laid the sack on the ground, patting it a couple of times with one hand: "Forty-two witch and demon hearts, fresh from a convoy of the healing coven. The question is, can you afford them?" Luz placed her backpack on the ground and opened it, pulling out a jar full of cotton that glowed faintly. He held it up to show the basilisk, "These are pomegranate seeds. It grows into the adult stage within a month, and needs a moist, shady environment. It bears fruit all year round, fruit full of magic that can explode if not handled with care. You should be fine for quite a while with these."  The monster approached, opening the glass jar and noting its contents; once he was satisfied, he took the container and set the bag down in front of the girl, "It's a pleasure doing business with you, human. I doubt we'll be seeing each other anytime soon, but if you ever need my services, you'll know where to find me" Luz nodded and shouldered the sack, "Good luck, Thirteen" The basilisk waved to her, before the two turned on their heels and disappeared into the mist and darkness of the forest.  "Hey...Lucia, right?"  The girl sat down in the beastkeeping classroom, next to a witch with brown hair and a fish hook in her ear. She tilted her head, "Have we met somewhere?" The witch nodded, "I'm Viney! We went to the principal a week ago and you convinced him to let us take multiple tracks!" As she spoke, she opened her arms to show her blue and brown uniform. Lucia brightened up, "Oh, right! Sorry I forgot, this week has been a little busy" The witch giggled, "Nah, it's okay. So, tell me: what's it like being in every track?" The other shrugged, "What can I say, it's tough." Viney chuckled, "I can imagine."  A growl called the students to order: seated at the desk was a wolf-like demon with horns, almost as tall as the door and with a very uncheerful expression on his face. He stood up, "Grrr...students, listen up. Today we will have class in the, grrr...in the reservoir. I expect that, grr...that by the end of class each of you will have made friends with at least one, grrr...one of the beasts within. You have brought the, grr...necessary materials with you, haven't you?" The students made affirmative noises, so the professor nodded, "Perfect, grr...then come on, let's go outside."    The whole class came out of the building and headed to a fenced area at the edge of the school grounds: inside they could see all sorts of creatures, from griffins as tall as bulls to tiny kittens with five eyes and forked tongues. The professor let the students in and rolled up his sleeves, "Listen to me, grr...all the beasts inside the reserve are trained and docile, grr...but that doesn't mean you can mistreat them. Such behavior, grr...will not be, GRRR...tolerated" The professor's growling got worse with each word, to the point that he had to start munching on a bone to calm himself down. When he was able to make coherent sentences again he continued, "Pick a beast and try to make friends with it. If you see that it doesn't seem to listen to you, don't try to impose yourself, grr...but rather go somewhere else, there is no shortage of them here." The students nodded and, each taking their materials, scattered around the reserve.  Lucia watched as Viney headed confidently toward the griffons and began to pet them, while another student tried to approach a large mantis with four claws and a single compound eye. The girl shouldered her cloth bag and began wandering around looking for a beast that seemed suitable to her: she ignored the unicorns and manticores, which were watching her curiously, and seemed to consider for a second a snake with clawed legs and four bat-like wings, before shaking her head and moving on. Several beasts seemed to be attracted to her bag, and more than once she had to push some of them away.  Her attention was caught by a low, vibrating sound coming from the barn. Lucia approached with the bag on her shoulder, peeping her head, "Is anyone there?" What she saw made her jaw drop: huddled on the ground, sitting on what must have been wrists, was one of the largest beasts the girl had ever seen. No less than ten meters tall and fifteen meters long, it had a thick skin full of wrinkles that seemed to breathe; its column-like legs had stubby claws, which made a grip in the ground like harpoons; the large head had two small eyes on either side and a gigantic one in front, which were watching her with circumspection; but the thing that most caught Lucia's attention was the long trunk, whose entrance equipped with thorns looked like a carnivorous worm. A pair of short fangs was also visible coming out of the base of the proboscis, but the girl could swear she had seen them extend half an inch.  Lucia approached the monstrous elephant, walking slowly to avoid frightening it: it extended its trunk toward her, showing the sharp teeth that covered the entire inner wall and sniffing(?) a couple of times. The girl sat down on the ground, not far from the trunk's maximum reach, and put one hand in the pouch: she pulled out a heart as big as her fist from it, and held it out toward the beast. The latter widened its eyes a little and leaned toward the girl, touching the heart and her with its trunk; after a few seconds the latter sucked the heart and began to chew on it, sending it down the trunk until it was no longer recognizable.  The girl gave a small smile and took another heart from the bag: it too was eaten after a careful examination. The beast seemed more and more invigorated, and soon it stood up on its feet and approached the girl, stroking her with its trunk. Lucia spilled the contents of the sack in front of it, dropping the rest of the hearts on the ground; the beast sent out a satisfied squeal and began to eat with gusto, while the girl stroked his head with a contented expression.   The professor marked the students' progress on a folder, noting which beast had been tamed by whom. Viney had made great progress with griffons in a short time, getting to the point where she was able to pet the inside of their wings; other students had chosen smaller creatures, such as visionbeasts or unicorns, but overall he could call himself satisfied. He was checking the results again when something caught his attention: looking up, he began counting his students before scratching his head with his pen, "Where did Brujadora go?" Suddenly barbs began to be heard coming from the hut, and the professor could feel his fur begin to congeal, "No. Please...no." His fears were confirmed when he saw the Torturophant, by far the most dangerous and wary beast on the reservation, which they were keeping there waiting for some envoy from the BeastKeeping Coven to come and fetch it, come out of the barn and sniff the air with its mouth; on its rump, perched with a colossal grin on her face, was none other than Brujadora. Students crowded around the beast, and the professor had to intervene to calm them down. Viney, wide-eyed, shouted, "Lucia! How did you do that?" The girl shrugged and gave the beast another heart to eat, "I had food put aside!" The professor ran both hands over his face, then took a deep breath and called out, "Brujadora! Do I want to know why you had spare hearts?" The girl waved an arm at him, "Don't worry, they're scrap!"  "You didn't answer my question!"  The girl shrugged, "I have a friend at the Healing Coven. When they research magic they take the bile sacs off the hearts, and what they don't use they throw away; rather than let them rot, I'll take some myself!" The Torturophant sent a smug barb when the girl stroked his head, and the students began muttering among themselves. The professor put his muzzle in his hands: he couldn't wait to retire.      Eda heaved a sigh and drummed her fingers on the stall. There were fewer people than usual at the market, but this time the witch was not interested in money: she needed to have a word with a certain girl. Shortly after, indeed, she saw the familiar red hair appear in the distance and, as usual, waved her hand, "Hey, midget!" The girl, as usual, approached with a snort, "Hey, Owl Lady" The witch turned a ninety-toothed smile on her, "I hear you're making waves at school" Lucia raised an eyebrow, "What do you know?" Eda giggled, "Hey, I'm not the Owl Lady for nothing! I have eyes and ears everywhere!" The girl rolled her eyes, "Let's pretend I believe you."  "Okay, okay, let's talk about something else. Every single track in the school, huh?"  The girl stood dumbfounded looking at her for a good five seconds before replying, "Okay, now I could seriously start believing you."  Eda gave a wolfish grin, "See what happens when you doubt me? Go ahead, shoot, I want to hear the latest news!"  The girl was silent for a few seconds, clearly undecided what to say; finally she sighed, "Well, in beast class we made friends with some of the monsters..." Eda nodded, "Standard stuff. What did you have? A Snaggleback? A Gobbler?" Lucia shook her head, "A Torturophant."  Eda, ironically, blinked owlishly, "Hang on a minute, a what?"  "A Torturophant."  The witch's jaw dropped. Literally. She had to spend a good two minutes looking for it amid all the junk in her stall, but once she got her bone back in place, Eda exclaimed, "What on earth went through your teacher's head?!"  Lucia rubbed the back of her head, "There...I actually picked it out."  Eda stood, again, a couple of seconds looking at the girl before taking her by the shoulders, "What on earth went through your head!"  The girl shook her head, "I don't know, I saw him in the barn and fed him! That's all!"  The witch squared her for a few seconds before letting go, "Ugh, damn girl. You'll give your teachers white hair at this rate," Lucia huffed, "I'm not doing it on purpose..." Eda giggled, "Hey, I like it. Damn, you don't know what I was at your age!" This brought out a smirk at the girl.  The witch took it as a victory and continued, "Listen kid, can I ask you a question?" Lucia crossed her arms, "Besides this one, you mean?" "Yes, besides this one" The girl shrugged, "Eh, why not." Eda took a deep breath: this question was most important, and in all likelihood the girl would have retreated into herself, but it was necessary to ask it. The witch assumed the calmest tone she could muster: " Kid, how are your parents?"  Lucia stiffened instantly. Her face became several shades paler, and it took her a few seconds to regain her composure and answer, "O-oh, they're fine..." Eda did not seem too convinced, "Hmm, sure?" "Y-yes." The girl looked like she was about to burst into tears, so the witch dropped the conversation, "Okay, fine. Well, I don't want to take any more of your time...just say hi to them, okay?" The girl nodded mechanically and walked off, without even glancing at the stall.    Eda ran a hand through her hair, muttering to herself, "Good job, Edalyn. You were supposed to make her feel safe, and look how that turned out. Ugh, I'm not good with children..." The witch gave a huff, sitting on the stool behind the stall and looking distractedly at the few people around.  She made to close up store, when she heard a flutter of wings and something settling beside her: the witch stretched out her arm, figuring it was Owlbert demanding a ride. However, a low croak quickly made her reconsider: next to her was a crow phone, which was cawing incessantly. Eda raised an eyebrow and brought it to her ear, "Hello?"  "Clawthorne."  "Oh, Bump! Why are you calling me like this?"  "As I said yesterday, I went to the police precinct and checked the registry."  Eda snickered, "Wow, that was fast. So what did you find?"  "That you were right. The situation is infinitely worse than I thought."  The witch immediately returned to seriousness. The exchange with Lucia from just before kept buzzing in her mind, and she could not help but berate herself. She tapped her fingers on the table, "I'm all ears."      Head witch Mason Rudhfall wiped the sweat from his brow as he admired his latest handiwork. The lookout tower had come beautifully, and now it was up to the rest of his team to furnish and restock.  The Construction Coven was one of the most popular on the isles, since its type of magic was considered among the top in terms of brute force. The chief witch was none too happy about this reputation: sure, power played a major role in the coven, to the point that they had special seals to increase physical and magical strength, but the real beauty of the Constructions were the details, the carvings, the windows adorned in one way rather than another. Mason considered himself, all things considered, an artist, and few things made him happier than adding detail and decoration to his commissions. Maybe no one would see them, maybe they served no practical purpose, but they were what really made a tower or a wall or a house special. Besides, work is always easier if your place is beautiful to look at, right? His team, made up of the top construction experts from all over the isles, was busy pulling up a series of towers for the emperor's coven, something about new patrol routes and securing the woods. Mason glanced at the forest he was in, an area that was relatively safe (or rather, no more dangerous than the rest of the islands) and full of dense, sturdy trees. The real challenge was not so much building, in this case, but finding the right location and trying to clear as little forest as possible (he definitely didn't feel like having to listen to another complaint from that hag Terra). As he was double-checking the design for the base of the tower, and mentally adding tailor-made details, he was called by one of his men, "Um, Head Witch? I think there's something you should see."  The man put the scrolls away and followed his collaborator, who led him to a clearing that was atrociously made, to say the least: the ground was uneven, there were stones of all sizes everywhere, not to mention fallen trees, moss literally haunting every corner, leaves covering the mass of-  Wait a second.  Mason tilted his head, looking at the pile of logs and wood that looked eerily like a shelter. His associate cleared his throat, "I saw it just now...I also heard voices coming from within it." The chief witch approached, "A hut? Whoever made it either doesn't know how to use construction magic or hasn't had social contact for years" The man heard a rustling sound and, out of the corner of his eye, saw something moving behind a curtain of leaves. He began to worry, and turned to his aide, "Tell the boys to wait for me and call in some healers, just in case" The demon nodded and walked away, leaving Mason free to approach the tattered hut and, with all the gentleness his expert hands had at his disposal, knock on the wooden slab that was probably the door.  "Um, excuse me? Is there anyone I can have a word with?"    Cursing, crashing, falling objects and a quickly extinguished fire were heard on the other side. The witch began to get seriously worried, but just as he took a running start to force his way in, the door opened: on the other side was a witch no more than fourteen years old, with reddish hair that reached the middle of her back and blue and green eyes open in an expression of anxiety that broke the man's heart. He was not at all pleased to note how the interiors of the hut were at best atrocious, and at worst a health hazard. The little girl was as tense as a violin's strings, speaking in a consistent stammer, "G-g-good morning..."  Mason swallowed and pulled out all the kindness he was capable of, "Good morning dear. Let me introduce myself, I'm Mason, Head Witch of the Construction Coven. Are you alone?" The girl nodded, clutching as tightly as she could to the door, and the man drew in a deep breath, "Okay...um, listen...my team and I need this area to work...you know, we need to pull up some watchtowers...are there any parents, relatives, contacts you can go home to?"  The little girl grew paler with each word spoken. By the time he reached the end of the speech, she seemed on the verge of a panic attack, and she simply replied by shaking her trembling head. Mason felt his heart break again: an orphaned, or worse, abandoned little girl living in the forest in such conditions? If the parents were still alive, they would not remain so for long. The man swallowed, "Listen...um, what's your name?" The little girl quickly shook her head, putting her hands in front of her mouth with a terrified expression.  Okay, whoever was responsible for such a thing was a dead witch.  Mason put both hands forward, "Okay, okay, that's okay. Kid, how about you come with me to base camp? I can't, in good conscience, leave you here in this condition, and I think you need a healer's-"    Slam!    The girl slammed the door in the man's face with the most frightened expression he had seen in years. If the whole situation didn't raise red flags, this definitely did, and the chaos coming from the other side of the door only made things worse. Mason banged on the door again, careful not to knock it down, "Little girl! Is everything all right? Did I say something wrong? If so, I'm sorry!" The noise did not stop, and the head witch's fear only got worse. "Hey, is everything okay in there? What's going on? Hey!" When he received no answer, all his hesitation went out the window, replaced by a single thought: there is a little girl potentially in danger.  "Kid, get away from the door!" Mason crashed into the hut, sending the door flying across the room. The interior was a mess, with overturned logs, piles of leaves and vines, and a crystal abandoned on the floor. The man began to turn circumspectly, "Little girl? Where are you?" The man checked each room (How she had managed to build three different rooms in a hut of wood and best intentions was a mystery), but of the little witch no trace. He scratched his head, confused beyond measure, "What the f---" His eye fell on an abandoned sheet of paper on the ground: checking it, he discovered that it was notes on healing magic, also quite detailed. The man felt confusion growing, but his assistant's voice gave him no time to process it "Head witch? Has something happened?"  Mason put the paper in his pocket and stood up, taking another look at the hut. Perhaps he hadn't been able to help the little girl at that moment, but there was still something he could do. Taking his hammer in hand, the Head Witch set to work: let it not be said in the Boiling Isles that Mason "Stonehammer" Rudhfall turns his head in time of need! 

Teen And Up Audiences

Hunter would be his uncle’s right-hand man one day, once he was both older and stronger. At that very moment, however, he should have been asleep, but he couldn't. He had woken up, gone to the bathroom and came back to bed just to lay on the mattress, joined hands on top of his chest, for minutes on end. He blinked for the seventy-third time and, still, nothing. He wondered if his uncle would get mad if he sneaked into his chambers to ask for a bedtime story. And as soon as the idea finished forming in his mind, he knew it was dumb. Ridiculous. And he was ten times both things for even thinking about it. No, of course his uncle, The Emperor, wouldn't read nor make up some silly little tale just for him. If anything, he'd probably tell him the story of how their family had ended up extinguished because of –he swallowed- wild magic. Hunter was already seven, soon to be eight. He couldn't afford nightmares. Not again. Not anymore. In the end, he settled for sneaking inside the library with a pair of candles and a matchbox carefully tucked inside his pocket. This was a very smart plan. He'd read for a while, enough for sleep to come back knocking on the metaphorical door of his brain, and back to bed he'd go. It was perfect! "Boom!" he whispered, snickering to himself, nodding at his own brilliance. He was a prodigy, after all. Of course, he was smart. He was the best. He had to be. Hunter was not expecting anyone else to be in the library. Not so late -or early, depending on one's perspective- but, apparently, that was the case if the dim light he noticed was any indication. He stealthily made his way closer and closer to where the light came from at the end of the furthest corridor and peeked behind the bookcase he had chosen as his hiding spot.  His eyes widened. It was the child! The other- Terra's new apprentice! The girl. Hunter had seen glimpses of her in the past. He knew of her existence the very same day Terra brought her to present her in front of the Emperor. He didn't think much of it, though. Terra had already done the same thing several times before, always with that confident smile and proud stance. Like she was so sure that'll be the one to succeed. Hunter felt bad for the ones that had gone away. But then again, weak witches were crushed under too much pressure. Broke down crying, stopped talking, ran away. And Terra's former apprentices had all done that before. In that exact same order, as a matter of fact. This girl, with her head currently buried in a book, was the one who had stayed at the castle the longest. For now, at least. Six months, five days and counting. Hunter flinched when she suddenly groaned, the book hitting the wooden table in front of her. Her head firmly pressed against its pages. "I'm such a failure," he heard her soft voice, partially muffled, lament. "Why can't I understand this lesson?" she hissed. "Miss Snapdragon called me gifted and a natural but she was wrong. How can I be any of those things if I'm so dumb?!" "You should really keep your voice down," Hunter chastised her from where he stood. "This is a library, after all." It took him three seconds to remember he wasn't supposed to reveal himself to her, and two more for her to shakily apologize. Since things had already come to this, Hunter let out a long sigh and went to formally greet the other witchling. "I'm Hunter," he told her, staring at her tired, confused, surprised green eyes. She was wearing glasses and yet she was younger than him. She was already flawed. She was trying hard not to fail, though, he could respect that. "Nice to meet you, apprentice of head witch Snapdragon." "Willow," she declared, blinking. "Willow Park. Nice to meet you too, Hunter." He nodded. "If you're curious, I'm here because I couldn't sleep, and decided to come read for a little while. I assume you're here for the same reason, Willow?" "Umh…," she hesitated. "Something... like that. Yeah," she tapped the page of the book she was reading and sighed. "I just... Can't get this one spell right." Hunter leaned just enough to make the letters of the title and snorted. "That one? Shouldn't be a problem. I've already read that book. Which chapter are you having troubles with, again?" She stared at him. "What?" he cocked an eyebrow her way. "I'm older than you. It only makes sense for me to help you, don't you think?" She smiled and a soft giggle left her lips. He smiled back, chest-puffing. This felt nice. "Right. Okay. Umh, it's chapter twenty-three," she opened the book." about-" "How to underground travel without summoning a plant drill and how to apply the knowledge to everyday tasks," Hunter swiftly chanted, gaining another stare from Willow's green eyes. "As I said, I've already read the whole book." He went to sit next to her and lighted one of the candles he brought with him, putting it next to hers. That was better. "Now, this spell is supposed to be a slight variation of the combination of the seventh and fourteenth ones you should have learnt before, so..." She listened to him and didn't interrupt him once. Not even when he started to ramble about things that had nothing to do with her lesson. She nodded, squinted, tilted her head and even laughed once again. He found her reactions quite appropriate. He found her appropriate. He hoped Terra got to keep this one. "And that's how I avoided trouble with the kitchen staff after accidentally ruining a birthday cake," he declared. "The Emperor wasn't pleased but since the birthday witch didn't ask for me to be punished but spared instead, I only had to endure two days sleeping in the dungeons," he grinned, the gap between his teeth making an almost imperceptible whistling sound. "Pretty kind of him, am I right?" "Not really, no," Willow shook her head in a negative motion. "They asked him to spare you, but he didn't. How is that kind?" "The Emperor is a fair witch," Hunter asseverated. "I did something wrong and I needed to be punished. That's all." "But-" "He could have left me to rot for a week, Willow," Hunter levelled her with a serious look. "And yet, he didn't! What’re two days for a whole birthday cake?" "Forty-eight-" "Exactly! Nothing! See? Emperor Belos is not a merciful man, but a fair one. As it should be!" Willow didn't answer anymore. She stared at him long and hard until Hunter started to feel uncomfortable. "What?" he frowned. "What is it? Don't you agree with me?" "I don't, actually," she admitted, to Hunter's surprise. She was blunt, bold. Surely that was one of the reasons Terra liked her. "You may be older than me but you are still a kid, too. The Emperor... I think I don't like him." "What?!” Hunter gasped. “That's not possible! Watch your tongue! He took you in. You're under his roof! His home! How dare you-" "That's enough," Terra's voice reached Hunter's ears. He blinked, noticing how close he had gotten to the girl, almost spitting on her face. And yet, Willow was only staring at him wide-eyed, again. "Care to explain what the two of you, little rascals, are doing here so early in the morning? Alone?" Terra gave a quick glance at the mess of melted white on the table and at the book between the children's arms and sighed. "I see. You two were having a little study session. Without consulting me, shrub?" Willow tensed next to him. "I-" "I'm messing with you, dear." Terra snorted. "I'm actually quite happy with your commitment. Losing sleep for what matters most to you. Did you manage to get it?" "I... Think I did... Yes," she turned to him, a little smile on her face. "Hunter helped me. A lot. if I-" "When, shrub." "When… I pull this off, it'll be mostly thanks to him, Miss Snapdragon." "She's exaggerating," Hunter firmly denied. "She's the one who's been working hard for months. I merely helped a little. Once she pulls off the spell, I expect no recognition at all." "Well, look at you two, dearies," Terra leaned her face against her right hand, smirking. "So young and so in sync. Do I hear wedding bells in the far future?" "Of course not!" Hunter shrieked, ears dusting a soft pink due to the surprise, at his side, Willow shook her head vehemently in a negative motion. "We've barely met each other! What are you talking about?!" "Please don't joke about that, Miss Snapdragon." "Aww. Boo, you two! Why so serious? You're seven, Hunter, and you turned six a few weeks ago, am I right, shrub?" "Three weeks and a half ago, Miss Snapdragon," Willow nodded. "There you go. See?! You're nothing but buttons starting to bloom! Live a little, for the love of Titan," she sighed. "Still, I expect you to inform me if you're planning on keeping your little study sessions with the future Golden Guard here. Am I clear, shrub?" "Yes, Miss Snapdragon. Thank you, Miss Snap-," Willow gasped. “The future-” she shrieked, startling Hunter. Suddenly, she was hiding behind the head witch. Hunter blinked, confused. “I’m so sorry, Miss Snapdragon! I didn’t know!” “Of course, you didn’t know, dearie,” Terra chuckled, taking a step to the side. With that, Hunter was able to fully see the girl again. To his surprise, however, she refused to make eye contact with him, despite not having any trouble maintaining it even while he yelled at her. Instead, she turned to her mentor, fear painting her features. Something inside Hunter’s chest heaved. What’s going on? “It’s okay. I’m sure the Emperor will understand once I explain the circumstances to him. Besides, it’s been months. He might as well have changed his mind about not letting you talk with the future golden guard. Not likely, however.” Oh, Hunter thought, relaxing, sighing, chest light again. I did nothing wrong. And then, he frowned again. But why would uncle give such an order? "Now come with me, shrub. It's already six past six, and we need you to eat a good breakfast if you're going to keep growing healthy and strong, which you will. You should come with us too, Hunter. The Emperor is looking for you." Hunter gulped. "Yes, ma'am." The three of them walked out of the library, but Willow kept silent despite Hunter’s attempts to start light chatting. He didn’t like seeing her like that, but a part of him understood her very well. She had been given orders that she’d unknowingly broken, better to not risk it now that she was aware of her mistake. But, still, she could at least look in his direction, couldn’t she? Terra had lied. His uncle wasn't even aware he'd spent part of the early morning not sleeping but meeting another witchling. "Ah, I see," Belos said, blue eyes staring at Hunter, studying him. "So you two have finally gotten acquainted with one another. Well, it was bound to happen at some point." He hummed, lips twitching in what could have been a tiny smirk but did not get to go as far. “I’m actually surprised it took so long.” “Head witch Snapdragon will most likely come to explain herself to you sooner rather than later, but I thought appropriate to let you know my version, as well." "And I deeply appreciate it, Hunter.” A smile grew on Hunter's lips. I knew he would be happy with my honesty. “Now, tell me, what exactly do you think about Terra's current project? Do you think she'll be successful unlike the ones before her? Or do you think she'll cave, break and burn, just like all of them?" "I think she's making good progress, uncle," Hunter said. "It was roughly five thirty when I found her. I'm sure she'd been sitting there alone for quite some time before I arrived. She's clearly dedicated." "So were her predecessors, weren't they? And you know how they ended up." "I know. But Willow-" "Are you two friends, Hunter?" "...No, we're not. Apologies, sir. Miss Park-" "Much better." Hunter nodded, and then he spoke again, slower, more careful with each word he uttered. "I think miss Park has what it takes to pull through Miss Snapdragon's training of terror, sir. All of it." "Hm…," Belos pondered his words, nodding once a few seconds later. "Very well, then. I see she has you on her side already. A smart girl, that one. You can go now." "Uncle-" "You're dismissed, Hunter." "...Yes, uncle. Have a nice day." "You, too." As the stoned doors close behind his back, Hunter had the unsettling feeling he had, somehow, despite all of his efforts not to, said something wrong. What, exactly, was his mistake? Well, if he knew, he wouldn't be replaying his interaction with his uncle as he walked away, quiet steps taking him to the training room specially designated for all the ones destined to become Golden Guards. Hunter didn’t get to properly talk to Willow Park again until several weeks later. However, he did keep getting quick glimpses of the other witchling now and again. Their schedules rarely seem to align, which was quite a tragedy but, at least, every time her eyes got to meet his, no matter how far from one another they could be, she’d make sure to stop long enough to smile at him and wave quickly in his direction. Her lips moving to silently form the words “hiii, Hunter!” before resuming her pace. The first couple of times had startled him. Still, he would have his hand up and moving just like hers, immediately, as his face became hot; however, as time went on and he became accustomed to Willow’s little kind gestures, the temperature of his face stopped heightening, though his stomach began flipping on itself as a form of replacement. Hunter even went as far as to inquire the head witch of the Healing coven, Hettie Cutburn, about it, after reading in several books different possible causes for his symptoms and getting a non-conclusive answer. Miss Cutburn stared at him as she asked several questions. With each new answer, her face became more and more unreadable. Hunter was almost afraid when, after the last question, she let out a loud snort, and assured him he was as healthy as he could be before turning around and walking away. Hunter took a second to process the healer’s words before running after her, asking for a detailed explanation that he didn’t get. “Try asking me again in ten years,” the head witch told him, not bothering to hide her smirk. “Once you are the Golden Guard and not just some child that just happens to be related to the Emperor.” Maybe he shouldn’t have taken it personally, but Hunter was seven-years-old, so he did. “I will. But it won’t take me ten years. You’ll see.” Hettie Cutburn’s smirk widened. Then, she shrugged. “Whatever you say, little prince.” “Please refrain from using that title as it is inaccurate. I am not a prince and you are very aware of it.” “Maybe if you stopped talking like one… Besides, it suits you. Darius really does come up with the best nicknames.” Hunter huffed. “I wouldn’t know, Miss Cutburn. But please do listen to my request.” The head witch of the Healing coven raised an eyebrow in his direction. “I’ll think about it,” she said, and she quickened her pace, eventually leaving Hunter behind for good. Hunter knew he wasn’t supposed to listen to private conversations (within the castle), since it was a violation of privacy and that was a bad thing. However, the moment he heard the soft voice of his fellow young witch, his body stopped moving forward and instead pressed tightly against the nearest wall. He slid in complete silence until he was almost at the corner of the corridor, ears wiggling as another voice reached his ears. A voice he knew all too well. “-n’t worry, little rose.” Darius, Hunter squinted. Why, of all the witches and demons in the castle, Willow has to meet him? Darius Deammone, head witch of the Abomination coven and also notorious for giving awful nicknames. Willow was a perfectly good name and it suited his- acquaintance perfectly. “Lit-Little rose?” Willow squeaked and Hunter frowned. See, Darius? She hates it! “Does it bother you to be called that?” “No, that’s not it, sir…” What? Hunter had to cover his mouth to not squeak himself. What did she mean by no?! Lying is bad, Willow! “But my name is Willow…” “Please, call me Darius. I’m far younger than your mentor,” Darius said and Hunter knew, somehow, that he was smiling despite never having seen the man smile before. Not at him, at least. “Besides, of course I know your name. Hard not to, future head witch of the Plant coven, Willow Park.” Hunter heard, loud and clear, a gasp. He swallowed, munching at his lower lip without noticing, waiting for the exchange to continue. “I would much prefer to call you Rose, though, if that’s okay with you.” “Oh,” say no, Willow! No, no, no! “Umh, o-okay…” Nooooo! “I don’t mind…” “I think it really suits you,” Darius assured. “I’ve heard Terra refer to you as shrub, but shrubs don’t have thorns, roses do.” Again, Hunter knew Darius was smiling and he pressed his lips together in a thin line, swallowing a grumble. “And what are you, if not a rose full of thorns, pretty yet dangerous?” Willow giggled. Why are you laughing? Darius might be right but… but! He had nothing. Darius was right and that was the end of it. Rose did suit Willow, but her real name was way prettier! Better. Way better. Hunter crossed his arms, pouting. “I have to go now, Rose. But before that, here’s a quick tip. If you ever encounter Eberwolf alone: do not let them smell you.” “I’ll keep that in mind, sir.” “Darius, Rose. And good. It was a pleasure finally getting to meet you.” “Like-Likewise, si-I mean, Darius! Have-Have a good afternoon!” “Thank you. You too, Rose.” Hunter heard the heavy footsteps of Darius’ boots walking away. He counted to ten before peaking his head. His face brightened with a smile once he noticed Willow was still there, cheeks tinted a soft pink, a tiny fist placed on her chest. I knew it! Hunter thought, triumphant. She hated Darius! Her face is all red because she’s trying to suppress her anger. He chuckled to himself and proceeded to leave his hiding spot, hands behind his back in the most regal position he could think of at the moment. He cleared his throat, stomach doing the flip thing as green eyes behind black-framed glasses turned and locked with his wine-red ones. “Hi!” He waved at her, deflating only a little when she didn’t immediately correspond. Willow blinked one, two and three times before her eyebrows shot upwards, recognition flashing through her eyes. “Hunter!” she breathed, a smile finally coming to greet her chubby face, wide and bright and exactly what Hunter had been expecting. “Hi!” “Hello,” he took two steps closer, only two more left for him to break the mandatory space protocol Belos had given them when interacting up close after granting them permission to talk. Exchanging words was allowed; touching was not. He cleared his throat. “Umh-Long time no see…?” She giggled, eyes sparkling like every time she did so. Hunter’s smile grew wider. “I’m pretty sure we saw each other early this morning, though. But, okay, let’s pretend we’ve spent weeks... no, months completely apart,” she clapped once. “Hunter! Oh my Titan, you’re here! Really here! I’m so glad! How have you been? I’ve missed you so much!” “You-You have?” he squeaked, Willow nodding eagerly. He gulped, lips trembling for some unfathomable reason, proper greeting posture nothing but a shadow of what it was. “I-I’ve-I’ve missed you, too! You have no idea how much!” “You’re right! I have no idea,” Willow drew her shoulder backwards and hid her hands behind her back, tilting her head. “So tell me, please?” Hunter gaped, feeling too hot all of a sudden. He tried to speak, just for no words to come out of his lips. “Hunter?” Willow called his name, her playful expression turning into a concerned one. “Are you okay? Did I say something wrong?” “No! No, of course not!” Hunter found his voice, sounding too high-pitched even for himself. “I juuuust remembered I have somewhere else to be! Sorry! Have a nice day, Willow! Bye!” And he turned around and ran away as fast as he could, not stopping until he was back in his room, heart hammering against his chest, legs barely supporting his weight and mind a jumble of Willow Park. “Hettie lied to me,” he gasped, hands clenched around the fabric of his shirt. “I’m dying!” The head witch of the Healing coven took a look at the future golden guard, sighed, shook her head and shoved a set of potions into Hunter’s hands. “One full glass of each one with each meal and your problem will be gone. Come back when you finished those and not a single word to anyone about this, you hear me?” Hunter nodded. “Good. Now shoo, little prince. I have important matters to attend to.” “Thank you,” Hunter said, ignoring the nickname just that one time, before turning around and marching back to his room. The healing potions did help, and Hunter could rest assured he would live to fulfil his destiny. More days went by and, for the will of the Titan, Hunter liked to believe, he began to meet Willow more and more frequently. And every single time, they would wave and smile, but never touch. That was forbidden still and they were obedient, as they should be. One day before the day appointed as his birthday, the day Belos found him, Willow offered him her usual smile but she did not wave. Instead, she approached him until only one step away shielded them both of the wrath of the Emperor. She extended a hand his way, palm up, peppered in light yellow and baby green band-aids, where something she called a “friendship bracelet” laid. “Be careful not to touch me,” she whispered. “That way, we won’t be breaking any rules. I made sure to ask Miss Snapdragon, just in case,” she grinned cheekily, the tips of her ears painted a soft pink. “I tried my best to braid it. Green and gold, just like you and me.” Her smile softened as he took the present with two fingers, barely missing the skin below the bracelet by millimetres. “I hope you like it. And, in case I don’t get to see you and congratulate you tomorrow... Happy birthday, Hunter.” “Thank you,” Hunter said, wine-red eyes staring from Willow to his hand holding her gift. “Thank you, Willow. This-This means we are… friends, right?” Willow tilted her head. “Of course, Hunter. Haven’t we been friends all this time?” Hunter laughed, hand closing around the bracelet. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry. “Yes. Yes, of course. We’ve been-yes. All this time. Sorry, I’m so dumb-“ “You’re not dumb,” Willow cut him off, a stern look on her chubby face. “You’re smart! You are brilliant! No badmouthing my friend! I won’t stand for it, you hear me? Never. Take it back right now.” Hunter grinned. “I’m smart, I’m brilliant, and I’m the best.” “Yes, you are!” Willow beamed. “All hail Hunter, soon to be birthday-boy, golden guard in-training, protector of the Boiling Isles to-be, and the Emperor’s future right-hand man!” Hunter snorted, taking a single step back. He wanted to touch her. Reach for her hand, her face. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and squeeze as hard as he could. He had seen her do that to Terra more than once, and Terra always smiled, patting Willow’s head. “Yes! Praise me more! I’m awesome!” Willow clapped, giggling. “But I’m not the only one! You deserve recognition, too! Willow Park, growing pillar of strength and conviction, the youngest and the last of all of Terra Snapdragon’s apprentices and the future head witch of the Plant coven!” he slid the friendship bracelet on his wrist, admiring it for a second before turning all his focus back to his friend. “Together, you and me will be unstoppable!” “Yes!” Willow cheered, visibly pumped up. “You, me, Ami and all the rest of the coven heads, working together as a team!” Ami? Who’s Ami? Hunter wanted to ask but that would have meant diverting Willow’s attention to whoever that Ami could be and he desired nothing more than to stay in that very moment for as long as possible. “Yes,” Hunter nodded. “But you and me, Willow,” he paused, proud at how his friend seemed to hang on at his every word, “you and me, right now, are the only ones that matter.” Willow’s eyes widened, mouth forming a little “o”. And she nodded, believing him, trusting him. “You and me,” she echoed. “You and me,” he repeated, “friends forever.” “And ever!” Hunter didn’t get to meet Willow the following day, not even see her. However, instead of letting his mood deflate because of that, he took a long look at the gift she had given him, carefully tucked it back inside his pocket and went back to the training room, mind made up. He was covered in sweat, his head was pounding, his breathing was irregular and yet the grin plastered on his face couldn’t be bigger even if he tried to. A new record! A whole three seconds less than his normal reaction time. He nodded to himself, walking to where his water bottle and personal tower were waiting for him. He was already eight years old, about time he beat the last Golden guard’s best time. Almost at the end of the day, Belos took a few minutes of his busy schedule to come and congratulate him. Hunter was ecstatic. Last year he hadn’t had time to spare, but this one he was here! “I heard about your accomplishment,” Belos declared, hand going to pat Hunter’s shoulder as the child nodded, smiling. “Good job, Hunter. The Titan is highly pleased, as I am,” a pause. Hunter held his breath. “Keep working hard and you might become the youngest to obtain a staff.” “Yes!” Hunter gasped, eyes shining. “I will work harder! You won’t be disappointed, uncle.” Belos hummed, a tiny short-lived smile growing on his lips. “I know. Happy birthday, Hunter.” “Thank you, uncle.” Belos nodded, turned around and left. Hunter took a deep breath, waiting until the emperor was out of sight to fish the green and golden bracelet, sliding it back onto his wrist and smiling as he touched the fabric. “I swear I won’t disappoint either of you.”

Teen And Up Audiences

Today is a very special day. Today is Amity's 6th birthday. The day she finally gets her link to her soulmate.Of course, being a Blight, she would be having a massive party for the occasion. Everyone in town will be there.Bounding out of bed, she quickly ran over to her wardrobe to grab the outfit she had picked out the day before.A yellow ankle length dress, with flowers embroidered along the hem. And a pair of of dark blue boots.Today is gonna be great. What could possibly go wrong?'NO NO NO NO! WHY WHY WHY?! THIS ISN'T FAIR!'Amity's mind raced. Tears pricking at the edge of her eye. 'WHY WON'T MY HAIR STAY IN THE BUN?!'A knock could be heard at he bedroom door. "Come in!" She called out anxiously. In stepped Alador, wearing casual attire, plus a black bow tie. "Guests are now arriving."Amity was sat infront of her mirror, struggling to tie her hair up. The man let out a small chuckle. "Would you like any help with that?" The young girl's arms fell to her sides in defeat. "Please."Her father walked up behind her and knelt down on one knee. "First, show me what you were trying to do." With that, Amity start again, grabbing at as much hair as she could and shoving it through the small band in her hand. "Ok, ok, stop." he spoke, taking the band from her hand."Maybe if we just-" he goes silent for a moment as he places his thumbs on either side of her forehead, sliding them back and tying what hair he grabbed into a small bun."Aaand done." He speaks, rising to his feet. "See, you were trying to hard. Sometimes, minimal effort is just the right amount."Amity hopped out of her chair. "Okay. Thank you, daddy." She said, wrapping her arms up around him. "Do you wanna come down now and see everyone?" He asked. Amity just replied with a small nod.As the two walked down the stairs, they could see Ed and Em greeting guests as Odalia was talking with Lilith ."Daddy, who's that with mommy?" Amity asked, pointing at Lilith. "Ah. That's Lilith Clawthorne." He said. "A high ranking member of the Emperor's coven. And, your future mentor."Amity just want slack-jaw for a moment as she just stared at the woman. A member of the Emperor's coven was going to be her mentor.The two continue around the house, talking with the occasional guest, until they ended up in the back garden, where the main even will be happeningIn the garden stood a circular stone gazebo, surrounded by chairs, with a small carpeted pedestal in the centre. That is where Amity will be stood during the ceremony. But that will have to wait.It was finally time. Everyone was sat around the gazebo. Waiting. All Amity needed to do is go out there and stand on the pedestal. So why was she so nervous?'Ok.' She thought to herself. 'Breath in. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.' She breaths in time with her counting. 'Breath out. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.' With that, her nerves were calmed just enough to start moving.She steps out the back door and suddenly, all eyes are on her. All these people, here to witness the most important moment of her life so far.As she got closer to the pedestal, she can feel her heart racing and the excitement flooding her mind. She steps upon the small platform, rising above everyone present.Beyond the crowd, she sees a glimpse of someone her age running around. Only for a moment, before they disappear.Slowly, her mother approaching, an oddly sweet smile on her lips. "Put your hand out, Mittens." Amity does as she's told. As Odalia draws a purple circle around Amity's wrist, clear enough for everyone to hear, she says. "May this spell have no toll, so you may find your other soul."Nothing happened.Now there is an air of uneasiness. Odalia draws another circle and repeats herself. "M-may this sp-spell have no toll, so you may find your other s-s-soul."Nothing.The uneasiness in the air and awkward silence start becoming unbearable. Odalia drew another circle, her hand trembling. "M-may this s-spell ha-ave n-n-no toll, s-so you m-may find y-your other s-s-soul."A deafening silence falls over the garden for a good minute. Until one sound breaks it.A choked sob.She was crying.On her birth day.Odalia just embraced her, not saying a word. Alador and twins rushed over to join the two.All Amity did was cry until she passed out.She laid in her bed. Motionless. Staring at the ceiling. Fresh tears staining her cheeks.What does this mean? Today is a perfectly normal day. Nothing special would be happening to Luz Noceda today. Or so she thought.Luz was woken up by a deep voice calling her from down stairs. "Luz! Come on down! Your breakfast is almost ready! It bacon and eggs!" Hearing this, she practically threw the covers off. "Coming!" She yelled, before quickly getting changed.Luz shot down the stairs and into the kitchen, wearing a purple shirt, with a blue cat face on it, and light blue shorts. "Whoa." Her father chuckled. "Calm down, it's just breakfast." Luz just giggled and took her seat at the table.As Luz did so, her mother stepped into to the kitchen and sat along side her. "So, Luz, do you want to go to the park later?" Luz's eyes lit up. "Yes please!"Diego brought over all their food. "Hey. Don't I get a say in this?" He joked. "Fine." Camila sighs. "Do you want to go to the park later?" She asked in an exasperated tone. "You know me, I don't mind what we do" He said with a cheeky grin. Camila just glares at him and sighs. "Park it is then.As the Noceda family got out of the car, Luz bolted it to the swings as her parents set down a blanket with some water bottles and food. It was supposed to be sunny for a couple hours, so they decided to have a picnic."Luz!" Camila called. "Back over here in 20 minutes! Okay?" "Okay mamí!"As Luz was gaining hight on the swings, she spotted something in the trees. 'A puddle! Why is it blue? Imma go look at it.' With that, she hopped of and headed towards it.As she got closer, she thought she could hear people talking. The puddle looked like it had something inside, reaching in, her hand just met air on the other side.'Why is it dry? Welp! Only one way to find out!' She thought, planting her face in the puddle. 'Yep. Just a puddle. Now I have dirt in my eyes.'As she got up, Luz could just about make out a girl in a yellow dress. She quickly started running to her parents while trying to rub the dirt of her face, when she heard them talking in spanish."Sé que es un trabajo peligroso, pero necesitamos el dinero y sabes que haría cualquier cosa por ustedes dos." She didn't hear much of what her father said, nor did she care at the moment. The dirt was getting itchy."Mamí." she called out. "I got dirt on my face." Camila out stretched her arms. "Oh, come here, let me get that for you." She cooed, gesturing for Diego to grab a water bottle.After the two washes of Luz's face, she got up. "Oh, um, also." Luz said, turning around. "Mamí, papí, who's that-?" She cut herself off, pointing at where the person once was. "Oh. I thought I saw someone over there.""I think someone-" Her father perked up. "-didn't get much sleep last night. Let's have some food, then go home." Luz just frowned. "Oh, ok."As they were driving home, Luz couldn't get that girl out of her head. Was she real, or did Luz really not get enough sleep last night? 'I don't know who she was, but she was pretty.'The three were now passing the statue in the middle of town and it was starting to rain heavily. 'I wonder if she's out in the rain.' Luz thought to herself.Luz ended up zoning out, random thought flowing in and out of her mind. But they all kept going back to that girl, only stopping when she saw they had gotten home."Alright." Diego groaned out. "Luz, you go have a nap while mamí and papí have an adult chat. That okay?" Luz only nodded in response. "Okay. Thank you. I'll come get you in a little while. Now let's get inside."It had been about an hour since the family had gotten back and Luz hadn't gotten a wink on rest. Not from a lack of trying, though. She just stared out the window as the rain calmed down.Footsteps could be heard coming up the stairs and after a short moment, the door was opened a crack, followed by Diego's hushed voice. "Luz, you awake?" "Yeah." She called back. "I couldn't sleep." Her father just let out a chuckle as he fully opened the door. "Of course you couldn't. Always a ball of energy, you. Come over here and give me a hug. I need to go out and do some stuff, so that means it's just you and mamí for a couple hours." Luz just nodded as she walked over and gave him a hug. "Alright." He said, ruffling Luz's hair. "Be good. I love you." "Love you to, papí."After a minute, Luz started heading down stairs, when a thought came to the front of her mind. 'Wait a second. Her ears were pointy!" She was crying.On her birth day.Odalia just embraced her, not saying a word. Alador and twins rushed over to join the two.Glancing about, Alador saw everyone staring. He waved his hand, gesturing for everyone to go inside. They'd be dealt with. But right now.Amity was crying.She didn't have a soulmate. Not one. Alador's mind started to race. 'What does this mean? Does she not have a soul? NO! There has to be another explanation.'His train of thought, however, was brought to a stop when he and the others felt Amity slump over. She had passed out.As he picked her up, he looked Odalia in the eyes and shot a quick look towards the the crowd of people, wanting her to talk to everyone. She simple gave him a nod and headed to the door.All emotion was gone from Alador's face and voice, but inside, he was screaming. "You two, go to your room. Your mother and I may need to talk for a while. Don't talk to Amity unless she comes to you. Got it?" The twins just nod in response. "Good."Odalia had just gotten everyone to leave without asking too many questions. She was probably going to lose her position in the Oracle coven. This couldn't have done her reputation any good.Alador had just put Amity into bed. Felt odd since it was half past noon. He was hoping this was just a terrible dream. That he'd wake up, ready to start the celebrations. But he knew, down to the bottom of his bile sack, that would never happen.'I need a drink. Wonder if we still have some of that whisky that washed up from to human realm?' He thought, trudging down the stairs. Glancing into the kitchen, he saw Odalia rummaging through a hidden cupboard. 'Looks like she had the same idea.'Odalia shot back an unreadable expression. "Out of whisky." She grunted. "But we have vodka, if you want to split that." She said, pulling out a full bottle.Alador shook his head. "Eh. One of us should probably stay sober, anyway. Don't want to worry Ed and Em any more.""Suit you self." She said, before drinking straight from the bottle. "I checked my magic three times while trying to get them out. Nothing wrong on my end. She really just doesn't have a soulmate."Alador groaned into his hands, sliding them up his face. "This isn't going to be easy on her." He just watched as the woman gulped down half the bottle. "You're going to regret that later." She glared at him. "And i'll deal with it later. You sure you don't want any?" He crossed his arms. "Positive."Odalia reeked of alcohol. It had only been a few minutes since she started drinking, but it felt like hours and she was already on her second bottle.You could practically see the anxiety radiating off of Alador. It was a miracle he hadn't broken down."Y'know-" Odalia started. "Mayy be is not sucha bad thing." Alador gave her an incredulous look. "What?" "YeAH!" Odalia almost yelled. "I mean, then ssshhe'd focus moore on her stubies then anyof that POINTLESS stuff!"Alador toughened himself. "I think you've had plenty to drink." She just giggled at that. "Whaat? I've only a couple shOts.""Odalia!" He yelled. 'Calm down, Alador. She's drunk.' He placed his hands on her shoulders, giving a light squeeze. "You're on your second bottle."She looked down at her hand with the half empty bottle, then the floor. A second bottle. Not even a drop left. "Oh." Her mind clearing, ever so slightly. "Thas new. I-i should get some sleep, shoun't I?""Yes, you probably should." He sighed, taking the bottle from her hand and wrapping an arm round her back. "Come on. Do you want me to bring you up some food later?" She just hummed in reply.It was 9 pm now. Alador had made sure the twins ate. He never learnt how to cook, but he tried his best with the fairy pie for Amity. He was now sat in the bathroom. Thinking over the events of the day.'How is this possible? It's not like her soulmate was already taken. People can have multiple, after all. So why does she not even have one?' His train of thought stopped completely, when in the palm of his hand, felt a sensation he hadn't felt in a long time.*I heard what happened. I know we're not on speaking terms, but I have feeling you need someone to talk to.*Darius. The woman snuck around to candle lit corner of the library, golden eyes slowly being taken by black, praying to the Titan that she could get by the humans before turning.'Note to self. DON'T go junk hunting without an elixir handy. Heck, don't go junk hunting when out of elixirs! AND DON'T LEAVE THE DANG KEY IN THAT HOUSE! Gotta get out of here.' The woman thought, frantically looking for an exit.'There!' Her mind screamed as she spotted a window. It was covered by blinds, but ripped blinds would probably be less annoying then a monster. As she made a run for it, she accidentally knocked a candle of a nearby table.Getting to the window, she ripping the blinds of and tossed them haphazardly towards where she was standing before, pulled out her palisman, and took of.Little did she know, this would change her world for the better.But at a steep cost."Please." Camila's said, voice dripping with worry. "Any other job. Just something not so dangerous. I'll go back to veterinary work." She took one of Diego's hands into her own. "Just don't risk your life for me. Or your daughter.""I'm sorry, Mi amor, but we need the money and you know just as well as I do that Luz can't be left home alone." She just looked him in the eyes, a frown tugging at her lips.'That damn face. Every time.' He thought, then sighed. "Alright, i'll keep going till the next pay cheque, then hand in my notice. You happy?" She sighed. "Alright."He slowly removed his hand from hers, bringing it up to her face and gently caressing her cheek. "Thank you." And her placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Just know i'll always co-" He was interrupted by his phone ringing. He stepped over to it and answered the call."What's up?" *Diego!* A woman's voice called. *You gotta get out here! The library caught fire and we don't have enough people on the hoses!* Diego gave Camila a worried look, but she just nodded, so he turned back to the phone. "I'll be there in 20 minutes, tops." And he hung up."I'll check if Luz is up again and bye, then I'm of." He rushed, giving Camila a peck on the lips. "I love you." And with that, he shot up the stairs.Diego was sat in his car, dressed head to toe in his fireman gear, speeding towards the library. 'I just hope i'm not to late.' He thought. The flaming building came into view. 'Ok, it's still standing.' Getting close, he got out of the car and went over to the woman that called him in."I'm here." He said, looking around, noticing all the hoses were being used. "Looks like their getting the fire under control. Do we have any idea how many people are still inside?"The woman looked up at him, her normally pale skin red from the heat. "Six. Two teens and a kid, an elderly couple and a lone woman." She quickly stumbled out."Alright, Jess. I'll head in and look for 'em." He said before darting in. "Don't just run in! Take someone with you!" She yelled.He ran to the main area and started yelling at the top of his lungs. "HELLO! CAN ANYBODY HEAR ME!? I'M HERE TO GET YOU OUT!" He heard a younger voice young girl call out. "OVER HERE!" And he bolted it towards them.He say one of the teens clutching who he can only presume is her younger sister. "Where's the other one?" He asked."The girl pointer to a bookshelf that was knocked over by falling debris. "He went to help that couple, by now their all stuck. Diego looked to were the girl pointed. "Alright, come with me and we should be able to lift it." The girl nodded and took his hand."Hello! Can you hear me?!" Diego called over the fallen shelf. An older man's voice called back. "Yes, we can hear you." "Okay." Diego continued. "On the count of three, we all lift the shelf!" He instructed, grabbing the bottom of the bookshelf."Okay." The older man affirmed."Alright." Diego started. "One. Two! THREE!" As they lifted, Diego positioned himself under the shelf to keep it up. "Alright, everybody out! Now!" He yelled.Once the three got out from behind the shelf, Diego dropped it, which was followed by a loud crash. "All of you, head to the exit." He said pointing to the door. "But brace yourselves to get hit with a lot of water."'That just leaves one.'Camila was sat on the sofa, flicking through the channels while Luz was grabbing some toys from her room, for when they watch a movie. Camila stopped when she got to the news channel, curious if the fire Diego was helping put out would be on the news.And sure enough, it was.*This is Devland Smith coming to you live outside of Gravesfield's local library, which, as you can see behind me, is currently up in flames. While the exact cause of the fire is not known, some of the people we have spoken to so far believe it may be to do with the library's lenient rules to do with candles and other such naked flames. As of right now, we can not confirm how many people are still inside, but we do know that a fireman called Diego Noceda ran in alone and shortly after the fact, five civilians made it out. But the roof has since collapse, likely crushing Mr Noceda, and anybody else trapped inside. He will be remembered as a hero. That's all from me. Now back to the station.*The whole world stopped for Camila.She sat there, for what felt like an eternity.She had just lost her husband.Luz had just lose her father."Mamí. I got the-" Luz stopped, seeing her mother sat there. Motionless. "What's wrong, mamí?"The woman started to cry."Mamí?"

Teen And Up Audiences

“Pip, what if I wanted to be a boy?” “… what would I call you?” The blond smiles, not really expecting that answer. Saying something like that to any of the townspeople would likely be a death sentence. “I like Caleb. It’s a kind name.” “Then you’re Caleb, and you’re my brother!” The younger grins, “but what if I wanted to be a girl?” “Then what would I call you, dear sister?” “I haven’t thought of it.” “Little sister Philip,” Caleb pats her head, earning him a happy little giggle. “I like that. What do you think?” “I like it,” Philip climbs into her brother’s lap and snuggles up to him. “Big brother Caleb, little sister Philip.”

General Audiences

"Everything is almost set," a woman with shoulder-length golden-brown hair and bright hazel eyes said as she finished setting up the dining room table for tea. The woman wore a crimson dress with a black leather jacket which was a little large on her, black heels, and a wedding ring on her left ring finger. The woman glanced at her wedding ring and flushed. It had been one day since Jane Rizzoli, the love of her life had proposed and she couldn't wait to tell her friends the good news. She just hoped the others would get here soon. "Hey, Maur!" Jane's voice exclaimed as she walked down the stairs, dressed in her standard police uniform of a black suit jacket, slacks, and a white button-down shirt. "I'm heading out." "Alright, are you sure you don't want to stay here and do the hanging out with Lena, Asami, Caitlyn, and I?" Maura Isles questioned. "No thanks," Jane said with a smile, her brown eyes twinkling in amusement. "I've had enough girl-time with Kara, Korra, and Vi. I need a little guy time with Frankie, Korsak, and Frost." Maura smiled. "Very well, I'll free you for tonight," Maura said. Jane nodded and walked out of the room, only to rush back into the room to kiss Maura. Maura was surprised, but she flushed and returned the homicide detective's kiss, unable to stop the slight moan from escaping her lips. She had to resist tangling her hands in Jane's raven-black hair, or else she would have to cancel her teatime tonight. Jane pulled back and said, "I almost forgot about that." "I can tell," Maura replied. "Now go have fun. Tell Francesco, Korsak, and Barry I said hello." Jane snorted and said, "You know Frankie and Frost would kill you if they heard you call them by their actual names." "Good thing my fiancée will be there to protect me. Now go have fun," Maura said. Jane beamed, kissed Maura once again, and jogged off. "Oh! And no Power Disc!" Maura called out. "I can't have you and Francesco injuring yourselves again! I don't want to have to get a healer to heal you both again!" "No promises, Maur! He owes me a round!" Jane yelled back. Maura shook her head and sighed, albeit fondly, and then glanced at her ring. Why had she denied herself this for so long? In the distance, Maura could hear Jane open the door and converse with a familiar voice for a moment before a raven-haired woman with bright green eyes entered the room with a smile. The woman wore a white blouse, a red dress, and black heels. The woman also wore a navy-blue choker with a hand-carved piece of aqua-blue jewelry dangling in the front. "Hey Maura," the woman greeted as she approached Maura and embraced her. "Hello Asami, it's so good to see you," Maura said as she squeezed the woman once and then pulled away. "How are you? How is Future Industries?" Asami Sato blew out a breath and replied, "Busy. We just finished the prototypes of the next Sato-Cycle. It has a few more tests to go through before we can announce it. But you didn't hear that from me." Maura laughed and said, "That's good. How is the Avatar?" Asami flushed and said, "Korra is good. She's currently in Zaofu watching over Kuvira…." "Kuvira? I thought she was still in prison," Maura said. "Yeah, after the whole spirit realm deal, she was. However, a lot of things happened that changed that. Since then, Korra and Opal have been keeping her company." Asami explained. "Does that worry you?" Maura asked. "You once told me how powerful the "Great Uniter" was." "No, Korra can handle herself quite well. Besides, Suyin will be supervising them so they don't get into a fight," Asami said with a laugh. "That's fantastic. Now, can I borrow your hands for a moment to finish setting the table?" Maura asked. Asami nodded. By the time Asami and Maura finished setting the table up, there was a knock on Maura's door. Maura quickly excused herself, walked to the front door, and opened it to reveal the exhausted councilman, Caitlyn Kiramman. The dark blue-haired, blue-eyed woman wore a dark-blue tank top, black slacks, and black and blue sneakers. To Maura's amusement, she also wore the familiar red jacket of Vi's. "Hello Councilwoman Kiramman," Maura greeted. Caitlyn's weary blue eyes brightened slightly at the sight of her friend. "Must you refer to me by my title, Maura?" Caitlyn asked as she grinned, the slight gap in her two front teeth visible. "No, but I figured I would," Maura teased as the pair embraced. "Congratulations on the achievement. I'm sure your mother is proud." "Thank you," Caitlyn replied, her posh British accent more pronounced as more life seeped into her. "Have Asami and Lena arrived yet?" "Asami is inside, but Lena is still missing," Maura explained. "Come in." Maura stepped aside and Caitlyn walked into Maura's modest mansion. "Hopefully Lena arrives soon, she has been quite stressed lately," Maura told Caitlyn, who tilted her head in confusion. "Why is this?" Caitlyn asked. "She and Kara had a bit of a tiff," Maura explained. Caitlyn winced. "That last time those two got into a tiff, Kara wound up putting all of our Earths at risk. We had to combine them to keep them from being destroyed," Caitlyn said. Maura nodded. The "Great Unification" was what the incident was deemed when the worlds and history of both Asami's version of Earth, Earth-79, and Caitlyn's world of Runeterra, which was Earth-190, combined with Earth-30, the world that Kara, Lena, Maura, and Jane inhabited. That had been a chaotic year, especially with their Earth becoming bigger to accommodate the four elemental nations and some of the continents that Runeterra held, such as Valoran and Shurima. And it also got more complicated when Jane woke up one morning to discover she could bend the Earth and Metal, but with all the friends she's made, all of the chaos felt worth it in her book. And to think, it all came about when Kara tried to find a world where she and Lena could be together. The two entered the room and Asami immediately smiled when she noticed Caitlyn beside her. "Well, if it isn't the councilwoman," Asami said as she walked to Caitlyn and embraced the woman. "Hello to you too, Sato," Caitlyn said with a smile as they broke apart. "It's been a little while." "It has, and that's my fault," Asami said. "Future Industries has run me ragged." "Same here, with being a councilwoman," Caitlyn replied. Maura opened her mouth when Caitlyn suddenly exclaimed, "Maura! There is a ring on your finger!" Asami's eyes widened as she looked down at Maura's left ring finger. "Oh my gosh," Asami breathed. "She finally did it, huh?" Maura smiled, her eyes twinkling in delight as she replied, "Yes, she asked me last night." "Congratulations!" The two women yelled in unison as they both embraced Maura, who laughed. "I was counting the minutes until you both noticed," Maura said once the two women pulled away from her. "Twenty-five minutes and thirty-three seconds, not bad. I expected longer truthfully." "Why am I not surprised at you counting down the minutes?" Caitlyn asked. Maura opened her mouth to respond when a portal opened in her living room. Out of the portal walked out a skinny, pale, golden-eyed teenager with pointy ears, chin-length lavender hair with brown hair visible at her temples. She wore a black short sleeve dress with orchid leggings, black point shoes with golden crescent moon buckles, and around her neck, she wore an amulet with an orchid gemstone. And she looked highly flustered. Behind her, walked out a pale-skinned, raven-haired woman with dark green eyes and a flawless jawline. She wore a slim emerald green dress, black heels, golden snake earrings with a matching bracelet that held emeralds in the eye sockets, and ruby red lipstick. "Lena?" Maura asked as she looked at the agitated teenager. "Who is this?" Lena Luthor sighed as she crossed her arms. "This is Amity Blight. I met her during my travels on the Boiling Isles," Lena explained. "The Boiling Isles?" Caitlyn whispered. "It's an archipelago in the Demon Realm. Situated in the Boiling Sea," Amity explained. "To think, another human managed to find her way there." "I'm sorry, Demon Realm?" Asami asked. "Yes," Lena answered. She then smiled and said, "Also, hello ladies, it's been quite a while since I've last seen you three." "Considering we've all been busy up until recently, it's understandable," Asami said with a smile. "But it seems, you've been busier." "Quite," Lena said. "I have a lot to catch you three up on. However, my recent friend here needs assistance." "Sure, with what?" Caitlyn asked. "With a big-headed….foolish….annoyance," Amity mumbled as she crossed her arms, her face beet-red. The four women exchanged a look. "Relationship troubles, I see," Maura said with a smile. "Well, you are more than welcome to have tea with us. We have more than enough for five." Amity paused, then nodded. "I would like that…." Amity said. "So, you're a witch?" Caitlyn asked as Lena sipped her tea. "Yes, turns out, my mother's line was all witches," Lena explained. "I found out a short time ago when I went to Ireland to discover myself again after…." Lena paused. "My foolish mistake…." "Lena," Asami said. "You still can't blame yourself for what happened with Kara. She forgave you." "She forgives everyone," Lena said. "The things that I did…. I can't fathom forgiving myself for doing them…." Lena shook her head. "Anyways, My mother was framed for murdering a man, who was a domestic abuser. I managed to clear her reputation but since then, I went on to discover a few things." "I heard from Jane that you and Kara got into a bit of an argument," Maura said. "How did that happen?" "Well, during my time in Ireland, I found someone who could help me better understand magic and my role as a witch. She landed in me in the Boiling Isles, where I met Amity. Apparently, I'm not the first human that stumbled upon their realm." "You're not," Amity huffed. "While it is very rare, a few, maybe three humans have stumbled upon our realm. But, you are the first human that has a magic bile sac." The four women blinked in confusion. "They're sacs that are attached to a witch's heart. Each bile sac contains different spell phlegms that can be mixed to create different spells," Amity explained. "The fact that you can use magic in the Human realm is impressive." "Thank you," Lena said with a smile. "I'm still learning, but hearing that from an experienced witch means a lot to me." "I should be surprised at this, but considering the past few years, I'm not," Maura said. "It confirms quite a few of my thoughts pertaining to alternate realms since alternate universes were proven true a year ago." "Yes, we felt something change in the Demon Realm recently," Amity said. "It was like a weakness between all of the realms occurred. And it caused the current confusion in my existence to fall into the Boiling Isles." "And who might that be?" Asami asked. "Luz Noceda," Amity murmured. "I just…. I can't believe I did that…." "What seems to be the issue with this person?" Caitlyn asked. "Well, I can't explain it," Amity murmured. "I did something stupid. Really, really stupid. I don't know how I can face that idiotic, brave, hopelessly cute girl." "Well, you're amongst fellow people that have done stupid things because of a cute girl," Asami teased. Lena, Caitlyn, and Maura flushed but nodded. "Really?" Amity asked. "Really," Asami replied. "But tell us, what did you do?" "Well, I guess I should explain the background of it all," Amity said. "But before I do that, I think Lena was telling you all something?" "Oh, yes, right," Lena said. "So, when I landed in the Boiling Isles, I met Amity and her friend, Luz, and I was able to get the help I needed to return home. I tried to take Luz with me since she also lives in the human realm and she expressed that she wanted to return, but the portal closed before I could help." "So, were you on the Boiling Isles just now?" Maura asked. "Yes, somehow, I bumbled my way back there," Lena explained. "I'd been trying to find my way back to help Luz out and I finally cracked it. Thanks to magic and technology, I found a way to safely transport anyone from the Human Realm to the Demon realm and back without any hiccups." Asami's eyes sparkled in delight. "That's interesting. Are you able to replicate what you did to transport into the Spirit World?" Asami asked. "Spirit World?" Amity asked. "It's a home to the spirits, a vast range of supernatural entities that often embody different aspects of life and nature," Asami explained. "I guess, like your Demon Realm, it exists beside the human realm." "That's so interesting," Amity breathed. "I would love to go there." "It should be possible to tune my transporter to the Spirit World as well," Lena said. "I'll send you all that I know." "Thank you," Asami said. "And that's when I bumped into Amity, who was mighty upset about whatever happened between Luz and herself," Lena finished. "And since I swore that I would come here, I decided to use this place as a test to confirm that my multi-dimensional transporter could work both ways." "Science is certainly amazing," Maura cooed. "Now, Amity, explain to us what is going on with this Luz girl, and why she has you so flustered." Amity nodded. "I met Luz under false pretenses," Amity said. "Tale as old as time," Lena and Maura said in unison. "Well, she posed as Willow's abomination," Amity grumbled. "I prided myself on being the best and I knew something was up with Willow's abomination and I set to prove it. I managed it after I convinced Principal Bump to dissect her." "That's a new one," Lena whispered. "After that was proven, I kept bumping into her," Amity continued. "I was quite antagonistic with her. When I stepped on King's cupcake, she jumped to his defense and challenged me to a duel. All she wanted was for me to apologize to him, but I was so angry at her existence at this point, I tried to take her dream of becoming a witch away from her. Even made a binding oath to neither of us could renege on it. In the end, again, I was embarrassed but she proved to me that a human could do magic, even if it wasn't in the same I could. But even then, I had to be harsh with her…." Amity sighed, regret heavy on her face. "On the Boiling Isles, humans are not very well-liked. They're hated, actually," Amity said. "Ah, prejudice," all four women said in unison. "Yeah," Amity said as she rubbed the back of her neck, embarrassed. "But all the while, she kept trying to be my friend. But I rebuffed her. I just couldn't figure out where to label her. Was she a poser? A nerd? A dork? A bully? I had no idea. All I knew was that everywhere I looked, she was humiliating me! Even read my diary! It wasn't until she, the dork, tried to rescue me from Otabin and let me borrow the fifth part in the 'Good Witch Azura' series where I decided to not be so hostile…." "So, the friendship blossomed there?" Caitlyn asked. Amity nodded. "Well, it was kind of tough at first. I mean, we teamed up against the Slitherbeast, and when we had to fix my screw-up with Willow's memories, Hm….I think that was the first time where I….." Amity paused then blushed. "….Yes?" Asami slowly repeated. "Started to like her, I guess," Amity replied. "I-I mean, not really like her! But I was interested in her more! I-I guess!" Amity exclaimed her face a deeper shade of red. "Gosh, it's getting hot in here. Is it just me?" "Okay, okay," Maura laughed. "Tell us more. You were….interested about knowing her more, right?" Amity nodded. "Y-Yeah, I was even going to do something stupid and invite her as my date to the Grom," Amity said. "Don't you mean the 'Prom?'" Maura asked. "Luz made the same mistake. Sure, there is a dance, but basically, the Grom King or Queen gets selected to battle Grometheus the Fear Bringer, it's a strong monster that once it touches you, can take the image of your greatest fear," Amity explained. "Well, that was something I didn't expect," Maura said. "Well, this year, I was chosen to combat the fear bringer but I couldn't do it. I couldn't allow myself to face my worst fear. But Luz, stupidly brave and loyal, Luz, took my place. In the end, it didn't matter because we both managed to defeat it with a magical dance under the moonlight—" "—I'm sorry, what?" Caitlyn interjected. "—After that, I was even more interested in her," Amity finished. "Even to the point of fighting my mother over her." The four women exchanged a look but it was Asami who asked, "What happened there?" Amity frowned. "Well, my mom is haughty, domineering, arrogant, disloyal, dishonest, and extremely elitist!" Amity exclaimed, her gold irises gleaming with rage. "She always pushing and pushing. She doesn't even care about me, Edric, and Emira! She wants the image of the perfect family!" The four women frowned as Amity's anger grew. "All I wanted was for her to love me, instead, all she wants to do is control every aspect of my life. Who I hang out with, who I talk to, how I act, even how I look! For years, she forced me to dye my hair green because I was the outlier in the family, She made me end my friendship with Willow, which caused the memory adventure Luz and I went on, and when I finally not only got that friendship back, but made friends with Luz, and King, and Gus, she expelled them!" "She did? How?" Lena asked. Amity panted as the four women looked on with sympathetic, yet understanding eyes. "And the only reason she did that was because of me. When mom wanted me to lose the fight against the Abomaton, one of her latest inventions, in front of her investors, a picture of all of us at Grom was going to be destroyed, I defeated it and she retaliated," Amity softly explained. "She thought that they were a distraction and said it was my fault that they were being expelled from Hexside. And I was too scared to stand up for them, even when Luz was begging for me to help…." Tears filled Amity's eyes as she said, "I could handle mom yelling at me. She did it every day, either in front of me or by the oracle necklace, but knowing I let down Luz, not once, but twice, that was worse than torture…." "How did it all end?" Caitlyn asked. "Well, Luz, once again throwing caution to the wind, decided not to accept the expulsion and went to my mom and dad. Mom offered her a chance to get the decision reversed if Luz were to help with the latest abomination-based weapons to her investors," Amity answered. "I knew Luz wouldn't stand a chance, so I gathered Willow and Gus and we, with my sibling's help, got into the building just to see Luz being attacked by all of mom's weapons." "Luz had made all of the weapons look good and deadly, but mom needed to impress everyone with her Abomaton 2.0 and I knew that she was going to kill Luz with it, because what's human's life when it comes to her contracts," Amity spat. "So I stepped in and interfered, and was about to beat it when I finally told her what I wanted. She was going to renege on that but dad thankfully stepped in." "Seeing Luz almost die like that made my heart hurt in a way that it never had before. Everything she does makes my heart hurt and when that happens, I always do something stupid, like losing my job at the library just because I wanted to help Luz find Philip Wittebane's diary. But I never knew that I make her do stupid things too…." Amity drifted off as a soft smile formed on her face. "Like facing down a Paper Dragon just to get me that same job back…." Amity sniffled slightly and said, "But I did something even more stupid. I kissed her cheek after telling her she has a way of sneaking into people's hearts, and now, I feel like I ruined our friendship." Amity paused and looked around only to see the four women's eyes were glistening. "Wow, really is a tale as old as time situation," Caitlyn said as Maura, Asami, and Lena nodded in unison. "You have a way of telling a story," Maura said. "We were able to learn a lot about both you and this Luz all throughout. She is stubborn, brave, unconditionally kind, and considerate." "She's also impulsive, selfless, to almost a reckless degree, can be a little naïve at times about the world around her, and she always goes out of her way to right any wrongs she feels she may have caused, but she also puts a lot of blame on her shoulders," Amity said. "Before Lena popped back into the Isles, I've been at home, avoiding her, because I can't understand her and I need help so I can lock in what I feel for her and also understand her more." "We've all been down this road, scarily so," Lena said as the other women nodded in agreement. "You have?" Amity asked. "Oh, we have," Maura said. "All of us are in a relationship with reckless and selfless women." "So Luz isn't the only one like this?" Amity asked. "Oh no, it's a shared trait amongst people like Luz," Lena said. "I like to call them, the heroic types." Amity's eyes widened. "The heroic type…. So Luz is like a hero?" Amity laughed. "That actually makes sense, considering her personality. But there has to be some sort of difference between her and the women you all are with, right?" "From the sounds of it?" Caitlyn questioned. "No," the four women said. "Okay, well, tell me about them and how you all deal with this reckless type," Amity said. "Where should we begin?" Lena fondly questioned.

Teen And Up Audiences

Luz, with her love of all things pretty and cute, is admittedly closer to futch than butch, but she doesn't mind being misclocked. Her masculinity just takes a different shape, that's all; her masculinity is something boyish and fun and bubbly and that's okay. For her, butch is a truth that exists in her heart—butch is inside of her and she lets it shine through her skin to warm her throughout. What other people see doesn't matter nearly as much as what she feels. But that—that is an outside butch. Her captor, the Golden Guard, lies on their back amid a pile of golden orbs, knocked out from the crash. Maskless and capeless, she finally gets a good look at the girl that's been tormenting her and her family… Their blond hair is cut short, sides shaved, curling slightly at the edges. They're muscular and handsome, their arms strong like a gymnast, the perfect combination of round and sharp. Their chest is flat, a binder hugging them tight over a blue undershirt. And Luz can't help but notice the dark bags under their eyes that spell out just how tired they've been. Sympathy blooms in her chest—as well as something else. Luz sees this handsome butch laid out before her and blushes terribly. She knew the Golden Guard uniform was kind of masc, but it's just a uniform! She didn't know they were masc even with the mask off! She didn't know they were butch. Despite herself, she finds herself leaning forward, looking close at the freckles laid out across their cheeks, staring at their hooked nose, handsome and strong, and at the soft lips beneath it… Thoughts of Sleeping Beauty come to mind. We're both the prince, she thinks giddily. We're one and the same. If I only kissed— She panics and slaps them awake.

Teen And Up Audiences

Amity looks off into a dimly lit room from the threshold.“You have a piano?” Luz leans back holding onto the doorframe.“What’s up? Oh yeah! We got it a long time ago.” “Does anyone in your family play?” Amity asks.“Does anyone play-” Luz snarkily chuckles. “Watch this.”Luz drags Amity by the hand into the dim room.“Aww, Luz, I didn’t know you could–” A loud screech from the piano bench interrupts her.Luz looks up at Amity.“Whoops, sorry!”She swings her legs over the bench and plops herself down before gently patting next to her, inviting Amity to join.“Now it’s been a while since I tried watching one of those sythesia- synethesia--whatever it’s called--videos.”Luz chuckles deviously, “Now, you’re gonna love this!”She dramatically lifts a finger in the air and then gently presses down a key .♪ Dun! ♪“Wait-”♪ Dun! ♪ “No, it’s over... here!”♪ Dun! ♪“Agh, I almost have it!” Luz cries out.Amity has a soft gaze watching her goofball try to remember how to play the piano.After all that they’ve been through in the last couple of months, it’s good to see the once bubbly Luz just having fun…She watches the human count up each individual key before gently pressing it down, almost scared to hear the wrong note again.“Wait!” Luz says excitedly, she then slams the key.♪ DUN! ♪Amity’s eyes widen as she’s taken back to her senses, Luz looks over at a shocked Amity.“Ooh! Sorry, got carried away there– Oh but that sounded so cool!"“What song was that?” Amity asked.“Well! It’s from a…”Luz’s smile faltered, as she slowly continued.“-human realm band… Man, I don’t know why I thought you’d know it”As Luz tries to explain, Amity could tell she was a bit bummed, not being able to share music with Amity.“I don’t really know it that well…" The room is awfully quiet, Luz felt like she had failed Amity."Hey, Um... It’s still early we can go out if you still want to uh…”Amity grabs her hand, Luz loses her negative train of thought.She looks up at Amity, who gives her a reassuring look.“I actually want to know more about human music… Is the song really just one note?”Luz smiles softly“Well, no.”Amity tilts her head in curiosity, Luz continues“It’s a really popular song and a lot of people recognize it just from the first note. and--"Luz goes on about the fandom she was in and the music that goes along with it, all of which is alien to Amity but she's enamored by Luz.Something about watching her finally settle back into herself after all they've been through, She was worried she could've lost the Luz she knew and loved.It was good to finally see her excited again.The End.

General Audiences

I feel my hands mindlessly graze the keys of my piano. I’ve memorized this song, so I can let my mind wander while I let muscle memory take over. My mind drifts from thought to thought, until eventually deciding to torture myself. A single image of her flashes in my conscience, the thought alone causing me to slip up and hit a wrong note. I flinch as my error forces my hands to a stop. I glance up at the sheet music in front of me.   Ugh, that human is going to be the death of me. Ever since Grom night, there’s been nothing short of miss-mashed feelings slowly brewing in the depths of my heart. I don’t know how to describe this newfound relief mixed with crippling anxiety without using the word “lovestruck.”   I’ve come to appreciate every detail of her character. The way she walks is unique only to her. She walks with a small pep in her step, her long legs thumping down onto the ground. From the front, even with her energetic strides, you can tell her shoulders are slumped and she possesses a slight slouch. Every time I see her walk toward me, I feel my heart skip a beat and my face heat up.   She’s one of the main reasons I’ve picked up piano again, something I haven’t done since I was 14. I’m trying my hand at songwriting this time, and surprisingly, it’s going alright for a first experience. My biggest motivation for all of this is writing a song for her, hoping she won’t laugh in my face. After all, something so emotional to come out of Amity Blight? Never in a million years. Until today, of course.   I think back fondly to a time when everything was simpler. Our relationship used to be simple fights in a parking lot. Beating the tar out of each other before patching ourselves up in an undisclosed location. It was nice to have someone to beat up after everything. Between my home life and the stress of school, getting my anger out on someone who doesn’t mind getting hit was such a relief.    Then we started hanging out at lunch. I met Luz’s other friends, Gus and Willow, and I wanted to hang out with them rather than my “posse” of Skara, Boscha, and whoever else came and went. They felt like actual friends, unlike who my parents picked out for me. After a month or so, I cut out my fake friends for the better.   Eventually, we stopped the fights and started hanging out (breaking the law) as friends. Sometimes, Willow would even tag along. She’d always be there if we got in a bad fight, ready to pick us up or join in the fun herself. Gus never felt uncomfortable with the fact that his friend group consisted of possible criminals, but he rarely did the kind of stuff we did. The worst thing he ever did was steal a 5 dollar mini teddy bear from Hobby Lobby. He told us he just didn’t want to pay for it.   I regain some sense of control as I blankly stare at the sheet music before me. God, how long has it been? I glance at the clock. It reads 4:00. I just wasted 5 minutes lost in my thoughts. Great. I shake my head from side to side, trying to shake the thoughts from my head. It’s no use. That human is going to continue to occupy my thoughts if I don’t do something about it. I’ll just see if we can meet up. I summon my scroll and find Luz’s contact.   You: wyd stupid head  Sent 4:03 p.m.   Luz: not much wyd Sent 4:03 p.m.   You: i’m not doing anything either Sent 4:04 p.m. You: i was hoping we could hang out or something Sent 4:04 p.m.   Luz: what time Sent 4:04 p.m.   You: is 5 okay Sent 4:04 p.m.   Luz: sounds cool to me. where we meeting Sent 4:05 p.m.   You: i was thinking we could meet at my place  Sent 4:05 p.m.   Luz: aight see u later Sent 4:05 p.m.   You: see ya Sent 4:05 p.m.   I put away my scroll, standing up from the piano to stretch and prepare myself. Hopefully seeing Luz will clarify my feelings. Oh, who am I kidding? This is going to be a disaster. It’s 4:53 the next time I get a notification from my scroll.   Luz: hey what apartment are u in lmao i can’t remember Sent 4:53 p.m.   Of course, only Luz would forget what apartment one of her closest friends was in.   You: you idiot. i’m in room 324 Sent 4:53 p.m.   Luz: oh yeah see u in like 5 minutes Sent 4:53 p.m.   I put my scroll back where it belongs and go to the living room to await my demise. I don’t know what we’re gonna do, but I better figure out something before she gets here.   Finally, I hear a knock at the door, disrupting my dumb thoughts before they can start.   “I’m coming!” I reply a bit too loud. I rush over to the door from my tiny sofa and open it, revealing a familiar face. Luz. It’s about time.   “Hey, Mittens,” she says, making a smirk. I may or may not be in love with this asshole.   “Don’t call me that, Noceda,” I counter, a playful edge in my tone. Her smirk continued to widen.   “Well, what are you gonna do? Huh, Mittens~?” she says, leaning toward me in a motion that makes my knees feel like jelly and my face turn red. I manage enough confidence to not fall into her.   “This!” I exclaim. I grab her by the collar of her purple and white striped shirt and pull her close, using my free hand to draw a bright pink fireball. I notice her smirk fade into surprise as she stares down at me, wide-eyed. I struggled to stay on my tip-toes as I looked her dead in the eyes. I swear I saw a blush rise to her cheeks. I don’t know if it was from embarrassment or if it was simply my eyes playing tricks on me.   “Damn! Slow down, Mittens, I haven’t even gotten inside your apartment yet!” she says, laughing after the initial shock fades back to her usual confidence.   I release her collar and I disperse the fireball. “Fine, I guess you should come in first,” I said. She follows me into my apartment and settles herself down onto my couch.   “Your place is so much nicer than mine. I should totally invite you over for some interior design sometime.”   “Sure,” I said with an eye roll. “How could you guess interior design is my ‘passion’.”   “Hey, unrelated, but I saw your post on Pentsagram the other day and I wanted to know if you could send me that.”   “The one of me leaving my mom’s house?” I asked.   “Obviously! I haven’t laughed that hard in ages,” she says, her hands waving around in an animated fashion.   “Remind me to do it later, my scroll has to charge,”    “Cool. Anyway, I heard that the new Azura movie just came out and I was kinda hoping we could watch it together, so, uh, do you want to?” Luz asks, rubbing the back of her neck softly.   “Really? I thought it wasn’t supposed to come out until next month!” I exclaimed, my joy practically seeping through my words. Luz flips around, hanging off of the back of my couch with her phone in her hand.   “Well, miss Blight, I am happy to inform you that somebody got a leaked copy!” Luz purrs, waving her phone in my face for emphasis.   “What?! How? Oh, titan, I can’t believe it! Quick, pull it up!” I squealed, rushing over to the couch to plop myself comfortably next to Luz.   “It’s supposed to be really good so I hope it doesn’t turn out like the Heticate spinoff,” Luz mumbles. I cringe at the mere thought of whatever the fuck that show was.   “Before we start the movie, I’ll go get some blankets. There’s some microwave popcorn in the top left cabinet if you want some,” I explained, slowly standing up to make my way to the storage closet.   “Alright, now it’s almost like a proper movie night,” Luz declares.   I open the door to find only one blanket. Of course. I pull it out anyway because I guess one is better than none, even if it means snuggling with your crush and my mind probably blanking out. I throw myself down onto the couch, holding the blanket in my hands. I can hear the faint sound of popping in the background as I prepare myself for what’s about to happen.   “I got the popcorn! Are you ready?” Luz asks, carrying a big bowl of the stuff and sitting down next to me.   “You know it,” I reply, unfurling the blanket and putting it over the both of us. “I could only find one blanket, is this okay?”   “Of course!” Luz squeaks, eyes widening. Strange behavior coming from someone so calm 5 seconds ago. I shouldn’t get my hopes up, it probably means nothing.

Teen And Up Audiences

Y/N had just arrived at the Owl House, ready for whatever Eda would throw at them. They and Eda had met at Hexside, where she made quite the impression on Y/N, which led to them asking her to be their mentor. Eda agreed, but she made it clear that she would get paid for the mentorship. Y/N knocks on the door, not noticing the bird tube attached to the door. "Hello there, new person! Are you new here, right? Right? Am I right?" The thing asked loudly, but your stomach couldn't help but flip over. Who was this thing, and why were they so damn Attractive? Everything from their shiny exterior to their glamorous beak made your heart skip. "M-my name is Y/N!" You stutter, blushing madly. How could you have fallen so quickly yet hard for this creature? "Well, hello, Y/N! I'm Hooty! Hooty-Hooty-hoot-hoot!" Hooty exclaimed, and you just can't take it anymore. You are about to reach out and caress Hooty's beautiful face with your hand when a green bird comes from nowhere and drags you into the sky! "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" You yell out, making your voice extra high-pitched to attract Hooty's attention. Hooty lets out a comically loud gasp and extends out of the door to fly after you. The green bird looks hurt, and you wonder what the history between these two is... "I'm coming to save you, Y/N!!" Hooty exclaims, and their voice is just so damn undeniably sexy....... Hooty tackles the bird, and they fall to the ground slowly, like a feather. Hooty wraps itself around you and safely brings you down to the earth, and you start laughing hysterically and pee yourself. Hooty starts laughing too, but the bird is not laughing. They are look very red angry. "Hooty, how could you! I thought we had something!" They gasp, disgusted and jealous by you and Hooty's romantic chemistry. "How many times do I have to tell you that we're over, Duolingo! Gosh!" Hooty exclaims, and Duolingo flies away, crying. Then, you gather all your courage and kiss Hooty. However, he accidentally eats you, and you are now consumed by Hooty. You hear Hooty say one more thing. "Hooty hoot! It's been too long since I ate a child!" You gasp and clap your hands over your mouth, astounded by this development. Hooty had been using you all along? How could he? You start crying inside Hooty's stomach, unable to bear that he was using you all along. And here you thought that the two of you had something, had some sort of romance, your first love had been such a fantastic experience and ended with vore. Suddenly, your tears burn through Hooty's skin, and you are out of his body. On the ground again, you start crying tears of happiness, turning into a glass of papaya juice. Hooty is only a head now. The rest of his body has disintegrated. He smiles at you, and you begin to have mixed feelings. On the one hand, you tried to kiss him, and he ate you, but on the other hand... He was just so hot that it was hard to hate him. You lean in to kiss him again, but then remember you are a glass of papaya juice, so you fall over and go into the ground, becoming one with the earth. You try to yell out for Hooty's help, but he is now dead, gone with the wind. If only you didn't turn into a glass of papaya juice... Then maybe, you and Hooty could have had a happy ending. But now, you are both one with the elements, and your love is one that simply could not be. Maybe in another life, if he didn't eat you, in another life, where he wasn't so damn delectable from the get-go, you and Hooty could have had 14 children. But you were still papaya juice, and he was still dust. ... The old man with the scruffy beard sat on his chair, an easel holding a children's book in front of him. Children seated in a circle around him, eager for his storytelling. "Hello, children. How were your days?" In his anime waifu voice, he asked, and a child licked his own feet. "Good." They all said, wanting to hear the godforsaken book already. "Well, let me ask you something." He garnered the attention of everyone in the room, even T.J. Miller. "Have you ever heard the tale of the dust and the papaya juice?"

Teen And Up Audiences

Despite the fact that they hardly ever saw their parents anymore, there was never any doubt in Raine’s mind that their parents were there for them always.    Growing up, they had been… lonely, certainly. They were fortunate enough to be a prodigy in bard magic, being invited into St. Epiderm under scholarship, which they would use to ensure their success at the yearly IFWOT.   Until Head Wi—Terra. Until Terra had unknowingly made everything better for them. She definitely didn’t mean to do it, but her refusal to distribute the blue ribbons that year caused them to lose their scholarship, and so began their enrollment in Hexside.   They finally had friends, and their parents had been so proud of them.    Raine would have liked to be a parent one day, if they were being honest. Amber was the closest thing to that, considering she was technically not a legal adult yet, so they’d take what they could get.   When they found out that Eda had kids…   A life had flashed through their mind. A life that they could have had if they had just stayed. One full of love and freedom, with warm hands playfully stealing their glasses and a comforting voice greeting them each morning.    So they had sent Eda away. Again.   Things of course got… weird for a while. They didn’t want to risk Eda’s safety, because Titan, they couldn’t bear the thought of possibly being the reason those kids lost a parent. Not to mention that they were terrified of losing Eda, because deep down, a part of them was still in love with her.   Her laugh, her attitude, her ridiculously soft lips. It was all theirs once. And they wanted it to be theirs again.    It was late, the moon hanging heavy in the sky. The base was shrouded in darkness, the only light coming from the candle flickering on the table. Lilith was curled up against Eda’s bird tube…friend, snoring softly.   They peeked around the corner, spotting Eda passed out on the bottom bunk of the bed she and her family had been provided. A whittling knife was tightly gripped in her hand, wood shavings cluttering the ground. Her other arm was draped over the demon boy–King, their mind supplied–who was cuddled into Eda’s hip.   It was adorably domestic.   Raine wanted to be a part of it.   They frowned, suddenly realizing that something was missing from the moment. Someone. The other girl, Luz, wasn’t there.    With everything that happened that night, Raine hadn’t gotten much of a chance to speak with her after the initial introductions had been finished. She was endearing, and extremely sweet. Of course, she had her spunk–any kid of Eda’s would, obviously.    There was something else that they couldn’t quite put their finger on, but they’d have a much harder time figuring it out if they couldn’t even find the kid. Where could she have run off to at this hour? Raine hadn’t spotted her entering the kitchenette, or lingering around the designated lounge area…   A gentle breeze wrestled them out of their mind, causing them to finally notice the door that was cracked open.   The balcony.   That solved their question, then.    Raine quietly pushed the door open, spotting the human girl leaning over the edge of the balcony, eyes glazed over with unshed tears while she was lost in thought.   “Luz?” the bard asked, the girl’s shoulders tensing for a moment before relaxing. She pulled away from the balcony, offering a forced smile to them as they approached. “Is everything alright?”   “Yeah,” she replied, too quickly for it to be true. “Everything is fine. I’m fine.”   “You know…” they trailed off, garnering her attention. She looked up at them, eyes gleaming with awe. It was adorable. She could have been one of yours, if you had chosen to stay. “You’re allowed to be stressed and upset. You… can cry, if you want to.”   Luz’s eyes darted away, the girl biting her bottom lip.    “I’m not. I can’t. Not when everything is my fault,” she choked out, an admission Raine wasn’t entirely expecting, but still managed to make their heart ache. “Everything that happened today just makes it worse. Eda apologized to me, and she’s saying it isn’t my fault, but it is. If I hadn’t overreacted and yelled, or insisted on the heist–”   “Hey, hey,” Raine clasped their hands over the girl’s, catching her attention. Brown eyes that carried too much guilt snapped open. “So many people were manipulated in this. You’re a kid. You’re a strong and brave and capable kid, but you’re still so young, you can’t shoulder all of this by yourself, cariño.”   “Cariño?” Luz furrowed her eyebrows. Raine squeaked, their cheeks flushing red in embarrassment.    “Ah, sorry! That’s just something my mom would call me, it just sort of slipped in there–” they rambled. “It’s nothing bad! It’s just…”   “No, no. I know what it means. Simplemente no tenía idea de que hablabas español aquí,” Luz laughed awkwardly, the words rolling off of her tongue. Raine didn’t understand, but they desperately wanted to. Luz must have noticed their confusion. “Oh! I’m sorry. I just… assumed.”   “It’s alright,” they smiled. “I do wish that I understood. Common Tongue has been the only language on the Isles for as long as anybody can remember. Some families, like mine, have a few sayings and some songs, but that’s about it. Do you…?”   “Yep,” Luz nodded, making herself comfortable on the stone. She laid down, staring up towards the sky. Raine figured that it wouldn’t hurt to join her. “It’s called Spanish. It’s me and my mami's first language.”   “Spanish,” Raine parroted. “It sounds lovely. I’d love to learn more about it once this is all over, yeah?”   Luz quieted again.   “What if it doesn’t end?” she eventually whispered. Raine frowned, sparing a glance at the teen next to them. “I don’t wanna lose Eda. Can I tell you a secret?”   They nodded, mocking the gesture of sealing up their lips and locking it with a key. Luz sighed, tears pooling in her eyes again. Raine’d give her all the time that she needed to talk.    “Eda reminds me of my dad,” she eventually mumbled. If it hadn’t been so quiet, they would have missed it entirely. “I don’t wanna freak her out with the dead dad comparison but it’s just… she’s just like him in so many ways. She’s weird and chaotic, completely unpredictable in what she does.”   Luz’s breathing picked up for a moment, she paused her ramble to collect herself. Raine waited.   “But she’s also so patient with me. She learns how to sit and wait for me. She reads my books with me, and I know that she only pretends to hate them, because she doesn’t wanna ruin her whole bad girl image,” Luz let out some mixture of a laugh and sob. “I’m so scared. I don’t want to lose her. I can’t do it again.”   “I’ll protect her,” Raine offered, reaching out to stroke Luz’s hair. “I’ll make sure that she stays safe.”   “But…” Luz curled into herself. “I can do something this time. I don’t have to sit around watching her slowly die. I can help. I want to help.”   “Cariño, please,” Raine struggled with their words. “You’re tired. It’s been a long day, you should get some rest. We’ll figure out a final plan in the morning, and you can help.”   “You promise that you’ll protect her?” Luz wiped away her own tears, face riddled with exhaustion.   “I…” Raine hesitated. They wanted to say that they could, but it was Eda. The last thing they wanted to do was make a promise that they weren’t certain they could keep. “I can’t promise anything right now. I’m sorry. Let’s… get you to sleep. I’ll sing you a lullaby.”   Luz’s expression became crestfallen by their avoidance, but she didn’t push. She nodded, slowly standing up, and practically falling over.   With a gentle sigh, they scooped the girl up, adjusting her as she leaned into the crook of their neck. They nudged the door open, slipping back inside the base. Luz was slipping into oblivion quickly, her grip losing its tightness. They laid her down on a nearby cot, pulling the covers over her shoulders.   Part of them wanted to kiss her goodnight, but they couldn’t. It wasn’t their place, not when they had pulled themself out of Eda’s life like they had.    With a quick spell circle, they summoned one of their instruments, giving the strings a quick pluck. Luz curled up, her face relaxing as they began to play the song that had always helped them in their own youth.   “Viento a viento va El sueño del mar Gira sin parar Viento a viento va Durmiendo el sol Un guiño de luz se perdió Tu cuerpo se hace vientre Estatua transparente En la arena oscura esperarás”   “Viento a viento va Bailando el mar Ésta sola voz se quebró Pájaros de sal Ciegos de llorar Vuelven a volar”   “Viento a viento va Éste pequeño Temblor que jamás gritó A la luz, al árbol, a la lluvia A la voz, al aire, al final   Y así este viento va girando Y así este viento va Se fue Y así este niño va Llorando Llorando”

General Audiences

No matter how hard Raine had try to keep Eda at arms length, they had finally failed in their doomed endeavor.  Now she was part of the CATtS along with her kids. Luz and King. Eda didn’t stop talking about them since the CATtS had rescued her from the coven scouts until Luz finally arrived safe and sound though slightly traumatized. They had heard all about Luz Noceda. How she had come to the Boiling Isles with ideas about chosen-ones and wizards that help you in the path of self-actualization instead of the usual run-of-the-mill magical artifact that cause more trouble than it was worth, how she had discovered an ancient form of magic called gifts and how the isles spoke to her through them, how she had punched Belos’ in the phase and make him bleed. But most importantly how she had changed Eda’s life, how Luz had helped her realized that she was more than an incredible sexy rogue, how she was able to let people in. They had also heard all about King Clawthorne. How Eda had rescued them from a temple and a malicious figure that turned out to just be a bodyguard, how he dreamed of grandeur and rulling with a fist of iron but actually was just a little kid, how he always kissed his teddy-bunny she had found in the Human Realm goodnight. But most importantly how he was the first being to had made her smile since their break off, how they had stick together through difficult times, how he had been the first to take her name. So when Luz The Human Witch burst out of the carriage ready to fight whomever for Eda, Raine knew they had to give a good impression. They did not expect Luz to do a recap of the latest chapter of their life, and for King to add the whole mind-controlled thing, to be honest but they found it quite endearing.  Raine smiled when Luz loved their name and put on their hoodie with cat ears, even if they had only choose that name to spite Darius. The bard decided that night that they would befriend or just try to form some sort of bond with Eda’s kids that night. Eda was already beloved by their students so it was only fair. It was difficult to make time because of the fact that the day of Unity was in two days. However the next afternoon they found King looking to the horizon with a look of longing in their face and they thought it would not do any harm to approach. “Hello King,” they said, sitting down and letting their legs bumped against the balcony. “Oh, hi Raine.” “It’s a very nice view, right?” They asked. The little demon had lowered his eyes and proceeded to play with his golden disc. “I guess so.” “When I looked for hideouts for the BAtTs, that is bards against the throne, I decided on this one because of the landscape -apart from the fact that is secluded- it just makes me feel like I could touch the clouds. Like the illusions my Ma used to make.” “Is your Ma still alive?” Raine, who had been looking at King all this time, diverted their gaze into the clouds. “Not anymore, she died when I was a little less old.” “Do you ever feel angry at her, because she left you?” “Sometimes, most of the time I just feel grateful I meet her. Why, do you feel angry with Eda for trying to leave you behind?” They tentatively tried. King shook his head.  Which was a relieved to be honest, they didn’t want Eda to deal with more stress, and having your child feel abandoned by you certainly counted as a conflict. However, they know didn’t had any clue about what was happening in the little demon’s head. “King, could you tell me what are you thinking about?” Raine asked. “Is just…my dad died before I was even born. And I…I just wanted to play catch with him. But he left me before we could even!” “I’m…I am…King I am so sorry.” Raine didn’t know what to say. King was so young to have already gone through such abandonment. “People who love us but have left us always come back in small ways. If he did love you he probably left a mark for you to go back to when you feel alone.” Raine prayed to the Titan that this was the case, because if it wasn’t they didn’t know what to do else. King looked again at his golden disc with reverence and trace the carvings with his claws. Raine thanked the Titan that the corner of his eyes didn’t get wetter. “I guess he did,” King said, his tone firmer than before. “Thank you.” “I didn’t do anything.” “I, eh, I like you more than Eda’s previous partners.” King said and get up before Raine could correct him. Raine found Luz later at night, midnight to be exact. Raine had been up looking through the schematics trying to found a plan that wasn’t Darius’ idea or that put Eda in danger one more time for the debriefing tomorrow, when they heard Luz stumble as she tried to get done from her bunk bed silently. “Oh, Hi Raine, didn’t see you there.” “Hello Luz. Why are you up?” They asked putting down a map. “Why are you up?” she asked. “I am looking through the plans to see that all is perfect for the briefing tomorrow. What about you?” “I…ah…would you believe me if I told you I was sleep walking and talking?” “No, sorry.” Luz sat down and laid her head on the table. “I couldn’t sleep.” Luz said and then stood upright with a wave of fury. “I just can’t belive that Eda would do that, you know? When she is the one that says that us weirdos have to stick together, she just pushes me away!” Luz whisper-shouted. “Eda was just trying to protect you.” “I know, but like who is protecting her?” Luz said and then in a smaller voice, “Why can’t it be me?” “Luz you’re still a child, and though I do think that children have the power to change the world, and should be allowed to fight for this change. Adults are also needed there so they can step up and dealt with the difficult stuff in order for letting you continuing to be children.” Raine also wanted to tell her that they would protect Eda however they were doing an abysmal job at it, and they weren’t about to lie to children, specially this young girl. “I’m just…I’m terrified.” Luz hugged herself. “We all are. But I assure you, you’ll be doing Eda such a great favor if you went to sleep.” “I don’t think I can,” Luz whimpered. “I can help with that.” They conjured up their wooden flute and put it close to their lips. “This would make you feel somewhat drowsy, so I suggest you go back to your bunk bed.” Luz obeyed and Raine started to play. They blew one or two times the melody and then instructed the win to do as they said as they started singing. Little witchling go to sleep but don’t you go too deep to the land of the dreams. Little demon remember me when the sun goes up I’ll be here, don’t be afraid for the Titan beams. Raine played the melody once again on their flute and then got up to see if Luz was already sleep. “You are a great romantic interest for Eda,” yawned Luz. “I’m not-” “And I’ve always like a friends-to exes-to “enemies”-to lovers trope,” Luz finished and closed her eyes. “I'm…thank you?” Raine decided to follow their advice for once and went back to their sleeping bag, playing till the monsters of the night woke up, and finally finding some sleep. In their dreams the CATtS got up as they did each day, but there was no day of unity, just a big family- with Eda,

General Audiences

“What’s wrong?”, the abomination inventor looked at the oracle with a look of confusion mixed with hurt, among the nonchalant attitude he usually held most of the time.  Alador had been in one of the study rooms with his friend and classmate Odalia. The oracle had been reading a book quietly when he arrived. He had just finished his potions class and had come to the room for a needed break. Finding Odalia wasn’t odd, being their chosen study spot. A room created specifically for them through a special magic from the oracle herself. Though she didn’t give away where she had gotten the spell, it was still nice to have a private room for their group to use.  The three of them; Alador, Odalia, and Darius, would use the room for studying or just to relax and get away from school. Gossiping, playing games or pranks, and showing off new techniques they had learned. It was like their own private club for just the three of them.  However, today seemed rather different.  “Listen.”, she began, closing her book, “Given the circumstances I don’t think it’s professional given our relationship as friends, for you to be grabbing my chest.”, she explained, trying to make it as simple as possible for her as to why she swatted his hand away from her chest.  “You never seemed bothered by it before.”, letting him grab her chest most of the time when they were in the room and other places. Mostly in private.  “That was before you got a boyfriend. And I don’t want unnecessary rumors to start.”, especially ones about another friend's boyfriend groping her chest.  “What does Darius have to do with me grabbing your chest?”, he asked, still appearing confused.  “Are you dense?”, it was rhetorical, but she continued before he answered, “When you have a boyfriend or girlfriend you can’t just grab onto another’s person’s chest.”, friend or otherwise, “If you need something to ‘squeeze’, it would be better to go see your boyfriend.”  “But, Darius doesn’t have a chest.”, more specifically he doesn’t have a chest like Odalia. Her bust had grown since they were younger. Defined in their roundness and soft texture when grasped. Fitting quite pleasantly in his palm and had a good feel when he held them. Darius was slender and held a consistent muscle to it. Making his chest firm with nothing much to grab onto.  “That’s not the point.”, at least not the main one he should be focusing on, “What I mean is that it’s rather ‘inappropriate’.” Alador still seemed lost at the conversation, “But, you always let me touch them.”, like when they were studying together, he would have one hand slip down her top and mindlessly squeeze one of her breasts. As long as it was just the two of them it was fine.  “I let you do it before because you were nervous and it calmed you down.”, for one reason or another that couldn’t exactly be explained, “Now that we’re older and you're dating someone else there should be boundaries.”, including him fondling her chest whenever he thought about it, “So for now you cannot touch or fondle my chest.”, reaffirming the new rule. Though there was a sad look on his face, Alador seemed to understand. Giving a single nod. He would accept the new rule. Though he didn't appear to like it.  He promised to keep his hands to himself.  “You know what’s going on with the Hack?”, Darius questioned seeing Aladors melancholy mood. Ever since a couple of days ago the inventor had been in a kind of funk. While he didn’t show much enthusiasm at times. This was definitely a down mood. Even in his favorite classes he just seemed to lay his head down on the desk. Now at lunch he was staring blankly down at his plate, spoon poking a plate of green gelatin. Having gotten no answers from him, he sought out someone who might have the answers he sought.  “He’s just upset because I took away chest privileges.”, Odalia replied as she continued to reapply her lip gloss.  “What?”, Darius raised an eyebrow at the oracles answer.  Odalia sighed, “Well, to make things short, whenever Alador would get stressed or sad or just in a mood I would let him grab my chest.”  “What?”, he repeated, “Like stress balls.”, was the best way to describe it as it was explained to him, “So you’ve been letting Alador squeeze your boobs?”  “Basically.”, she didn’t see it as a big deal as long as it kept him calm and less upset, “But, as I explained the other day, it was time to cut him off.”, though she didn’t think he would take it that badly, “I told him if he needed something to squeeze you let him touch chest.”  “Why would he do that?”  “Because you’re his boyfriend.”, Odalia reminded the abomination user, “Couples do stuff like that.”, at least the really serious ones.  “We don’t.”, Darius said with a slight shrug. In all the time they were together the inventor, as far as he noticed, never tried to make an attempt to touch his chest. Sure, they had their moments, but nothing like what Odalia was mentioning.  “Well, I guess not all couples are the same.”, the oracle surmised, puckering her lips to even out the gloss, “What do you think? I’m trying out some new colors.”, today was an abomination purple.  “Cute.”, he replied, though not that enthused, “Can we get back to the fact that you were letting Alador feel you up. How long has that been going on?”  “Oh, don’t be jealous.”, she teased, “I think it started when we were younger.”, starting with Odalia feeding Alador sometimes when he was tinkering with his inventions to allow use of both hands. Then he started laying on her lap to take naps. As they got older these habits continued until one day they had been studying and Alador’s hand just slipped over her chest while he was asleep. And it only grew over that, “After that it became a habit.”, it was a bit awkward at first, but after that it became something that happened.  “So... what made you stop?”, he questioned curiously.  Odalia shrugged her shoulders, “I figured it was time to end the habit.”, she said, “Also, the constant gripping and fondling was really making my chest sensitive.”, she admitted, patting over his chest, “Alador has a rather firm grip.”  Darius blushed a bit. Sometimes forgetting how open the oracle could be at times. Not afraid to say what was on her mind.  “...Right.”, he cleared his throat, “So-about Alador.”  “Alador will be fine.”, Odalia assured, “When he gets in a funk just lay his head on your lap. Stroke his head gently. And message his ear.”, she explained, “Also feeding him sometimes works too. Something small and bite size. Sweets, but fruits are better. Berries or sliced apples.”, she continued to list off some suggestions for helping Alador's mood.  “Should I get a notepad and a pen.”, he teased at the list he was getting.  “No need.”, with her magic she summoned a small booklet into her hand. ‘The Does and Don’ts of Alador.’ “I compiled an easy-to-understand booklet of instructions to keep Alador maintained. So, to speak.”, she showed the booklet to Darius, “It has guides and instructions to his behaviors, mannerisms, and understanding his moods by the position of his ears.”, complete with small illustrations and an appendix.  “Wow this is...very organized.”, he noted skimming through the booklet, “How to keep Alador tidy after projects.”  “The trick is to keep wipes and clean rags on hand. Including a change of clothes.”, that was a must, “It also helps that during breaks if his hands are too messy you should feed him so not to swallow any materials that might be on his hands.”  “You’ve really got this down to a science.”, which was both impressive and kind of scary.  “Well, I figured it was needed to keep up with him.”, she summarized simply, “I also made one for you as well Darius.”, she showed.  “Oh, I have to see this.”, taking the booklet from the oracle.  “It’s mostly how to keep a tidy space because of your care for hygiene and dislike of germs.”, though that was putting it nicely, “Anyway, Aladors booklet has some ways to lift his mood when he’s feeling down. Mostly just getting him in a nice, quiet space usually helps calm his mind down.” “Thanks...I guess.”, now he had a reference manual for his boyfriend, "Still, about this whole 'chest thing'..." "Like I said it was just something Alador did.", she played off, "Just a bit of friendly touching."  "Anyway, I have some errands to run before next period. Kisses darling.", blowing Darius a quick kiss the oracle headed off leaving a rather confused, but also suspicious witch.  “What do you guys think?”, Odalia stood before her two friends in their secret meeting room.  “New clothes Dal?”  “I’m trying out some new outfits. A stylish business casual.”, wanting to change up her usual dress outside the school attire she had to wear throughout the day.  “Not bad.”, Darius commented, “It suits you. Right, Hack?”, he nudged Alador who had been staring at Odalia in her new outfit. Though he wasn’t one for ‘fashion’, he couldn’t help stare at the attire the oracle was wearing. Especially the way her skirt twirled as she showed it off to her two friends. Noticing how it flowed and fluttered with her movements. The dark black fabric whipping and seeing a flash of something white. It was quick, but the inventor caught it and blushed slightly. Looking off to the side for a moment to hide his expression.  “...Yeah. It looks nice.”, he complimented, scratching his cheek.  “I know.”, she teased, “As my mother says, ‘Dress for the position you want.’. I’m sure to turn some heads.”, she gave a playful wink, giving her hair a positive flip.  “Speaking of turning heads.”, Darius spoke, “Tomorrows the day of the Bonesborough Brawl.”, bringing up the competition where witches and other residents on the Isle came to show off their skills in one-on-one combat, “And guess who's finally going to compete.”, he motioned to Alador.  “That’s right.”, she nearly forgot about the brawl, “So you're actually going to compete in the competition, Alador?”, he mentioned a few times of possibly entering.  “Y-Yeah...it will be my first time.”, he confirmed, rubbing his neck.  “Word around the Isle it’s going to be pretty big this time around.”, Darius commented, “Think you’ll be coming to watch?”, they were heading after school.  “Maybe.”, Odalia smoothed out her skirt, “I’m not really into brawls personally. But, it does sound interesting.”, having never been to one, “But, I’m sure Alador will have no problem handling the so-called competition.”  “Someone sounds confident.”, Darius noted, “You think he’s going to take the whole competition?”  “Please. I don’t need a crystal ball to know the brawl usually has nothing but ‘one hitters’.”, those who rely more on strength and tend to forget strategy. Throwing out attacks without discretion and being rather ‘over dramatic’ in their presentation.  “Well, I don’t know about all that.”, having seen a few brawls himself, though never entered, “I’m betting he’ll make it a few rounds before getting knocked out.”  “That’s a rather bold statement.”, Odalia seemed a bit surprised, “Don’t couples usually support each other's actions?”  “I’ve seen some of the competitors.”, Darius half-defended, “Plus Alador has been pretty off these past couple of days.”  “I told you I’m fine.”, Alador said, nudging his boyfriend, “And I’m going to enter and win.”  “That’s the spirit.”, Odalia clapped a couple of times, “Plus I bet my savings that Alador wipes the floor and takes the competition.”  “Oh, a bet for the school's number one greedy gremlin.”, Darius teased the oracle for her money mindedness.  “I’m just business minded.”, there was nothing wrong with that, “And being as such, I can pick out a far superior investment.”, and had the good sense to keep her eye and money on them, “I’d put 100 snails on Alador bringing home the belt for this brawl.”  “Oh, big spender.”, Darius commented, “Thought you didn’t care about the brawl.” “I don’t.”, not that much, “But, like I said, making an investment is knowing when to put your money on the best choice.”, and for her the choice was obvious.  "Then why not make a friendly little wager?", Darius offered to the oracle. "Why kind of wager?", Odalia inquired.  "Nothing involving snails.", even Darius knew Odalia could out spend almost everyone in the school if she wanted with the money she reportedly had. Mysterious as her parents were, many wondered what kind of wealth she had considering her nature and attitude, "I was thinking more of something a bit more personal."  "Go on."  "If Alador wins the brawl tomorrow and brings back the belt you have to fulfill a request of his choosing.", Darius summarized.  "How is that a benefit to me?", Odalia questioned why she would have to fulfill a request if she won the bet?  "Simple. Because if I lose, Alador can request something from me.", he added.  Odalia seemed to ponder the bet in question. Either way there was no lose to her. Alador was simple to please and wouldn't request anything too odd. With the bonus of seeing Darius punished into fulfilling a request that could be quite humiliating if used right.  "That does sound interesting.", she admitted, "Alright, Deamonne, I'll take you up on your offer."  "So do we have a deal?", he held out his hand for her to take.  "Of course, darling.", taking his hand two magical circles, purple and dark pink, appeared on their wrist. Coming together to signify that the bet had been set and the deal sealed in a magical promise. When they faded the two released.  "Well now that that's done, I got some errands to run.", there was never much of a dull day for her, "I look forward to seeing the match tomorrow. I hope your prepared to lose, Darius."  "We'll see Dalia.", Darius didn't seem worried, smiling in a knowing way that held both secrets and mischief.  Smiling in her own since, Odalia went to head for the exit, passing by Alador.  "Do your best Alador. I know you'll show everyone you genius.", not only in his inventions, but magic as well.  Alador gave a small smile and nodded.  Odalia returned it, before placing a quick kiss on his cheek.  "Good luck.", with that she headed out of the room.  Truely tomorrow would be an interesting day. "What happened?", to say Odalia was confused would be an understatement. However, finding her friends in their meeting room, with one laid out on the couch wasn't anything abnormal. If it wasn't for the fact said friend looked like he had just passed out. After going to his side, Odalia inspected Alador. The inventors face looked rather flushed and tired.  "He passed out while we were outside.", Darius explained how they had been out during break, discussing his win at the Brawl the other day. Next thing he knew the inventor had just fainted suddenly.  "You mean he just fainted?", no one just drops for nothing. Was he sick? Maybe a spell or curse?  "He just passed out.", Darius reaffirmed, "We were headed to get something eat.", something Alador had been missing for a bit, "He's been missing some of meals and I told him we go get something to celebrate."  “And you’ve just been letting him?”, Odalia frowned at Alador's state.  “I didn’t let him.”, Darius denied with a tone at the accusation, “I tried to get him to eat properly. Along with making sure he keeps himself clean after working with his abominations.”, cringing at the messes he had witnessed and had to help clean up, “I don’t know why, but he's been a mopey mess for the past few days.”, weeks if he was being more precise. He would come to school with a gloom and move throughout the day like he was on autopilot. Rarely speaking, even during classes, and just generally being a downer. Even his appearance, much to Darius’s distaste, kept getting more unkempt. He didn't even respond to Darius teasing.  “So, knowing this you let him enter a brawl?”, that had him literally fighting in back-to-back fights. Using energy and magic he didn’t have in his state.  “He seemed fine.”, at least appearance wise, “I thought he was feeling better.”, even entering the brawl and winning, “The next thing I know he collapsed.”, and without thinking he brought him to their secret meeting room to rest.  “Why didn’t you take him to the healing coven?”, that would have been the smart idea. “I don’t know, I panicked.”, he just thought to get his boyfriend to a comfortable space.  Alador made a groaning sound, his stomach churned and gurgle.  "Stomach bug?"  They listened more closely to the rumble from Alador's stomach. It was loud, but not a sound of painful sickness as one might think.  Odalia quickly went to her bag and pulled out a container.  "What is that?"  Opening the container was an array of food. Sandwiches, sliced fruit, and other treats arranged professionally. Obviously one of Odalia's prepared lunches.  "Is this really the time for a snack?", Darius questioned seeing the Oracle maneuvering on the couch.  "Just help me.", she instructed Darius to put Alador's head on her lap.  “Dal?”, tired yellow eyes looked up seeing the familiar eyes of blue and head of green looking down at him.  “You need to eat.”, she brought a piece of fruit on a stick closer for Alador to reach. It started off slow. He took small bites and chewed carefully. When the portion was gone Odalia would repeat the process. Making sure Alador chewed and swallowed everything he was given. Careful to cradle his head to keep it steady and prevent possible choking.  “That should keep him content for the time being.”, she placed the last skewer in the empty container.  The abomination inventor was now slumbering on her lap. Soft snoring escaping his lips and his hands over his full stomach.  “It’s a wonder he hasn’t popped with all he ate.”, but he was relieved. Happy to see his fellow Abomination colleague and playful rival actually eat. And now looked to be resting after having a good meal.  “Not really. We both know he’s always been a glutton.”, at times absentmindedly eating whatever was put in front of his face. Placing her hands over his head, they took on a light green glow and created a spell circle.  “Light Healing”, she whispered as a glow spread out and onto Alador, covering his body in a light green glow.  “Since when do you know healing magic?”, Darius asked curiously, seeing the Oracle perform a different magic than her track.  “Don’t think too much about it.”, she said, continuing to work on the one of her lap, “Short version, my father taught me.”, and she would leave it at that. It was a mild healing spell. Good for small afflictions and injuries.  After a few more minutes she released the spell. Seeing that Alador appeared healthy and more comfortable than he had been.  “A member from Healing Coven should be able to give him a thorough check up.”, she had done all she could and thought best to leave it to the more professional.  But, each time she tried to move him off her lap and onto the pillow, the abomination user seemed to fight and become upset. With mumbles under his breath before rubbing his head further into Odalia’s lap. Reminded her of a stubborn baby about to throw a tantrum.  “Looks like you've been designated as his pillow.”, Darius teased seeing Alador refuse, even in slumber, to be removed from his spot.  ‘For Titan’s sake.’  “Switch with me.”, she instructed Darius to take her spot.  “Nope.”, he refused, “No offense, but Alador drools.” “Seriously? You're worried about a little saliva?”, she knew the other was a bit of...well a lot of a neat freak and germaphobe. Getting anxious about the smallest bit of dirt or mess. Especially on his clothing, “You're an abomination user.”, which was basically goo before magic got into it.  “Doesn’t mean I want to get spit on my clean uniform.”, he had to draw the line somewhere.  “Titan you are such a drama queen.”, Odalia huffed, “Just put a pillow on your lap and get him off mine.” “Don’t know he looks pretty comfortable.”, he pointed out as Alador continued to snore away and snuggle into the oracle's lap.   “Well, he can’t just sleep on me.”, Odalia retorted.  “Just let him sleep there.”, Darius pointed out that it would be better, given his condition, to let Alador continue to sleep, “If you just move him, he’ll get moody again.”, and cause more of a fuss.   “...Fine.”, she relented, “But, you owe me.”, because she knew he was enjoying himself.  “Add it to my tab.”, which he knew she was keeping giving her pension for money, “Anyway it might be a while until the healer returns to their office.” “Why?”  “Oh, some kind of emergency involving a Grugby match.”, lots of injuries from the sport, “Some brooms got crossed and caused a big crash.”, which left a number of students injured from the collision and work for the healers.  “If you knew that, why didn’t you mention it before?”  “It slipped my mind.”, that was his excuse, but Odalia seemed suspicious.  ‘Whatever.’, she exhaled, not in the mood for an argument, “He doesn’t have any serious wounds so he should be fine.”, so there was no need for the healer. So, it was okay for him to rest.  Looking down she noticed the peaceful look on the inventor's face as he laid on her thighs. Head snuggling against her skin as soft mutters escaped his lips.  Odalia exhaled and Darius continued to hold his trumpet smirk.  So, for the time they allowed Alador to slumber. By the end of the day Darius, with Alador on his back, carried the inventor back home.  It had been a few days since the Brawl that left Alador the champion. The win at the tournament had boosted the inventor's popularity among the students and staff who witnessed the abomination witch and his inventions in action. Gaining him both fans and silencing many of the critics who had doubted him.  “Remember the bet you made?”, Darius brought up, “It’s time to collect.” Odalia huffed, being disturbed from her studies by the declaration of her friend calling for the bet to be paid, so to speak.  “Alright, I’ll bite.”, she closed her book and set it off to the side, “I am a witch of my word.”, no matter what others might think, “What prize does the champion request?”, she leaned in a bit to hear Aladors request. Different suggestions going in her head about what he might ask. “Well, I just want one thing.”, he pressed his fingers together, “It might sound odd.” “Oh, come now Alador it shouldn’t be too bad.”, Odalia assured, “You can ask me anything.”, assuring herself that the inventor would want something like her to bring him lunch or perhaps some new materials for his inventions or even... “Your body.” Her body.  Her body?  Her.... Blue eyes looked to Darius, sitting rather nonchalantly, with his legs folded and his arms spread on the back on the couch. The oracle expression froze in a mix of surprise and questioning.  “Don’t look at me.”, he had nothing to do with this.  “Could you repeat that Alador?”, she looked back to her friend, “I don’t think I heard correctly.”, though she was sure she heard something quite different, “Did you say you wanted my body?”  Alador nodded in confirmation.  “I-um...want to touch you-”, that was his request.  Odalia blinked a couple of times. Mauling her friend's words, his request, over and over in her mind.  ‘Alador wanted to touch her. Touch her body.’  “Are you sure about that Alador?”, maybe he had gotten hit harder than she thought. How else could she explain such a request? It wasn’t like he hadn’t touched her before. Even before he started dating Darius the two had shared some fairly intimate moments. They’ve held hands, he’s laid his head on her lap, leaned on her back, and she’s sat on his lap more than she could count since they’ve known each other.  And now he was requesting to touch her. She could feel his eyes on her, his fingers still pressing and twisting together. And a light blush under his usually neutral eyes.  “I am.”, was his reply.  She could just refuse. Convince him to choose something else. Something less...personal. But, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that it might not be a good idea. Plus, it might violate the bet.  She made a promise after all.  “...Fine.”, she sighed, “But I do have rules, understood?”  Alador gave a slow nod of his head.  “Good.”, she exhaled a bit, “Be gentle. And you're going to be on a time limit.”, she listed off, “If you understand those simple rules. You may do as you wish.”, giving him permission to touch her. Using her magic she summoned a clock, setting it for fifteen minutes. An appropriate time she believed for Alador to complete his request. Once the time was set she placed the clock on the table and started the device.  While he was staring at her, Odalia had moved closer to him. Maneuvering herself to sit on his lap, back facing him, and one leg on each side as the inventor sat back against the couch.  Alador blushed a bit more seeing his friend offering herself to him. Even if it was out of a bet, he was still given permission to touch her body. Becoming more eager after getting permission from his friend to go ahead with his action. Slowly he lifted his hand, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. As he reached toward the oracle, slowly, until his hand found purchase on the right side of her chest.  Odalia breathed slowly as the inventor's hands roamed over her chest. She had a suspicion it was where he wanted to touch after being banned for such a time. His hands were gentle, as she instructed, but strong. Squeezing and massaging her chest creating a slow and cautious rhythm. Something the oracle easily caught.  'He's being a bit slow.', his hands seemed tense, almost nervous. Even if it was a bit awkward, Odalia couldn't help feeling a tad bored. With a quick thought and mischievous grin, she used her hands to place over Aladors. The inventor stopping his touching, thinking Odalia wanted him to stop.  "You know, Alador, you don't have to be so withheld." "I-I-uh...was being gentle-", like she said.  "While I appreciate you following instructions, you don't have to be nervous.", it wasn't like the first time he had touched her, "You can have a bit more vigor.", with her hands over his own, she guided his movements. Showing him the proper techniques, so to speak, when touching her. And quickly he was able to pick up the movements down to the letter.  "A-Am I doing it right?", he sounded like a child seeking validation for his efforts. Odalia chuckled through her breathing, rather amused by his eagerness to please her, "Much better.", admittedly he had become more eager in his efforts, as he continued to message her chest. Her hand still over his yet giving less guidance than before.   Odalia looked at Darius seated on the opposite side of her. Watching as his boyfriend felt up the oracle. Seeing fingers massage and fondle the mounds of her chest so openly and without shame in front of him. He didn't look upset or even disappointed. Those green eyes watched with a kind of observation.  “-Why are you just looking?”, “Just curious.”, that was his answer as he watched the scene unfold. Admittedly, after he was told about the ‘habits’ of his boyfriend to grab her chest. He had become rather curious of how it actually worked between them. Yet, even if that was his claim, the oracle couldn't ignore the feeling of those eyes on her. Watching her getting felt up.  Odalia bit her lip, holding back a gasp as Alador continued his actions. His hands were becoming noticeably bolder. The movements became more intense as he squeezed, messaged her chest.  One hand had slipped off, making Odalia think the inventor had finished with his actions. Only to be surprised one second later when it slipped underneath her shirt and grabbed her bare boob.  “A-Alador!?”, she nearly squealed in surprise, feeling the hand touching her bare skin, “W-What are you doing?”, she questioned the sudden action. This wasn’t part of the agreement. He was only supposed to touch her over the clothes.  The sensation of his hand against bare skin made her gasp. It was much different, the heat from his palm as he gripped and messaged her sensitive breast. The more he continued the odder she felt. Not just from the shock and embarrassment. But, something in her belly was growing. Her breaths came out in staggered breaths and gasps at the fondling.  Alador was so close she could feel his hot breath hitting her neck. Fingers kneading the nub sending sparks up Odalia’s spine.  It was becoming too much. Her back leaned bent to create some space for her to catch her breath. Only for Alador to follow and fill the gap.  “D-Darius, do something about him.”, she looked to the other abomination user for assistance to get a hold of Alador. He was his boyfriend, he should be able to talk some sense back into him. Her eyes were practically pleading for intervention.  “I don’t know if I can.”, he replied.  “W-Wha?”, she blinked at his refusal.  “Also, you did make a promise.”, he reminded, “And you are a witch of your word. Remember?” “You traitor!”, Odalia accused the other of aiding and enabling Aladors sudden behavior. He probably helped set this up or at least knew what his boyfriend was going to do.  “No offense Dal, but you both need to get whatever the tension is between you two out.”, Darius said, “You two have been dancing around each other.”, it was obvious there was an energy in the group.  What was he talking about? Tension? There was no tension between them. Not that she saw. Maybe Alador had been down because she banned him from touching her chest, but it was for a good reason.  “I can’t really explain it. Just trust me when I say this might be good for everyone.”, and would hopefully have a good ending when it was done, “Don’t worry I’ll make sure he doesn’t get too out of line.”, promising to step in if his boyfriend got too much for the oracle to handle. Which apparently didn’t include what was happening now.  Odalia whined, feeling Alador continue his assault on her chest. Nibbling on her skin and peppering her neck with kisses. Even running his fingers over his nipples a few times.  ‘You are a witch of your word.’  ‘Stupid promise.’, she only made that bet because she was confident in Aladors abilities. She didn’t think it would lead to this kind of situation. Getting felt up by her friend. In front of his boyfriend. And now having her boobs exposed and toyed with.   “T-This was not part of the deal!”, she argued that Alador was completely misinterpreting what she said.  “Actually, Dal, you said that Alador may do what he wants in terms of touch you.”, Darius reminded, “You didn’t say what and how he could do it.”, only giving permission that he could touch her body anyway he wanted within the time limit she set.  Odalia paused for a moment and thought. Going over her own words in what little of her mind that wasn’t overheating. It was then she realized her error. She didn’t specify the terms. She assumed it was already known. That Alador only wanted to simply touch her like he usually did before.  Darius leaned in and brought the oracle in for a kiss. Their lips connected, sending a jolt between them that even Odalia couldn’t deny. At first, she was shocked by the sudden action. Feeling the swipe of his tongue against her lips, Odalia slowly opened her own. Allowing the tongue to slip inside.  For someone so against germs and messes, he had no problem letting his tongue explore his friend's mouth. Focusing mostly on running their tongue together in a swirl of saliva and hot breath.  Odalia was the one that broke the kiss. A gasp leaving her lips, feeling a pressure on her neck. Looking down she saw Alador had bit on her skin, leaving a noticeable bruise.  She could see a look in those yellow eyes. A mixture of emotions blended into a concoction that oozed from him.  Was Alador jealous that Darius had kissed her? Sure, anyone would be upset if their significant other kissed someone else in front of them. But, given the circumstances, it seemed odd that he would become upset. Especially while fondling her breast and practically rubbing against her.  Alador wrapped his arm around her middle, pulling her closer onto his lap. Out of Darius reach for the moment. His grip was tight, almost possessive as the oracle was held close. Even Darius seemed surprised for a moment, before exhaling.  “Sometimes you can be such a child.”, he commented on his boyfriend's actions to keep the oracle for himself. Alador only gave a huff and pout, before returning his attention to Odalia.  Alador pulled the oracle closer into her lip. His hands returned to touch her chest, messaging the tender mounds.  “A-Alador.”, she moaned as the inventor ground himself into her. Odalia squirms feeling the boiling of her stomach and the wetness growing between her. The movements going against Alador who only continues his momentum. Peeking through her eye lids she can see Darius still watching them. His piercing green eyes meeting glistening blue as Odalia squirmed and wormed hotly on the inventor's lap.  Odalia gasped feeling something poking her. A thickness moved between her legs. With all the contact Alador had become hard and pressed against Odalia.  The bulge showing from under his uniform and easily contrast against the white of her underwear. Her skirt having come up from the movement and bunched together.  "Looks like someone's gotten excited.", Darius noted seeing the growing wet spot on the oracles once pristine panties.  Odalia blushed.  "Did you have an accident Odalia?", Alador asked too innocently, seeing the wetness between the oracles legs, that Odalia soul nearly left her body.  'He cannot be this thick.'  "You seriously are hopeless.", Darius sighed at his partners naivety at even the common concept of anatomy, "She's just stimulated."  "Stimulated?"  "Basically, she likes it.", Darius implied.  "S-Stop talking.", Odalia said, embarrassment unhidden. "So, you don't like it?", Alador asked.  "I-I...I'm not answering that!", she shook her head, "Just hurry up and finish.", before she died of embarrassment.  "Right, you are on a time limit.", which by last check was less than five minutes.  "What should I do next?", he had continuously fondled her breast, under and over, but felt like he wanted to do more.  "What else did you want to do?", Darius questioned.  "I, I want to make Odalia feel good.", he admitted.  Odalia ears twitched at the inventor's answer. 'He wants to make me feel good?', her mind was a buzz with questions muddling in the heat of the moment. She could feel Alador between her legs and nestled against her leaking core. With a couple of movements of her hips she grazed herself over the bulge. Feeling her folds meld over.  Even with the friction it wasn't enough. She needed more.  Reaching down, maneuvering between her legs, she cupped Alador. The inventor nearly jumped at the sudden action. "O-Odalia?", the inventor gasped, surprised.  Without a word she started messaging the stiffening member. Finger gently stroking him through his pants.  Alador moaned at the sudden action, though he couldn't say he wasn't disliking it.  Odalia herself wasn't quite adept to the male anatomy on an intimate level. But, she could figure out the basics enough to understand using gently message and stroking. And Alador seemed to be responding well enough.  "Does this feel good?", she wasn't speaking to anyone in particular, more as if she was asking out loud. She didn't know if her technique was right, but he seemed to be responding well. Odalia did her best to follow the instructions being whispered in   "Generally, you're doing it right.", Darius came in closer, his hand reaching out to touch Odalia's, "Your movements are a bit basic though.", guiding her into the right technique. He helped her get a better grip on handling Aladors most sensitive tool. From the firm, but gentle form of her grip. How she moved her hand and messaged the inventor's hardness. Feeling hot breathing on the back of her neck. Her breast being squeezed without a rhythm. And the whispers in both of her ears. She was trapped.  After the simultaneous climax and the blare of the timer having long since died off, the three slumped into a heap with Darius leaning back against the couch. Alador on top and Odalia, of course, stuck in the middle. Trapped between the two boys she had called friends and companions and at times partners.  After taking some time to calm down and recover from their ‘activities, there was a new silence in the room.  Odalia had put herself in one of the corners. Blankets wrapped around her as she buried herself from their view. Even her open muttering and movements had become silent in the mound she created.  Darius and Alador were both seated on the couch. Alador was literally on the edge of his seat, eyes focused on the mound of blankets concealing the oracle. Darius was right beside him, moving between his boyfriend and their friend. After a look to his boyfriend a decision was made. Taking a chance, the inventor went over to the blanket mound and sat close to it.  "Odalia?", he called, reaching carefully to poke the make-shift pile, "Are you okay?", like before there was only silence. Either meaning she hadn't heard him or was ignoring him on purpose. He knew she was upset with him. Rightly, so. He had taken advantage of her, of their friendship, and a bet. And now, he may have ruined their friendship forever.  "I messed up.", he admitted, "I took it too far. I wasn't thinking...I just-", he didn't know how to put it into words, "I can't explain it. When I'm with you it...does something to me. You make me feel weird.", like there are millions of butterflies in his stomach that ae fighting to get free. Over time, even after he started dating Darius, the butterflies never died. Only grow and multiplied with each passing day, "And when you're not around it makes me feel odd." Looking up he was a bit surprised to see an opening in blankets. Blue eyes showing against the darkness.  “I’m not good at...saying things with my words.”, usually letting others speak for him or just not at all, “I know what I did was...odd.”, to say the least, “I just didn’t know how to feel when you stopped-when we stopped, being the way, we were.”, like they were drifting apart from each other.  "Because I wouldn't let you touch me.", Odalia surmised the reason for Aladors behavior.   “It wasn’t just you not letting me touch you.”, at least not at first, “It felt like you were drifting apart from us. From me.”, and spending more time off on her own. It didn’t seem to bother him at first. He figured as they got older, they would find hobbies outside the group. Maybe even other people to hang out with.  But, the more he thought about Odalia leaving, drifting off, and possibly leaving their friend group. Going down a different path. With different people.  It made him feel...not right.  Darius figured out quickly that Alador was bothered and why.  “You could have talked to me about it.”, she wasn’t so stubborn she wouldn’t listen to his concerns.  “I tried to, but...”, he couldn’t find the words, “I was afraid that if I said the wrong thing...”, it would end their friendship and he would lose her, “Sorry Dalia.”  “And this bet with the Brawl?”  “It...was mostly my idea.”, he admitted, “I thought if I entered and won you would be impressed.”, and pay attention to him like she used to when he did activities and showed his inventions, “I thought you thought I wasn’t...interesting.”, and the bet was added, and he got carried away with his request. Finding the feelings ignited after only a touch and seeing the expression on the oracles face.  “Alador Blight, you absolute knucklehead!”, she exclaimed, emerging from the covers, “Of course I’m interested in you. Anyone would be and should be! While a bit unpolished, you're a good inventor. A genius no matter what anyone else says.”, and they knew better not to knew what was good for them.  “It’s just...you haven’t seemed that interested in me...us.”, he explained, “Even when we’re at school you're somewhere else.”  “Well of course.”, she didn’t deny, “Contrary to what the masses might think, I'm not completely insensitive. I was trying to give you two space to be a couple.”, and letting them do stuff without a third wheel, “You two haven’t been dating long. Plus, if you haven’t noticed, you can’t really ‘be together’ with Principal Frost out and about.”, they get suspended or worse for just being close. It was one of the reasons the room was created. For privacy and allowing each of them to just be ‘normal’.  “It’s also the reason I didn’t come on your outings or made ‘other plans’. So, you know, you two could be together.”, just the two of them. Even if it was without her. She kept herself busy enough. Filling her time with work and projects between home and school.  "So, you still like me?"  "Have you listened to a word I said?", obviously not, "I do like you.", if she didn't, she would have beaten him senseless and buried him in the woods for what he did to her. Grabbing his face, she gently brought their foreheads together, "You are special to me. Don't ever doubt that." Alador blinked a few times but nodded in understanding. A small smile forming on his lips.  "Good.", in a quick motion she placed a kiss on Aladors lips. Even with the chaste, almost missed touch, it didn't stop the inventor from turning various shades of red.  "S-So you're not mad at me?"  "Well, I can't say I appreciate what you did.", she said, "It was sneaky, underhanded, and you used a bet to get what you wanted. I didn't know you had it in you.", she smiled rather proudly. “You do weird things to me.", things she still didn't understand, but didn't completely dislike, " So you better take responsibility Alador Blight!”  "Y-Yes!", he nodded in confirmation.  “You too Darius!”, he wasn’t getting off that easy.  “Alright, alright, no need to yell.”, he got the message loud and clear. If it made Alador happy and kept him out of a funk. He could try to make it work with Odalia in the mix. Even for a brat, she had her qualities about her. Like him she emphasized cleanliness and organization. Plus, she could hold a decent conversation and gossip. And most of all she seemed to love Alador and care for him, "It'll be nice to have someone else who can keep the Hack in line.", he teased.  "I'm not a child Darius.", Alador argued.  "That we can agree in.", Darius returned.  "Your both children.", Odalia commented earning rebuttal from both males towards her.  For a while the three bickered away. Teasing one another, before laughing and joking.  Though it wasn't perfect. Nor was it anything anyone might call normal.  For them it was abnormal.  And they were fine with that.   

Mature

Amity Blight was nervous. Her parents had moved her to a new town, again. Her father, Alador, was a mechanical engineer, and had work all over the country. They had spent the last year and a half living in the suburbs of New York, during which Amity hadn’t made a single friend. She was shy, awkward, and anxious. She was ready for a fresh start in Gravesfield, Connecticut. “So, what do you think?” Alador said, gesturing to their new, gothic house. The house had several towers, dark wood balconies, and stained glass windows the color of blood. “It looks exactly like you’d imagine a house in a place called Gravesfield would look like.” Amity said indifferently. Alador hummed a small sound of agreement before pulling out his phone. “But this house is special, dear.” Odalia put her hand on Amity’s shoulder. “It’s about time we find a house for a permanent residence. With the twins off in college, we didn’t need that big house anymore. And I know you had… social troubles in your last school. But I have faith that you’ll finally find some friends in this new town.” Odalia smiled, looking down at her daughter. “Plus, there’s a brilliant robotics lab only a thirty minute drive from here. Your father will be able to provide for us handsomely. Isn’t that right dear?” Alador was preoccupied typing rapidly on his phone. “Alador!” Odalia called sternly, getting his attention. Alador looked up briefly from his phone. “What? Oh, yes. Of course my love.” “Now Amity,” Odalia began. “The movers have finished setting everything up. I have a business meeting starting shortly, and your father will be heading off to work soon. I trust that you’ll spend the remainder of the day organizing your new room and getting everything ready for your first day of school tomorrow.” Amity nodded. “Of course, mother.” As Amity walked through the opening rooms of the house, she really began to appreciate the sort of grim, dark vibe the architects and interior designers were going for. The cabinets were a dark black wood with red, diamond patterned glass fronts. Their ebony dining room table had golden claws at the feet, matching the small silver ones on all of the red-seated chairs surrounding it. Amity made her way to the highest level of the house, where her room was going to be. Her bed, desk, bookshelf were in place, but the majority of her things were still boxed away. She sighed and began unpacking her books. Well into the third box of books, Amity stopped. “Good Witch Azura…” Amity mused, looking at the book in her hand. She laughed a bit. “I haven’t read these since I was a kid.” She looked around the room. The only things she’d unpacked were the first three shelves of her bookcase, but that was enough to deserve a small break, right? Isn’t not like her parents would come check her progress anytime soon. Amity plopped down onto her bed, and began to read. The books were just as good as she remembered. Azura’s noble quest, her magical training, her companions, and her greatest rival, Hecate. They were all the same as they were when she was a kid. Amity read well into the night, and by the time she finished the third book it was well after midnight. Amity looked up at her alarm clock and gasped. “Oh no. I need to get to bed.” Even though she’d barely unpacked any of her things, she knew she couldn’t stay up any later. She turned off the light on her nightstand and shelves the third book. She put the fourth book in her backpack before getting under the covers. After a few minutes, she drifted off to sleep.   ——————————— Amity awoke to the sound of her alarm at 7:45, an hour and a half before her first class was to start at her new school. Amity walked to the bathroom, brushing out the knots in her green hair that came from sleeping. She touched her black nail polish, and made her way over to her new closet. She swung open the door, and it was empty. “Oh, right.” Amity said to herself. She never got around to actually putting her clothes away. She found the box labeled “Amity’s Room - Clothes”, the label having been perfectly printed by her father’s own design. Unlike many girls her age, Amity didn’t own many clothes. She mostly had several sets of the same outfits, with a few extra articles here and there. She decided on her black three-quarter sleeved blouse, pair with wine-red leggings and a small moon necklace given to her by her older siblings. She looked in the mirror one last time. She shrugged at herself. She looked like she always did; just okay. The time was 8:35, forty minutes before her first class. “Amity, dear,” her mother called from downstairs. “Come down and have some breakfast. We’re going to be leaving in a few minutes.” It was one of Odalia’s policies to always be early. Like she always said, “Being early is being on time, being on time is being late, and being late is unforgivable.” The first few times Amity heard her mother say this, it confused her. By the transitive property, wouldn’t that make being early unforgivable? But after several times of not living up to her policy, Amity understood what she meant. Amity made her way downstairs her backpack on one shoulder. “So, Amity dear. Did you finish unpacking your room?” Amity began to feel nervous. Her mom would surly yell at her if she found out that Amity had barely done any work. And Amity hated it when anyone yelled. “Well, it’s almost finished!” Amity lied cheerily, hoping her mother would believe her. Luckily, Odalia seemed to only be paying half attention to Amity. She was busy making herself some coffee. “Very good, dear. Have it finished by tonight.” She replied, without looking up from her cup. Alador walked upstairs from the basement. “Good morning, father.” Amity said politely. “Is it morning?” Alador said, looking at his watch. “Oh goodness Alador, have you been working all night?” Odalia walked over to him, cupping his face in her hands. “You need to get ready for the day. Your management position at the new facility starts today. You better go get ready.” “Hm.” Alador grunted. He walked up to the second floor, where Amity’s parents’ room was. Amity had just finished eating her cereal when her mother looked at the clock on the wall. “It’s 8:45 Amity, time for us to leave! We don’t want to be late for your first day, now do we?” Amity nodded, making her way toward the door. Odalia drove Amity the short distance to the school in silence. She pulled right in front of the main entrance, letting amity out of the family minivan. Odalia rolled down the window as Amity made her way up the stairs. “Have a nice day, dear!” Amity nodded, slightly embarrassed as she saw several girls walking past, laughing as her mom pulled away. They were probably laughing at her, Amity thought. Have her mom drive her to school was embarrassing, even though she was only 15 and couldn’t even get her learner’s permit yet. Amity briskly walked through the front doors, and went straight to the library in the main hall. She sat down and got out Good Witch Azura book four, trying to read it as discreetly as possible. It was widely considered a children’s series, but after starting on the nostalgia train last night, she couldn’t stay away. Amity looked around the small room. The only other people there were a small group of friends. One of them in a purple and white hoodie-shirt was making some weird face and doing a silly voice. Amity couldn’t quite make out what she was saying, but the girl’s friends laughed at it. Suddenly, the girl in the purple shirt looked over to where Amity was sitting. They made eye contact for a brief seconds before Amity looked away and hid her face behind her book. Please don’t be walking over here. Amity pleaded in her head. She really didn’t want to say something to make herself an outcast this early in her first day at school.   “I like your green hair!” The voice was coming from right in front of Amity. The only reason her hair was green was because of her mother. Amity’s mother and older siblings had natural green hair, and her mother always insisted that they match. Amity had never really liked it, but she didn’t dare argue with her mother. But she wasn’t about to say all that. “Oh, uh thanks.” She replied, lowering her book slightly. The girl’s face was only a few inches from Amity’s. Then, the girl’s eyes drifted down to the book Amity had been using as a shield. “Oh my gosh!” The girl cried. “Is that Good Witch Azura Four! I love that series!” Amity slowly moved the book into her lap. “You do? I thought I was the only one…” Amity smiled shyly. The girl sat down next to Amity on the bench. “Yeah! I love that series, it’s my favorite. Magic, adventure, epic quests, friendship, enemies to lovers, what more could you ask for in a book!” Enemies to lovers? Amity thought. There hasn’t been anything like that in the books she’d read… Amity laughed slightly anyway. “Yeah, these books are pretty great. Unfortunately, I only own the first four. I never got the fifth one” “Oh, well you can borrow my copy!” The girl pulled the fifth Azura book out from her shoulder bag. “Do you just carry this with you all the time or?” “Oh yeah, I always have it with me. It’s my favorite one of the series, I’ve read it like a bajillion times. I keep it in here so I can read it again whenever I want!” “Well, I hope I really enjoy it too.” Amity said, smiling. “And, I’ll make sure to give it back to you as soon as possible. “Great! I’m Luz by the way, Luz Noceda.” Luz stretched out her hand. Amity smiled and took it, giving it a small shake. “It’s nice to meet you, Luz. My name is Amity.” “Cool! Do you wanna come meet my friends!” Before Amity could respond, the school bell rang out over the library. “Oh, well.” Said Luz. “I’ll find you at lunch, okay?” Amity nodded, smiling. Had she actually made a friend on the first day? She certainly hoped so. Amity made her way to her first class, Biology. Amity was mildly excited; Science was one of her better subjects, although math and programming were always her favorite. Amity arrived at class before the tardy bell, and made her way to the front of the class. While she never got along well with other students, she was always beloved by teachers. She was putting her stuff down when she heard a voice right beside her say her name. “Amity!” She turned to her right. Luz was crouched down right at her eye level. “Hi!” She said, slightly whispering. “It’s me, Luz! Looks like we have the same first class! Mind if I sit here?” Luz guesteded to the seat beside Amity. Amity nodded, choosing not to say anything. “Cool!” Luz said, taking the seat. “Listen up class!” An older looking woman stepped to the front of the room. “Welcome to the first day of the new semester! My name is Mrs. Jenkenmire, the Biology and Physiology teacher at Gravesfield High School. Most of you are sophomores, correct? Raise your hand if you’re not a sophomore.” Amity looked around the room. No one raised their hand. “Alright, looks like we have a solid sophomore class. As sophomores, you will be taking the CAPT this year. This test will assess your knowledge of science, mathematics, reading, and writing. As your teacher, it is my job to make you as adequately prepared as possible for the science portion of the test. As such, we will be studying a wide variety of topics. Our first two units will be Biology, but later on in the semester we will be studying other scientific disciplines. Now, has everyone picked up a syllabus from the front of the room?” Amity didn’t. But she didn’t want to speak up… it seemed like everyone else had gotten one. Suddenly Luz raised her hand. “I didn’t get one, Mrs. Jenkenmire.” The teacher nodded, and handed one to her. “Now that that’s settled, we’re going to start our first lesson.” “Here.” Luz whispered, sliding the packet of paper over to Amity. “I noticed you didn’t get one.” It was then Amity say that Luz already had a syllabus, sitting on her desk. “Oh… thank you, Luz.” Amity smiled slightly. Luz beamed back at her. —————— After class was over, Amity walked out into the hall, trying to figure out where the computer lab was for her programming class. Luz walked up behind her. “What are you looking for?” “Oh, just the computer lab.” Amity replied. “Well, it’s just down the hall and to the left, it’s got a small sign on the door that says ‘computer lab’, you can’t miss it!” “Cool, thanks.” Amity paused. “Are you headed that way too?” “Nah.” Luz waved dismissively with her hand. “I’m not great with computers. I’ve got to my Creative Writing class! But I’ll catch you after class, when lunch starts! Just wait for me out side the computer lab, and then I can introduce you to all my friends!” Luz walked off in the opposite direction. “Byyyeeee frieeenddd!” Amity smiled to herself. “Friend…” Suddenly a girl with pink her bumped into her. “Ew,” she said. “I can’t believe the new girl became friends with the weirdo. And I thought she had a chance at a social life.” She laughed and walked away, meeting up with her group of mean girl friends. Amity growled to herself. Some people were just mean. Amity’s programming classes was fairly uneventful. They played an introduction game and a “Get to Know the Teacher” Kahoot. Amity sat by herself, and didn’t talk to anyone. She was really looking forward to lunch, but dreading it at the same time. What if Luz’s friends weren’t as nice and her? What if they made fun of Amity? But at the same time, if they were all as nice as Luz, then she would soon have an amazing group of friends. Amity smiled to herself. Finally, friends. After a while, the bell rang to signal lunch. Amity stepped outside the computer lab and was immediately startled by Luz and her friends standing directly in front of her. “Hi Amity!” “Oh. Hello, Luz, and co.” “Well Amity, since we’re friends now I thought I would introduce you to my other friends!” Amity smiled. I guess she just decided we were friends? Amity wasn’t really sure how it worked, but she was under the impression that there was supposed to be some declaration of friendship in order to be official. Maybe all those teen movies and books had been a bit off from reality. Luz pointed to a boy with hair so blonde it was nearly white. He had dark circles under his eyes and a scar on his cheek. “That’s hunter.” “‘Sup.” Hunter said, waving his hand slightly. Luz continued, pointing to a shorter boy with blac, curly hair. “His name is Agustus, but we call him Gus.” “Hello!” Gus said in a high pitched voice. Luz cupped her mouth with her hand in a sort of mock secret whispering position. “He’s really smart, so he moved up a few grades. He’s younger than the rest of us.” Amity nodded. “And finally, this is my girl Willow!” Luz put her arm around a girl with pretty, curly dark hair and round cheeks. She was wearing shiny rimmed glasses and had a flower clip in her hair. “Hi!” Willow sounded extremely cheery. “So, that’s everyone!” Luz said, gesturing to the whole group. Amity bowed slightly. Why did I do that? She immediately thought. “Nice to meet you all. I’m Amity, and I just moved here from New York.” “Wow, New York!” Gus exclaimed. “Did you live in the big city? Did you ever witness any stabbings? Give me details!” “Uhm, no and no.” Amity replied awkwardly. “I lived in the suburbs and I never saw any violence.” Gus looked slightly disappointed. “Aaaanyyywayy,” Luz said, trying to change the subject quickly. “Let’s head to the cafeteria!” She struck a pose, pointing straight down the hall. Amity found this slightly strange, but no one else seemed to notice it. As everyone started walking down the hall, Amity found herself in the back of the group. She wasn’t really sure how to mingle with all these new people… what if she said something wrong? What if she did something to make them not like her? What if they already didn’t like her? Just as Amity’s anxiety was about to reach full force, she heard a voice by her side. “Hey, Amity,” Luz said. Amity looked up, glancing at her new friend. “What do you think about our school so far?” Amity smiled. “It’s pretty great. Way better than my old school.” “Well what’s better about it?” Luz said, intrigued. “The people. I’ve met plenty of nice kids already.” Most of the kids at her old school were really mean and cliquey. Although there were some people like that at this school. Amity thought of the pink haired girl she’d passed by earlier. “Aww thanks! My friends and I are pretty great, huh?” Luz smiled widely. Amity gave a small smile back. She couldn’t be too sure, not just yet. “Aaand, we’re here!” Luz exclaimed, standing in front of the door to what Amity assumed was the cafeteria. Peeking around Luz, amity saw a room about three times the size of the library, filled with a few dozen tables and a small lunch line/kitchen section. She guessed there were about four hundred students there currently. “What do you think?” Luz said, looking at Amity expectantly. “It’s… quaint.” Amity replied. It was a fraction of the size of the one at her old school. She looked around and saw no salad bar, no dessert line, or any other food supply besides the main lunch line and a small vending machine. Good thing Amity’s mom had packed her lunch. Oh no. Amity’s mom had packed her lunch. That was so lame wasn’t it!? They’re gonna think I’m such a dork! Amity’s anxiety started to set in again. “Come on!” Luz said, waving for Amity to follow her and the rest of the group to a small table in the corner. “Come sit with us! Oh, and today's menu is chicken and broccoli lasagna” Luz then cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered conspiratorially. “I wouldn’t recommend getting it. And if you didn’t bring anything, you can have some of my lunch. My mom always packs me way too much extra food.” Amity smiled, relieved. “It’s okay,” she said confidently, sitting down at the table. “My mom packed me lunch too.” Amity sat silently, eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich while Luz and her friends chatted away. Amity was spacing out, not paying attention to anything, when Luz called her name. “Amity? Amity!” Luz yelled, climbing onto the table and waving a hand in front of her face. Amity snapped back to reality. “Oh, sorry. Is everything okay?” She looked around, searching for a problem. “I don’t know, you tell me?” Luz replied, concerned. “You’re not saying much.” Amity wasn’t saying much for good reason. She always had the issue of being rude when she didn’t mean to. Often, she would say or do something that she thought was normal, but everyone else thought was rude. She didn’t want her potential new friends to hate her already. “Leave her be.” Hunter said, flipping the hair out of his face. “You know it took me forever to actually start talking to you guys, too.” Gus and Willow laughed at that. “Well, I guess you’re right.” Luz said, smiling apologetically at Amity. “I don’t want to pressure you. That would be mean, and maybe then you wouldn’t like me!” Luz was half joking. Wow. Thought Amity. I guess everyone has insecurities. Even the girl who seems like the friendliest, most outgoing person ever. “Anyway,” Willow began, trying to break the awkward tension. “What classes does everyone have this semester.” Everyone at the table began pulling out their schedules. Amity felt slightly embarrassed to have already memorized hers, but she read it aloud anyway. “I have Biology, Computer Science, World History II, and Pre-Calculus.” Amity tried her best to sound confident. “Wow!” Luz exclaimed, crawling across the table towards Amity. “Pre-Calculus? I’m still stuck in Algebra Functions. I’m probably not even going to take Pre-Calc, like ever. You must be a total super genius!” Amity’s cheeks pinked. “I don’t think I’m very smart. I’m just really good at math.” “Still, I’m terrible at math. Could you tutor me sometime?” Luz looked excited. “Oh, yeah. Sure.” Amity said, smiling. “Yes!” Luz said, pumping her fist. “So… what classes do other people have?” Amity asked. “Well,” Gus began, clearing his throat. “I have World History, AP Journalism, Art III, and Algebra II.” “Man,” Luz said, her hand to her forehead. “All my friends are so smart! My classes are Biology, Creative Writing II, English 10, and Algebra Functions.” “Sounds like you all have fun schedules.” Hunter said, leaning back in his chair. “I’ve been stuck with the most boring classes ever.” He began numbering his schedule on his fingers; “Geology, Algebra I, English 10, and American History. I actually do like history, but come on. We’ve learned everything there is to know about America, like, almost every year since preschool.” Luz, Willow, and Gus nodded their heads in agreement. “What about you, Willow?” Hunter said, nodding his head in her direction. “Well, I have at least one class to look forward to. I’m taking a gardening class! And I am so excited!” Willow's face was in a huge smile. “Besides that, I have Geometry, English, and French.” “Wooahh, you’re taking French!? That is so cool!” Luz burst out. Willow blushed slightly. “Yeah, French is pretty cool!” “So wait…” Gus said, putting his hands together. “Do any of us have classes together?” “I have Biology with Amity!” Luz said happily. “That’s great!” Willow replied, smiling. Yeah, Amity though. It is pretty great. She finally had some friends. Or one, at least. But she really hoped the others would be her friends too. “Hey, plant girl!” Yelled an obnoxious voice from across the cafeteria. “Catch!” Before anyone could react, a hot, cheesy piece of broccoli flew across the room into Willow’s hair. Amity put her hand over her mouth, surprised, and anticipating Willow to throw her lunch back. Instead, Willow put her head down silently and started picked the disgusting food from her hair. “HEY!” Luz yelled, standing on top of the lunch table, pointing at the girl with pink hair that Amity had seen earlier that day. “Leave my friend alone! Stop being such a jerk, Boscha!” I guess her name is Boscha… Amity thought. “Yeah, right!” Boscha yelled from across the cafeteria. “I do whatever I want, loser!” Luz’s face was full of anger. She jumped down off the table and began walking towards Boscha. Amity had to act quick. If Luz did something, she might get in trouble! Amity swiftly got up from her chair and walked over to Luz, grabbing her wrist. “Luz,” Amity whispered. “Don’t do anything stupid. She’s not worth it.” Luz looked at Amity, the anger slowly fading from her face. She sighed. “You’re right. It’s just, she picks on me and friends every single day. She has for years. I just wish someone would do something about it…” Amity thought for a moment. Maybe she could do something about it? ———————— That day after school, Amity watched as the Principal had a stern talking to Boscha inside his office. Amity couldn’t hear what he was saying, but she could tell Boscha was close to tears. After what happened in the cafeteria, Amity had gone to the principal’s office and told him of the incident. She knew that the school had a zero-tolerance bullying policy, so she was sure that after she showed the Principal the security footage, he would do something about it. She was so glad that he did. “Hey!” Luz said, from right outside the office door. “Did you get in trouble?” She whispered. Amity shook her head. “Oh. Then why are you in here?” She asked, confused. “I got Boscha in trouble.” Amity whispered back, giggling. Luz gasped and smiled, opening the door and coming inside. “That’s great! Hopefully she won’t bother us anymore.” At that moment, Principal Bump came out of his office, followed by Boscha. “She won’t be bothering you any more!” He declared. Boscha looked very upset, tears coming from her eyes. But as she walked past Amity and Luz in the doorway, she whispered to them; “You are so dead!” “Wow.” Luz said, her eyes following Boscha as she walked out the front of the school. “She’s really mad!” Luz started laughing. Amity let out a short, nervous chuckle. Had she messed up? “Come on!” Luz said, holding her hand out to Amity. Amity smiled and took it as she stood up, letting go when she was fully standing. They walked out the building in a calm silence. “Oh, my ride’s here!” Luz exclaimed. She ran up to an older looking woman on a motorcycle. “Hi mom!” “Hey there, kiddo.” The older woman laughed, snorting a bit. “Who’s that?” She asked, pointing to Amity. Amity was slightly embarrassed. “Oh, that’s my new friend, Amity!” “Hi Amity,” the woman called out. “My name is Eda, I’m one of Luz’s parents!” Amity waved. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” “Ma’am?” Eda said, laughing. “Your new friend sure is polite!” She said, before hitting the gas and riding off. “She seems nice.” Amity jumped at the sound of her own mother’s voice coming from right behind her. “Well, Mittens,” she continued. “I’m so glad you’ve made a new friend. Perhaps we’ll have her over for tea sometime.” Amity nodded, nervous. “Perhaps.” “Come along now, dear.” Odalia said, putting her arm around Amity and leading her back to her car. “You have a lot of work to do back home.” Amity’s face paled. Had her mother looked in her room? Did she know that Amity had lied about being nearly done? What was her mother going to do to her? Amity’s anxiety was building up again, fast. “Amity,” Odalia began after they were in the car. “I know that you didn’t finish your room. You barely got anything done.” Amity squeezed her eyes shut, beginning to panic. “However, I’m not mad at you.” Amity opened her eyes in surprise. “You’re not?” She managed. She had been fully expecting her mother to blow up on her. “No, Mittens, I am not. I understand what happened.” “You do?” Amity doubted that. “Of course. You got distracted by your phone, didn’t you? Watching TubeTube and whatnot. You’re almost as bad as your father. So, as punishment, your phone will be confiscated until your room is up to my inspection.” That wasn’t really what happened, but at least her mother wasn’t mad. Amity felt that explaining what really happened might make it worse, so she just went along with it. “Thank you, mother.” Amity said as she handed her phone to Odalia. “I’ll work on finishing it tonight.” “Very good, dear.” Odalia smiled at Amity. Amity gave a small smile back. They sat through the rest of the short car ride in silence. When they reached the house, Amity noticed that her father’s car wasn’t there. “Is dad still at work?” Amity asked. “Yes,” Odalia replied sharply. “He’s been very busy lately. He told me he probably won’t be home for dinner, so I’m not planning on making anything. There’s food in the freezer and fridge for you. I’m going back to the office.” Amity stepped out of the car as her mother pulled away. This was pretty typical. With her older siblings gone from home, she spent a lot of time by herself in the house. She unlocked the door and turned on the light in the kitchen. Amity decided to make herself some boxed Kreft Mac-and-Cheese in a pot; it was one of her typical favorites. After finishing it, she decided she should probably work on her room. She unpacked box after box, her books, her computer, notebooks, clothes, her snow globe collection and other trinkets, and everything else. By the time she was finished, it was after eleven o’clock, and no one was home. “Oh, well.” Amity said, before flopping on to her bed. This time, she actually earned some reading time.

General Audiences

Camila was looking at the sleeping witch, their breathing was slow but didn't seem obstructed nor too slow for someone who appeared to be sleeping; Luz and her group had come with them unconscious, and while Camila wasn't a doctor, having Luz as her kid had made her get a certification in first aid that she still kept up to date. Witches weren't exactly like humans, but they seemed close enough. To be honest, she couldn't call this the most surprising thing that had happened that night. Camila still couldn't believe it, after all this time… Marilyn was here. She wasn't even sure how to feel about it. It was getting late, the kids were downstairs eating (or so she hoped, none of them had seemed especially hungry). Camila, at first, had been dead-set to talk with Luz and see how she was doing, but she had begged her to check on the unconscious witch that her ex was carrying on her back. Camila had needed all of her strength to not react to seeing Marilyn again while trying to do damage control about the situation.  After realizing Vee was, well, Vee, she has been adapting to the idea of magic being a thing. Camila never pressed her adoptive daughter to talk about the Demon Realm ever since that time when she told her about her life there, she preferred not to pressure since it was obviously full of painful memories; yet Vee from time to time would make comments about magic and the little differences she could spot.  The only thing Camila was grateful for was that it seemed Luz’s situation wasn't nearly as horrible as Vee’s had been. It didn't mean she knew a lot, especially since she spaced out so much during Luz's story about living in the Boiling Isles. It hasn't been out of malice, it just had been a tiring week and she was sure Luz would understand if she didn't spend her full attention on the new story she was writing about. She really wished she had believed her at the beginning, so she could have realized she needed to pay attention this time around. Whatever happened now, it didn't seem pretty. Luz had some scratches but assured Camila it wasn't worse than a regular day in the woods (aka the type of injuries she would develop when she snuck out to play in the forest and somehow found trouble), her friends were in a similar state, and Camila would have focused on them if the adults didn't look a lot worse. Marilyn looked like she walked through hell and back, clothes in rags, her hair a mess (and very gray- wasn't she around the same age as her? Or was it a Witch thing to gray early? Or- It wasn't important right now), had lost an entire arm (and she wasn't bleeding somehow, Camila didn't know if that was normal or not), but whoever was on her back seemed to have taken a worse toll, since they were unconscious.  Camila had gotten the kids to eat while she had instructed Marilyn to bring this person to her room; her bathroom was the one with all the medicine and equipment she has been collecting over the years (since she kept things there while Luz was a little kid and never moved to the main bathroom), and her bed should be enough for them.  There wasn't much she could tell; the breathing was fine, she didn't seem to find any external injuries, and when asked what happened, Marilyn's response was "draining spell" which, yeah, not something they teach in a one-day course designed for humans.  Shaking her head, she got back on her feet. "There is not much else I could do, it all seems okay aside from some obvious tiredness, but I don't know what else I could do." Marilyn's eyes were glued to this person. Whoever they were, they seemed to matter a lot to her. It somehow brought the reminder of many times, when she was just a girl in love with a woman who despite being her girlfriend, always seemed so far away. She was starting to understand why. "Of course, there is not much you can do." Her words seemed to aim for a joke, yet her tone was so hollow Camila couldn't even imagine what was going to be the punchline. "This...bile sacks aren't meant to be emptied this way, the only way to recover is giving magic back, but there is no way to do that." "So what is going to happen to them?" Camila asked, unsure. Marilyn seemed pensive, before just shaking her head. "I don't know, the only time stuff like this happens is if basilisks are around, and they weren't until very recently, and the last one was murdered before we could see the long-term effects or the consequences." Murdered- "No one is going to attack Vee, right!?" She asked, suddenly very on guard. Walking toward the other woman, she said, "If anyone tries something-" "Wow, wow!" Marilyn puts her hands up as a sign of peace. "Easy there, no one here would attempt something against her, she is going to be okay; I didn't know you feel so protective towards the basilisk." It was easy to slip into anger, with all the stress and confusion she was feeling, it was almost preferable. Crossing her arms, she said, "That's my daughter you are talking about, and her name is Vee, you better not refer to her as anything else unless you want to be kicked out." "Wow, I remember you being a lot nicer." "Well, I remember you being very secretive, which you better have changed in the last few years or you will be sleeping on the streets, or whatever place you went and never told me despite us dating for seven months!" "Jeez, you haven't let that go?" "I do not- Hold on." She put her finger up, before going out of the room and checking the floor; it seemed that the kids were still in the kitchen, she could hear them talking, but it wasn't loud enough for her to truly listen to what they were saying, which meant as long as the door was closed and she didn't scream, they wouldn't be able to hear her either. Good. She went back to her room, and slapped Marilyn on the face. "Ouch!" "What the fuck is going on?!" She demanded in a low murmur, just to be extra safe; she never swore around Luz since she wanted to be a good role model, but her patience had run out and as long her kids didn't hear, she thought this time it was justified. "The last time I saw you, you told me I was better off not knowing jack-shit about you, and now, almost 20 years later, you are on my doorstep with my missing daughter, a bunch of kids, and an unconscious witch with a condition I cannot even properly understand!" "I...I was hoping you had forgotten about me, you seemed pretty nonchalant when you saw me." It had taken all of her strength not to react to Marilyn when she saw her, but her baby was here, and hurt, so she focused on that and tried to not look much to the older woman until she didn't have any other choice. It shouldn't hurt, their initial friendship has been unconventional, meeting as teens with Marilyn disappearing and appearing at odd times. Dating had been the longest Marilyn stuck around, and their breakup has been one of the most painful heartbreaks Camila ever had; she actually tried to forget about her, yet hearing those words just made an old ache reappear. "After everything that happened, you think I would forget about you, Marilyn?" She pressed her lips in a thin line, before sighing and saying, "Eda, my actual name is Eda" Camila wanted to laugh, because of course, another lie- She would have made a sarcastic remark until she realized she heard that name a lot while Luz was telling her tale a few months ago.  Taking M- Eda by the neck of her dress, she demanded, "The witch who took my daughter!?" "Hey! She was with me by choice!" "Oh, so you didn't ask her to risk her life for a paper crown," she sneered, thankful that she could at least recall that much from the beginning. That seemed to freeze her for a second, before replying, "Okay, not my greatest moment, but to clarify, she was never in real danger. As chaotic as I am, I wouldn't endanger a kid like that." "So whatever my daughter and her friends lived today wasn't life-threatening." The pain was back on her face "I wish I could have done more to protect them, Camila, I never wanted Luz to deal with this, I thought where she went was safe but I guess trouble found her regardless." That struck a chord, because as angry as she felt, it would be a lie to say Camila hasn't felt the same countless times. Sighing, she let her grip go and took a step back. "I guess I can understand that." There was a pause, with neither of them unsure of what to do next.  "Okay, so what do you want to do now?" Eda said, appearing calm despite the guilt she just saw in her. Even if it has been over a decade, Camila could still see right through her; it was the same face she did when she was in pain but tried to hide it. Camila tried not to focus on that. "I would like to hear from Luz what's going on, but frankly, I am afraid she would try to skim over the details; so I want you to do what I had been asking from you ever since I met you: The Truth" Her face was very solemn, and for once, it seemed that Marilyn-actually-Eda, was going to talk. Eda signalled Camila to sit (she chose the bed, Eda chose the floor despite the chair from her desk being available) and started talking. Her real name was Edalyn Clawthorne, but no one except people who knew her when she was a kid called her Edalyn. She has been once an impressive witch who was cursed, which had been the reason why she went to the human world, and she had only known that realm for a few days before meeting Camila. She still remembers that day like it was yesterday; a boring summer where everyone seemed to have left except her family, since every ER Doctor was very much needed in this small town that didn't seem to have enough staff in the hospital, and Camila has been just wandering around after lying to her mom about doing volunteer work at their church (Let's say Luz's hunger for adventure wasn't something she got from her father) were out there in the woods, Eda was sleeping. They talked, and the girl awkwardly presented herself (Come to think, when Camila asked to clarify if her name was Marilyn, since her fast rambling had been incomprehensible, her affirmation seemed more like she got an idea than anything else) and said she was a runaway because her the birth defect of having pointing ears. It all seemed ridiculous even at that time, but nothing else would have made much sense. Certainly not that she was a cursed witch from another dimension. Camila had kept her secret, because having a runaway friend felt cool somehow (Camila would never say her teenage self was the most responsible) while encouraging her to go back; they saw each other for weeks until it looked like she suddenly vanished, and while sad for not having a goodbye, Camila thought it was for the best. Until she saw her pop up again. It could be months or years, but she would find Marilyn somewhere; from trying to scam the guys at the auto shop who took a break to play poker (Come to think of it, did Eda use magic, or was she just that good with cards? Or did she actually cheat in the traditional way?), to trying to get a donut by paying with a squirrel.  They are going to think you are crazy, Marilyn! That's the whole point! People who think I am crazy are more prone to do whatever I want so I would leave, and will not ask questions! It’s the perfect plan, Cammie-buns! Gosh, how could Camila recall such a mundane conversation so quickly? Maybe because every time Marilyn called her that, she felt her cheeks redden and her heartbeat race.  Yes, as much as she hated to admit it, Eda had been the reason she realized she was bisexual; there were other factors, but she had been the confirmation, because she would fantasize way too many nights about those fangs and red hair. Not that she ever thought she had a chance. Is not that at-the-time-Marilyn didn't make clear she liked everyone (which seemed always surprised when other people reacted weird about it- Camila always wanted to know where she came from that seemed so calm about gay people, but like too many things, she never got the real answer), just that she always knew her heart belonged to someone else. She also knew that when they started dating.  The night of their first kiss was during a storm, funnily enough not so different from the rain right now; Marilyn had come to her doorstep, and before Camila could ask if she was okay, she kissed her. "Please, if only just tonight, let me forget about the pain"  It was obvious that she wasn't okay, and Camila would have refused and asked her to be honest this time, but this had been the woman she had been dreaming of for years, and despite being in her 20s, she was more hormones than brain cells at that moment.  The next morning Camila had confessed her feelings, and had asked her to give them a chance; Marilyn seemed reticent, but had smiled at the end, and said yes. It didn't take long for Camila to realize Marilyn was heartbroken, which meant she was a rebound; that would have stung if it hadn't been Camila's idea to date, and because at that moment she foolishly thought she could mend Marilyn's broken heart and get a future together. It hadn't worked out. Not only did Marilyn not forget about this mysterious person, but she was also just as closed off as always. After all this time, the years, the friendship, how they were suddenly dating, Camila had thought it was time for Marilyn to tell the rest of her tale. Camila had always been honest with her, kept her heart on her sleeve, and while she could understand not everyone was like that, she thought she deserved to know more about her girlfriend. The breakup had ended in a lot of shouting, Camila throwing things at Marilyn, demanding to never see her again unless she was willing to talk. The neighbours had ended up calling the cops, with Camila lying out of her ass about a discussion with a friend, because being a queer woman of colour wasn't safe in the 2020's, and much less at that time. She didn't even tell her parents at first out of sheer embarrassment; not so much about dating a woman (they loved her and supported her all the same), but because she felt stupid for thinking this was ever going to work. That was effectively the last time they saw each other until this night.  Apparently, during that time Eda became a fugitive of the law (that makes it two realms now), got a kid that she didn't even know was a kid, had a long-going feud with her sister, avoided her mother, and then found Luz who she took under her wing. She told parts of Luz's tale, Eda wasn't there for all of her adventures but knew enough to tell her about it.  Camila's heartstrings were pulled while hearing of Luz's trying to rescue Eda, not only because her baby was in danger, but also hearing about Eda's pain (her sister was the one to curse her, the capture, how losing her magic had felt like losing a part of herself) was just making things worse. It didn't matter how long it had been, or how messy things were now; Marilyn/Eda would always have a place in her heart, one way or another.  Things only got worse after that encounter, with Luz not being able to return back home, neither Eda nor her sister Lilith being able to use magic, and trying to go by without access to the human world to sell junk (which Eda always knew exactly what it was, but always pretended it was something else since things in both realms were so similar it may not impress the locals otherwise; apparently, though, Luz thought Eda truly didn't know and kept it that way because it was funnier) or being extremely limited as beings without magic in a realm that was all about that. Not everything was bleak. Eda got back to Raine, the mysterious person she had been heartbroken about, and obviously was still very much in love with. King had actually become her son, which had meant so much to Eda that she would rather die than lose him or Luz (Camila was going to need to put a pin in that one, because why was Eda talking about Luz like she was her kid?), she had made peace with the owl beast, and while still without magic, was able to transform in a harpy. Luz got a girlfriend, who was the girl with purple hair downstairs (Her baby was in her first relationship! Oh she wanted to know everything now, and also meet this girl, Camila was sure she was going to adore her). King had learned who he was, and while feeling sad about his dad, seemed more at peace with himself than when he wished to be a mighty ruler. And when it seemed things were starting to look around, the day of Unity came and everything fell apart. Eda had been on a team trying to stop the draining spell, yet they had failed; Eda had almost disappeared because of it, until Raine took her arm away, taking the sigil and stopping the curse from consuming her. Then Eda, shaken at seeing Raine so weak (it seemed they had been beaten up before put in position for the spell) transformed into an harpy and with the little energy she had, flew to Belos' palace to demand this spell to be stopped. She had found Luz and her friends, and Eda had tried to distract Belos and be bait so the others could escape (while also fighting Luz for it since her daughter didn't want to do that) a kid had come out of nowhere, and destroyed the horrible emperor with the flick of his finger, and just as easily, had stopped the draining spell. And then started to terraform the place, take King, who had pushed them away with an ultrasonic scream, the door closing before Eda or Luz could reach it.  Then, they were here. Taking a deep breath, she took her glasses off, and put a hand to her temples. "That's a lot to take in, Eda" "Take your time, I can only imagine how you must be feeling right now" That was odd coming from her, Marilyn had always been one full of jokes and quips, and even a few minutes ago she was doing it; so it talked of how bad things are. Okay, so she had fucked a witch, who would have known; it was amazing to think that those little odd things happening around Marilyn weren't just coincidences. At least she could be reassured that Marilyn wasn't keeping a wild animal as a pet, since the owl was actually a staff.  A lot of weird stuff that had been happening over the years suddenly made sense; while Camila forbade her from coming back to her without answers, she was more than aware that Marilyn came by from time to time, which she did her best to ignore, satisfied that at least she seemed smart enough to not go to the places Camila would be drawn to; yet she always noticed that close to a time something weird happened, she would hear someone talking about crazy Marilyn being back in the town, and the other way around as well happened, but not one thing without the other. It may be part of the reason why Camila couldn't truly connect with Luz's passions, fantasy and adventure. They were things she related with Marilyn, the wild girl who was as strange as she was endearing and had let her down multiple times, breaking her heart the last one; she preferred to continue with her redecoration shows and telenovelas, ridiculous but grounded enough to not remember past aches.  And turns out her ex had become the mentor and surrogate mom of her daughter in the demon realm, and that? That was what stung the most.  Because it felt like Eda had taken her daughter away, even if Luz stayed by choice (both when she could come back and when she couldn't), it felt like she had lured her baby away, and that somehow, Luz preferred her. Camila didn't want to think about the possibility of that being true; losing her daughter, her lucerito, to the woman she used to love with an intensity she never felt until her husband came along- it all felt like a sick joke.  Camila thought she could cry, and then she realized someone was actually crying. Taking the hand away from her face, she saw that Eda was struggling to be quiet while tears fell down her face, her remaining hand trying to mitigate the sobs. Like a spring, she got out of her bed to kneel beside her. "Eda?! Are you hurt?!" "This is just so fucked up," she answered, trying to clean the tears out of her face, yet there were so many it seemed impossible "Everyone I know may be dead, the love of my life may die in front of me and there is nothing I can do, and my own child needed to save me, just after he called me mom for the first time; Camila I can't-" she couldn't continue talking, sobbing. Suddenly, none of those bittersweet memories seemed to matter, not even the bleakest ones. Camila couldn't think about her own heartache, the possibility of losing her daughter, or her rocky history with this woman. All she saw was someone who used to mean a lot to her, falling apart. Camila hugged her, caressing her back like she used to do, mostly those first days after they met, when Marilyn missed her family more than anything but felt she couldn't go back, and Camila wanted her to know that parents or not, she wasn't alone.  And Camila wanted her to remember that now too.  "Things are bad," Camila admitted, needing to be sincere. She would put on a brave face, and assure her daughters and the other kids that everything will be fine, but she didn't feel it would be fair to lie to Eda, nor Raine once they woke up (they were going to, they needed to). "I don't know how you guys will get back, how we will deal with whatever that being is, with the power of a god. But bad doesn't mean hopeless; you have told me about so many times that things seemed helpless and you got around, so how things you thought were impossible, like having Raine and your family back, happened. You are the wackiest, most stubborn person I have ever met." Camila separated herself a little, enough to have her face in front of Eda's, their foreheads weren't touching, yet she was so close just a couple of inches would be enough. "You had done incredible things before, time to do your magic again, Marilyn Rosenstein" Eda blinked the remaining tears going away, before a tiny smile appeared. "You know, in this realm it’s Marilyn Pines now, if that ridiculous old fart didn't claim I died, but I bet he had too many problems with the cops to do that." It was now Camila's turn to blink back, before a snort came out of her. "Are you telling me you actually got married?" "It was Las Vegas, too much apple cider and weed, and I somehow convinced the guy I was an illegal immigrant from a very small country in Europe, despite not having any accent, and I got the papers every police guy asked me for. Said papers were fakes but convincing enough, at least." She laughed, Camila wouldn't be surprised if it was partially due to stress, but part of her felt she needed it. "Why isn't this really surprising, Lyn?" That's how she called her, nothing special (and Eda had said that much back then) because Camila didn't have enough confidence to do something more flirty, like Marilyn's 'Cammie-buns'.  They snickered, thinking of those times when things seemed so simple, where one felt more than they used to think, and were still trying to figure out what they wanted in this life. The silence came back, but it was a more comfortable one this time around.  Deciding to do that final push they both needed, Camila took Eda's hand. "Look, things are complicated. While I finally have that last piece of the puzzle I needed to understand you, it doesn't take back all the trouble that it was. I forgive you, I will not treat you with rancour this time around, but I still need to process this." Eda nodded, not denying or excusing her behaviour; maybe it was for the best that they didn't see each other until now, perhaps they needed to mature in order to patch things this time around. "But whatever happens, we will do it, together" The surprise was evident in Eda's face, and for a moment Camila wondered if she was getting too cozy with her again, but then Eda smiled, and unlike most of Marilyn's smiles, it seemed sincere. "Together." This was a promise it was obvious both of them were going to keep. 

Teen And Up Audiences

  Camila tried as hard as she could to make her new child feel like she was their mother. After all, it counted... didn’t it?   "¡Gusanita! ¿Puedes venir aquí ahora?" said Camila.   "Uhhh... puedes?"   "Ah, puedes is poder when I’m saying ‘you’ "   "Oh! Ok, now I get it... " said Vee.   "Can you get the potatoes?"   Camila had also been trying to get Vee to know as many niche things as Luz did, such as Spanish and the Good Witch Azura, in order to avoid any suspicion about what had been going on, at least that's what she told herself--she really just missed Luz and wanted to spend more time with Vee.   After Vee had done what Camila asked, they’d gone to their room to grab a card or two so they could feel a little bit less lousy, just in case they needed the energy. Camila had been following along a recipe in a little tidbit she saw in the state paper. After all, what’s wrong with new things? She glanced back at the recipe only to see that it was reloading.   "Ay Díos mio," said Camila. "I can’t take it with this machine... We need to get better WiFi. "   The recipe was still there but a new headline popped up.   "Girl lost in frog land?? Hoax??"   Camila couldn’t help but cringe a bit at seeing the headline; it reminded her how Luz was literally trapped in another world and she had absolutely no way of helping. She had no idea how Luz was or if she’d ever even see her again.   She turned her attention back to the pot of food she was making for Vee and herself to try and distract herself from her own intrusive thoughts.   "¡Vee!" She said. "¡es hora de cenar! Ay, we’re gonna be having leftovers tomorrow…"   Ding dong   "Who in the world could be at the door at a time like this?" she thought to herself. "It better not be that fanático."   What she expected to see was some snarly dude in his late 20s with some crazy conspiracy theory about how she and her "child" were secretly plotting to brainwash every human into liking summer pop music... or something. What she was actually about to see was something she never would’ve expected.   —————————————————————————————   It all happened so fast. Not even a minute had passed before this strange.. kid (?) had literally turned the emperor into mere sludge and moved the entire moon to stop the day of unity before tearing everything apart on a whim. One event after another, it’s like there was no space between anything until it had all just... stopped.   It took what seemed like minutes- but was actually a few seconds- for everyone to process all of the things that had just happened. Nobody could ever replicate the look in everyone’s eyes after understanding what had just occurred. Everyone dealt with it differently. It definitely wasn’t easy to tell who it hit the hardest- everyone had something to lose. Amity had Edric and Emira, as well as her dad now. Willow had her perspective on life and the amount of responsibility to deal with, as well as her dads.. oh Titan, what would they do? Hunter had a responsibility that could become a problem because nobody, especially him, should have to deal with any of this. Gus was too young for any of this and wasn’t used to any of this, nor was he prepared. His dad would incessantly worry about him and he’d be all alone... Gus was just a kid... And Luz.. this entire burden, the weight of the world... It had all been put on her shoulders... At least that’s what she thought. She had lost practically everything. She didn’t have any idea if Eda or King were even alive or not. She didn’t know if the boiling isles themselves even existed anymore… what if… what if this was it?   She immediately looked back at everyone else. Gus hadn’t been through anything this big, so he did the reasonable thing to do… which was to start crying. His whole world had just come crashing down, and he was just a child. Nobody knew what to say or do. They just stood there for a chillingly long amount of time that nobody had thought to count. After all, time was just a blur.    Nobody moved, nobody said a word. Not until after a solid few minutes when Hunter got down on Gus’s level and helped him up. It took Hunter, of all people, to make everyone realise that they were just standing around with nobody around in the freezing rain. A snap back to reality. Luz stopped staring into the abyss and realised how close to home she was and that her mother didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. Immediately, she looked at everyone, not saying a word, and started to walk- now pace to her house, which happened to conveniently be in view. Everyone followed her, not having any idea where she was going or what she had planned on doing next.   "Luz"    Willow was the first to speak, catching everyone’s attention after hearing nothing but rain and the mud squelching under their feet.   Luz’s head darted towards Willow, looking back at her.   "Where are we going?"   Luz opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead, her breath broke and tears welled up in her eyes. Not wanting to seem too vulnerable, she looked straight back up ahead without saying anything. Willow would’ve said more, but Luz stepped on the doorstep of the house they were all headed to. Everyone inferred immediately where they were the second luz reached the property. They all knew what was about to happen.   Amity did too. She knew immediately who she was about to meet and what would go down in the following seconds, so she, being the unique youngest blight she was, did what she could do- look respectful- and at the least presentable, despite the fact that she was sopping wet and covered in cuts and bruises. After all, this was her girlfriend’s mother. She didn’t even know if anyone would be invited in at all. They were just 4 soaking wet magical children from another universe who Camila had never seen before at all, how could she blame her for not immediately inviting them into her house?    The one thing Amity didn’t know was how kind of a person Camila really was.   Ding Dong.   –   It’s almost as if every timeline in the universe collided just for this moment to happen. Like a cymbal crashing in reverse. From every angle everything was so vivid, yet so clear. Camila’s hand touching the latch. The patter of the rain. The creak of the hinge. The gasp of a distraught mother who had just had any of her worries that had accumulated over a year, including the worries after hearing any combination of words no sentient being had ever heard before. Most defining of all, clearer than a deer in headlights. The four words of a soul too young to be crushed. Words from an empty child, the shell of what she was before the butterfly effect took her life by the collar and dragged it through the mud.   "Hey, mom… I'm back…"   "¡MIJA!"    Camila rushed to grab her daughter and never let go. It didn’t matter how soaking wet or dirty she was. This was the only thing that mattered to her now. Her daughter was right there, in her arms. Nothing else existed in the world for her. Just her daughter. Months of not even knowing if she was dead or not. There she was, very alive and mostly unharmed. She didn’t have any questions or theories or worries. Her only concern was that her daughter was safe in her arms.   They both let out a sob as they embraced each other.   "I’m so sorry, Mami I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry–"   "Mija, no no no no, it’s okay. Mija, sweetheart, it’s okay now. "       This went on for what felt like hours but was actually only a minute or two. You couldn’t blame either of them for taking their time anyway. They had good reason to.   Eventually, Luz sniffled and looked back at her friends and looked back at Camila, who looked at her friends and nodded. She then helped Luz up off the ground and walked inside. Gus and Willow followed them in first.    "Guys?" said Willow. "What are you doing?"    "I’d rather be invited in. It’s more polite. " said Amity.   "I highly doubt that’s our biggest concern right now."   Neither Amity nor Hunter could object; it was pouring, after all, and they had no idea what would happen to them if they stayed in the human rain for too long, so Amity, using a shred of common sense, followed the others in while looking back at Hunter and motioning for him to follow.   —--   Everyone was inside now. Luz stayed sobbing in Camila’s arms as Camila looked back at everyone who had just walked into her house.   "Everyone, go sit on the sofa. I have food and clothes, I’ll get them when I can," she said. "Vee, get some towels and the blankets from upstairs."   She led Luz over to the sofa as she went to grab some bowls for the stew she was making. Apparently, no leftovers were going to be necessary.    As she got to the pot, she noticed her tablet chiming, as if it had been bombarded with another one of those spam-texting-advertising thingies. As she got closer, she realised how much information was about to be loaded onto her.   From Luz: 19 images   From Luz: 22 videos   From Luz: I miss you every day, Mami. I’m so sorry f… (as well as 56 others).   She moved on from the tablet to get six small-ish bowls in order to serve everyone at least something to eat. She hadn’t known when the last time these kids had a decent meal was, so she got a box of year-old saltines from the cupboard so they would have something to add on to the comparably small serving sizes they were about to get.   She turned her attention to Vee, who had just brought an underground bunker’s worth’s supply of towels and blankets for everyone to use and dry themselves off with.   "Can you take 3 of these to them please?" She said, pointing at some of the bowls of food.   Vee compliantly nodded and tried not to spill the majority of the contents of the bowl as she delivered them to the 5 people sitting around where she usually sat with Mamá to watch TV.   -   Amity couldn’t help but be amazed by the contents in front of her. So aromatic, but fewer bones than she’s used to… at least to the standards of her father’s cooking. What surprised her more was that Gus seemed… somewhat indifferent to it all. Knowing Gus, she’d have thought he’d be more eager than anything to try the first thing resembling anything edible in the human realm, but instead, a thousand-yard stare at– no… through the bowl placed in front of him. She couldn’t say anything, though. She knew that if she even tried to talk to Gus right now, he’d water down his stew with his tears. Him disassociating was his way of doing everything not to cry, so she decided to keep to herself for the time she could.   The second her attention went off of Gus, it went straight to Luz, who was on her way over to the sofas to sit down. Immediately, her brain was flooded with worry over Luz. She couldn’t care less about her own needs and worries. The only thing on her mind was worrying about Luz. Her face was still covered in tears. She wasn’t audibly sobbing anymore, but she was breathing sharp and irregularly, with tears still streaming down her face. There was a long, dense roll of patterned paper in her hand with a brown tube in the middle, which Amity couldn’t tell what it was. She then ripped a perfect line from the roll and blew her nose with it… Was that what it was for? She knew she had a lot to learn about the human realm, but at the moment it didn’t even cross her mind.   Camila sat down and gave everyone else their stew and utensils. Vee immediately began eating, as any regular person would. Willow looked at the food bewilderedly. She had no idea what the contents were in front of her. She knew there were mini potatoes floating around in it so she presumed it to be edible, yet she still wasn’t extremely eager to scarf everything down… at least not until she knew for sure what it was.   "That's food… it’s for all of you. I’m sure you need it right about now anyway, so… don’t let it get cold" Camila said.   Almost on cue, Willow and Amity dug straight in. Not in a mannerless way, but they definitely didn’t pace themselves. Luz and Gus continued to stare through everything in front of them, almost as if they were in some sort of trance. Hunter did the same until he realised there was food in front of him. He hesitated to eat anything. After all, this was the human realm. He had no idea what was in it or what it would be like. He looked over at Willow to see her already halfway done with hers. If she was fine with it, he had no problem copying her example.   "Okay, can all of you stand up? Your clothes are soaking and I have to put a towel on the sofa" said Camila. Everyone did as she asked as she brought several towels and blankets over to protect the sofa. She grabbed a chair and sat in view of everyone. "This part isn’t easy to avoid, so I’m going to stop beating around the bush. You all look tattered and injured and tired. You’re all visibly going through some kind of… shock… trauma… type thing, and you’re all bleeding… Luz, I don’t know who these people are and—what happened to your eyebrow? I’m going to need to stitch it," She stopped when she realised the majority of the people sitting in front of her were either anguished or downright crying. "I just… I don’t know what’s going on right now and I don’t know what to do-" she said as her voice broke and she started to cry herself. "Vee?" She said as she sniffled. "Can you get the first aid kit out of the bathroom cupboard as well as some—just... grab the cardboard box with a blue stripe on it as well?"She said as she got up and left.   Luz and Gus spacing off caught her attention. "Luz?" Luz looked at her as if she had just woken her up from a nap. "Mija, you have to eat. You and your friend." She said as she gestured at Gus.    "Gus, hey," said Willow.   She got the same response as Camila got from Luz—it was as if she’d just woken him up. He made eye contact with her with a disoriented, wide-eyed, mystified expression.   "Gus, you have to eat." She said   He looked at Willow without changing his expression at all. It was like he wanted to say something but forgot how to speak. He finally grabbed his spoon and started eating when Willow gave him an empathetic look and gestured toward the bowl. Almost immediately, his whole demeanor changed the second the liquid touched his lips.   "Luz, what is this?" He said with an eager undertone in his voice. "What’s that in it?"   "Oh…" She said as she sniffled. "that’s mondongo soup. My mom makes it with uhh… honeycomb, potatoes, peppers… umm… lime juice… carrots, garlic, and some sazón seasoning…"   Gus had no idea what most of those things were, but he knew for sure that it was human food. Human food. Food… made by humans… and he got to eat it… Human. Food. that he, Augustus Porter, former president of the human appreciation society, was savouring right this very second.    Immediately, any trace of anguish vanished from his face as he began to savour every last morsel of the cuisine in front of him (that no other witch in history had ever tried!). This was one of what he considered to be the best things he had ever eaten. His lifelong dream, right there. Eating human food. He crossed that off of his mental bucket list titled "things that I want to do in the human realm." It was like he hadn’t had any problems left. He had forgotten entirely that he was sad until he finished almost licking the paint off of the bowl his food was served in and saw the state his friends were in. He felt a little better as he realised that this was his lifelong dream. Still… what just happened?    Nobody had been given enough time to process anything until this exact moment. It had barely even been 30 minutes as they saw their world start to get torn apart, not knowing if anything was left…   Amity looked over at Luz, hoping to get some kind of contact with her.    "Luz," She said. "You have to eat or it’ll… get cold?" She said. "Stew here doesn’t get hotter?" She thought to herself.    Luz looked at Amity with the same blank, glossy-eyed expression she had had on her face the entire time she had been sat down, wrapped in a menagerie of towels and blankets. Tears welled up in her eyes the same way they did in Amity’s eyes when she had learned about Luz’s father. Trying desperately to regain her composure, she looked back down into her stew and said nothing.    Everyone turned slightly when they heard the rustle of keys as Camila locked all the doors in the house. She walked over and sat back down in the chair she had set down in front of everyone.   "I can’t dodge around this right now," she said as her voice started breaking. "I… can I please first know who all of you are?"   Everyone remained silent, waiting for someone else to speak, until Amity got up and walked over to sit next to Luz.   "I’m Amity… and this-"   "I’m Willow."   Luz looked at Amity and started crying even more than she had just been. She didn’t expect her girlfriend to get up and sit next to her. She totally forgot about Amity until then. She knew how much everyone else was also going through and appreciated the fact that Amity put her needs aside and directed her attention to Luz.   "I’m Augustus."   Everyone looked over at Gus, not having expected him to speak. Immediately afterward, they all turned their attention to Hunter, who was now completely dissociating, having half-closed eyes, and staring into nothingness.   Willow put her hand on his shoulder, which immediately pulled him out of the state he was in and into a fight-or-flight response as his eyes widened, he took a sharp inhale and quickly recoiled from Willow. It took him a second to remember what was going on until he realised everyone was staring at him.   "Tell her your name," Willow whispered to Hunter.   "I’m…" He looked lost for a second… as if he had forgotten what his name was. "Uh… Hunter…" He said as he shook his head like he was trying to get something off of his nose.   Everyone noticed the uncertain look in his eyes as he introduced himself, but they paid little attention due to the fact that they had much bigger concerns on their hands.   "Okay, good," said Camila. "Now I know who all of you are, I need to know what happened. I don’t need the whole story from start to finish… the past year… just yet, but I do need to know what to do and how I can help you. Something big clearly just happened and you’re all hurt… if this weren’t a serious thing you would all be happy… if you… found a way back here in a regular way, I wouldn’t be seeing five hurt… traumatised kids in shock, so… what just happened? Why are you all… hurt? "   Everyone stayed silent again until Luz of all people piped up to speak.   "It’s… all… my fault… I…"   She began to audibly cry.   "If I would have just…"   Amity cut her off.   "No, it’s not. This isn’t your fault. You never could’ve seen any of this coming. "   "But-" she took a pause between every few words; crying made her involuntarily gasp (****) for air. "I* Helped* Him… and I left*  King* and * Eda* there… What if* they’re-"   "¡Mija!" Camila cut her off "It’s clearly too much for you to explain right now, but I have a lot of messages that just went through, Are they going to tell me what happened? "   Luz nodded slowly. "a bit…"   "Okay…" She looked over at Vee. "First aid kit." She held her hand out with an open palm. "Look underneath the sink in the cupboard. There is going to be a bottle of rubbing alcohol and some cotton balls, as well as some rubber gloves and a sheet of plastic. Can you get all of those? "    Vee hurried over to the bathroom where all the items were kept.   "Luz"    Luz slowly lifted her head out of Amity’s arms and turned to look at Camila.   "I have to stitch that cut on your eyebrow, ok? If you want to wait, I can put a band-aid over it and wait, but I have to do it soon, ok? Do you just want me to do it now? "   Luz slowly nodded.   "You," Camila said, gesturing at Gus. "Can you move over to the other couch? I have to fix her eyebrow."    She had Luz lie down with her head supported, which Luz decided meant resting her head in Amity’s lap. Camila seemed puzzled for a moment but ended up forgetting when she asked Vee to grab some paper towels and a headlamp so she could work on Luz. Luz grabbed Amity’s hand and squeezed tight when Camila disinfected it and injected some anaesthetic.    "How do you know how to do this?" Amity asked Camila.   "I’m a veterinarian. I work on animals, and I have to do this all the time whenever a dog or something has an open wound."    Amity’s presence clearly comforted Luz, so much so that she almost forgot her face was being stitched up.    Camila finally took out a band-aid and put it over the area she had just finished stitching, then threw away anything she had just used.   Camila looked over at Amity, seeing how much she cared about her daughter. She would’ve been ecstatic that her daughter was making real life-long friendships if it were under different circumstances.   Once Luz sat up, she saw Willow trying to carry the load of trying to comfort both Gus and Hunter.   "How are we gonna get back?" Gus said as he was crying, trying to get his words out in an understandable way. "What if it’s all… gone? What if the Collector just… tore it all apart? What if-"   Luz interrupted with a sob. This all made her think too much.   "We can’t afford to lose hope right now, Gus," said Willow. "It’s all we have and… we need to find a way to keep going- I mean, there’s gotta be a way to do something. If Luz was able t-"   "What if he’s right?" Hunter said. "What if it really is all gone? What if… we’re the last witches and everything we know…"   "Hunter," Amity stated firmly "Being dreadfully pessimistic isn’t going to solve anything. If anything, it’ll make things worse. Plus, you’re making everyone else… think the same things…" she turned her head into the area between her shoulder and the sofa, grabbing Luz tighter and slowly pulling her closer.   Camila sat back down. "Okay… Luz, I’m going to need to know what happened sooner or later, so those are your two options. Either you tell me what happened now, or you can tell me tomorrow and I can look at your messages. Do you want to tell me now? "   Luz slowly shook her head.    "Okay, so I’m guessing that means tomorrow?"    Luz nodded.   "Okay. I’m going to need all of you to get something clean and dry on. Luz? Vee? Is it okay if I borrow some of your things? " She looked over at both of them."   "Uhh… yeah…" said Vee.   "Luz?" said Camila.   Luz nodded her head   "Okay. You can all change in a bedroom or bathroom. Vee, show those three to the bathroom while I get their things." She said, gesturing to Willow, Gus, and Hunter. "Luz, show her to your bedroom, get her a spare outfit for the night, and change your clothes when she’s done," said Camila.   "What about the clothes they have on?" Vee said.   "Oh, those will go in the blue plastic laundry basket until they tell me what I can do with them… I’m assuming they’re the type to have never seen a laundry machine… remember?"   "Okay, for the record… can you really blame me?"    "Gusanita, it’s every week." She said.   "I’m still gonna find it fascinating, regardless of what you say."

General Audiences

“Emperor- please, before this meeting may I use the restroom, sir, it’s- it’s urgent,” Hunter stands close to the throne, his posture tense but trembling. Emperor Belos sighs, unimpressed with the boy’s needs. It can wait. He’s always fine with waiting. Today would be no different. “No. You can wait, Hunter. This is more important, I need you to stay here, with me.” “Uncle please-“ “Enough of that,” Belos sighs, glaring at the Golden Guard. Hunter’s thankful for his mask in this moment, it hides the pain in his face. “It’s time.” Without any time wasted, the coven heads soon arrive, chatting as they take their places around their beloved emperor, though they quickly grow hushed and attentive. Belos greets them, and begins the meeting. Hunter, meanwhile, cannot focus at all on what’s being said. His stomach aches with such a pressure he can only hope he’d be able to keep in for the duration of his uncle’s damned speech. Oh how badly it hurts. Maybe if he shifts his weight it would relieve some of the pressure- no- no someone would notice that. He’s supposed to be still and presentable. His palms sweat, he’s once again thankful for his clothes, this time his cape, obscuring how shaky he truly is. He rests his hands on his abdomen, hidden by the cape, it doesn’t help much but at least it’s comforting. There’s no way for him to tell how much time has passed, nor how long this will take. He just hopes it will be over soon. Every minute feels like hours, every word spoken before him blurs together and sounds like gibberish. He can’t think at all. Was this some sort of punishment? Did he do something to upset the Titan? What could he have done wrong? He hopes Eberwolf can’t hear his breathing or sense his distress. That Darius wouldn’t notice something is off about him. He doesn’t want to disappoint them or humiliate himself in front of them. Raine has also been fairly kind to him, on a few occasions. He wouldn’t want them to think less of him. What about Tera? If she knew she’d laugh. She’s mock him. He doesn’t like her at all to be honest. The pressure only builds in his backside. This is bad. Really bad. What would the other heads think? Mason? He doesn’t know mason well. He’d probably see him as no more than an incompetent brat. Just like Kikimora. Oh he’d never see the end of her mockery. She would laugh and laugh, it would echo through the halls to be heard by all, she’d scream about how much of a baby the Golden Guard is. What if Belos killed him for such a disgusting, mortifying failure? Would he do that..? “Somethings wrong with your pet,” Eberwolf interrupts the discussion, his voice easily cuts through the noise. I’m not a pet.. All eyes turn to him. Are they expecting something? An excuse? An explanation? “Nothing is wrong with my guard, let us continue-“ “No- no he reeks of stress.” “When doesn’t he, mutt?” “I could fix him up with some of my potions!” “Perhaps something bad is coming his way..” “No- he just needs to suck it up, perform better for his emperor.” “If he’s sick, I could help him.” “He’s not getting enough sunlight.” “Actually, he just needs his window fixed I heard it has a draft.” “What does that have to do with anything?” “Enough!” The room quiets. Thankfully. “Let us get back to the plan,” Belos growls, stamping his staff against the ground for emphasis. When will this end? Hunter wishes he had tried to sneak away. His toes curl in his boots, every muscle in his body is tense, clenched, he’s unnaturally still. Soon. Please end soon. Please end soon. He can feel the tears welling up in his eyes, he just wants this to end, he doesn’t want to humiliate himself in front of so many people and his uncle, the Emperor himself. This would be worse than the one time he had wet himself in a meeting. Much worse. Much more humiliating. Shameful. Disgusting- “Dismissed.” Thank the Titan. Hunter bites his lip as he peers through his mask, watching everyone leave. No. No- no this is still bad- “You may also leave now, Hunter.” It’s too late for him. He lets out a pained whine, the voice that breaks through is shaky and ashamed. He can feel the heat pushing its way out of his body, he hoped he’d have time. He hoped he could at least not be here for this, standing next to his uncle. It crackles, faintly audible to himself and the emperor as he fills the seat of his pants with his own waste. It feels disgusting, warm, wet, he can smell it, but he’s partly relieved. His stomach ache is gone, at least. This is probably the most filthy he’s ever felt. “I’m sorry..” he squeaks, his hands instinctively covering his masked face as he starts to cry. It only makes him feel worse, like some incompetent baby, but he can’t help it. Belos’ mask hides the disgust in his face. At some point as Hunter sinks into himself, Belos stands and grips his shoulder, his hand much more gentle than he often is. “Let’s get you cleaned up,” he says softly, calmly nudging him to leave the throne room. Honestly Belos just sees this as a perfectly fine opportunity to bathe with his nephew even if it means he has to deal with this mess. He’s seen worse. Admittedly, he’s done worse. It might be repulsive but at least it’s not his own shame. With his clothes discarded and his mess wiped away, Belos eases Hunter into the warm water of the tub. He joins the boy, sitting behind his smaller frame and hugging him to his chest. “I shouldn’t have made you stay,” Belos murmurs into his ear. He chose to push aside his initial disgust with the entire situation, besides, he did like seeing the boy cry. He likes holding him and making him feel safe just as Caleb did when they were kids. Honestly he likes finding ways to make the poor guard miserable, even hurting him himself, just to turn around and make him feel special and loved. “Why didn’t you punish me?” “Your.. incident.. was punishment enough,” he sighs, his hands trail along Hunter’s thighs and up to his hips. “Besides, you were good for me, you didn’t leave. You held out long enough as to not humiliate me before the coven heads.” “So.. you’re not going to punish me..?” Hunter relaxes into the gentle touches of his dear uncle, he’s always liked bathing with him. The way his hands feel along his body has become familiar and comforting. Belos hums, kissing his ear, “No, Hunter, not today. You’re such a good boy for me,” he coos, “I should have let you go before we started the meeting.” If he agrees, he might get punished, but if he disagrees, he also might get punished. He stays quiet, resting one of his hands on Belos’ thigh. Usually he’s allowed to touch him when they bathe like this. “You may rest in my quarters tonight,” Belos palms at his nephew’s cock, his other hand gropes his chest. That’s his favourite reward. Hunter loves being put into soft pyjamas, held close to the chest of the man he loves in a bed that smells of him, he loves the feeling of his breath against his neck, a pleased sigh leaves him. “Thank you.” “Of course,” he purrs, “you’ve been so very good lately,” Belos starts stroking Hunter’s cock, and pushing himself against him. His hand easily envelopes the boy. Of all of his grimwalkers, Hunter is his favourite. It’s easy for him to imagine his brother, before they’d left for this cursed land, before he’d betrayed him. He’d do anything to keep this one around. Perhaps it’s guilt that lures him into treating him like precious treasure after he’s hurt him. “Does the Titan think I’ve been good?” He closes his eyes, melting into Belos’ touches and strokes, his own hands massage the old man’s thighs. He wonders how his skin feels softer than his own. Maybe old people just have soft skin.   “Yes, Hunter,” he grabs his nephew’s face and kisses him, the gesture feels all too familiar. There’s a tenderness to it that’s reserved only for Hunter, not that he hadnt done this with some of his previous experiments, but this one beautifully resembled his dearest older brother. He stops for a moment, “The Titan loves you just as much as I do when you do your job so elegantly.” “I love you,” he whimpers, lightly thrusting into Belos’ hand. “I want more.. please?” Belos chuckles, “needy. But you’ve been good,” he gently nudges Hunter away from him just to turn him around and urge him onto his back against the other end of the tub. “I love to see your face,” someday he’d like to fix that tooth gap, someday he’d like to let him sleep long enough for those damned eye bags to go away. He could cosmetically alter his ears, cut them and make them round like his own once were- “I love to see your face too, uncle,” he smiles up at Belos, reaching to rest his hands on his waist. The green painting his skin might be a curse, but he’s grown familiar with it, both in its beastly harm towards him and in it’s calm moments where it seems to lie dormant. Belos presses his fingers against the boy’s ass, easing them in with little effort. Perhaps he does this a little too often, Hunter is always so eager for him. He leans in and kisses him as he fingers his hole, he at least wants him to be somewhat prepared. Though, he’s also aroused, his nephew always brings on that temptation of his, he never knows if it’s more so the eagerness to please that gets him going or if it has something to do with humiliating and degrading him. In reality, it’s likely because of how closely he resembles Caleb. Belos removes his fingers and presses his cock into Hunter once he hears him start to whine. He always does that when he wants more. Sometimes he wonders why he goes with it, he’s the emperor after all, he has the power here. As Hunter is thrusted into, he pulls away from his uncle’s sweet kissing to hide his face in his neck. His smell is warm and comfortable as always, he wraps his arms around Belos while listening to the sloshing of the water and the soft clapping from their hips. They rarely spoke during these times, each content listening to the other’s breaths, each soft noise that would spill past their lips. Hunter wouldn’t be able to think of anything to say, anyways, and Belos hardly spoke if it wasn't needed. Hunter’s hands tangle themselves in Belos’ long, fluffy hair. He always loves when he gets the chance to touch it. He thrusts back against his uncle, whimpering when there’s finally a hand back on his cock to pleasure him more. He treats it as a reward, but he knows his uncle must be close. The guard whimpers as he feels the emperor release inside him, the warmth and the thought of himself being pleasing for the man allows him to peak as well, making a mess in the tub. He pants, releasing his hands from Belos’ hair, and kisses him. Belos kisses back, relaxing and allowing his dear nephew to have his fun. It’s nice for him too, his fantasies can be fulfilled so easily by the boy. He pulls out, and pulls away from Hunter, placing a hand on his cheek. “Finish bathing, Hunter. Then we can have supper.” Hunter leans into the gentle touch, and nods. “Okay. I love you,” he sighs, frowning a little as Belos stands from the tub to dry off and get dressed. As he finishes his bath, he thinks to himself that all of the pain he’s been through, all the scars caused by his uncle, it’s worth it for these rewards, these moments of bliss and tenderness. He wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Explicit

Luz woke up from a rough night of sleep, heart still heavy. The whole Boiling Isles felt emptier without Eda.    "Hey, you up?" Luz rolled and looked at the wall erected between her and Hunter, not saying a word. "Did you manage to get any sleep?" Luz remained silent, staring vacantly at the wall until Hunter sighed. "Yeah, me neither..."   Silence hung heavy in the air. Luz was about to try to sleep again when a whisper shattered the atmosphere.   "Luz! Are you here?"   Luz stayed curled up in a ball, unaware of her surroundings. All she could think about was Eda...   "Alma?" Hunter's deep voice echoed around the Conformatorium walls as his eyes spotted a small, human-shaped figure in the distance.    "Hunter!" Alma rushed to the blonde's cell, excited to see a familiar face in the oppressive atmosphere of the prison.    Perplexed, Hunter frowned. "How do you..." He let out a huff and rolled his eyes. "You found the rebels, didn't you?"   The two continued their conversation, while Luz remained numb to the world. What was the point of coming back if everything we fought for amounted to nothing?   "Luz?" The small voice startled Luz out of her thoughts. "It's me, Alma... I came to find you."   Luz turned and looked through the bars. Sure enough, the young girl she had taken care of stood there, looking in.    "Alma?" Luz's voice came out small. She crawled over to the edge of the cell, the harsh light from the torches making her flinch. The bags under her eyes were deep, and her clothes were tattered and scorched. "What are you doing here?"   "Rescuing you, of course!" Alma beamed, relieved to see her mentor in one piece.    Luz shook her head. "Alma, you shouldn't be here. The rebels are on their way to rescue us. You've put yourself in danger for no reason!"   "I had to come find you! Besides, the rebels are on their way right behind me." Alma retorted, with an air of smugness around her.    Luz's eyes widened. "They're here too?!"   Alma nodded in response. "Yep! There are three of them." She held up her fingers as she counted them off. "Gus, Willow... I think the other girl was named Boscha?"   A blood-curdling scream rang through the Conformatorium, cutting off their conversation. Hunter motioned toward Alma and pointed at a lever not far from their cells. Alma ran off, and soon the two prisoners were set free from their cages. The scream stopped as the two rushed to Alma's side. Luz wobbled a bit on her feet, Alma rushing to her side to hold her up.    "Luz, what's wrong?" Alma inspected her mentor, looking for any major injuries.    Luz just chuckled. "I'm just a little tired and sore. I'll be fine." She turned to Hunter. "Do you know the way out?"   Hunter nodded, eyes narrowing in concentration. "If Willow and the others came in through the south entrance, then they should be coming down the hallway Alma just came from. Once we're all together, we can escape through the window."   Footsteps echoed down the hallway. Hunter motioned for everyone to run, and the three of them rushed down the corridor. As they rounded the corner, Hunter barely stopped himself from barrelling into an unsuspecting Willow.    The two groups stared at each other for a moment before Luz broke the silence. "Willow! Gus!" She ran up to her friends, pulling them into a bone-crushing hug before turning to the triclops. "Oh, and uh... hey, Boscha."   The pink-haired witch just grunted, already turning back the way they came. Luz excitedly turned back to her best friends. "I'm so glad to see you guys! It's, uh... well, it's been a rough couple of days."   Willow chuckled, "yeah, we can see that."   Luz chewed her lip worriedly as she looked at her friends. One short. "So, um, not that I'm not like super excited to see you guys, but where's Amity? Did she have a different mission?"   Willow and Gus both stiffened. Luz noticed and leaned back from the group. Willow took a deep breath. "We'll talk about that once we're out of here, alright?"   Luz's heart dropped to her stomach. She planted her feet and grabbed Willow's hand before she could walk away. "Willow, what's up?"   "Luz..." Willow started, but Luz's face was set in determination. Willow sighed, looking down at their feet.    "She's... She's gone, Luz."   Luz swallowed thickly. "What do you mean she's gone? Like, just on another mission, right?" She looked at Gus, noting the somber look on his face. Tears started to form in her eyes. "Right?"   Footsteps echoed from further inside the Conformatorium as Gus shook his head. Willow stood straight, tugging on Luz's hand. "Come on! We have to get out of here before the guards arrive!"   Luz didn't hear it. She didn't move. The world had gone eerily silent. Tears blurred her vision as her breathing became ragged. She choked on her sobs, her chest feeling constricted by a weight she couldn't see. Willow tugged on her more, but Luz just collapsed onto her knees, staring at the ground.    She's gone?   Alma started to shake her mentor, scared to see her like this. "Luz! Luz, come on! We have to go!" Alma pleadingly looked to Willow, who drew a spell circle and wrapped Luz up in vines before carrying her off.    She's gone...     Luz hardly noticed the difference between being carried and laying in her cell. The ringing in her ears had become deafening. All of her fight had left her. The group mounted their palismen and flew off into the night. The world blurred by Luz as the reality of the situation came crashing down.    What's the point? Her cries broke the calm nature of the otherwise still night. Why bother coming back, why bother fighting, why do any of it anymore if... if Amity's gone?

General Audiences

It’s been a few days since he helped her escape from his village and lied to his younger brother, people or really they were witch hunters that imprisoned her. It was the middle of October, the weather had already begun to get cold there was some patches of snow. A small campfire was placed in the middle of a grave yard, some spare wood from a nearby old tree was placed to keep the fire going. There by the fire was that of a woman with pale skin, wearing a red dress with a hood, golden eyes, Her short hair was a dark orange/brown color, her hands boney yet beautiful at least to her companion's eye and rested on the edges of her long finger nail like claws. "Here have some English tea it'll warm you up" said a man’s voice, just a few inches taller than the woman walked out of the shadows with short blonde hair with a ponytailed. he wore a white cotton shirt and pair of black trousers held up by suspenders. Brown gloves matched his brown boots. He also had a round nose , grey-blue eyes and that loose, noticeable strand of hair at the center of their bangs that hung over their forehead. "Thank you Caleb" the girl said as he handed the woman a cup that contained a dark brown liquid. The woman carefully held it in her hands, cup up, and took a small sip from the cup. The woman let out a satisfied low hum of pleasure as the hot but tasty liquid made its way down her throat. "I know it may not taste good to you but try to eat this" Caleb explained, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some beef jerky that he had snuck from his cabin. The witch looked at the meat for a moment and then slowly took it from her friend.She really didn't like eating strange foods from this realm, she knew but it helped to ease her stomach.   "Sorry I don't have any sugar cubes for you, I know how you witches love your sweets" the man sighed taking a seat next to the woman which everyone including his brother had called a witch. She slowly raised one of her thin pale colored arms and wrapped it around the man, pulling him closer to which Caleb showed no protest to. The woman let out a small purr sounding as she lied her head down on the man's shoulder, closing her eyes as the heat from the fire combined with the man's own body heat made her warm and cozy amidst the cold night. The next morning caleb wakes up to find the witch missing and an angry mob of Witch Hunters armed with muskets , pitchforks and rifles surrounded the graveyard.   Caleb's eyes widened as wide as they could, a sense of dread overwhelming him. "...Hello, everyone." Caleb stepped out of the sleep bag. "How…can I help you?" "The witch we had in custody escaped," said the General. Eye witnesses say you helped the witch escape.   "Really?" Caleb asked with forced shock. The mayor angrily asks. Caleb Wittebane your officially accused as a witch lover.”   Woah, now. Hold on." Caleb raised his hands up to chest level. "We…w-we can talk about this, can't we?" The Witch Hunters behind General all aimed their weapons at Caleb. "Guess not." Caleb squeaked.   Philip beside the general shook his head angrily at his brother. "You witch loving moron."   Suddenly a ball of fire shot Witch Hunter General dead. The other Witch Hunters and Phil stumbled back in shock as their leader fell back dead. Burnt to a crisp. Caleb grabbed his brother’s hand and two brothers quickly ran towards the village.   "Quick! Caleb! Get in the house!" The witch said holding a witches staff , appearing from being invisible and opened the door to Caleb’s house. Philip , the witch and Caleb rushed inside, slamming the door shut on the way in. The Witch Hunters were left gaped as the inside of the house flashed with a golden light.   ____________   Caleb and Philip stumbled as they fell out of the portal and gasped as they quickly surfaced, spitting out some of the water and shivered as they felt a cold air brush against them. "Where are we?" Caleb whispered. “Are we in hell?”   "Forget about that! How are we going to get back?!" Philip shouted. The two noticed that the portal that they had went through was gone. They were both trapped. Where ever they were... Caleb and Philip both climbed out of the water, shaking it off and wringing out of their drenched clothes.the two heard footsteps retreating not too far off and ran, following after them. Caleb and Philip saw a bright light, seeing that it was the exit to the cave. They ran out only to stop in their tracks at what they saw, what appeared to be on top of a mountain in a snowy place with countless of trees that were very different from the one's back on Earth, red in color. It looked like they went on forever. ………But, what shocked them the most was a giant skeleton with a huge skull, and facing them not too far off at the edge of the cliff was the witch. “thank you for saving my brother and I," Caleb smiled at the witch holding a staff with a black crow on it.   "I never mentioned my name before. The witch smiled back. "I am Agatha Clawthorne." "So, Agatha ……where are we?" Caleb asked her. "This doesn't look like my home at all." " Far from it, actually." she explained to them, smiling. "But, it's still home to me. Welcome to the Boiling Isles!"

Not Rated

“ Hey luz pass the fruit basket please !” , Willow stated On a nice sunny evening with a blue fading into pink sky the hexside squadwas enjoying a nice cute picnic to relax for the day after helping Camila withshopping and planting some flowers for the day. It had been a month and a week with them staying in the human realm, checkingthe old house each day with the hopes it would open, being worriedto death that they may never get home, and more. they've decided to finallyforget worrying wait until someone comes through the portal and have somefun !" These are delicious, we need to have these on the boiling aisle !" Gus stated, chomping on some fresh fruit " When we get back I'm gonna make sure to take some of these back. '' Amity replied. " This is weird..." Hunter said, and placed the fruit down. " C'mon hunter, try it is fine ^_^ !" Willow stated. While everyone's chatting Luz is staring at the beautiful sky, wandering offin her own mindscape. "Luz?" Amity waved her hand over luz's face "are youokay ??" It took a couple of seconds but luz finally came back to earth & replied " Oh !sorry sweet potato I was thinking of..well you know, the demon realm & are weactually ever gonna get back. Even if we're just pushing it to the back of our minds..it keeps coming back to the front of mine.." followed with a frown.. Amity held Luz's hand, " Someone on the boiling isles will remake the portal and wewill find our way back home, but until then, lets have some fun here in the humanrealm it's only been a month. It's not like we will spend our whole life here !" followedwith a smile and a kiss of luz's cheek Luz let out a sigh, look up back at the sky then at Amity's sparkling eyes,kissed her cheeks and said "Your right, I'll try and relax and have some more fun" followedalong with a cute smile. They went back to chatting and eating some fruit and drinkingsome fruit punch. a bee stung hunter during it, poor unlucky boy... After a couple hours of cleaning up the picnic and eatingsome nice dinner, & treating hunters bee sting, they all were asleep. at least other then hunter & luz it isn't that easy to push it to theback of the mindnot at all. ----- " Are you thinking about it too?"- Luz asked. " Yeah.."- Hunter replied. " How are they pushing it to the back of theirmind.. how are they so positive?! we still haven't found asingle possible way home !! " - Hunter exclaimed, turning fastwith a worried look at Luz. " What are we gonna do..." Luz stared at Hunter, then at her shaking hands. She had no idea what to do,she had no idea how long they would be here, no idea how they were truly gonnaget home, she had no idea at all. She just curled up, look at hunter with a frown andthen down back at the cold wood floor. Hunter spoke - " we still haven't told them about our issues..Only Gus knows I'm a grimwalker. Are we ever gonna speak about you-" " No !" - Luz exclaimed " Sorry, I just don't know right now. We have plenty oftime to tell them we can just push it for later. They could react so harshly it's justnot the best to think about. Especially with what I did..." - Luz replied. They both looked at each other then at the roof & finallyagreed that it's time they both get some sleep. After all they didn't want the othersto possibly catch them, they've been doing these late night talks for the past month now& have succeeded at nobody figuring out about it, they didn't know why they were worrying about it now. ---- The next morning the squad went out to a cafe ! It was a sunny but partly cloudy day, it was also the firstever time the squad went to a cafe (other then Luz ) Vee taggedalong too taking the appearance of Luz that could be defined asher "sister" which was nice. ----- " There are so many people here, won't someone catch ourears?" - Amity whispered " Nope ! Just keep them covered and you should be fine" - Vee stated. " Hello, we'll take 6 expressions and 6 croissants !" - Luz stated. After ordering they sat at a table and waited, staring outside,nodding their heads to the catchy cafe music, & looking at things somethey have never seen. They were enjoying their time on earth, after allwho knew how long it would last... Then, they finally got their order. " Holy crud, this stuff is amazing !"Gus shouted abruptly which got everyone in the cafe to look at the squad,which they had to apologize for Gus's loud interruption of the peace & and kind of quiet. After having their breakfast & paying for it, they spent the day on a a walk, going to little shopto a little shop, dancing & skipping around. Just having a wonderful time. not caring at all,not caring if they will ever get home, not caring if they are stuck within the human realm.they just didn't care, they pushed it to the back of their mind and had fun. After all, they had plenty of time to have fun and not have a care in the world.____ Finishing their exciting day... They all went home and got ready for bed. Luz was near a windowthough looking up at the sparkling stars & thinking. [ Could everythingtruly be fine at the boiling isles. What the Collector kid was doing could'veended well ? ] She shook her head, looking back at the stars to see ashooting star. With that she made a wish that everyone would be save &that this all ends with a decent "happily ever after" & was off to bed. skipping the late night talk w/ hunter, which surprised him butat least it meant he could get some more sleep. Luz's wish was already true for them in the human realm thoughthey're already safe...there is nothing in the human realm to danger them.     Right? " I'm about to leave, stay safe ! " - Camila stated as she grabbed her purse It's another casual day in the human realm, Ms. Camila isoff to work & the hexside squad plans to have a fun little ad-venture and investigate the forest near the house for differenttypes of animal's. " "Has anyone seen my red boots?"- Luz asked " Over here Luz !! " - Vee shouted while tossing the boots " Thanks ! But.. are you sure you wanna stay here alone? " - Luz asked, with a worried look " I'll be fine, that forest gives me the creeps... can't believe you guysare gonna go inside it" - Vee stated with a giggle Luz gave Vee a high five & a goodbye hug and headed out the door wherethe others were waiting for Luz. - - - - " C'mon Luz, I can't wait to see some new animals " - Gus exclaimed while runningto the forest. " Let's go before he hurts himself. " - Hunter said The forest looked bright and colorful, with a lot of flowersand more then usual animals out in the entrance area. A verypretty forest indeed. Upon walking is you could see bunnies, birds, etc. The squad tookmany phones and was just blown away by how bright and colorful it isit truly didn't match the rest of the town They walked even father into the forest, but now it had a gloomy look. The atmosphere changed rapidly when entering it, It was super cold and nobodywas dressed proper for it, so everyone was freezing. it was ready for the change.it has lost its bright and colorful look and barely any animals could be found.the squad made sure their palisman stayed close. Luz flashed her light, there were for sure no animals.the forest was never like this, she had been in this forest beforemultiple times. She was worried & was curious of what happened here. " So many dead plants.." - Willow stated " The entrance to this place was so bright and colorful..what's happened to this side of it.." - Amity said " W-we should go back its getting way to cold-" Luz stated but cut herself offwhen she stepped on some weird liquid... They all looked down and Luz flashed her light at the grown. It was goop.. but somehow.. the goop looked familiar... - - - - Everyone went quite, trying to figure out where theysaw the goop from. Luz shined the light infront of themall, it was a path of goop that looked like it went of fora long time. Goop the the dead flowers, and goop the trees.it was a sight to see, they all were shaking what could possibly-   Then it clicked.   Belo's. They all looked disturbed, Luz quickly taking off her red bootthat was now ruined with goop & with everyone backing up awayfrom the goop path. He was here, he was in the human realm, he was in the forest. " B-but how... " - Luz whispered All of them were speechless, how could've he gotten here?Did the portal open and they missed it? Why is he in this forest,how long had he been here... Then it got worstAs a random voice spoke " I s-see you all.... " His voice, but a darker tone, much slowerand sounding "corrupted." even... That was his voice. " RUN FOR IT !! " - Luz screamed without a second thought grabbing Amity's hand and off the squad was running back to the house, with Belo's chasing right behind them. They made sure the hold their palismanclose so he couldn't get a grip on them. It was a heart retching, terrifying chase but after a long runsquad hand got Did they all imagine the voice? was he not chasing them? at thatmoment those questions truly didn't matter they all walked backto the house. Sweaty & tired, and needing some rest. " Oh hi, you guys are back already? Are you guys okay though?you guys are all sweaty. I-I'll get some water bottles for you all ! " - Vee stated, while running off to get some water " Listen, its clear we may n-not be able to relax for the momentbut we shouldn't let this ruin our fun here..." - Amity stated " Yeah " - Luz said in a soft tone, while looking down at the floor " Lets forget about him and focus on waitingfor the portal to re-open and having a nice time here. " - Willow added one   " Until then, lets stay cautious of our soundings& push him to the back of our minds.. " It would be simple & easy to do thatwell it wasn'tnot at all.   Everyone was awake that night other then Camila & VeeBecause the same thing was going through everyone's mindsomething that couldn't be pushed to the back of the mind. Would he strike back?

General Audiences

She came across this strange girl when she went out for any food the forest had to offer for her group. She lived in a secluded area within the land of the Earth Kingdom in hopes of avoiding the War. According to near towns, rumors said that it was finally over. Luz for one wasn’t too sure about that, whoever was Fire Lord still failed to send the memo to groups of Fire Nation soldiers who continue with their raids. Willow often complained about the situation, she was the only one who lived in town occasionally with her fathers. Gus, Amity, and Luz often just listened to her rantings and offered any support that they were capable of but other than protecting Willow’s town and their own place they weren’t involved. For various reasons, some were personal and for others, it was just the best-case scenario.  Gus was the youngest, 12, he’s a non-bender who had his parents taken away because of the war at a young age without much memories of them. He mainly built their weapons and gadgets taking after a weaponsmith who took him in for some time before she and Willow found him. He’s a smart kid, and Luz promised herself she wouldn’t put him in danger so she limited his battles. Using his intelligence more than his physical abilities.  Amity was a different matter, while her parents remained alive being Fire Nation Nobles, she ran from her home after the news of the death of her twin siblings. She was quiet most of the time but was coming around, even helping her and Gus out with new inventions or offering combat training. She spoke of the many weaknesses of a Firebender while explaining how their inner politics worked, she was second to best in fighting. The first is Willow. She kept out of the War to heal her psychological wounds. Luz… Luz made a promise to not get involved. So she kept the promise. The point was the Nations were still recovering, not well by the looks of it, which meant she had no reason to go where the obvious danger lies. Keeping her business in the woods where no one traveled. So it was a tad bit surprising finding a girl- her age by the looks of it, on the forest floor with nothing but rags. Still, curiosity won her over, and she dropped down from the trees and carefully walked toward the girl.  Luz frowned at her display of wounds, they weren’t self-inflicted, her wrists indicated that she was held captive and treated harshly, causing her to grimace. Kneeling next to the girl, she checked her surroundings to see if anyone or anything was near them, and found they were alone. With a sigh, she opened her pouch, and with fluid made movements the water healed the bruised skin and other areas where she felt healing was needed. Only when she felt satisfied with her work is when she worked up the courage to wake up the mystery girl. She stirred, and her golden gaze met hers, her eyes shone with confusion and irritation, if you looked close enough you could see the tinge of fear within those eyes, it made Luz step back with her arms raised, by looking at her she’s certain she was Fire Nation. Her eyes were a tint darker than Amity’s. Luz continued to back away. If this girl was anything like Amity it’d be wise of her to give her space to breathe and collect herself. “How are you feeling?” ”What did you do to me?” Luz opened her mouth then closed it as no words came out. The golden-eyed girl glared at her as if she was the one who hurt her. Luz stammered out, completely baffled by this girl’s reaction.”I um healed you? Did I miss anything? You were fatigued so I did my best, y’know?” “I didn’t need your help. And it’s none of your concern.” She snarled. She raised an eyebrow.”If you say so? You’re the one who woke up in the middle of nowhere… I’ll just go, it seems you have things handled.” Luz had enough self-respect to know when she was not needed, she healed the girl, and that’s all that mattered, if she didn’t want help, Luz wasn’t one to beg. The town wasn’t too far from the woods anyways. With a slight nod, she headed to the nearest tree, the sun wouldn’t go down for another three hours or so, she still had time to go and catch food. Reaching for her daggers whimper tore through her thoughts. Turning around immediately to see the rude fire national fall to the ground without any grace. Luz winced, walking back to the girl who refused to meet her eyes. Luz felt herself sigh, she knew these types of people, Amity was one of these people. The kind who refuse to get help due to their pride or honor- whatever the reason, they didn’t seek out help. This mystery girl wasn’t any different. “Do you need my help now?” She teased. But she didn’t get an answer. She kneeled down and asked for permission silently, the girl gave a small nod. Without a second to spare, she used her bending to see if any bones were broken, and thank the spirits they weren’t. Both of her ankles seemed to be sprained, but nothing too serious. She did her best to help relieve the pain but she knew it would heal naturally. She spoke distantly, focusing on gently caressing the legs to the pair of bandages Willow made her carry around, seeing that she, the healer, is the one who constantly needs to be healed. Luz ignored the scarring she caught on the pale skin, they were healed, and she couldn’t do much about them, especially with a patient who refused help, really it seemed at any moment the girl would pounce and run for it. “They’re just sprained, they should heal in a week or two, depending on how you decide to take care of yourself… They aren’t severe but I still think you should rest until it’s safe.” “And what exactly do you suggest? You think I can afford to rest, right now?” She spat. Luz bit her inner cheek.”I can take you to my home. It’s not too far from this place.” “Aren’t you a Waterbender?” “Aren’t you a Firebender?” She sassed back. Luz then shook her head and cleared her throat.”You may not like it but it’s the safest option, it’s clear you’re running from… someone. We can take care of you until you’re healed and you can continue running. Or you can just go, but I really don’t suggest it. The town is often raided by Fire Nation Soldiers. I wouldn’t be surprised if they attacked tonight.” “Azula.” She spoke. Luz tilted her head, ready to ask who Azula was or is, but she beat her to it. “My name- It’s Azula.” She blinked.”Oh- Sorry I forgot to say my name. I’m Luz. So does that mean a yes?” She asked hesitantly. The girl didn’t answer, but reluctantly let her help with her weight. Luz bit back a smile and continued the trail of the forest. It was quiet, it wasn’t comforting or distressful- it was just awkward. She could easily support the thin teenager. Living out here meant putting your body into shape even without meaning to, it comes naturally with hunting and constant running and fighting, it wasn’t the problem that she had to carry most of Azula’s weight, but that the girl seemed to be almost repulsed by her touch, hence making Luz feel uncomfortable for having a grip on her. She wasn’t lying when she said her home was near, living in a cabin near the mountains was the most ideal place for the group to settle, but with a Firebender who seemed to regret their entire lives decision made it less bearable. So she settled with small talk, which she was knowingly shit at.  “So… Where are you hoping to end up?” Azula rolled her eyes.”I haven’t thought of it, being hunted down really doesn’t help with the imagination” Sarcasm leaking in her tone. Luz frowned, damn this girl really was a bitc- Her tone shifted solemnly, and she answered defeatedly.”But I guess if I had the option I’d simply go back home, even if the odds are that they’ll stick me in another cell. Is that a good enough answer for you?” “I was just making small talk,” Luz murmured. “Well don’t.” She snapped. “Why are you mean?- Can’t you at least try? I’m trying to help you out, but you’re making it hard.” She continued with her eyebrow furrowed.”I get that you’re in a horrible situation but don’t take it out on me.” “Did I hurt your feelings?” She mocked. “I mean not really, but you’re simply proving the people in this Nation right.” “What?” “You haven’t heard? Of your reputation, Princess?” She rambled on as the girl blanched.”I didn’t recognize you at first but I remember my friend mentioning Princess Azula taking over Ba Sing Se, if I’m being honest I thought you’d be a little older.” Silence overcame both of them, Luz didn’t mind it, it helped her focus on the road ahead, they had two hours before the sun goes down, and the night wasn’t merciful. She broke the silence, quietly.“Why are you helping me?” Luz shrugged.”You’re a Kid like me. I don’t think we should be involved in War… It’s not for us. Not yet.” Azula scoffed.”Says you. I’ve been training for this. If it weren’t for that stupid Waterbender and my traitorous brother I’d bring honor to my family and my country-” “Can’t you see what’s wrong with that? You shouldn’t have that burden on your shoulders. Being a child soldier is nothing to be proud of- It’s sad. People bash you for being a ruthless leader, leading a bloodless coup? And almost being successful, it doesn’t go under the wraps. People are terrified of you. Or at least the idea of you. I don’t think it’s right.” “Sad or not, it was why I made, to serve my Nation.” “How did that work out for you?” She questioned softly. “I wasn’t supposed to be in line to be Fire Lord, never was. But yet I managed to achieve a goal that was never on my radar. I do not care if you pity me or not. It may be sad by your standards but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I did the best I could for my family and my people, and I will never regret or change that.” She said it more to herself than Luz. “If you say so.”  Luz didn’t pick up another conversation. She had a feeling she didn’t need to. She was right, a few minutes later and they made it back to the cabin. Luz held in her breath and opened the door awaiting her group of friends who wouldn’t be so happy with this new development. Looking to her side, Azula didn’t seem bothered, but Luz managed to catch her fingers wanting to fidget with something, it was clear she was nervous too. Without further thought, they stepped in.

Teen And Up Audiences

    The small ding of the bell attached to the front door of the small convenience store made Luz look up from where she sat behind the counter. She rearranged one of the random magazines she had stolen from one of the racks in the bank of the store and slipped it under the counter.    The thoughts of the most recent celebrity scandals left her mind as she looked up and saw two women her age entering the store. She quickly recognized the tight, dri fit white shirts and short black shorts of the volleyball uniform.    Boscha’s hair was pulled back into its usual bun, a black compression bandage wrapped around one of her knees. Skara followed her, as usual, but her light hair was pulled back into braids. GCC Women’s Volleyball Championship read the back of their uniform. Above it was their number: a 5 for Boscha and a 11 for Skara.    Luz held back her groan as the glass door shut and the two young women slipped into the store. The whole point of getting out of high school was not having to see her old, rude classmates.   “Welcome in”, Luz put on the friendliest face she could muster. “Can I help you find anything?”   Boscha seemed to have the same reaction to seeing Luz. “Oh. It’s you”.   Luz lifted her hand in a sad attempt at an awkward wave. “Yeah. It’s me. Hey Boscha. Hey Skara”.    Skara waved back. “Hey Luz!”   Boscha sent her a glare and hit her with her elbow. Skara dropped her hand and looked away. “I was just saying hi”.   Boscha rolled her eyes and started scanning the next aisle.    Luz tilted her head. “Do you need help with finding anything?-“   “We’re fine, Luzer. We’ve been here before”.   “Right. Of course”, Luz grumbled. “And we’re right back to the old nicknames”.   A yell came from an aisle away. “What was that? I couldn’t hear you”.   “Nothing!”   A sound like a scoff escaped Boscha’s mouth and Luz turned away. She was reaching for her magazine again, still muttering under her breath, when the door opened again and the shrill ding! came again.    “Welcome in,” Luz mumbled. “How can I-“.   She looked up to the light amber gaze of Amity Blight. Her light lavender hair was tied up into a tight ponytail, showing off her natural light brush undercut. Her pale face was flushed, like she had been running and was out of breath. The slight red on her cheeks brought out the light brown freckles covering her face. She was wearing the same Volleyball uniform as her teammates.   Luz stopped. “-Amity! Hey!”   Amity ran one gloved hand over her hair. “Oh, Luz, hey. I didn’t know you were working today”.   Luz dipped her head. “Yeah. My mom thinks it’s good if I get out of the house more, so I picked up a few extra shifts”.    Amity gave a small nod, but was cut off. “Blight!” came Boscha’s voice as she opened one of the refrigerated doors at the back of the drink section. “You can talk to your girlfriend later! Hurry it up! We have a game to win!”   Amity’s face flushed a bit more at that. “Not my girlfriend!”   “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just pay for the gas!”    Uncomfortable, Luz looked away and started at the cash register.    “I’m sorry about them”, Amity whispered fiercely, sending a look their way. “They’re always like this before a game. It’s the excitement in the air, you know”.   “Yeah,” Luz cleared her throat. “It’s exciting”.    Amity nodded.    “Are you getting anything?”   “No. Just gas”.    Luz pressed a button on the cash register. “How much?”   “Just the regular”.   Luz entered the number into the register. “Thirty dollars is your total”.   Amity reached into her shorts pocket and pulled out the faded black leather wallet.    Luz’s throat tightened. She recognized that wallet. It was the one she and Willow had gotten her for her fourteenth birthday. Her and Willow had put their money together to buy it at the mall.    She’s still using it?    Amity pulled out a twenty and a ten and slid the green dollar bills across the counter. “Here you go”.   Luz carefully picked them up. “Thanks..”.   Luz tilted her head as the small receipt printed. “So, is this your first game back?”     The last few months of senior year, Amity had not been able to play due to her sprained ankle. Now it was healed. She had been back to practicing and was ready to play again.    “Yeah”, Amity said. “First game back, and first game of the season”.   “Regionals”, Boscha said as she came up to the counter. Amity quickly took her receipt and stepped out of her way. “Against Hampton. I’ve heard they’re good, but no match for us. We will win and move up to Nationals. We’re gonna win this year. I just feel it”.   Skara followed after Boscha. “And it’s our first college game! Wow, this is, like, the real thing”.    “Wow”, Luz said. “Cool”.   “Yeah. I know”, Boscha put her hands on her hips. “Just get to scanning our stuff. We gotta go”.   Luz looked down as Boscha produced five energy drinks on the counter in front of her. She raised a brow. “You know these can cause heart attacks, right?”   “If having a cardiovascular emergency is what it takes to beat Hampton, then I’ll take it”.   Besides Boscha, Amity silently rolled her eyes.    Luz breathed. “Okay”.   She scanned all the cans of drinks under Boscha’s cold gaze. She looked back up. “Is this all?”   Skara held up a big bag of chips that was being showcased on the checkout counter. “Boscha? Please?”   Boscha shook her head. “No. You can’t get crumbs all over your uniform. The other team will think we’re some messy rookies”.   “Or my car”, Amity added. “My parents will kill me if they find crumbs in the backseat”.    Skara pouted. “Oh, come on. I’m hungry!”   Boscha turned away with a sigh. “It wouldn’t hurt you to lose a few pounds anyway”.       Skara gave an offended gasp. Amity rested her arms across her chest. “Boscha”.   “Can it, Blight. I’m just being realistic”.   “Starving yourself was so early 2000s”, Skara muttered under her breath as she put the bag of chips back on the metal rack.    Luz put the drinks in a small white plastic bag and Boscha slid her a ten dollar bill. Luz blinked. “You’re total was-“.   Boscha was already turning towards the door. “Keep the change”. She looked Luz up and down. “You look like you could use it”.   Luz looked down at herself. She was wearing a black T-shirt with light blue jeans and her usual white slip-ons. A blank apron covered her upper body, along with her name tag for work. “Hey. What does that mean?”   Boscha threw her arms up dramatically. “Esh. You’re working at a gas station. It speaks for itself”.   “It’s just for the summer!” Luz protested. “And it’s still a job!”    “Still kind of sad”, Skara said.    “Oh yeah, and what are you guys doing that is so important?”   “Going to college”, Boscha said. “Become university Volleyball champions”.   Amity scoffed. Boscha sent her a glare and Skara frowned. Boscha waved her hands around again. “Whatever. We gotta go kick some prissy Hampton ass”.   Skara pumped her fists. “Yeah! Let’s go Banshees! Wooo!”   Boscha cringed. “Too much, Skara”.   “Sorry..”.   Boscha made it to the door, the bag swinging on her arm. “You coming, Amity?”   “Just a second”.   Boscha held back her snort. “Okay. See you later, Luzer”.   Skara followed her friend through the door and out into the parking lot. “Yeah. Bye Luz!”   When the door closed, Amity rolled her eyes. “Oh. My. God”.   “Right. They’re..”.        “Immature bullies?” Amity was digging through her pockets. “Yeah. They are”.   Luz nodded. “I don’t know how you put up with them”.   “Me either honestly. You just get used to it after a while I guess”.    Luz looked back up at her ex-girlfriend as she put down more dollar bills. “I didn’t-“.   “They were three dollars short, weren’t they? I saw”.   “Yeah..”, Luz scratched the back of her head. “I wasn’t going to say anything though. Sometimes it’s just easier to ignore things. Or to just.. run from them. I don’t know”.    Amity laughed humorlessly. “I wish I could do that”.   Luz looked back at Amity’s hands as she held the cash again. “You don’t have to”.    Amity smiled. “It’s alright. I got it covered”.   “Alright..”.   Luz took the money from Amity’s waiting hands. She opened the cash register as Amity looked upon her with narrowed eyes, smacking on gum Luz didn’t even know Amity had had in her mouth.    “So”, Luz turned back to the familiar young woman at the counter. “Good luck at the game”.    Amity sent her a small wink, and Luz felt a weird feeling in her chest again. “Thanks. I’ll make sure Boscha doesn’t have a heart attack. You don’t worry about her”.   Luz chuckled. “Oh. Yeah. I won’t”.   “Yeah..”, Amity trailed off. “Well, I gotta go-“.   Luz stiffened. “Yeah. Go, go”.   “Um, it was nice talking to you”. Amity started walking backwards towards the door. “I’ll text you”.   Luz sent her awkward finger guns. “Nice talking to you too, Amity! And I’ll look forward to those texts!”   Luz’s heart was beating fast in her chest and her face was getting heated in embarrassment.    Amity sent her a weird look. “Yeah, okay.. bye”.   “Bye. Have a good time at your game”, Luz said. “I’ll be cheering you on from here”.   Amity raised her brows. “Really?”   “Yeah”, Luz swallowed. “I still got those cheerleading moves”.   She threw her arms up and waved them around. “Go Banshees! G-O A-M-I-T-Y! Go Amity!” She tilted her head towards the door. “See?”   Amity giggled. “I see. Bye, Luz”.    “Bye, Amity”.   Amity sent her a sweet, genuine smile. Luz felt her cheeks heat up again. She wishes she could take a picture of that smile and hang it as a Polaroid on her wall and stare at it forever. That fact scared Luz just a bit.   Okay, maybe she wasn’t over her ex. Even though they only dated for a few months and then ended things on good terms and were still friends, only slightly distant friends. It wasn’t weird at all.   When the door clicked shut, Luz let out a tiny groan and practically melted behind the counter. Finger guns? Really?!                          _______   “Have you heard back from the scholarship program, mija?”    Luz turned to face her mother. It was late afternoon now and she was off her shift. Her mom was on break from her work at the local veterinary clinic and decided to join Luz as she walked downtown to the cafe to meet her friends.    “No,” Luz said softly, almost a bit ashamed.   Camila held back her frown. “Maybe you should apply again. Maybe they didn’t see your email-“.   “Mom”.   Camila blinked. “What?”   “I’ve emailed them three times this last month. They would have responded by now. Maybe I’m just not eligible”.   Camila shook her head. “Nonsense. Every kid is eligible for a scholarship. I’ll just give them a call when we get back home”.    “And besides,” Luz went on. “I might not start at college this fall after all”.   “What do you mean?”   Luz shrugged. “I might just wanna take a year off. Get some work done, save some money. Maybe I’ll hangout with some friends and just chill. I don’t know”.   Camila raised a brow. “ ‘Chill’? You will delay your education to chill?”   “I just want a break, Mom. I’m not sure what I want just yet-“.   “When I was your age, I knew exactly what I wanted”, Camila drew on. “I knew I was going to do what I love to help animals. But I also knew I was going to have a nice, stable career”.    “That it’s”, Luz said hastily. “I’m not you”.   Camila sighed. “I just want the best for you. Truly. You know, a lot of people in our family never went to college. I don’t want the same for you. I want you to get the education you deserve. College opens the doors to lots of opportunities. New jobs, experiences, people”. She paused and gave Luz a small smirk. “Maybe you’ll meet a cute girl or boy there”.  Luz flushed.“I’m sure I will. Just when I’m ready. I’m not sure I’m going this year. I’m still figuring things out”.    Camila raised one brow. “How will it take for you to do that?”   “I don’t know”.   “You seem to not know a lot of things”.   “I know I want to be a writer, a well known author. I wanna do big things”, Luz paused. “And I’m not sure if Gravesfield is the best place to do that. I mean, a small town in Connecticut isn’t the greatest place to try to start a successful career. And the community college here spends a lot more money on their sports programs, not their English programs..”.   “Do you want to go to another college then?”   Luz closed her eyes. “Maybe..? But then I would have to leave my friends behind and move to another town, or another state, and I’ll probably have to rent out some leaky attic and have a creepy roommate who may or may not be a crazy ax murderer-“.   Camila widened her eyes and gripped Luz’s shoulder. “Luz, calm down. You’re not being murdered by your roommate just yet”.   Luz took a deep breath. “It’s just a lot to think about. But I still have all summer. I’ll figure something out”.   Ha, my last summer before going off to college. My last summer of being a kid really.    Camila opened her mouth to see something, then stopped. “We’ll talk about this later, okay?”   Luz nodded. Both mother and daughter turned when one of the doors on the stores nearest to them opened. Under the thrift shop with a sign that read Eda’s Human Collectibles in cursive came running out a pale boy with black hair and amber eyes. He was followed by his mother, the owner of the shop, Eda.    Luz and Camila smiled at the sight of her. Camila and Eda had been close friends during college in a friend group that consisted of them, another person named Raine and Eda’s older sister, Lilith. Eda had opened her shop downtown shortly after Luz was born and Luz had grown up close to her. She even called her Aunt Eda. Luz and Camila were also still close to Lilith, who worked at the Gravesfield Historical Society.    Eda had married Raine, her high school sweetheart. Eda had been deemed infertile due to genetic family problems. So, together, her and her partner adopted a boy named Kingston, but King for short. Raine also owned the music store right next to Eda’s shop.   Now, the twelve year-old-boy who thought of Luz as his cousin, was running out onto the sidewalk while his mother called after him. “Aunt Cam! Luz!”   Camila chuckled. “Hey King”.   “Kingston Clawthorne!” Eda was exclaiming, marching by. She was wearing a yellow sundress that matched the yellow bandana was holding back her mess of orange hair, and that was also hiding her gray roots. “What did I tell you about running out the street?”   King pouted. “But I’m done with inventory! And Camila and Luz are here!”   Eda sighed. “Okay. Fine. Just this once”. She turned to Luz. “Whoa. Hey there, Kid. Have you grown since the last time I saw you?”   Luz laughed. This was always the way Eda greeted her. “It’s only been a few days, Eda”.   “You still look more grown up”. Eda nodded at Camila. “She’s taking after you, Cam”.    Raine, who had been cleaning the window on their storefront, opened the door. “Hey Camila! Hey Luz!”   Camila waved and smiled. “Hey Raine! How’s it going?”   “Pretty good!” They pointed to the spray bottle they were holding. “Cleaning day!”   Camila nodded.   “It better be”, Eda added. “Nothing attracts dust more than those old guitars Raine can never sell”.   Raine frowned at their wife’s comments. “Hey! They’re not that old!”   Eda rolled her eyes. “Uh-huh. Sure, honey”.   King tugged on his mom’s sleeve. “Mom, can I please go help in the shop?”   “Only if you are cleaning”.   King nodded eagerly. “I will! And then Nini can give me guitar lessons!”   Eda watched as her son scampered off to his other parent. She shook her head. “Oh God, he’s gonna bust my eardrums one of these days”.   She turned back to them with a smile. “So, how are you guys?”   “Just on a walk. I’m on break and Luz is on her way to see some friends”.   “Ooh, you sound busy”, Eda remarked. “I’ll catch you another time then”.    Camila nodded. “I better get back to work. But I’ll see you soon”. She motioned to Luz. “Have fun with your friends, mija”.   “I will”.   Eda was still talking. “Bye Cam! I’ll call you soon, okay? We can have dinner and catch up. Raine is working on this new pie recipe you just have to try”.   Camila was already rushing away. “I will! Bye!”   Eda watched her go, then turned back to her store. Hooty, Eda’s cat who could be found roaming throughout the store, could be seen. He was lounging on one of the older sofas. Eda snorted. “Well, I got to get back to the store and make sure King didn’t break anything. But I’ll see you around, Kiddo”.   Luz nodded and watched with a smile and a small wave as Eda went back into her store, saying something that made Hooty sit up. Eda looked back through the window and waved.    Luz continued on her way to the cafe, clutching her messenger bag. It was only a few blocks away and she got there two minutes later. A few other teens sat outside, sipping on drinks and talking to friends like any other typical late June day.    Luz usually came here to hang out with her friends. It was a common meeting spot as it was close to all of them. Gus, Hunter and Gus’s dad lived together in a house across the street from Luz’s, the plant nursery Willow’s dads owned wasn’t far either.    Luz also liked to come here when Amity was working. She thought the dark green apron uniform looked good on her and brought out her eyes. But seeing as Amity was at her tournament, she wouldn’t be working today and wouldn’t get home til tonight.   Luz was now standing outside the cafe. She could see her friends through the window, sitting in their typical spot on the couch in the far corner. Gus sat with Hunter in one corner, while Willow sat on the other, reading a book. They seemed to be waiting for Luz.   Hunter was looking at Willow with a lost expression on his face, and Gus kept nudging him. All of this went unnoticed by Willow, who was transfixed on her book.    Luz smirked. She needed to remember to start dropping hints to Hunter about what Willow liked. He needed to take her on the best first date ever.    Luz finally walked up and opened the door. She slipped inside the cool cafe, the scent of coffee grounds instantly hitting her nose. She headed towards the back of the cafe, and exchanged a loud greeting with her friends.                          _______   It was late when Amity texted her.    Luz had been laying in bed, the TV playing in the background. She was just staring at the ceiling. Her mom had a late shift so she was home alone.       She rolled over to where her phone was charging on the nightstand when she heard it ring. Amity Blight, 12:55 PM Are you still up? Luz Noceda, 12:55 PM It’s late. Amity Blight, 12:56 PM I know.  Luz Noceda, 12:56 PM Is this like a booty call? Amity Blight, 12:56 PM Oh God no. Luz Noceda, 12:57 PM Okay. What’s up? Amity Blight, 12:57 PM Are you decent? Luz Noceda, 12:57 PM Why?? Amity Blight, 12:58 PM I had a fight with my mom again. Luz Noceda, 12:58 PM About what? Amity Blight, 12:58 PM I don’t even know. I think I just got kicked out. Luz Noceda, 12:59 PM Amity!! Amity Blight, 12:59 PM I told her I wanted to quit volleyball. Luz Noceda, 12:59 PM You do?   Amity Blight, 1:00 AM Yeah. But that would be throwing my scholarship down the drain.  Luz Noceda, 1:00 AM You’re really quitting? Volleyball has been your whole life. Amity Blight, 1:00 AM I’m not just not happy anymore. I want to do more. But my mom just screamed at me as usual.  Luz Noceda, 1:01 AM I’m sorry. Amity Blight, 1:01 AM She told me to get out. I packed a bag. Luz Noceda, 1:02 AM Do you need a place to crash? We have a spare room. Amity Blight, 1:03 AM I just need to get out of here. Luz Noceda, 1:03 AM Your house? Amity Blight, 1:04 AM No. This town.  Luz Noceda, 1:04 AM What do you mean?? Amity Blight, 1:05 AM Remember what you said earlier today about sometimes it’s easier to run from your problems? Luz Noceda, 1:06 AM I didn’t mean that literally. Amity Blight, 1:07 AM Well I am. I just need to get away for a while. This place just has a lot of bad memories. Also my parents. I really need to get away from my parents. Luz Noceda, 1:08 AM What will you do? Amity Blight, 1:08 AM Just drive away. Just for a bit. A little summer trip. But I don’t wanna go or alone. Luz Noceda, 1:09 AM Ask Boscha or Skara. Amity Blight, 1:10 AM I want you. Luz Noceda, 1:11 AM Where are you right now? Amity Blight, 1:11 AM A few blocks away from my house. My parents won’t let me take the damn car.  Luz Noceda, 1:12 AM And where do you want to go? Amity Blight, 1:12 AM I don’t know. I’ll guess we’ll find out.  Luz Noceda, 1:13 AM My mom still has my dad’s old van in the garage. Amity Blight, 1:14 AM Sounds good. I need a distraction. Luz Noceda, 1:14 AM What kind of distraction? Amity Blight, 1:16 AM Meet at Robin’s Roast. Coffee on me.                       _______   “A road trip?” Gus repeated.    Amity stole a glance at Luz and nodded. “Of some sorts”.   “An adventure!” Luz exclaimed. “It’ll be all fun and spontaneous like those cool teens on TV!”   Willow blinked. “I think this sounds fun. Where will we be going?”   Luz cleared her throat. “We don’t know just yet-“.   “New York”, Amity cut in, then smiled. “Yeah. New York sounds fun. It’s not too far”.   “Just a whole state away”, Hunter grunted.    Willow widened her eyes. “Wow. The Big Apple. That sounds great. Doesn’t it, Gus?”   “Yeah. I’m down with whatever”.   At sixteen, Gus was the youngest of the group. He usually did whatever the oldest of them thought was okay.    “So, you guys wanna go?”   The only response was Hunter spinning on his heel. “Nope”.   “Why?”   “It’s nearly two in the morning. Are you crazy?”   “No,” Luz ducked her head. “Maybe..?”   Hunter turned on Amity. “I’m sorry that you have mommy issues but that doesn’t mean you need to drag us into your runaway attempt”.   “Hey, hey”, Willow said. “No one is running away! This is like a vacation!”   “Yeah. A vacation”.   Hunter walked towards the door.   “Where are you going now?”   “Home”.   “..you know your house is the other way, right?”   “Right! I was just.. testing you”.   It was currently almost 2am and the group had met at Robin’s Roast. Amity had used her key to let them in. Now they were huddled in Luz’s garage where her dad’s old van was.   Amity had her black duffel bag packed, along with Luz’s two backpacks. She cleared her throat. “Are guys in or out?”   “In”.   “If Willow’s going, I’m going”.   Luz smiled. “Great”.    They all turned to look at Hunter.    “What?”   Gus nudged him. “It’ll be fun. One last fun summer trip before we have to go back to school”.   Amity looked down. “We might not even be going to the same school next year, maybe not even be in the same state..”.   Hunter looked up at Willow. She gave him a small nod. “I…uh.. fine”.   The group let out a round of small cheers, everyone giving Hunter a nudge or bump. His face flushed, embarrassed. “Okay, okay”.   “We gotta get the cat up and running”, Luz explained. “It works, but I can’t get it turned on”.   “Huh”.   Luz blinked up at Hunter. “Can you..?”   Hunter stiffened. “What? Just because I’m a man I know how to work with cars? Double standards go both ways you know”.   Luz frowned. “Okayyy”.   Amity rolled her eyes and rolled up her sleeves. “Pop the hood”.   Luz listened and Amity opened the driver’s door and shoved the keys into the ignition. The car rumbled to a start then stopped.    “Looks like it wants to overheat”, Amity explained, coming up to the hood of the car. “Go get me a cup of cold water. I need to refill the radiator and it should be good as new”.    Willow went to the door and slipped into the kitchen to get the water while everyone looked at Amity. “What?”   Luz blinked. “Didn’t know you were good with cars”.   “I used to help my dad in the garage. Fixing cars was his side hobby, when he wasn’t fighting with my mom that is”.   Amity accepted the cup of water from Willow and poured it into the radiator and closed the hood. Luz tried the key and it worked just fine. She gave Amity a thumbs up.   Willow, Gus, and Hunter went home to pack and agreed to meet them back at the house. Luz went inside to pack. She packed most of clothes, her phone, charger and vanity items into one of her mom's old hiking backpacks.    She then stopped in the kitchen to write a note to her mom and to inform her boss she wouldn’t be working for a while.    Mom, I’m off on a trip with my friends. We’re taking the van and hitting the road for a bit. I don’t know when I’ll be back but don’t worry. Everything is fine. I’m just trying to spend some time with my friends while I still can and figure some things out. Text or call me when you see this. I’ll keep my phone on.        Her and Amity threw their bags into the back and slammed the door shut. A few minutes later, they heard the yells of their friends as they came running back up the street, a backpack on each of their backs.    Luz held up the keys. “I’m driving”.   Amity raised her brows. “I call shotgun”.   “Aw, man”, Gus muttered. “I’ll sit in the very back so the lovebirds can sit together”.   Willow blushed. Hunter groaned. “Stop it!”   “Never!”   Luz cleared her throat. “Okay. First rule of the Noceda-Blight-Park-Porter Mega Summer Roadtrip-“.   Hunter huffed. “That’s a stupid name”.   “-no making fun of Hunter. We don’t want to make him more grumpy than he already is”.   The rest of the group laughed. Hunter’s face reddened more and Willow gave him a pat on the back.    They all piled into the car. Luz made sure all the doors were shut before opening the garage door. She looked behind her. “You guys ready?”   “Hell yeah!” Gus exclaimed excitedly. “My first time away from my dad for more than a day!”    The group laughed.   Luz carefully backed out and closed the garage door. Then they turned out into the street.   Luz noticed the flicking red signal by the steering wheel. “Looks like we need gas”.   As soon as they made it to the gas station, Gus jumped out and Luz tossed him her keys to the tiny store. “Get some good snacks! We’re gonna need it!”  The younger boy sped away. “On it!”   Hunter got out of the car to pump the gas. It took him a minute, and a grunt later, Willow got out of the car to help him. She rolled her eyes in Luz’s direction and Luz stifled her giggle. Hunter really wasn’t good with cars.    Amity had a map spread out across the dashboard, teaching possible routes with her fingers.    Luz leaned over her shoulder. “Where will we go?”   “We can take one the quieter roads tonight, find a rest stop, get some sleep”, Amity explained. “Then merge onto the highway in the morning”.   Luz yawned. “Sounds good. Do you feel about being my directions gal?”  Amity laughed. “You drive, I’ll hold the map”.    “Great. Cause I have no idea where I’m going”.   “Me either”.   There was silence for a moment then, “Hey, Luz?”  “Hm?”   “Thanks for doing this.. I really needed this. To spend some time with people I actually like and away from my parents”.    “Of course, Amity. Anything for a friend”.    Something like disappointment spread in her chest after saying that.    She turned to Amity and realized for the first time how close they were, both leaning over the dashboard. Her eyes instantly went to Amity’s lips and then she pulled away. They looked at each other for a moment longer and Amity looked like she wanted to say something but then the car shook and everyone was coming back in.   Gus held a paper bag in his hands. “Who wants snacks?”   He spent the next minute passing out bags of chips, cookies, crackers and sodas. Everyone accepted them gratefully and then turned back to look up at Luz and Amity.   Luz looked back at Amity, half of her face covered in darkness, the other highlighted by the pale moonlight coming in from the windshield. She gave a small nod. “Are you ready to go?”   “Of course I’m ready!” Luz said back. “Buckle up, Blight!”   With that, Luz stomped on the gas pedal. Her heart lurched in her chest and she then hit the break.    Several scraps of food went flying. Everyone leaned forward in surprise.   “Luz!” four voices said in unison.   “Haha”, Luz said. “Sorry!”   “I’ll drive”, Hunter offered.   The rest of them shook their heads. “No”.    Hunter let out a scoff and leaned back. “Come on, I’m not that bad t driving”.   “Hmm, I beg to differ”.   “Yeah, Buddy, about that..”.   “I’m sorry to break it to you but-“.   “Shut up!”    The voices of her friends in the backseat faded as Luz turned up the music and turned to look at Amity through the rear view mirror.   Amity looked back. They continued driving into the night.

General Audiences

Willow is fairly used to scrapes and bruises.    She grew up being a clumsy child, constantly tripping over her own feet in the garden, or when she was running after Amity. Her dads were accustomed to plastering bandaids on her when she came home during the day.    However, before they would put the bandaids on, one of her dads always kissed the cut better.    And Willow will always swear that it works.    —-   The first time she notices Hunter get hurt, it’s not really something she would know how to fix.   The right half of his body is alight with golden veins streaking through his skin. And Willow wishes, so badly, that she was good at healing magic so she could at the very least ease his pain. But no, there isn’t time for that.   So she does what she can, and uses her plant magic to at least try and restrain what she assumes is Belos, and give everyone time to get out of the way.    And then that rampaging monster is causing debris to fall, right towards her head, and yet it doesn’t hit her. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Hunter spin Flapjack, deflecting the falling rocks away.    She also sees him wince in pain.   The fight rages on, and just when they’re almost out, Belos corners them. He’s about to crush everyone, but Willow goes to cover Hunter because he’s already in pain, and she’s going to try to reduce that if she can.    But they don’t die there, and Belos is flicked by what she can only assume is the Collector. And she’s only half thinking as she helps play along with their ruse, trying to find someway out.    She’s horrified to hear Hunter’s whimper of pain rather than a sentence. And she wants to use that stupid kiss it better tactic her dads did with her when she was little, and take all that pain and the golden veins away.    But eventually it works, and the Collector stops the draining spell and suddenly Willow looks at Hunter and she can tell he’s not in pain anymore.    She grins, and will not examine the thought of kissing Hunter further.    —-   The second time Willow sees Hunter hurt, it’s not a physical thing.    She watches as he tucks Gus in on the couch. The younger boy had taken their stranding in the human realm the hardest, crumpling to his knees as soon as he realized what had happened.    And Willow was about to run over and help when Hunter got to it first. She watched as he helped Gus to his feet and protectively held an arm around him, sheltering him from the rain.    So she knows that Hunter has been running on helping mode. She knows that because she does it herself. If she’s helping others, she won’t have to deal with her own feelings.    She quietly walks over to the couch, looking at the sleeping face of one of her best friends. It really only then hits her how young Gus is, how young they all are, really. Too young to be this far from home.    “Captain?” Hunter is looking at her from his own position on the couch. Willow remembers that Gus had insisted on not being separated from either of them, which had resulted in carrying spare pillows and blankets out, and setting up a makeshift bed. She hasn’t settled into her position yet.    “It’s been a long day.” Is all she says. Hunter nods silently in agreement.    “Do you… do you think they’re okay?” He’s quieter than normal.    “They have to be.” She’s not sure if he’s referring to how the draining spell affected everyone with a coven sigil, or being left with the Collector, but she remembers watching him shake Darius, begging him to wake up.    Willow wonders what kind of scars can be left by watching someone you love like that.    And she’s definitely too tired, too overwhelmed, to keep a tight lid on things like she normally would, because she quickly presses a kiss against Hunter’s temple.    “Kissed it better.” She mutters as she drifts off to sleep.    She doesn’t remember doing that in the morning.    —-   The third time she sees Hunter hurt, it’s really much more of an average injury.    Camila had driven them all to the zoo, much to the delight of everyone from the Boiling Isles. Willow had carefully arranged a floral bandana to cover her ears, and felt like everyone blended in with the crowd pretty well.    They had essentially been given the freedom to roam the zoo, and only had to meet back up at the gift shop at a specific time. This meant people splintered off, Camila, Gus and Vee being the first to leave, saying something about checking out the giraffe exhibit. Luz and Amity disappeared next, holding hands and sprinting towards the otter exhibit. That left Willow and Hunter, making their way towards the butterfly garden.    She looked around in wonder, watching as the many different types of butterfly flew past her. The human plants were just as intriguing, and she wants to look at it all.    “Hunter, isn’t it amazing?” She laughs, turning to try and talk to him. Instead, she sees him trip over something and scrape his knee against the ground.    “Are you okay?” She asks, right beside him in an instant. She opens the green bag Camilla had bought her, and is glad she put a few bandaids and cleaning wipes in there.    “I’m fine Captain.” Hunter seems unconcerned as she cleans out the cut, just to make sure it doesn’t get infected.    “What happened, did you trip over a root?” She carefully peels a bandaid and applies it to his knee.    “No I… I got distracted.” He won’t meet her eyes and she thinks she can see a bit of red dusting his cheeks.    But instead of pushing, Willow presses two fingers two her lips, and then lightly taps the fingers on his knee. She bounces back up and refuses to look at his face.    “All better.” She’s not sure what to make of the fact that he’s now bright red.    —-   It’s raining the fourth time she notices he’s hurt.    They’ve been in the human realm for a month and a half at this point. It’s still hard to imagine what is going on back on the Boiling Isles, back home, but they almost have figured out how to get back.    Rain is more common in the human realm than it is back home, which Willow supposes is a good thing. The rain here is actually good for plants, rather than being boiling and hurting them.    However, she’s noticed Hunter always rubs his hands more when it rains, almost like an old injury is bothering him.    He’s taken his gloves off around her a few times, so she knows just how many scars litter his hands, and she can only imagine the extent of the injuries that caused them.    It’s later, during movie night with everyone else, when she notices him rubbing a larger scar on his hands.    “Hunter?” She whispers. He looks over. “I… do you want me to kiss it better?” She knows he thinks there's some kind of magic when she does that, because he told her so after the incident at the zoo. So she waits for his response nonchalantly. He definitely doesn’t think it’s anything more than a friend thing, and if she’s helping a friend, she can shove her own feelings down.    “Please?” Hunter nods, and holds his hand out. Willow makes sure Gus and Luz aren’t looking, because she knows those two will think this is something it isn’t.    Because Willow is just being a good friend when she takes his hand and raises it to her lips. She lightly presses them against each scar, trying to be as soothing as possible because she can tell it does actually hurt. But more than that, she’s trying to make whatever memories caused these scars better.    —-   The fifth time, she knows Hunter isn’t hurt.    They’re back in the Boiling Isles, back home. And sure they haven’t beaten the Collector yet, but they will. They’re currently huddled in a tent they had brought from the human realm, trying to do some last minute strategizing. Willow and Hunter are the only ones who stayed back, the others scouting for anyone they know.     So she feels like she can sit a bit closer to Hunter, and feels pleasantly surprised when he interlaces his fingers with her own.    “We’re going up against the Collector tomorrow.” He’s studying her face, she knows he is.    “We can do this. We’re going to get everyone back.” It’s not strictly true that the others were looking for anyone, they were looking for anyone who the Collector wasn’t controlling like a doll.    “I know we will.” Hunter gently moves his thumb back and forth on the back of her hand.    “And then we won’t have to worry about all of this anymore, and we can go back to Hexside and play Flyer Derby, and-”   “Willow, I have something to tell you. In case we don’t make it back tomorrow.” She grips his hand tighter almost involuntarily at that. The thought of losing him, of losing any of her friends, is unbearable.    “No.” She shakes her head.    “No?” Hunter repeats, eyebrows furrowing and clearly confused.    “We’re going to make it back tomorrow. You can tell me then.” She leans forward and kisses the scar on his cheek. He reaches up, touching the scar, his face a brilliant shade of red. She’s pretty sure she’s blushing too. She kind of wishes she had aimed for his lips.    “All better.”   —-   Hunter isn’t sure what went wrong.    One second they had made it into the giant floating fortress that used to be the Owl House, and the next second Willow was on the ground, hit by one of the Collector’s monsters. He’s kneeling next to her, watching in horror.    The plan had been fairly simple when it came down to it. They had divided into two teams, one infiltrating from the back, led by Luz, and the other leading a head on assault on the fortress. The idea had been that Luz would get to King, who would be able to use a little bit of his blood to seal the Collector away. So Hunter and Willow were meant to draw the monsters away from the back so the others would have a clear shot.    Except the particularly bad thing about being injured by these monsters was it wasn’t really an injury. They had discovered that the monsters allowed the Collector to turn people into his own personal dolls, puppets for his game.    And Hunter watched in horror as Willow fell under the Collector’s control. She straightened up, no recognition in her eyes.    “Captain?” He asked, knowing there would be no response.    Willow ignored him, instead summoning vines that went after his arms first, then his legs. Hunter clutched Flapjack, evading the plants. It’s almost ironic, he thinks. They first met by her pulling him out of the sky with her vines to play Flyer Derby, and now she was trying to capture him with those same vines.    “Captain, can you hear me?” He tried again.    The onslaught of attacks continued, and he couldn’t keep evading forever. So instead he rolled closer to her, ducking the vines. He got right next to her and grasped her hands. Willow began drawing a spell circle with her foot though, and he had to duck away once more.    Only he wasn’t as quick as he needed to be this time. His foot caught on a root, and he stumbled, and that was all the time that was needed for her to catch him. She paused right in front of him, and he looked for any sort of way out. Nothing. Flapjack had been dropped in his earlier attempts, and he was firmly kept in the vines. His arms were still free though, so gently, he reached out and cupped her face.    “Willow,” He studied her eyes, looking for something, anything, to prove she was listening. “What I wanted to tell you before…” The vines loosened the smallest bit, almost like he was imagining it. But Hunter knew he wasn’t.    “I like you.” He blurts. “I have for a while, and I wanted to tell you last night, but you said I could tell you after we all made it back. But I can’t let this happen to you, so I’m telling you now.”   She looks like she’s actually seeing him now, rather than just an enemy. And so Hunter gently presses his lips against hers. He’s read enough books to know this was a common solution, but honestly he’s just hoping it shocks her into dropping her spell circle.    Willow’s vines drop off him in an instant and her hand reaches up, over his. She’s kissing him back, and her other hand grabs at his shirt, like she’s trying to make sure he’s okay. Her lips are warm, and a little chapped, and it’s clumsy, but somehow it also feels right.    “I like you too.” Are the first words out of Willow’s mouth when she pulls back.    He almost breathes a sigh of relief, because she’s here, she isn’t under the Collector’s control anymore. And it wasn’t for long, thankfully, but Hunter doesn’t know what he would have done if he had actually had to fight her.    His head rests against hers and they sit for a minute. Hopefully they distracted the Collector and the monsters long enough for the others to defeat him.    But eventually he gets to his feet and helps Willow up. She stifles a giggle with her hand.    “Willow?” He questions.    “You kissed it better.” She is fully laughing now, head resting on Hunter’s shoulder, their hands laced together.    “Yeah, I guess I did.”

Teen And Up Audiences

You haven’t seen the Golden Guard in all day.   It's not anything new. It's common to go without seeing him for a few days. At most, a week. But it still makes that sliver of unease pop its head out, especially because you were supposed to go over more translations again and he hadn't shown up.   But it's fine. He'll show up eventually. He always does after whatever mission the Emperor has him going on. So how come you're nervous?   It might have to do with the odd mood going around the barracks; it seems everyone's been on edge all day. You just didn't know why.   “Oi, you gonna eat that?” A voice drawls from beside you. You barely manage to suppress a flinch as you snap back to attention.   “Hm? What was that?” You try to play off like you hadn't been spacing out. Or staring at your bloody apple for the past.. how long has it been?   Your old mentor snorts from his spot beside you. “I asked if you’re gonna eat that? Or are ya’ gonna stare at it all day?"   ‘Oh good. Just my luck. He's in a teasing mood.' You huff, already feel your poor mood dampen even more. Why it was bad in the first place? You’re not sure. But Finn had the amazing ability to make even the smallest thing into a big deal and, well, it doesn't matter. What matters is that you're really not in the mood so if he could kindly shut up? That would be great.     “Hey. Anyone home in there?” A hand waves in front of your face. "Jeez, newbie. What's got your knickers in a twist? Someone shit in your bed or somethin'?"   You can feel your eye twitching. "No. It was seeing your poor piss face that made me regret getting up this morning."   Damon cackles from his spot at the end of the table. "Ha ha! They got you good."   "Ha.. Definitely." Finn doesn't think it's so funny- which is good because you weren't being funny. As long as he didn't push anything on you today.   Your luck is stellar cause he immediately does just that.    "You alright there, [f/n]?" He asks, his tone perfectly nice and gentle with just a hint of a drawl. "You seem a bit cranky today. Nothing's bothering you, right? You'd tell you ol' mentor, yah?"   'Yeah, I won't.' You hold back a glare as you stab at a piece of food on your plate. It's a griffin egg.    You know this game your "friend" plays and, honestly? You're starting to get tired of rolling over and taking it. You have been for a while and today doens't make that less true. Because now? Now you know better; he may be your friend but he certainly doesn't act like it a lot.    So? Let Finn play his games. You can play too.   "I'm fine. Are you okay? After all, you seem especially annoying this morning. Are you sure your knickers aren't in a twist?" You make sure your voice is exceptionally pleasant when you say them. The way Finn sputters is worth it. Even Damon's cackling is music to your ears.    Finn grumbles but, thankfully, doesn't say anything else. You know he'll get back at you for that later but right now? You have more important things to think about.   Like where the Golden Guard is. Sure, it's not healthy to divulge into your spiraling thoughts but you haven’t seen him all day and it's weird. You haven’t passed by him in the halls or seen him in the library and that’s not even mentioning Flapjack. He’s probably busy. He's most likely on a super, secret mission. Plus, your just a scout. It’s not like it’s your place to worry- right?    Besides, last time you saw him..      “Sir? Where are you going?”   He had spun around at your voice, no doubt suprised.   You’d been guarding the halls that night. There hadn’t been a peep of anyone around and, needless to say, it had been boring. So when you saw a glint of gold, you knew it could only be one person.   What didn’t make sense was why he seemed so.. nervous.   “Scout. Good evening?” He had politely greeted, posture perfect, head held up confidently, and uniform spik and spek. But his tone was… off.   You’d blinked, but shook it off. He probably had his mind on other things. Your coven leader was anything if not a workaholic. You understood after he questioned you on texting slang for a full night. You still had the eyebags to show for it.   “Good evening, except it's, um, nighttime. And I’m.. guarding the hall. It was my duty for the day.” You had tilted your head, confused, because how could he forget? He’s the one you assigned it to you after all.   “Oh. right. Yes. Apologies. It must have slipped my mind.” He seemed like he had somewhere to be with how his feet shuffled on the tiled floor.    You nodded, falling back to rest along the walls. "Oh, um, good luck on your... mission, I presume?"  You'd glanced at him, the question hanging in the air.   “It's nothing important," He had answered quickly. “I just have a, er, personal mission to run. For the Emperor.”   “Oh. Of course, sir. Um, I presume we won’t be meeting in the library tonight then?” It had become a biweekly thing to go over translation in the dead of night. Somedays it was text messages. Sometimes it was videos he'd found. Other times, it was memes.    Most times, you wondered if he ever asked anyone else to do that sort of thing. A small section of that time wondered if it was even okay.   The Golden Guard shook his head and you tried not to feel disheartened. “Not tonight, unfortunately. The translation will have to wait. Something.. urgent came up so I’ll have to postpone for later."   “Yes, sir. Will... you require assistance? “   “No, no. This is, uh, a solo mission. There's been some.. trouble at the night market. I'm going to investigate. Nothing too tough.” He said. “But I appreciate the.. offer.”   You had nodded. “Oh. Well, good luck, sir.”   “Have a good night scout.” He said as he turned to leave.   He nodded a dismissal and resumed walking down the hall. But he had stopped for just a short second and in the silence of the night, he'd muttered-   “I’ll.. see you later.”     Except later never came.   You hadn’t seen your coven leader since and, against everything in you, you were starting to worry a tiny bit.   ...    Okay, maybe it was more than a little bit worried. Was this type of worry okay? Of course. Why wouldn't it be? You were just a scout worrying about their coven leader. Nothing weird at all here. Nope, not at all.   “-gone. Like gone, gone.”   “And one's seen him?”   “Nah. I’m telling you, something fishy going on. First Lilith and now-“   You tuned back to the conversation. The fork you’d been using to push your bacon around stilled. "Lilith? Isn't she like.. old news?”   Finn glanced at you. Without his mask, his amusement seemed even more noticeable. it was also a new sight to see; it wasn't every day Finn's expressions were so prominent. “What? Didn’t ya hear, newbie?” He said and, ugh, you hated when he called you that. You weren’t some rookie anymore. You were a member of the Emperor's Coven.   You frowned. His grin widened. Asshole.   “Just tell me. Here what?” You told him.   Immediately, his hands went up. There was something in his grin now. you didn't like it. “It's been going around all morning. How did ya miss it? Apparently.. there’s been a bit of missing figure a bit close to home.”   You blinked. Missing person? In the Emperor's Coven? Had something happened to them? You'd think not; your coven was home to the best of the best. No normal witch would have an easy time with any scout. So... was it perphaps desertion? But that's silly! After all, this is the Emperor's Coven. He made the coven system. He was doing good. For the citizens. For you. For all the covens. Heck, the Titan blessed him. Who’d want to leave someone like that? Who'd leave the covens? Who'd throw all that away?   “Really?” You said, surprised. “Who was it?”   Was it a scout? That’s all you could think it’d be. What else would cause the mood to be so tense? And how was Lilith- the previous Emperor's Coven leader- involved?   Finn didn’t answer you. He just.. stared at you. Even Damon stopped chewing to glance at you.    You frowned. Okay. Now you felt like you were missing something.   “Say, [f/n],” I gotta question for ya.” Your old mentor said casually, taking your apple from your tray. Red juice dropped from his lips as he took a bite.   Suspension swirled in your gut. That couldn't be a good sign. ”What is it?”   “You seen the Golden boy around?”   Huh? The Golden Guard? What'd he have to do with anything? And what's he have to do with Lilith of all people? You mean, sure, she was the previous Emperor's Coven leader who committed treason and-   The suspicion turned to something ugly. You felt its' claws digging into the soft tissue at the bottom of your throat. Suddenly, you really didn't like where this was going..   "Why?" You asked, unable to take the heat, the sudden bout of anger, out of your tone. "What does our coven leader have anything to do with treason?"   Finn blinked at you and usually, you'd grin at his stupefaction to your comebacks. Not a lot could take Finn of his guard but your newfound spine? That would do it- but you're not focused on that right now.    You hadn't seen the Golden Guard all day but- but that could mean anything. That didn’t mean that he would.. He said he had a mission. A personal one! For the Emperor! He said he'd be quick. He.. he said he'd see you later. So why...   Finn lifted his hands in a pacifying manner. "Calm down, newbie. I understand you're upset but this feels a little too much."   You barely suppressed a cringe. Damn, he won that round. But you knew this game. You knew your opponent. You were his rookie for a long time after all.    You took a breath and hummed. “Sorry. I just get a little heated at those kinds of rumors. They are so disrespectful, especially when they're about the Emperor's protege.”   Finn eyed you then.    Everything about him screamed casual. His arms leaned on the table. His limp hand held the apple core. But the way his teeth were stained pink and his bare fingers stained red? It made his whole laid-back attitude contradict itself.   “Of course, of course. I wholeheartedly agree.” Your old mentor nodded. “I mean, the Golden Guard is the Emperor's Stead. To think he could do that? Unthinkable. I mean, I know the Golden kid doesn't talk much-“   “I don’t think we should talk about our coven leader that way.” You said quickly, head tilted in Finn's direction.    Finn's hands twitched at your interruption and his answering smile was a tad bit sharper. “My mistake. He doesn’t talk much- so it’s pretty rare to get a word in. I mean, I get it. The Emperor’s right hand? He's a busy guy and he works so hard for the Emperor. But I know he talks to you so if you've seen him..."   “Me?”   “It's just- You've talked to him. Multiple times. I'm just saying. Out of all of us, maybe he told you something about- Oh, I don't know- where he was going? What he was doing?" Finn drew close. You could see the glint in his eyes. The tension in his slouched shoulders. The smell of apple’s blood on his breath.   Something was happening. Something was happening and you were missing something and.. wait.   “Hey, newbie." Finn drawled. "When’s the last time you saw the Golden Guard?”   He asked. Like the Golden Guard was doing something treasonous. Like he was missing. Like he had deserted.   You took a second look at Finn. At the sharpness of his gaze. The nonchalant yet attentive way he looked at you. The drawl of his words.    Suspicion curled itself a home in between your ribs, right alongside your beating heart. For some reason, alarm bells were blaring and nothing about this felt right. For some reason, you didn't think telling Finn anything would be right.   ("There's been some.. trouble at the night market. I'm going to investigate. Nothing too tough.")   So you shrugged and tried to not taste the sharp tang of lies on your tongue. "I'm not sure. Maybe a day or two? It's been a while."   Finn hummed. His fingers tapped against the table, loud despite Damon's chewing.    You watched through wary eyes as your old mentor opened his mouth-   Scree-   An alarm blared through the castle.   Scouts ran down the hall. A symphony of shouts rang through the cafeteria. Blurs of grey and white ran left and right. You spied a few maskless scouts abandoning their lunches. Others were still shoving food into their faces as they ran out of the room.    What the heck was going on now?   “Welp,” Fin said. “Let’s get going.”   “We are?” You said, eyeing the way Finn stood up. “What’s the alarm for?”   “That? It means we got a mission,” Finn grinned at you, teeth and canines flashing at you and- oh- you didn't like where this was going...   “What.. what’s the mission?” You said, suddenly nervous.  Your old mentor cocked his head. “What? Don’t you know by now?”  You had an idea. But if it was what you were thinking, then why was Finn so hostile? You're not sure, but it can't be good. Nothing was with him.   You huffed. "Enough games. What is it?"   “The Golden Guard’s gone missing. Our mission is to find him.”   And just like that, your world shattered. You felt cold and hot. Shocked and not. There was ice in your veins, but gasoline in your blood. Your face was white, but your ears burned red. A shiver ran down your arms, but your prickling skin was bubbling lava. Your mouth was dry, but your brain was an overflooding ocean of thoughts-questions- shock-surprise- everything. Your very being was an ice block but your feet were stepping on hot coals for the way you stumbled along with the rest of the scouts.     “It’s a tragedy.” Emperor Belos’ voice ran through the air. His body wasn't there psychically but his hologram image made your skin crawl nonetheless. ”But unfortunately, as word has likely already passed around, the Golden Guard has gone missing.”   You just barely managed to suppress the urge to- to fidget? Move. Do anything besides stand there. Sure, the news sank in hours ago but the fact that your coven leader was missing still made your palms clammy. After all, you had just seen him a day ago.    You hoped nothing bad had happened to him. You hoped nothing bad had happened to him- that maybe he fell asleep at the Bonesborough Library or something. That hope was slipping through your fingers with every second the Emperor talked.   “Little is known to where he may have gone, but it is imperative that we find him. Not only is he a pillar to my coven but he is also very dear to me." A sad expression creased the brows of your Emperor and his lips dipped in a frown. "It would prove very.. unfortunate if he were to be harmed in any way. Now go. Find him. Who knows where he may be or who he may be with. Kikimora will direct you to your designated search areas. May the Titan grant you success on this vital mission.” And with that, the Emperor’s form dissipated in a shower of blue sparks.   His voice had sounded reassuring. Kind even. And yet, the worry still persisted.    From the front of the platoon, where the Emperor's broadcasted form once stood, Kikimora began speaking.    “You heard him, it is imperative we find him.” She began. “Now- your squad leaders will be here shortly so hurry it up and get into position! You! You'll be searching the docks! You! Go along the east side of the town. You there- scour the nearby woods. Go as far to the ocean if you have to. And you over there!" A clawed finger pointed over at you. "Search the Market Square from top to bottom. Search everything- ransack the shops if you have to. And- has anyone seen Steve? Ugh, where is that whelping mongrel...”   Your worry officially grew because, oh no, was someone else missing too? And Steve? You hadn’t met the guy but he seemed fine, though Finn didn’t like him much.   Almost at once, as soon as orders were given, the platoon dispersed. Squads formed and scouts formed ranks as they waited for their squad leader to direct them. Yet, even as scouts marched left and right to their designated area, you could still hear them mumbling.   “Man, can u believe it? I can't believe he's missing-”   “Something must have happened. You don't think it was some wild one coven, huh?”   “Wild ones in their own coven? Psh! Yeah right, the Emperor would never let that happen-“   “Wonder what happened to him, poor guy. He must be scared-“   “Scared? What is he, a kid?”   “Eh. I liked Lilith better-“   “Yeah, and look how that turned out. Traitor. My money's on him turning tail too-“   “Meh. Never liked the kid anyways-“   You heard boots stomping on the ground, the sound of armor clanking against metal masks. It was both too much and nothing at all; a symphony of everyday noises that made your skin crawl. This sort of talk wasn't anything new. Finn's many nicknames for your coven leader- Golden boy, runt, kid- were enough of a hint as to how most of your coven felt about the Golden Guard.    Still- while you all were busy chattering away, the Golden Guard was out there missing. Captured? Maybe. Gone? Definitely. So, really, if you could all just hurry up and get on with it, that would be great.    You were worried enough as it was. Your boots tapped on the ground, urging you to move but your squad hadn't moved yet and so here you stayed.    'Whoever our squad leader is, I hope they get here soon.' Your hands twitched at your sides.    You breathed in, hoping to calm your nerves but it was a pointless endeavor; anxiety was a bud growing underneath your skin and you could feel the roots take hold, the sprouts and vines slithering alongside your muscles and veins like an infectious worm.    You exhaled. The tightness in your chest stayed. The scout in front of you didn't move a muscle.   'Screw it.' You grumbled as you decided this was taking way too long. Heck, you might as well go out and scour every inch of the market yourself. Anything was better than standing around and listening to everyone gossip, whisper, mumble speculation after speculation-   “If you're done talking, I think I'd like to get moving now. Or would you all rather gossip like school kids?” Oh. Was that your squad leader? The voice didn't sound familiar and you couldn't lean over to take a look. But the authority was unmistakable.    Immediately, the whispering stopped and you heard the telltale sounds of shuffling boots.   You heard your squad leader hum. They sounded... annoyed?    A voice rang through the ranks of scouts. “Sir." Said a too-familiar voice. "We didn't know you were going to be leading us. We are supposed to be-“   “Yes, yes, I know. I have ears, in case you forgot.” The boots clicked on the stone ground. It sounded close by. From the corner of your eye, you spied white boots and a purple cloak.   You heard a throat clearing. "Um, apologies, sir. I didn't mean any disrespect," Finn said and, oh, that wasn't a normal scout leading your group, was it? After all, only one thing could make Finn act contrite and that was someone bigger stomping on him from above.   “Good to know- now if you're done wasting time, I believe we have someplace to be. The Emperor's adamant we find the little prince, so shall we?” The agreement was clear when everyone remained silent.    The trek there was short but it felt long to your tense, overworked nerves. Each step was hours and each stall you passed was never-ending. Regardless of your restlessness, it wasn't long before the scout in front of you stopped.   Without waiting for a dismissal, your eyes immediately locked onto the nearest stall.    It was empty and it seemed like the owner left in a hurry as items were still scattered across the countertop. Green and blue fabric draped over the countertop and a spool of thread rolled off the side. The wooden sign above swung with the breeze.   Looking around, you wondered how anyone could hide someone as important as the Golden Guard in a small place like this. It didn't seem plausible; someone would have seen something. Plus, your coven leader was smart; he would have broken out or at least caused some sort of ruckus.   “Half of you, search the stalls. Question the shopkeepers to see if they've seen anything suspicious. The rest of you? Comb through the alleyways. We can't be too careless in our search.” You heard vaguely and you nodded alongside the chorus of "Yes, sir" that rang through the air.   Without further ado, the scouts scattered. Not taking your eyes off the shop, you beelined for it.   Maybe there was some sort of clue as to where your coven leader was? You weren't sure but you were going to search every inch-    A heavy weight slung over your shoulders, halting your stride. “You're sure in a hurry, newbie. What's with the rush?“   You huffed. You weren't in the mood for Finn's games. "I'm doing our job- a super important one, in case you forgot."   You heard a grumble and sighed. Oh geez- as if one wasn't enough, Damon had tagged along too.    “Ugh. Why couldn't the kid have gotten lost some other time?" Damon bemoaned. "I was gonna train today. Now I'm out here playing babysitter.”   Finn huffed, his elbow digging into your shoulder. “Well, today we are. Unless someone knows where he is.”   You didn’t have to turn to know he was looking at you.    You could tell him you saw him last. You could tell him you knew where the Golden guard was headed that night. You could tell him a lot. But Finn's questions? His insistence on it? It was unsettling.   “I don’t know where he is.” You said stiffly, staring hard at the empty stall. It was an embroidery shop.    You heard Finn hum and- ah. You knew that hum. He was already choosing his words. Picking his fights. But you didn’t want to fight- to bicker.    Finn never listened to your silent pleas much.   “Hm. if you say so. It's just.. well, the Emperor's sure counting on us. We can't let him down, now can we?”   “Of course, not.” You answered, frustration sizzling underneath your anxiety.    Didn’t he see you were all busy? Didn’t he care?! For all you knew, someone was possibly hiding the Golden Guard somewhere here. Sure, it was doubtful, but what if he was here? What if he had been shoved in some hidden trap underneath the shop? What if he was put under a sleeping spell or something? What if he was hidden behind some barrels? What if- what if- what if-   Finn kept talking- talking- talking-    “Are you done yet? Or are you too busy to do the one thing you were told to do?” The voice startled you and you jumped.   You turned around, eyes immediately drawn to white boots. They were spotless even on the dirty cobblestone ground. Your eyes moved up to a purple, pristine-looking cloak. Your eyes moved up even further to find green eyes glaring at your own and- shit.   It was the Abomination Coven Head. Darius, was it? You hadn't actually met him yet, only seen him from a fair. But, uh, you think you preferred seeing him from afar.   “So-sorry, sir.” You heard Finn sputter. “We were just discussing-“   “Interesting. Last I checked, you weren't told to discuss. You were told to do search. Now go- Or are you waiting for me to tell you that too?”    Finn and Damon certainly weren't as they all but ditched you. Well, more so tripping you and leaving you stumbling in their haste- but leaving you in their dust nonetheless!   "Idiots. Can't do anything.." You had the privilege to hear the Abomination Coven Head mutter before he seemed to notice, well, you. Still standing there like a fellow idiot.    He glanced at you and you immediately stiffened. "Was there something you needed? Or was there anything else you lot needed to prove your incompetence further?”   You squawked. “Oh. No. Sir. I was just going. Sorry.”    And with that, you found your footing and hightailed it out of there.   When you got to the embroidery stall, Finn and Damon were already inside. Boxes and crates were thrown left and right. Fabrics were hastily flung to the side and spools of thread flew in the air.   “Hi, guys. Nice to know you waited for me.” You griped. "And.. is that really necessary?" You eyed the mess the two idiots left in their wake.   Finn huffed, dumping a pile of unfinished shirts out of a box. “Of course it is. What? You think searching was gonna be easy? We gotta actually look if we wanna find the runt.”   You silently fumed. Sometimes Finn would bug and prod you and other times, he talked to you like you were still a green trainee. It was annoying.   “I don’t think you should be calling our coven leader a runt-“   “Hey! Rookie!” Damon shouted from the depths of the shop. “This is our turf. Go find your own place to scour.”   “What? I was just- what do you mean the spot is taken. It’s an embroidery shop. We can’t take anything.“   “Sorry to burst your bubble,” Finn said. “But he's right. We’re a little busy here so maybe save the nagging for later. Yeah?”   Okay, now you were mad. Nagging?! You weren’t nagging! You were- ugh!   "Fine! Where else should I look since you two clearly have things handled here.” You said bitterly because, at this point, your tempter short and you really didn't want to waste any time bickering with Finn.   You were here to find your coven leader, after all.   “I don’t know. Look behind the dumpster or somethin’. Check inside trash cans. Go waddle through some sludge.” Finn shrugged nonchalantly.   ”Are you... telling me to go look through garbage?”   “Of course, not. Darius said half of us to search the shops and the rest of us to search the alleyways. And, well, since we've got this spot covered... guess that makes you the 'rest' of us." Finn said like it was an acceptable answer, but you could literally hear Damon snickering.   You know what? You don’t have time for this. “Good. Great. As long as I don’t have to hear your obnoxious voice.”    As you stomped away, you heard Finn coo as if you coulnd't still hear him: “Someone's grumpy today.”   You couldn't help but grumble as you reached the alleyway. Gross bags and rotten trash assaulted your nose. Ugh. Just your luck.   First, you find out the Golden Guard is missing, get scolded by a coven head, and then you're sent to comb through literal trash.   What a fine, diddly day.   You almost felt sorry for the poor trashbags you threw out of your way. Even the rat-coons scurried away from you in fear. It made you feel bad- but only a bit. Because if your coven leader was here? Then where would that leave you? Probably feeling like trash.   So, searching through an alleyway all by yourself?  Good. Great! You think. Maybe. Your brain is currently full of impossible scenarios: your coven leader could be lost, tied up, knocked out- You don't know! Something! Because, last you checked, you didn’t know where he was and he was missing and he- he said he'd see you later and he wouldn't just..  leave.    You didn’t care about the gossip spreading around but he was nothing like Lilith. You didn’t care that Lilith was a supposed "best of the best" once a time ago. That she was said to be hardworking, dedicated, loyal, and an adult. You only had one interaction with her and the first thing she had done was look down at you. She didn’t acknowledge you, didn't even say "Hi." All she did was let her gaze drift past you and left.    She may have been crafty but she didn't spend hours studying tomes and ancient texts in an effort to learn. She didn't stand up for you when your mentor was being a little too much. She didn’t wish you luck at your initiation trials. She didn’t befriend a palisman. She didn’t stop to talk to you in the halls, she didn’t come to you for help because he needed it and he was walking down the halls that night and he told you where he was going and he said "I'll see you later," except later never came and he’s missing and you were- are-    Clunk!   You froze. A garbage can is held loosely in your hand, its lid on the ground. It had fallen off in your frenzy but you knew the difference between a clank and a clunk. You know the sound of metal; you heard it daily whenever your mask bumped against your armor.    That thought? That wasn't the sound of a metal lid.   Cautiously, you gently lowered the trashcan and followed where you think the noise came from. It sounded like it came from around the corner. You hadn’t looked in that section yet.   “Hello?” You hesitantly called out. “Is anyone there?”   Nothing.   Caution mingled with your anxiety. Your lips twitched in a frown, eyes narrowing slightly.   “By order of the Emperor, if anyone is over there, please show yourself.”   Still. Nothing. Maybe.. maybe you hadn't heard anything. Maybe it was just you. Well, you ha been swinging trashcans left and right so it’s not impossible. But you could have sworn-   Another clunk.   You perked up. Now that was unmistakable.    You took a sure step forward, moving fast around the corner. "Hey-"   Three things happened.   One: You turned the corner, your gloved hand reaching over to grip the wall a bit better so you could take a peek-   Two: There was a sharp intake of breath, panicked and obviously distressed and why weren’t they coming out-   Three: Something long and thin was swinging towards you and huh-   Stars fulled your vision as you stumbled back, head banging against the wall behind you. Black dots danced in your vision, your feet fumbling left and right and up and down, and ouch! You groaned, rubbing your head and eyes blinking opening-   You ducked as the stick came swinging back towards you. You barely acknowledged the blue, patchy cloak the person wore before you dodged another swing, fists curling at your sides. Another swing and you ducked again, lowering yourself into a crouch. The stick raised again and your knees slid apart. The stick glowed and you sprang, hand locking around the glowing stick. There was a short scuffle, a rough tug-of-war before bright, yellow light blinded your eyes and shit-    Wait! A voice in your head screeched- wait what?   You blinked once-   The stick- staff- in front of you dissolves in a shower of gold.   You blinked twice-   A red bird is in your face, its’ wings flapping frantically.   'Wait!' The palisman chirped.   “..Flapjack.” You're winded, your lungs inflating-deflating-inflating- and what.. what were they doing here? Usually, they were with the…    The palisman tweets again, landing hastily on your still-raised hand. Your fingers are curled around nothing, limp in the air, but you can be bothered to move it. Not when the red bird is perched there. Not when you have no idea what's going on and where was the Golden Guard-   Your eyes trailed to the blue-cloaked figure. The cloak was covered with red squares of fabric, clashing greatly with the green shirt they wore. It made their pale, blond hair stand out.   Red eyes locked onto yours.   “S-scout.” The Golden Guard’s voice was strangled. Breathless. Hushed.   It must have been pure impulse that made you speak. Or it could have been that this was the Golden Guard and it was ingrained in you to answer. All you knew was that you opened your mouth and blurted: “You said you’d be back later.”   His red eyes widened. He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Finally, he settled on: ”I.. did.”   It was quiet for a second. You could hear scouts marching down the market square. You heard voices drifting from the entrance of the alleyway. You could even hear Finn and Damon scruffling around in the small embroidery shop.    But as far as you knew, it was just you and the Golden Guard.   You took a second look at him. He looked… different. His clothes, green and black respectfully, were tattered and dull. His mask was nowhere in sight and while his blue cloak covered his body, it didn't cover his face. His hair was a tangled mess; sweaty, pale strands stuck to his forehead, streaks of brown caking the sides. His skin had always been pale but with the dark bruises under his eyes and the dirt smudged on his face, it gave him a sickly complexion. The old scars littering his face didn’t help.   The worry you’d felt before was still there had been frantic. But the sight of him? The sensation rattling underneath your skin like bubbling lava evolved into something tight and heavy.   “…Are you.. going to capture me?” The Golden Guard asked and what? That.. what was he talking about? And his voice...   Your coven leader never sounded quiet and hushed and his voice was shaking and why was it shaking?    “W-what do you mean, sir? You.. They told us you were missing. The Emperor- he sent us out to find you.” You felt the tension, little by little, leave you because-because he was okay, he was fine, he was here. He wasn't captured or held in some dingy dungeons by some wild ones. But.. then why did he look so...   You took a step.   The Golden Guard stumbled away from you. “No! No! You- I'm not missing. I'm fine. Just- just go away. Please."   'Help?' Startled, you briefly glanced at the palisman still perched on your outstretched hand. They stared up at you, eye wide.   Help? With what?    You heard the scurffle of boots and looked up to see the Golden Guard looking at you with fearful eyes, his back pressed against the wall. Oh. Were they.. asking you to help your coven leader? Um. Okay. You weren't really sure what was going on but if Flapjack was worried, you were worried. And your coven leader's.. behavior didn't help at all.   "Sir-"   "I’m not going back. I won’t go back! You-you can’t make me!” He pressed harder against the wall and, okay, now you're getting more than worried.   Also. Not going back? What did he mean? Has he failed that "personal mission" or something? Was he scared the Emperor would be upset? Well, you can understand that- the Emperor intimidated you too- but surely Emperor Belos wouldn't be that harsh. He was worried about him after all.   "But, sir, the Emperor-“    “Don't- say his name. I'm not going back- not to him! Did- did he put you up to this? Did he make you go out here? Did-did he- did he-“ The Golden Guard took a sharp breath. He pressed back hard against the wall, like he wanted to merge with it. You took another step forward. “Well, it won’t work! I-I 'm not going back. And if you try to drag me back, I’ll-I’ll…”    His teeth clamped shut, teeth grinding against each other. His red eyes bore into yours, so shockingly wide and determined and scared, why did he look so scared?   “It won’t work. This trick." He practically spat out and you took a step back as his red eyes suddenly glared at you. "I.. I should've known he’d do this sort of thing. Use this against me. What did he promise you? Snails? Fame? A-a promotion?! If so- he's lying!"   Snails? A promotion? You shook your head, confused. "What? No! I- We're all worried about you, sir. And- and you don't look well, so. Just. Let’s just go back, yeah? Maybe.. maybe there's some sort of misunderstanding? The Emperor.. he sounded concerned earlier and-“   "I-If you try to take me back. I’ll fight. I will! I’ll fight even.. even you and I.. I don’t want to, but I- I don’t have a choice anymore. Not anymore and I won’t let him use this against me." He took a breath and there was so much anguish in his eyes. "Are.. are you even here? Or is this another trick?”   Your heart sunk. “It’s not a trick.” You said, your words crawling up your throat. Your chest felt funny. Your tongue felt so dry. “I’m.. I’m here, sir. I came to look for you. To bring you back because- you- you said you’d be back later and you weren’t and everyone kept asking me where you were but I didn’t know- I didn't know if you were trapped or captured or something and- and-”    You sucked in air-   He exhaled a shaky breath. “No, no. You can’t… You shouldn't be here. I-I- you can’t. I can’t- I won’t-” The Golden Guard's gaze dropped to the ground, shaking hands gripping his hair and you couldn't help the way you instinctively reached out. To what? You’re not sure. You just wanted him to stop.   “How could he do this to me?” He whispered but the words were loud-loud-loud in your ears. His breaths grew fast.   Flapjack let out an alarming tweet when your coven leader's finger dug into his scalp. You choked on nothing but air because, right now, everything felt like it was slipping between your fingers and you didn't know what to do.   “I gave everything to him." Your coven leader rambled, ignorant of his painful hair-tugging. "My whole life, countless nights. I-I stayed up countless nights to study wild magic, I lead scouts in his name even though they hated me. I did everything he asked without a word. I-I fought people. I captured witches. I followed his every command because he told me the Titan said so. He said they had big plans for me. I was loyal. I did my best every day and I tried so hard to not fail- at anything. I did my best for him and our family and it- it was all a lie!”   The Golden Guard crashed to his knees, fingers raking against his eyes, nose, and forehead. You felt something inside you tremble at the shininess of his eyes.   This.. you thought today was going to be about finding the Golden Guard but now? Now you don't know what's going on anymore. You were lost. Stumbling. Scrambling. Indecisiveness was in your very blood while shock chilled your bones. It was ice in your ribs, frost in your spine. Your hands trembled, your lungs were frozen and what.. what are you supposed to do?    You.. you were supposed to find the Golden Guard. That was your mission. That's what the Emperor told you. Yet your feet are glued to the ground.   Vaguely, you felt Flapjack's tiny claws dig into your shoulder as your hands fell limp to your sides. “Sir-“   “It was all a lie and.. and it was all for nothing, wasn’t it?” He muttered to himself, his voice a fragile crack. You watched as he trembled even further into himself and- and-   You didn’t know what to do. What do say. You felt stuck. Motionless.    Helpless.    “Hey! You find anything?”   “Nope! Nothing here but empty bottles and counterfeit snails. Let's check the next stall.”   You perked up at the voices. Finn and Damon. They were nearby, around the corner, and you could hear their footsteps getting closer and closer.   You saw a flicker of dark shadows flicker on the dark alleyway walls. You didn’t think. You didn’t even realize you’d moved. All you knew was that Finn's shadow was growing larger. There was warmth pressing against your shoulder, something soft brushing against your mask, and- oh, the shadows were shrinking. You felt yourself relax and something brushed up against your shoulder-   You jolted back like you’d been stung. Red eyes met yours and you immediately backed away. Flapjack let out a tiny tweet at the sudden movement and you felt feathers rustle.   “Um,” You stuttered, inching away from your coven leader. "Sorry. I just- I shouldn't have, uh, crowded you like that-"   “What.. why did you do that?” The Golden Guard asked you, voice small and eyes wide as they stared at you.   “I'm sorry,” You said again. “I shouldn't have- I didn't- I don't know.“ You just.. panicked.   "Um," You tried because while you're still more than a little clueless as to what to do, you.. you had a mission. Missions had directions. You could follow directions and those directions were to find the Golden Guard. Check. Now..   "Look, why don't we just... you look tired so why don't we get you to the infirmary. Alright, sir?" You tried to keep your voice steady but it was hard when nothing felt right. What was wrong? You had no clue. All you knew was that you shouldn't be here; you should be back at the castle by now.  You should.. you should be in the library, answering questions for your coven leader and listening to him talk and watching Flapjack sleep and- and things shouldn't be like this so could they go back to that?   Please?    You raised your hand to help him up-   The Golden Guard flinched.   You froze, hand in the air. He stared at it-like-like it was going to move again.   Flapjack cooed a mournful tune.   Your fingers curled into themselves, nails digging into your palm as you withdrew your hand. You didn't want to think about what that meant. You didn't think about why. You just- “I-I’m sorry. I shouldn't have- I’m sorry, sir-“   “Don’t call me that.” He blurted out, his wide, wide eyes never leaving your limp hand, and his breaths were in-out-in-out-in-in-in-   “Don’t- don’t call me that. I'm not- it’s a lie. It’s not real. None of it is. The Emperor’s goals. Our duty. The Golden Guard. Being the best?” He let out a laugh and it sounded anything but funny. “What a joke. A big, pointless joke. A stupid ideal that wasn't even real. It never was. Not… not even me.”   He took in a shuddering breath and fell back, his head hitting the wall with a thunk. You and Flapjack jumped. He didn't notice. Or didn’t care. He just kept talking.    “Or I was? Was.. was I real? Am I real? Or am I just..” He huffed. “I should have known. I don’t even have magic.”   You wanted to move. You wanted to-to- do something. But you couldn't move because he thought you were going to hurt him-   Your lungs were frozen, your tongue a useless lump in your mouth. “..S-sir. Of-of course you are.” Your voice wobbled, because how.. what do you say? What could you say? How did you make this better? How did you help?   He turned away from you, head lolling to the side. His eyes looked so dull. “No, I’m not.” He told you in a soft, monotoned tone. It made your skin prickle. “And it’s best if you just.. leave me here, yeah?”   “Leave you here? Why would I..”   The Golden Guard’s eyes drift to you. You let your words hang uselessly in the air. “Don’t you get it? I told you already. I’m not going back. I won’t. And I know you can't.. failure isn’t an option in the Emperor's coven but lying is worse. And you can't lie to the Emperor or... or..." He takes a breath. "You can’t lie and I..  I won’t go back. So you should just. Go. Before they find you and ask you why you didn't report a successful mission.”   “But I can’t..” I can’t just leave you here. I can’t leave you here with that look in your eyes. I can’t leave you and Flapjack here alone. I can’t leave you here and not help. “What.. what if I just tell them-“   “No.” He cuts you off with a rough shake of his head. “You can’t. You do that then- then…” He grits his teeth as he looks away. "You're better off staying here then."   “But- but the Emperor-“   “He'll kill me if I go back.” He says it so casually, so sure, and you- you're- ”He’ll kill me. I know he will. He- he doesn't care about me. He never did.” He chokes out, turning his head away and- and-   Your brain stalls.   ‘He’ll kill me.’ The Emperor... surely he won't- He wouldn't do that. Maybe.. maybe he’s wrong. Maybe the Golden Guard is scared about that mission he was going on and he doesn't want to go back empty-handed.   But the look in his eyes...   ‘Friend. Help?’ Flapjack's tiny coo drifted in your ear and unconsciously, your eyes trailed over to the Golden Guard.   He looked tired. His head was resting on the wall, his back slouched and his knees bent at an awkward angle. The bags under his eyes look dark under the shadow of the nearby dumpster and the dirt streaks in his hair.. dull red of his eyes.. he looked tired and worn. He looked so defeated.   'I'm not going back. I won't.' That's what he kept telling you. Not only that but he had looked scared. Of you, your hand, everything.   You could let him go. But then.. where would he go? He didn't want to go back and you couldn't stay here, not for long anyway.   If you stayed, Finn and Damon would come to look for you. The Golden Guard was right; you couldn't lie to anyone. Not Darius and especially not the Emperor. Failure wasn’t an option. Lying was nonexistent.   Then again.. hadn't you already done so before?   Finn had asked you earlier if you knew where your coven leader was and technically, you had lied.   You.. you could do it again. But should you?   You had no idea but..   'Am I even real?'   'He’ll kill me.'   You didn't need to know why to know that. You could see it in your coven leader because no one should look like that. So what do you do?   You turned to Flapjack but the bird merely looked at the ground. Their little feathers ruffled against your neck.   What do I do?’ You asked the sky. Could the Titan hear you? Would they answer? Will they answer? Please?   No one answered. Your eyes trailed back to the Golden Guard.   You stared at the dark eye bags under his eyes. The dirt smudged on his face. The dull look in his eyes.    It was wrong.   This was wrong.   He didn't deserve this. He was smart. He was nice to you. He helped you. He helped flapjack. He liked Flapjack. He liked learning. He liked writing his notes in cursive. He talked to you in the halls. He said Hi. I’ll see you later. I don’t want to go back- I can’t.   So. What do you do?   ‘This sort of thinking is treason,’ The voice in your head cooed. It sounded like logic. It sounded like Finn. ‘The Emperor wants him back home and here you are hesitating. How will that look to Darius? Finn?’ The Emperor?'   But-but the look in his eyes. The fear you saw when you had reached over,  and he thought you were going to hit him-   ‘It's not your place,’ The voice hissed. ‘You have a job- a duty. You have to do this. If you don’t, you’ll be a liar. And they'll know. You'll be called a traitor. They’ll send a letter to your dad and then, you might as well kiss that pride of his goodbye.’   Your chest clenched at that, your heart rate picking up just a tad because, oh, your dad. What will he think when he finds out what you’re planning on doing? What you're thinking of doing?    ‘You’re a scout of the Emperor's Coven. You’re one of the best of the best. Do you really want to risk that?’   No! But...   From your shoulder, Flapjack lets out a sad, soft chirp.   ‘Help?’ They ask you again.    Your eyes trail over your coven leader. He's staring at the ground, gaze blank.   What do you do? You're not sure but you can't just sit here. You had to do something.   Even.. even if that something was to disobey?   (Could you? Would you?)   (You lied once. What's one more...)   You shuffle your feet, your knees popping as you shift your weight. The movement has the Golden Guard’s eyes darting back on you. “What-“   You lift your hand. You don't have much of a plan but...   Your coven leader shoots up, eyes darting to the blue glow of your spell circle. “Huh?"   “Apologies, sir. “ You say, too focused on speaking because – oh man- you can't believe you're doing this. “I’m not that great at illusion spells but I can at least change your, uh, clothes.”   “What- what are you doing?” You hear him ask but you're too busy completing the spell and... there!   The spell circle glows blue on your fingers. Almost immediately, the spell takes effect. Where there was a green shirt and dark pants, there’s now a pristine grey uniform. Where there was a blue, patchy cloak, there's now a white, clean cloak. Where his red eyes stared at you, now there's an obscured gaze thanks to the grey mask.    Huh, you didn't do such a bad job-   Hands grab at your shoulders. “Why.. Why are you- You- you can't do this. This is... Don't you know what they'll do once they find out? What he'll do? You shouldn't have done this, not- not for someone like me."   Okay. So. You have no idea what the fuck is going on. You don’t really know why the Golden Guard doesn't want to go back. Or why he’s scared. Or why he thinks he’s not real. Or why he thinks the Emperor wants to kill him.   But. You don't need to know. You can just help. You may have felt useless before- and you still do- and every try at assurance ended with him.. cowering. However! If you can just do something, then maybe it’ll be okay. He’ll be okay.   Sure, your dad will be disappointed and so will Finn and Damon and Kikimora and the Emperor- but this? The fear in his eyes? The dullness of his voice? The raw vulnerability in his expression? That’s real.   You raise a hand to your shoulder and Flapjack hops onto your palm without hesitation. With slow and practiced movements- you don't want him to flinch away again- you offer Flapjack back to him.    He stares, wide-eyed.   You fidget. “Um, I think Kikimora is interrogating the shopkeepers, Darius is... somewhere around here, and I think the rest of the scouts are looking in the shops so.. your best bet is to hide in the crowd. The illusion will hide you so hopefully, no one will look at you, sir."     Maybe. You hope.   He doesn't say anything, but he does hold out a hand or Flapjack. The palisman waste no time in hopping into his open hand.    “Hunter.”   This time, you blink. “Sorry?”   “My-my name,” He says, his voice so soft and quiet. “It’s.. it’s Hunter. Not sir. So don't call me that. Please. That...that part of me isn't real. I'm not real. I- I don’t even know if I’m a person.”   Distantly, you realize- oh. The Golden Guard's name is Hunter and that it's surprising and, you're astonished because he told you his name and it's also...scary. You’ve never crossed that line before. You and your coven leader- that’s what it’s always been. Just that. Subordinate and superior.  Scout and the Golden Guard. But now? You know his name and that's- that's not something a subordinate should use so commonly. It's scary because you know it and you can use it and, suddenly, it's all too real. His name is real and the look in his eyes is real and so are the expressions on his face and.. so are the words he says.    'I'm not real I- I don’t even know if I’m a person...'   “S- Hunter.“ You say slowly, tasting the word and it's weird. New. But not... bad. “Um.. I don't... You’re here, aren’t you? So.. you're real then."   His expression twists into something between sad and angry. Sorrow and frustration. "Yes, but- you're just saying this because you're my- a scout. You don't know me. Really. I- I don't even know me. I mean," He barks out a laugh and it sounds bitter. "Did anything I do even matter? How could it, if I'm not.." The frustration breaks and all that's left is sorrow and panic shots through you.   'Say something. Anything!' Your brain screams at you and you're scrambling for something and looking around for anything and-   Flapjack catches your eye and- oh.   "What about Flapjack?" You blurt out.   The Golden- Hunter blinks at you. For a second, the crease in his brow smooths out. "What?" He says, eyes flickering to his palisman. "What about them?"   "Well... you hid them from everyone to protect them so... didn't that matter?"   Anger flickers in his eyes before a complicated, bemused expression takes over. "I mean, yes but-"   “And.. and..you. You helped me. Didn't-" Your voice breaks and there's a hand squeezing your chest and a strange soft, brittle tone in your voice all of a sudden and didn't- "Didn't that matter?"   His eyes widen and, ever so slowly, the last drops of anger shatter. His shoulders droop, his eyebrows tick upwards, and his mouth opens slightly. "I.. it did. But. You don't get it-"   "So that means what you did mattered," The words are tumbling from your mouth and they're like water for how fast they pour out. "And that means you matter and you're- you’re smart. You know a lot of things and you tend to ramble about anything and everything but it's.. it's not bad. And you- you talk to me in the halls every time you pass by and you helped out Flapjack even though palisman aren’t allowed here and you’re nicer to me than Finn or Damon will ever be and that. That’s real. Okay? You're real and- and-"   You gasp in air. Your lungs cry out for air and you try to ignore the tightness in your throat as you breathe and breathe and breathe-    You exhale. It breaks in your throat halfway out. It sounds too close to a sob.   You see someone shuffling in front of you and his hand is reaching out and he's real and- and-   "And you need to go.” It's your voice that breaks now. It definitely sounds like a sob. But you know what you have to do, even if it hurts.   You see his hand twitch. His feet shuffle underneath him. A small tug of your hair as a tiny beak clanks against your mask.    "Why?" He says and it sounds like a sob too.   'Okay?' You hear a soft coo and no, you're not, and you'll miss this. The sound of their coo, their tiny chirp, the melody of their tweet but- but-   You can hear the scouts talking. Finn and Damon shuffling around. You can hear them out there and the Golden- Hunter can't go back and- and-   "-If you do this, they'll- they'll-" He's still talking. Still rambling. but- but-    You don't have time.   “It doesn't matter.” You find yourself saying and you don't have time. Not anymore and the more you waste, the less he'll have to leave. You've already cast an ilusion spell. You're already halfway there. It's just... you know you're gambling your duty, your respect as a scout, your dad’s pride. But what is that compared to the look in Hunter's red, red eyes?    “Just- hurry. They haven't checked back here yet and it’s only a matter of time until they do.” You say- push- pressure him because he needs to go.    But all he does is blink at you. Why does he look so suprised? So sad?   “I-“   There's a scuffle to the side. Something wet. Something smelly but worse. It smells like garbage. Of rotten trash.   Wait-   You feel yourself freeze and you see your coven leader- Hunter- do the same.   You turn and stare at the tiny abomination beside you.   It gives a tiny wave back.   The tightness in your chest simmers into full-blown panic. Shit, shit, shit!     “What is-“ You hear Hunter say before you hear clambering boot walk close to the alleyway. It’s fast.   With fire in your veins and hysteria trembling in your hands because- oh shit- you jolt up, grabbing the Golden Guard’s forearm and dragging him up with you. He flinches at your touch and you'd apologize but there are footsteps and they're getting louder and that’s not good.   You frantically look over the illusion spell you’d cast. It looks fine but the Golden Guard's red eyes are like beacons to you. Still, it's better than nothing.   Now what do you do!?   'Bullshit,' You brain says and, shit, you have no idea so might as fucking well.   "Play along," You hiss at the Golden- Hunter. "Don't say anything."    They'll know his voice if he speaks because he's important. He's the Emperor's right hand. His stead. The Golden Guard.   But you?   You're a scout. Whoever's there won't look twice at you.   “Wait," Hunter says as you nudge Flapjack into the fold of his hood. "What are you-"   "No time! Just be quiet-"   You try to speak but you don't have time as someone comes around the corner. The blood drains from your face because of all people…   “Hun-” Darius cuts himself off and his eyes immediately dart to the two of you. He blinks, seemingly surprised.   “Sir.” You bow quickly. You're too aware of Hunter doing the same. “Um, nothing to report here. Just rat-coons. We were just, uh, headed out to find our next assignment. Unless there was there... something you needed?"   “Nothing at the moment,” Darius says, his eyes darting between the two of you. Thankfully, nothing seems amiss. "Carry on. Apologize for the.. scare. I thought I heard a voice.. but it looks like I was mistaken."  You nod, your tension eases. Okay. So far so good. "Sorry, sir. That was us. We were uh.." Crap what do you say?   "Gossiping, I presume." He raises an eyebrow and you nod your head eagerly.   "Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. It won't happen again. Now we'll just be on our way."    You bow once more and hastily grab Hunter's arm. He's a silent presence at your side, but he does tense when you go to pass Darius.   You hope the coven head doesn't notice.   He does.   "Wait," Darius says and you feel all of your anxiety rise all over again at that single word. “I remember you. You’re that scout with those idiots, aren't you?" But.. forgive me but I don’t remember seeing you there.”   His neutral expression when he’d eyed you narrows as he takes in Hunter beside you. You can feel your coven leader's hands shaking near yours.   'Crap,' Every fiber of your being hisses. You have to get out of here quick before Darius finds something amiss. After all, your spell has held out this long but you're not too keen to test its' limit.   Quickly, you blurt out. “Um, he was sent here earlier, sir. My, uh, other team members sent me here while they checked the shops and he tagged along. He’s, uh, just started his basic training not too long ago, sir, so he's new."   Darius hums. His eyes keep darting to the person next to you. You can’t help but take a small step to the side to block his view.    Darius’ eyes dart back to you.   He opens his mouth, expression twisting into suspicion and- shit, he doesn't believe you-   “Oi, newbie, u in here?” You almost sag in relief because thank the Titan for Finn.    You hear your old mentor's footfalls before he enters the alleyway. Unfortunately, Damon doesn't seem to have followed. At least if he were here, he'd be enough of a distraction for Finn, but he's not so all eyes are on you.   Finn pauses as he turns the corner, seeming to blink at the sight before him. “Uh, sir?" He greets, bowing at Darius. Darius lances at Finn and you think you see a bit of annoyance in his neutral expression. Either way, you're glad his eyes are off you and Hunter.   Darius goes to open his mouth and- nope, nope, nope-   “Finn!” You say vibrantly. “I was, uh, just going to go find you. The alleyway is clear so nothing here. I was going to head to the, uh, other side next.”   Finn tilts his head at your obviously flustered word and, fuck, he knows something's up!   "Good to know," He says and then he turns his head to Hunter, and oh no- "Oh? Who's this?" He sounds positively gleeful when he says it and you really don't want to know why.   All you want is to get out of here but Finn's not letting you pass and Darius keeps looking at you.   You shrug, trying to go for something nonchalant. "A rookie. He got, uh, lost searching around. Didn't you, newbie?"   Hunter seems to jolt when you address him. He glances at you quickly.   "Um," He begins to speak before remembering he's not supposed to. Instead, he nods. He shuffles his feet in mock embarrassment.   Finn hums. You feel your face drain. Crap, you know that hum. He's playing with you now. There's no fooling him. There never was.   "Huh. If you say so, but he seems to be far from his own squad if he's near here. After all, I don't remember seeing a trainee in our group."   Sweat beads on your face.   "I told you, he got lost." You say but even you know its' moot. Heck, Hunter knows if the sudden tension in his stiff posture is any indication.   Finn hums and you know what he'll do. He'll open his mouth, cast more suspicion on you- on Hunter- and then Darius will be suspicious. Then Darius will take him for questioning and Finn will cast even more shit on you for lying and then the Emperor will know and then- and then-   “If you’re all done wasting time,” Darius says suddenly. “Let’s get back to searching, yes? After all, we’re here to find the Golden Guard, not squabble like children.”   Finn jolts at the sudden change of direction and, honestly, so do you.   "Sir-" He tried, but Darius merely raises a brow and your old mentor falls shut.    Not you though. "Of course, sir." You bow quickly, ready to get the fuck out of there. "We were just leaving."   You move to leave the alleyway. Darius doesn't stop you and neither does Finn. Hunter matches your steps. The tension doesn't dissipate as you pass Darius. It doesn't leave you as you walk by Finn. Even as you get closer to the exit, Darius’ eyes never leave you.   But no one says anything and before you know it, you're out of the alleyway.   The market square is crowded. The shops are ransacked and shopkeepers are talking to scouts, but one thing is all you care about. The place is crowded.   Quickly, before you think Finn can follow you out, you place both hands on the Golden – Hunter’s shoulders and shove. It's a light push but he stumbles nonetheless.   “Go,” You whisper to him. “Before Finn catches up. Darius may have let it drop but Finn is suspicious and he won't let it be. He’ll ask questions.” He'll know something's up. Heck, he already does. He always does.   Hunter nods and you spy his red eyes beneath his mask. He looks like he's about to say something before you both jolt at the sound of boots in the alleyway.   You give another nudge. “Go. Hurry!”   Hunter nods.    "Thanks," He says quietly before he makes his way to the crowd. It doesn't take long for his form to immiedatly get lost among the many scouts and shopkeeps lingering about.   You feel your shoulders sag. You.. you did it. He's gone. He... gone.   You're relieved, you're glad, you're.. your shoulders are shaking, there's warmth in the corner of your eyes, and your nose scrunches and- oh- you did it. You did it and is.. is it supposed to hurt like this? Are you supposed to be sad? You got him out, didn't you? So why are you crying-   “Who's the twerp?” Damon's voice pipes up and you jump.    "Uh, a new trainee." You blurt out, ingoring the way your voice cracks. "No one special. Don't worry about it."   Damon looks at you. You tense, ready to divert the conversation, derail the subject- but you forget. He's Damon.    So all he does is shrug. "Meh. Whatever."   "Aw, be nicer to the newbie." Finn's arm drapes over your shoulder and- crap, he's out already? “After all, they made a new friend. By the way, where's he go, by chance. I'd like to meet your new pal."   Your palms are clammy as you meet Finn's stare. “Uh, he left. To go find his squad. Yeah. So, uh, he's gone.”   Finn’s stare is relentless. “If you say so,” He shrugs, seemingly dropping the topic but you know better. He'll just ask again later, but for now? Now all he does is shrug.   "So, uh," Damon tilts his head, bumping his horns on Finn's head.  “Are we done yet? Cause I’m hungry.”   “Watch where you put those things, moron.” Finn snaps and thank the Titan for Damon, big, one-minded brain. There's literally no one like him to get Finn off your ass and onto his.   As you watch them walk away from you, you can't help but let your gaze linger on the crowded streets. You hope he made it out. You hope he's safe. You hope and hope and hope and- and it hurts.   Are you supposed to feel bad? You don't think so; after all, the Golden- Hunter didn't look okay and you had to get him out of here. So why does your chest feel tight-   “That was smart, what you did there. Not ingenious but crafty nonetheless.”   'Not again!' You startle, whirling around, and hastily bowing. “Sir! Um, sorry. I didn't notice you were still here. What can I, uh, do for you?” You keep your head down, trying to avoid Darius’ gaze.    You have enough turmoil for a lifetime. You'd really don't want anymore, especially after all that, so hopefully this will be a quick talk.   “Nothing at the moment. I'm just curious how the search is going.  The shops have come up empty but perhaps other places can be useful.” He sighs. “It's unfortunate that even the alleyways had no sort of hints for us.”   You feel sweat on your forehead. Palms clammy. Guess this isn't a quick talk then. “It, uh, is very unfortunate, sir. But.. we'll keep looking.”   “Hm.” Darius hums, and you can feel his eyes burning into your skull. If he’s trying to unnerve you, it’s working. “Good. Though I am curious. Your.. friend."    You gulp. "Um. What about him, sir?"   “Oh, nothing much." Darius sounds casual but you know this conversation is anything but that. "It's just funny. I haven't seen him before. There are many scouts in this place but I'd notice a short stature like yours around. Especially in a small group like mine.”   You let out a very awkward, very soft laugh. “It is funny, sir. Very, very funny.”   You stand there, waiting for Darius to dismiss you.    He doesn't. He just sighs.   You fidget. "Uh, sir?" You ask timidly. Does he know you lied? That you disobeyed orders? Can he hear the wobbliness of your voice? The softness in your tone?   You don't know and his assessing gaze doesn't help your nerves in the slightest.   Finally, he seems to see... something and says: “You know, you're both terrible at lying.”   ... what?   “It's honestly kind of sad to see. It severely makes me wonder how either of you got so far with those sorry excuses for cover-ups.” Darius shakes his head, oddly disappointed of all things.   Okay. Now you feel like you missed something.   “I-I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, sir." Your hope that he believes that awful fib sours and dies as the Abomination Coven Head raises an eyebrow.    “Say what you will but..  it's nice to know the little prince has friends. Even in the unlikeliest of places.” He lets out a little huff like he’s amused or something.   You don't know what he has to be amused about; you're currently processing. Does.. does that mean he knew? Does that mean he knows? And what was that about friends? What? No, no, not important right now. What's important is Darius knows. Maybe.    You may not be sure yet, but-   'He'll kill me.'   -you don't want to take any chances.    “I.. uh. I have no idea who you mean.”   Darius doesn't bite. “I doubt your job is to lie to a coven official but this time... I'll let it slide."   You blink. Oh. Well. That's not what you expected but at this point? You'll take it.   Darius' eyes drift away from you and you allow yourself a moment to relax. "Tell me though, how was your little mysterious friend? He's not.. hurt?”   Stunned, you look at Darius. He looks.. worried; his eyebrows furrow and his mouth in a thin line. At his sides, his hands clench.   'No, he doesn't look worried. He is worried.' You realize and all at once, your brittle facade crumbles. Your shoulders drop, tension bleeding in every fidgeting motion of your trembling hands.    You release a shaky breath.   “I.. I don't know. I hope he will be. I just.. I wish I could do more.” You whisper to the ground. Hopefully, the crowd's noise drowns out your words but, surprisingly, Darius hears nonetheless. His boots come into view and, cautiously, you look up.   He stares down at you for a second. Then something in his expression softens. “Do you want to?”   A question. A choice. An offer. But.. But for what?    Today’s been a mess of confusion. First, you lied to Finn this morning, and then you found the Golden- Hunter- and then he told you a lot of.. worrying things, and then you casts a spell on him, got him out, lied to Finn and Darius and disobeyed your orders because Hunter wasn't okay.   (Later, you'll think back on what he said and realize nothing is okay. But that's for later. For now...)   So, yeah, today's been.. a lot. And now this?   Sure, you did it once but.. it sounds like he's asking you to commit treason.   ‘Don't trust him.’ You hear your brain hisses as you stare at Darius. “He’s lying. He’s just trying to weed you out. He’s trying to catch you off your guard.’   That’s what you think.. at first. But the tension in his shoulders. The worried look he had before. The way he seeingly figured out who that other mysterious scout was and, now that you think about it, didn't he.. divert Finn away from asking too many questions? And when he asked you if Hunter was okay, he sounded like he.. cared.   Maybe.. maybe he does.    But enough to commit treason? You'd definitely lose everything you'd worked for here all at once.   So.   Would you? Could you?   It’s not much of a choice. You already made your decision in that alleyway with Flapjack on your shoulder and the Golden Guard's red eyes staring dully at yours.   You breathe in and out.   “What do you need?” You ask Darius.   His lips twitch in a smile.  

Teen And Up Audiences

If one were to ask Alador Blight how his marriage fell to shambles and how he ended up in this position, he truthfully couldn’t give a straight answer.   Going back, far back, one may have argued that the relationship was doomed from the start. But it wouldn’t be a very good argument, Alador thinks. After all, no matter how much griffin poop (crap as Luz would call it) he may have gone through in the later years of his marriage, the truth is that the first years of his relationship with Odalia were actually quite happy.     Sure, if one were to take a closer look at the relationship, they may have caught sight of a red flag or two. But in the end, that doesn’t really matter because Alador didn’t. He still married her, he founded Blight Industries with her, and he still ended up having three children with her (in retrospect, the children were probably the best parts of his life.)   No, if he were to be completely honest, he’d say that it all started falling apart right before Amity’s seventh birthday. Blight Industries had suddenly spiked up in sales and money was pouring in like there was no tomorrow.   Unfortunately, because of this, production for the abomatons was behind schedule. Odalia had been stressed, wringing her hands around the workshop as she came up with ideas to speed up manufacturing.   “Perhaps we could hire a team to assist?” Alador had suggested.   “Don’t be foolish dear, we hardly have the time for interviews at the moment. Besides, I really don’t think we have the finances to support your supposed ‘team’.”   “We should have enough for a small one,” Alador had argued back, “just enough to lighten the work and get our abomatons delivered on time.”   “Even if we did darling” Odalia had said, exasperated, “there still isn’t time to conduct interviews. We need a solution now Alador. I know your head is filled with abomination mechanics and such, but please try to keep up.”   Alador had felt the heat rush throughout his entire face but decided to keep quiet.   “Hm, maybe we could have Edric and Emira assist with production,” Odalia said thoughtfully.   The wrench Alador had been using to make another abomination alert dropped to the ground with a loud clang.   “No,” he had said (probably far too quickly).   He didn’t have to turn his head to know that Odalia’s icy blue eyes had narrowed at him.  Face burning, he resolutely kept his eyes on his work.   “Look,” he sighed, “I can finish up this week’s shipments on my own, and then we can conduct interviews on Sunday. Would that work?”   Odalia is quiet for a moment.   “We have over three hundred orders dear, and they need to be sent out on time.”   “I can do that,” Alador replied, again, perhaps a bit too quickly.   “It’s a lot of work in a short period of time.”   “I know.”   “You’ll likely get very tired.”   “Probably.”   “You won’t be able to spend time with the kids.”   That made him stop for a second.   “It will only be for a week,” he finally said.   For the first time during that conversation, he gained the courage to look at his wife. Her lips were puckered thoughtfully as she inspected him with bright cerulean eyes.   “Well then,” she concluded, “you best get to it dearest.”   And so began one of the many rough weeks Alador eventually had to endure.   See, the thing is that most weeks/months Alador has these days are hard, but they never quite compare to that first one, where he had been the least used to it.   Every day for six days Alador slaved away in his workshop. He didn’t leave unless it was to eat, sleep, or go to the bathroom. He went to bed late and woke up early. In some ways, it wasn’t that bad. He did enjoy working on and creating his inventions after all. But the effort it took to work that hard, that fast, that long, was absolutely grueling and by the time the night fell, he would nearly be dead on his feet.   Three days in, he remembers his kids had grown concerned.   Amity, only six, had followed him to the (then small) factory.   “Daddy?”   Alador had jumped at the unexpected voice. Whipping his head over, he felt his shoulders relax at the sight of her.   “Oh, Mittens. What are you doing up so early sweetheart?”   “You’ve been missing. We missed you.”   Despite himself, Alador couldn’t help the low churning guilt in his stomach.   “Yeah,” he said quietly, “I’ve missed you too.”   “Are you okay?”   And well… that was a loaded question, wasn’t it? But he couldn’t put that burden on his daughter.   He wouldn’t.   “I’m… fine,”   A young eyebrow raised, actually raised, at him.   (Offhandedly, it was kind of cute.)   “Are you sure?”   “Yes sweetie. I’m just… tired that’s all.”   “Oh.”   A small pause.   “Will you still be coming to my tryouts?”   To this day, Alador still remembers that second pang of guilt as he realized what she was talking about. It was her first junior grudgby tryouts, and he’d told her he’d be there to cheer her on.   For a moment, Alador considered going. But Saturday was only four days away and he still had over a hundred fifty orders to fulfil.   Sighing, he’d turned to look at his daughter’s hopeful face.   “I’m sorry Mittens. But I just… don’t have time this week.”   Golden eyes, ones that he knew matched his own, stared back at him in betrayal.   “But you promised!”   “Yes, I know,” he sighed, turning back towards his work desk “and I’ll make it up to you, okay?” he turned back to her, trying for a smile. “I promise.”   She didn’t say anything, but he could tell that she didn’t believe him. Fair enough, considering circumstances, but it still stung.   Before he could try to say anything else, attempt to make amends, she simply turned away from him and made for the factory’s exit.   “Mittens wait,” he’d called out.   Gold eyes turned back to him.   He hesitated for a moment, wondering what he could say.   “You can’t go back home by yourself,” with a simple spell, he created a small abomination which hurried over to Amity’s side, “take this with you.”   Disappointment was apparent in his daughters’ features, but he couldn’t pay mind to that, he had already wasted enough time.   And so, the days continued. He didn’t notice at the time but thinking back, his children stopped trying to interact with him after the thing with Amity. But he didn’t pay mind to it then, the deadline making every single product that was due to be delivered (and making it well) was proving every day to be more and more punishing. By time he’d finally finished, the sun on Saturday was just starting to rise, and he’d been up for more than twenty-four hours.   But it was over, and it was done. And Alador could have slept for another week straight right after that. Instead, he got maybe three hours before Odalia found him passed out on the floor.   “Alador dear, wake up. The deadline’s today and we need to have these things shipped out as swiftly as possible.”   Withholding a groan, Alador forced his tired limbs to hold up his weight as he walked over to the stash of finished products. Together, he and Odalia carried out the boxes to the delivery truck.   “Wait who’s taking care of the kids?” he’d asked.   “Oh, I imagine the little dears are still sleeping. I have one of your abominations looking after them. After all,” cerulean eyes turned to meet his, “it’s best that we don’t have the kids joining the family business just yet, don’t you agree?”   As Odalia likes to say, a Blight always upholds their end of a deal.   “That being said, interviews start tomorrow. There have been surprisingly a lot of signups in the span of a week. I assume you’ll be the one conducting them?”   He honestly doesn’t feel like it, nor does he have the energy, but he nods his head nonetheless.   “Good. Now let’s finish this up and you can get some rest darling. You’ve earned it.” she kissed his cheek before turning back for the remaining boxes.   Somehow after finishing, Alador managed to drag himself to their bedroom before promptly collapsing on the bed. He was out before his head even hit the pillow.   Though he didn’t feel better when he woke up the next morning, the following year was significantly better. His brand-new team proved themselves to be very competent and with their help, thousands of deliveries were able to be sent. Not only that, but there were good working hours, so Alador was able to spend time with his kids.   By then, Amity had forgiven him and his relationship with her and the twins were flourishing. They were even able to sometimes go to the old swing set Alador made for them when they were younger. All in all, it was one of the best years of Alador’s life.   He should’ve known it was too good to last.   At first, it wasn’t that bad. Blight Industries was thriving, and their employee satisfaction rate was more or less on the average. Yes, the working conditions were far from ideal, but the pay was high enough for their workers to not complain.   In the following year, Odalia starts laying off his employees at an alarming pace, firing them faster than they can hire replacements. Alador brought it up with her a few times, but the conversations would always be the same.   “Oh, they were disrespectful,” she’d sometimes say, “I caught them breaking company guidelines,” she’d say other times.   “Aren’t there… other forms of punishment we can use?” Alador would ask, “ones that don’t involve firing them?”     “And how would that reflect on us dear?” Odalia countered, “We can’t just let our workers just get away with things, it sets a bad example for us and the company.”   “Well, if we keep firing them, I don’t imagine there’ll be a company.”   “Well, we could always get the children to assist-”   “No”   “Alador-”   “Look,” he’d interrupt, “Me and the team can handle it. Just please… give some of our workers leeway. Please.”   The first time, Odalia had inspected him with analytical eyes, and Alador couldn’t help but squirm under her harsh gaze.   “Alright then,” she’d say.   That was usually how conversations would go and end; or at least how it was most of the time. At some point she stopped trying to argue with him after he refused to make the kids join, and just agreed to not fire any employee who breathed the wrong way. The new situation was less than decent, (all with Blight Industries growing bigger every day and them having less workers to manage it) and he couldn’t spend as much time with the kids as he would’ve liked, but it was still doable.   Then he caught the Fire Flu, and it all went to heck.   After weeks of shivering in his bed, barely able to get up, Alador came back (still not completely back to health) to find more than half his team missing.   Now let’s be clear here, Alador Blight is not a confrontational or easily angered man, but in that moment, he was livid.   “Odalia!” his face was hot as he approached her in their living room.   Calmly, his wife looked up from her book, expression bored.   “Dear?”   “You fired over half my team, and you didn’t think to tell me??”   “Alador please calm yourself. You’re not some toddler after all.”   The heat in his face only rose.   “Oh don’t give me that face. I didn’t tell you because I knew you’d react like this. Besides, what’s done is done, not much you can do with that darling.”   “And how exactly can we keep up with production now?” Alador demanded, “it’s going to take weeks before we’ll be able to fine enough new recruits, and we don’t have that time if we want to stay on schedule.” He rubbed his hand over his face.   “Okay, maybe if we apologize, some of our workers will-”   “Don’t be silly Alador, we’re not doing that.”   His face was probably apple-blood red at this point, but he didn’t care.   “Then what do you suggest?”   “Oh, I’m sure you and your team will figure it out.”   “You have got to be kidding me-”   “That is,” Odalia stood up, her broach casting a vibrant magenta hue across her face, “unless you want the children to assist you.”   That stops him in his tracks.   “What?”   “Oh, I’m sure the children assisting you in Blight Productions should lighten the load for you and our workers significantly. I already have the paperwork to make them official employees. Would that be better?”   While they have talked about this particular subject countless of times, it wasn’t quite like this. Back then, it was (or at least it felt like) merely a suggestion which Alador never let get too far.   Now, looking at her face to face, he knew it wasn’t that anymore.   No, now it was a full-on threat.   On one hand Alador was furious that she would do this to her own kids. Their kids.   But on the other, he’s known her long enough to be able to tell that she was serious. Despite his anger, the fear won out. They were children. His children. They shouldn’t be burdened working in that (let’s be honest) stressful, tiring, and sometimes dangerous environment when they were all still so young. Not to mention the burden that it would put on them. Alador still remembers how brutal the homework and after-school activities at Hexide could be, he couldn’t imagine the stress company work would do to them.   And just like that, any fight Alador had in him dissipated as he gave Odalia a half-hearted glare.      “No,” he said, shoulders slumping in defeat.   Instantly, Odalia’s necklace stopped glowing and a pleasant smile replaced the former scowl.   “See dear? It’s not so hard. Besides,” she walked up to him, stopping when she was close enough to wrap her arms around his neck. Not having any other options, Alador settled his hands on her hips, “I have every bit of faith in you. You don’t need an entire team to help you. In fact, I’m pretty sure you could support the company all on your own if you put your mind to it.”   Before Alador could reply, a familiar faux barfing sound combined with a rushed ‘shh!’ interrupted them.   Pulling herself away, Odalia made way towards a large vase.   “Edric? Emira? Come on out you two.”   Not a second later, the twins peeked their young heads out.   “It’s not just us!” Edric rushed to say, promptly receiving an elbow to the gut by his twin sister.   Shaking his head fondly, Alador too approached the vase.   “I realize. Come on Mittens, we know you’re there.”   Hesitantly, a familiar head of brown hair emerged from the shadows.   “Hi Daddy,” she said shyly.   Giving her a small but genuine smile, Alador leaned down to pick her up. She was getting heavier these days, and soon he wouldn’t be able to pick her up (or she wouldn’t let him) like this. He vowed to treasure it while he could.   The twins went on to explain how they thought they heard some shouting downstairs and decided to check it out. Their sneaking caught Amity’s attention and she decided to join them.   “We didn’t think we’d walk in on you and daddy being all lovey dovey” Emira complained.   “I think I will have to burn my own eyes out.” Edric moaned.   “I thought it was sweet.” Amity said, clinging on to her father.   “Ah a true romantic of heart, wouldn’t you say Alador dear?”   Blue eyes met gold. Challenging them.   Alador held it only for a second before turning his gaze back to his youngest daughter.   “Yes.”   Looking back at that moment, that was probably the last genuine moment he’d ever had with his kids where he wasn’t either bone-deep exhausted or busy working.   The following years after, Alador spent nearly all of his time in his workroom. Little by little the remaining employee’s slip away, they either quit or were fired, but Alador was the one who had to pick up the slack.   But even with the booming work and almost no employees to pay, it still wasn’t enough for Odalia. Some days she would just sit with him in the work room, make sure he wasn’t getting distracted, and get rid of the things that made him so.   The few moments he didn’t spend in his workplace were times of selling the new gadgets and abomination-based weapons. At that point, he was spent nearly all the time. Arguing with Odalia resulted in nothing but the same threat and less of his limited free time, so he just stopped. After all, it was better to just go along with whatever she wanted than start any unnecessary drama.   At least that’s what he thought at the time.   Blight Industries continued to grow, and with it came the more work for Alador to do. It got to the point where constant exhaustion was just a normality to the witch and his endurance for it grew.   As it turned out, Odalia was right: when fully committed, he could support the company’s production all by himself.   And that’s what he did.   That is, until the Bonesborough Brawl several years later. Amity was a teenager now, had a whole girlfriend and everything.   “You don’t talk to us anymore,” she’s said, voice frustrated but still tinged with hurt, “you’re too busy making there monsters for the emperor and Mom’s too busy trying to dye my hair green.”   “I-” what could he even say to that? ‘I’m sorry’ maybe? ‘I didn’t realize’ perhaps? None of that felt right.   What really stung was the fact that she was right. For all his working he’d hadn’t paid that much attention to his kids in who knows how long. It struck him how he knew absolutely nothing about them since they’ve grown up. And if he were wrong about Amity wanting to join the Emperors Coven on her own free will, what else could he be wrong on?   “I like your new hair,” he’d settled on, “it’s abomination colored.”   And Amity hadn’t quite forgiven him, opting for a handshake instead of a hug, but told him it was a start. It was fair, however it did have him wondering when the last time he could remember hugging any of his kids. Did him holding Amity six years ago count? And what about the twins? What does he even know about them anymore?   Yikes. Nobody likes to learn that they’re a bad parent. Taking a deep breath, he vowed to himself to at least try to be a better. He could do that at the least. He owes his kids that much.   The trips he takes to the manor are minimal, but he did opt to visit there more. He started going back every other afternoon to grab lunch. Odalia raised an eyebrow to this, but he simply responded how hex mix was starting to make him feel sick and how he’d felt like he’d work more efficiently with a healthier diet.   “Alright. Just don’t waste too much time dear.”   Sometimes the kids would return during his lunch break, other times they wouldn’t. He could tell they found it odd to see him this much. It hurt a bit, seeing their reactions towards him, but he made sure to respect their boundaries and didn’t make any attempt to talk to them unless they did so first.   It took a few months, but after a while, the stunned faces and uncomfortable atmosphere began to fade when the kids saw him in the dining room or kitchen.   The changes were small, but once the awkward atmosphere lightened, Alador and the kids were able to initiate in some small talk, just about what was going on in each other’s lives and such. As it turns out, Edric is always happy to talk about his lessons in potions and beastkeeping, and Emira was always ready to poke fun at him when he’d told her just how useless he’d been at any sort of healing spell back in Hexide (it still churns in Alador’s stomach that he didn’t know that they’d taken on other magic studies).     Things were still weird and awkward at times, but he really was trying to the best of his abilities and, whether he was actually doing good or not, the kids seemed to appreciate that.   Of course, like most things in Alador’s life, it all came crashing down.   The Day of Unity was supposed to be Odalia and his big break (for him in the most literal term). As it turns out, it’s a deadly draining spell that’s meant to wipe out the entire boiling isles. And he’s been helping the man in charge do it.   What’s worse, Odalia knew and didn’t tell him.   And yeah, he’s known his wife wasn’t above stooping down to some pretty shady stuff, but he’d never thought she’d sink this low.   “This is too much,” he’d said, “even for you.”   In the end, he’d thought that destroying a good portion of the factory would hurt more than it really did. It was actually kind of relieving to bring down the thing that has brought him so much stress, insomnia, and isolation over the years.   Although he doubted his marriage was going to survive this one. Though surprisingly, he wasn’t as heartbroken or disappointed as he probably should’ve been, especially considering the fact that he and Odalia have been together (term used loosely) for more than thirty years.   And then the Golden Guard who was taken turned out to be Luz.   And then while flying everybody got into a hangry fight before Willow (who, huh. Alador hadn’t realized Amity had gotten so close to again. He didn’t say anything though.) and the palismen supplied them with food. She’s a sweet girl, Alador realized. It was understandable why she and Amity have been so close then. (He was really starting to regret making them separate.)   And then they had been caught by the emperor’s scouts (whom Odalia reported to, for Titans sake) and were attacked by Alador’s own Abomatons.   Why again had he decided these things were a good idea??   And then they crash-landed and were immediately assaulted by several Abomatons.     Perfect.   Just as he was going to reach for the remote, several coven scouts from around them caught his eye. And chances were, there were probably too many for even him to beat. If he shut down the Abomatons now, the scouts would go after him and the kids.   Okay, so he couldn’t beat them…   But he could distract them. At least long enough for the kids to get away.   Shoving the remote back in his pocket, he started taking down the Abomatons physically. It wasn’t easy, and his right arm was burning painfully, but he managed.    “Dad? Dad!” Turning his head, fearful golden eyes met his own. Despite everything, he was glad she was still okay.     “Are you-?”   “Take this,” he shoved the remote in her hand.   “What? No, we’re not gonna leave you!”   Setting his hand gently on her head, he brought his lips up to her forehead (almost like he did when she was little).   Behind him, he heard the familiar stomping of his own invention and he quickly turned back to face it.   Distantly, he heard Willow pulling Amity back, telling her they had to go.   Willow was a good friend.   And here he is now, still in the middle of who knows where fighting off the last of the Abomatons.   For a moment, he’s worried that he’ll have to face the coven scouts next, but judging from their heavy positions against the trees, he suspects he may be okay.   It’s not much to celebrate though. The Draining Spell is really starting to take effect on him, and he can only manage to get away a few yards before promptly collapsing against a tree of his own.   Yeah, he’s probably not going to make it out of this one alive.   Clutching his right arm, he looks up at the bright red sky. The trees block most of the view, but he can still catch a glimpse of it.   “Darius come on!” Alador’s young legs move fast as he races his best friend through the trees.   “Alright alright,” a young voice laughs as it follows Alador.   Together, the two young witchlings race through the forest until they reach one of the tallest trees.   “You better not have gotten us lost Alador,” Darius pants.   Said witch turns towards his friend with a mischievous expression.   “You don’t trust me?” he grins.   “Not when you’re lookin’ like that.”   “Well, you should.” A form of Abomination goop raises above his fingertips.   “Race you.” And Alador takes off.   He can briefly hear Darius’s shout of indignation before he hears the whoosh of his fellow witch following him.   Bringing his palisman rat from his pocket, his little companion transforms into a staff, enjoying how this is going as much as Alador.   In the end, Alador reaches the top branch only seconds before Darius. It’s not a lot, but it’s enough to hop off his palisman’s staff and offer the rat his pocket (which his tiny friend is more than happy to take).   “You cheated,” the green-eyed boy huffs, hopping off his palisman to join Alador on the branch.   The other simply shrugs, “you snooze you lose. Now come on,” grabbing Darius’s hand, he leads them closer to the trunk.   “Okay, now what?”   “Now we sit.” Alador pulls Darius down next to him.   “Careful! If we die, I’m not inviting you to our funeral.” “Bold of you to assume that we’re going to have the same funeral.”   “Well, we better. How else is my soul gonna torture yours for all of eternity if we’re not sharing a funeral?”   “An eternity stuck with you? I can’t imagine doing something nearly terrible enough to put me through that punishment.” Alador teased, nudging his friends’ shoulder.   “Hey, you would be lucky to spend forever with me Blight,” Darius laughs. “Whatever you say Deamonne,” Alador shoots back. He pauses for a moment. “Though in all seriousness, I do suppose that being stuck with your annoying butt for the rest of eternity wouldn’t be so bad,” he says thoughtfully, “if of course I had no other choice.”   “Wow, same to you Blight,” Darius said says, though his voice sounds weird. Alador can’t see his face too well in the starlight, but it almost looks like there’s a flush to his skin. Alador is about to ask him if he’s okay when he says. “So, why did you drag us up here? What’s so special that you made me skip out on my much needed relaxation time?”   Alador chuckles.   “Look up,” he says turning his head up.   From the corner of his eye, he can see Darius’s mouth open in awe as he looks up at the purple and blue sky.   “I know right?” Alador smiles, turning his attention back to the stars, “They just hit differently from up here. It’s corny, but I like to come to this tree whenever things feel too rough. I thought that maybe you’d like it too. It’s quite beautiful, isn’t it?”   “Yeah,” he hears Darius say next to him, “Beautiful.”   It’s only a few minutes later when Alador realizes that he’s somehow still holding onto his best friends’ hand. Heat quickly rising to his cheeks, he briefly thinks of removing it. But Darius either doesn’t notice or doesn’t (seem to) mind, and Alador doesn’t want to draw attention to it. Instead, entire face burning, he turns his attention back to the stars.   And if Darius’s hand seems to squeeze his own a little tighter, that must surely be a part of his imagination.   oOo   Odalia’s hands squeeze his own as she looks up at him with bright excited eyes.   “You and me together, we could be rich!” she exclaims, “Think about it, my brilliance with your talent, we could make a killing!”   “Oh, umm… I don’t know-”   “Look,” Odalia says, face stern, “You need snails to make more of your little experiments, I need it for my own reasons, and together, we can both benefit out of it! So, what do you say?”   “What if I mess one of them up?” Alador says, “They’re still not perfect. People will want their money back if they don’t get what they paid for.”   “They won’t.” Odalia says, blue eyes earnest, “You’re one of the best abomination students in the school. You won’t mess up, I promise.” Her thumb rubbed gently against his hand, “I know you can do it.”   Sighing, Alador offers her a small smile.   “Okay then.”   oOo   “She just,” Odalia’s fists clench as she paces around her room, “she just doesn’t get it! It’s always ‘you can do better than that dear,’ or ‘I can’t believe you’re wasting your time selling these… things when you could be finding a suitable partner’! Just for the life of me I wish she’d see me as something other than a trinket to marry off!”   Alador sits quietly across from her, listening to her rant.   “I wish that too,” he says softly. Blue eyes turned towards him, and Odalia’s shoulders deflated.   “You know what? It’s fine. Because do you know what? We’re going to make it big. We’re going to stay ahead of the rest, and we’re gonna show her that there is more to me than just some pretty face.”   “Yeah.” Alador said, smiling at her. Hesitantly, he reached for her hand, stroking her palm with his thumb, “I know we will.”   With a soft pink on her cheeks, Odalia stepped closer to him, pulling him into a hug. Alador felt himself stiffen for just a second before relaxing into it, wrapping his arms around her waist in response.   “Thanks for being here,” she says quietly.   “It’s nothing,” Alador responds. “And you’re right. We will show them. I believe..." in us. He feels his own face grow warm.  "in you.”   Pulling back to look at him, the soft pink on Odalia’s cheeks darkens.   “Yeah,” she says, “me too.”   oOo   “How do you not see it Alador!” Darius exclaims.   “See what?” Alador challenges. “That she has my back? That she supports me?”   “You know what I mean! Look at how she treats you! What she says to you, can you look me in the eye and tell me that it doesn’t hurt even a little bit?”   “She’s…” Alador wants to look away, avoid that piercing green gaze, but he holds his ground, “She’s going through a rough time, okay? She doesn’t mean it.”   “That doesn’t mean she gets an excuse to treat you like she does! Her subtle remarks, pushing you even when you’re tired, and you do absolutely nothing to stop it. All you ever do these days is whatever she tells you to do!”   “It’s not like that.” Alador’s voice shakes. “You know it’s not like that.”   “Then what is it like Blight? Because right now, it looks like you’re her little dog to follow her orders.”   Okay, that one stung. Before he can stop it, Alador feels his whole body flinch.   Darius sighs, the fight in his stance dropping. “I’m sorry. That was out of line. Look, I’m just worried about you, okay? You’re exhausted, and you just let Odalia do whatever she wants with you. Just… get a backbone for the life of you. You’re better than just making some cheap gadgets for school students.”   “Cheap… gadgets?” Alador feels his stomach drop before the unfamiliar feeling of anger washes over him.   “Yes Alador,” Darius says, not seeming to notice Alador’s growing turmoil. “I mean look at you. You’re one of the most powerful abomination students I know. You can do so much better than making these machine-infused trinkets.”   “Well maybe I like making those trinkets” Alador seethes.   “Well see, I don’t think you do.” Darius looks at him then, green meeting gold. The other witch has a few inches on him, but Alador refuses to back down, “I think you only make what you do because Odalia likes it.”   “Well then you don’t know me at all.” Alador’s voice is low, but he can still hear the uncharacteristic venom in it.   Darius can too, judging from the surprised look on his face. It quickly fades into a glare as Darius straightens out his spine.   “No. I suppose I don’t,” with that, Darius turns his back.   “And Alador?” he says, right before he steps out of the door, “when you finally learn just how much of a hack you are, and that Odalia is only using that for her own benefit, don’t come to me.”   And with that he leaves.   oOo   The years go by quickly after that. It’s all the same, Alador thinks.   He and Odalia get married.   They start Blight Industries together.   They have the Edric and Emira (Odalia sees it fitting for them) together. Both of them are the perfect combination of both their parents: Alador’s eyes with Odalia’s hair.   Two years later, they have Amity, who is the striking image of her dad. Odalia seems less pleased with this, but she doesn’t say anything.   The years continue to pass. The connection between him and Odalia dwindles more and more.   What were once sweet words and simple suggestions turn to threats.   The fire in Alador, the one that had a passion for invention, dies out. It’s a chore now.   Golden eyes, three sets that identical to his own look at him in betrayal as Odalia scolds and threatens them. He does nothing but let it happen. He doesn’t shut her down, but he doesn’t stop her either. He even backs her up on some occasions.   His children avoid him now when he walks past. He doesn’t notice it then, nor does he care.   Just keep Odalia happy.   Keep the kids out of the business.   That’s all that matters.   Put up a presentation.   Sell the products.   Keep Odalia happy.   Keep working.   Don’t stop.   There’s no time to stop.   His body crashes to the floor, legs finally have given out.   oOo   He’s in the forest again, leaning against a tree.   It’s one of his days off.   He decided to take the kids here to spend time with them.   It was a great day, the kids made a game for themselves as he created abominations to “capture them”. He remembers laughing as the twins kept trying to sacrifice the other in order to escape. He remembers Amity’s thrilled shriek when one of the Abominations got too close.   And now they’re here. Alador’s body doesn’t ache or creak from the countless hours of working. Amity’s small seven year old body is asleep in his lap as the twins’ doze  on each side of him, heads resting on his chest.   The sun shines down, but the leaves on the tree block the worst of it. There’s a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the nice summer day.   It’s perfect.   oOo   And then he blinks.   He’s alone now. The eclipse covers the sun, causing a chill to run through the forest. The pain in his arm has spread across his entire body. It’s agonizing as a small, pained moan escapes from his mouth.   His eyes shut closed as he loses every bit of remaining strength he has.   At least the kids are okay.   Despite everything, he’s glad they don’t have to go through this agonizing pain with him.   He thinks back to his three kids. Edric’s goofiness, Emira’s sympathy, and Amity’s bravery.   He wishes he could’ve done more right by them.   He hopes that they’ll be able to forgive him one day.   It would be fair if they didn’t though.   He thinks back to Odalia and Darius. The only friends he’d have in school.   Darius would’ve loved to see him now, Alador thinks sarcastically, he would’ve had a hoot knowing that he was right all those years ago.   And Odalia… despite everything, despite all the pain and isolation that came with her, he knows at some point there was love in their relationship. Maybe it wasn’t for him specifically, and maybe it was only a love for he could do for her, but he knows she loved him at some point.   Just how he knows he once loved her.   It hurts to admit it, but he does miss the woman she once was (or at least the woman he thought she was).   He misses Darius.   Most of all, he misses his kids.   I’m sorry, he thinks, feeling his life fade, I’m sorry for everything.   …   …   All of a sudden, his magic is shoved back into his body and the pain is gone. His arm is still burning, but he suspects he’ll be okay.   “W-what?” he mutters, “How?”   It comes to him with a crash.   “Amity!” he gasps.   On shaking legs, he struggles to pick himself up.   Unfortunately, the day’s events seem to catch up on him and his legs give out before he can even stand completely up.   The adrenaline he didn’t even know he had leaves him as the world goes black.   oOo   Somebody is shaking him. Patting his face.   It’s annoying.   Suddenly, something large and hard slaps his across the face.   Gold eyes snap open as he gasps for air.   Big mistake.   Harsh coughs erupt from his chest as something pats his back.   Finally, the coughs subside as he takes in his surroundings.   Right in front of his face is one he’d hadn’t seen in person for over twenty years.   “Darius?”   A grim smile appears on the other’s face.   “Hey Alador.”   Looking past the head witch, Alador is surprised to see Eberwolf next to him.   Turning his head up towards the sky, there are several blimps and carriages moving away from the emperor’s castle.   They did it.   He doesn’t know how, but they did.   “Wait,” he says, voice shaking, “where’s Amity?”   Green eyes look down, not meeting his. Looking over to the head of Beastkeeping, he can feel a bubble of dread forming in his stomach when Eberwolf too doesn’t meet his eyes.   Looking back towards his old (ex-old his mind supplies) friend, it only grows stronger when Darius finally looks at him.   “Alador-”   “Darius,” he interrupts, voice clearer this time, “where is my daughter?”

General Audiences

It was Friday night. Amber dubbed evey Friday night 'backstory night'. It was sort of a tradition. They would all get into their pajamas, Raine would make popcorn, and Katya would usually end up drawing whatever happened in the story. They took turns each week. Today was Raines turn. "Allright," Raine said, sitting down on the couch. "What story tonight?" Amber thought for a second, but Katya spoke up. "How you founds us all, and got us into the group." She didn't look up from her sketch pad, when she spoke. "Ok, I'll start with Derwin. I found him first. It was some. . What. . Fifteen years ago, I think, and I had just become a professor for the Bard Coven." Derwin looked excited to hear the story from Raines perspective. Raine was about to continue, but Amber interrupted. "Wait, fifteen years ago? I thought you were twenty?" "I am." Derwin said. "Did you not-? Raine raised me since I was five." Amber and Katya both screamed, "WHAT?" Which Raine and Derwin didn't expect, and Raine fell off the arm of the couch. "Anyways," Raine said, climbing back to their seat. "I had just gotten out of work. . "   - "You need to get that report in by Saturday." "Yes, Kikimora." Raine said, standing from their desk. "Thank you. Long live the Emperor." "Long live the Emperor." Raine echoed. They scoffed when she left their classroom, and said, "long live the Emperor, my ass." They grabbed their Viola case, slung it over their shoulder by the strap, and left their classroom. They walked down the streets of Bonesborough, heading for their small cottage on the outside of town. It was small, two bedrooms and a bathroom, they used one room for their instruments and practice, the other to sleep in. The kitchen and the living room were connected, making it seem bigger than it was. They walked past an ally, but stopped when they heard the sound of someone crying. They backtracked and looked down the ally. A small boy, dark skin and hair, was sitting on a blanket in the ally. Their was a bassoon laying on the ground next to him. He looked up at Raine, and they made eye contact. Raine walked down the ally, and kneeled infront of the kid. "Are you okay, kiddo?" It was a stupid question, honestly, he didn't look okay. The boy just looked up at Raine before collapsing into their arms. Raine took off their bard professor cloak, and wrapped it around him. It was the dead of winter, snow covering the ground. They grabbed the bassoon and blanket, making sure they had a firm grip on the boy, and gave a loud wissle, teleporting them to Raines home. Once Raine was inside, he put the blanket and bassoon down, and carried the younger boy to their room. He was starting to stir when Raine layed him down in their bed. "Where am i?" He weakly asked, cracking open his eyes. "You're at my home. You're safe. I'm going to get you cleaned up, okay? You can rest." - "And the rest is history. I did some research and he had no family left, and I remember thinking 'screw this, guess I'm adopting a child. And thats how you became Derwin Whispers." Raine explained. Derwin gave an excited squeal and fell backwards, kicking his legs. Raine chuckled and then looked at the photo Katya drew. It was a younger Raine holding a five year old Derwin. "Allright, next, was Amber. This story starts out like a fairy tale. Eight years ago it was a dark and stormy night. ." -Raine ran through the rain, looking for shelter. They wanted to get home, back to Derwin. Derwin was thirteen now, but he always hated the rain. Raine knew they wouldn't make it home before the rain got them, so they took refuge in a near by cave. They heard someone rushing by and a flash of short orange, and a Troup of coven scouts not far behind. They entered the cave, and stopped when they saw the faint glow if orange and red bard music from the back. They headed to the back and took a look. A small girl, she looked to be the age of nine, pink hair, pale skin and freckles, bat ears and wings, and a recorder in her mouth. Raine recognized the tune, and pulled out their Viola from its holster on their leg, and started playing. The girl looked up and Raine looked at her, and she stopped playing. "Hi." She said. "I like your Viola." "Thank you! Whats your name?" "Amber!" "Allright, Amber. Let's get you out of this cold came and into the warm." - Amber smiled and looked at her recorder case across the room. Katya smiled and was drawing a photo of the duet between Raine and Amber. "And, well, you all remember meeting Katya." - "Busted!" A coven guard yelled. Raine jumped off the fountain, Derwin and Amber following, and they all took off running. They ran down the streets, dodging spells and people, but right before they were out in the clear, someone grabbed Raines arm and pulled them all back into an ally, the guards not realizing it. They took a moment to catch their breath before looking at who had saved them. A tall girl, a black dress, black hair, and fangs. She looked oddly familiar. "Whats your. . Last name?" Raine panted, their hands in their knees. "Henmsworth." She said. "I went to school with your parents. Silvie and Kendra." Raine said. "Thanks for saving us back there." "No problem. I'll always help fellow witches running from the law." She said. "Why are you in a coven?" Raine asked, knoticing the sigil on her wrist. "I know most of your family are wild witches." "I got captured, I had no choice. I dont like the coven system, though." She explained. "How would you feel about joining a rebellion?" Raine, Derwin and Amber asked at the same time. "I would say hell yeah." Raine smiled and held out their hand. "Raine. And this is Derwin, and Amber." "Katya." - As Raine told the kid to go to bed, Katya and Derwin went to their room, while Raine and Amber went to theirs. Raine head Amber faceplanting in her bed and immediately felling asleep. They laughed, walking over and pulling a blanked up on her. She smiled in her sleep and said something along the lines of "night night, Nini Raine. Love ya." Before they went to bed they went to check that Derwin and Katya were asleep, and they were. As they walked out their bedroom door, they looked at a photo on the hallway wall. Raine was sitting on the couch, showing Amber how to play a note on her recorder, Katya was watching from behind, and Derwin was practicing his Bassoon in the background. Raine had one question. When did they become a parent?

General Audiences

999 Humerus Housing 112-911-171 For Emergencies ONLY Aside from an anxiety attack, this was the only thing Vitimir got out of meeting the coven heads.   Whilst the others had no reservations about pelting them with questions, the Healing Coven Head, (They didn't catch her name), barely spared Vitimir a glance- only upon hearing that Vitimir was to be Athanor’s replacement did she hand them a card, before leaving without even a ‘congratulations’.   Now Vitimir was standing on the doorstep of said healing head’s apartment, hesitating to knock as they watched the sulfur burns eat away at their arms like acid, wondering if this counted as an emergency.   Maybe they were overreacting.    Vitimir was an adult, a 32yr old witch who was assistant to a coven head, and soon-to-be coven head themselves. They lead a semi-functional life, could probably tolerate this level of pain and just go home and visit a proper healing hospice tomorrow.    This is what happens when you try to brew a highly volatile potion with no gloves or supervision. Never mind the fact that nobody could find a pair that fit them properly, this whole mishap was entirely their fault and they shouldn't be dragging a head of a coven into it.   Vitimir was more than ready to turn around and leave, right before the door opened.   They hadn't really put together just how tall the Healing Coven Head was at the meeting, but titan, she towered over them, and shitty posture aside, Vitimir wasn't short.    A 7ft, probably more, ridiculously muscular woman, with pale blue bull-like horns extending from mussed black hair, slouching slightly in a tank top and sweatpants so she could fit through the doorway. Their gaze lingered on a few well-worn scars lacing their way up the witch’s arms.   Seeing her without the layers of healing gear was unusual, as they hadn't put any thought towards the fact that there was probably a witch under all of that.    Vitimir didn't quite know what to think of it.   The Coven Head blinked blearily at Vitimir on her doorstep, and they came to the sudden realisation that they had thoroughly lost track of time. It was the middle of the night, they had almost certainly woken her up, and never mind the third-degree burns they should probably get going and-    The Head's expression shifted from barely awake to a horrified grimace as they took in the state of Vitimir’s arms. Without a second of hesitation, she grabbed Vitimir by the back of their shirt, lifted them up single-handedly like they weighed nothing, and whisked them inside before Vitimir had even time to process this latest development.   ~   It was 2:34am.   Watching the boney hands of the clock tick round and round, Vitimir squirmed uncomfortably on the newly disinfected kitchen counter.    They hadn't realised it was this late, or early, and the realisation that they had spent almost a full 24 hours in the Potions Coven dungeons, and couldn't quite place the last time they slept hurt almost as much as whatever the Healing Head was doing to their arms.   Whoever said healing magic was painless was a fucking liar.   Vitimir hissed as the Head applied another large, deep blue spell circle around their outstretched arms, and the sharp sting reverberated through their arms once more.    Looking at their skin and muscle moving and knitting itself back together sounded like a recipe for nausea, and they didn't want to look at the Healing Head, the two in such an awkward position where they could almost feel her giving a huff as she turned one of their outstretched arms around.  Too close for them looking at her to not be embarrassing.   Vitimir’s gaze flicked around the kitchen instead.   It wasn't too dissimilar to their own, only much larger than the shoebox Vitimir inhabited. The kitchen and living room were connected, and the whole place had the air of a place that isn't inhabited often.    Dirty dishes in the sink behind her, a few takeout boxes on the other counter, and a pile of laundry on one of the couches. Two exhausted-looking crow phones nestled together on the windowsill, and a dartboard (with more darts, knives, and other sharp implements visible sticking into it than the actual board) hung parallel to a dusty crystal ball.   Another stinging sensation started up, this time accompanied by a horrible lurch and Vitimir swore they could feel their skin wriggling. Distractions distractions.   The Healing Head had a calendar, one of the quieter, whispering counterparts to their screamy cousins. Healing and Potion oriented witches out of all the rest (People bring up Oracles into this equation, but Vitimir doesn't see it) always ended up with the most illegible handwriting known to witchkind. The Head is no different, her cramped, loopy, overly rushed scrawl filling up every inch of each square box; post-it's stuck on when her schedule took up more space than the calendar would allow.    Her writing would be unreadable, if Vitimir hadn't also spent most of their time in the potion coven jotting down tiny annotations in the margins of recipes in similar handwriting.   From what Vitimir could see there was a whole ton of magical medicine jargon, meetings and recruitments and mandatory reports and tucked in a corner was the mention of a birthday, with a crudely drawn symbol that may resemble the illusion coven. It may also be a rat. It wasn't a very good drawing.   Vitimir should probably stop snooping, as they stopped trying to pick out words from the packed calendar. It was such a beast of tasks, and they wondered how much of it was specifically healing coven, and how much of it was coven head duties.    There seemed to be no time for the poor woman to breathe, and here Vitimir was bothering her at untitanly hours.    “It's going to scar”   The Healings Head's voice was deep, husky and clouded with fatigue.    She seemed to take Vitimir’s embarrassed squeak at being caught wrapped up in their own mind as a question, and elaborated:   “These are deep, the worst chemical burns I've seen, and whilst healable, scar tissue was inevitable. If you came any later you would have lost both your arms”   Oh.   So it was an emergency.   Vitimir suddenly felt foolish for entirely different reasons.   The healer had pulled back, examining Vitimir from more of a distance, almost as if she was waiting for a reaction of some sort. They took that as a sign that it was okay to look at their arms and slowly moved them down from the aching outstretched position they were held in prior.   The scars were raw and new, and in Vitimir’s eyes, looked kinda cool. The splatter work quilt of scarring that wrapped itself around each arm was a mix of light and dark patches, and Vitimir could tell where the worst of the acid hit by colour alone. Their hands had begun to shake, there were weird flushes of pain at different points of scarring, it's a permanent reminder of a stupid mistake, and their skin had gotten unbearably itchy, but it was still, kinda cool.   They glance from their fresh ones to the faded scarred stripes scarcely lacing around the healers arms.   "Scars aren't all that bad, right?"   The Head gives a small, self conscious glance at their own arms and Vitimir backpedals,   "I think they're pretty cool! Your scars I mean, and uh, mine as well. Like, we survived whatever we went through, even though in my case, it uh, wasn't the smartest decision-"   As Vitimir awkwardly buzzed on, the brief flash of insecurity on the healer's face vanished, replaced with a unclear yet scrutinising expression. Vitimir could call it curiosity, but from the way she lent against the sink with her arms crossed, it looked more like the coven head was sizing up the lanky witch currently sitting on her kitchen island.   "It's just, Laughing Acid, y'know? Very useful but a, uh, a bit explosive to brew-"   Vitimir got a "mhm" from her in response, the kind you make when you want to be polite but have no idea what the other person is talking about.    They mentally kicked themselves. Of course she wouldn't know Laughing Acid. She's a healer! They really needed to stop putting their foot in their mouth and digging their own awkward and metaphorical grave.   Vitimir made the executive decision to stop talking.   The silence that followed wasn't all that awkward, as it had been blanketed by a thick layer of exhaustion as the adrenaline of the situation died down.    Vitimir slouched in on themselves as the anxious energy had mostly dissipated, leaving the fatigue to slam into their bones like getting hit with a sledgehammer. Everything ached. Their arms felt like lead and their hands wouldn't stop shaking.    The Healing Head watched as Vitimir cradled one hand in the other to lessen the tremors, and made movements towards getting off the kitchen counter before she stopped them in their tracks:   "Wait there."    Vitimir waited there.   She left the room, the sound of a door opening down the hall of the apartment following her departure.    Vitimir clocked what she was carrying the second she re-entered the kitchen. If they blinked Vitimir could practically see the recipe imprinted on the back of their eyeballs, and their fingers twitched as the faint muscle memory kicked in.    Compression bandages: five parts spun spider silk, three parts devils claw, a pinch of Lotan scale, simmer slowly to a boil before tipping in so much clove oil that it’d kill a Snorse five times over. Useful for reducing swelling, stabilising blood flow and soothing-    “Nerve damage?”   “I did all I could.”   Well that's all Vitimir could really ask for, wasn't it?    Their hands won't ever be particularly steady from this point onwards, but compared to what would've happened if they had chickened out of asking help- It was bearable. Vitimir could live with this. They could.   The Head crossed the distance between the two in a matter of short paces before pausing, looking from the bandages to Vitimir’s hands, weighing something up.    “Let me.”She got a tired nod in return.   The Healing Head took her hand in Vitimir’s own, applying enough pressure to stop the tremors, gently stretching out their right arm so she could start applying the bandages with her other hand. Her hand was slightly smaller than theirs, but just as heavily calloused with small nicks, scrapes and scars littering her fingers. Vitimir also noticed her claws, the same colour as her horns (blue keratin, nice) and filed to a sharp, uniform, point- yet she had angled them in such a way that they wouldn't cut into Vitimir’s skin.   The bandages were cold.   “Did you know that I used to batch brew these?” Vitimir blurted out. The Healer arched an eyebrow at them, motioning for them to continue.   Thus Vitimir regaled her with the stories of their first job at the Latissa pharmacy, deigning to mention that they where a high school dropout who joined the potions coven far too early, in favour of telling the healer about the much weirder things they had to brew when working there.    The Healing Head had moved on to wrapping up Vitimir’s other arm (after triple-checking the wrappings on the first and folding back what was left of their sleeve to get to their shoulder easier), and Vitimir switched tracks, explaining how you made these bandages instead.   (Also to avoid explaining that they had quit the pharmacy job due to the fact that the two healing coven witches in charge were utterly deranged. Valentino was the titan's gift to control freaks and Hippolyta was an armchair diagnoser- and it turns out that showing up to work each day just to get told you have anxiety first thing through the door does nothing to help said anxiety? Who would've thought?)   (Bartending was a much less stressful job)   At this point Vitimir seemed to keep talking solely to keep the two of them from falling asleep where they were, their scratchy tone acting as a tether whilst Vitimir rambled on about titan knows what as The Healing Head finishes up.    Something they say makes her pause however, moving away from wrapping up Vitimir’s arm (the back of their hazy mind mourns when she removes her hand from their own), and towards the pad of sticky notes, asking Vitimir to repeat themselves.    They allowed their mind to catch up with their mouth, having just offhandedly mentioned something about deviating from the ‘official’ brewing of compression bandages because counterclockwise stirring produced better results, and parroted it back to the Head as she quickly noted the information down in her loopy scrawl, flicking through her calender and placing it with purpose under a certain square. Vitimir caught a glimpse of '-with new potions head-' listed a month and a week from now.   The clock ticked on.   3 am.   Vitimir’s way home would be a long one, not even taking into consideration the current time, aching arms, and the ever growing desire to lay flat on the floor and pass out.    It was becoming less of a desire and more of a need by the second.    The Potion Coven’s primary dungeons where just a short jaunt from the Healer’s apartment, and Athanor gave them the spare key so if they just head there- Sure their boss finding them the next morning unconscious on the floor wasn't the best for their reputation, but hey, it’d show off their impeccable work ethic!   And it was the best idea they could come up with whilst their brain felt like it was melting.   Vitimir slid themselves off of the kitchen island, and turned towards the direction of the Healing Head’s front door, only for the homeowner in question to grab them by the shoulder, shove something soft and blanket-like (a blanket) into their grasp and turn them around so that Vitimir was facing her couches.   "We're going to feel like shit tomorrow. Sleep."   Vitimir couldn't argue with that.   And before their head even got the chance to hit the couch cushions, they passed out.   ~   Vitimir felt like shit.   The healer was no liar, though 'Shit’ was honestly too nice of a word to properly encapsulate the overly nauseous, sweaty, 'drained of all magic'', 'got the common mold at a terminal level', 'stuck their arms in a hive of fire bees and got an allergic reaction- on top of 5000 stings and second degree burns' sensation that currently had Vitimir in a vice grip.   It took them an unbeknownst amount of time, just laying there and trying to keep their eyes open, for Vitimir to even recognise where they were.   The clattering in the conjoined kitchen brought their attention, and the Healing Head glanced over from where she was tormenting the coffee machine with one hand and absentmindedly flipping a kitchen knife over in the other. The weak light of the morning softly haloed the witch.   What time was it.   Vitimir half fell off of the couch along their way to get on their feet, any loss of dignity quelled by the fact that they're impressed that they managed to stand up on their first try.    Brushing the sleep from their eyes and still not feeling awake, they waited for the room to stop violently spinning before shambling over to the kitchen island, the Healing Head watching them all the while.   If she felt as bad as Vitimir, she was looking remarkably well put together despite it, already in work uniform- sparing the gloves and hood.    (Vitimir makes the hazy connection that she pairs her lipstick to match her horns)   The healer gave up on whatever assault she was enacting on the coffee machine, tossing the knife back in the knife block with a flick of the wrist, picking up and sliding a small packet of painkillers across the kitchen island towards Vitimir.   Picking out a dose of painkillers (ignoring how the little creatures squirmed in their grasp), they downed them in one, glancing towards the direction of the clock as they did so.   Seeing the time almost made them spit out the medicine.   5am.   Absolutely disgusting.   If Vitimir was forced to choose between waking up earlier than 11am or death, they would embrace their demise with open arms. The revulsion of getting up this early permeated even the densest of their brain fog, and the Healer gave a sleepy snort at Vitimir’s expression, catching their attention away from the offending timepiece.“I'd offer but-” She grunted, pointing a claw towards the coffee machine with a half concealed yawn (she has very sharp teeth) “‘s broken."   The coffee machine, if sentient and listening, starts to whine.   "Of course it wasn't me who broke it," The Healing muttered darkly, talking more to herself than them, "Bastard"   Vitimir wasn't a coffee person. The only time they actually enjoyed a cup was when it was so full of sugar, whipped scream and sylph-rup that there was hardly any coffee at all- yet they gave a yawn of their own and murmured back:   "What a bitch"    The healer nodded sagely at that, and the two stood wearily in the 5am light, looking at the coffee machine (who had moved on from whining and was now making the keening sound of a dying ratworm), for a long moment- before the Healing Head leaned over and smacked it.   The machine shut up.   ~   Despite the painkillers kicking in, Vitimir didn't remember any more of the morning.    They had vague recollection of unlocking their front door, pulling out their scroll to tell Athanor they weren't coming in as they slid into bed to recover, but most importantly- to sleep.   (Turns out the message they sent was incomprehensible garbage, in which their boss replied with several laughing skulls and told them to take the week off)    Waking up after 48 hours, one of Vitimir’s first thoughts was that they spent an entire night with the Healing Head, yet still didn't have any clue as to what her name was.   They sighed.   ~   Vitimir had no time to ask about the Healing Head in the weeks that followed, as since the moment they got back to work everything seemed to happen at once, driving the need to know about someone's name far from Vitimir’s mind.   Starting with the untitanly amount of paperwork related to becoming the new potions head that had them up until the dead of night, chewing on the quill nib as they went to fill out answers to questions that Vitimir swore they answered earlier on an entirely different piece of paper.   (The details about the former potion head’s retirement constantly threw Vitimir for a loop- Athanor never specified, and Vitimir had no idea why they decided to retire anyway. He seemed incredibly reluctant whenever it was brought up.)   Then came the news about the partial destruction of the secondary potions dungeon, a newbie fucked up big time and managed to create an explosion that would have made Athanor proud- if it hadnt leveled half the building. Nobody was hurt thank titan, but Vitimir felt like they had been personally stabbed when they saw the amount of snails needed for the Construction Coven to rebuild it all.    Daylight robbery.   They incorporated the extra minutes needed into looking after their arms seamlessly into their day, rewrapping bandages whilst scanning over recipes, trying not to scratch at the scarring.   Then they became the Potion Head.   Athanor gets petrified.   Vitimir tries not to think about it.   (The sense of betrayal, the anxiety, the disgust, it makes them sick to their core)    (The Potions Coven doesn't deserve another traitor, and Vitimir will make sure it never happens again.)   They swallow down whatever tumultuous emotional residue that has been left, and pull themselves together for the ceremony.   They claw at their arms the entire way through it.    Vitimir could feel the Healing Head’s stare pinned on them throughout the event, and the second it was over she made a beeline straight towards them.   "Don't scratch. Healing well?"   Vitimir nodded twice and she seemed to relax a little, and with that they finally asked the question they never got the opportunity to ask a month ago.   “I'm sorry, I never did manage to catch your name”“They call me Doctor.” She gave a smug, imperious scoff, a character detached from the quiet, gruff concern that Vitimir had witnessed late at night and early hours of the morning.    “But-” She tacked on, with an ever so slightly softer tone,   “I'm Hettie, Hettie Cutburn. It's nice to meet you under better circumstances.”

Teen And Up Audiences

Luz liked Amity. She really liked Amity. But Amity, was well, Amity. Smart, beautiful, thoughtful, witty, everything. She had everything. She was everything. And Luz, was barely any. Maybe on some occasions, Luz was funny. And maybe from some angles, Luz was pretty. But Luz, wasn’t enough.       And Luz was aware of this, for this was what she thought. All she knew. For every memory that she had made Amity laugh or smile or sometimes even impressed, there were five more where she screwed up and embarrassed herself.        Why couldn’t it be like the shows she watched. They were always so simple on screen, but so complex when ingrained into reality.       Maybe it’s because those shows inspired hope in her. Hope that someone as out of the ordinary as she was could have a crush on such an amazing person, and they’d reciprocate.      Luz didn’t want to make her move because she didn’t want to make Amity feel uncomfortable. It was Luz’s worst nightmare that the small signals she’s been sending or her strange gestures were picked up by Amity, but Amity trying to be polite, didn’t say anything even though she was uncomfortable. She’d rather Amity scream at her and berate her rather than just sit uncomfortably dealing with Luz’s worst sides. At least it would confirm everything she thought was true. Even so, the thought is terrifying. Everything she thought was confirmed as true. Especially if the truth was that Amity had only been dealing with her out of sheer politeness.       And then suddenly, Luz asking her out would be the catalyst that ended their friendship. And what if that ripples throughout the friend group? What if everyone ends up thinking she’s the weirdo. That Luz regains the title as ‘the rejected weirdo’. Then every interaction between the two from then on wouldn’t be the same.          So Luz came up with a solution, never tell anyone and hopefully these feelings fizzle out like most crushes in the past. The issue was that these feelings weren’t fizzling out and weren’t getting better, would she just have to live like this for the rest of her life?       And in attempt to not think of Amity in a romantic manner, made her think of Amity even more. Every time Luz saw a lovely bouquet or saw an exhilarating romance movie, she’d think of Amity but then mentally scold herself for even having the audacity of thinking of her as anymore than a friend.   Get it through your head! Amity doesn’t like you, and she probably never will! So stop being weird and thinking about her!   And yet every time Luz declares herself crush free, eventually these feelings return to her like the tide height at sunset. Thus her fear being propulsed even more than before as it isn’t worth the risk of everyone passively  omitting you from the group. Or even the dumb anxiety you already have getting worse over rejection as you never wanted to make her feel awful or trapped or uncomfortable, but that’s what that anxiety is telling you. It’s always telling you. Everyone will eventually hate you and omit you because you are nothing and you will never be anything more than nothing.    She can’t take the risk. She can never take the risk. And yet, in her heart, resides the hope that maybe, in some universe, Amity likes her too. And maybe that could be this one.   And so her thoughts repeat.

General Audiences

“Here, put these on,” Luz says as she shoves something at Hunter’s face. “Wha—why? What even are these?” he asks as he steps back. His brow furrows as he squints at her. It’s too bright for him to really tell what she’s holding. The sun in the human realm is just as blindingly bright. The familiarity would be comforting if it weren’t such a pain in the ass. “They’re sunglasses! They help you see better in bright places,” she explains, still holding them out for him to take. After a moment of staring, he concedes and grabs them from her, cautiously putting them on. The relief is instantaneous. The sun is still glaring down on them, but it’s much more manageable now. Hunter looks around, looking at the trees and the other houses down the street, before he turns his attention back to Luz. She beams at him. “Better?”“Better.” “Good! Now, c’mon, let’s go!” she exclaims as she grabs onto his wrist, tugging him forward.“Er—to where, exactly?” “Just for a walk. You’re the only one I haven’t really shown around town yet—plus, you could use the sun. It’s good for you.” -     -     - Hunter feels like he’s going to explode. Ms. Noceda had asked if anyone wanted to go to the store with her, and he had volunteered. She’d been making him take longer and longer breaks. He wasn’t sure why, but it felt wrong to just…sit there and do nothing for thirty minutes. Maybe it was some sort of punishment? Being here sure felt like one. But he had requested to come in order to try and get into her good graces, so probably not. He can never be sure, though. They’ve been walking through the aisles of the store methodically. The orderliness of it would be nice if everything else wasn’t so agonizing. It’s not even just how loud it is—people keep chattering and hollering, there’s some kind of music playing from…somewhere, the thundering of the shopping carts as they roll along—it’s everything. The lights are too bright and they keep buzzing. There’s so many people everywhere, and none of them seem to have any regard for others. When they pass through certain areas, the scents bother him—too many of them. He can’t even find the words to describe what they smell like. Everything feels sticky and people keep touching him. Ms. Noceda doesn’t seem bothered by any of this. So neither should he. Hunter tries to take deep breaths like Gus showed him, but it’s hard to focus on it when there’s so much stuff happening all around him. He shoves down the urge to clamp his eyes shut and put his hands over his ears. People will just stare if he does that, and they’re all already on thin ice for their ears and, in his and Amity’s cases, eyes. When a gentle hand touches his shoulder, he flinches away harshly, whirling around. Ms. Noceda’s hand is slightly outstretched, her fingers curled halfway to her palm. She looks…concerned? Upset? He can’t tell the difference. “Too loud?” she asks as she lets her hand drop.“Uh—I—yes. But it’s fine.” She purses her lips, then reaches into her purse. It takes her a moment to find what she’s looking for, but eventually she pulls out a pair of headphones. She holds them out for him to take. Hunter stares at her warily, before he gingerly takes them from her, inspecting them. They’re plain, and look rather expensive. He looks back at her, one brow quirked up. “They’re sound canceling,” Ms. Noceda explains, offering him a small smile. “I wear them at work sometimes. The animals can get…very noisy.” “Oh. Thank you,” he replies after a moment. He carefully puts them on. The shouting, the music, the thundering all gets quiet. It’s still there a little, just muffled, distant. He breathes a sigh of relief. This is infinitely better. Everything doesn’t seem to smell so strangely, or be as bright, anymore. Her smile widens as she gestures for him to follow her, and they continue through the aisles. -     -     - Flapjack is trying to make a nest out of Hunter’s hair for the millionth time as he sits on the couch. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of the hoodie Luz lent him. The material inside is soft against his aching hands. Normally, he would be wearing his gloves, but they’re being washed, along with the rest of his clothes. He would also usually be doing something. The thing is, Hunter can’t find it in himself to try doing any chores. Not without his gloves. He needs them—but they really did need to be washed. They had gotten rather gross and sweaty. So now he’s on the couch, staring off into space, trying to ignore how bare his hands feel. “Why’re you staring at the TV? It’s off, you know,” a voice says from somewhere behind him. He startles, turning to look and see who it is. “Sorry,” Vee says, smiling shyly. “I, uh, didn’t mean to scare you.”“It’s fine,” he replies, turning back around.“Luz showed you how it works, right?”“Yes. I just…I don’t know.” After a couple of moments, the spot next to him sinks down. “Are you okay?” Hunter merely shrugs, his gaze falling to a spot just below the TV stand. Silence. Then, “You know, sometimes, I like to wear fingerless gloves.” “Fingerless gloves? Why would you wear those?” he questions, perplexed. The point of gloves is that they cover up your whole hand. They’re protective. If they don’t cover up your fingers, then they could get damaged. “Well, it’s easier to touch stuff like phones with them. You can’t really use the screens with normal gloves on. And they’re cool. At least, I think so. Plus, all the ones I’ve worn are soft and thick, so they still keep your hands warm. You can try some on, if you want. I know they won’t be the same, but…I don’t know. Maybe they’ll still help, at least a little.” Hunter looks at her, the movement disturbing Flapjack, who chirps, Try. “...Alright. Sure.”“Cool, cool, cool! I’ll go get them!” Vee exclaims, smiling as she runs off. Might help feel better. Soft. Soft is good. Hands still safe. Still protected.“I guess,” he responds. Wouldn’t hurt to try—probably. Vee comes back a couple minutes later, a pair of the fingerless gloves in hand. She sits back down then holds them out to Hunter. She grins at him. After a moment’s hesitation, he pulls his hands out of the hoodie pocket to take them. He doesn’t look at her, doesn’t want to see her face when she sees all the scars, the pity in her eyes. The material is very soft, he notes as he rubs it between his fingers. They’re bright red. Flapjack twitters their approval at this, moving to perch on his shoulder. He smiles, then takes a deep breath and pulls them on. They seem to fit perfectly, the fabric soothing the ever-present aching. It’s still there, and he knows it always will be, but the gentle pressure helps. When Hunter finally looks up at Vee, she’s just watching him curiously. “Thank you,” he says, giving her a small smile. He still doesn’t understand why they’re fingerless, aside from technology-related reasons, but he figures it doesn’t matter. “No problem,” she replies. “You can keep them, if you want.”“Really?”“Sure! I have a lot of them, anyways. One less pair isn’t gonna hurt anything.”

General Audiences

At some point in his life, Hunter began to experience a maddening arousal blooming inside his body, a distracting feeling that haunted him throughout the day and denied him peace at night. It was… frustrating, to say the least. Being raised on the Titan’s principles preached directly by the Emperor himself, Hunter knew exactly what that feeling pooling deep in his lower stomach was. He remembered the awkward conversation with Belos when his uncle told him about the tempting vices that would try to make him falter and stray off the path of the Titan’s plans. The pesky, pernicious sexual desire to which Hunter mustn’t succumb to. Except after few months of dealing with the irking inconvenience, he could feel his will wavering. His thoughts didn’t feel like his own anymore when inappropriate images popped up in his mind at random, making Hunter immediately chastise himself and slump down, ears flushed and pressed flat to his head. Or when he could feel the wetness between his legs and the dull, urging pulsating of his nub which made him subtly grind against the chair one too many times during the meetings. There’s only so much ice-cold showers one can take per day without seeming overly suspicious.     Everyone has already retreated for the night, content to wind down in the comfort of their own private quarters after a busy day, when it seemed like the burning desire finally made Hunter crack his resolve. His hand ran down his almost completely nude body and rested on the pudgy mound of his underbelly. His fingers skimmed unsurely on the hem of his briefs, and he bit into his lip, weighing his options. It was tempting to just give in and slip his hand past the waistband, touch his aching clit and let the clumsy, inexperienced fingers slide into his leaking hole. But all the morbid stories describing how the Titan treated those that defied his will flashed through Hunter's head and he stopped his hand dead in its tracks. Was a moment of fleeting pleasure really worth going against all he was raised to live by and jeopardizing his uncle's efforts? He took his hands off his body, spread them wide on the bed and laid back, inhaling the stuffy air of the hot summer night. His skin glistened with sweat in the faint moonlight and Hunter flushed as another dirty thought crossed his mind and abashed him. He closed his eyes in shame and suddenly became all too aware of the slick gathering between his legs or the insistent throbbing of his clit. There was heat around him, in him, and Hunter thought that he might as well let himself burn. Apparently, his will wasn’t very strong to begin with, but the flesh turned out to be even more prone to giving in to the pleasure. Nervous about getting caught and uncomfortable with the notion that the Titan saw all, Hunter buried himself under the thin bedcover and only then clumsily reached into his underwear. He pressed the rough fingertip to his swollen nub and stroked it testingly, wringing a low, breathy exhale from himself. The almost instant burst of relief melted some of his initial reservations. His hole tightened around nothing, some more slick gushed out and Hunter covered his mouth with his hand. Titan, that felt good… His face heated up momentarily, the tips of his ears twitched as he realized what just crossed his mind. Did he just use the Titan’s name in vain? What would uncle think if he overheard him right now? After all, the Emperor’s bedroom was right on the other side of the wall... He raised him better than that. But the scandalized thoughts seemed to only further fuel the arousal growing inside Hunter and he whimpered in shame, hot tears of humiliation welling up in his eyes. His cunt throbbed urgently, and he moved his fingers lower, lubing one of them up with his discharge before he tentatively plunged it inside. He wiggled it around, rubbing over his soft walls and some silent sighs slipped past his lips. Hunter’s legs — stretched over the length of his bed — stiffened, occasionally twitching when he did something that his body seemed to particularly like, and his toes curled as he sped up the pace of his hand. Despite the rigidness tautening his body, he felt the most relaxed he has been in a long while. The pleasure coiled tightly in his abdomen and unexpectedly the guilt resurfaced. Fear panged in his mind, causing the movement of his hand to slow down and the desire to dim. What punishment would even await Hunter for violating those rules? Eternity of being cooked alive in the Boiling Sea? Hunter had mishaps in the past, but Belos was always kind enough to offer him another chance after punishing him, believing in Hunter’s ability to correct his own mistakes above anything else. The Titan was said to be merciful. Would he forgive Hunter as well if he showed remorse? He put another finger in and whimpered at the stretch, his body tightening around them like a vice. He grinded his hips against his hand eagerly and moaned loudly as his fingers dug even deeper into his pussy. His back arched off the bed as he used his thumb to brush over his clit again. Hunter used his free hand to curiously pinch and tug at one of his sensitive nipples, ripping out a less than dignified noise from his throat in surprise. Some of the guilty tears dripped down his cheeks and he whined, “Sorry… I’m so sorry…” Was he really? He flung his head back onto the stiff pillows and squeezed his pudgy pec in tandem with the needy thrusts of his hips. Pressure began to gather in his abdomen and initially Hunter stopped playing with himself, ready to unwillingly drag himself to the bathroom and empty his bladder. Then, after an uncomfortably silent moment of waiting, the pressure yielded, and Hunter smacked himself across the face with an exaggerated groan. Clearly, it wasn’t that. However, it felt unbelievably down to earth for something that Hunter used to only secretly read about under the cover of darkness, imagining and wondering what something so coveted must have felt like. Overcoming the brief moment of humiliation, Hunter placed a few fingers in his mouth, got them nice and slick with saliva and picked up where he had left off. With the reduced friction, two of his fingers smoothly sunk back into his hole. He groaned out in frustration and buckled his hips; the stretch didn’t do much to soothe the maddening ache inside of him. If anything, it seemed to amplify it. It’d be nice to have someone else to help him out there, lend him a helping hand, but Hunter wouldn’t dare to drag anyone else down with him. But nothing stopped him from imagining someone else’s thicker fingers spreading his cunt open, the digits filling him up to the brim and rubbing against all the sensitive spots inside as they played with his nub and rapidly brought Hunter closer to his long-desired climax. "Titan, I— I'm so sorry!" He breathed out, continuing to selfishly chase his own pleasure. He didn’t sound apologetic in the slightest. His thrusts became more erratic, desperate, now that he was pumping his fingers in and out with a specific goal in mind. He needed to come. The third finger sunk into his cunt and Hunter moaned, back arching off the bed and the head tilting backwards. With the other hand he began meanly rubbing at his clit, pinching his wet folds between two fingers whenever he fancied. Once the figures in his mind became more distinct, their faces clearer and… familiar, Hunter shook his head, panting heavily, hoping to throw the images out of his head once and for all. “Titan, please, forgive me!” he gasped. The knot in his stomach coiled tighter with each new touch, threatening to snap at any moment now. His face was blotched in red; ears were twitching in tandem with the desperate spasming of his pussy and more tears fell from his eyes out of the relief and the partial overstimulation. But he incessantly continued the rapid jerking of the fingers assaulting his nub, forcing himself closer to his climax. “I— I’m so, ah, sorry… Titan!” Hunter screamed out hoarsely when after another few, desperate thrusts of his hips, he felt his walls squeezing down on his fingers and the coiling arousal in his underbelly finally snapped, overflowing him with pleasant warmth. He fell back onto the bed exhausted, head still buzzing with satisfaction and white noise, cunt twitching in the aftermath of his orgasm. His body felt pleasantly lax, except his arms which felt a tad strained from the overuse. He struggled to calm and silence his ragged breathing. However, the gratification was short lived because once the delightful rush of hormones died down, the realization and mortification struck him like a lightening. Oh, Titan…

Explicit

It was supposed to be one night among many. The usual, with a midnight stroll in the forest, perhaps stumbling upon some fine ingredients… They always enjoyed it anyway, findings or not.  Most witches and demons avoided that part of the forest too, even better. Though for good reasons, as it was the domain of the Bat Queen, protector of stray palismen, the forgotten and the lost.  And yet, that night, it seemed to be inhabited by something else. There was nothing but silence: no chirps, no broken twigs, no faint whistling muffled by the foliage. Only the quiet rustle of leaves in the wind. Even their palisman, always chirping and looking out for anything with its big black eyes, had been quiet during the whole trip as it remained in its staff form. If it wasn’t a sign, the roar that shook the trees definitely was. It was no slitherbeast, nor was it the distinctive screech of the Bat Queen. No, it was nothing they were able to recognize. Cicely this time couldn’t help but feel their throat tighten painfully: there was always a risk of being attacked, by wild creatures or bandits, they had learned that all too well throughout the years living on the Boiling Isles and yet this time, something in their gut was telling them it was nothing compared to what they already encountered before.As the cracking wood and heavy, erratic stomps grew louder, Cicely found themselves hiding between the large roots of an elder tree, squeezed, almost nestling against the moss-covered bark and dirt. Holding their staff in both hands so hard their knuckles turned white, they waited.  A long whimper followed. Heavier steps disturbed leaves and dead branches as they saw the shadow of something…  big under the pallid moonlight.  It was injured.   “ Won’t… Hurt… Them… “   A small gasp escaped their throat upon hearing the plea supposedly coming from whatever was near them: it was no voice but an amalgamation of multiple ones, crying, begging, squealing, wailing in pain at the same time. A roar answered, as the beast stumbled and violently crashed against a tree, crawling on the ground as if struggling against an invisible form, eventually rolling in Cicely’s line of sight.Despite the quasi-obscurity, they were able to see the ridged outline of a tall, skeletal shape, adorning a pair of antlers and a pale mane. And as if it hadn’t been enough, they could have sworn they saw its skin moving, crawling even.They couldn’t move. It wasn’t a matter of if they could make a run for it or not. For a long, nerve-wracking moment, there was nothing but fear as they stood still, so petrified it hurt their tensed muscles. A long agonizing whimper echoed as the beast tried to stand up on two legs, fell, tried on four and failed once more, as it eventually gave up, lying on the ground, panting heavily. For Titan knew how long, they stayed hidden between the roots of the tree, just a few meters away from the beast, their breathing shaking and uneven. They were always curious and open to discover new things but this, this was too much to their taste. To anyone’s taste. And yet…They took a sharp, deep breath, trembling hands clutching their staff and took a step. Another. Another. Until they stopped, right outside of their hiding spot, with a set of piercing, glowing blue eyes staring at them. They held back a muffled squeak, as they looked at them with utter astonishment: they hadn’t expected eyes sprouting from its back and shoulders.  The beast tried once more to stand up, to no avail. It only resulted in a low growl from it, clearly too weak to attempt anything. The surface kept on moving as if animated by an unknown force, as if a dozen of eels were trying to burst out of the giant emaciated form. They took another step. Its skin was dark, a vile, oozing mix of different shades of green, sprinkled with more blue irises here and there, disappearing under the sludge-like texture that was its skin. A myriad of tiny blue eyes. They couldn’t refrain a shudder as it violently ran down their spine while the monster remained on the cold ground, curling up ever so slightly, face in hands, almost pulling hair out of its whitish mane. Cicely slowly walked around it, their pale eyes always on the creature, their legs feeling like jelly and they almost tripped on a broken branch. It was big, bigger than any slitherbeast they had previously seen before, bigger than the Bat Queen herself. Heart beats ringing in their ears, they inhaled as slowly as they could. Long, skinny fingers separated, allowing it to look at the witch standing before it. Their features were soft, though it was before hard to spot any specific details under the night sky and in its current state.Despite all that, it noticed one thing, its eyes all staring at the palisman staff they were holding in their sweaty palms.  A deafening roar immediately erupted from the beast as it violently stood up on its hind legs, bones cracking, sludge-like flesh pulsating as it raised a hand, slamming it down where its target was. The witch couldn’t hold back a screech of terror as they barely dodged the attack. With haste, they sloppily tried to cast a spell but the beast was filled with a new determination, all the while the surface of its body became more refined, and the glowing orbs on its torso and back became more… detailed. Heads, dozens and dozens of heads. Going from a bird to a snake, with snouts and maws gasping for air, crying.    “ Danger..! Danger! Run away! “ A cacophony of voices yelped in agony.   Another palm hit the ground, followed by another, as the beast tried to grab, squish, crush them, as if dealing with a petty fly. During all that time, a window of opportunity to escape on their staff showed a few times and yet, something, something deep inside them compelled them to stay, facing the enraged beast. Yes, leaving it there was probably the best option when it came to surviving but making it someone else’s problem? They couldn’t bring themselves to accept that, for the better or worse.  Conjuring a reinforced rope was easy but maneuvering around the monster in a way to trap it was something else. Despite how weakened it looked moments prior, it seemed that anger, desperation had given it a second wind. But its moves were clumsy, only the result of frustration and… hunger? At that time, it didn’t matter, as Cicely took their chance, making a swift hand gesture, the rope winding around the hind legs right when it was about to pounce. A heavy stomp followed, as the beast abruptly fell on the rough forest floor, letting out a furious roar. The moment after, it tried to stand up, but the witch was quick to conjure more ropes, tying the beast up and using the surrounding trees as supports too. For a minute, it seemed like a good idea, as it kept struggling and struggling, until the trunks themselves started to shake. No time to rest.    “ I’m so sorry, but you need a time out! “ Cicely yelled, removing the cork of a vial and spilling its contents on the beast’s face.    It answered with a cough and a long snarl, maw wide open as some drops of a purple liquid still managed to make their way into its throat. The effect was immediate as the skeletal shape calmed down, different heads sprouting on the surface of its back and shoulders.    “ Get… Away… Danger..! “ The voices croaked once more.    They took a slow breath, as the eyes faded, the beast letting out a low whine before falling into a deep slumber. Thank Titan they always had a hefty reserve of sleeping nettles and concentrated nectar in their satchel. Adrenaline leaving their body, they allowed themselves to sit on the ground, sucking air through their teeth as they finally felt a stinging pain on their right arm: blood was flowing from a fresh, nasty gash. In the heat of the struggle, they hadn’t noticed how close one swipe had been close, way too close to them. Here were the results.  What a night. Sloppily searching in their bag once more, they eventually found another vial, letting a few drops on their wound. They winced as they couldn’t hold back a pained grunt, using a piece of cloth as a makeshift bandage. Their opaline eyes meet the shape of the now sleeping beast. Yup, it was truly something they had never seen before. Not even in books.  Finding themselves back in the corner created by the roots of the tree that hid them earlier, they considered their options. Going back home was the safest route, yes, however… after putting an unknown beast to sleep and taming it for the time being… they rubbed their eyes with a hand, letting a sigh escaping their throat. A chirp brought them back to reality: their palisman, an anomalocaris, made its way on their legs. A faint smile formed itself on their face, as they gently petted the arthropod’s carapace.   “ Ah, Baaletto, we both know this is a bad idea but gotta fix the mess I’ve created too, uh… “   Using their herb filled satchel as an improvised pillow, they closed their eyes, yet still having a lingering knot in their stomach. Was that thing sentient? A mutated species? A sick one? Or… a result of a curse? Despite all the questions in their head, the sting of their wound, the fear still running wild at the surface of their mind, they eventually fell asleep, a few meters away from the mysterious beast.    *   When he opened his eyes, there was nothing but darkness. Surrounded by only black, he struggled to stand up, feeling the floor shifting ever so slightly under his feet. It felt like… Rage immediately took over, as he stomped the floor, crushing under his boot one of the many faces that were crawling on the surface. He was furious, but not only at those weepy creatures that had sustained him for so long, but also at himself, for letting them take over. Now they were in control, in this wretched form that had proved itself to be quite the thorn on his side for years. He hated it. He hated how they were able to provoke these outbursts, how they were constantly nagging him, with a cacophony of pleading squeals and cries ringing in his ears. It had been an annoyance at first, kept at bay with enough… sustenance. And with the decreasing reserves, he had found himself like all those years ago. Hungry. Weakened. Enraged. Mad even. And to a point those poor souls had been able to escape and get a hold of him in the process. He had let himself be driven by nothing but hunger and all he got was his consciousness taking a step back, allowing those foul rejects to take control. Those damned children of magic, it was their fault. It was all their fault! They did nothing but corrupt everything they touched. Careless. Out of control. Wild.  He took a slow, deep breath. No. It was nothing but a setback. Not a minor one, yes. But nothing that would stop him. He was a guide. Under the healing light of nine hues, that chaos was soon going to be extinguished. For everyone’s sake. He needed to focus. Perhaps it was an opportunity to tame the beast from within. To mute it once and for all, to muzzle it, to put himself back in control. From the gooping, oozing obscurity, the surroundings around him shifted, as if melting before his eyes to turn into a more familiar place. A door, with tubes linked to it, under a winged arch. But no key. As if coming back home would make it all go away. As if the pain, the hunger would simply vanish at the sight of green trees and non-boiling rain. He hissed, exhaling air through gritted teeth. He was so out of it that even the mere presence of a single palisman had been enough to make him act like a wild animal. Like the mere thought of having a feast had been also the source of all this commotion as well. But his hunger against their protector… she would pay for her defiance, the supposed monarch of an untamed land. Another deep inhale. He was so close. And like during all these years, all these decades, he would have to be patient. It was merely a setback after all. It had been so long. And yet the pain remained. The anger as well. The frustration. The insidious need for revenge. Laughter brought him out of his thoughts, while a small silhouette ran past him. The surroundings had changed once more, in a blink of an eye, as he found himself on a grassy field, under a lone tree.    “ Caught you, you vile witch! “ A voice echoed in his mind.   His lips trembled. The voice turned instantly into an amused, genuine giggle.    “ And you know what we do to witches like you? “   More laughs ensued, as the blond boy started to tickle another, much smaller silhouette, wearing a horned mask. Much simpler times were gone. No more children’s games. But not forgotten. As if he would be able to forget. No, it always had been what pushed him to do all this. As if he could forget the betrayal. As if he could forget the bright red on his shining blade. As if he could forget the endless stream of tears running down on his cheeks as he swore all of those damned wretches would pay. Yes, they all would, for turning his brother against him. Another deep breath. No, this was exactly what he wanted to avoid. His project had given him the opportunity not to stop and think about it all from another perspective. It didn’t matter. What he had planned for centuries was. All his sacrifices hadn’t been made in vain. It was all for the greater good, for the future of humanity. And yet… was he even human anymore? After all this time, was he still truly free of sin? He who had given so much, who had worked so hard for this, could he be even accepted among his kind? He who put himself between worlds, between human and monster? Seething with absolute wrath, he found himself face in hands, before feeling the irregular texture of his scar under his fingers. For all this time, he had given so much, spending nights after nights preparing, learning, planning. And yet, as he was himself stuck, imprisoned in his own plagued mind, alone with his thoughts and memories, only now he started to think, allowing doubt to seep in. Throughout the centuries, the Boiling Isles changed, drastically, thanks to his “teachings”. He was the messenger of the Titan after all. So why didn’t he think about the possibility that the other side did as well? A violent shudder ran down his spine, as the tumult of the Palisman souls grew louder, their pathetic voices deafening him, engulfing him in their cries and pleas. As the familiar place around him faded, putting him back in a void filled with nagging echoing voices, he laid down, covering his ears. He just had to be patient. Whatever happened to him, he would find his way back, as always. It might have been a bigger outburst than usual but it hadn’t been the first nor the last time it would happen. Surrounded by darkness, the uproar muffled by his hands, a faint strange scent of thyme reached him, almost soothing the pain for a split second. Their Palisman woke them up early in the morning, as the sun started to rise. With half-opened lids, Cicely stepped out of their improvised shelter, as their eyes slowly accommodated to the luminosity, putting their messy reddish blond hair in a ponytail.They slightly flinched upon discovering the beast from the other night, well, under a new light. Its skin was indeed crawling, from time to time, as it remained on the ground, asleep, morning dew dripping from its white and gray mane.  Despite its size and the strength it had demonstrated the night before, the ropes keeping it at bay had worked. So much so they almost gave themselves a pat on the back. Their skills were growing each day, their efforts necessary to survive in the wild had paid off.However, there was no bounty on… whatever this new species was. If it was a new species at all. Its flesh reminded them of one of an abomination, as some parts of its skeletal body looked like rotten sludge, a vile mix of gooey flesh and bones. No… it was worse than that, as the smell hit their nostrils with force, making them gag, feeling bile in their mouth. It reeked way too similarly to the roadkill they had stumbled upon in the past. Like corpses left under the burning sun, eaten by wildlife, the boiling seawater and time. They opened their satchel in haste, perfumed by the many herbs and potions they were carrying. They didn't need to be part of the Potions' Coven to find use of ingredients and create basic concoctions, that was for sure. But this time, the solution was even simpler than that, as they pulled out a mask, stuffing its beak with a bouquet of herbs and dried flowers. They weren't much of a fan of the Coven Scouts and especially those leading the Conformatorium; however their bird shaped helmets had proved to be quite practical, especially when dealing with dead critters and carcasses or in that case, dealing with something that smelled almost like it.    " What am I going to do with you… " they murmured after a sigh.   Calming down the beast and preventing it from hurting anyone had been only a short-term idea this whole time but now they had to deal with the consequences. The wound of their right arm was still stinging, emitting spikes of pain from time to time, similar to an electric shock. Under their mask, they winced. If it was bound to attack again, they had to do something. Baaletto chirped again as it scuttled and pounced, ending up in the hood of their cloak, earning itself an amused chuckle and a few scratches between their front mandibles. It had watched over them again, like many nights before. It had always been that way: a true bond between a Palisman and the witch. For a long moment, they were able to savor their morning in relative peace as they brewed some tea: with nobody in sight, they were able to practice their magic freely. Being seen as a practitioner of all kinds of magic was… considered a crime after all. Ever since Emperor Belos made it official as he ascended to power, making it law over the Boiling Isles. A long sigh escaped through their nose, their breath slightly shaking. They were safe here, no one was around except them, their Palisman and… whatever or whoever that beast was… At least they hoped so; that or they would see themselves soon tracked by Coven Scouts and brought to justice for the crime of being able to choose. For being indecisive and curious. For needing to be free to test. Joining a Coven… had never really been out of the radar per se. However, choosing a single path? Unable to change after? Forced almost to make such a hard choice that would define the rest of a life at a young age… They couldn’t help but click their tongue. Did the Titan really want this? Were the ways of covenless witches that corrupted? Were they truly… unredeemable? A shudder ran down their spine at those blasphemous thoughts. Only one could truly answer that question. The Emperor, the voice of the Titan on the Boiling Isles.Staring at the brewing tea, they slightly scoffed: right, as if casually asking if he could truly communicate with the creator of demons and witches wasn’t blasphemous at all.  A frown wrinkled their pallid, white-speckled face, trying to discard such thoughts by focusing on preparing their breakfast. Despite everything, everything they’d heard about the devastation of so-called “wild magic”, doubt lingered. They weren’t a… wild witch? They hadn’t done anything wrong, right? Despite being currently covenless, they weren’t doing anything bad. They weren’t running around, casting spells and spreading chaos like those witches from the Savage Ages depicted on many paintings, using the gift of the Titan mindlessly, without a care in the world. Everyone on the Boiling Isles were born from the flesh and the bones of the fallen Titan, able to wield magic in the process. If the Savage Ages were that… savage, why was the devastation that… minimal? Cicely sighed once more: all the books they’d read before weren’t able to answer their questions. Finding another perspective other than the one dictated by the Emperor’s Coven had proved itself to be quite hard. To a point only one book “The Unauthorized History of the Boiling Isles” and word of mouth from elder witches had been the only reliable source of untainted information all this time. Despite what everyone would say about it, the history of the Boiling Isles was written by victors and doubt always lingered in Cicely’s mind with their covenless status.They would join one, someday, yes. But societal pressure wasn’t going to do the trick. A deep, rumbling sigh shook the beast, making them jump from the trunk they were sitting on. Its gaping maw stretched way too wide for their liking as it yawned, clearly drowsy.    “ So… how’s the sleeping beauty doing? “   Its head perked up and turned, its vibrant blue eyes locking on the witch and their opalin gaze. A shiver went down their spine as strong as electric current.   “ I’m so sorry for last night but you were out of control. Literally. We’re close to Bat Queen territory here you know! And you don’t want to be a threat to her, like, at all. “   The creature stared at them before letting out a snarl.   “ Danger… “ It croaked in an almost pleading tone, a dozen voices speaking at the same time.“ Danger indeed! She’s incredibly protective towards the lost and broken Palismen there. ““ Didn’t… Want to…! Stand… Back… Danger… “   Cicely tilted their head ever so slightly, their heart feeling heavy in their chest upon hearing the choir of voices trying to communicate with them.    “ Whatever, whoever you are, you look lost… upset. I… understand. “   The beast stood still before imitating them with a slight head tilt. For a split second, they found it somehow… endearing.   “ I’ve never seen such a being like you before. “ They continued with a more confident tone than before. “ Perhaps I can help you? ““ … Hide… ““ Hide? From what? … From whom? “   The creature didn’t answer as it tried to stand up, to no avail with Cicely’s enchanted ropes still binding it to the trees. It spent the next minutes awkwardly shifting its position to sit down, its lanky legs crossed.   “ Maybe you can try to tell me what’s going on? Are you a demon? Or did something inflict a curse on you? “   No answer. The beast was more focused on looking at its surroundings, before its attention was drawn by their Palisman. Its cracking maw, its inside vibrant blue like its eyes, slightly opened with a low growl escaping its throat.Cicely’s brow knitted, taping slightly Baaletto’s head, as it returned to its staff form.   “ … Did you go after the Bat Queen? Is that why you were on her territory? ““ … Hungry… “   Looking away from the beast, a hand on their mouth, they stared into nothing, vaguely looking in the direction leading to the Bat Queen’s nest. There were no other special spots or places of interest around. A shiver went down their spine, making their blood cold as they remembered its flesh shifting, turning into multiple, smaller faces of different creatures. A knot in their stomach made them wince, eyes twitching ever so slightly. No. Impossible. That’d be impossible. Something that no one would ever dare to think. They inhaled sharply, thoughts clashing in their head.   “ I… Perhaps… Uh… “ They stopped in the middle of an attempt at a sentence, as they rummaged in their satchel, retrieving a small box. “ I haven’t hunted anything… So I only have fruits and cookies… “   The beast seemed to completely ignore them until it started to sniff the air, eventually looking at the metal box with new interest.    “ A sweet tooth eh? I made them myself. With cinnamon and firebee honey! Goes well with tea. “   Heart beating hard in their chest, they took a cookie out of the box, stretching their hand. This was careless. Insane even. For a moment, they even considered removing one of the conjured ropes but going with one crazy thing at a time sounded more safe than anything. Two long slim fingers almost delicately took the cookie: it looked like a crumb compared to the imposing beast as it fell silent, gazing at the sweet snack before savoring it. Taking a step back just in case, Cicely just stared at it with a hint of confusion in their preoccupied eyes, while the beast found itself lost in thought, as its left hand crept closer to the metal box.    “ Oh, uh, you can take more! “ The witch reassured it, surprise in their voice. “ I’m glad you like them. “   Well that was an interesting development. A terrifying one, but it was going better than expected, as they observed with a captivated look how it was trying not to make a mess, taking the cookie one by one between his fingers. As they poured themselves some of the freshly brewed tea in one of their cups, surprise struck them once more as the beast was staring at them with its piercing ice blue gaze, sniffing faintly through its exposed snout.Thankfully for it, Cicely had another cup and they couldn’t help but smile when it delicately took it  with two fingers, even with its pinkie sticking out a little.    “ I don't know what or who you are but maybe I can help you out. Maybe help you find your home? “   The best remained silent, its eyes shifting as its gaze eventually stared in the distance, where the giant tree, the Bat Queen's nest was. The moment after, it shook its head, a low growl erupting from its throat, its hands shaking, its skin literally boiling, as if a thousand critters were crawling under it.Cicely felt their gut twisting itself into a ball of knots, before they pointed a finger to stop the cup from crashing on the forest ground as it fell off the beast's grip.   “ H-Hey! You're gonna be okay! " They uttered with their voice shaking. " We'll figure it out. “   Their throat blocked by emotion and stress, they took another step forward, standing before the beast who had curled up into a ball, grabbing its white mane and pulling it violently, a long pained whine echoing all around them. It stopped, upon feeling the gentle touch of a hand on their head, an uneven exhale shaking its whole body.   “ I know it doesn't mean much, the word of a witch you don't know and subdued you earlier… but you're not alone, blue eyes. ““ Danger… ““ We'll find a way to help you. That way you won't be a danger or a danger to anyone, deal? “   Its head slowly rose up, the pair of blue orbs meeting their whitish gaze, their face remaining hidden by their mask. There was no way to interpret anything coming from the beast’ stare, only with two dots faintly glowing from within the eye sockets. Their heart jumped as it suddenly hunched over until it was eye level with them; for a long moment, way too long for their liking, it gazed at them, as if contemplating something. Eventually, a low rumble shook the skeletal shape, as it exhaled through its nose, before nudging them almost delicately. For a second, it almost sounded like a purr.   “ Imma take that as a yes. “ Cicely chuckled, petting its white mane once more.   *   “ What do you mean you can't find him? ““ Madam,  we've looked everywhere..! ““ Then look again, you fools! “   White cloaks kept storming around Kikimora, as she made her way to the throne with frenetic hast.  She came in almost running as the heavy doors opened to an empty seat, and with the Golden Guard talking to another group of Scouts. She squinted her eye, putting aside the bitterness she couldn't help but feel when in the presence of that damned brat.    “ Any news? "" Nothing. “   The gilded helmet just gave her a negative nod. Despite the mask he was wearing, she could see how badly he was affected by the situation: the slight tapping foot, his right hand gripping the other one to prevent it from shaking.   “ How could he simply disappear like that? He must be somewhere! “ Kikimora almost squealed, a hint of irritation in her voice. “ Someone must have seen him! “   The Golden Guard held back a sigh, his gaze focused on the now slow beating heart adorning the underground throne room, with tapestries and an empty chair being the sole decorations of it. He knew how sick the emperor was feeling lately, with reserves getting emptier and emptier after each day and especially after each outburst of his… sickness. If only he had more details regarding it, he would have been able to help him! Why didn’t his uncle want to tell him more about it? He could clearly see how in pain he was, slamming the walls with his fist, his skin crawling, bubbling like the Boiling Isles before turning into… Under his mask, he took a deep breath.    “ I want Oracle specialized units on this. “ He said low enough not to be heard by the emperor’s assistant. “ Alert Osran as well. “ “ But… where should they look? ““ … Try unpopulated areas. Forests, with high magic concentration. Caves. “   There was a second of utter silence between the guard and the Coven guard, before disappearing from the golden one’s sight with others.   “ Clawthorne has already sent some search parties around the castle. “ Kikimora uttered, her voice slightly shaking yet filled with determination. “ But without specific indications… it’ll be looking for a needle in a haystack! “ “ I don’t know where the emperor could have gone to. ““ … Right. Well, as long as this remains between these walls. The Boiling Isles don’t need to know. “

Explicit

"I know what music is." Amity crossed her arms as she stared at her girlfriend. Luz rolled her eyes but the smile splitting her face never wavered. "It's different. Trust me." Amity pressed her lips tighter together. She had made it her goal to understand the world Luz came from. Sometimes the research was easier said than done. However, when Amity questioned something and hold a conversation about the human world Luz's eyes would light and her excitement would become nearly as tangible when magic was involved. Amity let her gaze drift over to where Hunter sprawled on Luz's bed with Willow next to him. His eyes were closed and a soft blush dusted his cheeks. Willow's eyes were watching him with unwavering affection while sound came from little electronics they had in their ears. Amity thought Luz had called them earbuds or air buds, maybe headphones. Amity shook her head. She knew they played sound from the little device between the two. She could not hear the song from the little speakers but she managed to catch the words Hunter was softly singing. "Now that I know what I'm without / You can't just leave me / Breathe into me and make me real." Hunter's eyes slid open and he looked at Willow as he continued softly singing the lyrics, his cheeks turning a brighter red while Willow's began to turn a soft pink. "Alright." Amity turned her attention back to Luz. "Show me this human music." Luz jumped up and threw her arms around Amity with an excited cheer. She dragged the witch over to near her computer. Amity felt her heartbeat pick up as she watched Luz tongue stick out in concentration as she scrolled through a list of titles. Luz knew the song she picked had to be perfect. It would introduce Amity to human world music and if it was not the right introduction it would color every interaction her girlfriend had with music from here on out. Amity tried to keep up with the rapid scrolling. Some of the names she was sure were in a different language Luz let out an excited breath when she found a song she knew would be perfect. She clicked it and then pulled Amity away before she could properly ready the title. "I'm sure you'll love this song." Luz held Amity's hands and stared into her eyes with an ear-splitting smile. I still hear your voice when you sleep next to me I still feel your touch in my dreams Forgive me my weakness, but I don't know why Without you, it's hard to survive Amity's eyes drifted closed as the song washed over her. It was not long before her body started swaying to the rhythm of the song. Her head bobbing slightly to the beat. When the song ended she opened her eyes and stared into Luz' expectant gaze. "Play it again." Amity felt herself blush. Luz's grin split her face as she scrambled to her computer. She turned it back on again then stepped up to Amity and held out her hands. "It's a great song to dance to." Luz began tugging at Amity's hands to coax her into dancing with her. Amity smiled back at Luz and stepped closer so they two could wrap their arms around one another as they began to dance. "'Cause every time we touch / I get this feeling / And every time we kiss /I swear I can fly." Luz sang the lyrics, though amity would use the word sang loosely. Really she was just belting them out in time with the song. But the excitement of her girlfriend fed into her own enthusiasm and Amity could not help but join in on the baying of the lyrics. "Can't you feel my heart beat fast / I want this to last / Need you by my side." Amity was aware of Hunter glaring at the two of them from where he had pushed himself up onto his elbows. She grinned, he clearly did not appreciate good music. Amity squeezed Luz's arms slightly and raised her voice as they sang horribly off key. Luz's laughter nearly choked the lyrics leaving her lips as she raised her voice to match Amity's volume. By the end of the song, Hunter had his hands over his ears, grumbling about tone-deaf crazy people while Amity and Luz were barely holding each other up as they laughed so hard it hurt. Amity buried her face into the side of Luz's neck gasping for breath. A new song started but the tone was drastically different. "What was that one called?" Amity whispered tipping her head back to stare up at Luz. "Every Time We Touch," Luz answered grinning at her girlfriend, neither willing to let the other go just yet. "It's by Cascada." "I really liked it." "Knew you would." Luz puffed up a bit with pride. "Oh!" Willow's exclamation interrupted them making them jump as she sat up from where she had fallen over laughing at their expense. "I know this song!" Luz tipped her head to listen to the lyrics and her eyes widened as they met Willow's gaze. "I fell in love with the darkest parts / Standing on the side of the wild at heart / I plucked a feather off a crow so I could fly / Since I was 13 years old / I've had my fist to the sky." Willow sat on the edge of the bed pumping her fists into the air. She was just as off-key as Amity and Luz had been but Hunter did not make a comment about her singing. Instead, he just stared at her with a light blush as she danced on the edge of the bed belting out the lyrics of the song as loud as she could. A soft smile curled his lips. "Can you dance to this too?" Luz turned her attention back to Amity. "I can dance to anything." Amity narrowed her gaze in a challenge a smile answering Luz's grin. "Can you?" The two started dancing around the small space again. They danced around each other laughing. Neither really paid too much attention to the music as it shifted to another song. They mixed dances they knew from both worlds into a messy movement that barely resembled any dances either knew. Amity found herself humming the song Luz had introduced her to, deciding it would forever be her favorite no matter how better any other song was. Luz caught the sound and grinned. She fisted the front of Amity's shirt and pulled her closer for a gentle kiss despite the gagging sounds Hunter always made at their public displays of affection.

General Audiences

This is the beginning of this story so this chapter doesn't matter Kay?Kay.so yeah I might write a chapter after this or sleep but idk title change It was A sunny,warm day,It was Beautiful The birds were chirping,Sun was shining.But everything Can't always be peaceful"GOLDEN GUARD!Your Presence is need by belos!"yelled Kikimora in her Annoying voiceBefore I could respond she walked away.i got off my bed,got ready hid flapjack in my room.and left as I was walking down the hall my anxiety grew more and more..I have a feeling this won't end well..belos isnt a merciful man..but it can't be that bad..right? . . . . timeskipp- . . . . Here I stood,outside of the throne room..belos is just on the other side of this door.waiting.I shouldn't make him wait.I knocked on the door."Come in" belos yelled slightly,I opened the doors.the doors creaked loudly"Ah hunter,what took you so long I've meaning to have a 'talk' about something"His voice sounded so calm..but his aura..said otherwise It sent a chill up my spin"I'm sorry emperor belos,I was busy.you wantedto talk to me about something?" "Ah yes hunter,do you recognize this?"My heart stopped when he pulled out one of the books I've been reading..it was about wild magic... "I-I can explain unc-Belos I was trying to help you with your cur-" . . . A scream of pain escaped me as belos shot directly into my eye.my left eye to be more precise."Now hunter,you know better.not to be reading something that's forbidden."But before I could reply something hit straight though my arm.i couldn't scream.i couldn't say anything."You may return to your room,And try not tobreak the rules.if this happens again.the punishment will be worse." I left the throne room and went straight to my room. Flapjack flew to me chirping.i couldn't stay here..I have-no 𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘥 to leave. But where? I don't care I just have to leave."flapjack, we need to leave now I can't stay here" I said to flapjack pointing to my eye, he then turned into a staff. And we flew outside my window I couldn't see well. My vision started to blur. I don't think I cleaned the wound. But the last thing that I remember before blacking out was me falling off of flapjack then I blacked out. . . . . . Wanna know what flapjack did? Here I'll show u what flapjack did ig . . . . . Flapjack flew to try catch hunter but.. He missed,hunter fell. Flapjack didn't know what to do,but then flapjack heard a familiar voice. He flew to where the voice was coming from"lil rascal?!what are you doing here? "Luz shoutedHe'd chirp(Idk-)"I can't understand you, but is something wrong? "Flapjack would grab her hair and started pulling her towards hunter"ow! Stop that!" . . . . . . Time skip to when flapjack pulled Luz to him cuz I'm lazy and tired. . . . . .Flapjack stopped pulling her hair and started chirping"Why we're you pul-hunter?! " No response.. "hunter?! " . . . . . . BACK TO HUNTERS POV . . . . . . It was black but I.. Could still hear? "EDA!going.be.okay?!" Luz? Where am I? "It's going to be okay Luz.. I hope.has. Bad.injuries" i couldn't hear them well. "HUNTER.YOU.THERE?! HUNTER? " I was starting to see. Well through my one eye but I was still starting to see kinda "hunter? Oh thank god your okay, I thought you were dead or something" "Hmm? I'm.. Fine.. I.. Think" "What.. What happened to you kid? " eda said She sounds worried? But why?I have only caused her trouble. I should try to walkAs I was standing up.. Or trying "hey kid you shou-" "AHHHHHH" . . . I fell... "Shi-crap my everything hurts... Why though? I thought he only hit me in my eye? " "who's 'he'? " luz asked worried "Uhm... Don't wor-" "Don't you dare finish that sentence I have a good reason to worry I found you in the forest bleeding to death, your eye is bleeding and you can't even walk! " luz yelled "But I still did horrible things to you. " "It's in the past kid, but right now you need to tell what happened. Only if you feel comfortable talking about it" eda said in I assume a worried tone "I.. I can tell you what happened. "   𝙏𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙚𝙙

Teen And Up Audiences

They rest their back against the cold wall of the house, half full glass of apple blood in hand. They stared into the night sky, the sound of the party indoors and the feeling of the night wind on their skin filling up the atmosphere. They had made things with Camila and Vee oficial and they were both part of their family now. Vee now had 2 moms and 1 parent, 4 siblings and a bird tube to keep her company now. Their family was expanding, and they wanted to celebrate. So here they all were, reunited in the Owl House, throwing a party to celebrate the occasion. Raine had been very happy for it, but their introverted ass decided it would be time to get some fresh air, away from people. So here they were. They sipped a bit of their apple blood, trying to clear their head to head inside later. But for now, this was nice. They were startled by a knock on the door beside them, revealing none other than their girlfriend (or well, one of them) on the other side. "Hey Rainestorm~" "Eda, holy shit! You scared the hell out of me!", They yelled, still startled. She laughed at their comment, "Sorry, sorry. Can I hang with you for a bit?" "You don't have to ask, you know?" She came out of the house, standing besides Raine, her own glass of apple blood in her hand. She closed the door behind them, Hooty far gone to chat with Lilith inside, and stood beside them. They stood there in comfortable silence for a while, taking sips of their glasses every now and then as they stared at the sky outside of them. The Isles were peaceful since the defeat of Belos and the Collector, the latter who was playing with King inside the house, causing chaos every now and then. They had taught them to change his ways and control his powers, and he and King slowly formed a strong bond between them. "So, wanna tell me what you're doing out here?", Eda interrupted. They shrugged. "Just wanted some space for myself. I love everyone here but they can take away a lot of my energy." Eda chuckled at their comment. "You've never been the type for people. Or parties, for that matter." "Yeah.", Now it was their turn to laugh. "But it's nice to have you guys here. Nice to have you here." Eda blushed at that, turning her gaze away from theirs. "It's nice to have you here, too. Really nice." They smiled fondly at her before pressing a kiss to her cheek. She looked back at her, her blush growing darker, before pressing one to their lips. They reciprocated the kiss, melting into her touch. They separated, and soon after they heard shouting come from inside. "Welp, gotta take care of that.", Eda said. "You coming along?" "You know what? Yeah." They both stepped inside the house, revealing Hooty and the Collector having a heated discussion, while King, Hunter and Vee stood on the sidelines. Luz laughed at the whole ordeal while Lilith and Camila tried to separate them. "There you guys are!", Lilith greeted them. "Now can you please help us out here?", Camila added. Eda laughed at the whole ordeal, while Raine casted a spell whistling, catching the attention of both of them. They stopped fighting soon after, and then everything went back to normal. Camila sighed and walked over to the two of them. "Thanks, dear. Dealing with these two was a challenge." They chuckled a bit, walking over her to press a small kiss on her forehead. "Remind me to never put those two in the same room ever again.", Eda commented. They all laughed a bit, before getting called by Lilith, telling them to get ready for charades. They spent the rest of the night basking in the presence of their family, and each other. Because they knew that no matter what happened, they would get through it, together.

Teen And Up Audiences

Lilith Clawthorne was woken by her palisman on the first dewy fall dawn of the season. Her palisman, a hand-carved white raven named Revali, had been by her side ever since she was a student. The now thirty-four-year-old witch stretched her arms above her head in her massive bed, letting out a ferocious yawn before peeling back her duvet. She looked around the relatively small bedroom of her cottage, grateful to be waking up there instead of in the Emperor's castle. Now that she was going to be working at the Hexside School of Magic and Demonics as the lead historical scholar, a professor, and student mentor, she was excused to live away from headquarters and further into town. The witch swung her legs over the side of the bed and into a pair of pale green silk slippers as she pulled her glasses from her nightstand and slid them onto her slender, pale face. She padded to the door and wrapped herself in the tan, silk robe she hung on a hook, covering her simple black nightie. Revali got to work pulling the pillows, sheets, and duvet back into their place as Lilith stepped into the adjacent bathroom and inspected her appearance in the mirror. The version of Lilith who lived in her private cottage was not the same version of Lilith the rest of the Boiling Isles was familiar with. Out in public, she was very precise and consistent in her appearance. She wore her midnight blue hair thoroughly straightened, ditched her round black metal frames for a vision-enhancing spell, and almost exclusively wore the color black. Meanwhile, only in the privacy of her cottage, which was tucked far out of sight and well-protected to offer her true solitude, she permitted herself to be a little more herself. She dawned a wardrobe with greater variety in color and style. She allowed her curls to bounce off of her back and tied the look together with her glasses. Her space, unlike the dark and gloomy room and board provided in the castle, was full of light colors and sunshine. She used light woods, colorful pastel accents, plants, and trinkets she collected over the years to decorate. Lilith was incredibly proud of her hard work and accolades. She highly valued justice and enjoyed having full control of her powers. Despite this, she was already growing tired at the age of thirty-four, an observation she tried to bury deep down in the darkest corners of her mind. Underneath her glasses, a face she hardly recognized stared back at her in the mirror. Her skin was so pale it appeared translucent, causing the bags under her eyes to pop out as a deep shade of purple. She had given up far too much to acknowledge her feelings of disenchantment that bubbled to the surface when she was tucked away in her cottage. Holding such a prestigious, powerful position could be invigorating and empowering, despite how truly draining the work was. She shook her head and turned the shower on so that the cool bathroom and water could warm up. Always a stickler for arriving early, Lilith planned to be at the school no later than two hours before the start time. She had a few final preparations to make in her office and needed to have time to review her speech for the opening ceremony. All of this needed to be completed early enough that she would have time to meet her new apprentice. As she showered, she thought of the young witch who she would be meeting. The student, just as Lilith once did, reigned as Top Student and passed the grueling application, testing, and interview process. The two of them only briefly met at the end-of-year ceremony the year prior. The way things worked at Hexside, students were given a full first year to familiarize themselves with their abilities and potential. The following year, top students would be selected to work under coven heads to prepare for apprenticeship. Should they succeed, and arguably thrive, they will join the coven and spend the remaining two years in a legal apprenticeship. There was only a select number of openings, and as head of the Emporer’s Coven, Lilith was the highest ranking witch one could study under. Lilith was not surprised at all to see she had been matched with the youngest Blight sibling, Amity. She had heard whispers about the girl for years leading up to her enrollment at the school and was very familiar with the Blight Industries’ connections to the Emperor's Coven. The witch found herself suppressing thoughts about the ethics of the circumstances as she turned off the water and pulled her plush towel from the rack. She wrapped the soft fabric around her body before stepping out of the shower, reminding herself that, regardless of the ethics of indoctrination, she could confirm that working for the Emperor's Coven would open up the highest of opportunities in the future. In the world these witchlets were being raised to live in, they needed to take advantage of any opportunity available. Lilith used a spell to rapidly dry and flatten her hair. She applied a serum to the bags under her eyes before utilizing a charm that corrected her vision. She flipped off the lights, hung her towel back up, and approached her closet to retrieve the clothing she had chosen the previous evening. The familiar, floor-length black dress with a charcoal upper bodice and sleeves was sleek, simple, and professional enough for this first day. After slipping into a simple black set of undergarments, Lilith stepped into black tights and pulled them into place. Then she removed the dress from the hanger. The witch could have used a spell to get dressed, but she chose to do things this way as a way to reserve her energy. After zipping up the back of the dress, she placed the diamond-shaped sea foam-colored gemstone she always wore in the center of her sternum. This gem would support her in maintaining a kempt appearance all day and act as an additional catalyst for her magic abilities. Slipping on a new pair of black, lace-up, heeled boots, she was feeling more and more like the head of a coven and less like the fatigued, loner who rolled out of bed just an hour earlier. She was too nervous to eat, so she summoned Revali, who perched on her staff and stepped out the front door. Once on the other side of her front gate, she looked back at her cottage. The house was beautiful and tucked safely away in the forest on the outer end of town. Upon moving in, the witch cast a spell creating an illusion over the house. To any passerby, the house was no more than an abandoned, dirty shack. She ensured her protection charms were in place before hopping onto her staff and rising into the sky. The sun had not yet risen when Lilith arrived at the school and let herself in through the locked side doors. She resisted the shiver in her core as she locked the door behind herself and walked through the dimly lit hallways. No other professor was present at this hour. Still, Lilith walked with her shoulders squared and her chin up, her staff standing tall in her right hand. She needed to embody the graceful, powerful witch she was in all circumstances, just in case . She arrived at the door of her office, which was attached to her classroom, and quietly unlocked it. The space was exactly as she left it the day before when she was present for an in-office work day. The space was large, the largest office outside of that of Headmaster Bump’s, and one of Lilith’s newest favorite spots. Where there weren’t wooden, built-in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, the walls were decorated with various maps and images of the Boiling Isles’ history. She had a massive dark, wooden desk with a large velvet chair tucked behind it facing a loveseat and two dark-colored chairs for guests. On the other side of the room, she had brought a wing-back chair and a lamp to build a reading nook. Just a few feet from that, in the adjacent corner, she placed a round wooden table with a few matching chairs in case it was needed. The witch walked over to the floor-to-ceiling windows and drew back the massive, velvet curtains to let the steadily increasing sunlight into the dark space. She then sat in her chair and got to work reviewing her speech and the day’s itinerary. After her third read-through, there was a light rapping on her door before it creaked open. “Headmaster Bump,” Lilith stood to offer her respects to her new boss. “Good morning. Welcome.” “I came here to welcome you, Professor Clawthorne,” Headmaster Bump gently shut the door behind himself before stepping closer to the desk. “Or, dare I say, welcome you back.” Lilith smiled courteously, her mind reflecting on her 4 years as Headmaster Bump’s student when he was still a relatively new professor. She had always been fond of the witch and his dedication to his students. It had been decades since she saw him last, before her interview at Hexside. They had yet to have a true opportunity to acknowledge their past and catch up. Given their positions in the community, neither had very much to catch the other up on that they wouldn’t already be aware of. “Thank you, Headmaster,” the witch began closing up her books and projected a more friendly tone than she was used to in colleague interactions. She glanced at the clock hanging above her door. “The days have been long but the years have been short.” “Indeed,” the man smiled softly, fully aware that Lilith was still a very private and professional witch. He knew to expect gossip and drama from other professors’ offices, even on day one but was unsurprised to see very little of the curly red-headed witchlet he once taught in the room that morning. The grown woman who stood before him, due to her position in the government, was forced to set hard boundaries at a very young age. “I shall return to the front office to welcome the apprentices. If you are ready, I can send Miss Blight to you right away.” “She has arrived already?” Lilith’s dark eyebrows lifted. “Oh yes,” the headmaster smirked, reaching for the door handle. “I believe you and Miss Blight have quite a lot in common. You will see.” “Of course. Please,” she summoned Revali with a spell circle. “I will send Revali to guide her back this way. I believe this part of the building is quite far from where she spent her time as a first year.” “Splendid,” he scratched the familiar, small white bird’s chin, earning a few pleasant chirps before turning to wink at the witch one more time. The two of them took off, leaving the door ajar per her request. “I will see you shortly.” Lilith swiped her clammy hands on the sides of her dress, forcing in a few shaky deep breaths. She shook her head, her blue hair swaying against the sleek fabric of her dress. As an official who reports directly to Emperor Belos, Lilith didn’t understand how she still managed to experience so much anxiety before an introduction. Based on Miss Blight’s interview responses, she knew the girl was naturally already impressed with her. She didn’t need to prove her worth to the student, and yet her nervous system said otherwise. The witch sat down, placing her folded hands on her desk, before changing her mind and quickly standing up. She was fussing with the placement of her chair when Revali flew in through the open door and she heard three small raps on the frame. Giving up on the desk situation, Lilith stepped around to be closer to the entrance instead. “Come in,” She spoke in the most professional tone she could muster, swallowing the last of her nerves. When the small teenager of 14 years stepped into the room, Lilith allowed herself a moment to take her in. Amity Blight stood at no more than five feet and a few inches, appearing quite childlike next to the older witches' five-foot-nine-inch frame. She wore her dress uniform, which was reserved for special occasions, and already adorned the Top Student badge on her black hood. Miss Blight was relatively pale, though not as pale as her mentor, and wore her hair in a light green bob, her auburn roots peeking out just a bit. She stood in front of Lilith with an outstretched hand, which the coven leader reached out to firmly accept. Her hazel eyes looked up at Lilith, sparking just a bit, and Lilith found herself… entranced ? Get it together, Lilith thought to herself. She couldn’t place it, but she felt connected to the girl in a way that was somewhat comforting and also somewhat alarming. “Welcome, Miss Blight,” Lilith bowed her head shortly before withdrawing her hand to rest it in front of herself. “You may call me Professor Clawthorne. Please, close the door behind you and have a seat.” The older witch returned to her chair, gesturing for Miss Blight to take a seat across from her desk. “It is an honor to be selected as your future apprentice, Professor Clawthorne,” the girl spoke politely as she perched herself on the seat most directly across from Lilith. She crossed her ankles and placed her clasped hands in her lap. The young witch was very still and quiet outside of the formalities. For that, Lilith felt grateful. She’d had a few interactions with Miss Blight’s twin older siblings, who had graduated the year before. The pair was rambunctious and left a trail of disarray everywhere they went. “Have you received an itinerary for today?” Lilith pulled the print from the letter tray on her desk and glanced over it before handing it to the teenager. “I was briefed by Headmaster Bump,” Miss Blight reached out to accept the paper. Her hazel eyes scanned the list, her expression almost entirely neutral. “Yes. This is familiar.” “Wonderful,” Lilith nodded curtly and clasped her hands on the desk. “I apologize, should this feel redundant, but I was hoping to spend a bit of time getting to know you further. What led to you pursuing the apprenticeship track, Miss Blight?” “I highly value my education and knew that, regardless of which coven track I pursue, I would eventually hope to work with a coven leader as a Hexside student,” she spoke as she casually used a spell circle to tuck the paper she’d been holding away. “I chose the Emperor's Coven partly because of the opportunities it provides and partly…partly because of you .” The students' cheeks pinkened as she spoke. Lilith realized that Miss Blight had accidentally broken away from the script she was drawing her answers from in her mind. The older witch upheld her best poker face, resisting the urge to smile at Miss Blight’s attempt to suck up to her. As someone who sacrificed everything she knew and more to pursue her career, she too remembered idolizing her mentor, Flora D’Splora. She held no judgment for the remark, not that she wanted Miss Blight to know. Lilith continued asking Miss Blight about her career goals, accomplishments, favorite subjects, extracurricular activities, and family life. The professor noticed the mildly deflective answers Miss Blight offered when she inquired about the rest of the Blight family. She respected that Miss Blight appeared to have clear boundaries between her home and school life. This was crucial to her success on the Emporer’s Coven track. The hour passed quickly and smoothly. Lilith glanced at the clock on the wall just in time for the bell to ring in the hallway. She slowly stood from her seat and stepped around to walk Miss Blight to the door. She was simultaneously aware of the relief in her chest and the tugging . “You will now go to your homeroom class,” Lilith instructed. “From there, your class will go into the assembly shortly after the start of the hour.” “Thank you, Professor Clawthorne,” Miss Blight nodded, stepping through the threshold. “You are welcome,” she would have Miss Blight in class after lunch and the final hour would be set aside for the apprenticeship. “I will see you this afternoon.” “Until then,” Miss Blight blushed after accidentally curtseying for the professor. She didn’t dare say another word before turning on her heels and taking off to homeroom. After softly closing the door behind herself again, Lilith found herself shaking her head at the child. She could tell that Miss Blight was experiencing a fair amount of nerves herself and that she was truly putting in a lot of effort to make a professional impression. The older witch smirked to herself as she opened her closet and retrieved her white cloak and mask for the assembly. Now that their first meeting was out of the way, she was ready to make her appearance as the welcome assembly’s keynote speaker. She would have more time to talk to Miss Blight later. Upon reaching the small indoor amphitheater towards the back of the school, Lilith took a deep breath and placed her mask over her face. She closed her light green eyes and reminded herself that this was what she was meant to be doing and that it was going to go smoothly. She was entirely familiar with the procession and speech.  With the sounds of the senior bard coven track students playing a loud percussion instrument, Lilith recognized her cue and began her descent down the stairs and toward the center stage. Outside of the loud music, the crowd was incredibly quiet during this portion of the assembly. It was mostly dark in the theater, the only major light shining directly on her. She focused on her posture, remembering to stand tall and walk with grace, as she approached the stage. Her fingers began to tingle as she prepared to put on a bit of a magic show. Upon stepping onto the stage the music shifted and she began essentially showing off. The witch used her hands and staff to create multiple effects to awe the audience. When she finished, she collected herself and walked to the front and center of the stage. “Good morning, Hexside students,” she spoke, projecting her voice with clarity and power. The witch removed her mask, allowing Headmaster Bump to retrieve it, and stepped forward into the brighter light. Her eyes skimmed the crowded audience. It was primarily first-year students and their parents. Older students who weren’t required to be on campus right away that day often opted to skip the introduction ceremony. Lilith did a double-take when her eyes landed on a familiar witch in the audience. Sitting many rows back and up, a wild head of white hair caught her attention. She blinked, again drawing upon her best poker face, as she took in the sight of her little sister, Edalyn. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw her sister in person, despite keeping loose tabs on her over the years. Edalyn was dressed in her go-to deep red dress with heeled boots. It was hard to make out the details of her face from where Lilith stood on stage. Nevertheless, what she didn’t miss was the sight of a young girl tugging gleefully on Edalyn’s long arm. The witch swallowed the lump in her throat, feeling as though time had slowed down. Edalyn has a child? She took a deep breath, reminding herself where she was, and suppressing the panic that arose at the sight of the two. Calm, cool, and collected, Lilith . The witch, continuing her speech, turned her attention to the other familiar face before her. Sitting front and center in the audience was none other than her new apprentice, Miss Blight. It was easy to spot her spearmint-colored hair amongst the crowd. She could see that Miss Blight had a notebook out, likely prepared to take notes, as she looked up to her mentor with sparkling eyes. Lilith found it easier to take a deep breath and continue. The coven leader introduced the students to the coven system in more depth than they’d likely learned in school yet. She reviewed the school’s scheduling system as well. As the dutiful keynote speaker she was, she incorporated an “inspirational” story detailing her rise to success. The objective of this speech was to inform the students and inspire them to begin contemplating their potential tracks. As soon as the witch was done with her portion of the event, she traded off with Headmaster Bump and exited through the back door. She needed some air and decided to take the long way back to her classroom sufficed. She had a bit more to prepare before the first block began after the assembly. Her mind was racing, the image of her sister with the young girl consuming her. She had never seen the girl before. The girl also did not resemble Edalyn. She appeared to be about 14 or 15, her short, wavy hair was brown, and her skin was quite tan. While, in the past, she actively avoided conflict with her sister, she knew that she needed answers. The witch turned on her heels, returning in the direction of the auditorium instead. Lilith stood outside of the auditorium, waiting patiently as the students were released to find their first class. She arched her neck, scanning the crowd for her sister’s ever-out-of-control hair. The witch was grateful they both had turned out tall when she finally spotted the witch amongst the throng of others. She made a beeline for them, careful not to trample any children in the process. “Sister!” She greeted the witch who appeared to curse at the sight of her. “I had no idea you would be here today.” “Ah, yeah, it’s not exactly RSVP only,” Edalyn replied with sarcasm, as expected. “Would you step back into the auditorium with me? It will be very quick,” Lilith put on her warmest expression, aware of the many onlookers passing them in the hallway. “Luz needs to get to class! I think we’ll ju–” “We will be quick. Should she not make it in time, I will personally write her a note,” The witch used her staff to shepherd the pair back towards the door and Edalyn groaned loudly.  Despite the theatrics, Lilith was relieved she was complying. The older witch led them into one of the massive well-lit hallways leading to the stage area. Once there was adequate privacy, Lilith crossed her arms, pinching the bridge of her nose with her free hand. Edalyn and Luz watched with curiosity as the witch took several very deep breaths. “Edalyn, why are you here?” “What? A witch can’t come to see her big sister speak at her new job,” Edalyn poked fun and the girl beside her gasped excitedly. “ Sister ?” “Luz, this is my sister, Lily,” Edalyn grinned at the girl, gesturing to the tall witch in front of her. “ Apparently , Lily teaches at your school!” The child marveled up from beside Edalyn. “I would be most thankful if you refer to me as Professor Clawthorne on school grounds, Luz,” the witch leaned down to offer a handshake, which the girl eagerly accepted. “I am very pleased to meet you.” Edalyn was standing with her arms crossed now, smirking at her older sister. “You, on the other hand,” Lilith stepped back. “You had a child and you didn’t tell me?” “Oh! While Luz is totally all mine, I did not bring her into this world via my reproductive organs,” Edalyn snorted, wrapping her arm around Luz’s shoulders. “Luz came in through my portal door a few years back. Unfortunately, her circumstances in the human realm were…bleak. So, I kept her.” The older sister of the pair’s sapphire eyes flickered back and forth between Edalyn and Luz. She didn’t know what to make of what just came from her sister’s mouth. Edalyn took in a human? A human? Edalyn then enrolled the human at Hexside School for Magic and Demonics? The witch paced a bit, trying to make sense of it. She paused, turning to face the pair. “Eda, can she even cast spells?” “ Hello , she’s standing right here and can speak for herself,” Edalyn rolled her golden eyes before beaming at the child. “However…yes. She doesn’t have a bile sack though, so she uses glyphs! She is all self-taught and quite talented.” Lilith blinked, digesting the information as Luz pulled a small piece of paper with an old symbol on it from her pocket. She tapped it gently and smiled as it morphed into a luminescent ball and floated above them. “ Wow ,” Lilith was a bit shell-shocked. “Okay. Edalyn, how did you get her enrolled here? How are you here?” “I adopted her and I came to enroll her like anyone else,” Edalyn laughed. “Bump wasn’t thrilled. He made me pay for it. You can thank me for the lack of graffiti on the lockers this fall!” “For the lack of the graffiti you created,” Lilith smirked at her sister then, remembering the days they attended the school together. Lilith was, for the lack of a better word, an absolute hellion when she wanted to be. “Sure,” Edalyn snorted. “Anyway, Bump said he wouldn’t snitch. I hope you can agree to the same?” Lilith glanced back and forth between the two of them again before nodding curtly. She wouldn’t tell her sister, but she knew there were a few limits she would go to when it came to protecting Edalyn. Now, Edalyn and her niece . “I suppose I will be seeing you around,” Lilith sighed and Edalyn beamed in response. “Please, get Luz to her first class and have safe travels home.” “Bye, Prissy Sissy!” Edalyn waved, beginning to walk away. Lilith glowered in response, choosing not to respond. “Bye Aunt Li– Professor !” Luz waved joyfully as she followed her mother out of the hallway. Lilith never imagined reconnecting with Edalyn. She assumed that cursing her sister and leaving her behind to join the Emperor's Coven, which Edalyn adamantly refused to join after the cursing, would leave her watching over from afar for the rest of their time in this world. It deeply pained her any time she thought about this. Despite her firm exterior, the witch felt a small crack in her heart begin to widen that morning. After her first few weeks teaching at Hexside, Lilith found herself comfortable in a routine. Each day she would wake up, dress, go to the school, prepare, teach for a few hours, eat lunch, teach a bit longer, and meet Miss Blight in her office to train her. Despite her initial fears, she found teaching to be completely enriching. Particularly when working with Miss Blight. The youngest Blight was living up to Lilith’s expectations and then some. She was skilled, practiced, kind, patient, and committed to bettering herself. There were many things about the girl Lilith related to when she looked back on her Hexside years. Like Miss Blight, Lilith was on the school Grudgby team, preferred to read by herself over spending time with friends, and was entirely determined to become the best of the very best. The mentor often caught herself resisting the urge to become attached to the child because of these things. She knew her own work involved dangers that made keeping distance from everyone imperative. If Amity was going to pursue her line of work, in which she would undoubtedly thrive, Lilith knew she had to nurture her independence and resiliency above all else. The professor was sitting at her desk, repeatedly glancing at the clock, when she finally heard the all-too-familiar three knocks on her door. She took a deep breath before looking up from the papers she was grading. She impatiently looked forward to the last session of her day each day. Deep down, she knew this was not because it meant her day would end soon. “Come in,”  “Good afternoon, Professor Clawthorne,” Amity stepped into the office and shut the door behind herself. She stood patiently, her hands behind her back, after entering. “Please, have a seat,” Lilith offered her a brief, soft smile as she sat her papers to the side. “Good afternoon, Miss Blight. Have you received your test scores?” “Yes,” the student retrieved a collection of papers from her shoulder bag. Lilith took the papers into her hands and laid them out in front of herself. Using her magic, she lifted each one, one at a time, to inspect. She was unsurprised to see perfect scores again. Her apprentice worked hard to maintain perfect grades and it showed. “Very good, Miss Blight,” Lilith returned the papers to their neat stack before passing them off to the student. “Tell me, how has your day been?” “It has been a…good day,” Amity answered, her voice unusually flat. Lilith tilted her head to the side ever-so-slightly, debating whether or not she was going to inquire about the tone shift. She was used to the girl gushing about a new spell she learned or a fact about the isles’ history she heard. It was rare that she was anything but bright and pleasant. “Has it?” “Yes,” Amity swallowed thickly and Lilith took a slow, deep breath. “Is there anything you would like to share with me?” Lilith poked one more time, hoping the child would open up. Concern began to bubble in her chest. She pushed it down. “I just…I did poorly on my potions exam,” Amity’s cheeks turned a familiar pink as she withdrew the exam from the stack of papers. “I messed it up.” Lilith’s brow furrowed. She saw nothing less than perfect scores on each paper. Not saying a word, she held out her hand to take the exam back. She peered down at it, confused by the 100/100 marked at the top. “Miss Blight,” she spoke carefully. “Forgive me for not understanding. It appears you received a perfect score.” “After the curve,” Amity stood, reached out, and flipped the packet to the third page. On the third page, a small red mark had been made, indicating a mistake. She had misspelled an algae needed to make a potion. “I see,”  “I understand if you would like to switch apprentices. There’s still time to find someone better,” Amity’s face was growing increasingly red, her eyes darting around the room. Lilith sat the test down and clasped her hands in front of her before leaning back in her large chair. She knew Miss Blight was a perfectionist, but she was unaware of the extent. She also felt nervous about Miss Blight’s offer for her to find another apprentice. Miss Blight was the best in the school by several points. There was no one better. Even if her grades weren’t impeccable, her perseverance and attitude made her the perfect match for Lilith. Not wanting to startle the girl, Lilith took another slow, deep breath before standing up. This maneuver had the opposite effect as Amity hugged her papers and began walking to the door. Lilith, understanding the girl thought she was kicking her out, walked past her quickly, blocking it off. She didn’t miss the way Miss Blight jumped backward, appearing afraid for a moment. “Miss Blight,” Lilith shook her head. “I do not want another apprentice.” “Wh-what?” “You are my apprentice and I would not like another. We will continue to work together for as long as you desire,” Lilith elaborated, her nerves on fire. What am I doing? She thought. “Okay,” Amity nodded slowly, taking in her mentor’s words. “We do, however, need to discuss this score,” Lilith led the girl back to where she’d been seated on the edge of one of her chairs. She sat down on the small couch beside them and patted the second seat. Her eyes watched closely as Miss Blight nervously walked over and sat down beside her, her eyes cast downward. “Miss Blight?” “Yes Professor?” The girl looked up. “You received a perfect score on this exam. You missed a partial point on one question, yes. However, taking that into account, you still tested above the target goal for your age and abilities,” Lilith watched as Amity looked back downward, a single tear falling onto her pant leg. The professor felt a familiar pang in her heart as the crack grew larger. Seeing her favorite student so defeated, especially by something so minuscule, caused her chest to ache. She didn’t understand how someone with so many skills and abilities could lack so much confidence. Miss Blight was due the respect of every other witch in the school but she did not demand it. Instead, she lived as herself and continued to raise her bar, always chasing the moving target. Resisting the urge to just pull the child into a hug, Lilith cautiously placed a hand on Amity’s shoulder. The girl’s muscles tensing startled the professor, who began to withdraw the touch, only to be shocked again when Miss Blight placed her hand on top of hers to stop her. The warmth of Miss Blight’s touch caused a wave of emotion to wash over the professor, who sat silently for a moment. While she sat, Amity finally looked up at her. “I just want to be perfect. I have to be perfect.” The desperation in Miss Blight's words brought Lilith back to her youth. “Mom is going to kill me,” Lilith groaned as she walked back to her locker with her less-than-perfect test score. She had lost two points over a mixup. Something must have distracted the young witch during the exam as she answered question nineteen as if it was asking about the same potion as question eighteen. She collected her items and made her way to the front doors of the school, her ears flattened from the anxiety. Just as she reached the stairs out front, her younger sister jumped off the railing and landed by her side, ruffling her curly red hair. She didn’t have the wit to respond, her heart sinking to her stomach as she tried to predict the many ways her mother, Gwendolyn, would punish her for missing the mark. The fate that awaited her at home was exactly why she was so determined to be the very best. “Hey,” Edalyn stepped in front of Lilith, who promptly ran into her. She was surprised when Lilith didn’t push her out of the way, but instead just stopped, clearly in a stupor. “What’s up, sis?” “Nothing,” Lilith shook her head and continued walking. “Nothing?” “I’m fine,” Lilith muttered, picking up the pace. The sooner she got home, the sooner things would be over. “Lilith,” Edalyn moaned. “I know when something is up. Why won’t you tell me?” Lilith continued to ignore Edalyn, who pried the whole walk home. Upon reaching the house, the older of the pair turned to the other. Her expression was somber as she reached up to tuck Edalyn’s lighter red hair behind her ear. “I think you should go in through your window,” Lilith spoke carefully. “What? How do you expect me to do that, exactly?” “I know you climb up and down the ivy and bricks to sneak in and out,” Lilith rolled her eyes. “But why are you asking me to go that way?” Edalyn froze, her face paling. “Is Mother mad at you for something?” “I missed two points on my exam,” Lilith sighed. “You know what’s coming. You need to go and avoid her tonight.” “I won’t let you go in there alone!” “I’m older and I won’t let you go in with me,” the older sister shook her head. “Edalyn, it’ll be better for both of us if you just go. Please.” “I’ll be on the stairs. You can’t stop me if she goes too far,” “Just you wait and see!” After Lilith heard Edalyn’s window slide open and shut, she took a deep breath and reached for the door handle. She steeled herself as she stepped into the home. She could smell something cooking in the kitchen and heard her mother humming from the other room. Despite how the scene may have seemed to an outsider, Lilith knew it was a facade and meant to disarm her. “Oh, Lilith, is that you?” The mother’s shrill voice came from the kitchen. Lilith swallowed, her throat rapidly tightening, and began walking across the main room. “Yes, Mother.” “I spoke to your professor today,” Gwendolyn stood over a boiling pot, stirring it very slowly. “What’s this I hear about you receiving less than 100 on an exam?” “I…I made a mistake,” Lilith whispered. “Lilith Clawthorne does not make mistakes,” the older witch tutted, pausing her stir. “You were being foolish and allowing your true stupidity to show.” Lilith had long since learned not to speak unless being asked a direct question, much less argue with her mother’s observations of her. She felt her muscles tighten, her ribs straining as she tried to inhale. “You need to answer for yourself. Right. Now.” Her mother’s tone was shifting, significantly angrier now. “Mother, I,” Lilith began but it was too late. Gwendolyn, tired of her daughter’s pandering, pulled the ladle of boiling soup from the pot and flung it at her child. The hot soup burned Lilith’s pale skin, and she screamed in response to the searing pain. Unable to process what was happening, Lilith fell to the floor, trying to cover her blistering face. Her mother slowly walked up to her, pointing the hot, metal ladle at her. “Please,” Lilith cried for mercy that she never received. The witch shook her head, attempting to wash away the memory in her mind. This was not about her and her wretched mother, this was about Amity Blight. She couldn’t, however, wash away the gut feeling that Miss Blight could be returning home to something similar. It would be quite the leap, but even a “milder” form of abuse and punishment caused her stomach to twist in knots. “I have an idea,” Lilith slowly stood from the couch, brushing off her dress. “I would like to change things up this afternoon.” Amity swallowed nervously, her stomach sinking. Lilith could see that she was still afraid and decided to elaborate. “Miss Blight…I too have a history of perfectionism. I would like to help you with that tonight,” the professor smiled softly. “I know you and I know you will remember the spelling error in the future. I am more so worried about your response to this error. Perfectionism, despite how helpful it seems on the surface, will undermine you if you do not get a handle on it now.” “You’re right,” the girl stood up, her eyes still cast downward. “Where are we going?” “How about…I surprise you?” Lilith asked and the student nodded, not sure what the right answer was. Lilith brought her apprentice to the front of the school and signed her out with the front office on apprenticeship business. Amity walked quietly beside her, afraid to ask any further questions about her professor’s plans. She knew that she deserved whatever punishment was in store for her dramatic reaction to the test score and trusted Lilith to come through. Upon stepping outside, the older witch lifted her staff into the flying position. She patted the front of it and Miss Blight blushed furiously. She had never ridden on a staff with one of her teachers before and certainly couldn’t fly it herself. Sensing her nervousness, Lilith offered another gentle smile. “I will be steering. I do not feel secure about you riding on the back. So, if you are okay with riding with me, I would much prefer you to sit here. A leg on each side…please,” Lilith patted it again and Amity quietly stepped up to the instrument.  She climbed over it, gripping it with her clammy hands and closing her eyes. Lilith gently climbed on behind her. The older witch excused herself as she placed her long, slender arms around her student and gripped the staff in front of her. She knew, with the student wrapped in her arms, if something were to happen that she could catch her and keep her safe. If she was on the back, the safety of the ride would decline rapidly. The staff rapidly rose into the air, causing Amity’s stomach to drop. Lilith was swift and smooth in her steering, however. Despite the speed of the flight, which was alarming, Lilith was very skilled and conducted the white staff perfectly. Amity focused on her breathing, trying not to think too hard about how soothing Professor Clawthorne’s touch was. Despite fearing what was to come, she felt somehow safe in her professor’s arms. She couldn’t remember the last time she was held by another witch. They flew out to the forest and the staff began to tilt downward, meaning they would land soon. Amity wondered if they were going so far out as a way to mute her cries for help during the punishment. When they landed in front of a disgusting, old shack she realized that this was exactly why Professor Clawthorne took her so far out. Her entire body began to shake as they stepped off the staff and her teacher began a spell circle. In a few seconds, the decrepit building shimmered. When the illusion fell, it revealed its polar opposite. Now, instead of a water-damaged swamp house, she faced a brilliant cottage covered in colorful shrubbery and surrounded by a lavish garden inside a stone wall and gate. She felt her jaw drop as Lilith began walking towards the gate, unlocking it with another spell circle. “Come along,” the professor didn’t look backward and Amity had to jog to catch up. “Where…where are we?” The student marveled at her surroundings as the professor unlocked the front door, revealing an equally gorgeous indoor space. “Welcome to my home, Miss Blight,” Lilith nervously turned to face her apprentice, opening her arms and gesturing to the brightly lit, warm space around her. “What…what is my punishment, Professor?” Amity decided to just ask and get it over with, as Professor Clawthorne was drawing things out. “Wh–” Lilith’s face dropped suddenly and she felt her stomach twist at the realization. Her apprentice thought they were coming all the way out into the woods so she could properly punish her. She sighed softly at the confirmation. It appeared as though her suspicions of the source of Miss Blight’s perfectionism were accurate to some degree. “Miss Blight, I did not fly you here to punish you! I…I want to help you.” “You want to help me be better,” Amity nodded knowingly, her expression void of all joy. “Here is what we’re going to do,” the professor began. “If you would like, of course. We are going to go out into my garden, pick some fresh fruit, lay out one of my blankets, and read whatever we please from my library.” “Wh–what?” Amity looked up at her professor, her eyes widening. That sounded lovely to her. “Follow me,” the older witch turned and began walking down a hallway. Her student dutifully followed. As they walked through the house, Amity couldn’t resist the urge to look around and absorb her surroundings. She had wondered what Professor Clawthorne was like outside of the school but it never occurred to her that she would be like this. Everything was so bright and homey. At school, her professor was dark and demanded respect. She could be quite cold and kept her distance from others. Her decor, on the other hand, was so light and pretty. It was all very…feminine and creative. When they stepped into the library, Amity gasped loudly. She had never seen so many books in one home. Professor Clawthorne gestured around her, pointing out where the fiction books were and where the history books were. The student stood frozen, inundated by the information she was gathering, as her professor pulled a book from her desk and returned to the doorway. “Choose a book of your liking. I will change into something appropriate for the garden,” the professor nodded once, not waiting for Amity to respond, before leaving the room. Amity walked through the room after Lilith left, her eyes scanning the book spines. She was familiar with many of the titles, a big reader herself. As she walked through the space, she tried to wrap her mind around her professor’s plans. While Professor Clawthorne had never done anything to display cruelty, she certainly had never offered such a personal gesture. Amity was acutely aware of the fact that her professor’s home was essentially hidden from society and that much of the furniture was laid out to be utilized by no more than one person. There was rarely more than one chair in any given space. She paused in front of the fiction shelf, her hands shaking as she gazed over the books. Her mind wondered if she should choose a potions book and study anyway. For all she knew, this was a test to see how willing she was to study. The student sighed and stepped away, walking back to the non-fiction half of the room. She quickly returned to the potion books and found one on the history of the Boiling Isles’ algae and fungi. When she slid the book off the shelf with a shaky hand, she heard the sound of footsteps. Standing in the doorway wearing round glasses, a pastel green sweater, a flowy floral skirt, and slip-on shoes was none other than Professor Clawthorne. The professor’s usually straight hair had been pulled back into a loose bun at the base of her neck. A few loose strands framed her elegant face. Amity couldn’t stop herself from staring with wide eyes. “No, no, no, no,” the teacher shook her head as she approached the girl. She pulled the book from Amity’s hand and placed it on the desk behind her. “We will not be studying tonight, Miss Blight. Please choose a book you will enjoy.” “I…I do enjoy studying, Professor.” The older witch simply stepped past Amity to the fiction books. She skimmed the titles with her finger, her eyes searching for something. When she landed on the familiar title, she grinned and pulled it from the shelf. She had seen her student read through the series The Good Witch Azura multiple times over the months and noticed she never read beyond book four. She wondered if the student knew there was a fifth book. Amity’s eyes somehow grew even wider at the sight of the book. “Forgive me if I am wrong, but wouldn’t you prefer to read this?” “You have the fifth book?” “I have all of them if you’d prefer another,” Lilith gestured to the shelf behind her. While she had hoped the student would be happy to see the familiar titles, she did not reveal that she purchased them shortly after seeing Miss Blight read them. She knew it was unlikely Miss Blight would ever know she read them, but she wanted to understand her apprentice better. “No…this is perfect.” “Wonderful!” Lilith squeezed Amity’s shoulder then and waved for her to follow as she left the room. The pair walked to the kitchen where Lilith pulled several glasses from the cabinets before opening her fridge and pulling out a pitcher of what appeared to be a tea of some kind. She placed the items on a tray and asked Amity to carry her book before walking her to a glass french door in the dining room. The student opened the door for the professor, still in awe. They stepped out onto a patio just adjacent to the main garden. It was covered by a lavender and ivy-decorated pergola and was filled with pretty, light rattan chairs and decorative pillows. The space was classy and eclectic at the same time. The student continued to stay quiet as her professor retrieved a small basket with a blanket in it and began leading her through the main part of the garden. She listened intently, wishing she had her notebook, as Professor Clawthorne described each plant in great detail. Her affection for the foliage was clear. She touched each leaf gently and was deliberate with each fruit she plucked and placed it in the basket. While listening to the older witch teach history lessons in class was one of Amity’s new favorite things, she sensed this particular lesson would surpass it. Once they’d looped through most of the rows of plants, Lilith brought the girl to a massive tree that appeared to be nearly wilting over a small stream. Its branches hung limply, leaning in one direction and creating a gentle shade. The professor gently placed the tray of beverages on the ground before pulling the blanket from the basket and laying it out on the grass. She carefully smoothed it out before laying the tray on it, kicking her shoes off, and walking around to sit on it. She patted the spot beside her, smiling up at Amity. Amity sat the books down before pulling each of her boots off and placing them neatly at the edge of the blanket. She cautiously sat down, repeatedly glancing up at the professor out of fear she was doing something incorrectly. Lilith, on the other hand, watched with gentle eyes as she noticed how nervous Amity was about relaxing. She was uncertain at first but now knew this was likely a very important lesson for the girl. After the student was seated, without saying a word, Lilith picked up her book, stretched out on her back, crossed her ankles, and began reading. She hoped her student would follow her lead and permit herself to experience the afternoon off. Amity picked up her book and cautiously mimicked her professor’s relaxed actions. “Please, if you are hungry or thirsty, help yourself,” the professor didn’t look away from her book when she spoke and Amity nodded. The pair laid in peaceful silence, the only sound being chirps of various birds and the turning pages in their books. Amity couldn’t help but steal glances at her professor. She had never seen her so relaxed…ever. She was just so different. It wasn’t only the lack of punishment for her poor marks she found so astonishing. It was Lilith’s entire persona outside of school. She wasn’t sure what it was about the change, but she enjoyed it. Lilith looked up and caught Amity’s curious eyes. She offered another kind smile and pushed herself up, laying the book face down. Still not speaking, she poured the tea into each glass and passed one to Amity, who gratefully accepted it. Amity watched as she pulled the fruit basket closer and began picking through it. Once again following her lead, Amity pushed herself up and sat cross-legged across from Lilith. “How do you feel now?” “I’m afraid,” both witches were surprised by Amity’s vulnerability but Lilith was especially grateful. “Afraid,” Lilith stated simply, contemplating the response. She handed a handful of berries to the teenager. “Afraid of?” “I don’t understand why we aren’t studying,” Amity sighed, partially avoiding the question and popping a sweet berry into her mouth. It was delightful. “What will I tell my parents?” Her face paled upon the realization and Lilith felt her chest tighten in response to the girl’s frightened expression. “What time is it?” Amity startled, glancing at her scroll. It was after 1600. “Oh no…oh no, oh no, oh no. Professor Clawthorne, it was highly generous of you to bring me here and share your things with me. My parents were expecting me home over an hour ago. They’re going to want to know why I was late and what happened. This is not good.” “Wait,” the teacher stood beside her and placed her hand on Amity’s arm. “Please. I had the office staff call your father before I signed you out of school. They know you are with me. You are welcome to leave any time, however, please don’t do it out of fear of repercussions.” “You told them about my test?” “I did not,” the professor looked sheepish now as she realized she would have to expose a white lie. “I may have told them we were working on your quarterly project. It was not a lie…I do believe this will serve your future studies. Though, I know your parents may not fully understand and didn’t need the minuscule details.” “Why did you do that?” Amity asked softly, feeling just as nervous about her professor’s understanding. She couldn’t comprehend why the woman would preemptively cover for her. It wasn’t as if she knew what was in store for Amity if they knew the truth. “Have a seat, Amity,” Professor Clawthorne sighed, now sitting cross-legged to mirror the way Amity sat before. “Amity, you must make time to rest and relax. If you spend every waking hour working towards perfection you will exhaust yourself. You will burn out and you will not thrive. As your mentor, it is my duty to ensure you thrive. I am also fairly familiar with your parents, and Blight Industries…I imagine you experience a tremendous amount of pressure at home. I am…sorry for my dishonesty. However, I truly do believe I made the right decision here.” Amity felt her eyes begin to water with fresh tears. Her professor was entirely right about the pressure and no one else had ever acknowledged this before. She was uncertain of the stuff about resting, but she simultaneously didn’t want their time by the stream to end. “How about the two of us make something to eat and I fly you home?” “You don’t have to feed me,”  “It’s my pleasure,” Lilith picked up the basket and slid her shoes back on while Amity put her boots on. The two witches walked back to the house and into the kitchen. Lilith discarded the basket, making a mental note to retrieve it before bed. She had Amity take a seat on one of the two stools at her island. The student watched patiently as Lilith tossed together a salad of some kind. Her professor was, unsurprisingly, very confident and comfortable in the kitchen. Something was soothing about the scene to Amity, watching her professor put together a meal after an afternoon of reading and snacks. Her mother, Odalia, would never. Lilith served both salads and sat directly beside Amity. She appeared to be deep in her thoughts for a moment. Deciding to go out on a limb, she turned and smiled at her student. “So, what do you think of the start of book 5?” “You’ve read The Good Witch?” “You got this one from my library,” Lilith giggled, more relaxed around Amity than she’d been around anyone in a very long time. “Which, by the way, because I’ve read it, you’re more than welcome to borrow.” “Oh my…” Amity felt her chest tighten with affection for the gesture. “I…thank you. My mother doesn’t like that I read these. I may have to keep it in your office.” “Why?” Lilith couldn’t refrain from snorting at the comment. Of course, Odalia doesn’t like them. “She…she says the relationship between Azura and Hecate is disgraceful,” Amity mumbles, her cheeks pink, and Lilith’s jaw drops. “That’s why you don’t have the fifth book?” “She is under the impression I burned the first four as well.” Lilith sat and digested everything Amity shared with her, chewing her food as an excuse to pause. It hadn’t occurred to her that Amity’s parents could be homophobic. It was becoming increasingly rare on the Isles but was far from extinct. Of course, Amity’s traditionalist parents were overly concerned with such hateful ideologies. She looked at her student, knowing such comments could have a hefty impact on her should she be interested in female and gender non-conforming witches. She could see Amity’s glassy hazel eyes and feared that it was too late. Like Lilith as a teenager, she’d already internalized her parent’s beliefs. As much as Lilith swore herself to privacy, she couldn’t seem to stop herself from opening then. “I haven’t had the time to participate in romantic relationships myself,” Lilith spoke slowly. I’m not sure I’m particularly interested either, she thought. Amity looked up at her, her eyes widening. “However, I’ve…I’ve always been particularly attracted to feminine witches myself. The feelings a witch can have for another witch when in a partnership…nothing about it could ever be disgraceful. It’s quite beautiful, as a matter of fact.” “You’re…you’re?” Amity’s eyes widened. She was afraid to make any accusations. “Yes,” Lilith smiled fondly at the girl. “I suppose that would make me like Azura and Hecate.” “I am too,” Amity whispered. “I haven’t told anyone that before. Professor, I had no idea. You…you are…truly amazing.” Lilith reached out to squeeze her student’s shoulder. “I could say the same about you. Please, eat. I don’t want my apprentice to be hungry.” After finishing their food, it was growing late. Amity stalled leaving by slowly helping Lilith clean the kitchen. Once they finished, Amity took it upon herself to unload the fruit onto Lilith’s decorative fruit basket and into the proper fridge shelves. Lilith watched patiently, not used to other witches utilizing her things in her space. Despite years of feeling overly protective of her space, this felt different. She trusted the girl. The two shut off the lights and Lilith donned her cloak before bringing the girl back to her staff outside. She double-checked her protective charms before helping the girl onto the staff. After Amity was secure, she climbed on and wrapped her arms around the girl again. Amity’s hair smelled sweet, like flowers, to the point that it was almost distracting. Lilith suppressed the warmth that overcame her as she rose into the air and began the trip towards the Blight manor. She never wanted to let Amity off of the staff if it meant keeping her safe in her arms. Whoa, Lilith, where did that come from? The witch surprised herself. Upon arriving, the two slowly dismounted in the driveway, and Lilith walked Amity to the door. While standing there, she realized her hair was still up and unraveled it, closing her cloak around her body to not expose her less professional appearance to whoever came to the door. She used a spell circle to put her glasses away. The witch turned to face Amity, placing her spare hand on the student’s shoulder again. “Miss Blight,” she cleared her throat. “I updated my protection charms to let you into my property should you need anything. I do not care what time of day. If you need somewhere to go, you are welcome at my home. You will be safe to enter, even if I am away.” “Th-thank you,” Amity’s heart pounded in her chest at the idea of visiting her professor again. She was surprised by Lilith’s generosity. “I will stay here until you are inside,” she spoke again and began knocking on the large door. When it opened, she was surprised to be face-to-face with none other than Odalia Blight, instead of an abomination acting as a butler. Odalia hadn’t changed very much since their Hexside years. The woman was of shorter stature, like Amity, and was much curvier than the tall professor. She colored her hair bright green and was still wearing her business attire, even after 1800 hours. Lilith and Odalia were never particularly fond of one another. Despite her newfound adoration for the woman’s youngest daughter, Lilith observed Odalia to be self-righteous and self-entitled. After her findings that day, she felt rage begin to simmer in the pit of her abdomen. “Oh! Coveness Clawthorne,” Odalia spoke with a superficially chipper tone, bowing her head. “I was not expecting a visit.” “I felt it was important to fly Miss Blight home,” Lilith spoke smoothly, her political persona switched back to “on.” “I hope she wasn’t a bother this evening,” the mother glowered at her child and Lilith felt her chest tightening. “Miss Blight is a wonderful apprentice and never a bother,” Lilith shook her head curtly. “Thank you for sharing her for the evening. She is making tremendous progress and is well on her way to a future in the Emperor's Coven.” “Oh…alright,” Odalia spoke awkwardly. “You must be on your way. You both have an early day tomorrow. Have a good evening, Coveness.” “You as well,” Lilith nodded one more time and turned to Amity, resisting the urge to snatch the girl back onto her staff and take off with her. “Thank you for this evening, Miss Blight. It was a privilege to work with you on this project.” Amity whispered a thank you and bowed her head, for her mother’s sake, before watching as her professor took off on her staff. Her mother grabbed her wrist then, bursting the bubble Amity had been secured in all night and yanked her inside once the professor was out of sight. She sighed, defeated. She should have known that even Professor Clawthorne’s reassurance that she would not be protected from her mother’s wrath. Amity wasn’t aware of it yet, but her mother’s behavior was never truly about her, to begin with. Lilith, feeling a pit in her stomach, looped back around to watch the Blight Manor from afar after dropping Amity off. Her eyes narrowed at the sight of Odalia appearing to grab Amity around the wrist and pull her into the home with force. The older witch took a deep breath, trying to suppress the protective rage that was boiling inside her chest. She couldn’t be certain, but it was becoming increasingly clear that Amity was not returning home to a loving family each night. Once the foyer light was off, Lilith forced herself to get moving and return home. On her flight home, she played back the evening in her mind. She was alarmed by her maternal instincts when it came to Amity. Earlier that day she had been proud of Amity’s independence and resilience. By the evening’s end, she was desperate to pull the girl in and support her. To be honest with herself, she was very uncertain of where the line should be drawn. After landing in her garden, she returned to her house and was acutely aware of how cold it was when she was alone. She’d always cherished her alone time, so this was a strange sensation for the witch. Back in her room and undressing, she grimaced at the sight of her own body. Due to the events of her childhood and her training as the Emporer’s Covenness, her pale skin was littered with scars and marks of all kinds. This was the primary reason that she carried a concealment stone and never parted with longer clothing. The professor paused in front of her full-length mirror, resisting the crashing wave of traumatic memories that threatened to overcome her mind. A new thought occurred to her, something she’d never stepped out of her bubble long enough to consider, as she took in her appearance. If I am training Amity to succeed me as Head Covenness…I am training her to one day survive this, Lilith’s blood ran cold at the thought. The idea of priming the student, who was still so full of joy and goodwill, to work under the hands and punishment of the Emporer was devastating. She’d yet to ever consider who would succeed her and she certainly never cared for their well-being. In a world where one had to fight for their survival, she couldn’t care for another. Another outside of Eda. Lilith turned away from the mirror, slipping out of her undergarments and into her pajamas. For the first time in years, she began truly contemplating her choices and what she needed to do. Not what Emporer Belos needed her to do for him. While she knew she was locked in as the Head Covenness for life, she also recognized the power this gave her in her current situation. She couldn’t bear the thought of turning Amity away and sending her off to work with another. She simply wouldn’t be able to trust another Coven Head to have her best interest at heart. It occurred to her that she could manipulate the child into believing it wasn’t for her, but based on that afternoon she knew how devastating such actions could be for Amity emotionally. As she lay in her bed, her eyes fluttering shut, she decided that she had handled the day precisely as she should have and that nurturing Amity’s gentleness, kindness, and values was the key to protecting her. If Amity’s truest self could flourish, she would likely realize that this track wasn’t for her on her own. She would be able to walk away, get away from Blight Industries, and live a safe life. When Lilith woke the following day she was quick to get dressed. She showered, and put on undergarments, a black turtleneck sweater, jacket, pressed pants, and heeled ankle boots. It was beginning to grow colder out, and, given her scarring, she was grateful. Not wanting to spend the rest of the day in a dark place, Lilith did her best to mentally wash away the memories as she took off for work. She could conceal the wounds and move on. At lunchtime, Lilith realized she’d yet to eat that day and decided to make the trek into the school cafeteria. She’d been very intentional about avoiding it so far, not wanting to engage with the other professors and staff. It was challenging working with the people she served as Head Covenness. It was also of the utmost importance that she maintain her image and civility. Nevertheless, she could sweep in and out quickly, and eat in her office.  Upon entering the cafeteria her eyes scanned the crowded room. They lingered, for just a moment, on her apprentice, who appeared to be eating with Luz. Interesting, she thought to herself. She was not expecting Amity to befriend Eda’s wild human child. Not wanting to be caught staring, she went straight to the food, retrieved a salad, and returned to her office. She was grateful to not be interrupted along the way. In her office, she thought about what she saw before. Amity was eating with Luz. Her gut instinct was to be concerned. However, the realization that her sister and Luz were both living a more liberated life softened her. While she would be worried for Amity should she choose to leave the coven system, she couldn't help but ponder how exposure to Edalyn’s lifestyle could broaden Amity’s horizons. This is good, she nodded to herself. With just ten minutes left of the lunch break, Lilith stood to toss the box and stretch. She had one more lesson before she met with Amity, and Amity would be in class during said lesson. She was a little nervous about the previous evening and hoped Amity would fill her in on what happened after she dropped her off. On one hand, she didn’t want to pry and decided to give the girl an appropriate amount of space. On the other hand, her mind simply would not stop replaying the memory of Odalia grabbing Amity’s wrist. Lilith perked up upon the realization that she could smell something unusual. She just barely had time to register the familiar smell of something burning when the fire alarm began screaming. Despite noticing the smell, she was still startled, her heart rate instantly elevating. The witch did not hesitate as she summoned Revali and stepped into the hallway. A throng of students and their teachers had already flooded the hallway. She looked around, hoping to spot the source of the fire. “Evacuation is this way, Professor Clawthorne,” she looked up and saw Bump gesturing towards the exit she usually used in the mornings. “Sir, is there a fire?” She asked, wondering if a curtain had caught flame in the potions class again. “It’s in the kitchen! A gas line blew,” Bump told her before turning to walk in another direction to check classrooms on the other side. The kitchen. Her heart sank. Amity and Luz were in the cafeteria, which was adjacent to the kitchen. Not wasting a moment more, Lilith took off in the opposite direction of the crowd. Headmaster Bump called after her, shouting that evacuating was policy. She shook her head to herself, unwilling to simply leave the building without Amity and her sister’s kid. Despite their years apart, Lilith was well-aware that Edalyn would have her head should she not ensure their safety. Upon reaching the cafeteria, the smoke was very thick. The professor could no longer see everyone as she did earlier. It was crowded as students made their way towards the front doors together. “Luz!” She called, ducking down a bit to avoid inhaling too much smoke. “Amity! Luz!” She snaked through the tables, helping disoriented students as she searched for Amity and Luz. The sound of someone whimpering caught her attention and she found herself crouching, trying to get closer. As the whimpering grew louder, she recognized Luz’s voice. Tucked under the large table were none other than the two girls she’d searched for. “You two must get out of here,” Lilith hissed, pushing chairs out of the way and sliding under with them. “She’s hurt!” Amity’s hazel eyes were bloodshot from the smoke as she looked up at Lilith. Her hands were pressed over Luz’s knee, where red blood was gushing rapidly from a large wound. “I tried to heal it…she can’t walk. We were throwing our trays away when something blew up. Something metal knocked us over and cut her.” “I will heal it, but you need to evacuate now, Miss Blight,” Lilith summoned Revali, who parked next to her, elevated and ready for her them to take it out should they need to. “Please.” “I won’t,” Amity’s hands were still pressed over the wound.  She coughed erratically then and Lilith sighed. She took a deep breath and realized she would need to double up on her magic use, risking depleting herself too rapidly. Leaning into the fierce protectiveness she felt in her core, she created a protective bubble around the trio, knocking the table out of the way. She quickly pushed air through the magic contraption, clearing it of smoke. Lilith gently pried Amity’s hands from the wound and inspected it. It was free of debris and exposed through Luz’s leggings. Lilith’s mind raced as she tried to remember the differences between human and witch anatomy. She didn’t want to waste any time but she feared the spell having an adverse reaction. Plus, the thought of causing the very scared girl any more pain caused her anxiety. Trained in staying calm in the most stressful situations, Lilith took in a massive deep breath, her lungs burning from the previous exposure to smoke, and summoned magic into the palm of her hand.  The magic was quick to close the wound. The two girls’ eyes were wide open, shocked by Lilith’s use of such big spells all at once. What they didn’t know was that Lilith could feel her bile sac exhausting itself, straining to keep up. The wound wasn’t fully healed, but the bruising was decreased and it was no longer gushing blood. Lilith sighed, shaking from the exhaustion, and stopped the healing spell. Her protections spell began to waver as well. “Here’s the plan,” she spoke standing and holding a hand out for each girl. She could see the very large kitchen fire over their heads. She guided them to Revali and helped Luz onto the staff. She helped Amity position herself so that she was holding Luz up. “I will be placing my cloak over the two of you and you will take Revali out. Do not look back. I will be right behind you.” “Can’t you ride with us?” Amity’s eyes glistened. “I need…I need to make sure no one else is here,” Lilith shook her head. “I will come straight out after. You two have to go. You’ve breathed in too much smoke. When you’re outside, find a healer first thing. Do you understand?” “I don’t want to go without you,” Amity shook her head and Lilith reached out to squeeze her shoulder, the last of her magic rapidly draining.  Without another word, she patted the staff and sent it off without her. The professor coughed, the protection spell fell, and she began dragging herself back through the last few rows of tables. She couldn’t see or hear anything through the thick, black smoke billows. It was overwhelming when she wasn’t depleted. Having studied magic depletion, she knew she was racing the clock and had very little time before she would collapse. The urge to stop and sit down became overpowering and she found herself melting to the floor. Her mind thought through the last few months. She thought about how she would miss her students, Miss Blight, Eda, and even Luz. She regretted not taking the opportunity to spend more time with Edalyn now that they were living and working so close together. She wanted nothing more than to push herself off of the stone floor and get out of the building, but she could no longer so much as lift her head.   —   When Lilith opened her eyes, she noticed instantly how exhausted she felt. Every muscle and joint in her body ached and her lungs still burned. She opened her eyes, becoming dizzy under the bright lighting of her bedroom. How in the hell did I end up here? She thought to herself. Her mind spun, trying to understand what happened and where she was. She couldn’t remember. Flashes of fire, smoke, Amity, and Luz played in her mind and her breath caught. “Amity? Amity!” She was shouting and trying to sit up when someone gently pushed her back down. It was near impossible for her to sit up without resistance, much less when someone held her down. “Lilith,” a familiar, warm voice came from beside her and she was startled. “What happened to you?”   —   When Edalyn arrived at the school, the sight of smoke billows from her tower causing her stomach to sink, she flew around trying to find Luz in the crowds outside the building. Other parents had arrived to retrieve their kids as well, adding to the masses. When her eyes landed on a healing station where Luz was placed on a cot, she flew in instantly. She had been hurt. “Luz!” She called as she swooped in, coming to a quick landing, and running to her kid. “Kid! What happened?” She looked over the teenager, her eyes scanning every inch of skin for injury. While the rest of Luz seemed okay, besides the smoke coating her tan skin, her knee had a fresh scar and torn material. She had cut it and someone had healed it for her. “It looked worse earlier,” a voice came from her right. It was another witchlet with pale skin, hazel eyes, and green hair. “She was hit by a chair during the blow and we got trapped because she couldn’t walk.” “How did you get out?” Edalyn asked, her eyes flickering between the two girls before her mind caught up with what she was seeing. Luz had a white cloak draped over her shoulders. Eda looked back at the girl who stood beside them, her chest tightening. The girl was holding a white staff in a life grip. Edalyn knew Revali like she knew Owlbert. Her father had helped both girls sculpt their palismen as children. She interrupted the girl before she could answer. “Where did you get that ?” “Professor Clawthorne,” tears welled up in the girl’s eyes and threatened to spill over. “She found us. She came and found us. She healed Luz and sent us out with Revali…she said she would be right behind us but she never came out. I’m not allowed to go back in.” “Are they safe?” Eda turned to the healer then, who nodded promptly. “Whoever healed this wound did a wonderful job. I am going to clean it and they’ll be on their way,” he explained and Eda nodded. “Girls, you stay together, okay?” Eda placed a hand on each of their shoulders. “Do not part from each other and do not part from Revali. I will be back.” “No!” Luz blurted and the green-haired girl began crying. “Professor Clawthorne said she would come back and she didn't,” the girl wept. “Well, that’s why I have to go find her,” Eda hopped onto Owlbert. “I will be back. I promise .” “She was in the cafeteria!” Luz called out as Eda took off towards the entrance.  She planned to fly upward before looping around and swiping in before she could be stopped by a guard. She needed to find Lilith. The younger sister of the two witches shook her head as she thought about Lilith’s stunt she pulled. She would be eternally grateful to Lilith for saving Luz…unless she could get even and save Lilith herself. Then they’d be even. Guards and staff hollered at her as she flew in through the front doors. The building was full of smoke still and Eda rapidly encompassed herself in a protective spell before flying into the dining area. In that room, she could barely see through the smoke. It was nearly black, despite the bright lights above them. The witch swept high and low, winding her way through the tables. When she was just on the brink of giving up and flying out to search other parts of the building, she caught a flash of blue below her. She knew her sister’s sleek, raven hair anywhere. The witch swooped down and landed next to her sister’s unconscious body. Her heart thumped violently in her chest as she rolled her sister onto her back and checked for a pulse. The witch was still breathing but her skin was coated in smoke and she was wheezing. Her skin was hot and she was completely limp. “Dammit, Lily,” Eda groaned, carefully reaching underneath the witch and dropping her protective spell in favor of an elevation spell. She lightened her sister’s body weight before pulling her up and onto Owlbert with her. Once secure, Eda took off, flying as quickly as she possibly could out of the school. She was lightning fast as the two of them flew onto the front grass. “Help! We need a healer now !” She laid Lilith down on the grass and began stripping her of her heavy, dark clothing. Her studies had taught her Lilith would need to get her body temperature down after being in the heat for so long. Especially if she had any burns. Headmaster Bump and multiple healers surrounded them. They were prompt in jumping down and getting to work on her. “She’s depleted,” one of the healers gasped and Eda felt her heart jump in her chest again. “What? How? How the hell would she be depleted?” It was not computing for Eda, who knew her sister was one of the most talented witches in the isles. Even if she’d used up too much magic at once, she should have sensed the depletion and known to stop.  Eda didn’t have time to think through this information because when Lilith’s sweater was removed, her entire world flipped upside down and inside out. Laying in the grass before her, her sister wore nothing but her undergarments, exposing her pale skin. The witch was covered in deep, red scars. Gashes, burns, scratches, and all kinds of various shapes littered the witch’s alabaster skin. Eda’s blood began to boil at the sight. While her mother was unkind to them as children, she knew from sharing a room that Lilith’s body was not massacred when she was seventeen. Eda stood to get her sister’s cloak so that she could have some privacy. She turned around and physically ran into Luz and the girl with green hair. Luz, somehow understanding exactly what Eda needed, held up the cloak for her to take. It was the sight of the girl with green hair clutching the staff to her chest, her hazel eyes wide, and tears streaking her cheeks that alarmed Eda. Before she could come up with some form of reassurance or instruction, the girl brushed past her and ran towards Lilith. “Hey, wait, Kid!” “Professor Clawthorne!” The child wailed hysterically. “No! No! What…what happened?” “Get this kid out of here!” One of the healers shouted and Eda jumped in to pull her back by the waist. She swiftly draped Lilith’s cloak over her, allowing it to levitate, before properly restraining the girl. “Look kid, you can’t get in their way or they can’t help her,” Eda huffed, turning the girl around so that she couldn’t see Lilith. “You have to stop. You have to stop.” “What happened to her?” “Look, if I knew I would tell you,” Eda sighed. “Her magic is depleted. She is with the healers who will do their best to take care of her and get her back up and moving.” “Her…h-her skin,” the girl whispered then and Eda realized the girl’s hysterics were from seeing the past injuries in addition to the consequences of the fire. Eda nodded knowingly. She too was feeling a bit traumatized by the sight of Lilith’s injuries. “I don’t know what happened,” Eda sighed. “We have to wait for her to wake up.” “She is going to be okay,” one of the healers spoke and everyone visibly relaxed. “She needs rest and lots of it. She is depleted. No magic use for at least a week. If someone could take her home, away from the crowd, I believe that is what the Emporer would prefer.” “Right,” Eda nodded feeling her stomach twist. She had no idea where Lilith even lived. “I can get her home,” the girl whispered from beside Eda. “I know where she lives. I can get in too.” “You do?” Eda asked and the girl nodded firmly. “Okay, I need your help then!” Eda wrapped Lilith’s cloak around her body, gently maneuvering each limb as though the witch was made of china. She used the spell from earlier to levitate the witch and brought her to her staff. She frowned, unsure of where to set her. “I can take her,” the girl approached with Revali, who she positioned and climbed over to sit on. “If you can levitate her, I can steer and hold her.” “You most certainly cannot,” Eda shook her head. “You and Luz will ride together so that you don’t have to multi-task. I will follow with Lily.” The girl looked uncertain but nodded. “They’re sisters,” Luz whispered as she climbed onto the staff behind Amity, who gasped. “It’s okay. Let Eda take her.” The set of witches took off quickly and it took everything Amity had in herself to remember the way. She felt relief flood her system as they approached the cottage. Her heart warmed as she realized that it looked like a cottage, and not an old shack, to her because Lilith welcomed her and meant it. Upon landing, she could hear Eda behind her. “Uh, kid,” Eda began but watched in awe as Amity took a deep breath and began a spell circle. Amity wasn’t sure she was going to be able to dispel the illusion for the others but she wanted to try. When the others gasped behind her, she knew it worked. She didn’t waste time answering their questions as she unlocked the gate and ushered everyone in, locking it behind them. She could hear the other two commenting on everything behind her as she let them into the house but the words fell on deaf ears. All she could truly hear was a high-pitched ringing and her heart pounding in her chest. Eda followed suit as the girl brought them to the back of the beautiful cottage. She was certain the weird green-haired kid was taking her to some kind of trap upon their arrival at the old, dilapidated shack. However, awe-filled her as the girl took down the illusion and revealed Lilith’s cottage. Eda couldn’t help but grin to herself as they entered the property. Part of her always feared everything Lilith was would be drained of her while working for the Emporer’s Coven. It was clear, seeing her colorful home that her Lily was still in there somewhere. She followed the kid, who was surprisingly familiar with the home, all the way to the bedroom in the back. Eda laid Lilith on the large bed before turning to place her hand on each of the kids’ shoulders. She asked them to please take their staffs and excuse the two older witches so she could clean Lily up. The children, still in a state of shock, nodded and returned to the front of the house. Eda returned to Lilith after the door closed, her heart breaking at the sight before her. She carefully removed her sister’s cloak again before using the elevation spell to bring her sister into the shower space. She finished undressing Lily before carefully washing her down. The younger sister felt a bit uncomfortable but knew that Lily would prefer it was her and not some random healer in a hospital. She knew Lily would be furious about the few random people who saw her as it was. “Oh Lily,” Eda sighed. After Lily was clean, in a black pajama set, and tucked into the bed, Edalyn bathed herself. She was as quick as possible, wanting to be there when Lilith woke up. Once she was properly clean and re-clothed, she pulled out two sets of pajamas and made her way to the front of the home. They’d walked past a guest bathroom on their way to the back and she’d noticed the shower. “Here kids,” she handed each of them a set of pajamas and a towel. “You should each take a shower and redress. That smoke can’t be good for your skin and I imagine Lily wouldn’t want it on her furniture.” The girls nodded, accepting her offering. The green-haired girl stood and went to the guest bathroom first. Once the door was locked and the water was running, Eda turned to Luz, who sat on the wooden floor with wide eyes. She knelt beside her kid, sighing. She wished she could have been there for her and not chased after Lilith, but she was grateful Lilith saved her kid. It could have been much worse. “It’s going to be okay, goob,” Eda placed an arm around Luz’s shoulder. “I promise. I think we may be staying here tonight, okay? These pajamas will probably be big on you two, but it’s better than the smokey stuff you got on.” “I was so scared, Eda,” Luz sniffled and Eda pulled her even closer, placing her free hand on the kid’s head. “If Aunt Lilith hadn’t come…I don’t know what would have happened to me.” “I was nervous to find she worked there at first…but today I am very grateful,” Eda nodded before pausing. She glanced up at the closed guest bathroom door before looking back at Luz. “Who’s Minty Fresh over there?” “Aunt Lilith’s apprentice,” Luz whispered and Eda’s head tilted to the side. Lily was the last person she expected to bring on an apprentice. “Her name is Amity.” “Oh…that makes sense,” Eda nodded. “I need to get back to Lily. Come knock on the door if you guys need anything. It seems Minty Fresh knows her way around though.” Eda walked back to the bedroom, feeling a tad smug that Lily’s apprentice had befriended her apprentice. She was fairly certain the concept would enrage Lily if she knew. Lily wouldn’t want the wild witch’s human apprentice contaminating her Little Miss Perfect. If Amity was being mentored by Lily, then that meant Amity must be a pretty powerful and charming witch herself. Upon entering the bedroom, she noticed Lily had begun tossing and turning. The older witch was muttering incoherently. Eda pulled a stool up to the side of the bed and sat down. Lily suddenly tried to sit up, shouting Amity’s name. Eda was surprised to hear her name first but also wasn’t that surprised. I suppose if she’s let her beyond her protection charm, it’s probably pretty serious, Eda thought. “Lilith,” Eda sighed. “What happened to you?”   —   Lilith eyed her sister from the bed before groaning. “Where. Is. Amity?” “Hey, calm down!” Eda laughed nervously. “Kid’s in the other room taking a shower. She got looked at by a healer. She and Luz are safe and well…at least physically. She’s pretty scared, though.” “I went to look for them,” Lilith finally answered Eda’s question, not understanding that Eda was more concerned about the scars. “I had a gut feeling. I’d seen them in the cafeteria earlier and knew they were close to the fire.” “Listen, Lily,” Eda sighed and climbed over to the other side of Lilith’s bed. “I probably owe you my life for getting my kid out of that mess. I can’t overstate my gratitude. Honest.” Lilith watched inquisitively as Eda tucked herself under the blanket beside her. “I am grateful,” Eda stated again. “But that’s not what I’m asking about right now.” “Huh?” Lilith asked. “You are depleted, Lily. Depleted,” Eda reached out and yanked Lilith’s arm up from where it rested under the blanket, exposing her tattered arm. “And what the actual hell happened to you?” Lilith yanked her arm back, covering it with the blanket. She desperately wanted to climb out of the bed and cover herself up further, but her sister was right. She was completely depleted. She sighed heavily, her stomach churning as she processed how exposed she was at that moment. She’d been all on her own for so long. She never imagined Edalyn finding out what happened to her when she worked for the Emporer. “I healed Luz’s injury while protecting them from the smoke and debris,” Lilith whispered, her voice still sore from the smoke inhalation. “I had to summon Revali and it was all too much. It took too much at once. As for my body…that’s not from today.” “I know that,” Eda rolled her eyes. “Who did this to you?” Lilith didn’t respond, knowing speaking of it would put them both in further danger. “I fucking knew it,” Edalyn hissed. Lily didn’t need to say it. She knew it was Belos. “He’s been doing this to you? Lily, some of these scars are so…so…” “Edalyn,” Lilith sighed. “I had to do what I had to do. Working under him is my job .” “And what, now you’re recruiting that little girl to succeed you? So you can be depleted and she can take your place?” Eda snapped, unable to hold back. Lilith pushed herself up then, suddenly having the whereabouts to reach out and smack her sister in the arm. She was furious at the accusation but she did not have the strength to properly chuck Edalyn across the room as she desired. “That is not… funny! I do not want this for her. I do not want this for anyone else ever. I will not leave because as long as I am working this job, everyone else is protected from him,” she coughed and Eda helped her lay back down. “I do not wish this upon my worst enemy.” “The fact that he did this to you…I will kill him,” Edalyn muttered. “I will. You won't have to stay for life. I will kill him and you will be free.” “You can’t, Edalyn. He is too powerful,” Lilith sighed and Eda looked up at her, her eyes pained at the idea of what her sister would continue to suffer if she didn’t leave. “He’s too powerful,” Eda snorted. “You didn’t say that he doesn’t deserve it though.” Lilith shrugged, surprising Eda. Three raps on the door pulled them out of their conversation and Lilith immediately perked up. Eda watched curiously as she permitted the outsider to come in, seeming to already know it would be Amity. “Professor Clawthorne?” Amity’s voice was very small as she stepped into the room wearing one of Lilith’s long-sleeved black t-shirts and a pair of overly loose pajama pants. The pants were shorter on Lilith and still needed to be rolled up by Amity to not drag on the floor. Lilith was a bit perplexed by the sight but was much more concerned with the well-being of her student. “Miss Blight. Amity,” Lilith held her arms around and Amity jogged over to hug her. She was not expecting her professor to be so glad to see her but she was entirely grateful for the embrace. “Please…call me Lilith when we are here.” “Lilith,” Amity spoke slowly as if she were practicing. Her voice was thick. “I was so scared.” “I was too,” Lilith swallowed the lump in her throat. “I am very relieved that you and Luz are safe.” Lilith followed Amity’s gaze to her exposed arm and felt her cheeks grow hot. Amity reached up with her hand and gently pressed her fingers to one of the thicker scars on her professor’s forearm. Her breathing hitched, the anxiety overwhelming her. She didn’t know what Amity was thinking as she eyed the scars but she couldn’t convince herself to pull away. A part of her, deep down, wanted Amity to know the truth. “Edalyn,” Lilith glanced over at her sister, gently lifting herself so that she was leaning against the headboard. “Will you excuse us for a moment?” “Sure thing,” Eda squeezed her sister’s shoulder and planted a kiss on her head. “I’m gonna check on my kid.” “Thank you,” Lilith smiled as her sister left.  She then patted the open spot in the bed for Amity to join her. The girl hesitated for a moment before carefully climbing over Lilith and sitting cross-legged beside her. The professor watched the girl get comfortable, something fluttering in her chest as she processed the fact that Amity was in her home, in her clothes, and safe. Despite the horror of what had occurred that day, she, at the very least, knew they were all safe. “We need to talk,” Lilith whispered and Amity’s face began to pale. “Amity, may I call you Amity?” The girl nodded silently. “Working under Emperor Belos’ hand is not…gentle.” “Emperor Belos did this to you?” “Amity, it has been truly a joy working with you as your mentor,” Lilith spoke softly, the warmth evening out how frightening her words were. Amity’s heart sunk into her stomach at the realization that Lilith was trying to end the apprenticeship. “I have felt so proud watching you grow and thrive in this role.” “Please…don’t,” Amity whispered, her voice cracking. “I have been learning so much because of who my mentor is. Please.” “I cannot ethically guide you to Head Covenness, Amity,” a tear broke loose from the professor’s eyes and slid down her cheek. She held out her arms. “This is what would await you. I cannot bear the thought-” Her voice cracked then and she knew she couldn’t keep talking. “What if…what if you didn’t? Does that mean the apprenticeship must end?” Amity resisted the urge to wipe her professor's tears and instead swiped at her own. “You could just…guide me to graduation instead. I don’t have to join the Emperor’s Coven. I could join my dad’s coven or another.” “I worry that will put a target on your back,” Lilith sniffled. “He will want you. You are an incredible, powerful witch. He will notice you through me.” “Do…do you want us to stop working together?” “Certainly not,” Lilith chuckled darkly. “Not in the slightest.” “I don’t understand,” Amity continued to sniffle, her eyes cast downward. Lilith gently reached up to lift her chin with her fingers. Amity’s eyes sparkled from the tears. Her lip trembled. It broke Lilith’s heart to see her cry. She didn’t want to say goodbye either. The thought of letting Amity go and not working with her anymore was heart-wrenching. Yet, the thought of putting the child in harm’s way was also devastating. “I want you to be safe,” Lilith reiterated, for both Amity and herself. “I won’t be safe…without you,” Amity spoke and squeaked, her stomach dropping as she realized what she said. Lilith absorbed Amity’s words and her mind spun in circles. She logically knew that Amity was unsafe at home…to some degree. She wasn’t aware that the circumstances were dire enough for Amity to be aware. She placed her hands over her face and took a deep breath, thinking through the situation. It was entirely true that she was focusing on having Amity’s safety at heart. If that was the case, abandoning her with the Blights or another Coven Head would indeed put her at increased risk of other threats. She looked at Amity, who was fidgeting with her hands in her lap, and whose tears were dripping onto her hands. The moment was strange for Lilith, who had never been one to comfort others outside of her little sister as a child. It had always been Lilith and only Lilith. She’d never had an apprentice or anyone else to look out for. As frightened as she was with the reality that sat in front of them, she realized that she couldn’t keep her distance this time. It wasn’t going to solve the problem. “H-here,” Lilith stuttered, trying to ignore the sharp pain that came from her bile sac as she adjusted her position.  She opened her arms, carefully suggesting Amity join her in a hug. A small smile broke out on the girl’s lips and she scooted over to lean into it. Lilith let a relieved sigh leave her lungs. Her nervous system was able to relax when it knew Amity was with her and safe. The professor was nervous to lower her walls for the student, but she had been rapidly growing more and more protective and maternal towards the girl over the weeks. Amity leaned into her professor’s arms, her head resting on her sternum. She could hear Lilith’s heartbeat, a sound so comforting she felt as though she could fall asleep. Lilith stroked the girl’s hair with one of her hands while they held each other. “We can continue the apprenticeship…should you make me one promise,” Lilith whispered. “Anything. Anything at all,” Amity responded enthusiastically. “You must promise me you will never, ever join the Emperor’s Coven,” Lilith whispered. “And I need you to promise that this conversation never leaves this room. This stays between you and me. Should anything change, as I’ve said many times, you are always free to leave. I will simply need to talk to you to make sure that you are safe to leave. Do you understand?” “Yes,” Amity nodded, pulling her professor in tighter. “Thank you, Lilith.” As if on cue, Amity’s stomach gurgled then. Lilith peeked over at her clock and realized it was far after dinner time. She grimaced, feeling immense guilt for not feeding the girl. She was hungry. Careful with each movement, Lilith pulled back from the girl and turned to begin getting out of the bed. Amity gasped and climbed over her. When the teenager’s feet hit the wooden floor, she jumped in front of Lilith and held up her hands. “You cannot get up! You are to rest, Profe-Lilith!” “You need to eat,” Lilith winced as she tried to pull herself up, her sore muscles opposed to the movement. “Don’t I know it,” Edalyn appeared in the doorway then, a plate resting in each hand. “You both do, for that matter! You should get to it too! Headmaster Bump is on his way here. He needs to speak with you, Lily.” “Oh,” Lilith gratefully accepted the plates from her sister. Amity climbed back into the bed with her and took her serving. Eda had cooked up a pasta dish with a meat sauce for them to eat. It smelled incredibly enticing. After watching Amity begin to eat, Lilith turned back to Eda. “What does he need?” “I guess he just got done talking to Baby Blight’s parents,” Eda gestured to the girl next to Lilith, who looked up with wide eyes but continued inhaling the pasta. “He wants to check in on her to report back to them. I believe he also wants to check in on you as he hasn’t seen you since I pulled you outta the mess at the school.” “I see,” Lilith nodded. “That is fair. Thank you, Edalyn. For the update and the food.” “It’s good!” Amity grinned during a break between bites and Eda felt her heart grow several sizes. Something about being in her sister’s home, seeing her and her mentor, who could easily be her kid, share a meal in their pajamas, warmed her heart. After spending the better part of the afternoon worrying her sister had nothing more than a violent, abusive boss and solitude, she could see more clearly that Lilith had begun building a life with her new job. She was softer and more authentic. “I’ll be out here eating with Luz,” Eda pointed her thumb over her shoulder. “If either of you needs anything, I will be up until after Bumpy heads out. Got it?” “Thank you, sister.” “You know it, sister.”   —   “I think it may be best if you join Luz in my study while Headmaster Bump stops by,” Lilith whispered, sweeping a strand of Amity’s hair out of her sleepy face. “You two girls can sleep in my guest room tonight. Edalyn can share with me. If you do not fall asleep while Headmaster Bump is here, you are welcome to step back in and say goodnight, okay?” “Okay,” Amity nodded, eager to spend the night away from her house. She had already been dreaming of moving in with Lilith after coming over the afternoon before. Especially after her mother was done punishing her. “You’ll be in here?” “Yes,” Lilith smiled gently. The two hugged one more time before Amity left to find Luz. Not long later, Lilith’s ears twitched when the energy shifted at her front gate. It was likely Headmaster Bump. Edalyn stepped in to check with Lilith, who gave her permission to lower the charm for him. If she hadn’t known the Headmaster since her youth, she likely would have declined a visit from him. However, over the years she’d developed a quiet trust in the witch. Their footsteps were light as Eda brought the Headmaster back to Lilith’s room. Upon arriving, he bowed his head at Eda before stepping into the room and taking a seat on the footrest by the bed that Eda had sat on earlier.  “Good evening, Professor Clawthorne,” he spoke courteously and she offered him a careful, tired smile. “I must be honest. It is a relief to see you are awake.” “I could say the same,” she smirked and he sighed, relieved to see she was truly awake and not just upright. “I wanted to stop by to discuss making arrangements for the next week,” he was straightforward, something Lilith deeply appreciated. She was unsurprised to be forced into a leave given the circumstances. “You will take the time to rest. I simply need to know your preferences in terms of who will fill you in. I have a few offers, but I wanted you to make the call.” “I appreciate this,” Lilith nodded. “You don’t think…could…Raine Whispers possibly fill in for me?” “Ah, I had hoped you would accept Professor Whispers’ offer. They have already requested to fill in for you during your class times. They also offered to take Miss Blight under their wing for the time being,” Headmaster Bump elaborated and Lilith felt her anxiety prickle at the thought of someone else working with Amity. “That said, I wanted to ask about Miss Blight. She does not have to stay here tonight. I am more than happy to fly her home at your request.” “No,” Lilith was suddenly firm, wincing at the pain projecting her voice further caused. “Miss Blight is welcome to stay. She-it was a rough day for her. Luz Noceda is staying over. I do not mind.” “It is admirable of you to welcome them into your home tonight,” Headmaster Bump nodded solemnly. “Would you like Professor Whispers to take her into their care for the remainder of the week, or even the month, while at school?” “I have the highest amount of respect for Professor Whispers,” Lilith spoke slowly, careful to choose the correct words. “However, Miss Blight and I are working through a track that we crafted for me to guide her through. I took her in as my mentor. I will be the one who continues to teach her. She is very advanced, I do not need my magic at full capacity to work with her this week.” Headmaster Bump watched the way Lilith’s expression changed when they began talking about Miss Blight. It was as if the professor was excited to continue working with the girl. Her reaction to Professor Whispers taking over tipped him off to the fact that Lilith had, as he suspected she would, grown fond of the youngest Blight child. Having been the one to coordinate the match, this tickled the older witch. “I see,” he nodded, a small smile playing on his lips. “I understand. No worries. I will make arrangements for Miss Blight to visit your home after her class with Professor Whispers this week. You two will continue the apprenticeship together.” “Thank you,” Lilith felt her muscles relax. “I was very worried today, you know,” he pivoted, wanting to be honest with the young professor. “I have always been fond of you, Miss Clawthorne. You were an impeccable student who went on to do brilliant work in the Emporer’s Coven.” Lilith didn’t miss the way his eyes flickered to her arms before he continued. “I know you are trained to work in high conflict and dangerous situations, but I highly suggest you do not run into a fire ever again,” the headmaster continued. “I am also…forever indebted to you for saving the lives of several of my students today. They were all blessed by the Titan to have you in the building today.” “I had a wonderful professor of my own once set an example,”  “You get some rest, Miss Clawthorne,” he reached out to squeeze her hand. “Hexside will be thrilled to have you back when you are fully recovered and ready.” “Thank you, Headmaster,” she nodded. “Safe travels on your way home.” After Headmaster Bump left the room and the cottage, small footsteps brought Amity back to the bedroom. She looked intensely sleeper than she had before, bags beginning to form under her eyes. Lilith welcomed the girl back and held out her arms to welcome another hug. Amity walked across the room and accepted the gesture joyfully. They silently hugged for at least a minute, both of them soaking up the comfort it brought to them.  “You have sweet dreams tonight,” Lilith whispered, not yet pulling away. “If you need anything, anything at all, please do come to find me or my sister. I do not care what it is or what time. We will be right here.” “Thank you,” Amity nodded. “I hope your sleep is restful.” “Good night,” Lilith squeezed the girl one more time and then watched as she walked away, into the next room. Eda returned to the bedroom shortly after, leaving the lights off behind her. She left the door cracked as she came into the room and crawled into the bed beside Lilith. She was acutely aware of how much comfier Lilith’s bed was than her nest. After getting comfortable under the blankets, she leaned over to hug her sister, who was too quiet. The two witches shared a room for years. Eda knew when Lilith was lost in her head by this point. Being together and being close, as harsh as the circumstances were, felt like home for both of them. Neither of them let go as they drifted off to sleep. They devised the plan for Amity to ride Revali to Lilith’s house at 13:45 each day. Lilith would send the staff to Hexside shortly before to ensure it arrived on time. Amity was floored that Lilith was entrusting her precious staff and palisman with her, and was thrilled by the prospect of flying on her own. Lilith didn’t have the energy to be thoroughly nervous about the plan and took a leap of faith into trust. She knew Amity would be extremely careful and that Revali knew how important the girl was to her. It was Friday, the final work day of Lilith’s week off, and the witch was beginning to feel more recharged. Dressed in a long-sleeved charcoal cotton dress and black tights, the witch stood in front of her mirror, carefully pulling her blue hair back into a single french braid. Her peaceful reflection stared back at her, reminding her of what things could have been if she had never joined the coven. She dreamt of a life where she could wear what she wanted, style her hair as she pleased, and be at home. So much would be different. She stood back, taking in the full look, before turning to make her way to the front of the house. Amity would be by any minute. Right on time, Lilith sensed Revali’s approach. She walked to the garden door, sliding it open and stepping out onto the patio. Amity was walking up the cobblestone path to her, the staff safely in her hand, and her bag slung over her shoulder. Her eyes were cast downward, watching her feet as she stepped carefully from stone to stone. Lilith watched her as she glanced up, noting the slight bags under her eyes and how pale her skin looked. Amity was naturally fair-skinned, but often had a splash of pink in her cheeks. Her tired appearance was worrying for the professor. “Good afternoon,” Lilith waved and offered the girl a gentle smile.  Amity’s face perked up upon realizing Lilith was outside waiting for her. She picked up her pace, nearly jogging down the path now. She was no longer concerned about stepping on each stone exactly right. When she reached Lilith, she offered a small head bow before holding the staff. She was relieved to see Lilith back on her feet and able to dress on her own. Lilith looked graceful even in her pajamas in bed. Now, wearing a soft dress, her stocking-clad feet bare, her eyes illuminated by round glasses, and her hair pulled back into a soft braid she looked marvelous. Amity felt a pang of jealousy as she was acutely aware of her messy hair and demeanor. “How was your day?” Lilith asked, placing her hand on Amity’s shoulder and guiding her into the house. It was now middle fall and growing increasingly colder. The professor didn’t want her student to catch a cold. “It was okay. Professor Raine let us watch a film,” Amity wiggled her eyebrows, receiving a chuckle from her mentor. “The rest of the day was fine enough.” “I see,” Lilith smiled, placing the staff near the door and walking Amity to the kitchen.  Amity sat down on a stool at the island, watching patiently as her professor searched the fridge for a snack. She’d grown used to Lilith insisting she eats a snack before they moved into her studies. Lilith was adamant that the time between lunch and dinner was not suitable for a growing child to go without food, and that Amity needed to eat more. She pulled a piece of fruit and nut butter from the fridge and began plating it for the child. Amity had to resist the urge to get up and help the professor, aware that she was still moving a bit slow compared to her normal pace. Lilith had been very clear that she wanted to take care of certain things on her own as she was beginning to feel better. It had been hard for her to lose so much independence the week before. She placed the plate in front of Amity and leaned over so her arms rested against the wooden island countertop. Amity dutifully began eating, pleased with the selection. Lilith watched her, pleased that Amity smiled when she saw what Lilith chose. She took mental note of the winning snack before lifting her chin to rest it in her palm. The pair had worked extra hard all week as Amity advanced in her abomination work. Lilith was thrilled to see the girl’s powers snowball into something so great. Still, she feared she was pushing the girl too hard and that Amity was becoming too tired. The girl had no allotted time for true rest. “How do you feel about us taking a short hiatus from our abomination work?” Lilith finally broke the relaxed silence. Amity raised an eyebrow, her mouth full. “I wouldn’t mind too much if we did something else for the evening. You’ve made tremendous progress. You’re tired. You need to recharge.” “I have the whole weekend to recharge,” Amity scoffed, earning an incredulous look from Lilith, who stood and crossed her arms. Her professor knew Amity helped at Blight Industries on the weekends. She certainly wouldn’t be recharging. Amity, knowing Lilith saw right through her, sighed. “I…what do you want to do?” “I was thinking we could…light a fire,” Lilith smiled, thinking through what she would deem a restful Friday evening. “Yes. I can bring out the fire pit and we can set up on the patio with our books or some music. We can order food or roast something over the fire. The sun will set in just over an hour, so it won’t have to be too late.” “What about my parents?” Amity asked timidly, remembering the week before when she’d stayed late. Her mother was not pleased, to say the least. “I will call them,” Lilith nodded firmly. Amity thought back to the week before. Her mother had been furious. She was convinced Amity was lying about what happened and ended up going through her bag, despite the girl’s insistence that nothing had gone wrong. When she found the potions test she became enraged. Amity faced harsh punishments for the stunt. Her mother said that she was a liar and a sneak and that she had manipulated her mentor into covering for her. She knew changing the plan tonight, and staying any later with Lilith, would likely result in another very painful evening. Still, the thought of staying just a bit later and spending time with Lilith was overwhelmingly promising. Unlike when she was at home, Amity felt safe and cared for at Lilith’s house. She knew her professor wanted the very best for her and was beginning to trust that. She could, of course, go home, but there was no guarantee she wouldn’t face punishment for some other random deed her mother deemed irresponsible and inexcusable. She imagined the two of them eating dinner beside the small fire and reading their books together and was convinced. “If you call them…that sounds lovely.” “Wonderful,” Lilith grinned, standing up. “I am excited!” Lilith stepped into the other room with her scroll. Amity listened as her teacher told her parents that she would be home somewhat late due to a change in study plans. There was a bit of banter before Lilith thanked them and hung up. When she returned to the room, her expression was less than thrilled. Amity felt a pang of guilt as she knew Lilith only interacted with them because of her. It was uniquely challenging having such unpleasant parents who did not care for her, much less her teachers. After Amity finished her snack, she and Lilith moved outside to rearrange the patio. Lilith moved the tabletop to expose a small fire pit before moving several logs into it. Amity was sent to the study to choose a book. While in there, she found the book Lilith was now reading on her desk and grabbed it for her. The sun was just beginning to set as Lilith returned to the kitchen to begin cutting meat and vegetables. She was planning for the two of them to roast kabobs over the fire for dinner. It would be nutritious and easy. “Will you squeeze the citrus for this tea?” Lilith asked, pulling a squeezer out and passing Amity a cutting board of sliced citrus. She was still holding back on using her magic as she wanted to be at her fullest capacity upon her return Monday. She reserved it for when it was necessary. Amity followed Lilith out to the patio with two glasses and a pitcher of citrus tea. Lilith set up the grate for them to roast the kabobs on and began placing the food out to begin cooking. Her student placed the beverages on a small side table before moving the chosen books from the study to the table on the other side of the small rattan couch. Once everything was in place, she sat down and pulled her legs up to her chest, wrapping her arms around them to hold herself. She watched as her teacher used tongs to rotate each kabob, cooking dinner with such ease. Despite feeling somewhat awkward at times, the girl was overwhelmed with how easy it was to share Lilith’s space. She hardly felt like she needed instruction. They both knew what to do to get things done together. Lilith glanced at the girl on her couch, smiling softly. Amity’s hazel eyes sparkled brightly in the light of the small fire. Her auburn roots, which Lilith had grown fond of, also shimmered in contrast to her green hair, which was pulled back in her go-to half updo. The girl was very pretty and Lilith knew she would grow up to be a beautiful witch someday. While this was undoubtedly clear to Lilith, she also knew that it was who Amity was on the inside that made her a truly perfect witchlet. Amity was quiet, seeming at peace, and Lilith couldn’t help but sigh as the feeling of joy washed over her like the warmth of the fire. She had grown to greatly appreciate Amity’s company, something she never expected. “There we go,” Lilith began pulling the kabobs off the fire and onto a plate for the two of them to share. She used a long metal hook to move the grate from the fire, placing it safely off to the side, on the pavement, before backing up to sit down next to Amity. Mimicking the girl’s positioning, she pulled her legs up and under herself so that she could place the plate in her lap. Amity took a kabob and began eating, emitting a hum in response to the satisfaction of eating the fresh food. “You have been excelling, Miss Blight,” Lilith complimented the girl, breaking the silence and offering her another smile. “I thought you said we could just do Amity and Lilith here?” Amity responded playfully. “Oh, of course,” Lilith smirked back. “I suppose it’s a tough habit to break. Especially once we are back in school next week. Which, just to be clear, I would prefer you use Professor Clawthorne at school. It is not so much about you as it is about the other witchlets. They won’t understand.” “I understand,” Amity nodded. “How…do you feel about going back?” “I am ready,” Lilith said after appearing thoughtful for a moment. “I like teaching. When I accepted the position I was mainly looking for a way to spend my free time. Head Covenness comes with very serious duties, but they’re surprisingly not as time-consuming as lower roles in the guard.” “You didn’t think you would like it?” Amity felt puzzled. The professor was a natural. “I wanted to teach as a child. Headmaster Bump taught my beast-keeping class. He inspired me.” “Headmaster Bump?” Amity giggled, the sound lightening her teacher’s soul. “The one and only,” Lilith smiled. “He was a very special professor. I am glad he still works at Hexside. I am also glad I now work at Hexside. Teaching history and seeing my students become curious about where we come from and connecting the dots between the past, now, and our future is delightful. Plus, teaching brought me you.” Amity sat back, moving the plate she’d taken from Lilith at some point to the ground now that they’d finished the food. She sat up to pour each of them a glass of tea, passing one to her teacher as she thought over what Lilith said. She was grateful to have been given me? Amity couldn’t imagine what that would be like for someone. Her parents made it very clear that she was an accident and a burden. They repeatedly told her the twins were enough for them. She wasn’t wanted or needed. Her throat was tight and she drank the tea, grateful for something else to do instead of responding at that moment. Lilith watched as the girl’s features went from curious to pleased to defeated as she sipped her tea. She didn’t understand where Amity’s mind must have gone. The girl had gone completely quiet, no longer engaged in the conversation as it was. Now, avoiding what was on her mind, she was chugging her tea. Lilith sat her glass on top of the books to her right, crossing her arms. “Amity? Where did you go?” Lilith reached out and placed one hand on Amity’s shoulder, gently pulling her from her reverie.  “I…I guess I don’t understand,” Amity’s eyes were locked on her glass as she placed it back on the table behind her. She turned back to Lilith, now facing her with her knees to her chest. Lilith’s hand returned to her lap. “What do you mean? Teaching brought me to you?” Lilith sighed. Amity didn’t understand how she could be wanted or how someone could be grateful to know her. Lilith had been lonely before working with Amity, so she was familiar with the feeling of being unwelcome and unneeded. The idea of her mentee feeling so unloved hurt to imagine. While she’d only been working with the girl for a few short months, she had grown to appreciate so many of her qualities. She knew it would take time for the student to internalize the idea that she was important, so each word mattered. “Before working with you…I was all alone,” Lilith broke the heavy silence. Amity looked up, surprised by her professor’s words. She couldn’t imagine how the Head Covenness could be lonely. “I primarily lived in the castle. I would meet with the other heads of the covens throughout the week, and Kikimora each Monday afternoon, before spending my weekends on missions. Now that the ranks are filled, they stopped needing me on every mission. I became a planner and an organizer. So, I would spend a lot of my time alone. “I started to realize I didn’t know what I wanted anymore. I had…my reasons for joining the coven. I knew leaving was out of the question. Belos doesn’t take too kindly to high-ranking members stepping away as it can impact his image,” the professor cringed at the thought of what happened to her the time she merely threatened to find another role in the coven system.  She looked down at her arms, the electric burn stars seeming to glow up at her next to the fire, and winced. She had unknowingly rolled up her sleeves while handling the food for sanitary reasons. It hadn’t occurred to her just how exposed she had been all evening. Amity followed her gaze, already understanding what Lilith was implying. It was very clear to her now that Emporer Belos was not the fair ruler she’d once believed. Lilith continued before the girl could connect too many more dots. She had to remind herself that Amity was still a child and didn’t need to know the gory details. The information alone was traumatizing. “Then, on my first day at Hexside, I met a witchlet named Amity Blight and things changed,” Lilith held her arm out, palm up, for Amity to take her hand. Amity didn’t hesitate before accepting the gesture. “Right off the bat, I found myself feeling more and more amused by your humor, excited to hear about your studies, and…just curious about you, I suppose.” “Why? Why me?” Amity asked, her brow pinching together in the middle. “I’m nobody outside of my grades. I’m Amity Blight, the accidental third child of Blight Industries, and Top Student.” “That is far from the truth, Mis-Amity,” Lilith shook her head, reaching out with her other hand to tilt Amity’s chin up. When she caught her gaze, she continued. “You are a creative girl. When something is stumping either of us on an assignment, you never fail to think outside the box. You enjoy reading, which I am, of course, partial to. You know what your time and work ethic is worth, and you don’t allow anyone to threaten your position as Top Student. You’re unbelievably kind and thoughtful. You welcomed the human girl…” “Luz,” Amity interrupted and Lilith smiled. Her point about thoughtfulness is proven by the correction. Amity cared about Luz, which warmed Lilith’s heart. The thought of her apprentice being so close to Edalyn’s kid was something out of a childhood dream for Lilith. Their reality was different, but she’d always imagined their children growing up together. Amity and Luz being close was the next best thing. “You welcomed Luz to Hexside, knowing full well your parents would not take kindly to the gesture. Don’t think I haven’t picked up on their remarks about humans, either,” Lilith shook her head. “You face quite a lot at home and yet you still show up, unapologetically yourself. It has been an honor getting to know you and knowing you chose me as your mentor. You will far surpass my impact on this world.” “Don’t say that,” Amity frowned. “It’s entirely true,” Lilith shrugged, pulling her arms back to fold her hands in her lap. “It is a good thing. I want to give you all of the good I have and I want you to match that with your brilliance. I want you to make the impact I never truly made in the real world. I knew you would succeed within days of knowing you, too. You’re already succeeding.” Amity’s cheeks flushed a familiar hue of pink. Lilith grinned, flashing her perfect teeth, grateful to see some color back on the child’s face. Unable to resist the urge any longer, Lilith opened her arms. This was her signature way of asking to hug the girl and Amity never declined. The student scooted over so that she rested in Lilith’s arms, her head resting in the crook of her neck. Lilith wrapped her arms tightly around the girl, gently rubbing her upper arm with one of her hands. “Do you remember the expository essay you included in your application for the apprenticeship?” Lilith asked then, the question feeling out of the blue for Amity. “I do,” Amity nodded. “You wrote an exploratory piece on the ethics of abominations in battle and servitude. I was particularly fond of the point you made about fairy pies,” the witches giggled together, each remembering. “I was tickled by the prospect of Alador and Odalia Blight’s youngest daughter calling the ethics of their entire corporation into question in such an important essay. There was no way they didn’t read it themselves. I knew, at that moment, I wanted to work with you.” “I got in so much trouble,” Amity rolled her eyes. The punishment was worth it for her. “So worth it.”  She shivered then, from the memory and the cold breeze. Lilith reached over to pull one of the throw blankets from the chair next to the couch. She carefully draped it over the two of them, not yet ready to let go of Amity. The girl snuggled closer, seeming pleased by the gesture and the increased warmth. As strange as it was, being a professor and having a student in her home, nothing bout the exchange itself felt strange to either of them. To Lilith, in moments like that, it felt as if Amity was her child. “It was very good,” Lilith chuckled bemusedly at the girl’s gall. The two sat in the quiet then, listening to the sound of the firewood snapping and the creatures of the garden chirping and croaking. Lilith listened closely to Amity’s breathing, allowing the sound to soothe her nervous system. The girl was somehow better than she’d imagined while initially reading that entrance essay. She sighed, wishing the teenager could see herself through her eyes. Amity was truly a witchlet prodigy who had too many cards stacked against her. Lilith rested her chin on the child’s head then, letting her eyes flutter shut, her mind at ease for the moment. A few hours later, the fire had dimmed down significantly, no longer offering a sufficient amount of heat to the witches who fell asleep on the rattan couch. Amity’s eyes gently fluttered open in response to the chilly breeze, her brain confused by the change in scenery. It was now much darker and the fire was gone. She was still tucked under Lilith’s throw, the older witch’s chest rising and falling steadily beneath her. Lilith was sound asleep. Amity snuggled in closer for just a moment, soaking up the peace she felt. She couldn’t remember a time her mother held her. Her mother. Shit, she thought to herself. “Shit, shit, shit, shit,” Amity jumped up then, her head bumping the professor’s chin, causing her jaw to smack shut. “Oh! Oh my Titan! I’m so sorry!” “What? What’s wrong?” Lilith was still groggy from sleep as she rubbed her tender chin. Amity was pulling away and standing up then. “Amity?” “We fell asleep!” Amity groaned, rubbing her face with the palms of her hands. “We fell asleep and they’re going to kill me.” “Oh…oh!” Lilith stood quickly. The older witch quickly tossed the blanket onto the couch before covering the fire. She turned to Amity then, who had her hands in her hair, her eyes watering, and her breathing rapid. She was panicking. Lilith’s stomach twisted at the realization of what she’d done. She leaned down, placing a hand on each of the witchlet’s shoulders. Amity looked up at her, her bottom lip trembling. “Amity, I promise I will not let anything happen to you,” Lilith spoke sternly. “I will talk to your parents. They will understand.” “They didn’t last time!” Amity spat back, already becoming defensive in preparation for her parents, before quickly covering her mouth. “Wh-what?” Lilith stood up straight, the knot in her stomach so tight it felt like it could burst. “What do you mean? What happened last time?” The image of Amity being yanked into her home by Odalia played in Lilith’s mind then. She knew Amity had likely gotten into trouble but she assumed there had been more to the situation. Perhaps Amity had done something else that upset Odalia. The girl never brought it up during the following days, and Lilith didn't want to pry or assume. For all she knew, Odalia may have been worried about Amity’s safety. There was truly nothing Lilith could come up with that would justify punishing the child after that lesson. “She didn’t believe me,” Amity cried then, her voice shooting up an octave. “Sh-she called me a liar and a sneak. She told me you didn’t want me to burden you. I…I was punished for the lost point on my exam and for wasting your time.” Lilith’s blood began to boil then, the crack in her heart splitting it entirely in half. She had imagined Amity getting reprimanded for staying late on a school night or for not calling in to ask them herself. The professor simply didn’t want to believe something worse could be going on. She knew she was biased against other parents due to her own childhood experiences, and she worked very hard not to project. The mere thought of someone saying such hateful things and laying their hands on her student made her want to scream. “She did this,” Amity pulled up her sleeve then and revealed an arm that quite resembled Lilith’s. Lilith’s eyes watered as she eyed each scar and bruise. She reached out, holding the arm in the gentle grasp of both of her hands. There were distinct marks that appeared to be self-inflicted. Lilith was, unfortunately, familiar with the concept. She made a mental note to check in with Amity on those later. The self-inflicted marks were surrounded by various hand-shaped bruises and welts. The professor took in a very deep breath, carefully filling her lungs in an attempt to soothe herself, one hand holding the arm and the other’s fingers grazing the injuries. Amity continued to sob, not saying anything further. She knew she was in for it and that she’d be lucky to attend school Monday after what her parents would do to her. “No…no,” Lilith shook her head, unable to find the proper words. Without thinking, she pulled the girl back to her chest, squeezing her tightly as tears broke loose from her sapphire eyes. If she thought letting Amity leave earlier was painful, she truly couldn’t bear the thought now. “I will not send you back there tonight. Absolutely not.” “What will you do?” Amity sniffled, her words muffled by Lilith’s shoulder. “I will be calling your parents and informing them that you fell asleep and will be staying the night,” Lilith’s words came with a venom Amity had never heard. Her heart thumped erratically at the tone, afraid her mother was right about being burdensome. As if she could read her mind, Lilith continued. “You are not a liar, sneak, or burden. You are not a waste of my time. You are one of my favorite ways to spend my time. Do you understand, Amity?” “Please don’t be mad at me,” Amity cried and Lilith realized Amity couldn’t hear her over the anger in her tone. She was too afraid. “We need to go inside. It is cold,” Lilith shook her head, straightening up but not letting Amity go. She would address Amity’s comment later. She kept an arm around Amity’s shoulders as she guided her into the house. Upon reaching the living room, Lilith used her magic to light several candles. She’d long forgotten about being drained and the fury in her gut lit a fire under her energy source. While she’d been sleepy and sluggish upon waking, she was now ready to physically fight the child’s parents. Lilith guided Amity to her couch and helped her take a seat before walking to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of water and her scroll. “I am not mad at you,” she was finally able to speak, her voice thick from crying. “I am furious with Odalia and Alador. Not you. Never you.” She returned with the glass of water and handed it to the girl, asking her to hydrate as she pulled up the contacts in her scroll. When she reached Odalia’s number, she was acutely aware of the lack of missed calls. Amity was certainly right about her mother likely being upset about the situation, but it was apparent Odalia only cared for appearance’s sake. If she was worried for her child’s safety she surely would have called Lilith to see if Amity was still with her. Lilith’s stomach sank and she was grateful to have flown Amity home last time. She was right on the money in thinking they wouldn’t be keeping an eye out for the child. Lilith didn’t hesitate before dialing the number. She had no idea what she would say to the mother. She knew anything too over the top would tip Odalia off. If Odalia knew Amity had spoken to Lilith about the punishments she would surely respond with more punishments. Lilith knew her mother certainly would have in the same position. Not wanting to cause further harm to Amity, she decided it was important to take things one step at a time. She needed more information before she could take action. The Blight mother answered the call on the final ring and Lilith squeezed her eyes shut, resisting the urge to scream. “Professor Clawthorne? Is that you?” Odalia’s voice was sharp and Lilith sighed. Willfully ignorant. She was well aware Odalia had caller ID on her scroll. “Good evening, Odalia,” Lilith spoke after clearing her throat. “I…I am greatly appreciative of Amity’s hard work this week. After our lesson this afternoon, we took a well-deserved break to eat dinner and watch a movie. Your daughter has fallen asleep and I wanted to run something by you.” Odalia’s ears perked up, confused and intrigued. “You see, Miss Blight has a rather important exam this week. I would like to spend some extra time this weekend studying. It occurred to me that a field trip to a potioneer may be beneficial for her,” Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose, her eyes squeezed shut as she attempted to come up with something believable. It was vital her words not incriminate the child. “With your permission, I believe it may be most convenient for Amity to sleep over here and travel to the potion shop with me tomorrow. I will return her to you after.” “I see,” Odalia was thoughtful then, wanting nothing more than to tell the Head Covenness to fuck off and drop her child back off at home. Odalia knew Lilith was far too powerful to say no, though. She had watched the witch climb the ranks of the Emperor’s Coven only to work as the most powerful witch on the island’s right hand. She simply couldn’t say no if she wanted to maintain positive appearances with Belos. “Well, if you believe that is best I shall not stop you.” “I do,” Lilith nodded, her eyes wide. Odalia took the news far too easily but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. She resisted the urge to gag at her next words. “Thank you, Mrs. Blight. I, and Amity, are greatly appreciative of your unending support.” “Of course, will that be all?” Lilith steeled at the realization that Odalia didn’t so much as want to check in with her child. She wasn’t offering an overnight bag or checking to ensure this was what Amity wanted. Lilith was acutely aware of how strange a student sleeping over at a professor’s house was and how vulnerable Amity was to be in her care. A child’s mother not wanting to say goodnight to their baby was equally, if not more, strange, to Lilith. “Yes. I suppose it is.” The scroll clicked, indicating she’d hung up. The professor turned and walked into the kitchen, further away from Amity, who waited silently on the couch. Lilith, unable to contain her rage, chucked the device across the room. The witch was incredibly strong from her training. Her scroll hit the glass pitcher on the kitchen island, knocking it over and shattering both items on the floor. She let out a scream before realizing Amity was still in the room and watching from afar. Not wasting any time, she used her magic to sweep it all into a pile that she then dropped into the garbage. Amity stared with wide, fearful eyes as her teacher spoke to her mother. She was impressed by Lilith’s ability to come up with a lie and sell it to her mother on the spot. A part of her knew it was her professor’s job that threatened her mother and kept her quiet at that moment. Her heart thumped in her chest as Lilith finally hung up the phone, letting out a roar and chucking her scroll across the room. The student, startled by the display of violence, cowered. Lilith’s anger spilled out across the whole room, palpable and terrifying for Amity, who had never seen the witch more than a little frustrated. “I’m sorry,” Amity squeaked and Lilith turned to face her, blue eyes wide and cheeks pale. “You’re not the one who should be sorry,” Lilith snapped before fully realizing she needed to calm down before she hurt herself or scared Amity out of the house. She paused, took in a deep breath, and clenched her fists at her side. “Your mother is a despicable witch.” “I’m sorry,” tears rolled down the student’s cheek. It was very clear to her, from day one, that Lilith did not enjoy interacting with either of her parents. She knew they’d attended Hexside at the same time and had a less than positive history. “I’m so sorry, Professor Clawthorne.” “Amity, you do not owe me an apology,” Lilith was soft again at Amity calling her Professor Clawthorne. She chewed on her bottom lip, actively trying to gain control over her temper. “Can I…can I come over there?” Amity nodded, surprised by the question, and Lilith walked to her in quick strides. Her family never asked permission before invading her space. The older witch then wrapped her arms around Amity once again, her touch incredibly gentle. She was intentional in moving slowly and quietly after scaring Amity. After a few moments of holding her close, Lilith slid back, placing her hands on the teenager’s cheeks, and looked down into the girl’s familiar hazel eyes. “Amity, dearest,” she projected all of the affection and gentleness she could muster. “You do not deserve to be treated the way your parents have treated you. No one deserves that, but especially not you. I am so terribly sorry for my outburst. That was terribly inappropriate and I understand if you do not forgive me. I am absolutely enraged by your parent's behavior and that does not reflect on you. I will never hurt you. You will always be safe with me.” “You hate them and you have to talk to them because of me,” Amity’s eyes squeezed shut as she sobbed. Lilith swiped her fingers over the girl’s cheeks, catching the fresh tears and softly wiping them away. “No, you sweet child,” Lilith shook her head. “I do not simply hate your parents. It’s entirely true that I was not fond of them as students. However, my disgust in them now is solely in response to what they have done to you. I do have to speak to them,” and possibly curse the hell out of them, she thought. “But I am doing so because I care deeply for you.” “You’re not mad at me?” “Not in the slightest,” Lilith shook her head. “Will you trust me?” Amity nodded slowly then, remembering Lilith’s anger and working to connect it to her parents. Lilith’s outburst was because she was angry for Amity. She cared so much for her that she broke things in her kitchen in response to Amity being harmed. She was fierce in her protectiveness towards the girl and, despite how scary it was to witness, Amity realized that it was genuine. No one had ever stood to protect her. The girl nodded more firmly then. “I trust you.” “I will protect you,” Lilith spoke again, making the promise to both Amity and herself. “Your parents will not lay another finger on you so long as I am breathing, do you understand?” “You can’t promise that,” Amity shook her head. “You can’t always be there, Lilith. I wish you could, but I have to go home eventually.” The child was wise beyond her years and absolutely correct. Unless Lilith uncovered proof of the Blight’s child abuse and endangerment, there truly was very little she could do to protect the girl. She could, of course, continue to sing Amity’s praises to them, but they weren’t operating from a place of logic. If Amity being a well-behaved, perfect student meant anything to them they never would have hurt her, to begin with. Lilith stared down at the girl, lifting her hands to brush pale green hair from her wet face. Amity, despite their nap, looked more exhausted than she had after school. “I believe it is time we get some sleep,” Lilith sighed. “I promise I will do everything in my power to find a solution that protects you, Amity. We cannot resolve this without sleep and rest, though.” “You’re right,” Amity sniffled, swiping at her face with her sleeve. The thought of Lilith helping her caused her heart to squeeze almost painfully. She didn’t understand the feeling. “Let’s go find something for you to wear,” Lilith held out her hand, which Amity gladly took into her own, and lead the girl back to her room. The professor opened her drawers and searched for something comfortable and appropriate. Amity, at just almost fifteen, was quite a bit smaller than her. She found a shirt that was typically form-fitting on herself, the same sleep pants Amity had worn the week before, and some socks from the armoire before turning to face her. The student watched patiently as her professor chose something suitable for her. “Here,” Lilith passed the stack of items to her. “You can wear these if you’d like. I can even toss your clothes in the wash and dry them early tomorrow morning. You’re welcome to change in my bathroom. I need to choose something for myself.” “Okay…thank you, Lilith.” “You’re most welcome,” Lilith smiled as Amity turned to go to her bathroom. Lilith began searching for her own set of pajamas, forcing herself to not obsess over her next steps. She wanted so badly to create a foolproof plan that would bring down Amity’s parents and place Amity in her care, but she knew the odds of something like that appearing out of thin air was thin. She was going to need help. She was going to need to ask Edalyn. Meanwhile, in the bathroom Amity changed into her pajamas, reflecting on everything that happened that evening. She’d only known Lilith for three months and already felt safer with her than with her own family. Lilith was, in Amity’s opinion, beyond generous in welcoming her into her home. The studying, reading, garden, dinner, and fireside cuddles made her never want to leave. She finished dressing and looked around Lilith’s bathroom. The space was almost as big as Amity’s bathroom. There was a deep clawfoot tub and a glass-walled standing shower. The walls were painted white with an evergreen board and batten wrapping around their lower half. The tile on the floor was black and white, each tile printed with an ornate design that matched the ironwood shelving and potted plants. It very accurately reflected the Lilith she had come to know away from school. After using the toilet, the girl looked at herself in the mirror, taking in her somewhat haggard appearance. She pulled her hair down and used Lilith’s brush to fix it. She had cried her eyeliner clean off her eyes, the black ink streaking her cheeks, leaving her eyelids red and raw. Noticeable bags were appearing under her eyes and she resented them as she ran the water to wash her face. When she was finished, her hair was loose, parted on the side, and her skin was clean. She was, on the inside, still a mess, but she felt much better. She stepped out of the bathroom to find Lilith returning from the other room. Lilith explained that she had put away their dishes and put out the candle fires. Amity walked in and Lilith squeezed her shoulder as she passed her and went to change. The teenager, uncertain of where to be, decided to wait in the middle of the room while Lilith changed. When Lilith returned, she took Amity’s clothes from earlier, along with her own, and walked to the hallway to load her washer. She shut any remaining lights off as she walked back to the bedroom. Amity waited patiently, grateful Lilith was going to clean the clothes for her. Lilith now stood with her arms crossed, looking around the room with a bit of uncertainty. She chewed at the inside of her cheek and debated offering her bed to the child for the evening. The guest room had not been fixed up since Amity’s last stay due to her illness and the sheets were still in the dryer. Lilith decided she was content to sleep on the couch, as she’d prefer Amity to get proper rest. “You can sleep here,” Lilith walked over to her bed and pulled the covers back. “I can sleep on the couch. Unfortunately, the sheets from my guest bed have not yet been put back. I do not have extras, though I will get some soon. This is okay, though.” “What? No. What? I can’t sleep in your bed,” Amity was flustered at the proposition. She didn’t want to burden Lilith and knew the witch was still recovering from her injury during the fire. “I truly do not mind,” Lilith patted the bed reassuringly. “It’s one night.” “Lilith…” Amity whined as she walked to the bed.  She climbed in, resting her back against the headboard, and Lilith pulled the sheet and duvet back over her. The professor sat down on the edge of the bed, reaching up to swipe Amity’s loose strands of hair from her freshly washed face. The girl’s eyes flickered around and the older witch realized she was anxious. She withdrew her hands and placed them in her lap, tilting her head to the side. “Will…will you at least stay until I am asleep?” Amity whispered. “I have nightmares.” “Of course,” Lilith nodded, all too familiar with having nightmares. “The bed isn’t exactly small,” Amity whispered then, her bravery overcoming her nerves. “You could just…sleep over there.” “Amity,” Lilith sighed, thinking through the option. “I’m not sure that is entirely appropriate. I am still your teacher, dear. I’m not…” Lilith almost said ‘your mother’ and she caught herself. Her heart broke. “I don’t have to tell anyone,” Amity spoke then and Lilith smiled at her. “Making it a secret would make it explicitly worse,” she chuckled at the thought. She knew there was nothing technically inappropriate occurring between the two of them, but she also knew their culture wasn’t even supportive of parents sharing a bed with their older kids. Teachers were discouraged from even having students in their homes. “I can sleep over there, but it is not a secret. You don't have to announce it to anyone…but there is nothing to hide. You are safe.” Amity nodded, not particularly caring about Lilith’s qualifiers. She didn’t want to sleep in the unfamiliar room all alone. After sleeping outside, she knew very well how comforting Lilith’s presence was. Plus, she didn’t want Lilith to lose any sleep during the process of recovering from depletion. It was important to Amity that if she stay over she not be a burden in any way she could prevent it. Lilith crawled over to the open side of the large bed, grateful to own a king-size. She scooted under the covers, getting comfortable. Amity scooted further under the covers, her head resting fully on the pillows now. Lilith turned to face her, laying on her side with one arm under the pillow and the other resting along her waist. Amity did the same, not expecting to be face-to-face with Lilith once she turned. “Thank you, Lilith,” Amity whispered. “For everything.” “I appreciate your gratitude but no thanks are owed. I am right here if you need anything tonight,” Lilith reassured the student. She resituated so that her arm under the pillow was stretched out to Amity. The girl appreciatively took her hand, comforted by the touch. “Get some rest.” “You too,” the girl yawned. Lilith watched as Amity drifted off into a peaceful slumber. She gently swiped her thumb back and forth on the back of Amity’s hand, acutely aware of how right it felt. She had surprised herself with her maternal instincts that evening. The more she learned about Amity’s past, the less she felt strange and confused about the connection. Amity was very much like Lilith as a child, both at school and in her home life. Lilith had always dreamt of someone swooping in to save her and protect her. Instead, she graduated, moved out, and joined the Emperor’s Coven where the abuse was turned up several notches. It made sense to her that she had such a strong desire to be there for Amity. As she continued to process everything she was learning about Amity’s home life and her past, she became increasingly devoted to keeping Amity out of the coven system altogether. She couldn’t save herself from her own past mistakes, but she could prevent the cycle from continuing through Amity. Lilith desperately wanted to protect her from violence and pain. She wanted Amity to live freely, like Edalyn. Edalyn, though an outlaw with her struggles, had autonomy. She had family and friends. She had a community. Edalyn was, generally, safe and knew she deserved to be safe. Lilith wanted nothing more for Amity. She didn’t care if she had to burn her career to the ground to make it happen. Regardless of what got out about her, about her beliefs, she would not give up on Amity. She knew Belos would not take kindly to her protecting a witchlet from him and that she was treading a very dangerous line by interfering. Part of her knew it was inevitable. The Emperor was not going to cure Edalyn and, even if he did, Lilith wasn’t sure that the coven life was truly better than being a cursed wild witch anymore. She knew that even if Belos killed her, she could leave Amity with Edalyn. Edalyn would protect her. Edalyn would give her the life she deserved. Amity would be freed of her parents and the single track to hell that was joining the Emperor’s Coven. The knot in her stomach dispelled at the thought. She could save her, even if it meant rocking the boat that held her above water. Amity came first. Lilith’s eyes grew heavy and she resigned to sleep, no longer being able to fight it. When Amity opened her eyes, sunlight flooded the bedroom and warmed her fair skin. She stretched, noticing how rested she felt and rolled to her other side. The witch was momentarily startled by the sight of her mentor, Lilith, snoring softly beside her. Lilith looked completely at peace now, unlike the evening before. Her braid had come undone and her wavy blue hair splayed out over her shoulders and pillow. Her expression was serene and the way the sunlight hit her pale skin made her look like a china doll. Amity felt guilty for the strife she’d caused the night before and seeing her mentor so rested was relieving. Not wanting to disrupt Lilith, Amity got comfortable where she was. She reached out to rest her hand on Lilith’s, where it lay stretched out from the evening before. The student had never had anyone care for her the way Lilith, Luz, and Eda did. It had only been a few months since the school year began, with winter just around the corner, and Amity felt closer to the trio than her own family.  Her family. Amity knew her parents would not take her change in plans too kindly. They’d begun to notice a change in her, one she couldn’t pinpoint herself, that year. It was as if they could tell she was being loved and cared for by others. When she stayed late the week before, she faced one of the harshest punishments they’d enforced yet. If she was smarter, she was sure she would end the apprenticeship and stop spending time with any of the Clawthornes. Despite her desire to avoid her mother’s wrath, she wanted this so much more. She wanted a mother like her mentor. Lilith didn’t judge Amity. When she snapped, she would apologize almost immediately and apologize properly. When she was stressed, she would step away and deal with it on her own. She thought about Amity and checked in with her. When Amity needed something, it seemed all she had to do was ask and Lilith was overjoyed to help her. This was so foreign to the young witch. She found it challenging to believe, despite Lilith’s consistency and persistence. It was as if Lilith spoke a different language entirely sometimes. Amity had always excused her parents’ behavior because she knew they faced hardship growing up in the Boiling Isles. Despite their success as Blight Industries, there had been years where they were forced to make sacrifices so they could build a corporation. When the twins were small witchlets, and Amity was a new baby, the financial burden was hefty. They’d struggled so severely because of her existence. Her accidental existence was the reason they punished her so easily now. They never let her forget that. Meanwhile, Lilith was recruited into the Emperor’s Coven as a teenager. The witch moved through the ranks, working tirelessly for what she wanted. She dedicated her entire life to a coven that only hurt her in the end. Her boss, someone who claimed to rule with a gentle hand, left marks all over her body. Amity looked at Lilith’s exposed arm then, moving her hand to trace the scars covering it. Some of the scars were so thick and jagged that Amity was sure the witch must have been in unfathomable amounts of pain. It seemed as though her life was endangered by a job she’d been pushed into as a kid just a few years older than Amity. Still, despite all of the evident pain, Lilith was gentle, warm, and considerate of those around her. The teenager swallowed the lump in her throat as she lay there, tracing the biggest scar gently. Something about the prospect of Emperor Belos harming Lilith twisted her insides in knots. It hadn’t occurred to her that she could lose Lilith in all of this. If the Emperor were to find out about their agreement or become frustrated over any tiny thing, he would take it out on Lilith. The grief welled in Amity’s chest and she found herself wrapping her hand around Lilith’s forearm rather tightly. Lilith’s eyes popped open, two sapphires focusing on Amity with a sleepy curiosity. Her eye flickered down to her arm before meeting Amity’s amber ones again. Amity loosened her grasp, realizing she’d woken her. “Amity?” Lilith’s voice was raspier than usual from sleeping. “Are you okay, dear?” “I…” Amity cleared her throat, annoyed that her emotions seemed to be bubbling over. “I’m scared.” “I won’t let your parents touch you,” Lilith’s face softened as she took Amity’s hand back into her own. “You will be safe today.” “It’s not that,” Amity shook her head. “I…I’m scared for you.” Lilith’s brow pinched together so minutely Amity almost missed it. She wracked her brain, trying to understand what the girl had to be scared of for her. As if she could read her thoughts, Amity reached to trace the large scar again. Ah. “I suppose that is fair,” Lilith wished she had something more comforting to offer Amity. “He doesn’t know anything, though. He won’t find out. You are safe and I am…safe.” Amity heard the uncertainty in her voice regardless of her efforts. The girl, from her own experiences with her parents, knew how it felt to hide behind such a desperate hope for security. Sometimes it felt like she truly believed things would get better and that it would never happen again. She knew it wasn’t likely, but she knew admitting it certainly would didn’t serve her either. The only thing to gain from being completely honest about it was dread and fear. The younger witch sighed. “Is there nothing we can do to stop him?” Amity asked, mostly processing her thoughts out loud. “I don’t understand why you can’t leave. I mean, I understand what he would do. I just…I didn’t know you couldn’t leave. I thought anyone could leave at any time.” “It’s one thing to permit leaving by technicality. It is another thing to permit the opportunity,” Lilith smiled half-heartedly. “I...I hadn’t thought very much about this myself. I think I spent so many years telling myself I technically had a choice that I began to truly believe it. I had to.” “I get it,” Amity nodded, her eyes cast downward. “We will be safe today and we will take it one day at a time after that. We will take it one hour at a time if we have to,” Lilith spoke reassuringly, reaching out to squeeze Amity’s hand where it rested against her arm. “I plan to talk to Edalyn about all of this. Your parents, my job…all of it. If anyone could come up with a plan, it would be my sister.” “You believe that? Like…truly?” “Truly, deeply,” Lilith used her pointer finger to create a cross over her heart. “I do.” “I believe you,” Amity smiled half-heartedly. “Good.” “So, we’re going to a potioneer today?” Amity asked then, remembering the phone call from the night before. “If your heart is set on it,” Lilith winked then. Amity flushed. “I was thinking of perhaps something different. You do not truly need to study harder for your potions class. I said that to your mother to earn her support.” “You sure tell a lot of white lies,” Amity giggled and Lilith rolled her eyes, poking the girl’s stomach. “Only when necessary,” Lilith sighed. “The circumstances necessitate it.” “What would we do instead?” Amity sat up then, becoming much more excited about their morning plans.  She’d been to shadow potioneers more times than she could count and wasn’t particularly thrilled about the idea of spending her Saturday morning with another one. While the potioneer seemed more interesting than working at Blight Industries or volunteering at the library again, Amity truly didn’t want to do any of those things on the weekend. She never really got to do what she wanted on weekends ever. “What would you like to do this morning, Miss Blight?” Lilith asked then, a single eyebrow arching. Amity’s eyes widened. It was as though Lilith was in her mind sometimes. “I don’t know…I’ve never really had Saturdays for what I want,” the student was puzzled by the fact that she’d never thought about what she would want. All she knew was what she didn’t want. “I guess…I don’t know. I feel silly.” “What you want is not silly, Amity,” Lilith gave her a teasing look of disapproval. “You are allowed to want things.” “I want to make pancakes…with berries!” Amity’s cheeks grew hot as she caught herself being honest. She felt so safe with her mentor that she found words slipping out without her permission. “I also want to go for a walk or a hike. I want to practice magic, but for fun. Or practice flying. I want to play games and read and pick fruit in the garden. I have always dreamed of having one of those cozy weekends where I stay in my pajamas, eat breakfast, relax, and even clean.” Lilith watched with fond eyes as Amity seemed lost in the thought of doing all the things she listed. It was extremely disappointing to learn that a simple weekend at home in her pajamas was nothing but a dream for the young girl. As hard as her childhood had been, Lilith had that. Lilith’s parents would travel often, leaving her and Edalyn to tend to the home together. All of her favorite memories were born during her weekends with Eda. They too stayed in their pajamas, ate good food, explored, and played. This was a monthly constant for Lilith until she had been recruited. “We will do as much of that as possible,” Lilith sat up and reached out to gently press her hand to Amity’s cheek, her thumb grazing the girl’s cheekbone. She pulled her hand back, placing it on Amity’s shoulder. “We will start with breakfast. I have berries from the garden we can use. We can read for a while, if you’d like, or go out on a bit of exploration. I know a spot that would be perfect for practicing some of your spells. You could even fly Revali if you so desire.” “Really?” Amity’s glassy eyes lit up at the offer. “Truly,” Lilith smiled warmly, relieved to see so much joy in the student's expression. “When will I go home?” “I was planning to pay a visit to your parents in the early afternoon,” Lilith’s loving expression sobered a bit. “I would like to have a chat with them.” “Can we make breakfast now?” Amity asked, her stomach gurgling. She didn’t want to think about the conversation Lilith planned to have with her parents. “I believe that is a great plan,” Lilith nodded, standing and stretching her full body. Amity stood, mimicking the professor, who looked down at her with a smirk. Before Amity could ask what she was thinking, the professor jogged to the door. “Last one in the kitchen gets the burnt pancake!” “Hey! That’s so not fair!” Amity took off after her. “I have shorter legs!” — “The saying is true, you snooze, you lose,” Lilith’s voice was teasing as she passed a plate with a single charred pancake towards Amity at the kitchen island. “I am not eating this,” Amity grimaced, pushing the plate away from herself. “How did you know you were going to burn one? Did you do this on purpose?” “It’s the rule when making pancakes. There is always a dud,” Lilith explained poking the ugly pancake with her spatula. “Either the heat is too high upon beginning and it burns, or it is too low and it is undercooked. Sometimes I managed to do both! I tend to burn more than undercook, personally. I’ve learned to set realistic expectations when making them, I suppose.” “Huh,” Amity reached out to poke the pancake, surprised by how mushy it felt beneath its solid skin. She shivered. “Please don’t make me eat this.” “I would never,” Lilith chuckled, pulling the plate back with a spell circle. She levitated the pancake and dropped it in the trash before returning to the griddle. She tenderly began flipping the other pancakes, revealing perfectly cooked golden backsides. “See? These are much better.” Amity watched with curiosity as her professor flipped each one at just the right time. At the Blight home, they had a staff to manage things like cooking. The girl had never made pancakes before. A bit of jealousy filled her as she observed Lilith’s comfort in the kitchen. The older witch moved around with grace, knowing exactly how much of each ingredient was needed and exactly where it resided when she needed it. She was at home in her kitchen. Amity wasn’t even at home while at home. Lilith moved the cakes from the griddle, turning it off in the process. They were piled on top of each other on a ceramic plate. She pulled 2 syrups from the fridge, one she said was made of berries from her garden as well. Amity watched with hungry eyes, her hands resting on the smaller plate she would be eating off of. The pancakes looked perfect. Lilith held out the large plate for Amity to pull several cakes from. “Eat as much as you like, okay? No martyrdom in my house,” Lilith reminded her, placing several on her plate while eyeing Amity’s.  “Martyrdom? What’s martyrdom?” Amity’s ear twitched at the word she’d never heard. “Well, a martyr is someone who is killed for their religious beliefs, often in a sacrificial way,” Lilith explained, the teacher excited by Amity’s natural curiosity. “Colloquially, a martyr is someone who chooses to suffer for a principle. While there are times it is appropriate, now is not one of them.” “I think I get it,” Amity nodded, digesting the information as she doused her pancakes in the berry syrup. “Does that make Eda a martyr?” “What?” Lilith coughed, momentarily choking on her pancake. “Luz said Eda is cursed,” Amity explained and Lilith’s eyes widened. The student began to backtrack, realizing she must have said something she wasn’t supposed to. “I’m sorry. I assumed you knew given how Luz talked about it so openly. I’ll shut up now.” “No, no,” Lilith shook her head, taking a sip of the apple blood in front of her. “I know about the curse. I apologize for my reaction. I suppose I didn’t expect Luz to know about it.” “Oh yeah,” Amity shrugged. “I guess when Luz moved in, Eda turned into the owl beast during her first boiling rain. Luz had to find her elixir because she was trapped in the house with her. That was when Luz learned to use glyphs for the first time. It’s kinda cool, actually.” Lilith felt her stomach churn at the story. She knew Edalyn was cursed, of course. She was the one who cursed her. She didn’t know she was still struggling with transforming into the owl beast. It hadn’t occurred to her that the other witch’s curse would impact her child either. Lilith already deeply regretted cursing her, but this opened her eyes to just how heavily Eda was impacted. Even outside of the coven system, Eda faced a struggle Lilith would never fully understand or be able to predict. This was all Lilith’s fault and such knowledge caused an ache deep in her bones she couldn’t shake. “I can stop talking now,” Amity picked up on Lilith’s nerves and Lilith shook her head. “You asked if Eda is a martyr?” Lilith asked, her smile a bit strained as she redirected the conversation. “I just thought…she’s suffering from her curse despite knowing you said Emperor Belos would heal her. She doesn’t support the coven system. That is her principle. She’s choosing to suffer because of that principle,” Amity explained further, hoping the elaboration would put her professor at ease somehow. She wasn’t sure what her professor was upset about, to begin with. “You are right. That is martyrdom,” Lilith cleared her throat, leaning back from her plate and clasping her hands in her lap. “I will say that this is one of the times I believe martyrdom is appropriate. I…used to resent Eda for her beliefs. I believed the Emperor would help me should I prove my worth. It has almost been two decades now and he has shown no inclination to help. She was right about the coven system all along. She saw through all of it.” Lilith had never said these thoughts out loud but they had been brewing for over a week. It was impressive but unsurprising to her that Edalyn had been right all along. The younger witch had always been incredibly gifted with intelligence and skill. While Lilith was jealous of her sister’s ability to see through the manipulation, she was also deeply relieved. Outside of the way her decisions harmed Eda, the witch was safe. She was safe and she knew she was making the right decision. Lilith had never felt the kind of certainty her younger sister was born embracing. “That’s why you joined the coven?” Amity asked, curiosity beating her urge to put a sock in it. She had always wondered about Lilith’s motivation for joining the Emperor’s coven. It was the coven for the elite, of course. Most witches, nevertheless, had their reasons for pursuing it over a specialty. “That is why I stayed. I clung to the idea Emperor Belos would help me. I chased the moving target that was my worth in the coven all the way to the very top,” Lilith shook her head at her own naivety. “I joined because I wanted to be of the elite. I wanted to keep all of my magic. I wanted to be as liberated as possible without being banned like my sister. When I tried out, we planned on joining together. I thought we would be together.” “Do you feel sad that you ended up so…not liberated?” Amity tilted her head to the side, taking in all of the new information with grace. Her stomach did a little flip at the thought of a younger Lilith losing her sister to such an isolating coven track. “I feel many things about it,” Lilith looked down at her plate. The food was no longer appetizing to her. “I wish I had known the truth, of course. I also know I am protecting someone else by not running. If I weren’t head of the Emperor’s Coven…someone else would be.” “Now that’s martyrdom,” Amity shook her head at the remark and Lilith looked up, shocked by the girl’s spark. The mentor let out a hearty laugh, surprising the child. Amity was far smarter than even her professor could often see. She had been a martyr. Working her way up to the very top, where she never truly longed to stay, tolerating forms of abuse she could never speak of, and for what? She didn’t have the recognition she sought in her youth and she didn’t have the cure for Eda’s curse. Instead, she was in a bind she was somewhat sure she would never get out of and teetering a fine line. She was isolated and in pain. She was, by near exact definition, a martyr. “I suppose Edalyn and I are two sides of the same coin. How about that?” Lilith smiled, standing to toss the remaining food on her plate. “That’s enough of this heavy talk. I am going to dry your things, clean up, and get ready to go explore. If you’d like, you can clean up in my bathroom after I am done.” Amity nodded, still picking at her pancakes and toying with the massive amount of information she had just learned about her ever-so-mysterious mentor. — When the witches were washed up and dressed, Lilith summoned Revali and they made their way to the front of the property together. She locked up the place using her protective charms before situating her staff so that Amity could climb on. The younger witch straddled it, and Lilith could see the way her nervous hands were shaking. Amity had flown on her own a few times, but never with such a nice staff and never as far as they were going. Lilith offered to fly one more time, knowing that Amity would have to clear quite a few trees and make a tricker landing than she had practiced before. The younger witch, ever-determined to succeed, declined her offer. “I will be right here,” Lilith situated herself so that she was side straddle behind Amity. She placed her right hand on Amity’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “You will steer this time, but if something happens or you don’t want to anymore, I can take over.” “I can do this,” Amity spoke, mostly to herself. “You can do this,” the older witch confirmed. The staff slowly rose into the air, only shaky for a few moments. Lilith kept one hand on Amity’s shoulder, her left hand bracing the back of the staff. As they elevated, she watched her cottage become smaller and smaller until they were so far above the trees it looked like a model house. Amity began to fly towards the woods, taking Lilith’s directions with grace. They approached a large clearing further into the woods and the student’s heart pounded in her chest at the prospect of landing. She held her breath, only to stop when Lilith squeezed her shoulder again and reminded her to breathe. With her professor’s instruction, she was able to complete a relatively smooth landing. This surprised her and relieved Lilith. The moment her feet hit the ground, she let out a delighted squeal. She couldn’t believe she did it without any trouble. “You did a lovely job,” Lilith smoothed out the black dress she wore as she stood and held her staff to her side. She looked at the student with sparkling eyes and Amity felt her cheeks grow hot again. “Thank you,” she looked around then, scanning the beautiful clearing they’d landed in. The grass was beginning to shift from a bright green to a paler yellow hue, contrasting beautifully with a stream of running water that cut through the side of the clearing. Colorful leaves trickled down the stream, each one of nature’s thoughts  floating in and away. Beautiful, tall trees surrounded them, the sounds of various critters harmonizing in the background. There were a few large rocks and shrubbery, perfectly placed to tie it all together. The space was idyllic and looked like something from the cover of one of The Good Witch Azura books. “This…this spot is beautiful.” “It’s my secret favorite,” Lilith smiled kindly and Amity’s heart did a flip at the prospect of being in on a secret favorite. Lilith and Amity began practicing spells. Amity made a point that she wanted more practice with her abomination work, which was not one of Lilith’s favorites, but she was not surprised given Amity’s father. The girl was very gifted in abomination work and was at least two years ahead of her expected developmental stage when it came to her work. Lilith helped her conjure a larger abomination with fewer resources than usual, something Amity had been frustrated with. When her abomination resources were collected in a cauldron, summoning the beast was incredibly simple. It was a much bigger challenge when she had to conjure one from next to nothing. The girl had to be much more grounded and focused. The older witch was incredibly impressed by her protege’s work. They sparred a bit, Lilith extra careful to go easier on Amity, who put up a nearly fair fight. She could see the child was growing tired, but she wanted to let Amity be in control of how long she practiced. So much of Amity’s life was outside of her control and Lilith wanted to support her in learning to connect with her own needs and boundaries. “Can…can we take a break?” Amity let out a large breath and Lilith smiled, glad to see Amity do just that. “Of course, dear,” Lilith walked over to the stream and siphoned some of the water into a spell circle. She already knew the water to be clean and safe from her explorations. The witch created a smaller ball of water and plopped into her mouth, sighing at the pleasant sensation of rehydrating. “Whoa,” Amity watched with wide eyes. “I want to do that!” “Here,” Lilith crouched down and Amity followed her lead. Lilith took Amity’s hand into hers to guide her spell circle, reminding her to be intentional. The water began to funnel out of the stream and towards the girl. Amity, anxious about the new spell, giggled nervously. With her attention divided, the spell went haywire and she effectively sprayed her professor with the cool water. Her heart sunk as Lilith pulled her hand back, looking at the girl with wide eyes, her mouth agape. “I’m so so-” Lilith shot water back at the girl before she could apologize, earning a second squeal. The two witches played in the water, both enjoying how quickly it cooled them. Lilith stopped, however, when she noticed Amity beginning to shiver. The fall water was indeed quite chilly. When they’d been sweating from their sparring, the chill felt pleasant. Now, as they cooled off, it was almost painful. She cast another spell, pulling the water particles from both of their clothes, faces, and hair. Amity watched, intrigued by her professor’s perfect abilities. “I cannot wait to be able to use magic as you do,” Amity sighed, rubbing her upper arms in an attempt to warm up. “You will be before you know it,” Lilith approached Amity and removed her cloak, draping it over Amity’s shoulders. “You are progressing very quickly.” “You don’t have to-” Amity began but the professor shook her head, the corners of her lips turning upward ever so slightly. “It’s growing late,” Lilith sighed, glancing at the sun. Midday was surpassing them quickly. “I should probably feed you and return you to your family.” Your family. The reminder sent a sharp pain through the student, who happily pretended Lilith was her family for the majority of that day. She swallowed her anxiety, her stomach twisting in aggressive knots. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to untangle them. Not able to shake the dizzy feeling that crept up into her skull, Amity quietly asked if Lilith could fly the staff. “Of course,” Lilith’s expression was full of concern as she summoned Revali and stationed the staff. Seeing Amity’s gleeful expression shift so rapidly to disappointment tugged at Lilith’s heart. She knew what she was sending the girl home to. Yet, she truly had no choice in the matter. She couldn’t kidnap the child. Even if she decided to, Emperor Belos would take notice and that was out of the question. At least in her own home, Amity would grow up and be free to leave eventually. In just a little over half a year the witchlet would be allowed to sign on to a full apprenticeship with Lilith and work with her full-time. It was becoming less common, but witchlets used to move in with their mentors in such circumstances. Lilith froze then, the idea alarmingly simple to her. It had not occurred to her that Amity would soon be old enough to emancipate herself and work under Lilith full-time. She had been so fraught with what she learned about Amity’s home life that she wasn’t thinking clearly. The spark of hope caused a small smile to begin to play on Lilith's lips. She did not want to send Amity home, and yet at least she had this to hold onto. “Uh, Lilith?” Amity asked, watching her professor, who had checked out fully. “Apologies, darling,” Lilith shook her head as if to clear the thoughts that fogged her vision.  Amity watched with one brow perked up as Lilith climbed onto the staff, fully straddling it. She patted the front, a gesture Amity was growing increasingly familiar with, and the student climbed on in front of her. Lilith reached out to wrap the cloak more tightly around Amity, knowing the wind from the flight would likely feel extra cold. The student blushed at her professor’s thoughtfulness, trying not to become overwhelmed by the sensation of being completely immersed in Lilith’s embrace. Placing two hands in front of Amity’s, Lilith swiftly raised the staff and the two began flying back towards the town. — After eating a brief lunch and collecting Amity’s school things, the two witches returned to the staff and took off toward Amity's home. Lilith found her grip tightening around the witchlet, as if her nervous system was physically resisting letting go. When they landed in front of the manor, she carefully stepped off of the staff only to find Amity frozen. The professor reached out to squeeze her shoulder, but the gesture didn’t pull Amity from wherever her mind had disappeared to. “Amity,” Lilith walked around so that she was facing the girl, who remained seated on Revali as if she were planning to take off at any second. “Sweetheart, you will not be going in alone.” “I don’t want to go in at all,” Amity whispered, her small voice cracking. Lilith sighed. “I know, I do,” Lilith was all-too-familiar with the prospect of fearing her own home. “I will go in with you. I will speak to your parents.” “They’re going to be so mad,” Amity looked up at Lilith with shimmering, tearful eyes. Her cheeks were pink and her breathing was growing increasingly quicker. “I don’t know if you understand.” “Unfortunately, I believe I do,” Lilith offered the girl a sad, half-smile. “Please. I do not have a choice. I would take you with me in a heartbeat if it wouldn’t lead to the end of our apprenticeship.” The mention of putting their apprenticeship at risk seemed to do the trick. Amity emitted a shaky sigh and stepped off of Revali. Lilith unclasped the cloak Amity had been wearing, wrapping it back around her own shoulders. Amity’s body shivered at the loss of the warmth, the change quite symbolic of how she felt emotionally in that moment. Together, they approached the massive doors and Lilith reached up to knock using the door knocker. The door slowly opened not too long later, an abomination posing as a butler on the other side. The pair of witches stepped in together, Lilith just slightly ahead of Amity as if to protect her from any sudden attacks. They stepped into the foyer just as a familiar teenager with long, darker green hair and golden eyes came bounding down the large staircase. Lilith recognized the half of the older blight twins to be Emira blight. “Oh, hey Mittens,” the older sibling offered her sister a distant smile, her eyes flickering back and forth between the younger teenager and Lilith. “Uh…” “Lilith Clawthorne,” Lilith reached out, offering Emira a pale hand to shake. The teenager awkwardly shook it, her eyes wide as she connected the dots. “Head of the Emperor’s Coven and Amity’s mentor.” “Whoa,” Emira let out a breath of surprise, which Lilith found intriguing but did not question out loud. “Uh, not to be rude, Head Covenness, but I don’t believe we were expecting you?” “I was hoping to have a chat with Odalia and Alador, actually,” Lilith offered a strained smile, feeling her political persona revving up.  The older teenager nodded curtly, offering to retrieve the couple. “Amity, I wonder if it would be best for you to go to your room while I talk to your parents,” Lilith turned to the girl, leaning into a slight crouch so that she was at her eye level. The older witch reached out to tuck a stray strand of mint-colored hair behind Amity’s pointed ear. “I don’t want to let you go,” Amity whispered and, unable to resist the urge, Lilith held out her arms. Amity accepted the embrace, leaning into Lilith’s tight hug. “I will speak to your parents and I will have to leave. If you need absolutely anything at all, you have my number on your scroll. Call me at any time and I will answer. In an emergency, you know where my home is and you know you will be safe with my protection charms,” She whispered all of this to the girl, squeezing her so tightly she almost feared it would hurt her. Amity, however, did not protest. “In fact, I would love it if you would text me and let me know how you are after I leave.” “Okay,” Amity whispered, squeezing Lilith with all her might. “My brave girl,” Lilith sighed, her chest tight as she accidentally voiced her thoughts. My girl. The words felt natural to the witch. “You promise you will answer?” Amity stepped back then, her hands in Lilith’s. “I promise,” Lilith let go at the sound of incoming footsteps. “Please. Go to your room. Stay with Emira or Edric.” Lilith wondered then if the girl was safe with her older siblings. She hadn’t said too much about them in their months working together. The twins were about four years older than Amity and attending a university now. They no longer lived at home full-time and were both preparing to work for Blight Industries in a few years. It was entirely possible they were victims of the abuse as well. However, unfortunately, it was also possible the Blight parents had pinned Amity as their scapegoat and only targeted her. Lilith made a mental note to ask about them later as Amity walked past her, glancing back one more time, and jogged up the massive staircase. “Ah,” Odalia expressed, her voice an unusually high pitch. Lilith was familiar with the superficial tone. “I was not expecting a visit from the Head of the Emperor’s Coven tonight. To what do I owe the pleasure?” “I wanted to see to it that Amity made it home safe and sound,” Lilith straightened her posture, squaring her shoulders as she walked to meet Odalia in the middle of the room. “I know it is unexpected, but I was hoping for a brief audience with you and Mr. Blight.” “I see,” Odalia’s eyes narrowed at the other witch, indecisiveness clear in her expression. “I suppose that will have to do. Come along, Covenness.” Lilith followed the witch to the large, open living room across the way. Alador Blight, Amity’s brunette father, sat with his ankle propped on his knee, a newspaper spread in his hands. He didn’t look up at the other two witches at first, his eyes focused. Lilith waited, resisting her own impatience, as Odalia got his attention and he resituated, putting his newspaper to the side. “Blight Industries is quite busy, Covenness,” Alador stood, bowing his head. His gesture was an attempt to placate the witch, but his words gave away his true feelings. They were not Amity’s parents in their minds – they were an industry. “I am surprised you, of all the witches of the Isles, would drop in so suddenly.” “As Miss Blight’s mentor, I suppose I found it would not be inappropriate to seek a conference with her parents,” Lilith spoke carefully, rage simmering in her gut. “If you are too busy,” her eyes flickered towards the newspaper. “I suppose we could schedule.” “Now will have to do,” Alador sighed, catching her glance as he gestured to something behind her. Odalia briefly walked away and Lilith resisted the urge to turn around to see where she went. “What is it you would like to discuss? Surely Amity has not blown her apprenticeship already.” Odalia returned shortly, holding out a glass half filled with a beverage from the night market for her husband. He nodded at her, accepting it. They stood in front of Lilith, blatantly not offering her something to drink. They hoped their hostile demeanor would be enough to get the witch back out the door quickly. When Lilith did not back down, they sighed in unison and offered her a seat on one of their wing-backed chairs. They sat down on the main couch, their postures stiff and their expressions blank. “Miss Blight is excelling in her work,” Lilith swallowed the venomous words she wanted to respond to Alador’s remark with. “It has been thrilling to watch her hard work pay off as she has taken massive strides in her learning.” — Amity sat on the stairs, her ears perking up at the sound of her parents talking to her professor. She held her breath, listening closely as her father accused her of blowing her apprenticeship already. He always assumed the worst in her and made that very well-known. “Miss Blight is excelling in her work,” Lilith’s voice was far colder than Amity had gotten used to as she spoke proudly of Amity’s abilities. “It has been thrilling to watch her hard work pay off as she has taken massive strides in her learning.” “I simply don’t understand what you see,” Amity heard her mother chide, her cheeks growing hot. “The girl is so…distractible. You don’t believe you would be better off seeking a mentee who can achieve greatness?” Amity had expected her parents' cruelty, but the words still cut into her like razors. The thought of Lilith choosing another mentor was crushing. She had already been reassured but the fear still dangled in front of her. It was no wonder given her parents' perspective of her. “Miss Blight is the furthest thing from distractible,” Lilith’s voice was ferocious, biting back at Amity’s mother’s remark. Amity’s eyes widened. She was shocked by the venom that filled Lilith’s typically lovely voice. “She is dedicated, intelligent, creative, and a wonderful mentee. Next year, when she’s ready, she will make a brilliant full-time apprentice.” The words shook Amity to her core. She knew Lilith expressed not wanting another mentee, but neither of them had discussed Amity becoming her full-time apprentice. The girl had dreamed of it, allowing visions of the potential outcome to soothe her to sleep each night. Hearing Lilith say it, when she believed Amity was not listening, was validating and exciting to the young witch. She couldn’t begin to guess what she did to earn such loving words from Lilith, but she allowed them to wrap around her in the same way the professor’s cloak had earlier in the day. Lilith’s words felt like a security blanket. The parents and Lilith continued to squabble, and Amity felt a familiar pressure begin to rise in her chest. It had been weeks since she had used one of her razors to harm herself. Unable to sit still, despite wanting nothing more than to continue eavesdropping, the girl ran up the stairs to her room.  Once in her massive bedroom, she began running around and gathering her things. She pulled out a duffel bag and began stuffing clothing, books, and anything else she deemed important into it. She was surprised by the lack of things she wanted to take with her. Despite having so much space and so much to fill it, none of it felt like home to Amity. Her professor’s guest bathroom felt more like home to her at that point. In such a desperate hurry, she failed to hear her door creak as it opened behind her. “Wow, what’s going on here?” Edric’s deep voice startled the girl, earning a yelp in response. She jumped in place, turning to see the twins' watchful, curious expressions. They were both looking at the bag, trying to understand what exactly Amity was doing. The green-haired witches were surprised to find Amity’s door unlocked as they were used to her locking it behind herself. Only their parents had a key to bypass it. When they heard Amity’s mentor arguing with her parents, they sought the girl out, their curiosity overwhelming them. Neither of them knew the girl had been partnered with the second most powerful witch in the Isles for her apprenticeship and they were excited. The sound of the arguing, however, was extremely concerning. “Get out,” Amity hissed, walking over to physically push them out. The taller twins didn’t budge, both of them crossing their arms then. “And be quiet!” “We’re not allowed to ask where you’re going?” Emira rolled her eyes at Amity’s reaction. “No,” Amity, zipped the bag and tossed it over her shoulder. “You’re not.” “Mittens,” Edric sighed, craning his neck so he could glance out into the hallway before stepping further into the room. “Are you sure this is a good idea? You know they’re already mad you were away on a Saturday. Maybe you should stay and wait the weekend out.” “Easy for you to say,” Amity walked to the window and slid it open, preparing to escape. The twins never faced the same punishments as Amity and they knew it. They’d witnessed enough to share some of Amity’s fear of Odalia and Alador. The idea of her making a run for it would leave them to face their parents’ wrath. They knew their parents would never do to them what they did to Amity, but that didn’t mean they wanted to experience the anger either. “At least tell us where you’re going,” Emira sighed, concern filling her voice. “I can’t tell you because they can use magic and force you to tell them,” Amity explained and the twins knew she was right. “I am going to be fine…I just…I can’t do this. I can’t be here when she leaves. I’m not okay.” “Will you…will you at least send one of us a text when you get somewhere safe? Even a thumbs up,” Emira bit her bottom lip, glancing nervously between the window and Amity’s door. She didn’t want her sister to suffer at the hands of her parents, but she feared what could happen to her if she made it to the wrong part of the Boiling Isles. The realm of witches and demons was not exactly butterflies and rainbows. “I won’t tell.” “Yeah, I can do that,” Amity nodded, feeling her scroll weigh heavily in her pocket. She knew she would need to turn it off to prevent her parents from tracking her but was willing to say anything to get past her protective older siblings. “Okay,” Edric nodded, deciding to come up with a plan. “I’ll stay here and watch your door. Emira will watch the front door from the stairs. Be careful out there, Mittens. Really.” Amity nodded and carefully slid out through the opening in the window. Emira walked up behind her, whispering her well wishes before quietly sliding the window shut. She turned and offered her brother a stern nod before turning off the light and making her way down the stairs. She’d never been strong enough to properly protect her little sister against her parents' power, but helping her escape one punishment for a weekend of reprieve was the least she could do. She could handle the consequences for Amity this time. Amity took off into the woods, not even glancing back as she knew she needed to get to her destination as quickly as possible. “Lil- Covenness , that is enough ,” Alador let out an angry sigh, tired of whatever game Lilith seemed to be playing with them. “My abomination will show you to the door.” “We are truly delighted Amity seems to be succeeding as a student,” Odalia’s voice was sharp as she stood, her expression bitter. “If only the girl could offer the same promise as a Blight.” Lilith resisted the urge to physically assault the couple as she followed the abomination to the front door ahead of them. She glanced at the stairs, where Emira now sat with her chin in her hands. The older teen offered Lilith a sheepish smile, her expression appearing nervous. Something about the interaction felt off to the older witch. Lilith bowed her head once, silently acknowledging the girl, before stepping out the front door. “Goodnight, Head Covenness,” Lilith’s eyes remained on Emira as the door came to a firm close in her face. Something about the older teenage witch’s expression struck a chord with her. She couldn’t place the emotions it evoked. “Where is she?” Odalia’s voice hissed on the other side of the door and Lilith swore to herself, pulling out her staff to begin taking off.  It seemed her plan went somewhat as she expected. The Blights did not care for Amity’s academic performance and had no interest in Lilith’s praise. The entire flight home her mind raced for an answer, not taking in any of her surroundings as it had done on her way to the manor. She actively resisted the persistent urge to turn around, sweep Amity up, and fly as far away as possible. The hatred these parents held for their entirely loveable little girl was incredibly distressing for Lilith to witness. Flashes of Amity’s arms echoed in her mind. She found herself unable to resist any longer and promptly zipped back towards the Blights without a plan. She needed reassurance that Amity was safe. Waiting eight months for a full-time apprenticeship no longer soothed her as she approached Blight manor. Her feet landed on the front porch and she turned to rapidly knock on the door again, her heart pounding loudly in her chest. “Oh, Head Covenness,” Edric answered the door now, his voice significantly deeper than the last time Lilith had seen him at a covention several years prior. “Uh…did you forget something?” “ Where is she?” Odalia’s shrill voice called from inside the house. “Where the hell did she go?” “What is going on?” Lilight felt her stomach twist violently. She had to swallow to keep her lunch down.  “Amity…may have left,” Edric whispered and Lilith’s eyes widened. “They don’t know. Well, they’re learning. They don’t know she’s gone gone though.” “Where. Did. She. Go?” Lilith hissed, holding up a threatening finger. The older Blight child paled and held his hands up as if to surrender. “You think she’d tell me knowing any one of you could force it out with a truth spell? No way,” he shook his head. “I may have…watched the door. All I know is she packed a bag and went out the window.” “Lilith?” Odalia dropped all pretenses when she rounded the corner then. “This is a family matter and you must go now .” “We need to find her!” Lilith barked back, causing Edric to startle. “Kids sneak out, they come back,” Alador groaned, walking in and placing a hand on Odalia’s shoulder as if to ground her. “Amity is doing nothing other than revealing her true colors. I’m sure she will return when she realizes there is nowhere for her to go.” “You’re right,” Odalia stiffened, attempting to regain composure. “You have no idea where she is?” Lilith asked one more time, glancing between Edric and Emira. They shook their heads in perfect unison. She could see in their eyes that they shared her concern but feared their parents, much like Amity. The Blights closed the door in Lilith’s face for a second time that night. The witch, no longer able to contain herself, let out a pained scream as she mounted her staff again. She whipped around to the back side of the house, her eyes scanning the grounds for anything that could give Amity away. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary. Lilith called out the younger witch’s name, projecting her voice as much as possible. The sight of an abomination stepping out the back door set off alarms in her head. The Blights did not want her staying beyond her welcome. She took off into the trees, pulling out her scroll to check her messages. Nothing. Lilith: Amity, I need you to call me right now. Lilith: Please. The messages were not marked as delivered. Either Amity shut off her phone or she had no signal. Either way, the witchlet was not getting the messages and certainly not sending any of her own as she promised. Lilith continued flying through the trees, her eyes searching for a pop of mint green or ivory skin. Her heart thumped haggardly in her chest, threatening to escape her ribs. She knew Amity was afraid to go home, but the thought of Amity leaving had not crossed Lilith’s mind. Amity was such a…rule-follower. The thought crossed Lilith’s mind then that Amity may have returned to her cottage. Split between continuing to search the woods and returning to check her home, Lilith sighed and swore she would return if her house was empty. — “ Luz , it’s about time to wind down, kiddo,” Eda called from where she watched a drama on her crystal ball. Luz hollered something unintelligible and the older witch smirked, shaking her head. That child sure is a night owl , Eda thought to herself. The pun made her chuckle. A soft knocking at the door startled her and the witch sat up suddenly. With Luz already home, she couldn’t think of anyone who would visit. Eda quickly summoned her staff, creeping towards the front door to take a peep outside. Hooty, the house demon who protected them, appeared to be snoring on the job. The hazel-eyed witch glanced through the side window and was alarmed to see her sister’s apprentice, Amity, on the other side. “Whoa, hey, Baby Blight,” Eda opened the door, tilting her head to the side with curiosity. The teenage witch stood before her with a duffel bag over her shoulder. She was wringing her own hands and chewing her bottom lip, the anxiety radiating out of her and into Eda’s space in waves. Her eyes were tired and her clothes were wrinkled. Something was wrong.  The worst-case scenario crossed Eda’s mind then and she paled. “Is Lilith okay?” “Oh! Yes,” Amity nodded certainly. “I…I was wondering if I could stay over with Luz tonight? I won’t be a bother, I promise.” “I…does Lilith know you’re here?” Eda glanced around, half expecting her overprotective older sister to be hanging around nearby. It seemed odd to her that Lilith hadn’t offered her so much as a head’s up. The witch was known to meddle. “She’s not my mom,” Amity spat then, surprised by her own volition. She wanted Lilith to be her mom, but the truth was too painful to ignore. “I mean…yes. Of course, yes. I told her I was coming. I just…I was hoping to see Luz.” “Okay, well…if you’re sure, I guess,” Eda stepped out of the way, suspicion loud in the back of her mind as Amity walked past her. “I am,” the girl stepped into the Owl House, looking around with curious eyes. “Hey, Luz!” Eda closed the door behind Amity. The human teenager was already on the stairs, gasping at the sight of her newest friend in her living room. “Amity!” Luz ran over and hugged Amity and the paler witch appeared to relax instantly. Eda watched the two embrace each other, feeling a warmth flood her. Her sister’s mentee and her kid were very close and that thought flooded her system with joy. Despite Lilith’s position as Head Covenness, and Eda’s adamant belief that the coven system was a sham, the witch still found herself lying awake at night and grieving the future they’d once planned to share. Things were different than planned, but she felt as if this was the closest thing to their daughters befriending each other. “Can we talk upstairs?” Amity glanced at Eda, reminding the older witch of her previous suspicions. “Is that okay?” “Duh,” Luz laughed, brushing it off. “You can use my sleeping bag! I still have it from when I came here.” Eda watched, her arms crossed, as the girls walked up the stairs together. Amity glanced nervously over her shoulder, blushing when she caught the older witch’s watchful eyes. That was enough to set off more alarms for the older witch. She waited until she heard Luz’s door shut to go into the bathroom and press her ear to the wall, effectively invading the girls’ privacy. “I had to get out of there,” Baby Blight spoke quietly, causing Eda to strain to listen. “They were so mad.” “I didn’t know it was like that,” Luz sighed, her voice sounding sad even through the wall. Eda’s heart softened at the sound of her kid’s empathetic voice. She was so proud of Luz. “I can’t go back,” Amity’s voice caught Eda’s attention again. “No one knows where I am. You don’t think Eda will reach out to my parents, do you?” “Pfft, Eda? Nah,” Luz reassured her and Eda rolled her eyes at the girl’s dismissiveness. She most certainly was considering contacting the Blights. If Amity’s parents didn’t know where she was they could take legal action against Eda for harboring her. They had a lot of power. Luz spoke again then, pulling Eda from her reverie. “I think you should tell her though. Eda is really understanding and cool. I think if you’re honest she won’t mind helping.” “I’m too scared,” Amity whimpered, shocking Eda. She did not understand their conversation without context. “Can we tell her together?” Luz asked and Eda quickly stepped into the hallway and snuck back to the couch, waiting for the girls to come down together.  She was relieved she had raised a kid who trusted her. She had entered Luz’s teenage years fearing the secrecy and drama. Instead, her kid came to her when something was up. Luz was perfect. While Eda knew some of it was her parenting, she also understood a lot of Luz’s behavior was the product of who she truly was on the inside. This was why Luz did so well despite where she came from and how much she faced in the human realm. Just a few moments later, Luz and Amity sat on the couch while Eda sat cross-legged on one of her plush chairs, her arms crossed. Luz sat close to Amity, their hands tightly interlocked between them. Eda wanted to gush over the gesture but refused to put away her hard exterior until she got context and answers. Luz glanced nervously between Amity and Eda before sighing. “Eda,” Luz spoke carefully. “Amity needs you to be understanding right now, okay?” The corner of Eda’s lips turned up then. Luz was very skilled at stating her needs before sharing information, something Eda had taught her a few years back. It made conversations much more productive between the two of them as they were practiced in asking for what they needed. No one was expected to read the other’s mind and everyone knew what to expect emotionally from what was to come. Eda nodded curtly before sighing and deciding to go with it. With how much trust Luz was extending to her, it felt only appropriate she return the expression. “My…my parents don’t actually know I’m here,” Amity squeezed her eyes shut tightly, her face scrunching up. “Neither does Lilith.” “ Kid ,” Eda sighed but silenced when Luz shot her a sharp glance. Understanding, got it , she thought. “She didn’t tell anyone because they’re…they’re hurting her, Ma,” Luz spoke, her own eyes welling with tears.  Eda’s heart dropped into her abdomen at the realization and the sound of Luz calling her “Ma.” The teenager didn’t use the word often, seeming to reserve it for when she felt particularly vulnerable or afraid. It hadn’t occurred to her that something like this was going on. While Alador and Odalia were far from pleasant in school, they didn’t come across as particularly sadistic or anti-children. They were regular fat cats with an agenda centering nothing other than financial success and accolades. Lilith’s mind thought back to what Luz said to her then, processing each word carefully. “Lilith hurt you?” Eda reeled then, realizing Luz said “they’re” without clarification. “No!” Amity’s eyes sprung open, her face red. “No! Oh no, no! Lilith is nothing but kind. I didn’t…I didn’t tell her because I knew she would not be okay with me running off. She told me I needed to go home after I spent the night at her house last night. She knew she could get in trouble if I stayed too long. I knew that if she knew, she’d react and they’d find a way to punish her.” “Slow down,” Eda cautioned, seeing Amity begin to spin out in a panic. “I’m sorry, I would find it hard to believe Lilith would hurt you but I had to be sure. Your parents…they’re hurting you?” The teenager rolled up her sleeves then, exposing the bruises of varying hues from purple to brown. Eda hissed at the sight, certain the girl had to be in a moderate amount of pain at all times with that kind of bruising. The older witch squeezed her eyes shut, pressing her forehead into her palms, her elbows resting on her legs. She had absolutely no idea what needed to happen. All she could think about was physically assaulting the Blight parents. “I’m so sorry to hear all of this,” Eda sat up then, her insides in a knot. “We have got to tell Lilith you’re here though. I need to talk to her.” “She’s going to hate me,” Amity’s voice was thick with more tears. “Nah, she could never hate you,” Eda shook her head. “Lily loves you, kiddo. You don’t have to worry about that.” Amity’s mind reeled at the casual mentioning of Lilith loving her. She wasn’t even sure what it meant to love someone, much less what it meant to be loved. Something about the idea comforted her, though. She desperately wanted to trust Eda. Eda carefully stood and retrieved Owlbert, her palisman. The owl hooted, rubbing against her cheek as she ordered him to find Lily and bring her to their home. With one more approving hoot, Owlbert flew up the stairs to exit through an open window. “Can you send her a text too?” Eda asked then and Amity shook her head. “My scroll is off. They track it.” “I see,” Eda nodded. “Alright. Well , we may as well drink some tea and wait together. I’m sure she will want to see you if she knows you took off.” — Lilith let out a gush of air at the sight of her cottage, completely untouched. She entered and zipped through the garden, no Amity in sight. Begging the Titan to help, she walked into her home and called out Amity’s name. The lights were off and it was clear no one had entered since they ate their lunch at the island. Their plates sat on the counter and the witch began to weep, her worst fears bubbling to the surface. If she had known Amity planned to run away she never would have left her at the Blights. The witch paced, one hand on her forehead and the other on her stomach as she attempted to regulate her nervous system. She needed to return to the woods behind the Blights before a storm rolled in. If Amity had gotten lost …Lilith didn’t want to think about it. The witch had been far too optimistic in her plan to drop the girl off and distract the parents while she got settled. She had also been far too certain Amity had simply taken her up on her offer to go back to her home. “Stupid, stupid, stupid ,” she hissed, squeezing her ribs as if she were holding herself together. The fear was beginning to split her in half, she was sure of it. The sound of an owl whispering in her ear caused the witch to jump a full foot in the air. Owlbert, her sister’s palisman, sat perched on top of her own staff. The small creature watched her with soft, curious eyes as she reached up to offer it her shaking hand. Its softness was familiar and soothing against her skin. It had been years since she held the palisman Eda and her father carved together. “Owlbert?” The witch sniffled, blinking past her blinding tears. Maybe I’m having a nightmare? She thought. No. You must come to The Owl House , she heard the gentle voice in her mind as clearly as a real one. Eda sent me to retrieve you . “I see,” Lilith swiped at her cheeks, wiping away tears. She knew she could recruit Eda in searching for Amity, at the very least. “Let’s go!” — When Lilith arrived at The Owl House, she was unsurprised to see all of the lights were still on. It was growing late, even for Eda on a weekend, but Lilith didn’t bother questioning it. She noticed the sleeping house demon in the door and was careful not to wake it, allowing Owlbert to fly in through an open upstairs window. A few moments later, the door slid open. “Damn, sis,” Eda gasped at the sight of Lily.  Her older sister was an actual mess. She had pulled her hair back into a messy bun and wore her glasses, hoping to partially distract from her bloodshot eyes. Lilith’s posture was lacking and her hands shook as she grasped her white staff a little too tightly. The witch looked as if she was sitting on the brink of a complete mental breakdown. Lilith felt a jab of protectiveness in her system. She couldn’t remember a time she’d seen Lily so vulnerable outside of the fire at Hexside, when Lily was unconscious. “We need to talk,” Lilith’s voice was strained as she resisted the urge to become hysterical again. “Uh, yeah, I know ,” Eda laughed nervously and Lilith’s eyes narrowed. “That’s why I called you here. What do you need to talk about?” Lilith stepped into the cozy living room then, her shimmering eyes landing on none other than Amity herself. Unable to maintain her composure, she choked on a sob and pushed past her sister. Amity stood from the couch, letting Luz’s hand fall into her lap, and walked toward her mentor. Lilith pulled the girl into her arms, silently thanking Titan as she felt her knees give out beneath her. Amity slid to the floor with her, shocked by the mentor’s strong response to seeing her. She hadn’t expected anything like this. She was expecting the same anger she’d heard Lilith offer her parents at the manor. “Oh, sweet girl, thank Titan,” Lilith’s entire frame shook as she tucked Amity’s head under her chin. Amity, unable to hold back any longer, began to cry with her. She was heartbroken by her professor’s upset, alongside feelings of acceptance and gratitude. It was beyond her why Lilith was so upset. “Told ya she’d wanna know,” Eda nudged Luz with her hip, her arm draped lazily around the kid’s shoulders. “You did good bringing this to me, Luz.” “It didn’t feel like something I could figure out without your help,” Luz looked sheepish as she admitted to the vulnerability. “That makes you smarter than any kid I’ve ever known,” Eda kissed the top of Luz’s head, watching as her sister and Amity embraced in the middle of the room. She sighed. “How about we give these two a moment? Want to help me clean up the kitchen?” “Are you hurt? Has anything happened to you?” Lilith pulled back from Amity after the majority of her sobs subsided. She placed her hands on Amity’s cheeks and her eyes searched every inch of the girl she could see, scanning carefully for any new injuries or marks. Aside from her fresh tears, Amity appeared physically unscathed. “I’m okay,” Amity whispered. “I…I couldn’t stay there, Lilith. They were going to hurt me. I was so scared I…I just decided to go. I didn’t think it through. I’m sorry .” “I was wrong for trying to just drop you off there,” Lilith shook her head. “I deeply wish you had contacted me in some way. I have never been more afraid in my entire life.” “I didn’t know you’d care…or even find out ,” Amity shook her head. “Amity , of course I would care,” Lilith shook her head. It was alarming to her that the girl expected her to be in the dark and not hear about this. “I thought something had happened to you. I feared you got lost or hurt in the woods. I was ready to start a search party.” “Are you going to tell my parents?” Amity whispered then, defeated, and Lilith shook her head. “Heavens no. Not tonight. They…they said they weren’t going to search for you.” “They told you?” Amity was confused then, ignoring the blow to her gut that was finding out her parents didn’t even want to look for her. They truly wanted her gone. “I…I went back to get you. I realized leaving you there, completely unprotected, wasn’t right. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had made a grave mistake,” Lilith explained. “When I returned Edric told me you were gone. I thought you were running away…I thought I’d lost you.” Amity gripped Lilith's cloak then, pulling herself closer to her professor. She knew people wouldn’t be particularly thrilled about her choice, but she assumed she would be good for at least one night. It hadn’t crossed her mind that Lilith would come back for her, or search for her if the news reached her. All she could think about was avoiding another punishment. She felt intense guilt at the realization that she had disrupted the professor’s evening and emotions so thoroughly. Lilith, however, held Amity close, soaking up the girl in her senses. It was a huge relief to smell and feel the girl safely in her arms again. It had only been just over an hour and a half without her and she learned very quickly that she needed to be certain of Amity’s safety from then on. She was going to have to change her plans somehow. She swore she wouldn’t leave Amity alone with them ever again. She didn’t care what the consequences would look like for herself. “I don’t understand why you didn’t call me or come to my house,” Lilith whispered, leaning back to look into the girls’ amber eyes, searching for an answer of some kind. “I specifically said that so that I would be able to find you.” “They track my scroll,” Amity explained. “I’ve been such a burden for you lately. I knew that if I told you where I was going that they’d get it out of you or punish you. It’s all too much and you don’t deserve any more stress than you already live with. I didn’t want you to hate me for going against your wishes when you said I needed to stay home, too.” “I could never, ever hate you. You are not a burden, either,” Lilith stroked the girl's head, feeling her soft hair under her fingers. “I understand your decisions. I was just so scared. What matters to me now is that you are here,” she placed her hands on the girl’s cheeks again. “And that I know you are safe with me.” “What are we going to do?” “You should get some sleep,” Lilith said gently. “I would like to talk to my sister about the logistics. We will come up with a plan. I know we’ll figure something out. You and I will talk more in the morning, once you and Luz get some rest. Would you prefer to sleep over here tonight or come back to my house?” “I...I told Luz I’d stay over,” Amity’s lip trembled. “B-b-but I don’t want you to go home.” “I am sure Edalyn wouldn’t mind one more for the night,” Lilith smiled, already knowing she wouldn’t be leaving. Even if it meant sleeping outside with that hellish house demon, she would not be leaving Amity’s vicinity any time soon. Lilith carefully stood, pulling Amity to her feet along with her. They found Eda and Luz before going upstairs. Luz’s bedroom was small, near the back of the hallway, and very cozy. She had twinkle lights strung along where the walls met the ceiling, a small stained glass round window, and lots of gadgets and trinkets. Some of the things were from the human realm, some were The Good Witch Azura merchandise, and others were things Edalyn had given her. Lilith smiled at the sight of a familiar Grudgby tournament trophy next to Eda’s old letterman jacket on Luz’s dresser. Something about Eda passing down their things to her daughter made her heart feel light. While Lilith walked around, taking in the room, Amity and Luz changed into their pajamas in the bathroom. The girls climbed into their respective sleeping spots, Luz in her full-size bed and Amity in Luz’s old sleeping bag on the floor. Eda stood behind Lilith, closer to the bed. “You two will be okay?” Eda asked, eyeing her sister who appeared to be marveling at Luz’s things. “Yeah, thanks, Eda,” Luz smiled as the older witch perched on the edge of her bed and placed a hand on her head. They were exchanging their good night pleasantries and Lilith wanted to give them a bit of privacy. She turned around then and knelt down to Amity, who sat in the sleeping bag with her hands in her lap. She looked so much more comfortable in Luz’s room, a place she’d never been, than she did in her own home. Lilith’s heart pulled in several directions as she opened her arms for Amity. The girl, having felt a twinge of jealousy at Eda and Luz’s goodnight, was grateful for the gesture. The two hugged tightly, Lilith feeling the same twinge of jealousy Amity felt. Oh, how she longed for the life her sister seemed to have . The idea of sharing a little home, just outside of town, and living their life in peace together was just outside of her reach. It was strange to Lilith that Eda had the privilege of seeing her mentee every day. Eda didn’t have to fear for her safety or well-being because Eda could parent her. Lilith couldn’t have that with Amity. Not yet . “Edalyn and I will be downstairs,” Lilith whispered. “Please come to me if you need anything. I do not care what it is or what time it is. You are not a bother and I need to know if you are scared or hurting, okay?” “Yes, Lilith,” Amity flushed, looking up at her mentor. “Okay, darling,” Lilith smiled, reaching out to graze Amity’s warm cheek with the back of her hand. Amity scooted down so she could properly lay in the sleeping bag, the nylon material swishing a bit with the movement. Lilith leaned in to plant a kiss on the girl’s forehead. “I will see you in the morning. Please, no sneaking out, okay?” “Of course. Goodnight,” Amity’s heart squeezed at the prospect of Lilith tucking her in and kissing her head. For just a moment she pretended she was in her room and that Lilith was her mother. Lilith followed Eda to the door and back down the stairs. They made sure to pull the door nearly shut to create some privacy while they talked. Upon reaching the main level, Eda walked into the kitchen to retrieve two wine glasses and a fresh bottle. She sighed, clearly exhausted, and began pouring two glasses. Lilith was grateful words weren’t needed to express what she needed right now. Eda always understood her that way. “What happened tonight?” Eda asked, exasperated. “I don’t understand all of it. Amity said she slept over at your house? Then…then her parents? The bruises?” “Last night Amity and I had a campfire,” Lilith sighed, taking a seat at Eda’s large kitchen island. The island was covered in various potion ingredients and Luz’s drawings. Lilith reached out to pull one towards her. It was a fanart drawing of Azura and Hecate getting married. A small smile played at her lips as she thought back to her conversation with Amity about the books. She shook her head, laying the piece of paper back on the stack of others. “I just wanted her to relax. She was so exhausted and it was truly a traumatizing week.” “Yeah, you got that right,” Eda slid a glass of blood red wine to her sister, pulling her own glass to her lips. “So, you had a campfire? And ?” “And…while outside we had a fairly intense conversation. We talked about how the apprenticeship has been. I just…I don’t understand it but I feel such a strong… maternal instinct ?” Lilith mused, and Eda waited patiently as her older sister processed her complex feelings, leaning forward on the island. “I suppose that’s what it is. I just held her. When she’s in my arms it feels right. I know she is safe and okay and happy. That feeling, the fire, our blanket…the hug…it was all so warm. We fell asleep outside.” “You love her,” Eda’s eyes glimmered. She wasn’t asking, she was making an observation. “I do,” the older witch felt an intense pang of guilt. She wasn’t supposed to become so wrapped up in her student’s life. It wasn’t typical and Amity deserved a less biased supporter. “I wish I could change it.” “Now why the hell is that?” Eda stood up straight, a look of disgust on her face. “Lilith, honestly. You need to chill. Out.” “Excuse me?” Lilith balked at her sister’s response. “You heard me,” Eda shook her head. “Lily…the connection you have with that kid is so beautiful. I see how much you both love each other. It’s totally maternal! What? The Emperor’s Coven traumatized you so badly you believe you don’t deserve this? Is that it? Are you caught up in whether or not blood is thicker than water and all that?” “Edalyn,” Lilith gasped, her heart aching at the observation. “You used to be fearless, sis,” Eda shook her head, sliding into one of the open stools near Lilith and holding out her hand. Lilith cautiously took it, relishing in the familiar feeling. Her outstretched arm revealed some of the scars on her wrist, which proved Eda’s point about trauma. “What do you even want from this? So, you want to help Amity, but at what cost? Where do you draw the line? Where do you want her to go?” “I want her to be with me ,” Lilith bit back, unable to not be angered by the idea of helping Amity only to let her go. “I want…I want this,” she vaguely gestured at Eda’s home. “I want…to leave the coven. I want to leave and take Amity with me. She can become my full-time apprentice and leave her rotten, ungrateful parents.” “Well, there ya go,” Eda gestured with her two hands as if the answer were sitting physically on the countertop in front of her. “You know what you want. What’s stopping you?” “This, Edalyn,” she pulled her sleeve up then, exposing more of her history. “You…I…I can’t even tell you what he did the last time I threatened to leave. I was only 20. I haven’t dared to even think about it since…” Lilith shook her head, resisting the onslaught of violent memories. “Edalyn, I could lose her. I could lose everything. If I try to adopt her into my care, and they resist and win, I could lose her forever. I can’t risk that.” “It’s really scary,” Eda nodded, grimacing at Lilith’s story about Emperor Belos. “Lilith, I wish you’d told me. I could have helped you escape.” “He has eyes and ears everywhere,” Lilith placed her head in her hands, her elbows on the counter top, and Eda reached up to gently rub her upper back. “He would know. He always knows.” A sob erupted from the witch again. Eda, unsurprised, continued to rub Lilith’s back and sip her wine. She loved her older sister more than words could describe, and the thought of Lily being trapped in the coven, by a violent, controlling Emperor, crushed her. Lilith continued to sob, curling in on herself. Eda stood and wrapped her arms around her sister, squeezing her tightly. She wished Lilith had listened to her so many years before and never joined the coven. It was alarming to see how much the coven had stolen from her spirit. “He will kill me,” Lilith whispered, her voice hoarse. “I’ve always known, deep down, he would. I know it will happen eventually. It’s only a matter of time.” “I won’t allow it,” Eda shook her head violently. “Lily, I won’t allow him to lay another finger on you. We can…we can get custody of the kid and go. I don’t care where. I won’t let him.” “I used to revel in the fact that he would succeed someday,” Lilith chuckled darkly and Eda hugged her even tighter. “The idea of leaving everything behind brought me so much peace. Now…now that I have her…I can’t bear the thought of leaving her behind.” “Ahem, excuse me,” Eda’s throat was tight as she tried to offer some humor to her sister. “What am I? Chopped liver?” “Of course not, Edalyn,” Lilith shook her head and looked up at her younger sister. The younger witch quite resembled Lilith. Her hair was less curly and completely white as a result of the curse. Her golden eyes were a similar shape as Lilith’s, the warm familiarity of them bringing her immense comfort. Lilith knew, despite everything, that her sister would always be okay. Eda and Lilith may have been very close growing up, but it wasn’t due to Eda needing Lilith. If anything, it was the other way around. “You have always been self sufficient, Edalyn,” she explained further. “I have done nothing but bring you pain. You have a full, beautiful life. I just…I suppose I just never worried for you like that.” “I need my big sister,” Eda pouted, pulling Lilith back in for a hug. “You haven’t brought me any pain, aside from the fact that you left me to be a lap dog for an actual psychopath.” Lilith scoffed and Eda flushed. “Sorry…right,” Eda knew now wasn’t the time for jabs at Lilith’s lifestyle choices. “I just don’t understand. You could have left so much sooner.” “I couldn’t. He said he would cure you,” Lilith’s voice shook. She never planned to speak a word of any of this to Eda. Yet, regardless, she found the words sliding past her lips with more ease than expected. “He held the cure over me like a carrot and I chased it.” “You’re not responsible for curing my curse, Lil,” Eda rolled her eyes. “It’s not like it’s your fault. It’s not your curse.” Lilith couldn’t muster a single word. “Lil?” Eda swallowed thickly, her mouth dry. Lilith’s silence was incredibly loud in her ears. “Lily?” “I…I was the one who cursed you, Edalyn,” Lilith looked up, fresh tears falling from her eyelids. “I wanted to be accepted into the coven so badly. I knew if you surpassed me that I would never be recruited. They’d never take a witch who lost a duel with her baby sister. So, I went to the night market and they sold me the curse. It was only supposed to last for a day! It was only supposed to suppress your magic. I planned to invite you to try out again the following year. It was a scam. Of course it was a scam. I was such a fool. I ruined both of our lives that night with my foolishness.” Eda’s hands dropped from her sister, who stiffened. “I understand if you hate me, Edalyn,” Lilith sniffled, using her long sleeve to swipe away at her tears. “I truly deserve to be hated.” “I don’t hate you!” Eda reached up to run her fingers through her hair, her mind tossing all of the things Lilith just revealed to her around. “I just…wow. Lily, I…I had no idea. You’ve just…known all these years? You stopped fighting for you…so that you could try to get a cure?” “I regretted my choice the moment I realized the curse was not what I thought,” Lilith’s voice was still shaky. “Lily, I was never going to join that Titan forsaken coven,” Eda shook her head, returning to where she had her hands on Lilith’s back. “I knew I didn’t want it months before our duel. I didn’t tell you because I was scared. I thought that if I told you the truth you would reject me. I think we could have spared each other a lot of hurt if we’d just talked about it then.” “I don’t understand,” Lilith sniffled, tilting her head up to face her sister. “I’m not mad at you, Lily. How could I be?” Eda shook her head. “You’ve suffered more than enough.” Lilith let out a small laugh then, catching Eda by surprise. “My kid… Amity ,” she corrected, her skin flushing. “She called me a martyr today.” “Well, ain’t that the truth,” Edalyn chuckled. “She called you one too,” Lilith laughed harder then, turning to face Eda fully. She stood and placed her hands on her sister’s shoulders, blue eyes meeting gold. “Edalyn. I do not deserve your forgiveness but I cannot deny the amount of gratitude I feel for receiving it anyway. How lucky I am to call you my sister.” “I wouldn’t have it any other way, you goob,” Eda laughed, pulling Lilith into a proper hug now. She pulled back, holding Lily at arm’s length. “We will figure this out, okay? No one is going to die. No one has to suffer. I promise. You have me, okay? Me, your niece, hell, even Hooty!” Lilith grimaced at her memories of the house demon’s shrill voice, evoking another laugh from Eda. “What do we need to do first in order for you two to begin a formal apprenticeship?” Eda returned to her wine glass, stepping up onto the stool and refilling it. “Well,” Lilith slid back onto her seat and contemplated for a moment. “It’s quite early, but I would need to start the paperwork with Headmaster Bump. Ideally, I would find a way to get the Blight’s approval.” “That old chump?” Eda asked, earning a playful smack on the arm from Lilith. “He’s the headmaster, so yes,” Lilith reiterated. “I would need him to sign off on it in normal circumstances. I’m not sure that he would be on board with Amity leaving home earlier. Part of the reason so few do formal apprenticeships anymore is because they believe the kids are too young to leave home.” “The circumstances are different, though,” Eda frowned. “They are. I’m not sure how much I should disclose to Bump,” Lilith swirled her wine in her glass. “I need to discuss all of this with Amity. I haven’t even asked if this is what she wants.” “Oh, please, you know it is,” Eda looked annoyed with her sister. “I need to know for sure that she wants it and isn’t only trying to please me,” Lilith shook her head. “I’ve personally made so many decisions for everyone around me. I won’t allow her to do the same. I can’t.” “I get it,” Eda nodded. “She worships the ground you walk on, Lily.” “Which is why I need to talk to her,” Lilith nodded. “Assuming we can get approval for her joining me…what will I do to keep Emperor Belos off my trail? He will have his eyes on both of us if I become her guardian. I know he’ll be entirely fascinated with my successor…I can’t…I can’t even-” the witch began to panic then, the thought of Belos coming anywhere near Amity paralyzing her. Eda squeezed her arm again and she shook her head. “I simply cannot accept it as an option, Edalyn.” “I think I have an idea…but I don’t know how you will feel about it.” “Edalyn, I came to you because I wanted your ideas,” Lilith rolled her eyes. “You came to me because I had your kid,” Eda corrected her and the professor’s heart fluttered. My kid . “What if we…what if we…shared the curse?” Eda asked carefully. “After you get custody of Amity. If you took half of the curse, you would become…ineffective as Head Covenness, right? Surely Belos wouldn’t want you then.” “What?” The idea had never even crossed Lilith’s mind. “That’s true, assuming he doesn’t execute me.” The word execute felt like a dagger in Eda’s chest. “Perhaps we could frame it in a way to make him pity you,” Eda mused, avoiding the topic of execution. She didn’t want that to be an option so she dismissed it, manifesting her initial idea. “I believe he already does,” Lilith chuckled darkly. Pity was an understatement. She was lesser than the shit on his shoes to him. He made that abundantly clear. “ Okay ,” Eda sighed. “Well, I can’t think of anything else. If we split the curse, you can blame me or whatever. Tell him you are resigning. Give someone else your job and leave. Tell him you’re going to go die in a hole or something. I’m sure he’ll believe it. I’m pretty sure that’s what he believes I did.” “You’re one smart spookie, sister,” Lilith reached up to pinch her sister’s cheek like when they were kids. Edalyn laughed. ‘Thank you. You are…truly a gem.” “Feelin’ better at all?” “I do,” Lilith nodded, her eyes focused on her wine glass, which now rested between her two hands. “I said this to Amity earlier and meant it. We will take this one day at a time. I will speak to Bump bright and early Monday morning to get the ball rolling.” “We should probably head to bed,” Eda glanced at the human realm clock on the wall, which Lilith couldn’t read, and Lilith nodded. “You can sleep in my bed or on the couch.” They both stood, leaving the wine glasses to be cleaned the following day. “I am fine on the couch,” Lilith stretched before leaning in to hug her sister one more time. “I’d prefer to be out here where I can hear if Amity gets up.” “You make one hell of a mom, Lily,” Eda’s eyes shimmered with pride and Lilith blushed. As much as she felt like a dork, she thoroughly appreciated Edalyn’s ease around the idea of Lilith parenting Amity. It was highly reassuring. “You as well, sister.” Lilith, dressed in a set of Eda’s pajamas, was curled into a tight ball on the couch, a blanket draped over her and a pillow tucked under her head, the following morning. Eda’s couch wasn’t necessarily uncomfortable, but it was truly no bed. She groaned quietly, her muscles stiff from her awkward positioning all night. The witch pushed herself up into a sitting position, her back pressing against the ornate armrest on the couch. She blinked slowly, her vision a bit blurry from sleeping, and focused on the witch sleeping at the other end of the couch. Amity lay curled in a small ball, not unlike Lilith had been, with her arms wrapped around her legs. She was wearing what looked like a set of Luz’s pajamas and shivering slightly, likely cold. Lilith sat up, uncovering herself and gently draping the blanket over Amity. She had no memory of the girl coming down the night before, but part of her was unsurprised that she did. After such an emotional evening, it made sense to the witch that the girl was seeking a sense of security and familiarity.  “Morning,” Eda walked in, dressed in a soft plum-colored sweatshirt and a cotton skirt. Her pink, fuzzy bunny slippers padded softly against the rug as she began drawing all of the curtains back. She turned to face her sister, eyeing the child sleeping at the other end of the couch. “How’d you sleep?” “I slept well, I suppose,” Lilith followed Eda’s gaze, also feeling unsure about Amity. “How about you, sister?” “I slept well,” Eda shrugged and then tilted her head toward Amity. “What about that one?” “I don’t actually know,” Lilith’s brow furrowed and she chewed on her lip. She reached a hand out to place it on Amity’s lower leg above the blanket. “I don’t remember waking up to her coming down. She has nightmares though.” “Aw, just like you!” Eda pointed and snickered before stepping into the kitchen to begin brewing tea for the two of them.  Lilith stood from the couch, wrapping the cardigan Eda loaned her to sleep in more tightly around her midsection and stuffing her hands in the pockets as she followed her sister. As strange as it was being in the owl house, Lilith felt at ease around Eda. Despite all of their years of drama and discourse, they knew each other inside and out. She didn’t have to perform or withhold around her sister in the way she had to with nearly everyone else in the Boiling Isles. She watched as Eda moved around the kitchen with grace. Eda’s long, white hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. It had been over a decade since the witches spent much quality time together, so Eda looked much older. It was clear to Lilith, who hadn’t aged quite as visibly, that the curse was really affecting her sister. Still, Eda was as brilliant and warm as always. Her features had a new softness to them, her eyes twinkling and a small smile almost constantly playing at her lips. She was happy. “What’re you staring at, huh?” Eda asked then, startling Lilith, who had stood leaning against the counter with a curious expression. “I apologize,” the older witch flushed lightly. “It’s just…I suppose I was admiring how happy you are.” “Huh?” Eda’s expression read somewhere between confused and grossed out by Lilith’s observation. “I have always observed and admired  your independence,” Lilith continued. “I know you can fend for yourself. However, I have found myself worrying for you. Especially after everything with R-” “Ah! Bup bup!” Eda put her hands up, silencing Lilith. “Look, I get it. You worried I’d get lonely and all that. You don’t have to bring them up. I’m fine. I’m happy. I’ve got my kid and my house and my Hooty.” “I can see that,” Lilith sighed. “I’m glad I can see that is all.” The sound of rustling in the other room pulled Lilith from the conversation. She stepped away, a fresh cup of tea from Eda in hand, leaving the younger witch to get started on breakfast. When she walked into the living room, she found Amity sitting up with the blanket wrapped tightly around her. The girl somehow appeared even smaller. Lilith’s heart sank to her stomach when she realized Amity’s expression was that of someone who had seen something horrendous. The older witch walked to her in quick strides, crouching down to Amity’s eye-level and placing her tea on the end table beside the couch. “Amity, dearest,” she held out her hands and one of Amity’s small ones poked out of the blanket to take them. Lilith placed her second hand on top of it, giving them a good squeeze. “Did you have a nightmare? Are you okay?” Amity shook her head. “I’m sorry, I cannot tell if that was in response to the nightmare question or if you’re not okay,” Lilith’s brow pinched together. “I am scared,” Amity answered, her voice a bit squeaky. “What have I done? They’re going to kill me, Lilith.” “No one will hurt you,” Lilith shook her head, moving around to sit next to Amity. She removed her right hand from the girl’s grasp, leaving her left to hold Amity’s hand, and wrapped it around Amity’s blanket-covered shoulders. “I will not let anyone hurt you. I will not leave you until we have answers and I can ensure you’re safe.” Amity leaned to her side then, leaning into Lilith’s warm shoulder. Lilith squeezed her tighter, watching softly as Amity fidgeted with Lilith’s fingers. Lilith had hoped to set aside something more official when she asked Amity to become her official apprentice. However, in that moment, she realized time was of the essence and that it was a conversation they needed to have time to fully process before Lilith spoke to Headmaster Bump the following day. She needed to know Amity was truly on board. “Amity, there’s something I need to speak to you about,” Lilith began and noticed the way Amity froze under her arm. The girl was completely rigid, already fearing the worst. Lilith squeezed her again, moving to gently rub Amity’s upper arm. “It’s not bad…I don’t think. I wanted to talk to you and ask you something.” “You’re not mad at me?” Amity whispered, looking up at Lilith. “Not in the slightest,” Lilith shook her head. “Quite the opposite, as a matter of fact.” The older witch pulled away a bit, moving to tuck her legs underneath herself and face the girl beside her. Amity mimicked her movements, scooting so that she was still wrapped in a small ball but facing Lilith. The older of the two witches reached out to take Amity’s hands into hers again, this time holding each one separately. She took a slow deep breath, looking into the girl’s thoughtful expression. Eda had offered Lilith many reassurances, but Lilith still feared the girl wouldn’t want to continue working with her. Lilith knew that she would be able to respect Amity’s wishes. As much as she enjoyed Amity’s company, Amity’s safety and well-being came first and foremost. This is why she was asking early, instead of waiting for the more appropriate time frame. She needed to ensure Amity was safe and taken care of. “Amity, I want you to know this is something I planned on asking you before everything I learned this week,” Lilith spoke slowly, careful to not say anything damaging. “As you know, when I first began working at Hexside, I really wasn’t sure whether this was going to be a good fit for me. “When I met you, on that very first day in August, I was a bit blindsided by the connection I felt. I didn’t expect it and I didn’t understand it,” Lilith smiled almost sheepishly. Amity stared at her with wide eyes, a bit confused and a bit delighted. She loved when Lilith opened up. It made her feel warm inside. “You have more potential than any young witch I have crossed paths with as Head Covenness and you have exceeded my expectations in your role as my apprentice.” “Lilith?” Amity squeaked again but Lilith held up one hand, silently asking the girl to wait a moment. “I want you to know now that I will always show up for you in whatever way you need me. Whether or not you accept my proposal, if you need me as a professor, you have me. If you need me as a mentor, you have me. If you need me as a protector, you have me. If you need me as a friend, you have me,” Lilith continued. “If you determine you do not need me…I will respect your wishes and needs.” “I would never!” Amity gasped and Lilith cracked a small smile. “Amity Octavia Blight,” Lilith offered Amity a wider smile then, unable to contain her nervousness. “I would like to formally request your presence and scholarship as my pledged and certified apprentice.” “You’re asking me to be your apprentice? Now?” Amity’s eyes were wide and her jaw had slackened. Lilith’s heart fluttered aggressively in her chest, like a bird trapped in a cage. She had feared the girl would be startled or upset by the proposal, especially given her most recent experiences. Amity was incredibly vulnerable. “Like…certified and pledged?” Lilith pursed her lips, nodding very slowly. Amity pulled her hands away and placed them in her lap, her eyes cast downward. She appeared to have stepped back into her own thoughts. When she squeezed her eyes shut and clenched her fists, Lilith’s throat tightened. She realized she must have said the wrong thing. It was most likely that she had scared the girl or offended her. Not only was it very early, but it was also so shortly following a traumatic event. “I mean it very genuinely when I say I will not be disappointed should you deny me,” Lilith swallowed, unable to relieve the lump in her throat. “You will always be safe with me. I was hoping-” “Lilith!” Amity looked into Lilith’s wide eyes, several tears escaping hers as she spoke up and interrupted the witch. “I would love to be your apprentice. I just…at this point I was expecting you to send me away.” “I would never,” Lilith shook her head, her phrasing mimicking Amity’s earlier. “You want to become my…legal guardian?” Amity tilted her head to the side and Lilith nodded. “Yes. This is why I am asking early,” she elaborated. “I planned to ask you in the spring…in a more formal setting. However, if we can get Headmaster Bump’s approval, I believe we can start the paperwork early. If things evolve as planned, I would take legal responsibility for you, and you would be free to leave Blight Manor, if you wish.” “You’re doing all of this for me?” Amity asked then. “Selfishly, not entirely,” Lilith’s cheeks burned and Amity looked confused. “I am…I am also doing it for me. I enjoy your company and teaching you. I have always felt as though there was a gap in my life…that is, until I met you. I want you to be safe and well, and I want to be your mentor.” Amity didn’t wait another second before lunging into her professor’s arms. Lilith held her tightly, noticing the way Amity’s hands clutched the back of her clothing. While they still had to receive approval, this was one step forward for both of them. Amity sniffled, her face tucked into the crook of Lilith’s neck, and Lilith began rocking her, gently stroking the back of her head. It had been a very long week, but this moment felt slow in a pleasant way. When the two finally separated, a sniffle behind them caught their attention. Lilith’s head whipped around to find Eda and Luz standing by the stairs. Eda had tears running down her cheeks and Luz’s sleepy brown eyes were shimmering as well. Lilith offered them a small wave, acknowledging their eavesdropping, and Luz sprinted over to her. “Oh, Aunt Lilith!” Luz wrapped her arms around the older witch, startling her. Luz had begun calling her ‘Aunt Lilith’ on the very first day, but the words felt even more meaningful now. “This is the best day ever! Amity is going to be the best apprentice.” “I know, sweet Luz,” Lilith hugged the girl back, offering Amity, who was now pink in the cheeks, a small wink. “Congrats Lily,” Eda smiled at her sister before walking over to open her arms for Amity. “And to you, Amity.” “Thanks, Eda,” Amity’s face was very red now, her social anxiety manifesting under her fair skin. She stepped away from Eda, who kept a hand on her shoulder for a moment before pulling it back to herself. “Alright, kids,” Eda dusted her hands off on her skirt before placing them on her hips. “We have griffin egg omelets ready in the kitchen. You two need to wash up and eat, okay?” “Yes m’am!” Luz saluted her mentor before taking Amity’s hand and leading her up the stairs. “You didn’t tell me you were gonna ask her now!” Eda laughed, sitting down in Amity’s place and holding her hand out for her sister to take. “I would have put on nicer slippers.” “Please,” Lilith chuckled. “It was time. I wanted her to know that I am not going to turn away from her or leave. I am all in and committed to figure this out.” —  Later that afternoon, Lilith sat with her legs pulled to her chest and her chin on her knees, watching quietly as Amity and Luz worked on homework together at the kitchen table. Eda glided into the room, graceful as always, before plopping onto the couch directly next to her sister. She followed Lilith’s gaze to the two girls, and flashed her fang at Lilith. “You see it too, yeah?” “What?” Lilith blinked, returning from the mild stupor she’d been lost in. “Look at ‘em,” Eda nodded towards the girls again. Amity was helping Luz with a potions question. She was sitting on top of her legs in the chair, one hand on Luz’s shoulder, the other gripping the pencil she used to point at various parts of the problem. Luz’s expression was full of awe and curiosity, her eyes locked on Amity, not the homework. The interaction was very tender and witnessing it thawed something in Lilith’s heart. “Luz has a crush on Amity?” Lilith whispered so quietly she worried Eda wouldn’t hear her. She didn’t want the girls to know they were speculating. “Duh,” Eda cackled, leaning back into the couch then, placing her feet on the coffee table and her hands behind her head. “Your kid and my kid are going to make the most epic couple once one of them spills the beans.” Lilith looked back at the girls then, smiling widely. Knowing everything Amity had disclosed to her about her sexuality, seeing Luz reciprocate the crush was heart-warming. It was extra special knowing that it was Edalyn’s daughter. She trusted Eda more than anyone else in the Boiling Isles. Amity appeared a bit oblivious to Luz’s affection, but the thought of them taking things slow comforted Lilith. Amity was going through so much all at once. The older witch turned her head to look at her younger sister again. She was a bit jealous of the ease Eda seemed to experience when claiming Amity was Lilith’s kid. The witch had only known the girl for a few months. As much as the deep maternal instinct to protect and love her had enveloped Lilith, she knew better than to allow it to overwhelm the child. There was something about their connection that Lilith couldn’t place, and it appeared Amity felt it too. “Where’d ya go?” Eda sat up straighter then, one eyebrow raising. “Oh…I was thinking,” Lilith shook her head. “You called Amilty my kid again.” “She is your kid, sis,” Eda shrugged. “I get it. When Luz appeared in my life I felt really…unsure. I took her with me that day because I let my curiosity get the best of me. She stayed over and told me what was going on at home. They were sending her away to a camp of some kind. She hadn’t been eating and wasn’t taken care of. We agreed she could stay with me for the duration of the camp time, seeing as her family didn’t know she’d even taken off. “It didn’t take very long for me to realize I didn’t want to send her back. I just felt…I don’t know…like she was mine. I never pressured her. I let her make the choice. She asked me to be my apprentice, actually.” Eda chuckled then. “I, of course, accepted and she became mine rather quickly. It all happened so fast…but I just knew. I trusted that gut feeling.” “I just fear I’m not doing the right thing,” Lilith whispered. “My connection to the Emperor’s Coven puts her in so much additional danger, Edalyn.” “You think being a wild witch who took in a human is much safer?” Eda scoffed. “It seems, sometimes, there is no perfectly safe option. I’ll never be able to protect Luz from everything that’s out there. The difference is that I’m choosing to try and I’m going to love her fiercely in the process. Her human parents didn’t do that for her.” “Do you believe Bump will be supportive?” Lilith whispered, soaking up Eda’s story of how she and Luz connected. She wanted to know everything that happened to Eda from the moment she was recruited. So much had been missed between them. “Who do you think signed off on my apprenticeship?” Eda snorted and Lilith’s eyes widened. “Lil, Bumpy loves his kids. He said he’d sign her into my care, as far as the Boiling Isles is concerned, so long as I enrolled her…and cleaned up a few messes of my own. He insisted she needed structure and extra support. He wasn’t wrong.” “Wow,” Lilith nodded slowly. She knew Headmaster Bump was incredibly generous and thoughtful when it came to students. The headmaster during her own teen years, Headmaster Faust, couldn’t have been more opposite. It was a relief for her to hear all of this. “I am…relieved.” “I’m telling you,” Eda reached out to place a warm hand on Lilith’s forearm. “He will want to protect her. You have to be vulnerable though. I know it’s hard for you…but you have to.” “Hard for me?” “Yeah, I mean, you don’t exactly like to open up, Lily.” Eda rolled her eyes. “Not that anyone could blame you. Indoctrinated into the harshest coven on the Isles as a teenager, forced to commit heinous crimes on behalf of a tyrant, and seriously physically and emotionally abused despite your willingness to serve him. You haven’t been allowed to open up.” “I don’t know what to say,” Lilith whispered. “Then don’t say anything,” Eda smiled warmly. “I just want you to think about it, okay?” The witches spent the rest of that Sunday helping the girls with their assignments, eating snacks, and catching up on their years apart. Lilith returned home to retrieve fresh clothing, deciding to stay another night. As much as she knew she probably should return home, she knew she would be too anxious to leave Amity. They agreed she would leave earlier than the others in the morning, and meet Amity at school when Eda dropped Luz off. They discussed their plans over dinner. The nerves were alive and well in Lilith’s gut again, but she was growing more and more ready for the Monday ahead.

Mature

“Can we build a blanket fort?!”Of all the things Eda had been expecting to hear from Luz, it was not that.It was about 10 in the morning. Eda and Raine had been relaxing on the sofa when they’d noticed that the kids had all been doodling on little bits of paper that looked like some kinds of plans or lists. Luz and King had coloured pencils and Hunter, who spent half of the time living with Darius and the other half of the time at The Owl House, had highlighters. Hooty had also joined in, using his typewriter. The kids had all been whispering with each other and taking glances back at Raine and Eda. Hooty had seemingly been typing out his responses to questions rather than speaking them. He wasn’t ever that great at whispering when it came to secrets or surprises.So, curiosity getting the best of her, Eda had asked what the little rascals were planning.The kids had looked at each other for a moment, before Luz nodded, the others nodding back. Luz turned around, and then asked if they could make a blanket fort.Raine’s face had lit up.“Me and Eda used to build those all the time! We’d always annoy Lilith by dragging her away from her Emperor’s Coven studies to watch films with us inside the fort!” Raine said, turning to Eda as they spoke. Eda laughed, including her usual snort.“That was always so funny.” She responded.“Soo, it’s settled then? We’ll turn the whole HOUSE into a fort!” King exclaimed.“King! We only planned out for the living room!” Hunter said through gritted teeth. Then he spoke again, in a quieter voice that he thought only the other kids could hear. “We’ll be lucky if they even say yes.”“Lucky?” Raine questioned. “Kid, I don’t know about Eda, but I would love to build a huge blanket fort in the living room!”They turned to face Eda, a look saying ‘you should give your opinion’.“If we don’t put any pillows or blankets actually on the stairs, then I’m sure we could take it a bit upstairs too.” She said, looking back towards the kids.“WOOO!” Luz cheered. King and Hooty got really excited and Hunter smiled at the response.“Do you want to see what we’ve planned?” Hunter asked, holding up a very colourful piece of paper that seemed to have a key for the highlighting alongside it.“Sure.” Raine said, gesturing for the kids to come over and show them.All of them grabbed the papers they’d written on and placed them all on the coffee table. They quickly organised them in a neater way before stepping back to let Raine and Eda read what they’d written.There were multiple lists based on different things, like what snacks they wanted to eat, what films they wanted to watch, etc. Each list had more space at the bottom of them, and each thing written on the list had a colour, or multiple colours, next to it in the margin. The key on each list stated that Luz’s highlighted colour was a light purple, King’s was a light yellow, Hunter’s was a bright red and Hooty’s was a bright orange. Not only that, but they’d planned out roughly where everything would go, and how they could fit a ton of sensory things that everyone liked. Raine’s face lit up when they spotted ‘lights’ on the ‘Wanted Sensory Items for The Fort’ list.“Can you pass me the highlighters please?” Raine asked. Hunter handed two massive packs of highlighters.“I’ll have those when you’re done if that’s okay.” Eda said. Raine nodded.Raine certainly had a lot in common with the people living at The Owl House, but if they had to pick one thing that they all had a common interest in, it was that the more colours, the better. Especially when it came to highlighters.They picked a pale blue colour, which they noted just so happened to be a more blue-tinted version of their minty green hair. Wait, we’ve gotta have one in my hair shade… Raine had wondered, and the pack did. They put the blue highlighter back and took out the minty green one.“Like my hair.” They said, passing the packets to Eda before adding themself to the keys. They also began to add things to the lists that they wanted, or added their chosen colour next to things they wanted that had already been written down.Eda had picked a deep crimson red colour. She’d described it as being like the blood of her enemies, which had caused everyone to laugh. It wasn’t too long before everything had been sorted out.“Alright, that’s… a lot of stuff. Specifically snacks.” Eda pointed out. “Raine, why don’t we go sell some more of those potions and human artefacts while the kids gather the stuff we already have?”“Sounds like a plan.” They responded. “Are you going to send Owlbert off to the human realm for now then?”“Good idea. Owlbert!” Eda called out, writing a quick note. Camila, Any human stuff we can probably sell over here? - EdaHer palisman flew towards her.“Hey buddy. I’m gonna need you to try and find some cool human stuff I can sell. We’re making a huge blanket fort in the house and need some more money to buy some nice snacks. Think you can do that for me?”Owlbert nodded, taking the note in his beak and waiting as Eda opened the portal to the human realm. He flew through and Eda closed the portal shortly after.“I’ll open that back up when we get to the market.” Eda said. “Now, kids. Can you try and find as many blankets and pillows as you can, as well as any of the other stuff on these lists that we already have? We’ll likely end up needing to continue with this tomorrow and spend today gathering as much as possible, so leave the stuff on your beds, okay?”They all gave their own versions of saying ‘yes’.“Yes, Mama Eda!” from Luz.“Sure.” from King.“Of course, Eda.” from Hunter.“Abso-HOOT-ly!” from Hooty.“Great. Also Hunter, please stop with the formalities.” Eda said. “While that isn’t normally very formal it is when you use it, please stop.”“Sorry, E—”“You also need to learn to stop apologising so much.” Eda said, smiling a little when Hunter stopped for a moment before simply nodding. “Be back in a bit, kids!”They’d spent the majority of the day gathering everything they had needed for their fort. Then, the majority of the day after building the fort. It covered all of the living room and went upstairs enough to reach the kids’ rooms. It wasn’t until two days after planning had begun did they actually get to spend time in the fort.They’d spent absolutely forever in the fort. Eda and Raine too, letting out the inner child in themselves as the two had a pillow fight of their own while the kids had theirs. They’d watched films on the crystal balls, eaten loads of snacks, and eventually fell asleep curled up together. From left to right, Luz was leaning against Eda, who had King in her lap, and Eda had been resting her head against the blanket-covered sofa behind them all. Raine had laid against Eda, one arm around her waist and the other around Hunter’s waist. Across the actual sofa, Hooty had fallen asleep, with Luz’s hand resting on top of him.Owlbert had set a timer of Eda’s scroll in 5 seconds from them to take a photo before flying to sit on the sofa in a way that left him able to lean against Eda’s head, and even though they’d all woken up aching from the weird position they’d all slept in, the whole group had loved the photo so much that it had been framed on the living room wall. Luz had written along the bottom of the black frame in a gold pen.<3 Us weirdos have to stick together <3

General Audiences

Belos runs his hands down Hunter’s abdomen, all the way to his thighs and in between, fingers deftly gracing over the sides of Hunter’s cunt. Teasing, not quite fingering him just yet, merely hinting at the notion before he slides two digits inside of Hunter. The boy is already wet, his pussy clenching around Belos with such fervor that it makes the old man chuckle. Slowly, deliberately, he pushes his fingers in and out, listening to his Golden Guard’s hiccuping moans and whines, relishing in the frenzied buck of Hunter’s hips against his hand. Yet despite the clear signs of arousal, of eagerness to just be fucked already, Belos maintains his leisurely pace, seemingly intent on torturing the poor boy. It doesn’t take long until the sheets beneath Hunter’s ass are damp, thighs quivering and back arching off his bed. He’s a mess, his face flushed crimson, ears flat against his head, tears brimming his eyes. He looks absolutely pathetic, so keen for his uncle to ravish him, to take him right then and there. Belos, meanwhile, has been quite enjoying this foreplay; observing as his nephew has grown increasingly more and more desperate to the point of fucking himself on his hand—not that it was able to do much to satisfy him, only serving to worsen the arousal he felt. Finally, finally Belos is extracting his hand from Hunter’s pussy, fingers coated in his slick, which he brings up to his mouth and tastes. The sight makes Hunter whimper, as does the sudden lack of something filling his hole. He clenches around empty air, trembling hands moving down to spread himself open, practically begging for his dear uncle to fuck him already. “So needy,” Belos chuckles, eyes half-lidded, voice laced with a husky sort of amusement. “You would ask for even more from me tonight?” The blonde can only respond with a choked whine for a moment before swallowing hard, knowing full well that Uncle would want him to use his words, not blubber on like a child. “Please,” he whimpers, “Please, I—please fuck me, sir.” “Hm,” Belos muses, shifting himself so he sat perched on the end of Hunter’s bed, forefinger and thumb rubbing together with the boy’s discharge. “You seem to be rather insistent on having me do all the labor tonight. And after all the work I put in trying to sate you…” “I-I can—” Hunter stumbles over his words in a hurry, rushing to offer himself in a way that wouldn’t be taxing to Belos. “I—let me ride you, please. I, I can move myself, you don’t have to do anything, I want to—please let me serve you—” The older man smirks, cock twitching beneath his clothes as he witnessed his nephew’s complete and utter devotion to him, to being molested by him. So dutiful, so dedicated to his every whim and want. All it would take was a look and Hunter would throw himself into whatever peril or situation that Belos required of him, regardless of what it may be. Truly, such loyalty did deserve to be rewarded from time to time. “Alright, then,” Belos hums, stopping Hunter’s ramblings dead in their tracks. “Help me disrobe, would you?” The Golden Guard scrambles upwards to do so, wincing for a brief moment in the process but quickly brushing that off. He stands up and begins to undress his uncle with practiced ease, moving through the motions on memory alone, and then taking care to neatly fold up the discarded clothing to the side afterwards. It doesn’t take long until Belos is laying nude on his nephew’s bed, resting his head against the—frankly shoddy—pillows. Hunter finds himself fretting once more over the state of his room, wishing he could have tidied up before Uncle paid him a visit, somehow made everything more presentable for him—but no, there was nothing he could do about that now. What he needs to focus on is making sure that Belos feels good, especially after he had just spent his valuable time working Hunter open. With renewed confidence, Hunter shimmies himself so he’s positioned above his uncle’s member, carefully grasping it and giving it a few strokes to prep it further. Uncle must have taken his fantasy viagra, then, considering how little work it was taking to get him hard. Hunter inhales, exhales, and then lowers himself onto Belos’s cock, thriving on the pleased sigh he hears from the older man as he does so. It doesn’t take long until he’s fully seated, legs spread wide as he impales himself on Belos’s cock, taking everything in for a moment. He won’t start to move until Belos allows him to, and eventually, his uncle flicks his fingers, signaling he could begin. Hunter braces his hands on either side of Belos’s chest, not wanting to directly touch there and put any sort of weight onto his uncle like that. He moves his hips up and down, mindful not to let Belos’s dick slip out of him, drawing himself up before sliding down once again. The blonde’s breathing has already begun to grow heavy, catching on his moans as he fucks himself on his uncle’s cock. He’s panting before long, the sensation of Belos’s member plunging into him his main focus. Of course, he has to make sure that Belos is enjoying himself too—in fact, that’s his top priority here. His own pleasure will always come last to Belos’s. Luckily, Uncle seems relatively pleased so far with Hunter’s work, watching his nephew intently as he makes low, pleased sounds. That’s good, then; Hunter was doing good, and that sent a wave of pride through the boy, driving him further in his task. Hunter leans back, sliding his hands so they could support the main part of his weight behind him, whimpering quietly as his pace increases. The sounds that are being made as his uncle’s cock penetrates him are so very lewd, filling Hunter with both a sense of shame and thrill. The boy can feel the heat coiling in his gut, hot and insistent, but he’s forbidden to release himself before Belos. If he does a good job, then maybe his uncle will allow him to cum. Hunter picks up the speed, already so accustomed to his uncle’s bodily responses when he’s near completion—and by the sounds he’s making, the almost irritated(?) look on his face…he was getting close. And when he got close, Belos— Hunter finds himself abruptly pushed down against the bed, his uncle’s cock thrusting hard into him, a small yelp escaping his lips though he feels no real surprise. Belos does usually prefer finishing inside of Hunter, and he takes the initiative whenever he does so. As such, Hunter lets himself go limp, like Abomination goo in a talented witch’s hands, malleable and ready in whatever way his uncle needs him. Belos’s hands grip Hunter’s hips with near-bruising force, pushing his nephew down against his cock, spearheading him as he ravishes the boy’s tremulous body. Hunter feels his breath catch, doing everything he can to hold back his orgasm until his uncle permits him, and then with one final push he is being filled to the brim with Belos’s semen. It’s warm and sudden and the sensation has Hunter’s toes curling, biting his lip to keep from making any sound, feeling Belos’s breath tickling his shoulder as he hunches over his nephew’s form. He stays there for a while, his cock softening within Hunter’s pussy before exhaling and sliding out. Hunter allows himself to relax slightly, not even acknowledging how rigid he had gotten during his uncle’s climax—something he tended to do, it seems. “You preformed adequately,” Belos’s voice snaps the boy back to attention, although he felt quite silly lying there with his head half-hanging off the edge of his bed like that, trembling legs spread open as his uncle’s seed spills out of him. And why should he feel that way? If anything, it should invoke a sense of pride, and it did! It just…it also felt a little off, at times, although he can never discern why. It isn’t like there’s anything wrong with what he’s doing, he’s simply fulfilling his duties as Golden Guard, as Belos’s ever-faithful nephew. “I-I’m always happy to serve you, Emperor Belos…” Hunter gasps out, trying to keep his voice from pitching up—something he always loathed, something it seemed to inadvertently do after times like these. “When we’re alone, it’s ‘Uncle’, remember?” Belos sighs, though thankfully he doesn’t sound too disappointed; it borders on fond, actually. “Yes, Uncle.” “Now…I’m assuming you have yet to cum, hm?” He muses, one hand reaching to gently cup Hunter’s cheek before sliding down to fondle his developing breasts. The blonde’s breath hitches at the touch, his body on pins-and-needles at the moment. “N-not yet, I—you hadn’t finished.” This seems to be the correct answer as Belos smiles, though it definitely wasn’t an expression that was filled with any sort of warmth. “Good. It seems you haven’t forgotten how to properly behave, at least. Come here.” Upon his uncle’s coaxing, Hunter gingerly sits up, ignoring the ache in his limbs as he scoots over to Belos. Smiling still, the older man presses himself against his nephew’s back, sending a shiver through Hunter as he does so. Hunter has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out as Belos’s hands slide down and suddenly enter him once more, although this time they are unrelenting in their assault, working his cunt with a purpose in mind. Hunter’s body seizes up, bucking himself against his uncle, hands kept firmly at his sides since he hasn’t been told he can touch himself. He can’t stop his voice from escaping when Belos’s other hand sneaks up to grasp at Hunter’s tits roughly, and the boy is damn near sobbing when he feels Belos biting into his neck. His uncle’s thumb is diligently prodding his clit as his other fingers fuck the boy’s hole, that extra bit of stimulation driving the Golden Guard right to the edge. Belos always knows just how to make him cum; he’s memorized every inch of Hunter’s body, mapped out each section with a diligence none other possessed. And it is exactly why it doesn’t take very long for Hunter to be screaming out “Uncle!” as he comes, body trembling as he rocks against Belos, cunt throbbing with his orgasm. Hunter feels lightheaded as Uncle detaches himself from him, letting his nephew slump back against the pillows of his bed, shaking as he does so. Belos seems to look over Hunter briefly in assessment before humming noncommittally. “Hunter,” Belos coaxes, drawing the boy’s hazy attention. “You can’t very well expect me to get dressed in such a state, now can you?” Hunter suddenly feels a deep pit of shame take hold of him, because of course, how could he so selfishly forget to clean him off! Moving hastily to right his mistake, he crawls to the edge of the bed so he’s positioned in front of Uncle’s cock. He takes the now soft member into his mouth unquestioningly, tasting both himself and Belos’s salty cum as he does so. He only has to work to make sure Belos is clean and presentable, and once he’s given his uncle’s dick a thorough tongue bath, he slides his mouth off with an obscene-sounding pop. Belos seems pleased with this, at least, as he then moves on to begin getting dressed. “Uncle,” Hunter starts, wincing at how his voice sounded before continuing. “I-I can help, let me—” “No need,” Belos cut him off swiftly before he can get another word in. “I’m afraid you’d just end up sullying my clothes.” There’s another pang of shame in Hunter at that dismissal, but he resolves that Uncle is right; he’d only ruin the fabric if he tried helping now. Once Belos has finished clicking his gauntlets into place, he picks up his mask and smiles at Hunter. “I expect to see you in my chambers later tonight as always.” The Golden Guard nods, legs folded underneath him as he awaits his uncle’s dismissal. And then the mask is back on, and it is no longer his family standing there, it’s the Emperor of the Boiling Isles. “Good day, Hunter.” And then he’s gone, shutting the door behind him with a sound click. Hunter waits a few moments before exhaling, the aches of everything seeming to hit him all at once as he looks out the window at the rising sun. It was going to be a long day.

Mature

"Blight?" "Hm?" "Shut up." Emira bats her dark eyelashes in faux innocence before leaning down, arms behind her back. She tilts herself forwards, taking advantage of the leverage she has to hover a mere inches above Viney's face, inches she'd mulled over far too much for such a fleeting gesture. "I hate to break it to you, cutie, but I didn't say anything." Viney lifts a scarred, calloused hand to her face and gently pushes Emira away, drawing a laugh from her as she stumbles backward, regaining her balance. Viney smirks, shifting her weight to lean to the left and refolding her arms at her chest. "You didn't even need to-" "I know, I know," Emira interrupts and straightens out her back, preparing to mimic the swirled dialect of her parent's business partners, willing that their exaggerated way of speak had rubbed into her palms through the hands she's shaken; "the curvature of your lips is remark enough, Blight." Viney lazily brings her arm up, limply trying and carelessly failing to hide her stifled laughter, eyes closing tightly; too caught-up in trying to recapture her breath and stilling her softly rising-and-falling shoulders to notice the soft amber gaze from above.

Not Rated

Of course it was Willow. Who else would it have even been? Within the late evenings of nothing but thought and grey skies, questions would pass through her head like the migrating birds, answers just out of her grasp; she felt the same as she used to when she was young, laying on her back and extending her arms towards cloudy answers, unable to reach and take them from the unattainable horizon above. She used to do that, lay in the grass and look at the sky, with Willow. The biggest thing that filled her sky through all of the cloudy evenings she spent in her mind was the sun, the biggest answers always coming from Luz; someone who, really, shined brighter than the sun ever could for her for so long. After they had broken off, even though they grew closer as friends than ever, it still confused her: why wasn’t it Luz? She really, really did think it would be; Luz was the sun, her mornings and her warmth for so long. But when she asked Luz about soul marks on earth, when she mentioned the long line of scarred, silvery skin that stretched across her stomach, Luz revealed that, among all of the bruises and bumps and scars and scratches that dappled her skin, she didn’t have a mark that resembled it in the slightest. But she guessed that’s just how first loves are; and no matter how long she extended her arm towards the sky, the sun would never enter her grasp or come to sit in her palms; it remained in the sky, where it -where she- belonged; because the sun wasn’t supposed to belong to anybody. There was always something she could grab, though; something just as warm, just as kind and soft as the sun above her; Willow’s hand, laying lazily by her side in the grass, wildflowers growing in the gaps between her fingers, always just within her reach, waiting patiently with an open palm for her to take it. She was always there, no matter how hard she tried to push her away, to leave her behind; even if Willow wasn’t in the abominations track for as long as she was before switching to the plant-magic courses, they had every other class together, every single year. No matter how far they’d sit from one another, they’d always have a perfect view of one another, and the one time Amity had the audacity to change her schedule, Willow got the same idea, and they ended up being together in every single one of their classes again. Amity felt like the universe was taunting her, getting it’s revenge for all of the grievance she’s given; maybe it was just trying to tell her something. Becoming friends with Willow again was the best decision Amity had ever made, without a shadow of doubt. Every single day she felt like she was missing something of herself, something important and pivotal to who she was, like someone took her arms from her torso, or her eyes from her face. Willow’s return felt like a puzzle piece slotting itself back where it belonged, or a rusty old key clicking into a giant brass lock; everything fit again, and the world had regained the color it once had so much of when she was young. Everything was so much brighter when she was around, and she couldn’t believe she’d managed to live as long as she did without her. Because Willow wasn’t the sun, Willow was so much more than that. She was the wildflowers that dotted the plains on the horizon, the trees that lined the paths she walked, the moss that grew over old logs and rocks in the forest; She was the stars that lit up the night, the lakes that they’d swam at together and the way that the moon reflected off of the boiling sea from the limited view in her bedroom; and whenever she’d see the sunrise or sunset on sleepless nights and tired mornings, she’d think of her. Because Willow was all of those things and even more; because she was picture books and warm blankets and melting popsicles on summer nights, she was warm hugs that lasted a lifetime and soft butterfly kisses on foreheads and cheeks. The more Amity thought about it, the more she thought she might have a crush on Willow, a thought that was solidified once Willow joined the grugby team. And no, it wasn’t because of the way the uniform looked on her, or how strong her throwing arm is, or the way sweat danced gracefully down her face as it adventured down from her brow, or how her arm would flex whenever she would throw or catch the ball, or how cute her hair was when it was disheveled, or the million other thoughts Amity had that she struggled to force down (though they definitely weren’t helping). It was when they were in the locker room. She didn’t mean to look at Willow’s back; her and Willow were talking about something she can’t even remember; honestly she was kind of out of it, she felt ten times as tired after using all of the energy that wasn’t spent throwing grugby balls around forcing down her thoughts about willow. Her tired, verging on delirious mind was paying more attention to the way Willow’s voice was just a bit more raspy and breathy than usual. She absentmindedly glanced up; and no, she definitely wasn’t secretly admiring her shoulder blades or the way her back tensed as she moved her arms; she was more focused on the scar that stretched across the width of her back-a familiar scar, one Amity had gazed at countless times in the mirror, stretching the length of a thousand horizons, greeting her on the skin of her mid-stomach; a scar that matched her own exactly. And from there, she began to spiral, faster than she ever could with anyone else.

General Audiences

(murdered) In the Name of the Lord   Philip’s dagger slicing through the flesh of Caleb’s throat is simultaneously the easiest and hardest thing he’s ever done in his life.  Actually, the contrast is so striking that it’s almost funny, and he chokes on a laugh, his chest heaving and trying desperately to bring his dinner back up. Caleb’s fist is opening and closing around the staff he’d made for himself — the traitor — and Philip realizes idly that he’s let the bird escape. Ah, well. The creature is probably no threat without its master. The woman, on the other hand… This is the hardest thing he’s ever done because Caleb is his brother. His brother, who’s raised him from three years-old and took care of him their entire lives. His brother who still looks the same even now; his hair is slightly shorter in the back, his eyes are brighter, but that’s it, even though years have passed. He’s still Caleb. He’ll never change in some ways, and Philip loves him.  (That won’t ever change either.) Caleb is choking on his own blood, now clutching at his throat as if he’ll be able to be saved. Philip doubts it; he’s seen enough horrific magic done in this Hell, but nothing as lifesaving as that, and there is no one around to help him. Philip kneels down, soaking his trousers in his brother’s blood. He takes Caleb’s hands away from his neck, surveys the area. He’ll be gone within the minute; all the Devil’s tricks in the world, and it’s that easy — Philip had expected more, truly.  “Phi—” his brother croaks, sputters. His eyes are wide and more red than brown, red leaking out of his mouth, his nose. Philip doesn’t touch him—he can’t bear to. But he does speak, says, “I regret we will not see each other again. There is no Heaven waiting for you, brother. But don’t fret; when the time comes, I will tell God of your bravery before you were seduced. He will mourn you, brother. God Himself will mourn your turning. I will make sure of it.” Caleb cannot respond. The way he deigns to look past Philip, looking to someone else he cannot see, is all the answer Philip needs, anyway.  Then the light leaves his eyes, and Caleb stops gasping, and Philip feels… the same.  God has blessed him. There is grief, yes, but there is also justice; Philip was not able to save Caleb, but in killing him, he has potentially saved hundreds of others from being swayed just like Caleb had. This is the hardest thing, also, because he isn’t even given the honor of giving his brother a proper burial; Caleb’s seductress returns in that very moment and Philip has to flee, leaving behind blood-spattered footprints and a high-pitched scream, coming from the witch. Hardest because she hits him with… something on his way out, and he yelps as his arm catches on fire. He beats the flames out as he runs. Then there’s the loneliness.  Philip had dealt with it before with the hope that he would be able to be with his brother again soon. He’d wandered the giant corpse that made up this Hell, staying alive, and thinking, soon, soon, soon I’ll find him, soon we’ll be back together, and, well. That hadn’t turned out the way he expected it to. No one else is around to understand. No one else around is free of sin. It dawns on him that he’s the only human left in the entire realm, probably. It’s a sobering thought.  That’s why it’s hard. Here’s why it’s easy, actually.  Killing Caleb was easy, also, because Caleb was wrong. Caleb was wrong and Caleb was an idiot and Caleb was evil, because he believed the lies the witches implanted in his head. Not only believed, he’d embraced those lies; for God’s sake, he’s even married and impregnated one of them! Caleb had introduced his witch to Philip with a smile, his hand on her stomach, and Philip had nearly retched. No brother of his could ever be so filled with contempt for God’s plan.  Philip is a forgiving person. He’s capable of forgiving many things; believes that if you confess and repent, nearly any crime is forgivable.  But a half-breed child is not something he can let go. (God would not allow it.) /—\ Caleb’s witch concubine (not wife, never wife) hunts him for years. He knows this.  She never catches him, but her reign of terror lasts for longer than he would have expected. He learns to hide his face, his ears especially, give a false name when traveling through a town. She looks for a man with a long ponytail and strange clothing; he cuts his hair and puts away his public’s best in a place he knows no one will find it. The hunting witch asks around for a Philip Wittebane; he abandons the name altogether. For now.  He doesn’t go back to Gravesfield. He’s not sure why, but he is sure that God has a plan for him here. He wanders, mostly; studies the culture around him with a critical eye and plans—for what, he doesn’t know, not yet, but there will be a day when he does. He just has to wait.  The first time, it’s done out of panic.  The first time.  Philip learns fast, but Pictoglyphs are unforgiving (perhaps carving them on himself was not, in fact, the most intelligent idea he’s ever had). They wrap around his skin and burn, burn, burn; Philip drops the knife (the very same one) and screams. It’s agony, worse than anything he’s ever felt before; his arm convulses like it has a mind of its own, and it hurts, and it contorts, and— Some creature makes the mistake of approaching him.  A palisman, some green bird-animal with a cracked beak. It noses at him, as if it’s capable of concern, and Philip has no idea what he’s doing, but his instincts say take it, and so he does, shaking. Bites his tongue to keep from screaming more. He cracks it open, and it screams alongside him; green mist wafts out of the broken body, and Philip breathes in, and—and—the pain stops.  He feels… healthy. Healthier than he’s ever been, certainly. His body is changed—he takes a glance at his arm, and the Pictoglyphs are still there, pulsating around his wrist and forearm, but the pain is completely gone. His feet are no longer cracked from constant travel, and his headache is completely gone.  …I see, thinks Philip.  /—\ It’s called the Day of Unity. That’s his chance, the reason for his being here. It’s going to be Philip’s day of reckoning—God’s, too. The day the evil is wiped out for good.  It’s only, roughly, four-hundred years away.  That’s okay. He can wait. He has not plucked a single gray hair from his head since he absorbed the palisman, and he has a feeling he knows why (God will provide). He’s confident he can survive the time, and that is not his biggest potential problem, anyways. The real trick will be getting everyone on the Boiling Isles to be in the same place at once, and to give them all the things necessary for the draining spell.  He has a few ideas.  Philip starts reading. He devours entire books of spells every day, learns the way his enemy works, lives. He reads of creatures that have gone extinct—he learns of something called a Grimwalker, an artificial being that, when done correctly, is capable of raising the dead into a new body. Maybe Caleb could learn to be good. Maybe if Philip takes a stand and takes care of him, things will turn out differently. Maybe a Caleb with lesser older responsibilities won’t go looking for evil satisfactions. It’ll be tricky, raising him inside of Hell, but Philip’s confident in his ability. He’s only got time, anyway.  (Really, his only regret is not getting the chance to kill that irritable child and her aunt. They should’ve been punished for breaking his nose, but he can never find them again.) /—\ Nearly ten years to the day after Caleb is killed, Philip returns to his gravesite.  It’s dangerous to be here, so close to where the deed was done; the witch woman seems to have stopped hunting him so tirelessly, but this is the first time Philip’s ever been within a few miles of her, so his head is on a swivel the entire time he’s there. He digs through the night, trying to be as quiet as he can.  Caleb’s long since been buried, of course. His body’s been cleaned, too, and Philip releases a short breath when he sees that, having been prepared to face his brother as a rotting corpse. Instead, there are just bones in front of him.  “Hello, brother,” Philip murmurs, moved to stillness. “I’m going to save you this time.” He starts filling the bag.  /—\ The first major issue with the Grimwalkers, after they’re stable enough to have issues other than falling apart on themselves, is the matter of their ears. Philip’s long since cut his own to have pointed tips, having found it far easier to get around while looking like the witches rather than a human (keep your enemies closer), but he’s unsure whether or not to add that to the Grimwalker pool. He’d learned early on that they will never have Caleb’s eyes (instead of calm brown, a demonic red), but the ears bother him more. It’s smarter to have them be pointed, yes, but… He hates it. Number One comes out of the ground wrong. Philip doesn’t know what he’s done incorrectly, but the recipe is half-translated at best and somewhat inaccurate at worst, and Grimwalker One pays the price for that; he claws his way up and promptly collapses onto the ground in multiple pieces. Philip notes the problem, changes the recipe slightly, and starts over. Number Two doesn’t fare much better. He lasts a bit longer than his predecessor, but only beats him by an hour or so before he also crumbles into dust, not even able to speak his first few words. Philip starts kicking their remains down the chasm residing in the Head, if only to spare himself the headache of burying them all. No one will find them there anyways—the residents steer clear of the area no matter what.  Numbers Three to Six all have varying degrees of success. Number Four is the first that lasts a while, but he’s still only a few months old when he pitches forward into the Boiling Sea. Philip had been trying to teach him to be on his guard at all times, and he hadn’t thought twice about shoving him, sure he would be able to catch himself. He hadn’t. Whoops. Five and Six last about the same amount of time; one of them is mauled to death by a rampaging Stonesleeper (ironically, he’d been trying to gather more ingredients, though he hadn’t known what it was for), and the other catches a fire spell to the throat while fleeing from a town, taking a hit that was meant for Philip. He counts his blessings (God always provides) and moves on.  The seventh Grimwalker, however, is born with a scar stretching across his throat. Sometimes they’re like that, born with Caleb’s scars. A white line on their lower stomachs from where he was cut by a bramble bush while trying to pull Philip out of a similar one; a nick in the third knuckle from when Caleb was bitten by a feral dog that had found its way into the homestead. Philip prefers when they don’t have these scars, but they’re easy to cover up, easy to forget about.  But this one… He’d clawed his way up just like every other Grimwalker, looking into Philip’s eyes as his first bit of connection. He pulls himself up further, and— Philip sees the scar. Jagged and more pink than white, as if it’s new and not decades-old, not wrong. The thing isn’t long but it’s deep, laboring the Grimwalker’s first-ever breaths and making him gasp for air; red eyes widen as he struggles to breathe, fingers curling frantically into the dirt. Neither witch nor human would ever survive a wound like that, Healing magic or no Healing magic. Caleb was no exception to the rule. The seventh Grimwalker is curling into bits of ash from a well-placed Pictoglyph before he even says a single word. Taking a deep breath, Philip tries to calm himself, feeling every bit of his hundred-fifty years.  Time to start anew. He learns more about them, learns that they can stay in the ground for as long as he needs them to, learns to make more than one at once, so that when one goes, he can summon the next immediately. He learns to hide their faces (can’t have anyone recognizing different ones), give them stories of their nonexistent parents. Some he tells about the Day of Unity, but that doesn’t usually end well, so eventually, he ends up lying to them all.  He gives them the pointy ears.  (That makes them easier to kill, anyways.) He’s still lonely, but now there’s hope. Hope that he will have his brother again one day, his brother but better, smarter, less prone to evil. Hope that he won’t be alone for the rest of his days, until the Day of Unity comes. Hope that he’ll be able to share time with someone.  (Although, he’s never really alone anymore, these days. Unfortunately.) /—\ The first time the palisman souls speak to him, he genuinely thinks they’re God Himself, gifting Philip, his most devoted follower, a chance to convene with the Lord Almighty and rewarding his utmost belief. God, of course, cannot see him right now, not in Hell, but Philip doesn’t like to remember that, doesn’t like to think about how alone he is here.  It starts quiet (doesn’t everything?), just a whisper in the back of his head, going, Phi—lip, Ph—ilip, Phil—ip. Philip, who are you? Philip stops. He has not heard that name in years, and that, perhaps, is why his first thought is— “God?” he asks aloud, feeling tears form in his eyes. He wipes them away; a man is not a man if he is too emotional. “God, is that you I am speaking to?” He falls to his knees, because the Almighty must be given the utmost respect. “Hello?” he says when there is no answer. “Are you there?”  For a few long moments, the only sounds are of the world around him and of his own breathing. Then it comes again. Philip, the whisper says, Philip, who are you? What are you?”  God would not ask questions like this, would He? Philip frowns. “My Lord,” he says again, “is that you?” Lord? The voice — voices, he realizes with a start — sounds dully surprised, almost as if it (they?) don’t have any clue as to what is happening. Lord, you say? We are not Lord. We are your sins personified.  This is not the voice of God. This is the Devil himself, Satan’s voice whispering through the throats of the demons Philip’s purged. This is his big test, and Philip is determined not to fail. He makes a pact with himself, right then and there, to never again respond to the voices. To respond is to allow himself to be rattled, and he is not rattled.  And yet, after that, they’re completely unbearable.  They claw their way into his memories and rip out his darkest moments, attacking him with them over and over again. They whisper blasphemies of the mother he doesn’t remember, tell him she didn’t deserve the end she got and that perhaps he’s the evil one. They tell him his old friends in the Human Realm will have forgotten him by now. They taunt him with images of his brother, of the red cardinal, and they promise to haunt him forever.  Then they dig into his memories of the Word of God, and a particular story he’d been fascinated with as a child, and— CAIN, they begin to call him, THE FRATRICIDAL CAIN, THE BROTHER’S KILLER, THE FIRST MURDERER BEFORE GOD’S EYES. HOW DID YOU GET HERE, CAIN? This is so much worse.  He is being tested. That has to be what this is, that has to be why he’s still here, against all odds, hiding out in the Realm of Demons for hundreds of years. That’s why he hasn’t been caught and killed—his life will mean something, and he will be the savior of humanity. He has survived his own brother betraying him. He can survive name-calling.  (Even if it eats at him.) Philip, they say, correctly identifying his weak point, where is your brother? What has happened to him?  He always tries to do his best by God’s way, and he believes he’s done a fairly good job in that, but he is not a perfect man (no one can be). So, because of this new torture, having been subjected to it for hours on end, Philip finally—cracks.  “I am not—” he bites back the rest of the line, but it’s too late. The palisman souls have caught on. You are not your brother’s keeper, they say with a tone of satisfaction, and Philip burns. They go on: What have you done, Cain? Where is your brother? “I am not Cain,” Philip growls back, shaking his head. “Cain was unjust. Cain was unfeeling. I was just. I am nothing but feeling. Caleb was nothing like Abel, because Abel was never in the wrong. That is the difference.” Cain, the souls cry in return, Cain. You are Cain. Cain is a self-fulfilling prophecy, don’t you know? Cain is in your blood, and your blood will not be spilled, because that is not Cain’s end. Cain, Philip, they go on, what is the difference? Cain’s name is seeped in murder, and Philip’s in war. What is the difference, Cain? Where is thy brother? Absorbing more palisman shuts them up, for a time. But they always come back, screaming and whispering and trying to lead him away from God’s plan. They’re just another setback, an attempt to distract him from carrying out his ideas.  He will not allow himself to be swayed.   /—\ One day, Number Nineteen — Noah — comes to Philip with blood dripping from a wound on his forehead. He’s always been wrong of sorts — too many freckles, and his hair tends to fall forward rather than slicking back — and the new scar does not help him in that regard.  When Philip asks him how he was injured, Noah responds with The Bat Queen.  The Bat Queen is not one to be trifled with; Philip knows that much. She’s a wild creature, even more than most of the residents of the Boiling Isles, and while he’s never come face to face with her before, he’s heard the stories. If she doesn’t like you, you don’t last long. That Noah has angered her is not good, not now, not right when Philip is beginning to make bolder moves. He will begin campaigning for a throne sooner rather than later, and having the Bat Queen as an adversary will not make the public eye like him more. They trust her judgement.   Then Noah tells him why The Bat Queen attacked. A palisman had come up to him, and being well-trained, Noah had tried to take it to Philip. The Bat Queen had fought in the palisman’s stead, apparently. That is not the problem.  The problem is what kind of palisman it was. The problem is that when he’s asked, Noah responds with, “It was a cardinal. A red one.”  A red cardinal, acting familiar with a Grimwalker… Even after all these years… It can’t be (and yet). Philip is still alive, though, and whatever those palismen are, they’re not mortal creatures. It’s possible (it haunts him). At least Noah reports to have wounded the thing; with any luck, the bird would have bled to death and Philip will never see it again.  He still kills Noah, though—he has to. He can't have The Bat Queen coming after him and finding Philip, too, especially if the godforsaken cardinal is there, too. Noah has to go, and go he does; Philip discovers that his experimental staff that uses artificial magic works like a charm. It’s quiet; Noah is petrified without a word, and when stone has covered every square inch, Philip pushes him down into the same chasm. It must shatter on impact, but no matter—it’s not as if the corpses mean much to him.  (CAIN, the souls bellow in his ears, so loudly he almost jumps, CAIN. WHERE IS YOUR BROTHER, CAIN?) His brother is long dead. His replacement, on the other hand, is… forthcoming.  Underneath a tarp and several layers of dirt, and having been cleaned meticulously over the years, Caleb’s bones have been kept in perfect shape. This time Philip takes a wrist bone; gets to work on Number Twenty, preparing himself to take the long journey to the sea for the Selkidomus scales. Simon, he thinks to himself. Simon will be this one’s name.  /—\ It’s funny.  After all these years preparing, his eventual rise to Emperor happens without much drama at all.  Of course, there are protestors—there always will be. And yet, this is God’s plan, and God will provide (and so He does). Philip finds his followers, builds his Palace, and sets about building the system that’s been bouncing around in his mind for generations. A system that traps—makes things safer. Nine types of magic is more than enough for these greedy sinners.  No, the palisman say when they catch wind of it, no, let magic be free, let us be free— /—\ (Lilith Clawthorne is… so many things.  Lilith Clawthorne is, firstly, the same woman who had broken his nose, all those years ago. He has no idea how this has come to pass, but he’s positive it’s her, even if she doesn’t seem to know it. Her hair is a different color, and so is one of her eyes, but he would know that sloped face anywhere—he’s dreamt of his revenge for so long already.  But Lilith Clawthorne is also a Clawthorne. Philip sees none of Caleb in her face, but the mere knowledge burns him. He wishes he could kill her now, be done with it. And yet— He can be patient. She may prove useful yet.  Because she is also exactly like him, and that gives him a satisfaction like no other. Philip does not see Caleb in her features, but he sees himself, sees a ruthlessness unmatched and a tremendous desire to mean something; a belief that she will mean something. Perhaps Caleb’s descendant coming to him is not a bad thing; sure, she may break his nose, but she will be useful to him in the long run.) /—\ He’s not actually sure which number Hunter is, having lost count years ago. He could be Fiftieth, or he could be Three-Hundredth, and it wouldn’t mean anything different to Philip.  But Hunter is the most promising Grimwalker he’s had in decades at least, maybe ever. Hunter looks at him the way Philip had looked at Caleb, and Hunter listens, and Hunter fears the things he should fear. Yes, Hunter is still wrong in some ways (eyes scars ears), but he’s closer than any other has come before, and Philip is closer to his brother reborn again. He brands him with the Emperor’s Coven Sigil anyways, just to be safe. Hunter can earn his way to the Human Realm, but he has to earn it.  However. The Grimwalker is no longer Philip’s biggest issue, these days. Not only is the Day of Unity — finally, finally — quickly approaching, no longer a matter of years but of months, there is also something else that demands his utmost attention.  Because there is another human in the Boiling Isles.  Philip’s been hearing rumors of her for weeks, and his Scouts had reported Pictoglyph Magic being used against them. She fights alongside the Owl Lady, apparently, because this Realm exists only to spite him. The Owl Lady, who is of Lilith Clawthorne’s kin, who is, of course, descended from Caleb and his villainous witch concubine…  Philip tries not to fly into a rage (it’s getting harder and harder to keep his limbs in one piece, these days), but it’s hard not to.  And yet. And yet.  He realizes that the human being here gives him opportunities. He couldn’t save his brother (even now he’s still trying). But maybe he can save this small girl. She may have been swayed, yes, but she is a child, as Caleb was a child, and a girl, no less, so perhaps, this time, Philip won’t be too late. Perhaps this time, he will be able to show God’s forgiveness, rather than God’s condemnation.  (Leave the girl, the souls whisper weakly — weaker and weaker and weaker as time goes — please leave the girl, the girl is innocent, the girl is not Abel— the girl should not die. Silly palismen. If they knew him at all, they’d know that killing her is the last thing on his mind.)

Teen And Up Audiences

Scars, they mean different things to different people, some its a sign of strength or weakness, an internal war, a way to show your worth your salt or in hunters case, annoyance   His scars where scattered across his body, mostly his arms and hands, a few littered his legs, back and thighs They were different colors, some white and others pink or red, they ached and itched, some spots he couldn’t even feel the skin from nerve damage or was overly sensitive, the one on his face being one he couldn’t feel so he picked at it constantly, but after a few months of living with Darius he broke the habit.   “It hurts”Hunter said, his arms and thighs felt like they were on fire, the pain of nerve damage had flared up over night “I know Hunter but the best we can do is put ginger oil on them, it’ll help the pain”Darius said, massaging the oil gently on the teens arm and hand “I know but it just really hurts- I wish I didn’t have them”Hunter said, tears pulled into his eyes “You know, scars can mean many things”Darius said, now rubbing the oil on the opposite arm, hoping the oil was taking at least a little pain away “Oh yea, like what?”Hunter asked “Well, to me my scars are a story, it tells what I’ve done and what I’ve survived. Maybe they could mean the same to you or something different”Darius said, Hunter thought for a moment as Darius put the lid on the bottle of oil, setting it down on the coffee table “I think…I’d like to think of them as..battle scars?”Hunter says, unsure if that was a correct answer “You Definitely can, because if you think about it little birdie, you went through a long war and came out alive and for that I’m proud of you”Darius said and smiled to the boy, who now had a shimmer of tears in his eyes once again “I-thank you, and I’m glad you survived to”Hunter said, and pulled his dad into a hug “Yea me to”Darius said, returning the hug

Not Rated

“Eda, now, now now now!!” Luz had screamed into her walkie-talkie, holding it like it was the only thing that was keeping her alive, and yeah, it did kind of feel like that. Hunter held on to Luz with fear - horror - he wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it didn’t matter, because if they didn’t get out of here soon Belos was going to try and kill them both as if he hadn’t already tried - and Titan, the looks he and his uncle had exchanged was all the proof he needed. He was toast.   …   In the midst of yellow light, two teenagers appeared out of thin air, free from the horror that was Emperor Belos’s mindscape. They sat with blank eyes, staring into the air, filled with astonishment at the realization that everything they had come to accept was none other than a lie. Emperor Belos was Phillip. Hunter was a Grimwalker, whatever that was, a copy of Belos’s ‘old friend’, as Belos himself had called it. Hunter almost died. Titan, what had they done? It was as if the world beneath the two of them crumbled into pieces, falling from beneath them, and trailing behind the ashes of the floor, the inhabitants who used to live there.   Eda, King, and Hooty sat in front of them expectedly, eyes wide with shock. Two out of the three took a step closer before Eda pulled them back with a warning; “Don’t crowd them.” Hunter didn't seem to really notice anything, not even Eda’s heed, while Luz, the counterpart, was somewhat present at the moment. Her eyes were glossy with tears. Nobody in the room could blame her. She had known emperor Belos was bad, hell, she was sure of it ever since she laid eyes on him - but now that Belos had tried to kill his own right-hand man, the Golden Guard, his nephew for god's sake, her suspicions could be easily confirmed   “Are you two okay?” She asked. Hunter was far off now. Luz turned to look to Eda, wordless as if she didn’t have an answer. And that was correct. She didn’t. Luz was so confused and scared, but what everyone couldn’t help but wonder was how was the emperor's own nephew going to take everything?   Even Flapjack, Hunter’s palisman, wondered too, because it began to chirp with alarm towards its friend and owner. Its squawking seemed to pull the dazed boy out of his own mind because he gasped and jumped backward. His eyes shrunk and his chest tightened and he silently cursed Flapjack for taking him out of his clueless state because now he had everything to think about, because oh Titan, what did he just do?    He couldn’t go back, he just couldn’t - Belos - his own uncle, for Titan’s sake, had tried to kill him - he didn’t want to die, not like this, not when everyone in the room was looking at him as if they were expecting him to do or say something. His thoughts turned into words even if he really didn’t want them to. “He knows we were in there,” he panted, the realization had come way before now yet it was just beginning to rear its ugly head into Hunter’s brain. “I can’t - I can’t go back!”   Eda took a step towards the boy. Like he was some sort of injured animal, like he was feral and about to explode at any moment. He couldn’t help but find offense in that. “Kid, breathe.” His eyes landed on the hand she had outstretched towards his face and flinched as if she were about to hit him.    Hunter couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t, it felt like there was a large fist grabbing his waist and breaking his ribs.. because that stupid cape with that stupid symbol that was wrapped around him - he wasn’t the Golden Guard anymore. He was not going to return to Belos. This symbol didn’t belong to him.    He closed his fist around his cape, threw it off him, and slammed it to the ground with great speed. The boy did not feel any better. At first, he feared that his uncle would be aware that he was ruining his cape, but then he remembered that it was Belos himself who had killed the earlier Golden Guards. He did not care about him or his actions unless they defied ‘the Titan’. That symbol wasn’t one to be respected or feared, it wasn’t even meaningful - it just meant ‘you’re next.’ Heck, just thinking about it made him feel sick, because what if Belos sends his goons after Hunter? Would he be a wanted criminal, like the Owl Lady and her pets?    No. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He was not a criminal, he wasn’t bad for invading his uncle’s mind, because Hunter deserved to know the truth. With gritted teeth and his hands clenched into fists, he ran for it, slamming the door behind him open and making a break for it. He could hear the concerned screams of the owl house’s inhabitants but he really could not care less. He just needed to stop being stared at, to get some fresh air, to be able to breathe -...   –   So he ran for a long time. A really long while. Eventually, he became lost, unable to recognize his surroundings. Hunter slowed just barely because it was clear that no one was chasing him - and his breathing was better, wasn't that what he wanted in the first place? Hunter couldn’t remember why he was out here very well. A dark brown tree with knotted roots caught his attention, obviously old, as its wood decomposed and was ravaged by hundreds of tree-eating bugs.    Speaking of wood, a loud chirp rang throughout the woods, and due to his training, he immediately whipped behind himself and took a swing at whatever made the noise. They would pay for sneaking up on him, especially when he was so vulnerable-!   Flapjack avoided it without issue and chirped again; ‘It's just me,’ Hunter was able to make out. The boy blushed, flustered, and put his fist back to his side, looking away from his palisman with embarrassment written all over his features. The bird - Hunter was pretty sure his palisman was supposed to resemble a cardinal? - took place on his shoulder like usual while Hunter stood there without any argument. Of course, he had no issue with his only friend trying to comfort him. At least Flapjack wasnt a criminal like the Owl lawbreakers that he was running from in the first place.    The boy sighed and plopped down onto a tree root that stuck out of the ground. His little bird friend chirped in alarm at the sudden movement but made no other noise. Didn’t talk to him, or ask if he was okay, just sat on him. Hunter was oddly grateful for it.   While they sat in silence, reflecting on what had happened, Hunter felt sick. Was he even real? What was he made of? Why was he even alive? While relieved that he had not been captured by Belos's trap, he had found himself...   ...wanting to be dead.   This feeling wasn't new to him. As he lifted a gloved hand to his face to touch the scar on his cheek, the boy laughed at his own sorrow. He felt it - it was raised slightly, and it was strangely familiar. His skin, however, was strangely clear, (still wasn't his skin, he reminded himself) just like the other scars on his body. Some of them were from his training and some were his punishment. He had deserved them all, every single one of them, or at least that's what Belos had told him.   That reminded him of something.   The boy took his glove off with his teeth and spat it to the side, glancing at his wrist. There sat his coven sigil, and around it, faded scars caused by none other than his uncle. His uncle was messy with his punishments but never overlapped the sigil, Hunter supposed it was because it would mess with its magic or something.  His eyes hovered to the mark itself, yellow and bright, reminding him of everything he had worked for, of everything he obeyed without fail, everything he had built… and he ruined everything in the process.   So many witches might die because of him. Some already have.    Goodness. He couldn't stare at the symbol any longer. Nausea burned at the back of his throat and he felt his eyes blur at the edges, indicating incoming tears. That only made him feel worse. “How dare you fail me, young man! You should know better than to come back with nothing and disappoint me. You have been doing considerably worse on missions, you’re making me look like a fool!” His uncle growled, Hunter, standing in front of him with his hands at his sides, tense and ready for his punishment to just come already, just nodded.   “I’m sorry, sir, but if you just let me explain-” Belos raised a hand and he shut his mouth. He should know better than to interrupt by now.    “What is there to explain, Hunter? You are doing awful at everything, I have never been so let down in all my years.” Hunter flinched at that. He did an awful job at hiding his fear and sorrow when in front of his uncle like this. “You need to learn to obey. You are so pathetic, I regret putting my faith in you.”    Oh, Titan.   Hunter could feel tears brewing. Men don't cry, especially not for stupid reasons such as this, a little insult shouldn’t hurt - he had been insulted in the past, and it hadn’t even felt bad (okay, maybe a little bit, but he got over it eventually).   But.. this was coming from his own kin. His uncle, who he had looked up to, who he had tried to please so many times, only to fail as he has now. Before he could stop it, a tear rolled down his cheek. Hunter would not dare to lower his head to hide it. It was a sign of disrespect, and would only make things worse. Belos made a face under his mask - Hunter could swear he heard an angry grunt - before huffing at him like it was funny. Hunter did not find it very funny. Hunter was horrified and disappointed in himself, so why did Belos find this so funny?   “You really have no self-respect, do you?” Hunter did not answer him, he didn’t need to. Sharp pain in his cheek and the feeling of goo on his cheek answered it for him, the fast sting of it shocked him. A chunk of his face had been torn off, falling to the ground silently.   Hunter was pulled out of his trance by a beak pulling on his ear. Flapjack had been tweeting at him for the past few minutes - the boy had no idea how long it had been, actually - trying to get him out of his disassociated state. It had finally worked. ‘You okay?’ his palisman worried. Hunter had no response for his little buddy, because Titan, was he okay? I mean, obviously not - but the question still lingered in his mind, even if the answer was obvious.   “Flapjack, I - I need you to look away.” The palisman dropped down onto the ground next to him, looking up at him in confusion.   ‘Why?’ it tweeted. Hunter didn’t have a direct answer for that one.   “I just - I want you to go find - find some sticks for a fire, okay buddy?” he lied. Easy enough. Flapjack stood and stared in thought before chirping a simple ‘okay’ in response. The grimwalker let out a breath he didn't know he was holding as his little friend flew off to go find some kindle for a fire. The boy blinked and stared down to the ground, thinking, eyes darting around. He felt guilty for thinking of doing this, but -   - he raised his arm to his face and stared at his wrist. The sigils and his scars were still there. Not like they could grow legs and walk somewhere else. Well, maybe they could. Hunter never looked into the topic. Anything was possible in the isles, after all.   Hunter looked down at his belt, a pocketknife and several other tools hung on it for safety. Just in case he ever needed it, Belos had told him, in case he was ever in danger. Hunter was not in danger. At least, he didn’t think he was. The boy ignored the paranoia sneaking up on him and grabbed his pocketknife out, slipping the blade from its plastic holder. It was shiny. Hunter turned it over and over, watching the moon reflect off of its metal surface.   Was he really going to do this?Hunter's eyes slipped from the blade to his wrist. To his sigil. The sigil. The sigil that marked his loyalty to the Emperor's Coven, to his uncle, to the coven heads. Hunter was no longer loyal to the Emporer’s Coven, therefore, this sigil was NOT his. He dragged the pocketknife to his arm and against the mark on his wrist, the sharp end poking slightly at his skin. But that wasn’t his skin, was it? Because he wasn’t real.   That just made him want to do this more.   Just a few fast slices and he won't have to be reminded of his time spent laboring for the coven. It won't even hurt, he told himself, you won't feel anything. Not like it was his skin, anyway. Hunter’s hand shook slightly, and his muscles kept him from slitting himself open. Anger began to run through his veins - he couldn’t even do something as simple as cutting himself. Pathetic.   No more restrictions. He was going to do this.   One fast slice across his wrist and blood followed behind. It wasn’t very deep, or big, for that matter. It was kind of pitiful actually. Anger followed that, angrier than before, because how the fuck could he be so weak?   Several slits were made in his wrist this time, and his brain just barely processed the pain that trailed afterward. These ones were much bigger than the first one, long and thick, yet not deep. He didn't need them to go deep. He just needed this stupid sigil to be gone, and from the looks of it, he had barely gotten rid of the mark. Fine. He’ll just have to do it again.   Hunter began making precise cuts wherever the mark was not covered in blood, occasionally running the knife over an already opened cut and going deeper than he needed. That was fine. As long as he didn’t hit a vein or something.   A few cuts later, Hunter pulled his arm away from his face, admiring the work he had done. Blood was everywhere, but that was just a tiny inconvenience. He would be fine. Though, he had nothing to stop the bleeding, or at least slow it down a bit. Nothing except leaves. That would not do. Hunter thought about grabbing his glove, putting it on, and letting it be but Flapjack would hate him for that, and he could not afford to lose his best friend. Could Flapjack even abandon him? Were they soul bonded or something? It didn’t matter.   The panging realization hit him. He really had no way to stop the bleeding, and it didn’t look like it would stop on its own any time soon. The adrenaline, on top of everything, began to wear off, and the sting of the cuts began to really take effect. The boy let out a distressed huff at the feeling. He had felt worse but this just felt so different - it felt oddly appealing. That was weird, wasn’t it? Whatever.   A familiar chirping sounded from the left of him and Hunter began to panic. Oh, Titan. He couldn’t let Flapjack see this.   Too late. A flash of red appeared in front of him and he registered the sound of twigs dropping down to the ground. Then, there was a lot of tweeting, alarm, and worry, but Hunter couldn’t make out what Flapjack was trying to say to him. He felt himself going in and out of the world. He didn’t want to listen to Flapjack anymore. His eyes closed - it had nothing to do with the bleeding of his wrist, he really was just so exhausted, and maybe the wrist had a little bit of help in this but it's not like that mattered or anything, right? He would be fine. He always made it out alive when Belos hurt him and he has done much worse to him than a few cuts on his wrist.   He had the healing coven then, though. He didn’t have them to help anymore. He truly was alone. Hunter opened his eyes to look around and noticed Flapjack was gone. Hunter knew he would leave him. Of course he would. Why would anyone stay? Hunter decided that it wasn't worth being awake anymore. The boy closed his eyes again and curled in on himself. A singular tear rolled down his cheek and he hid his face in his knees.    Everything was so dark and everything burned. Maybe some sleep would be nice. Just a little bit. He could devise what to do tomorrow.   So he slept, but like, not really - he tried to. He didn’t feel at peace, especially knowing he was bleeding out, but Titan knows he needed some sleep. He didn’t have much of a choice. Maybe living in the woods would be a good change of scenery.   Focus. Fall asleep. With his mind running like that, he’ll never be able to rest. He shut down his brain the best he could and let another tear fall, curling up into a ball to give himself warmth. It was the best he could do to keep himself sane.   It’ll be a very long night. Hunter had woken up to banter and worried mumbles. He couldn’t quite find out the voices. It was probably the goons Belos had sent after him. Hunter could not be surprised, it was to happen eventually. The boy groaned and let his eyes close once more, too tired to actually do anything or resist. Flapjack had left him last night so he had no power anyway. How useless, something inside of himself told him. The grimwalker ignored that voice. As far as he could tell, when he had opened his eyes not too long ago, it was still dark. He could never catch some sleep, could he?  No more thinking, he thought, letting himself slip into sleep again.    When the boy awoke once more, he was somewhere much more comfortable than where he had first fallen asleep. His eyes opened slowly, crust making it harder than need be. This was most definitely not the forest - actually, he was pretty sure this was a house. A roof was most definitely hanging above him. A familiar roof.  He was in the Owl House. “Titan fucking damnit,” he growled to himself, now fully awake. Morning light shined through the windows, though he didn’t dare get up and off of the couch yet. Who knows how the inhabitants of the house would react to him gone, goodness, Hunter wouldn’t be able to deal with that guilt. He still felt awful for doing what he did at Eclipse lake.    “Hey, kid.” a voice spooked him. Hunter jumped slightly and sat up, turning behind him. Eda stared back. “You’re finally awake. You feeling okay?” “Why am I here?” Hunter dodged the question, though it wasn't on purpose - he needed to know. The last thing he remembered was bleeding everywhere, not being here - this was the last place he needed to be, Belos knew he would be here.   “Darius found you sleeping on the ground on some tree outside and decided to drop you off here. He’s in the kitchen making some grub right now.” Eda shrugged her shoulders and turned her attention over to the kitchen.  Hunter could hear a ‘digusting’ come from the doorway. He had to stifle a laugh. Then it really registered. Darius of all people? Why Darius?? Why wouldn’t he simply just take him to Belos for some easy snails? Eda looked back to him and then to the side, as if nervous. “Hey, buddy, I need to ask you something serious.” Hunter nodded at her, not feeling the need to say anything.   “When Darius found you, he said your - well, you were bleeding from your wrist. Your whole sigil was covered in cuts - and he found a pocketknife covered in blood next to you.” Oh, geez, he should’ve expected this conversation, how could he not think that wouldn’t come to bite him back in the ass? “Did you - did you do that on purpose? Were you - geez, kid, I’m not good at asking these, or helping for that matter, this is so awkward - but, I need to ask.” Another nod from the boy. “Were you trying to kill yourself..?” she asked, her voice getting quieter as if to not let anyone hear, even if nobody was close to them. Hunter sighed and closed his eyes, not quite ready to face her disappointed face. He didn’t want to see the pity drip off of her facial expression.   “No.” he frowned. “I wasn’t.” “What were you tryna do, kid? Nobody does that much damage on accident.” she huffed a silent awkward laugh, no real humor behind it. Titan, how was he supposed to tell her this? Well, he knew one way out of this. Just don’t talk. And that he did, keeping his mouth shut and avoiding her glance by simply keeping his eyes closed. He didn’t owe her any kind of explanation, not at all, therefore, she could go suck - suck something, he wasn’t sure, “Fine, be that way. But don’t think I won't ask you later.” Hunter did not respond to that. Eda’s voice was almost challenging, as if trying to speak his language. That was mildly annoying at best.   Eda sighed and shifted - Hunter couldn’t tell how she was moving, so he flinched, scared she would hit him, though no pain came. “You really had me and Darius worried. I told Luz and King that you were simply just tired. I didn’t want them seeing your wrist - I hope you don't mind?” Hunter shook his head. He really could not care less.  A loud chirp came from behind him and he jumped, finally opening his eyes. A red cardinal palisman landed on his shoulder and the boy's eyes brightened. “Flapjack! I thought you left me!” he exclaimed, holding out a hand to have the bird land onto his hand (which he noted was not gloved - how did he not notice that before? - there was also a bandage around his wrist, it was blood stained) which it very much did. ‘You scared me a lot,’ it tweeted, ‘i had to get help for you.’ Hunter raised an eyebrow at that. “You got help for me?” he repeated out loud.   “Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, your little bird friend is the one who got Darius in the first place. You should be grateful the little guy is so patient with you.” Hunter was grateful. So, so, so so grateful - and guilty. He had stressed out this poor bird so much.  “I'm sorry, Flapjack. I’ll never let that happen again, okay?” he got a confirming tweet in response, because thank goodness, he wasn’t sure if he could live with himself if he made his own palisman hate him. “You might wanna go back to bed,” Eda suggested. Hunter turned to look at her.     “Why?” he asked.  “Your eyebags somehow look worse than before, even after all that sleep. It’d be good for you. Just in case, yeah?” Hunter nodded in response. He got what she meant, something like that. He was tired as well. It wouldn’t hurt - not like he had anything better to do. He could also rest easy knowing his sigil was now removed from his skin. Even if it meant all of this. Hunter dropped down back onto the couch and put his arms over his chest - a sleeping position he was oddly used to - and Flapjack flew down and landed on his chest on top of his hands. Hunter huffed at the contact and closed his eyes. “Alright, buddy. I’ll leave you to rest.” Eda reassured. Thank Titan. Maybe the boy didn’t feel fully safe - maybe the boy was a little horrified - but he didn't hurt quite as much anymore. It felt better. He felt better. The grimwalker sighed and let himself fall into the delusion of sleep.

Not Rated

Luz had waited years for this moment. Well, years was an exaggeration but it felt like she had waited years to finally see Amity. Really see her the way she had always wanted, touch her in the way she had dreamed about, to be touched in the way she fantasized. And now, wearing only her bandeau and breeches, it would seem that her dreams would become a reality. Her lips were practically fused to Amity’s, blindly reaching for whatever article of clothing she could get her hands on and only ever pulling away to take off the offending item. First came the mantua gown, which was a little cumbersome and earned a giggle from both girls as it joined Luz’s discarded clothes on the floor of their cabin. As Luz fumbled with her corset, Amity divested herself of her petticoat, kicking off her legs and not caring where it ended up. The entire time, Luz latched her mouth to Amity’s neck, biting and sucking and definitely leaving a mark and making Amity purr right into Luz’s ear. Titan, that sound made her insides churn in the best way. Amity retaliated by placing an open mouth kiss on Luz’s own neck, barely scraping her fangs along the pulse point and making the human gasp out a “fuck~” into Amity’s ear. With Luz’s hands grasping at her hair, Amity shed her breeches leaving her in nothing but her shift while Luz still had on her own breeches and bandeau. When Luz went to take off her shift, Amity stopped her, gently grabbing her wrists. “Wait,” she said. Luz met Amity’s eyes with a concerned look. “Is this too fast?” Luz asked. “Do you want to slow down?” “What? No!” Amity replied. “Definitely not. Just… this is it.” Luz seemed confused. “I mean…” Amity shifted her voice to a whisper, leaning closer until her mouth was right next to Luz’s ear to hide her flushing face. “I’m not wearing anything else.” “Oh?” Luz said, before realizing what that really meant. “Oooohhhh… okay, so, uh, how do you want to do this? I’ve got the two things, you got just the one…” Amity gave Luz a small smile before simply lifting the shift over her head and tossing it to the growing pile of clothes on the floor. Luz immediately went bright red and while her mouth moved, no sound came out. Amity could barely suppress a giggle as she now stood bare before Luz, the human’s awkwardness helping to ward off her own nerves. “Don’t laugh!” Luz whined, though her smile betrayed how she really felt. “You’re… wow…” she sighed. “You are… so beautiful.” Amity blushed profusely, her eyes lingering on Luz’s remaining clothes before she stepped forward. She put her hands on Luz’s waist, pulling their bodies flush together. Luz bit back a moan as the burning skin on skin contact. Amity rested her forehead against Luz’s, eyes closed, noses touching and lips millimeters apart. The witch then slid her hands upward until they found the fabric of Luz’s bandeau and slipped underneath. When Amity opened her eyes, Luz could see the pure want and unbridled lust in them. “Can I…?” Amity trailed off. When Luz failed to get the words out of her mouth, she nodded, raising her arms above her head. Amity tugged the fabric up, revealing her small breasts and erect nipples. With the bandeau discarded, Amity turned her attention to Luz’s chest, staring with a hunger Luz had only seen a few times prior, but still never this intense. Right as Luz went to take off her breeches, Amity pulled her toward herself and the bed. However, Luz’s legs got tangled up in the fabric of her undergarments and she went toppling over on the bed, bringing Amity with her. Amity flopped on her back, her legs still hanging off the bed while Luz, with her breeches only halfway on, fell face first into Amity’s bare chest. For a few seconds, everything went silent until Luz could no longer contain her laughter and started giggling uncontrollably. Her laughter was contagious as Amity joined in soon after. “I’ve always wanted to be in this position,” Luz admitted. “But this is not how I thought I’d get there.” Their laughter erupted anew before Amity said, “How are you so clumsy?” “Me?!” Luz exclaimed. “You didn’t let me finish getting my pants all the way off!” Amity looked down and sure enough, her breeches were pulled down to her knees, but still on her legs. Though she still got a nice view of Luz’s cute butt when she leaned up a little. “Are you looking at my ass?” Luz complained. “Yes,” Amity replied immediately. “It’s a very cute ass.” Luz looked up to see a grinning Amity and gave her a searing kiss before pulling away and sliding to the side to actually get her breeches off. Meanwhile, Amity got herself better situated on the bed, eyeing Luz’s bare back (and backside) hungrily. Luz finally jumped into the bed with Amity, positioning herself so that their faces were nose to nose with a hint of bare skin touching. “I love you,” both girls said at the same time before laughing with a fit of giggles that slowly turned into sweet kisses. After enjoying their simple lip lock for a while, Amity pushed herself up so that she sat atop Luz, straddling her at the waist. Sweet kisses turned hungry and Luz let her hands grasp Amity’s waist before sliding down to her hips. “Keep going,” Amity demanded when Luz stopped at her hips. Luz, eager to please, let her hands slide lower, grasping Amity’s firm buttocks and pulling her even closer, despite the way they were flush against each other. Amity moaned into Luz’s mouth and her hips rocked forward, effectively grinding on Luz’s pelvis and hips. Luz also moaned into Amity’s mouth at this and this time, Amity rocked her hips into Luz without prompting. They continued this gentle swaying into each other at their tongues danced between their mouths until air became an issue and both girls were forced to part, panting and gasping for air. “Holy shit,” Luz gasped. Amity leaned her forehead against Luz’s, her hands now carding through the human’s hair. “Eloquent,” Amity laughed. “I mean… holy shit,” Luz laughed with her. They lied together until Amity slid off to the side, giving Luz a parting kiss and pulling the blanket up to cover their chests. It was mostly so that she didn’t have the uncontrollable urge to put her mouth all over Luz’s body. “I, uh, I want to keep going,” Amity said sheepishly. “But I don’t know what to do next.” “What did your books say?” Luz asked. “Well, they said that we should start with foreplay,” Amity explained. “But there weren’t a whole lot of details. Everything I know about the subject of… about the subject is from fiction which is, well, fiction.” “Then let’s take things slow,” Luz suggested. “And just try what feels right. If we like it, we keep going. If not, we slow down or just stop.” “We should have a safe word,” Amity added. “Just in case.” “Okay,” Luz agreed. “What should the safe word be?” Amity thought for a moment before looking into Luz’s eyes and the way her blush went all the way down to the warm brown skin of her bare shoulders. Amity grinned. “Chocolate,” Amity decided. Luz raised an eyebrow. “It’s a little on the nose,” Amity admitted. “We can use-“ “No, I like it,” Luz interrupted. “It just kind of caught me off guard. I’m kinda curious as to where you pulled it from.” “You,” Amity explained. “Your skin. How much I just want to eat you up!” she said, nipping at Luz’s bottom lip and getting a contented gasp for her troubles. “Plus it’s both of our favorite food in the world so it has sentimental value and it’s not something with of us would say durning se- during… this… activity.” Both girls blushed, neither seemingly able to say of word that described their… activity. “And uh, the books also said to make sure your nails are trimmed so as not to incur any, ahem, unwanted scratches in sensitive areas.” “Why… ooohhh,” Luz realized. “I um, usually keep my nails pretty short. So… yeah.” “I’ve kept my nails trimmed since we started dating,” Amity admitted, making Luz go even redder. “Sooo…” Luz sighed. “Do we just want to pick up where we left off?” “Maybe not at that point exactly,” Amity replied. “That was… a lot. And while I want to go all the way, I think we should ease into it.” “Okay,” Luz agreed. “And if either of us gets uncomfortable or wants to stop, we use the safe word and we stop immediately.” “And the safe word is…?” Amity prompted. “Chocolate,” Luz confirmed. “Okay,” sighed Amity. “Okay,” sighed Luz. They met each other’s eyes, getting closer and closer- “Wait,” Luz said. “Can you… get back on top of me?” Amity grinned and straddled Luz once again, every point of contact burning in the best way possible. The witch looked into her eyes and seemed to forget all her previous nervousness as she mashed her lips against Luz’s. One of the human’s hands went to Amity’s hair while the other settled on her hip. Meanwhile, Amity had both her hands in Luz’s hair feeling its softness and gently tugging just to feel Luz sigh into her mouth. When they broke apart to breathe, Amity started trailing kisses down Luz’s jaw, to her ear, pulling on it a little with her lips and making Luz gasp, before her lips found her neck. Amity sucked on Luz’s pulse, teasing her fangs over the skin there once again. “Amity,” Luz sighed. The witch in question purred into Luz’s neck. “Please…” Luz could see Amity’s ears twitch in excitement before she bit down. Normally, Luz would just sigh or let out a quiet moan whenever Amity did this. Tonight though, was different for many reasons and so, with her arousal heightening her pleasure, Luz moaned loudly into their cabin, only to slap a hand over her mouth. “I want to hear your voice, xana,” Amity said huskily. “But-but the crew,” Luz stammered. “They’ll hear us.” “Let them,” Amity purred. “Let them hear you moan my name so that they all know that you’re mine.” Amity bit down again, this time on the other side of Luz’s neck and leaving another mark. “Fuck, Amity~,” Luz moaned. Amity started kissing her way further down, occasionally sucking at the hot skin and making Luz moan her name. Luz mentally patted herself on the back for managing to keep her voice down at least a little. But when Amity took a nipple into her mouth and began sucking on it, she could no longer control her voice. When she moaned this time, it was loud, airy, and once again with Amity’s name on her lips. “That’s it,” Amity purred. She switched her attention, to the other breast, using her hand to grope the one she left behind. Luz squirmed under Amity, her chest heaving into the witch’s mouth desperately. Luz grasped the hand groping her with her own while the other dug into Amity’s hair, guiding Amity and giving her a gentle tug when needed. All of Luz’s senses were being overpowered by the feeling of Amity. Luz barely registered that Amity had started kissing her stomach and lower until she felt hot lips just above her small patch of pubic hair and her senses were overwhelmed. “Chocolate,” Luz blurted. Immediately, Amity stopped her ministrations and looked up at Luz with a concerned expression. “Are you okay?” Amity asked. “Yeah,” Luz squeaked. “I was just… I was about to… you know.” “Oh,” Amity murmured. She moved back up so that her body was halfway on Luz, one hand across her stomach, the other lazily stroking her hair. “And you haven’t even touched my-“ “Hey,” Amity interrupted. “It’s okay. It both our first times. I don’t think I’ll… last very long either.” “It’s not just that,” Luz mumbled, looking away shyly. “You don’t want this to end, do you?” Amity suggested. Luz nodded. “Just because we… finish doesn’t mean we’re done,” Amity explained. “I’ve read that it varies from person to person. Some people are done after one round and others can go all night. The night won’t end until we decide it does. Or until the sun comes up.” “I don’t think we’ll go for that long,” Luz rolled her eyes playfully. “Not that I don’t want to, but my body has its limits.” “Me too,” Amity giggled. “Do you want me to continue?” Luz blushed. “Please.” Not bothering with teasing, Amity returned to her previous position with her hands on Luz’s hips and her mouth just below her stomach. Amity once again kissed Luz’s pubic mound, making Luz gasp sharply. Amity paused, but when Luz didn’t say anything, she kissed a little lower. And lower. Until she felt a wetness on her lips. Amity was befuddled by how wet she was. Luz moaned and bucked her hips into Amity’s mouth as she kissed her clit. “Fuck!” Luz squeaked. Amity went to look up but Luz put her hand on the back of the witch’s head and gently pulled her back to her heat. “Don’t stop,” Luz pleaded. Amity continued kissing the sensitive nub. “Use your-“ Luz gasped as Amity gave a little suction with one of her kisses. “Use your tongue,” Luz suggested. Amity obliged, flicking her tongue up and down, side to side and the the reaction was immediate. “Oh shit,” Luz said quietly. Her whole body went still until her legs started vibrating with tiny shakes. “I’m-I’m-“ “It’s okay,” Amity reassured. “Let go, xana.” Luz moaned softly, her breath coming out in low pants and whines. Amity licked her through her orgasm, slowly easing off until Luz’s grip on her hair slackened. “Holy Titan,” Luz sighed. “How was that?” Amity asked, moving so that she was lying next to Luz. “That was amazing,” Luz breathed. “I want to kiss you so bad.” “It probably tastes like… you,” Amity noted. “Oh just come here,” Luz said, pulling her in for a passionate kiss. Amity smiled into the kiss, cupping Luz’s face with one one hand. She soon felt Luz’s own hands begin to wander, sliding from her forearms to her shoulders and eventually resting just below the collarbone. Luz looked down at her hands before looking into Amity’s eyes for approval. The witch nodded and Luz moved her hands lower, kneading and massaging Amity’s breasts. Luz always found it adorable how Amity purred and her ears flapped whenever she was happy or excited. Now was no exception except this time, it also turned Luz on. Like a lot. She fought the urge to put one of her own hands between her legs and instead focused on Amity’s pleasure. Luz attached her lips to Amity’s neck, leaving more marks and making the witch moan loudly. “I guess neither of us are very quiet are we?” Luz remarked. “Just keep going,” Amity hissed. “I want you inside me.” “Eager?” the human teased. “Luz…” Amity groaned as the girl in question gently pinched both nipples simultaneously. “Please Luz. I need you.” Luz stifled a moan and moved one of her hands between Amity’s legs, her fingers teasing the warm, wet folds. “I think you might be wetter than me,” Luz noted. “Oh just shut up and put a finger in me,” Amity grumbled. Luz groaned at Amity’s boldness and firmly dragged her middle finger over Amity’s clit before it slipped inside her folds effortlessly. Amity gasped then moaned Luz’s name, the sound like music to the human. Amity was so hot, so cute with the way her eyebrows scrunched together and lips ever so slightly agape as more gasps, whines, groans and moans poured from her pretty mouth. Luz kept the pace slow, unsure as to what Amity might like. She experimented with different angles, using Amity’s reactions as a guide. “More,” Amity begged. “More?” Luz questioned. Amity nodded. “Use another finger. And go faster. Fuck it feels so good.” Luz pulled out enough so that her ring finger could join her middle and pushed back into Amity. Luz could feel her walls stretching and clenching around her fingers, and looked up to see a couple stray tears coming from Amity’s eyes. “Amity?” Luz said, concerned. “I’m okay,” Amity assured. “It hurts. But it feels so good. I love you so much.” “You want me to stop?” Luz asked. “No!” Amity squeaked. “No, just… keep going. I can take it.” Luz frowned. “You remember the safe word?“ Amity smiled, her breath still coming out in gasps. “Chocolate.” “Okay,” Luz nodded. She started moving her fingers once again and Amity immediately moaned Luz’s name. Her whole face wore such a blissful, beautiful expression and Luz knew she was wet again. She leaned forward to kiss Amity and she felt her thighs rub together creating such relieving friction. She needed more though. Her own walls clenched on nothing as if demanding attention. She was brought back to Amity by her choked moans as she tried to speak. “Luz,” she moaned. “I’m-I’m so close. Just… curl your fingers up-“ “Like this?” “Yes! Just like that! Don’t stop, don’t stop! I’m gonna-I’m-fuuuuck…” Amity’s hips jerked up as she came, her walls clenching down hard on Luz’s fingers. Luz fingered her through it, kissing away the tears on Amity’s face while rubbing her own thighs together to release at least some of the tension between her legs. Luz pulled her fingers out of Amity, making her yelp at their sudden loss. “I’m sorry,” Luz apologized immediately. “Did I hurt you?” “No I’m fine,” Amity said, still breathing heavily. “Better than fine. You just pulled out a little fast and I’m still a little sensitive.” “Sorry,” Luz apologized again. “It’s okay,” Amity assured her. “Something to remember for next time.” Luz smiled at that. “Next time…” “I mean, I definitely want a next time,” Amity said. “Me too,” Luz said. However, Amity seemed to notice how Luz was rubbing her legs together as she looked at Luz curiously. “You okay?” Amity asked. “Yeah,” Luz lied. “I’m fine.” Amity raised an eyebrow but then smirked. “I can tell you’re not,” Amity purred. “Are you… aroused again?” Luz gulped as her face flushed for the umpteenth time that night. She nodded. “Do you want me to give a… hand?” Amity asked cupping Luz’s pubic area and feeling the now familiar wetness. Luz nodded again. “Then consider this one last birthday present. Happy birthday, xana. I love you.” “I love you too, mi amor,” Luz sighed. Amity pushed her middle finger inside Luz, mirroring the human’s ministrations from earlier. Luz sucked in a sharp breath as she stretched around Amity’s finger. The witch teased her thumb over Luz’s sensitive clit, making her gasp and making Amity smirk. “I’m going to add another finger now, okay?” Amity said. “Please,” Luz begged. “Please just- Amity!” Luz wailed as Amity pushed her index finger inside and curled it up in a come hither motion until she found that one special spot. Amity rubbed it over and over and Luz held onto the bedsheets with a white knuckle grip. All Luz could feel as she came was AmityAmityAmity and yesyesyes as her eyes rolled back into her head and she nearly blacked out from the pleasure. Amity slowly eased off, allowing Luz to come down gently from her orgasm. “Wow,” Luz sighed. “I think the crew knows we… did it.” “Probably,” Amity admitted. “It’s your fault really,” Luz said. “For being so good at… that.” “I’ll take responsibility for that,” Amity giggled. “You were half bad yourself.” “Really?” Luz asked. “Really,” replied Amity. “That was wonderful.” She curled into Luz’s side, nuzzling her face into her human’s neck and taking in the scent of seawater and sweat. A surprisingly intoxicating smell for Amity. “We’re probably going to have to do the walk of shame tomorrow,” Luz noted as she wrapped her arms around the witch. “Worth it,” Amity said, making Luz laugh. “Yeah,” Luz agreed. “Definitely worth it.” The gentle rocking of The Vile Owl and the exhaustion of their activities lulled both girls to sleep as they relaxed further into each other’s embrace.

Explicit