The calm beauty that surrounded Amity was in stark contrast to how she felt inside.
Behind and above her, the Grom tree, that had been the result of both Amity and Luz's Magic combining as one to defeat Grometheus, stood as strong and as tall as the day that it first came into being. Pink leaves that, when so much of the wildlife on the Isles had turned charcoal black and grey, remained bright and colourful, immune to the effects of the Cherubim's peering due to its magical properties.
Around it, the auburn and oranges of the trees and flora accessorised the Grom tree, making it stand out that little bit more in a wonderful bright contrast, and the sight over the Boiling Seas was as wonderful as it ever had been here, the way the water reflected the light and seemed to make it all sparkle…
All of it radiated calm. Contentment. A certain peace with things just… Happening as they happened, like it was in the very nature of the season of Auburntide. None of this was here by conscious choice, aside from the Grom Tree. Nature had fallen where it had fallen. The result of just letting things play out, and seeing what happened.
Nature could just allow itself to see what happened naturally, without the fear of what would happen, needing to take external influences into account, or be fearful about the seventeen different ways that it could go wrong somehow. The tree didn't need to worry about what the ground would think or feel towards it once its leaf hit the grass. It just would, and whatever happened, happened.
It had been this combination of observations that made Amity come here.
That and the sentimental value that the tree had to her. And it had plenty of sentimental value to her.
This wasn't the first time that Amity had come here when she needed time to think, or time to herself, ever since the tree had sprung to life. There were times when she needed a place to herself to study, away from anyone else, including her friends and her siblings. And sometimes, it would bring her a feeling of comfort. More often than not though, it was times when she needed to think, without the risk of interruption.
These reasons had helped it to become something of a favourite spot of hers. Where the tree had come from, when it had been born, and just how it had been brought into the world... There were a lot of feelings associated with this place, and a part of her had hoped that it would help her to feel… Some sense of courage, or some sense of peace.
Both of which were, if she were being honest, failing her right now that things were actually in motion.
As soon as Amity sent her message to Luz, a part of her regretted sending it.
Deeply regretted it.
Anxiety spiked up in her chest, and she bit her lower lip, harder than was healthy. Her hands fell to her sides, and she took a few deep breaths, trying to make herself relax, at least a little. Her hands grabbed patches of grass, pulling a few up from the ground as she did so. Having something to grab hold of like that helped her to feel like she wasn't falling off a cliff - It was a hard feeling to explain, but it helped her as her mind began to go into overdrive, thinking of the dozens of ways this could end up going.
She was terrified of what Luz was going to say.
And she wasn't even going to pretend that that wasn't the case. She was terrified of what Luz would say when she inevitably got here.
Titan - damned terrified.
And that fear made her want to run - It really, really did make her want to run. Because if she didn't hear it, that small little part of her heart that was still holding onto hope that maybe Luz might be willing to give her a chance could keep on holding on, because right now, it felt like that was the only thing that was helping her wake up in the morning. And perhaps that too wasn't healthy, but Amity couldn't help it.
She cared about Luz so much. She wanted Luz to care about her the same way. It was selfish, but she couldn't help it.
But in spite of the immense anxiety that was now creeping into her body though, she wouldn't run. She wasn't going to. Not this time.
It was, in fact, exactly that feeling that had made her reply to Luz. Even when it would have been so much easier to ignore it, and to pretend that she hadn't seen it. Even when literally anything else would have been easier, it was that fear that made her agree to see her crush. To face this.
Because she couldn't keep feeling like this.
Over the last few days since Valeween had ended, Amity had found herself crippled with how… Overwhelmed she was.
There wasn't a better word for it. This feeling, it had practically taken over every moment of day, leaving her unable to focus on anything else. She tried to focus on something else - Anything else - to try to take her mind off of it, but it was impossible. Her mind always went back to it.
Always focused on it.
When she had first realised how she felt about Luz, a similar thing had happened - Thoughts of her filling Amity's head at every waking moment, and making her a blushing, awkward, stammering mess that would jump at even the smallest interactions with her. The way that Luz made her feel, the effect that she had on her whenever she acted in that… That 'Luz' way that she did, it made it difficult to focus on anything else. But she had managed to figure out ways to handle that, so she could act like an actually functioning Witch around her crush. She'd never felt like that before. Anything even similar hadn't even come close.
But this was different. For so many reasons.
For one thing, the original way she felt about Luz actually made her happy.
This just made her feel miserable.
Amity inhaled and exhaled again, and then made herself open her eyes. She had… Managed to at least steady her heart rate a bit. She tried to watch over the Boiling Sea, focusing on the waves off in the distance and watching how they shifted and broke apart. She didn't have anything else she could focus on. It helped to ground her… Just a little bit. Kept her at least a bit distracted. It helped.
So many different moving parts were going on in her head right now that led to this crushing, suffocating feeling of overwhelming anxiety - It wasn't just one thing.
It wasn't just the fear. She was afraid of rejection, of what Luz would say to her when she got here. That hadn't changed. And that was still immense. But that only played a small part in the now far wider picture.
The biggest players were guilt, and were shame.
Shame that she had gotten hit by a Cherubim in the first place.
Guilt that more than anything else, she wanted Luz to stay here. To stay on the Isles, even though she knew that Luz wanted to return to the Human world.
Guilt that she hadn't changed.
Shame that she was the same, selfish, self centered person that she had been the day that she met Luz.
Guilt that she couldn't change.
Not even for Luz.
She couldn't even change for Luz.
Amity knew she didn't have the right to feel sorry for herself - And it was just as selfish that she did feel like this at all. She didn't have the right. She didn't even have the right to even want to not feel like this anymore - But she - She couldn't take it anymore.
Regret, remorse, anxiety, fear - It all piled up in her mind and in her chest. And it just grew more and more the more uncertain she was. She - She needed to know. Needed to know where they stood. Needed to know if Luz even saw her as a friend. Needed an answer.
Even if it was a no.
So when Luz messaged her… It took her a few minutes to work up the courage to reply, but she did. She hadn't known how to approach Luz herself - Was too afraid to.
But… Luz asked her to talk. Somehow that made it easier.
The Witch leaned back and allowed her head to hit the trunk of the tree. She wasn't even making sense to herself. All these thoughts, feelings, fears, they all jumbled up into an unstructured mess that she couldn't figure out how to express coherently, or even just think about clearly. There was just too much going on in her head and in her heart. So many feelings that had spent so long without being addressed, until they swelled into… Well, this.
All she knew was that the part of her that wanted to know was winning over the part of her that wanted to run and hide. At least then she would know. At least then she could…
…Do whatever was supposed to come next.
It was hard not to remember Grom as Luz approached the cliff.
The tree was enormous - Far larger than the other ones around it. It was visible from a fair distance away - Peering above the other trees near it, Luz had first spotted the thing about ten minutes ago, and she still hadn't reached its base yet. Though, that might have had more to do with how it looked as opposed to its height.
Colourful bright pink leaves stood out easily over the orange and reds that coloured the islands, and a part of Luz suddenly felt regretful that she hadn't had the foresight to go and see it over the last week - Magical plant life wasn't affected by the effects the Cherubim had on the Isle's ecosystem, nor was plant life that had been generated by Magic. It was the same reason why Willow's Plant Magic hadn't just become another vessel for the Cherubim to spy on the Witches of the Isles. Their tree would have stood out brilliantly against the greys and blacks that had taken over all the other plants.
Valeween had kept her busy though. And immensely distracted. The thought had just never crossed her mind until now.
Thanks to Valeween though, everything about it felt like it was put into a new context. The path to the tree. The tree itself. Grom. Even how Amity referred to it as 'Our Tree' felt different now. Thinking back on it, it had just become a thing that the two of them did over the months, whenever the tree came up in conversation. It had changed from being 'The Grom Tree' to 'Our Tree' over time, without either of them even noticing.
Or, at least, Luz not noticing. Or blocking it out. She didn't know which it was at this point.
Now, she wondered if Amity had noticed. And what she had made of that at the time.
What she made of it now.
Knowing what she knew now, it made Luz's face feel slightly warm.
Grom itself though, aside from the existential horror that it had thrown her way, had been nothing short of an absolutely incredible night. That night was still one Luz held dear to herself, and would admit, it made beyond her happy that Amity did too. It felt like it was the night their friendship was truly sealed beyond any measure of a doubt. In spite of their vastly improved relationship up until that point, there had still been at least a mild, hair-width degree of ambiguity beforehand, at least in Luz's mind, but by the end of it, that had been completely gone.
And they had danced. And they had laughed. And they had spent the entire celebration together and it had been an amazing time - A time that, back on Earth, she had a feeling she would have never gotten to experience.
No one would have ever gone to prom with the person who was prepared, and indeed tried to go once, in an otter onesie.
But people here were.
Just another reason on a long list of reasons why she loved the Isles as much as she did.
Luz's hands were sunk deep into the pockets of her jacket - For some reason, she couldn't help but remember very specifically in her head that this jacket had a different design to the one she normally wore, since her favourite one had been torn up during Valeween from treating Amity's injuries. This one had long sleeves, was just a solid blue, but had vine-like patterns going up the sleeves before it terminated at the hood. It was weird to take note of that, especially since she'd barely even registered it throughout the day, but Luz couldn't help but notice it now. It was different. Weird.
Just walking towards the tree felt… Weird. Not necessarily a bad weird, just… Weird. It was difficult to describe.
An anxious weird. That was the best she could do.
Now that she knew Amity was… In love with her, - And that was still an insane thought to get her head around - Luz found herself looking back on her memories as she approached the tree. The new context applied, she found herself double checking and questioning nearly every interaction the two of them had had. Every conversation, every smile, every time her face went red but Luz had attributed it to some other factor, like sickness or heat. Seeing if she could spot signs of how Amity's feelings had evolved, and when, and maybe why.
That really was the biggest question involved. One that Luz still couldn't even begin to get her head around.
Why?
And how.
Maybe how was the better question, actually.
Of all the people out there…
"How and why… Me?" She said quietly, not even realising that she had said it herself.
Twists, turns, and paths had been walked down while all these thoughts had gone on throughout her head, and she hadn't been paying full attention to her surroundings. She had gone along mostly automatically, the thoughts she was having retaining her focus. She had walked these paths a thousand times. She knew where she was going mostly by instinct.
It wasn't until she was on the final path that she realised exactly where she was. She gulped, but continued to walk.
Getting close and closer to the base of the tree though, Luz felt her heartbeat pick up. She was nervous, of course, though the rational part of her brain told her that it didn't make sense. She knew how Amity felt. It wasn't like there was even a risk to her, really. She didn't need to be afraid how Amity felt about her in this whole scenario. For some reason, she almost felt like she needed to be. But she didn't.
So why was she so nervous?
It was…
...It felt familiar.
It felt like Earth.
A memory flashed throughout her mind. Of Earth. Of her school. Of the last time something like this happened.
...Honestly, Luz didn't even know what was going to happen here, but she knew that it was going to change… Pretty much everything, no matter how this all went.
What she didn't know was if this would be a positive change, or a negative change.
That was scary.
Finally, she stood next to the tree, and for a moment, she just placed her hand on it, like she needed to confirm that it was still there. It still was. This tree mattered to her. She was proud of it. Where it had come from, times she had come here with Amity… It all mattered to her. It was her tree.
Their tree.
Somehow, it felt fitting that they would end up here after all of this.
Amity would be on the other side of the tree relative to where Luz was, she knew. Her heart jumped. She took a deep breath, and let out a long, quiet exhale. Then she stepped around the tree.
And there she was.
There wasn't even a split second where they needed to readjust their eyes to look directly at one another - The moment Luz turned the corner, she was already looking down at Amity, sat and huddled against the tree as she was. Likewise, Amity was already looking up at Luz. Maybe she had heard her approach, and that was how she had known she was about to arrive.
Immediately, Luz couldn't help but notice that Amity's eyes looked… Redder than she remembered them being. It didn't take much to know where that had come from - And knowing that Amity had spent the last couple of days crying about all of this made Luz's heart sink.
Likewise, Amity could see the dark circles that had formed under Luz's eyes, and had to wonder just how much of her clear lack of sleep had come from her confession. Just one more thing to feel guilty over.
For a moment, the two of them just stared at one another. Not sure what to say, both their chests tightening, both trying to find the right words.
"...Hey." Luz finally said, breaking the silence first. She spoke slower than usual. More uncertainly.
"...Hey." Amity said back. She was noticeably quieter.
"...A… Are you…" Luz stopped halfway through her sentence. 'Are you okay?' Obviously Amity wasn't. But what else was she supposed to say?
For a brief pause, Amity didn't say anything, or move at all. She just looked at Luz, before a small sigh escaped her, and she looked forward, out over the Boiling Sea. "...No. Not really."
Her hair was down, so it was hard to see her eyes behind it to gauge her visual response. Luz wondered if she had tied it up again since the last time they saw one another - Probably not. Where would she even get a hair tie from, when hers was lost when they were trapped under the rubble at Blight Manor, and when Blight Manor was basically a pile of charred rubble right now? Amity looked so different with it down. It was… Almost distracting.
Luz shifted awkwardly on her feet, and then gestured to a space next to Amity. "Er… You mind if I…?"
Amity just shook her head, and moved a few inches to the side to allow Luz to sit down. That was a no, she didn't mind, then.
Taking a seat next to Amity, the two of them stayed silent for a little bit more. They both looked out at the Boiling Sea, trying to figure out what they were going to say to one another. There had been little moments during the walk here that Luz had played in her mind, had almost played out in her mind of how this was going to end up going, and she was quickly realising that not a single one of them was going to play out as she had imagined. That would rely on her knowing what to say.
That would rely on them even being able to talk at all.
Where did they start? Where could they start with something like this?
...Maybe it made sense to start as early as Luz could think to start from.
"...I er… Do you… Do you mind if I ask you a question, Amity?" She asked, turning her head slightly and looking towards her friend.
The Witch nodded. Luz couldn't tell if she was looking at her, or still out to sea.
"I uh… I went to your room in the library." She saw Amity tense up at that, and quickly went to explain herself. "I didn't mean to intrude or anything, I thought you might have been there. And I er… Saw what you had there."
A pause.
"...Was… Was I the person that you wanted to ask to Grom?"
Another pause. A longer pause.
"...Yes." Amity's answer was quiet, and she almost sounded like she was ashamed of it.
An exhale left Luz's chest, as she leaned back against the tree. So she had been right. She was the Grom crush. She was the crush Amity had had for… Months now.
A part of her had gotten the idea in her head that maybe Amity's feelings towards her were a more recent development, and that there had been someone else before her that had caught Amity's eye, and that maybe it all of this hadn't been a result of her blocking out how Amity felt for as long as she had been doing.
It wasn't the case though. She had been the one Amity had wanted to ask out for close to six entire months now.
Every time she had tried to make Amity feel better about… That entire situation, all came returning flooding back into her head. Every time she tried to encourage Amity to just go for it, every time she would gently tease her about it, every time she tried to offer what little advice she thought she could give. Every time the two of them were close and she would… Just throw something out there. For some reason her whole 'Would you smooch an Abomination' joke from earlier in the week came to mind.
Hell, Grom came back into her mind.
They had been genuine efforts to help, or to be a good friend, or just to have fun with Amity, but now she couldn't help but feel like she had only been contributing to the mess Amity was now in.
She didn't...
"...I didn't know." She said, quietly. She didn't know what else to say.
A part of her was happy though - She never had imagined back on Earth that someone would ever want to ask her to anything like Grom. The fact that Amity had wanted to… It made her happy, in a way she couldn't express right now.
"...I didn't tell you." Amity said. Her arms rested on top of her knees, and her forehead rested against them. Her entire face was hidden now. "It's not like it's your fault for not knowing."
"Still… I'm… Sorry, if I made things harder for you, after that…"
"You don't need to be. It's okay."
Another pause.
"Luz, I -"
"Amity -"
Both of them had turned to look at the other, but when they froze again when they met one another's eyes and interrupted one another. For a second, they just looked at one another, waiting for the other to continue talking, but neither did.
There really wasn't going to be a comfortable way of doing this, Luz was rapidly realising. This was going to be an awkward, uncertain, mess of a conversation. They were going to trip up, interrupt one another, and have periods where they didn't know what to even begin to say to one another.
Again, this time, she was the one who broke the silence. "Um… Do you wanna go first, or should I?"
"...I'm sorry."
Amity rested her forehead on her arms again, hiding her face. Her arms were crossed and her hands gripped onto the other arms skin. Luz could see her fingers becoming more and more tense and rigid, and her nails digging into her skin.
"...I didn't want you to find out like that." Amity's voice was quiet and muffled. "I… I wanted to be able to tell you how I felt when I could… I wanted it to be…" She trailed off. "...I - I don't know... I just… I wanted to be able to tell you myself, not while some Cherubim made me say things I couldn't control."
Her head came up, slightly.
"I wanted to tell you, I - I really did, Luz. I've wanted to for… Months, now. I didn't want to hide it from you, but I… I didn't know what you would say if you knew. I was…" Her sentence trailed off, until she turned completely silent.
"...Afraid I would reject you." Luz finished. This was the place that she had learned rejection was Amity's biggest fear. She still remembered. And now that she knew it was her that Amity had wanted to ask to Grom…
What a mess this all was.
"I'm sorry…" Amity repeated, her head sinking back down low. "I - I was afraid that you'd hate me, or that it'd make things too weird between us and we wouldn't be able to even be friends anymore and I can't - I don't think I can handle that and that's just as selfish and I'm sorry but I can't - " She stopped herself.
I don't think I could handle it if you rejected me.
She was panicking, talking too fast. She made herself take a few short breaths. She… She couldn't say that. She couldn't burden Luz with that now. It wasn't Luz's responsibility to bear that burden. She didn't want to make Luz feel like she had to do… Anything out of some sense of guilt. She didn't want that. She didn't want Luz to do or say anything she didn't mean here. If it was said out of guilt it wouldn't mean anything, and it wouldn't be fair to her either. She -
A warm hand gently was placed onto her shoulder, and gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. Amity looked up, and met Luz's Titan-forsaken beautiful eyes looking at her with a kindness the Witch only ever saw from her. She didn't show any anger, or any anxiety, or… Anything. If she did feel any, she wasn't showing it, but… Somehow, Amity knew she didn't. At least, not in regards to this right now. Not about what she was talking about.
Her feelings towards Luz didn't make the Human uncomfortable. Not on their own.
There was a look on her face that wasn't quite a smile, but wasn't a frown either.
She spoke just as gently, and encouragingly. "...Go on."
"...You're one of the… The only people that I feel like I can just… Be myself around. I treated you awfully before, but you still gave me a chance and tried to reach out to me. You know the kind of person I used to be, and you didn't just abandon me. And you… You've been one of the closest friends that I've ever… Ever had. I can be open with you. I can be honest with you. And you've… Always just been there, and I…"
A slight pause.
"...You know more about me than my parents even do, and I…"
Then Amity couldn't handle it anymore, and looked away.
"...And I was afraid of the one person who knows me that well… Rejecting the way I feel about them… About you, Luz."
"Amity…"
"And that's still so damn selfish of me! Even wanting to tell you on my terms was because I was being selfish! Because I didn't… I - I didn't want you to know that I… Don't want you to go back to Earth…"
She sniffled.
"...I didn't want you to know that that's the kind of person I am…"
And then she held back a sob that was pushing its way up her throat.
"..That's why my eyes didn't glow when I told you I was in love with you… Because I was still trying to… Hide that from you..."
So, that explained it, Luz noted quickly to herself. One of her previous guesses had been right - Amity's eyes hadn't gone blue before because the day before Valeween, she had been meaning to tell her about how she felt. That had been right. That explained that.
Although that did raise another question, though it wasn't relevant right now. So she asked one that was.
"...Why do you think I want to go back to Earth?"
Amity glanced back at Luz, and tried to see again if there was some look of anger or irritation in her expression. Her words were ambiguous enough that she could have been asking while angry, but it didn't seem to be the case. There was none in her voice, and when she looked, there was none on her face. It sounded more like curiosity. Honest curiosity.
"...It's your home. You grew up there. It's… You've talked about the sorts of places you used to hang out, and… And it's… It's normal that you'd miss it."
"I don't."
Blinking, Amity could have sworn her heart missed a beat. "Y - You don't?"
"Well… Not how you think I do." Luz clarified. She leaned back against the tree and let out a small sigh. "I mean, sure, I miss being able to play video games and being able to use the internet, but it's not like I can't survive without those. I… I've told you how people treated me back on Earth. I wasn't exactly popular there." She forced a small laugh, and tried to joke about how things were on Earth. "You make one model of an anatomically correct griffon and you're the weird person who no one wants to be around or even likes. You…"
She paused for a second to consider a decent analogy.
"...You remember how Boscha used to treat me, Willow and Gus? Imagine that, but it's everyone at Hexside. Constantly."
That was… Alarmingly difficult for Amity to even imagine. The fact it was difficult actually made Amity shiver at the sort of life Luz had led up until she arrived on the Boiling Isles.
"It's not like I miss that." She said, almost matter of factly, and remarkably unphased by what she was describing. She actually managed to smile softly, and look around again. "Plus… Amity, this place is… It's everything I've ever wanted. I can do Magic here! I can have adventures here! I… I have friends here…" She looked at Amity. "...People like you are here…"
Her smile grew that little bit more.
"Even if I find a way home - I'm not leaving. I'd be right back here the moment I got the chance."
"... Y... You would?"
"This place is more of a home to me than Earth is." Luz told her. "I like it here more than I like Earth... I'm no one back on Earth. Here I…"
The smile faded.
"...People like me enough to want to hang out with me. I have… Actual friends here.I… I feel like I exist here. Like I actually matter here."
"Then… Why do you want to go back?"
"...I just want my Mami to know I'm okay."
Amity couldn't help but blink at that. That…
That was it? That was all she cared about going back to Earth for?
"I should have been home months ago." Luz explained. "I… She thought I was at a summer camp when I first arrived here, and I should have been home three months ago… For all she knows I'm…" She didn't finish the thought out loud. "...You think you're selfish? Amity, I lied to my mother about where I was and never told her just because I wanted to stay here instead of going to summer camp. You remember what happened at Grom, right? That was my biggest fear - Her finding out that I lied to her and was here this whole time."
A sigh escaped her.
"...It's not selfish to want things, Amity. It's selfish to hurt people because of what you want. And that's what I did. If either of us is selfish, it's me."
"...You say that. But I hurt you because I didn't have the courage to admit how I felt about you. I took it out on you. Yelled at you. Made you think it was your fault that I acted the way I did…"
"...It kind of was though, wasn't it? I never told you why I wanted to go back to Earth. If I had, then maybe we could have avoided… All of this."
"You didn't owe me that."
"And then I yelled at you for not telling me why you were upset, when you didn't owe me anything either."
"After I yelled at you. After what I yelled at you, how I yelled at you. I… I thought you hated me after that…"
"...I thought you hated me after that…"
Both of them fell silent for a short while, and they both let out a heavy exhale. Both their heads hung, and for the two of them, it was hard not to feel a weird mixture of shame and relief at the revelations that had been made so far. Both of them felt lighter for it all.
To be able to express this. To be able to talk about it...
So much of this had come down to misunderstanding and miscommunication, fear and uncertainty, and them both having different things going on in their lives. Different thoughts, different issues. None of this had been down to them having an issue with the other. Neither of them had any issue whatsoever with the other.
Neither of them was at fault for what had happened.
It was all just… A miscommunication. A mistake.
Luz managed to smile.
Just a little bit. Just slightly.
"...So, I guess we're both kinda selfish, huh?"
Somehow, that made Amity chuckle. And that in and of itself was incredible - After the hell that her life had been these past few days - Of course. Of course it would be Luz to manage to make her actually chuckle again.
Of course!
"I… I guess so." She nodded, able to smile back at Luz.
In response to that, Luz couldn't help but laugh gently herself. Which in turn made Amity laugh just that little bit more, which quickly became a reciprocal action, until both of them found themselves just openly and loudly laughing at the entire series of events that had wound them up here.
Miscommunication after miscommunication, assumptions, and their own inability to just relax and calm down. There were a dozen moments that they could have put a stop to all of this if they had just had the foresight to calm down and explain themselves to the other!
Somehow, it all felt so stupid now!
A few minutes later though, both of them had managed to wear themselves out from their chuckling, and then just sat together in a momentarily comfortable silence.
Eventually though, it had to come to an end.
They were nowhere near done with this conversation.
"...I don't hate you, you know." Luz finally said, breaking that silence once again. She spoke gently, and with warmth. A smile was there too. "After everything we've gone through together… I'm never not going to think of you as a friend, Amity. You're… Probably the closest I've ever been to a person."
It made Amity smile too, just that little bit more. A part of the fear of her rejection came from the idea of losing Luz, that if she acted on these damned stupid feelings of her, she would ruin what they did have. Losing her friendship with the one person who she felt accepted and understood her. But the fact that Luz didn't even see that as a possibility… That made it easier.
Though it did still hurt a bit. The idea of it never being more than that. It would be a lie to pretend that the idea of that not happening didn't hurt. But she couldn't make Luz feel anything for her. And even if she could somehow rewrite the universe so that she did, she wouldn't. She held to that principle before, and she was going to hold to it now.
She dared to ask though. "...What about… How I feel about you?"
That made Luz pause. The Human looked towards the ground, and her eyebrows furrowed inwards. For a moment, Amity regretted finding the nerve to ask.
"...I… I'm sorry, Amity…"
Amity gulped.
"...But I don't know how I feel about you… Like that."
Then Amity blinked. That was… "W… What do you mean?"
Luz tried to find the right words, but there really weren't any to properly describe how she felt right now. How she felt towards Amity... It was…
...An odd combobulation of feelings that she couldn't properly put together.
But she made the effort.
"You're this… Incredible person, Amity. You've changed so much since I met you. I know you don't think that way about yourself, but… I do. You have changed. And I'm… So proud that you're my friend."
The Witch's heart couldn't help but flutter at that.
"You're so good to people. You're… You're there when I need you. You're always helping me when you don't need to - Heck, before this all started, you were gonna help me with Abominations some more, even when you still have your own work you needed to do. You were willing to put yourself on the line during Valeween before I… Made you unable to. Even though you were scared. And you were willing to help me at the Ved'ma Temple, even though you didn't want me to go back to Earth… And…"
Another smile came to Luz's lips, though her eyes narrowed.
"...Do you want to know something I noticed about what you said when you were infected by the Cherubim?"
"...What?"
"The only time your eyes went blue was when you told me you didn't want me to go back to Earth. Not that you wanted me to like you back."
Blue eyes only occurred when the affects of the Cherubim were forcing someone to say something they kept hidden deep down. Her confession of love was something she had been planning on saying, which was why her eyes hadn't gone blue. But hiding that she just wanted Luz to be around - And that was it?
How could she call herself selfish when that was her biggest fear?
"You would have been okay with me just…. Being a part of your life." The smallest blush appeared on Luz's cheeks. "And that just… I don't know if it's weird, but that just… It made me happy."
A blush also appeared on Amity's cheeks.
"It makes me happy that you just… You just want me to be around. I'm not… I'm not…"
Her voice got progressively quieter and quieter. Amity didn't interrupt, but when Luz started to stop talking, she spoke up. "...Luz?"
"..." She muttered something, but Amity couldn't hear it.
"What?"
"...I don't understand how you could like me." Luz forced out. And there was noticeable distance to her voice that Amity didn't think she'd ever heard before. Like she was a million miles away. Like she was remembering something from an entirely other world. "I don't… I don't know what you see in me."
"Luz, you're - "
"It doesn't happen to me, Amity!"
The Human suddenly said, far, far louder than she had either needed to or had meant to. Judging from how wide her eyes had gotten after she had yelled it, and from how quickly she covered her mouth and shrunk back into herself. A few seconds of silence passed before she spoke again.
"...Sorry." She apologised, quietly. "It's just - I'm just not used to people… Liking me. I've… Well, I wasn't exactly popular at school back on Earth, you know that. I didn't have friends there. It's still weird to me that Willow and Gus even want to be around me, nevermind… What you feel towards me."
Luz was normally so bouncy, so full of energy, and so outgoing, that this was… Somehow unsettling to Amity. She'd known that Luz had had problems back on Earth for a while now, but in spite of how much she had shared about the other world she lived within, and how much she had shared with Amity about how she was treated there by so many people, somehow, this felt new.
That Luz somehow didn't even see herself as even remotely likeable to people?
It was growing increasingly more and more difficult to not just despise Earth outright for the Witch for what it did to her friend.
"...I blocked out how you felt about me."
"...Huh?" Amity froze.
"I only just… I guess it only just clicked a little bit earlier today for me, but I…" Luz's shoulders slumped. "...I'm not used to people liking me, so I just… I'm just used to people not liking me. No matter how much I tried back on Earth, people would just…"
Turn her away. Laugh at her for trying. Mess with her. Even when she tried to get through it all with a smile, like she was just laughing along with them as though it didn't hurt.
"...I didn't fit in." She said, simplifying all that. It was too much to get into right now. Especially right now. "I never really made friends… I had…" A pause, and for a moment, she considered not saying anything more… But Amity deserved the full extent of everything that had happened to make her like this. "I had crushes there, once or twice."
Though a part of her had expected the uncomfortable shift in Amity's expression, it didn't come from a place of jealousy or anything along those lines. It was more like Amity already knew what Luz was going to say next, and that that alarmed her.
"...And they… They went about the same way as making friends did." Rejection, ridicule, and more of her trying to pretend that she was fine when she wasn't. "And people would laugh at me for those too, and I…"
Her finger and thumb reached up and rubbed against her eyes. These weren't pleasant memories for Luz to be going into. There were reasons she hadn't thought about them ever since she had gotten to the Isles, and had tried to never think about them even while she was back on Earth.
"...Some of them made jokes about it."
"...What in the world do you mean, 'Made jokes about it'?" Amity asked, an eyebrow raised. There was a shakiness to her voice that only ever happened when someone was just on the verge of feeling anger.
Luz sighed, heavily. "...There was this one guy who I liked a lot when I was like, ten I think. He was one of the like, 'cool nerds' I guess you'd call it? Like, we liked a ton of the same stuff. We weren't friends or anything, but we talked a couple of times, and one day, I got the great idea to try to do some…" She cringed at the memory, but she forced the words out anyway, "...Drawings of the two of us."
"You… Drew the two of you as like, a couple, or?..."
"I thought it would be cute!" Luz justified defensively, and from the look on her face, Amity could tell this memory in particular bothered her a lot.
A lot.
Getting back to the story, Luz's hand held her face in it, covering up her eyes. Going through this memory in particular was like remembering something incredibly, incredibly stupid that one did as a child that now that someone was older, were such easily avoidable situations. Which, she supposed this was, in a way.
Just more emotionally damaging.
"I wasn't gonna ever show him them - They were just for me, you know? But… Someone went through my notebook at some point, I… I don't know when. Or how they even got hold of it, but they showed it to the guy, and he…"
Her hand fell.
"...Decided to make a bunch of copies of it and stick them on a bunch of lockers."
"...What."
"It was… Apparently supposed to be a prank. That's what they called it."
"What the hell was even wrong with him?! What - Why?! Why even do that?! What possible reason was there to even be that cruel?!"
Even if she counted the Library Incident, in the literal years they had tormented her, nothing that Emira or Edric had ever done to Amity as a 'prank' had ever come close to that absurd level of pointless cruelty for the sake of being cruel - At the absolute Titan-damned least, in their own twisted way, in a logic that only made sense to them, they had been trying to make Amity more disposed to a way that they thought would make her a bit more happy or relaxed!
What the hell did this guy have as his reason?
"Gonna be honest, I kind of feel like I dodged a bullet in hindsight." Luz shrugged, though she still slumped. She recognised that it was messed up, but… "But… Well, that doesn't mean it didn't hurt. He rejected me, obviously. Because I was the 'weird girl' that no one likes. Because there's nothing about me that he liked."
"That was way overkill!" Amity all but yelled. "Why would anyone do that?!"
"Weren't you afraid I was going to do something similar?"
"You would have at least had a reason to be like that! What reason did he have to just be a - A complete - A - " There wasn't a word violent enough to properly express Amity's frustrations, so she just stammered. Words wouldn't do what she wanted to convey justice.
"I have no idea." Luz shrugged again after a few seconds, and casting her eyes out to the Boiling Sea again. "Like I said, it's not like I miss that about Earth. I'd be perfectly happy to not… Ever go to school there ever again, but… It's not like he was wrong."
Amity could have sworn she felt her blood run cold.
"...There's nothing special about me that someone would like. Or even could like. Not even special, there's just… I'm just… Me. And it… And it's easier to just… Accept that then pretend that things could be different."
She turned back to Amity, finally.
"So I blocked out all the signs. All the little hints, all the obvious signs, all the… Everything that you did, because it… Because it's easier than going through that again… Because I don't know what you see in me."
"Luz…"
"But you said all of that stuff under the Cherubim Ray's influence and I know you're not just… I guess tricking me, or lying to me, or… Something like that - But I just - I don't know how you can see me like that, and I'm not… I…"
Her head slumped once more.
"...I don't know how I feel about it. I don't know how I feel about you. I'm not… I'm not used to this. I don't… "
More than anything, Luz wanted to be able to give Amity a solid answer. Because she deserved one, and because she had promised herself that she would figure out how she felt today. She wanted to be able to alleviate Amity's fears once and for all. She wanted to be able to give her some closure, or… Something.
But she couldn't.
Because she didn't know.
Because she hadn't ever been faced with a situation like this.
Because… She didn't even think she was capable of being in this situation. It had never crossed her mind.
Because she wasn't special. She wanted to be, but she wasn't. She wasn't some incredible person. She didn't have anything anyone could find anywhere else, but better.
Because she was Luz Noceda. The person who was too weird, too different, too… Everything, for anyone to really like her like that.
And so she had blocked it all out. Every feeling that Amity had been conveying - Obvious or not - for months now. And in doing that, she hadn't given herself the ability to explore how those feelings made her feel, how they affected her, or figure out how she felt in return.
And yet somehow, of everyone in the world… Amity somehow saw something… Saw something special in her.
And from Luz to her...
...Tears began to run down Luz's face again, upset at how she had failed at what she had set out to do here. Upset that she couldn't give Amity an answer that she wanted. That she needed. That she had promised herself that she would be able to give Amity today, but couldn't.
"...I don't feel the same way about you that I feel about Gus, or about Willow. This is… This is something else, and I'm sorry, but I don't know what it is."
It was so… so… So frustrating!...
After everything! After all the time that they had spent together! After Valeween! After finally being able to finally bring herself to even talk about this!
After all of this!
Because there was something there! Luz just didn't know what!
"I don't know how to figure it out, Amity. I want to - I want to be able to figure everything out so we can figure out what to do from here. I want to be able to tell you how I feel about you but I don't know how to! I don't know how I feel about you! I don't even know how to figure out how I feel about you! I don't - "
"Please Luz... Stop."
And suddenly, Luz found herself wrapped into a hug.
The single biggest, warmest, more heartfelt hug she had ever experienced in her entire life.
A hug that took her breath away. That made her freeze on the spot. That made her eyes open up wide and made everything feel still.
Amity was crying again too - Luz could feel the Witch's tears running against her cheek and onto her neck. There were little hitches in her breathing that let Luz know that she was holding back sobs. She was holding on tight.
"Luz, do you…"
...But there was also a lightness to her voice.
"...Do you have any idea how worried I was that you were going to say you didn't want anything to do with me anymore?... After everything that I said and did to you, everything I hid from you…"
She was… Happy.
"I…" Luz's voice was far quieter. Her tears fell silently, as did her arms, limp and dangling by her sides. The strength to do anything else with them just wasn't there. She just let herself be held. "...I wouldn't… I couldn't do that to you Amity… I… I don't want you to… Not be a part of my life either… Even if…"
Even if right now, she didn't know what form that would take.
But she desperately wanted to know.
More than anything right now.
Another sob escaped Amity, and that made her shake. "I'm so… I'm... I thought…" At this particular moment, She shook her head, and let go of her Human crush lightly, so she could look at her, though for right now, she avoided direct eye contact."...Luz, I… I'm… I'm so sorry that you had to go through all the stuff that you did back on Earth. You don't deserve any of it. No one does, but someone as… As amazing as you… You shouldn't have had to go through any of it."
That just made the tears flow from Luz's eyes faster and faster.
She hadn't ever even been told that much before.
"Whoever did that to you is just…" Amity deliberately bit her lip - If she went down that particular path, she wasn't going to be able to stop, and it was going to get her far, far off track. And that wasn't important right now. "I - I don't know how you can even think about yourself the way that you do. You… You're an amazing person Luz. No one on Earth knows what they're talking about. None of them."
"Am - Amity - "
"You're the first Human to ever learn Magic! You re-discovered an entirely lost type of Magic! And you're the first person to ever take all the Tracks at Hexside! And that's amazing - Sometimes I don't think you even realize just how incredible half the stuff that you do is."
Amity's own feelings aside, that much was true on it's own - The things that Luz had been able to do since she got here had practically helped to rewrite what people thought was possible about Magic, about Humans, and about how everything worked. How things should work. There really couldn't be any understatement regarding Luz's accomplishments on that front - And that was just the stuff that hadn't even been intentional!
"But there's - There's so much more about you than that - You're just this… You're just this kind and caring and wonderful person. Every time something is bothering someone, no matter what the problem is, you always try to help them. That's… It's because of that that we even met in the first place, because you were helping Willow… And that was because of how I treated Willow…"
Something that to this day, still made Amity feel immense guilt.
"You didn't have… Any reason to be nice to me after that… For the love of the Titan, I nearly got you dissected! And the next time we saw each other, I tried to get you to stop learning Magic because I had a bruised ego! But you just… You were still kind to me. You tried to help me whenever I was upset, or whenever I was in trouble, even when anyone would have forgiven you for just leaving me to whatever came my way. You stood up to Emira and Edric for me in the whole Library Incident, you lent me your Azura book and didn't make fun of me for liking it, you helped me save the twins from the Slitherbeast… Even though you… Kind of were responsible for that in the first place - But you owned up to it. Anyone else would have tried to make an excuse, but you didn't. You tried to make things right again. You put yourself at risk for anyone who needs it. You… You were willing to take on Grometheus for me. You're so much braver than I am. And you… You're just so..."
Amity struggled to find the right word. She knew how to describe it, but she didn't have the word that felt like it had the right impact, the right weight to it. Every word that she could think of felt weak, like it didn't convey exactly what she wanted to convey.
To describe Luz in one word… Everything about Luz that Amity admired. Everything about Luz that made Amity love her…
Suddenly, it just clicked in her head.
"...You're the most authentic person I've ever met." She told the Human. And to reflect it, she gave her the most authentic smile Luz had ever seen.
Authentic. The word made Luz's eyes open up wider.
"Everything you do is just so… Genuine." Amity tried to explain herself properly, but 'authentic' was a hard word to clarify. "You're so… Everything that I ever see you do, you do it with such… Energy. Enthusiasm. I've never met anyone who likes just learning Magic as much as you do. And it… It makes learning Magic exciting for me as well. You always try to do better. You make everyone around you want to be better than they are. You make me want to be better. It's only because of you that I'm the way I am now - I - I don't think that I've changed… But - But you said that I did! So you can't say that you don't know why anyone would like you like that, because you made me like the person I've turned into because of you…"
The smile faded, but Amity reached out to Luz, and dried her left cheek of the tears that ran down it, and cupped it in her hand.
"...There's no one else like you, Luz. So… Don't say things like that…"
Her eyes met Luz's.
And the smile returned.
"...Because there's nothing about you that I didn't fall in love with."
Yet even more tears escaped Luz's eyes, and her breathing became uneven, shaken, in short, scattered, segmented exhales, that cut themselves off for quarter-seconds as sobs tried to escape, but the Human held them back.
Never in her life had she heard anything close to that. Nothing that had felt so heartfelt, that made her feel more like she truly had mattered to someone beyond even the remotest or furthest-fetched doubt. That she wasn't some anomaly that no one could love. Like the mess hat was her life wasn't a hell she had made for herself.
That someone actually liked her - Hell, loved her - For the person that she was, and not the fake facsimile that the world had wanted her to pretend to be -
It broke her.
"...We don't to - I mean, you don't have to answer anything now if you're not comfortable with it, or if you can't, or if you… Don't…" Amity's words trailed and tripped up one another. She had become aware of just what she had said, and how much she had rambled. She was becoming awkward now. "Just - I don't - "
Luz gripped hold of Amity and hugged her as tightly as she was physically capable of holding onto her. Her head buried itself in Amity's shoulder, and her teeth clenched down on one another, hard. She could feel her hands clinging onto the Witch's clothes and digging her fingers into her flesh, and she was holding and gripping onto Amity so tightly that she was almost aware that she was hurting her friend.
But she couldn't let go.
She needed to hold on tight.
She needed to.
She needed to.
Because if she didn't, somehow, she felt that she would lose her.
She tried.
She tried so hard.
She tried so hard not to.
She failed.
She couldn't stop the tears from soaking into Amity's shoulder. She couldn't stop herself from shaking. She couldn't stop the sobs from escaping, even though she tried so hard to keep them contained. She couldn't stop herself from openly crying. Quickly, they turned into open sobs, which in turn turned into open wailing. Everything flooded out, and she couldn't stop it. Some part of her didn't even want to.
She couldn't begin to describe how those words had made her feel.
She couldn't describe how important they made her feel. How valued she felt. How…
How happy they made her.
And yet here she was. Crying, as if that made any sense. And clinging to the person who had made her feel this way, terrified that if she didn't, she would go away and never come back somehow.
Amity didn't go away though.
Instead, her body shook and hiccuped.
Then she hugged Luz just as tightly as Luz had hugged her.
And she was crying too.
So the pair of them just stayed there for a while, holding one another and finally letting out all the tears that hadn't yet been shed, nothing left to hold them back. It didn't take long at all until Amity was crying, sobbing, and wailing just as loudly and openly as Luz. Everything that had been kept inside for months now finally spilled into the open.
She clung just as tight.
"I'm sorry…!" She managed to force out between sobs. "I'm sorry…!"
For all the grief and guilt and stress she had caused. For hiding all of this from Luz. For not having it in her to be this honest from the start.
Luz managed to choke out, "I'm sorry too… I'm so sorry…"
For never noticing. For blocking it all out. For not being able to answer right now. For doing nothing but being a magnet for stress and anxiety for the other girl.
And they held one another, for how long, neither of them were able to guess. It felt like both forever, and no time at all by the time that they managed to loosen their grips on one another.
When they separated, their foreheads leaned against one another, and they held one another's hands. Fingers interlaced with the others. Neither of them pulled away, or felt in the least bit embarrassed. In fact, both of them even managed to smile at the other.
It was Amity who broke the silence first though. "...What… What do we do now then?..."
"...I don't know…"
So many contradictory things and feelings had been said and explored. So much had happened in such a short amount of time. And it really was just the tip of the iceberg, wasn't it?
These feelings that Luz didn't know what to do with towards her - Her best friend.
These feelings that she didn't even know what they were.
These feelings that felt so, so important now…
She needed to figure out what they meant.
There was very little that she wasn't willing to do to figure out what they were.
"...But I want to find out."
Damn, this took a while to get out - Really sorry about that, everyone - I've had a lot of Uni projects to work on, and I've headed back to my family home for Christmas - This fic really did outlast Halloween, huh. Maybe I should change the description to make it seem less outdated.
But here you all go - The conversation that you all wanted to happen - But you think we're done yet? Well, good news - I ended up coming up with a couple more chapters I thought the story would benefit far better from than what I had originally planned, so you're stuck with me for a little while longer I'm afraid : D (I don't know why I keep doing this to myself I have so many other things to be working on)
This chapter in particular was quite difficult to get right, but I think that it ended up being a fairly decent chat that needed to happen - but I don't think Luz would be able to figure this all out just like that. That's not how emotions work.
So I hope that you all enjoyed, and that you're looking forward to figuring out how Luz figures out how she feels : D I'll see you soon!