A Blightful Night

It had been about a month.

A month since she had almost been forced to face her greatest fear in front of the entire school. Since she'd been faced with the prospect of her deepest secrets being outed in front of everyone and the consequences that that might have had on her life. She had been miserable that day. Terrified. Until a fearless champion had offered to take her place.

Her fearless champion.

They'd had to defeat Grometheus together in the end though. They'd had that incredible, wonderful dance and done something with their magic that she'd never seen done before, creating something beautiful in the process. The memory of it all was enough to warm her cheeks and send her heart fluttering wildly the way it always did when she was around.

A month and she still couldn't stop thinking about it.

Amity found herself blushing furiously at the thought of her champion. The human girl that had stomped all over her carefully constructed walls and torn them down, brick by up-tight brick. Luz Noceda, with her unfailing optimism and carefree attitude, had wormed her way into Amity Blight's heart and built herself a nest there. She hadn't been fooled by Amity's aloof façade and dismissals for a moment, nor had she allowed their less-than-ideal first impressions to colour her opinion of Amity.

Luz had shown her how to have fun again. She'd given her a friend to share her interests with. Stopped her twin siblings from pulling a truly cruel prank on her. She'd helped mend Amity's relationship with Willow, who she'd been forced to part with as a child. Stars, she'd even given her the courage to finally part ways with the fake friends she'd been forced to keep company with her whole life.

Amity had been so happy to get the chance to return the favour at least a little when they'd played that Grudgy match against Boscha. She was pretty sure she'd made a total fool of herself that day but Luz hadn't seemed to care and it had been exhilarating getting to team up with her again. It had totally been worth almost outing herself in front of Willow and Gus and the fractured leg, which the healing coven had fixed up in just a few days.

Luz had done more for Amity in the short time they'd known each other than anyone else in her life and she would be forever grateful to the human for it.

It made sense, she supposed, that Amity had fallen for her so hard.

Luz dominated her waking thoughts and ran rampant through her dreams with no regard for Amity's need for sleep. She couldn't spend two seconds in Luz's company without panicking and going beet red and saying something incredibly stupid. How she hadn't just burst into flames and died at this point was beyond her. The girl flustered her almost instantly and it had only been getting worse with time. Ever since that dance.

Frankly it was starting to become a problem. It was enough to drive her to distraction when she should have been focusing on her studies. A Blight must never present themselves as having any weaknesses, after all. Perfection must be maintained at all costs. But Luz had become a great, big, dork-shaped weakness in Amity's life that she had no intentions of getting rid of.

Except maybe for tonight. Tonight she was supposed to be finishing an abomination essay so she needed to focus or her parents would start to notice the slight dip in her most recent grades. Her older twin siblings, Edric and Emira, weren't home to annoy her and the house was quiet. It was the perfect time to get some work done.

So she tried her best to lock thoughts of the sweet human girl far into the back of her mind and think of nothing but the characteristics of abomination slime and how it could be altered for different purposes. She pulled her textbook closer to find that passage on hardening agents and then idly started doodling tiny Luz-shaped abominations in the margins of her book, accompanied by silly, embarrassing initials scrawled inside hearts.

The first time Amity had met her, Luz had disguised herself as an abomination in one of her many hair-brained schemes. It had been a terrible idea but adorably dorky and so very Luz. A smile tugged at her lips before she realized what she was doing and a frustrated groan escaped her throat, dropping her head onto the book with cheeks flaming.

Why was she like this? How in the Boiling Isles was she supposed to concentrate like this? Even giant, gelatinous, purple ooze monsters made her think of Luz! She was pretty sure she needed professional help.

Deciding she needed to get some things off her mind, Amity set her pen down on her desk and reached over to retrieve a simple mint-green lockbox with an decorative A stamped on its lid. She'd gotten it to hide her more personal items after Ed and Em had found her old hiding place in the library. At least this thing had a less accessible key.

She unlocked the box to reveal an ornate crystal tiara nestled on top of the other items inside. She and Luz had been awarded identical ones when they'd defeated Grometheus together. The sight of it brought back memories of their dance and she felt that damned fluttering again. A flush spread across her cheeks and she had to stamp down the excited little squeal that rose in her throat. That dance had been the best moment of her life.

Setting the tiara aside, Amity pulled out a pink note that had been torn in two and carefully taped back together. Her gromposal to Luz. She'd casually tossed it aside when Luz had teasingly asked her about it but had later realized how stupid that had been. Anyone could have found the incriminating note just sitting beside the magical tree they'd grown. She'd found it before going home that night and locked it away immediately.

The note didn't bring up the best memories but it had been important to her. Echoes of 'that's what friends do' danced across her mind and she grimaced. Setting the note aside as well, Amity pulled out the only other object in the lockbox: her diary. If she wanted to get any actual work done tonight, she was going to have to vent some of her racing thoughts first.

Carelessly pushing her notes and essay aside, Amity set her diary down and opened it to the nearest blank page. The page just before it was covered in combinations of their names that made Amity blush all the way to the tips of her pointed ears. Dragging her eyes away from the embarrassing display, she retrieved her pen and began to write a new entry.

Intimate thoughts and feelings about the pretty human, the way she made Amity feel and all the adorably dumb stuff she did spilled onto the page and Amity found herself so focused on it that she failed to hear her bedroom door opening.

"Amity, dear, we need to discuss this report card I received today." Crap. Amity's heart slammed into her throat and she whipped her head around to stare, wide-eyed, at her mother.

Startled by the sudden reaction, her mother paused in the middle of the room just long enough for Amity to scramble out of her chair and stand in front of her desk, surreptitiously trying to push her diary behind her and out of sight. Her mother's face turned stern and she took another step towards Amity's desk. Her pinched expression made Amity shiver nervously.

"Try not to react in so undignified a manner, dear. It is unbecoming of a young Blight lady," she said imperiously. Amity swallowed past the lump in her throat, trying desperately to slow her raging heart.

"I'm sorry, mother, you just startled me. I was working on an essay for school and didn't hear you come in." Would she believe the lie? Please, please let her believe it and leave. The books were strewn across Amity's desk, clearly visible and she had been doing her essay. It was plausible.

Her mother's cold, amber eyes narrowed just a touch. Crap.

"I would hope so. If this report card is anything to go by, it would seem you need to be spending a lot more time on your studies." Her mother held the offending report up and presented it to Amity, who nervously glanced at it. "I haven't shown this to your father yet, but I will be forced to if I see more results like this."

Amity had to work very, very hard not to roll her eyes in that moment, despite her rising anxiety. Her grades had slipped a little but it had been barely noticeable and, in her defense, she'd been kind of distracted lately. Besides, she still held that coveted 'top student' ranking that her parents were so fond of boasting about.

The only time she'd even come close to losing it had been the day she'd met Luz and even then it had only been because the silly, delightfully sweet human had wanted to help Willow get better grades, like the kind idiot she was. Amity had been so frantic to get that badge back that she had nearly let Principal Bump dissect Luz. That one still ate her up inside.

Pushing the awful thought aside, Amity squared her shoulders and lifted her chin in that signature Blight way she had learned over the years. Poised. Collected. Above it all.

Stars, please let her mother buy it and leave!

"Of course, mother. It won't happen again. I'll talk to Principal Bump about adding some more extra-credit assignments to my list tomorrow."

The thought of even more work being piled onto her already packed schedule made that familiar anxious pit in her stomach twist sharply but she squashed it down. It was worth it to placate her mother. To make her leave so that she would not discover what Amity had actually been doing when she'd walked in.

To her dismay, her mother tucked the report card into a pocket and approached Amity. The older woman set her hands on her daughter's shoulders sharply and their eyes met, sending a spike of fear down Amity's spine. She was too close. She would see.

"Your father and I know we put a lot of pressure on you, dear, but we only want what's best for the future of our family."

Not her future. The family's. It was not the first time Amity had heard that line and it wouldn't be the last.

"Can I trust that you will do better from here on?" Amity felt her resolve crack at her mother's callous tone and lowered her face to hide the pained grimace that had slipped through her carefully constructed mask.

"Yes, mother. I promise."

That moment of weakness would be her undoing.

With their eyes no longer locked, the older woman was able to glance past her daughter and spy the doodles on the far edge of the diary behind her. Amity heard the irritated huff leave her mother. Felt the hand leave her shoulder and reach behind her. Her heart sank below her feet.

Her mother plucked the diary off the desk and held it up, eyeing the offending pages.

"This doesn't look like a school text, young lady. I do not appreciate being lied to." Amity felt panic rise in her throat like bile and she reached for the book desperately.

"Mother, please! That's private. I was working on my essay. I was just taking a short break!" She made a mad grab for the diary but her mother pulled the book out of reach and glared at her, freezing Amity in place. A dull roar of fear thrummed in her ears and she felt suddenly sick to her stomach.

"Amity Blight, what has gotten into you? What could possibly be so important that it has distracted you from your schoolwork?" Her mother turned her eyes to the pages.

It was too late.

Amity watched as her eyes darted across the page. Watched as her brows furrowed in confusion, then surprise and finally anger. When she spoke, it was in a tone so dangerously low that Amity felt her legs begin to tremble.

"What is this?" She turned to look at Amity and there was no mistaking the fury in her eyes, or the fear in Amity's. She knew.

"Mother… I…" She was cut off when her mother turned the diary towards her, flashing the page filled with her pining over Luz in her face.

"Who is Luz? What is all this nonsense you've been writing about her?" Amity flinched back into the desk, hitting it hard enough to unsettle some of the papers laying across it. A flash of pink caught her mother's eye and she turned towards the desk, spotting the open gromposal note. She shoved Amity aside and grabbed at it, reading it with disdain. "You invited this Luz girl to Grom?"

Amity could barely hear her over the terrified buzzing in her head.

"I didn't give her the note!" She cried. Stupid! Why hadn't she denied it? Made an excuse? She'd just basically admitted it was true!

"But you planned to!" Her mother snapped. "Why would you ever think it appropriate to invite a girl to Grom? Explain yourself!"

This was it. There was no getting away from this now. Her mother already knew. It was too late to lie.

Amity took a shuddery breath and tried to steady her trembling hands by fisting them into the hem of her Hexside uniform. The fabric twisted between her fingers. She couldn't look at her mother. She could feel tears burning in the corners of her eyes. Why was it suddenly so hard to breathe?

"I… I didn't want to go with anyone else. I like Luz." She swallowed thickly. "I… I like girls, mother."

She'd never admitted that out loud before. Not even to herself. But she'd just said it.

Out loud. To her mother.

Oh stars.

Her mother's expression pierced into her and Amity felt herself recoil at the look.

"No, you do not."

What? Amity's head snapped back up. Their eyes met and she understood. She opened her mouth to agree. It was a silly misunderstanding. Of course she didn't like girls. Her mother was right.

"Yes, I do."

Stupid! She'd been given an out! Why hadn't she taken it? But it was too late. Her mother latched onto Amity's wrist and stormed from the room, pulling Amity along behind her. She didn't fight it at first, the sudden action having thrown the younger girl totally off guard. Then she realized that they were headed downstairs to where her father was likely doing paperwork by the fire.

That was when she began to struggle.

"Mother, please don't! I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!" Tears were streaking down her cheeks now, her breathing ragged and broken as she pulled desperately against her mother's iron grip. The older woman didn't even seem to notice.

Amity's pleas fell on deaf ears as her mother stoically marched them into the downstairs parlour, just off the main entrance hall. She caught a brief glance of the large double doors that could lead to her escape from this nightmare before she was dragged through a doorway and deposited unceremoniously before her father.

He was sitting in his armchair, facing the fire but it was immediately apparent that their intrusion had irritated him. The stiff set to his shoulders and the way he snapped the file of papers he'd been reading shut with an audible slap made all the air rush out of Amity's lungs.

"I believe I asked not to be disturbed tonight."

The simple statement would have been enough to have Amity stammering apologies and running for her room, but she was trapped there. Her mother moved around to her father's side, silently handing him the note and diary.

Amity fought the keening whine that had built in her throat with everything she had. A quiet whimper still managed to escape her and her father's eyes whipped to her dangerously, head still. He frowned and then looked down at the small teal book and pink note he'd been given. He had all the evidence in his hands and he was reading it.

He knew.

The heat from the fire suddenly felt horribly oppressive despite the cool, early evening air. She felt a single bead of sweat slide down her neck and she shuddered. Amity watched her father rise and turn towards her slowly. There was no accusation. No question. He simply narrowed his eyes in a deeply terrifying glare, nailing her to the spot.

"I've heard of this 'Luz' girl from members of the Emperor's Coven. She's that human girl that has been traipsing around the Isle," he said. Her mother actually gasped at that.

"A human?" She stared at Amity with renewed horror. "Not only a girl but a human girl?"

Amity's father leveled her mother with a look and she fell silent, but the horror on her face was still clearly visible. With a deep, disappointed sigh that made Amity's skin crawl, her father spoke in a tone one might use for a particularly slow or belligerent child.

"You are a Blight. Your actions and the people you associate yourself with, affect the standings of this house. Have you forgotten your duties?

"Blights do not involve themselves with such sick notions and they certainly do not associate with lower beings. You will forget this nonsense immediately."

His words were like ice down her spine and she fought the rising bile in her throat. Sick notions? He thought she was sick?

The accusation brought on another nauseating wave of anxiety that she had to fight not to surrender to. She valiantly ignored what he'd said about her and how it made her feel like she was a stain on his custom, demon-leather boots, choosing instead to focus on what he'd said about Luz.

"Luz is my friend. She's a good person." She saw his eyes darken and wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole. Titan be damned, why was she talking back?

"It would appear she is more than a mere friend." He rapped the pages of her diary with his knuckles and Amity couldn't help the visible flinch. There was no use denying that after he'd already read it all.

With a swift flick of his wrist, her diary went sailing into the fire, the pink Grom note fluttering to the floor where he unceremoniously stepped on it. Amity let out a small cry of dismay as all her inner most thoughts were set ablaze.

"I will not accept this twisted thinking in my household. When the time is right and you are of an appropriate age, you will find a suitable male companion from a family we deem fitting or we will find one for you."

Something in the way he said that made her believe that they absolutely would force her to marry someone of their choosing. Likely someone she had never met that was just as cold and power hungry as they were.

She imagined a life like her parents'. Married off to some strange man as a business venture between covens. No love or joy between them, only a hollow marriage that projected the perfect image of the perfect, powerful family. Just endless, terrible perfection to cover up the cold, lonely world behind closed manor doors.

A flash of anger rose within her and somehow it overtook the cloying fear that had been suffocating her until then. She couldn't live like that. She wouldn't live like that! She refused to let them take her entire life from her. She could feel her heart pounding in her throat and had to swallow past it to speak.

"You can't just force me to like boys. I'm not going to let you marry me off to some rich family like a prized animal!" Her voice rose as she spoke and she was proud of how it hadn't wavered by the end.

She had no idea where this defiant bravery was coming from but she clung to it like the most precious of lifelines. She couldn't let them do this!

Her father's face went red and she almost lost her nerve when he drew himself up in anger, towering over her. She felt small and fragile in front of him. Terrified, she balled her hands into fists, digging her nails into her palms in an attempt to hold on to the that tiny spark of courage. She could not back down now.

"Does the family reputation mean nothing? Does your future at Hexside and with the Emperor's Coven mean so little to you that you would throw it all away for some filthy little whore with no magic to speak of? I will hear no more of this ridiculous defiance!" He growled and she saw red.

That flash of anger ignited into a rage she'd never felt before. Irrational, animalistic anger filled her to her very core. Face twisting into a furious scowl, she took one hard step closer to her father and delighted in how he actually took a startled step back.

"I'm tired of you trying to make me be like you! I'll never be like you!" She hissed angrily. "I don't care about our stupid family's reputation! And don't you dare talk about Luz that way! She's the kindest, most wonderf-"

Pain bloomed across her face and stars burst behind her eyes. She suddenly found herself on the floor, blinking rapidly to clear her swimming vision. She tasted blood.

Confused and trembling all over again, she pushed herself up so that she was sitting. Her arms shook with the effort of holding herself upright. The wind had been knocked out of her and she gasped for air.

Head buzzing and foggy, Amity turned slowly toward her father in time to see him lowering his raised hand.

He had hit her.

It was like someone had dumped a bucket of cold water onto the fire that had been blazing within her and snuffed it out in a second. He had never done that before.

Her parents were cruel. Manipulative. They had emotionally starved her and done all they could to control her with words or threats but not once had they ever laid a hand on her. They had never stooped to that. But Amity had never defied them like this either.

With a shaking hand, Amity reached up and touched her fingers to her lips, shocked to find that she was bleeding. She looked up at him in horrified silence and watched as he schooled his features, looking for all the world like nothing had just happened.

"That is enough. Do not talk back to me, Amity. I grow tired of this rebellious outburst of yours. Your mother and I have worked too long and too hard to be where we are now.

"I will not have it all threatened by the whims of a disturbed child. Blights are better than this. You were once better than this. You will do as you are told!" He glared down at her imperiously as she trembled on the ground.

Amity swallowed hard. She tried to blink back the tears in her eyes, but they were already falling. When had she started crying? A whirlwind of emotions swirled in her mind, fighting for control.

Fear. Anger. Pain. Sick, cloying anxiety that twisted her insides into a tight knot. But above all, she felt hatred. For the first time, she truly hated her father and everything he stood for.

"Maybe I don't want to be a Blight," she murmured blankly, too overwhelmed to express anything more. Her father's expression, however, screwed up and he seemed to swell in size before her.

"I see you are determined to drag the family name through the dirt for the sake of your own selfish, twisted desires. I will not allow you to destroy what I have worked for.

"There are ways of correcting your little affliction. This is nothing that a quick trip to the Conformatorium can't cure, my dear." His mouth pulled into a sneer and Amity felt the world shrink in on her.

She had heard stories of that awful place. Rumors told in secret of how witches like her were sent there and came out different. Like they'd somehow been stripped of everything that made them who they were. And that was if they made it out at all.

She'd never wanted to believe any of it. It wasn't like same-sex couples were unheard of on the Boiling Isles. Willow had two dads for crying out loud! It seemed so ridiculously unlikely. Something so cruel couldn't possibly be allowed by the Emperor. But her father certainly seemed to think it was and he knew more than most about the inner workings of the Emperor's Coven.

A new, visceral fear enveloped her and her vision swam. Somehow she knew that if she stepped one foot into that hellish place, Amity Blight would cease to exist.

"A Blight must adhere to certain standards. Responsibilities," her father continued. "Something you have clearly forgotten. You will stay in your room until such a time as I can make arrangements to fix you."

Fix her? Was she broken?

She blinked through her hazy vision and caught movement in the corner of her eye. It snapped her back to reality just as her father made to approach her, his arm outstretched to lock her away until they could fix her by taking away everything that she was.

In a blind panic she threw her arms up with a cry, fingers instinctually forming a large circle in the air.

A tall, oozing abomination rose to life between them, lashing out with a trunk-like arm and knocking her father back. He stumbled and fell to the ground with a loud thud as the abomination stood menacingly between him and Amity. The room fell deathly silent.

"You dare cast at me?" He was staring at her like he had no idea who or what she was. She felt an awful swell of guilt and shame and had to blink hard past her tears to look at him.

"Father, I'm sorry! I didn't…" Didn't what? Didn't mean it? She had. She hadn't intended to attack him though. Only block his path. "It was an accident!"

His face was still a mask of shock as he stared at her, wide-eyed.

"You… you are not my daughter." She reeled back as if he'd struck her again. "I don't recognize this foul creature you have become. My Amity would never stoop this low. She would never consort with something as unnatural as a human and she would never dare attack her own father. You are beyond saviour."

He stood slowly, his temper gathering once more as he spoke. Her mother stood uselessly to the side, her hands covering her mouth in shock.

Why had she been so quiet? Why wouldn't she help Amity? Why hadn't Ed and Em come home to save her?

How had things gotten so far out of control?

"You are not a Blight." Her father continued, his voice raising with every word until he was bellowing at her. "Get out of my house and don't ever show your despicable face here again. Out! Get out of this house, you vile, lecherous little monster!"

Her breathing ragged with fear, Amity turned terrified, streaming eyes to her mother. Her last hope in this nightmare.

"Mother, please…"

But her mother only glared at her and turned away. She felt truly alone in that moment. Cast aside by both of her parents simply for being who she was.

All the years of fighting to do as they asked, clawing her way to the top of everything she did so she would make them proud and maybe earn their affection. All of it wasted in one night.

A loud bang dragged Amity's eyes away from her mother to see her father blasting her abomination to pieces in a single magical blow.

"Get. Out!"

He took a menacing step towards her and it was all the incentive Amity needed to bolt. She scrambled to her feet and ran. She barely noticed barreling through the large double doors of the manor, desperate to get as far away as possible.

Darkness clawed at the edges of her vision as panic tightened her chest. She stumbled down the stairs at the end of the driveway and, the second she had passed the massive gates to the manor, she tore off the road and into the forest surrounding the property. She had no idea if they were following her and couldn't risk looking back to see.

Branches whizzed past her, grabbing at her arms and legs as she ran. She had no idea where she was running to. She needed to hide but where could she go?

The library was closed at night so she couldn't get to her secret room there. She no longer spoke to Boscha and Skara and their families knew her parents anyway. Willow had already been threatened for simply being her friend and she had no idea where Gus even lived.

Where could she go that they wouldn't find her?

Where would she be safe?

Heart pounding in her ears and eyes streaming, she realized there was only one place she could go. One place she wanted to go.

So she ran.