Scrape... sluuuurp... scrape... Amity looks up from her cereal with her spoon just inches from her open mouth. Three sets of eyes are starting at her. They don't blink and a nasty part of the budding serial killer's mind believes they can't think either. They just... watch her eat cereal.
Frankly it's unnerving.
"What?" Amity questions. Luz responds with a comical shout, "What? What do you mean what?! Amity, that's the craziest story I've ever heard!"
Amity finds herself nodding along. It is a crazy story though it has been altered greatly. What was that human saying again? 'The best lies possess great truth' or something of the sort. Obviously she's not going to come out and say 'hey everyone! I'm a murderer and it's partly by choice!'. So the young Witchling omitted and rearranged parts to be more PG. To them no one died at Amity's hands, they were instead wounded and tied up or something stupid like that. It also goes without saying her whole bile-sac incident is yet to be addressed either.
Not even Amity's ready to tackle that baggage yet! It will be hard hiding her lack of native magic but she's crafty even for a Blight. She'll make it work.
And thankfully everyone bought her story! They're all mostly concerned with her half missing ear and newly added scar running the length of her cheek and the cuts on her wrist from the shackles. Amity can't help but feel like she looks like some sort of vagabond now. The ones her father would point out on the street as examples of how not to be. Even if her 'image' is now imperfect and her family probably thinks of her as being less than dirt because of it Amity can't help but think she looks kinda cool. Maybe she'll make a new OC based on her new look?
"I agree with the hu-I mean Luz. Your experiences in this 'Shivering Isles' are nothing short of traumatic. I would recommend you to a therapist immediately but... the cities are inaccessible, to say the least. "
That gains Amity's attention. "Wait, what's been going on since I've been gone? I'm sure my mother raised hell but surely it wasn't that bad?"
The three criminals wince and look away. Eda is the first to woman up and break the news.
"Sorry to break it to ya, but Odalia got put in the slammer about a week after you went missing and your father and siblings also went missing a few days ago. "
A single beat passes then the Witchling slams her hands on the table and shouts, "WHAT?!"
The force of her blow knocks many scattered items on the table over but Lilith fails to raise the courage to chastise the boorish behavior, "Aaaand your home was burned down by rebel partisans, which is how we found out they went missing because there weren't any bodies. And, uh, surprise? There's currently a civil war destroying the isles and it's kind of all our faults?"
Lilith roughly elbows her sister in the kidney. "Ow, you bitch! Ugh, fine so it's mostly Luz's fault but I have some part in it."
Another kidney shot.
"Ouch! Okay, like twenty percent my fault." Lilith lines up for another hit, "Uh... thirty percent?"
The elder nods and lowers her arm. She finds that a fair estimate. Amity turns to Luz with an incredulous expression but the human happens to find a skittering bug on the floor more interesting.
Undeterred Amity holds her gaze. The human tries to hold it in but cracks under the pressure.
"Fine!" She blurts out loudly, "So I may have had a mental breakdown after killing a bird I befriended and then overthrew a fascist government, but somehow that made everything worse and now there's a civil war destroying everything? So, uh... welcome home?"
After several agonizing minutes of rebooting the young Blight finally turns back towards her breakfast which has become unappetizing now.
"Great. Okay, I'm okay. I just had to... process all that for a minute. There's a civil war you said? How the hell could that happen? There's no way anyone would organize a large scale rebellion against the Emperor! Even the old royal family couldn't organize an attack. Belos literally marched into the palace with his coven and they just accepted it."
Luz sheepishly rubs the back of her neck, "Yeah... I kind of was tricked into overthrowing Belos. Who would've thought turning a stable if morally questionable system of rulership on its head would have terrible consequences?"
"How did you even pull that off?! The Emperor is the most powerful Witch on the Isles and, as impressive as you are with your Glyphs, there's no way you'd be able to pull it off!"
Eda goes to protest but is cut off by another kidney shot. The Owl Lady mumbles some choice words under her breath whilst massaging her now aching side.
"Oh that?" Luz has to ponder over it for a minute. The whole thing seemed complicated to her at first but in hindsight it was actually fairly simple. "I guess I sort of severed Belos' connection to the Titan and he got super weak all of the sudden. Couldn't even stand anymore! After that the tiny red lady with a hand for hair declared herself the new ruler and kicked us out. I've got no clue what happened to jerk-face after that."
Amity maintains her incredulous stare. The human blushes and sheepishly looks away. She admits she wasn't exactly in a good headspace when she did all of... that.
"Why in the world would Kikimora of all people betray Belos! She was so loyal you'd think she'd have a body pillow with his face on it!"
Luz nearly gags at some rule34 images that suddenly pass into her brain. Eda and Lilith share a look between themselves. The former head of the Emperor's Coven may have gotten a little drunk once upon a time and let it slip that Kikimora does in fact have a full length pillow with Belos' image printed onto it.
"I believe Kikimora is possessed," Lilith states bluntly, "Or at the very least under someone's influence. I have no doubt in my mind it is the Daedric Lord that manipulated Luz and guided the isles into the current state now. Although I do admit the open rebellion was unexpected."
Eda nods in agreement with her sister. She's met most of the heads of the nobility over the years and she never thought in a million years the prissy bastards would have the balls to rebel even if Belos is MIA.
"I didn't think anything would happen after Luz knocked the emperor down, but as soon as everyone found out Kikimora was in charge all wealthy families raised armies of thugs from their covens and have been duking it out with the now Empresses Coven for like a few weeks. Do you smell that smoke?"
Amity nods. It has smelt rather smoky all day long.
"Yeah, that's Bonesborough. It's literally burning to the ground while all of the Witches fight."
She takes another few moments to process the new dump of information. The dump analogy also matches with her general mood which greatly disgusts the young patrician.
"Great," Amity says gloomily, "I traveled from a realm flourishing with the homicidally insane, where every waking minute is a fight for survival, to an island that's literally burning to the ground with no way to escape."
A new realization dawns on her, "Hold on, what happened to Gus and Willow and everyone at school?! What about the people just living their lives?!"
The human looks down solemnly. There's a heavy weight on her shoulders as though she were Atlas with the infinite weight of the sky bearing down upon her.
"...I don't know. I haven't been able to get in contact with them. Hexside was the first place to get burned down when the fighting started. I'm pretty certain principal Bump and the rest of the teachers are dead. Only some of the crazy cultist kids are left and I really don't know if that's a good thing or not." It was a horrible memory for Luz. She's lucky Eda and Lilith kept her home for as long as they did. Within a week of Kikimora taking charge the famous institution was destroyed in the first wave of attacks. As far as she knows only the skooma dealers and users survived as on the day of the attack none of them showed up for school.
She doesn't have to think too hard about which deific kitty-cat told them to skip school and start roughing it in the forest.
"I thought Gus and Willow would be hanging out with Viney's cultists in the woods since Willow's in with them, but they're not there. I don't know, Amity, I messed up real bad. People are losing their homes, their lives. I can't believe I'm saying this but I think things were better when Belos was in charge."
Eda snorts distastefully, "I don't know kid, but you might be right. I'm mostly pissed those brats in the forest keep knocking on my door trying to sell that... what was it called?"
"Skooma."
"Right! Damn kids are worse than wild Wild Witches if you ask me. And I mean the kind of Wild Witch who'd sacrifice a baby to try and make some kind of flying ointment. I'd knock some sense into those kids if I wasn't afraid they'd stab me in the neck and do nasty things with my organs."
Luz shivers at the familiar memories. Viney's forest cultists are scary. Heck, not too long ago her dual-track buddy was a hair away from strangling her to death and those... tendencies have only gotten worse. Frankly she's happy Willow and Gus aren't with them but the other alternatives leave her down in the dumps. It's hard for her to accept that she very well may have gotten two of her bestfriends killed to save another one that she may or may not have a crush on. And deep down inside she feels like she may have known that beforehand.
...Does that make Luz a bad person?
Lilith decides to interject here. The current rate of topics are about to drive Luz into another manic depressive episode. "Amity, I'm sure you're aware that this-this deity is nothing but trouble. While I don't expect you to be privy to his plans for the Boiling Isles, is there anything you might know? You were trapped within his realm for a while..."
It seems like everyone wants to skip past the potential fate of Amity's other friends. She personally doesn't give much of a damn about Boscha and her old crew; Gus and Willow dying however does make her... miffed just a little. She sighs and ponders over the events that happened in her absence. It takes her only a few minutes to guess what the trickster god could be up to.
"Well, how I see it, the madgod is annexing The Boiling Isles, at least in spirit."
The oldest Clawthorne narrows her eyes, "Explain."
Amity continues, "Well, you said Viney is leading a cult which as far as we know makes up the only survivors of an entire generation at Hexside, right? This makes me think all of the other academies probably have the same deal going on. Then there's the political instability and a war which means fewer leaders and fewer adults in general. So when the forest cultists grow up they'll be the ones in charge which means they'll be enacting the will of Sheogorath. In one generation the madgod's essentially turned the entirety of the Boiling Isles into another version of the Shivering Isles. Pretty simple but darn effective. It's how I would do it."
Three faces go pale. Well, two are already pale and the last one has dark colored skin so really only two faces remain pale and one gets slightly lighter. "Dios mio... Amity, I think it's worse than that. I didn't just overthrow Belos when I severed him from the Titan's heart, I basically killed the Titan's soul which he said was powering some barrier protecting the Boiling Isles. I don't think Sheo's planning on corrupting the Boiling Isles, I think he's gong to steal it!"
"Thats...!" Not impossible, actually. Daedric Princes are capable of terrifyingly powerful deeds when the conditions are right. Amity spent a lot of time reading up on the Daedric Princes and so far two of the more evil gods have nearly succeeded in stealing an entire world. Taking an island nation would be a piece of cake comparatively.
"Great, so I escape from a mad house only for it to be meaningless in the end anyways!"
"Hold up there, kiddo, it might not be so cut and dry. Belos is missing, not dead. Even if that little imp is in charge she wouldn't just kill old golden mask. He knows way too much to simply be offed. My bet is she has him locked away somewhere safe so she can try and pry that knowledge out. And I can't believe I'm about to say this, but if we're going to save the Isles before it's too late, we need to find and rescue Belos and put him back in charge!"
Of course any good rescue operation requires time and patience and planning.
Luz has none of those.
Days dragged by as Lilith and Eda both took turns scavenging for food and any information about where the new Empress would house high value targets. Ever the sneaky Witch that she is, Lilith crossed off Kikimora's castle as a potential location. I took her nearly a whole day of snooping through the corridors and hidden rooms all while dodging the inept guards until she could logically deduce it was empty of one golden bastard (Lilith's words).
Eda took to the streets to try out some of her criminal contacts but struck empty as well. Any organized crime already fled to their safehouses in the dangerous wilds long ago to wait out the storm and pick up where they left off once everything's blown over like the ever opportunistic leeches that they are (Eda's words).
And during the whole time Luz was stuck inside the Owl House with Amity and kept inside under Hooty's ever unblinking eye under Eda's orders. Seriously, every time Luz tried to sneak out she'd be wrapped up the seemingly omnipresent demon tube and shoved back inside before she could even complain. Luz finds this to be absolute bullshit as King himself gets to go on adventures with the Clawthorne sisters but not the human with an evil sword and actual magic powers.
Total bullshit.
Amity, of course, never tried escaping as she knew it would be meaningless.
If Hooty could fend off Lilith Clawthorne of all people and her former gaggle of goons then the Blight knows she'd never stand a chance in a genuine fight. Although she has been tempted to summon Sh'rk and tell the Ogrim to eat Hooty just to see if the daedra could pull it off.
While Amity's been enjoying the relative peace and trying (and failing) to come to terms with the fate of her family, Luz has been as restless as an unfed newborn the whole time.
"Amity!" The Blight ignores Luz and turns the page of her massive and mysterious spell book. The human tries again, "Amiiiity!"
Yet again no response. Luz huffs with a mild angry pout and leans back into the junk furniture Eda calls a couch. Luz has a reason she pesters others so often especially recently. When she's left alone her mind wanders.
That's not unusual for Luz. In fact she's proud of her wandering mind. Even if her mami tried so hard for many years to suppress Luz's imagination it never worked. A downside to such a mind is that it becomes fixated on certain ugly thoughts so very often. Like the time she gave herself a panic attack when her mother was at work while her mind kept replaying an earlier moment where she was turned down by her then crush when asking him to the school dance.
And then it happened again a year later when she was turned down by a fellow cheerleader when she was rejected asking her out for a day at the fair.
This time Luz is transfixed on a memory of a tiny little canary she hardly knew yet somehow finds herself mourning. Umbra calls to her again. She always keeps the cursed weapon by her side where it belongs. It sings sweetness in her ears and tells her to march into the forest and find something big and full of blood to satiate her thirst but she resists. For now.
Luz unsheathes the ebony weapon and admires the well-crafted etchings and hums pleasantly as the powerful enchantment resonates with her soul. A boiling sea rises within her and she smells the sweet iron of blood in the ear and she can't help but grin. Maybe she can sneak past Hooty and find a few animals to ki-NO!
Quick as a fox she shoves the cursed sword back into its sheath and the bloodlust possessing her dies down. Somewhere in the back of her mind she can hear something laughing at her defiance. A dull ache throbs within her belly and she unconsciously rests her hands over it. The scar left behind from the lich still aches to this day even if she healed herself with the lifeforce of her birdy friend to save her own life.
She pulls her hoody up just enough to get a look at the scar.
The look of it makes her want to gag; It looks like she got gored by a boar like some smelly king. The scar is shaped like a circle and bumpy with a strange texture and reflectiveness to it. The feel of it is unnatural compared the regular skin adjacent to the scar tissue. Like it shouldn't belong on her body yet there it remains all the same. She feels nauseous just looking at it and can't help but vividly remember the phantom agony she suffered getting the scar.
Luz is suddenly aware of the other person in the room and quickly shoves her shirt back down. It certainly wouldn't help her anxiety to essentially flash her crush! Luz turns to apologize but pauses when she sees that Amity hadn't even noticed her strange behavior at all!
She sighs and sinks back into the cushions and ignores the feeling of cockroaches fucking underneath the sofa cambric.
Her mind wanders again and she can't help but get caught up in the thoughts. Luz, by her fundamental nature, struggles with the concept of 'being a good person'. Growing up with a single mother and no father usually causes complications; behavior problems and the such. Growing up in such a way was tough and Luz knows that but she loved her mami and tried to act like the good child she always wanted.
And it worked! For so long Luz's mother Camilla was all smiles and happy as can be but... things have changed recently.
Camilla started smiling less and all the silly things Luz did only made it worse. Their relationship started to sour and Luz felt her mother was more exasperated with her daughter than happy and proud.
It really hurt Luz when she came to that realization and made her start to question herself in regards to her peers. Luz always thought she was a nice and approachable person yet she never had friends in her realm. There was ostracization aplenty and more then a healthy dose of students who were always uneasy being around her.
Only recently did she come to realize that those uneasy students were in fact afraid. Amity herself actually spelled it out to Luz after she caught her and the twins rifling through her diary; Luz is a bully.
Now she's not so self-absorbed to think that's true completely. Not once in her life has Luz tried to bully someone but unfortunately others have suffered because of her actions so in their eyes she is one. And any subsequent attempts to change that view ends in more trouble and just reinforces the moniker anyways!
Those thoughts of her apparent aura of misfortune all bring her back to the question; Is Luz Noceda a bad person?
Luz isn't sure what she's done to piss Amity off so much but she just can't take it anymore! The cold-shoulder treatment is sending her brain in a wild direction and she just needs to talk to someone about it. If Amity wants to ignore her then fine. She can. But that won't stop Luz -'the human'- Noceda from talking!
"So, Amity, I think I might be kind of a bad person, maybe?"
For a brief flash Amity's eyes turn to Luz but she quickly shoves her nose back into the book to hide it. Luz is caught up in her own mess of a train of thought and fails to notice despite how obvious it was.
"And I'm not saying that to be edgy either! It's... recently I've really started to notice that I've hurt a lot of people, even you, Willow and Gus. And don't even get me started on Eda, either! For a long time I thought anything unfortunate that happened to my friends was just circumstance and not my fault, that bad things just kinda happen to anyone and you can't really blame someone for it. But I did something I'm not proud of. It's eating me up inside and I just can't get it out of my mind. It's driving me crazy!"
Amity has long abandoned her book to listen intently to Luz's story. The Blight finds herself feeling a little guilty and empathizes with Luz more than she knows. Amity was one hundred percent a bully and recently at that! Her ignoring of Luz is shitty and she admits that. She's just still caught up in the loss of her inner Luz and seeing the real thing in front of her without any knowledge of what Amity went through with her conjured Luz hurts a lot. So instead of addressing her wounded heart she retreats inward and just ignores it.
And it's obvious to her now how much she's been hurting her friend these past few days.
"I did a lot of adventuring when you were gone. It was so much fun that I just completely ignored doing some pretty jacked up stuff! Don't tell Lilith, but I went into her mind like we did with Willow that one time and started spelunking in her really personal memories like it was no big deal! I had a friend with me the whole time who was leading me through some crazy stuff. And at the very end we ran into this crazy strong and super old Lich. That guy was terrifying! It was just like 'fighting' Belos. The whole time it was just messing around with me for fun, not really taking me seriously. Then... I got stabbed through the guts!"
The Blight gasps. A violent murderer she may be but her friends and family are still her loved ones and them dying would destroy her.
"It was an accident and kind of my fault but it wasn't pretty. The lich blew up a wall of ice I made and a huge shard got blasted into my guts! The pain was unreal and my blood was everywhere and the ice made my insides burn and hurt and the air stung and-!" Luz snaps herself out of the dark spiral. Her face is sweaty and red and her breath is heavy and filled with dread.
It takes the human a moment before she continues, "I should've died. One hundred percent no doubts about it- I should've died. I didn't because... this sword I have here is a heavy burden. And as cool as that sounds it actually really sucks. It's possessed and I can't get rid of it until it wants to, but it's a frighteningly powerful magic weapon. It can absorbs souls, cause a person to die quicker and also absorb their vitality. It literally sucks away their lifeforce to keep me going. And I absolutely used that power to save my own life. But I had to kill my friend to do it. And I didn't even question it either!"
Luz begins to shout, "I was dying and had no problems sacrificing my own friend to save my skin! What kind of monster am I?! I-I it's been eating me up inside! They trusted me and I just threw them away like trash! Amity... I'm scared of myself. I don't know how to handle this..." She finally musters the bravery to look her close friend in the eye but pauses when she sees something curious.
Amity doesn't look surprised that Luz just admitted to murdering someone.
"Amity?" Suddenly the Blight blinks then adopts a faux-surprised look and totally fakes a gasp.
Gasp! - "Luz, I can't believe you'd do such a thing! Murder is morally bad and you should never do it! Ever!" The human squints suspiciously. Luz has never seen such bullshit before. The Mozilla Firefox wheel spins for a few seconds before the thought finally loads in her brain. "Amity... did you... kill someone?"
Her eyes look side to side, "...No?"
"Oh my god!" Luz shouts, "You did! You totally killed someone!"
"Luz, shut up!" Amity hisses, "Someone's gonna hear you! Fine... I did... have to do it a few times. But it was all in self defense except-no, shit, wait-ignore that! Self defense!"
"Amity!"
"Self defense!"
"Amity! Hang on a second we just can't skip passed that. Explain, girl, I need details! How many and why?!"
The Witchling looks down at her fingers and quietly counts the numbers. Luz shouts her name exasperatedly again.
"Ugh! I don't know, like seven or eight people maybe? Look, Luz, the place I was trapped at, it was sink or swim. The people there were nuts! I did what I had to do and I'm not sorry about it. Look, Luz, I know you're probably freaking out inside but trust me on this, you did what you had to to survive and no matter what people say or how they try and shame you, just ignore it. I did some messed up stuff too, but all of that was so I could be here now, with you. Honestly, I don't judge you at all. Trust me... I get it."
Luz looks at Amity were her mouth agape. She's completely taken back in surprise and even if outwardly she thinks she did something genuinely wrong a different stronger part of her self deep down inside tells her she did no wrong at all. She asked herself earlier 'Is Luz Noceda a bad person?' but now she thinks that question isn't the right one to ask at all!
Now she doesn't feel so bad about it anymore. Luz has done wrong but it's like her mami told her once long ago; 'All people sin many times in their life. If you do what you have to do and try to be a good person then god will always forgive you.'
She not a bad person! She was simply in a tough situation and had to make a call to save her own life. Things in the Boiling Isle's are messed up and she has a part to play in that, but that won't stop her from trying to right that wrong! Luz was always taught to make things right if she did wrong. She'll make her mami proud like she used to.
Small tears form in her eyes and Luz wipes them off with a single laugh with no heart.
"God... we're really messed up, aren't we?"
Amity smiles softly and returns to her book. The air between them has that familiar warmth to it again and even if they don't share a mind both young Witches in training know they're both happy.
"Yeah, we're really fucked up, but we're fucked up together. That's what it means to be best friends."