A/N: This one will be a little more light hearted, since I needed a breather chapter and some fluffy stuff. I'm sure you'll enjoy it! Still on my trip, so once more, if there are any formatting errors, I'll be sure to fix them when I return!
Lucia walked down the halls of her school, heading for her locker to drop off her useless chemistry books so she could enjoy her free period without the inevitable back aches the heavy books would cause her.
It had been eight days since Vee had been exposed as a Changeling, and the incident in the forest shack. Eight days, but they still hadn't had any leads on any nearby portal activity, or at least none that were strong enough to elicit a response from Vee.
Which had been a good thing, in Lucia's opinion. Amelia had still been absent, fallen off the face of the Earth with the minor exception of passing each other during school hours. No portal activity meant that nothing dangerous was coming through, so Lucia didn't have to worry about her girlfriend's wellbeing when she went out on patrols at night. If she was still going out at all.
In that time, Lucia had done her best to bond with Vee. Get the girl introduced to some of the things her sister couldn't live without, without pressuring her to adapt too much to the role. Luz left big, clown sized shoes to fill with all her oddities, and after the reveal that Vee thought the Azura books were trash Lucia didn't have the heart to force the Changeling to take on all of Luz's hobbies.
She'd at least taken to some of Luz's music. Just yesterday, Lucia had pounded on Luz's door, only to receive no response. Upon opening it, she was greeted to the sight of Vee wearing headphones, her sister's old CD player(a hand-me-down that Lucia herself had passed on), and listening to what appeared to be a Weird Al album, with sparkles in her eyes.
"My ears have never felt so blessed." Is what she'd said when she realized Lucia was there. The older girl just didn't understand her sister and Vee's tastes in music.
Lucia smiled at the memory. She wasn't Luz, but Vee could be as much of a goofball sometimes. It kinda made dealing with the guilt of almost beating her face in harder, if Lucia was honest. She tried not to dwell on that memory too much, anyone else would have done the same if they found a demon had replaced their loved ones. That, or called an exorcist.
Chuckling at the mental image of Vee's head spinning around in a circle with dated movie effects, Lucia put her books away, and closed her locker, only to jump and clutch at her heart when she saw none other than Amelia standing next to her, having been behind her locker door.
"Oh, Jesus fu-!" Lucia cried out, covering her mouth to keep herself from loudly cursing on school property and getting into trouble if a teacher overheard.
"Sorry, sorry!" Amelia apologized, holding her hands up defensively and grimacing at the reaction she'd caused.
Lucia calmed herself, and patted Amelia's shoulder reassuringly, "Don't- don't worry about it. Just don't sneak up on me like that, Hermosa, you nearly gave me a heart attack."
"Sorry," Amelia said again, but smiled shyly. She looked a bit nervous, fidgeting in place before asking, "Uh, do you have a few minutes?"
Lucia nodded, and offered her hand to her girlfriend, who hesitantly took it. The two wandered through mostly empty halls, while Amelia worked up the courage to say whatever it was she wanted to say.
"I'm sorry," Amelia sighed after a moment.
Lucia blinked, then laughed, "I told you, it's fine, stop kicking yourself over spooking me back there-"
"No, not about that," Amelia cut in, "About running off again. I keep doing this, every time something comes up, and I can't just keep dropping all contact just because my world has been flipped."
"You had things to work through, I can understand that," Lucia tried to be comforting, but that didn't seem to make Amelia feel any better.
Instead, the Bane girl snapped back, "And you didn't have stuff you were going through? I ditched you for over a week right after you found out your sister was gone, and replaced by a demon. That blows my whole identity issues, which I've already gone through once, out of the water."
She sighed angrily, "We're a team, a couple. I should have been there to support you, and have let you support me. And I can't keep pushing you away when stuff like this happens."
Lucia nodded in agreement, squeezing Amelia's hand, "You're right. We're a team, and we should talk about this kind of stuff together now. I accept your apology, and we'll both do better from now on."
They both stood still, holding each other's gaze, until finally they broke, and they started to snort. "Do you hear the two of us right now? Lucia laughed.
"I know, but it's something we needed to say, but still, it sounded… oddly mature and weird coming from us." Amelia agreed, breaking into a grin.
Lucia gave a tug of her hand, "Come on, we got a few more minutes of Free Period left, lets go make out behind the bleachers or something, like normal people would."
"Oh, God yes," Amelia smirked, following along, squeezing the other girl's bigger hand with her own, "I've missed doing that."
Luz weaved between a few students between classes, a bright grin on her face. Today she got a double helping of Viney, one of her favorite classmates. She had Healing, followed by Beast Keeping, and she couldn't wait. Viney always kinda made her think of her Mom when they had classes together, for some reason. It wasn't like Viney used her healing magic to heal animals, like her Mom did. In fact, she did the opposite, she used beasts to help heal witches, which was wonderfully weird, but still made Luz think of her mother back home either way.
Healing was still a bit of an ongoing struggle, not from an anatomy position, but from Luz's own lack of magic, with no glyph combos proving useful yet. She was sure it had to have some sort of combo between Light glyphs and plant, since healing magic always looked glowy, but she had no fruits for her labor so far.
Luz stopped and skidded to a halt at the sight of a familiar Cotton candy haired goddess, Amity looking tired with bags under her eyes, but accomplished. And a bit messy. Her hair was frazzled and she had abomination goo on her cheek, so Luz swooped in and wiped it away, planting a kiss on her girlfriend's other cheek as she did so.
"I know you're a bit overworked from your new lessons, but make sure you're taking care of yourself, Ams!" She smiled as she continued on her way, Amity herself was heading for her own classes, and gave a cheerful hum and a wave goodbye to acknowledge Luz, feeling lightheaded over the unexpected affection she'd just received.
"I don't think I'll ever get used to you and Blight actually being together," A carefree voice commented beside the brown haired human.
"Viney!" Luz greeted with a quick hug, glad to see a fellow multi-track student. She then paused, wondering what the other girl had against her girlfriend. "Hey, wait, what's that supposed to mean?"
Viney laughed and patted Luz's shoulder, "Nothing bad, Little Calamity, just that you two have been dancing around each other since Grom, I didn't think you'd ever actually manage to stop being total messes and 'fess up is all."
Luz wisely decided to leave out that it took Hooty kidnapping Amity and forcing them down a tunnel of love for either girl to actually do it. That was just too humiliating to admit. Instead she settled for, "Yeah, I can't believe it's happening sometimes, either."
Viney just grinned, and held open the classroom door for Luz.
Today, there wasn't a whole lot that Luz could do outside of taking notes. While everyone else was practicing their casting on training dummies(that seemed to be made out of some kind of animated flesh, to Luz's fascination and disgust), the Teacher had handed Luz a pop quiz of sorts to fill out, to make sure that her understanding of the material was adequate.
Luz finished that quickly enough, but it left her without much to do, so she watched Viney work while she let her mind drift. Eventually, a hand waving in front of her face snapped her out of her day dreaming, and she found Viney looking over her, "You okay in there? Class is just about done."
Luz shook off the last of her fantasies and nodded, "Oh, yeah. I was just thinking about the last time I was used as a training dummy in class."
Viney quirked a brow, "Way back in like, your second week here?"
"Yeah!" Luz affirmed. That had been an interesting lesson. Luz had always known that the Boiling Isles were incredibly accepting off all genders, sexes, and sexualities, but she didn't really understand the depths of it until that day when she discovered a spell that was learned by the Healing Track involved the ability to change the sex of anyone it had been cast on.
Luz had immediately volunteered as Vinney's training partner, not that she had any other choice, really, and despite only having to have her sex changed for the lesson had asked Viney to keep her as a boy for a week, and to keep it secret. She'd wanted to see how long it took the rest of her friends to notice.
No one had. Viney had laughed and said it was because her voice hadn't changed, and she hadn't really grown into being a woman yet, so there wasn't enough visually different about her for them to notice. "I really miss being able to pee standing up sometimes," Luz said easily, being the only part of her week-long journey she'd wished she could have kept with her.
"Too much information, Noceda." Viney chuckled, making a face, "now come on, I heard that our Beast Keeping lesson today is being supervised by the Head of the coven, Eberwolf. Supposedly, they brought a whole bunch of cool critters for us to study and take care of."
Luz clapped her hands together and fetched her bag, "I can't wait to see all the new cuties! Let me just stop by my locker, I'll meet you there!"
Without waiting for Viney's reply, Luz bolted, racing down the halls as fast as she could and nearly getting scolded by a passing Bump who she nearly ran(or bumped) into. She then made a quick exchange of her books and supplies, or as quickly as she could do it when her locker still was more interested in eating her than handing over her things.
Unlike the rest of the Hexside classes, Beast Keeping had a separate facility, sorta like how the Plant Track had the Greenhouse. The Stables, as it was often called despite being more than just that, were just past the Grudgby field, which was quite the walk. Luz however, had energy to spare, and once she was out on the grass was racing with the wind, arms held parallel to the ground like she was an airplane.
The Latina girl skidded to a halt right outside the door, kicking up a small dust cloud as she did so. As she regained her balance from the sudden stop, the door to her classroom opened, and where Luz had expected to see her Teacher, Viney, or even another student, she instead saw a tiny orange furred creature, not much taller than King step out, brushing its hands off as it left.
Luz gasped, never having seen such an adorable creature in her entire life… or at least past breakfast this morning, King was still her little Prince after all. Her eyes sparkled as she approached the creature, who glanced at her curiously and with a smile of its own, "Aw, who are you little guy? Are you supposed to be out here?"
The orange fellow looked around, as if to check if Luz was talking to anyone else. It then pointed to itself, just to make sure.
"Yes, you!" Luz gushed, then swiftly scooped it up like a toddler, cradling it in her arms. "Oh, you must be one of the new cweatures we're supposed to study today!"
She scratched behind its ears, which the little guy seemed to like, leaning into Luz's touch and purring. She squee'd, pressing a kiss to the top of it's head, "Oh, Viney was right, we did get some good ones today. And aren't you just a little cutie patootie?"
Speak of the devil, and she will appear, for as soon as Luz said her name Viney called out to her, "Luz! There you are, I was sure I was going to beat you this time, but-"
The double track student's words caught in her throat as soon as Luz turned to face her, still cradling the orange creature like it was her own child. "Oh, Viney! You wouldn't believe what I just found. Look at this little guy! I found them leaving the classroom, probably thought they could sneak out. I got them though, and boy are they a widdle cuddlebug."
Luz grinned brightly, oblivious to the rising panic on Viney's face, "This lesson is going to be great!"
She tickled the little guy under the chin, and they batted at her with their paws. Luz began to melt as they vibrated against her, "Viney, Viney, they're purring! Isn't that just adorable?"
She squeezed the creature tightly against her, "I love them and I want to bring them home with me. Doh, but Eda said no more strays…"
Viney took a step back, gulping, "Luz…"
Luz seemed to catch on to her friend's discomfort, her joyful attitude fading to worry, "Viney, what is it?"
"Luz, you need to put them down right away." Viney said carefully.
"Why? Aren't these the cuties that the Head of the Beast Coven was supposed to bring today? They don't seem that dangerous to me. Might even be house trained!"
"Luz, that isn't one of the beasts, that's the leader of the coven themself." Viney finished, and Luz immediately froze up at those words.
She glanced down at the creature in her arms, who she now knew to be Eberwolf of the Beast Coven, and felt a wave of embarrassment unlike any she'd ever felt before. She dropped the witch, who much like a cat landed on they're feet, and bounded a step or two back, smiling innocently at both girls.
"Why didn't you say something?!" Luz moaned, humiliation filing every pore of her being. She grabbed the hood of her uniform and pulled it up over her head, hiding her face
Eberwolf just grinned, showing off a mouthful of impressive teeth.
Viney stepped forward, placing a reassuring hand on Luz's shoulder, "Well, at least you don't have a Coven Head after your head…"
Then to make matters worse, she leaned in and whispered, "And don't worry, I won't tell Amity about you fawning over another witch like that."
Luz wanted to die right then and there, wishing the Titan would just strike her down.
The Changeling known as Vee busied herself in front of the bathroom mirror, carefully applying a little bit of makeup to her face. Not enough to be noticeable, but enough to make herself look just a bit more pretty. For no particular reason. Happy with how she looked, she beamed, and put her things away before heading downstairs to join her family for breakfast.
Sitting at her usual spot, she didn't go thirty seconds before Lucia was smirking at her, "Are you wearing makeup today?"
"No!" Vee quickly denied, feeling just a little bit flustered over being caught so soon.
"Is this to impress you-know-who?" Lucia teased. Things had certainly eased up between the two in the days since Vee had shown her true colors, if Lucia was being this playful this early in the morning.
"Don't be mean to your sister, Lucia." Camila scolded, eating her own breakfast. "I think you look lovely today, Luz."
"Thanks, Mom." Vee replied back meekly, picking at her own plate.
The day went on as normal, the two teenage girls making their way to school and going to their own classes. Between math and history, Vee had almost forgotten the earlier interaction, or even that she'd put on makeup this morning, until she saw a flash of blonde hair turning the corner while she was at her locker.
A brief feeling of panic welled up inside of her, and she quickly hid her face behind her opened locker door. Did she look good? Was she presentable? The Changeling ran her fingers through her hair, hoping it didn't look like a mess. She didn't have long to fret before a familiar voice made her jump as it greeted her. "Hey, Luz."
Gulping, and then proceeding to nearly choke on her own saliva, Vee slammed her locker shut a little harder than she intended and greeted the cheerleader on the other side of the door, "Clara! Hi, I didn't, uh, see you there."
The blonde girl was looking as radiant as ever, which only served to make Vee more nervous about her own appearance. Luz was pretty, right? Vee thought she was pretty, but did other humans find her pretty? Was it weird to wonder that? This entire crush thing was kinda creepy when she thought about it(and she tried not to), but Vee couldn't exactly help it.
Ever since the first day of school started, and Clara had approached her to apologize for what had happened the previous semester, an apology Vee had wholeheartedly accepted, even though she had no idea what had happened at the time, and asked if they could start things off on better terms now that they were high schoolers, Vee had felt smitten.
She'd read about Clara in Luz's old journals, but hadn't expected to fall so hard and fast for her when she'd inevitably meet in person. It was kinda sad and creepy of her, wasn't it? She found she didn't really care when the other girl was in her presence, though.
Clara just sent her a kind smile, "We have chemistry together next, right? I thought we could walk together, if that's alright with you?"
"Of course!" Vee excitedly nodded her head to the point she had to stop and force herself to curb her enthusiasm. Clara didn't like Luz, she turned her down, after all. B-but she wasn't Luz. Lucia said there were all sorts of small differences. Maybe that would help win Clara over and- No, no, she couldn't do that, they still needed to get Luz back from the Demon Realm, she couldn't date someone while pretending to be Luz.
The two walked together, side by side, arms full of their textbooks. Vee could feel the warmth building in her cheeks as Clara talked, filling her in on what had happened at her last cheerleader practice, and an upcoming game she'd be at. Then it happened.
"You look great today, by the way, Luz." Clara complimented, just as they made it to class. "If you want, I can share a few other tips after class? I have some lipstick that is absolutely your color."
Vee could melt into a puddle, and she wouldn't even complain.
"Are you sure I'm doing this right?"
"You're doing fine," Vee assured the older teen, "You shouldn't expect to get it right the first try.
Amelia groaned, and tried again, tracing a circle in the air. She tried to focus on getting the plant in front of her to move, to grow, to do anything, but nothing happened no matter how many times she tried.
Beside her, Lucia leaned in, and spoke in as encouraging a voice as she could. "Feel, don't think. Use your instincts."
Amelia grit her teeth, "Why doesn't that sound stupidly familiar?"
Lucia smirked proudly to herself, "I stole it from The Phantom Menace."
With that, Amelia's concentration, and her spell circle, broke. Heaving a tired sigh, Amelia collapsed, not because of exhaustion but rather frustration. She'd been trying to do anything with that plant all day and it just wasn't listening to her.
Vee pursed her lips, and scratched Plant magic off of her list of things to teach Amelia. "It might be the plants themselves, rather than your abilities." She said calmly, trying to keep the Bane girl from tearing her own hair out.
"Why should that even matter?" Amelia growled, looking ready to smash the pot the plant was in for all the wasted effort.
"The plants on the Isles are magical in nature, it only makes sense these benign Earth plants wouldn't be able to bend to magic's will." Vee explained her thought process. "Though, that does make me wonder if any of the ones near the shack in the woods would be receptive to you, since they grew exposed to magic a lot."
Amelia lay spread eagle on the ground, pouting. "Are you sure you're a qualified teacher? You're like, ten."
"Fourteen. My body is fourteen," Vee reminded her, bemused, "And I'm actually quite ancient, or at least old enough to have studied at every magical school on the Boiling Isles dozens of times over, in every field. Trust me, even though I don't have a bile sac in this form, I know what I'm doing."
"You're a pretty immature, cheerleader skirt chasing brat for someone so old," Amelia commented dryly, earning a chuckle from her girlfriend.
"I've been through puberty more times than you can count, I've earned the right to be as immature as I wanna be!" Vee shot back, sticking her tongue out at both of the older women.
Looking back at the list, it wasn't going great. Vee had volunteered to help Amelia learn more about her witch heritage, as well as teach her any magic that would be helpful, but more often than not they tended to be a bust.
Potions were out, no magical ingredients could be found in the human realm, or at least, none that hadn't fallen through a portal somehow. Construction was out, for the same reason plants were being removed from the list, there was just no magic in the earth to speak of. Bard was an option, except Amelia couldn't hold a tune to save her life and ended up shattering all of the glass around her in a 5 yard radius when she tried infusing Lucia's dusty old guitar with magic.
That left Illusion, Oracle, Abomination, Beast Keeping, and Healing. Vee was pretty sure Abominations were out entirely, for the same reasons as the others that hadn't worked. There just wasn't anything you could use in the human world to make an Abomination. Beast Keeping would be incredibly helpful, there were plenty of spells Amelia could use to learn to tame the monsters they were fighting, but they could really only be learned on the field rather than practice.
That left Vee hopeful that Amelia was more receptive to the final three. "Okay, whenever you're ready, let me know and we'll start with… Illusions." Vee picked, seeing it as the most helpful of the three. Healing would be optimal, but it was better to have a distraction that kept them from getting hurt in the first place.
Amelia held up a hand, flashing five fingers, silently asking for a five minute break before they started. She continued to lay down on the soft grass of the Noceda's backyard, closing her eyes and listening. She could hear Lucia step aside to resume her own training, focusing on lifting weights again today. The click clack of the barbells as they moved around greeting her ears.
Vee, on the other hand, took the time to keep her awe in check. Amelia was a witch, on Earth, who was capable of doing a far wider variety of spells than she really should be able to do for how little magic she had access to. Having lived many lives as a witch herself, she'd be just as tired as Amelia was now if she was on the Isles, and yet the Bane girl had only asked for a five minute breather to find her second wind.
It made Vee wonder just exactly how much of a powerhouse she'd be dealing with if things were different.
"Hey, Vee?" Amelia asked after a moment
"Yeah?"
Amelia took a moment to follow up, and the contents of her question spoke for her hesitation to ask it. "Do you think a changeling took my place on the other side when I went missing? I mean, you took Luz's because she went to another world, and that was like a false-positive or something. So it could have happened for me, too?"
"That depends…" Vee spoke carefully.
"On what?"
Vee shrugged, "Family, really. If your family really loved you, sure, but… well, let's just hope you weren't a Blight or something. No Changeling in their right mind would take the place of a Blight, they'd probably starve to death before the week was out."
Amelia wisely chose not to pursue this line of thinking any longer, and instead went back to resting. When the five minutes were up, Amelia sat, then stood from her position and looked at Vee with determined eyes, "Okay, tell me what I need to do."
"Okay, let's start with something simple, that you know intimately. Yourself. No one knows what it's like to be you better than you, so this is a good way to start off." Vee said, slipping into a teaching voice that, coming out of Luz's mouth, just made her sound adorable.
"Think about your shape. Height, width, depth, complexion, every strand of hair fluttering in the breeze. Your clothes, too, that's very important." Vee stressed.
Amelia smirked, "Speaking from experience?"
"Possibly. Or maybe I'd just prefer you didn't give my older si- Lucia, a stroke or something." Vee smiled playfully.
Despite her silence, both girls could feel Lucia's eyes focus on what was about to happen, just in case.
Amelia closed her eyes, "this sounds way too simple, are you sure that's all I have to do?"
Vee shrugged, "basically. Just imagine yourself, and make it happen."
The green haired girl breathed in slowly, holding it, then let it out through her nose. She repeated this process a few times, then traced her finger in a practiced circle, opening her eyes on completion to view the results.
With a "pop" a second Amelia came into existence, looking incredibly close to the original. The eyes were a bit off, and the face in general looked a bit in the uncanny valley, but it was close enough most people wouldn't look at her twice. "Wow. That was easy." Amelia said in disbelief, looking down at her finger.
Vee nodded, this had gone extremely well for Amelia's first time. "Well, some witches are predisposed to certain types of magic. I'd say you're an illusionist at heart."
"Huh."
The two barely had a chance to look over the final results of the spell before the illusion Amelia blinked, and came to life. Nose in the air, she strutted right past the real Amelia and Vee without a second glance, and approached Lucia, who was beginning to work up a sweat with her weights.
The illusion looked Lucia up and down, not even bothering to hide that she liked what she saw, "Damn, girl. I like your top."
Lucia, unsure of what to do, glanced at Amelia behind the illusion, who shrugged. "Thanks?"
"It'd look even better off of your body and on the floor."
A pin could have been heard dropping at the overtly sexual line the Illusion was sending Lucia's way, and not a face wasn't scarlet at the proclamation. "Th- I'm not making her say that!" Amelia sputtered.
"If you like getting sweaty so much, I can think of a thing or two that can help with that. Rawr." Illusion Amelia winked, and Lucia flat out dropped her weights, mouth left hanging open at it's suggestive comments.
"I probably should have mentioned, Illusions can have a mind of their own if you don't keep a good mental grasp on them. So it's basically going to say and do everything you're thinking or feeling completely unfiltered." Vee elaborated, not able to look Amelia or Lucia in the eyes. "Also, Ew."
Amelia spun another circle, then another, frantically trying to unmake her spell, "How do I make it vanish?!"
"Calm down and focus on dispelling it," Vee cried, but Amelia wasn't hearing it, casting over and over until finally, rather than cast the proper spell to get rid of it, she just exhausted her magic supply and the illusion collapsed into a puff of smoke. Amelia, meanwhile, wasn't doing much better, grasping at her chest in pain as her bile sac was emptied for the first time in a while.
Lucia raced for her and offered a supportive arm, which Amelia took. Together they walked over to a chair, Vee trailing behind them as Amelia was lowered into her seat, still looking winded.
"Alright, so maybe we practice Illusions alone from now on?" Vee suggested cheekily, trying to clear the air.
Amelia nodded, a blush still clear on her cheeks. Beside her, Lucia wasn't doing much better. "Do you really think I look good when I'm all sweaty?"
The growl Amelia gave this time was a lot less sexy and a lot more menacing.
A/N: I don't remember the name, but I could have sworn there was another fic with a similar idea about illusions of people basically needing a tight control on them, or else they'd act out the users basic instincts. I think it had one of Gus' illusions go rogue as a joke because of it?
After the drama of the previous chapters, this one was very light hearted and silly, a good breather chapter that isn't exactly filler, since it does have plenty of plot info for later.
I'm writing Eberwolf with Gender Neutral pronouns, even though they very much remind me of Winnie the Werewolf from Scooby-Doo and the Ghoul School mixed with Wilykit from Thundercats. If you see me slip up and use He/She for them, let me know, sometimes those slip through.
Eberwolf loves comments. You don't wanna disappoint them, do you?