As Willow stepped into Hexside on Monday and scanned the halls, all she could think was that the upcoming Glandus Grudgby match might well be the most hyped-up event that she'd seen at Hexside. Not that it was at all unusual to see people getting into the spirit of competition between the two rival schools - there had been plenty of matches between the two in the past, and a similar atmosphere had enveloped Hexside before.
What was unusual about this particular event was just how all-encompassing it seemed to be this time around.
In every corridor, on nearly every wall, door, and series of lockers, everything was given a yellow-and-blue accented shine. Banners and posters of a banshee, beating up a phoenix, covered in slogans like 'Hexside Rules,' and 'Glandus? More like Glan-Dust!' adorned the walls and lockers. People wore shirts with the Banshee's colours, or with the name and logo on them. Willow had seen about two dozen different people with face-paint on before her first class had even begun. An immense, overwhelmingly energetic atmosphere had enveloped the school, as the anticipation for the match had finally reached a fever pitch.
And it was clear to Willow, Gus, and Amity that Luz was loving it.
The human smiled her way through the halls, her eyes darting around the halls as she watched all the school spirit unfold.. "This is so cool!" Luz's finger directed towards a sign of the banshee sucking out a phoenix's soul. "Oh, that signs so cool!" She pointed towards another, this time the banshee screeching the phoenix's flame out. "So's that one! She turned around, smiling as her eyes caught another poster. "And that one is…-" Luz stopped, her face contorting into disgust as she realised her finger was NOW directed to a poster that overtook an entire wall… with Boscha, in full Grudgby uniform, smirking down at the Hexside students and staff as she held a ball up with one hand. "...Okay, that one, I can do without."
Equally uncomfortable with the display, Willow did her best to ignore it, instead focusing on her friend's boundless energy. "I see you're getting into the Hexside spirit." She chuckled.
"Of course I am! You kidding, Willow?" Luz answered, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She clenched her hands into fists and held them in front of her. "My school back on Earth never got into competition this much! Hexside versus Glandus - The two most bitter of rivals, fighting it out on the battlefield of Grudgby, in a winner-takes-all battle to the… well, not death, but humiliation, at least."
"Not death yet, anyway." Gus said, matter-of-factly.
An extremely brief pause followed as Luz just sort of… looked at him, like she was trying to figure out if he was joking or not. From the expression on her face, she seemed to conclude that no, he wasn't joking.
Apparently, competition in the Human world wasn't quite as severe as it was here, Willow thought to herself.
"...Oh, look!" Luz, rapidly attempting to ignore… that, pointed towards a bulletin board, filled with crudely drawn art pieces, clearly created by very young children. "Even the Baby Class is getting into it!" She put her face up to one picture in particular, trying to figure out what exactly it was depicting. "So cute! Look at Boscha, holding up that… person's… detached head…" She chuckled nervously as she realized what exactly it was a drawing of. "Heh. Wow, uh, look at - look at all that red jam the student spilled on this one, heh…"
Amity cleared her throat, awkwardly. "Uh, Luz? I don't think - That's not-"
"Please let me keep some shred of innocence."
Willow, attempting to steer the conversation in a less macabre direction, smiled, and clapped her hands together. "So! Your first real Glandus game, huh, Luz? Are you excited?"
"You bet I am! And this time, I'll bring my own cheer uniform!"
"Sounds… uh, lovely..." Amity mumbled, turning to face away from Luz. "I can't wait to see." A full second of heavy silence followed. "Wait I don't mean-"
"Fantastic!" Willow, ever the captain of this conversation, tried to once again steer it back in a less embarrassing and awkward-for-everyone-involved direction instead. "And I'll bring my lucky cap. I've worn it to every Glandus game since the baby class, and nobody's ever been… critically injured while I've had it on!"
"Wait what d'you mean not critically-"
"But be warned!" Gus hissed his words, throwing his uniform hood up, and pulling out a flashlight as the world suddenly grew darker around them all. He flicked it on, revealing a face contorted to mimic the look of a wise, creepy old storyteller. "For Glandus games are filled with dangers! Even for the poor, unsuspecting audience! You just go to watch a simple, friendly little game, and then suddenly, when you least expect it, an Abomination Bomb explodes next to you, and coats you in a living goo that knows not who's friend or foe! Or you get set on fire by a careless spell in the heat of battle! Or-"
'Students of Hexside.' Out of nowhere, Principal Bumps' voice came through the loudspeakers, loud and clear. 'Due to energy requirements necessary for our upcoming Grudgby match, we will be unable to reserve Magic for today's light source. Please summon your own light orbs and go about your day. And try to watch where you're going. We don't need any more students in the Healer's Offices this month.'
Gus remained still for a few seconds, glancing around the corridor for the first time since going on his exaggerated diatribe, and realising that the lights had in fact, gone out. Around them, several surrounding students grumbled, a few summoning a small orb of light to help guide their walks. Suddenly, the atmosphere felt around the school dampened, as now, all the decorations were hidden behind a veil of darkness. "...Huh." Willow blinked, looking around. "I thought that that was you using some sort of Illusion spell to make everything go dark."
"Yeah, me too." Gus also blinked, revealing that his free hand had been casting a spell behind his back. When he stopped casting it, the corridor did brighten up, but only ever-so-slightly. "Talk about timing." He muttered, standing back upright and letting his arms flop to his sides.
Luz, ever prepared, pulled out her glyph notebook and summoned a glowing orb, crinkling the paper inward as it appeared. She glanced around herself, eyebrows raised quizzically. "I thought Hexside powered all the lights and things using Magic?"
"It does." Willow confirmed.
"...Okay I have like, five questions." The Human said, flatly. "The first being - How the heck do you run out of Magic to power a school?"
"They'll want any and all available Magical energy to go towards the Grudgby team's training equipment." Amity answered.. "They've put so much training into this match, and bragged about the Banshee's so much, that if Hexside doesn't win, it'd completely humiliate the school. I mean," she gestured to their surroundings, to all the banners and posters and everything else, "just look at this place. Imagine the upset it'd cause."
Taking another glance around, Luz shrugged. "Okay, granted, people'd probably be pretty disappointed, but-"
"And it would probably cost this place a ton of money in funding." Amity added.
"...Huh. And I thought that kind of thing only happened in terrible sports movies." Luz muttered to herself. "Well, that makes a… kind of sense, I guess? Actually that kind of answers the rest of my questions now that I think about it." She then turned to the rest of her friends again. "Okay - The immeasurable failures of two entire dimensions' education systems aside, we've got places to be and spells to learn!"
"Isn't our first class history?" Gus questioned.
"...The point is, I'm hyped on school spirit and ready for a full week of Hexside fun, day-time in-darkness style!"
Willow chuckled again at Luz's unending enthusiasm. She turned around to pull out a couple of history textbooks that she would need, before closing it up again. She was just about to turn and join her friends, when she heard the clanging sound of metal being hit.
"Ow!" She heard a familiar voice hiss. "Titan damn it…!"
Almost immediately, the school bell began to scream, and students began to move towards their various classes. Rather than pay any attention to the bell or the students though, Willow turned to look back to the sound of the voice.
In the dark, she couldn't immediately see anything, and with the noise other people were making, no one else seemed to have noticed the sounds, or at the very least, had heard it, but had already forgotten all about it and moved on. Willow squinted towards the source of the sound, trying to see if she could spot anyone.
Her night vision wasn't always the best, but in the dark, Willow was able to spot the faint outline of someone leaning against the wall. She observed them for just a few seconds, and they seemed to be using their hands to navigate, feeling for what was in front of them, as opposed to using a light spell of some description. In the brief snippets of light that she got, Willow was able to make out the familiar outlines of big, poofy, and silver-toned hair. "Skara?" Willow muttered to herself. She had recognized the voice long before she recognized the outline. That answered who it was that had made the noise, at least.
…Okay…So, why in the heck was she just wandering around, in the pitch black darkness, without a Light Spell activated?
"Yo, Willow?" The Plant Witch spun away from Skara to look back at Luz, who seemed to be waiting for her, while Gus and Amity were nowhere to be seen. "Everything okay?"
"Oh - Oh, yeah, sorry, I uh…" Willow thought for a moment, before making her decision. "Hey, uh, Luz? Mind handing me a glyph? I er… don't feel super great." She then fake-coughed a couple of times, and, as if to prove how not super-great she felt, cast an intentionally pathetic light spell that barely lit up her face, that petered out in just a few seconds. "D'you want me to take you to the Healers?"
"Yes - I mean no - I mean - I'll head there… Myself. On my own. And catch up with you in like… Five minutes?"
"It's… On the way to class. I really don't -"
"I'd… Really rather go on my own."
Unfortunately for her, even under the cover of darkness, Willow was an utterly terrible liar. Her fake cough was terrible, she tripped on her own words, she hadn't mentioned or acted remotely ill beforehand, any trip to the Healers, no matter how good said Healers were, was going to take longer than five minutes, if only to figure out exactly what was wrong with a person, and she was about eighty-percent sure that Luz knew she was just making stuff up on the spot. That had been the best that she could come up with in the five seconds she had had before she'd made up her mind. She couldn't see her for the near pitch-blackness that they were in, but Willow practically felt her best friend raise an eyebrow at all of that.
But luckily for Willow, Luz didn't say anything, instead tearing out a piece of notebook paper and handing it to Willow without any further questions. "...Sure thing, Willow. See you in class soon?"
"Yeah."
Willow made out the faint outline of Luz's wave as she walked away, Amity and Gus returning briefly into sight before following suit. But as they left, Willow didn't activate her light glyph. Instead, she turned back around, walking towards the Bard, who still stood in place, looking up at that big, wall-covering Boscha poster.
"Silver linings, Skara. Always remember the silver linings…"
Although she had to fumble with her hands against the wall as her only real guide in this windowless corridor - As if today wasn't already off to an infuriating start - Skara could, at least, think of one silver lining.
And that was that she was glad that the sudden power outage made it near impossible to keep looking up at the hundreds of posters and leaflets and banners and pictures that all showed Boscha's trademark expression of inconceivably smug superiority. It was now cast in darkness, all but invisible to the layman observer, even to those standing right in front of it like Skara.
So, why could she still see it in her mind's eye?
See the outline of Boscha's fangs. Her fiery eyes telling those who looked at her that they were toast. Her incredible, vicelike grip around that stupid slimey skinlike ball.
It was probably because, unlike the rest of Hexside, Skara had actually been made to witness Boscha's sense of superiority when it came to Grudgby first-hand. The way she pushed her teammates, the way she would ridicule them when they didn't live up to her standards, and the way she would both rant about how Glandus was this unstoppable force of undefeatable monsters, while also saying at the same time that she - not the team, mind. She, specifically - was going to crush them and put them in their place once and for all. It was difficult to rid one's mind of those images.
Normally, Skara tried to be patient with Boscha and her Grudgby. It was, after all, what she wanted to do with her life, and she was a friend. The Bard wanted to support her.
But she was starting to get just the least bit sick of this entire affair, and the last thing she wanted to see more of was that smug look.
Another deep breath, and another silver lining - After this week, none of this would matter anymore.
A cold shiver ran up the Bard's spine as she reminded herself of that, and her anger and irritation was replaced with a cold anxiety. That this was it. That this was really going to happen. By the end of this week, all her endless training would have finally paid off, and she will have helped the Banshee's defeat Glandus in Grudgby. Or, if Boscha had any say in it, die trying.
Frankly, the end of the week couldn't come fast enough. Skara wasn't sure how much more of this she could take.
Heck, now on top of pre-school practises - today's special addition was Skara having to juggle fire-balls on a unicycle, because this was apparently going to help her to handle multiple tasks under pressure - she was now going to be replacing it with her lunch period, every day throughout the week. And still have to work on them after school was over on top of that. All this because of some stupid game Skara didn't even like, and Boscha's own personal rivalry or contest or whatever the heck else was going on with the Grudgby captain.
"Skara?"
A gentle voice rammed its way through Skara's own thoughts like a battering ram. She glanced over her shoulder, and in the void, saw the only person she really should have expected at this point.
"Oh. Hey, Willow." She smiled fakely, then felt stupid for smiling given their current darkness, then dropped it. She then turned around fully to face the Plant Witch. "What's up? Didn't the bell-"
"Uh. yeah." Willow nodded, something Skara slightly made out in the shadows. "It did. But, I noticed you uh…" She held something out. "Didn't have a light."
"...Thanks? I think?"
"...Is er, is there any… Particular reason?"
"Does it matter?"
"W-Well, I… Guess not.."
It took her a few seconds to fully register what she'd done, but when she had, Skara could have slapped herself. Instead, she just let out a long sigh. "...Sorry. I didn't mean to be… Like that. Just… Grudgby practice has been… Not fun so far today."
"You've been practicing this morning?"
"I'm practicing every morning, every lunch-break, and every afternoon after school for the rest of the week, and Boscha has been driving us all up the wall. Literally and figuratively."
"...Ah. Is that why you don't have a light?"
"Yep." Skara nodded, exasperated by that fact. "I literally don't have the Magical Energy to cast a light spell. I didn't even know it was possible to be that low on energy, but, well, here we are."
"Oh! Well, remember the cabin? The light I made?" As she spoke, Willow held up the paper in her hands, so Skara could get a better look.
Her mind wandered back to… a few other things about that night. But she did remember the light. "Oh, er, yeah. Is that the… The, uh… rune?"
"Glyph, actually."
That was Skara's third guess.
"Well, I know you'll be able to do a light spell on your own soon enough, but I thought, maybe you could use this in the meantime?"
Looking at Willow's eyes showed a slight sparkle. A tiny glimmer that said 'It's okay. I wanna help.'
'You don't need to do it alone.'
A small light that should have given Skara a reason to smile.
Instead, she only felt like a failure.
"Uh, cool. But I… don't really need it. I got some pretty good night vision. I can take this darkness head on, without a silly glyph!"
To demonstrate this fact, Skara turned ninety degrees and walked forward.
She proceeded to ram face-first into a wall.
"Ow!"
Even through the spinning stars, darkness, and her own hands clutching at her face, Skara could make out Willow wincing at the sight of Skara, stumbling around. Had it been anyone else, Skara would have expected laughter, but Willow offered none. Somehow, it didn't surprise the Bard anymore.
"...Okay. I… Think I believe that. Maybe." Willow said, taking a step forward. "Still, maybe, if it'll help, you could use it." She held the paper out again, careful to not tap the central circle. "Just in case you need to put the 'pretty good night vision' a rest, huh?"
There was a second where Skara just looked at the paper, and then back at Willow, before looking back at the paper again. She then tentatively, and carefully, reached out, and took it into her hands. It felt strangely… heavy, in her hands. Like she was carrying a thin brick as opposed to a flimsy white notebook paper. Her thumbs rubbed against the edges, careful not to touch the centre, as her mind wandered.
Don't tell me you actually think she doesn't have some sort of motive for acting the way she does around you?
I thought you knew better than that.
Boscha's words played in Skara's mind on loop, running circles in her head over and over, reminding her of the harsh realities of Hexside life. Willow just… couldn't be giving her this out of some sense of kindness, could she? They weren't friends, after all. The Knee was… well, the Knee was a thing. That was it. A strange, weird, kind of nice thing to happen, but, as Boscha had said, it was…. Different. Life and death.
Still, when Boscha had said all of that, there hadn't been a doubt in Skara's mind that she had been wrong. Why should she doubt it now?
"…Thanks." Skara mumbled, folding the paper into a small square before sliding it into her breast pocket. "I think I'll just…. keep this with me for a bit though. I don't think it'll be necessary. Just gotta adjust a little, you know?"
Skara could make out Willow's emerald eyes. And though it was dark, she'd almost swear she made out a faint twinkle of concern. As if Willow really did honestly just… cared.
"Okay." Willow's lips curled up into a faint smile. "Still, hope it helps." The Plant Witch turned, facing the direction Skara could only assume, of her class. "See you around, Skara." And with the outline of a farewell wave, Willow walked on, leaving Skara standing alone.
Alone with Boscha's poster.
Alone with three larger-than-life eye's watching, witnessing Skara as she was just given help by someone who, by all accounts, was supposed to be worse than her.
Alone-
The bell's screamed out again.
Realising that she was about to be late, Skara ran as fast as her legs would carry her, stumbling to find her classroom in the darkness. She tried to ignore the thought of just using the rune -Glyph? Whatever! - to just see clearly through the unlit halls. And she tried to ignore the paper as she finally entered her classroom, taking a seat with the hope she wouldn't be noticed by the teacher. And she tried to ignore it even more when her teacher DID, in fact, notice, and lectured her on the importance of timeliness.
She tried to ignore the paper the rest of the day.
But like a small fire, it burned a figurative hole in her pocket. At the end of the day, it found itself stuffed into Skara's locker, where she hoped she would be able to forget about it.
Hexside's competitive school spirit wasn't something that just dissipated after a single day, or by poorly-run infrastructure; as Tuesday rolled around, and a more permanent solution to the no-lights-in-the-hallways situation was found, more and more of the student body embraced the hype of the upcoming match. Even more students wore yellow and blue sweaters, more students cheered at the mention of their future sought victory, and more students jeered at the very mention of Glandus. Even those who didn't care all that much for Grudgby found themselves swept into the all-encompassing excitement.
"WOO-HOO!" Gus pumped his fists in the air, tiny blue flags raised, as he ran through Hexside. Showman, illusionist, and as fond of Grudgby as he was, he thrived in this atmosphere. When he reached Willow, he practically had to skid to a halt, and very nearly slammed into the lockers before he slowed down. "WILLOW, YOU WILL NOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!"
"A lot of gold and blue?"
"No," Gus stated. Then, correcting himself, "Well, yes, that, but not just that!" He held up his left hand, three fingers raised. "Three whole other students waving flags like mine! It's amazing! I feel like I started a trend!" The illusion prodigy twirled his flags between his fingers in glee and proudly puffed out his chest, and Willow couldn't help but laugh.
"Maybe." Willow reached her locker, tickling its underside in just the correct way to make it open. "I mean, it's also possible they just do it cause that's usually a thing with Grudgby fans."
"Noooope!" Gus shook his head. "Probably alllll me." He pointed towards himself, a wide grin. Willow knew her longest-running friend wasn't so self absorbed as to genuinely believe that, that he was just engaging in his illusionist theatrical tendencies, but it was still funny to see him act so over-the-top with his enjoyment at seeing others enjoying themselves.
"Oh, well, if that's the case," Willow said, bemusedly rolling her eyes as she skimmed her locker for her History of Fairy's textbook, "congrats to you."
Gus continued his excited twirling, shortly evolving into dancing, before suddenly pausing, mid dance-move. "Oh. Hey Willow, you doing okay?"
"Uh huh. A little tired, but otherwise. You?"
"Fine, but I mean, are you… Doing okay?"
Now pulling herself out of the maw of her locker, Willow looked at Gus with an eyebrow raised in confusion. "Uhm… Yes? I think? I'm… Not sure what you mean, exactly?"
Gesturing over his shoulder with his thumb, Gus pointed at the lockers on the opposite side of the corridor to them. Willow followed it to the series of posters that was plastered onto the lockers. All of them bearing the same picture of a smug as Titan Boscha, full Grudgby gear, holding up a ball in victory. It reminded her of the Emperors Coven posters she'd see in town, just more jerkish.
"...Oh."
A small knot twisted itself in Willow's stomach for a moment, before she let out a sigh. So that was what he meant.
She pondered for a moment, before letting out another, smaller sigh. This time, it helped her to calm her nerves. "I've been okay. Sure, seeing Boscha's condescending smirk everywhere isn't exactly… comforting, but I haven't really thought about it too much to be honest. I'm excited for Hexside to win, not Boscha."Gus wasn't entirely convinced. Having been with Willow for longer than any of her other friends, he knew her, better than maybe anyone else did. He had a thorough understanding of what made Willow upset. And given that the most obvious of those was Boscha….
"Oof!"
Before he could think it over any further, though, he felt someone smack themselves into him. Gus flailed his hands, attempting to catch his balance before Willow caught him.
"Whoa there! You okay, Gus?" Willow asked. Gus didn't answer though.
Instead, he looked up at the perpetrator of his sudden imbalance, and spotted Skara. She had paused practically mid-stroll, and turned to look at who she had collided with, and the expression she had on looked… Irritated. The expression only lasted a split-second though before returning to a neutral one, but Gus couldn't tell if it shifted because she realized who it was she had run into, or if she had decided that she didn't care enough to actually get irritated.
A beat followed, and Skara blinked.
"Sorry."
In another split second, her eyes darted to look towards Willow, if only to acknowledge her presence there. She then broke away, rapidly turned a corner, and vanished out of sight, leaving both Willow and Gus standing by the Plant Witch's locker, confused and dazed.
Finally, after a moment to catch his bearings, Gus picked himself off of Willow, grumbling. "Well, that was rude."
"Yeah. That's not like…" Willow paused, shook her head, and ran her fingers through her hair. "Well, maybe. I don't know." Her eyes stayed where Skara had just disappeared, her expression strangely unreadable to Gus.
Meanwhile, Gus's expression was much more obvious; anger. Or, at the very least, irritation. Irritation that had been building up for a while now, and he had finally decided that this random incident was the straw that broke the Snaggleback's back.
He straightened himself out, patted down his uniform, and declared, "I'm gonna go talk to her."
"No, wait." Willow started "I can just do it. You don't have to-"
"Nah. I've been meaning to talk to her for a while, actually." He said, firmly. "No time like the present."
"I'll go with you then. Maybe I can-"
"I'd rather you didn't." Gus stated, rather… firmly. He'd already turned around too, and begun to make his way dorn the corridor. "Just…I'd prefer to handle this one on my own."
Now that… was weirdly not like Gus.
Before Willow could say anything though, he was already down the hall, turning the corner to follow the Bard. For a moment, Willow wanted to rush over to stop him, and convince him that it wasn't worth it. She already knew that he had made up his mind though, and she wasn't sure her presence there would make things better, or much, much worse.
If she sided with Skara, then she had a feeling Gus would, to put it gently, not take it well. And if she sided with Gus, then she might only alienate Skara, and after their relationship had… like it had. She could try to placate them, but, somehow she had a feeling that wouldn't work. Gus already said he didn't want her there, and Skara had made it clear that she struggled to accept help in situations like this.
That really only left her with one option - To respect Gus's request, and stay out of it.
All she could really do was hope that was the right call.
Skara being upset wasn't anything new at this point: Her breakup, being overworked, school in general. All of it got to the Bard in one way or another. It wasn't all consuming, but it would often be there in the back of her mind, waiting for her weakest moments to slide into her thoughts and make her upset again.
But today, 'upset' had some friends following close behind. Namely, 'frustration' and 'bitterness.'
She wasn't sure the exact reason behind these emotions, and that was probably the worst part of it. Aside from attempting to avoid stones being launched at her stomach, nothing as over the top as fleeing a giant school-threatening monster had occurred at practice today. She'd gotten there around too-early-o'clock, prepared herself as best she could, and endured it as best she could. It had been that way for a few weeks so why was today so much more disheartening?
Maybe it was because she'd endured it for a 'few' weeks.
Whatever the reason, Skara was upset. And when she was upset, she wasn't great at hiding it even at the best of times. To deal with it, she just tried to tunnel-vision her way through the day, picking whatever tasks needed doing, and focusing on them as hard and narrow-mindedly as possible, so that her attention was focused on that, and not how upset she was. Right now, that was getting to her locker, so she could throw her stupid Grudgby gear inside it, and get to whatever class she was supposed to be in.
In doing so, she had decided it would be a magnificent idea to go in the exact opposite direction as the rest of the student body in this particular corridor. As she did so, she ended up accidentally colliding with a number of them, and quickly barked out an apology to whoever it was she had run into. It was only when she walked into Willow's friend that she paused for a moment, but carried on regardless.
Still, Skara couldn't help but feel a little upset at herself for just bumping into people with barely an apology. Which only added to her ongoing frustration, which only led to her mentally being worse, which only made her more frustrated, which-
Before Skara could continue her downward cycle, she was able to thankfully spot her locker before her. The tunnel-vision returned, and she stopped herself, thanking the Titan that there didn't seem to be too many people in the hallway, allowing her to simply grumble to herself in frustration without anyone noticing.
"Come on, come on…" She grumbled, tickling her locker's mouth's underside. Despite knowing the proper location to tickle, the right amount of pressure, just about everything, her locker refused to budge, only adding to her current, unhappy mood. "Oh come on!" She groaned at the locker. It didn't seem to recognize her frustration. "Just… Come on, can you just not today?!" Skara kept attempting to open the thing, but for whatever reason, it refused to budge, and she felt herself get really close to just hitting the damned thing. "For the Mother of the Ti-"
"Hey."
She blinked, and glanced towards whoever it was that was addressing her. When she realized it was Gus, she just sort of looked at him for a second. A small sigh escaped the Bard.
"Oh. Hey, Gus. Sorry about bumping into you back there, won't happen again." Her half-hearted apology finished, she returned her attention to her locker, continuing her ticklish assault on it, to no avail.
"Actually, I'm not here about that."
This time, after Skara blinked, she turned back to really look at him. His face was surprisingly serious, almost comically so for him, someone Skara had only ever really known for being timid when push came to shove. But still, it was clear he really was here on more important business than a simple bump-and-run.
"Oh?"
"I've seen how you've been acting with Willow."
"Uh… What?" Skara blinked again, now officially confused. There were a lot of things that people could give Skara a hard time for, but if there was one thing that she felt she had been doing a decent job at, it had been in how she had acted around Willow recently.
"You heard me." He almost sounded as if he was snapping at her. "You've been acting almost… friendly with her ever since the Knee."
"...Is… I don't… I-Is that a bad thing?"
Gus glowered. "You may be acting dumb, but I'm not. I know you're still Boscha's friend."
Ahhh.
Skara shook her head, and sighed. "W... Well, look. I… know I've not always been… great with Willow. But almost dying together and stuff, it makes you a… little closer..."
She wasn't entirely sure how to continue her statement though. For a moment, she'd thought to say 'We're a lot friendlier now'. But were they? They'd talk between classes sometimes, and Willow was surprisingly nice to her, but Skara still wasn't quite sure exactly what her relationship with the Plant Witch was. Friends? Acquaintances? People who knew each other somewhat? She had no idea.
Frankly, she wondered if Willow did.
Still, Gus didn't seem to be buying whatever he thought Skara was selling. "Okay, Skara." He stood on the tips of his shoes, getting closer to her face then Skara thought possible. "I got my eye on you." He squinted, an effort that was both surprisingly adorable and surprisingly intimidating. "I don't know what you're planning. If this is some scouting mission for a prank or some weird attempt to hurt Willow, but whatever it is, it won't get past me."
The sheer absurdity of the situation very nearly made Skara laugh. She literally could not win in this situation, could she?
And the way he clearly believed that whatever was going on between Skara and Willow was some sort of deliberate attempt to hurt her…
Jokes on him. I don't even know myself what we are.
Still…
Gus stepped back, his eyes not leaving Skara's face. "I'm watching you, Skara. Like a hawk." He began to step away, walking backwards, not taking his eyes off her at all as he did so. He pointed to his own eyes, and then pointed back to her. "Like. A. Hawk…"
Eventually, he passed around the corner, and out of sight. Even then, Skara could almost feel his sharp eyes glaring at her through the walls.
It was so bizarre, so strange, that Skara barely noticed as her locker opened its mouth, opening its maw finally.
If only to try and eat her arm again.
"OH FOR TITAN'S SAKE!"
Normally, Wednesdays were one of Skara's favourite school days. Wednesday's were usually the days where her timetable was jam-packed with nothing but Bard classes, and she'd happily take those over a lecture on how to do Demonic Calculus, or hear about the horrors of Valeween yet again.
By now though, Wednesdays had sort of blurred together with every other day of the week, where stress and exhaustion, alongside every other intrusive thought that had been creeping into Skara's mind for the last couple of weeks, overrode pretty much everything else. It made it hard to enjoy pretty much anything.
Today as well, Skara had dealt with yet another training session, now hitting twenty-one days straight. Her legs and arms felt like particularly wobbly marrow-jelly. Whoever had said that exercise got easier the more you did it clearly hadn't had Boscha as a coven drill - as a team Captain. It was legitimately impressive how Boscha seemed to constantly find new ways to make muscles that no one else seemed to know existed ache with each training session. Cat's Healing Magic had become a more and more frequent part of their training.
But the physical activity wouldn't have been so bad on it's own, if it wasn't for the sheer stress and exhaustion that Skara had to deal with on top of that. It felt like every day, Boscha just got harsher and harsher in the face of the tiniest imperfections.
It got harder to keep the intrusive voices at bay.
All but limping to her locker on sore muscles, Skara opened it up and shoved all her sports gear inside. Today's session, like almost all of them since this game was announced, had been in the morning, and any eagerness that might have been present for her Bard classes had been systematically drilled out of Skara on the field. In fact, she struggled to even keep her eyes open.
Maybe the Healers will give me a Rejuvenation Spell or something, Skara pondered as she rummaged inside her locker for her needed books and equipment. Maybe that'll help.
"You heard anything else about it?"
"Nothing. Ves still hasn't said a word about any of it."
Skara froze at the mention of her ex, and turned around to face the voices. But there wasn't anyone there. She blinked, and for a second, wondered if she was so tired that her mind was playing tricks on her.
Naturally though, she had no such luck.
"That's only making me more curious."
"Tell me about it. Like, what's so bad about it he wants it kept so hush-hush?"
Two voices, both feminine, and they were both around the corridor, getting closer and closer. Gossipers.
There were times that Skara truly hated the fact that Bards had better hearing than most other Witches.
Both of them came into view just a few seconds later, turning into the same corridor Skara was standing in, too engaged with their conversation to see her right away. She realized she'd been holding her breath subconsciously, and had to put physical effort into just trying to release a little bit of air.
"D'you think Skara cried when he dumped her, and that's what's going on?"
"I-"
Before anything else could be said, both of the gossipers finally paid attention to their surroundings, and saw Skara standing right in front of them. There was a moment where neither side made an expression, and looked at one another neutrally as they registered the other's presence. Skara's face didn't change in the slightest, too physically and emotionally exhausted to even move a single one of her facial features.
Still, the expression conveyed enough.
When it finally registered in the minds of both gossipers that the subject of their embarrassing discussion was right in front of them, however, a variety of expressions in just a handful of seconds - Shock and surprise, dread, and finally, when Skara didn't react to the two, just continuing to unblinkingly stare at them, apprehensiveness took over, and both of them backed away and carried on down the corridor they had come from, as quickly and as clumsily as possible.
As soon as they were out of sight, Skara let out a heavy sigh. The rumour mill was still running as wild as ever, evidentially. Not that it surprised her. This was what she had known would happen if the whole break-up fiasco got out. Still, it had been a while since she'd heard people muttering about her and Ves behind her back.
It had been weeks since their break-up, and while it was still a sore spot for her, Skara didn't find herself as torn up about it as she had been initially. So much had happened, so much was still going on, and enough time had passed that she had at least come to some level of peace with it. It still hurt to think about, which was why she tried not to, but she would survive. That didn't mean that she liked hearing people talk about it, or her behind her back any more than she had before, of course, but right now, she was too tired to care.
For the first time in a while though, the sequence of events played out in her mind's eye again. How Ves had approached her down the crowded Hexside halls, how he said they needed to talk privately. How Skara had insisted that whatever Ves had to say to her, he could say in the hall, then and there. How Ves had insisted that they be alone, before he gave up, and broke the news to her, quietly but no less heartbreaking. How she had felt like such an idiot, how Boscha had later attempted to reassure her, but had left her on her own when the bell began to scream. How alone she'd felt. How she'd hidden under some steps, and how she'd cried to herself before Willow found her.
Now, the only thing of all of that mess that was left was Boscha, Willow, and a rumour mill that had started the very next day, somehow.
How do you think-
"Stop it." Skara muttered to herself, quietly. Her hands balled up into fists, and she felt them shake. "Not now, brain."
Her brain, of course, didn't reply. It just continued to think things while Skara did her best not to listen. She was already hanging on by a thread. If something else tugged at her - She refused to listen to her own thoughts and suspicions.
She needed them to not be true.
Her hand tapped against her forehead a few times, as if that could literally knock the thoughts out, and tried to gather the things that she needed for the day.
Hopefully, her classes would take her mind off of things. Physical exhaustion sounded a whole lot more appealing than dealing with whatever thoughts were going on in her head right about now.
As she tried to take her books out of the locker though, she felt her muscles tense up all along her arm, sending a sharp pain up along it. It was sudden and piercing, and seemed to have come out of nowhere.
"Ffff!" Skara hissed, and on pure reflex, pulled her arm back, and grabbed hold of the affected area with her other hand. "Ow! What the-"
She had no idea what had happened - She hadn't felt any pain earlier today, and she couldn't think of anything that she had done that could have caused such a sharp pain. An injury from the mornings Grudgby training, maybe?
That was all she could think of in the couple of seconds before Skara realized that in pulling her arm back as quickly as she had, she had essentially dragged out the entire contents of her locker out -books, pencils, bags, and all. She only realized that she had done this in the split second before everything finally hit the floor, too late to do anything about it. It all hit the ground with a loud clutter.
Still gripping her now aching arm, Skara just looked at the mess at her feet for a couple of seconds, not even having the energy to be angry or annoyed at herself. Just… Exasperated. She took in a deep inhale through her nose, pinched her forehead, closed her eyes, and then sighed.
"…Wonderful."
"I gotcha!"
Skara had absolutely no idea where in the heck she had come from, but as soon as she opened her eyes again, she was looking down at Luz the Human, who was already on the ground and picking up all of the things that had fallen out of Skara's locker.
It actually took Skara a second to recognise what was happening. "What the-"
"Here y'go!" Luz cheerfully said, holding out a stack of Skara's books out for the Bard to take. Skara hesitated, still surprised by the Human's sudden appearance. Luz pushed the books closer to her. "C'mon, we'll get this mess cleared up a lot sooner if we both do it."
"I - You don't-" Skara was going to protest, but then decided not to. She didn't have energy or patience to, and honestly, now that her mind had processed what was happening, it was… nice of her, Skara supposed. She let out a small exhale, took the books into her hands, and returned them to her locker.
The process continued a couple of times. As they went, Skara put things that she would actually need for her next class to one side, so she wouldn't need to go rooting around inside the locker again. The whole thing only took a couple of minutes to sort out.
"Okay, that's just about everything." Skara said, checking over the inside of her locker for anything that might be missing, and carefully avoiding touching or triggering anything that might make the thing slam its mouth shut on her. She'd had enough experience with that recently.
"Just a couple of things he-" Luz started, and then she cut herself off, staying silent for a few seconds. "…Oooooh. So that's what Willow wanted this for."
Blinking, and with a horrible feeling that she knew exactly what Luz was referring to, Skara turned around to see that yes, Luz was referring to exactly what Skara thought she was.
The Light Glyph from Monday.
For a moment, Luz just looked at it, and Skara braced herself for… Well, she wasn't exactly sure what she was bracing herself for, but she was bracing for it either way.
Whatever it was that she was expecting, though, it never came. Luz put it atop the last of Skara's books she held in her hand, picked up the final few leftover things, and handed them over to the Bard.
"Here y'are! That's the last of it!" Luz offered a smile to Skara.
"…Thanks." Skara said, quietly. Quickly, she put them in her locker, tucking the Glyph away between two books, just as it had been before, and closed it up. The Bard let out an exhale. "For helping out, too."
"No problem! Goodness knows how many times that's happened to me, both here and back on Earth! Never hurts to help out!"
Skara bit her lip. "Yeah. Never hurts…"
The cheerful display Luz showed toned itself down slightly as she glanced behind Skara, and towards her locker. "Hey, um… D'you mind me asking why you have one of my Glyphs?"
"If you want it back-"
"No, no!" Luz quickly shook her head and held her hands up in front of her. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. It's just - Willow asked me for one of those a couple days ago during the blackout before she ran off somewhere, and I didn't know why. I thought she used it up, but, well, now you've got one and… I guess I know why she wanted one now."
Skara glanced back towards her locker. Somehow, it felt like she could feel the Glyph's presence from behind it's flesh and teeth.
"...If it helps, I'm as confused as you are about why she gave it to me." Skara admitted. "It does feel kind of… Pointless?"
"I think she was just being nice."
"She doesn't exactly have a million reasons to be nice to me."
"Well, she's nice to everyone." Luz shrugged. She just then paused for a movement. "But, well, you two got trapped on the Knee together. She talks about it with us sometimes."
"She does?" Skara looked back at Luz, concerned for a moment. "What does she talk to you about?"
"Not much." Luz shrugged again, nonchalantly. "She keeps a lot of it a secret. She says it's personal, so, I'm guessing some heavy stuff happened between the two of you."
Another sigh, this time of relief, escaped Skara. That's putting it lightly, she thought to herself. "...You could say that."
"Don't worry, I'm not gonna pry." Luz said, trying to be reassuring, but having mixed results at best. "She pretty much just says that you saved her, and she saved you, and you talked and… So you're in a…" Her hands made rolling gestures as she tried to find the right way of saying what she was trying to say. "…Weird spot right now, I guess?"
Not exactly friends, not exactly enemies, not exactly neutral on each other either - It meant absolutely nothing, but calling it a 'weird spot' was probably the most accurate phrasing of it possible, now that Skara thought about it. Outwardly, she just nodded in response.
"Right, well, I guess I'm wondering why you didn't use the Glyph, that's all."
For a moment, Skara considered her answer, wanting it to be simple, to the point, and spell-proof. "…Didn't feel like I needed it." She answered. "It's a Light Spell. It's not hard. And I can see in the dark pretty well."
Well enough to slam straight into a wall five times in three minutes but no one needs to know about that.
All Luz did was raise her eyebrow, like the answer confused her. "Why do you still have it then? Why didn't you throw it away?"
That…was a good question.
One Skara really should have had a more concrete answer to.
"I… I guess it would have felt rude to?"
"…As opposed to just using it?"
Finally, Skara just stopped talking, and glanced away. Clearly her mouth was getting her into far more trouble than she needed to be in.
In truth, she didn't know why she was keeping hold of it. She'd put it into her locker to try to forget about it, but had failed to. There was just something about it that made it impossible to just discard.
Or someone.
But at the same time, she couldn't bring herself to use it. It would have been a sign of weakness to use it. It was a children's spell! Why would Skara want some second-rate method of performing it?
She should have gotten rid of it, but she couldn't bring herself to. And hiding it away in her locker hadn't helped. In fact, all it did was lead to this situation.
"Y'know… Just 'cause you didn't need it, it doesn't mean you don't have to accept it."
Skara… looked at Luz, confused.
"I mean… You didn't need my help to clear all your stuff up." The Human carried on. "It didn't hurt you to accept it though. And it got everything cleared up faster." Luz's expression shifted towards a smile. "Maybe this is like that."
"Luz! There you are!"
Before Skara could respond or even think about what Luz had just said, someone had turned into the corridor, rushing towards both girls. Unsurprisingly at this point, it was none other than Willow.
"Oh, Willow!" Luz turned around to face the approaching Witch, and began to scratch the back of her head, and awkwardly laughed. "Sorry, I kind of wandered off. I heard Skara having a locker mishap and stopped to help."
There was a moment where Willow and Skara both looked at one another. Willow offered her a small small smile, and Skara nodded in response. Were it not for the fact Willow was clearly in a hurry, they probably would have exchanged words with one another.
"Come on, we've got to go - We're going to be late to Plant's and Pain 101! We're going to end up with Eye-Root duty if we don't hurry up!"
Nearly all the colour drained out of Luz's face. "Oh sweet Titan no I'm not doing Eye-Root duty again."
"I still hear the screams… All the bloo-"
"The red jam."
"I am legitimately afraid of asking." Skara bluntly commented, actually concerned with what fate was going to await the two others if they didn't get a move on.
"Gotta go!" Luz yelled, dashing down the corridor and around the corner Willow had emerged from as fast as she was physically capable of. "See ya Skara!"
"Bye!" Willow also yelled, running after Luz.
And then, Skara found herself alone, in an empty corridor, blinking and trying to process what had just happened. She raised her hand and waved down the corridor, not sure what else she was supposed to do. "...Bye."
Her arm flared up with the sharp pain again.
After a quick trip to the Healers office, she was given both a Healing and Rejuvenation Spell, and made her way to her Bard class.
While she was with them though, the Healers managed to confirm what Skara had been thinking.
The pain was Grudgby related.
By Thursday, for a short while, Skara honestly forgot what it was that she did in her free time before it had been taken over by endless hours of Grudgby practice.
As Skara was getting changed from her afternoon practice, she pondered for a short while what exactly she was going to do when she got home. The only thing that she could even think to do was to try and put a dent in the mountain of homework that had piled up since being dragged into the Grudgby team as an actual frontline player. It took her a couple of minutes to even remember that there were other options - Like playing her instruments, or going on a walk, or doing… Any of the other dozens of things she used to fill her days with.
She yawned, sighed, and rubbed her eyes. Every day that got closer, Boscha pushed her team harder and harder and, somehow, harder still. Whenever she got home, Skara felt too exhausted to even bother doing anything. Her homework was the only thing she could even consider doing, and that was because the last thing she wanted was to fail Boscha and her classes.
Another yawn. It's almost over, Skara reminded herself. Just another couple of days, and this can all be behind me. Everything can go back to how it was before this all started.
Stuffing her Grudgby uniform into her sports bag, she exited the changing rooms. The corridor she entered was empty, and the lack of people made it seem much, much larger than it actually was. The Bard's legs felt like lead, so she paid her surroundings little mind, and just walked through the corridors, towards the nearest exit on muscle memory alone, not thinking at all about where she was going. Her mind was focused on other things.
It's almost over.
It should have been a reassuring thought.
Well, no, it was reassuring to know that she wouldn't have to play Grudgby anymore, and that the training sessions would be over soon. That she wouldn't have to deal with any of this anymore once the match was done with, That fact brought her a feeling of relief to think about.
But 'everything can go back to how it was'?
That thought didn't make Skara feel better anymore. It made her feel…
...Empty was the only way that she could describe it. Empty.
Because she was tired. That had to be it. She was tired. Right.
Things would be better once this was all over.
Right.
Righ-
"Oof!"
"Ow!"
Any other thoughts were cut off as she felt herself collide with someone. She felt a brief feeling of floating until her muscles caught up with what had happened. She rushed to prevent herself from collapsing to the ground.
At this point in the week, she was getting just the slightest bit tired of walking into people.
"Sorry, sorry!" Skara quickly apologised, hoping that whoever it was she had walked into, they weren't the kind of person who wanted to start a fight over this. "I didn't-"
Then she actually saw who it was she had collided with.
Good news; it wasn't someone who'd pick a fight with her.
Bad news; it was Amity.
For her part, Amity's face looked… Neutral was the best word Skara could think of. She looked a bit peeved at having been walked into, and slightly surprised at who exactly had walked into her, but aside from that, her expression was practically impenetrable.
"…Oh." Skara said, without really thinking about it. "Hey."
"…Hi."
"What er… What're you doing here so late?"
"...What're you doing here so late?"
"Grudgby." Skara answered plainly, holding up her sports bag.
"Oh." Amity acknowledged.
"Your turn."
"Just had to check some things for my Abomination class project. My siblings messed with my last one so." She glowered, as if the very thought of the pranksters made her mad.
"Ah."
From what Skara remembered of them, she totally got that.
The conversation felt… Tense. Also awkward. Very awkward. Like two strangers who had been forced to make small talk. Which was weird, given that the two had been friends for years.
Well, maybe friends? Skara… wasn't exactly sure.
Neither of them had said a word to one another since Amity had basically left the group earlier in the year to hang out with a less… select few. She had played in the Grudgby match against Boscha's team, and Skara had found that match kinda fun - Well, as fun as she was able to find sitting on the sidelines doing nothing much, anyway - but that was the last time either of them seriously interacted with one another. It had left where they stood with one another… Ambiguous.
Not as ambiguous as her relationship with Willow, that much was for sure, 'cause that was just always its own can of worms but, for her part, Skara didn't have anything in particular against Amity. The split that had formed between them had had nothing to do with any personal issues that they had, and had everything to do with Amity's problems with Boscha. Skara didn't have even the slightest idea what Amity thought of her anymore, though.
Huh. Did I… ever actually know what Amity thought of me to begin with?
If the split had taught her anything, it was that they hadn't been as close as Skara had once thought they were.
"Yeah."
Still, Amity didn't make any rapid effort to get away from Skara, so that had to mean something. What it was though, Skara didn't know.
A few awkward seconds passed in silence, during which Skara tried to think of what exactly to say to her old sort-of-but-not-really friend.
As it turned out though, she couldn't think of anything.
Clearing her throat awkwardly, Skara kept walking, taking care to step around Amity. "Weeeell, I should be going. Nice seeing you."
"I'm leaving too." Amity turned towards her former friend, and gestured down the corridor. "And, well, this is the closest way to get out of Hexside. That doesn't, you know, involve blowing a hole in the wall."
"Ah." Somehow, this situation had managed to become even more awkward.
With that, the two walked down Hexsides hallowed halls. For several moments, little noise was made, save for the light snores of the lockers. It would be almost peaceful if it wasn't so… immensely awkward. Skara couldn't tell if she was supposed to say something, or if they were supposed to just grin and bear it until they split apart, whenever the heck that would be. And if she was supposed to say something, say what, exactly?
This sort of anxiety about just talking to people wasn't something that normally affected Skara. In her most default state of being, she was able to talk to just about anyone, but everything that had happened over the last few weeks had had an impact on her that kept that tendency at bay. Coupled with the uncertainty and awkwardness of their relationship currently, Skara felt that Amity in particular was a difficult person to find things to say to. In comparison, Luz, Gus, and especially Willow were easy to talk to.
"...So." It was Amity who finally broke the awkward silence. "You're on the Grudgby team? Like, as a field player."
"Oh. Yeah." Skara shrugged. Not exactly a topic of conversation she would have chosen, but anything beat silence at this point. "With Amelia out, they needed someone to take her place. And, well… that's what I was meant to do, as a bench-warmer anyway, so…"
Amity simply nodded. "Cool."
Another brief silence.
"I've heard Boscha's… pretty intense with training."
"It's all how pro players train." Skara repeated what Boscha had said a dozen times during as many training sessions. She then felt the slightest taste of bitterness in her throat. "Apparently."
"That's… not what I hear," Amity mused. "Or, at least, not how the best ones do."
"How's the Banshee training any different from, I dunno…"Skara paused, realizing she had literally no knowledge of any professional Grudgby team. Not even their names. "The… uh… Bonesborough Bone…Breakers?"
Amity raised an eyebrow ."Well, for one, the Bonesborough Fluffy Hufflebacks don't have their players cartwheel across the field getting chased by a monster only the most insane of Beastkeepers would try to control."
That… was probably true.
Neither girl really said anything more the rest of the brief walk to the entryway. What really was for them to say?
As they finally walked out the entryway, Amity sighed.
"Right. I've… Got to go. I'm already later than my parents wanted me here."
"Oh. Right." Skara nodded. "I'll… See you around, I guess?"
Amity just nodded noncommittally, and walked down the path to her manor.
For a moment, Skara just watched her walk off, feeling… Uncertain about the whole interaction. Amity seemed… The best word for it was 'lighter' than she remembered. She seemed less restricted, or burdened, or… Something. Something about her had changed, and Skara couldn't identify it. For just a moment.
When it hit her, Skara felt the rapid build up in her chest, until it finally burst.
"Wait - Amity?"
The Abomination Witch turned back to look at Skara.
"...What… What's it like to not play Grudgby anymore?"
As one would rationally expect, Amity raised an eyebrow at such an… odd question. It didn't take long for Amity to register the hidden meaning though.
If she had to pick one word to describe Amity, at any point in their lives, Skara would always choose 'smart'. Amity was smart. She had always been smart. She was the one that everyone in their group went to when they didn't understand something, from schoolwork, to Magic, to anything in between and outside of that. She was able to pick up on things before anyone else could, and she noticed things that other people missed.
Amity hadn't played Grudgby for a long time. Long before the split between her and Boscha happened. If this was really about Grudgby, then Skara would have asked when it was relevant.
But this question had nothing to do with Grudgby. And Amity knew that as well as Skara did.
Looking away for a moment, Amity pondered her answer. It only took her a couple of seconds to come up with one. She looked back at Skara.
"...Liberating."
Skara just… Blinked. There wasn't much else that she could think to do as Amity turned back around, heading towards the forest pathway.
The sports bag across Skara's shoulder suddenly felt heavier than ever.
Things would be better once this was all over.
Yeah. Right.
To Skara, being crushed under a gigantic tower would be an almost brilliant metaphor for her own current personal issues. She felt trapped under an absurd amount of weight, her body being forced down beneath tons of immovable pieces she couldn't move. It would make for good poetry - Poetry fit for a Bard.
When it was literally almost happening directly to her, on the other hand, it felt very, very bad.
Because apparently none of Boscha's training had been quite ridiculous enough up until this point, her final Friday plan before the game, it seemed, was to attempt dropping a dozen or so makeshift towers onto Skara, having some Construction kids building them and then knocking them over onto her. And they were really, really trying to hit her. It wouldn't have been so bad were it not for just how unnaturally quickly the towers fell, and how sore Skara was from doing just as rigorous training all week.
Tomorrow was the big day, and Boscha, having not held back in the slightest for weeks, had apparently been finding new ways to batter her players into shape, and decided that now was the ultimate 'Do-or-Die' trial by fire that would determine if they were ready to take on Glandus.
So far, she wasn't impressed.
"Boscha!" Skara ran between the buildings, narrowly avoiding the debris of a fallen tower. "By the Emperor's Mercy, is this really necessary?!"
Boscha sat in the stands, an exhausted and nervous Cat to her right, and a half dozen random Construction students to her left. She jotted down a few sparse notes on her clipboard, "Actually, yes. Bria's a Construction student. If she'll try to break you, this will probably be how she does it."
"Do you need to have to use SO MANY OF THESE THINGS?!" Skara tumbled past another collapsing tower, before looking up and noting that, yup, another tower was about to collapse right on top of her. She jumped to her left, barely missing a spare brick flying too close to her.
"Again, yes."
Skara didn't have time to retort before, the last of the towers fell, leaning over on its side towards her. With one final roll, she escaped - barely - from being hit. Didn't stop her from feeling like her lungs would collapse at any moment, but at least they hadn't actually done so.
Skara heard Boscha telling Cat to get ready to do another run, while scribbling something into her notepad. Taking advantage of the brief respite, Skara stared up to the sky, panting her lungs out, and trying to catch her breath. It looked almost perfectly clear, nary a cloud in sight. The perfect day to be outside, thankfully. Though, Skara had to admit, preferably not like this.
As the sounds of pencil scratches faded, Skara looked up to spot something… something she hadn't been expecting to see at all in the sky. She had to blink a couple of times, because after the amount of things that had been thrown at her today, she was genuinely half convinced that she might be hallucinating.
Willow?
"Okay, okay… So far, so good…"
As Willow flew over the trees that surrounded Bonesborough, she made a very deliberate effort not to do anything that would upset or anger the training staff she was on, lest she ended up being thrown off of it, and getting a faceful of leaves. Ever so slightly, she veered to the left, allowing the staff more than enough space to veer with her as it saw fit. The turn wasn't quite as tight as Willow would have liked, but she had turned nevertheless.
When a Witch got a Palisman, said Palisman could be used to fly, but actually being able to fly required practice, or you would end up flying straight into a brick wall. Or forest. Or anything in between, really. Willow had seen examples of that dozens of times - Including just under an hour ago, when Luz had been all but shot straight into the stratosphere before she regained control of it, nervously laughing when she returned like she had caught a glimpse of the great beyond. Willow had even been involved in a couple of crashes herself, most of which also admittedly involved Luz, but there had been a few she had managed herself… Mostly in these specific classes, actually.
Pretty much everyone on the Isles had at least a few crashes when it came to flying, after all. Better to make those mistakes while still in school.
Of course, Hexside was a school where a mistake could get you semi-digested by a giant lizard on a particularly unlucky day, so-
But the point was, Willow was keen to avoid making said mistakes this time around. One of the things that she had been constantly told by her teachers was that if she wanted to fly, then she needed to work with the staff, not against it. If she couldn't figure out how to work with this, then flying with a Palisman was a one-way trip to falling flat on her face. Today, she tried to put that advice into practice, and gave the staffa bit more freedom of its own.
The end result was that she seemed to have gotten better control of the broom. It went against every instinct that she had, so high up off the ground, but it seemed to be working for her, so she forced herself to stay calm, and keep on carrying on.
After Luz had been bolted up into the sky, Amity had taken it upon herself to try to help her get a better handle of flying, so they hung a bit behind. Gus, meanwhile, had raced ahead, showing off like usual. The four of them were following a route that their instructors had laid out for them, along the outskirts of the city, to see how they could handle it.
"Just gotta be…" She muttered to herself as she tugged on the staff to halt where she needed it to. With a gentle, but still firm hand, she found that the staff responded to her far better. "Okay, there we go… Good staffy."
So far, today's flight lesson had gone well. Willow felt remarkably calm, given the circumstances. Being up in the air like this, on her own, able to determine where it was she wanted to go without too many restrictions… It felt freeing. Liberating.
Eventually though, the route she was meant to follow looped back around and took her towards Hexside. And with that in mind, after coming to a stop, she looked around, found the direction Hexside was in, and flew overhead once again.
It'll be nice to have some solid ground under my feet again, she thought to herself, even if this did go a thousand times better than I expected.
Flying was significantly quicker than walking, so it didn't take all that long for her to return to the outskirts of Hexside. This was her final class for the day, so she found herself pondering what she was going to do afterwards.
Tend to the plants at home at some point, obviously. The last time I forgot to feed Bitey he practically tore himself out of his flowerpot to come find me. Papa asked me to pick up some Spineapple on the way back, so I guess we're having pizza tonight. I don't think I have any homework though, so maybe I can-
"Skara, for the Titan's sake, run faster!"
"I am running as fast as I can! Holy - AHK!"
The sound of crashing and yelling pulled Willow's attention to below her - As she approached Hexside, she found herself above the Grudgby field. As one might have expected, the team was hard at work with another training session, the last one they had before the game tomorrow.
Judging by all the abominations, traps, and half a dozen other pieces of training equipment, half of which Willow didn't have any idea what they were supposed to be, that were set up all over the field, the Plant Witch had a hunch that Boscha wasn't holding anything back anymore. That she was pulling out all the stops, and doing absolutely everything in her power to prepare her team for the match.
And it looked like Skara was caught in the crossfire again
"...Ow."
When Willow finally spotted her, Skara was having abomination goo lifting up off of her. Thankfully, before anything too body-horror oriented went down,Boscha clapped her hands twice to call it off.
Boscha groaned, pinching the bridge of her nose. "You need to be able to move faster than that, Skara!" The triclops's shouting was so loud, Willow could hear it clearly, even from the sky.
"I don't know how I'm supposed to move that fast - I was going as fast as I could!" Her voice wasn't nearly as loud as Boscha's, but Willow's keen ears were sharp enough to make Skara's words out.
"Trust me, that's nothing compared to what Glandus is gonna throw at you."
"Yeah, I know…"
"Urgh - Cat! How's it going on your end?!"
"I can't… feel my arms…"
"Good! Work through it! Skara, run that again!"
"Okay, okay…"
Picking herself up, Skara dusted herself down, before running to the other end of the field, and beginning the entire set-up Boscha had arranged from the beginning. Willow watched, for the lack of a better term, mesmerized, as Skara ran through nearly every obstacle with borderline perfect precision, running, jumping, vaulting over equipment that Willow didn't even know the word for, and doing so fast that a few times, Willow literally struggled to keep track of her.
When she got towards the end of the course though, two vats, filled to the brim with abomination goo, sprung to life, lunging themselves towards Skara at such speeds that it seemed to happen in under a second - And yet, Skara managed to dodge their initial attacks, rolling between the two of them and lunging for a cone that Willow assumed marked the end of the obstacle course. But before she could, the abominations wrung back around and shot for her, grabbing her, and pushing her into the ground before she got the chance.
"Again, Skara?!" Boscha snapped with a loud growl, burying her head in her hands. "What's so tough about this?!"
"The… the abominations…" Skara wheezed, heavy breathing all the while. "I - I can't-"
"Glandus isn't going to be just letting you score points! Urgh!" Boscha threw her hands into the air. "Go hit the towers - We're going to be playing tomorrow and neither of you are ready!"
Glancing over at Cat, she seemed to be doing some sort of push-ups, but the entire length of her arms were glowing. Willow had no idea what the heck was going on there, but the Healer looked like she was struggling just as much.
And neither of them said a word - They just kept on doing what they were told to do.
For a while, Willow just watched it all happen. And the cycle just kept repeating itself over and over again. Skara and Cat would try their best, only for it not to be good enough for Boscha.
"Again! Faster!" Boscha would yell. They would try, exhausted and aching, but doing the best they could, and it wouldn't be enough, and Boscha would yell at them both. "Again! We're never going to win at this rate!"
Willow came very, very close to landing in the middle of the field, and demanding to know just what the heck Boscha expected out of both of them. She had just seen how quickly, now flawlessly Skara had run through the course, but one slip up, one failure against goo that moved so fast it was almost impossible to dodge, and Boscha sounded like she considered the entire run to be utterly worthless. And whatever insane training she'd put Cat under clearly was just as ludicrous.
There was, however, one difference between Skara and Cat in this situation - A crucial one.
Cat actually wanted to be there. She was actually enjoying the training, at least in a certain way, because she actually enjoyed Grudgby. Skara, Willow knew, did not.
Willow didn't know what Cat and Boscha's relationship was - She'd only seen it briefly back at the Healers, and it had been tense. But even if, hypothetically, Cat and Boscha hated one another, at least Cat was there doing something she liked. At least she was there because she chose to be there. She chose to put herself through this, knowing full-well what she was getting herself into.
Skara though? Willow had been there when Skara had been, for lack of a better term, drafted onto the team. She knew Skara didn't want to be there.
Yet, here she was, still - Taking everything Boscha threw at her with barely a word of protest at this point.
It all made Willow both upset and… Uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable with how much she saw herself in this whole affair. It reminded her of when she was in the Abomination Track - Trying her hardest but not being able to live up to what was expected of her in an environment she didn't even want to be in. The ridicule that she got for it. She remembered how much she hated that, how badly it messed with her head, how worthless she had felt, and how it had sucked the joy out of everything else.
She noted how Skara wasn't acting like herself anymore, either. How her normally outgoing, bubbly personality had been… Just gone, for a long while now. Even shortly after her breakup with Ves, she had at least occasionally pretended that it was still there, but barely did anymore. Of course, she'd been having a rough time lately, but it was like any and all joy and energy in her had been seeped out.
And now, Willow felt like she knew exactly what had been happening. And for the first time since the cabin on the Knee, Willow felt like she actually understood Skara. Because they were both on the same receiving end of Boscha. It had just manifested in different ways.
That, and Willow had had her friends to help her. Skara… didn't. And even if she did, her view of friendship was so… warped, Willow wondered if it would make a difference. She had Bo, but Bo couldn't be there like Luz, Gus, and Amity could. Bo didn't play Grudgby. Heck, Willow wasn't even sure if Bo knew what was happening, if Skara had told her or not. And Willow…
Willow wished that she could help.
At one point, Skara stopped, and let her eyes wander. And eventually, they found Willow.
Both of them just stared at one another for a moment, surprised by the other seeing them. From this distance, they weren't close enough to make out any distinct expressions, but Willow already knew what was going through Skara's mind: Self-consciousness, discomfort, a degree of paranoia, and embarrassment.
All of it lasted about ten seconds - Boscha snapped to get Skara's attention again, and once she did, Willow veered away from the field, as quick as her broom would let her. Briefly, she looked back, and saw Skara begin another drill. Willow's shoulders slumped, and she sighed.
Tomorrow was the big match. After that, Skara's torment would be over. At least, in terms of Grudgby practice. But Boscha… Skara would have to deal with Boscha after that, still.
And for her sake, Willow hoped Hexside won.
When Skara looked back, Willow was gone, and the sky seemed empty in comparison. Skara didn't know where she had gone, but she couldn't see a sign of her anywhere. Presumably, she was far away from here now.
And Skara felt herself being tugged in two directions - away from the Grudge field, and back towards it.
"Skara! Come on!"
The field won.
"...Right."
QuirkQuartz : *ANGRY BRITISH SCREAMING* - ITS DONE. WE FINALLY GOT IT DONE! This chapter has been… Difficult. We've both had personal stuff going on in our lives, me with Uni and Desmond with work, but this chapter was bloody difficult to figure out, mostly because of how we formatted it (Guess what we tried to base this chapter on). But now it is DONE, and we're not making that mistake again. Hope you enjoyed the chapter and I hope to GOD we'll be back sooner than it took to make this chapter!
Fanart of the Chapter - r/TheOwlHouse/comments/resmkw/spinel_cord_two_proud_new_moms/
DesmondKane: Welp, after so long, we finally finished this chapter. We've been working on this one for a while, and now this beast has been slain. Thanks in large part to determination, perseverance, and stubbornness. We hope you've enjoyed reading it and seeing that we're back.
Speaking of 'back' though, I never officially left. I started a small series: "Skarlow One-Shots for the Soul". It currently has three one-shots, all based on Skarlow adorableness, and if you need more of your fix, you can check it out at /works/34432195/chapters/85690303.
Also, if you like my work, I'm doing writing commissions! For more information, check out my instagram at desmondkaneofao3fame/?hl=en.
Finally, a big thank you for reading the story and my little authors notes. We love and appreciate the support from our fellow Skarlow fans.
Song of the Chapter: Wedding Song from Hadestown (more a Beta Skarlow song but I can't help but imagine them whenever I listen).
