This was far from the first time Luz and Camila Noceda were sitting in front of Principal Hal. Luz had an exceedingly overactive imagination, and she used it whenever she could, sometimes to others' detriment. The brief overview of her Good Witch Azura book report proved that, given that she had a live snake.
Luz's book report had, of course gone off the rails, leading to her backup snakes being released on school grounds. Luz, however, was more curious how the backup snakes got out. And that didn't even cover the Act 3 closer.
"Mija," Camila knelt down in front of Luz, who was looking down with a dejected look, "I love your creativity, but it's getting out of hand. Do you remember why you were in the principal's office the last three times?"
Luz remembered quite well, as those were mere months ago. At cheer tryouts, she tried to impress the other girls with her 'eyelid trick', which didn't over over well, leading to her first trip to Principal Hal. She had made the most realistic baby griffin she could, complete with spider breathe, which got her her second stint to the principal's office. And finally, she had tried to bring the classic story of Romeo and Juliet into the limelight, complete with realistic gore; her most recent stint, and some of her best work.
"We all love that you express yourself, but if you can't learn to separate fantasy from reality," she pulled a pamphlet from out of her purse, "you may need to spend the summer here." She handed Luz the pamphlet with bold lettering that said 'REALITY CHECK SUMMER CAMP', with the tagline below, 'Think Inside The Box'. Luz had heard of this place. It was where parents of overly expressive kids sent them to be conformed to a more 'socially acceptable human'. It was also the last place she wanted to end up.
Luz took the pamphlet from her mom, then she gained a confident look. "Don't worry, Mom, I won't let you down!" She stood up, raising her Azura figure in the air. "No more weirdness!" And that was when her snake attacked Principal Hal. "That... doesn't count, right?"
A month passed, and Luz, unfortunately, hadn't shown much sign of change. Therefore, Camila was forced to enroll her daughter in Reality Check Camp, in the hopes that she would come back a changed Noceda.
Luz wasn't ready for change, though. She liked being a nerd and a weirdo and a weeb. To her, there was absolutely nothing wrong with her lifestyle. But regardless, her mother still enrolled her in summer camp.
As Luz stood by the curb, waiting for the bus, her mother came up behind her and threw her arms around her baby. "Now, don't worry. Summer camp is only going to be for three months. You'll be so busy balancing checkbooks and... learning to appreciate public radio, the time will fly by!"
"But I don't like any of that stuff!" Luz said, throwing her arms out in protest. "I like editing anime clips to music, and reading fantasy books with convoluted backstories!" She pulled out her copy of Good Witch Azura to emphasize her point, but Camila just took on a more serious face and tone.
"Mija, your fantasy world is holding you back. Do you have any friends? Real ones? Not imagined, or drawn, or reptilian." Luz looked down at her book somberly. That was all the answer Camila needed. "Summer camp is a chance to make some friends, but you have to try. Can you do that?"
Luz looked at Good Witch Azura one more time, before walking over to the trash can. "Yes, Mom," she said sadly, and set her book in the trash. To Camila, this was a huge step, and she wanted to give her all the praise in the world. Her phone, buzzed, however, reminding her of the time. "Oh, I gotta go to work." She walked up to Luz and planted a bunch of little kisses on her forehead. "Your bus is coming soon, text me when you get there. Cuídate mucho, mija. ¡Qué te vaya bien!" With that, she began her commute to work. Luz didn't so much as look up.
"Bye, Mom."
Of course, she never really intended to throw away a first edition Azura Book 1, those were priceless nowadays. She checked to make sure her mom was out of sight, then turned to the trash to pick it back up. The only problem, though, was that it was not there.
"Wait, where is it?" She dug around in the can, hoping that the book had simply sunk a bit. But before she could go too deep, a 'hoot' from in front of her caught her attention. A little brown owl was standing there, with a huge rucksack in it's beak. And in said sack...
"Tiny trash thief!"
The little owl started it's way back into the forest by their house, with her Azura book in it's bag. She began chasing after it, but it was deceptively fast, leading her deep into the woods before she even knowing it.
"Stop adorably hopping away, you... woah." She stopped in a clearing, where an old, dilapidated house could be seen at the end. The owl was heading towards it, and so, she would too. She growled and ran full bore towards the house.
As the owl made it to the porch, both it and Luz were stopped in their tracks by a blinding flash of light from the old house. Luz looked on in awe at the glowing house, wondering if this was something supernatural. Was it haunted? Was it some ethereal entity trying to tell her her destiny?
Well, she got an answer, and it wasn't what she was expecting. A shrill yell rang out from the house, and, to Luz's surprise, a young girl flew out, hitting the trash thief on the way down and scattering his spoils across the porch. He grabbed everything he could and ran in the house, leading to another flash of light.
Luz was left stunned by this whole event. An owl tried to steal her book from the trash, an old house she didn't even know about lit up like a Christmas tree TWICE, and now this girl... wait.
"Oh my gosh, are you all right?" Luz ran up to the strange girl, who was laying on the ground in a heap. She was honestly a bit odd looking, even by Luz's standards. She had bright, green hair, with roots starting to show a smooth brown color. She wore very deep eyeliner around bright gold eyes, and dressed like she had just come back from a renaissance fair. But the part that confused her the most were the fake elf ears she wore.
"Ugh, what happened?" The girl rubbed her head and asked, not really acknowledging Luz.
"Well, you kinda exploded out of a glowing house, and maybe hit your head? Jury's still out on that one." Luz shrugged, still trying to get a read on this girl. She extended a hand to help this girl up. "I'm Luz. Luz Noceda."
"Amity. Blight." She got up without Luz's assistance. "But you probably already know that."
Luz scratched her head, not only confused by Amity's standoffishness, but that comment about knowing her already. "Nope. Don't know ya."
"Really? Then you must've lived under a rock your whole life." Amity crossed her arms, waiting for Luz to recall her status.
Luz smirked at this weird, green girl. She knew exactly what was up. "Oh, my apologies, your grace," Luz said in a regal tone, then bowed extravagantly before continuing, "I did not recognize you in the chaos. May I get you some tea." She held out her pinky at this, pretending to possess a fancy teacup.
"What... are you talking about?"
"Well, you're larping, right? Obviously some kind of elvish high class or royalty, which I'm diggin'. But I think I've got some ideas to try and help out your character!" Luz held her hands up, excitedly. In her eyes, she might've just found someone just like her.
"Character?" Amity's voiced had raised to just shy of a yell. "You think I'm acting? Just who do you think you-" Amity stopped herself as she saw this dunce's ears. They weren't pointed. In fact, they didn't look like any she had ever seen, and she had extensive knowledge of the major species on the Boiling Isles. But she knew what those were, she'd seen them in pictures all over the place: they were human.
Amity quickly looked around, trying to gain her composure. Nothing looked right here, the trees were wrong, the grass was wrong, this girl was wrong.
"You," she pointed at Luz with a tinge of worry in her face, "whatever your name was-"
"It's Luz," Luz raised a finger.
"-yeah, yeah, whatever." She waved off Luz's correction. "Where are we? Forearm Forest? Cuticle Valley?"
"Uh, Connecticut?" Luz shrugged, not sure where this larper was getting her names from. She was pretty well acquainted with fictional geography, so it must've been OC.
"Ugh. no! Where on the Titan!"
"Uhhh..." Luz was officially lost at this point, and was wondering if she should just head back to try and get on the bus.
"Are you dense? The Titan? The giant body we all live on? Bones sticking up everywhere? Ring any bells?" Amity was clearly getting agitated, and Luz didn't want an argument on her hands, especially today.
"Look, Amity," she put her hand on the girl's shoulder, "I know exactly what it's like wanting to live in a fantasy world, I get it. But you're kinda scary, girl, so you gotta calm down." She pointed back towards her house, out of the woods. "My mom made some horchata the other day, and you look like you need something to drink, help cool ya off. Ok?"
Amity brushed the hand off her shoulder and looked away defiantly... then looked right back to Luz. The girl was right, she was parched.
"F-fine, whatever, but only because I have questions for you." Amity stormed off in the direction Luz pointed, and Luz was about to follow, but she saw her Azura book on the ground. She quickly picked it up, put it in her bag, then caught up to Amity. She wasn't sure what this girls' deal was, but she really hoped she could connect with her, seeing as how they were in very similar boats. She looked to Amity's fake ears again.
"Girl, it's too hot for those, you gotta take 'em off," she reached up to grab the right ear to pull it off, but was shocked. It felt warm, not just the base, but all the way up to the point. Her hand was quickly slapped away, as Amity held her own hands up to her ear defensively.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?" Amity yelled, her face turning red, either from anger or embarrassment... maybe a bit of both.
Luz chuckled nervously. "You, uh, got some pretty realistic fake elf ears there, Amity."
"That's because they're real, you dimwit!"
Luz paled. The pieces all clicked. This girl... wasn't human.
"Oh... my... god..."
A/N: So this is a story I've had kicking around in my head for awhile. I know there's alot of Amity going to Earth AFTER everything is said and done, but what if she went BEFORE EVERYTHING? (Ok, it's prolly not original, I'm sure it's been written about before, but I haven't seen it, so it isn't real to me) If this is something you'd be interested in, let me know, I've got some pretty fun ideas for it. Anyways, remember, reality is an illusion, the universe is a hologram, buy gold, bye!
