In the Human World:
Avalanche
The next morning came far too early in Luz's opinion, as she was very quietly shaken by her mother. Camila Noceda placed a finger to her lips, telling her daughter to be quiet and nodding toward the guest bed where Amity was still asleep. Luz sat up, stretching as she looked over at her friend and couldn't help but smile. Amity must have been really tired because she seemed to be sleeping very deeply, and her face was so relaxed. Luz didn't think she'd ever seen her look so at peace, and with her hair mussed from sleep she looked so beautiful Luz wanted to snap a picture with her phone. Camila tapped Luz's shoulder and gestured to King, who was awake but didn't look like he'd stay that way. Camila pantomimed walking with her hand and Luz nodded. Her mother kissed her forehead and slipped quietly from the room, dressed for work which told Luz they'd be alone for hours.
Twenty minutes later Luz and a very grouchy, sleepy, King were walking around the block. King managed to remember to stay on all fours and Luz just enjoyed how the morning air was cool, knowing the Texas sun would change that sooner rather than later. Her mind wasn't on their walk, it was going through a million other thoughts. Was Eda okay? Was Lilith okay? (Granted, she was still mad at the elder Clawthorne but for Eda's sake she hoped the dark-haired witch was okay) How were she and Amity going to get back? Why did Lilith think this was a good idea? Did she think it was a good idea? How had Belos gotten even a portion of the portal working again? What did he want with her world?
"I am not peeing out here, I don't care how many laps you make me do." King's quiet grumble brought Luz back to the present, and she looked down at the irate little demon. He was mimicking the way a dog sits, but his yellow and purple eyes were fixed on her in a glare. Slowly she realized they had passed the house and were most of the way around the block again.
"Sorry buddy, a lot on my mind today." Luz knelt down, scooping King into her arms and squeezing him in a tight hug. He relaxed into her shoulder and she just stood back up carrying him. They were nearly home when a woman stopped her with a very concerned look.
"Oh my god! Is your puppy okay? Do you need a ride to the vet?" She asked and Luz almost didn't realize what she was talking about. Her last question though made it more obvious. "It's poor head, what happened?"
"Oh! He's fine!" Luz smiled awkwardly but the woman looked unconvinced, so she knew she had to offer more than that. "When he was still a little puppy he was in a bad accident with a car. His skull and the skin over it was really badly damaged, but a really great dog rescue came up with the idea to 3D print him a new skull. He doesn't know any different, he's had outer skulls his entire life."
"Why? I mean why did they give him horns?" The lady sounded a little more convinced but still eyed King, who just ignored her and slept on Luz's shoulder.
"One of the volunteers was a Digimon fan and it was meant to look like a strong character. Ha ha ha." Luz's laugh was very fake but for some reason the lady accepted the explanation and finally wished Luz a good day. When they got back Luz wasn't sure she'd ever been so happy to close and lock the door behind her.
TOH TOHTOH TOH tohtohtoh TOHtohTOH
Amity Blight, normally an early riser, was not eager to wake that morning. When she first woke she almost forgot where she was and why. Her surroundings began to filter into her consciousness and she almost panicked, before her golden eyes landed on the Azura poster and she remembered she was in Luz's bedroom. In the Noceda house. In the Human World. The young witch groaned, pulling a pillow over her face and wishing it had been a strange dream. While Amity normally felt an overwhelming mixture of giddy excitement and nervous fear at being around Luz, right now she felt lost and afraid. Being a Blight, she tended to balk at the very idea of showing fear, but as a teen witch she was so lost at having been thrown through a portal into some other world.
"What was Lilith thinking?" Amity muttered into the pillow, frustrated with her mentor at just the thought of her hand in this incident.
"I wish I knew." Luz's voice startled Amity, causing her to jerk upright in bed and accidentally throw the pillow in a random direction. The human's kind brown eyes went wide, and Amity felt her face burning again even as she started to chuckle nervously. Oblivious as ever to her effect on the other girl Luz came over and took a seat on the edge of the guest bed, before reaching out to hold Amity's hand. "Hey, sorry, I didn't mean to scare ya. I thought you heard me come back in."
"Ha ha, no I . . ." Amity lost her voice when she felt Luz's thumb brush against her knuckles. Her face felt so hot she was afraid she might actually glow red this time, and she forced a nervous smile onto her lips. Luz seemed distracted staring at her and it was almost a nice moment, if Amity's heart would stop trying to beat out of her chest. The human suddenly smiled and reached forward, tucking a strand of hair behind Amity's pointed ear and the young witch jumped where she sat. Whatever had been going through the human girl's mind she jolted away as well, already moving to give her friend some space.
"Oh, Amity, I'm sorry." Luz gave her a sweet, apologetic smile. "I wasn't thinking, your hair just looks really pretty down."
"What?" Amity automatically reached up and ran a hand through her teal and brown locks, realizing she'd completely forgotten it was down. She felt embarrassed, because no one wants their crush to see them first thing after waking up, but also excited because Luz said it was pretty.
"You should wear it down more often." Luz grinned before standing up and stretching. "So, I just wanted to see if you were awake. I'm going to make us some breakfast, just tell me if you need any help. Okay?"
"I, yeah, uh thanks." Amity smiled shyly back at her and Luz literally walked backwards toward the bedroom door.
"I'll come get you when breakfast is ready." Luz said, her tone strangely nervous.
"Right." Amity watched the human girl finally turn at the door, only to turn back and offer her a wink.
"And I mean it, you look really nice with your hair down." Luz must have planned to flee with that remark, because she was gone before Amity even comprehended. The teen witch felt her heart nearly stop and wasn't sure how much more of this kind of thing she could handle. She groaned again and fell backward onto the bed.
"Titan help me, I am so hopeless." Amity muttered.
TOH TOHTOH TOH tohtohtoh TOHtohTOH
In the Boiling Isles a pair of green haired twins approached the Owl House under the mid-morning sun. Emira and Edric Blight were mostly happy with the changes they'd seen in their sister since she met Luz Noceda, but the current situation was not ideal. The twins were groggy, having barely slept at all the night before. As they walked Emira pulled out her scroll and began typing another message to Amity, trusting her twin to ensure she didn't walk into anything along the way.
{Hey Mittens, where are you? Ed and I are worried. Send us a message when you see this.} Emira sighed as she hit send and felt her brother's arm slip across her shoulders.
"Maybe she finally confessed to Luz and they fell asleep cuddling." Edric didn't even sound convinced as he said this. Emira put her scroll away and patted his hand in thanks for trying to ease her mind all the same.
"Who goes there? Hoot!" Hooty popped from the ground in front of the two and the twins jumped back away from the strange house guardian thing. Edric and Emira straightened up at almost the same moment, and Hooty tilted his head at them. "Oh, I remember you! Hoot. You came with the angry one!"
"Yeah." Edric laughed slightly, he hadn't forgotten what his baby sister did to this creature. "That's Amity, and actually we're looking for her."
"Yesterday she said she was coming to see Luz, but she didn't come home." Emira picked up, smiling disarmingly at Hooty as Edric moved to lean on his sister's shoulder.
"She is here, isn't she?" Edric asked and if possible, it almost seemed like Hooty was frowning. It was strange as his face couldn't actually frown, but in some odd way they could feel the frown.
"I'll get Eda, hoot hooty hoot!" Hooty retracted back into the ground and the twins eyed the hole left behind uneasily. Their golden eyes met, and they shared a very worried look.
"The bird tube knows something." Edric stated the obvious and Emira nodded toward the Owl House just beyond the next group of trees.
"Let's go find out what."
TOH TOHTOH TOH tohtohtoh TOHtohTOH
"You what?!" Emira's voice jumped in volume as Eda and Lilith finished explaining what happened the previous evening. Edric was speechless, just gaping at the two elder witches as if they were a creature he'd never seen before.
"At the time it seemed the only way to protect them." Lilith said in something close to the imperious tone she'd once used to issue orders to the Emperor's Coven. "There was simply no way to get to them before Belos did."
"Lily, you blasted the ground out from under them with a glyph Luz taught you!" Eda yelled at her sister in exasperation and it seemed the twins were momentarily forgotten.
"It was more powerful than I intended, and I didn't actually intend them to fly through the portal." Lilith did seem far more chagrin as she rubbed at her forehead, appearing to be in pain. "What would you have had me do, sister? Perhaps we should have waited for Belos to . . ."
"Luz has already faced Belos before!" Eda crossed her arms and glared at her elder sister. "And frankly, your protégé is far more powerful than she was a few months ago. It seems like a little faith in the kids would have worked better than tossing them through a magic portal."
"Excuse me." Edric turned his gold eyes to watch his twin sister. Her tone was polite right now, but it was in a manner that screamed danger to her twin. Emira was not smiling, she was definitely more tense than she normally stood, and there was no missing the glare she was leveling at the two supposed adults standing before them. Eda and Lilith continued to bicker and Edric stepped a bit away from his sister, before covering the ear closest to her with a hand. Emira's voice rang off the walls of the Owl House this time, and they even heard Hooty make a scared sound from the outside of the door. "Hey!"
Eda fell silent, turn her eyes and a surprised expression toward the teen witch. Lilith stepped back, looking as if she half expected to be attacked, and based on the glare on Emira's normally relaxed and cheerful face that was a real possibility. If looks could kill both Clawthorne sisters would be dead where they stood. "How do two grown witches, supposed responsible ADULTS, take a 14-year-old and a 15-year-old to fight the Emperor of the Titan Blessed Boiling Isles?! What in Titan's name were you thinking?! Do you even know where that portal leads?!"
"Oh, the human world." Edric said this suddenly and all eyes turned toward him. He held up his scroll, showing them what was apparently a sudden string of messages from Amity.
"Oh, her scroll is working, this is a very good thing." Lilith immediately regretted the comment as Emira's gold eyes moved back to glaring at the former coven leader.
"What else does the kid say?" Eda asked and Emira relaxed slightly, moving instead to peer with her brother at his scroll as he reviewed the messages. The way they were written it didn't sound like she'd received their messages before she wrote these.
{Hey Ed and Em. Um, I don't actually know if this message will reach you, but Luz used to be able to message her mother so I'm going to try. I lied about going to just hang out with Luz, we were trying to do something. . . Well that isn't important right now. There was an accident and Luz, King, and me were tossed through a portal. We're safe, we actually ended up in the human world near Luz's home. Luz's mom is allowing us to stay with her for now, I don't know how long she'll believe what Luz told her though. We need you to go find Eda and Lilith at the Owl House, let them know we're okay, and maybe work with them to find a way to get us back. . . or maybe King and I, I don't know if Luz will want to leave again. I guess I should ask that. I hope this gets to you, please don't worry. And, uh, please don't tell our parents. Not only would I never be allowed to do anything again, but what I was doing was kind of illegal.}
"Mittens?" Emira said feeling a bit numb.
"Doing something illegal?" Edric sounded awestruck.
"Knowingly?" Emira finished and they both turned their eyes to the Clawthornes again. "Willingly?"
"She insisted on coming along." Lilith confirmed as she shifted uncomfortably.
"She wanted to protect Luz, and with our current state we could hardly turn down the help." Eda's tone was resigned, and she reached up to pinch the bridge of her nose. "It's good that they safely made it to the other side, now the important problem is how do we get them back?"
"We can not tell our parents." Edric actually went a few shades paler as he said this. "Maybe we can make an illusion of Amity but if someone touches it."
"Ed the only one, besides us, brave enough to touch Amity is Luz." Emira reminded him. She sighed heavily and looked toward the older witches. "We'll make sure no one notices Amity is missing, I don't think we can cover for Luz though."
"Don't worry about that." Eda waved off the second concern. "I'll tell Bump she's sick, he doesn't know enough about humans to question it."
"And the two of you WILL find a way to bring them BACK." Emira followed, cocking an eyebrow at the Clawthornes.
"Of course we will, we would never leave our apprentices in such a situation." Lilith stated as if she were still a powerful coven leader.
"We'll keep you informed, let us find a way back for them and you focus on covering for Amity." Eda grinned in a very strange manner. "Once we have an idea of how, we'll meet again and agree on a plan."
TOH TOHTOH TOH tohtohtoh TOHtohTOH
Luz hummed cheerfully as she bounded up the stairs, intent on getting Amity so they could eat breakfast. She opened the door to her room and stopped, brown eyes locking on the other teen and feeling awestruck at the sight. Luz had left some clothes for Amity earlier; she'd been a bit limited on what to offer since Amity had at least an inch on her and clearly preferred dark colors. She actually had expected the other girl to maybe dislike the hooded shirt she'd found, but not only was she wearing it, but Amity actually had the hood up complete with the little black cat ears. Luz was a bit lost for words, seeing Amity in black jeans, and the black and gray cat hoodie, and it looked like her hair was still down underneath the hood.
"Hermosa." Luz absently muttered in Spanish. Amity heard her, though she didn't look away from her scroll only patting the space beside where she sat on the foot of the bed. The human girl shook herself silently, then walked over and dropped into the space beside her.
"Ed and Em answered, only they didn't." Amity said while passing her scroll to Luz. Luz tore her eyes from her friend and saw that a group conversation with Emira and Edric was pulled up. Luz saw at the top of the screen the messages Amity had sent last night trying to explain what happened and where she was. Her eye caught on a part where Amity stated she wasn't sure if Luz would want to come back to the Isles, and Luz felt her gut twist slightly at the thought. She pushed that thought aside for the time being and started reading the responses from the twins. She frowned; they didn't seem as if they'd received any message.
{Hey, Mittens, you're lucky Dad and Mom are on that trip. When are you coming home?} From Edric.
{Mittens, you missed dinner. Are you okay?} From Emira
{Amity, we know you love, sorry enjoy Luz's company but can you let us know when you're coming home.} From Edric.
{I promise to stop teasing you, at least for tonight, just let us know you're okay.} From Edric.
{Amity, please say you're at the Owl House.} From Emira.
{Amity?} From Emira.
{Amity, come on, please answer.} From Edric.
{Hey, whatever is going on it's alright just let us know.} From Emira.
{Hey Mittens, where are you? Ed and I are worried. Send us a message when you see this.}
Luz finished reading and looked over at Amity, and though she was unbearably cute in that spare hoodie, Luz could see that she was also worried. She thought she saw guilt in Amity's expression too. Luz bit her lip for a moment, passing the scroll back to Amity and slinging an arm about her shoulders in a side hug. They sat quietly like that for a few minutes, Amity let her head fall forward a bit, which made the hood hide her face from Luz's eyes.
"Logically, if I received these messages, my messages should have gotten through." Amity finally said quietly and leaned into Luz's side a bit.
"Maybe it's a signal delay?" Luz suggested and felt Amity nod. "If it's just a delay then they should get your messages any time now. We just have to wait and see what they send, or sent back, right?"
"Yeah, that's probably it." Amity agreed, and now Luz was sure she heard guilt in her voice.
"Hey, are you okay?"
"I just feel bad for worrying them." She sighed. "Ed and Em drive me nuts, but we all still love each other." That might have been the most emotional thing Luz had ever heard Amity confess. She didn't know what to say right then, so instead she pulled her friend into a full hug. After a moment she felt Amity's arms come around her to return the hug. They only broke the hug when they heard a throat clearing, and both turned to see King standing at the door with his arms crossed.
"If you two don't come eat, I am going to eat all of the food." The demon said in a tone that was meant to sound threatening, but there was a very obvious hint of humor there.
"We're on the way." Luz agreed and suddenly moved to lift Amity who sort of squeaked at suddenly finding she was being carried again.
"Luz . . ." She tried to find her words, but Luz just laughed and proceeded carefully down the stairs.
"Sorry, it's faster and King really will eat our breakfast if we leave him too long."
Amity managed to laugh at that, she had no doubt the small demon would do so. Truthfully, she was pleasantly surprised he had cared enough to warn them.