"Luz?"
Luz slowly opened her eyes, focusing her attention on a concerned Amity standing over her. They've been hanging out a lot recently, but seeing such naked worry in her friend's eyes was still shocking to Luz. Secondary to the realization that she was feeling sore all over her body, yes, but still shocking nonetheless. Speaking of...
"Why does everything hurt so bad?"
"You tried a fireball spell and it blew up."
Watching Luz pushed herself into a sitting position, Amity stepped back and allowed her usual mask of indifference slipped back on. Satisfied that her new favourite human was still breathing, she continued on.
"Mind telling me why you thought casting a fire spell in a library was a good idea anyway?"
"...I could have put it out with the sprinkler spell?"
"That didn't answer the question."
Luz laid back down with an embarrassed groan as Amity walked back to her desk, scoffing at her new study partner's absent-minded behavior before setting her attention on their collective notes with a thoughtful frown. The two girls were in the young witch's secret library alcove where, for the fifth day in a row, they've been working to help Luz learn more spells beyond making tiny orbs of light. As much as Luz adored Eda, the owl lady often had to be goaded into teaching her anything. And unfortunately, even when Luz did manage to convince her, often in exchange for one of the random trinkets she had brought with her from home, she was unable to repeat the trick she did two weeks ago with the light spell. Her phone just didn't have the ability to scrub through videos frame-by-frame, making it nigh-impossible to just record Eda casting a spell and learn that way. On top of that, while Luz was sure what she pulled off back then was connected to the "old way of doing magic" which her mentor spoke of, said mentor had no interest in actually researching said practices. Sure, Luz wasn't much better, with her attention span being lacking on the best of days, but at least she was trying to study. Learning magic was important to her!
Still refusing to get up, Luz turned her head to get a better view of Amity. She couldn't see much from the angle she was at, but the Latina could tell from the sounds of humming and pencil scratches that Amity was writing some notes about what just occurred. Wrenching her eyes away from Amity's cute butt - 'Feelings to deal with later, Luz', she reprimanded herself - Luz took in the rest of the room as her thoughts shifted to how nice and helpful her rival was being.
'Wait, are we still rivals if she's directly helping me get better?'
Amity probably would have rolled her eyes if Luz voiced that thought, but she couldn't help it. Friendly rivals such as themselves are meant to spur each other onto further glory through the fires of competition! Not putting their own studies on hold so their adversary can be more than a glorified torchlight. That said, Amity was putting her studies on hold to help Luz. Amity. She wasn't doing all that witch school stuff that she's obsessed at being the best at. And she was doing it for her! Luz! She never even expected the green-haired grump to entertain the idea when she put on a show of begging and pleading last week, but she actually said yes! Okay, so it was under the condition that Willow can never know, but avoiding and making excuses to her botany and illusion pals is a small price to pay if she wants to make any progress. Of course, she'd feel better if more progress was being made.
Over the past few days, Amity had been dragging Luz through every section of the library in order to find anything involving drawing sigils to perform magic spells. That proved to be the easy part, with them finding several ancient tomes concerning the practice in the building's basement. Making use of them proved to be the challenging part. For one thing, for being books obstenially about drawing, they lacked pictures. Luz supposed that made sense, since sigils were touch-activated. One slip of the finger and the book goes up in flames or something. She figured (and later confirmed) that such a thing could be avoided by just not drawing the complete circle, but whatever. Maybe the writers just had tunnel vision and didn't think about the obvious. Happened to her all the time. In any case, words explaining how to draw sigils are just as good! At least, they would be if each page didn't decide to detail a spell in some ancient runic language; so began the process of going through a half-dozen other books in order to translate the contents.
Figuring that she had spent enough time on the ground, Luz finally stood and dusted herself off. Walking over to Amity, whose soft hums had given way to muttering, she looked over the girl's shoulder at all the notes they've written since discovering the dusty, old books. Ultimately, the problem was magic was finicky. Once again, it makes sense. If it wasn't, you wouldn't need a school for it. After the first two days, the duo were able to identify some good starting spells for Luz to try. After the subsequent three days, Luz had to wonder if these truly were "beginner spells." While some were as simple to do as the light spell - Luz blushed as she remembered the enthusiastic hug Amity gave her when she accomplished a water spell after hours of reading, writing, and failed drawings - others, namely advanced versions of basic spells, required a lot more than just drawing them. Maybe it would have to be drawn with a certain material, like chalk or sand. Maybe it had to be a certain size: not too big, not too small. Maybe a few words had to be said instead of just tapping it, or in addition to tapping it. Heck, maybe you have to tap it a few times in a certain rhythm. What time of the day was it? Because that was also a factor with some spells. And don't forget what you're drawing it on, because the wrong material can make the spell do some weird stuff..
"So, are we calling that a success or...?"
Amity couldn't help but giggle before giving her study partner a small smile.
"You blew it up, Luz."
"But I still created fire."
"It was a fireball spell, not a flame spell. You had to tap the sigil when it's facing away from you."
"Well, I'm still counting it. To the spellbook!"
As Amity good-naturedly rolled her eyes and organized the paper on her desk into a large binder, Luz ran over to one of the bookshelves. Nestled between a copy of the fifth Good Witch Azura book and Amity's diary, which had recently seen an interesting padlock upgrade, was a small leather-bound journal. Grabbing the book, its cover adorned with colorful stickers and the title The Good Human Luz's Spellbook, she went back to the table to retrieve a pen. Okay, so maybe it was a bit of a cheat to deem "Fireball" her third spell, since she didn't use it correctly. But since the only thing she did wrong was point it at herself, all she has to do in the future's not do that! Easy. Flipping to a fresh page, Luz wrote "Level 1 Fireball" at the top and drew an incomplete sigil underneath. Before she could open her mouth to speak, Amity slid over the binder to her, already open to its newest addition: detailed notes on how this sigil-based version of the fireball spell worked.
"Thanks, Mittens."
"Stop."
"Stop what, calling you Mittens?"
"Yes."
"Uhhh... nope."
"Ugh."
Amity made it clear she was done with the matter by bringing out a school textbook, Luz writing cliffnotes on the fireball spell next to her. It was thirty minutes until closing, and since Luz actually seemed to have finished her experimenting a bit early, she was going to take the opportunity to get her own studying in rather than watch Luz all afternoon. Granted, there was a part of her that was beginning to see some value in Luz-watching, but she preferred not to dwell on that part of herself at the moment. No need to risk a new friendship, after all. But before fully investing herself into the History of Lower Isles Potioncraft Vol. XI, a question came to mind that she couldn't help to ask as Luz closed her spellbook and moved to put it back on the shelf.
"Why don't you take it home?"
"What?" replied Luz, stopping to turn around and look at the studious elf.
"You're always excited to try out spells here, and you've already got down a few. Why not go home and show them to... Edith? Her name's Edith, right?"
Amity noted, not for the first time, that she should probably remember the names of people Luz likes.
"Eda. And, yeah, I guess I could."
The energy that always seemed to pervade Luz's voice seemed to dissipate as she looked away from Amity towards the exit of her hidden alcove. 'Or maybe our hidden alcove?' the amateur witch thought briefly, not minding the thought of this being a permanent secret getaway for her and the human, before pushing onward for more answers.
"So, why not? She'll probably be happy."
"Maybe. Or she'll be angry that I went to someone else. Or laugh that I've only learned three spells so far."
Amity scoffed.
"Well, that's dumb. She couldn't do the job, so of course you looked for other options. If she gets mad, that's her own problem. And, believe it or not, two spells in a week is pretty good progress."
Noting that her words had little effect, Luz instead closing in herself slightly, Amity closed her textbook with a sigh and walked over to her friend. Taking the spellbook out of Luz's hands, she placed all her attention on the lanky teen in front of her.
"Seriously, Luz, that's dumb. Eda isn't going to get mad about you learning magic from other sources. Heck, I bet she'll be proud."
"Proud?" Luz questioned, turning to face her pale-skinned companion.
"Obviously. Sneaking into the forbidden section of the library and decoding ancient texts from centuries past just so you can put authority figures on fire? She'd be ecstatic."
"But I haven't put any cops on fire. Like, at all."
Amity shoves the spellbook back into Luz's chest with a smirk.
"Then you better get started."
Luz pauses for a moment, looking lost as she glances back and forth between her spellbook and her person who just told her to prank law enforcement with fireballs. Then, with a broad smile, she picks up Amity in a bear hug, spinning her around before setting her down. Yelling her thanks, she leaves the room and a sorceress-in-training stunned from the physical contact and sudden mood shift. After a few minutes, Amity figures that the faint sounds of baritone screeching are as good a reason as any to forget studying and just head home.
AN: Welp, this is my first fanfic. Just had the urge to write something and suddenly found myself with the courage to post it instead of leaving it rotting on my hard drive. There isn't much to this, so I may come back and write a few chapters about the previous days, fleshing out some of the things I allude to here. Maybe I'll even continue past that. Who knows? All I know for certain is that canon will probably stomp all over this by the end of Season 1.