As morning came to the members of the Noceda house two girls awoke and had very different reactions. One all but leapt from her top bunk before frantically shaking her sister in sheer excitement. "Luz come on wake up! School starts in only an hour!"

While the other, having been woken up from a deep sleep, reached a clawed hand to try to silence what she thought was the alarm clock. "Five...ten more minutes."

Not about to be denied Vee pulled Luz blanket and all to the floor. "Not today!"

She quickly slithered away as Luz summoned a small ball of fire. Not out of fear as they both knew she'd simply use her spell as a pre breakfast, no she left so quickly to join their mother for breakfast.

"I can't blame her; I was so excited to go to an actual magical school I snuck in as Willow's abomination. Alright time to begn my last week of human school." One brief transformation later and she was in her human form, she picked up the concealment stone but slid in into her pants pocket. She'd dawn it before leaving, no offense to Ed and Emira but wearing this felt strange.

To think that having wings, a tail and a body covered in fur feels great but wearing a magical disguise is the thing I find strange.

At the kitchen Vee and Camila were happily chatting while Vee kept looking at the clock.

"Sweetie the clock isn't going to go any faster just because you stare at it."

"I know but to think in a little under an hour I get to start school. I'll go to classes, hang out with my friends for the first time since camp and spend the entire day in an institution dedicated to learning and growth."

Camila and Luz shared a look but decided to let Vee have her moment. After all the only knowledge she had on schools was what she'd gotten from tv or Luz. Admittedly the latter wasn't the best. "Alright Vee, just eat your breakfast and wait for the bus."

"Fiiiiiinnneee." she groaned before eying the waffles. Her fork was just about to dip into the syrup laced goodness when she looked to Luz.

"Could you?"

Luz knew what she was asking and couldn't stop smiling. "Sure, what flavor of magical topping do you want. Can't have my adorable baby sister running low on magic on her first day."

Vee hissed at being referred to as the baby sister. Having found her birthday/day of creation due to Lilith and Hunter scavenging of records she knew she was fifteen, a whole year older than Luz. But her birth certificate labeled her as fourteen, three months younger than Luz to be exact, not that she ultimately cared as her new official birthday was the day she met Camila.

"Can you do bard? I rarely got to taste it before and I remember it being pretty smooth, should pair great with waffles."

Putting her bardic teaching to work she twirled a circle that covered her hand before snapping a quick beat before a few musical notes appeared and danced onto Vee's waffles. Waffles that mere moments later were all but inhaled. "Just as smooth as I remembered."

The remaining time passed pretty quickly and as the bus came around the corner Vee shot to the porch happily clutching her backpack as Luz followed behind, dawning her disguise. Once at school Vee let out an excited gasp, firstly from getting her schedule which had her firstclass being science, and secondly from having her locker next to Luz's.

Luz could barely hide her amusement as Vee kept opening and closing her locker in excitement.

"Backpack in, books in, pens, pencils, notebooks, folders. I'm ready to learn now." her ears kept wiggling as she tried to rush off. "Easy there sis, class doesn't start for at least ten minutes. Now let me show you to your class." Vee was about to respond when suddenly she went rigid as a cheerful voice called out to her.

"I do believe that's my job Luz." Turning, she saw Masha coming down the hallway. "After all the higher ups did assign me to take care of the newbies. Plus, your sister and I have quite the catching up to do."

"m..mo...morning Masha...looking good..."

"Why thank you Vee, you're looking pretty good yourself." their attention then turned to Luz. "And a good morning to you Luz, must say you're looking more upbeat than the last time."

"Yeah, not going to lie I was kind of going through some stuff."

"I know the feeling." The way they stared at Luz made her a little uneasy. Much like a cat when it spies on a mouse.

"Anway I'll be showing our girl around today, easier since we have all the same classes."

"We do?"

"Yeah, now we best get to class before-" the sound of the bell cut them off. Vee was quickly pulled into the mess of people by Masha leaving Luz alone.

She'd just closed her locker when she ran into the resident mean girl and her one-time crush Amber.

"Watch where you're going Luzer!"

"Hey if you weren't so focused on your phone and bothered to look up you'd have seen me coming."

"Whatever, just stay out of my sight until the school is finally free of you."

Luz had just started walking away when Amber said something that made her growl. "Hope that sister of yours is next. Probably even more of a weirdo then you!"

Luz took a breath and looked around, thankfully the hallway was empty, and they were in a camera-free zone. So, Luz marched over to Amber taking her stone and switching to her titan form. Amber was so stunned she couldn't do anything as Luz took her phone and smashed it between her clawed hand as her other hand summoned an abomination from the ground to loom over her.

"Amber I'm going to say this once and only once. Vee Noceda is off limits! Any threats, any rude comments, oh and especially rumors and I'll personally demonstrate how sharp my claws are. Understand?"

Terrified, she nodded and timidly asked. "What are you?"

Luz slid back to her human form and put her stone back on before calmly responding. "Just someone that's been through a land of magic and demons and come back as someone you don't want as an enemy." Seeing the terrified look, she took a page out of Eda's book. "Now before you think about telling your friends keep in mind you go around babbling about witches and demons and wind up like the former museum curator. And we both know he's one public incident away from a padded room."

Jacob Hopkins ever since Halloween had rapidly deteriorated into the town cook, because of this and Amber's proud social status Luz knew her threat would work.

"Got it, Vee Noceda is most assuredly off limits. H..Have a nice day Luz" she squeaked before rushing off as Luz banished the abomination.

A part of her felt bad for doing that.

No, Vee deserves more than anyone to have a normal life. Now I'd best get to class.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Her first class was history, which was far more boring than she remembered. The only good thing was that she had a class with Vee just before lunch. Even if it was chemistry class.

Upon seeing her Vee rushed over and quickly hugged her. "Having fun yet sis?"

"Are you kidding!? School is much more fun that I thought."

"Our girl could give Athena a run for her money. She completely stupefied the math teacher during one of her surprise quizzes."

"Really? You surprised Mrs. Burner?"

Vee tried to play it off, but she couldn't hide her blush. "It really wasn't that hard. Oh wait! I forgot my book! I'll be right back." she shot out of the room giving Masha a chance to not only see her go, but to talk with Luz.

"So, Luz... mind if I ask you something."

"Sure."

"Okay then, well I got an answer from Vee about this, but I need some clarification from you. Vee's your adopted sister, right?"

"Yeah..." Luz was getting nervous as Masha went on. "Okay, so are you also not human?"

Luz was so surprised by their question nearly choked. After waving off the teacher she responded. "Not human? What makes you say that?"

Only for Masha to give her a look that told her not to question their intelligence.

"It really wasn't that hard, firstly no human has eyes that color or that beautiful, secondly her adorable ears kept perking up anytime she got excited." Seeing the look Luz was giving them they quickly added. "Woah woah no worries, one's form should never define who they are. Besides she's a cabin seven girl and we're not about to abandond our friend just because she's unique. Now you might want to ease up your kind of giving me quite the evil eye, well less evil and more golden predatory." Luz was confused until she felt her hand around her necklace. She quickly put it back on thankful that nobody had seen her, well nobody but Masha who was beaming with joy. When her disguise was back on they whispered. "Soooo what are you? Succumbs? Lycanthrope, half demon?" Masha seemed trustworthy enough, or possibly just wanting to stop the questions Luz told them.

"Originally human, like I said I've been through a lot this month and I'll tell you later, preferably in a more isolated location."

"Awesome, and don't worry your and Vee's secrets are safe with me. By the way, is Vee single?" Luz had to fight the urge to force her body to create a memory glyph that she could use.

"I'm back! Sorry it took so long; hallways were pretty packed." Luz sighed in relief while Masha simply leaned back. "No worries, Luz and I were just talking about the newest Azura book. She seems to think the dread scrolls Azua stole from the fallen king are actually the lost scrolls of her former master. Obvious red hearing if ever I saw one."

Okay so maybe they're not so bad. Kind of like a mixture of Amity and Gus.

If Luz thought sharing one class with Masha was interesting, then having Lunch with them was even more so. For after getting their food they took them to the farthest corner booth far from any people. Something Vee took notice of.

"Where's the others? I though all cabin seven would be here?"

"We were, but thanks to a forgotten history project three of them are now desperately trying to do a three weeklong project in under half an hour. So, for now you'll have to make do with only my enchanting presence."

"...okay..."

"So, Luz, about our conversation from earlier."

"Like I said it's complicated, some of which I'm not entirely comfortable sharing quite yet. But to simplify things a bit I was born fully human from two fully human parents."

"Luz...?" Vee was starting to look nervous, so Luz placed her hand over hers. "It's fine Vee, besides Masha kind of already guessed there was more to you then meets the eye." Her eyes shot Masha and for a moment a large white spot formed on her face. Masha was amazed but remained calm and moved closer. "Vee like I told Luz, it doesn't matter what you look like, it's what's on the inside that counts. Be a bit of a hypocrite if I didn't stand by that." Hearing this Vee calmed down enough to regain her composure. "Now I am curious, but I only want you to tell me if or when you're comfortable, okay?"

"Thanks Masha and I will tell you and the others, just not quite yet."

"Perfectly understandable, same goes for you Luz."

"Well let's just say my life has become much more magical these last few months, even more so since Halloween." Seeing the look of restrained curiosity in Masha's eyes and after a quick double check Luz focused for a moment before summoning Stringbean from her hair. Masha had to bite down on their lip as the purple serpent floated under the table and around their arm shifting from snake to spider before crawling back into her hair and back home.

"That was my palisiman Stringbean, a cross between a witches familiar and mage's staff." For the first time since meeting them Masha was left speechless. All Masha managed to say after a minute of silence was "that is the coolest thing I've ever seen in my entire life." Vee seeing an opportunity teased. "So, I guess we shouldn't tell you how you gave your historic hayride to actual witches then huh?"

"Really?!" As Vee began telling Masha the Isles and real magic all Luz could think of was.

I think I'm going to like my last week here. Not to mention meeting Vee's friends, maybe I'll introduce them to Gus."

She could already imagine the questions they'd ask each other.