Amity slipped her scroll in her pocket, excited that Willow wanted to hang out with her. Everyone was standing up to leave, but Hunter began to walk towards the front of the room instead of the doors leading out.
"Where you going?" Gus asked him curiously.
"I know this meeting was a bit much, but Darius and I always talk after these things. You guys should come too. We're showing Masha the council, so why not talk to them? I promise they're a lot more chill than they are in meetings."
Masha shrugged and walked with Hunter, the others joining close behind. All the council members had already gotten out from behind the table and were just talking as people quickly filed out. They were mostly huddled together and were talking, but Darius saw Hunter coming over and left the conversation.
"Hey, kid! How are you?" He asked as he came over and gave Hunter a light punch on the shoulder.
"Doing pretty good. You?"
"Bored as ever. But uh, sorry about being harsh with that friend of yours."
"Remember the rules, Dari," Eda lightheartedly sighed as she got between the two and wrapped an arm around them, "No politics talk directly after meetings. Really brings the mood down. What's up, Hunter and company? Hope you aren't too drained after all the excitement."
"What happened to no politics?" Amity chuckled.
"That rule is for buzzkills only, Boots. And the day I become a buzzkill is the day the Collector comes back."
Hunter cringed slightly at that statement, thinking of what Willow had claimed earlier about them actually coming back, but recovered before anyone but Amity could notice.
"Now Masha, this is your first meeting, right?" Eda asked.
"Yes, ma'am." They said, trying to balance being polite with not sounding too formal.
"Call me that again and I'll exile you. Just call me Eda. Or councilwoman Clawthorne."
"But only call her that if you want to feed into her superiority complex." Darius said with a smirk.
"I'm going to ignore that." Eda said, turning to face the other council members, "Hey nerds! Wanna meet someone new?"
The other 7 councilors came over, all but one of them looking to be in good moods.
"New person? And a human? Really Eda, you spoil us." One of them said with a smirk.
"Drop the sarcasm, Lexi. Masha, Lexi Mirra. She's the Illusionist head and basically the worst possible combo of Gus and his boy toy."
"Matt isn't my boy toy!" Gus protested, face flushing.
"The fact you knew who I was talking about proves me right. The king of buzzkills and logic over here is Asclepius Romanox, head of Healing."
"You flatter me, Eda, truly." Asclepius sighed, rolling his eyes.
"The one who looks like a human realm dealer is Finn Verra, Plant head, and I'm pretty sure he is one now that I think about it."
"Nothing illegal, and I was never caught." Finn smugly said, crossing their arms.
"This one is Talia Mave, Construction magic head."
"What, no snarky summary of me?" Talia chuckled.
"Yeah, in a magic-free brawl you'd easily beat the curse out of me. And last but not least-"
"Cassandra Paion, head of Oracle magic." Cassandra said, extending a hand to Masha.
"You didn't need to cut me off. I wasn't going to say anything bad." Eda complained.
"Just that I'm the biggest, and best, gossip on either side of the two realms because I can find dirt on people before they even do it. I know. I was one of the few people apparently who remembered that you said a friend of your kids was coming today, and that this would be their first meeting, so I checked to see what you were planning on saying."
"Do you ever use your magic to do anything but spoil my fun?"
"Nah."
"Anyways," Eda sighed, turning back to Masha, "You already know Raine, Darius, Eber, and Lynn so I won't bog you down with more introductions. How's the human realm? Catch me up on all the fun stuff I've missed since my last visit."
Eda, Masha, and the others talked while the rest of the council members went back to their own devices, except Lynn who Boscha pulled aside so they could talk one-on-one. The group talked about the human realm and everything was going well. Hunter roughly explained why Willow wasn't there, not going into any details.
"Have you gotten any letters from King recently? How's he doing?" Gus asked, shifting the conversation so they could see how Eda herself is doing.
"Oh he's doing great. Almost at the other side of the world by this point. Around a week or less away I think was his estimate. I'm due for another letter in a couple days so I should get updated soon."
"How are you getting letters if he's so far away?" Masha asked, finding there were still things about this realm she didn't know about, even relating to people she knew.
"Well turns out, thanks to him getting older and unlocking more of his Titan powers, he's able to create portals by basically tearing through the air with one of his claws. He can't make any really big ones yet, but we're able to send letters to each other that way. He sends me some whenever he decides to, and we have a window of time set up where he opens a portal for me to send through anything. Based on our knowledge from when he went to the other side of the world a decade and a half ago, the bigger he gets the bigger the portals he can make. After some testing, he found he can make ones big enough he can go through if he bends down some." Eda explained.
"Wow," Masha chuckled, "How big is he now? Last I saw him I was still about a head taller."
"I actually don't know, but he's growing almost exponentially. Lily did some math, like a nerd, and found out he'll hit Boiling Isles size around the age of 150. Based on his findings from exploring other islands, all the Titans have been around similar heights, but ours is the biggest. We just don't know if that's because ours was the most powerful Titan like Lilith has theorized or if ours was the last to be killed."
There was a pause after Eda said that. It reminded all of them about the Titan Trappers. Of Tarak. Of Luz. It didn't take long before Eda continued, though.
"He's learned a lot about the other islands. That's the reason he left, exploration. He's even gotten a few people to move here. From what we know, this is the first time in history where people have been able to and decided to move to other islands. Sadly, I'm almost certain more information isn't all he's looking for. But no matter how much I told him that she was gone too, he didn't listen. Couldn't exactly stop him once he turned 18, so I gave him a good boat, helped him get council approval, and wished him luck. If he keeps up his pace, he should be back in 2 more years and have been the first in recorded history to circumnavigate our world. Lily can't wait to finally have definitive proof that our world isn't flat."
There was another awkward pause in conversation. There tended to be one every time Eda started to talk about King. Talking about her one kid always made her think of her other one. To stop that awkward silence, Hunter decided to change the topic.
"So Lilith opened a new wing in the museum. How's that going?" He asked.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?" A voice behind them asked.
Hunter and the others turned to see Steve and Lilith coming over.
"Hey y'all. Hope it wasn't too boring without us. Or exciting, knowing how these things can go" Steve chuckled.
They all smiled at him. Steve had that effect on people. He was just a beacon of hopefulness, and frankly a beacon of coolness. He just had a nice, relaxed energy to him. That energy combined with his love of helping people is what made him decide to be a therapist.
"To answer your question, Hunter," Lilith began, "The new wing opening went well."
"Don't sell yourself short Lils," Steve laughed, playfully elbowing her, "You worked hard and the opening was amazing and your speech was perfect. And I'm glad it went so well, considering how you were very effectively able to keep me up at night with your 3 am bouts of inspiration which drove you to type on your laughably loud human laptop."
"You two live together now? I must have missed that." Hunter said.
"Living together? So are you two roommates or…roommates?" Gus asked curiously, a smile growing on his face.
"I admire your interest in my personal life, Gus," Lilith lightheartedly sighed, "But Steve and I are just friends, and we'll never be more than that."
"Hell yeah! Ace gang?" Steve excitedly said, putting out his fist.
"Ace gang." Lilith replied with a laugh, giving him a fistbump before turning back to the now confused others, "Oh, yes, sorry. Just an inside joke that the two of us have had since we learned about the vast spectrum of human orientations. You know humans and their love of labels. No offense meant towards you, Masha."
"None taken at all. Always happy to see common human culture has infected yet another group of people, but this time in a positive way. And I certainly have no room to judge."
"I must thank you, Gus, for your contribution in my research for the new wing. Humanity is frankly in your wheelhouse and your help was greatly appreciated. And very much so needed. Now, where's Vee? She was extremely helpful, being a full time resident of the human realm while being a demon realm native. Her perspective was instrumental in knowing the levels of explanation an average visitor of the museum would need."
The group looked at each other, confused.
"Did you just get here?" Hunter asked.
"Yes. Steve and I just came to pick up Eda and Raine. Mom and dad scheduled a family day for today after Eda had wrapped up at today's meeting." Lilith paused for a moment, then sighed, "I missed something, didn't I?"
"Vee proposed a plan that would involve finding the basilisks and helping them integrate into society. It got rejected and she didn't take it well." Masha explained.
"It got rejected? Now that's surprising."
"DId you already know about it?" Amity asked.
"Yes. Vee and Tinella came to me to proofread everything. I offered assistance in their research, though Vee said she had it covered."
"Oh. I didn't realize that she went to other people for help with it." Masha said, a slight hint of sadness in their voice.
"I assure you that it was likely just because she wanted it to be a happy surprise. Unfortunately it wasn't happy at all, it seems. I'm quite shocked it wasn't approved. She was quite passionate about the topic. I understand why she'd be so upset."
"You know the opinions people have about basilisks," Eda shrugged, "People are still weary about them. The last encounter most people have had with them was that time a basilisk attacked Hexside all those years ago."
"What happened to your whole buzzkill politics rule?" Lexi laughed as she and Finn came over, "Now, you coming out for drinks? Asclepius is paying."
"I mean, he doesn't know that yet, but he will." Finn added.
"Yeah, gotta decline. Lily, Steve, Raine, and I have a thing with my folks. If anything funny happens, you have to send me a video. We all know how Talia is after any amount of alcohol."
"Will do, Eda. Have fun with your folks." Finn said as he and Lexi walked away.
"That's my cue," Eda shrugged, "Let's go nerds. Hey Raine! Get your cute butt over here so we can leave!"
Raine swiftly came over and they, Eda, Steve, and Lilith waved goodbye and left. Boscha joined back up with the group after finishing talking to her mom.
"Is Lynn doing well?" Amity asked.
"Yeah! Her and mother are both great. She just had to catch up with the rest of the council for their regular post-meeting bar trip."
"Thank you all for bringing me. I had tons of fun." Masha said, "But I should head out. Vee is probs gonna text me soon and I want to be ready to talk right away. See ya!"
They and Gus left, leaving just Hunter, Amity, and Boscha.
"Darius and I were going to do our monthly bonding thing, so I should leave too. Have a good rest of your day." Hunter said as he slowly walked away.
"Just make sure you don't stay out too late. Dad will want to talk with Darius about how the meeting went at some point later tonight." Amity said.
"We won't, don't worry. I still have to get home for dinner with Willow tonight. You two have fun doing whatever you do."
"We will. You have fun with Darius." Boscha said.
They waved goodbye, leaving just Amity and Boscha. Having no real reason to stay anymore, the two left the council building, got on their staffs, and began to fly back to their apartment.
"Willow texted me today." Amity said after they had flown in silence for a few minutes.
"Really? That's nice. Is she doing okay?" Boscha asked curiously.
"Yeah. She wanted to hang out after work tomorrow."
"That's great! It's been awhile since you two have hung out. Work has kept both of you busy. Well, mainly you. She basically gets to choose her schedule, after all."
"You think you can find something to keep you busy?" Amity said jokingly.
"I have a life outside of you, love." Boscha laughed.
"Really? I'm shocked."
They both laughed and talked as they made the rest of the trip home. When they got there, they talked some more, watched TV, and eventually had dinner and went to bed, tired from the day and excited for the next.
Amity's eyes slowly opened as she lay on the cold, stone floor of the base. Her limbs felt heavy as she tried to get up. For a moment she was confused, but everything quickly came rushing back to her. The interrogation, Luz and Belos working together, Hunter and Luz fighting, Luz killing Hunter.
Luz.
She had to find Luz.
She pushed herself up as her body got over the sleep spell. Instead of an exit, there was a massive hole in the wall that led to the atrium of the hideout. Carefully, Amity climbed to the top of the rubble and saw Hunter and Luz, Luz fully transformed into a monster like Belos had back at the Day of Unity, except she was even less human looking than he had looked. She was standing over Hunter menacingly, but then she began to cry.
"Please Hunter, I have to leave before I do anything worse."
Amity felt her blood run cold as Hunter grabbed the two halves of his now broken staff and stabbed one through Luz's stomach. As Luz let out a pained, animalistic scream, he stabbed another through her exposed heart. Instead of fighting, Luz whispered something to Hunter and wiped away the tears now falling down his face. He let go of the pieces of the staff, and Luz stumbled back from being on top of him, standing on all fours. When Hunter turned away, Luz looked around, seeing people from all over the hideout staring at her in fear.
And then Luz turned and locked eyes with Amity.
Then she turned and ran.
Amity leapt off the destroyed wall and ran straight for the entrance. But right before she was able to leave the tower, two things grabbed her. The security golems prevented her from leaving.
"You have to let me go." Amity sobbed, "I have to go to her! LUZ! LUZ PLEASE! I…she can't be gone. LUZ!"
She felt herself weakening, still tired from the sleeping spell and going through the energy she still had fast. The golems dropped her and she fell to the ground. A cold hand touched her shoulder, which Amity turned and saw was just Eda's fake hand.
"We can't just let her go. Eda, please." Amity begged.
"Look Amity, she's too far gone." Eda sighed, sounding like she herself was holding back tears.
"But we can't just let her die. And she has no protection from the Collector even if she didn't die!"
Eda just turned away, looking behind her at Darius and Raine, and nodded. The two raced out the door and towards the woods. Eda stood up and, after rustling up her hair for some silent assurance, left Amity to go with Darius and Raine. To prevent her or anyone else from going too, the fleshy golems blocked the entrance. Amity scooted away from the entrance and turned around, staring down Hunter, who was just frozen in shock, sitting on his knees, looking almost formal.
"How could you do that to her?" Amity weakly asked.
"It's what I would have done to Belos if I had the chance." He said despondently, not even looking her in the eyes, just staring off at nothing.
"But she's not Belos. She's Luz."
Hunter looked at the ground as a single tear fell off his face and onto the floor.
"Is she?"
Amity suddenly awoke, her eyes shooting open and her breathing fast. She was in a cold sweat, and definitely wide awake. She glanced at the time and saw that it wouldn't be long before she was supposed to be up, so there was no point in trying to go back to sleep. She sat up, got out of bed, grabbed her outfit that she had set out last night, and went to take a shower and get ready for the day. When she had gotten her hair and makeup done, making a mental note to herself to re-dye her hair soon, she went downstairs to eat breakfast and make her lunch. When she went to the kitchen, she saw a sticky note on the microwave.
Morning Ami! Couldn't go back to sleep after waking up early so I made you breakfast! I put it in here to keep it warm. Hope you like it! Have a good day at work!
3 Boscha
Amity smiled and opened the microwave, seeing a stack of human pancakes, topped with caramel crab apple slices. She ate the food happily as she scrolled through the news on her scroll and drank a cup of tea with several dashes of smilk. Once she finished, she grabbed her bag, double checked she had everything, slipped on her bracelet, and headed out. She decided to walk to work, even letting Ghost off her staff so they could walk together, since it wasn't too far and it'd be helpful in getting her mind off the dream.
It had been ages since she last dreamt of memories of that day. Sure bits crept in at times, but never like that. Maybe seeing Vee so uncharacteristically mad had reminded her of seeing Luz…like how she was when she ran.
Amity quickly shook those thoughts away and just focused on the world around her. It didn't take too long to finally arrive and she walked down the stone pathway and up the steps of the massive, glorious building. The moment she stepped through the doors, her pathway was immediately blocked.
"Amity! You're here a few minutes later than usual. And for someone normally so punctual? Tsk, tsk, tsk. You're off your game."
Amity scoffed and rolled her eyes as they laughed and stepped out of her way. They walked together down the once intimidating halls for their usual morning small talk, waving to everyone they passed.
"In all seriousness Amity, how are you? I heard about what happened yesterday with your friend."
"Matt, I'm fine. It was a lot, but meetings usually are."
"Up bup bup, we're technically at work."
"Fine, Principal Tholomule," Amity said, voice dripping in sarcasm as she slightly bowed, "Now is there anything else I can do, your honorableness?"
Matt elbowed her and they both laughed.
"I'm glad you're okay Amity. Or, I guess I should say Professor Blight?"
"Just Ms. Blight. You know I'm not a professor. Sure I got that fancy-schmancy degree, but I don't use it."
"Why not? You are such a skilled abomination magic user! The best since your step-dad!"
"Okay you need to be more specific than that. We talking Odalia's husband or Darius?"
"Ew. Darius, obviously. But why do you always refer to him by name?"
"I call Darius Darius and Hunter calls dad Alador. It just feels less weird for us." Amity shrugged, "Now do you have anything important for me or just prying into my personal life? Because we're at the end of the road."
Matt and Amity both stopped in front of a decorated door with Amity's name on it.
"I got nothing. But have fun on that field trip!" Matt said as he slowly walked away backwards.
"When you work with witchlings, you always do. Trust me."
Matt left and Amity opened the door to her classroom and walked inside. Compared to some of the other teachers for the age range Amity taught in, it wasn't nearly as decorated, but it was still nice and cozy. Comfortable so her students could relax, but also organized so they would focus. Even though she had more than enough qualifications to teach much older kids, Amity made the conscious choice to teach children. She didn't want to show teenagers techniques that were massive sources of stress or grade them more harshly because that's what she'd have to do for teenagers. Or worse was the chance at teaching young adults advanced things at specialized secondary schools that had slowly been becoming more and more common over the past few years. It was much more fun to show young kids who only knew the basics more in depth things, and also help guide them through all the possibilities of tracks she could join. Only knowing one type of magic well wasn't an obstacle in the slightest. In fact, it only made things more fun. After a few years of teaching, she had begun to pick up some simple spells from every type of magic. And the great thing about working in a school, if she needed help with a spell she'd need for a later lesson, she could just ask one of the other teachers, and they could come to her for help with abomination spells if they needed it.
Amity got her room set up from the day, put her stuff away, and looked through Penstagram for a while while she waited for the school to officially start. Eventually the bell did ring and Amity put away her scroll, waiting for her students to start coming in. It only took a few minutes for the first one to show. The one who was, while she'd never admit it, was her favorite.
The young witchling walked over to her desk and set a perfectly ripe crabapple on it.
"G'morning miss Blight." They said sweetly.
"Good morning to you too! Thank you for the snack. How was your weekend?" Amity asked, speaking in her teacher voice.
"It was good. We have the trip t'day, right?"
"That's right! We're going up to the Head to see a historical site."
"I'm very e'cited."
"I'm glad you are. Now go on and put up your bag. We still need for everyone else to come before we can do anything, okay?"
"Okay miss Blight!" the student said, practically skipping away to their cubby.
Amity smiled sweetly. Any morning, no matter how bad, was brightened by seeing kids happy. It only got better when the other students began to trail in, significantly more noise coming in with them. The controlled chaos began and Amity got out from behind her desk as she began to corral the kids, getting them to put their stuff away and checking any last minute permission slips from parents. It was always more invigorating than tiring, something she was surprised to find when she started working with kids. Sure she was exhausted at the end of the day, but until then she was more than awake.
"Alright everyone! Once your stuff is put away, get onto your floor spot. When everyone is sitting down we can actually begin." Amity called out over the noise.
It didn't take long before everyone was on their assigned carpet spot, which were just circles of colorful carpet that Amity got instead of desks, thinking it was silly to have kids so young stuck at desks all day. Everyone was excited so even kids that were typically stragglers went quickly. When everyone was settled, they all looked at Amity expectantly, eyes wide.
"Now why in Titan's name are all of you so excited?" Amity said teasingly, leaning back on her desk, "Surely there's nothing special happening today. Why, weren't we just supposed to just learn how to command abominations?"
All the kids began to giggle at their teacher's supposed forgetfulness.
"What? Is there something happening today?" Amity asked.
Several hands shot up, which made Amity smile. They were being much more obedient than normal, actually raising their hands instead of yelling out answers all at once.
"Wow! I really am forgetting something if so many of you know. Could one of you please tell me what I am forgetting?"
"We're going on a field trip, miss Blight!" A student excitedly said.
"Ohhhh, that's right! Does anyone remember where we're going?"
"To the north end of the Isles!" Another student said.
"And what are we doing there?"
"History!" Half the class called out.
"Correct! Now everyone come close." Amity said, going to the middle of the room and drawing a large spell circle on the floor, "Come on, squeeze in. Don't be a stranger, you've known each other for at least a few months."
Once all the students were inside the circle, Amity closed her eyes and focused, picturing in her mind where they were going, how many of them were going there, and where exactly they'd appear. She focused on her breathing, almost completely tuning out all the commotion around her.
If they were going somewhere closer, they wouldn't be doing this, but it was far enough away that it'd make more sense to use the quick way.
Amity's eyes opened just enough to make sure everyone was completely inside the spell circle, and also enough for all the students to see that her irises were now glowing magenta. She took one last breath, then a swirl of abomination goo surrounded all of them completely. And in an instant, the goo went away and they were all at the northernmost part of the Titan, a sign reading "Titan Head Historical Site".
"Okay, is everyone here?" Amity asked, out of breath and eyes normal again, "Nobody lost any fingers or toes?"
All the students giggled at the question, even though Amity had been serious, but that was enough of a sign that everything was fine. Amity was powerful, sure, and she had trained with both her father and Darius, but teleportation was still hard, especially considering the distance and number of kids. When she had recovered enough from the spell, she walked to the front of the group and gestured for them all to follow her. They walked through the entry archway, and began down the dirt path with pale stones.
"This place used to be the location of the Titan's skull," Amity began, "But as you can see, that is no longer the case. When the Collector came, they constructed a massive version of Councilor Edalyn Clawthorne's house, also known as the Owl House. He and King Clawthorne stayed there for the months following the Day of Unity. It was ever growing, worked as a base of operations for the Collector, a place to hold all of those captured by the Titan Trappers, was mobile with the ability to turn invisible, and was built out of mostly chunks of the Titan's skull. We know so much thanks to two primary sources, King, who was referred to the Collector as their best friend but was actually just a prisoner, and Councilor Lynn Sheth, who was captured and taken prisoner.
"A few months before the Collector's defeat, King was freed by Luz Noceda and Hunter Park. Lynn was there for the Collector's defeat, and the disassembly of their base. Because of the destruction of the skull and later the house, this area has gone under many changes. One of the earliest decisions that were made after the council was established was rulings on what to do with this place. It was decided that the ring of rubble would be preserved, while everything else could be used for public property. Examples include the statue honoring Luz Noceda, and also the stones we're walking on right now. The Endangered Demons Protection Association took some large pieces to rebuild the population of strange semi-immortal bug demons called Titan Worms, and trust me when I say you don't want to know. I once knew one, and suffice it to say we didn't get along."
By the end of Amity's explanation, the class had arrived at the rubble ring, the massive statue of Luz in the center grabbing the attention of all the students, and Amity. As she looked at it, she felt a slight chill go down her spine. She felt like she couldn't look away from it. Like if she just stared long enough, Luz would walk out from behind it, run over, and pull her into an embrace.
Luz would probably be apologizing profusely for being gone so long without a word. Maybe she'd say that while she did lose an arm fighting the Selkidomus, she wasn't eaten. The Collector was really gone, but she was there. She had just been stuck on another island. Amity would explain what's going on, and eventually admit to moving on from her and getting in a relationship with Boscha. Luz would be surprised and disappointed, but understanding and happy she found someone else while she was gone. And while sure, her murder of Salty would be bad, but Luz would explain that that was Belos forcing her to do that, and that she had no control over herself which would absolve the crime. All the students would love her. They'd ask questions about the robotic arm she had gotten to replace her missing one. When she got brought into the city, everyone would be overjoyed to see her alive. Hunter, Eda, and King especially. Vee and Masha would be excited and would be able to text Camila. Gus would handle Luz living in both realms, as she'd probably want. Things between her and Boscha would be awkward at first, but they would get along. Even Willow would realize that her anger at Luz was just about Luz leaving them, not Luz herself, and after some talking they'd be close again.
Everything would be normal again.
Everything could be okay again.
Amity could be okay again.
"Miss Amity!" One of the kids said, snapping Amity back to reality, "Can we go check out the statue?"
"Oh, uh, of course! This is supposed to be a history lesson after all. Now go on in everyone. You can look around but don't touch anything. And yes, that does mean you can't steal any rocks."
Amity and her class walked through the archway that acted as the entrance to the ring of rubble. She tried to just focus on the kids and not look at the statue. It had been years since she'd last visited. She used to come every day, but as time passed she went less and less until she just stopped going entirely. Even though it was just a statue, it still felt awkward.
After a while of the kids looking around, one of her younger students walked over to her.
"Miss Blight, I can't tell what the statue says." They said softly.
"That's okay, I can read it to you." Amity said sweetly, leading the kid over to the plaque on the statue and kneeling in front of it, "It says 'Luz Noceda, the human witch. Daughter, Friend, Girlfriend. She alone defeated the Collector in this very place. May her wild spirit live on as she's gone. 2008~2023.'"
"Did you know her?" One of the other kids asked.
Amity turned and saw that the whole class had gathered around her and were looking at her closely.
"Yes, I did. I actually dated her." Amity chuckled.
"Woah. How did you two meet?" A kid said with a gasp.
"Hey now, we're here to learn history, not about my past relationship."
"Then can you tell us about just Luz? That's history. And it should be okay because we're at a place she got a statue! It totally fits the lesson."
A few other students agreed, making Amity sigh with a smile. As much as this was something she never thought she'd have to talk about again, it would fit the lesson like they said. And besides, it might be nice to go over the whole story after so long.
"Alright, alright. I'll tell you about Luz. And if you have any questions, feel free to ask. This is purely educational after all."
Amity sat on the base of the statue as all the kids sat down in the grass, all eagerly awaiting her story. It was going to be awkward, sure, but she just had to keep in mind that this was just a rough summary, not her life story or anything personal. She just had to disconnect herself from the tale. Because it was just a historical tale, nothing else.
Easy.
"12 years ago, the human Luz Noceda ran from her home, the town of Gravesfield, Connecticut, through a portal door owned by the fugitive Eda the Owl Lady to get away from going to a camp that was meant to mold young humans that were considered too eccentric or weird into being what they considered normal. After proving her worth, Eda agreed to let Luz stay and learn magic, free of responsibility, in exchange for helping her and her pet/roommate King, the self proclaimed King of Demons. Even without a bile sack, she succeeded in her hopes of learning magic by finding something given straight from the Isles themself, glyphs. Small symbols that, when drawn, could replicate the four basic elements and, when combined properly, could theoretically replicate any spell. During her stay here, she befriended Willow Park and Gus Porter. And much to my chagrin, eventually she befriended me. And I fell in love.
"She did many things in her time in this realm. She got Hexside to start doing multi-tracks, she fought Grometheus, and with my help defeated him, she took on the evil human Belos, stopped him from getting the portal door by destroying it, stopped Eda from being petrified, brought together Eda and her sister Lilith and helped them make up, bonded with the infamous Golden Guard, asked me out, went back in time, helped get me to make up with my dad, saved King from Titan Trappers and revealed to him that he was a Titan, carved palistrom wood she got from Eda into an egg so it could choose what to be, and she even got Gus to use illusions so she would get captured and brought to Belos in place of Hunter when Belos' old stooge Kikimora came for him. The day of unity happened and, unfortunately, her, me, Gus, Amity, and Hunter got trapped in the human realm when we fled from the Collector through the portal door Belos reassembled."
"And she did all of this with no natural magic?" A student asked.
"Yep! All she had was glyphs and an egg made out of palistrom wood. Now, we spent months in the human realm. And she never stopped searching for a way home. And after a little over 7 months, we found Titan's Blood. Everything was going great, except the fact that Luz seemed to have hallucinated doing magic even while in the human realm, where there would be no titan magic for the glyphs to draw power from. When we went back, we reunited with Eda. And I should say, from here on out there are lots of things I wasn't there for and just heard about. Anyways, Eda took us to a hideout of survivors, but that night Hunter and Luz snuck out, saved King from the Collector and, surprising to everyone, did magic with no glyphs. A fire spell done with a spell circle. Apparently, according to some healers, she had developed a bile sack after using glyphs for so long. For a while, she trained with Hunter and Eda in secret. She also trained with someone that none of us knew about. The curse ridded, gooey remains of the thought to be dead Belos."
"How could she train with a dead human?" One of the students asked.
"We don't know for sure, but our guess is that because he was in his cursed form when he was…destroyed by the Collector, he was able to make it out okay. Now, for over a month, she trained with them. She also figured out how to remove sigils, and even got me to talk to my mother, who had been comatose after attempting to stop the effects of the day of unity. She found Boscha and Ann Sheth in Bonesborough on a scouting mission, and ended up fighting some cultists, aka Titan Trappers, in the process. Over time she slowly became more tired, irritable, and isolated. She canceled dates, got aggressive in training with Hunter, and kept getting hurt from training with Belos, letting his curse infect her more and more to heal the injuries he caused. When one of the cultists she fought and nearly killed came to the hideout, everyone found out she tried to kill him and he saw her as a god because of that. And when he threatened me, she attacked. And in the process, blasted me with her fire in an attempt to attack the cultist."
Amity went silent and fidgeted with the bracelet nervously. It had been a long time since she talked about that. Luz leaving, sure, she talked about. But not when Luz attacked her. Even though it was by accident, it still hurt. As did the fact that Boscha was the only one who could snap her out of her almost bloodthirsty rage. Even after being with Boscha for so long, she hadn't forgotten that fact. Boscha knew and, thank Titan, didn't hold it against her.
"The first spell she did as a true witch when she fought the Collector that revealed her magic to herself was the spell that revealed her magic to everyone." Amity continued softly, pausing again but quickly recovering so she wouldn't start getting too emotional in front of the whole class, "We knocked her out and gave her a babble serum. We learned more than we wanted. She nearly petrified us all. And then she…hurt Hunter. Badly. And Hunter came back and reciprocated the gesture. She ran away before we were able to see what happened to her afterwards, but we all presumed she was gone. And around 3 weeks later, the Collector was defeated and sealed away. Their base was reduced to this, everyone was free, and Luz was gone. When the freed people were found, perfectly safe thanks to the Trappers fleeing, Lynn Sheth gave Eda some letters that Luz had written. Luz told us a lot through those. Including that Belos was finally dead, which based on how friendly they had gotten while he was teaching her, likely hurt her a lot more than it did everyone else. And two months later she died in a fight with a Selkidomus, only her arm and the shattered disk of the Collector remaining."
"Are you okay miss Amity?" A student asked, getting Amity out of the zone and refocusing her.
It was then Amity realized she had almost forgotten she was talking to her students for that last part and wiped away a tear that had been rolling down her cheek that she just then noticed.
"Yes, of course, don't worry. Anyways, that's the story of Luz the Human. Now that ran longer than I thought it would. We're about out of time. Now, can everyone go gather near the entrance? I just need to do a quick check to make sure nobody dropped anything or messed anything up by accident."
The kids all raced off and Amity got off the base of the statue. She scanned the ground, but thankfully didn't see anything. However, as she was about to walk away, Amity heard a strange yet familiar laughter coming from behind her. She looked around, seeing nothing. Then her eyes locked on the statue again, its eyes feeling like they were staring into her soul. Cautiously, Amity walked towards the statue, thinking one of the kids was trying to hide and stay behind. Amity walked closer, the laughing getting louder and louder. But, when she stepped behind the statue, it stopped. And there was nothing there. Amity breathed a sigh of relief, chalking it up to just hearing things. When Luz had first gone, she heard things and saw things all the time, mainly Luz's voice and Luz herself, but both were always off slightly. She must have just been hearing things again thanks to talking about Luz so much.
Then a chill ran up her spine.
"Hey Amity." A familiar voice whispered right next to her ear.
Amity spun around and saw herself face to face with Luz, except she was in her fully transformed, monstrous, cursed form, yet somehow more terrifying than it had been all those years ago when she saw it last. She cocked her head to the side and gave Amity a teethy smile.
"You miss me?"
Amity screamed and fell back in fear and shock, kicking up a cloud of bone dust from the grass. Amity began coughing and her vision was blurred. When it cleared, there was nothing there.
As fast as she could, Amity got up and raced out of there. She got to the entrance and saw all the kids obediently standing and talking there. After a quick head count, Amity drew a spell circle on the ground, gathered all the kids inside it, and after one final check, she teleported them all back to the classroom. In her stress, she missed slightly and ended up teleporting them to the school entrance. Thankfully that wasn't a problem as the bell rang and the kids rushed inside for lunch. Once they were all inside, Amity practically fell onto the steps of the entrance, exhausted, confused, and still a little scared.
"Rough trip?" Matt asked with a chuckle, having been at the entrance already.
He sat down next to her and she looked at him, his joking expression dropping instantly when he saw her face.
"Yeah." Amity said flatly, "It was."