Amity set her laptop up in the Nocedas' basement, and held Luz's hand as she made the video call. After a few seconds, a blonde woman appeared on the screen.
"Hey Am."
"Hi Sash. Thanks for agreeing to this. There's someone here I'd like you to meet."
Luz waved at the screen tentatively. "Hi, I'm Luz. It's nice to meet you, Dr. Waybright."
"The Luz Noceda. Nice to finally meet you. And please, you're an old friend of Anne's. Call me Sasha. Besides, I'm still working on the doctorate."
"I take it Amity's been talking about me?" Luz asked nervously.
Sasha glanced over at Amity, who blushed, but gave her a nod. "Quite a bit. Don't worry, tho. I can't say too much, but even after your split, she still thought the world of you. Congrats on getting back together, by the way." The renewed couple smiled and blushed as Sasha leaned back in her chair holding a tablet. "Now, let's get things started. Luz, I already have a lot of details from Amity, but now I'd like to hear your perspective on what you've been through. Start at the beginning."
Amity squeezed her girlfriend's hand as Luz took a deep breath. "Okay. You probably know by now Amity's not from around here."
"She and Anne already filled me in on that, yeah. The ears kinda give it away."
"Well, we didn't get off to a great start. I watched her bullying our friend Willow over how bad she was at making Abominations...Giant sludge monsters controlled by magic."
"Amity gave me a demonstration once. Not the grossest thing I've ever seen. Pretty cool, actually. Go on."
"Willow and I started talking, and I offered to be her Abomination to help her get a good grade and show Amity up. Plus, I was curious about magic school and wanted to see it for myself. Amity caught onto us pretty quickly, and called in the Principal to have me dissected."
"But, obviously, you escaped."
"Yeah. I wouldn't see Amity again until the annual Covention. Witches were indoctrinated to join Covens or be labeled criminals and face punishment. Willow and our other friend Gus convinced me to check it out and we dragged my mentor...Eda...along with us." Luz drooped when mentioning the Owl Lady.
"I take it Eda was important to you?" Sasha asked.
"Yeah," Luz said, wiping away some stray tears. "While I was in the Demon Realm, she was like a mother to me. More about her later. So, anyway, I was wandering the convention hall with her...demon son...King..." Luz sniffled and wiped a few more tears away. Amity gave her hand a supportive squeeze. Luz took another deep breath and continued. "...when I bumped into Amity. She was still bitter about the Abomination incident, and got even madder when I said I was learning magic. I could understand her being mad at me, but when King tripped and dropped his cupcake, she spitefully stepped on it."
Sasha looked at Amity quizzically. "You never told me that part of the story."
Amity lowered her head. "I'm not proud of that. You already know I wasn't the nicest person at that age, and what it's like to change for someone who's important to you."
"Well, you got me there. Luz?"
"So, in order to defend King's honor, I challenged her to a Witch's Duel."
"And could you even do magic yet?"
"I could make light, but...that's about it. If Amity's told you anything about me, you probably know I'm a bit impulsive."
"She has."
"Well, long story short, Eda set up traps in the arena so that maybe I had a chance of winning, but it got exposed, so I lost...but then, she found an enhancement glyph on Amity's neck that her mentor placed there, which amplified her Abomination magic. It was embarrassing for the both of us, but..."
"I was mortified," Amity chimed in, "but it lead to our first real moment of understanding. You were saying, sweetie?"
"She ran out of the arena. I found her crying in the corner, and after she yelled at me, I showed her my light spell. I guess it impressed her enough to release me from the terms of our duel. The next time we really interacted was a couple weeks later at the library. I saw her reading to kids and looking happy doing it. I'd never seen that side of her before, and it made me want to get to know her...but I hadn't made a great first impression either, so she wanted nothing to do with me. Her siblings on the other hand..." Luz turned to Amity, who started to droop just as she had. "Are you okay with me talking about them?"
"It's okay. Sasha and I have been through this before."
"Well, they seemed cool, if a little mischievous, and they took an interest in me." Luz blushed and twirled her hair. For her own sake, Amity decided not to ask why. "So we hung out and pulled some pranks until Amity got us kicked out...but we snuck back in for the Wailing Star meteor that night. Open a book and the contents would come to life! It was incredible!...until I discovered they also wanted to steal Amity's diary and spread it around school."
"And when you tried to stop them, I walked back in at the wrong moment, and my opinion of you sank even lower."
"The diary pages got spread out on the floor. I was just trying to pick them up. She took it back and stormed off, and I went to find her and apologize. Unfortunately, one of the books the twins vandalized had opened up, so a bunny monster captured Amity and tried to sew her into a book. My attempt to rescue her didn't go well, but we did manage to escape together, and I got her to laugh."
Sasha smiled and turned to Amity. The witch grinned back, but shook her head and put an index finger on her lips.
"So that's when you two became friends...but you wouldn't falling in love until later?"
"Right. We had a couple more adventures together before anything romantic happened. I learned ice magic, enrolled at Hexside, saved our friend Willow's mind after-..."
Again, Luz looked over at Amity. The witch wasn't sure what to say. She had discussed this incident with Sasha, but wasn't eager to relive it...except for perhaps that hug Luz gave her. It was at that moment she knew she was in love. Fortunately, her girlfriend got the message.
"-...an accident in the memory photo lab. Then, it was Grom season. It's like Prom, except-..."
"Some poor young witch has to fight a fear monster," Sasha interjected. "This was a turning point for you two, wasn't it?"
"Well, it was special. Amity was too afraid of getting rejected by whoever she wanted to ask out to face Grom herself...Spoiler alert: It was me."
"But you didn't know that."
"I had no idea. The thought that she might be never crossed my mind. How could someone as smart, cool, and classy as her be interested in someone like me?"
Amity frowned. "You always do this to yourself. You're an amazing person, Luz."
"Why do you always sell yourself so short?" asked Sasha.
"Well, growing up in Gravesfield, other kids always treated me like a freak. I was hyper, interested in things most other kids weren't. And every time I crushed on a boy or girl, it...didn't end well. I got stood up, laughed at, humiliated...the kind of things Boscha would do to Willow and Gus all the time. I never wanted anyone else to be shamed the same way I was...but I never really shook this idea that maybe those other kids were right about me, that I'm every bit the freak they treat me as. It's another reason why the Demon Realm felt more like home than Gravesfield ever had."
"I think we're getting somewhere. Now, let's get back to the story."
"Amity was supposed to fight Grom, but I stepped up to spare her the embarrassment. I did okay, until I came face to face with my Mom."
"I've heard a few stories about your Mom, and she sounds awesome. Why was she your fear?"
"It wasn't my mom I was afraid of, but her finding out where I'd been...that I'd never gone to that camp...that I could never be the kind of daughter she wanted me to be. I didn't have nearly as much to worry about as I thought, but that last point has never gone away completely. It was one fear I couldn't face, but Amity stepped in, and we defeated Grom together."
Amity couldn't help but get nostalgic at the memory. She let out a sigh, and caught Luz looking over at her with a smile. When the witch smiled back, Luz caught herself, cleared her throat and continued.
"So after Amity hurt her leg in a game of grudgby...I can't even begin to describe the sport...Eda's curse started getting worse. Long story short, her sister bound her to an Owl Beast that she'd transform into under stress without an elixir. It also messed with her magic. I was worried she'd be stuck as the Owl Beast forever pretty soon, so when I discovered a relic that could heal any curse, I infiltrated the Emperor's Castle to steal it...but I got caught, Eda had to save me and used up the last of her magic, which got her captured. That was my fault. And even after her sister pulled a heel-face turn to help us, she had to split the curse and they were both rendered powerless...all because of me."
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there to help you," said Amity.
"And to top it all off, I gave up my only way home, and would spend the next couple months trying to find one."
"Plus, you nearly got expelled from Hexside."
"Right. I assume Amity's told you about her own mom by now?" Luz asked, turning to Sasha. Amity gave her a nod.
"Yep. If she wasn't pining for her lost love, she was complaining about her awful mother."
"So," Luz continued, "Amity's parents had some pull at Hexside, and got me expelled, along with Willow and Gus. They didn't deserve that, so I talked to Odalia and agree to help them in their weapons demonstration. Little did I know I'd be going up against a prototype Abomination robot. It probably would have killed me and she was likely hoping it would have...but then Amity swooped in for the save and backed me up. It was beautiful." It was Luz's turn to sigh from nostalgia, and it did not go unnoticed by the other women.
"I suppose it's safe to say this was when you fell for Amity," said Sasha.
Luz nodded, "At least, that's when I knew how I felt. If it happened earlier, I was just as clueless about my own feeling as hers." She looked apologetically over at Amity before getting back on track. "I started spending a little more time around her in between classes, even walking her home from the library...but still determined to find a new way home. Eda's mom hinted that there was not only a substance called Titan's Blood that could open a door between realms, but that another human came to the Boiling Isles centuries ago. When I discovered he'd donated his journal to the library where Amity worked, I asked for her help. Unfortunately, this got her fired, and she was so upset that it sounded like she didn't want to be my friend anymore."
"That's not what I said," Amity interjected, "but I can see how you might have thought that."
"So as she went home in tears, I went back in and apologized to the librarian myself. To make it up to the both of them, I underwent some really difficult trials: organizing monster books, taming a paper dragon...got pretty banged up but it was worth it to get Amity's job back. I even managed to get the diary...sort of. A mouse that ate books and could play back the contents like a movie. Really cool, honestly. And then, after all that..." Amity gave her a kiss on the cheek just as Luz was about to trail off into revery.
"She kissed you for the first time," said Sasha, already familiar with Amity's side of the story.
"Yeah, but it was the left cheek," Luz said, pointing to the correct one. Amity laughed a little and kissed it too.
"But you didn't get together right away. Amity's 5 seconds of courage ran out, and she retreated."
"Pretty much. She started avoiding me at school, and I could never get ahold of her. She wasn't at school when everyone but me got a Palisman, or when King and I entered the Gland Prix."
"I was too embarrassed to talk to you," interjected Amity. "I wasn't sure you liked me back, and was hoping we could forget the whole thing. Once I saw you returning to the Owl House with Eda, and just dove into the woods before you could spot me."
"And all the while, I was trying to build up enough courage to ask you out." Luz went back to addressing Sasha, "Like I said, bad luck with crushes in human school. I was so scared of being made fun of and rejected, that I wanted to make sure I did it in the best way."
"And that's why you were so embarrassed by that Tunnel of Love incident?"
"Yeah," Luz bowed her head in shame. "Plus, she'd already told me she wanted to forget about the kiss, so I didn't realize she was into it. We could have just enjoyed that boat ride together, but instead it...looked like I was rejecting her, just like she feared. But, we sorted it out." Amity squeezed Luz's hand, and her spirits seemed to lift.
"That might be the most interesting 'how we got together' story I've ever heard," said Sasha.
"And after that, we were practically joined at the hip...but then I had the chance to talk with my mom, and we had to face the possibility that I couldn't stay with her. She was so understanding about the whole thing, and we just decided to take it one day at a time. Somehow, Amity could always tell something was bothering me, no matter how much I tried to keep it to myself."
"Why do you keep it to yourself? You have this awesome girlfriend, amazing mom, and a pretty rad group of friends from what I've heard. They'd drop everything to help you, so why not let them?"
Amity turned her eyes towards Luz, and waited patiently for her answer.
"They all have their own problems to deal with. A lot of them were my fault to begin with. I don't want to burden them any more than I already have."
Amity gave Luz's hand another squeeze, and gently turned her head so their eyes met. "You're not a burden, sweetie. You're the light of my life. Luz de mi vida. We're going to make this work, so don't be afraid to let me help you the way you always went above and beyond for me."
Luz smiled and wiped some tears from her eyes. "That's why we're all here, right?" She turned back to Sasha. "And coincidentally, this is where things start getting ugly. The diary we found? Turns out the human it belonged to was actually the evil Emperor all along."
"But you had no way of knowing that," said Sasha.
"I should have...and after some time magic shenanigans, I went back hundreds of years, showed him the only glyph he hadn't found yet, and helped him meet the Collector...a magical alien with the power of a god but the mind and body of a child. And to make matters worse, Emperor Belos was a witch hunter. He didn't just want to return to the Human Realm and take over the world..."
"Of course," Sasha interrupted. "That's what I'd assume he'd be after, but I'm speaking from my own personal experience, not yours."
"He'd devised a Draining Spell. Every witch on the Boiling Isles had been branded with a Coven sigil that not only restricted their magic...but would drain their magic and life force during an eclipse ritual he called the Day of Unity. We were powerless to stop any of it. The only reason anyone might have survived was King making a deal with the Collector. He let them out and they were the one to end the eclipse and save all the branded witches."
"But that wasn't the end of it."
"With the Draining Spell averted and Belos seemingly killed, the Collector proceeded to warp the very Titan we were standing on. We couldn't go back the way we came, so we retreated through the portal Belos had waiting. King made sure we got through along with our friends, but..." Luz didn't bother fighting the tears as they came pouring out. "we never saw him, Eda, or anyone from the Demon Realm ever again."
Amity threw her arms around Luz and she folded into her girlfriend. Sasha waited a moment for Luz to regain her composure. "Do you think any of them are still out there?"
As her crying ceased, Luz gazed up at Amity, took some deep breaths, and then averted her gaze from both women. "I might have, if not for Belos. It turns out he made it back to Gravesfield with us. We had no idea until two months later on Halloween night, when he possessed Hunter...his clone nephew and now my adopted brother...and he managed to find a small vial of Titan's Blood hidden in a submerged cemetery. Once he had what he needed, he smashed the vial, created a portal...and it closed the moment he stepped through. My friends didn't have the chance to chase after him."
"Just your friends? Were you not going with them?"
Amity looked at Luz sadly. This was something Luz had come clean about before their breakup.
"The night before all that went down, I'd already decided to keep the promise I made to my mom and stay in the Human Realm permanently. I gave Belos what he needed to become Emperor. I helped him meet the Collector. I couldn't stop him on the Day of Unity or Halloween. I couldn't save Eda, King, or anyone else my friends and I cared about. If there were any survivors, Belos has probably wiped them all out by now. Even if there was anyone...or anything to go back to, I don't deserve to be there."
"But you were still determined to find a way back, even if you couldn't stay there?"
"It was the only thing keeping me going. It was my fault they were stuck here, and I needed to believe their friends and families were still alive waiting for them. Having Amity with me helped for a while, but her heart wasn't in it. We went to Gravity Falls in Oregon, we went to Los Angeles where we ran into Anne again, and we tried all sorts of other places where weird stuff was known to happen. Not a single lead. Amity had enough by the time we got to Florida."
The witch bit her lip but kept quiet. No matter how much she talked to Sasha, Willow, Anne, Camila, or anyone else about that day, she never quite got over it. Reliving this moment was going to be difficult for the both of them.
"She begged me to stop. Give up these snipe hunts and let her have some sort of stability... She asked me to marry her...to settle down somewhere instead of going on all these pointless trips. I couldn't accept it..." Luz lifted her head and looked towards Amity, "but I wish I had."
"And that was when you two broke up?" asked Sasha, crying a little herself.
"Officially," said Luz. "We took one last road trip back to our shared residence, making the most of what little time together we had left. There wasn't a lot of talking, just a lot of quiet, longing, and sometimes intimate moments until it was time for her to pack up and leave. We agreed to stay friends and keep in touch...but outside of checking in on occasion, I barely said a word to her if another of our friends wasn't in the chat with us. It just hurt too much, and I didn't want to fool myself into thinking she actually still wanted to talk to me after what I did. So I spent the next five years on my own, exhausting every possible sighting and strange occurrence until last week, when I arrived in Hawkins, Indiana. There were all sorts of stories about psychic powers and grotesque monsters from another world. Unfortunately, most everyone involved had either died, moved away, or didn't want to answer my questions. I eventually was able to sit down with a nice married couple, Mike and Jane Wheeler, and they told me everything I needed to know...but nothing I wanted to hear."
"So," Sasha sat forward, listening intently, "that was the last straw for you?"
"The tower of false hope I'd built up all these years came crashing down on me. I'd wasted so much time on something truly impossible, pushing away my family, my friends, and my soulmate. There was only one thing left I could do to atone for all my mistakes, but I had to speak with Amity first and apologize for everything. I never in a million years thought she'd still love me, much less want me back...and I certainly didn't expect her to save my life."