[Summary: Vee escapes to the Human Realm and takes the form of Luz Noceda, unknowingly getting herself shipped off to Reality Check Summer Camp in her place. When her peers describe the camp as a prison, she panics and tries to escape, only to be caught by the camp's eccentric manager, who seems to have her own experience with running from her problems.]
"Luz? Where are you?"
Number Five panicked. Clearly the abandoned house wasn't too far from a human settlement. She had hoped that she could duck out into the woods for a while and figure out where to go from there, but evidently deciding to cross into another dimension came with incredibly fast-acting consequences. She had so many questions, none of which she had the luxury to ponder at the moment. She had to transform into a human quickly if she wanted to avoid detection, and unfortunately, she'd only seen the one. Was "Luz" the name of that human girl back in the Isles?
"Well, it better be, or else I'm screwed!" Number Five thought to herself as she hastily shifted into her form just in time for a taller, darker-skinned woman with glasses - Luz's caretaker, she assumed - to come out of the trees calling "her" name. Number Five took a deep breath as she prepared herself. If she messed up even once, she was as good as dead.
"Hahaha, hello, fellow human!" she said nervously, hoping like heck that she got the voice right. She'd only heard a brief snippet of it as she was making her escape, but from what little she had seen, this "Luz" girl seemed to be incredibly theatrical and prone to saying odd things. Taking that limited advice into consideration, Number Five fumbled a bit. "Um...skin's sure weird!" she added awkwardly, pulling at her arm for emphasis while silently dreading what she was certain would be the older woman's inevitable recognition of the otherworldly monster that she really was. When no such recognition came, however, she was...perplexed, to say the least, particularly when the older woman chuckled in response to her "daughter's" strange attempt at a joke.
"Very funny," the older woman said, walking towards her as Number Five resisted the urge to bolt and run back into the abandoned house. "But I was thinking...instead of taking the bus to camp, why don't we drive?" she asked, only raising more questions in Number Five's mind. "I got the day off of work, and you'll have full control of the playlist," she added with a smile, one so full of love that Number Five couldn't help but smile back at her.
A part of her knew she shouldn't get too attached: this wasn't her caretaker, she wasn't this woman's daughter, and this wasn't even her dimension. And yet, as the older woman guided her back to her weird mechanical carriage and got them on the road to this "Reality Check" camp she was apparently supposed to go to, Number Five couldn't help but sigh happily.
She had made the right decision.
Luz Noceda. That was her name, now.
Being based out of some middle-of-nowhere town in a place called "New Jersey," the drive from "Connecticut" to the camp was going to take hours according to Luz's mother - Camila Noceda, said the name tag neatly pinned to her veterinarian scrubs. As such, Number Five had a lot of time to figure out everything she had to know to not only survive in the Human Realm, but successfully imitate Luz Noceda well enough so that the girl's mother wouldn't get suspicious before she got to camp. Once there, she reasoned, she'd be free to carve out more of an identity for herself, and could easily slip away into the woods if anything went wrong. It wasn't exactly the most airtight plan, but she'd gotten pretty good at improvising since...since…
Number Five shook her head. Now wasn't the time to think about that.
Instead, she could better occupy herself by reviewing what she needed to know. That was far easier to focus on than thinking back to her time in that horrible place. Thus, while she was in the middle of ravenously wolfing down Camila's leftover "chili fries" after they had stopped at a Burger Queen to eat, she constructed a mental list of everything that she had learned so far:
Reality Check Summer Camp was a three month summer camp designed to help humans rein in more chaotic impulses and become contributing members of society. Luz Noceda had apparently gotten into a lot of trouble during the previous school year, thereby necessitating her being sent to this camp. Among the incidents that Camila jokingly alluded to over the course of the car ride were: Luz using violent snakes and fireworks in a book report; Luz adding anatomically correct spider breath to a griffin model (how a human girl had known about that was a separate issue); and Luz doing some weird trick with her eyes at cheer tryouts that Number Five couldn't duplicate.
The metal carriage they were traveling in was called a "car," and there were untold millions of them, each one serving as an incredibly fast vehicle that humans used to travel everywhere in spite of the fact that the exhaust they generated was slowly making life unlivable.
A "playlist" was a collection of songs stored on a "phone," a strange human device that could be used to communicate with each other over long distances, among a wide array of other increasingly superfluous functions. She mostly just used it to play a playlist of surprisingly catchy music called "merengue." She would've thought it was magical in nature if not for the fact that she couldn't sense any magic within it, leading into the next point:
The Human Realm is completely magically inert. Unlike the Boiling Isles, magic did not suffuse the environment nor the inhabitants, leaving Vee wholly dependent on conventional food sources to stay alive. Not much of a problem for her, though, considering that:
Human food was delicious, not to mention so absolutely chock full of unnecessary calories that Number Five would never have to worry about going hungry ever again!
As she polished off the final "chili fry," Number Five coughed slightly while Camila came back from the restroom with a slightly woozy expression.
"Oof, I think me and chili fries are going to have to spend some time apart," she quipped as she held her stomach, causing Number Five to chuckle. "You ready to go, mija? We've only got another hour left before we get to camp, so if we hurry, I can get back home by nightfall. That sound good?" As Number Five looked at the older woman for a moment, she couldn't help but smile. She had no idea why Luz ran away to the Boiling Isles of all places, not when she had a kind, caring, and hilarious mother who clearly loved her more than anything else in the world right here.
A part of her thought that she may very well get used to this.
"Coming, mamá!" she said happily, getting up off of the table and following Camila out of the fast food restaurant and back into the parking lot. No sooner had they gotten to Camila's car than Number Five spotted a curious detail she hadn't noticed before: a custom bumper sticker depicting a green haired version of Luz wearing a white witch's cap and robe while holding a staff aglow with magical power. Although Number Five was briefly perplexed by the sticker and what it represented, Camila was taken aback for a moment before smiling softly.
"You know, I still maintain that this is some of your best work," she said before a melancholy expression came over her and she gave voice to a question she had been unwilling to ask until now. "Say, mija, you...you still have that old Azura book, don't you? The one I saw you put in the trash can outside the house? You...you went back for it before we left, right?"
At this, Number Five found herself thrown for a loop. What was an "Azura book," and why did Camila care what she had done with it? It must have been something Luz liked, but then why would she have thrown it away before she came to the Boiling Isles? Maybe because Camila didn't like it, or because Camila thought it was symptomatic of Luz's problems? But then, why would Camila then be asking about it like it was something she still wanted Luz to have? Believing she had only a few seconds to think of an answer before Camila would start to get suspicious, Number Five decided on what she saw as the safest bet she could make.
"No," she said simply. "It's still in the trash can." At this, Camila's heart sank.
"Oh, I...I see," she replied, wondering what she had done to make Luz think she wanted her to give up the things that she cared about. Desperate to make things right, Camila attempted to apologize, only for Number Five to cut her off. "Mija, I-"
"It's alright. That's...that's where it belongs, right?" Number Five replied, seeking to try and get some kind of confirmation that she had made the right call. Judging by the way Camila's face fell at her "daughter's" words, she hadn't. Wanting to get things back on track before she could mess things up any further, she quickly adopted a cheery expression. "Come on, let's get back on the road!" she said before quickly getting into the passenger seat, leaving Camila to simply stand there...
Heartbroken.
Before long, they were in the small dirt parking lot of Reality Check Summer Camp, and Camila was giving "Luz" one last goodbye before leaving her on her own for three months.
"I know you forgot your phone, but don't forget to keep in touch while you're gone, alright mija?" Camila said as she handed her some replacement clothes that she had purchased for Number Five while on the road after realizing "Luz" had "forgotten" everything they'd packed. "Make sure you listen to the counselors, don't get separated from the other campers, and remember: while you're here, no schemes, no plots, no ruses...and no shenanigans. Got it?"
"Got it," Number Five replied on cue, not quite sure where that warning was coming from. Camila paused for a moment before suddenly wrapping her up in a hug. Having no prior concept of what a hug was, she panicked for a moment before realizing how...nice it felt.
"I love you, cariño," she whispered solemnly. "Nothing will ever change that, okay?"
"Okay," Number Five replied automatically as Camila broke away from the hug, a vague feeling of guilt eating away at her until Camila waved goodbye from the car one final time before driving off towards Connecticut. Towards home.
Luz's home.
But Number Five was not Luz, even though she had to borrow her form for a while. And although that guilty feeling was still there, Number Five elected to ignore it in favor of meeting up with the other campers as they were corralled around for cabin assignments inside the camp gates.
"Hey, fellow humans!" she said much more confidently than the first time, thinking perhaps that a bit of oddball humor might endear her to these people. Unfortunately, all it got her was a bunch of blank stares, so she tried again. "You, uh, you guys excited to learn about...taxes?" she said more hesitantly, to which the other kids mostly groaned as Number Five was left cringing in embarrassment at how bad she was at this.
"Ugh, as if!" one kid, a snooty looking blonde teenager whose hair was done up in a ponytail, remarked in a manner that suggested she thought "Luz" was less than dirt. "What kind of lame weirdo would be excited about that garbage, Luz-er?" At this, several of the girls standing next to her laughed in that haughty, mocking way popularized by many a high school comedy film, only making it more apparent how much of an outsider Number Five really was. It was bad enough that she wasn't all that good at fitting in herself, but apparently Luz Noceda had not exactly been a social butterfly among her own kind either. Honestly, given what she had heard about the human girl in the car, this should not have surprised her.
"Aw, c'mon, guys, it can't be that bad," she tried saying in the camp's defense in order to salvage the situation, to which another girl outside of the mean girl clique simply scoffed.
"Please," the girl said dismissively, clad in all black and looking as though she'd rather be in Hell itself than spend another moment there. "This place is nothing but a prison," she said, causing all of the color to drain from Number Five's face.
"What?" she muttered, so quietly that no one else could hear her, yet filled with more abject fear than could be contained within a single word.
How could she have been so foolish? She had been so enamored with everything that she had read in that brochure that she had failed to notice the signs! A twenty-foot high iron fence surrounding the entire camp with forbidding gates at the north and south ends! Assignment into numbered cabins for easy categorization and subsequent dehumanization by "counselors" who clearly didn't want to be there! A handful of rules posted all throughout the camp that seemed intent upon mandating campers' behavior every hour of the day for the duration of their "stay" on the grounds! It wasn't nearly as bad as the last prison she had been in, but it was certainly bad enough, and Number Five had already had her fill of being in a prison, thank you!
It was clear to her now that that brochure must have been lying, and that in her haste to escape her old prison, she had unwittingly stumbled into a new one. As the goth girl continued to speak, completely oblivious to Number Five's internal turmoil, she made another impulsive decision.
She wasn't going to be trapped again.
"The only reason this camp exists is to better prepare us for our new and exciting adult lives as wage slaves to the capitalist oligarchs that-whoa, hey, where are you going?!" The girl cried out in surprise as Number Five sprinted past her at a speed moderately too fast for a human to be able to run. Caught off guard by her sudden departure, the crowd of children watched her escape with interest and varying degrees of envy while the two counselors there scrambled to respond.
"We've got a runner! Close the gates!" The first one, a man named Darrell, called out into his walkie talkie as if he were in an action movie, causing the other one to groan in exasperation.
"Aw, c'mon, seriously? Figured we'd at least get through cabin assignments this time," the second one, a lady named Marisha, grumbled. "We really need to reconsider the advertising of this place. We already had three parents accuse us of being a conversion camp, for Christ's sake!"
"Just shut up and grab her before she gets herself hurt!" Darrell barked, prompting the two to take off after Number Five as best they could. Although she briefly balked as the gate doors slammed shut in front of her, a brief couple seconds of hesitation gave way to the basilisk hurriedly altering her form just enough to where she could squeeze between the bars, shocking the onlookers.
"Whoa, what the heck?!"
"How'd she do that?!"
"Girl must be hella flexible, like dang! You think she's a gymnast?"
While some of the children cheered as Number Five ran off into the woods and left the two counselors panting in front of the north gate, the blonde punk from earlier narrowed her eyes.
"Riiiight," she said, getting the sense that there was more to the unfortunate return of Gravesfield's most infamous weirdo than she had originally thought. Before she could think the situation over for much longer, though, a new arrival to the scene left her with far more questions than anything having to do with the weird runaway.
"Oh, great," Darrell grumbled as the onlookers saw something fire off overhead before wrapping around the top of the iron fence and holding fast, with the goth girl being the first to voice the one question on everyone's mind.
"Wait a second, is that a freaking-?!"
"GRAPPLING HOOK!" the mysterious head of Reality Check Summer Camp proclaimed with youthful vigor as she was lifted aloft by the reliable contraption, holding it in one hand while using the other to gently cradle an old, but still dependable bovine companion that she held under her arm. As the pair soared over the gate and easily landed without a scratch on the ground outside of it, the children watched with wide eyes and open mouths at the display of absolute coolness.
"So, does the program here include learning how to do that?" one camper, a somewhat larger kid with square-shaped glasses, asked Marisha, to which she shook her head.
"Kid, I wish the program included that," she admitted.
Number Five would have gotten a lot further, had it not been for the pig.
The one upside to being a basilisk was that changing her shape didn't diminish her physical abilities in the slightest, and although she hadn't realized it, she was a fair bit stronger and faster than these human guards who were trying to capture her. All she had to do was lose them in the woods, transform into a bug or something, and hide away. After that...she wasn't sure. She could risk going back to Camila, positive that the kind woman hadn't known about how horrible this place really was, but she knew it was only a matter of time until Luz returned and forced her to run away...again.
She blinked back tears as she continued to run. Worrying about the future wasn't important right now. What was important was getting herself out of sight so she could get away from this awful place and figure out what to do next. She had been clever enough to evade the Emperor's Coven; she could handle a few college students in cargo shorts.
Waddles, however, was another matter.
The pig was old and not as fast as he used to be, but he had survived perils the likes of which would make even the toughest demon quiver in fear. He wasn't afraid of this weird girl, but the reverse could not be held as true, as would be made apparent when the old hog cut Number Five off with a squeal. Having no idea what a pig was and thus no clue as to its true capabilities, Number Five stumbled backwards with a cry of fright and curled up into the fetal position, struggling with every fiber of her being to keep herself from reverting to her true form. As Waddles carefully waddled towards the girl and began to lick her face in hopes of bringing her comfort, the approaching sound of rapid footsteps made that a much easier proposition than it would have been otherwise, especially once her pursuer finally burst from the trees with a triumphant laugh.
"Ha-hey, good job, buddy!" Mabel Pines cried happily as she scratched Waddles underneath the chin, only to quickly turn to Number Five as she overheard the soft sound of sobbing. "Whoa whoa whoa, hey, hon! It's okay!" she said soothingly, attempting to place a hand on the girl's shoulder only for her to quickly smack it away as she turned away from her pursuers.
"No it isn't!" she snapped, pointedly looking down so that she didn't risk Mabel seeing the half-transformed sclera of her true eyes peeking out within her human form. "I gave up everything I had ever known to finally get away, and just when I'd deluded myself into thinking I'd be safe for once in my life, I had to get shipped off here! And now you and your little pink demon are gonna drag me back in chains...and I'll be right back to spending the rest of my life in a cage." As Number Five continued to sob quietly, a tiny part of Mabel's heart broke for the poor girl. She wasn't sure whether or not the kid was being metaphorical about all this cage and chains stuff, but the fact remained that she had evidently been through something horrible and was hurting badly. After taking a deep breath and gesturing for Waddles to offer his amazing cuddles to the poor girl, Mabel cleared her throat and attempted to reassure her as best she could.
"Look, ah...change can be scary, I know, but...sometimes it's for the best," Mabel began. "I never would've imagined I'd be running a place like this nine years ago, but then again, I was also convinced that I'd have a spectacular summer romance when I was twelve years old. Spoiler alert: that still hasn't panned out for me at 22, and not for lack of trying, mind you!"
Mabel attempted to chuckle as a way to alleviate the tension in the air, only for Number Five to remain unresponsive. "Anyway, being creative and having fun are all well and good; the last thing I want this camp to do is to make kids feel like they can't be kids, you know? What I set up this place to do is to teach you not to get too carried away with it, because if you go too far, you can end up hurting people unintentionally...including yourself."
Mabel paused as a wistful expression crossed her features, not that Number Five could see it at the moment. "My summer trip nine years ago was the best summer of my life. It was so incredible that I never wanted it to end, and because I was so determined to cling to a fantasy and ignore reality...I almost ruined everything forever."
Mabel grew solemn for a moment before shaking her head to dispel the negative thoughts that had never really gone away after that fateful summer ended. "I don't know what you did back home to warrant coming here, but it's nothing that me and my staff can't help you with. No matter what the place might look like, it isn't a prison. Nobody here is ever going to hurt you or punish you for anything. Whatever you did back home, it doesn't mean that you're a bad person, and it doesn't mean that your parents don't love you or want you gone. I mean, heck, I've only known you for all of two minutes and I already think you're a total sweetheart!"
At this, Number Five finally smiled just a bit, and Mabel grinned as she realized she was finally getting through to the kid. "And hey, if you still aren't convinced to give the place another shot after I give you Mabel Pines' Magnificent Tour, then I promise we'll call your parents or whoever you feel comfortable staying with and get you somewhere safe as soon as possible. Okay?" When she heard the kid mutter a faint "Okay" in response to her proposition, Mabel finally decided to try placing a hand on her shoulder again and was grateful to find that the contact was not rebuffed this time. "What's your name, hon?" she asked, only to find herself surprised as the girl finally turned around with eyes that were still black with yellow irises and teal sclera. Seemingly unaware of this, the girl panicked somewhat before quickly answering the lady's question.
"Number-agh!" she said, just barely catching herself before settling on a better answer. "Vee," she said, liking the sound of that name. "It's, uh, it's actually 'Luz Noceda' on the paperwork, but, ah...you can call me Vee. Y'know, when it's, um...just the two of us, if that's okay?" Left unwilling to dig the hole any deeper, Vee simply stood there awkwardly twiddling her thumbs as her eyes slowly shifted back to normal. Mabel smiled at the strange girl, putting all of her numerous questions into the back of her mind where they belonged. After having had nine years to reflect on the events of that summer in Oregon...Mabel knew well that some mysteries were better left buried.
"Welcome to camp, Vee!" Mabel said cheerily. "I think you're gonna love it here."
Chapter Two: Pearls Before Swine[Summary: Vee is assigned to Cabin 7 and attempts to get along with her new cabin mates as they settle in for their first night. Although she finds tentative common ground with Alex (a nonbinary nerd with dreams of being a science fiction writer) and Sam (a chill guy who wants to be a composer for video game soundtracks), she runs into trouble when attempting to befriend Pearl (a goth fortune teller who would rather be anywhere else than Cabin 7). However, when Pearl comes under assault in the night from Karen of Cabin 9, she finds unexpected allies in the form of Vee and her other cabin mates, cementing their friendships for all time.]
"Whoo! Alrighty, cabin buddies, who's ready to...party?"
Where Vee had been expecting at least some enthusiasm from her new roommates in Cabin 7, she was instead met with no acknowledgement of her presence whatsoever. Alex, the kid who had been keenly interested in Ms. Pines' grappling hook skills, might as well have been dead to the world with how much they had zeroed in on their work, putting words onto the document they were typing in with dizzying speed. Sam, a quiet kid who hadn't spoken a word since he got to the camp, was currently in the middle of playing some sort of game on what looked to Vee like an especially oversized phone that you hold with two hands instead of one. And finally, Pearl, the goth girl whose offhand remark had inadvertently caused the whole mess which Ms. Pines had just resolved, was similarly cut off to the others by way of her earbuds, which Vee could faintly hear blaring some kind of intense music reminiscent of Boiling Isles pop.
Deciding that none of them were particularly eager to be interrupted with conversation, yet feeling like she had to at least try to ingratiate herself to her human companions, Vee pondered for a moment about which one of the three would be the least likely to be bothered by her. Settling on Alex, she carefully walked up to where they were sitting before glancing at their writing, trying to look for a conversation starter revolving around the work itself in hopes that it would grab their attention. Although the cold there had hardly been pleasant, she found herself silently thankful for the bird-like demon librarian who let her and the others hide in the library when the Emperor's Coven first started looking for them. She wasn't sure she would even know what exactly she was looking at on Alex's screen otherwise.
"Ha! That was a nice quip there," she said offhandedly once Alex had finished writing a particularly witty comeback from the main hero of their sci-fi novel. Although her comment initially caused the aspiring writer to jump in their seat with surprise, they eventually blushed slightly.
"Oh, uh, t-thanks," they replied, evidently not used to being complimented on their work like this. They blushed further once their brain helpfully told them of Vee's earlier arrival far too late for them to actually respond to it. "Agh, sorry, I totally ignored you earlier! I was just-"
"-Busy writing, I get it," Vee finished easily, chuckling a bit in order to put them at ease. "I understand completely; you're really good at this!" In response to further compliments, the blush showed no sign of going away, but now it was accompanied by an almost giddy smile.
"Thank you, that...that means a lot," they said with a slight hitch in their voice, coughing awkwardly as they attempted to regain their composure. "I'm Alex, by the way. You?"
"I'm Luz, Luz Noceda!" Vee replied without missing a beat, having learned from her earlier slip up with Ms. Pines not to fall back on her original designation. Alex smiled a little wider.
"Nice to meet you, Luz," they said warmly before realizing that they had forgotten an important detail. "Oh, uh, I go by they/them, by the way," they added, to which Vee smiled.
"Gotcha. I go by she/her, myself," she replied smoothly, to which Alex was pleasantly surprised before an idea occurred to them, causing their eyes to widen with excitement.
"Say, did you wanna read the rest of it?" they said eagerly. "I've only got the first chapter done so far, but with so little else to do here, I'm optimistic about finishing it before we leave!" At this, Vee brightened up considerably, grateful that her first real social interaction was going this well.
"Yeah! Let's do it!" she said, and the girl happily became immersed in Alex's science fiction novel to a degree that they had never seen before. Sure, their parents supported them no matter what, save for the odd well-meaning comment about how little writers make these days, but to have someone actually accept the offer to read their work...that was new. It made them feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like when you've just finished drinking a hot cup of cocoa on a chilly day. Alas, it was only one chapter, and so before long, Vee was done reading. "Ooh, I'm definitely liking this so far!" Vee said immediately, blushing a bit as she tried to cover for her lacking information on certain topics in the story. "Some of it kinda went over my head, but, heh, I'm more of a fantasy gal personally, so it's understandable." Alex simply smiled.
"Yeah, fantasy's alright, but I dunno, something about the idea of being out there exploring the stars just...speaks to me, you know?" Alex replied with a wistful look out the window, a sight that caused Vee to smile happily as well. The stars had been one of her few comforts back when...when...
"DAMMIT!"
Vee was jolted out of her thoughts by Sam's sudden exclamation of pent up frustration, a sight that seemed to amuse Alex while Pearl was simply left annoyed.
"Ugh, keep it down," she hissed before trying to turn back to her music. Alex smirked.
"What is this, attempt 15?" they asked, leaning against their chair.
"Twenty!" Sam shot back, having discarded the device such that it was within view of Vee. From what she could see on the screen, whatever game he was playing seemed to involve a very dark and grimy setting filled with strange humanoid bug creatures. As Sam begrudgingly picked up the device once more and set about the decently long trek of recovering his little knight's belongings for the twentieth time, Vee took up a position where she could see what was going on and dared to try and talk to him about the game he was playing, hoping to take his mind off of his troubles.
"So, uh, what game is this, exactly? I like the music!" she said, which got his attention and actually got him to smile a little bit in spite of how annoyed he had been earlier.
"Yeah, the Hollow Knight soundtrack really is top tier," he said fondly. "This right here, this is the kind of stuff I wanna make someday," he added, leaving Vee impressed.
"Ooh, so you're a bard, then? Cool!" she replied, almost on instinct, only realizing too late that they probably called them something different in the Human Realm. Nevertheless, the slip up didn't seem to elicit any notable reaction from the two campers who were actually paying attention to her: Alex simply snickered a bit at Vee's archaic phrasing, while Sam laughed good-naturedly.
"Not exactly, but I don't mind getting compared to Shakespeare. Dude was an old timey bicon," Sam said, prompting Alex to let out a whoop of agreement while Vee cocked her head in confusion, not having heard that particular term before.
"'Bicon?' Is that 'bi' meant to mean, like, 'bisexual,' or...?" Vee asked, and was promptly answered with a pair of finger guns by Sam. "Huh, I never knew that about, uh, Shakespeare," Vee remarked, as though she totally knew who that random human was. "Guess this place really is educational!" she quipped to serve as a distraction, earning her a light chuckle from Alex and Sam before another thought occurred to her. "You know, you can always try again some other time," she said gently. "If each attempt at...well, whatever it is you're doing is just making you more upset, it's probably just gonna make you do worse and worse." At this, Sam sighed as he accepted the wisdom of her words before saving and turning the device off, leaving it on his nightstand.
"You're probably right. Thanks," he said simply. Vee smiled as Alex jumped back into the conversation, having picked up on something interesting.
"Not gonna lie, surprised you haven't heard the word 'bicon' before," Alex remarked. "Might be off the mark, but you kinda gave me those vibes."
Vee chuckled awkwardly while a part of her started panicking. What was this human girl's orientation supposed to be? It hadn't exactly come up during the car ride with her mother, and there wasn't much evidence towards any particular preference in the handful of belongings that Luz had left in her mother's car. Did she just play along with Alex's guess, or assert something else? The most reliable course would probably be to reply with her own orientation in the absence of any information that showed Luz's being something different, but there was a small problem with that: she had no idea what her own orientation was! As crazy as it might sound, determining which genders did and did not strike her fancy, or even determining if she had a fancy to begin with, was never high on her list of priorities while she was running for her life! Realizing she had to give some kind of response soon, Vee took a deep breath and was about to answer before Sam beat her to it, unintentionally saving her with the kind of teasing quip that hinted at years of friendship.
"I mean, we didn't all realize we were bi by following Kiradax blogs on Tumblr," he said jokingly, to which Alex blushed somewhat as they tried to laugh it off.
"And what about it?" they said, although Sam's grin let them know that he had gotten them good. "Look, I don't care how many lame boyfriends they sent Kira's way, that woman was not straight," they insisted, to which Sam chuckled before pausing as Alex got a look in their eye. "Besides, at least I'm not the one who realized he was bi from watching Zuko on Avatar!" As they took satisfaction in the boot being on the other foot for a change, Sam simply sat there stunned.
"Wow, okay, just. Expose me," he said, dumbstruck, while Vee awkwardly laughed in order to mask how little she understood what exactly was going on. This ended up backfiring on her, however, as Alex turned to her once they'd had their fill of lovingly tormenting Sam.
"What about you, Luz? Did you have any fictional characters that made you realize things about yourself?" they asked teasingly, to which Vee once again was left floundering until she noticed something on Alex's backpack: a three-colored pin of blue, purple, and pink stripes, the same colors that Vee had offhandedly noticed on a sticker stuck to the rearview mirror of Camila's car. Perhaps that was some kind of visual indication of one's sexual orientation? And in that case, the fact that it was on Alex's backpack likely meant that it indicated one was bisexual. Seeing as Vee doubted that Camila was the kind of person to put any kind of stickers on her car, logic dictated that the sticker had been placed there by Luz, and that Luz Noceda was most likely bisexual. Figuring all of this out mid-sentence, Vee pivoted to an answer as smoothly as she could.
"A...zura! Azura, it was Azura," Vee said, halting only for a moment before committing to the statement. From what she could tell, Azura wasn't a bad looking character, she supposed, although evidently not a commonly known one since being a fan of that particular book series hadn't done anything positive to Luz's social life in the Human Realm. The two campers cocked their heads, further confirming that they hadn't heard of her or her book series whatsoever. "She's a, uh, fantasy book character, don't worry about it," she said, to which Alex simply chuckled.
"Can't believe there isn't a single straight person in this cabin, I love that for us," they said, amused by the idea before realizing they didn't actually know that for certain. "At least, I think there isn't. You got any good stories to share on that front, Pearl?" they asked, turning around just in time to see Pearl quickly push her way past them and out of the cabin before any of the three could stop her. "Yeesh, it was just an innocent question, what's her problem?" they asked no one in particular.
Vee simply frowned; while it was certainly an unusual reaction to have, they had been talking pretty loudly while she was listening to music. It was probably nothing, and yet...it didn't seem to Vee like it would be a good idea to let Pearl wander the camp at night unaccompanied.
"I'm gonna go check on her," she said, following Pearl out the door as Sam wished her luck.
It didn't take long for Vee to figure out where Pearl had gone; lacking the ability to get past the locked gates, the girl simply settled for sitting by the fountain, listening to her music with a somewhat morose expression. Unsure of how exactly to approach her after she had repeatedly rejected previous attempts, Vee stood by before a new arrival caused her to instinctively hide behind a nearby bush. It was that mean blonde girl from orientation, who seemed to have a bone to pick with Luz in particular, if her uncreative nickname for the human girl was any indication. The way she approached Pearl at the fountain, who scowled as soon as she noticed the cheerleader's presence, did not ease Vee's anxiety about the situation. It reminded her of a Vasculrein when it picked up the scent of blood on the steam produced by the boiling seas back home: the movements of a predator.
"Aww, what's the matter, Pearly? Your dork roommates dump you?" Karen asked mockingly, to which Pearl simply ignored her. "Hey, tall, dark, and ugly, I'm talking to you! I know you can hear me!" Vee could only watch with growing apprehension as Pearl finally elected to take out her earbuds, seeking to get Karen to go away as soon as possible.
"You know, Karen, this tired back and forth is kinda getting stale," Pearl replied with a smirk, causing Karen to sputter a bit.
"What do you mean by that?" she asked defensively, unaware of what Pearl was planning.
"Look, I get you've got a massive crush on me, but you really oughta learn to take 'no' for an answer, because this?" Pearl said, gesturing between the two of them as her devilish grin grew even wider. "This is just embarrassing." In response to that, Karen noticeably blushed.
"What?! That's-pfft-I don't have a crush on you, you Hot Topic wannabee!" she retorted, but the way that she pointedly refused to look at Pearl made it clear even to Vee that there was something deeper going on there that Karen wasn't about to admit. Pearl simply rolled her eyes.
"Ooh, you wanna kiss me so bad, it makes you look stupid~," she said in a taunting tone of voice, hoping that it would make her angrily stomp away. Unfortunately, Karen seemed to have something else in mind as she flared up in a mixture of anger and embarrassment.
"SHUT UP!" she yelled as she quickly grabbed Pearl's phone and tossed it into the fountain, taking her earbuds with it. Pearl gasped in shock as she heard the sound of her phone sparking in the water before dying completely. With a growl, Pearl got up to her feet and angrily pushed the stuck-up cheerleader towards the fountain, causing her to grunt in pain.
"Ugh, you jerk!" Pearl cried as she attempted to pull her belongings from the fountain. "Your stupid popular girl points won't do jack squat for you out here, I'm going to report your ass!"
"Go ahead and try it, Pearly!" Karen bit back, gaining back some confidence now that she had the upper hand in their spat. "My girls will back me up if I say you started it! Who do you have backing you up, huh?" At this, Pearl's face fell as she realized the truth of what Karen was saying. Karen had lucked out; everyone in Cabin 9 was another troublemaking friend from the cheer squad back in Gravesfield, which meant Pearl was outnumbered four to one. She had cabin mates of her own to potentially back her up, but why would they? They'd only known her for a day, and she'd already blown them off like they were beneath her notice and accidentally made that Luz girl run away in a wild panic. There's absolutely no way that they would-
"Um, l-leave her alone!" Vee said hesitantly, noticeably lacking in the courage that the human she was impersonating possessed in spades. Karen seemed to recognize this as she walked towards the girl with a taunting smirk of her own.
"Ooh, the great and powerful 'Luzura' stands in my way yet again! Whatever shall I do?" Karen asked mockingly before her expression brightened. "Oh! I know!" she remarked before suddenly punching Vee in the stomach. It didn't hurt as much as it would have if Vee were actually a human, but it still knocked the wind out of her all the same, causing her to stumble to the ground. Karen stood over her with that same taunting smirk, regarding her as though she were less than dirt. "Next time, Luz-er...remember your place," she said, having no idea of just what that particular phrase meant for Vee. It was a phrase that brought her back to that dark cell in that terrible prison, a phrase that she had heard the one time that she had dared to resist and was punished severely. The memories of that horrible experience came rushing back to her all at once, and it took everything in her power not to run away from Pearl and abandon her in her time of need. Fortunately for Vee, the goth girl did something rather unexpected herself in that moment, having retrieved her belongings before she walked up behind Karen and placed a hand on the cheerleader's shoulder.
"Would you care to repeat that, you stuck up BITCH?!" she cried before punching Karen in the face hard enough to send the mean cheerleader rushing to meet the ground. When Karen didn't move for a couple seconds after she fell, the only indication she was still conscious being her faint groans of pain, Pearl looked up at Vee with an apprehensive expression on her face.
"We should probably leave," she said, prompting the two to book it back to Cabin 7.
In the end, a lengthy interview with a very sleepy Ms. Pines and all of the members of both Cabin 7 and Cabin 9 ultimately led to Karen and Pearl being left with a "strike" on their "permanent records" at the camp. As Ms. Pines had explained it to Vee (being the only one unsurprised that Vee knew nothing about baseball), after three "strikes," a camper was "out" of the camp, and their parents would be called in order to pick them up and figure out what to do about their behavior from there. Considering that the camp was often suggested to parents of troubled students as a last resort means of avoiding suspension or expulsion, staying in the camp was typically incredibly important to these children. None of them wanted to risk making their parents even more disappointed than they had been before, except perhaps Karen, who simply scoffed when the sentence was carried out and left Ms. Pines' office with her Cabin 9 posse.
Vee couldn't help but gulp once the camp's rules had been explained to her, even though she had been one of the victims of Karen's bullying. She knew from that moment on that she did not want to risk putting further strain on her tentative relationship with Luz's mother by making it look as though her daughter had failed out of this last ditch effort to keep her in school. As even this first day had demonstrated, Vee taking on Luz's identity came with far more pre-existing baggage than she had initially counted on. She wasn't about to add more to the pile if she could help it.
At least, that's what she had thought during this particular moment.
Once Pearl's punishment had been carried out, the campers of Cabin 7 were free to go back to their cabin, where they promptly shut the door and stood there for a moment. The awkward silence between them was deafening, and although she clearly wasn't the best at this, Vee still felt the need to say something, anything, to try and diffuse this tension between the four of them.
"Yikes, that was pretty scary, huh?" Vee said, cringing as she saw Pearl wince upon glancing at the way that Vee rubbed her stomach. "I'm sorry you got in trouble for protecting me," she added somewhat morosely, and even though they had only known her for a day, the way she said it tugged at the others' heartstrings like nothing else. This "Luz" girl was incredibly nice and kind, as all three of them could attest to at this point, and yet she seemed to regard her needs as being insignificant compared to their own. It was like she didn't see herself as important enough to be worth protecting after getting hurt the way she did. Pearl in particular hadn't missed the way that she had frozen up when Karen stood over her, like she was going through a particularly painful flashback. How many times had she gotten into situations like this and just didn't fight back?
How badly had she been hurt before?
"Don't worry about it," Pearl remarked before chuckling a bit. "Let's just say I've owed her that for a while. And, uh, for what it's worth...I'm sorry for storming off back there."
"Oh, uh, it's fine! I totally get it, we were being really loud-" Vee began before Pearl cut in.
"It...wasn't just the noise that bothered me," Pearl admitted sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck awkwardly. "I know I was being all casual about it back at the fountain, but...that was mostly just an act. The truth is, getting clocked by y'all so quickly...it kinda spooked me." At this, Alex hesitantly spoke up, having mostly sat in the background until now.
"So I was right? You aren't straight?" they asked, to which Pearl nervously shook her head.
"Nah. Let's just say guys like him don't exactly do it for me, no offense," she said with an awkward chuckle, while Sam simply raised up his hands in a gesture of acceptance.
"Hey, it's cool. I know my good looks ain't for everyone," Sam quipped, causing the rest of the campers to feel a little more comfortable laughing at the situation until Vee spoke up again.
"So, you stormed off...because you were scared of us thinking less of you?" Vee asked, with the empathy in her voice hurting Pearl's heart even more. "Why would you think that?" Vee didn't understand it; the Boiling Isles was a hellish place in many respects, but the demons and witches of that realm, including the Emperor's Coven themselves, at least had the decency not to make a big deal out of who you loved or what you identified as. Alex had also seemed surprised when Vee accepted their pronouns without a second thought, which suggested that they had experienced people not accepting them for whatever reason. Vee could only hope that this wasn't the norm across the entirety of the Human Realm...but she sensed she might be disappointed.
"It...hasn't exactly turned out great for me in the past," Pearl admitted. "My parents are fine with it, but they've still got some stuff they need to unlearn, so it's been kinda awkward. The only other people I've come out to were my friends on the cheer squad, and y'all can guess how well that turned out." The bitterness in her voice made it clear that the answer was "not remotely well," which seemed to explain the evident hostility between the two girls at the fountain. "Y'all seemed cool, but, well, I'd thought my old friends were cool too, so...I didn't wanna risk it. Sorry for being rude and for...judging y'all too quickly. I'd understand if you just wanted to hang out without me after tonight." By the end of that, Pearl had moved to walk off towards her bed in shame...only to find herself suddenly stopped as Vee wrapped her up in a hug, just like Camila had done for her.
"I forgive you, Pearl. And for what it's worth...I still really want to be your friend," she said sweetly, so sweetly that Pearl couldn't help but let a single tear of joy slip from her eyes, leaving Vee concerned. "Wait, are you crying?" she asked nervously, prompting Pearl to deny it.
"What, ah, no! I just got something in my eye!" Pearl attempted to protest, but the way she got flustered by it made it fairly clear to Vee that she was attempting to deflect from the question. She simply giggled and squeezed harder as Alex came in and wrapped everyone else in a group hug strong enough to lift them all off of the floor.
"Eh, yeah, this might as well happen," Sam said nonchalantly as Pearl struggled to get free.
"Agh-! Alex! Can't! Breathe!" she protested, causing Alex to finally release them all.
"Sorry about that; surprisingly strong for someone who sits at a computer all day, huh?" Alex remarked awkwardly before addressing the group. "So...friends?" they asked everybody, who all replied at once after a few seconds of thought.
"Friends."
Chapter Three: I Was a Teenage Demon[Summary: During a particularly rainy day, everyone is forced to stay in their cabins until it passes, bumming Vee out more than anyone. When she decides to sneak out beyond the camp grounds so that she can experience the rain in her true form, she ends up staying longer than she planned.]
The sound that greeted Vee when she woke up was unlike anything she had heard before.
The rhythmic pitter-patter against the windows of their cabin sounded vaguely like rain, and yet, there was no accompanying hiss of the cabin's roof being slowly melted away or the sounds of plant life being disintegrated by the highly acidic droplets. As Vee blearily roused herself from a thankfully silent slumber to look out the window, she could only look out with wonder in her eyes as her cabinmates regarded her wide-eyed fascination with interest.
"It's pretty great, huh?" Sam asked, showing a rare hint of visible emotion. Vee could only nod wordlessly, too starstruck to say much else as Alex cocked their head.
"Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out how it's raining that hard in the middle of June, but whatever," they said with a shrug before turning back to their laptop, while Pearl scoffed.
"Can't fathom why y'all would actually want to go out and get yourselves soaked, but me, I'm following the rules for once and staying nice and dry, thank you," she replied, to which Sam likewise shrugged while Vee's heart sank at the news.
"Wait, you mean...we're stuck in here for today?" she asked, a slight tremor in her voice that Pearl failed to notice as she chuckled a bit to herself.
"Yup, today we've been spared the mind-numbing boredom of camp activities and left to our own devices," Pearl confirmed. "No idea why you've liked all of them so far, but eh, you do you," she remarked offhandedly as she pulled out a set of Tarot cards. "I've been getting really into fortune telling lately, you mind helping me practice a bit?" she asked Sam, who nodded casually.
"Yeah, I'm down for that," he said, sitting next to the goth girl on the ground while Vee looked forlornly out the window. She had never quite known how to explain her enjoyment of the camp's curriculum to her friends. Obviously she couldn't tell them the truth; how could she possibly explain "I was born a lab demon and never got an education, so any learning that doesn't involve me being forced to murder other creatures is automatically the best thing ever!" without sounding insane? Maybe if she transformed into her true form after she explained it, they'd buy it, but that was guaranteed to leave her friends passed out in their cabins and her hunted down like an animal before the night was out. She couldn't possibly take that kind of risk, and yet...
She wanted to feel rain that wasn't boiling.
She wasn't particularly eager to break the rules and get in trouble. Ms. Pines had said she wouldn't be punished for anything, but after the "strike" Pearl got for what happened at the fountain, Vee knew there had to be similar consequences for disobeying this mandate. At the same time, however, a part of her was left wondering how it would feel to run around in the rain of the Human Realm. With nothing burning her flesh off or making the air all smoky, she imagined that the tiny water droplets that continued to hit the windows would feel just like a nice, all-encompassing shower. As strange as it was, she had found herself loving showers, even if they were a little awkward with her fabricated clothes, so naturally, Human Realm rain seemed like it would make for a fun time. She briefly looked around at her cabin mates, all of whom were totally engrossed in their respective activities just like they had been the night she met them. For someone who had broken out of the Boiling Isles' most secure prison with the help of her own kind, sneaking away from a couple of inattentive teenagers on her own would be child's play.
"Just five minutes," she muttered to herself before softly closing the door behind her.
It did not, in fact, turn out to be just five minutes.
As Vee had predicted, the feeling of the rain hitting her skin was a delightful sensation that she couldn't get enough of. Therefore, rather than simply goofing around for a bit behind the cabin where no one could immediately see her, Vee got it into her head to do something far riskier.
She knew that she probably shouldn't. Without a natural source of ambient magical energy for her body to absorb, she could only transform herself so many times before her supply of magic ran out and she was stuck in whatever form she ended up in. She needed to have leftover magic available just in case push came to shove and she had to run away to start a new life somewhere else. And yet, at the same time...she was very curious about how the rain would feel on her scales, as opposed to her hastily-mimicked human skin.
In the end, her curiosity got the better of her, and she found herself once again sneaking through the bars of the gate while the counselors were too busy doing other things to carefully monitor the comings and goings. After all, as far as they were concerned, it wasn't like most kids wanted to go out into the woods while it was raining buckets outside. Thus, Vee managed to get out of the camp and get herself a good distance away from any prying eyes before she took a deep breath and let the transformation fully drop for the first time since she had gotten to camp.
The rain felt even better than it had before.
Unable to hide her delighted cries, the basilisk happily played around in her true form for the first time: jumping into puddles, splashing water around, and generally having the time of her life. She had no idea how long she had been in that clearing, and although she could never truly shake off the survival instincts that had kept her alive this long, she found herself not really caring about how much time had passed. She had been happy at times from the moment she had gotten out of the Boiling Isles, yes, but there had also been things that had frightened her and made her sad. She wasn't sure if she would ever feel totally safe, whether it was at camp or in Camila's presence, but as she stood there in the rain, she could at least say she understood what safety felt like, if only a little.
That is, until the rain stopped.
As the final few droplets fell onto her serpentine form, one of them hitting her in the eye, she could only let out a small sigh of disappointment. From what had been said earlier, she figured that the rain would last the entire day, and yet it only appeared that a couple hours had gone by since her departure when the rain finally subsided. Vee sighed again, deciding to transform back into Luz.
It had been nice while it lasted, at least.
"Luz? Luz?! LUZ!"
Vee woke up with a scream as she hastily got up off of the ground and attempted to get her bearings. The memories started to come back to her: she had run as fast as she possibly could back to the camp after realizing she had definitely been gone for far too long, she had collapsed from exhaustion as soon as she made it back to the back of Cabin 7...and now, it seemed, all of her friends were standing over her with concerned expressions on their faces. As soon as she had a second to process everything, she felt a hand on her shoulder as Alex attempted to calm her down.
"Whoa, hey, sorry buddy. Didn't mean to startle you," Alex said, prompting Vee to smile somewhat. She hadn't known them for very long, but for a self-described social recluse, Alex was shockingly good at putting people at ease.
"You definitely startled us, though, we were worried sick!" Pearl chimed in, giving Vee a quick side hug before pulling away with a smug expression on her face. "Although, at the same time...look at you, little miss Rule Breaker~," she added in a sing-songy tone of voice, causing Vee's eyes to widen as she realized the position she was in.
"Oh, Titan, you're right, I am so dead!" she said before clamping her hands shut over her mouth, only remembering after she said it that humans wouldn't know what a Titan is. Fortunately for her, though, Pearl simply chuckled at Vee's unexpected invocation.
"Whoa, is that some neat Pagan thing I haven't heard about? Sick!" she replied, to which Vee hurriedly nodded in order to cover her mistake. Alex, meanwhile, was still on comforting duty.
"Relax, Luz, no one has to know!" Alex said with a reassuring smile as they helped Vee to her feet. "Now c'mon, let's get you inside and dry you off before anyone realizes you're soaking wet. Sam, do you mind if I use your hair dryer?" they asked over their shoulder as Sam simply nodded.
"Go for it," Sam remarked casually as he looked around to make sure nobody was watching the group walk back into their cabin and shut the door behind them. While Pearl went to get towels from the shared bathroom and Alex plugged in the hair dryer, Vee looked around at this trio of humans that had decided to stick up for her on multiple occasions, and couldn't help but grin. All things considered, she was doing pretty great right now.
She could only hope that her good luck would continue to hold out.
Chapter Four: Once Upon a Story[Summary: One night, when they have literally nothing better to do, the kids of Cabin 7 decide to share the story of how they each got to be in Reality Check Summer Camp to begin with. Vee is left with the awful choice of either fully lying about her history or obscuring it in half-truths, neither of which she is particularly inclined to do with her new friends.]
"So...what are you in for?"
As she spoke, Pearl and Vee were left sitting on the goth girl's bed, mindlessly passing the dull hours before lights out together while Alex continued writing their magnum opus and Sam played that bug game with the catchy music (Vee had tried playing it once; she sucked). The question, which Pearl asked in her best attempt at imitating the gruff, no-nonsense voice of some violent offender, certainly had its intended effect of causing Vee to laugh, albeit not entirely for the reason that Pearl had assumed she would do so.
"Pearl, we're not actually in prison!" Vee replied cheerfully, glad that she could say that considering how Pearl's offhand comment on the first day had sent her into a panic. Pearl could only scoff; this hadn't been the first time they had quibbled over their respective opinions of Reality Check Summer Camp, and it certainly wouldn't be the last.
"Disagree, but the question stands: what'd you even do to end up here?" she asked, causing Vee's face to fall slightly. Truthfully, she had laughed partly as a means of stalling. She knew the answer to what Luz had done to end up there, naturally, but she had sought to avoid mentioning it to them for the same reason that she had been cagey on any other information about her past. She quickly found that she didn't like lying to her fellow cabin mates if she could help it, and so she only lied to them when she had to in order to maintain her disguise while still crafting her own unique identity. She could even argue to herself that, aside from addressing her by a different name and treating her slightly differently based on these minor facts, her friends practically knew her the same way they would have if she had just assumed a human identity as "Vee." And yet, by posing as Luz instead, she also knew that this attitude was inherently contradictory, in that their entire friendship was built upon the false premise of her actually being Luz Noceda.
Obviously she couldn't tell them that she was actually a demon from another realm; they'd at the very least faint on the spot, and it was likely that they would report what they saw to the camp and have the poor basilisk dealing with whatever this realm's equivalent to demon hunters was faster than she could believe. And yet, to assume the backstory of the girl she was posing as on top of the minor details she had borrowed before, to have a far more significant aspect of her persona defined by someone else's life...that lie was a lot bigger than the ones she'd been telling her friends until now. It didn't sit well with her, even though she knew she probably didn't have a choice in the matter.
"I, uh, I think I'll wait to talk about that, if you don't mind," she said nervously, seeking to buy time so that she could mentally prepare herself. "Uh, anybody else wanna talk about how they got here?" she asked the group, who looked up from their respective activities and registered the subject of the conversation. To everyone's surprise, Sam spoke up first, seemingly rather nonchalant about the whole business for reasons that would soon become apparent.
"Yeah, so like, you know how some kids say music helps them focus or something, but like, they actually just wanna listen to music in class?" Sam began, to which Alex and Pearl nodded while Vee hastily moved to do the same like she knew what he was talking about. "Well, like, in my case, it actually does help me focus, but obviously teachers are gonna think I'm trying to pull the same scam when they hear that from me. Ended up getting written up one too many times and, well...now I'm here." By the end of it, the other Cabin 7 members looked at Sam sympathetically.
"Agh, that still sucks, man," Alex said, likely having heard the story from their friend before.
"I'm sorry you had to deal with that," Vee offered, earning her a shrug from Sam.
"Eh, it is what it is. Camp's been kinda lame, but it's been nice hanging out with y'all, especially you, Alex," Sam remarked, causing Alex to chuckle a bit.
"Aww, you sap!" they remarked playfully, and Vee smiled at the sight until Pearl spoke up.
"Yeah, that's way tamer than my story," Pearl added with a chuckle, earning her a mischievous glance from Alex.
"Oh? Do tell~," Alex said in a teasingly sultry tone, causing Pearl to sputter out a laugh before turning the pressure back onto them.
"In a minute, I wanna hear yours first, though!" Pearl countered. Alex simply held up their hands in a conciliatory gesture before beginning their tale.
"Oh, not much to it, really. I tended to only eat lunch with Sam back in school, and he's mostly just busy playing video games or listening to music from video games." At this comment, Sam nodded along in agreement, although he couldn't resist making an addition.
"Also tormenting them with cringy Star Trek screencaps," he added like he were revealing a dirty secret. Alex fixed him with a glare that, to Vee at least, looked downright murderous.
"If you bring up Discovery's weird Elon Musk fetish one more time, I cannot be held responsible for my actions. ANYWAY!" Alex shouted before Sam had the opportunity to bite back. "Point is, we finish eating fast, and so we usually spend the rest of lunch in the library because I like using their computers to work on my stuff. This is relevant because one day the super uptight librarian happened to be walking by and glanced over at my screen right as I was writing a, uh...kinda grisly scene." At this, Alex got somewhat embarrassed as they reflected on the incident, and Sam decided to fill in the blanks yet again.
"They were writing in pretty graphic detail about a guy's lungs rupturing in the vacuum of space," Sam remarked, causing Vee to squeak with fear while Pearl simply laughed.
"HAHA! Nice!" she cried in approval while Alex tried to defend their actions.
"The book is called Try Not to Die in Space! It'd be kinda anticlimactic if nobody died in space, don't you think?!" Alex argued, getting unexpectedly heated as though the old librarian who got them in trouble with the school was in the room with them. "And that scene was scientifically accurate; that's what happens to a person in the vacuum of space! I'm sick of Hollywood's obsession with depicting space like it's an Instant Freezer! It's NOT! It takes hours for you to freeze! You'd suffocate first as the air is literally pulled out of your body!"
In response to this unexpectedly intense side of Alex, that being the side of Alex which cares about having at least a modicum of scientific accuracy in their sci-fi no matter how gory, Vee instinctively curled up into a ball and fell sideways onto the bed. After spending weeks together at this camp, the other members of Cabin 7 could recognize that this was a sign of distress on her part, and Alex was quick to issue an apology and bring their story to its expected conclusion. Somewhat embarrassed at getting spooked so easily, Vee attempted to wave it off.
"It's alright, I'm sorry you had to put up with that too," she offered consolingly before turning to the only other person who hadn't shared yet. "Pearl?" she asked nervously, leaving Pearl concerned for a moment before she came to a conclusion and chuckled heartily.
"Ah, I gotcha, saving the best for last, huh? Okay, this is gonna be good," Pearl said before rubbing her hands together and grabbing a flashlight to light underneath her face for dramatic effect. "Alright, so, picture this: a lone witch in a secret room (which may or may not have been my bedroom), reading an ancient tome of forgotten spells and arcane lore (which may or may not have been a book on witchcraft written in the 50s that I got from this weird girl), and coming across an incantation that will allow her to keep her familiar alive forever (which may or may not be my adorable bunny, Hopper)." The little interjections in between the grandiose descriptions gave the story a certain charm that left the other campers giggling along with Pearl...until she got to the next part. "So, the incantation requires the blood of one of the subject's loved ones as a component (just a few drops, mind you), and, well...I was one of his loved ones...so..." With a sheepish smile on her face, the other campers' grins suddenly turned to looks of utter horror.
"Oh my God," Alex said in stunned disbelief, speaking for the whole group.
"I just, like, nicked my finger with some scissors, that's all," Pearl remarked, trying to blow it off. "Still, though, imagine how it looks to a couple of good God-fearing parents to see their daughter dripping drops of blood onto a pentagram made out of table salt while her little bunny watches," she said snarkily, indicating that her respect for them was tenuous at best, while the rest of the cabin continued to remain speechless in their horror. "So, yeah, that pretty much turned me off of hardcore blood magic. Didn't even work, either; the girl who lent me that book clearly didn't test anything in there other than this one bunk resurrection spell that she wrote notes all over." At this, Vee cocked her head in confusion while the others asked her to elaborate.
"Weird girl? That sounds interesting," Alex said, causing Pearl to chuckle.
"Yeah, I didn't get a good look at her because she was wearing this blue cat hoodie over her face. It's kinda funny, because...now that I think about it, the only girl I know who wears that kind of stuff is-" Pearl paused before the realization hit and she abruptly pointed a finger towards Vee. "IT WAS YOU!" she bellowed in surprise, startling Vee to the point where she held up her hands as though to defend herself from an incoming attack.
"What?!" she asked anxiously, causing Pearl to hold up her own hands placatingly.
"No no no, I'm not mad, it's just-it was you! You were the one who gave me the book!" As Vee understood what was going on, she quickly nodded hurriedly, as though she had suddenly remembered doing that while Pearl chuckled. "I dunno how I didn't make that connection until now! I guess it's on me for never asking your name at the time."
"Heh, yeah, guess so. I must have, uh, must have forgotten about that, heh heh," Vee said, bracing herself for when the conversation inevitably turned to what she had done to end up in camp...only for Pearl to unintentionally solve her problem for her.
"Man, you really did save the best for last, huh, Luz? Think I heard some of the girls in the cheer squad bitching about this weird eyeball trick some girl did, and something else about spiders? I seriously can't believe I didn't put it all together until now! That's gotta be what got you shipped down here, isn't it?" At this, Vee chose only to remain silent; it wasn't technically lying if she just allowed them all to come to the false conclusion without actively steering them there with a proper lie. The others smiled and laughed as Pearl got to regaling them with what she now knew were Luz's antics during that previous school year, while Vee could only pretend like she was super embarrassed about it in an effort to hide the inner turmoil that threatened to swallow her whole.
It wasn't technically a lie...but it was hardly telling the truth, either.
Chapter Five: The Last Day[Summary: It's the last day of Reality Check Summer Camp, and Vee, believing that it is only a matter of time until Luz returns to the Human Realm, writes the Nocedas one final letter while waiting to be picked up, doing her best to explain things right before she is forced to run away again.]
"Dear Camila," Vee began writing, those two words hurting more than she'd liked to admit.
A part of her was ashamed at how quickly she had come to look forward to the letters that she would write to Camila in pen at the end of each week, part of her promise to stay in contact with her after "forgetting" Luz's phone. Although Vee had initially panicked when she realized that she had accidentally misspelled Luz's name in the first letter she sent, the lack of any apparent response over the course of the following week made it clear to Vee that Camila had ignored it, probably thinking Luz had written it while sleep deprived or something. Fortunately for Vee, she had managed to get better at imitating Luz through the written word after her first attempt, and she thankfully had enough to talk about regarding the camp's actual activities and her own exploits with her friends that she never had to invent anything out of whole cloth. As such, she had carte blanche to continue perpetuating the alluring lie that she repeated every time she started a letter with some variation of "Hey mom!" It wasn't like she could avoid it, really. I'd be stranger for Luz to refer to her mom by her first name, and Vee couldn't deny that a part of her liked the sound of it.
She liked pretending that she was Camila's daughter.
"If you're reading this, I'm long gone, and trust me when I say that it's better for everyone that way," Vee continued, each word a small pinprick to the heart that she forced herself to ignore. "There's really no easy way to say this: I'm not your daughter. And I don't mean that in some 'Angsty rebellious teen' way, or like I'm coming out as trans, I mean that I'm literally not your daughter. I'm...a basilisk. A demon from another world."
Vee paused. She had been living as Luz Noceda for longer than she had lived as any of her other disguises, long enough that outright admitting to the fact that she was a demon felt strange to her. Usually, the disguises she took on always felt weird compared to her true form, like she was being stretched or compressed compared to how big and heavy she was supposed to be naturally. Her Luz disguise had felt like that too for the first few days, but after an entire summer of maintaining it almost constantly...she had grown used to it. She could stay in this form indefinitely if she needed to, provided that nothing stressed her out too badly. And, as much as she didn't want to admit it...she wanted to keep living this lie for as long as she could.
There was a part of her, a dark part of her, that secretly hoped that something had happened to Luz back in the Demon Realm. Obviously Vee didn't want her counterpart dead or hurt or anything, but she would be telling yet another lie if she said she hadn't thought about something going wrong with that portal they'd both used to escape. It was selfish and bitter, Vee knew, but she also knew that the prospect of Luz just waltzing back into her old life like she had never run away and unknowingly forcing Vee to abandon the people she had come to care about in this realm hurt something fierce. The human girl had clearly faced a good deal of ostracization among her own kind, but as far as Vee was concerned, she had still been better off in the Human Realm than Vee had been back in the Boiling Isles, and Luz didn't get to think that her life was so awful when she had a mother like Camila Noceda. Vee had only known Camila Noceda through a handful of letters back and a single car ride, and yet the woman had shown her more love and affection than she had ever received in her entire life, even if that affection had admittedly been given to her under false pretenses. How in the world could Luz have risked giving that all up so easily?
She could barely even do it herself.
"I'm from a place called the Boiling Isles, otherwise known as the Demon Realm. It's...about as awful as it sounds, unfortunately," Vee started again, deciding to be frank. "My real name, if you can call it that, is Number Five, although I've decided to go by 'Vee' for convenience's sake. I was one of several shapeshifting creatures called 'basilisks' that the Isles' tyrannical ruler, a man named Emperor Belos, brought back from extinction for...research purposes," Vee said, not wanting to get into too much detail regarding her experiences in that awful place. "I escaped from my captors with several of my kind, but we didn't have anywhere to go where we'd be safe. I had broken off from them to take my chances hiding in plain sight...which was when I first saw your daughter." Vee paused again, deliberating over how exactly to word the next part of the letter without letting any of her personal feelings get in the way of how she wrote about Luz. "If you're reading this, then she's around to explain her side of the story to you, but the gist of it is that she came through a portal to my world, and so I snuck over to yours while the portal was left open. When I heard you calling out her name, I panicked and took on her form so that I wouldn't be discovered. I should've just run off into the woods as soon as I realized that I wasn't alone, but...I dunno. When you reached your hand out to me back then, it changed something in me. I don't think I had ever felt even slightly safe for a long time, not even when I was in my own realm and with my own kind. There's definitely an element of irony in there somewhere. All the same, though, I know that it's selfish to want to continue playing this role now that your real daughter is back. I just..." Vee wrote, only to be startled as a few tear drops fell onto the parchment.
She was, as it turned out, on the verge of sobbing. That seemed to make sense, considering.
"Hey, Vee? I'm not mad at you, but everybody else has been all set to go for the goodbye ceremony for like five minutes, so I just wanted to check in and see-whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, what's wrong?" Mabel said suddenly, having come into the cabin to check on Vee at exactly the wrong time. Vee hastily flipped the parchment over so that Ms. Pines wouldn't look at it too closely, although it was unclear to her whether or not she had thrown the older woman off the track. Not wanting to say anything that would jeopardize her position right at the proverbial finish line, yet also absolutely not having the presence of mind to lie, Vee decided to be completely honest for the first time in months.
"I don't-I don't want to go," she got out in a half-broken voice, causing her to lose what self-control she had managed to maintain as she broke down crying in her seat.
"Oh, honey," Mabel said, her heart breaking for the poor girl as she pulled her into a hug. Even if she still didn't know exactly what Vee was or why and how exactly she had taken the place of this "Luz Noceda" girl, Mabel was the only one who had even a rough idea of the hardships that might await her once she got back to Gravesfield, assuming that the girl she had replaced would be coming back and wasn't...well. Suffice it to say, Mabel knew that Vee wouldn't be reacting like this if she thought that she could just keep on living as Luz Noceda, so Mabel chose to give Vee the same benefit of the doubt that had caused her to cover for the basilisk's occasional public slip ups over the past few months. Not wanting to freak Vee out by inadvertently revealing how much she knew about what she really was, yet also wanting to provide comfort the shapeshifter likely wasn't going to get elsewhere, Mabel elected to choose her words as carefully as she could manage. "It's gonna be okay," she began, although Vee didn't seem convinced. "It's like we talked about on day one, remember? Change can be scary, but sometimes it's for the best?"
"...Not this time," Vee mumbled into Mabel's appropriately themed graduation cap sweater. Mabel paused for a moment, unsure how exactly to refute that statement without tipping her hand.
"Well, um...hey, I went ahead and got something for you!" Mabel said cheerily, pulling out a post-it note and reaching towards something else in her pocket before she realized that she was missing something. "Do you mind if I borrow your pen?" Mabel asked sheepishly. Vee nodded absentmindedly, allowing Mabel to take the girl's pen and write down a few key things onto the post-it note before folding it in half and slipping that hidden item in her pocket between the folds. "Make sure to keep all of that handy," she said, adopting the closest she ever got to a stern tone as she let Vee go and carefully placed the bundle into her cupped hands. "Whenever you feel, uh, 'campsick,' as it were, just call that number and I'll answer it, okay? You can talk to me about anything, whenever you need it, even at like 3 in the morning or something. I might be a bit cranky about not getting my beauty rest, but don't let that stop you. If you really need me...I'll be there for you, no matter what. Do you understand, honey?" For a moment, the only thing punctuating the silence between them was Vee's residual sobbing, but eventually, she did respond.
"Promise?" she asked in a small voice. Mabel wasn't sure if the girl knew what she was really offering, and in any case, Vee clearly didn't trust what she was hearing despite the rapport that they had developed over the past few months. Mabel supposed she couldn't blame Vee for not being as trusting as she had been around her age; her own desperation to trust in someone had almost gotten her and everyone else killed nine years ago, after all. Still, she'd be lying if she said that the girl's reticence didn't hurt her a bit, even as she did her best to offer up her usual bright toothy smile.
"Promise," Mabel replied as she moved to leave the door open for Vee. "Now c'mon, let's get you packed so you can go and say goodbye to everybody, alright?" After a second's hesitation, Vee nodded and began gathering her few belongings, mostly just things she had made during camp activities. There was also the unfinished letter, of course, but Vee knew she wasn't going to get any further time to write it for now. Thus, once she snuck a quick glance to make sure that the letter was still perfectly legible after she had hastily tossed it aside, she took advantage of a suspiciously well-timed lapse in Mabel's attention to fold the letter and put it in one of her form's pockets. With that taken care of, Vee took a deep breath to steady herself as she looked at the note Mabel gave her.
A note with her phone number on it that hid a bus ticket for a place called "Gravity Falls."
From the look of it, it was already paid for and wouldn't expire, which would have ordinarily left Vee rather confused. She still had much to learn about the Human Realm, but from what she understood, bus passes weren't usually good for that long, and such a thing ought to be extraordinarily expensive besides. How could Ms. Pines have afforded this to begin with, and why would she give it to her? Sure, the note featured a cheeky little caption of "To my favorite camper, Vee!" with smiley faces around it that made Vee feel all warm and tingly, but simple fondness couldn't be the only reason, right? Were she in a calmer state of mind, a sharper and less saddened state of mind, Vee might have thought more deeply about the oddity of this particular gift, and may have even begun to connect the dots regarding just how much Ms. Pines actually knew about her situation. As it stood, though, Vee was far more concerned with what this bus ticket represented.
For better or worse, Ms. Pines had given her a lifeline...one that Vee would need very soon.
"Are you all set?" Mabel asked, keeping Vee from thinking too much more about the note or its implications. She instead took one last look around Cabin 7 before giving Mabel a subdued smile.
"Yeah. I'm all set."
The ride back "home" was pleasant, albeit marred by a sense of growing unease.
A part of Vee was surprised that Camila arrived to personally pick her up, and if she hadn't been so delighted to be able to spend more time with Camila before the jig was up, she might have been concerned. As it stood, she was just glad that Camila hadn't realized that anything was amiss. The older woman wrapped her up in a hug, and they were on the road chatting amicably within about ten minutes. Although Vee's letters had told her a lot, Camila wanted to know everything that happened at camp, and Vee was more than willing to oblige her fake mom with all of the details she wanted. She told Camila how she had befriended her roommates in Cabin 7 and stood down a bully on Pearl's behalf. She told Camila about all of the activities and fun that she hadn't been able to get to in her original letters. And she told Camila about all of the lessons she'd learned about responsibility and self-control, lessons which she could only hope Luz would successfully pretend to have learned once she got back, if only for her poor mother's sake. She left out the escape attempt on day one and the escapade out in the rain, of course, but all told, Camila seemed to be more or less happy about how much fun Vee had at camp. Vee smiled once she was done relaying everything, a task which took about a third of the nonstop car ride back to Gravesfield. Even if she was going to have to give this all up soon, she could at least say that she had enjoyed herself.
That is, until Luz somehow found a way to make things complicated for her.
"Mija...do you mind if I ask you something?" Camila began, in a tone that suggested that she was going to ask her something at least somewhat serious. Vee tensed up before replying as casually as she could manage, given the variables at play in this situation.
"Por supuesto, mamá, ask away!" Vee answered, suddenly extremely thankful for the camp's World Languages Week giving her at least a basic understanding of Spanish. It certainly made the task of impersonating Luz that much easier, not that she would be doing so for much longer.
Camila hesitated for a moment, trying to figure out how exactly to broach the subject. She knew that her daughter typically wasn't very comfortable with admitting when she was upset or struggling, which was why she tended to let Luz come to her more often than not. However, this particular situation was odd enough that Camila felt the need to say something about it.
After all, why continue sending her letters when she hadn't actually forgotten her phone? And if she had her phone after all...why stop texting her all of a sudden, with no explanation?
"A while back, you texted me that you had a bit of a rough day at camp," she began, and the use of the word 'texted' was already sending danger signals coursing through Vee's brain. The confirmation that her counterpart was okay, at least long enough to have sent that text message, did at least put her somewhat at ease in spite of her mixed feelings towards the human girl. The fact that Luz could even send that text message in the first place was worrying, however, because it meant that Luz was also sending her mom false information about her time at "camp." Information which could wind up conflicting with Vee's own false information, particularly since she had supposedly forgotten her phone. As Vee's mind raced to come up with a suitable explanation for these discrepancies, Camila nudged her slightly. "Mija? Is something the matter? We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, I was just worried about you, is all," she said gently, to which Vee hurriedly assured her otherwise in order to set Camila's mind at ease.
"Uh, de nada, mamá, really, I just-ah, I just got into a bit of a tiff with Karen and her mean girls, that's all," Vee said. It wasn't entirely a lie. Karen and her clique had been a recurring nuisance to her and her friends whenever they could get away with it. Karen in particular seemed especially fixated on her for some reason, even though she had shown greater enmity towards Pearl, but she never really acted on it beyond name-calling and the occasional shouting match. Still, the fact remained that Vee couldn't entirely recall whether any altercation between them had actually occurred around when Luz sent that inconvenient text, and she still had to explain how she'd lost her phone. Fortunately, Camila seemed to have accepted the first part of her explanation.
"Ay, I think I should really have a talk with that girl's parents once you're settled," Camila said in a tone Vee hadn't heard from her before, although she could recognize that it meant bad things for Karen and her parents. Nevertheless, Camila had other matters to deal with as she continued driving the pair down the highway. "But didn't you say you lost your phone somewhere in the woods, mija? Where was it this whole time?" she asked. Fortunately, Vee had a suitable reply.
"Oh, uh, turns out it was in my back pocket," Vee said easily. "No idea how we didn't notice it before you left," she added with a chuckle, causing Camila to sigh good-naturedly.
"Well, I'm at least glad you had it on you just in case something happened," Camila replied before frowning as she noticed the lack of any phone-shaped object in Vee's hands or her pockets. "You do still have it on you, don't you?" she asked in a somewhat stern tone of voice, causing Vee to shiver slightly as she readied the next part of her answer.
"I, uh, I did...until it got tossed in the fountain. By Karen. Just like with Pearl's phone," Vee said, her replication of a dejected tone serving to convince Camila, particularly when taken with another detail that Vee had no way of knowing until Camila mentioned it.
"Mierda, no wonder you stopped texting me not long after that," Camila muttered before growing somewhat flustered once she realized that she had cursed in front of her daughter, who was too astonished by that to fully process what Camila had said about Luz's text messages. "No te preocupes, mija. I'll be sure to have a talk with that girl's parents right away. If we're lucky, they can foot the bill for your new phone," she said angrily. At this, however, Vee grew even more agitated, knowing that such a confrontation would cause her web of lies to unravel bit by bit.
"Mami, it's fine, I don't want to cause any trouble-!" she began, but Camila wasn't having it.
"No, no, I'm sick of these punks thinking they can do what they like to you and your things!" Camila retorted angrily. Vee could assume there was a lot of pent up frustration there. "First it was the maduros I packed you for lunch that one time, then it was the tin foil swan you brought for that presentation, and-oh! The dashing tuxedo you wore to ask that boy to the winter formal-!"
"Mamá, ¡detente!" Vee interrupted loudly enough that it gave Camila pause, and left Vee irrationally worried that she was going to be punished for screaming at her. "I-I understand why you're angry, but making a fuss about it is only going to make things worse, so just...leave it. Please." Vee fell silent at that, giving Camila a moment to calm herself down before responding.
"Alright. Alright!" Camila said, still a bit of residual anger in her voice. "I'll, uh...I'll see whether they'll let me do extra shifts at work. We should be able to save up enough money for it that way." Vee grimaced. She didn't want to have to put Camila through more hardship if she could avoid it, but then again, since Luz hadn't already shown up that morning, she had to be coming back that night, meaning that Camila wouldn't actually have to do anything. That Camila would have her real daughter back was the only upside of this whole situation, as far as Vee was concerned.
"Thanks, mami," Vee replied, attempting to put on a brave face. "And hey, at least on the bright side, all my new friends will be there for me this year, so kids will be much less willing to try anything with them around." Camila chuckled at that, remembering Vee's stories.
"I can imagine. From what you've told me, Pearl has a mean right hook. Not that I'm condoning such things, of course!" Camila added hastily, causing Vee to chuckle in turn. Eventually, Camila's expression settled into a loving smile as she looked at what she thought was her daughter. "I'm so proud of you, mija," she said warmly. "Truth be told, after...what happened that morning before the bus came, I was worried that you'd be miserable up there. As soon as your letters started coming in, though, talking about all the fun you'd been having and all the lovely friends you'd made, I knew that I made the right choice in the end. You've grown so much, cariño." Vee smiled a genuinely bright smile at that, and she knew that she shouldn't, but the part of her that wanted to be Camila's daughter forever sucked up her fake mom's praise like she was dying of thirst. The rest of her knew that what she was hoping for was utterly foolish, and so she instead prepared to make some changes to that letter she had been writing as soon as she got home.
Changes that would ensure that Luz wouldn't let her mother down ever again.
"I just...don't want to lose you," Vee continued writing by lamplight in the same abandoned house where it had all started, not long after Camila had fallen asleep.
Sneaking out had been easy. She could fit through her bedroom windows easily, and even managed to jump down to the grass below without any damage or sound at all. Granted, it was a little tricky doing so with Luz's desk lamp accompanying her during the fall, but she managed it without too much trouble. By some miracle, the abandoned house actually had electricity still going into it, although most of the outlets seemed to have been blown out. Thus, Vee had to lie on the newspaper-covered floor and continue to write with the desk lamp barely illuminating the page from where it was plugged into one of the only working outlets.
"You've done so much for me in such a short time, and I can't imagine what my life in this realm would have been like without you there to help me along," Vee wrote, tears threatening to come to her eyes again before she angrily brushed them away. "Nevertheless, I have to face the fact that you're not my mother, no matter how much I want to pretend otherwise. Your real daughter is back now, and as tempting as it might have been to just run away before either of you found out about me...you both deserve to know the truth."
Almost as soon as she wrote those words, a faint rustling noise could be heard outside, causing Vee to jump instinctively. After pausing for a moment to check and sniff the air, Vee determined that whatever had made the noise likely wasn't a threat to her. She sighed, cursing herself for being jumpy when she was supposed to be finishing this letter. Then again, she was the one who decided to write this thing in an abandoned house in the middle of the night. With a deeper sigh at her own foolishness, Vee gathered her thoughts before proceeding to the end of her preamble.
"I hope you both can forgive me. I can't imagine you ever will, but there's nothing wrong with hoping, I suppose. On the off-chance that you're actually worried about me after everything, don't be. I'll be alright," she wrote, only about 80% sure that was true. She'd adapted to surviving in the Human Realm, sure, and the bus ticket that Ms. Pines gifted her at least gave her a fixed destination in mind. She could probably take the place of another human that conveniently disappeared, but three months of living as Luz Noceda wasn't going to go away easily. Still, that was a problem for Future Vee to figure out, as Present Vee had two very important messages to leave. One to the woman who had given her more than she'd ever known...and one to the ungrateful girl whose recklessness had given Vee the perfect opportunity to pretend that she had a life worth living.
"To you, Mom Camila, I leave everything I made at camp, if only to reassure you that you made the right decision," Vee wrote, cursing herself for the initial slip up that almost got the waterworks flowing for a moment before she angrily shut it down. "Having experienced it myself, I'm almost certain that Luz would have flourished there just like I did, provided that she had been willing to give it a chance. Of course, in her defense, the camp's advertising could definitely use some work." Vee chuckled lightly at her subpar joke before sniffling again as she continued writing.
"I know that you'll probably still have doubts. That you'll wonder what you could have possibly done wrong to make Luz pick some hellish nightmare world over going to some boring summer camp just so she wouldn't get thrown out of school. For what it's worth at this point, I just want you to know that none of what's happened to Luz during her time in the Boiling Isles is your fault. If Luz has any sense at all, then she knows that you're the best mom she could ever ask for, and I know for a fact that you haven't done anything that could justify her running away like she did." Vee took a couple deep breaths to calm herself down. She knew that if she thought about the situation for long enough, she was going to make herself more angry than she was sad, and that wasn't what she needed right now. "I know you don't have any reason to trust me after all of the lies that I've told you these past few months, but please trust me when I say this: you're an amazing mom, Camila Noceda, and I considered it the highest honor to say you were mine...even if that was just another lie." Wiping away one last tear, Vee's sad smile turned to a scowl as she tore off the bottom of the paper and began writing her letter to someone she wasn't particularly eager to talk to.
"To you, Luz Noceda, I leave the most valuable gift of all: the friends I made at camp. Alex, Pearl, and Sam made me feel like I belonged in this strange new world, at least a little, and I will always treasure them for the kindness that they've shown me these past few months," Vee wrote, chuckling slightly at the unexpected Star Trek pun that she had ended up making. "I would at least like to ask that you don't tell them the truth about me. It might take them a bit to get used to you as you normally are instead of how I've portrayed you, but it would hurt them even more if 'Luz' just suddenly broke off contact with them without any warning. I know it's kind of guilt-trippy to say that, and I'm sorry, I just...I really want them to be happy." Vee sighed wistfully as she briefly imagined an impossible future where she could keep this fake life she's built for herself before she shook her head, dispelling the pointless dream from her mind as she wrote the next portion.
"I'd also like to leave you with a bit of advice, if you'll pardon me for being blunt with you for a moment: you got lucky, Luz Noceda," Vee wrote, leaving the underline thick enough that it obscured part of the letters. "You want to know what would've happened if I hadn't coincidentally taken your place after you left? You couldn't have known this, but your mom followed you out into the woods that day. If I hadn't been there when she came looking, she wouldn't have seen you anywhere, and the camp would've called her not long after that to report that you had never gotten on the bus. Assuming you didn't come crawling back once she texted you in a panic asking where you were, how long do you think it would've taken before she realized that you were well and truly gone? Do you think that her little girl being safe and sound in another dimension would've crossed her mind? No. It wouldn't have. The first things that would cross her mind would be that you were kidnapped or killed somewhere in the woods, never to be seen again."
Vee's conscience ached with every word she put to paper, but months of pent up anger had finally found an outlet, and she wasn't about to stop. "I want you to think about that the next time you decide that your nearly perfect life still isn't good enough for you. Think about how close you came to inflicting untold agony on your poor mother just to avoid going to some poorly advertised summer camp. Think about how that mental image makes you feel, and promise her that you will never leave again." With the bulk of her angry rant done with, Vee sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, not especially proud of herself for writing it...but not quite willing to scrap the letter, either.
"Sorry for being a bit overly harsh there," Vee wrote consolingly on the last couple lines she had. "I just...I don't understand you, Luz Noceda. I don't think I ever will. But I suppose I have to thank you for giving me a taste of what a normal life is like. Now that you finally have that life back, even if you ignore everything else I wrote...at least promise me that you won't screw it up."
With that bitter closing note, Vee sighed and waited for the ink to dry before folding both letters and placing them into an envelope that lay hidden among the newspapers strewn about the floor. She unplugged the desk lamp and closed the door of the abandoned house behind her, hoping to have just a few more moments of laying down in a real bed before the glow of the portal lit up the house and signaled to Vee that her time living this beautiful lie was going to have to end.
She watched until she couldn't watch anymore...but Luz never came out of that house.
Chapter Six: A Big Problem[Summary: Vee realizes just what she has gotten herself into now that Luz has gone several days without showing any sign of returning from the Boiling Isles. Will she be able to continue lying to everyone about who she really is, or will she run away after all?]
By the time Vee went back into the abandoned house on Sunday, several days after she had moved in and Camila had begun her extra shifts at work, it was clear that something was wrong.
With the benefits of several days spent relaxing as much as could be expected of her in her state of constant anxious anticipation over a return that still hadn't come,, she was able to distance herself from the turbulent emotions she had experienced while finishing her goodbye letter. With that distance came the ability to notice something she'd missed the last time she'd entered the house: the house was completely magically inert. Before, she had been able to detect the lingering remnants of the portal's magic for a while after she had first gone through, and Vee had no reason to think that those remnants would have faded until days or even a week had passed. That the house carried no such traces of magic whatsoever was certainly odd, seeing as Vee could only assume that the lady who owned the portal made use of it regularly to supply her stand with human junk. She didn't quite know what to make of it until Vee remembered something that Camila had mentioned under her breath during the car ride back to Gravesfield:
Luz had stopped texting her mother some time ago.
Given how accident-prone Luz seemed to be, as well as the chaotic nature of the Boiling Isles, it was quite possible that Luz simply lost her phone in some kind of magical or monstrous mishap. On the other hand, Vee doubted that Luz would be quite so careless with the only means she had of contacting her mother and maintaining her cover of actually being at camp the entire time, which meant it was just as likely that she still had her phone in working order. Thus, assuming the phone was fine, then something else must have gone wrong to keep Luz from coming back or sending any text messages through the portal. Vee knew that Luz was alive as of the time she sent that text, and Vee didn't want to assume the worst, nor had she dared to imagine something actually happening to the portal like a part of her had secretly hoped. However, if the latter circumstance was indeed the reason why Luz had failed to return on schedule or send any further texts, then Vee was left with a possibility as tantalizing as it was terrifying:
"She might never come back," Vee muttered breathlessly.
On the one hand, Vee knew she shouldn't be celebrating this. As ungrateful as she was, Luz was still a human who may have potentially gotten herself stranded in another dimension ruled over by a ruthless tyrant. Obviously Vee wasn't fully aware of Emperor Belos' plans for the Isles, but given why she was created...what she was for...she could make a few educated guesses. None of them were good. And considering Luz's recklessly heroic nature and less than stellar track record when it came to comparatively mundane Human Realm authority figures, there was a non-zero chance that she had accidentally or purposefully made herself into a public menace.
The perfect person to be made an example of.
Vee shuddered as this thought crossed her mind, trying her best not to assume the worst. Still, even assuming that Luz had managed to stay off of the Emperor's radar, she might not even possess a means of finding her way back home. That she had survived long enough to write those texts was likely due to a mixture of luck and outside interference from somebody kind enough to look out for her in that awful place. Likely the woman who owned that portal between realms, seeing as Luz wouldn't have been able to come back in the first place without her working out some kind of arrangement with the woman. It was entirely possible that Luz's luck would run out at some point, especially considering that she couldn't do magic and couldn't always count on others to protect her from the Boiling Isles' many, many dangers.
Vee would have to be a monster to consider this hypothetical situation to be a good thing.
She didn't consider it a good thing, but the traitorous part of her brain that had secretly hoped this exact scenario would occur was ever-so-quick to point out the upsides of Luz's apparently prolonged sojourn in the Boiling Isles. Without Luz around to take them from her, Vee could keep the loving mother and loving friends that she had acquired during her time in the Human Realm for as long as she could sustain her disguise. She could go to school, walk about town, and do all sorts of new and exciting things that she never would have been able to do back home. Granted, her even greater freedom in this dimension was still predicated on nobody finding out that she was actually a shapeshifting demon, and the fact that Luz was nowhere to be found would certainly lead to people assuming the worst should Vee's true nature be discovered. Even so, that was a problem that she wouldn't have to deal with if she continued being careful, and even if the human girl did turn up, Vee could always just run away and leave the letters behind like she had originally planned.
Ultimately, because she still didn't know for certain that Luz was permanently gone and unable to return at some point, Vee was left with a choice to make regarding how to feel about this. A choice between an angel and a demon on her shoulder, between selflessness and selfishness. A part of Vee idly wondered what choice Luz would make in her shoes, whether she would have ever gone to the Boiling Isles if it had carried the caveat of replacing somebody from that world in the process. Would Luz have been as impulsive as she had been if she were told that crossing that threshold would leave a girl trapped on the other side, never to see her family again? As much as Vee disliked the human girl for what she almost did to her poor mother by running away, even she had to admit that the answer was absolutely a "no." Luz Noceda was just too sweet for that.
But, no matter how long she had held her form, Vee wasn't Luz Noceda, and unlike that selfish human, she had done enough running to last a lifetime. Now was the time for her to plant down roots somewhere where she would be safe, at least for the most part. Somewhere where she would be cared for and looked after without having to demonstrate her usefulness. Somewhere where she would continue to be loved just for being herself, or at least partly herself and partly someone else. It was about the best kind of life that a shapeshifting demon like her could get, but it was a definite improvement all the same, and after what she had experienced of Camila's boundless affection, Vee wasn't about to give it up easily. If Luz did come back, then sure, Vee would step aside, begrudgingly. But if Luz was well and truly gone, if Vee was free to keep living this lie of a life with Camila, if Vee wouldn't suffer any reprisal for continuing to pretend that Camila was her mom, even knowing that her real daughter might never get to experience her kind embrace ever again...that was totally fine as far as Vee was concerned.
Or, at least, that's what she insisted to herself.
"Finders keepers," she muttered darkly in her true voice right before she slammed the door to the abandoned house, leaving her goodbye letters discarded and, a part of her hoped, unnecessary.
When Camila got home half past midnight, she was surprised to find Luz waiting for her.
"¡Hola, mamá!" Vee said happily, briefly startling the older woman before she chuckled.
"What on Earth are you doing up so late, cariño?" Camila asked, a note of concern in her voice as she wrapped Vee up in a hug. Vee, the touch-starved snake that she was, melted into the hug for several seconds longer than she really should have before she answered Camila's question.
"I wanted to be up when you got back from work!" she replied sweetly. "I know it's late, but maybe we could watch a bit of TV before going to bed?" Before Camila could raise any of the several objections that sprang to her mind, Vee hit her with the ever-dependable puppy eyes, rendering her utterly unable to muster the will necessary to tell Vee no.
"Alright, just this once, mija. Just this once," Camila said, to try and regain some control over the situation. "You may have a couple weeks of summer vacation left, but if you spend it all staying up this late, your sleep schedule is going to be a mess once school rolls around, so I expect you to start turning in at a reasonable hour going forward, got it?"
"Got it!" Vee replied, satisfied that she had managed to get Camila for one night at least. Considering that she was doing double shifts the rest of the week, this would be the last chance that Vee had to spend time with her for several days, even if it would only be for a little while.
After reheating some leftovers and picking spots on the couch, Vee flipped through the channels on the TV at random, having thankfully figured out how the device functioned by this point. Eventually, she stopped at the one that Camila called out for her to stop at: a channel that was currently airing an animal documentary narrated by a man with what Vee had learned was known as a "British" accent. Vee was interested in the program itself, of course, but most of her enjoyment came from watching Camila's reactions to it, especially the way that she squealed with joy when the adorable turtles were taking their first steps towards the ocean. Unfortunately, that joy quickly turned into horror when many of the turtles didn't make it on account of being scooped up by birds, causing Vee to scramble for the nearest box of tissues.
By the time she had it in her hands, the documentary was over, having ended on the somewhat gruesome note that only a handful of the hundreds of baby turtles managed to survive their beachfront trek. Even knowing the context for it, the sight of Camila sobbing in anguish on the couch still hurt Vee more deeply than she had expected it to. Vee could easily imagine Camila sobbing in the exact same way as she spent yet another night with no word on whether her daughter was alive or dead after having been missing for three months. Even though she had inadvertently prevented such a thing from ever happening, the thought nonetheless caused that same ugly feeling of resentment towards Luz to build up in Vee's stomach before she shook her head and returned her attention back to the task at hand. No sooner had she done so than Camila managed to get herself together, not wanting to worry her daughter too much.
"I'm sorry," she said, wiping a tear from her eye. "These animal documentaries make me such a mess," she added with a sad smile as she shut off the TV. Without missing a beat, Vee held out the box of tissues with a smile that was equal parts sweet and sympathetic.
"Here, mamá," Vee said warmly, causing Camila to cheer up just a little as she looked at the lovely sight of her daughter, her little Luz, the shining light of her life. Camila's eyelids were drooping and her muscles seemed to ache not only from the labors of the day, but almost as if they were anticipating the labors of the rest of the week, labors she would need to suffer through to make sure they had enough money to get Luz a new phone. It was going to be one of the most grueling weeks she'd ever had to endure, but for Luz's sake, it was more than worth it.
It would always be worth it for her little girl.
"Thank you, Luz. You always know just what to do," Camila replied, the praise once again making Vee feel all warm and fuzzy inside, even if a part of her felt foolish for feeling that way. After all, she had told herself the day she came to the Human Realm not to get too attached to this woman, and yet here she was, already beginning to properly catalog Camila as "mom" in her head instead of dismissing such things as wishful thinking on her part. The part of Vee's brain that had kept her alive all this time was warning her against growing too comfortable playing this role she had decided to play even longer than she had expected, warning her that something could happen any day now that would force her to give up everything she had built for herself and start again.
However, the fact was that these past few months pretending to be Luz had easily been the best months of Vee's tormented life. If continuing to pose as Luz was the key to maintaining that happiness, then dammit, that was what Vee was going to do. As she helped wipe the residual tears from Camila's eyes and gently guided her up the stairs to their bedrooms, Vee decided then and there, for both Camila's sake and her own, that she was going to do more than just pose as Luz.
She was going to be a better Luz. Better than Luz Noceda ever was.
Chapter Seven: Understanding Camila[Summary: Left alone at the house for the second day in a row, Vee does everything she can to better understand the Nocedas while Camila is busy taking on multiple shifts at work. However, Vee's questionable approach ends up giving her more information than she bargained for.]
By the time Vee woke up, Camila was long gone.
Vee sighed, knowing that she was going to have to get used to this for the first week of living in Gravesfield. She still felt guilty, of course; how could she not, when Camila was going to all of this trouble solely because of a lie she told to get out of a jam created by Luz's inconvenient text messages? However, since there wasn't anything Vee could do about it without compromising her position, she chose to focus on the positives instead. She'd gleaned a lot of what smartphones could do from the occasions where her friends would let her borrow theirs, and she was legitimately excited to try all of it out for herself after watching her friends in Cabin 7 take advantage of everything theirs had to offer. Granted, she had already availed herself of the opportunity to sample more human things using Luz's laptop over the weekend, having begrudgingly thanked the girl for leaving a sticky note tucked away which had all of her passwords written on it, but Vee knew that what she had experienced so far was only the tip of the iceberg.
As such, Vee spent about half of the day continuing to immerse herself in various forms of human entertainment. She had started the weekend prior with everything she could surmise Luz liked, then broadened her horizons with the help of her new friends once she managed to befriend them all on Luz's "Quippie" account. Given how much Luz seemed to love the Azura book series, Vee figured it was pretty much mandatory that she at least pretend to enjoy them, but she couldn't even bring herself to do that much after ten pages of the most florid language imaginable. A lot of the other books in Luz's library met a similar fate after a cursory reading, although Vee could at least enjoy what she read of the few sci-fi novels that Luz kept in their own little section. And, naturally, after thoroughly enjoying serving as an early reviewer to Alex's second novel during camp, she made sure that they shared Try Not to Die in Space with her as well. If there was any justice in this realm, Vee knew that Alex had a bright future ahead of them as a writer.
As far as human music went, Luz and Vee's tastes seemed to align more closely with each other. Although Vee had no idea what most of the groups she listened to were singing about, something about the way that "kpop" and "merengue" were presented spoke to her on a primal level, to the point where she could veritably jam out to either despite only understanding the odd phrase here and there. Remembering how Sam wanted to make soundtracks for video games, she decided to message him and ask for more recommendations on that front, and quickly assembled a playlist of about ten different game's soundtracks to parse through at her convenience.
On the subject of games, she was happy to note that Hollow Knight was included in Luz's library, and whether it was muscle memory from her previous attempt at camp or simply being better at it in this format, Vee actually found herself improving at the game compared to the night she died around five times in almost the exact same way. When she wasn't playing that, she was spending an inordinate amount of time playing this Minecraft game that Luz seemed to enjoy a great deal, judging from the twenty or so different "worlds" she made in it. Although she tried to get the hang of how it all worked in her own "world," Vee quickly realized that she liked the game's mining and crafting elements a lot more when the blocky monsters trying to kill her weren't allowed to exist.
Last, but certainly not least, was human television, which Vee attempted to burn through as best she could. She found most of the cartoons Luz enjoyed to be far too overly optimistic for her taste, although she ended up liking the Monster Slayer Academia show that Luz hadn't watched through all of the way, which was...ironic, considering. She also made a point of starting one of the many Star Trek shows that Alex loved, specifically the one that had Kira and Dax in it, the two women who Alex believed should have kissed at some point but didn't. Vee could certainly agree that they were more interesting than the doctor character who made her uncomfortable, at least, although Alex promised her that he got better as the show went on. So far, Vee wasn't seeing it, but after getting to the third episode, she was definitely interested in what the lizard tailor's whole deal was.
She had just finished that episode and was about to start something else when a message from Pearl pinged on her laptop, causing Vee to divert her attention.
Pearl: So I was just talking with Sam; are you really just stuck at home rn?
Vee chuckled a bit as she anticipated where Pearl's thoughts were going.
Luz: Yup, and unfortunately, that isn't an invitation for y'all to come over.
Pearl: Ah, dangit. It sucks you're just sitting around, though! Can't you leave the house, at least?
Vee thought about it for a moment. Vee knew from her self-guided tour of the house the previous day that there was a spare house key sitting on a bowl in the front entryway, right next to a photo of Luz as a young girl being held up by some bearded man that Vee could only assume was her father. As such, Vee was at least physically capable of leaving the house and locking everything behind her to make sure nobody broke in while she was gone. The only problem was...
Luz: Idk how mom would react, tbh, and I don't have my phone, so I can't text her to ask if it's okay.
Pearl: She doesn't have a Quippie account?
Luz: She does, but she doesn't have the app on her phone because it's old and doesn't support it. =/
Pearl: Oof.
Pearl: Welp, guess you're Home Alone, then. ;)
Luz: I...don't know why you capitalized it like that, but yeah, basically.
Pearl: It's a reference to an old movie, lol. Surprised you haven't seen it.
Vee couldn't help but start sweating a bit. She'd gotten better over the last few months, but she still missed way too many human references for her liking.
Pearl: Speaking of which, I just got another idea.
Vee sighed in relief at not having to explain yet another minor discrepancy in her cover. She wasn't quite sure what Pearl was driving at, though.
Luz: Yeah?
Pearl: Is there anywhere your mom doesn't want you to go inside your house?
Vee cocked her head at the question.
Luz: No? I've been inside every room of it, she never told me not to go certain places.
Pearl: Still, though, there's gotta be something you're not allowed to look at. Maybe this is your chance to do some snooping, discover the forbidden lore of your progenitors and hold it over their heads for the rest of time!
Pearl: Or something like that, idk, I'm not the writer in our friend group. =p
Vee paused, finding herself conflicted at Pearl's suggestion. On the one hand, while she wasn't positive that she would get in trouble for inviting friends over without Camila's express permission (knowing Luz's historical lack of friends, Camila would probably be thrilled), she could reasonably assume that she'd get in trouble for invading Camila's privacy while she wasn't home. On the other hand, Vee could also assume that all of the Noceda family's important documents resided in Camila's office. Documents that could give her the answers she needed to questions such as "Who are my relatives?'" or "What happened to my dad?" that "Luz" couldn't ask Camila because "Luz" should have known the answers to them already. She didn't want to snoop around, necessarily, but when it came to knowledge of the Noceda family, Vee had a profound disadvantage compared to the girl she was replacing. A fourteen year disadvantage.
If she really wanted to be the better Luz, then she needed to level the playing field.
Luz: Alright, I'll do it, but if I get grounded, I'm telling my mom that you put me up to it.
Pearl: Fair, lol.
As it turned out, her first guess was right on the money.
Taking care to disturb the various documents held within Camila's office desk as little as possible, Vee thumbed through what she could find and managed to learn a great deal. For one, she learned several things about Luz that she definitely wouldn't have been able to ask Camila about without it being suspicious, and made a mental note to never have anything with dairy products in it from now on to maintain her disguise. Additionally, from what she had gathered, Luz was the only one in the family to be born in these "United States" Vee had stumbled into, with both of her parents being born in some place called the Dominican Republic, which perhaps explained Camila's accent. More importantly, while she hadn't exactly written down their entire life story anywhere, Camila had enough of the relevant documents lying around in the same place that Vee was able to piece together the broad strokes of the Noceda family's fascinating history:
Camila had been born in the Dominican Republic as Camila de la Cruz, the eldest in a family that, judging from the grainy photographs Vee found, hadn't been the most well off, yet evidently hadn't struggled quite as badly as others.
She immigrated to America about twenty years ago to pursue a career as a veterinarian. Her family seemed to enthusiastically support this, as Vee found several photographs of various get togethers over the years which indicated that they did visit on occasion, albeit not often.
The man in the photographs was apparently named Luis Noceda, and was only a year or two older than Camila, having gone to the same university to become an art teacher. Vee couldn't find much of anything about his family, for reasons which she couldn't readily ascertain.
Camila married Luis after they had both graduated, with Luz being born two years later when the newlyweds had moved to Gravesfield in order to find jobs. Camila worked as a vet at the local animal shelter, while Luis got a job at Gravesfield High, where Vee would soon be going to school. Judging from the photos she had glimpsed before...they had been happy.
Vee frowned as she looked at a photograph of Luis holding baby Luz with one hand while the other worked deftly with a paintbrush to bring a beautiful sunflower to life on a canvas. Baby Luz seemed to be in awe of the bright colors, her hand outstretched to try and bap the fresh paint, while Luis was pictured laughing at his daughter's precociousness as he angled her away from it. Vee had her theories about him from the moment she realized that he wasn't around, but after looking at all of these photographs and documents, this didn't seem like the kind of man who would leave his family behind for whatever reason.
At least...not by choice, judging from the documents that she found underneath the photo.
He had died when Luz was five, judging from the date on his death certificate. Obviously the clinical language of such a document didn't offer much in the way of details regarding the circumstances beyond what was strictly necessary for archival purposes, but Vee was able to find out more thanks to a torn out piece of a newspaper clipping that she found next to it. According to what text she could read from it, there had been an accident in a nearby lab classroom which blossomed into a full blown fire, one that threatened to take the entire building with it. Humans had people trained to deal with those, of course, but they were ten minutes away at the time, and if Luis was anything like his apparently courageous and most definitely reckless daughter...he wouldn't just stand by while children were in danger.
Someone had to help them.
He went in and managed to clear a path out of the burning building, allowing the students who could still walk to escape while he worked to free the rest of them from the rubble. He had gotten two more students out and was about to go back in for the rest when...the rest of the ceiling collapsed, and he was buried under two tons of rubble.
The newspaper and the students he saved both called him a hero, but Vee could understand how such praise would ring hollow to Camila and her daughter.
As much as the survival-oriented part of her brain reminded her that this man wasn't her father any more than Camila was her mother, Vee found herself crying anyway, and hastily moved to wipe her tears with her shapeshifted sleeve in order to keep any from falling onto the documents. It was only after a couple minutes spent trying to calm herself down that she managed to uncover the wills buried beneath everything else, and felt her heart sink for an entirely different reason. Judging from the names included in them and the surname which was largely absent, both Camila and Luis intended to give almost everything to Luz or Camila's side of the family upon their deaths, leaving only a select few keepsakes for Luis' siblings...and virtually nothing for his parents.
It suddenly wasn't much of a mystery why Camila kept no photographs of Luis' family.
As Vee carefully put everything back the way she found it, she was left pondering what it would have been like to grow up in this house as Luz had. To have a father who loved her, only to have him ripped away from her at such a young age. To have extended family who loved her, but couldn't visit as often as they would have liked due to the distance between them. To have extended family who, quite possibly, didn't love her simply because she was her father's daughter, or at least didn't seem to make much of an effort to try and visit her once he was gone. To have lived in this quaint little town from the moment she was born and to still have so few meaningful attachments to people. Even Vee had to admit that, knowing what she knew now, she could almost understand why Luz had decided to remain in the Boiling Isles for the summer. She hadn't exactly had much tying her to the Boiling Isles, and although Luz's life had still been better than hers by a good margin, Vee realized that Luz didn't have as much tying her to this world as she thought. She almost started to feel a bit bad for her...that is, until she realized something while looking at a photo of Camila and her husband holding baby Luz between them.
The realization started with that sweet sight, but it didn't fully crystalize in her head until she looked at Camila's calendar and noticed how many reminders she had left for herself. Reminders to pay the bills, get groceries, get Vee's new phone, make sure Vee was ready for the new school year, and all sorts of other things that a mother would need to keep track of for the sake of her daughter's welfare. She had known it before, but to be directly confronted with the perfect visual of how much Camila cared about Luz, how much she worked and sacrificed to support her after Luis died unexpectedly, how Luis cared so much about both of them that he did everything he could to ensure that they would be okay when he was gone...it shook Vee to her core. Part of her was jealous of Luz, having received all of that affection from her parents for her entire life while Vee had enjoyed no such comforts. More than anything else, however, Vee was left profoundly angry, even more angry than when she had written that scathing letter berating Luz for her carelessness. Because, she realized at that moment, Luz knew everything that Vee had discovered just now.
Luz knew that she was all her mother had left...and she still decided to run away.
With a noise halfway between a growl and a hiss, Vee slammed the last of the open desk drawers shut with a loud banging sound, and hurriedly checked to make sure she hadn't damaged anything. Satisfied that the drawer was fine, Vee sighed before trudging back to Luz's room and collapsing backwards onto the bottom bunk bed, not wanting to risk breaking anything else in her rage. She looked around at everything in the room: the stuffed animals that she had knocked off of the bed, the fantasy books which lined Luz's small bookshelf, the witch's hat that lay on the floor nearby along with all of the other silly clothes that were probably still sitting in Luz's closet. All of it pointed to a girl that kept her head in the clouds because the world below them was lonely and sad, and as much as Vee had almost understood why Luz had lived her life that way...it didn't change how selfish the human girl was in her mind. Vee had left her world behind because it was the best chance she saw at doing more than just surviving, but Luz probably took one look at all its magic and monsters and decided that the Boiling Isles was the perfect place to live out her wildest fantasies. Vee could only hope that the human girl had long since been cured of that delusion, but then again, Vee wasn't nearly as optimistic as her.
Even though Vee's foray into Camila's things had left her more upset and angry, she could at least say she had learned something from the experience. Or rather, it reaffirmed something which only became more fixed in her mind as she finally understood everything that Camila had been through and just how important Luz was to her. It may have been wrong of her to think about, but as far as Vee was concerned, Camila really did deserve a better daughter than the one she had.
Vee could only hope that she would prove to be exactly that.
Chapter Eight: Hit the Books, Kid[Summary: Knowing that being up to speed regarding human education is vital to her continuing to pass as Luz once her sophomore year begins, Vee musters up the courage to study like she's never studied before, making a new friend in the process.]
Eventually, Vee managed to beat Camila to the stairs in the morning.
"Ack! You startled me, cariño!" Camila said with a chuckle as Vee gave her a sneak attack hug from behind. After everything she'd learned about the Nocedas, Vee figured they both could use it. Besides, she'd already been told not to stay up late and catch Camila when she came back from work, so catching her before she left for work seemed to be the next logical step.
"Lo siento, mamá, I just needed to ask you something before you left for work today," Vee explained, causing Camila to pause as she registered what Vee was saying.
"Oh, um, of course, mija. Just, uh, talk fast, huh?" Camila said half-jokingly, glancing at the clock with a slight degree of trepidation in her features that left Vee a little nervous.
"I, uh, I was hoping you'd let me head to the library," Vee began. "I wasn't sure whether or not you wanted me to leave the house on my own, but I, ah, I figured it'd be helpful to go there so I can get my head on straight before school starts." At first, Camila's face fell as she realized that had completely slipped her mind...only to be replaced with a look of pride.
"Ay, that's right! I had been planning on helping you study. Lo siento, mija, I totally forgot," Camila replied before smiling. "Evidently one of us still has the headspace to keep track of these things. Very responsible of you, Luz," she said with a coy wink, causing Vee to chuckle nervously.
"Ha, well, you know me; I aim to please!" Vee replied, causing Camila to chuckle.
"Have fun at the library, mija," she said, handing Vee the spare house key. "I trust you to lock everything up nice and tight here, just, ah...be sure to get home before I do, will you, Luz?" Camila winked again as Vee laughed a little at her joke. Camila may have come off to others as the more straight-laced of Luz's parents, and Vee could see that, but all the same, she was pretty funny. Deciding to match her energy, Vee gave her an exaggerated salute with a radiant smile on her face.
"I won't let you down, mamá!" Vee answered happily.
"I'm going to let her down," Vee whispered dejectedly as she beheld the Gravesfield Library.
She hadn't exactly lied to Camila about her reasons for going to the library, but she had withheld the truth regarding just how much she needed to catch up on to not be totally lost. Camp at least helped her with learning the basics of mathematics and improving her reading comprehension, and Vee had availed herself of what resources she could find on the Internet once she figured out what she needed to learn in the first place, but Vee knew that none of that was a substitute for a lifetime of human education. Luz once again had a sizable advantage over her.
Thus, Vee had turned to the Gravesfield Library Tutoring Program.
Vee knew that, even with the vast resources of the library at her disposal, studying on her own wasn't going to completely fill the critical gaps in her knowledge. She also knew, unfortunately, that her friends were all busy with one thing or another on this particular day, and thus couldn't help her out beyond the assistance they had provided when she first started studying. As such, her only option was to schedule a tutoring appointment through the library's website. She wasn't exactly thrilled about the prospect of exposing her lack of knowledge to a complete stranger, but she reasoned that she'd probably be able to brush off any questions about herself easily enough. After all, what were the odds that her tutor had actually known Luz before she-?
"Luz?" an unfamiliar voice asked, causing Vee to stop in her tracks.
Apparently the odds were much higher than Vee had expected.
"Hm, yes, sure enough, you're my first appointment today. How...peculiar," the person continued as Vee turned around to look at her, finding a girl with dark brown skin, circular glasses, and curly black hair helpfully tied back with an orange cloth hairband. Although initially obscured by her clipboard, Vee silently thanked her lucky stars that the girl's name was so helpfully displayed on the name tag pinned to her plain green shirt: Juniper Palmer, it read. With nothing much to go on regarding Luz's prior relationship with this girl, aside from the general sense that it probably wasn't good, Vee took a deep breath before turning on the charm, as it were.
"Oh my gosh, Juniper, how have you been?" Vee asked enthusiastically, catching Juniper off guard. "Man, I did not realize you were gonna be my tutor today, that's so great!" She gave her a bright smile to really drive the charm home, but unfortunately, Juniper wasn't fooled.
"The website would have supplied you with a profile of your tutor once you made the appointment, meaning that you should have already known that I would be your tutor today," Juniper replied in a rather sophisticated, yet dispassionate tone that indicated her abundant skepticism. Vee chuckled nervously as she tried to come up with some kind of excuse.
"Must've missed it!" she said quickly. "Anyway, I really need to hit the books before school starts, and I realize that I probably did at least one messed up thing in front of you at some point, but I just wanted you to know that I've learned from my mistakes and I'm really sorry, so...help me, please?" By the end of it, Vee was practically on her hands and knees begging for Juniper's assistance, a display which she didn't seem to visibly react to at all aside from expressing mild surprise. That is, until the human girl threw Vee for a loop in her own unique way.
"Of course," she said simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"Huh?" Vee asked, cocking her head. "Wait a second, you're not mad?"
"My personal feelings are irrelevant," Juniper replied. "It's against library policy to refuse our tutoring service on the basis of personal grudges, and in any case, I hold no such grudge against you." Vee blinked; she hadn't expected that. "Although you are...very much the same in some ways, it's clear from your apology to me that you have indeed changed compared to the utter force of chaos you were during freshman year." Vee slowly broke out into a sheepish smile at that, thankful that Juniper seemed to have more or less forgiven Luz for whatever it was she had done around her. However, that smile soon died when Juniper suddenly assumed a serious expression. "You do intend to respect library policy and abide by the terms you agreed to when you signed up for tutoring, correct?" Juniper asked sternly, to which Vee anxiously nodded.
"Mhm! Yep! Big rule follower, that's me!" Vee replied, causing Juniper to almost smile.
"Splendid," Juniper replied. "I trust that you will need very little help."
"You need far more help than I anticipated."
Juniper's blunt remark, once Vee had done her best to explain the gaps in her knowledge in a way that she could pass off as simply forgetting these things instead of being entirely ignorant of them, only caused the basilisk to groan as she rested her head on the desk.
"I kno-ho-ow!" Vee whined pitifully, while Juniper continued with a perplexed look on her face as she tried to reconcile these developments with what she knew of Luz.
"Frankly, I am confused as to how you have apparently forgotten so much over a single summer," Juniper said. "Others may disagree, but from what I recall of our classes together, you were a gifted student...when you did not deviate from the instructions for the sake of shenanigans, at least." Vee paled in response to Juniper's observation. She was smart enough on her own, sure, but to think that Luz was apparently expected to be so much more knowledgeable than her, and that Vee would therefore have to imitate that level of academic ability or else potentially engender suspicion, did not leave her brimming with confidence. Fortunately, Juniper seemed to realize that she wasn't helping. "My apologies. From what you have told me, it is clear that you have done all you can to catch up since you came back home. I can appreciate that kind of dedication," she said, offering another of her half-smiles, helping to give Vee a little hope back. She was quickly learning that every change in Juniper's expressions said a lot with very little.
"Thanks, Juniper," Vee said earnestly before pulling out the blank notebook and various writing implements that she had taken from Luz's room along with one of her backpacks. "Alright, Biology, prepare to be understood!" she whisper-shouted, mindful of the #1 rule of libraries. To Vee's surprise, Juniper actually let out a chuckle at that, proving she was far from humorless.
The two worked without conversing about anything outside of their studies for a while. Vee was tasked with various activities on many subjects while Juniper was busy reading from their associated textbooks and helping to guide Vee through more complicated problems of math and physics. Although her surprisingly detailed knowledge of reptilian creatures provoked Juniper's interest, Vee was thankfully able to throw the booksmart girl off the track by bringing up the incident with Luz and the snakes, which thankfully explained how she had developed such an understanding in a totally normal way. Aside from that brief hang up, the two worked pretty well together, with Juniper's patience and exacting detail meshing well with Vee's ability to listen and actually stay silent for prolonged periods of time. Still, this didn't mean that Vee was going to spend the entire two hour study time she had booked not talking to this nice girl.
"Hey, Juniper?" she asked while in the middle of reading some book called Great Expectations.
"Yes?" Juniper replied simply. She could be very economical with words, Vee had noticed.
"If you don't mind my asking, how has your summer been? You didn't answer me the first time," Vee pointed out, causing Juniper to think about it for a moment.
"It was relatively uneventful," she remarked. "There was a bizarre incident involving pastries and a strange old woman that my mother got mixed up in several months ago, but aside from a newly acquired aversion to muffins, she was thankfully left fairly unharmed from the experience." Vee raised an eyebrow at that, but chose not to focus on the part about pastries.
"Well, glad to hear she's alright, at least. What does she do?" Vee asked as she began a new chapter. Juniper glanced at Vee a bit more intently to make sure she was actually reading while they were engaging in this potentially distracting conversation. Fortunately, Vee didn't seem to have any trouble multitasking, and actually seemed to be quite a fast reader in spite of her slightly below average reading level for a student of her age. As such, Juniper elected to continue talking.
"She works at a salon in Gravesfield Park. Palmer Cuts," Juniper said with something of a wry smile on her face. "She claims the name was chosen both for its simplicity and the fact that it can almost be read as a pun on 'paper cuts,' despite the words having little similarity." From the tone of Juniper's voice, this seemed to be a marketing decision that the two playfully argued about on occasion. Vee couldn't help but chuckle once the pun was explained to her.
"Eh, I dunno, I think your mom might be onto something," she countered, to which Juniper shrugged. She didn't agree entirely, but she could at least acknowledge her mom's reasoning.
"Perhaps," she conceded. "My mother is a shrewd businesswoman, ridiculous naming convention for her store notwithstanding, and I could be persuaded to accept that some of her success in this enterprise was a result of people enjoying the 'cozy' atmosphere such levity provides."
"I imagine it must be a very lovely place," Vee said with a smile, causing Juniper to offer up another half-smile as she volunteered a bit more information.
"It could be described as such, yes, although the noise often makes it difficult to study upstairs," she remarked, causing Vee's eyes to widen slightly.
"Wait, you live there? Like, in an apartment above it?" Vee asked, to which Juniper nodded.
"Yes. The building was designed that way, and so when my mother purchased it after we moved, she was able to take advantage of the convenience that such a living arrangement offered for her new business," Juniper replied, looking almost wistful as she continued speaking. "It is an adequate space, if somewhat cramped. Still, the fact remains...it is home." She had a different kind of smile on her face by the time she looked at Vee again, one which Vee couldn't immediately decipher the meaning of at first until Juniper spoke once more. "You are the first of my peers to take an interest in my personal life in some time," she remarked candidly. "Most would simply be content with getting through this 'boring' work and being done with it, but you have remained active, engaged, and polite throughout this entire process. It is...very much appreciated." Vee smiled, having finally gotten to a good enough stopping point in the book that she could stick a bookmark in.
"Aww, thanks, Junie!" Vee accidentally slipped out, only to cover her mouth in a panic as Juniper was left stunned by the sudden remark. "Ohmigosh, I'm so sorry, I totally should've asked before giving you a nickname! What am I thinking, we only just started talking to each other after I screwed up in the past and I made it weird again, why did I make it weird again-?!"
"Calm yourself, Luz," Juniper replied before giving her another half-smile, along with what almost looked like a light blush on her cheeks. "I do not believe I have been given a nickname by anyone other than my mother. It was...unexpected, but not altogether unpleasant. I think I rather like it, actually." She tossed her head around, almost as if she were replaying the way Luz said it in her mind a couple of times before she finally nodded in approval. "Please refer to me as such whenever possible...Luzura." Juniper said the word fondly, but Vee felt herself growing a little embarrassed.
"Oh, uh, that's not really a nickname I feel super comfortable with, unfortunately," Vee tried to backpedal, only for that to earn her a confused look from Juniper.
"My apologies, but is that not the name of your beloved original character?" Juniper asked, leaving Vee a bit confused herself until Juniper explained how she had learned this. "As I recall, during the auditions for Romeo & Juliet, you initially attempted to audition as this 'Luzura' character using a dramatic script you had written yourself, in order to demonstrate your potential as an actress. This approach was, naturally, shut down...although personally, I thought the script you had written was rather good." Vee awkwardly chuckled in response to praise intended for another before coming up with a good enough excuse for Juniper not to use that name for her.
"Haha, well, uh, I don't really want to be called that anymore because, um...Karen kinda ruined it for me," Vee explained, causing Juniper to frown with recognition in her eyes. "She was at Reality Check too, and we got into tiffs a lot. The first time we really went at it on the first night, she taunted me by calling me that name...right before punching me in the stomach. Kinda tastes bitter after that, to be honest." To her credit, Vee was actually bummed enough about what had happened at the fountain that she was able to sell her despair convincingly.
"Ah, my most sincere apologies, Luz," Juniper replied. "I shall refrain from developing a nickname for you in turn. In hindsight, it would be rather pointless to do so, considering that your name is already a mere three letters. It honestly defeats the purpose of a nickname, really." Vee chuckled awkwardly, glad that the minor issue had been resolved fairly easily.
"Thanks for being so understanding, Junie," Vee remarked, and she may have imagined it, but she could have sworn she heard Juniper give the slightest titter of appreciation upon hearing that nickname yet again. Deciding that was the most adorable thing she had ever witnessed, Vee noticed the time on the library's clock and got an idea once she realized that she only had another half hour of tutoring time today. "Say, once we've wrapped up here, do you wanna go walk around town?" Vee suggested, catching Juniper's attention for a moment before the girl shook her head.
"I have several additional clients I must attend to before I leave at four," Juniper explained, leaving Vee dejected for a moment before she elaborated. "However, if you would be willing to continue studying on your own until then...I would be delighted to accompany you." She gave Vee a slightly wider half-smile than all of the previous ones, and while it seemed like the basilisk might never see this girl's teeth if she could help it, it nonetheless made Vee happy to see.
"Aw, yeah! Girls' day out!" Vee whisper-shouted, giving Juniper a much brighter smile before she turned back to her work with far more confidence than she had before she entered the library.
After all, she had at least succeeded in making a friend.
Chapter Nine: Fake It Till You Make It[Summary: Vee may have quickly settled into living in Luz's house with Camila, but she finds some aspects of human life trickier to navigate in Gravesfield than at Reality Check. Fortunately, her new friend Juniper's mom is willing to help her feel a bit more comfortable in her own skin.]
"Come on, come on, come on!" Vee said excitedly before she was cut off by a patient sigh.
"I am assembling my things as quickly as humanly possible, Luz," Juniper replied, having just about finished doing so while Vee was left practically bouncing in place at the front entrance of the Gravesfield Library. She didn't often get excited like this, but having her first proper outing in a human town definitely seemed like a fair occasion for her to feel that way, not to mention the fact that she would get to hang out with her latest human friend. Besides, she had already been studying for around half a day at this point, and if she had to speed-read another full length novel she was supposed to have read over the summer in a matter of hours, she was going to break something. Fortunately for Vee and her immediate surroundings, she didn't have to go that far. "Alright, let us depart," Juniper said simply, causing Vee to pump her fist in the air.
"Awesome! Where to first, Junie?" she asked as she finally walked out of the library with Juniper walking slightly ahead of her for whatever reason.
"Hm. Fascinating," Juniper replied with a finger to her chin. "I had assumed that you would be the one who suggested where to go next, seeing as this was your idea to begin with." At this, Vee paled somewhat, not wanting to reveal how little she knew about what there was to do in Gravesfield despite Luz having lived there her whole life. Fortunately, Juniper inadvertently spared her from having to come up with an explanation. "No matter. I need to stop by Palmer Cuts to drop some things off anyway. It shouldn't take me very long, and I can only assume that you don't have any particularly pressing need for a haircut?" the human girl asked, gesturing to Vee's pixie cut and provoking an unusual train of thought in the shapeshifting demon.
"Actually..." Vee said, pausing as she looked down at her reflection in a nearby puddle and saw a face that was entirely identical to the girl she had replaced. Obviously, that was the idea, and she couldn't exactly give herself a new face, but if she was going to be a different version of Luz anyway...then perhaps she could risk a little experimentation in order to feel just a bit more like herself. "I think a haircut sounds amazing."
Although the park was a decent walk away from the library, Vee found that she didn't really mind it as long as she had somebody to talk to. Seeing as Juniper had already shared a bit about her own summer, Vee figured it was only fair to reply in kind, and so the time it would've taken to get there was passed rather easily by Vee's recounting of the same version of events at camp that she had told Camila back in the car. Juniper had been interested in Vee's descriptions of her friends' interests and some of the activities at camp...but fell silent whenever Karen was mentioned. It didn't take much for Vee to pick up on what such a reaction on Juniper's part meant regarding her history with the blonde bully, but rather than prying into her sad backstory like Luz may have done in her place, Vee instead opted for a more passively supportive approach.
"Yeah...pardon my language, but she's kind of a perra, isn't she?" Vee said as she hesitantly reached out a hand towards Juniper's shoulder. Although she didn't seem to give any indication of wanting such physical contact, Juniper did at least chuckle in response to what Vee said.
"Agreed," she remarked, as though Vee had said something very wise and profound. The discrepancy managed to get a laugh out of Vee as they finally got to the front door of Palmer Cuts.
Vee let Juniper take the lead, seeing as they were technically visiting her home, and so she walked behind her and saw that the simple barber shop was strangely empty despite still having a few hours until closing time. The shop was somewhat more sparsely furnished than one would expect of a more corporatized outfit from what Vee understood, which she supposed was the trade-off one accepted when seeking out local businesses instead. Indeed, the only person who seemed employed at Palmer Cuts was none other than Mrs. Teresa Palmer herself, an older woman with an afro tied back by a hairband who had a similar build to her daughter, although she was a good six inches taller at least. Having sat idly at the counter for a little too long in her opinion, she brightened up as she noticed the two girls come in.
"How are you doing, baby? Was tutoring okay?" Teresa asked as Juniper walked towards a door which led to the stairwell that connected the store to their apartment upstairs.
"It has been a productive day, as usual. In a more unique turn of events, I have also acquired a friend," Juniper said, in what seemed to approach a bright tone of voice without quite reaching Vee's own brightness. Teresa chuckled as Vee waved nervously at her new friend's mother.
"I can see that!" Teresa said cheerily. "Were you planning on staying over, sweetie?" she asked Vee, leaving her nervous at being directly addressed.
"Oh, uh, not for long, but I was wondering-"
"We will be leaving again shortly, mother, but in the meantime, Luz desires a haircut," Juniper called out from the stairwell, seeking to cover for her shy friend in her usual direct manner. "I will return once I have put my things in their proper places." With that, Juniper shut the door and walked up the stairs, leaving Vee alone with the hair stylist who sighed tiredly, yet happily at her daughter's handling of the whole situation.
"Ah, that girl is special, I tell you," Teresa said fondly before gesturing for Vee to come forward and sit down in front of a mirror. "So, are you just looking for a trim, or something a bit more...bold?" she asked eagerly, causing Vee to become just a bit bolder herself in order to answer.
"Well, I-I want to try something different than the kind of tomboyish look I've got right now, but I'm...not really sure what that something is," Vee explained, knowing that she probably wasn't doing the best job of describing what she wanted. After a moment of clicking her tongue, however, Teresa seemed to have come up with something, judging by her smile.
"I think I got you, honey," she said before immediately preparing Vee for her first haircut. Vee quickly proved herself to be what Teresa supposed some might call a model client, always following her instructions perfectly and never speaking unless spoken to in order to not interfere with her work. Although it did make the task of transforming her hair easier, Teresa had to admit that she greatly preferred being able to talk with her clients, and she was especially interested in getting to know the first friend her daughter had made in...a while. So, she eventually decided to try and strike up a conversation with "Luz," and while her initial efforts only got somewhat noncommittal answers, she eventually managed to get the girl to open up.
"So, I take it you were one of Juniper's clients today?" Teresa asked, earning her yet another "Mhm" from Vee until she piled on. "Now, I know you two go to the same school and all, but still, she doesn't usually make friends that way. How on Earth did that happen so fast?" she asked a little teasingly, causing Vee to chuckle a bit.
"Oh, uh, I dunno, really," Vee admitted. "We just kinda started talking and, uh, that was that. I didn't really think she'd be that receptive, especially after all the, ah, stuff I pulled last year, but she seemed strangely willing to forgive and forget." At this, Vee paused briefly before she asked a question of her own. "Do you know how she used to feel about all of that?" Teresa hummed as she worked, trying to figure out how to answer that question without betraying her daughter's confidence too badly. Eventually, she managed to settle on a response.
"She only really saw the thing with the sausages," Teresa said, seemingly having some idea of all the trouble Luz had gotten into over the years. From what Vee had gleaned about barbers from how chatty Mrs. Palmer had been throughout the process, she imagined her friend's mom heard a lot of things. "She was upset by it, sure, but she was more upset when the play got canned by the principal because of all the angry emails he got from the other kids' parents." Teresa frowned as she thought about how strenuously she had disagreed with that decision before she shook her head and chuckled to herself. "You wouldn't think it because of how she tends to come off, but my little girl loves the stage. Gets it from her daddy; he used to play a pretty mean Mark Antony back in the day." Surprisingly, at least from Teresa's perspective, Vee found herself chuckling as though in agreement.
"Honestly, that makes sense to me," Vee remarked fondly, despite having only really met this girl hours ago. "She's pretty chill when she's just talking normally, but put a book in her hands and she gets way more dramatic. I'd love to hear her do a, uh, Shakespeare monologue or something; she'd probably chew the scenery like nothing else!" Both of them laughed at that before Teresa sighed in a somewhat morose way, leaving Vee concerned she had said something wrong.
"Yeah...she was really excited to audition for Friar Lawrence," Teresa remarked, bringing Vee's mood down yet again now that she understood just what "the thing with the sausages" had cost her new friend. Why did Luz have to unintentionally mess something else up for her?
"I'm surprised she doesn't hate me for ruining her chances," Vee said sadly, although Teresa was quick to act before Vee sunk any further into a pit of despair.
"Nah, she isn't the kind of girl to hold grudges," Teresa remarked. "And besides, canning the whole thing was a bad call on the principal's end anyway. Sure, folks got mad because you freaked some people out, but I'm sure you didn't mean any harm by it. In fact...now that I think about it, I seem to recall somebody saying she 'admired your ingenuity' after the fact, once the shock had subsided." Teresa smirked, her tacit admission doing the trick of getting Vee to brighten up.
"She did?" Vee asked, inadvertently moving for the first time while Teresa worked.
"Yup! I mean, hey, anybody can fake dropping dead, but bringing your own props to add to the realism was pretty clever...albeit also rather terrifying, so maybe get permission before you do it again," Teresa added on with a chuckle, causing Vee to awkwardly chuckle as well.
"Well, glad to hear I was never a total nut in her eyes," Vee remarked playfully before a small smile crossed her features. "And I'm definitely glad we're friends now, even after all that." Teresa smiled as Vee closed her eyes in order to keep out stray hairs.
"Me too, honey," Teresa remarked fondly as she laid out the finishing touches until, at last, Vee's first ever haircut was complete, and entirely to Teresa's satisfaction. Of course, it wasn't her opinion that mattered in this situation. "Alright, what do you think?" she asked, causing Vee to hesitantly open her eyes and look at herself in the mirror. She still saw Luz's face staring back at her, but now the spiky hair she'd sported before was replaced by a neatly combed look with a couple of complimentary hair pins that kept it all perfectly symmetrical, and thus rather pleasing to the eye if Vee said so herself. She'd never thought she could ever describe herself as "pretty" before, and even though she had to take Luz's form to pull it off...it definitely felt good. It felt just different and new enough that, for the first time since taking Luz's form, she really felt like Vee instead of just a perfect imitation of the human girl she'd replaced.
She found herself loving that feeling more than anything else in the world.
"It's...me," Vee said, with tears in her eyes and a bright smile that rivaled the sun.
Ultimately, Vee's first walk around Gravesfield was nice, but could've gone better.
Juniper had returned to the ground floor of the barber shop just in time to witness her mother comforting a bawling Vee, which certainly left her concerned for her new friend even as Vee tried her best to insist that they were tears of joy. Although Vee was extremely embarrassed by the incident, neither Palmer held it against her and readily accepted her excuse of being awestruck by how well her new look suited her. Juniper in particular stated her appreciation of her friend's new look, and Vee found herself blushing involuntarily at the compliment before changing tack to focus on the outing ahead of them instead of whatever reaction that compliment generated. Teresa had no issue with the girls walking around town on their own, but since it seemed unlikely that anyone else would be stopping by Palmer Cuts, the older woman elected to close up shop early so that she could chaperone the two and pay for anything that struck their fancy. With Vee being given the reins on where to go now that Juniper had taken care of her business at home, the shapeshifter weighed her options before deciding that a new outfit was called upon to go with her new look so that she could distance herself even further from Luz without straying far enough to engender suspicion.
Exactly as it should be, Vee thought to herself with only a hint of familiar resentment.
To that end, the three found themselves walking through a massive clothing store that sat at one end of Gravesfield's modestly sized mall. Vee had hoped to get away with simply looking at the options available to her and deciding which one she liked that way, allowing her to alter her form to include it once she got to the relative safety of home. However, Teresa insisted on having her try each outfit on before she rendered judgment, confirming that such a selection process was indeed abnormal and putting the girl in a bit of a pickle.
Although such a simple alteration as shifting her form's clothing to match each outfit wouldn't take a lot of magic individually, she wasn't sure she had enough to spare that she could afford burning it all on such a frivolous pursuit. After all, it was for this very same reason that she had continued to appear in the same cat-eared hoodie and short jeans she had seen Luz wearing back in the Boiling Isles for all these months. She did eventually reach a solution, albeit one that was profoundly embarrassing if she were to be caught transformed inside of the changing room, for several different reasons. Still, she knew it was the best choice she had, so with a nervous gulp she went into the nearest available room with a copious amount of outfits in hand, made the necessary alterations to her form, and resolved to work through the outfits as quickly as possible.
As luck would have it, her worst fears regarding this exact kind of situation did not come to pass, thank the Titan. Vee was able to try on outfit after outfit without being discovered or disturbed, with each one being met with the approval of Teresa and especially Juniper, who requested that she pose for some brief sketches to accompany each outfit and aid in the decision-making process. In the end, Vee had been unable to choose just one, finding all of them cute in their own ways, but she dared not take advantage of Mrs. Palmer's generosity by getting all of them like she wanted. The older woman insisted that it was the least she could do for her daughter's new friend, but she had already said that about the haircut she had refused to accept payment for, so Vee resolved to have Teresa buy her only one outfit from the store, no matter how much she internally lamented the loss of so many adorable clothes.
With a part of her left hopeful that she could talk Camila into taking her back to the store next month, Vee once again locked herself in the changing room she had been using in order to narrow down her options until only one remained. After a grueling internal debate which lasted over twenty minutes, Vee finally managed to settle onto a single purchase: an azure hoodie with dark blue cuffs, a yellow button-up shirt, dark blue leggings, and white sneakers with gray laces. Satisfied with her decision, she quickly shifted back into her original disguise so she could take the other outfits and put them back where they belonged.
"Oh, lord, finally," Teresa said with a light, bemused chuckle once Vee came out of the changing room. "I take it you found something you like best?" she asked, gesturing to the ensemble in Vee's left hand. Vee smiled the same radiant smile she had when she saw her new hair for the first time, a smile which communicated so many unspoken things that no one but her could ever know.
"Oh, yeah," she replied happily. "I think this is the one."
Once everything had been put back where they found it and Vee's new outfit had been purchased, Vee regretfully elected to put an end to her first outing with Juniper, citing how close to evening it was by the time they stepped out of the store and how Vee had promised her mom that she would get home before she got back from work much later that night. Declining Teresa's offer to drive her home, Vee insisted that she would be fine walking back on her own, claiming that she wanted to get in some sorely needed exercise. The Palmers seemed to accept this explanation with some hesitation, although Juniper surprised both her mother and Vee by reaching out for a goodbye hug. For her part, Vee heartily reciprocated the gesture, still being somewhat touch-starved even as her fake mom and her friends had no reservations showering Vee with physical affection. Judging by Juniper's adorable titter of appreciation, it would seem that frequent physical contact would be expected by her new friend in the future. Vee had absolutely no issues with this development.
Of course, the real reason she had elected to go back on her own was that she wanted the opportunity to shift her form to match her new clothes, making sure to carefully conceal the actual clothes Teresa had purchased in the bag they left with. Although the feel of the disguise wasn't necessarily any different than the one she had donned previously, it felt lighter and more freeing than it had before, almost as if it really were a better representation of her true self hidden underneath her Luz disguise. With no one around to judge her, Vee could admit that she positively skipped back home, elated at the feeling of finally being something approaching herself.
Unfortunately, with this newfound happiness came a corresponding decrease in her alertness, the slightest of lapses in someone who had never truly been able to relax for too long due to the turbulent circumstances of her life. If she hadn't been so relaxed, she thought to herself much later, she probably would have noticed the unfamiliar car parked along the street so that the driver's side was facing her house. There was a strong chance that she would have noticed the phone sticking out of the driver's side window, a phone whose camera was shakily pointed towards it: towards her. Had she been more alert as she unlocked the door and looked around for a moment before heading inside, she might have even spotted the driver who snapped a crucial photo before driving away.
A pivotal photograph to add to the conspiracy board, the driver thought to himself.
Chapter Ten: Yesterday's Lie[Summary: The events of "Yesterday's Lie," as told from Vee's perspective.
Featuring: a Vee who's just a bit braver, a Luz who's just a bit nicer, a Jacob Hopkins who's just a bit smarter, and a messed up portal that conveniently holds together for a whole lot longer.
Special thanks to all of the lovely people who edit the Owl House Wiki, specifically those who went to the trouble of writing out the "Yesterday's Lie" transcript that I referenced to make sure I was getting the dialogue right for the parts of this fic that were more or less unchanged. Said transcript can be found here: wiki/Yesterday%27s_Lie/Transcript]
Part One: The Girl who Looked Back in the MirrorOnce everything of Luz's had been unceremoniously dropped into the collection box, Vee sighed as she stretched her shoulders, doing her best to ignore the pang of guilt in her head.
"Ah, much better!" she remarked before lifting up the box easily and heading towards her bedroom door, pausing only to look at herself in the mirrored sliding doors of her closet so that she could adjust a stray strand of hair that had fallen out of place. She smiled; she really couldn't thank Juniper's mom enough for styling her hair the way she did, not to mention taking her clothes shopping afterwards. Granted, she wasn't actually wearing those clothes so much as keeping them tucked away so that she could pretend to be wearing them as part of her slightly adjusted disguise, but still, it was the thought that counted.
She couldn't exactly be picky while taking Luz's place at camp, but she had never quite liked Luz's more "GNC as heck" way of presenting herself, as Alex jokingly called it when they were hanging out one night (Vee had replied that they were insane in a similarly joking tone, which made them laugh way more than Vee had expected them to for some reason). Having such a style was all well and good for Luz, but Vee didn't want spiky hair and she didn't want to be wearing some stupid cat-eared hoodie all the time. She wanted to be pretty, to feel like she was a real teenage girl and not just a horrific creature made in a lab who was stuck posing as somebody else. She couldn't change the fact that she had to pretend to be Luz in order to live a happy life, but at least now she could finally be something approximately close enough to herself in the process.
And dang it, after everything she'd been through, Vee had been riding that high for a while.
"What's the box for, mija?" Camila asked as she closed the front door of her car, having just gotten back from the store to touch up on groceries and seeing her daughter walk out of the house with the previously assembled box of Luz's things in hand. Vee smiled outwardly, although inside she was brimming with nervous energy. Would Camila approve of her letting go of these fantasy things that had gotten Luz into so much trouble? Vee knew from her initial gaff with the Azura book that the answer to that question was probably "no." Camila seemed sad to hear that she had left it in the trash "where it belonged," so to see a whole box of Luz's things tossed aside would probably elicit a similar reaction. Or, Vee thought worriedly, would Camila immediately jump to thinking it was suspicious that Vee wanted to get rid of all of these things that had been so important to Luz in the past? Vee had managed to convince Camila that she was Luz so far, albeit a version of Luz who had changed significantly as a result of her experiences at Reality Check, but if there was anyone in the world who would be able to figure out that Vee wasn't really Luz, it was Luz's own mother. Would clearing these things out inevitably expose the cracks in Vee's carefully crafted persona?
Would she have to run away after all?
"Just...cleaning up a little," Vee began as casually as she could manage, successfully disguising her inner turmoil from Camila, who was instead focused on something else.
"Even this?" she asked in an inquisitive tone as she held up the tin foil swan that Vee had shoved into the box. It was a question that betrayed the slightest hint of concern, as though Camila couldn't quite believe that Vee would do such a thing. "You used to love making me tin foil swans," she added with fondness in her voice, backing up her point by playfully pushing the tin foil swan towards Vee's face. Vee did her best not to panic even as she enjoyed the gesture of affection.
"Oh, I'm, uh...just looking for a fresh start," Vee replied as she took back the swan and put it back into the box where it belonged, setting the whole thing to rest on the curb. "Camp taught me a lot, you know?" she added as she stood up, hoping that mentioning camp would reinforce the perception that any odd behavior on Vee's part was a result of what she had learned. It seemed to do the trick, albeit not in a way that didn't leave Vee guilty all the same.
"Yes...it sure did," Camila said in a small voice, grappling with the same feelings of doubt and insecurity that she had grappled with when Vee had told her that the Azura book her daughter loved so dearly was still in the trash can, long gone by the time Camila had come back from driving Vee to camp. She could spot so many of the adorable things Luz had loved in that box. There was Luz's favorite Azura doll, as well as a childhood photo of Luz holding the doll in question. There was the massive red dragon model that Luz had begged her to buy at the comic book store in order to jump start a Creatures & Caverns club at school that never materialized. There was even the witch's hat that had been the centerpiece of Luz's Halloween costumes for several years in a row, now looking as though it were slightly crumpled up. Luz wouldn't be getting rid of these things if Camila had the guts to stop her from putting her favorite book in the trash back then. Since she hadn't, then no matter how much she hadn't meant to, she had taught Luz that getting rid of these things she loved would earn her approval, even though all Camila really wanted was for her to learn how to manage her creativity in a healthy way that didn't put the people around her in danger.
On the other hand, she thought, how would Luz react if she stepped in now? Camila imagined Luz getting rather upset at Camila's apparent hypocrisy, and Camila wouldn't have blamed her. In the end, it was Luz's right to do what she wanted with her things, and from what Camila could see, Luz truly had outgrown a lot of them. Whether it was a direct result of her experiences at camp, or simply the result of believing that these things had caused her mother trouble, the Luz standing in front of her now wasn't the same Luz she had left waiting for the bus at the beginning of the summer. She was more mature, more responsible, and thankfully far less reckless, but more to the point, she had friends! Real friends, not imaginary or drawn or reptilian, but actual human friends! Friends who stuck up for her when the bullies she dealt with at school found their way to camp. Friends who shared their favorite media with her and helped her to broaden her horizons. Friends who helped her with her studies and took her to get an adorable new haircut and clothes to go with it. Friends who would walk around town with her and invite her to sleepovers and do all of the other fun things that Luz had been sorely missing from her life. Friends who loved her for the beautiful angel of a girl that she was, "weirdness" and all. If the lessons that Luz had learned in camp produced such heartwarming results...who was Camila to stand in the way of that?
Maybe, Camila thought, the real problem wasn't that Luz was behaving so differently from the Luz she had known before she'd gone to camp. Maybe the problem wasn't that Luz was getting rid of things that had been so special to her in the past. In the end, maybe all of this worrying on Camila's part was symptomatic of an issue that she knew all parents had to deal with eventually, yet she had nonetheless convinced herself that she would never have to do so with Luz.
Maybe the real problem, as hard as it was for her to admit to herself, was that Camila wasn't as ready as she thought she was for her little girl to grow up.
Before she could grapple with this dilemma any further, a high-pitched squeaking sound jolted Camila from her thoughts. Years of veterinary training told her in no time at all that the squeaking sound was an expression of panic, and an expression of a bunny panicking in particular. With a gasp, Camila turned towards the source of the noise, where she indeed saw a poor little white furred bunny rabbit struggling to get its leg free from a makeshift snare. Camila cried out in horror at the sight as she and Vee moved to investigate, but she quickly regained her composure.
Like her own mother had often told her, Camila was born for this.
"Luz, grab the pliers!" Camila commanded, and Vee was off like a shot while Camila pulled out a pair of brown surgical gloves that she kept in her purse just in case. Vee came back with what she had asked for much more quickly than Camila had expected her to, but she wasn't about to question it. She was far too preoccupied with saving this poor bunny. "Okay, okay, little bunny, you're gonna be alright," Camila said soothingly, holding out her hand in order to calm the bunny down enough for her to do her work. In a matter of seconds, she was able to get the pliers to where the string had wrapped around the bunny's leg, cutting it free in a single motion. "There we go," she remarked in that same soothing voice, giving the bunny space as it darted back into the woods. She smiled as she watched it go, grateful that she had been there before things got really hairy for it.
"That's the fifth trap this week," Vee remarked, a note of concern in her voice. She'd run into several small animals trapped in snares like these while Camila was away at work, and Camila knew this. Unfortunately, the mouse that Vee had found walking near the abandoned house one day was already dead when she got there, having fallen victim to a classic mouse trap. After recovering from this sight, Vee broached the subject with Camila the first chance she could and received enough instruction on how to deal with various kinds of traps that she was able to get the other animals she found free without issue. Still, once was a fluke, two times was a coincidence, but five times? Something more was going on here, Vee sensed, something bigger than just some random person's sick idea of fun. Whatever it was set Vee's survival instincts on edge more than they had been at any point since she had come to the Human Realm. If these animals weren't the intended targets of these traps and had simply been caught in the crossfire, then Vee had to ask herself:
Who was the hunter responsible for these traps...and just what were they hunting?
Camila frowned, likely asking herself similar questions to Vee. She certainly hadn't been happy to hear that the incident with the mouse wasn't a freak accident, and Vee could recognize the current expression on Camila's face from when she had mentioned talking to Karen's parents. Luz had to have gotten that righteous fury she had from somewhere, after all.
"If I ever catch who's responsible, I'll a dar un POW POW!" Camila shouted as she punched the air, too angry to really care about how her threat got mixed up between English and Spanish. Vee chuckled at Camila's fiery passion, allowing her to calm down a bit. She could worry about any hypothetical beatdowns she may or may not get the chance to act upon later; she had groceries to put away. "Let's go back inside. I'll make maduros~," she said, teasingly booping Vee on the nose. Vee smiled as she always did when on the receiving end of Camila's affection and hesitated for only a split second, doing her best to quiet down the lingering fears which had been steadily pecking at the back of her mind all day. After shaking her head as if to banish such thoughts, she made her way back home with a smile on her face.
As long as Luz was gone, she had nothing else to worry about.
It wasn't long before Vee had more or less finished clearing out her room of everything Luz had which she didn't want to keep, having packed the remaining fantasy novels and anime DVDs into a similar box to the first one in order to leave them both on the curb. By the time she went back inside a second time, she could hear the delightful sounds of Camila dancing around the kitchen and humming along to a song that they both loved to jam out to: yet another point of evidence against any accusation of her not being a fun mom. Always eager to help out in the kitchen, Vee poked her head out from the hallway with no awareness of who else was watching her at that moment.
"Mom? Do you need any help?" she asked sweetly, one arm hanging on to the wall.
"Oh, are you done cleaning your room?" Camila asked as she set a bunch of bananas down next to the cutting board, surprised Vee was done so quickly and doing her best to mask any further reticence at her daughter's actions. She couldn't say that she was entirely happy about it, and a part of her wanted nothing more than to bolt outside and grab everything off of the curb as quickly as possible, but if this was really what Luz wanted, then...she would do what was best for her.
Of course, then again, it was also that instinct that got them into this mess in the first place.
"Almost!" Vee said, stretching out her arms yet again. All she had left to pack were a handful of Luz's old "OC" drawings and a few tacky clothes before Luz's room was redecorated entirely to Vee's liking. Vee tried not to let the residual pangs of guilt she felt over getting rid of Luz's things dampen her enthusiasm too badly. "With all that old stuff gone, I feel like a whole new person!" she said, mostly believing herself as she walked towards the counter to help with the maduros. After Vee unpeeled a second banana and left it on the counter for Camila to cut up like the first one, the older woman looked at her daughter with an uneasy smile, her concerns still weighing heavily on her mind alongside something else she'd noticed. Luz had always been willing to help her out wherever she could, but she'd never been quite this...dutiful about it. There was no mother-daughter banter, no mile-a-minute rambling about some new book she had read or a fanfic she was writing, she just...did what she was told. It was a little unsettling if Camila was being completely honest with herself.
On the other hand, Camila was also glad that the days of Luz almost starting fires while she was distracted with her interests seemed to be behind her.
"I can finish up here, mija," she said, both her and Vee having too much on their minds to notice the faint sounds of distress that failed to be heard over the music coming out of the phone.
"Thanks, mom!" Vee said happily as she raced up the stairs, eager to finish cleaning up. In less than a minute, she had made it to her room, at which point she began collecting the last of Luz's things to be placed in one final cardboard box intended for the curb. The pangs of guilt still remained, but Vee continued to ignore them. She knew that it was selfish of her to get rid of these things just because she wanted to distance herself from how Luz had been before, but a more spiteful part of her was ready to argue that her "finders keepers" comment applied here too.
If Luz didn't want these things to be tossed aside, then she shouldn't have run away.
For some reason, as that resentment towards Luz bubbled up inside of Vee, she felt a stronger sense of unease about it than she usually did. It didn't make sense. Luz had missed coming back by some time now, and she definitely wouldn't have waited that long if she still had access to the portal. Camila would take care of whatever was going on with the traps in their neighborhood, and neither she nor Vee's friends had shown any indication of seeing through Vee's disguise. She shook her head with a chuckle, berating herself for her foolish worrying. She'd already managed to pass as Luz for this long, even after making some pretty noticeable slip ups. If she had been able to maintain her cover for over three months in spite of all of that, she could keep it going for as long as she wanted to. She had nothing more to worry about, she repeated to herself.
If that were the case, then why did she have so much trouble believing it?
Not wanting to interrogate that question just yet, Vee packed away everything she wanted to with the exception of a cat-eared beanie with paw-like ear muffs, a comically big set of tinted sunglasses that admittedly went well with said beanie, and a tacky purple and white striped shirt sitting in her closet. Taking care of the last one first gave her the opportunity to once again admire her new look in the mirror. This was it. She had finally gotten what she had always wanted.
"A new life," Vee said, voicing her thoughts aloud as she opened the doors and took out the striped shirt before closing them again...only to be met with a different Luz in the reflection. A Luz with spiky hair that was mussed up and unruly from having endured some kind of injury, judging from the bruising on her cheek. A Luz wearing a blue witch's wool cloak over her classic cat-eared hoodie, no doubt having been put on in order to protect her against magical assault. A Luz with a rope tied to her waist for whatever reason, suggesting that she had traveled to whatever place allowed her to appear within the mirror like a scuba diver braving the depths of the ocean.
A Luz with a look of fury on her face as she finally appeared to get her revenge and take back everything that Vee had stolen from her, just like Vee had always secretly feared she would.
"YOU!" Luz shouted angrily, as though she were going to hurt her in any of a hundred different ways now that she had found her. Left with only a second to react as she watched that "new life" she had just expressed joy for crumble all around her, Vee did the only thing she could.
She screamed.
Part Two: The Girl who Got Trapped
"So you can hear me!" Luz remarked in a somewhat accusatory tone as Vee backed away.
"You-you're supposed to be in the Demon Realm!" Vee said, far too frightened to notice how her vocal chords had reverted back to their normal state. The form that she had spent months trying to maintain in the face of a litany of stressors was starting to come undone bit by bit, and with how loud she had screamed earlier, Vee knew it was only a matter of time before Camila came up to investigate what was going on. She would open the door and see two different Luzes and hear Vee speaking in a different voice, and that would be it. She would know the truth.
Vee would have to run away...again.
"Listen," Luz began, seeing that her presence had evidently startled whatever demon had taken her place way more than it should have if she were a monster intent upon feeding on Camila's life force or something. Luz could admit now that immediately jumping to "evil doppelgänger" was probably an overreaction on her part, albeit an understandable one. All she really wanted was to get answers on why this creature was here and why she had taken her identity, and judging from the panicked look on Vee's face, she wasn't going to get them if she confronted her the way that she had originally planned. "I just wanna-" Luz continued, only to pause as Vee's eyes blinked sideways, yet another indication of her form unraveling under the stress she was under.
"I'm not going back!" Vee cried, and were she not completely freaking out, she might have fully processed the fact that Luz was apparently stuck in the reflection and probably couldn't reach out and grab her like some horror movie villain. Instead, her brain simply latched on to the fact that Luz was there to begin with, and let her survival instincts do the rest as she picked up a red baseball bat that Luz had lying around. "I-I won't go back!" Vee cried, prepared to swing until a voice at the door distracted her from her plan of action.
"Luz? ¿Está todo bien?" Camila asked from outside the door, leaving Vee terrified. She tried desperately to turn her vocal chords back, but couldn't quite manage it in time to stop Luz from-
"¡Sí, mama! I just saw a spoiler from Monster Slayer Academia!" Luz called out.
...Covering for her?
"I will never understand anime," Camila remarked with a sigh before going back to the kitchen, leaving the two girls alone once more.
Vee blinked again. Why had Luz done that?
"Eh?" Luz asked with a shrug after a brief second of silence, giving Vee a somewhat nervous smile as if to ask her "How was that? Am I good or what?" Were she in a calmer state of mind, Vee might have fully connected the dots and realized that this meant Luz wanted to talk instead of violently murdering her for everything she had done like she feared.
Vee did not realize this, and instead elected to yeet herself out of her bedroom window.
"WAIT!" Luz cried out, but Vee had already dropped the bat and backflipped down to the front yard, landing feet-first without even slowing down due to her enhanced durability. Not missing a beat, Vee hopped the fence in just as smooth a motion and ran off into the nearby woods, panicking for a second before she saw the abandoned house and ran towards it. She opened the door and did a quick cursory scan of the room, not noticing any reflective surfaces. Believing that she was safe for the moment, Vee's face fell as she finally had a chance to truly process what was going to happen to her now that Luz had found a way to interact with the Human Realm.
"So this is it," Vee said to herself in a small voice. "I'm really going to have to run...again." She allowed herself to mourn the loss of her new life only briefly before her sadness gave way to a fury all her own. "Why couldn't this just WORK OUT?!" she screamed as she kicked a pebble towards the wall...and ended up springing a much larger trap built for much larger prey. She heard the snapping sound of it being sprung only a second before she felt a length of cord that she hadn't noticed wrap itself tightly around her ankle, pulling her to the ground.
A part of her knew that the situation wasn't quite as dire as her panicked brain was telling her it was. It was a pretty sturdy trap, but it was still just wire, and Vee could probably shapeshift out of it with no issues. Unfortunately, that would require a Vee that wasn't already terrified regarding what Luz was going to do to get her life back. It would require a Vee that hadn't already been worried about the machinations of this mysterious hunter responsible for all those other traps, someone who she now knew had hurt all of those poor animals in pursuit of something bigger. Was she what the person who made these traps was hunting? Had she been found out by someone other than Luz? Were they out there right now, ready to take their shot now that she was trapped and vulnerable?
Was she going to die?
Left with these fears plaguing her mind, it was no surprise that her already-tenuous grasp on her humanoid form fell apart the more she failed to escape. It began with a partial transformation, leaving her ears in their normal floppy shape, her eyes in their true colors, and random splotches of beige appearing on her human skin. Once it became clear that escape wasn't happening and her control over her form was all but gone, Vee let go completely, cradling her head in her hands while finally melting back into her normal serpentine form. She would have been left thrashing around in panicked misery for quite some time if a certain somebody hadn't decided to intervene.
"Stop moving! You'll make it tighter!" Luz called out from a conveniently placed hand mirror, causing Vee to pause as she registered the voice of her counterpart.
"Huh?" she asked, once again confused as to why Luz was helping her.
"I didn't mean to freak you out," Luz said, waving her hands in a placating gesture. "I just want to figure out what's going on, okay? You're a demon from the Boiling Isles, aren't you?" Vee could only murmur in acknowledgement of Luz's question, calming down enough to revert to her partially transformed state. "What's your name?" she asked with a small smile. For all that she had initially panicked, Luz had to admit that her "evil doppelgänger" was surprisingly adorable.
"I'm Number F-ah, I mean, I'm Vee," Vee replied as she looked away sadly, making the same mistake she made the last time somebody had caught her nearly transforming.
"Okay Vee, I'm gonna help free you. You're gonna be alright," Luz remarked, taking on the same tone that Camila did earlier with that poor bunny. "Now, back up a bit, give the wire some slack. Now, look for a little metal thingamabobber," Luz instructed, chuckling apologetically as she did so. "Sorry, I don't know what it's called." As she spoke, Vee found the thingamabobber in question: what looked to be a dog tag set up to secure the knot once the trap sprung. From there, she was easily able to pull on it until the circle created by the wire had widened enough for her to get out. "There you go, nice and easy!" Luz said to help calm Vee down before she gasped in relief.
"Thank you," Vee said, still not understanding why Luz would help her. "You really are Camila's daughter," she complimented in a bittersweet tone.
"I am, but right now, I'm trapped in the Boiling Isles," Luz explained before cocking her head. "Who are you, and...why are you pretending to be me?" Vee gulped. That was the question she was most afraid to answer honestly, so she went for a deflection instead.
"I'm...just looking for a place to belong," she said, causing Luz to look at her with a sympathetic expression as Vee elaborated. "You didn't come back when camp was over and mom...I mean, Camila seemed so kind, so I stayed with her," Vee said, groaning at how she had accidentally called her "mom" in front of Camila's real daughter. The fact that she could actually talk to Luz now proved that the time to indulge in that delusion had passed. As such, she mentally prepared herself for what she knew she was going to have to say next. "But, uh, I'll go if you want-!"
"Wait, wait, wait!" Luz cut in, interrupting her. "Maybe we can help each other! Today, I was gonna tell my mom where I've been, but because of you, she hasn't realized that I've been missing!" Vee bristled a bit at that comment. She was fully aware that was the case; the fact that Luz hadn't considered what would've happened if it wasn't was exactly why Vee was mad at her! Nevertheless, she figured she ought to at least hear Luz out after she bothered to help her in spite of everything she'd done, so she kept her mouth shut. "So, keep living in my place! For now," Luz continued, oblivious to Vee's bitter internal dilemma. "When I get back, I can introduce her to the Demon Realm and help you find a place to live!" Vee winced, knowing in her heart that she couldn't tell Luz that she'd already found a place to live.
And she didn't want to leave, no matter how much she now knew that she had to.
"There's one problem," Vee said, deliberately choosing not to mention her underlying issue and instead focusing on a more pressing concern. "I need magic to transform and I uh...just used the rest of it," she said, blushing as she did so. To have burned up all of that magical energy for nothing, after managing to get by with piecemeal uses of such a starkly limited resource for months until now, was beyond stupid of her. Why did Vee have to be so damn anxious about everything?
Oh, right, the traumatic nature of her entire existence. Yup, that would do it.
"Hmm..." Luz murmured, entirely oblivious to this. "Oh!" she exclaimed, pointing to Vee's left. "That's where we can get some magic!" she said, causing Vee to pick up the old newspaper. The article she found was entitled "Secrets of Gravesfield" in all capital letters, written by a man named Jacob Hopkins. From what Vee could tell, it seemed to focus on a series of bizarre incidents going on in Gravesfield: mysterious noises, feathers found in people's coffee cups, and a curiously intelligent owl that seemed to be behind a number of trash thefts in Camila's neighborhood. Vee wasn't sure what any of that had to do with a grainy, old-timey drawing of some George Washington-looking guy shaking hands with an old devil-tailed man in witch's robes, but the article's author insisted that "IT WAS ALL CONNECTED!"
"Secrets of Gravesfield?" she asked, wondering if that was what Luz was talking about.
"No, no, that's junk," Luz replied. "Turn it over!" she said, and when Vee did, she was met with a very different article about an old woman Vee recognized from the day she met Luz. The only difference here was that, instead of scamming people with human garbage, she was running gleefully from a café as living pastries assaulted the customers. The article, titled "Strange Woman Banned Immediately from Café for Creating Living Books," detailed how this 'Marilyn' woman had attempted to use magic (or at least attempted to look like she was using magic) to cut the line, only for her target to see through her ruse and prompt her to flee while causing chaos in her wake.
"That's Eda, the Owl Lady," Luz explained, and even Vee, sheltered as she had been in several ways, dimly recognized the title, if not the name. "She's been coming here for years. She might have left some magic stuff behind!" Vee paused for a moment, wondering whether she was really about to go along with the human girl's scheme. She still didn't like her very much, even if she had helped her out when she had every reason not to. Of course, regardless of her personal feelings towards the prospect of continuing to cover for Luz's mistake, Vee needed that magic if she was going to have any chance of continuing to survive in this realm. The phone number and bus ticket she still kept in her pocket weren't going to do her much good otherwise.
"Okay," Vee said simply as she picked up the mirror. "We can try."
With that, the two girls exited the abandoned house, heedless of the barely audible beeping of a CCTV camera installed in one of the corners of the house. A camera that had just recorded video footage that a certain historian would find extremely interesting...
Part Three: The Girl who Didn't Belong
Vee had wanted to do some more walking around Gravesfield, but not like this.
Walking right into the park that framed what passed for "downtown" Gravesfield, Vee made her way to where a quick search on Luz's laptop had told her the café that Eda terrorized was. Knowing that she couldn't possibly go out into the world in her half-transformed state, Vee had elected to make use of the cat-eared beanie and glasses while she had snuck into Luz's room, seeking to disguise herself as much as she could. She hadn't drawn any undue attention to herself yet, but Vee worried it was only a matter of time before somebody noticed.
"Is this it?" Vee asked Luz through the hand mirror, having come upon the Robin's Roast Café that they were looking for and nervously murmuring to herself. "I-I just go in and ask about that witch from the paper?" she asked, as if to make sure that she knew the plan despite going over it with her unlikely ally several times.
"Yes!" Luz replied, turning to look towards the café. "Maybe they still have one of her enchanted pastries!" she remarked before turning back to look at Vee. "Ah! Ears! Ears!" she said while pointing to her own, having noticed that Vee's had slipped out from underneath the beanie's paw-like muffs. Seeing a little girl pointing at them out of the corner of her eye, Vee whined anxiously as she moved to cover them up again. Thankfully, the kid's mother had only seen her daughter pointing at a random stranger for no reason, causing her to pull the little girl away even as she continued to point at Vee excitedly. Deciding to focus on the mission, Vee pushed open the glass door of the café, causing a bell to chime, and swiftly set to work sniffing for the scent of magic.
"Hello!" the blonde lady at the counter called out as she handed a drink to a customer, startling Vee in the process. "What can I get ya?" Having been thus engaged in conversation, Vee reluctantly made her way up to the counter, attempting to put Luz's plan into action.
"Uh, have any, um, magical old ladies left enchanted items here?" Vee asked in her normal voice, knowing how ridiculous she sounded and wincing as the lady pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Ugh, you're not friends with that witch-obsessed guy, right?" she asked in a frustrated tone, looking up towards the ceiling as though to voice her frustrations to the heavens. "I told him to stop leaving pamphlets here!" As she spoke, Vee could indeed see a number of crumpled up pamphlets advertising the Gravesfield something or other sitting in the trash can, but she was far too preoccupied with how she had bothered the cashier lady to care. Fortunately for her, she managed to spot something related to what she was looking for above the lady's head.
"Actually, I'm asking about her," Vee said, pointing to one of four photographs of individuals "Banned for Life" that included Eda and three other people whose transgressions were unclear.
"Oh, Marilyn?" the lady asked as she followed where Vee was pointing. "Yeah, she tried to pay for a latte with a live raccoon a couple of months ago, but when I called the cops, she did something weird to the croissants." As she spoke, she picked up an ordinary croissant with a pair of tongs, as if to double check that it wasn't contaminated. "We threw 'em in the trash but, well...hm." She sighed, glancing off towards the back door. "Now we have a whole new problem."
When the lady refused to elaborate on what she meant, instead directing Vee to "See for yourself" by discreetly letting her out the back door, Vee found herself in an alley behind the store, allowing her to resume sniffing without getting any weird looks.
"I don't...smell any magic," Vee said for Luz's benefit, only to hear a hissing sound coming from the shadows. "Huh?" she said nervously, only to watch as a pair of red eyes lit up in the dark.
"Breaded wisdom grants us speech!" two rats bellowed as they crawled out into the light, looking every bit as dirty and deranged as one would expect from magically intelligent trash rats. They spoke as though they shared one mind and one voice, the echo reverberating throughout the alleyway as they took note of Vee's unusual nature. "WE DESIRE MORE!" Luz, either oblivious or optimistic regarding this terrifying development, was as excited as Vee was horrified.
"Cool! Talking rats! Maybe they know something!" Luz remarked, only for Vee to scream as one of the rats hissed and attempted to bite her, causing the basilisk to run away in a panic until she got to the statues of the town's founders that acted as the centerpiece of Gravesfield Park. She looked back nervously at the rats, who simply hissed from the alleyway before retreating back into the shadows. "Vee? Is everything alright?" Luz asked, concerned, while Vee tried to brush it off.
"Oh, haha, yeah, I- I just don't like confrontation," Vee said nervously.
"Oh! Well, that's okay, I'm sure there's someone else who's seen Eda," Luz said sympathetically before she gasped, having noticed something else at that very moment. "There!" she said, prompting Vee to turn around and her blood to run cold once she caught sight of three teens sitting underneath a tree in the park.
It was the Cabin 7 Crew. The last people that Vee wanted to see her like this.
"Hexes Hold'em cards!" Luz said obliviously, gesturing to one of the cards that Pearl seemed to be using in an improvised Tarot reading for Sam and Alex. "Eda got rid of all her decks. I was wondering where they went!" Vee sniffed the air before frowning.
"Well, they must've run out of magic, I don't...smell anything," she said.
"But maybe they know where to get more!" Luz pointed out, which Vee couldn't argue with. She mentally prepared herself to try and explain her odd appearance to her friends while Luz, having no idea who these people were to Vee, opted to instruct her in what she knew of how to deal with other teenagers. "Okay, we gotta be careful approaching high schoolers in the Human Realm. Mark all your exit routes and-" Luz began, only for Vee to laugh.
"Actually, these guys are cool," Vee remarked optimistically, hoping against hope that she was right as she began to walk towards them far more casually than she had been walking around before.
"Ah! Wait, hey!" Luz protested from the mirror while Vee caught her friends' conversation.
"A past connection that left its mark on your soul has shown up again, and is asking you to shed your old ways and enter a metamorphosis, becoming the spiritual leader you're meant to be!" Pearl proclaimed as though she were one of the Oracles of Delphi, to which Sam simply shrugged as he laid in between his friends on the soft grass.
"Yeah, that sounds right," he said as he idly scratched his stomach. Pearl put the card she had just pulled onto the grass and was about to do a reading for Alex when Vee sat down with them.
"Hello!" Vee said, managing to shift her vocal chords back to where she could assume Luz's voice once again, albeit with some strain. She hoped against hope that her disguise would hold up.
"Oh, she's gonna embarrass herself! I can't watch!" Luz muttered too low for anyone but Vee to hear, covering her face in the process...only to find herself surprised.
"Oh, hey Luz!" Pearl replied before smirking. "Good to finally see you outside of prison~." Vee laughed good-naturedly as their friendly disagreement came up yet again, and distinctly felt the sensation of her now-pockmarked cheeks reddening slightly. She had noticed it happening a few times before, usually when she and Pearl were interacting one-on-one, but she had dismissed the reaction as simply being nervous about getting discovered by her surprisingly observant friend.
Besides, it wasn't like she could entertain the alternative explanation at this point.
"Aw, come on! Camp wasn't that bad!" Vee argued, leaving Luz rather surprised.
"Camp?" the girl asked herself softly. "Reality Check Summer Camp? That awful place?"
"We did have the best cabin!" Vee pointed out, prompting her and the other campers to simultaneously engage in the war cry they had come up with for their team activities.
"CABIN 7! Hoo-ha-ha!" they bellowed before erupting into fits of laughter. Vee let herself get lost in the moment of social bliss for just a few seconds longer than she should have.
She was going to miss this when Luz came back for real.
"Cool cards!" Vee said, forcing herself back on track. "Where'd you get 'em?" she asked, attempting to reach for one before Pearl pulled the card off of the ground.
"Uh-uh~," Pearl remarked teasingly, causing Vee's blush to intensify at the specific choice in tone, which she had likewise noted her friend using only when they were hanging out by themselves. "Let me give you a reading first. I wanna practice!" she continued, causing Vee to gulp for an entirely different reason. She knew from experience that, despite being a normal girl, Pearl's Tarot readings were scarily accurate and, in Vee's case, often just plain scary. Sure enough, Pearl laid down three cards on the ground, showing a face in a crescent moon, a skeleton with a golden chalice, and a fish that looked as though it had been impaled by numerous harpoons.
This wasn't going to be pretty.
"Whoa..." the others remarked, having some inkling of what these things meant.
"You're running from your past," Pearl began, setting Vee on edge. "From a previous life that was not kind to you. However, the guilt and fear you carry will eventually catch you in a self-fulfilling prophecy that you won't be able to escape from." Vee let out a nervous squeak as her hands jostled the hand mirror around in apprehension, wondering whether Pearl had somehow found her out, only for the goth girl to surprise her with her obliviousness. "You're gonna need some bath bombs, girl!" she said jokingly before picking up the cards. "Anyway, I got the cards over at the Gravesfield Historical Society," she said, leaving Vee slightly less nervous and far more sad.
Nothing quite like someone unknowingly reminding you that the happiest months of your life have been entirely built on a foundation of lies.
"Thanks," Vee said in a low tone of voice. "I'll see you around," she added before walking off in the direction of the building up ahead, which was advertised as being under new management. The others watched her go with varying degrees of concern written on their faces.
"Did you see the look in her eyes?" Pearl asked, causing Alex and Sam to nod. They saw.
"Yeah, she looked...haunted," Alex replied nervously. "Maybe that reading was a bit overkill, Pearl," they added, causing Pearl to groan guiltily while Sam pulled out his phone, having a hunch as to what was really going on with their friend. After a momentary Google search concerning a name many of the town's residents still spoke of fondly, his hunch was seemingly confirmed.
"Uh, guys?" he said, pulling the others' attention towards him. "I think I know what's up." With that proclamation, they scooted closer to him on the grass and looked over his shoulder to read the newspaper excerpt on his phone, both of them realizing something they hadn't quite put together yet about their new friend...and exactly how awful that upcoming weekend was going to be for her.
"Oh," they both said sadly as they read the words on the screen:
Luis Noceda - Beloved father and husband - pronounced dead at 5:00 P.M. on August 22nd, 2012.
Part Four: The Girl who Ran Away
As soon as Vee stepped into the Gravesfield Historical Society, she attempted to sniff around for any sign of the magical playing cards she sought. She almost thought she had picked up something coming from the back room...until she accidentally caught some dust instead, and was forced to sneeze. This ended up attracting the attention of a man with blue eyes and the look of a particularly active researcher who had been busy sweeping the floors. Vee studied the man as he approached, ever-wary. He didn't look particularly threatening, between his average build, trapezoidal glasses, and complete lack of any visible armaments. Then again, Vee knew better than most that looking non-threatening was often a skill perfected by very threatening people.
She'd reserve her judgment for now.
"Is it that dusty in here?" the man asked as he adjusted his glasses, a man whose full name Vee didn't quite catch aside from 'Jacob' and the letters M.D. "Welcome to the Gravesfield Historical Society!" he said, in a tone which suggested true enthusiasm for the field. "Lemme guess, you're here to buy those weird cards, right?" he asked, pointing a finger towards her and raising an eyebrow.
"How did you know?" Vee asked in her regular voice as she walked up to the counter, surprised he had guessed that so easily...as well as a little nervous.
"Well, they've been really popular with high schoolers," Jacob replied easily. "Yeah, saw an old lady try to dump 'em in a river a while back, but I bought them off of her instead." As he said that, he rubbed his chin thoughtfully, as though he were confused about some aspect of that already-unusual transaction. "Was really odd though, she kept asking for snails..."
"This is it!" Luz whispered from the mirror, making sure not to draw Jacob's attention.
"You want a set?" Jacob asked, gesturing towards the staff room, prompting Vee to smile.
"Yes please!" Vee replied eagerly. Maybe everything would work out for her for once!
"Well, I'll be just a minute, so..." Jacob replied casually as he lifted up a box of miscellaneous things, with just the slightest pause that Vee failed to register. "Feel free to look around!" he called out over his shoulder before closing the door behind him with his foot. Thus left to her own devices, Vee wandered through the halls for a moment or two before the thoughts that she had been trying to push to the back of her mind finally caught up with her in the silence.
"Are you okay?" Luz asked as she appeared within the reflective surface of a plaque, and Vee was left unsure exactly how to answer her. She still couldn't understand why Luz wasn't mad at her for taking her place, let alone why Luz was going to all of this trouble for her. True, she stood to benefit from Vee being able to assume her disguise yet again, since she wanted to spare Camila from worrying about her whereabouts until she found a way home. However, there seemed to be something beyond that motivating the human girl, something Vee couldn't figure out until Luz spelled it out for her and swiftly destroyed whatever good will that she had earned in Vee's mind. "Hey, forget what that girl said! I know what it's like to run away from home. I did the same thing!"
Ah. That explained it. She actually thought they had anything in common with each other.
That Luz could say she ran away from home in such a sweet tone, as if their experiences were even remotely comparable, swiftly knocked Vee's emotional turmoil aside in favor of bringing forth the rage that she had been trying and failing to bury the moment it had an outlet.
"You and I are not the same!" Vee hissed. "You had a mom who loved you, a home, a life, you had it GOOD! And you still wanted to run away!" Luz, taken aback by the angry tears that sprang to Vee's eyes, tried her best to defend herself as calmly as possible.
"No, Vee, you've got it all wrong," Luz protested gently. "I didn't want to run away forever, I just didn't want to go to that awful summer camp!" At this, however, Vee scoffed.
"Oh, right, because learning about taxes and listening to public radio is totally worse than almost getting killed a thousand times in another dimension!"
"That friend of yours called it a prison, it can't have been that great-"
"Well, she's wrong! It was fine, better than fine! It was the first place I started feeling like I was a person instead of some freakish thing whipped up in a lab!"
The raw emotion behind Vee's words had the intended effect of completely stunning Luz into silence, allowing Vee to give herself a moment to breathe before making her point.
"You could've come back at any time as long as that portal of yours was working," Vee said, and Luz hung her head in shame, because that was exactly the thought that had gone through her mind every day she spent being cut off from her mom. "Sure, it might've been tricky to explain your absence, but you still could've just waltzed back into your life and picked up right where you left off after your little adventure, and the minute you did, I would've had to start over from scratch! You had months to decide whether or not you wanted to stay in the Boiling Isles, months you could've chosen to come right back to your almost perfect life! I...I was never that lucky," Vee said sadly. "My real name is Number Five. I'm a basilisk, and technically...I shouldn't exist."
And so, Vee told Luz everything. About how she and the rest of her kind, even the violent Number One who attacked Glandus and Hexside, had somehow been brought back from extinction by Belos in order to study how basilisks drained magic. About how she had escaped with the others, hid out wherever she could, and eventually spotted Luz the day she first came to the Boiling Isles. About how Vee had snuck into Eda's tent and went through the portal door while they were distracted. About how Camila had followed Luz to the abandoned house in order to take her to Reality Check and found Vee instead, having taken Luz's form. About all of the friends Vee had made and the fun she had both in and outside of camp as a result of that decision. And finally...how she had written Camila and Luz different letters explaining what she was on the day that she had assumed Luz's return would force her to leave. How she had torn into Luz for her carelessness, for her selfishness, for potentially abandoning her mother without even giving a second thought to what consequences her actions might have had. How Vee had then spitefully chosen to continue posing as Luz once it became clear that the human girl might never come back, even going so far as to toss her most cherished belongings to the curb like they were nothing. Like they were garbage.
"I'm sorry for reacting so...bitterly to all of this," Vee said in a small voice. "I resent you for running away, but...a part of me is also thankful that you did. I dunno, it's...confusing." Luz nodded along with that; "confusing" was definitely an apt description for their situation. A stray tear came to her eye and was swiftly wiped away as Luz tried to explain herself.
"You're right," Luz admitted sadly. "I didn't think it through back then. I didn't think about my mom following me, I didn't think about the camp calling her, I didn't think about any of that!" She laughed in a way that made it clear to Vee that the only thing Luz found amusing about the situation was her own idiocy. "I was honestly stupid enough to think that if I just texted her about camp every so often, nobody would catch on, and I could live out my dumb witch fantasies!" Vee should have felt vindicated by the fact that Luz was actually agreeing with her assessment of the situation, but instead she just felt even more guilty about what she had done than she had before. Luz had made some mistakes, sure, but Vee didn't have to be that harsh about it, even if it was just a blunted retelling of what she had actually written in that letter. From what Vee was seeing now, Luz really didn't need any help when it came to beating herself up.
"Luz, I-" Vee began, but apparently, Luz had some things she needed to vent about too.
"And you're right!" Luz cut in. "I could have come back anytime I wanted to, but I didn't! Even when Eda ordered me to go back, I...I couldn't," Luz said, squeezing one of her shoulders with her hand and looking away guiltily. "Eda would have been petrified because of me, because I got captured by the Emperor's Coven like an idiot and she had to use up what was left of her magic to save me. I couldn't just run away and leave her to die, but Belos needed the portal for his big evil plan, so...I couldn't risk letting him have it, either." At this, Luz fell silent while Vee was left with a lot of complicated emotions running through her head as she put the pieces together.
"So you destroyed it," Vee said, doing her best not to sound accusatory when she said it, yet still causing Luz to sink into herself as weeks of built up guilt weighed her down.
"I did," Luz confirmed. "And even though I didn't have any other choice, I-I still wish that I could have done things differently, that I hadn't gotten myself into that situation in the first place." At this remark, a stray tear came to her eye yet again as she looked at Vee with a sad smile. "I guess I'm just a screw up no matter which dimension I'm in, huh?" she asked rhetorically, causing Vee's ears to droop down as she registered just how much even her retelling of her letter had affected Luz. It seemed to Vee that her harsh words from that night had resonated with Luz in the worst possible way, almost as though the girl had been waiting for someone to confirm that all of the horrible things she already thought about herself were true. The realization nearly tore Vee's heart in half.
How had she come to hate this poor girl so much?
"And you wanna know the worst part?" Luz asked. "Even after everything that's happened, I...I still love the Boiling Isles!" she exclaimed as though it were the first time she felt she could voice the thought aloud, jolting Vee out of her remorse. "Sure, it's super dangerous, but I feel more accepted there than I ever felt back home," she admitted, confirming Vee's earlier suspicions about just why Luz had chosen to leave, beyond simply avoiding summer camp. "At first, I just thought it was my chance to finally become an actual witch, but it turned out to be so much more than that! I have friends now, Vee! I've got, like, almost a dozen at this point, and they're the coolest people I've ever met! There are my besties Willow and Gus, these cool kids I met in the Detention Track at Hexside, a couple more people I helped break out of prison, a pair of hot twins named Edric and Emira that I'm mostly cool with now despite them being jerks to their little sister at first, plus this Hunter guy that I...think we made some progress with? I mean, he's still fought like half my loved ones at this point, but w-we're working on it!" Vee cocked her head a bit at the odd interlude.
"Hang on, if he tried to hurt people, why-?" she began to ask before Luz cut her off again.
"Not to mention, once Eda decided to take me on as her apprentice, I wound up forming a whole new family at the Owl House! A family who gets me in a way that my mom just...doesn't." Luz looked down dejectedly, leaving Vee uncertain how to comfort her before tears sprang to the human girl's eyes. "I have a girlfriend, Vee. Her name's Amity, and she's super smart, and classy, and pretty, and funny, and everything else I ever could have hoped for in a partner! I...I think I might be in love with her." She said the words as though she had made the realization in real time, and despite hardly being an expert on the subject of romance, one look at the way her counterpart's eyes shone was all Vee needed to see to know that the human girl was correct.
"I can see that," she said warmly, and although it was a sweet sentiment, it also caused Luz to become fully aware of just what she had admitted out loud for the first time.
"Look, I dunno, emotions are weird!" Luz cried, blushing like crazy in her attempt to deflect. "The point is, as much as I don't want to give any of that up...I don't want to lose my mom either." At this, Luz's blush subsided in the face of a dilemma she had tried so hard to mask until now, until she found by chance what might possibly be the only person who knew Camila and the life Luz had left behind well enough that she could truly understand the weight pressing down on her. "I-I've worked so hard to rebuild the portal because I want to be able to live in both worlds, to not have to pick between my mom and everyone else who matters in my life! Except...the portal turned out wrong." Vee nodded sympathetically; that made sense based on what she knew, at least. "I have no idea how long it'll hold, and I've only got a few more chances to make it properly until...I'm stuck." Luz's legs gave out as she fell to her knees, the ground of wherever she was making some kind of sloshing sound that carried through the mirror. "Until I can never see my mom again."
With that, Luz fully broke down, and all that Vee could do was place a finger on the mirror in a butchered approximation of reaching out to put a hand on Luz's shoulder. She had really misjudged Luz, hadn't she? She thought she was just this selfish, ungrateful brat who ran away from her mom to live out her fantasies, and while this hadn't turned out to be entirely false, it was certainly the least charitable reading of the situation that Vee possibly could have made. But, then again...Vee wasn't the only one who had misread Luz's situation.
"Luz, I...I think you've got mom-agh! Camila, all wrong," Vee replied, cursing herself for slipping up again. She couldn't keep doing that, not in front of Camila's actual daughter! Luz seemed strangely fine with Vee taking her place, but how would she react to knowing that Vee wanted to keep pretending to be Camila's daughter even though Luz was set on coming back?
"What do you mean?" Luz asked in a small voice, and Vee decided to push those thoughts down in favor of focusing on the matter at hand.
"I didn't mention this before, but...I messed up a bit when I first met Camila. She asked me whether I had gone back to get your Azura book from the trash. I told her no, and she was...really upset. She barely said a word for the rest of the drive to camp." Luz looked up at that, giving Vee hope as she continued. "And earlier today, when I was taking out your things, she questioned whether I was really willing to put all this stuff away. When I told her that camp had taught me a lot to try and cover up how weird it was for 'Luz' to throw those things out, she got...really quiet for a bit. Like she was blaming herself for sending 'Luz' to that camp in the first place, even if it had helped in a lot of ways, because it meant that you weren't quite her little girl anymore." Luz could only smile faintly at that, a bittersweet smile that seemed to suggest that she was realizing how foolish she had been about something.
"Huh," Luz said softly, while Vee continued in the hopes that she was getting somewhere.
"She doesn't hate your creativity or the stuff you enjoy, Luz; I think those are the things she loves the most about you. The fact that I didn't love those things like you did was the biggest clue that I wasn't who I said I was, to the point where I was genuinely afraid that throwing those things away would get me found out! And believe me, I tried to get into that stuff, but the way those Azura books are written, woof! No thank you!" Her attempt at lightening the mood with a joke seemed to work, judging by Luz's watery chuckle. Vee gave her a bittersweet smile of her own as she admitted the truth to both Luz and herself. "When you didn't seem to be coming back, I...I took it as a sign that I could take your place for good. That I could be a better version of you for Camila, a version of you that wouldn't run away or cause problems at school that she would have to worry about. It was petty and selfish, I know, but...she's the closest thing to a parent I've ever had. I didn't wanna lose that," Vee admitted sadly. "Still, I think it's time for me to face the fact that the daughter Camila really wants is the one she has already...not some cheap imitation of what I thought she wanted you to be." With that, it was Vee's turn to look dejectedly at the ground...that is, until Luz surprised her with an offer that she never could have imagined.
"¿Por qué no los dos?" she asked with a small smile on her face, leaving Vee confused.
"What?" she asked, having an inkling of what Luz was talking about, but not daring to hope.
"Luz Noceda fun fact: my parents wanted another one. Like, they really wanted another one: that bunk bed in my room has been my bed for pretty much my entire life, so I know they were planning on me having a sibling pretty much from the moment I was born. That ended up not working out...for a number of reasons, but I at least know they had a name picked out for if they ever had a son: Valentino, after my grandfather, Valentino de la Cruz. Bit of an odd coincidence, huh?" she asked, leaving Vee even more confused until Luz coyly elaborated on why she had brought that up. "That she had wanted a kid named Valentino...only to wind up having Valentina after all." Vee could only look on in wide-eyed amazement at Luz's proposal, who simply winked in response to her incredulous look. "Or Vee, for short!" she said cheekily, leaving Vee flabbergasted.
"Wait a minute, y-you can't just-!"
"Of course we can!" Luz interrupted enthusiastically, the plan she was concocting in her head seeming to reignite some of the spark that had dimmed over the course of Luz's venting. "It could be like a real-life Parent Trap thing!"
"I don't know what that is!" Vee interrupted, certain that it was some kind of outdated human reference, but baffled as to why Luz would say that during such a serious conversation.
"Human movie, not important; what I'm saying is, you could be my twin sister!" Luz argued. "Look, it wasn't exactly a secret that I wasn't thrilled about going to camp, so if I happened to have a twin sister living somewhere else, we could explain away you pretending to be me by saying that we ran into each other and agreed to swap places! Then, assuming I...y'know, do get back, once I explain everything, we can have Mom go along with our cover story by bringing you, 'Valentina,' back into the family from whoever we say you were staying with before! That way, you can have your own identity while still being able to keep your friends, since all you'd have to say to explain why you went under my name when you met them is that you were posing as your twin sister! And even if I can't come back after all, then...then at least Mom will never realize I was gone, and you can keep doing what you've been doing while I...make the best of things over here. Either way, at least one of us still gets most of the things that we want from all of this," Luz finished in a bittersweet tone. For a moment, Vee was left speechless, unsure how to even begin to react to Luz's generosity.
Even so, she still had questions.
"It's a fact that Camila only had one daughter," Vee pointed out. "You can't just invent a whole new person out of nowhere, especially not someone else's twin! I-I'd need a birth certificate, medical records proving that Camila was pregnant with both of us (which we'd somehow need to put in place of the originals!), a social security number-"
"Whoa, you really learned a lot from that camp, didn't you?" Luz interrupted, a part of her seeming genuinely impressed by how Vee had caught that part of the plan so easily. Vee looked at her with a bewildered expression at that particular response.
"You've literally lived here most of your life, shouldn't you know about this stuff more than I do?" Vee asked pointedly, causing Luz to rub the back of her neck awkwardly.
"You, uh, may have noticed I don't tend to think things through. Or pay attention 100% of the time," Luz replied with a nervous lilt in her voice, causing Vee to chuckle dryly in spite of herself.
"Tell me about it," she remarked, at which point Luz decided to press on.
"Look, you're right about all that stuff, but hey! I happen to be living with a master witch criminal who's been to the Human Realm before! Eda could probably set us up with all of that!"
Vee raised a finger to object before thinking it over. She had reason to doubt the capabilities and mental faculties of a woman who tried to pay for a latte with a live raccoon, but Luz seemed confident in her abilities. Vee certainly couldn't think of anyone else who might have the necessary expertise to forge human documents and commit any other crimes they'd need her to for this plan to work. Unless...come to think of it, hadn't Ms. Pines once joked about knowing how to recognize counterfeit money due to "personal experience?" Vee shook her head; her camp mentor's weird anecdotes weren't important right now.
"There had to have been witnesses to the fact that Camila only gave birth to one baby girl, though! The doctor, the nurses, any family you invited!" Vee pointed out. "The minute one of them speaks up, we're done!" At that, Luz scoffed playfully, having thought of that already.
"Well, first off, none of my relatives could make it to the night of my birth, unfortunately. International flights are expensive, what can I say?" Luz elaborated. "And secondly, the other people you mentioned don't even live here anymore and haven't made a point of staying in touch with us since they left, so I somehow doubt they'd find out about it. People would have questions, sure, but nothing we can't come up with an excuse for."
"There's still the matter of me conveniently showing up after fourteen years," Vee added. "Where would I have even gone, and how come nobody mentioned me?" she asked, to which Luz nodded along. Vee was making some good points, but fortunately, Luz had an answer for them all.
"Well, for as much as my parents wanted another kid, money was a bit tight when I was born," Luz admitted. "My parents didn't make a lot of money at first, not to mention my dad developed some pretty major health issues that kept him out of work for a while, and in case you hadn't picked up on it from camp, having a kid in America is expensive." Vee nodded along; camp had briefly touched on such things with a budgeting exercise themed around starting a family, so she understood how these things would make life difficult for the Nocedas. Still, she had some doubts.
"Even so...do you really think your parents would've let a second kid go and never told anyone if they weren't able to raise them on their own?" Vee asked. Although Luz frowned a bit at the way Vee said "your parents," she nonetheless gave it some thought before reluctantly nodding.
"I could see a situation where they had to make the decision to have you live with a friend...and I could see them being so ashamed of having to make that choice in the first place that they just couldn't tell the rest of the family what they had to do." Seeing the doubt in Vee's expression, Luz made sure to further support her explanation. "Trust me on this. My mom's family would've been understanding, but they've always had a lot of mouths to feed, and my parents wouldn't have wanted to burden them with one more if it could be avoided. As for my dad's family..." Luz fell silent for a moment, likely reflecting on some less than happy memories. "They suck," she said simply, with a bitterness in her tone that made it clear that this was all Vee needed to know. From what she'd discovered, Vee found herself in agreement with that sentiment.
Still, she had to think about this carefully. On the one hand, Luz's story did serve to explain where she'd been, and painted a rather sad picture at that. People would probably be so caught up in the tragedy of it all that they wouldn't even question the inconsistencies. Of course, just because most people wouldn't question them didn't mean that nobody would, and there were enough less-than-solid parts of the story that Vee, resident expert on crafting elaborate lies, was reluctant to put her faith in its effectiveness under prolonged scrutiny. Nonetheless, Luz continued.
"I'm admittedly not sure who exactly you'd have been adopted to," Luz said, thinking aloud. "Maybe Eda could spin her 'Marilyn' alter-ego as being a friend of my parents who took you in? She's probably got forged records under that name kept somewhere or other, and Eda's always willing to lie to a governmental authority for fun and profit, so she'd totally pretend to have been your adoptive mom for fourteen years in order to make our story work. All we'd really need to explain is how my mom can support both of us now, and we could just say 'Marilyn' is sending her money! Clearly, you were unhappy with the kind of hectic life she leads, which is why someone as cautious and level-headed as you agreed to my hare-brained swap scheme in the first place! That...should more or less cover everything, right?" Luz looked at Vee with a positively beaming smile she didn't feel like she deserved, and although she really wished it were as simple and clean as Luz made it out to be, she was still worried. Even so, Luz seemed to answer her objections rather neatly, and the two of them working together could probably sell the story convincingly by playing to their respective strengths. It wouldn't be easy, not by a long shot, but it could work.
So why was she still so hesitant to sign off on it?
"But what about...but what if...?" Vee spoke falteringly, trying to come up with some other reason why this plan of Luz's wouldn't work and frustratingly coming up with nothing else she could say. Eventually, she realized why she was still objecting to Luz's plan and decided to simply get to the heart of the issue. "Why?" she asked in a small voice. "Why would you want to be my sister? I stole your life from you, tossed out your things, tried to keep your mom all for myself! You should hate me!" In response, Luz simply chuckled, a chuckle laden with the weight of experience.
"Oh, chica, my girlfriend tried to have me dissected the day we met, and I still ended up going out with her. Eda's sister, Lilith Clawthorne, tried to kill me when Eda got captured, and she's practically my aunt at this point! All the stuff you did is, like, a two out of ten on the scale at worst!" Luz argued in a bemused tone, leaving Vee with far too many questions.
"I-I'm sorry, did you say they tried to-?"
"And besides, you're the perfect person to be my sister!" Luz argued, cutting Vee off. "You're sweet, clever, and have awesome acrobatic skills, and that's just all the cool stuff about you that doesn't involve your freaking basilisk superpowers!" Luz said enthusiastically before rubbing the back of her neck sheepishly. "I mean, heck, this conversation alone proves you're a great voice of reason to keep me from getting in over my head. Not to mention you've got way better fashion sense." Luz chuckled at her own self-deprecating joke, but Vee was left more confused than ever.
"But until literally just now, a part of me hated you!" Vee protested. "I just roasted the heck out of you, like, ten minutes ago!" Unfortunately, her efforts didn't succeed in dissuading Luz, who simply looked at her with another coy smirk.
"Ah, I see you've managed to grasp the essentials of being a sibling, then," she said with a smirk, leaving Vee frustrated as to why Luz was being so calm and cheeky about all of this.
"This isn't a joke, Luz!" Vee argued, causing Luz to hold up a hand against the glass.
"I know, and I'm not making light of this, I promise," she said earnestly. "The real reason that I'm fine with you being my sister is because...it's clear to me how much Mom means to you." Vee's ears drooped and she looked away from the mirrored surface in shame as, for once, Luz seemed to read her just as well as she read everyone else. "I mean, you wouldn't have been nearly as mad at me for leaving if that wasn't the case, right?" she asked, smiling brightly in order to put Vee's anxious heart at ease. "You want her to be your mom too, don't you?" she followed up gently, in a way that indicated that she already knew what the answer was. She just wanted Vee to say it.
"Yes," she admitted, tearing up yet again as she dared to look Luz in the eye yet again. "More than anything in the world." She had expected Luz to scowl or scream at her if she ever voiced that aloud, and yet...Luz kept smiling at her, like that was the best news she'd heard all day.
Vee really had misjudged her.
"Then how about it?" Luz asked, holding up a finger as if to pinky swear. "Sisters?" Vee looked at it for a moment, hesitating for a few seconds before she put her own against the glass.
"Okay...sisters," Vee said, and the two had a nice sweet moment of silence afterwards...until Vee picked up the strange scent of magic on the wind, much stronger than she had been expecting. "Hang on, I'm...I'm getting something," Vee said, putting Luz on guard.
"Come to think of it, it's been a while since that guy went into the staff room," Luz remarked. "What's taking him so long?"
"I don't know," Vee replied as she walked up to the door. "But I don't like it."
"Be careful," Luz remarked as she reappeared in Vee's hand mirror, yet was left unable to see anything once Vee opened the door. That is, until Vee found the light switch.
With mounting horror, both girls realized that they had just walked into what appeared to be the lair of a conspiracy theorist of the worst kind. All manner of tools, weapons, and witch hunting paraphernalia lined the walls, as well as an overly showy suit of armor and several decks of the glowing Hexes Hold'em cards they were looking for. More disturbing than any of that, however, was a massive trail of red string that bounced around all throughout the room, connecting everything from photographs of Eda as the Owl Beast to sightings of "Marilyn" and other paranormal phenomena labeled as "Secrets of Gravesfield." Realizing that this "Jacob" was the same man who wrote that strange article in the paper, Vee couldn't help but instinctively back away as she saw something even more terrifying on the conspiracy board: photos of all of Vee's friends, obtained through means that Vee didn't want to contemplate. They were placed around the board in a roughly circular formation and connected to each other along with two pictures placed side by side: one of Luz from her most recent school picture day, and another which Vee realized was a picture of herself after she came home from her day out with Juniper. This was already bad enough, but what really started to send Vee into a nervous breakdown was two simple words written across the two photos in big red letters and with the same obsessive scrawl:
"DEMONIC IMPOSTER?"
"What is all this?" Vee asked with fear in her voice, only to bump against the four computer monitors covered in sticky notes that sat at Jacob's desk, causing them to flare to life. Stumbling backwards in shock, Vee looked more closely at the programs that were open: several pre-recorded video feeds of the abandoned house taken from different cameras...including one that had caught the moment Vee had been trapped and reverted into her normal form mere hours ago.
"Oh no," Luz muttered in a similar tone, while Vee was left far more scared.
"Have we been followed this whole time?!" she asked in a panic before screaming and running for the exit as quickly as she could. Everything was falling into place: Jacob was the mysterious hunter and she was the target he was trying to capture, for a purpose that now seemed terrifyingly clear! However, in the midst of her panicking over what seemed to be the imminent threat of death, she failed to notice a laser tripwire that had been remotely activated since she had entered the room. Almost as if the man who had set it knew that his target would go in there to investigate, and would be too busy panicking to notice the laser until it had already triggered his most devious and impregnable trap yet.
Before Vee could react, she found herself encased in some kind of bell-shaped cage with enough force that it sent the hand mirror flying out of her hands, causing it to shatter into pieces and leaving Luz helplessly crying out Vee's name in the space between dimensions.
Part Five: The Girl who Wanted Freedom
By the time Luz reestablished her connection to Vee through a glass frame, Vee had already reverted back to her normal form from the stress. Things would only get worse from there.
"Let me out!" Vee cried desperately, only to be met with the sound of a door closing.
"No," Jacob Hopkins replied with a sinister chuckle. "I don't think I will." Vee had attempted to reach her hands out through the bars, only to find them impeded somewhat by some kind of wiry material. She learned what this was firsthand when Jacob flicked a switch on a remote control in his hand, causing the wires to become electrified. Vee screamed as he sent current through her serpentine body, causing her to instinctively move away from the electrified prison she had been trapped in, while Jacob sighed in relief. "Ah, good, that actually works. Would've been a shame if you could just shapeshift into a fly and buzz on out of there, huh?" Vee found herself gasping for air while Luz couldn't do anything substantial without being discovered.
"Why are you doing this?" Vee asked eventually in a timid voice, causing Jacob to smirk.
"Oh, that's easy enough," he said. "You see, I've been on the hunt for a while now, ever since I ran into this," he said, producing a copy of the same photograph of Eda in her owl beast form that he had added to his nightmarish conspiracy board. "At first, I couldn't believe what I saw, and almost everything I found on the subject of the supernatural was...questionable. Everything, that is, except for..." With that, he pulled out a massive book with a rather fancy title: Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide to Magic and Mystery. "This book! It was written decades ago by Dr. Stanford Pines, the most famous paranormal investigator in all of human history! Many people think he's a hack, but ever since I read it and realized the terrifying things that exist just out of sight, I've wanted nothing more than to make my mark on history just like him! Of course, unlike him, my efforts so far have been...less than successful." Luz rolled her eyes from the glass she was reflecting in, careful to turn her voice away from the reflective cube she was using so that it wouldn't project loud enough to give her away.
"Oh, boo hoo, creep," she said dryly. "It took me 14 years to stumble onto proof of the paranormal, you don't hear me crying about it." Vee might have chuckled at that under different circumstances, but she found herself unable to say much of anything as Jacob continued.
"I thought I'd get my big break by studying my hometown's history and connecting the ancient witchcraft of the past to the paranormal phenomena of the present...but it didn't work. No matter how many leads I turned up and strange incidents I investigated, everyone else seems to want to pretend that nothing is amiss! People were literally chewed on by living books and pastries a couple months ago, and even the victims of that incident act like it was hardly worth mentioning!" Jacob slammed a nearby desk in the middle of his rant, startling Vee and causing him to take a breath in order to calm down a bit. "I've been made the laughingstock of this town for my commitment to trying to stop the evil creatures responsible for these incidents...but we'll see who laughs at me after I showcase a living, breathing demon underneath the Wittebane Statues for the whole town to see!" With that, he threw his earlier calm aside and erupted into a fit of maniacal laughter that made it painfully evident to Vee just how ruthless her captor was, and just how far he was willing to go.
"Oh, this guy is loco loco," Luz muttered in that same stealthy way, unable to keep the worry for her new sister out of her voice. Vee could only silently nod in agreement, while Jacob finished his dramatic monologue with one final taunting remark directed at his new captive.
"Hope you don't have stage-fright, 'Number Five,' because in just a matter of hours, you're going to be breaking news across the county." With that, he turned to finish the final preparations for his scheme while Luz and Vee looked at each other nervously. For reasons that had become clear by now, only Vee was brave enough to question him before he left the room.
"Wait!" she called out. "How do you-?"
"Know your 'name?' Simple," Jacob replied smoothly, turning back around in order to gloat about his genius. "You see, I'd known for a while that there was something strange going on near that abandoned house in the woods. I was actually investigating some trash thefts that I'd managed to trace back to that general area when I came across that lady I mentioned dumping cards into the river. I didn't realize it at the time because of how dark it was, but after questioning a few of the victims of that pastry attack (and getting yelled at by that blonde barista at Robin's Roast), I managed to tie all sorts of things to this 'Marilyn' woman who happened to resemble the demon I saw." Luz gulped in spite of herself. As overtly obvious as it seemed to be from a visual standpoint, not many people were able to tie Eda's normal state to her original appearance as the Owl Beast without seeing her transform directly. Apparently this guy was more perceptive than most.
"Ah, jeez, why'd he have to actually be kinda smart?" Luz bemoaned quietly to herself. This was gonna be harder than she thought.
"I tried pursuing her for a while, but both her sightings and the trash thefts stopped a while ago for no clear reason," Jacob continued obliviously. "Recently, I decided to stop waiting around and investigate the house itself while the people living closest to it were gone. The place has been abandoned for as long as I can remember, but it'd still technically be trespassing to go in there, and I'd rather not risk any legal trouble if it can be avoided. Of course, I didn't get an opportunity to slip in for a while: the girl who lived in that house seemed to spend all her time indoors. That is, until one day, they both left. Talk about a lucky break, am I right?" Jacob remarked coyly, looking at her as if they were both in on a secret. Vee squeaked nervously as she realized that the very same day she spent with Juniper was the only time Jacob could've snuck into that house without being noticed.
"Stupid," Vee muttered to herself with a wince, causing Jacob to smile sadistically.
"Turned the place upside down and didn't find anything but a bunch of old junk...and two very curious letters," he finished, holding up the very same letters that Vee had left there for Camila and Luz to find. Vee grimaced as Jacob chuckled, delighted at her response. "Needless to say, capturing whatever 'basilisk' wrote these quickly became my new mission, and it didn't take much doing to figure out just who you had replaced. I figured you'd come back to that house at some point, so I set up a trap big enough to capture a human and placed a camera there to see just what you really looked like once you shed your disguise. I realized you might get out of it by turning into a squirrel or something, so I set up some smaller traps around the area which...didn't quite work as planned. Of course, then again, a creature so clearly terrified of being discovered was bound to panic the moment it seemed like that plan had gone awry, so I wasn't too worried. I'm happy to see that I was right...but I'll be far more happy once everyone else finally realizes that I've always been right." With that, Jacob moved to leave once again, only for Vee to call out to him with one final question.
"Wait!" she cried. "What about my friends? What do they have to do with this?"
"Oh, them? Maybe something, maybe nothing, it's...interesting," Jacob replied, seemingly thinking aloud. "Everything I was able to find about the girl you replaced indicates that she was a misfit, to put it mildly. A disruptive influence with no friends and no immediate family aside from her mom, sent to a summer camp to learn how to be normal, only to come back making friends left and right. I suppose it isn't much of a stretch to say that a shapeshifter could learn to make friends pretty easily, but then again, most of them seem to have also gone to that camp of yours from what I've discovered...and your letters did mention you escaped captivity with others of your kind." Vee gasped once she put together what Jacob was insinuating and rushed to her friends' defense.
"No, you-you've got it all wrong, they're human! I was the only one who came through the portal, I swear!" she cried out in desperation, but Jacob had no interest in her pleas.
"Oh, I'll find out whether or not you're telling the truth soon enough," he countered firmly before turning to walk away one final time. "If you're right, they have nothing to worry about, and if they aren't who they appear to be, I imagine my grand debut will smoke them out of hiding. Of course, even if it doesn't...well. I may not be made of money, but once I make a name for myself as a real-life demon hunter, I imagine that will change quite readily, and as soon as it does...I would definitely be able to afford more cages." On that sinister note, Jacob finally walked out of the room and slammed the door behind him, leaving Luz able to speak at a normal register.
"Don't worry, Vee, we can get you out of this," Luz said, trying to reassure her new sister. "I can appear to Camila and tell her what's going on, everything will be fine-!"
"Go back to the Demon Realm, Luz," Vee interrupted sadly, causing Luz to stumble.
"Huh?" she asked, her nerves over the situation creeping even further into her voice.
"He found the notes days ago, after I left your house to go to the library for tutoring. That would have given him plenty of time to set up this cage," Vee reasoned, curling up into a ball in the center of said prison. "He's also had time to investigate everything about me, including what Camila looks like and everything about my friends. We couldn't get anyone to help us without putting them in danger and telling them the truth, and I have no idea how any of them would react to that!"
"I mean, that cute goth friend of yours would probably be cool with it-" Luz said awkwardly before Vee cut in, not in the mood for what she figured was her fake sister's attempt at a joke.
"Look at all of these weapons, Luz!" Vee interrupted angrily. "You heard everything I did, you know what he's capable of! If you get anyone else to come here, he might hurt them in order to protect his 'discovery' or, Titan forbid, he might capture them too to see whether they're actually human or not! I care about them too much to let that happen! If I have to get locked up again in order to keep everyone else safe...then so be it." Luz shook her head, tears forming in her eyes.
"Vee, you're giving up too quick!" Luz protested, only for Vee to fix her with a stern glare.
"I'm being realistic," Vee countered firmly. Trying to give her fake sister some kind of comfort, Vee followed it up with a pained smile. "It's okay, I'm...used to living like this."
"Vee, no!" Luz protested. "We-we were gonna be sisters, you can't...you can't give up on me now," she said in a small, choked up voice, causing Vee to hesitate as she lifted her tail up to smash the mirror. She hadn't quite understood until now how much this ridiculous twin sister idea that Luz had proposed had meant to the human girl...and, more shockingly, how much it had meant to her as well. Tears came to Vee's eyes as well, but she quickly blinked hers away.
"Why did you have to get my hopes up like that?" Vee asked as she lowered her tail. While Luz knew she wasn't seriously accusing her of anything malicious, it still hurt to hear those words coming from Vee's mouth. "Why did you have to convince me that I could actually live as myself without ending up like this?" she asked sadly, gesturing to the electrified cage that she had gotten herself trapped in because of a classic Vee panic attack. "How did you manage to make me think that my life could actually get better without living as somebody else?" she asked, curling in on herself as she reflected on all of the things that a part of her wished Luz would be mad at her for. Frustratingly, despite the girl having every reason to hate her demon of a "sister" for what she'd done while she was gone, she didn't, as demonstrated when Luz laid a hand on the glass and tried to offer what comfort she could to Vee from the space in-between.
"It can, and it will," Luz said in the same no-nonsense tone she had used when rescuing Eda from Belos' clutches and engaging in a dozen other acts of unparalleled bravery. A tone that indicated that no force in either realm would stop her from doing whatever she could to make things right. "It doesn't matter how smart or how shockingly well-equipped this guy is! If I managed to outsmart the Emperor of the Boiling Isles, then I can outsmart some 20-something conspiracy bro!"
"Wait, you outsmarted the Emperor-?!"
"Think, Vee! If not mom or your friends, then who can we trust to handle themselves in a crisis like this?" Luz interjected, jolting Vee away from the many questions she had and towards a new line of questioning as she glanced at the book that Jacob had left discarded on a workbench.
"Dr. Stanford Pines..." Vee muttered, only for Luz to wince.
"Wait, isn't that this guy's idol? What if he's nothing but an older version of him?" Luz asked, visibly cringing at the thought of an elderly version of Jacob. "And even if he isn't, we have no idea where he is! How exactly can he help us in time?"
"He doesn't have to," Vee said, her face wearing a smirk whose wobbliness betrayed her true anxiety about the situation. "I think I happen to know a relative of his, assuming Pines isn't just a surprisingly common last name." Before Luz could ask anything else, Vee suddenly plunged her arm into what looked like some kind of folds around her tail before yanking something out with a rather off-putting squelching sound. Fortunately, Luz was used to such things by now, but it was certainly not a side of her new serpentine sister that she was expecting to see. Vee noticed Luz's expression and chuckled apologetically. "Sorry about that. Stuff I put in my pockets doesn't have a good place to go when my pockets aren't pockets anymore," Vee explained before holding up a sticky note containing a phone number and a bus ticket. "This is the number of the head of Reality Check, Mabel Pines. She, uh...kinda ran me down with a grappling hook and a pig after I tried escaping because I thought the place was a prison at first," Vee admitted sheepishly, to which Luz winced.
"Oof, that in-joke's got history then," she remarked, to which Vee nodded.
"Mhm," she confirmed. "Anyway, I'm not positive, but looking back on it now, I might have been partially transformed when Ms. Pines first met me. I also slipped up by almost giving her the designation they gave me back in the Demon Realm, before I came up with 'Vee' and pretended it was like a name changing situation. It was a flimsy cover story, but she never ratted me out, and we got...well, about as close as I was willing to get to another adult at the time, really, which isn't saying much. Still, she gave me these the day I thought you'd come back...as if she were giving me the tools I needed to run away to somewhere safe," Vee said hesitantly, making the revelation in real time while Luz's eyes widened for a whole different reason.
"Whoa. Can't believe we both had an eccentric mentor figure, that's so cool," she muttered at a volume that Vee only barely failed to pick up entirely.
"What was that?" she asked, causing Luz to clam up immediately.
"Nothing!" she replied, earning her a skeptical look before Vee continued.
"Regardless, she must have had some idea of what I was, as well as some reason to believe that I wasn't a threat, both of which would seem to suggest that I'm not the first supernatural thing she's dealt with. She's probably still near camp, which is all the way in New Jersey, but I think she's our best bet for taking this guy down." Luz nodded along; it seemed like the best plan they had.
After a moment of careful reading, Luz had managed to memorize the number and offered Vee a salute. "I'll get her to you, Vee. I promise." With that, Luz disappeared, causing Vee to sigh as she allowed herself to have just a little bit of hope that everything would all work out.
"Good luck, Luz," she said, knowing that nobody could hear her now.
Camila had just brought Luz's discarded things back inside and was in the middle of booping a tin foil swan when she overheard something odd: a call from her daughter that she couldn't remember answering...from the phone she had switched off in order to charge it.
"Huh? Luz?" she asked, moving towards her phone. "I...didn't hear you call," she said hesitantly, not exactly sure how this was happening. Luz smiled sadly at her on the screen, although that was strange too now that Camila thought about it. The phone still seemed to be off, and it looked like Luz was wearing...a rope around her waist? And her old outfit? And had done her hair back up the way it had been before? Camila couldn't figure out what all this meant, but she had a feeling from the look in Luz's eyes that whatever it was, it wasn't good. "What's wrong, mija?" Camila asked, causing Luz to frown as she remembered why she was there in the first place.
"I found out who's been setting up those traps, and he's...hurting...a friend of mine," Luz said, not sure how to explain the situation to Camila just yet. Camila brought a hand to her mouth.
"Oh, dios mío. Don't worry, mija, I'll call the policía right away!" Camila said, and almost turned on the phone and shut Luz out until Luz yelled at her to stop.
"No, mamá, wait! We can't call the cops!" Luz cried. The last thing Vee needed was to have anyone else be alerted to her true nature, least of all a bunch of trigger happy blue bloods. Thankfully, Camila seemed to understand, although not quite for the reasons Luz had yet to explain.
"Ay, you're right, we have to think it through first. Seeing them arrive immediately may make this man panic and do something grisly," Camila reasoned, causing Luz to sigh with relief. "How did you get mixed up in this, Luz? Did he contact you? Does he have any demands? Do you know where your friend is being held?" In response to her questions, Luz rapidly shook her head.
"There's a lot to explain, but no, no, and she's at the Gravesfield Historical Society," Luz rattled off rapidly, taking note of Camila's confused expression. "Like I said, it's a lot and I promise I'll get to it, but you need to call somebody first!" Luz replied, leaving Camila even more perplexed.
"I thought you said no policía?" she asked, only for Luz to clarify.
"She's not the police, she's the head of Reality Check, Mabel Pines!" Luz explained.
"The nice lady I spoke to on the phone when I enrolled you? What's she got to do with all of this?" Camila asked, and Luz was about ready to pull her hair out at her mother's entirely reasonable, yet nonetheless time-consuming questions.
"Everything! Just call her, right now! Tell her that 'Vee' is in trouble, she'll know what that means! Do it, mom, please!" By the end, Luz was nearly in tears, and Camila was forced to pause as she grappled with what to do. None of what was happening right now made any sense whatsoever, not to mention sounded incredibly dangerous. All the same, however, whoever this 'Vee' was, she was clearly in mortal peril, and Camila wasn't about to stand by when a child was suffering.
Somebody had to help her.
"Alright, mija, alright. Just...give me a moment," Camila replied, allowing Luz to read the number to her before turning on the phone and watching as Luz's face disappeared from the screen. Electing to pay no mind to the sudden change, Camila instead called the number she had been given, which answered after only two rings.
"Hello, there! You've reached Mabel Pines, how can I brighten up your day today?" Mabel replied cheerfully, causing Camila to chuckle. She'd done it the last time they'd talked as well, and since Camila knew she ran the camp, she also knew that this wasn't a procedural thing. Mabel was just naturally this cheery and upbeat. Camila doubted she would be for very long.
"Hi, this is Camila Noceda, Luz's mom. We spoke a couple months ago, when I enrolled my daughter Luz," Camila began, both to ease her nerves and for politeness' sake. You didn't exactly jump right to "Some child you know has been kidnapped and my daughter seems to think you're her only hope of survival" out of the gate. You got to build up to it.
"Ah, right, how nice to hear from you again!" Mabel replied, although Camila sensed a slight change in Mabel's bright and sunny demeanor, as though she had been put on alert. "Camp doesn't open back up until our Winter course this December, so for what do I owe this pleasure, Mrs. Noceda?" Camila gulped. This was it. This was the proof that she had either stumbled into something much bigger than she was prepared for, or that she was slowly losing her grip on reality.
"It's all very confusing, but my daughter just called me...somehow," Camila remarked, not sure how to explain what she had seen to this woman. "She told me that a friend of hers named 'Vee' was in trouble, kidnapped by some maniac at the Gravesfield Historical Society. She seemed to think you knew this girl. I was hoping you could, um, shed some light on this?" Camila waited for a second, then another, and then another. With each one, the silence became more and more oppressive until finally, Mabel spoke up yet again, all traces of sunniness gone from her voice.
"I'll be there in two hours," Mabel said like a woman on the warpath, leaving Camila puzzled and intimidated in more or less equal measure.
"Wait, but aren't you at least three and a half hours away-?" Camila began before Mabel hung up, causing Luz to suddenly appear on the phone screen once more.
"Is she coming?" Luz asked, to which Camila sighed before answering her daughter.
"Sounds like it, and ignoring all road safety laws in the process. Madre de dios, that young woman better not get herself killed on the freeway," Camila said, her maternal instincts kicking in just a tad in spite of the fact that Ms. Pines was a grown adult who wasn't remotely her kid. Luz chuckled at this, drawing Camila's attention back to her. "So, mija, you promised an explanation?" she asked, causing Luz to groan in resignation.
"I'll be honest, I've been avoiding this for a while, but since we've got at least a couple hours until Ms. Pines arrives...it's time I told you the truth," Luz said, a hint of sadness and dread in her voice that Camila took careful note of. "About what I've really been up to this summer."
And for the first time in several months of little lies, Luz finally told her mom everything.
Part Six: The Girl who Saved the Day
By the time Luz was done, Camila barely heard the minor crash outside.
"She's here!" Luz called out, causing Camila to bolt out of her seat towards the front door. Indeed, a car she didn't recognize was there, having knocked over their garbage can as it had screeched to a stop. Sitting in the driver's seat was a young woman who matched the smiling photo on Reality Check's website, while poking his head out from the backseat like a dog was...an old pig?
"You coming?!" she barked out from the street. Camila looked back towards the house with a worried expression on her face before a glance at her daughter's own concerned expression made the decision for her, and she nodded with the firmness of a woman on a mission. "Alright, get in!" Mabel ordered, and after locking up the house, Camila certainly didn't need to be told twice.
"My daughter, um...just filled me in," Camila said, still stunned that this was a thing that was happening. She had just clambered into the passenger seat of a car belonging to a camp counselor she barely knew, on a mission to save a shapeshifting demon (that was also her daughter for the last three months) from an egomaniac hellbent upon displaying her in public like a caged animal. And this, of course, was after she had just been told that her original daughter had spent those same three months in another dimension where she learned magic, a bunch of monsters tried to kill her, and also that she had made friends and apparently a girlfriend?
It was a wonder Camila could even form words from how much her brain was melting.
"Hey there, honey!" Mabel said, looking down at Luz in the reflection of Camila's phone screen like it was a totally normal occurrence and not the weirdest thing she had seen in a while. As Mabel could readily attest, when you've been trapped in a cutesy hell of your own creation by a dream demon with godlike powers, nothing fazes you anymore. "Nice to finally meet you face to face! Y'know, kinda, with this whole reflection thing you've got going on," she added, having somehow managed to grasp the basics of what Luz was doing despite not being told beforehand.
"Likewise. Vee's told me good things!" Luz said, impressed, while Mabel chuckled.
"Yeah, she's a good kid," Mabel replied before glancing over at Camila apologetically. "Sorry for never telling you about any of this, but I didn't want to put Vee at risk by alerting anyone else to what I had seen, least of all the lady she would be returning to. You understand, right?" Camila sighed and nodded; after everything Luz had told her, she did understand, albeit begrudgingly.
"So, have you encountered demons before?" Luz asked eagerly, causing Mabel to awkwardly chuckle as she tried to figure out how exactly to explain that fateful summer to the younger girl.
"Eh...yeah, but hopefully none that you've gotta deal with over there," Mabel eventually settled on. "I've dealt with a shapeshifter before too, but he was way less adorable than Vee is."
"How exactly did a nice young lady like yourself get caught up in all of these...supernatural occurrences anyway?" Camila dared to ask with a raised eyebrow, to which Mabel giggled a bit.
"Oh, you know, Gravity Falls in the summer is...something else," Mabel replied coyly, leaving Camila uneasy while Luz sought to move them along once she realized they were close.
"So, what's the plan?" Luz asked, and thankfully, Mabel had been on it for some time now.
"Well, we can't involve the cops until Vee's in the clear, but if this Hopkins guy went after Vee, he probably knows your mom's face," Mabel reasoned, glancing at Camila before grinning evilly. "I'll go in there and...distract him, while you two sneak in and get Vee out. Once you're out safely, send me a text and I'll know when to smack the living daylights out of this creep!" The eagerness she demonstrated with the fist pump at the end of that sentence let Camila know that there was a darker, gleefully violent side to this ray of sunshine that the older woman had only gotten a brief glimpse of before now. Before she could comment on any of that, however, Luz spotted the building they were looking for not that far from the parking lot they had found themselves driving towards.
"We're here!" she exclaimed, ready to save her sister in whatever limited way she could.
Mabel stopped the car at the nearest available spot, finding it a harder task than she would have liked on account of the small crowd gathering outside. As soon as she was parked, she immediately got to work by showing Waddles a photo of Jacob Hopkins she had managed to find on her phone. "Okay, buddy, you watch the door and bite this man in the legs if he tries to run away, okay?" Mabel said sweetly, a little too sweetly for Camila's liking, but Waddles oinked in response. "Alright, people, game time!" Mabel exclaimed, to which Camila ran out with Luz in tow to hide nearby while Mabel strode confidently to the front doors of the Gravesfield Historical Society.
As soon as she was inside, she instinctively stepped back a pace upon hearing an axe thud into a statue, the result of some hasty packing on Jacob's part as he threw the weapon aside to make room for other things. Mabel looked the man up and down, immediately recognizing the anxiousness and frustration in his posture as he hastily made sure that everything would be ready for his big debut. She had enough experience dealing with nerds in high school and college to know that he was the bad kind of nerd...and that he was about to fall for her hook, line, and sinker.
"Hey there, handsome~," Mabel said in a sultry tone, diverting his attention for a moment.
"Um, e-excuse me?" Jacob replied, having not noticed this strange woman come in. He didn't seem disinterested, per se. He was mostly confused at the fact that Mabel was flirting with him of all people, and probably more focused on his schemes than some random woman suddenly appearing, drop dead gorgeous though she was. Mabel knew she was going to have to up her game.
"Oh, silly me, I forgot to introduce myself!" Mabel said, practically skipping over to Jacob. "I'm Mabel Pines! You may have heard of my great uncle, Dr. Pines? Or my other great uncle, Stan, I believe he's banned in this state. Anyway!" Mabel was about to launch into another flirty remark, only to find that Jacob's attention was immediately on her once she mentioned her Grunkle Ford.
"You-you're related to the Dr. Stanford Pines?" Jacob asked eagerly, causing Mabel to smirk.
"Why yes!" she replied with false enthusiasm. "In fact, I have it on good authority that he's very interested in your work! How about we discuss it over a tour? Just the two of us~?" For as much of an evil sleazeball as this guy reportedly was, a part of her still couldn't help but do a silent fist bump in her head when she managed to get him to blush with that last remark. Even if she hadn't had a single relationship since she was 12, she could at least say she talked a good game.
"Uh, o-of course, right this way!" Jacob said nervously, allowing Mabel to loop her arm around his own as he led her down the hall, too distracted by his ramblings about his work to notice her making a quick "Get in!" signal at the door with her other hand. Once the pair had disappeared from view of the hallway, Camila and Luz made their way inside, sneaking into the staff room without Jacob noticing. There, they found Vee sobbing quietly in her cage underneath a red tarp that Camila swiftly tossed aside, unable to properly speak due to her mouth being covered with duct tape.
"Just sit tight, mija," Camila muttered as she looked around the room for the remote that Luz had described to her. As luck would have it, Jacob had left it behind, allowing her to deactivate the electrical current running through the trap and thus enabling her to unlock the cage once she found its corresponding release mechanism hidden in a novelty witch statuette. As soon as Vee was safely freed and Camila had sent Mabel a text to that effect, Camila moved to remove the tape from her mouth...and wrapped the demon up into a hug, to Vee's general confusion.
"Camila, you...you still saved me?" she asked. "Even though I-"
"Shh. Don't worry, mija. Luz explained everything to me," Camila reassured her. "It...was a lot to take in, I'll admit, but...who knew I had such a strong girl living under my roof this whole time?" The amount of kindness and love in her voice when she said those words brought Vee to tears as she dared to ask the question at the forefront of her mind.
"So...does that mean that-?"
"Ay, cariño," Camila confirmed in a sweet tone of voice. "I won't lie, it is definitely going to take a bit of getting used to, and the logistics of it probably won't be pretty, but that's nothing you need to concern yourself with. Between everything Luz has told me about you and everything I have seen so far...I would be honored to have you as a daughter, Vee." At this point, both Luz and Vee were fully crying, causing Camila to tear up a bit herself. This sweet family reunion of sorts had the unfortunate consequence of leaving everyone involved too distracted to overhear the sounds of a flirtatious conversation going south...which, in turn, left them entirely surprised by the deafening sound of a fiery explosion that could only have been magical in nature.
"Ms. Pines!" Luz cried out in alarm, causing Vee to book it towards the door along with the others. By the time they made it to the hallway Mabel had walked down, they were shocked to find her lying on the ground with her grappling hook having been blasted aside. Her adorable shooting star sweater was scorched and her body was left barely moving, making it unclear whether she was alive or dead. Standing above her with what Luz recognized as an almost fully charged training wand pointed at her face was none other than Jacob Hopkins, who looked to be properly enraged.
"YOU!" he shouted accusingly at Camila. "How on Earth could you two go to such lengths to protect that thing after what she did to you?! Impersonating your daughter, lying to you for months; that monster could have eaten her for all you know!" In response to Jacob's accusations, Vee instinctively slithered behind Camila, who wisely chose to tuck her phone into her pocket before Jacob could spot the human girl he spoke of in the reflection. "I'm trying to protect the world from monsters like her, and you sympathizers have the audacity to-!"
"Mierda!" Camila shouted in response, not caring about politeness in these circumstances. "You don't care about protecting people, you just care about advancing your own reputation! If you really cared about keeping people safe, you wouldn't have planned to make a spectacle out of showing off your 'discovery' to the whole town!" Jacob seethed at this, not wanting Camila to have the last word, but also being unable to think of a way to refute her entirely correct observation.
"I-! You-!" he sputtered, but Camila wasn't having it. She might still need time to adjust to everything that had changed in her life, but she wasn't about to let this man hurt anyone else.
"If you think you can threaten either of us into giving Vee up without a fight, then you've got another thing coming, mister! Now put down that, er, magic wand and put your hands behind your back, or else!" Not having had the presence of mind to grab an actual weapon before she left the house, all Camila had to back up her threats was the ever-dependable chancla that she brandished after pulling it out of her purse. She had hoped that her challenging words and the reputation of this feared household item would at least make Jacob hesitate, but no such hesitation seemed forthcoming, leaving her rather nervous as to how this situation was likely to go down.
Vee, meanwhile, could only watch in awe as this woman who had every reason to loathe her stood ready to fight on her behalf. As touched as she was by this gesture of maternal affection, Vee also knew full well that Camila was out of her depth as long as Jacob held that training wand in his hands. She gulped nervously, grappling with what possible options she had available to her from where she sat coiled behind Camila. She had never been confident in her ability to fight before. She couldn't even stand her ground against a couple of super-intelligent rats, much less a grown man with a magic item that gave him, at least in some limited capacity, all of the devastating magical power of a true witch. She knew that her ability to feed on magic might be the one thing that could get them all out of this safe and sound. It was simply a question of working up the courage to fight instead of running and hiding like she had been trained to do all her life.
As Jacob glanced between his opponent and his prize, he afforded himself only a brief moment to consider how best to handle this unexpected wrinkle. Although he knew not to take this demon he had captured lightly, he also knew that the magic item he held gave him every possible advantage. While he bristled at the way Camila's words wounded his ego, he was quick to conclude that no verbal retort on his part would match the effectiveness of a fiery blast to the chest. Before tonight, he wouldn't have thought it possible that he could actually kill someone; even the thought of killing a demon like Vee still filled him with a certain anxiety, albeit not out of any moral concern for their well-being. On the other hand, he reasoned, it was only natural that success on the level of what he desired for himself would require sacrifices to be made. It probably wouldn't take too much work to make the public believe that Vee had done it, that she had some ability to breathe fire that she had used to kill these innocent women. It wasn't a perfect story, but then again, he was already planning on omitting the inconvenient facts from those letters she wrote. It would be better for the people of Gravesfield to think that Vee was nothing other than what she was on the surface:
A terrifying monster. Absolutely nothing like him, of course.
"So be it," he said grimly before firing off a blast of fire aimed squarely at Camila...only for Vee to jump in front of her mother in the nick of time and swallow the blast whole.
"Phew! Thank goodness I was fast enough to catch it, that was scary!" Vee said, more to herself than anything else before she felt the familiar sensation of fresh magic coursing through her body. "Oh, man, it's been a while since I've had any magic. I'd forgotten what it tasted like!" Vee remarked as she patted her stomach appreciatively, suddenly left with a lot more of a pep in her step. She allowed herself a rare moment of bravery as she regarded the petrified Jacob, offering him a teasing smirk. "Oh, I'm sorry, did my notes not mention I can do that?" she asked in a faux-sweet tone, one that caused Camila and Luz to chuckle while Jacob was only angered further as he felt his discovery slipping away from him even more.
"No! No, no, no, NO!" he shouted as he fired off blast after blast at Vee, trying to thwart her impeccable reflexes and take her out of the fight, yet finding each one scooped up by Vee's magical maw as she gradually slithered closer. By the time he tried for one last point blank shot, the wand was running on fumes, and Vee expertly managed to grab onto Jacob's arm in order to adjust his aim so that he fired straight down her gullet. With one last satisfied gulp once the wand was fully drained, Vee proceeded to lift the man up with nothing but her tail and toss him into the same wall where Luz had reflected herself during their confrontation, causing the glass to crack as he slammed into it. Having elected to switch to that very same wall so she could watch the fight, Luz now cheered for her new sister as she revealed her previously hidden badassery.
"Whoo! That's right, kick his butt, Vee! Yeah!" she cried, to which Vee smiled nervously.
Left struggling to get up as a result of his injuries, Jacob could've sworn he heard someone else's voice coming from behind him. Dismissing it as the results of what he could readily assume was the concussion that he had just suffered, he shakily managed to rise to his feet as he pulled out the jagged dagger that he had managed to conceal on his person along with the training wand. A wiser man would've realized that he was outclassed and tried to escape by now, but Jacob was far too prideful to do that, determined as he was to finally be recognized for all of his hard work. "I...I won't let you take away my discovery!" he cried as he brandished the only weapon he had left. "Don't you see?! I'm the good guy here!" he protested, only to find Camila standing over him with an expression on her face that promised him nothing but pain.
"Yeah...a lot of bad guys say that," she replied before knocking him out with la chancla.
From there, the situation more or less resolved itself.
With plenty of magical energy to spare thanks to absorbing all of the magic held in Jacob's training wand, Vee was able to transform into a more or less human version of her Luz disguise, leaving only the eyes and the splotches of beige skin unchanged. As such, Camila and a visibly injured Mabel were able to convince the crowd that had begun assembling in the park that the "Demon Exhibition" Jacob had promised them was, in fact, the result of him having kidnapped Camila's innocent teenage daughter because he mistook her for a shapeshifting demon on account of her freaky looking cosplay. Having never liked the town's resident conspiracy theorist much to begin with, the crowd turned against him immediately, and between that and the evidence Camila brought forth of his poaching and illegal surveillance activities, several citizens were more than willing to restrain him until the police arrived to arrest him for his many crimes. Mabel and the Nocedas had promptly left the scene after that, but not before making sure to take Vee's letters and everything else magical or incriminating from Jacob's staff room. Although the training wand had given Vee a supply of magic that would last her months even under duress, it didn't hurt to be prepared, and they definitely didn't need anyone to know about Jacob's paranormal investigation.
They already had enough issues to resolve tonight as it was.
It wasn't long before Mabel's car stopped in the middle of the road outside of the Noceda house. Vee got out of the back seat with Waddles in her arms and licking the spots of her face, while Luz figured out how to manifest herself through the headlights' reflection in the pouring raindrops.
"Ms. Pines, could you get Vee inside?" Camila said as she noticed her daughter appear. "Me and Luz have some things we need to talk about." Mabel nodded, understanding immediately.
"Sure thing, Cam. C'mon, hon, mama needs some ice cream, stat!" Mabel joked with Vee, gesturing towards the burns visible on her sweater that had managed to protect her thanks to the special materials she'd had her Grunkle Ford stitch into the fabric. "And a shower," Mabel added, shaking the arm that had been wrapped around Jacob's as though that alone could remove the stench of his cologne. "And a couch: I did not think to get a hotel here before I drove like a bat out of Hell across multiple state lines," she added sheepishly, causing Vee to chuckle fondly.
"Come on, Ms. Pines, I'll get you set up," Vee remarked before leading the older woman inside and closing the door behind her. "Thanks for helping to rescue me. I know it was pretty hairy," Vee said in a softer tone of voice, at which point Mabel scoffed with amusement.
"What, are you kidding? That was the most 'exercise' I've had in years!" Mabel replied. "And besides, that creep deserved to get the Mabel Pines Smackdown for messing with my favorite camper!" Vee giggled at that before falling silent again as something occurred to her.
"You really did know the whole time, huh?" she asked, causing Mabel's grin to disappear.
"Yeah. Yeah, I did," she admitted. "And I'm sorry, I should've been up front with you from the start, it's just...I didn't want to say anything because I figured you'd freak out and run away before I could explain that I wasn't going to hurt you or send you to the FBI or anything like that. At least if I played dumb, you would be safe at camp, and I could lead Karen or anyone else off the scent if you slipped up too often." Vee sighed. Mabel's concerns had been valid, but all the same, a part of her wondered if she would've been as scared at camp knowing that somebody knew who she really was and was still looking out for her anyway. Vee supposed she'd never know.
"So, are you gonna go back to New Jersey in the morning?" Vee asked to take her mind off of it, causing Mabel to make an exaggerated show of thinking about the question for a moment.
"Well, I dunno..." Mabel began with a teasing lilt in her voice. "You weren't out of my sight for long, and yet you almost got paraded in front of half the town while I wasn't looking. That seems to be pretty decent grounds for me being in the area if nothing else, at least until I gotta head back to start setting up the Winter course in a couple months." Vee brightened up at the prospect of Mabel being in the area, and only got even more excited when her human mentor revealed something else. "And hey, as soon as you run out of those magic cards, I happen to know a certain man of mystery who can getcha more magic stuff wholesale. I don't think you'll have to worry about not being able to transform at all for a long time." As Mabel smiled, she soon found herself wrapped up in a sudden hug from Vee...only for an intrusive sound to distract them both, and leave them with a very different set of priorities in the next few minutes.
It was the muffled sound of Camila sobbing after Luz had been pulled into the ether.