Deja Vee Chapter 2: Arc II, a Gravity Falls + Owl House Crossover fanfic

Chapter Eleven: Separation Anxiety

[Summary: With the truth revealed, Camila wonders just where she went wrong for her daughter to consider a nightmarish realm of demons and evil empires to be preferable to living with her. Vee is put in the awkward position of trying to defend her new sister after she had hated her for months.]

"Mija?"

Vee's eyes shot open as she heard Camila's voice from the doorway of Luz's room. Her room, she reminded herself, and this time, it was because she was actually hoping to share it going forward and not because of any spiteful desire to replace her sister.

Her sister. Right. That was gonna take a bit more getting used to than she first thought.

"Yeah? What's up, mamá?" Vee asked groggily. She found herself waking up more when she caught the way that Camila flinched ever-so-slightly at the term of endearment. Although Vee initially panicked at the thought that Camila might be having second thoughts about adopting her after all, she realized with a sharp stab of guilt what error she had committed unintentionally. Between saying the words in her natural voice and having lacked the presence of mind to shift out of her partially transformed state before going to bed the previous night, Vee's very presence in this room was a painful reminder of the horrible situation that Camila had found herself in. Admittedly, she wasn't sure whether it would've been any less painful for her to hear those words in Luz's voice now that she knew about Vee, but the fact remained that Vee still felt responsible in some way for upsetting her new mother. "Ah, lo siento, I didn't mean-"

"It's alright, mija," Camila interrupted, the weight of the previous night's events on her soul apparent in just how...tired she sounded. Vee had never heard her sound that way before, not even after coming home past midnight from the first of many double shifts. It was unnatural, frankly. For all that one might assume that Luz got her endless optimism from her dad, her mom was a ray of sunshine herself, albeit perhaps not as blindingly bright as her daughter was. Seeing her this drained was heartbreaking, especially when Camila tried to form a small smile for Vee's sake as she moved to pull out a carefully wrapped package from her purse. "I'd been meaning to give you this yesterday after lunch, but, ah...there wasn't really a good time." Vee had some inkling of what Camila was giving her, made all the more obvious by its rectangular shape, and her first instinct was to refuse.

"You really didn't have to-!" she began with a slight hitch in her voice, only for Camila to chuckle and dismiss her new daughter's objections.

"Please, mija, I insist," she argued in a lighthearted tone that nonetheless made it clear to Vee that refusing the product of her labors was not an option. With a sigh, Vee unwrapped the packaging and confirmed that she had been given what she suspected: a new phone and a few spooky decals to go with it. From what she had researched on the subject beforehand, Vee knew that this particular model was outdated by a couple years, but it was still a solid and dependable phone that would be able to support everything she had been planning on using it for, including downloading the Quippie app that Camila's much older phone couldn't support. Vee couldn't help but frown slightly even as she appreciated this gift she had been given, knowing what she had had to do in order to receive it.

"Are you sure?" Vee asked, causing Camila to hesitate for a moment before placing a hand on her shoulder and looking at her with all of the adoration she could muster in her current state.

"Of course, mija," Camila replied warmly. "Regardless of what I thought I was getting this for, you're still going to need a phone of your own if you're going to be living as a human for the foreseeable future. Besides...I don't blame you for the lies you told and the things you did in order to make a life for yourself here. I imagine I would have done the same thing if I were in your situation." Camila paused briefly, marveling at how quickly imagining herself in the shoes of her shapeshifting demon daughter had become something almost approaching normal, before her mind turned back to the subject at hand. "Granted, throwing out Luz's things was a bit much, but don't worry, I rescued them from the curb in time. The letters were also a bit...harsh, yes," she said, finding them harder to justify. Seeing the way Vee's expression had shifted at her hesitant reprimand, Camila knew that she had to comfort her new daughter fast. "It's okay, y-you didn't have all the facts back then! Besides, I think it's sweet how much you cared about-"

"I'm sorry!" Vee choked out as she suddenly cut Camila off, the phone forgotten as she began to sob. "I-I don't get how you and Luz want me, I was so awful to her! I wish I could take back all of those horrible things I wrote, I wish she didn't agree with them, I wish-!" This was about as far as she got before she found herself wrapped up in a hug, leaving her free to just let it all out.

"Shh, it's okay, Vee. It's okay," Camila said soothingly, rubbing Vee's back as she continued to cry into her shirt. She was ashamed to say she struggled to find a way to make Vee feel better. How could she, when she would have found it almost impossible to muster the energy to get out of bed if Ms. Pines hadn't checked in on her before leaving the house to get them some more groceries so Camila didn't have to go out herself? Camila wracked her brain trying to come up with a solution without dwelling for too long on last night's events. She might not be able to do anything to help Luz get home to her faster, and she might not be able to correct what she now realized was the wrong thing to ask of Luz in those final moments they had together, but as she looked out the window at the lovely summer day outside...she realized she could still do something for Vee.

For this poor little girl, she would do almost anything, no matter what she had done.

"Come on," Camila said after offering Vee some tissues from her purse. "Why don't you, uh, 'get dressed,' and I can walk you around town some more, just the two of us? I, uh...I think we could both use some time out of the house right now." Vee looked up at Camila as she held out her hand with a drained smile on her face, so different and yet so similar to when she held her hand out to her the day they first met. Vee had grown attached to Camila on account of her kindness, and even now, after everything that had happened to both of them, Vee still saw that kindness out in full force, offered to her no matter what form she took. Even if she still didn't fully understand why Camila would consider her a daughter after everything she'd done to her and to Luz, she wasn't going to complain about it. Whether she liked it or not, Camila, Luz, and Mabel all seemed to agree that Vee could be loved and appreciated as herself more than anything else.

Maybe they were onto something, a part of Vee thought as she took her mother's hand.

Vee still hadn't grasped just how much there was to do in Gravesfield until now.

Camila insisted that the town didn't have much going for it despite its lengthy history, but to a girl like Vee, who had still not seen so much of how the Human Realm worked even after several months of living there, almost everything they came across was fascinating to her. They stopped at the many businesses set up along Gravesfield Park, making sure not to stray too close to any back alleys in case the magic rats came back. In particular, they checked out a lovely little bookstore at the end of the street where, according to Camila, Luz would spend hours reading every fantasy novel she could get her hands on. Needless to say, the cashier was rather surprised to find "Luz" walking up to her with a Star Trek-inspired book called Cosmic Frontier that Alex had recommended, but relaxed into a teasing expression once she noticed that Camila was with her.

For some reason, Camila abruptly changed the subject when Vee asked about it later.

Regardless, after Vee read what she could of the first chapter in the car, they stopped at a local diner for lunch. Although Vee loved the food that Camila would make for her, she'd be lying if she said she hadn't been eager to try more fast food, and this place certainly delivered on that wish. Camila smiled as she watched her daughter eagerly partake of the spread they'd ordered, but couldn't entirely shake that feeling of unease that had gripped her when she first saw her that morning.

"Mmm, this is the best! Thanks, mamá!" Vee said without thinking, realizing too late from the way Camila winced when she heard the words in Luz's voice this time. "Sorry," she muttered dejectedly, briefly shifting to her true voice before Camila held up a hand.

"No, I'm the one who should be apologizing, Vee," Camila countered in a solemn tone of voice. "Adjusting to all of this is...hard for me, I'll admit, but that's my issue to deal with, not yours. I'm sorry for making you feel like you need to watch what you say around me because of that. It's not fair for me to do that to you, especially not after everything you've been through." Vee's eyes widened and she gulped involuntarily at the mention of what had recently occurred, briefly convinced that someone was going to come in suddenly and grab her from behind. She quickly glanced around the room, making sure there were no cameras or people taking note of anything suspicious she was doing. Only when she found nothing even remotely like that could she finally relax again. Camila took a sharp inhale of breath at the awful sight across from her. Vee hadn't been nearly this jumpy back when she was safe and sound at home, at least somewhat secure in the knowledge that her identity wouldn't be discovered. Now that she was out to Camila and had prior experience with a horrible man seeing through her disguise to threaten her and her friends, it might be a while before she felt as safe as she had felt before.

"Sorry about that," Vee said sheepishly as she finished glancing around. "I just, I-"

"No te preocupes, mija," Camila replied soothingly, managing to calm Vee down before she launched into another panicky apology. The two fell into a bit of an awkward silence for a while, Vee digging back into her meal and Camila taking the occasional bite from her own. When it seemed as though nobody would be coming within earshot anytime soon, Camila finally dared to ask Vee a question that had been simmering in her mind for some time. "Do you think I made the right decision?" she asked, causing Vee to look up, not immediately getting it.

"Hm?" she asked, beginning to sweat as she immediately assumed the worst. "W-what decision? You mean, um, adopting me, or-?"

"No, no, of course not!" Camila said immediately, her heart aching at how Vee breathed a sigh of relief when she said those words. God as her witness, she was going to smother this poor girl with love and affection for however long it took her to understand that she was worth loving. "I mean...with sending you to camp. Or, well, sending Luz to camp, ultimately. Obviously Luz wasn't especially fond of the idea, and obviously you...weren't telling the whole truth in your letters to me." Camila's expression faltered as she contemplated just how much Vee was hiding from her after all. "You weren't lying about how much fun you were having there, were you? Was it really as awful as that pamphlet made it seem?" Vee's eyes widened as she got an inkling of where her new mother's thoughts were heading, and she knew that she had to put a stop to that as soon as she could.

"Oh, no, it really wasn't that bad, I promise!" Vee cut in, pausing briefly as she contemplated how much to tell Camila. "I mean, truth be told, the first day was pretty rough, but that wasn't the camp's fault, it was just...um..." Vee fell silent for a couple of seconds, thinking back to the turbulent emotions she had experienced around when she met Mabel for the first time. "Pearl referred to the camp as a prison, and, y'know, she was speaking metaphorically, but I-I didn't realize that at the time, and it sorta triggered me, so I kinda...ran away?" Vee winced with these last words, as though she were expecting Camila to be cross with her, but the older woman only put a hand on her shoulder.

"Oh, honey," Camila said sympathetically, causing Vee to choke up a bit before shaking her head in order to get back to the matter at hand.

"It was fine, Ms. Pines and Waddles caught up to me, and she helped me calm down...albeit not before I unknowingly transformed enough to give myself away," Vee remarked, her mind once again pondering what Mabel had kept from her for months before getting back on track. "After we worked things out, things went mostly as I described them, although I, uh...did sneak out to feel human rain on my scales one time. It was a stupid risk to take, I know, but it felt nice while it lasted, and nobody saw me...I think." Camila smiled in an effort to stop Vee from panicking once again.

"Well, I'm glad camp was still fun for you, mija," Camila said, relief evident in her voice before it took on a more somber tone. "I can't help but worry that Luz wouldn't have said the same, even if she had ended up going. She had been miserable when I last saw her...physically saw her, that is." Vee paused as she tried to figure out what to say, while Camila sank into herself a bit.

"Eh, I-I think she would've enjoyed herself too, although having to deal with Karen and her mean girls might've been worse for her than it was for me, given Luz actually has history with them," Vee argued, causing Camila to growl slightly as her thoughts turned to that awful girl.

"Ay, those damn punks have been giving Luz grief ever since she tried out for the cheer team," Camila said bitterly, only realizing what exactly she said when she heard Vee gasp in surprise. "Ah, lo siento, I shouldn't be saying such things about-no, you know what?! Those girls are an exception after everything they've put Luz through!" Although she'd been uneasy about it at first, Vee had grown comfortable enough with Camila to appreciate her righteous outrage on Luz's behalf.

"Hey, I mean, Karen punched me in the stomach, I don't care what you say about her," Vee said casually, only to pale as she realized that she'd only wrote in her letters that Karen called her names and ruined Pearl's phone before Pearl punched Karen, not that she had been punched by Karen first. Judging by the actual reddening of Camila's face as a result of her unyielding rage on Vee's behalf, Vee knew that she was going to need to turn the conversation back to Luz before Camila made that phone call that she had promised to make to Karen's family with a lot more expletives behind it. "ANYWAY! The point is, it probably would've helped Luz out, but...in its own bizarre way, I think the Demon Realm ended up helping her too." Camila looked up at Vee when she said that, her rage momentarily forgotten, while Vee herself was similarly surprised by the turn this had taken. The Vee of even two days ago wouldn't have imagined advocating in Luz's defense, and yet here she was, arguing that Luz going to the Boiling Isles was actually a good thing.

Amazing the things that one fateful day will change.

"Ay, I-I gathered as much, and she mentioned that she's apparently learned magic and made friends there, so I-I know it wasn't right of me to make her promise to stay here, but...she said that place is ruled by a tyrant," Camila said, worry for her daughter written all over her face. "You were...born, there, and clearly had a rough life before you came here. It can't be as amazing as she thinks it is, can it?" Vee gulped nervously, thinking it over for a bit before giving her response.

"I...I'm not so sure anymore," Vee admitted. "I mean, in my experience, it was awful, yeah, but from what I know, Luz ordinarily wouldn't be considered anything worse than an eccentric or a malcontent hopefully beneath the Emperor's notice. Humans and their culture are a subject of curiosity on the Isles, so while she may have been looked down on for whatever way she does magic or asked a few invasive questions about her biology, there would also be people genuinely excited to learn about her and who she was. Basilisks, though...we used to be one of the Isles' most dangerous predators before we went extinct. It's no wonder that hardly anyone was willing to hide us from the Emperor once we escaped his clutches." Camila nodded solemnly at Vee's response, giving Vee time to calm herself before she asked her new daughter another question.

"But what about all of the monsters, and the grotesque food, and the acid rain?" she asked worriedly, only for Vee to hold up a hand to cut Camila off before she spiraled.

"Those are all potentially dangerous for her, don't get me wrong, but she's got a bunch of very capable witches looking out for her. There's probably some things on the Isles that she can eat, and there are spells that can be cast to protect against the rain. She's probably been fine...for the most part," Vee said nervously, causing Camila to raise an eyebrow.

"Mija, you say that like you know that she hasn't been," Camila pointed out, careful not to sound accusatory while still making the observation. "Did she tell you she got into trouble? She mentioned that something happened, but she didn't go into specifics." Camila asked, leaving Vee to debate her options for a moment before she sighed in resignation.

"There was...a conflict with the Emperor a while back, around when she stopped texting you," Vee admitted, breathing a silent apology to Luz before continuing. "I didn't get all of it, but she mentioned getting captured by the sister of Eda the Owl Lady, the woman who took her in. She was nearly killed before Eda sacrificed her magic to save her and got captured. That, of course, led to Luz going on a whole rescue mission to save Eda, during which she realized that Belos wanted the portal to the Human Realm for some reason. She didn't mention what exactly his plan was: she probably thought he was going to threaten the Human Realm directly somehow, despite all of the advanced technology here. I think he's planning something else, but I'm not sure how the portal fits into any of it, and Luz didn't seem to know either. All she knew was that it was important, and that if he got his hands on it...something terrible was going to happen." Camila's eyes widened at the enormity of what Luz had apparently been faced with, while Vee struggled to finish her explanation of events, knowing how badly she had misjudged Luz's circumstances in that awful place. "Anyway, Eda tried to order her back home, but Luz wouldn't leave her captured, so in order to stop Belos as best she could, she...she..." Vee found herself unable to finish the words as she watched Camila tear up, but that was evidence enough that the older woman got the implication.

"Oh, dios mío," Camila muttered as she put a hand to her mouth, tears threatening to fall from her eyes in droves at any moment. "I can't believe she was forced to make such an awful choice," she whispered, while Vee made sure to clarify an important point.

"If it helps, she told me herself that she had every intention of coming back to you once camp was over," Vee explained. "She never meant to run away for good. She...she loves you so much, mamá, more than anything. I think she was just...scared. She'd found so many people who cared about her in the Demon Realm, and she thought both realms would be in danger if Emperor Belos got what he wanted. You know she'd do anything to keep the people she cares about safe...no matter the cost to herself." Camila chuckled in a broken voice as she wiped a tear from her eye.

"Ay. That's my Luz, alright," Camila said shakily, trying to maintain her composure so that she didn't suddenly start bawling in the middle of a diner. Really, it was a miracle that their conversation hadn't attracted attention as it stood; a woman crying was bound to break that balance. Keeping this in mind, Camila eventually managed to calm down enough that they could resume their talk. Vee, meanwhile, sighed a long sigh indicative of the burden on her shoulders as she thought over the situation with worry etched onto her face that eerily mirrored Luz's own expressions of worry. Camila had to admit it was upsetting how both of her girls had been affected by the machinations of this evil man they spoke of. She wasn't a terribly violent person by any means, but she knew then that if she ever came across this emperor herself...

Well. Suffice it to say that he wouldn't be walking out of that fight, if she had her way.

"Even destroying the portal probably didn't slow him down all that much," Vee said sadly, drawing Camila's attention back to her adopted daughter. "I know more than most that Belos has all kinds of resources at his disposal. He might be way further along in building his own portal than Luz is, and even if he isn't...I'm not sure he actually needs it for what he has planned. Not if my hunch is right." Noting the look in Vee's eyes, Camila knew she had to tread carefully, even as she also knew that she needed a better idea of what Luz had gotten herself mixed up in and what exactly Vee had been through in order to be some kind of help to them both.

"Mija?" she began hesitantly, hoping Vee would be willing to explain on her own. As luck would have it, she was, albeit not without taking a moment to collect her thoughts.

"Me and the other basilisks, we...we weren't able to pick up on much while we were held captive, for obvious reasons," Vee began. "We all knew why we were made, of course. Belos wanted to study how we drained magic, presumably to develop his own version of what we do naturally. We'd overhear the guards talking about something called the Day of Unity and how it would put an end to 'wild magic,' but...I always had a feeling that 'wild magic' was just something Belos made up. Something he could use to give his subjects something to fear, something he could 'protect' them from to justify his awful laws. If I'm right, then...there's only one way I can think of that he could get rid of 'wild magic' permanently." Vee fell silent for a moment, causing Camila to put a hand to her mouth as she understood what Vee was getting at, her eyes widening in horror.

"Madre de dios," Camila muttered under her breath. She had known that this emperor was an evil tyrant, and she was at least indirectly familiar with men like that in the Human Realm, but...even the most violent of those men had never been willing to wipe out everyone in their own country. That this man might be so twisted as to send his own people to their deaths, and to make this poor girl and four other creatures like her to aid in that terrible work...it was more than Camila was equipped to deal with. Without another word, Camila placed her hand onto Vee's shoulder in a show of silent sympathy for the girl who had clearly suffered so much at this Emperor's hands.

The two hardly said anything else for the rest of the meal.

By the time it was time for them to pay, the waiter thankfully didn't notice the faint traces of tears on Camila or Vee's faces, and the two were able to make it back to Camila's car without incident. Vee was about to open the passenger door when she felt herself being wrapped up in a hug from behind, an unexpected if not entirely unwelcome development after that tense conversation.

"Thank you, Vee," Camila said softly, causing Vee to stammer a bit in response.

"Oh, I-I didn't do much, really-" she tried to protest, only for Camila to interject.

"No, you were more helpful than I can say," Camila said. "Luz told me a lot, but you helped me to really understand what's happened to her...and where exactly she has been coming from in all of this. It may be a bit of a backhanded compliment, admittedly, but you have a better understanding of her than I have had in...in a long time." The two were silent for a moment, Camila grappling with the weight behind that statement while Vee was left trying to figure out what to say to that. By the time she had settled on something, Camila threw her yet another curveball as she squeezed just a bit tighter. "I'm really glad Luz has you as a sister now, cariño," Camila said warmly, catching Vee so off-guard that she could almost feel her ears reverting back. Camila had been somewhat tentative in her acceptance before, but to hear herself being explicitly named as Camila's daughter, as Luz's sister...it made Vee feel more loved than she had ever been before. Like she was actually a part of the Noceda family simply for who she was, and not because of who she had tried to be.

Maybe it wouldn't take as much getting used to as she thought.

"Me too," Vee replied, melting into the embrace of the best mother she could ever ask for.

Chapter Twelve: Incense and Sensitivity

[Summary: With their unplanned trip through Gravesfield helping to calm both Camila and Vee's nerves, Vee decides to check in on her friends and winds up getting roped into a strange human ritual known as a "self-care day." Although a major faux pas on her part hampers the ritual's effectiveness somewhat, Vee is nonetheless profoundly changed by the unequivocal confirmation that her friends care about her just as deeply as she cares about them.]

Luz: New phone, who dis?

Luz: Am I saying that right? The misspelling is intentional, isn't it?

Luz: It's Luz, btw, should've written that first, sorry.

As Vee awkwardly texted the first messages of a new text group chat she created, a part of her was worried that she'd gotten the numbers wrong. She'd made sure to ask all of her friends for their phone numbers long before she even got a phone of her own, and she had ample time to log in to the app and check her messages on Quippie while Camila was busy driving them home from the diner, but there was still a chance she'd messed them up somehow. Of course, the process of checking her Quippie messages in the first place had been made more difficult than she had anticipated, on account of the dozens of panicked and worried messages from her friends inquiring about her well being and just what had occurred beyond the patchwork story they'd heard. In a morbid sense, Vee was at least glad that the circumstances they were so distressed over weren't entirely built upon a lie. She had been kidnapped, after all; it was just for a...slightly different reason than the one listed on Jacob Hopkins' arrest record.

Making sure to prepare herself to answer any questions they had in a way that conformed to the public's record of events, Vee took a deep, calming breath to steady herself as the notifications for her new group chat began to fill up.

Pearl: LUZ

Pearl: Oh, thank Goddess you're alright, we've been so worried about you! ={

Alex: Seconded! ={

Sam: Yeah, dude, we're all super glad you made it out of that whole mess okay. How are you doing?

Sam: Also, who's this other person? I don't recognize the number.

Vee chuckled, realizing the mistake she had made in asking for Juniper's phone number separately from the Cabin 7 Crew, meaning they wouldn't know it was her despite connecting with each other over Quippie. It had been a little slow going, admittedly, since they had initially just worked within their mutual friendship with Vee before common interests began to emerge and helped them along. Vee didn't know for certain, but from what she'd seen, Juniper had more or less been accepted into the crew by this point, and Vee for one couldn't be happier.

From the looks of things, Juniper had become a fair bit happier as well.

Luz: That's Junie, sorry! I asked for her number separately from you guys.

Luz: And I'm, y'know, doing as well as can be expected, really.

Luz: My mom just took me out around Gravesfield, we stopped at a lot of my favorite haunts.

Luz: I also bought that sci-fi book, Cosmic Frontier! I'm only one chapter in, and I'll admit, it's a touch derivative of Star Trek , but ohhh, the drama and intrigue is already so good!

Alex: YOOOO, I TOLD YOU YOU'D LOVE THAT BOOK!

Alex: We HAVE to talk about it as soon as you're finished reading it, it's SO GOOD! =D

Alex: Also, hi Junie! Have you read it too? Maybe you could join us!

Alex: Or, y'know, we could just hang out and talk about it on our own, that works too! =}

Vee couldn't help but smirk a little as Alex continued texting with such eagerness. Vee wasn't quite sure when it had developed, but Alex really wasn't doing a great job of hiding their crush on Juniper if even Vee could notice it. Perhaps they'd been crushing on her for a while, before Vee had properly met either of them? That would certainly explain their eagerness, as well as how both Sam and Alex had recognized Juniper pretty quickly once the introductions were made and warmed up to her quicker than Pearl did. Vee wasn't quite sure why Alex hadn't approached her on their own, but then again, humans seemed to love making these things more complicated than they needed to be.

Good thing she didn't have anything to worry about on that front!

Sam: Lmao, simp.

Vee snickered. She really hadn't the foggiest idea what that human word meant, only that Sam and Pearl had used it on Alex a few times on Quippie and that it was connected to their obvious crush on Juniper. Based on the usage of it she'd observed, perhaps it referred to someone who was overly fawning towards the object of their affection? In any case, it was probably a word that "Luz" was supposed to be familiar with already as a sociable human teenager, which was why she hadn't bothered asking her friends about it. Given the choice between wasting time looking that up or focusing on her studies, Vee had wisely chosen the latter. Alex seemed to brush it off, so it probably wasn't that important, and she figured she'd pick up on what exactly it meant eventually.

Little did she know that not looking into it would prove to be a grave mistake.

Alex: Dudes just hate to see folks respecting women I guess. /j

Sam: Nah, you ain't about to hit me with that. xD

Sam: Anyway, that's good to hear, Luz. Take as much time as you need to recenter yourself, and remember that it's okay to feel whatever it is you need to feel. Healing is far from a linear journey, and it's okay to be angry.

Pearl: What he said, on both counts, lmao.

Pearl: Alex, get it together, fam! xD

Alex: Not even five minutes into its existence and I'm getting my ass kicked in the group chat... ={

Alex: Tell my story, Luz. Remember me as I was.

Vee: LOL

Pearl: Omg, you capitalize it, that's adorable! =D

Pearl: Oh, also, bit of a hot take, but it's connected to what Sam said, so bear with me:

Pearl: Contrary to what a lot of media might argue, it is actually 100% valid to hate your abuser no matter what sob story they try to spin about him in court, and you're not a monster for maybe wanting him dead a little bit.

Alex: ^^^

Sam: Eh...that's a bit much, y'all, let's dial it back. =[

Sam: Although, then again, I *did* say "feel whatever you need to feel," so idk. =p

Pearl: Nobody's telling her to stab someone, Sam, it's not that serious. =/

Vee blinked, getting a lot of mixed messages from a concerningly short string of texts. She supposed it wasn't entirely out of character for her overprotective friends to be saying such things, and it was a crisis that had traumatized her to an extent, but it still seemed a touch...extreme.

Then again...there were dark times during her captivity. Times where she had thought about the things she'd do to Emperor Belos if she ever got the chance, or the nerve, for that matter. She imagined she wouldn't mind draining the magic from another creature quite as much in that context.

Despite her friends' indirect encouragement...she didn't like what that said about her.

Luz: I'll...keep that in mind, I guess? Thanks?

Pearl: No problem, anyway, where's Junie at? I'm surprised it's taking her this long to answer, tbh.

Juniper: Hm, yes. It would appear that I have been summoned.

Pearl: Heh. Speak her true name three times, and she shall appear.

Pearl: Like some kind of nerdy, non-creepy Beetelguese. ;)

Juniper: Precisely.

Juniper: In any case, although I am not personally inclined to judge you for indirectly wishing harm upon the man who hurt our friend, I would nonetheless advise you not to say such things around my mother, Pearl.

Juniper: She is rather adamant that to speak with such ill intent is to invite misfortune in some form.

Pearl: Yeah, that's fair, I guess.

Pearl: It just makes me so mad, you know? Like, I *knew* this guy, sorta!

Pearl: I go to the society every so often to check out new artifacts, he got to recognize me after a while!

Pearl: I didn't really *like* him, he was kind of a snob, but I didn't think he'd do anything like this!

Pearl: Ugh, I just don't want to even *think* about that jerk anymore. =(

Alex: Seconded, again. Not even gonna use his name, just gonna mentally block it out like radio static.

Sam: Now that, I can get behind. Screw that guy.

Juniper: Indeed.

Juniper: Somewhat concerning discussions of moral boundaries and those who are no longer to be named aside, it is good to hear from you, Luz. I was quite worried about you myself, having overheard some of the commotion last night from the other side of the park. I am most grateful that you are safe and sound. =)

Vee smiled, glad that the conversation had finally veered away from the strange place it had ended up and even more happy to see such a heartfelt message from her friend.

Luz: Aww, thanks, Junie! And thanks to all of you guys!

Luz: This whole situation sucks, but a part of me is honestly kinda touched you were all so worried. =}

Luz: Sorry, that probably sounds kinda horrible now that I think about it, I shouldn't be so pleased. ={

Sam: No, no, you're fine, but like...why wouldn't we be worried about you?

Sam: And also, why do you think it's weird that you're happy we were worried about you?

Sam: You're a super close friend to all of us, of course we were worried! You got frickin kidnapped, dude!

Luz: Whoa, I, uh, I've never known you to use exclamation points before, this is serious. ;)

Vee cringed slightly. That felt like the wrong thing to say as soon as she sent it.

Juniper: Although I will not begrudge your attempt to put us at ease, now does not seem the time for jokes.

Alex: Yeah, I'm honestly a bit shocked you got the energy to do that so soon. Are you sure you're good, girl?

At this, Vee gulped a little, being forced to really think about what it was she was trying to play off. Even if she may have personally felt that she didn't deserve to burden her friends with problems she was well acquainted with solving on her own, making jokes at a time like this was rather odd, wasn't it? It wasn't like the whole incident hadn't affected her, of course, as evidenced by how jumpy she was in the diner. She suspected that it would take some time for her to heal from being put in such an eerily similar situation. She just...didn't want to make that their problem, that's all. She had dealt with it alone before, and she could do it again. They weren't all stuck in the same cabin anymore, it wasn't fair to expect them to take care of her. She had herself, her new mamá, and hopefully her new human sister to help her through stuff like this now, at least assuming Luz makes it back safe and sound. And besides, she already felt bad enough about burdening her own family with her problems, no matter how much her mom had told her she would always be there for her. The last thing she wanted to do was outsource that!

Luz: Idk, I guess it's just like...it happened, it was awful, but...I'm okay now. Or I will be, anyway.

Luz: Mom's been a huge help so far, and I'm usually pretty good at finding ways to cope on my own.

Luz: I appreciate your concern, really, but...you guys really don't need to worry about me. =)

Apparently, because she wrote it as a text message and hadn't thought to use the "tone indicators" she'd seen her friends using to clarify some of their messages for Junie, the smile meant to put her friends at ease had instead registered as "I am in deep pain, please help me." The next thing Vee knew, her phone was "blowing up," as the human expression went. Vee could quickly understand why such dramatic language was used for such an otherwise mundane occurrence, as the repeating pinging noises started to grate on her ears and most definitely caught Camila's attention.

"Everything okay, mija?" she asked, a note of concern in her voice.

"Aggh, uh, maybe?!" Vee replied, frantically trying to keep pace with the massive wave of what she could only describe as "aggressive affirmations of love" from all of her friends, delivered in their own unique ways. By the time the deluge of texts had slowed down enough to where she could parse the most crucial details of the storm, she was able to give her mom a clearer answer. "Uh, apparently I'm being told - yes, not invited, told - to meet them all at Junie's place for a...self-care day? What's that?" she asked, causing Camila to smile as she realized that nothing was truly amiss.

"It means they want to help you relax after everything that happened, mija, and I for one think it's a wonderful idea," she said, calmly changing lanes in order to reroute towards Palmer Cuts. "How long are they expecting to keep you?" she asked, leaving Vee little room to question why her mom had so immediately gone along with her friends' plan.

"Um, at least for dinner?" she said, phrasing it in the form of a question.

"Ah, that's fine, I can pick you up around 9 or so," Camila replied easily. "Under normal circumstances, I'd let you spend the night, but...as much as I trust Teresa, I think we can both agree it would be better for you to sleep at home for a while. Especially with...hm. Well, that's still a week away, thankfully, but..." She didn't elaborate any further on what she was talking about, and for once, Vee was still far too caught off guard by how quickly things were progressing with her friends and too occupied playing catch-up in the group chat to piece things together.

It wasn't until later that she'd realize, and wonder how on Earth she had forgotten.

By the time she was dropped off, Vee barely had time to take note of her mom having a whispered conversation with Mrs. Palmer before Pearl grabbed her hand and whisked her upstairs.

Having finally caught up on the deluge of texts from earlier and being forced to grapple with just how strongly her friends seemed to think that she was worth worrying about actually, Vee wasn't quite in the proper headspace to really consider why it was that her cheeks were heating up as she was holding hands with her totally platonic bestie. Granted, this was the same totally platonic bestie who had an adorable tooth gap and was willing to fist fight people for her, but just as in all of the other instances when this happened, her brain still couldn't quite make the connections necessary to come to a conclusion that would've otherwise been evident enough, despite her having never experienced anything like it before. In any case, she was left with even less time to try and reach that conclusion when said bestie abruptly deposited her into Juniper's room.

As Pearl finally let go of her hand and moved to light a few candles she had placed around the space, Vee was hit with a soothing aroma which took her a moment to pinpoint before realizing it smelled very much like the Gravesfield Library did. Glancing around the room, a neatly made bed went entirely unused as a number of blankets had been carefully arranged in front of a modestly small smart TV positioned across from the bed. Alex and Juniper were currently occupying two blankets placed right next to each other, presumably in order to talk at length about the copy of Cosmic Frontier which Juniper held in her hands. The only one with the presence of mind to nod as Vee and Pearl entered was Sam, who was busy setting up the "Switch" console he carried with him everywhere to interface with the smart TV, then assembling every controller he had been able to bring with him on such short notice. No sooner had Pearl sneakily moved back over to Vee's side, looping an arm around her own while gently massaging her shoulder with the other hand, than the two sci-fi nerds in the corner had come to the end of a mostly one-sided conversation.

"In conclusion, Captain Avery is by far the most compelling and well-written character in Cosmic Frontier, standing out like a brilliant beacon amongst an already stellar cast," Juniper explained succinctly, like she was delivering a book report in an English class, while Alex hung onto her every word. From the look in their eye, they appeared to be utterly enraptured by Juniper's eloquence and shared interest in sci-fi, enraptured in a way that made Vee wonder how Juniper hadn't noticed it.

Perhaps she was a little too desperate to try and shift the focus of her friends' attention away from what had happened to her and onto something more amusing. Perhaps she just wanted to try and fit in better with her friends. Whatever the reason, Vee made the critical error of electing to mess with them just as her other friends did, her scattered brain failing to consider the ways it could go wrong. In the process, she would inadvertently end up embarrassing herself with a rather severe faux pas which she was confident Luz would never, ever have made in her place.

For once, this was a mistake "Luz" had made which was entirely Vee's fault.

"Simp!" Vee cried out towards Alex far more enthusiastically than such language dictated, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that she really didn't understand what that word meant. All she really knew was that it was funny and meant to be said in jest to the friend that she loved, just as Pearl and Sam had supposedly done. Making matters worse, it was indeed funny to some of them, although it also caught everybody off guard for one reason or another. Both Pearl and Sam fell over themselves upon hearing Vee's exclamation, utterly consumed in their raucous laughter at Vee's hilarious and entirely unexpected delivery. Alex, meanwhile, buried their face in their hands, glowing bright red in their embarrassment and letting out a groan which caused Vee's beaming smile to falter, having realized her error far too late.

For her part, Juniper was mostly just confused.

"Hello?" she said to Vee with a hesitant wave. "What does that mean?" she whispered to Alex, believing that they would know about this strange behavior she had observed from the others, seeing as it had clearly been directed at them exclusively.

"Kill me now," they muttered in response, only confusing and worrying Juniper even further.

"No? I will do no such thing? Are you feeling alright, Alex?" Juniper replied, genuinely concerned for her friend and inadvertently managing to cheer them up somewhat.

"...God, I like you so much, can I hug you?" they asked with a slight hitch in their voice, to which Juniper promptly held out her arms as a silent gesture of consent.

"By all means," Juniper said, pulling them into an embrace while looking over at Vee over Alex's shoulder with what she knew was the closest Juniper could get to a "What the frick?" expression. Vee, for her part, was feeling much the same way, absolutely mortified at the pain they had inadvertently caused their friend and frantically demanding an explanation from the other two people who actually knew what it was that she had done.

"Guys, what the heck did I say? Guys?!" she cried out, finding herself increasingly panicky as Pearl and Sam proved to be varying degrees of unhelpful while they were laughing like maniacs. "I thought it was just something funny; did I say something mean?! Why would you keep calling them something mean?!" Beginning to hear the rising fear in her voice, Pearl at least managed to compose herself just enough to try and defuse the situation as best she could.

"No no, Vee, it's-it's okay, it wasn't mean, I promise," Pearl assured her in between giggles.

"It was a little mean, let's be honest here," Alex replied grumpily from Juniper's embrace, leaving Vee with another case of rapid-fire mixed messages to parse through as Sam scoffed.

"Look, it's a fact that you're doing too much," Sam said, frustratingly laid back about the whole situation and only serving to piss them off even more. "If you're mad at me and Pearl for egging you on, that's fine. That's fair. We can talk it out later. Just don't drag Luz into it, alright? She clearly didn't know what she was saying," Sam argued calmly, but left a warning laced into his words which caused Alex's flustered anger to boil over, given the embarrassing circumstances.

"Could we not do this here?!" they shouted, drawing the others in to try and mediate before an argument developed. Juniper, meanwhile, continued to be left utterly confused by a growing conflict she still didn't quite understand, but knew she was somehow the crux of. Vee herself was no closer to understanding the situation either, and could only default to her gut reaction that this was all her fault and that she had done something absolutely horrible to her friend. She therefore attempted to try and offer an apology to salvage this "self-care day" ritual before it ended in tears, only to find whatever apology she had meant to conjure dying on the tip of her tongue as she caught sight of something she hadn't noticed before just lying on a nearby table:

Pearl's deck of Tarot cards, with the impaled fish from her last reading left right-side-up.

"You're running from your past..."

The memory of Pearl saying those words to her, to "Luz," came to her mind unbidden. It didn't make sense, she thought back then, as she did now. Vee was supposed to be the one who read people, so how the hell had Pearl read her so easily without even knowing it?

"From a previous life that was not kind to you."

Vee shook her head, trying to deny the irrational fears her mind sought to conjure. Vee had already concluded at camp that Pearl's uncanny intuition when it came to her "predictions" was entirely mundane in nature, constructed through a combination of cold reading and misdirection, just like any other magic trick. The wording was kept vague on purpose in order to make them open-ended so that the subject was more inclined to view them as real once they were "proven." It was all a trick, it had to be. This was the Human Realm, not the Boiling Isles. Pearl wasn't magic.

Except...

"However, the guilt and fear you carry will eventually catch you in a self-fulfilling prophecy-!"

Except even that explanation didn't seem sufficient to Vee now, in this moment of panic and uncertainty. Not when she now knew more than she ever had how appearances could be deceiving. Not when Vee continued to make such obvious mistakes around Pearl. Not when...when...

"-That you won't be able to escape from."

When she already knew?

No, that couldn't be right...could it?

That panicky thought died as soon as she thought about it for more than a split second, but that didn't stop the sound of the cage slamming shut around her from replaying in her brain. Or maybe that was just the sound of her lurching and falling straight to the ground. Hard to say really. All she knew was that she was feeling very, very trapped.

And her facades tended to crumble the minute she was trapped.

"I'm sorry, I can't-I'm a monster, I'm-hagh, haghh, hahhhhh-!"

That was about when Vee began to find herself running out of breath. Hyperventilating will do that, she found, something she had learned terrifyingly young.

"Oh Goddess!" Pearl muttered in alarm, the others letting out similar exclamations as their argument was completely forgotten in favor of rushing to Vee's side. Juniper wore a rare expression of panic on her usually rather stoic features, having not known "Luz" long enough to see her like this and thus only having her own similar experiences with meltdowns to help her. Fortunately, the Cabin 7 Crew were overall better prepared, albeit with the aid of rather unfortunate practice.

They had each had to help "Luz" through a couple nightmares, after all.

"Luz," Pearl said once the typical breathing technique they used managed to calm Vee down enough to listen, "None of this was your fault. Me and Sam were just being stupid and got you wrapped up in it unintentionally," she whispered gently, gesturing to herself and Sam before she pulled Vee into a side hug and gently massaged her back. It was at a much slower, more tentative pace than what she had been doing earlier, as she didn't want to spook her with the contact. Vee leaned into it unconsciously, finding it unusually soothing despite her earlier fears.

"We should've known you wouldn't really get what that word means, and Alex is right: we shouldn't be saying that kind of stuff to them, period. We weren't very good friends," Sam added in a similarly gentle tone. Alex, having been vindicated by the two instigators, yet still feeling somewhat responsible, moved to add their own two cents as Juniper scooted towards the cards.

"And I...ugh, I really shouldn't have reacted so strongly when you clearly had enough to worry about already," they remarked, speaking in a tone that suggested a great deal of bitterness towards themselves. "It's stupid, we were supposed to help you through all this, and here we are bitching at each other over petty stuff and freaking you out even more!" The other two members of Cabin 7 could only look down at their shoes in shame, while Vee was left in a state where she desperately needed to tell them something, anything, maybe even the truth, but didn't yet have the mental bandwidth to get any words out. Meanwhile, Juniper scooped the offending cards up from where they were placed and scooted back to where Vee was lying down, a question on her mind.

"Luz, forgive me for asking you such a pointed question at this time, but: are these what caused you to panic earlier? I realized that you were looking in that direction when you fell," Juniper asked, to which Vee hesitated for a split second before nodding slowly. Alex and Sam glanced over at Pearl with worried expressions on their faces, while the fortuneteller herself was left mortified once she understood what had happened. They'd already figured out part of what might have been bumming "Luz" out, but she didn't stop to think about how much that grisly prophecy she'd given could have affected her. Especially since, in a remarkably twisted way...it had ultimately come true.

It had come true in the worst way imaginable.

"I-I can't believe I...I don't...why did I say that?" Pearl finally said in a broken voice, visibly tearing up as it took everything she had not to cry and make Vee feel even worse. "Oh, Luz, I am so sorry! I never meant to make you feel so awful about yourself, and screw whatever great old one I pissed off to make that prophecy come true! I just...I wish I hadn't...AGH!" Pearl growled suddenly, knocking the Tarot cards out of Juniper's hand and sending them scattered to the floor. "I'm never using those crappy cards again!" Pearl cried out angrily, pointedly looking away from them and clinging on to Vee a little more tightly. For a reason she still wasn't quite in the right headspace to sort through, it was this declaration that finally gave Vee the push she needed to use her words again.

"Don't say that," Vee said softly, soft enough that only Pearl could really hear her clearly. "You love giving us Tarot readings, it's...it's not your fault mine are scary. Maybe I'm just...cursed. Maybe that's all it is." The others hadn't quite heard her words, but there was a sadness in Vee's eyes then which was disturbingly foreign to Juniper and disturbingly familiar to the Cabin 7 Crew. An expression which told them just how badly their friend had been hurting without their knowledge.

They had seen it sometimes, on those awful nights where they had been roused by "Luz" screaming in her sleep or the subsequent efforts to calm her down after the fact. There were many things about their friend that had caused them to wonder quietly among themselves just who or what it was that had hurt her so badly. They had come to know her parents by reputation if nothing else, so they knew at least that it wasn't anything they did. They also had quickly grasped that she had a long history of being bullied by people like Karen and her clique, not to mention a bad reputation in town. And yet, even that kind of horrible treatment didn't explain the nightmares.

Nothing could explain the nightmares.

"Luz" had admitted to Pearl and Pearl alone, and even then under considerable duress, that she had been having them for as long as she could remember. Nightmares about being chased, hunted, and locked away by some terrifying monster with no ears, no mouth, nothing but sharp antlers and two piercing blue eyes in the darkness. A humanoid creature whose body moved in ways a human being shouldn't move. Sometimes he was pursuing her at the head of a pack of faceless bird-men, using a shepherd's crook to guide them in hunting her down. Other times he was alone, calmly walking towards her with the help of that terrible crook as she bolted through the woods, never changing his stride because they both knew he would catch her in the end. The nightmares inevitably ended with her being grabbed and restrained by hands made only of bone and sinewy red musculature, then dragged screaming and thrashing back into a prison cell.

None of them could figure out what it all meant. They knew there had to be some kind of cause: you don't get nightmares that are that vivid and that consistent for over a decade without them being based in something real. And yet, nothing they knew about Luz's life lended itself to what she was describing. It couldn't be her mom's parenting, it couldn't be her dad's death, and it didn't sound right to connect it to how the people of Gravesfield saw her. All the same, though, if it wasn't any of those things, then what the hell was it? They hadn't actually known her for long, but they had still grown up in the same town, and so if something else other than those things had happened to her to cause something like this...surely they would've known about it, right?

It was already hard enough for the Cabin 7 Crew to figure out the cause of Vee's nightmares without factoring in her reticence to even accept their help in the first place. Whenever her screaming woke them up, she always followed it up with a quiet apology, like she was being an inconvenience by having a goddamn panic attack in the middle of the night. Even as all of them insisted that they were happy to be there for her and didn't care how many times she jostled them awake, she still didn't seem to get it through her head that she wasn't being a burden. She was barely even willing to talk about the nightmares with them at first, not without the gentlest of prodding on their part and a level of pausing on hers which made them suspect that she was changing or sanitizing the details of these nightmares for their benefit.

If what they'd heard was what went public, it'd break their hearts to hear the uncut version.

Even so, after there were no more details to talk through, no more tears to cry, and a million sweet nothings whispered into her ear, there would still be a sadness in her eyes which was tricky to drive away. For a girl so quietly full of life and wonder at everything around her, it was disturbing to witness the way that such an expression sucked out all the life in her eyes. It left her a hollow shell of herself for minutes, even hours at a time, one which cracked under the jokes and laughter her friends used to coax her back into the light, but also one which never seemed to fully go away. As sad as it was, that darkness would always be in her just under the surface, coming out briefly when they asked her about her past or sometimes just when she got lost in thought for long enough.

They had wanted to know what had hurt her so badly, but when each of them had first seen that sadness reflected in her eyes on a cold summer night, it told them in heartbreaking terms that she thought she already knew the answer. It told them that, for however much she had suffered at the hands of others, she still believed that all of it was somehow her fault.

And so she didn't understand why they would bother.

"No you're not," Pearl said quietly, yet firmly, hugging her even tighter.

"What?" Vee asked softly.

"No you're not!" Pearl said, almost shouting in a way which startled Vee and the others a bit, faced with an intensity in her mannerisms they'd never seen from her before. "You're not cursed! You're not a monster! You're not anything even remotely like that!" she continued, the aggression in her voice causing Vee to scooch backwards a bit even though it wasn't remotely directed at her. "What you are is a sweet, gentle, loving person who's done nothing wrong and makes all of our lives better just by existing! Last night, I...I thought that I'd lost you, that we had all lost you. And it hurt so, so much for me to think that for even a single second, I don't even want to imagine how it would feel if something worse had happened to you that night! So don't you dare think of yourself as a burden, Luz Noceda, because I...we will always be there for you when you need us. Always. We love you so much, Luz, no matter what. Okay?" The care rendered palpable by Pearl's words left Vee stunned, but it soon became clear from everyone else's fond expressions that Pearl very much spoke for all of them. Unfortunately for her friends, though, Vee hadn't quite reached the ideal conclusion that such a display of affection should have provoked in her just yet.

"I'm sorry for scaring you like that," she said in a small voice. "I shouldn't have-"

"Girl, please, for the love of God, do not apologize for getting kidnapped," Sam cut her off calmly, but quite firmly, in a rare display of visible emotion.

"But it was all my fault!" she protested, to the collective dismay of everyone. "The only reason any of that even happened is because I got careless and played right into that monster's hands at every step of the way!" Although several of them tried to interrupt her, one look from Vee told them that she wasn't going to stop once she had absentmindedly crafted a suitable version of the story in her head. "I left my short fiction from camp about a shapeshifter in that abandoned house, so he found them and assumed it was all real! I left the house unattended when I went to the library, so he was able to set up traps to capture me that hurt and killed innocent animals in the process! I walked around town in my tr-uh, cosplay, so he followed me around and mistook me for my fictional demon! And, as if all that wasn't already bad enough, I had to drag all of you down with me by getting you looped into his crazy conspiracy theories! He was thinking about kidnapping you all to try to prove you were shapeshifters like I was, and he wouldn't have even gotten that idea if I hadn't gone ahead and given my stupid little monster girl her own gaggle of friends!" By this point, her friends were legitimately at a loss: they had never had to deal with a Vee who was this angry about her own self-loathing before. Still, Pearl at least was going to make an attempt.

"Luz, you're not the one who-" she began, getting angry herself before Vee cut her off.

"Yeah, sure, that maniac made his own choices, I know that!" Vee retorted, having predicted where Pearl was going with her rebuttal. "But you said it yourself, Pearl! The guy you knew was just a weird, snobby historian until I came along and practically spoon-fed him a story that played right into his obsessions! He only became as dangerous as he did because I gave him all the justification he thought he needed to go to such lengths! He was willing to hurt you all - willing to kill my mom and Ms. Pines with a goddamn flamethrower! - and all because he saw my stupid story and ran with it as the ticket to recognition he so desperately wanted! And sure, he's behind bars now, but what does that matter? I'm still here, feeding off of compassion and empathy I've done nothing to earn, because that's all I've ever done!" Tears sprang to her eyes as she finished her tirade with a broken voice and words that made their blood run cold:

"Because I'm nothing but a parasite."

By the end of Vee's tirade, that same sad expression from those sleepless nights at camp had entered her eyes again, as she thought surely, surely they must be able to put the pieces together now that she'd told them the truth as vaguely as she dared. And yet, each of her friends was left stewing in silence not because they'd come to any sort of realization about her true nature, but because it was taking all of their willpower to resolve this carefully and not just smother her with love in the hopes that they could metaphorically beat this vicious self-loathing out of her. Pearl and Sam especially had to exercise a lot of restraint to not grab Vee by the shoulders and shake her vigorously until she cared about herself, but they had absolutely no idea how to talk Vee off of his ledge she had constructed purely so she could throw herself off of it, metaphorically speaking.

In the end, Juniper was the one who finally took the plunge.

"Luz," she began simply, calmly, a far cry to the others' barely-restrained righteous indignation. "My friendship with you is not transactional. I did not agree to become your friend because I expected you to do things in order to earn that friendship, nor did I agree to become your friend because I sought to gain restitution for how your actions affected me in the past," she continued. Vee's shoulders sank slightly at the reminder of what "Luz" had cost Juniper personally, even if she knew Juniper didn't hold a grudge.

"Junie, I'm so sorry for-" Vee began, only for Juniper to shut her down.

"Do not interrupt," she said gently, yet firmly, prompting Vee to shut up immediately. "The reason I agreed to become your friend was not so you could earn my compassion or empathy...but because you were the one who had given me your own first." At this simple, yet effective reframing of Vee's own words, she was instinctively compelled to look back up at her newest friend in surprise.

"I-I didn't do anything all that special-" she began, but Juniper wasn't having it, shutting down Vee's argument yet again with one finger extended in front of her.

"Au contraire," Juniper remarked with a flawless French accent, suggesting she had a great deal of experience with the language. "You were the first person to respect me as a tutor and a fellow peer in...quite some time," she explained, reiterating the comments she'd made on the day they met. "You took a genuine interest in me and my life, and you did not become distracted from your work or disparage me for my...shortcomings, like many of my clients have in the past. Most importantly, however, you were the one who extended a hand of friendship to me even when our prior experiences with each other could have easily dissuaded you...as they had admittedly dissuaded me," she added apologetically, a part of her wondering why she couldn't have befriended her sooner. Deciding to push that aside in favor of helping her friend, she formulated the perfect question to ask. "At that moment, you refused to let your past mistakes define you. Why, then, do you let them define you now?" In the face of Juniper's eloquent deconstruction of Vee's reasoning, the serpentine girl was left unable to muster up a response, allowing Pearl to cling on to her even tighter now that she'd calmed down enough to properly articulate just how much Vee meant to her.

"Junie's right," Pearl said somewhat gruffly, making sure Vee knew that she wasn't getting out of this hug until she felt better, dammit. "I was honestly a bit of a bitch when we met: don't you dare try to deny it!" she added, pointing a finger at her former cabin-mates as if daring them to challenge her claim. "I made you legit think the camp was a prison and blew you all off because Karen had gotten me paranoid that you were closet lesbophobes or some shit," she said dryly, annoyed at her own thought processes back then. "When I stormed off to the fountain, you could've just let me blow off steam and come crawling back at lights out, but you went after me because you were worried about whether or not I'd be okay by myself so late at night. Better yet, you stood up for me against the same bitch that I'd later learn had been terrorizing you for an entire school year, and you took a punch to the stomach for me that would've left me crying like a baby!" At the somewhat unpleasant, yet also somewhat amusing reminder of their first night, Vee had managed to gain enough good humor back that she attempted to make light of the situation.

"I mean, you decked her in the face afterwards, so we're kind of even there-" she tried, but Pearl stopped her, having already anticipated that Vee's thoughts would run that way.

"Aht aht aht, nope, not transactional! We're not doing that!" Pearl chided her, causing Vee to fall silent while Alex and Sam picked up the slack.

"You're the first person I had met in a long time who really thought I could make it as a writer. Not even my folks can really say that much," Alex pointed out, tearing up a bit themselves. "And you've supported me every step of the way since then, helping to review my long-ass books and offering valuable advice, no matter how much you insist that it actually isn't," they added, speaking somewhat dryly at the end and causing Vee to smile just a little bit.

"And I was just a guy screaming at a Switch when you met me, I hadn't done myself any favors, but you tried to get me to calm down anyway," Sam pointed out in turn. "And since then, you've always been real cool about reminding me to take breaks so I don't break a controller in half, or sending me new tracks to study to that you think I'll like," he continued, smiling widely before he sobered up for a moment. "Honestly, girl, you might think that you're always making us take care of you, but it's absolutely the other way around! You're so good at showing people all the ways that you care: at encouraging them, at figuring out what's bugging 'em and thinking of ways to help without being pushy or forcing 'em to do anything they don't wanna do. It's amazing. You're amazing," he said earnestly, a sentiment echoed by the others' nods and leaving Vee barely able to respond before he added something else, a question that shook her to her core:

"Why won't you be as kind to yourself?"

In lieu of a proper response, all Vee could do was to suddenly start crying, softly yet uncontrollably, in a way that left her petrified at how vulnerable she was being, even with her friends.

"I don't know," she admitted in a choked up voice, and although it felt like a stone had sunk to the bottom of her stomach, it felt strangely...freeing as well.

She'd initially thought that this worldview she'd fallen into was simply the natural order of things for a creature like herself. There were people who were worth something, like Camila and Luz and Vee's friends, people who didn't have to lie and steal other people's lives to be happy. And then...then there was her. The face-stealer, the life-taker, the lab experiment that was worth nothing to no one unless she was useful to someone who actually mattered. Emperor Belos had created her for no other reason than to test a horrible theory, and she had known her whole life that he was going to kill her once she had served her purpose to his satisfaction. Most people only saw her true self as a predator that should have stayed extinct, hence why she took care not to interact with anyone else back home if it could be avoided. Even Malphas, as kind as the demonic librarian was, had let her and the others stay in the Forbidden Stacks at least partly because they offered him free pest control. Even he had been forced to turn them all away once the risk their presence posed to his library had outweighed their usefulness, no matter how sorry he claimed he was to see them go.

And so, when Vee came through the portal and took Luz's identity for herself, this was how she had come to approach her relationships with humans. She endeared herself to her friends by supporting them in some way or another, never being able to accept support from them in turn without feeling like she had to make it up to them later. She thought she had endeared herself to Camila by becoming the perfect version of Luz in Luz's absence, but she had eventually realized that Camila didn't want the perfect daughter, she just wanted Luz. And, ironically enough, it was Luz herself who showed her that someone could actually care about her as she really was, both with her own offer of sisterhood and with helping Camila to accept her as a daughter. With all of those bits and pieces taken out of her old way of viewing the world, Vee was left with the simple, yet profound conclusion that she was worth something herself, whether disguised as Luz or not. That she was more than just the sum of what she could do for the people she cared about.

A small, yet growing part of her brain, incidentally the same part that thought that this whole "sisters" thing with Luz was a wonderful idea, seemed to be telling her that these four cared about her just as much as she cared about them, if not even more so. It told her that all of them wanted her to love herself as much as she loved them. It told her that they didn't want her to blame herself for things that truly were outside of her control, and when it said all of these things, it spoke in the same voices her friends had used to tell her that it was alright. That they loved her so, so much. So it was that she was finally inclined to listen to that part of her brain as her friends pulled her into a hug, and it told her to show them that she was never going to let them go.

She clung onto them all like they were moments away from slipping through her fingers.

Chapter Thirteen: A Different Form, a Different Time

[Summary: After waking up from a horrible nightmare, Camila tries to cheer Vee up by asking about the best memories she has of the Isles, learning more about her daughter's past in the process. Although her efforts have mixed results, they do inadvertently set Vee onto an unexpected path.]

Perhaps it wasn't surprising that the nightmares eventually came back with a vengeance.

Unlike Luz, Vee hadn't had the luxury of ever believing in a fantastical version of reality; she'd only ever known its cold, dark underbelly. And yet, even she could admit that she'd hoped that her friends' palpable love for her and hours spent relaxing with incense, video games, and the human culinary marvel that was Mrs. Palmer's "gumbo" would drive off the Belos that lived in her head. It had done so that night, and it had done so every subsequent night for an entire week, a level of protection which she'd never been able to enjoy until now. And yet, something about the quiet that settled onto the house on this particular Saturday, the slight tension in the way her mother carried herself which she thought Vee didn't notice, seemed to send that serenity crashing down once night came. She knew it had been a foolish notion. The Belos in her head would always be there, no matter how hard she tried to get rid of him. Still...it had been nice to hope while she could.

The nightmares were more or less the standard she'd experienced since forever, specifically the solo variety: just her and Belos. Him calmly walking towards her and her running, running, always running. Except, this time, for whatever reason...something inside of her had shifted. She had grown more confident, or perhaps just tired. For the first time in her life, she wasn't going to run.

She was going to fight.

"You know, I'm getting a little tired of this game," Vee said, suddenly stopping in her tracks while the phantom Belos continued implacably onward, totally unaware of the little trick she'd picked up the minute she saw those photos of a shrieking beast with the face of a witch. Something that, if she was right, would make her the hunter...and Belos the hunted.

An excellent change of pace, in her estimation.

"So why don't you just show me your FACE?!" she screamed, suddenly growing to the size of a bear with wings while her voice became low-pitched like the demon she was. With one swift turn on her four clawed feet, she was rushing towards the tyrant who spawned her with reckless abandon, barely giving him time to react before she sprung upon him with the intent to tear him apart. His mask was durable, no doubt about that, but in this imaginary realm where Vee called the shots, the Owl Beast's claws could tear cleanly through steel...and through any flesh underneath it.

With one piercing slash, the mask was clawed apart with such force that it was torn from his head, causing Belos to cry out in pain before stumbling backwards, clutching his face in such a way that made it seem like she had almost clawed that off too. Vee grinned with animalistic satisfaction. Even though she knew that whatever she saw under the mask would be an image her mind conjured and not what he actually looked like, it still felt good to finally pay him back for all that he had done to her. Not wanting to examine that attitude too closely, she stepped forward in order to finish the job...only to find herself frozen in place at what she was seeing. Her expression was quickly replaced with a look of utter horror as he stepped back out of the shadows with no visible injuries...and a face that she could never have expected to see under that golden mask.

"No..." she muttered, her normal voice restored as her bravado slowly left her. The man she'd been freed from not too long ago chuckled cruelly before letting out that terrifying maniacal laugh of his, then holding up Belos' staff. "No, no, no-!" Vee cried out desperately as she instinctively backed away, causing the man's sadistic grin to widen.

"Oh, yes," the man said in a discordant mixture of Belos and Jacob's voices. "I'm afraid you can't get rid of me that easily...Number Five." Although she was utterly terrified at the thought of this nightmare ending like all the others, something about the way that awful designation sounded in both of their voices at once reignited some of the defiant spark which Vee had gone to sleep with.

Apparently, she wasn't done fighting just yet.

"GRAAGH!" she cried out in her normal voice, leaping at him once more to close the gap and tear Belos or Jacob or whoever this was apart in a single slash. However, where she had been expecting and somewhat dreading a shower of blood and viscera to spew from the body...all she was met with was pure darkness. A shadowy mass which quickly melded back into the all-encompassing darkness of the forest that Belos always caught her in inside her mind. It suggested, horrifically, that in this nightmare world, Belos had never been in the forest. He was the forest.

For the forest was the Titan...and the Emperor was His will made flesh.

"You cannot run from what you are, MONSTER!" The entire forest seemed to taunt her then, with Belos and Jacob and even a few other voices of the masked guards who'd tortured her all mixed together in a terrifying chorus, all berating her for her foolish optimism at the exact same time. Vee's first instinct was to take to the skies, find somewhere safe beyond the shadows' reach, but she was terrified to discover too late that this was the moment when whatever control over her actions she had was ripped away from her. The dream was in Belos' hands now, and she could feel herself being pulled down by tendrils of shadow until she was forced into a kneeling position. The massive Owlbeast which she had transformed into inexorably faded away until she was back in her true serpentine form, as small and weak as ever. The shadowy version of Belos reappeared in front of her with his mask as good as new, making it clear that even a pretend victory in this scenario had never been possible. She could try all she wanted to pretend that Belos had no power over her anymore, but the fact remained that this nightmare was going to end like all the others:

With Vee thrown back into her cell, and Belos' laughter echoing all around her.

"This isn't real," she muttered to herself, knowing it wouldn't do any good yet desperate to believe it all the same. "I'm gonna wake up any minute and you'll be gone just like always!" she spat at the shadowy figure, who chuckled in a way that was distinctly Belos this time.

"And I shall return, just like always," he replied smoothly, speaking with his own voice again. "Have you ever wondered why that is? Why your mind insists upon returning you to this place, again and again and again, even when you're so far out of my reach?" he asked, to which Vee scoffed.

"Oh, I dunno, maybe the lifetime of torture at your hands had something to do with it?" she replied sardonically, hoping that her newfound snarkiness would disguise the fear that was otherwise written all over her body. Judging from his bemused chuckle, it didn't work.

"Perhaps," he said in that infuriating tone of his, lording his superiority over her like he did with everyone else under his control. "But I believe there is another reason, one that you know deep in your heart to be true," he said cryptically, ticking her off just a bit more.

"And what's that?" she asked bitterly, knowing it was what he expected, but doing it anyway just to bring this horrible experience to an end as quickly as possible. She could imagine Belos smiling under the mask as he laid out this grand revelation of his.

"You and the human are more alike than you think," he claimed, causing Vee's eyes to widen.

"What?" she said, not entirely sure where he was going with this anymore. Belos chuckled.

"Once upon a time, you lambasted her for her carelessness, for getting so absorbed into a childish fantasy that she risked abandoning her poor mother forever," Belos pointed out, to which Vee shrunk in on herself as the memories of how she'd once thought about her new sister came back to taunt her. "And yet, tell me...what exactly is this 'new life' you're living in her place, then?" he asked, causing her blood to run even colder than usual. "This facile scheme you two developed to keep your precious 'friends.' This farce of pretending to be human, pretending to be a part of her family, pretending to be anything other than the terrifying monster you truly are...what is all of that foolishness, if not just another childish fantasy?" Vee gulped in spite of herself, wanting so desperately to prove him wrong, and yet finding it hard to disprove his assertion.

After all, it ultimately wasn't Belos she was trying to convince.

"No, that's not-! We have a plan, it can work-!" she began, only to be mercilessly cut off.

"For how long?" Belos asked frankly. "You've covered the short term, perhaps, but what about the long term? Do you truly think whatever disguise you assume or forged documents you procure will pass muster five, ten, twenty years from now? That you could go to college, get a job, buy a house and settle down, in this economy?" Belos joked, as though he would have any idea what the human economy was like, while Vee's face heated up at "settle down" for reasons she was in no state to ponder. "That you and the human could both live your own lives in this world?"

"Maybe it wouldn't be as conventional as I'd like, but-but I pulled off living as a human for months on my own, and now I've got people who can help me in the long run!" Vee attempted to argue, only for Belos to chuckle like he was talking to a foolish child.

"Ah, yes, of course, your 'family' and 'friends,'" Belos replied, spitting out the words as though she didn't deserve them, just as a part of her still feared even now. "Rather lucky that the Nocedas took you in even knowing what you are. From one manipulator to another, I'm impressed, truly," he taunted, and Vee knew he must be grinning like a real sadistic jerk under that golden mask of his. He put his hand in front of it as though he were wearing a concerned expression under it. As though he were pitying her. "And yet...oh, of course, the same can't be said for your friends, now can it?" he remarked in a faux-sympathetic tone, causing Vee's face to scrunch up in anger. "How delightfully tragic, that the friendships you cherish so strongly are built entirely on lies," he finished in that same smug fashion, leaving Vee pissed off and even more desperate to prove him wrong.

"That's not true!" she said, the words ringing hollow even as they left her mouth. She'd been down this particular train of thought too many times to count, and the conclusion her brain supplied her with was always the same. A half-truth might not be an outright lie, but it's still pretty close, and it would only get worse the longer she had to pretend to be someone else entirely.

"You don't seem entirely certain of that," Belos pointed out. "I think you know, deep down, that regardless of how your little farce shakes out, it will be just that: a farce. A lie. And trust me, you don't get far in the business of lying to the world without grasping this one, simple truth," he said condescendingly, as though he were some wise sage and not a tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood. "No matter how hard you try to avoid it, sooner or later...the truth will always come out. It's just a matter of getting ahead of it. And when it finally catches up to you - and it is a matter of 'when,' my dear - Hopkins' crackpot schemes will be nothing compared to the fate that awaits you. And when you realize how much worse you have it, this same old song and dance that we do...will no longer be a nightmare in comparison." Before Vee could say anything else to try and rebuke her phantasmal tormentor, she was jolted out of the scenario she'd grown accustomed to by a new noise, one she unfortunately recognized even from her limited exposure to the Human Realm:

The blaring sound of police sirens.

Suddenly in control of herself again and back in her human form for some inexplicable reason, she took off running away from Belos as fast as she possibly could. However, no matter how fast she ran and how far away she got from the horrible tyrant, the sound of the sirens continued to get closer, drowned out only by the sound of Belos' mocking laughter echoing throughout the forest. Without thinking, she attempted to turn into the Owlbeast again and take to the skies, but she couldn't even manage the first part of that plan before a large man suddenly tackled her from behind and brought her to the ground. Her ordinarily superhuman strength was nowhere to be found in this moment, and as she turned her head just enough to where she could make out the face of her attacker, she was met with the same familiar monster:

Jacob Hopkins, wearing a police uniform.

She desperately tried to resist, but found herself powerless to stop the clanking of handcuffs around her wrists and that same maniacal laughter as Hopkins threw her into the back of a police van. With a resounding clang, the doors slammed shut and she was trapped once more, alone in the dark with no way out. It was a cage of a kind she had never experienced, one which posed a threat that was terrifyingly immediate in a way her old cage had stopped being at this point. After all, the old cage was somewhere long forgotten in another dimension, but this one...this one could be right around the corner. All it would take was one misstep, one person Vee decided to trust in a way they should never have been trusted, for a frantic phone call to be made and her new life to be ended in an instant. The lies that served as her lifeline could forestall this outcome, but surely, Vee thought, surely they couldn't do so forever.

Not if, Titan forbid, the Belos who lived in her head was right after all.

With a sinking feeling in her chest, Vee realized that she was at just as much risk of being found out and carted off here as she was in the Demon Realm. She'd known this from the first day she got there, and yet somewhere along the way, she'd managed to delude herself into thinking that the danger of this was minimal, that she was cunning enough to make sure it wouldn't happen. That had been easy to think when her experience of the Human Realm consisted of a camp where she'd been sheltered and a home where she'd been loved, but the incident with Hopkins left open the terrifying possibility that nowhere in either realm would truly be safe for her in the long run.

Who's to say that Hopkins was the only human who would find out about what she really was? After all, Karen had apparently had her suspicions about Vee already, and she may very well have found out about her if it hadn't been for Ms. Pines running interference. Vee wouldn't have that sort of protection from Karen at Gravesfield High, and if it wasn't her, there were hundreds of other students who knew Luz before in some capacity and could potentially realize something was amiss! All it'd take was one student figuring out and revealing it to everyone for her life to completely fall apart! And yet, even as the thought of that nightmare in and of itself sent chills down Vee's spine, there was still a possibility that was even more harrowing:

Her friends finding out on their own.

She could almost picture the betrayal written all over their faces as they slowly put the pieces together. How all of the weird aspects of their friendship that Vee knew they must have noticed on some level would suddenly make sense. The gaps in her knowledge, the shift in her abilities and personality which Juniper had noted, the strange nightmares her cabinmates bore witness to. Each something which was fairly innocuous on their own, but painting a subtly terrifying picture when viewed as a whole. Suddenly a number of awful scenarios played out before her eyes, the darkness of her current dream allowing them to be made manifest after a fashion. What if they found out before Luz got back? Would they assume that the real Luz was killed or worse by this shapeshifting demon? Or, worse still, what if everything went according to plan after all, only for them to find out years down the line? Years spent keeping her friendships afloat on a raft of little lies, only for it to fall apart anyway, the betrayal hurting even more because of how long she had managed to keep it a secret...the thought broke her in a way that nothing in this nightmare had managed to accomplish. She felt herself shifting back into her true form without even thinking about it, and idly wondered why she was no longer as anxious about being seen in that state. Perhaps she was starting to get sick of lying, at least when it came to herself.

She was a monster, no matter how much she pretended otherwise.

When Vee finally, finally, woke up, she was surprised to find that she was not alone.

"Mija...mija, are you alright?" Camila asked gently, hovering over her at her bedside wearing the pink nightgown and accompanying hairnet which Vee had seen once or twice before. She must have cried out at some point, she reasoned. The next thing Vee noticed was that she had somehow unconsciously shifted into her basilisk form, something that almost never happened to her. If it had, she wouldn't have been able to pose as Luz for long.

The thing she noticed after that were the tears in her eyes and how they weren't stopping.

"Why can't I ever get away?" Vee asked in a small voice, leaving Camila confused as she tried to rub her back to calm her down, finding her scales rather rough to the touch.

"Mija?" she asked, not quite understanding what she meant and somewhat afraid to ask.

"I had a nightmare...for the first time in a while," Vee explained tearfully. "It was a lot like the ones I've always had, about Belos and escaping and hiding from him, only now...Hopkins was there too," she said, causing terrible understanding to dawn on Camila's face.

"Oh, honey," she murmured, hugging her tighter and moving to wipe away some of the tears that were threatening to fall onto her bedsheets.

"And Belos said-he said it's all going to catch up to me," she blubbered. "All of the lies and half-truths, it's-it's only a matter of time before everyone finds out and leaves me like always-!"

"Shhhhhh, shh shh shh shhhh," Camila said soothingly, trying to calm her daughter down. "I'm not going anywhere, baby, and neither are any of your friends. We all care about you so much, and you are worth caring about no matter what you look like." Although Camila's reassurance helped calm her down somewhat, Vee was still left dealing with a lot of emotions, with a rage that had been long-buried until now being chief among them.

"I just-I don't get it! I'm safe now, Belos and Hopkins can't hurt me anymore, so why-?!" she asked, her anger fizzling out and leaving sorrow in its place as she cut herself off. "Why won't they just leave me alone?" she asked, looking so tired in a way Camila hated seeing on the face of her little girl. "Why can't I just live my life without constantly feeling like a monster?" she asked, speaking barely above a whisper and breaking Camila's heart.

"...You don't want to go back to sleep, do you, baby?" she asked after a moment of silence, already knowing the answer even though the alarm clock by the bottom bunk said it was only 2 A.M. All told, an absolutely atrocious time for a growing...well, demon like Vee to get maybe three hours of sleep, especially when her first day at school was tomorrow, technically. Vee shook her head.

"I'm worried I'll see them the next time I close my eyes," she admitted painfully, choking out a sob as Camila continued her ministrations as best she could to make her daughter feel better.

"Well...then I'll stay up with you, for as long as you need!" Camila proclaimed, ignoring the reasonable voice in her head which told her tomorrow would be torture enough on her mind without running on perhaps five hours of sleep, if they were fortunate. "You can stay with me in my room if you want to try sleeping anyway, or we can go downstairs and watch some TV, whatever you want to watch...at a lower volume and brightness, of course," she added, not wanting to wake the neighbors or strain their own eyes too badly by watching TV lit only by moonlight. Although the offer to try and find some kind of distraction was tempting, Vee ultimately shook her head again.

"I-I think I'd rather stay with you tonight, mami," she said, to which Camila nodded.

"Okay, honey," she said gently, guiding Vee's serpentine body out of her bunk bed and out of her hopefully soon to be shared bedroom until they arrived at the master bedroom Camila now occupied alone. After tucking Vee into bed before settling in next to her, an idea occurred to the older woman which, although it engendered the risk of making Vee feel worse, might have the opposite effect and help both of them to look at their present circumstances more optimistically. "Mija...do you remember what we talked about in that diner last week?" she asked, to which Vee was left rather confused at why her mother was bringing that up now of all times.

"Y-yeah, I guess. What about it?" she asked, not sure where Camila was going with this.

"Why don't you tell me about the Isles, mija?" Camila asked as gently as she could manage, not wanting to spook Vee and leaving her more confused than ever.

"But I have told you about-" she said, only for Camila to shush her.

"Only the good parts," Camila said softly, with a slightly pained smile on her face which caused Vee to lower her somewhat heightened guard with a sigh.

"Well, I mean, I guess I can tell you the stuff Luz likes about it if that'll make you feel better about-" she began, only for Camila to gently interrupt her yet again.

"Tell me what you loved growing up there, cariño," she asked, only for Vee to scoff.

"That's a very short list, I promise you that," she said in a more bitter tone than Camila was used to hearing from her in her natural voice. Camila sighed, a part of her worried this was going to turn out exactly as she'd feared before resolving to press on anyway.

"Try," she asked softly, at which point Vee fell silent for a moment before nodding her head.

"Okay, well..." Vee began hesitantly, honestly not sure how well she could fulfill her mom's request and picking a first answer that was rather mixed, all things considered. "When they think you're one of them, most people on the Boiling Isles are a lot nicer than you'd assume at first glance. While I was on my own, disguising myself as whoever I could pass for without drawing suspicion, I could usually count on people offering me food and shelter and whatnot even if I didn't have a lot of money or didn't speak as articulately as I should have been able to. It wasn't a perfect life, obviously, but...it wasn't all bad." Vee paused at that description, wondering whether that might have been the first time she'd admitted to herself that there had been moments of her old life where she had been...well, not happy exactly, but at least not utterly terrified every waking second like she'd been before. Obviously her life in the Human Realm was still infinitely better than her life on the Boiling Isles, but it wasn't quite as cut and dry as she'd thought it was when she first came here. She no longer felt like she hadn't truly lived until she snuck through that portal.

It was a strange feeling, and yet...it was also relieving, in its way.

"That's nice, mija," Camila said encouragingly, privately worried at the back and forth present in that first example, yet seeing the positive effect that reframing certain things was having for Vee. "Can you think of something else good that you remember?" she asked, forcing Vee to think for a bit before another idea came to her.

"Well, I never got the chance to check out a lot of places, but from what I've seen...the Boiling Isles is surprisingly beautiful," Vee remarked wistfully. "The view of the Titan from the mountains and cliffs is breathtaking, and there are some old abandoned monuments from the Savage Ages which are still standing somehow - gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous. The way that the Bile Moss grows along the old, crumbling stonework...it's kinda weird, but also inspiring seeing life still finding ways to flourish in a place where there had been so much loss." At this point, Camila couldn't help but wince a bit. Her strategy seemed to be working, but Vee's memory of the place still seemed irrevocably tied up with negative associations. She'd have to try something else.

"Is there anyone in particular you remember fondly?" she asked, sporting an apologetic look on her face as Vee's own expression darkened slightly. "I know it's hard for you to look back and think about people who aren't with you anymore, but trust me baby, it's...it's important not to lose sight of the good moments you shared with them just because they're gone," she said softly.

God knows she needed to remind herself of that every so often.

"There...weren't really that many," Vee admitted after a second. "Malphas, the man who runs the library in Bonesborough, was the nicest out of anyone I met in the Isles. He took me and the others in when nobody else would, let us hide out in the restricted areas of the library, and even helped us learn how to read with the...y'know, safer materials back there. Of course, we were also expected to keep the Echo Mouse population down in exchange, and we ultimately didn't stay there more than a couple of months, but...it was the only place I'd lived in that felt even somewhat like a home before I came here." Camila smiled that same slightly pained smile, hoping she wasn't dredging up too many bad memories in her efforts to help her daughter move on.

"Anyone else? A friendly guard who helped you escape, perhaps?" she suggested, only for her expression to falter when Vee shook her head with a grave look in her eyes.

"No, that...that's not how we got out," she said, horror in her voice as she recalled the incident. "There were a lot of guards assigned to watch over us, but the one who was on duty that night...I don't know how, but Number One, she...she turned into his younger brother. She knew exactly what horrible things to say to the guy in that poor kid's voice to just...break him. To make him do whatever she asked, to let us out even knowing he'd be disciplined for it, just so she would finally stop. I don't...I don't know what happened to him after that, but...he had never been cruel to us. Not like the others had been...like the Warden had been. I...I hope he's doing okay," she admitted in a small voice, never imagining that she would think such things about any of Belos' men. While Vee grappled with that, Camila could only put a hand to her mouth.

"Oh, dios mío," she muttered regretfully. "Mija, I am so sorry, I never intended to-!"

"It's...it's not your fault, mami," Vee said hesitantly, knowing her mother didn't mean to bring up such bad memories in her attempt to cheer her up. "If it helps, the others were just as horrified as I was, but it wasn't until after we escaped that we were finally safe enough to challenge Number One for what she'd done to that poor man." Vee grumbled a bit as she reflected on the first of several internal schisms. "Not that she was sorry, anyway: after everything we'd suffered, she thought the entire Isles deserved to burn for what Belos had done. We tried to stop her, but she was so much bigger and stronger than the others, they...they couldn't finish her off," she said grimly, with the kind of bitterness in her voice which Camila knew well from personal experience.

The kind of bitterness which settles on someone betrayed by their own family.

"Luz probably told you the rest," Vee added onto the end of her explanation, to which Camila reluctantly nodded; now she remembered something Luz had mentioned about fighting another basilisk in order to save her magic school. She'd been reluctant to bring it up, Camila recalled, obviously worried it would color her mom's opinion of this other basilisk she had asked her to take in as a daughter. Even if she'd had no reason to worry in the end, Camila could at least agree with Luz that this "Number One" was a real piece of work even with her circumstances in mind.

"Ay, but...what about the others?" she asked, trying to salvage the situation. Vee remained silent for a moment before sighing dejectedly.

"I miss them, sure, and I'm worried about how they're doing back in the Boiling Isles, but...we honestly weren't as close as you'd think," she admitted. "They took care of me as best they could because I was the youngest, but I was inexperienced when it came to blending in, and I knew that I was holding them back. Or at least...that's what Number Two said," she said sadly, reflecting on some more bad memories. "He left us within a week of our escape."

"Oh, baby," Camila said, resting a hand on her cheek and wiping another tear from Vee's eye.

"Number Three and Number Four stuck by me after that, but when Belos himself visited the library to search for us and Malphas had to turn us away...we all agreed it was better to split up and try to make it on our own so that, if we were captured, we couldn't lead them back to the others. It...it was a good plan. I mean, it worked, at least, didn't it?" she added, weakly chuckling in a way that was devoid of humor. "Here I am...safe and sound," she said as she choked back another sob, prompting Camila to bury her in a loving embrace.

"I'm sorry, mija, this was a horrible idea-!" Camila began, only for Vee to cut her off.

"It's...it's really fine, mom," she countered, even as her voice was still a little choked up from crying. "Honestly, I...I think a part of me needed this," she admitted. "I've been so focused on just surviving in this new environment, in keeping up these...these lies that...I never gave myself time to really feel all of this stuff. Now, at least, I'm safe enough to spend time letting some of it out. When I keep it bottled up, that's what makes the nightmares even worse, I think, and then I'm just more miserable than I would've been if I just...let myself cry sometimes." Having come to this important realization, Vee managed to give her mother a wobbly smile. "Thanks for helping me feel safe enough to do that, mami," she said with all the love she could muster, and just a little bit of sleepiness in her voice, causing Camila to gently caress her cheek with a smile of pure affection.

"Of course, honey. That's part of what any good mother does," she said simply, giving her daughter a kiss on the forehead and causing her to giggle a little at the way it tickled. "Do you feel better about trying to go back to sleep, Vee? We've, um...we've got a big day tomorrow, and I'd like you to be well rested for it," she said, unusually pensive in a way that Vee was, thankfully, much too sleepy to parse through at the moment.

"Yeah, I'm feeling cozy~," she said drowsily, snuggling under the blanket in a way that was absolutely adorable in Camila's completely impartial opinion.

"Alright, then. Good night, mija. Sweet dreams," she said, reaching around the bed to turn out the lights on both nightstands and turning her preferred direction towards the door. No sooner had she begun to drift off than she was woken up by being slightly nudged in the back with a tail. That was one of many things about her new daughter which she had to get used to.

"Mamá?" Vee asked quietly, clearly apologetic about keeping her up even later.

"What is it, baby?" she asked gently, not wanting her to feel bad if she needed something like a glass of water before bed or a bedtime story to lull her to sleep in the wake of such a rude awakening. Camila admittedly didn't know for certain where Vee's actual age fell in comparison to Luz's, but she acted enough like a girl Luz's age that her mom had to assume she'd feel childish for requesting such comforts despite having the exact opposite of an ordinary, pleasant childhood.

"What's that?" Vee continued, pointing off towards a photo resting on the mantle across from the bed which Camila could identify just based on the vague outline of its shape. She supposed it made sense that Vee had far better vision in the dark than a human would, enough that she had probably discerned the general features of the photograph even in the darkness of the room.

"It's a photo me and Luis took with Luz when we moved to Gravesfield, beneath the Wittebane statues," Camila answered, causing Vee to make a sound of recognition before saying something that seemed innocent at the moment, but would become crucial in retrospect.

"Something about it looks familiar..." she said, what little of her brain was still capable of being a detective in her half-asleep state doing its best under the circumstances. Camila chuckled a bit, only partly understanding what Vee meant.

"Yes, that bird sigil shows up all over the place, honey. It's been the town seal since colonial times," Camila explained. "I'm sure your friends will tell you everything you want to know about this town's history if you ask them. They probably know more about it than me, anyway." With that, Camila yawned and stretched her arms over her head before turning back around. "Good night, mija," she said, having every reason to believe that the conversation was over, seeing as Vee hadn't responded and had probably fallen asleep. In this, she wasn't wrong, but Vee's more unusual dreams painted a picture of just what she had been thinking about before sleep intercepted her train of thought. They were dreams unlike any she'd had before: not nightmares, but still very strange and unsettling. Try as she might to make sense of them later, she couldn't. Not yet, anyway.

Whatever two birds with their wings outstretched and posing dramatically behind a sword tilted downward was supposed to mean to her personally...she hadn't the foggiest idea.

Chapter Fourteen: In Memoriam

[Summary: Camila finds herself needing comfort on the anniversary of her husband's death, but fortunately, she still has one daughter around to mourn him with her, and perhaps more than that.]

"Hey, mamá?"

She could only faintly hear Vee's voice through the door, likely having finished breakfast and noticed that Camila had been gone for some time. She should have been paying better attention to her daughter, Camila knew that. School was starting tomorrow and Vee still wasn't as caught up academically as she would have liked, not to mention that there was still so much about the way human life worked that Vee hadn't quite learned how to navigate yet. This, of course, wasn't even getting into the logistical concerns that they were both going to have to deal with sooner or later, not that Camila was in any particular state to think long term. Not today. Never today.

"I think I've got my new appearance figured out, do you mind taking a look?" Vee asked, slightly worried at the fact that she hadn't gotten a response.

Camila winced, and scolded herself as she did so. Vee was relying upon her for input on something important, something she had asked her for help with once they had settled on playing out Luz's cover story, and yet here she was disassociating simply because of a stupid event reminder-

"Mamá?" Vee asked, and now her voice was coming in clearly for a reason that Camila didn't immediately register...until it dawned on her that the door was open.

Which meant that now Vee was watching her fall apart like this.

"Mom, is everything alright?" Vee asked as she walked towards the bed. Camila dimly noticed out of the corner of her eye that Vee had kept her new outfit and haircut, but had taken great care in altering her appearance to look like Luz's twin sister instead of her perfect clone. It was a difficult balance, but she managed to strike it in a way that was eerily convincing. The slightest shifting of the facial muscles to make her face only look similar to Luz's, the darkening of her hair to look closer to Luis' than Luz's was: that was all it really took to sell the illusion. She still looked almost exactly like Luz, of course, but now there were enough differences between them that Vee could easily become her own person once their cover story was legally established, and she had the freedom to make even more drastic changes if she wanted to.

Honestly, the differences between her two girls were still so subtle that Camila knew the vast majority of people wouldn't be able to tell them apart without something more distinctive to separate them. Given how much time they had spent with her at camp and how much time they'd continue to spend with her, it was possible that Vee's friends would notice she looked just a little different and find that rather strange. Hopefully they'd settle on the much more likely explanation that "Luz" had always looked like this and they were simply remembering things wrong, at least until the time came for them to learn that "Luz" was actually her twin sister "Valentina." After all, even Camila had been fooled for a brief moment upon seeing Vee enter the room in her new form, half-convinced that she was imagining Luz comforting her through her rattled state.

The realization only made the pain of her daughter's absence today that much harder to bear.

What had initially been a hesitant walk towards the bed turned into a panicked gallop as Vee watched Camila begin to sob into her hands, her phone slipping out of her grip and falling face-down on the floor. Without thinking, Vee moved to hug her mother and, following the example she had set before, allowed her to let it all out. Once this sweet moment had passed, Vee's eyes naturally turned to the discarded phone, which she surmised to be the source of the trouble. Through skillful use of her feet, she was able to get the phone close enough to where she could bend down and pick it up without leaving Camila's side for more than a split second. With Camila's tearful nod of permission, Vee unlocked it, only to realize what was wrong as soon as she saw the date listed on the phone's home screen: August 22nd. She knew just how significant the day was to their family, and it didn't take much to determine why the event reminder for "Gravesfield Cemetery" later that evening had left her mother in such a state.

It was the anniversary of Luis' death...and his daughter wasn't here to mourn him with her.

Try as Vee might, taking Camila's mind off things wasn't working.

After walking around town for a while to cheer Camila up, Vee decided to bite the bullet and ask her mother how she and Luz had typically handled this day in hopes that it would prove more successful. Camila had explained the intricacies of the Noceda family's mourning ritual to her, and so Vee was left determined to perform her daughterly duties by taking Camila through every step that she had outlined just like Luz would if she were there.

It was the least she could do, considering how much Camila had done for her already.

The first stop in their journey was A Rose By Any Other Name, a small flower shop tucked alongside the other businesses of Gravesfield Park, and the only business other than Robin's Roast which they hadn't stopped at during their earlier walking tour of Gravesfield. As Vee was able to learn thanks to Camila, it got its name from the fact that its owner, Mrs. Fisch, was married to Gravesfield High's theater teacher and shared his love of that Shakespeare person whose plays Juniper liked. This connection naturally made the family well acquainted with the Nocedas, with Mr. Fisch having befriended Luis through work and both of them getting to know the whole family when they began coming to the flower shop on their respective birthdays. As such, Mrs. Fisch herself, an average looking woman with brown hair and peachy skin, wasn't surprised when the two came in and immediately set about grabbing a bouquet of lilies.

Both she and Camila knew well that they had been Luis' favorite.

"You take care of yourself today, Camila," Mrs. Fisch said as she handed them over and accepted Camila's payment in cash. "If you need anything, don't-"

"'-hesitate to ask,' I know. Gracias, Amelia," Camila said a little curtly, taking the flowers with a bit more urgency than was really necessary and walking out of the shop faster than Vee did.

Vee could tell she wasn't actually super thankful for the offer.

Their next stop was Gravesfield High, where a mural dedicated to Luis' memory had been painted all along the walls of the classroom that had been built to replace the one that had burned down and collapsed with him still inside it. It was composed of dozens of illustrations lovingly crafted and signed by Luis' former art students, many of them flower-themed on account of him talking about his family tradition during his classes. Vee smiled upon noticing dozens of people passing by the mural to pay their respects and even leave a few flowers themselves...although her smile faltered once she noticed very few of them were lilies.

She felt Camila's grip on her hand tighten, and it seemed that the older woman was glaring at people she seemed to recognize around the mural. There was a couple standing near a painting of some sunflowers, the woman sporting a ponytail while the man sported a yellow zigzag sweater, and there was an older woman standing near another painting of some daisies. A few other assorted people came up to them and made small talk about Luis, asking how Camila was holding up today. Although something about the way they said these things bothered Vee, she still wasn't entirely positive what the issue was here. Even so, she figured she ought to steer Camila away from the mourners, but no sooner had she done so than they ran across somebody far worse.

Standing alone in front of where the mural framed the door to the classroom was a man with slicked-back white hair wearing a black suit and tie. He was looking at the floral designs painted along the walls framing the door with a curiously dispassionate expression on his face, as if whatever emotions the numerous artists had hoped to elicit from the man just weren't happening inside his head. Although that by itself was somewhat disconcerting, Vee didn't quite understand why the sight of him caused Camila to hastily start dragging Vee back towards the car until the man turned around and addressed them directly, forcing the pair to stop and turn around to face him.

"Ah, Mrs. Noceda. I suppose I should have expected to run into you here today," the man said, trying to give an impression of sympathy in his tone without any actual warmth behind his words. He did, however, manage to put on a somewhat convincing smile when he glanced at Vee. "And your daughter as well: a pleasure to finally meet you, Luz." He held out his hand to shake, and Vee did her best to hide her nerves as she accepted the handshake. His grip was firm, but restrained, so while Vee had admittedly been worried about him bruising her hand, no such bruises were visible by the time he let go and allowed her to return to her mother's side. Unsure whether or not she was supposed to know who this person was, she chose to be politely distant.

"Nice to meet you as well, sir," she said dutifully, while Camila regarded him as though she were biting back some very strong retorts.

"Superintendent Burnes," she said, doing her best to remain polite and keep the venom in her voice beyond his detection. "I don't believe I've seen you pay your respects." The implication behind the comment seemed obvious enough to Vee, shifting her feelings about the man away from pure fear and towards a degree of anger on her mother's behalf. The man himself was unmoved.

"Yes, well, I thought I'd give Mr. Noceda's mural a look while I was in the area," he explained simply, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. "With school starting tomorrow, I wanted to make sure that everything was running smoothly in the wake of last year's...incidents," he elaborated, the pointed glance towards "Luz" doing nothing to ease Vee's nerves. "Truth be told, Reality Check was an unproven venture when it came to this school district. I wasn't inclined to trust in its process at first: how could a summer camp run by a woman fresh out of college, who kept an aging pig as a pet, be the key to helping our troubled students become productive members of society? Still, my peers in other districts assured me that Ms. Pines' program was just what their own students had needed, dubious advertising notwithstanding." Camila's grip grew tighter, and Titan damn it, the man had the audacity to smirk at her mother as he asked his next question. "What do you think, Mrs. Noceda? Do you approve of Ms. Pines' methods?"

And here Vee thought she would have to hold Camila back from doing something reckless.

"Absolutely," her mother said instead, the most "customer service" smile to have ever been made by a human being pressed tightly on her face. "Luz has really matured since she set foot here last, and I fully believe that Reality Check and Ms. Pines are entirely to thank for that. I am confident that we will not be troubling you any further, Superintendent." Her grip in Vee's hand became tight enough that Vee could feel it paling, but the man smiled that same empty smile.

"I am pleased to hear that," he said. "From what I have been told, your husband was a talented educator. Beloved by his students. A real pillar of the community." Without any warning, he placed a hand on Camila's shoulder in a way that made Vee's shapeshifted skin crawl. "See to it that we do not have to endure the misfortune of expelling his daughter, Mrs. Noceda." With that ominous remark, he walked away without another word, leaving Camila trembling with rage while the somewhat concerned onlookers prevented her from properly venting her frustrations. Being fairly angry herself, yet perhaps slightly better at masking it, Vee carefully walked up to her mother.

"Should we, um, head to the cemetery early, mamá?" she asked, forcing Camila to take a deep calming breath so as not to sound especially angry while speaking to her daughter.

"Not yet, mija," she said, her tone slightly clipped. "There's somewhere I need to stop first."

Vee had lost track of how many times Camila had hit the punching bag.

Learning that her mother had a gym membership wasn't necessarily surprising for Vee, once Camila had explained the concept to her. Learning that her mother apparently made a habit of wearing appropriate gym wear underneath her regular clothes so that she would always be prepared to just drop into the gym like this was more surprising, and also rather concerning given what this gym membership was apparently for. Even after having been exposed to Camila's maternal anger on several occasions, Vee had to admit she hadn't expected her to go as far as paying money for a gym membership so she could vent her considerable aggression onto inanimate objects instead of the people who insulted her family. It might not have been the healthiest coping mechanism, or even the most effective one, at least in Vee's estimation. After all, she still remembered the two separate incidents in which she had to actively stop her mother from confronting other parents on her behalf.

Still, better a punching bag face Camila's wrath than someone's face, Vee supposed.

"Sooo..." Vee began awkwardly, hoping that a conversation would help her mother to calm down after dozens of punches clearly hadn't done the job. "You've had this membership since...?"

"After the funeral," Camila said through gritted teeth, punctuating the remark with an especially hefty punch which sent the punching bag flying backwards before she moved to catch it.

"Ah, right, yup, that makes sense, sorry-" Vee began nervously, causing Camila to sigh and let go of the punching bag, slipping off her boxing gloves so she could put a hand on Vee's shoulder.

"It's...fine, mija. I appreciate you trying to calm me down," she said, taking a few deep breaths either due to her emotions or the exertion, Vee wasn't sure which. "Luis' family was...not the kindest to us when we started seeing each other. His siblings visited when they could, but it never ended pretty if his parents were with them. The funeral was the last straw: they didn't even bother showing up! Can you imagine? Not showing up to your own son's funeral, because he had the audacity to not be the man you wanted him to be?" Vee could only nod along in bitter agreement.

"Yeah, Luz was right, his family does suck," she remarked, earning a chuckle from Camila.

"Eh, Julieta and Roberto are nice enough, but yeah, their parents suck," she conceded. "Still, I wish I could say those two were the only people in my life that made me angry enough to go 'boxing' for an hour." Having an inkling of what she was talking about based on what had transpired not that long ago, Vee decided to finally broach the subject.

"Mrs. Fisch?" she asked, to which Camila sighed tiredly.

"No, Amelia's not the problem," she said, resting her chin on one of her hands. "I know she misses Luis, and she means well enough, I just...I don't know. We've kept in touch because we still buy flowers from her year after year, but the Fisches, the old faculty...they were all Luis' friends. I was just their friend's wife who made them food and babysat sometimes, you know? I don't think any of us knew what to do after Luis passed away. We never hated each other or anything, we just...didn't have anything in common once he was gone. We tried making things work for a bit, but...it was still so fresh. It felt like every conversation drifted back to him sooner or later, especially when they saw Luz, and I knew that neither of us could take the constant reminders for much longer, so...we drifted away from them. I've barely spoken to Luis' friends since." Camila fell silent as she reflected on how she had handled that horrible loss all those years ago, including mistakes that she probably should never have made in the first place. "Of course, that meant I had barely any connections left in town, and certainly not any connections with other parents whose kids may have given Luz the time of day. Definitely helped my poor girl's social life there, huh?" she asked sardonically as Vee nodded along, not really sure how best to console her mother.

"It sounds like you made the best decision you could under some pretty awful circumstances. I wouldn't beat yourself up over it," Vee tried, but Camila only faintly nodded in response.

"Ay, I don't know. I tried putting myself out there, but Luis had always been better at that than I was. People liked Luis, he was so easy to talk to about anything, but I just can't talk to people unless it's about something I'm interested in. Without him to help me be normal, I'm just that strange lady everyone avoids until it's time to go to the vet, and I...I've heard the kinds of things they whisper about me and Luz when they think I'm not listening." Vee frowned, sensing that she was closer to the root of the problem now.

"What do you mean?" she asked, to which Camila groaned as she debated how to respond.

"Did you notice how I recognized a lot of the people at the mural?" she asked, to which Vee nodded, giving Camila license to get into what kept bothering her all this time. "The young couple by Mason Riegal's sunflowers? They called Luz a try-hard for that sausage trick she did during her Juliet audition, one her dad showed her how to do when she was younger. The older woman by Liana Berk's daisies? She assumed Luz was raised by wolves because she dug up a snake skin and showed it to other children at the playground. Both of them were within earshot of me when they said these things, and I know they knew I was her mother." Vee remained silent, allowing Camila some much needed time to vent. "Almost everyone who walks by that mural and pays their respects to Luis has said something like that about me or about Luz at some point or another. And yet, every time the anniversary rolls around, they ask if I'm doing okay and say all these things about what an amazing person my husband was. It's honestly almost incredible how they can flip back and forth on how they feel about our family just based on the calendar, without even noticing their hypocrisy. And me, I just have to sit there and take it more often than not, because Luz has enough problems to deal with in her life without me 'picking fights with randoms,' as she called it." Vee couldn't help but chuckle at that, which got Camila chuckling dryly as well until Vee assumed a serious expression.

"I'm sorry you have to go through all of that, mamá. It sounds like it was really hard," Vee said earnestly, to which Camila waved a hand dismissively as she stretched her arms.

"Eh, for better or worse, I'm used to it at this point. The only thing that really got under my skin this time around was...him," Camila said with what could almost be described as a growl.

"The Superintendent," Vee said. "Yeah, he's a real charmer," she added dryly.

"He's a lot of things, mija," Camila replied in agreement, mostly saying it as an alternative to several choice words she didn't want Vee to know about. "You know, he was the one who suggested sending Luz to that camp, right around the first time she brought a live snake to school." Vee nodded along before reviewing the timeline in her head, at which point she blinked in astonishment.

"Hang on, she did that TWICE-?!"

"And he really thought he had something to say about everything!" Camila continued heedlessly. "Luz's grades, her antics, her lack of friends, my own troubles in high school, Luis-I kid you not, he tried to frame everything Luz had done as her grief making her 'act out for attention!' Agh! The nerve of that man, that smirk of his makes me want to-!" At that point, she descended into a whole tirade which Vee could only assume contained every curse word in the Spanish language. Realizing that her mom was maybe beginning to cause a tiny bit of a scene among the other gym-goers, Vee hastily reached out to guide Camila back to the punching bag before she hit something else which was much less capable of taking the punishment.

"Aht aht, it's okay! Let's just stay five more minutes and-oop," Vee said soothingly before a unique chime from her new phone let her know that somebody had just sent her something. While Vee quickly moved to check what it was, Camila glanced at the clock and winced at her carelessness, managing to calm herself down enough for Vee's sake.

"Oh, heck, it's a quarter to five, and the cemetery's a bit of a ways away, so we better hurry. Sorry for getting us sidetracked, mija," Camila said apologetically, hastily patting everything down with a towel and moving to slip her shirt back on over her sports bra. Vee murmured a consolation in response, mostly relying on her mother to navigate them back to the car because she was too preoccupied with reading through the fairly long text that Juniper had apparently sent her.

Junie: Hello, Luz. I am writing you this message to inform you that my mother and I are aware of this day's significance to your family and have elected to join you in paying our respects at Gravesfield Cemetery. We are currently en route and will arrive in ten minutes, but I am sending this message now so that you have ample time to see it and either accept or refuse our offer of companionship. Please reply to this text as soon as possible. Sincerely, Junie.

Vee snickered: this wasn't the first time Juniper had written a text like she was writing an email, and she doubted it would be the last.

"Did your friends send you something funny, mija?" Camila asked, a tired smile on her face as she got into the car and prepared for what was always the most emotionally intense part of the anniversary for her. Vee smiled hesitantly, unsure how Camila would react to Juniper's offer given what she had just said, yet hopeful that she would regard it as being made in good faith. Deciding to err on the side of hoping for the best, Vee broached the subject as soon as she buckled her seatbelt.

"Kind of," Vee replied. "How do you feel about us having company?"

Curiously, the first thing Juniper did when they arrived at the cemetery was apologize.

"What do you need to apologize for?" Vee asked quizzically, unsure what she was getting at.

"Technically speaking, my earlier text message was a lie of omission," Juniper replied in all seriousness, leaving Camila just as confused as her daughter until she looked around and spotted someone else creeping towards Vee, someone who quickly gestured for her to keep quiet. Camila happily obliged, realizing that this person was hardly a threat to her daughter, and kept her mouth shut with a smile while Vee remained ignorant of the oncoming individual.

"How was it a lie of omission?" Vee continued, her confusion rendering her unaware of the approaching figure until Juniper spoke once more.

"Because, contrary to my earlier claim...my mother and I did not come here alone," she said, with what Vee only realized too late was her particular version of a knowing smirk.

"Wait, so that means-?" Vee began, only for the unseen figure to spring their adorable trap.

"SURPRISE HUG ATTACK!" Alex cried out as they lifted Vee up into the air easily, their unusual strength serving them well as they spun the girl around. Vee's surprised cry quickly gave way to laughter as her remaining friends revealed themselves from their hiding places amidst gravestones conveniently big enough to conceal them from view. After letting her down once they both started to get dizzy, Alex brought Vee to talk with the others while Teresa sidled up to a beaming Camila.

"They'd been planning this since they saw Luz at the park, but none of their folks could take 'em for one reason or another, so they asked Junie for a ride," Teresa explained. "Word around the block is that you tend to keep this whole thing to yourselves, but...I had a feeling you could use the company this year." In response to her coy smirk and the kindness underlying it, Camila could only wordlessly nod as tears came to her eyes.

"You thought right, I'm...I'm glad Luz has people like you and the kids in her life now," she replied as she watched the scene before her, trying her best not to cry again. Hearing about Vee's friends through her letters and talks at the dinner table was one thing, but to actually witness Vee being loved so deeply by these kids that they worked their whole schedule around being there for her on this important day touched Camila somewhere deep inside. She hoped and prayed that Luz was being treated with the same love and care by her friends in the Boiling Isles, but from what she'd managed to gather about them while talking to Luz, she knew she didn't have to worry.

"God, you guys are the best!" Vee cried out, wrapping all of them up in a massive group hug before turning to her mom. "Look, mom, they even brought their own flowers!" she said, holding up her friends' hands to show that, indeed, they came prepared with lilies of their own to leave at Luis' grave. For once, Camila was thankful that Luis' tradition had become public knowledge.

"That's wonderful, mija," she said warmly before a thought came to her and she leaned closer to whisper to Teresa. "Say, if it isn't too much to ask, Teresa, do you mind staying with the kids for a bit? I'd...I'd like some time with Luis in private." Camila was grateful that the woman didn't seem to judge her for her habit of speaking with Luis' spirit, as it were. She knew that ghosts aren't real (or at least had known, she supposed she'd need to ask her daughters about that sometime), but the idea that he was looking down on her and Luz still brought comfort to her even now.

This year especially...she felt like she owed it to him to catch him up on what had happened.

"Of course, Cam," Teresa remarked. "Take all the time you need." With that, the woman moved to corral the other children and keep them at the entrance to the graveyard while Camila went further in, stopping at a small gravestone tucked away in a remote corner of the cemetery. Satisfied that she was out of earshot, Camila took a deep breath, not sure where to begin.

"Hola, mi vida," she said, just as she always did when she had a moment alone to speak with him here. "You might have noticed things are...very different this year. A lot has happened, but Luz is...not with us, currently," she said, gulping as the now-familiar feeling of motherly anxiety and dread built up in her chest. "She's trapped in a place called the Boiling Isles. A whole other world of magic and monsters, just like in Luz's books," she said with a watery chuckle. "As much as I wish I could promise you she's safe...I have no idea how she's doing at this very moment. All I know is that she's doing everything she can to come back to us, and when she does, I...I hope she'll be willing to forgive me for what I said to her the last time we spoke."

Faced with what felt like a slightly judgmental silence, Camila continued with no small amount of trepidation. "I made her promise to stay here when she came back. Almost everything I'd heard about that place made it sound so incredibly dangerous, and I knew she'd made friends there, but-!" Camila began before her brain caught up on a particular detail it had missed during that frantic conversation in the rain. "Oh, Christ, Luis, she even got herself a girlfriend back there, what was I thinking telling her to stay?! Ay, it was stupid, I know, but she was fading away into nothingness and I was so terrified that I might never see her in person again, I-!" Camila paused, standing there in silence for a moment before taking a deep breath. "You're right. I shouldn't be making excuses. It was wrong of me to force a promise like that on her, and I'm going to make it right when she comes home. I promise, mi amor."

With those words, a gust of wind blew past Camila in such a way that it could almost be described as having caressed her cheek. Camila smiled, eager to tell him about everything else.

"As for the daughter I came with, the one who looks so much like Luz, well...her name's Vee. Short for 'Valentina,' now, I suppose, after mi abuelo. It was Luz's idea," Camila explained with a sad smile. "She's a basilisk, a shapeshifting demon from the Boiling Isles, but I swear Luis, she might as well be an angel. She's been so helpful and sweet to me from the moment I met her, and she's been a lifesaver during all of this trouble our little Luz has gotten herself in. I...I don't know how I would be managing this without her. Well...without her and the young lady from Reality Check Summer Camp who's spent the last week sleeping on your couch," Camila added, sheepishly rubbing the back of her neck. "It's all a rather long story, but the gist of it is that Vee came through at the same time Luz did, took her place for a couple months, they talked things out, and now they've decided they're going to be twin sisters." Camila found herself chuckling at the slight absurdity of this otherwise lovely familial situation. "Luz really immersed herself into that whole 'found family' business, it seems. I wouldn't be surprised if she came through her new portal with at least two more adopted siblings in tow." Camila laughed a little more before she turned back to the subject at hand.

"Anyway, Vee's similar to Luz in a lot of ways, but she's also very different," Camila mused. "She's clever like Luz, but more when it comes to dealing with people. I mean, she managed to impersonate Luz in a summer camp full of other kids for three months, while knowing next to nothing about how human children behave, and even I didn't realize what was going on at first! We've only lived together a couple weeks, but I've seen her read me dead to rights with a moment's glance! It's...well, it certainly doesn't let me keep anything hidden from her, that's for sure." Camila paused for a moment as she thought back to their interaction that morning before continuing along a more positive track. "She likes sci-fi stories, it seems. Her friends got her into those old Star Trek shows and she bought her own copy of Cosmic Frontier not too long ago. I know how much we were both looking forward to sharing that with Luz when she got older, so I imagine hearing that must be nice. I'm sure we all would've had a blast together, goofing off with all the merch and things I still keep in the basement. Heh heh...hm."

Camila paused again, her face reflecting her melancholy state of mind as she briefly imagined a scene just like that: Vee marveling at all of the 90s sci-fi memorabilia, Luz and Luis and Vee all pressuring her into trying on her old cosplay, Luz taking photos of her "nerdy little family" with that old camera Luis loved to use. She found herself interrupted from her reverie when she looked back towards the now-approaching sight of Vee and her friends...realizing she had to say goodbye again.

"I wish that you had gotten to meet her, mi amor," she whispered, laying down the lily she had brought so that it was resting comfortably alongside other flowers that had been left earlier. "I know that you would have loved her just as much as I do."

And perhaps all this recent talk of magic and monsters had excited what imagination she had, but Camila could've sworn she heard the wind whistle something that almost sounded like "Sí."

Bonus Chapter #1: A Little Help From a Friend

[Summary: After a week of working behind the scenes to help the Nocedas, Mabel finally makes contact with a noted expert on interdimensional travel. However, where she had hoped for a solution to everyone's problems, she is met only with disappointment...at least at first. Meanwhile, the Noceda family's somber celebration of a life taken too soon continues at their home, albeit with a rather embarrassing complication for Camila to be confronted with.]

"I'm sorry, but I can't help you."

Mabel groaned as she sat in the basement of the Noceda family residence with her laptop held in front of her, having declined to come along when Camila and Vee solemnly left the house. She'd said that she needed to address camp related matters from home, and to her credit, it wasn't strictly a lie. Although the camp wouldn't be open for a few months yet, there still had to be somebody managing it in some capacity during the quiet months, and doing it remotely was even more of a pain than doing it from her office would have been. Of course, what she failed to mention was what she had continued doing after taking care of business: making as many calls as she could to try and help out the Noceda family from behind the scenes.

"Come on, Grunkle Ford, work with me here!" Mabel protested, leaning back further into the admittedly comfortable couch the Nocedas kept in the basement. Right now, she was engaged in the unenviable task of trying to convince her Grunkle Ford to build a new portal, a task so difficult that she had naturally gotten to it last after dedicating the previous week towards everything else.

As one could imagine, the fact that almost everyone she knew lived in the Pacific Northwest meant that it was pretty tough to find anyone who would be willing to come down and help her directly even if she was actually looking for backup. True, a part of her would've liked having Dipper or the girls helping her out with this, but she was confident she could handle herself. Soos, Melody, and Wendy had at least agreed to ship whatever magic stuff they could find in Gravity Falls to Camila's house, so Mabel could rest easy knowing that Vee wouldn't be going without magic anytime soon. She even managed to convince Pacifica to look into buying the abandoned house on the Nocedas' behalf, just in case any new portal Luz made would wind up connected to it just like the old one had been. She admittedly felt a bit bad about asking for so much, knowing her rather rich friend wasn't exactly swimming in money ever since her parents refused to pay for college. However, the man from City Hall she spoke to seemed so desperate for the house to finally sell that Mabel wasn't particularly worried. Still, it was a testament to how much her old nemesis had grown over the years that she had agreed to do it so readily.

Well, she'd agreed to do it once Mabel cashed in that favor she owed her, at least.

In any case, as far as helping get Luz home, her efforts were less successful. She had been tempted on that first night to lift Camila's spirits by saying that she "knew a guy" who could help get her daughter back, but looking back on it, she was right not to get the woman's hopes up. Dipper had studied the journals and the portal extensively, but even someone as brilliant as her brother couldn't reproduce such a complicated design from memory, not that either of them could do anything with it on their own. Soos was a shockingly good engineer capable of working miracles, but he'd need expert direction on a project of that scale, and unfortunately, neither of the men she knew who could do that seemed inclined to cooperate. She'd tried McGucket first, and although his memories had more or less returned by now, with that came an even greater reticence to recreate what he had built and risk something like Weirdmageddon happening again. He had still promised to help if she could get her Grunkle Ford on board, but well...that clearly wasn't going to be happening at this rate. Ford sighed, not wanting to disappoint his great-niece even as he knew there was no way around it. After a brief delay caused by the questionable service he and Stan had while out at sea, Ford did his best to explain himself.

"Believe me, dear, I sympathize with what the Nocedas must be going through. I think you can agree that our family can relate to their situation more deeply than anyone," Ford replied sadly, causing Mabel to pause as she reflected on just how eerily similar their family's experiences were. Nevertheless, Ford kept talking. "The fact is, it's just too dangerous to construct an interdimensional portal via mundane means, and I don't know any other way to do it. From what you've told me, we'd all be much better off if we just trusted this Luz girl to build a magic-based portal on her end. Unrelated kidnapping incidents aside, her first attempt sounds like it was much, much safer than mine was, for everyone involved." As Ford's expression fell in the familiar way it did when he reflected on the mistakes of his youth, Mabel only groaned louder, understanding where her Grunkle was coming from, but still frustrated all the same.

"But you built yours, like, forty years ago! Surely it must be safer now than it was back then!" she reasoned, causing Ford to think for a moment before shaking his head.

"Trust me, Mabel, I might be busy globetrotting and fighting monsters these days, but I've still been keeping a close eye on the scientific community since I got back," Ford explained. "Even with forty years of theoretical advancements, the technology to put those theories into practice safely just isn't there yet, and nobody seems especially eager to try and make it happen. Granted, I did recently learn that an old colleague from Backupsmore has been trying to build a portal device, but if she's still anything like she was in college, heh! She's not getting anywhere with that, I promise you. Probably just twiddling her thumbs and taking the rightful credit of whoever she talked into working for her as we speak." As Ford fell silent for a moment, likely thinking back to whatever nightmarish group project he must have done with this woman back in the 70s, Mabel took her shot.

"Well, you're way smarter than that hack! If you and McGucket worked together on it again, you could probably crack it!" Mabel said, hoping to get a rise out of her Grunkle Ford, but the man only chuckled at his great-niece's attempt to take advantage of his ego. It probably would have worked on him once, but after nine years at sea with his brother and the absolute technological marvel that was online therapy, he was a different man than the one who had driven everyone around him away. It was going to take more than that to convince him.

"Perhaps we could, but you also have to keep in mind that there was...someone else working with us on that particular project," Ford said darkly, causing Mabel's face to fall as she remembered what she knew of Ford's history with the demon that had tormented their family. She didn't entirely understand why, but for whatever reason, he had stopped referring to that monster by name or by any of his numerous terrifying titles after Weirdmageddon. Mabel had long since given up asking about it, knowing that he wasn't going to tell her or anyone else why he was doing it under the guise that he was protecting them from truths too terrible to contemplate, or whatever. Despite how much he'd changed and gotten better at being vulnerable, it seemed that a part of him could never quite let go of that "TRUST NO ONE!" mindset, even if it had cost him so much.

"Aw, shoot. So it's all jacked up, huh?" she asked instead, to which Ford nodded grimly.

"Indeed. Even with all of these years to sort it out in my head, I'm still not entirely positive how much of that design was ours and how much was given to me by...him. Even if we managed to work everything out without tipping off the government, it would still be risky. We'd have to find an alternative power source that wouldn't merit special attention, and we'd need to get some extra hands to help us out besides, adding months of work onto a project that could already take years for us to get up and running. Even if we were successful, it would have to be done beneath the Mystery Shack like before, since we know that Gravity Falls' Natural Law of Weirdness Magnetism would act to contain the aftermath if anything were to go wrong. Gravesfield probably doesn't have that luxury. So, put simply, I'm afraid building a new portal on our end is too dangerous and time-consuming to be of real use to anybody. I'm...I'm sorry, Mabel. Like I said, I can't help you, at least not with this." Mabel's face fell even further as she found herself unable to argue with her Grunkle's reasoning, yet desperate for his help all the same.

"So...there really isn't anything you can do?" she asked in a small voice, causing him to shake his head before his eyes widened, an idea having occurred to him.

"Nothing significant enough to make note of, but...there might be something you can do," he said. He scrambled to pull out what appeared to be a new journal that he had made when he first set out on his maritime travels, while Mabel looked at her Grunkle with a confused expression.

"Hang on, I don't know anything about engineering or-or magic, how could I help?" she asked, to which Ford initially didn't respond until he finally found what he was looking for.

"You have an advantage none of us do at the moment: you're actually there," Ford replied simply, holding the page he had located up to the screen while Mabel struggled to read it.

"'Anomalous Garbage Patch Disposal?' What's that gotta do with...ohhhh!" Mabel exclaimed as understanding dawned once she put the pieces together. After all, trash in the ocean had been a major problem for decades in the Human Realm, and according to Vee, human trash would find its way to the shoreline all the time in the Boiling Isles. It wasn't hard to guess that the two things were connected somehow, and if there was already a natural way for things to travel between worlds, then perhaps they didn't even need to make a portal at all!

"Precisely. Such widespread awareness of humanity in this alternate dimension could only be the result of a long-term phenomenon which would result in unintentional cultural diffusion. As luck would have it, I've been idly tracking what might be just such a phenomenon for years now." With that, Ford pointed at a graph he had drawn up documenting the rate of growth for every major garbage patch he and Stan ended up sailing through. "When I first set out with Stan to investigate the Arctic Circle, I ended up stumbling upon a bit of a minor mystery once we passed near the area occupied by the North Atlantic Gyre. It probably doesn't come as much of a surprise that nobody has really cleaned it up over the decades, and yet the more I thought about the kinds of places it's likely drawing waste from, the more it seemed like its rate of expansion really ought to be higher than what's been documented by environmentalists. I eventually concluded that something must be cutting off some of the trash flow from New England, although I never had time to investigate the area more closely, seeing as we were promptly attacked by a kraken as soon as we got close," Ford said casually, as if he were talking about a raccoon that had gotten into the cupboards of his house.

"I'm sorry, what?" Mabel asked, to which Ford waved his six-fingered hand dismissively.

"Immaterial, sweetie," Ford said. "Regardless, Gravesfield had barely merited a blip on the paranormal radar during my college days, but given its apparent history with these 'Boiling Isles' and its proximity to the Atlantic...it may merit a closer look now. One that you are in a perfect position to get started." Mabel smiled, grateful that her Grunkle had at least helped her figure out a potential lead to explore, but her expression shifted to confusion as she held up Jacob's book, the one Ford had supposedly written that she had looted from the Gravesfield Historical Society.

"And you never heard about the Boiling Isles before?" she asked, flipping through a few pages. "It seems like you knew about some of this weird extradimensional stuff even before you went through that portal," she remarked, causing Ford to wince as he thought back on yet another of the many mistakes he had made all those years ago.

"Ah, yes, that was another, um...collaboration," he said hesitantly, which Mabel realized once she flipped to a random page and was promptly met with an illustration of that horrible triangle. "I was against publishing it at first, but he claimed that the people ought to know something about the infinite worlds we would be exploring together. I was still so convinced of his benevolence and hung up about leaving my mark on history that I didn't object further," Ford explained, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Anything about alternate realities in there was all him, I'm afraid. I hadn't the foggiest idea what a 'Calamity Box' was until he put it in there, and he never had me write anything about this 'Boiling Isles.' Besides, as soon as we were done...it was right back to work." Mabel frowned, allowing her Grunkle a moment to reckon with his past while she thought things over.

"But why would he care about publishing some book?" Mabel asked aloud, a part of her knowing it was a fool's errand to try and follow that maniac's thought processes. Ford shrugged.

"He claimed that it was to make sure we had enough funding for the project, but beyond that...perhaps it was a backup plan. A trick he could keep up his sleeve just in case our partnership went south," he reasoned. "I theorized back then that he possessed the ability to impose his will on the collective unconscious of humanity through the Mindscape. All this ability ever amounted to before he met me was widespread symbolism of his most basic form, a triangle with one eye: the so-called Eye of Providence which you see printed onto dollar bills and whatnot. That couldn't let him do anything on its own, but a page all about who and what he was in a publication, even a niche publication like my book or my journals...that might have been enough to subconsciously guide another brilliant fool to Gravity Falls so that they could be manipulated into finishing what I started." Mabel gulped, briefly imagining what might've happened if someone like Hopkins had been around back in old people times to pick up where Ford left off. It was not a comforting thought.

"Yikes," she said, not quite having the bandwidth to elaborate beyond that simple sentiment.

"Indeed," Ford said gravely before chuckling bitterly as he took note of the condition of the book. "Fortunately, the books never sold well enough for that to be a realistic threat, and with the journals tossed to the winds...well. Suffice it to say, the danger is minimal, he's...he's gone." Ford fell silent for a moment, as did Mabel. "He's gone," he repeated, either for her benefit or his own: it didn't really matter. They had both needed to tell themselves that every so often, even now. Especially now, with all this talk of portals and demons and worlds beyond our own.

Perhaps the more things change, the more they stay the same...for better and for worse.

Choosing not to reflect on that prospect, Mabel instead chose to focus on the reminder of the journals' unknown fate. She hadn't thought about that last summer night for some time, but she supposed it made sense that her mind drudged it back up again, as bittersweet a memory as it was. She remembered how proud she had been to come up with the idea, how cathartic it felt to chuck those accursed books down the Bottomless Pit. It didn't fix anything: Weirdmaggeddon had still happened, she still almost ended the world, and the journals were probably still out there somewhere. And yet, it still felt freeing in a way, as though ridding themselves of the journals confirmed that the monster whose mad scrawling had littered those old books really was gone.

That he couldn't hurt them anymore.

Of course, they still meant something to Dipper, and she had asked on more than one occasion whether he was really okay with what had happened to them. He always answered in the affirmative, so Mabel at least didn't get the sense that he was just saying that to make her feel better about her selfish actions, like he might have done in the past. Still, especially in light of these new developments, she had to wonder whether she might have been too hasty in 'tossing the journals to the winds,' as Grunkle Ford put it. She'd barely thought about those dusty old things in years, and now...now she found herself wanting those books in her hands, if only so that she could find a way to help Luz get home which was hidden somewhere within its pages.

Probably best not to bring that idea up with Grunkle Ford, though.

"Yeah, I, uh, I still wonder where they ended up sometimes, you know?" she said, causing Ford to chuckle in a way which only reinforced her decision not to broach the topic further.

"Ah, who knows? That's one mystery I don't need solved, that's for sure," he said a little quickly before getting back on track. "In any case, I was able to get the books I published pulled off of store shelves once I learned the truth. It seems a few made their way to libraries and private collections: I suspect that's how your historian got his hands on one, given the connections afforded by his job. Not much more we can do about that problem, unfortunately, unless you're in the mood for widespread arson." Mabel chuckled as she ripped out the most dangerous page in the book, taking some unrelated page about ghosts with it.

"Don't you worry, Grunkle Ford, I'll be sure to burn this sucker later," she said with a devilish grin on her face, provoking a cry of laughter from further down the deck.

"That's my girl!" Stan cried from the wheel, navigating the ship through calm ocean waves.

"Hiii Grunkle Stan!" Mabel said excitedly, waving as though he could see her, while Ford's heart softened somewhat at the sight before his expression turned deadly serious.

"You be careful up there, sweetie," Ford cautioned. "Me and Stan are, uh, a bit too far away to help you out right now, but don't hesitate to call your brother or your friends if you need backup." Mabel smiled, having considered it briefly over the past few days, before shaking her head.

"I'll think about it, but the Nocedas have got my back," Mabel argued. "And besides, I may not be some bigshot paranormal investigator like Dipper, but I can take care of myself just fine!" As if to demonstrate her capabilities, she cocked her grappling hook over her shoulder while Waddles waddled right into her lap with a supportive squeal. Ford chuckled at the display.

"Of that, I have no doubt," he said fondly. "Alright, I should probably let you go, but...it was nice talking to you, Mabel. Best of luck." With that, he moved to close the call, but wasn't quick enough to do so before Stan called out to him from the steering wheel.

"Oh no you don't, Pointdexter, I wanna see my great-niece!" he bellowed, causing them both to chuckle as Ford begrudgingly took the laptop out into the open skies and held it up to Stan's smiling face. "Heya, kiddo! Good luck out there, and let me know if you end up punching a demon in the face! I gotta tell you, from personal experience, it's really cathartic!" Mabel laughed along with her Grunkle before a rather devious idea occurred to her based on new information she'd learned.

"I'll be sure to keep you posted, Grunkle Stan," she said, readying the unexpected sucker that was to come. "Oh, before I go, I learned something up here that I think you'll find pretty interesting," she said, a teasing lilt in her voice that caused Stan to chuckle.

"Alright kiddo, I'll bite. Is it about what got me banned from the state?" he asked.

"Nope!" Mabel said in that same teasing tone, leaving him a little confused.

"Is it about someone I still owe money to?" he asked with a bit more trepidation.

"Eh, more someone who owes you money, really," Mabel replied, to which Stan chuckled.

"Heh. Color me intrigued. Alright, who is it?" he asked, falling for it hook, line, and sinker.

"Yes, I'd like to know as well," Ford remarked in a tone which suggested he knew something was up. Mabel grinned nonetheless, knowing that still wouldn't prepare him for what she said next.

"'Marilyn' is actually a witch named Eda the Owl Lady! She's from the Boiling Isles too! HA! Small world, huh?" she announced, the picture of not-quite-youthful innocence even as Ford nearly dropped the laptop while Stan yanked the wheel in surprise.

"She's what?!" Ford exclaimed incredulously, while Stan pointed a finger at him accusingly.

"I told you! I told you she was magical!" Stan cried out angrily, heedless of the boat's course.

"I thought you were saying that metaphorically!" Ford protested.

"When do I ever say things metaphorically?!" Stan retorted.

"Well, excuse me for thinking you were being sentimental about your ex-wife, Stanley!"

"Oh, please, she was barely-wait a second, kiddo, how'd you know about her? Mabel?! Hey!"

Mabel, for her part, had watched all of this happen with her usual sweet expression plastered onto her face like a well-worn mask, as if she hadn't just caused utter chaos on the Stan-O-War II that wasn't about to resolve itself for quite some time.

"Love you lots, you guys! Hugs and kisses! Byeeeee!" Mabel said cheerily in lieu of an answer before closing the laptop as both Grunkles reached towards the screen, desperate for clarification. Mabel allowed herself only a moment of laughter and relaxation from witnessing that before she got up from the couch, causing Waddles to climb back down to the floor in the process. In no short order, she proceeded to grab the travel bag she had hastily packed for her trip and stuff everything she had inside it, then proceeded to write a quick note and pin it to the refrigerator as she made her way out of the house. Waddles, ever the dependable companion, followed in her wake with the eagerness of a pig half his age. Mabel couldn't help but smile warmly at the sight of her friend still happily running along and ready to go on an adventure, even after all these years.

Perhaps some things didn't change as much as she had once feared they would.

"C'mon, buddy," she said as she pulled out her car keys. "We've got some beaches to visit."

"I'd say 'Mi casa es su casa,' but that's been done to death."

Teresa chuckled at Camila's comment as she walked into her house along with Vee and the kids once they'd all paid their respects. Having agreed to lend a hand making dinner so that Vee could show her friends around the house, Camila and Teresa got to work as soon as Camila had carefully taken out the last flower she had purchased and placed it in a vase on the windowsill. She stood there silently for a moment, looking up towards the night sky as though she were waiting for some kind of message. Even though she knew that Luz wasn't able to communicate with her without a portal, still Camila held out hope that her daughter would find a way to let her know that she was alright on this day of all days. Before she could dwell on that any further, however, Teresa spotted something unusual in the kitchen.

"Say, what's this?" she said, pulling a note off of the refrigerator that Camila recognized as being written in Mabel's handwriting. Realizing that it was probably about something magic-related, Camila snatched it out of Teresa's hands as politely as she could.

"Oh, it's just a note our houseguest left, something must have come up, it's fine!" Camila said quickly before reading over what it actually said in a way that kept it hidden from Teresa's view.

"Going to investigate the coastline near Gravesfield. Looking into the possibility of a natural portal forming in the water. Will text if I find anything. Give my love to Vee! 3"

"You didn't mention a houseguest," Teresa said, the curiosity evident in her voice as Camila pocketed the note and turned around nervously.

"It was kind of a last-minute thing," Camila replied honestly. "In any case, it doesn't sound like she's coming back for the moment, so you needn't concern yourself!" Although Teresa raised an eyebrow at that last comment and Camila's nervous expression, she didn't press her any further on it, and the two were able to get back to the task at hand for a time.

That is, until Camila found herself dealing with a much worse problem.

"Mom!" Vee cried out in a panic, racing up to the edge of the kitchen from...the basement.

"Oh dios mío," Camila muttered under her breath. They couldn't have. They didn't! They-!

"Please don't be mad, but I was showing the others around the house and they might have...possibly...found some things in the basement," she said, holding up her copy of Cosmic Frontier.

They did.

"Mija, please, put that back where you found it and-!" Camila attempted to instruct her daughter even as she sensed Teresa turning to look at the pair with a bemused expression.

"Mrs. Noceda!" she heard Alex shout before they caught up to Vee, bouncing on their heels excitedly. "You're a fan of Cosmic Frontier too?!" Camila winced, but attempted to give them an awkward smile once she saw the awestruck look in their eyes and knew she couldn't outright lie.

"I-I read it when it first came out, yes, but I wouldn't say I'm a fan like you might use the term nowadays," she said nervously, having never been able to lie convincingly. Vee shot her an apologetic look while Alex hung on every word with a bright smile.

"You are officially the second-coolest adult I know," they said breathlessly, causing Camila to blush out of sheer embarrassment while Vee and Teresa scoffed playfully.

"Second coolest, huh?" Vee asked rhetorically with a smirk on her face.

"Hon, I did not just hear you diss your host and your ride in one sentence, now did I?" Teresa asked in a similar manner, resting a hand on her hip.

"Sorry, ma'ams, but Ms. Pines scaled a 20 foot tall fence with a grappling hook," Alex pointed out, to which Vee had to nod in agreement before going back to fixing the situation. Unfortunately, the sound of more footsteps coming from the basement rendered her efforts futile.

"My sincerest apologies, Mrs. Noceda!" Juniper called out. "I was unable to dissuade them from removing-!" This was as far as she got before Camila saw what the trouble was: both Pearl and Sam had come away from the basement with something from what Luz had once called the "Secret Sci-Fi Shrine." To their credit, they had at least made sure not to take anything explicitly labeled as Luis', but that still meant that all of Camila's things were up for grabs. From the looks of it, Sam had made off with her replica of the Mercenary that played the theme song from the short-lived cartoon adaptation, while Pearl...Pearl was wearing the purple wig from her Science Officer Quando cosplay.

To say she was mortified would be an understatement.

"That. Removing that," Juniper said frankly, already moving to try and recover the items.

"Ooh la la, I didn't know you were a cosplayer, Mrs. Noceda!" Pearl said teasingly, doing a little curtsy. "This is super cool!" she added as she twirled around to see how the hair moved, causing a noticeable blush to form on Vee's face without her knowledge.

"Yo, Alex, this is so sick, listen!" Sam said before pushing the button and playing the theme song, causing Teresa to become even more amused while Camila sunk in on herself. He only got to enjoy it personally for about five seconds before Juniper yanked the miniature ship out of his hands.

"No! We do not have the right to play around with these things! You are not being good houseguests!" Juniper protested as she attempted to take off Pearl's wig in turn.

"She's right, kids. Pearl, give it to Junie, please," Teresa said gently. Pearl sighed, seeming genuinely bummed out at the loss of her cool alien wig. Camila sighed as well, utterly defeated.

"It's fine, Teresa, they can...they can play with all of this," Camila conceded, causing the kids to brighten up while Teresa raised an eyebrow, sporting a somewhat teasing look on her face.

"You sure? You seemed pretty anxious to keep it all hidden down there," she pointed out wryly. "Had a bit of a phase in high school, huh?" Camila laughed awkwardly, visibly cringing.

"You could say that, but...agh, heck, it isn't the 90s anymore, i-it's considered cool to be into these things as an adult, right?" Camila replied nervously as she twiddled her thumbs. Teresa and Vee both offered her encouraging smiles before Pearl let out a sudden enthusiastic woop.

"Hell yeah, nerd mom!" she cried, causing Camila to panic while the other kids beamed.

"Ay, espera-!"

"Yeah! Nerd mom, nerd mom, nerd mom, nerd mom-!" Alex and Sam began chanting alongside Pearl. Juniper remained silent, but seemed to look at the trio with what Vee knew to be an expression of exasperation mixed in with affection on her face. Teresa laughed at the sight before moving to help parcel out the food, while Vee looked at her mother with a hesitant smile, silently apologizing to her for letting things progress to this point. Camila was left profoundly embarrassed at the kids' antics for a moment before her expression softened in response to her daughter's look.

Somehow, this chaotic situation seemed like exactly what Luis would have wanted.

Chapter Fifteen: Blast from the Past

[Summary: What starts out as a promising first day at school takes a turn when Vee comes across a person from Luz's past: Clara, head cheerleader and key witness to many of Luz's wacky shenanigans during the previous year...as well as someone who owes Luz an apology for a horrible mistake.]

"Do you have everything you need, mija?"

Vee giggled as she put on her new backpack, having double-checked it just last night.

"Mamá, for the last time, yes!" Vee said, amused by her new mother's overprotectiveness.

"Textbooks, notebooks, binders, school supplies?" Camila rattled off worriedly.

"All accounted for, I promise," Vee replied, glancing quickly at the clock.

"Your ID, your phone?" she asked, only for Vee to swiftly pull out both things from her pocket and hold them up for Camila's inspection before putting them back. "You also made sure to pack some of those magic cards in case of emergencies, right?"

"Mom, I made it nearly 3 months at camp without transforming and that training wand gave me more magic than I came here with, I'm not gonna-" Vee tried to argue, only for Camila to fix her with a stern glare that told her that her word was final.

"Mija," she said in a tone that was gentle, yet firm.

"Yes I packed some cards," Vee said sheepishly, to which she got a pat on the head.

"Gracias, honey," Camila said sweetly before pulling Vee into a tight hug. "Ah, I'm so excited! A little terrified, admittedly, but mostly excited!" Vee chuckled as she gently moved to extricate herself from her mother's embrace. As much as her touch-starved self loved her mother's endless physical affection, she was going to need to get on the bus in approximately two minutes.

"No te preocupes, mami. I've learned a lot these past few months, and if nothing else, I've got people looking out for me. Everything's gonna be fine." Vee smiled brightly, more for her own benefit than Camila's, and her mother looked at her with a softer smile in return.

"I'm sure it will be, baby," Camila said fondly just as the two overheard the sound of the bus arriving just outside their door to pick up the kids on their street. "Text me when you get there. Cuídate mucho, mija. ¡Qué te vaya bien!" Camila said the words absentmindedly, kissing Vee on the cheek before the girl ran off eagerly to board the bus, where it seemed that her friends had already boarded the bus and waved for her to join them from their seats. Camila was so distracted by the heartwarming sight that she didn't make the connection until the bus had driven away:

Those were the last words she said to Luz before she got trapped in another dimension.

All of a sudden, a part of Camila was more terrified than she was excited.

It may have been too early to call it, but honestly? Vee didn't get why kids hated school.

Sure, she wasn't going to pretend like she was having an absolute blast or anything, but nothing she had experienced thus far was really worthy of this all-encompassing hatred for school which she had seen reflected in human media and the attitudes of her peers. The teachers were largely decent people, the cafeteria food was far more edible than anything she'd been given for most of her existence, and contrary to what she had feared, most of the student body actually seemed to tolerate "Luz" so long as she wasn't actively causing any trouble. They weren't exactly rushing to be friends with her, or even really acknowledging her presence in any meaningful way, but at least they weren't calling her names or shoving her into lockers, either. Any kids who might have done those things, namely Karen and her clique along with a handful of mean looking wannabe greasers she'd locked eyes with in the halls, weren't about to try anything as long as Vee was with her friends.

The main concern she'd had was being blindsided by the difficulty of her classes as someone who hadn't ever received a proper education before being thrust into this "tenth grade" in Luz's place, but just as Camila and her friends had assured her over dinner, schoolwork tended to be fairly straightforward on the first day of school. All Vee had to do for most of her classes was simply follow along as the instructor went over the syllabi she printed out in advance, and then she'd participate in the occasional minor assignment, or do activities which Vee learned were called "ice-breakers." She wasn't exactly sure why they were called that and knew it was some bit of common human knowledge that would be too embarrassing for her to ask about, but all they really seemed to involve was talking to people, and Vee could do that! Vee could totally do that!

"Okay, if you could have any superpower, what superpower would you want?" a kid with a cool blonde ponytail set against an undercut of black hair had asked, having introduced themselves earlier as a horror enthusiast named Ares.

"Shapeshifting!" Vee replied automatically. Too automatically.

"Huh, that's cool," their buddy, a bigger guy with brown hair and a scratchy beard like Sam's named Mike commented. "What made you pick that?" he asked, causing her to sweat.

"No reason, haha! What about you two?" she asked, being totally cool and normal about it.

See? She'd gotten this "talking" thing down to a science!

Another thing that helped with her first day jitters was how serendipitous her class schedule turned out to be. She could always count on having at least one of her friends with her no matter which class she attended, and often was able to benefit from having several of them with her. That certainly helped to ease her anxiety regarding her courses, but honestly...they weren't all that bad.

Her first period was an English class which she was admittedly somewhat nervous about, having just barely managed to get the summer homework done in time and knowing less about how the language works than she really should. Fortunately, she lucked out in being able to sit in a nice little corner adjacent to both Alex and Sam. The teacher, apparently an old friend of Luis' named Mr. Sandoval, seemed to be exceptionally laid back and had a good voice for narration, so Vee doubted she would find herself bored in his class.

Her second period, World History, was a class she shared with Pearl, who Vee had learned was actually something of a history buff while she was busy studying over the summer, so she was confident she would do fine as long as she had Pearl around to help. The teacher there, a much older gentleman named Mr. Crane, had admittedly intimidated Vee slightly based on the fact that she saw he was primarily the head coach of the football team, but she found herself warming up to him rather quickly due to his sense of humor.

Her third period, Geometry, was one she had with Juniper, and while she had thankfully found math easier for her than other subjects, it still didn't hurt to have the assistance. The somewhat younger woman who taught the class seemed nice enough, but Vee would reserve her judgments for the moment on account of how eerily similar she looked to Karen.

Her fourth period Chemistry class looked like it would benefit far more from Juniper's presence as her lab partner. Vee really didn't want to find out what would happen if some chemical that was harmless to actual humans got onto her body and triggered some weird reaction, so having Juniper around to ensure she did things safely could literally save her life one day. The teacher for that class, Mrs. Hertzman, was nice as well, but something about her frazzled brown hair and lab coat alongside a rather rambunctious personality made Vee associate her with images of mad scientists blowing themselves up with their experiments. Fortunately, Vee was quickly reassured of the teacher's truly cautious nature. A part of her wondered whether that had anything to do with the accident from nine years ago...and perhaps whether it was her lab that had caught fire back then. That would certainly explain the split-second look of sadness in her eyes when the class started.

After that was lunch, where she and her friends managed to snag a nice table underneath a tree which seemed poised to become their standard haunt, seeing as their presence evidently repelled anyone else from sitting in the immediate vicinity. Unfortunately, after that enjoyable experience was an Art class she shared with Alex, Juniper, and Sam at a nice table all to themselves. The extra support was needed, as the older Black woman who had taken Luis' place as the school's art teacher made her specific dislike of "Luz" exceedingly and, honestly, kind of insultingly clear from the list of banned materials she had posted. This was why Vee had to take the course again: somehow, Luz had failed an art class the first time around and needed to retake it. Vee's friends didn't even understand how that was possible. She tried apologizing to the teacher after a tense first class, but the woman said in no uncertain terms that "Luz" even being allowed to take the class again was a courtesy on her part, so the only option left available for Vee was to just knuckle down and pass.

After that rough spot came Luz's final year of Spanish classes, which Vee had been dreading due to it being expected of "Luz" to naturally be ahead of the other students. On the bright side, she at least had Camila to help her catch up at home and Pearl to help her in class, so she figured she'd be able to handle it well enough. The teacher there was, rather curiously, what appeared to be a dirty blonde-haired white man who had recently immigrated from Australia of all places, yet nonetheless spoke the language almost as well as Camila. She seemed to learn especially quickly when it came to this subject - possibly some quirk of how basilisk brains work, she wasn't sure - so all in all, Vee was still feeling pretty good about how her first day of human school would turn out.

But of course, leave it to Karen to make things harder for her in the final stretch.

The one class she couldn't count on anybody to help her in was P.E., but that was surprisingly the class Vee had been the most confident about. After all, basilisks were a good deal more physically capable than the average human, making the risk of her falling behind or getting grievously injured fairly low. Of course, Vee knew not to get too carried away lest she engender suspicion, but she figured she could manage to pull off a convincingly milquetoast athletic performance that would be believable for Luz to be capable of after a summer spent outdoors. The only real problem would be if any of the mean girls showed up in force this time, which was a likely possibility given that they were all cheerleaders. However, as Vee glanced around at the girls who'd showed up so far, it seemed as though she lucked out yet again. Karen and her mean girls weren't anywhere to be found! This could actually be a great first day of school!

Then, as if on cue, some other girl walked in as the unwilling harbinger of worse to come.

The girl looked like the archetypical Mean Girl, but there were several aspects of her appearance that stuck out. The pink streak in her hair was the most immediately apparent, given that it was perfectly set along the exact center of her head and clashed with her natural blonde hair in a way that was highly visible, no doubt by design. Her expression was another: where Vee might have expected her to look more like Karen and her friends, all sarcasm and snark ranging from passive-aggressive to aggressive-aggressive, this girl just looked...tired. Like, perpetually tired, with a major case of RBF and bags under her eyes that suggested she hadn't gotten a good night's sleep in weeks. It honestly left Vee feeling sorry for her more than anything.

Vee obviously didn't have the entire context of this girl's relationship with Luz to draw on in order to form an opinion of her or try to help. As such, she wasn't entirely sure how to approach this girl or figure out what was wrong without starting some kind of incident she'd rather avoid. She had a feeling it wouldn't be the best idea to get herself mixed up in whatever her deal was anyway, but then the girl made eye contact with her and Vee had the sense that this was going to become a problem whether she liked it or not. Where Vee expected some kind of awkward comment as soon as their eyes met, the girl instead looked away with an expression on her face that Vee would be able to recognize on anybody after months of keeping her disguise afloat on a raft of little lies:

Shame.

"Well, look who it is!" a gratingly familiar voice called out from behind the new girl. Vee groaned as Karen and the rest of her clique walked in right on the new girl's heels with the same old sassy smirks on their faces, definitively proving that they had learned nothing from their time at Reality Check Summer Camp. "Little Luz-er thought she was safe, huh, girls?" she asked, to the general agreement of the others and the reluctant murmuring of the new girl. "What say we disabuse her of that notion, eh?" Karen added, to which Vee groaned: for whatever reason, Karen really prided herself on her vocabulary, almost as much as she prided herself on her ability to torment Vee just out of sight of any authority figures who wouldn't have tolerated her 2000s high school movie crap otherwise. The new girl shrunk in on herself even further at Karen's words, and while Vee might have once been inclined to knuckle under and deescalate the situation, she'd gotten just a little tired of Karen and her cronies. She certainly wasn't about to sit silent and endure them for weeks or months of human school just so Luz could come back to become their punching bag once more.

Besides, standing up to bullies seemed like something Luz would do.

"You know, Karen, unlike you, I didn't spend the last few months of camp obsessed with a bunch of 'losers' supposedly beneath my notice. Maybe you oughta keep your mouth shut and work on yourself instead, huh, sister?" Vee retorted snappily. A part of her was pleased to note that the remark had earned her a handful of "Oohs" from the girls outside of Karen's clique who didn't have a stake in the confrontation. A more cynical part of her figured they were probably reacting that way simply because a physical fight seemed to be imminent and they wanted to egg it on for the sake of "The Quip," as her fellow kids apparently called it. Regardless, the words seemed to have the desired effect of getting under Karen's skin, judging by the blink-and-you'd-miss-it twitch of her eye before she schooled herself into resuming her cocky smirk.

"Bold words from a girl who got her shit kicked in the last time she forgot her place," she said snarkily, bringing her fists together for emphasis. Although she did her best not to show it, a part of Vee was apprehensive about the turn this had taken. She'd originally assumed that Karen wasn't reckless enough to start an actual fight with her on the first day of school, but clearly that assumption had been made in error. And sure, she could physically take Karen in a fight no problem, at least if her brief scuffle with Hopkins was any indication, but Vee also understood that "Luz" was on thin ice with the school district as it was, and Karen's resemblance to a teacher at the school had worrying implications about who would be punished in this scenario. Were a fight to break out, Vee wasn't positive that she wouldn't be cast as the instigator somehow, particularly since all of the neutral bystanders that might have gone against Karen's inevitable twisting of events were instead far more concerned with getting out their phones to document the inevitable beatdown. Even if she chose not to retaliate, Karen's cohorts would make sure that she had nowhere to run, and the prospect of just taking it didn't feel great either, not to mention it would be rather unrealistic for her to not at least try to defend herself and get a few punches in.

Or just bite her, her sister seemed like the type of girl that would do that in a street fight.

In the end, her salvation from having to consider doing any of that came not with the timely arrival of the teacher, but instead with the timely intervention of someone who'd finally had enough.

"You really didn't learn anything from that stupid camp, did you?" the other girl interjected.

"Wha-? Oh, come on, you can't be serious!" Karen said, turning towards the other girl as if betrayed. "You're actually sticking up for this Luz-er?" Faced with the judgmental looks of her posse, the girl switched gears, shooting Vee what almost seemed like an apologetic look before continuing.

"All I'm saying is, I'm not so tightly wound that I'm gonna scrap with some nobody the first time she says something that pisses me off," the other girl argued, causing the other mean girls who had been anticipating the fight to look away. "Besides, the teacher's probably gonna be here-"

"Right now!" a new voice interjected, belonging to what looked like a brown-skinned woman dressed in a classic Rocky-style outfit who could almost pass as a professional weightlifter, judging by how bulky she was. "Sorry I'm late, girls, I was busy...hm." She paused as she registered Karen's raised fists, Vee's nervous apprehension, and the handful of girls still holding their phones at the ready. Her eyes narrowed as she thankfully zeroed in on Karen and her cronies. "Now, this isn't what it looks like, is it, girls?" she asked sternly, to which she was met with a chorus of confirmation from the cronies. Karen herself simply turned away, saying nothing. "Good," the teacher said curtly before getting them back on track and causing the former audience to groan under their breath.

Vee and the new girl only dared to lock eyes one more time before the class truly started.

After what was thankfully a fairly straightforward first class, albeit one riddled with unspoken tension, the vast majority of the girls cleared out at the first opportunity. Vee would have done the same had she not been briefly stopped by the P.E. teacher, who had the decency to make sure that she was alright after what looked like a rather close call. With the promise to come to her if anything like that happened again, Vee had just made it out of the gymnasium when she found herself stopped by a different person: the new girl who stuck up for her earlier.

Or...kind of stuck up for her, at any rate.

"Hey! Luz!" she said, calling out as loudly as she could without drawing attention. "Can we, uh, can we talk for a minute?" Vee paused, quickly glancing around for any sign of the girl's friends. Finding none, she shrugged: in the interest of avoiding future awkwardness, this may as well happen.

"Sure, I got a minute, what's up?" she asked, trying to be as casual as she could manage while the girl glanced around herself before leading her to a more secluded location. Internally, Vee reviewed her options. She had no idea what this girl's history with Luz was, but judging from how nervous she was about approaching her and sticking up for her in front of her cheerleader friends without couching it in their usual richer-than-thou snark, she had a feeling she was in for a tale.

"So..." the girl said hesitantly once she'd gotten Vee to a nice secluded spot under a tree.

"So," Vee repeated, a curious mix of amusement and slight apprehension in her voice.

"Look, before I say anything else: sorry about Karen and the other girls, they're-"

"Jerks, yeah, I'm familiar," Vee cut in with a smirk that indicated how tired she was of those girls. "Appreciated the subtle save this time around, though. I dunno how that would've turned out otherwise." The girl blinked at that before she chuckled while looking away sheepishly.

"You caught that, huh? And here I thought I had a future in acting," she said jokingly in an attempt to break the tension, and to her credit, it got a chuckle out of Vee in return.

"Eh, it worked well enough," Vee replied. "There's something else bothering you, though. Something to do with me, and possibly not about some messed up thing I did last year, for once." The girl blinked again, surprised to have been figured out twice in maybe ten seconds.

"Well, it's...kinda about something you did last year, but...mostly it's about how I handled it," she said, rubbing her shoulder nervously as she continued looking away from Vee, unwilling to look "Luz" in the eye. "I, um, wanted to ask...are you still upset about last Valentine's Day?"

Vee blinked. She was vaguely aware of the holiday from her research into human customs. From what she had gathered, it was named for some kind of human religious figure, but had since been transformed by greeting card companies into some sort of romantic holiday-

"Oh Titan, Luz asked this girl out and got her heart broken, didn't she?" Vee thought suddenly.

Welp. That explained a lot all at once...and now she was kind of mad.

"Yeah...I figured as much," the girl said nervously, having noticed Vee's expression and taken an entirely different meaning from it. "I know it's been months, and I totally should have apologized before, I just...I kinda, sorta...figured out some stuff recently, about, y'know, myself, and it really-"

"Lemme guess: you realized you were bi too, and that all of the awful stuff you slung my way was partly you being in denial and partly you getting egged on by your awful friends?" Vee said with a less-than-neutral expression on her face, because once the shock of the revelation wore off, all that was left was a previously untapped wellspring of sisterly rage. True, she was still mostly guessing as to what actually went down between Luz and this girl, but from what she'd gathered so far, she didn't see much to contradict her analysis or a reason why she should forgive her instead of just stomping off and leaving this girl hanging for a change.

Then again...forgiveness was probably what Luz would opt for here. After all, Vee knew from personal experience that forgiving people who didn't deserve it was kind of her sister's thing.

"Oof, yeah, that-that pretty much sums it up, really," the girl said with a wince, stewing in her own shame for a moment before cocking an eyebrow. "Jeez, did stuff happen at that camp, or were you always this...weirdly perceptive?" she asked with a look of slightly unnerved confusion on her face. Vee decided to answer as quickly as possible in order to get the girl back on track.

"Always, but back to why you decided to waste my time with this?" Vee snarked, causing the girl to stammer a bit as she stewed in embarrassment and shame.

"Right, yeah, I'm...I'm really sorry, Luz. I don't expect you to forgive me; I certainly wouldn't if I were in your shoes. I just...I just wanted to get this off my chest. No matter what weird stuff you did, you didn't deserve any of what I put you through, and so...I'm sorry. I can't speak for the others, but I promise that I'll be better to you and your friends from now on." To the girl's credit, it was at least a decent enough apology that Vee was moved to not to be as harsh as she could have been.

That didn't mean she was letting her off easy, though.

"Cool," Vee said in a flat tone of voice, causing the girl to stumble a bit.

"Huh?" she asked, not quite expecting that response from the once-bubbly "Luz."

"I mean, you just said you don't expect me to forgive you, right?" she replied frankly, to which the girl nervously nodded. "Well, okay, then: I don't forgive you. I appreciate you taking the time to apologize and help me out earlier, but like, you still said some messed up stuff to me, and it hurt. It hurt a lot." At this, the girl visibly shrunk under Vee's gaze and hung her head mournfully.

"Yeah, that...that makes sense. I dunno why I thought...sorry, I shouldn't have, I'll get out of your hair-!" She began to trudge away, only for Vee to surprise her with what she said next.

"Hang on," she said, causing the girl to turn around. "I'm not exactly rushing to be your friend or anything, but all this...it was a start. You're trying, at least, and that's more than some people can say, believe me." The girl brightened up a bit and chuckled awkwardly at the comment.

"Tell me about it. I figured Karen and the others might have mellowed out a bit at that camp, but yeesh, they've almost gotten worse!" Vee chuckled before looking at the girl meaningfully.

"I mean, hey, I'm not the one who's still got those Regina George knock-offs following her everywhere she goes," Vee pointed out, using one of those dated human references she had familiarized herself with to make her point and causing the girl to wince again at her own hypocrisy.

"Ugh, you're right!" the girl admitted. "I probably ought to figure out a way to cut them off, but...agh, between being on the team with them and our parents being friends, I'm not sure I can-"

"Quit the team? Oh, I think you can," Vee replied frankly, causing the girl to stammer.

"W-what, I can't-I can't just quit cheerleading! I love cheerleading, it's like the one thing I'm good at! Plus, my parents really want me to keep doing it in college, and there are scholarships-!"

"Look, if being a cheerleader means being friends with jerks that turn on you the second it looks like you're showing someone a speck of human decency...is it really the right fit for you anymore?" In the face of Vee's pointed question, the girl was left eerily quiet as she contemplated her place in the universe. Not wanting to be stuck there for too much longer, Vee decided to leave her with one last bit of advice in an effort to make her own life a little easier going forward. "I dunno, you do whatever you want, I don't run your life. Just...do me a favor and see if you can work your mean girl magic so your jerk friends don't bother my not-jerk friends, alright? Deal?" She held out her hand to shake, which seemed to be enough of a gesture that it snapped the girl out of her spiral and got her to look up at Vee with a hesitant smile as she took it in her own.

"Yeah. I think I can manage that."

With that, the two waved their goodbyes just in time for Vee's friends to figure out where she was and spot her from afar as they had finished their handshake. With the other girl having made herself scarce once she noticed others were coming, Vee stood alone to greet her friends, who naturally had quite a few questions regarding what had just transpired.

"Whoa, what the heck was that about?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, did you, like, negotiate a peace with Clara Hartfield of all people?" Sam asked, sounding almost impressed with her as Vee looked off towards the retreating figure. She smiled a little in spite of herself at how that whole thing had turned out.

"I guess I kinda did," she admitted sheepishly.

"Hm. Given her observed behavior to date...fascinating," Juniper remarked. "We shall have to see whether such an agreement survives beyond this day. There is a reason she is commonly known as the self-proclaimed 'Alpha Bitch' of our grade level, after all," she added bluntly, eliciting varying degrees of shock from everyone present, to Juniper's general confusion. "Apologies, some of you swear quite frequently, is it odd when I do it?" she asked pointedly. The others clammed up as soon as they grasped the implications of how their reactions could be interpreted and why Juniper was asking for clarification on that front. Eventually, Sam responded, albeit somewhat awkwardly.

"Nah, nah, you good," he said, to the others' somewhat rapid agreement. Juniper smirked.

"Splendid," Juniper replied, as though she were planning to swear more often in the future. Vee couldn't help but laugh a little nervously in response to that comment as she rubbed her neck awkwardly. Beyond her general anxiety over the situation with the Mean Girls, now she also had to wonder whether her friends were a good influence on Junie.

Then again, being a less-than-ideal influence was kind of on brand for them.

"Anyway, yeah, I was hoping she could get the others to leave us alone, but I think it really is anyone's guess on if she'll keep her word. And even if she does...who knows how well it'll work in the long run?" she asked, only to be caught off guard by another friend coming in from behind.

"Hey, any amount of time I don't have to deal with Karen's weird tsundere schtick is a win in my book," Pearl remarked offhandedly, leaning on Vee's shoulders like it was the most natural thing in the world. The gesture was already doing something uncomfortably familiar to Vee's brain, and without the myriad of other stimuli to process the previous times it had happened, she actually had the mental bandwidth to try and put her finger on just what it was.

Or at least she could have, had what Pearl did next not pretty much given her the answer.

"You did good, cutie~," Pearl said teasingly, completely short-circuiting Vee's brain.

She vaguely registered the rest of her friends laughing and teasing Pearl over her specific choice of words, but Vee was far too busy internally panicking for several reasons. The most immediately apparent was her own physical reaction to the comment, as she could feel herself blushing more than she had in any of the prior incidents and knew that all of her other friends had to have noticed it. However, this was ultimately secondary to the true problem that her blushing represented, which was that Vee had what humans called a "crush" on her friend. And, for as much as Vee loved all of her friends, Vee couldn't have a crush on Pearl. Not then. Not now.

Not ever.

Chapter Sixteen: Keeping Up Appearances

[Summary: Faced with the terrifying possibilities of what might happen if she pursues her crush on Pearl, a desperate Vee turns to Camila for advice and gets some much needed perspective which helps her to deal with a few surprises she wasn't quite expecting.]

"Mija, I love you, but I think you're overthinking this."

Needless to say, of the many things Camila had expected to hear upon getting home from work and asking her daughter about her first day of school, she had not expected the answer to be "School was fairly decent until I realized I have a crush on Pearl and now everything is terrible." The daughter in question was currently pacing back and forth on the other side of the kitchen island, her expression almost tricking Camila into thinking that she hadn't slept in days.

"I'm not overthinking this, mom! I'm done for! I can't go on like this!" she lamented.

"Mija, you have a crush, it's not that big of a deal!" Camila protested gently. "Besides, I didn't see much at dinner last night, but if I had to guess, she probably likes you back-"

"Of course she likes me back, or at least she likes 'Luz' back!" Vee retorted quickly, catching Camila off guard. "Turns out she's been subtly flirting with me for weeks! Being all touchy and sweet and stuff, calling me nicknames - Titan, how did I not pick up on this before today?!" As Vee continued panicking, Camila let out a slight chuckle in spite of the situation playing out before her.

"Honestly, mija, with this family's track record, I'm just proud you picked up on it all. I have stories I can tell you about how long me and Luis danced around each other, you wouldn't believe-"

"MOM!" Vee shouted in protest, recoiling slightly when she realized how loudly she had screamed. Not wanting to give her another reason to be as panicky as she was, Camila moved to reassure Vee that it was alright and that she wasn't mad at her by placing her hands on her shoulders. After a moment of gentle massaging and whispers designed to calm her down as much as possible, Camila guided Vee to the dinner table so that they could sit down and calmly discuss the issue.

"I'm sorry, mija. This is clearly very stressful for you, and I didn't treat it with the seriousness it deserves," Camila began. Vee mumbled out her own apology for shouting at her before allowing Camila to continue. "So. You like her, and she probably likes you. What's the problem, baby?" With the question presented before the floor, so to speak, Vee took a deep breath before replying.

"Well...when it comes to me and my friends, we're really close, but there's still a certain degree of distance there, you know? We're not living together anymore, we don't see each other every single day, and they only knew Luz in a limited capacity before, so I'm free to mostly act how I would normally. Asking Pearl out would change that. It would mean getting closer to her, letting down my walls in a way I've never done before, and in my position, that's...really scary."

"Ay. Being in a relationship would mean you'd have to be more emotionally vulnerable, even if it is just a high school romance," Camila said carefully. "That kind of closeness would certainly make it harder to hide anything big from her, both emotionally and practically speaking. I definitely couldn't hide anything from Luis after we had known each other for long enough, that's for sure."

"Exactly!" Vee said with a groan. "And if she finds out the truth about me..." Vee fell silent as a host of hypothetical scenarios raced through her mind, each more improbable than the last, but no less terrifying because of it. Camila cleared her throat and did her best to bring Vee back.

"But mija, are you absolutely certain that she would be terrified to find out the truth?" she asked. "I mean, you were worried about how I'd react, but I was able to adjust well enough. Besides, she's also a bit of an occult enthusiast already, so...there's a chance she'd be fine with it, right?" In response to her mother's hesitant optimism, Vee sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

"I don't know, I-I hope so," she admitted. "But, you know, there's a pretty big difference between wearing witchy clothes or calling your human god a goddess and being totally cool with the fact that the girl you like is actually a shapeshifting demon from another dimension!" Vee said the words as loudly as she dared in a suburban home where you could never be quite sure who might be passing by the front of the house, but the force behind her words was evident enough.

"Ay, that is a good point," Camila conceded. "Still, that doesn't mean it's impossible, just...risky." She looked over at Vee with a warm, motherly smile on her face, encouraging her to at least consider the possibility. "Some of the best things in life happen when you have the courage to take risks, mija. Taking a risk is how I finally got over my self-doubt and asked out the love of my life, and it's how I stuck it out with him to raise a family no matter how much his awful parents tried to drive us apart. I imagine taking a risk or two is how your sister learned magic, made friends, and snagged that 'awesome girlfriend' she told me about while managing to keep herself safe in the Boiling Isles. And, if you really think about it...taking a risk is why you're here, isn't it?" Camila said, causing Vee's eyes to widen as she thought about that statement. Camila kept up that warm smile as she continued. "It's how you became a part of this family. And while it's perhaps still too early for me to say this...I will always be so glad that you took that risk, mija." Vee could only let out a happy sniffle in response to her mother's kind words, swiftly moving to wipe a stray tear from her eye.

Try as part of her brain might, it was pretty hard to argue with that.

"I'm not saying it's guaranteed to go well: if it was, it wouldn't be a risk," Camila cautioned. "You might be right, mija. Pursuing a relationship with this girl might require you to tell her the truth about you, or it might run the risk of you being unable to hide it forever and her finding out in the worst possible way. Perhaps she wouldn't react well to that revelation, and perhaps that reaction could jeopardize your connections or even your safety here. But maybe, just maybe...you'll instead find yourself pleasantly surprised by how much she and the rest of your friends care about you, no matter what you look like." Vee thought over Camila's words for a moment before another wrinkle came up in her mind, one that spoke to something that had lain dormant for a while.

"It's not just that aspect of it I'm worried about, though," Vee admitted. "Even if she'd never seen any of it, Pearl loved all the weird stuff that Luz got into during freshman year. I haven't done anything like that since then, obviously, but like...what if that's still what drew her to me to start with? What if she only likes the things that make me who I am because she thinks those things are just another aspect of who Luz is? Even if she somehow doesn't freak out if she ever finds out the truth about me, what if she just...doesn't like me anymore once she knows that I'm not Luz?" Camila smiled yet again in an effort to comfort her daughter.

"I understand what you're worried about, but if you want my opinion, I don't believe she would just flip on a dime so easily," Camila assured her. "She might think you're Luz right now, but with how close you say your portrayal of your sister is to who you really are, I can't imagine her feelings changing that significantly once she realizes that you're not her. And if they do, well...that's her loss, I'd say." Vee sighed, mulling over Camila's points before slumping forward in her chair.

"Ugh, I dunno. I just...I don't wanna do anything too crazy so long as I'm still posing as Luz, you know?" Vee said, worry seeping into her voice as she spoke. "Like, even if she managed to come back, like, tomorrow, and even if everything goes according to plan, it's still going to take time to get everything set up so I can be 'Valentina' and she can get her life back, right?" Vee asked, to which Camila's expression faltered as she seriously thought about the logistics of their unusual situation for the first time in days. She'd done some research of her own to see how feasible her daughters' plan was, and she had at least some confidence that they could find a way, but Vee was right: it definitely wouldn't happen quickly. "Right," Vee continued, seeing that she'd gotten her point across. "So we'll already have to be incredibly careful about who's seen where while that gets sorted out: like, Luz would have to watch herself going out with her friends while I'm at school, for instance. Both of us having different friend groups could get spun off as 'Luz' having a lot of friends, but 'Luz' having two different girlfriends, at the same time?! That isn't about to fly without a degree of, what is it, 'fake dating' shenanigans that I'd rather avoid, thank you very much!" Vee finished rather pointedly, causing Camila to nod gravely as she briefly imagined that scenario in her head and cringed.

"Ay, I see your point, mija. Sounds like the makings of a bad telenovela," she muttered mostly to herself before readying a counterargument. "But even so...you've been through so much," she said with sympathy bleeding from her words. Vee felt her ears droop just a bit even in human form, but she said nothing. "I don't like the idea of you continuing to limit how much you can truly be yourself for our sake," she argued, only for Vee to groan in response.

"But if I don't, it wouldn't be fair to Luz! I can't just spring something like that on her when she'll already have so much to deal with once she gets back!" Vee countered. "Like, okay, let's say that everything works out: Luz has a portal again, I ask Pearl out on a cute coffee date, Belos has a heart attack or something, all that good stuff. Sounds perfect, right? Except now that means that the real Luz has to hide her relationship with Amity whenever she's in the Human Realm, because as far as anyone knows, 'Luz' is going out with Pearl! And sure, maybe it'd only be for like a couple weeks until all this legal stuff gets sorted out and we can be our own people with our own girlfriends, but it'd still suck! It'd suck to put her through that when she must be so excited to show Amity what the Human Realm has to offer! I'm not selfish enough to deprive her of that after everything she's been through...not anymore," Vee said with a sad lilt in her voice. Camila sighed as she contemplated how to address this situation. She understood Vee's logic, but even so...

"Mija, I honestly don't think Luz would mind-" Camila began, only to get cut off again.

"That's exactly the problem! She wouldn't mind, even though she'd have every right to!" Vee cried, speaking with a frustration in her voice which struck Camila as being particularly sisterly. "She'd be all excited and smiley and take me clothes shopping or something, and I'd try to ask her if she's fine, but she'd laugh it off while getting this teary look in her eye that she'd try so hard to hide for my sake, and I cannot watch her cry because of me ever again or it will destroy me!" She capped off her somewhat overdramatic rant by briefly pulling on her cheeks in a way which was so Luz-like that it made Camila sigh a bit at the irony before wrapping Vee up in a hug.

"Oh, baby," she murmured gently as Vee just kinda let herself collapse into the embrace. Without even thinking about it, Camila found herself gently rocking Vee in an effort to calm her down. It probably would have had mixed results with Luz, who would've perhaps been a little miffed at being treated like a child, but seeing as Vee still had so little experience with physical affection, Camila figured there probably wasn't any harm in the gesture. It actually seemed to help, at least a little bit, but eventually Camila decided to stop and let Vee have a moment of quiet in her arms.

"Iwnnths," she mumbled against Camila's body, causing her to look down at her daughter.

"Hm?" she asked, letting Vee go so that she could speak more clearly.

"I want this," she repeated sadly, and hearing the guilt in her voice over such a lovely wish broke Camila a little. "I want to be with Pearl so badly and I can't, because I swore to myself I'd never hurt Luz again, and I hate how tempted I am to just tell myself she'd be fine with it and do it anyway!" Vee continued, her anger with herself now equally palpable alongside the guilt. "She brushed off everything else I did and I know she'd brush that off too, but that-that doesn't make it okay! I can't just take advantage of her kindness like that...especially after everything she's done for me," Vee finished with a final note of dejection, as though she'd come to a decision she didn't entirely like, but knew she had to accept.

"Vee-" Camila attempted to interject, but Vee had clearly made up her mind.

"I'm going to wait until Luz gets back to deal with...all of this," she finished, her face flushing just a bit as she awkwardly waved her hand in front of her face. "That way, Luz doesn't have to watch what she does as much when she gets back. And hey, at least on the bright side, it'll make the end of this whole situation that much sweeter once I can finally be the real me around Pearl and my friends. Or...well...real enough, anyway." She fell silent at that, once again mulling over the paradoxical nature of her beloved friendships while Camila agonized over what to do before eventually sighing and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"I can't say I entirely agree, but it's ultimately your decision," she said solemnly before doing her best to lighten the mood a bit. "If nothing else, I can at least tell you one thing: it is in fact possible to stay friends with a crush without making it awkward!" she pivoted, causing Vee to look up with a slight degree of surprise before Camila faltered. "Well, not too awkward, anyway. Like I said, I have stories," she added sheepishly, earning her a chuckle from her daughter.

"Riiight," Vee said. "Thanks for listening, mom," she added a little more quietly.

"Always, baby," Camila replied warmly, ruffling her hair a little bit. The two stayed in silence like that for a moment before a text alert chimed from Vee's phone, causing Camila to smirk. "Oh? Is that who I think it is?" she asked teasingly, causing Vee to blush while trying to hide a smile.

"Oh, Titan, nooo! Telling you was a mistake!" Vee said dramatically, although they both knew that she was just saying that for fun. Camila chuckled and ruffled Vee's hair a bit more.

"Alright, you go upstairs and take care of that while I get dinner started," Camila said. Vee giggled a bit more as she pulled out her phone, only to balk a bit upon reading the text and realizing that the matter required a bit more urgency than she'd anticipated.

"Thanks, mamá!" she said quickly as she raced up the stairs to reply, Camila taking a moment to watch her go with a bittersweet smile before a melancholy thought occurred to her.

"Would you have made the same choice if the roles were reversed, lucecita?" Camila asked sadly, speaking to a daughter she knew wouldn't be able to hear her. "I know, baby, I know. Of course you would have," Camila said with a sigh as she verbally acknowledged the answer that she probably would've gotten from her daughter if they weren't literal worlds apart. Still, without the burden of anyone listening to her, without the risk of getting it wrong, she could at least give one or perhaps both of her daughters some valuable advice:

"It's not wrong to be a little selfish sometimes. You know that...right?"

Pearl: Sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable. ={

Vee was left lying rigidly on the bottom bunk of her bed, staring up at her phone with an intensity that made sense for what was clearly a crisis situation that needed to be rectified.

Luz: No no no, you're totally good! I just...wasn't expecting it, is all.

"Remember, just play it cool. You got this!" Vee muttered to herself, a part of her worried that Pearl was texting her out of the blue for a very specific reason she could not entertain yet, as much as the thought made her giddy. She couldn't indulge in those fantasies if she was going to survive for however long it would take Luz to get back and for everything to get sorted out.

Pearl: Oh.

Pearl: Well, that's good to hear, at least. I was worried I'd creeped you out. ={

Vee groaned nervously. Yup, this was definitely a crisis.

Luz: Noo, never! You didn't make me feel that way, I promise!

Luz: You're one of my closest friends, Pearl, and I'll always trust you, 100%!

Vee sighed, long and deep, as her earlier thoughts came back to her mind. She would have found herself in a familiar spiral if Pearl's next text didn't pull her out of it.

Pearl: Thanks, Luz, that's really sweet of you to say. =}

Vee smiled weakly at the sight of that message. Her friends really were the best.

"Alright, now just pivot to something else..." Vee continued muttering to herself, already doing just that by drafting a long text asking about how Pearl's other classes went. Just as she was about to hit send, however, Pearl sent her a curveball.

Pearl: I feel the same way, obviously, which is why I think you deserve an explanation for that whole thing.

"Huh?" Vee asked, stunned at first, before the likely intent behind Pearl's text was fully processed and she went right back to panicking as Pearl continued typing.

Pearl: Sorry, I know it's kinda sudden, but...I figure the cat's kinda out of the bag at this point, right?

"No, the cat can still be in the bag!" Vee exclaimed as softly as she could, not wanting to worry her mom as she frantically tried to formulate some kind of response to where Pearl was now very clearly going with this. "I don't know why a cat's in a bag, but the cat can stay in the bag!"

Pearl: I've been thinking about it for a while now, tbh. The whole drama with me coming out to my dumb cheerleader friends was still pretty fresh when I met you at camp, so the idea didn't really occur to me then, but the more we got to know each other, the more I started thinking that I might be catching feelings.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit, not now!" Vee muttered frantically. This was exactly what she had been trying to avoid, so a part of Vee supposed it made sense that it would happen immediately, given how her life seemed to operate about eight times out of ten. The rest of her was trying not to get distracted by how sappy and sweet Pearl was being to her, because it was way ahead of schedule!

Pearl: Still, I always found a way to rationalize it, at least until...y'know, that night.

Vee gulped. She didn't need to ask what night she was talking about.

Pearl: I think it finally hit me all at once, and I'm sure you noticed I've been, um...more touchy ever since.

Vee gulped again, louder this time. Even if she hadn't connected the dots on why it had made her so flustered until today, she had certainly taken note of that particular trend.

Pearl: I meant what I said the day after it happened, Luz. You mean so much to me, you...ugh, Goddess, this is so cliche, but you saved my life. At least in the metaphorical sense. Like, emotionally and stuff.

Vee sniffed, suddenly finding herself caught off guard by the fact that she was crying a bit.

Pearl: Doing a real good job of explaining myself, clearly. =/

Pearl: Screw it, I'm just gonna say it:

Pearl: I like you, Luz!

Pearl: I really, really like you! More than I've liked anybody!

Pearl: You make me happier than anyone I've ever met, and I can easily say my life is better with you in it.

Pearl: And I was hoping that...maybe you felt the same way about me?

Vee whined softly, finding herself completely overwhelmed with absolutely no idea what to do. She obviously wasn't upset about seeing Pearl's feelings for her explicitly confirmed, mind you, but she'd formed the perfect plan to deal with this situation later on in a calm and rational manner, and now it was already falling apart because Pearl liked her (or possibly just Luz, a part of her brain still traitorously whispered) too much to hide it from her anymore!

Yes, the irony of the problem being that Vee's feelings were reciprocated was suffocating.

Pearl: I mean, you get real blushy around me and nobody else, so I figured it was likely.

Pearl: Agh, sorry, I shouldn't be making assumptions, you could've just been shy or something! x{

Pearl: You don't have to feel the same way, I can deal with it if you don't.

Pearl: I just got the vibe that you might like me back, is all. Might have just been wishful thinking, though.

Pearl: Ugh, sorry, I'm being stupid, just ignore me! ={

Vee let out a tiny panicked cry. She knew from her own personal experience what it looked like when somebody was spiraling, and Pearl was clearly doing that the longer that Vee stayed silent.

"Ugh, c'mon, think, Vee, think!" she reprimanded herself, lightly smacking her temples as though it would get her brain to come up with a solution. The light injury didn't exactly help matters, but it did at least spur her on to quickly type some kind of damage control to give herself more time.

Luz: You're not being stupid, not at all! ={

"Okay, that should give me a bit!" she whispered frantically before sorting out her new plan out loud to herself. "Alright, so I can't say yes, because that'd be awful to Luz, but...but..." Vee muttered, briefly racked with doubt as she weighed the factors at play here and came to a rather unfortunate conclusion. "Agh, but I don't wanna say no either! I can't lie to Pearl about this! I do like her, and I don't wanna hurt her feelings by pretending that I don't! Besides, who's to say that-?!"

Her train of thought came grinding to a halt as a familiar idea came to her mind, sprung forth from some dark corner of it that hadn't been touched since the day Vee finally met the girl that she'd replaced. That same dark corner of her head which had told her it was okay to do what she had to in order to survive, in order to finally be happy, so long as Luz wouldn't be coming back to make things complicated. It was so tempting to slip back into that mindset just a little bit, if only to let herself have this one selfish thing, except...except that wasn't the person that Pearl had come to like, was it? That wasn't the person that Vee wanted to be. She wasn't the girl who called "Finders Keepers" on someone else's life like being sad gave her the right to do that. Not anymore. Luz and Vee had promised each other that they would be sisters, and that meant that as long as there was still hope of Luz being able to make it back to the Human Realm in the near future, Vee owed it to her sister not to mess up her life until they had everything they needed to let Vee finally live her own.

"She is coming back," Vee said firmly to herself as a means of shutting down that awful voice in her head before turning her mind back to the problem at hand. "Come on, Vee, think: what's the best way forward here?" she asked herself, racking her brain for a moment before hitting upon the germ of an idea and cringing slightly. It wouldn't feel great, but saying she wasn't ready for a relationship wasn't technically a lie under the current circumstances, and it was an understandable excuse to offer in the absence of anything better. Left sweating profusely as she noticed that Pearl had finally committed to typing something else, Vee quickly wrote up what she could once she thought of the best way she could stomach what she was going to have to do.

Luz: I'm sorry, Pearl. This is all so sudden, and there's so much going on in my life that I don't really wanna talk about right now, I just...I don't think I'm ready for a relationship like that yet.

Luz: Is that okay?

That at least got Pearl to stop typing for a moment, which was good in Vee's book, until she eventually started typing again and left her right back on the edge of her seat.

Pearl: Yeah, that's fine. Sorry for putting you on the spot like that. ={

Vee groaned, a part of her praying that she hadn't been forced to stomp on Pearl's heart while the rest of her thought about how Luz would handle a situation like this. From what she'd gathered, Luz was usually the one who asked people out and got her heart broken, not the person who got asked out and was forced to turn the person down for one reason or another, so she hoped it made sense that she would be caught off guard like this.

Luz: Nonono, you're totally fine!

Luz: It's just, well...you're the first person who's ever asked me out. It's kind of a lot to process all at once.

That elicited another pause, albeit one which left Vee feeling a touch better than the last one.

Pearl: I get that. I've only been asked out a few times myself.

Pearl: By guys, while I was still a closeted lesbian. So, y'know. Not the best situation, considering. =/

Pearl: But still, I understand needing some space. Feelings are weird. Took me months to figure out mine.

Pearl: Even if it turns out you don't feel the same...we can still be friends, though, right?

Vee's reply was almost immediate.

Luz: Absolutely, 100%! I care about you so much, Pearl! I couldn't bear to lose you.

Pearl: Heh, same. I'm glad we feel the same way on that front, at least. =}

Vee let out a slight whine at that, once again finding herself tempted to ditch the script for once, if only to bring some solace to Pearl in what must be an awful moment for her.

Luz: Are you okay? ={

Pearl's response was, thankfully, just slow enough to be okay and not concerning in itself.

Pearl: I think so, yeah.

Pearl: I'm a little bummed, sure, but it's really not that big of a deal.

Pearl: I know you're probably worried you hurt my feelings, but you didn't, trust me. =)

Vee sighed. She couldn't fully shake the feeling that Pearl was putting on a brave face for her sake, but...she did trust her. If she said she was fine, then Vee had to trust that she was, if only because she'd feel like even more of a monster if she didn't.

Luz: Well, that's a relief, at least.

Pearl: Mhm, we are all good, homeslice. ;)

Vee couldn't help the light snicker that escaped her mouth at that.

Luz: Pfft, homeslice? You sound like a teacher trying to imitate the youth. xD

That triggered a nice back-and-forth for a while, one which would have been a relief in how much it felt like they had slid back into their usual rhythm with each other. However, there was something about the way the conversation progressed that left Vee feeling somewhat on edge, like there was something more that Pearl had wanted to tell her as soon as possible.

Before long, she had her suspicions confirmed, although not quite in the way she figured.

Pearl: Hey, Idk how long I got you for, but before you go, can I tell you something else?

Pearl: I'm sorry, I know I already dropped a lot on you, but it's sorta been driving me crazy for a bit and I just need to tell someone else. You're the person I trust the most, so I figured you should be the next to know.

Vee mulled over Pearl's wording for a bit, unsure what she was getting at before nodding.

Luz: Of course, Pearl, you can tell me anything. What is it?

There was another long pause, although fortunately not quite the longest Pearl had taken in the conversation so far, before Vee got the answer to her question.

Pearl: This requires a bit of context, so bear with me?

Pearl: Idk if I've really gone into it before, but while I was a cheerleader, I was repressed as heck.

Pearl: Took me ages to figure out why it felt so weird to be asked out by guys or, y'know, kiss guys and stuff.

Pearl: I just didn't think not liking guys at all was, like, an *option*, you know?

Pearl: Most of the girls I used to roll with are, like, aggressively straight and tear into anyone who isn't, and even the girls I thought might have been bi and hiding it from them definitely had a preference for guys.

Pearl: It took me a while to realize that nothing was wrong with me, but once I did, I managed to come out to my parents without much of a fuss, so I figured my friends would come around to it just like my parents did, especially if my hunch about some of them was right.

Pearl: I'm pretty sure it was, but...that didn't mean they stuck up for me when the hammer dropped. =/

Vee felt a small growl escape her throat at the implications behind that particular statement, especially given what she'd guessed about how Clara had treated Luz and what she'd been unwittingly exposed to regarding...well, whatever Karen's deal with Pearl was. In any case, she found herself wondering whether she'd still been a little too lenient towards them both, especially when it came to how she'd dealt with Clara earlier that day. If she really wanted to, she could easily have-

Pearl: Luz? Are you still there?

Pearl: Oh, shoot, you're not thinking about starting something with them, are you?

Pearl: I get it, and I'm flattered, but trust me when I tell you it's not worth it. We're on thin ice as it is.

Vee blinked, having been jolted out of her thoughts of retributive violence by Pearl's texts. Really, she was more surprised that Pearl had guessed her intentions so easily over text of all things. She supposed it made sense: her crush had a weird knack for reading her like a book, after all. It was a fact which made a dizzying sort of sense given the new information she was still reeling from.

Luz: You're right. I'm sorry, I don't know what came over me. ={

Pearl: Nah, you're good. It's sweet that you care that much, but I'd rather you don't get expelled.

Pearl: Plus...Idk, you're the one who talked to her. Do you think Clara's actually trying to change? That it isn't just some cruel trick she's trying to pull on you and the rest of us by extension?

Vee paused as she thought back to that interaction, a bit of her anger subsiding. Karen was still an utter jerk who'd shown no interest in changing her ways, but Clara...Clara was trying.

Granted, she was also a bit trying, but she was working on that too.

Luz: Yeah. I do. She did some awful things, but like, she clearly recognizes that and wants to do better.

Pearl was quiet for a while after that before she finally responded.

Pearl: Huh. Cool.

Pearl: I mean, I still wouldn't want to be anywhere near her if I could help it, but, y'know...it's a start.

Luz: Mhm.

Luz: Sorry, I hate to rush you, but I'm gonna be headed down for dinner soon. Where is this going?

Vee winced. A bit too pointed of a question, admittedly, but she wasn't lying about her deadline. Pearl thankfully didn't seem to take any offense to it.

Pearl: Right, right, sorry. Got sidetracked.

Pearl: Anywho, even after y'all helped me get over my fear of being vulnerable with people, I just kinda assumed that being a lesbian was all I'd had to figure out about myself...until I started talking with Alex online.

Pearl: They would talk about all of these things that had felt weird to them growing up, and I found myself looking back on how *I* had felt about those things back when I was a cheerleader like:

Pearl: "Wait, was *that* why all that stuff felt wrong? I just thought I was self-conscious or something!"

Pearl: Like, those girls had me thinking that I was just being prudish for being uncomfortable wearing, like, cheer outfits and bikinis and stuff, but that wasn't it at all!

Pearl: Hearing Alex talk about that stuff like it was normal not to like it really helped me put all of those weird feelings into perspective, even if it took me a while to put together what it actually was.

Pearl: To make a long story short, um...

Pearl: I think I'm nonbinary.

Vee's eyes widened in surprise before she broke out into a wide grin, even knowing that Pearl couldn't see the expression on her face.

Luz: Aw, that's awesome! I'm glad you were able to figure that stuff out and felt comfortable telling me!

Luz: It sounds like that's a fairly big step for you, so I'm glad to know that you trust us that much now. =}

Vee hemmed and hawed a little, wondering if that was an appropriate response for this kind of situation. Without a real equivalent to "coming out" for her to have had prior experience with handling on the Boiling Isles, she was truly at a loss for the first time in a while. Fortunately, Pearl didn't seem to take any offense to what "Luz" said, even if there was admittedly a bias there.

Pearl: Thanks for being so understanding, Luz. It really does mean a lot.

Pearl: Oh, btw, since different people feel differently about this sort of thing, I want it on the record that I think I'd prefer being referred to with just they/them pronouns from now on? =}

Pearl: I imagine most people will probably still use "she" because of how I look, and that's...fine, I guess? I mean, I'm not coming out to the whole school yet, so I'll have to live with it, but when it's just me and my friends...

Luz: Say no more! By your will, it shall be done, Your Eminence. ;)

Pearl: Pfft, perfect gender neutral title there, Luz. Doing great so far. xD

Luz: Do you plan to stick with Pearl, or are you thinking of changing your name to something else?

That elicited a slightly longer pause, one which allowed Vee to glance at the clock and realize with a slight degree of apprehension that dinner would likely be coming to pass in a matter of moments. Fortunately, her crush had an answer for her before then.

Pearl: I wasn't sure at first, tbh. Like, I know it'd be easier, and it's not a bad name, but I just...I dunno.

Pearl: Truth be told, I never really liked the name "Pearl" that much. Always felt too cutesy for me.

Pearl: I was brainstorming suggestions with Alex, and they pitched "Masha," which I really like, so I think I'll try that out and see if it fits, you know?

Vee smiled, quickly moving to make the necessary arrangements on her phone, only for Camila's voice to ring throughout the house to inform Vee that dinner was ready. Not wanting to keep her mother waiting, Vee sent another reassuring text, if only to help soothe the pit of guilt that had sat firmly settled into her stomach throughout this whole process.

Luz: Alright, I gotta go and get dinner now, but I'm glad you felt you could tell me about this, Masha.

Masha: Me too. Feels like a weight or two was lifted, at least. =)

Vee groaned a bit at the thought of leaving Masha like this when she knew in her heart that she felt the same way about them. Although she knew she had to get going before her mom got worried, Vee paused for a second, looking back and forth nervously before taking a deep breath and electing to commit to a course of action which might not have been entirely wise. Still, if she really was serious about all this, then...she was going to have to tell them the whole truth eventually, right?

Might as well dip her tail into the water, so to speak.

Luz: Look, I really do gotta go, but I feel like I gotta say one last thing before I leave:

Luz: You are more important to me than I can ever put into words, Masha.

Luz: No matter what happens, no matter what else changes, I will always care about you. Always.

Luz: Okay?

Partly out of deference to her mother and partly out of her own nervous apprehension at sending a text even as vague as that one was regarding her actual situation, Vee left the room before Masha's reply came in, a simple reply that was heartfelt enough to make her smile when she saw it later that night...but which didn't quite set her concerns to rest.

Masha: Okay. =}

Chapter Seventeen: Rock It Like Romeo

[Summary: After being encouraged to try new things, Vee auditions for the role of Romeo in the school's production of Romeo and Juliet. Although she doubts she'll get the part, the experience is a welcome chance to spend more time with her friends. However, when she is selected as understudy, she comes to understand the meaning of the phrase "Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned."]

It was a week after that tumultuous first day that Vee noticed a change in the halls' scenery.

"Oh, splendid!" Juniper had cried out when she first caught sight of it, dragging Vee down the hall with an alacrity which was most unusual for her fairly reserved friend. Vee quickly understood just what had made her so eager, however, when she registered the text on the colorful posters she had absentmindedly noticed walking in:

MR FISCH'S DRAMA CLASS PRESENTS

ROMEO AND JULIET

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF A BELOVED SHAKESPEAREAN CLASSIC

AUDITIONS WILL BE HELD 8/30 6 PM IN THE AUDITORIUM

ALL STUDENTS WELCOME, PARENTS ENCOURAGED TO ATTEND

**OUTSIDE PROPS WILL NOT BE PERMITTED WITHOUT APPROVAL**

FINAL CAST LIST WILL BE POSTED OUTSIDE ROOM A113 TOMORROW

"Oy, sounds like they're still sore about the Sausage Incident, I better steer clear of the auditorium for a while," Vee said worriedly, chastising Luz in her head without any of the venom with which she had done so mere weeks prior. "Still, it seems like it'd be a fun thing for the others to try with you! I'll send them a picture-!" Vee continued in a brighter tone, doing just that before Juniper suddenly moved in front of the camera to sign her name onto the poster on the dotted line next to "Friar Lawrence," one of many such sign up lines for the named characters which were so numerous that they made up the entire bottom half of the poster.

Once Juniper had done this, Vee was free to take a photo of the poster at last, putting it in the group chat for her friends to see and render their judgment on the prospect post-haste. It was this task which gave Juniper time to make a rather bold suggestion to "Luz" which she had been idly thinking about ever since they had first become friends, given that she knew she still felt guilty to an extent for "robbing" Juniper of her chance to play "Frau Lawrence" the previous year. A part of her was worried that she'd dismiss the idea out of hand, but another part of her hoped she'd say yes. After all, it was high time the school moved on from what Luz had done in the past.

Maybe then her friend could move on too.

"You know, Luz, nothing about this poster suggests that you have been explicitly banned from auditioning for the play," Juniper began in her closest approximation of Vee's own optimistic tone of voice. "It is quite probable that Mr. Fisch will allow you an opportunity to redeem yourself," she added encouragingly, leaving Vee to think the idea over for a second before waving it off.

"Nah, I-I'd rather not deal with the awkwardness of trying to resolve that old screw up, plus I wasn't exactly the best at acting the first time around anyway. I...I doubt I'd be any good at it," Vee claimed, the words not feeling entirely right even as she said them aloud with little intention to deceive. She was anxious about engendering the wrath of this Mr. Fisch, even knowing that he had been a friend of "her" father and was likely inclined to give "Luz" a second chance, but that didn't feel like it was the whole story. It also wasn't that she thought she'd be bad at performing a role and tricking people into believing she was someone else entirely: that was the thing she was best at, unfortunately. And while the prospect of performing in front of a massive audience did leave her somewhat anxious about messing up in a more mundane sense, she was already so used to performing in front of others that she suspected she could learn to manage such a situation easily, and could likely enjoy it. So, with that in mind, she wondered:

Why was she so hesitant to pursue this opportunity?

"Well, I happen to think you showed a great deal of promise, and as the daughter of a quite talented Shakespearean actor, I think my opinion carries a good deal of weight in that regard," Juniper replied simply, causing Vee to blush ever-so-slightly at her friend's matter-of-fact flattery and praise. "In any case, there is little harm to be had in simply trying out, is there not?" she added reasonably. "Although I know better than most about the joys of having a consistent routine when navigating the chaos of modern life, my mother often says that trying new things can help you realize aspects of yourself which you never knew were there, and such activities can be quite diverting as well. Perhaps in the wake of...recent events, you would benefit from engaging in an activity outside of your comfort zone." She ended the last sentence on a concerned note, as though she were worried she'd crossed a line by bringing up the incident that was still so fresh in Vee's mind. Although it did sort of suck to be reminded of what had happened at the Gravesfield Historical Society, Vee had to admit that, as always, Juniper had a point.

Besides, trying out for the school play again was probably the thing that Luz would do here.

"Alright, well, assuming I did, y'know, try out, what role do you think would fit me best? It's been a while since I really dug into the play, y'know?" Vee said as a cover for how she knew barely anything about the play aside from it being at least somewhat similar to Romeo and Ghouliet. Juniper thought the question over for a moment, looking over the roles that would no doubt be highly sought after and grimacing upon spotting Clara and Karen's names among the prospective Juliets thus far. Deciding to uncharacteristically place her trust in God just this once so that Karen at least would find her acting dreams stifled, Juniper spoke up.

"In light of your prior experience with the role of Juliet, perhaps you ought to give the role of Romeo a try this time? That way, you could tread new ground instead of that which has already been trodden on, while at the same time reassuring Mr. Fisch and the school that your...overeager audition last year won't be repeated," Juniper suggested, her expression faltering when Vee seemed to not like the idea, albeit not for the reasons Juniper assumed.

Vee acknowledged the soundness of Juniper's argument internally, but the realization that the role of Juliet would thus be left open caused Vee to blush somewhat as an image of Masha in the princess costume Luz had worn popped into her head. On one hand, Romeo and Juliet were the love interests and would thus be saying all sorts of sappy things, giving Vee ample opportunity to flirt with Masha in old-timey language while still having plausible deniability. On the other hand, anything more than that would be harder to justify, not to mention it would be rather unfair of her to be all flirty with Masha after their conversation the previous week. Besides, it was anyone's guess how certain parents would react to the prospect of both Romeo and Juliet being portrayed by actors who defied the gender roles set in place by their parts. Vee doubted the apple fell far from the tree in most cases, so what was already a less than viable idea soon became quite impossible in her mind.

"Ahh, I think playing the lead is a bit much for me, Junie!" Vee replied nervously to cover her reasoning, looking through the list in the desperate hope of finding an alternative while Juniper cocked her head in confusion, only to end up misinterpreting Vee's quite evident reluctance.

"I understand that the lead role is quite a lot of pressure to undertake for someone new to the craft, but I truly believe you can do it!" Juniper replied, and the earnestness in her voice made Vee's heart ache at having to rebuke her friend's praise. "And besides, I doubt many will bat an eye at 'Romeo' being played by a girl, particularly one as 'GNC' as yourself." At this, Vee's eyes widened involuntarily at hearing such slang coming out of Juniper of all people, only for Juniper to become ever-so-slightly flustered. "That's Alex's description, not mine," she admitted sheepishly before pivoting. "In any event! Although it is distasteful to think about, historically speaking, 'Juliet' and other female roles in these plays were played by young boys during Shakespeare's lifetime, and it was not until well after his death that women were finally granted legal sanction to act on stage. Obviously such wretched practices have long since been abandoned, but it's still not uncommon for women to play male characters and vice versa in modern Shakespeare productions, either due to how auditions shake out or simply as a creative choice made in tribute to the original masters. Gravesfield is often not the most progressive, admittedly, but I truly don't think it'll be a significant enough problem for you to worry about, Luz." Although tempted to offer a rebuttal, Vee was left too stunned by how backwards the Human Realm had been in the past to focus on anything else.

"Wait, you're telling me they used to have love interests played by young boys acting alongside fully grown men? And that it was illegal for a fully grown woman to play the part instead?" Vee said, disgust evident in her tone and made even greater by Juniper's nod.

"Oh yes, religious and social views of gender roles were infamously restrictive in England during the 17th century," Juniper confirmed gravely. "I believe we covered all this briefly when going over the history of Puritan colonization during your tutoring." Juniper said more after that, as she often did when presented with an opportunity to educate, but Vee unfortunately ended up tuning it out once her mind started to drift down a train of thought that was becoming increasingly frequent.

She thought it had started the night of that horrible nightmare, but now that Vee had a chance to reflect, she realized the pieces were there even before that. Vee did indeed remember that part of her tutoring had included reading stuff about how humans used to think the world worked, ideas which were...eerily familiar the more that she thought about it. In fact, the more she learned about the history of the town Luz grew up in, the more she began to suspect her subconscious mind was trying to tell her something with the comparisons she kept making. At first, she'd simply blamed the similarities on the same sort of unintentional cultural diffusion which came from so many human objects washing up onto the Boiling Isles. However, it didn't take long to conclude that the mental image of Belos getting all of his ideas on how to run an empire from some long-dead priest's guide to living a life without sin was as utterly improbable as it was morbidly hilarious.

No, the real explanation couldn't be as silly as that, but it had been hard to think of another theory which made sense. Convergent evolution might have been an adequate explanation, except that the sort of worldview which led to the Puritan ideals of Gravesfield's past was a fair bit more complex an idea to be developed simultaneously across dimensions than the Human Realm's example of "Sharp metal stick go brr," as Masha had once jokingly described the ubiquitous invention of swords to her. Still, the fact remained that the two realms were indeed very similar in some respects, so it wasn't entirely impossible that the Demon Realm could have regressed to such a point entirely on its own. It was a little flimsy, but...it was the only explanation she could think of.

"With this in mind, one begins to understand quite readily why so many of Shakespeare's plays have their primary female characters disguising themselves as men for various reasons," Juniper continued, having casually transitioned into a lecture as the eager thespian usually did when speaking about one of her special interests with her friends. "There was what some claim to be his first play, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, in which the love interest Julia disguises herself as a man named 'Sebastian' to follow the wretched Proteus to Milan, only to discover he betrayed her confidence and his friend Valentine in pursuit of his lust for the lady Sylvia. There was As You Like It at the turn of the century, in which the protagonist Rosalind assumes the identity of 'Ganymede' to subtly seduce the gentleman Orlando de Boys after escaping her evil father's court and finding refuge among her father's enemies in the Forest of Arden. And, of course, there was Twelfth Night not long after that, in which the protagonist Viola becomes 'Cesario' and finds herself in a bisexual-coded love triangle between Duke Orsino and the lady Olivia whom she courts on his behalf, only for her to fall in love with 'Cesario' instead. This situation is made even more complex when Viola's twin brother Sebastian arrives to find Viola and Lady Olivia mistakes him for 'Cesario,' leading to them-"

"OKAY I think I get the point!" Vee interrupted suddenly, cheeks glowing crimson in her embarrassment. Ordinarily there were few things she loved more than hearing Juniper info-dump about something she loved, but this particular play Juniper was describing involved a far too similar name and far too similar circumstances for Vee's liking. It was beginning to sound like the makings of an entirely new nightmare in which Masha throws themself at Luz after mistaking her for Vee, and so she needed to shut this down immediately before her dreams made such a horrifying scenario manifest purely to punish her for her web of lies. Once again taking the wrong meaning from Vee's actions, Juniper gazed down at her shoes with disappointment etched onto her face.

"Ah, yes, my apologies, Luz. I do tend to lose myself in these rants of mine, and we have now wasted a good deal of time getting progressively further and further away from our original topic," Juniper said, sounding audibly crushed and nervously glancing towards the clock as if to make sure that she had not made them late for class. Fortunately, they still had five minutes before their first period, and Vee was determined to rectify her error before they were forced to go their separate ways and not reunite until their third and fourth period classes later in the day.

"Junie, no, you're perfect, that play just sounded...intense," Vee said feebly, unable to come up with a better explanation for her reaction. Hoping Juniper didn't read too much into the way she was still blushing as she went back to scanning the cast, she at last found one which seemed promising. "M-maybe I could be, uh, Mercutio?" she said, having no idea who that was, but believing that the name was cool and that he could be an interesting role to play. Judging by Juniper's sucking of breath in response to her suggestion, Vee sensed that she had erred somehow.

"Mercutio is a rather...eccentric character, Luz," Juniper began, evidently choosing her words carefully in an effort to spare her friend's feelings. "Although I believe you could portray him expertly, I worry that his antics would nonetheless feel...uncomfortably familiar in certain ways." Getting an idea of what her friend meant, Vee nodded along as another thought came to Juniper. "Honestly, I have half a mind to suggest that Masha try out for that particular role. Nobody appears especially eager to take it on, and our witchy friend has an eccentricity all their own which I think is perfectly fit to play such a flamboyant man," she remarked. Vee had to agree based on the fact that only two others had signed up for the role, and from what Juniper described, Masha would indeed have a blast. In an attempt to mask her strange twinge of disappointment, Vee's eyes moved further downward in search of a Plan B and came upon two more options which caught her interest.

"What about, uh, Tybalt? Or Paris?" Vee asked, to which Juniper pursed her lips.

"An unexpected pair of suggestions, and ones I must admit are quite difficult for me to picture when it comes to who you'd best portray," she said, clearly interested. "Tell me, do you have faith that you would excel at playing an antagonist?" she asked, causing Vee to assume a shocked expression. No wonder they were lower on the cast list and had yet to be touched by anyone so far.

"Ah, um, probably not, you're right. I dunno what I was thinking," Vee said apologetically, to which Juniper briefly touched her shoulder in a small gesture of support. "I guess I'll do Romeo, and for a backup, I'll do, uh...Benvolio?" she said, phrasing the name as though she were asking a question. Juniper's encouraging nod made her feel better about the choice she had made entirely at random. She put her name down twice and inhaled sharply as she looked up at the time listed on the poster and already began quietly imagining all the ways that this could go wrong.

"Here's to new experiences," she thought to herself, trying to stay at least somewhat optimistic.

Vee decided once the anxiety finally hit that new experiences could suck it.

As one of the candidates for the lead role, it was only natural that Vee was among the first handful to audition before the carefully calculating eyes of Mr. Marcus Fisch, the surprisingly young-looking drama director at Gravesfield High whose brilliant streak of dark red hair among otherwise black curls gave him a rather distinctive look. As Juniper had predicted, the man was cautiously optimistic that his dear friend's daughter would not prove to bring disaster upon his play yet again, or at least not while using one of the very same stage tricks that he himself had taught Luis many years ago. Still, that didn't mean that "Luz" was out of the woods just yet, and Vee could tell just from the few words she exchanged with Mr. Fisch that whatever distant form of nepotism she may have been due would be doing her no favors tonight. This, of course, was saying nothing of the audience that had gathered to watch the auditions, including a number of parents who murmured to themselves as Vee came up on stage in the period costume she'd shifted into. The Cabin 7 Crew and an already teary-eyed Camila in the front row provided the best encouragement they could, but Vee knew she was fighting an uphill battle here.

Outside of the stunt which had shut down the entire play, the general impression seemed to be that Luz was good at acting, possessing a kind of young naive confidence and wacky charisma which meant she was perfectly suited for a play like this. Vee could mimic those qualities, sure, but at her core, Vee simply wasn't as confident as her sister was. Outside of some exceptions, she didn't seem to have that reckless impulsiveness which, for however many times it had likely left Luz inches away from death, also meant that Luz was usually perfectly comfortable just being herself. Vee, though, had to settle for only being most of herself, for parceling as much of herself as she could into her performance of Luz, just to be able to reap the benefits of the support which was still echoing in her ears as she was handed the script by Mr. Fisch. His piercing black eyes and the rich timbre of his surprisingly deep voice offered their own whispered encouragement to her false guise.

"Show me what you got, 'Luzura,'" he said with a mischievous grin that, although meant to be nothing more than a friendly jest on his part, still left Vee feeling somewhat uneasy. With a deep, shaky breath, she looked over the lines she had been given, followed the stage directions in brackets which told her to look up towards one of the stage lights behind her, and resigned herself to start.

Whether she could do it or not, the fact remained that it was showtime.

"But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?" Vee began, lifting a hand up dramatically even as her delivery of the first line still betrayed her nervousness. She took another deep breath to quickly school herself and really make sure to sell the awe that she knew ought to be rendered palpable in every word she spoke. With Masha having confirmed that they would indeed audition as Mercutio, Vee knew her crush would never be Juliet in actuality. Still, for the sake of enhancing her performance, Vee supposed it made sense to cast Masha as Juliet in her mind, if only so that she could speak to whoever would end up portraying her (and dear Titan, don't let that be Karen!) with an approximation of the devotion which she would gladly give to Masha in reality.

Not that Masha could be made aware of this fact just yet, unfortunately.

"It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!" Vee proclaimed, having to wrench her gaze away from the object of her affectionate sentiment and back towards the imaginary balcony, as represented by the stage light. "Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!" she continued, stumbling on her lines every so often and so intent upon speaking the rest without dying of embarrassment that she failed to notice Masha blushing ever-so-faintly from backstage in spite of themself.

In retrospect, she definitely wouldn't have been able to make it through the scene if she had.

"It is my lady!" Vee said, adding in a gasp to communicate her surprise before smiling wide. "It is my love!" she proclaimed joyously, wondering if perhaps she was laying it on a bit thick. "O, that she knew she were!" she added, and boy did that particular line hit close to home even a week after their fateful conversation. "She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?" Vee continued in a confused tone before suddenly taking on an air of confidence she hoped didn't come off as false. "Her eye discourses; I will answer it!" she cried out, moving to lift a pointed finger towards the balcony and opening her mouth as if to speak before no words came. She'd done it without really thinking about it, believing it to be natural that a pause where Romeo doubts himself would be there based on the lines she'd read, but the fact remained that it wasn't in the script and now everyone was staring and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop and-!

"Good thinking," she heard, or perhaps imagined, Mr. Fisch's deep voice whispered to her just loudly enough for her ever-alert basilisk ears to pick up. "Just breathe. You're doing great," she heard him follow up, startling her even further. Had he noticed she was panicking without her even making a sound? Although she dared not glance at him for reassurance lest she further break the audience's immersion, Vee nonetheless followed his near-silent instructions and took a deep breath before continuing with the latter half of Romeo's dialogue in a slightly quieter voice.

"I am too bold," she said, as though chiding herself for her own foolishness. "Tis not to me she speaks," she said dejectedly before brightening up a bit. "Two of the faintest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat her eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if her eyes were there, they in her head? The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; her eye in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night." With this, it seems that young Romeo's passions return at the sight of Juliet lost in thought, and so Vee could play the part to the end. "See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!" she said a little louder, as though she were pointing out something incredible to the audience itself before launching into her last line. "O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!" The auditorium fell dead quiet once more at that, and Vee was worried that the admittedly weird line or her delivery of it had abruptly turned the audience off right at the end. She was almost on the verge of spiraling into a panic now that she had no more lines to utter and nothing else to do but face their judgment, but just before her breathing accelerated...she heard something she was somehow still surprised to hear even though the audition was over:

The audience was clapping.

As she turned around to make sure she was hearing correctly, she could at least tell that it wasn't a standing ovation by any means. Camila was naturally clapping with the intensity of a thousand claps, and her friends were all loudly cheering and singing their praises for Vee's performance, but truth be told, she was mostly interested in what everyone else thought. Vee knew that the malcontents from earlier were mostly clapping out of custom or feigned civility, but she hadn't really expected to garner their approval to begin with as long as she was in a man's role. To her even greater surprise, however, everyone else sounded like they had genuinely enjoyed the show.

They had liked her.

Holy Titan, they had actually liked her!

The realization caused Vee to break out into a smile and glance towards Mr. Fisch to see whether his reaction followed suit. Sure enough, although he wasn't exactly bringing down the house with his clapping, his small encouraging smile and the light shining in his eyes told her all she needed to know about how much he had liked her performance. It didn't confirm or deny that she'd gotten the part until he said so tomorrow, of course, and she was admittedly still nervous that this apparently successful audition ultimately wouldn't go anywhere, but for now...Vee was content.

For once, she was perfectly willing to bask in the spotlight.

The next day, it was Vee who dragged Juniper with her to read the final cast list.

"Agh, Luz, s-slow down!" Juniper cautioned her, having no idea where "Luz" had summoned this burst of speed and strength from. Unfortunately, the two were cut short in their journey to room A113 by the equally frantic arrival of someone coming from the opposite direction:

Clara.

"Ah, jeez, this is gonna be such a mess-AGH!" Clara muttered to herself, seeming rather anxious to get away from something or someone behind her and downright screeching at the sight of Vee. Before Vee could get a word in edgewise to try and ascertain what was wrong, Clara answered the question for her by suddenly grabbing her by the front of her shirt. "Luz, you can't be here right now! Go away!" she cried out, and although Luz might have been inclined to get a little defensive in her place, Vee was able to keep her cool and realize that whatever was wrong here was more important than the messenger who brought the news or how she delivered it.

Her friend was less willing to look past it, however.

"I suppose it was foolhardy to think that Gravesfield's resident 'Alpha Bitch' would ever change her tune," Juniper spoke bitterly, still shocking Vee a bit despite having used those exact words before. She supposed it was kind of weird to react in that way to Juniper using the same language as her peers did without any such trepidation on the part of their friends. Even so, this new occasionally crass Junie was certainly a far cry from the polite, sweet girl Vee had met in the library.

Perhaps the Cabin 7 Crew really were a bad influence on her.

"Okay, ouch. Like, I get it, but still, yeesh," Clara said, briefly caught up in defending her honor before her mind jolted back to the subject at hand. "Look, whatever, we don't have time to talk about how awful I used to be! Both of you need to leave, now, or else we're all going to-!" No sooner had she spoken those words, however, than the source of her apprehension rounded the corner and set the hairs on the back of Vee's neck on end:

Karen.

Vee had seen her angry, Titan knew she had seen Karen angry, but she'd never seen her this patently furious before. The floor tiles seemed to reverberate slightly with every step as she stomped for what looked like the entire walk from where the casting list was posted. Although several possible explanations connected to Karen's (admittedly, not the worst) audition for Juliet presented themselves, by far the most horrifying was not that one or both of them had been snubbed, but that both of them had been cast. Meaning that Vee and Karen would either have to drop out or else act like they were madly in love with each other.

It took Vee a not-insignificant amount of effort not to throw up in her mouth at the idea.

"Heyyy, Karen," Vee began anyway, placing herself in between Karen, her apprehensive friend Juniper, and her even more apprehensive not-enemy Clara in an effort to become the sole target of Karen's well-established aggression. "Did we, uh, did we get the parts we wanted?" she continued nervously, knowing that particular question was bound to piss her off more than anything else the other two could have said, thus focusing her attention. If nothing else, she at least knew she could take whatever Karen dished out, whether physically or verbally.

As Karen's head snapped to look at her, Vee suspected that she was likely in for both.

"You got Understudy," she began, venom dripping from her words like the very notion of "Luz" managing to become whatever the heck an "Understudy" is was the greatest sin on God's green Earth. "I GOT NOTHING!" Karen bellowed like it was a moral outrage unlike any before seen, shoving Vee towards the nearest locker in an effort to punctuate her statement. Although Vee barely felt any pain at the impact, the fact remained that it produced a fairly audible denting sound which, when combined with Karen's screaming, caused a number of onlookers to pause in their tracks and watch the dramatic confrontation suddenly unfolding before their eyes. Clara, ever the peacekeeper, did her best to try and salvage the situation while Vee shook herself off and reached an arm out to stop Juniper from taking any further aggressive action.

"Karen, it's just a play, it's not that big a deal-" she tried, but from what Vee could see, Karen had evidently jumped to all of the wrong conclusions by the time she ran into them, judging by the borderline murderous look she was giving to her supposed best friend.

"Don't think I don't know what's going on here, Hartfield!" Karen spat, the last name signaling a straining of ties that, even though she'd thought about cutting her and the other girls off, still evidently had a crushing effect on Clara's heart. "I only signed up so Curtis could be my Romeo, but you don't want anything to do with him anymore, right?!" Clara had an inkling of where Karen was going with this, but she didn't want to believe it even as she angrily rebuked her former friend.

"Yes, please, do remind me of how you scooped up my ex-boyfriend not two weeks after we broke up," Clara grumbled, having clearly been nursing that particular grudge for some time.

"Oh, don't give me that! Did you think I didn't notice the way you looked at her name on the sign up sheet?!" Karen retorted, angrily, taking the others aback and leaving Vee with a sinking feeling in her chest which she couldn't immediately place until she connected some dots.

"She wouldn't..." Vee muttered, not exactly sure which girl she was referring to: Clara for potentially having developed a crush on "Luz," or Karen simply for believing that she had.

Fortunately, Clara quickly attempted to dissuade them both from such notions.

"Pfft, what? I mean, okay, she might pull off men's clothing...surprisingly well," Clara began, her flustered panic causing her to talk without thinking before realizing who she was talking to. "But she's still a girl, a-and a weirdo! I don't like her like that, are you stupid?" Clara retorted, trying to play off the whole thing as Karen being irrational. Instead, Karen's eyes narrowed at her phrasing.

"'Like that,'" she repeated in a low, threatening tone. "Why'd you need to specify?"

"Eh?" Clara asked, having not realized her second slip up until it was too late.

"You could've just said you didn't like her, that she was less than dirt, called her a Luz-er, just like you always did," Karen pointed out, becoming increasingly angry as she put the pieces together. "But no, you said that like you two are friends." The last word tasted like venom on her tongue. "So what...are you?" she challenged, leaving Juniper and Vee nervous while Clara took a deep breath and spoke the truth for the first time in God only knew how long.

"We're not friends," she said firmly, staring Karen down for a moment.

"Then what the hell are you?" Karen growled, to which Clara paused for another moment.

"I don't know," she settled on. "Not-enemies, currently? Acquaintances, maybe, someday. Friends...probably never," Clara admitted with a slight hitch in her voice. "And that's fine," she added, not wanting to make Vee feel bad for the dressing down she'd given her last week. "All that matters is that I've moved on...and that I've made a decision. One that Luz helped me realize that I should have made a long time ago." At this declaration, Karen seemed torn on whether or not to challenge her further before her anger won out and she ultimately took the bait.

"What?" she hissed, fists clenched at her sides as if ready to start a fight any minute.

"That I'm done," Clara replied firmly, hoping that nobody would detect her racing heartbeat or the way her determined expression wobbled as she stood perhaps a foot away from Karen. "That I'm sick of living like this. Sick of having to make excuses for you and the others, sick of people like Luz and Juniper avoiding me like the plague, sick of getting painted with the same nasty brush as the rest of you!" With each word, she got a little bit louder and a little bit bolder, to the point where Vee managed to pick up that same split-second twitch of Karen's eye as she tried to reassert control.

"Oh yeah?" she asked threateningly, causing Clara to gulp nervously before committing.

"Yeah," Clara replied, not feeling nearly as sure of herself as Karen supposedly did. "And y'know something else I realized? I've only seen the briefest glimpses of how Luz and her new friends act, but from what little I have seen, I can tell you this much: it's night and goddamn day compared to how you've ever treated me, Karen! Compared to how you've ever treated any of your so-called friends...especially Pearl!" she hissed, the mention of that name finally seeming to break Karen's composure. Vee and Juniper shared a look with each other, neither of them having expected their friend to be brought up in any capacity, but they silently agreed that it was probably better for them to continue staying out of this. Karen herself just stood there stunned at Clara's accusation.

"T-that wasn't-!" Karen began haltingly, but Clara wasn't about to give her a chance to speak.

"Where do you get off saying that wasn't your fault?!" Clara bit back, cutting her former friend off. "Oh, sure, you didn't start anything, but you sure as hell didn't stand up for her, now did you?! Neither of us did! We were both so damn busy trying to cover our asses and stay at the head of the damn pack that we refused to stick up for her like we should've done! You and I both know that we could've done more for her back then, and you still decided to double down!" That last remark seemed to anger Karen enough to finally get another response out of her.

"What are you talking about, that bitch deserved all that and worse after what she did!" Karen angrily retorted, netting her a few hushed whispers as the crowd wondered what they were talking about and whether it had to do with why Pearl Hubbard suddenly quit the cheer team.

"'What she did,' are you hearing yourself?!" Clara retorted in turn. "How could you possibly believe she did anything wrong if you're anything like-!"

"Like what, like you?" Karen said with the same disdain she'd usually reserve for her victims. "Tch. No wonder you dumped Curtis; guys like him just don't do it for you, is that it?" Clara scoffed, initially tempted to offer some kind of snappy retort to that ignorant comment before she looked at her friend, really looked at her, and realized her error. She had her suspicions and she wasn't even entirely sure that this conversation proved her wrong, but if it hadn't...her friend was in an even deeper pit of denial than the one that Clara had been stuck in. She knew firsthand how painful and isolating that sort of experience could be, and as much as she knew it probably wouldn't work...she still couldn't quite resist the impulse to try and reach out to her friend before it was too late.

"Karen, listen to me," Clara said, leaving Karen and the others somewhat confused at the sudden change in tone that this conversation had taken. "I'll admit, maybe I read you wrong; I'm still figuring a lot of this stuff out," Clara began tentatively. "But whether or not I'm right about that, I do know one thing: those girls were never our friends." The firmness with which she said those words shocked Karen, who looked at her as though she'd declared the Earth was flat.

"Whuh?! How dare you-?!" she sputtered before Clara cut her off.

"They turned on Pearl the second she stopped being exactly like them, and they'll turn on me as soon as you goddamn vultures post your little Quips!" Clara proclaimed, leveling such a hard glare at the onlookers that several of them were shamed into lowering their phones. "And mark my words, as soon as you give them a reason to, they'll turn on you too, Karen. I know it. That's all they know how to do, all we knew to do before some of us realized we needed to stop." Clara spared the briefest glance towards Juniper and Vee before she turned back to Karen with what was almost a pleading expression on her face. "We've both done things we can't take back, hurt people who want nothing to do with us now because of how awful we were to them in the past, but...I'm still trying to be better. It's still worth it to be better, and even if that still means we wind up alone in the end...at least we'd have each other. Right?" she asked, hoping against hope that she'd be able to get through to her friend. She moved a bit closer to Karen and attempted to place a comforting hand on her shoulder...only to have it angrily rebuked as Karen instead smacked her hand away.

"Don't touch me!" Karen cried. "You wanna leave me for those freaks, then...then fine! GO! I don't need you! I don't need Pearl! I don't need anyone!" she proclaimed, tears shining in her eyes for a split second before she blinked them away and punched a locker hard enough to break it open. Doing her best to hide the fact that it clearly broke something in her hand as well, she stomped off in the most expedient direction she could pick that was away from her traitorous friend and those losers she ditched her for. Her reverberating stomps went a long way towards forcing a path through the nervous onlookers that promptly dispersed in her wake, and soon enough, only Juniper, Vee, and Clara were left in the hallway to handle the aftermath of that dramatic confrontation.

With perhaps a couple minutes left before they each had to get to their respective classes, the two of them were left conflicted on how to respond to Clara finally sticking up for what was right on their behalf. Although both of them had been moved to an extent by Clara's actions, it was Vee who had the dexterity necessary to catch Clara as the girl's knees gave out from under her.

"I can't believe I just did that," Clara muttered breathlessly as Vee hesitated for a moment before pulling her into a hug, one which Clara was too stunned to pull away from.

"You did the right thing, Clara," Vee said, attempting to be comforting, only to hesitate as she watched tears come to Clara's eyes in response to her words. Clara wouldn't change anything about what she'd done, of course, but her brain still had to cope with the fact that she had just ended all of her remaining friendships and torched her reputation with one single dramatic conversation that everyone would be talking about for days afterwards. Meaning that she'd more than likely have to explain all of this to her parents.

Her brain coped with that last fact by making her start bawling her eyes out in Vee's arms.

As Vee was caught off guard and did her best to comfort the girl while guiding them both in the vague direction of their classes, Juniper walked behind them with a small smirk on her face despite the situation that had just transpired. While they were both too caught up in the aftermath to take any notice of what Juniper said aloud, she opted to do something foolish and glance up towards the sky in an act of modest faith...albeit not without being just a little bit coy about it.

"Was there truly no other way you could have swung that, sir?" she whispered with a smirk.

Naturally, He did not answer, but she would later find another instance in which He had perhaps done something more than what she had asked for, assuming she were to place her stock in such things a second time. So it came to pass that, mere hours after that climactic showdown between Clara and Karen, another confrontation would occur at lunchtime between Karen and her "Romeo," one which ended with Karen now bitterly single and forced to go to the principal's office to answer for her disruptive behavior. These developments, in turn, would lead to a sudden cancellation and a hasty alteration made to the final cast list that afternoon by a disgruntled Mr. Fisch. It was a development that would be celebrated at first, only to set in motion a series of events which nobody, not even Masha, could have possibly foreseen.

Romeo: Curtis Lee Johnson

Juliet: Clara Hartfield

Benvolio: Samuel Erlington

Mercutio, The Apothecary: Pearl Hubbard

"Frau" Lawrence, Nurse: Juniper Palmer

Tybalt, Balthasar: Alex Fullerton

Prince Escalus: Mike Underwood

Paris: Ares Anderson

Capulet/Montague: Mr. Marcus Fisch

Lady Capulet/Lady Montague: Mrs. Amelia Fisch

All other roles portrayed as needed by the students of Mr. Fisch's Drama class in room A113

Understudy for Romeo: Luz Noceda

Bonus Chapter #2: Some Mysteries Are Better Left Buried

[Summary: Although Mabel manages to quickly find what she was looking for, things aren't as easy as she thought they would be. Seeing the increasing toll that Mabel's work is taking on her, Camila intervenes on her behalf, only to inadvertently open a can of worms inside Mabel's head that has been forced shut for far too long.]

As hard as it was to admit, Mabel had no real idea what she was doing here.

She'd been lucky enough to stumble onto the hypothetical coastal portal almost as soon as she started looking for it. After about a day or so of puttering around the Long Island Sound, she read between the lines of some warning signs and found a mile-long stretch of coastline just outside of Gravesfield whose deep blue waters fit the bill perfectly. The chain-link fence they'd set up to stop anyone from getting near it was easy enough to bypass with her grappling hook, although she was grateful there weren't any cameras posted to actually monitor the place. She was already skirting several laws after tampering with a crime scene and slowly forging Vee's documentation. She wasn't about to go to all that trouble only to get caught doing the easiest trespassing job ever.

As it turned out, getting to the portal had indeed been the easy part.

Mabel had already suspected that whatever she found wouldn't be ideal for helping Luz get home (unless the kid was ballsy enough to travel in an airtight, heatproof coffin - which she probably was), but she hadn't expected it to be straight up useless. Even after days spent examining it and taking samples from it and doing all sorts of other sciency things with it to the best of her ability, the oddly colored stretch of coastline refused to do anything helpful. Anything she tossed into it clearly sank to the bottom, texts she sent to the number Camila gave her for Luz's phone failed immediately, and no matter what musical notes she played or fake Latin phrases she chanted or whatever else Grunkle Ford's book told her to try, the water didn't change a bit. She knew there had to be some sort of trick to it: the water definitely wasn't normal, and the color suggested that it was totally suffused with this "Titan's Blood" stuff that she'd heard about, so she knew it had to work! It just...didn't, no matter how many hours she spent staring at the crashing waves just waiting for something to start glowing. By the time she'd spent a week going back and forth from the coastline to Camila's place on a daily basis, trying everything she could possibly think of to get the portal to work, she was just about ready to call it quits...except she couldn't call it quits. She couldn't just give up, not after she dropped everything to help take care of the Nocedas. If she left now, she would never forgive herself: thus, she had to come up with other options. And fortunately, Mabel did indeed come up with something, a clever idea that she kicked herself for not devising sooner:

She didn't need the portal. She only needed the Titan's Blood.

With her new objective in place, Mabel undertook all of the necessary steps without delay. She looked up a whole bunch of MewTube tutorials, ordered her own filtration equipment (which took days to get there), drove out to the beach with an empty milk jug to fill up with the Titan's Blood-infused water, headed back to where she had set everything up in the Nocedas' basement, filled her equipment close to overflowing with the magic water and sat there for what felt like forever as it did its thing...and all she got for her trouble was a single drop of deep blue liquid.

To say it was demoralizing would be an understatement.

Still, she wasn't about to quit after one or two setbacks, not remotely! If she did that, then all of the weeks she'd already spent in Gravesfield helping out where she could instead of being in New Jersey where she was supposed to be would've been for nothing! A part of her dimly recalled that this very mindset exemplified some sort of logical fallacy, but she couldn't recall the name of it off the top of her head, so it wasn't important! What was important was that she absolutely wasn't quitting, no sir! The Mabel of nine years ago might have quit, might have thrown a tantrum and given up and run to Dipper for help, but Mabel wasn't that spoiled little girl anymore and Dipper-!

Dipper...

Dipper wasn't there.

Fully ignoring the complicated mess of emotions which that particular fact brought to her mind, Mabel got right back to work and kept working until the hours began to blur together and a good night's sleep became a luxury she couldn't afford. This wasn't just about helping her favorite camper anymore, as much as Mabel was loath to admit it to herself. This had become a chance for her to prove herself, to prove once and for all that she wasn't the same stupid girl who kept screwing up and making life harder for everyone else until the world almost ended while she sat in Mabeland. She couldn't be that girl anymore. She refused, and she had been refusing every day for the last nine years. That was why she worked twice as hard to get almost the same grades as her brother all the way through college, so that she'd be done with her schooling as quickly as humanly possible. That was why she worked four times as hard to build Reality Check from the ground up before she had even graduated college to begin with, so that she'd be taken seriously. And that was why she was going to do everything she could to help Luz get home and help Vee live her own life and help Camila realize that none of this was her fault. That was why she wasn't going anywhere, not until everyone in the Noceda household was happy and healthy and safe and sound.

And God help anyone who got in her way.

It didn't take long for the Nocedas to notice a change in their houseguest.

Camila had tried her best not to smother the young woman, even if some of the things she did made her concerned in a way that she vaguely felt like she shouldn't be for a woman who was hardly her kid. And yet, concerned she was, because no matter what she did to keep Ms. Pines' paranormal research from consuming her, the young woman was eating less and sleeping worse with each passing day, and she kept trying to hide it from them and failing miserably. Camila didn't want to put her foot down, not when Ms. Pines had continued to be an enormous help and a lovely houseguest in all other respects, but she also couldn't just stand by and let this young woman work herself to death for their sake. By the time September rolled around, Camila decided it was time for an intervention, whether Ms. Pines was willing to cooperate or not.

"Ms. Pines," she said as sternly as she dared from the stairwell to the basement, while the woman in question had her back turned and was busy watching her filtration machine slowly drip down another drop of that "Titan's Blood" stuff. Camila generously estimated that Ms. Pines had perhaps gathered a teaspoon of it by now, having been hard at work filtering every last drop of it that she could out of the gallons of ocean water she brought back from that beach of hers. She wasn't entirely sure whether a teaspoon represented a significant volume of this substance, even if it was powerful enough to pierce the veil between worlds. From what Luz had told her, she could guess that a teaspoon was probably about all Luz and her friends had to work with at last report. Considering that it had been almost a month now with no word from her wayward daughter...Camila had to wonder whether a teaspoon hadn't been enough.

Whether any amount of this blood would be enough.

Camila angrily shook her head. She had faith in Luz's ability to find her way back home. She needed to: she wouldn't be able to get out of bed and keep going to work each morning like nothing was wrong if she didn't. And yet, as she watched Ms. Pines work tirelessly on the very same problem her daughter was struggling with in another world entirely, Camila couldn't help but think of the many similarities she had noticed between them. They were both sunny, their smiles bright enough to light up a room and coax a smile out of even the most cynical person on the planet. They were both sociable, even if it perhaps didn't work out the best for them at times. They were both smart, and driven, and passionate, and kind, and...Camila had to pause as a new thought occurred to her.

Was that why where all of her concern for Ms. Pines came from?

It made sense when she thought about it from an abstract viewpoint. Luz wasn't here, and for as similar as Vee was to her sister, the fact remained that she wasn't Luz: that fact had been cemented into Camila's mind rather definitively by this point, and it would be a disservice to her daughter for her to entertain any thought to the contrary. Ms. Pines wasn't Luz either, of course, but she was more like Luz than Vee was in some respects, and Camila had definitely established a close bond with her after almost a month. This closeness between them didn't extend to such things as talking about their pasts or anything like that, but it still made it hard for Camila not to view her as a niece if nothing else, even while knowing that the young woman almost certainly didn't view her in similar terms. That was why Camila kept herself from getting too attached, insisting on calling her "Miss Pines" and making sure to give her space when reasonable. It was that last thought that brought her mind back to the task at hand, and she chided herself for just standing at the stairs like a dolt when she needed to be putting a stop to this. She could sort out whatever her relationship with the young woman was on her own time: right now, she had to save the young woman from herself.

And considering what she'd seen of her so far, that wasn't going to be an easy task.

"Ms. Pines," Camila repeated as she briefly flicked the light switch off and back on again, catching the young woman's attention as she turned to look at the sudden arrival of her host.

"Agh, God, what?!" Mabel snapped, at least having the courtesy to keep her voice at a whisper. Good, Camila thought. So she knew that Vee was asleep by now.

"Do you know what time it is?" Camila said, and something about the way she asked the question ticked Mabel off in a way she couldn't explain, but had been noticing more and more lately. She had begrudgingly appreciated her host's insistence that she take care of herself, and the surprise birthday party Camila and Vee threw her the other day had been lovely, but the woman had begun to mother Mabel to such a degree that it made Mabel's head spin with a weird soup of emotions. Camila was so caring and sweet: Mabel couldn't think of a better mom for Vee. And she really had done so much for Mabel while she was in Gravesfield, but-but she wasn't Vee! She wasn't a scared kid who needed a parent: she was a grown-ass woman who ran her own summer camp, could take care of herself, and already had parents who were perfectly fine!

They were...they were perfectly fine.

So, unable to fully appreciate Camila's efforts to make her take care of herself, yet finding herself unable to wholly reject her motherly behavior in a way that felt vaguely traitorous, Mabel wasn't exactly doing great at the moment, and hearing Camila ask her that question the same way she might have if she were talking to Vee was just about the last thing she needed right now.

"I dunno, midnight? I'll turn in soon, I just gotta finish this batch," Mabel said tersely, not unlike a particularly ticked off teenager, and Camila knew she would have to tread carefully.

"It's 12:30, Ms. Pines. Vee's been asleep for almost two hours now," Camila said.

"Yeah, well, she's a growing girl, she needs it. At least, I think she does," Mabel said, briefly pausing as she remembered that Vee was a demon from another dimension. Surprising how easy it was to forget sometimes. "Eh, she could probably use it anyway, but I'm no stranger to falling asleep at 2 am, trust me," she said, trying to play it off as a joke, but Camila wasn't having it. She just looked at her with the classic maternal look, hence why Mabel pointedly looked away. "Eugh, fine, I'll shut it off in a sec. Just go upstairs and let me worry about this, will you?" Mabel asked, causing Camila to sigh before fixing her with an even more stern glare.

"I'm sorry, but that's not going to be good enough," Camila replied before laying out her plan. "As of tonight, I'm implementing a curfew: lights out and magical experiments put on hold from the hours of 11 pm to 8 am. You're not pulling anymore all-nighters, not on my watch." She spoke more sternly than Mabel had ever heard her speak before, and yet, for whatever reason, she still felt compelled to speak no matter how much her brain wisely told her it was time to shut up.

"What are you-I'm a grown ass woman, you can't tell me what to do!" she retorted impulsively, quickly realizing by the shift in Camila's expression that this was the wrong thing to say.

"Oh, really? Is that how we're going to play this? Because I can start charging rent at any time, honey," Camila asked in a rare display of what Mabel could only describe as that unique brand of snark which mothers perfected once their children came of age. The weird soup of feelings that had been filling up for days was reaching a boiling point under the heat of Mabel's frustration.

"Oh my God, what's the big deal?! I'm not keeping you up, am I?!" Mabel asked defensively.

"The 'big deal' is that you're not taking care of yourself properly. You're letting this whole thing consume you," Camila countered, trying to make Mabel understand before this escalated into a shouting match. "I appreciate what you've done already to help my family, and you know I want Luz back more than anything, but I have enough to worry about right now without you pushing yourself to the breaking point." Mabel groaned: it made sense when Camila put it like that, but she wasn't some helpless little wallflower, dammit! Camila needed to understand that!

"Ugh, I've already told you like three times, I'm fine! I appreciate the concern, really, but I don't need you and Vee fretting over me like I'm a troubled teenager, okay? I've been dealing with this paranormal biz since I was twelve, I think I can handle losing some sleep now and then-"

"Twelve?! You were twelve?!" Camila exclaimed, almost forgetting to mind her volume.

"What-yes?! Did I not mention that?!" Mabel asked, caught off guard by Camila's outburst.

"No?! You hardly talk about it!" Camila protested. "All you ever told us was that you went on a summer trip to Gravity Falls, you never said you were twelve! I thought all of that happened within the last few years or something: you were fighting demons at twelve years old?!" Camila continued with a certain worry in her tone that felt...uncomfortably familiar. Mabel shook her head again, trying not to think about the last few times she'd told an adult about what happened back then and been dismissed out of hand. She'd only mentioned her trip offhandedly the night she met Camila to establish her credibility as a supernatural expert, and although she'd noticed the way that Camila had tried to ask her about it at times, she hadn't really felt the need to worry her or Vee with anything more than what they had absolutely needed to know on that first night.

Evidently, she'd been right to keep it mostly under wraps.

"Look, it's not a big deal! The point is, I can take care of myself just fine! I always have!" Mabel retorted, snapping Camila out of her panic enough to try and offer a counter argument.

"Ms. Pines, you shouldn't push yourself so hard because you have something to prove, just-!" she began, only to get shut down as Mabel ran out of patience herself and lost what filter she had.

"Let me do this for you, okay?!" Mabel snapped, stopping Camila right in her tracks. Mabel's expression shifted as she realized what she'd blurted out, and so she opted to explain herself. "Look. That summer trip was the happiest I've ever been in my life. I had my brother, I had my Grunkles, I had friends for the first time ever, and every day was a brand new adventure! I thought that as long as I had them, I could handle anything, even when things got...really scary," Mabel said, pausing as she reflected on some of the horrors she'd dealt with and wondered whether she would've stayed as optimistic as she had if she didn't have her loved ones to help her feel safe. She shook her head: no point in speculating on something that was bound to make her even more upset, especially when the shift in her expression had evidently caused Camila to grow even more concerned.

"Ms. Pines-" she began again, only for Mabel to cut her off.

"Whatever, the point is, things change, summer ends, and I couldn't face the fact that I wouldn't have them forever, so...I tried to run away from that reality," Mabel continued, a kind of spiritual tiredness entering her voice which Camila hadn't heard from the young woman before. It felt unnatural, almost as though she had suddenly become a very different person than the optimistic young woman she had come to know these past few weeks. Someone more distant and hurt that couldn't quite keep up the facade any longer.

It reminded her too much of how Vee got sometimes.

"What happened?" Camila asked softly, and thankfully, Mabel seemed willing to answer now.

"I made a mistake. The worst mistake anyone's ever made. A mistake that almost ruined everything," Mabel explained. "I've been trying so hard to correct that mistake, and I don't know if I'll ever make up for how selfish I was back then, but...what else am I supposed to do?" she asked rhetorically, as though she couldn't even imagine any other answer than, what? Atoning for a mistake she'd made when she was twelve years old? It seemed ridiculous on the face of it, and yet, with how much Mabel knew of the supernatural...Camila knew not to underestimate it too much.

"Ms. Pines, I'm sure that whatever you did, it wasn't your fault-" Camila attempted to argue.

"Camila, no," Mabel countered firmly, causing Camila to stop in her tracks once more. "When I say I almost ruined everything, I mean everything. Everything that ever was and ever will be. The entire universe almost got turned into a dream demon's messed up playground because I couldn't just grow up and stop clinging to my stupid fantasies!" Mabel retorted, getting angrier and angrier with each word that she spoke. Suddenly a few things about how Ms. Pines acted began to click into place for Camila, although there was still so much that she didn't understand, so much that she wanted to understand no matter how terrifying it was to think about, if only so that she could show this poor girl that there was somebody else who was willing to help her.

"Ms. Pines, what-?"

"I ALMOST ENDED THE WORLD, OKAY?!" Mabel screamed, losing any consideration for her volume that she still had as the words were almost forced out of her by a voice in her head that never truly felt like her own, even though she knew it was. Before she could think better of it, before Camila had even a few seconds to process the full weight of Mabel's words, everything else came spilling out the minute it finally had an outlet. "I didn't mean to, I swear I didn't mean to, but-but it was still my fault! I swapped bags with my brother without even realizing it and I didn't even understand what I was carrying until this time traveling dork asked for this rift in time and space that Dipper was trying to fix! The guy said that he could make summer last forever and I believed him like an idiot because everyone else was in Gravity Falls and my brother was staying in Gravity Falls and I just-!" Mabel was finally forced to pause as she nearly ran out of breath, unable to hold back the tears any longer. "I didn't want to be alone," she finished weakly as she sank to the floor, the quiet droning noise of her filtering equipment filling in the spaces between her sobs.

She didn't want Camila to see her like this. She couldn't handle anyone but her closest friends and family seeing her like this. Not after she'd been dismissed so many times by people who were supposed to help her. Not after watching her parents' eyes glaze over and realizing that they'd never really understand, no matter how much they loved her. Everyone who actually knew and understood what she had gone through was too far away, and her parents never sent them back there again. Dipper needed her just as badly as she needed him, she could only ask for so much from him without giving just as much in return, so...she'd only really had one option.

Bottle it up behind a smile.

Try not to think about it.

Strive every day to make someone's life better than it had been the day before, whether through charity or genuine good deeds or...or Reality Check.

Maybe then, a part of her thought, maybe then she'd start to balance out the ledger. Start to make up for how her selfishness had nearly ended the lives of everyone else in the universe. Maybe nothing she did would ever make up for it, or maybe Dipper was right, maybe it really wasn't her fault. She certainly wanted to believe her brother, but for whatever reason...it was so hard to believe that she wasn't, on some level, responsible for what had happened. It was hard to imagine Dipper making the same mistake, that was for sure, nor could she imagine anyone else in her life being tricked so easily. But Mabel? Naive, sunny little Mabel who'd been obsessed with boys and kitties and puppies and rainbows? Oh yeah. She had been the biggest mark in a hundred miles.

No wonder Bill had been able to trick her.

She recalled how it might not have been wise to even think about his name, but she found herself lacking the energy needed to care at this point. Not after nine years of built up emotional repression had collapsed in an instant and left her sobbing on this kind woman's floor. A woman who, for as close as they might have gotten over the past month or so, was still almost a stranger, still didn't know her the way that her friends and family did. A woman who couldn't possibly trust her after what Mabel had just told her. A woman who'd never look at her in the same way again.

That was what she thought before she realized that Camila was hugging her.

It felt like the situation had changed in an instant. One second, Mabel was on the ground, and the next, she was wrapped up in Camila's arms as the older woman gently whispered that it was okay, that she wasn't a monster, that...that it wasn't her fault. She wanted to resist it, break free and retreat to her room and lock the door behind her, but that would've been childish. If she really was a grown woman, then she had to act like it, and sometimes that meant crying when you needed to cry. Even though she still wanted to run despite that, she just didn't have the energy and...it felt nice.

It felt nice for another adult to finally listen to her after all these years.

Still, the weird mix of feelings that Camila's care gave her left Mabel anxious to get out of the embrace eventually. Camila sensed this readily enough by the way Mabel subtly began to struggle, so the older woman swiftly let her go and pulled her up to her feet. With one last sniffle, Mabel rubbed at her eyes to try and hide her tears, then attempted to mumble her way through an apology.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-that was a lot, and you've already got so much to worry about-!"

"It's alright, sweetheart," Camila remarked warmly, and boy did that motherly term of endearment only intensify the weird mix of feelings even further! "You're right about one thing: this has all been a lot for me to process these past few weeks. And right this minute, I mean...dios mío, I've been missing a lot, huh?" Camila said, trying to lighten the mood just a little bit. Mabel could only give her a sad smile in response to her well-meaning attempt at levity.

"Yup," Mabel agreed, her voice all scratchy. "It's, uh, it's not a tale for the faint of heart, I can tell you that much," she added, only to be surprised when Camila gave her a soft, encouraging smile.

"Would you like to talk about it?" she asked gently, and goddammit, Mabel was almost tempted to give in and tell her the whole story in a way that wasn't rambly right then and there. Unfortunately, the same Pines family stubbornness that had started this whole mess demanded that she refuse the offer for one reason or another.

"No, no, this is stupid," Mabel muttered in a recriminating tone. "I shouldn't be shoving all of this on you! We barely know each other, and you're not..." Mabel fell silent for a moment before she finished her sentence in a tentative whisper. "You're not my mom." It sounded almost petulant when she said it, like a teenager being needlessly edgy, and she hated herself for looking so pathetic in front of Camila. Fortunately, the older woman only smiled sadly in response to that sentiment.

"You're right," Camila acknowledged. "I'm not your mom. And I'll admit, I might have lost sight of that at times, you being as young and reckless as you are. I'm sorry for treating you like you were still a child," Mabel could only grumble something indecipherable in response, but Camila doubted it was anything bad. "That being said..." Camila continued with a bit more hesitation before committing. "I do still care about your well-being, Ms. Pines, and I'm not going to let you continue to push yourself this hard to try and...atone for something which I strongly suspect was never your fault to begin with." At this, Mabel finally managed to respond in some fashion.

"You don't know that," she muttered bitterly. "You don't know anything."

And yet, Camila held out a hand to her anyway.

"Then tell me," she said gently. "Help me to understand, and we'll see which one of us is right in the end." Mabel looked at Camila for a moment, really looked at her, and even though it still felt so scary to finally talk about these things, this time felt different than the others. This time, someone was willing to listen. To try to understand. And in the end, as much as she instinctively wanted to deny it...she had needed someone like Camila for far longer than she had cared to admit.

And so, with many stops and starts and rambling explanations...Mabel told her everything.

Chapter Eighteen: Trouble on the Horizon

[Summary: While she and her friends help Masha settle into a new part time job at the Gravesfield Historical Society, Vee is confronted with more of the town's history and manages to finally put the pieces together on just how interwoven the two realms' stories really are.]

"Luz? Are you alright?"

The question, whispered into Vee's ear by a rather concerned Masha, was reduced to background noise as she stared distantly at the building they had all walked to after school:

The Gravesfield Historical Society.

In the weeks that had passed since that horrible incident, her nightmares had generally become more manageable, with a few notable exceptions. They didn't stop entirely, of course, not that Vee had ever thought they would, but they'd at least shifted to perhaps occurring once a week as opposed to several times a week, which Vee naturally considered a significant improvement. And yet, even as the unconditional support of Camila and the Cabin 7 Crew worked to slowly make her capable of walking by herself without looking over her shoulder, that didn't mean seeing the place where she had been kidnapped didn't make her shapeshifted skin crawl like nothing else. Still, if she wanted to see Masha more often for the foreseeable future, she knew she was gonna have to get used to going there, on account of a development which had been rather surprising:

Masha was now the part-time curator-in-residence at the Gravesfield Historical Society.

Granted, even the title "curator-in-residence" was mostly a courtesy on the part of the society, given that Masha was too young to assume such a position under ordinary circumstances. Of course, having their local curator who'd come highly recommended by his graduate professors suddenly become convinced that a bunch of children were shapeshifting demons from another dimension were hardly the most ordinary circumstances. The building should have just closed until a replacement could be found, but the revenues generated by the sale of Jacob Hopkins' secondhand Tarot cards and other assorted trinkets had proven more critical to keeping the society afloat than its shareholders had realized. Knowing that its attendance and revenues were inevitably going to plummet in the wake of this horrific tragedy and PR nightmare, the decision was made to hire a part-time employee at minimum wage whose only job was to keep the place running and sell more things while they scrambled to find an actual curator with the proper qualifications.

Naturally, they would also be conducting an extensive background check this time around.

To say that the job posting had been poorly received in the wake of Gravesfield's newfound distrust of the society was an understatement. By the time the school year had started and any potential applicants would surely be too busy, the society's representative had been a moment away from going back to his peers in disgrace, only for Masha to come in and answer his prayers. Joy and relief soon gave way to confusion as he realized just who this person was and asked them plainly why they would want to work there after everything that had happened. Masha had answered the man's question without hesitation and with a resolve in their voice that left him stunned.

"So that I can make sure something like this will never happen again."

Although he wasn't exactly spoiled for choice, the man hired Masha immediately.

So it was that Masha had been put through an even more packed schedule as of late, juggling job training after school on top of homework and learning two vastly different roles for the school play. Vee had to admit, for as concerned as she was about her friend being pushed to the limit, she was also in awe at how Masha managed to balance all of that at once. Masha's efforts in the play were especially exceptional as far as Vee was concerned. Despite being just as inexperienced with stage acting as Vee was, she felt her performance as Romeo paled in comparison to the energy Masha brought to the production as Mercutio. Masha gave off such raw charisma dancing around the stage and hamming up every single line in just the right way that the other cast members couldn't help but be invigorated as well, projecting their voices more and caring less about coming off as corny or forced in their own performances. For all that Masha and the others talked about her being inspiring, Vee personally felt that Masha had her beat in certain situations.

She certainly couldn't imagine herself doing something this scary for anyone else, at least.

"Luz, you don't have to go in there," Masha continued, oblivious to the course of Vee's thoughts. "I know you said you aren't angry with me for taking this job, but you don't need to-"

"It's...it's okay," Vee said hesitantly, wanting to believe it for Masha's sake as she offered her crush a wobbly smile to try and hide her apprehension. "Hopkins isn't there anymore, and...and I really admire you wanting to change this place," she added earnestly, causing Masha to give her a wobbly smile as well. "So come on," Vee said encouragingly. "Let's go make it better together."

With that, the two walked into the foreboding building with their friends at their backs and determination underlying their every step. And if they ended up holding hands in a way that wasn't quite platonic, well, their friends weren't about to be rude to them by pointing it out.

The actual work of purging the building of Jacob's influence progressed with shocking ease.

Naturally, much of the staff room had been cleared of his possessions already, either because they had to be taken into evidence for his upcoming trial or because they had been covertly stolen by Vee and her family to protect her false identity. Anything judged as irrelevant in both cases had been left in the office for practical reasons, where it had sat untouched for weeks simply because nobody in the society wanted to go through the trouble of sorting out the clutter of a madman. Vee didn't particularly relish the task either, not in the least because of how what she found had ended up humanizing that monster a bit too much for her liking. Everything she uncovered painted a picture of a man who had worked his entire life believing that he was owed something for all of his efforts - success, fame, what have you - and became so desperate to get it that he was willing to go to any lengths in pursuit of those goals. He was still a monster, of that Vee was certain, but he was a monster of uniquely human make. The kind of monster that could lay dormant for years simply going through the motions of being an ordinary person with people who loved them, all while silently building up resentment towards them or society or the world as a whole one setback at a time. Then, without warning, they suddenly explode, spewing the shrapnel produced by their violent actions indiscriminately with no thought for the collateral damage it might leave in their wake.

Given the parallels her mind put together...Vee wondered if Belos had been like that once.

It was that dark thought running through her head which left Vee eager to leave the staff room as soon as her work was done, and so she found herself wandering aimlessly down the halls of the society as the others hauled the last of the clutter outside for transport to the Hopkins family. With their friends thus occupied, Masha took notice of Luz's evident trepidation and decided to wrap their arms around Vee from behind as a comforting gesture. Although she was startled on account of her lingering thoughts, Vee relaxed upon seeing who it was, and she was about to try and devise some response to that which wouldn't compromise her cover when her eyes caught onto something she really should've noticed before:

An eerily familiar sigil of a pyramid, wings, and a sword tilted downward.

"Whatcha starin' at...ohh. You noticed that display, huh?" Masha asked. Vee could only absentmindedly nod as, inexplicably, that one strange dream she'd had came back to her mind unprompted. Despite having no knowledge of any connection between the two designs, her subconscious mind had made an association between the vague similarities present in the standard Gravesfield sigil and the Emperor's Coven sigil entirely on its own. It was an association Vee had mostly dismissed as nothing more than the product of a still-panicky imagination so soon after being kidnapped, but now, having had a few weeks to calm down from her terror after that night...she suddenly realized that she may have inadvertently been onto something. Had she glimpsed it in the corner of her eye the last time she'd been here and simply hadn't remembered, because her memories of that incredibly traumatic day were naturally a bit screwy? Vee shook her head. The specifics of how her mind had caught on to it weren't important, but getting more information was very much so, and as luck would have it, that was precisely what Masha was here for.

"Yeah. Tell me more about it," Vee said, the casual yet distant way in which she spoke worrying Masha somewhat. Nevertheless, they had a job to do, and they trusted that they'd figure out why Luz was so strangely interested in this sooner or later.

"Well, um..." Masha began, taking a few seconds to formulate an explanation that didn't betray any anxiety to Vee's ordinarily rather careful ears. "Obviously you've seen the normal town sigil, the one with the bird, that one came into use around 1635. This one, the one with the sword, that was the informal one until that point...and the sigil used by the town's witch hunters." At this, Masha's worry grew further upon watching Vee's eyes go wide and her skin turn cold.

"Witch hunters?" she repeated fearfully, and Masha could understand that fear well enough.

"Yeah, Gravesfield sprang up right in the midst of all the witch trials going on in Europe," Masha replied, not exactly enjoying recounting all of this either, but feeling obligated to answer Vee's questions. "Nowadays, people associate all that stuff with Salem, but the earliest trials in Gravesfield predate theirs by like 80 years. The colonists who first set up shop were about as paranoid and Puritan as you could get back in those days. They were so convinced that witchcraft was all around them that they turned witch-hunting into a profession in and of itself. It was their version of law enforcement, led by a guy who they called the Witch-Hunter General. He was tasked both with arresting suspected witches and closely monitoring the population for any signs of 'indecency,'" Masha said with the air quotes made rather obvious. "That sigil there, that was the badge of his office, and it would be worn by people he'd conscript as needed, like some messed up militia. The triangle is sorta like the Eye of Providence, while the sword...um. Well, the meaning there is pretty obvious, based on the angle. It's...it's supposed to be an executioner's blade," Masha finished grimly. As Masha had feared, this information didn't exactly cheer "Luz" up, and the witch could've sworn the girl was muttering rather strange things to herself after hearing all of that.

"It's almost identical, and their ideology is so damn familiar, but-no! No! It's a coincidence, it has to be! The dates don't match up at all: this was like 400 years ago! There's no way he could've survived that long!" Vee whispered under her breath, too rattled to keep her observations confined to her head like she usually did when it came to sensitive information like this. Although Masha didn't quite catch much of it, it was a rather worrying reaction for "Luz" to have all the same, and so Masha lightly tapped Vee on the shoulder to break her out of her panicky train of thought.

"Luz? You alright?" Masha asked, forcing Vee to put on a reassuring smile for Masha's sake.

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm fine, just, uh...kinda freaked out by all this stuff. It's sorta interesting in a morbid way, but I-I can't imagine growing up back then, y'know?" Vee said, trying to play off her obvious apprehension at a way of life which was sounding more and more familiar the more that she learned about the way things used to work in this town. Her deflection seemed to be mostly successful in this instance, although she could tell Masha suspected there was something else there.

"Heh, yeah, tell me about it," Masha replied a bit unsteadily. "Back then, the kinda stuff I do probably would've gotten me burned at the stake, but these days, it just makes me 'quirky,'" Masha added to try and blunt the effect of their statement with some humor. Vee weakly chuckled in response before an idea entered her head. She didn't relish probing Masha for more information,, but if her outlandish theory was proven right against all possible odds...she needed to know.

She needed to know now.

"Mm, say, I've been meaning to ask about this cuz I, uh, kinda forgot, but...what's the whole deal with the Wittebane brothers again?" Vee asked, hoping that Masha would accept that explanation from someone who had supposedly lived in Gravesfield long enough to know that story already. She cursed herself for not looking it up on her own time, and indeed, Masha did seem fairly suspicious, but before they could really dig into that, it became clear that they were no longer alone.

"Welp, got everything loaded, truck's gone; you good to clear out of here, Mash?" Alex asked, having found the two of them in the hallway with Sam and Juniper in tow. Vee glanced nervously between the four of them while Masha chuckled, their earlier suspicions mostly forgotten.

"Yeah, I just gotta lock up," Masha said breezily. "But before I take care of that...y'all mind if I pick your brains on something?" they asked, glancing towards Vee and piquing the others' curiosity.

"Interesting," Juniper remarked. "For what purpose are you asking for our input?" she asked, causing Masha to grin as they ducked into the staff room to grab a witch's hat from a box full of props with the words "Haunted Hayride" written on it in sharpie.

"My script!" Masha clarified, pulling out a handful of flashcards from inside the witch's hat. "Since I'm technically the curator, it's my job to put the Haunted Hayride together this year! Boss wants me to make the biggest presentation yet to sell more tickets, and not to brag, but it's pretty neat! Practical effects, real hammy narration, and of course, the legend this town's been obsessed with for centuries: the story of the brothers Wittebane!" These last words, said in an overly dramatic tone, would've been endearing under any other circumstances if the name alone didn't send alarm bells ringing in Vee's head. The others smiled and nodded along with Masha's idea.

"Sure, I'm down for a ghost story," Sam said casually.

"Indeed. As I have familiarized myself with the legend, it would be interesting to see which details are included in this particular rendition," Juniper agreed, to which Alex nodded along.

"Yeah! I mean, we've all heard it, like, a million times, but it should still be fun, right Luz?" they concurred, looking towards Vee expectantly and causing her to wilt a bit.

"Um, actually, I haven't really heard the whole thing in a while," Vee lied, knowing that she wasn't being especially convincing about it. Alex cocked their head in confusion.

"Seriously? I would've figured you'd have it memorized," Alex said, making Vee even more anxious as she scrambled to justify herself.

"Well, y'know, it's, um...it's kinda scary, isn't it?" Vee said, to cover for the fact that she had no idea what it was like because she hadn't been willing to come back to the society before now.

"I mean, I guess? Kinda feel like it's old hat at this point," Alex remarked, but before Vee dug herself any deeper, Masha unknowingly came to her defense.

"Look, it doesn't matter, the point is Luz asked for a refresher and I wanna try out my script, so are we doing this or not?" Masha asked rather pointedly, to which each of their friends nodded. "Alright then, mm-hmm! 'Let me tell you the eeriest unsolved mystery of Gravesfield: The Tale of the Brothers Wittebane,'" Masha began in the same spooky voice that had walked them through so many ghost stories while they were at camp. Vee had a feeling this one might be the scariest one yet.

"This is gonna be good," Sam commented nonchalantly as Masha dimmed the lights.

"'The year is 1613. Two orphaned brothers arrive in Gravesfield. Their names? Philip and Caleb,'" they began, and indeed, Vee seemed to vaguely recall gathering that much information just from glancing at the statue of the brothers in Gravesfield park. Caleb was the older brother who stood in the back with a cardinal at his side for reasons unknown. Philip, though? He strode confidently in the front, more or less equaling his brother in height despite apparently being a good deal younger than him. Something in his posture had stuck out to Vee then, but she'd learned about the danger of making undue assumptions based on such details.

If her theory was right...either of those men could have become the monster she feared.

"'Caleb did his best to take care of his younger brother. They tried to fit in with this town, and its unsavory practices. They became...witch hunters!'" Masha proclaimed dramatically, to which Vee let out more of a nervous gulp than a gasp at the confirmation. Masha took note of it for a second, but swiftly returned to their narration. "'Local lore suggests that the Brothers Wittebane met a real witch from another world! Her name was Evelyn, and the older brother was spirited away...'"

Vee paused at that, her eyes widening involuntarily. So humans did have some kind of record of travel between the realms that long ago! Her theory was looking more terrifyingly solid by the second, but now it had gotten more complicated. The set up read almost like a forbidden love story, but...but Caleb Wittebane had still been a witch hunter, and unlike Romeo and Juliet, this was supposedly a historical narrative. Real life wasn't like the movies, even when it may have involved a real fantasy world. You didn't overcome a whole lifetime of prejudice and Puritan indoctrination just by running into a (presumably, Vee didn't know) hot witch woman in the woods. And yet, for whatever reason...this portrayal of Caleb Wittebane also didn't seem like the sort that would try to orchestrate an elaborately crafted genocidal scheme the way she feared Belos had always intended. All Vee knew for sure was that the plan she worried that Belos had devised was a plan that could only have sprung forth from the mind of a madman. It was a plan which didn't make any sense if Belos was a witch...but which made a terrifying amount of sense if he was an exceptionally long-lived human who had once been a witch-hunter from this old town. Someone with exactly the kind of dogmatic motivation that could keep them going for 400 years on a path of utter depravity, without even acknowledging or perhaps understanding the depths to which they were sinking in the process.

"'She dazzled him with magic and visions of a strange yet beautiful place!'" Masha continued. "'They used a secret code to travel between worlds,'" Masha added, noting how Vee's eyes widened in what almost looked like...recognition? As far as Masha knew, "Luz" may have just been remembering bits of the story that she'd forgotten beforehand, but perhaps she actually knew something more about...Masha shook their head and dismissed that odd idea. There'd be time enough to get to the bottom of why "Luz" was suddenly so curious about all of this. For now, the presentation seemed to be going well, so Masha figured it'd be best to finish it and then see what "Luz" had to say about it. "'Philip set off to save his brother and bring the witch to justice, but neither were ever seen again!'" Masha exclaimed dramatically, sending the alarm bells in Vee's head ringing louder than ever. "'Maybe Philip saved Caleb, and they went on to lead peaceful lives. Or maybe...'" Masha moved to finish, leaving a dramatic pause in order to cap off the story in a way the witch would only realize later was a grave mistake.

Masha had an unfortunate habit of divining horrible truths by accident, after all.

"'He's still chasing his brother, caught in a cycle of horror and strife!'"

Masha's dramatic conclusion, although certainly intended to give the audience a fright, seemed to have affected Vee a little too strongly while the others clapped at Masha's performance, having not yet noticed Vee's turmoil. None of them could have realized how that one phrase, working in concert with everything else, would cause the gears in Vee's head to turn at a rapid pace. Vee still had no idea where Caleb truly fit into all of this, but as far as Philip's role went...

It all lined up once Vee caught sight of the mask down the hall, just over Masha's shoulder.

It was viscerally old, thereby necessitating its careful preservation behind an airtight display case. It seemed as though it had been carved out of wood hundreds of years ago into the shape of a demon-like visage, possessing two perfectly circular eyes, but lacking a proper mouth. As if this wasn't already creepy enough, there were also several notches cut into it in random places, likely due to mistakes or simple wear and tear. The horns appeared to be made out of animal bones, either having originally been actual horns or simply bones carved into the desired shape, a shape which they had naturally retained much better than the nicked and rotting wood. Although there seemed to have once been a crude strap made of hemp rope to help keep the mask on, hardly any of it was left, suggesting that it had simply been worn out...or perhaps had been torn off in some kind of struggle. Vee wandered over to get a closer look at it as unobtrusively as she could, taking advantage of the fact that her friends were still lost in their own conversation.

The description on the placard beneath the display case only further solidified Vee's suspicions. It described the mask as belonging to Philip, having likely received it as a gift from his older brother for reasons which were a source of minor speculation. As the description explained, some local historians believe that the boy was simply uncomfortable showing his face to these strange people in a strange town which he was still adjusting to. Others, though...others attached a more sinister meaning to it. For as the description noted later on, Philip continued to wear the mask well into adulthood, most notably when engaging in the pursuit of several accused witches as one of the town's most successful witch-hunters. According to the description, Philip himself claimed he did this so that he would not give the witches he 'punished' the satisfaction of knowing that their wretched magic could ever affect him at all. He would remain cold and impassive always, a faceless warrior of the Lord put upon this Earth to burn those who would seek to besmirch His name and reject His will. That particular quotation, a quote so eerily similar to what she knew of Belos' ideology and motivations both in propaganda and in reality, was all it took to convince Vee beyond any doubt of what she had been too terrified to suspect before:

Emperor Belos had once been Philip Wittebane.

Her friends all stopped talking once they finally noticed where "Luz" was...and that she was terrified. Unfortunately, Vee was in no state to process their apologies for getting distracted, their concerned expressions as they looked at her, or their questions about her well-being. She was in no state to do much of anything, really. In mere moments, she now had the answer for every horrible unanswered question that had haunted her for her entire life.

Belos not being a witch confirmed her earlier hypothesis that his hatred of "wild magic" was indeed a political fabrication, one meant to disguise a hatred of the Isles' entire way of life by distilling it down into a nebulous force of chaos and disorder that was easily vilified. It also explained why he needed an artificial staff to do magic, since humans couldn't do it naturally and he might not have figured out whatever Luz's method was. Looking back, he had indeed smelled magical, which is why she hadn't suspected he wasn't who he said he was before now...but his magic had also smelled wrong. It didn't smell like it was truly his magic in the way that a normal witch's magic did, suggesting that he may have taken to consuming other creatures' magic somehow. That probably helped explain how the hell he'd survived for over 400 years, although Vee doubted that alone would be enough to extend a human life to such a drastic degree. However, the most crucial thing was that she now knew for certain that her suspicions were correct. She had been created by Belos...no. By Philip so that her abilities and the knowledge of how they functioned would help him to fulfill a purpose which had formed the core of his identity for four hundred years:

To rid the world of demons and witchcraft once and for all.

With a strangled cry, Vee suddenly found herself stumbling backwards to get away from the mask, away from the evidence that proved her terrible theory...and, unfortunately, away from her friends, whom she swiftly evaded as she raced out of the building as fast as she possibly could, no matter how much they called out for her to stop. While Vee hated having to worry them all yet again, she had more important things to deal with at the moment.

Namely, the fact that her human form had been slowly unraveling.

She hadn't noticed her eyes blink sideways when she stumbled backwards, which hopefully meant that her friends hadn't either, but she could definitely notice her true ears beginning to make their presence known. As she ducked under the shade of a familiar tree, she attempted to catch her breath and refocus her magical reserves on returning to normal. She might have succeeded had she not caught sight of the familiar statue nearby, yet another reminder of just how much this town prided itself on its local legends. With another gasp, she abandoned her efforts and switched to Plan B as she simply covered her ears with her hands before taking off as fast as she reasonably could without drawing suspicion. It wasn't exactly good for not drawing attention to herself (and was it just her, or did that little girl pointing Vee out to her mother look familiar?), but luckily, nobody else seemed to take notice of her as she ran in a panic with her hands fully covering her ears.

It seemed that impersonating the town weirdo had its advantages, after all.

` In any case, she was only able to have a moment to herself when she came upon a familiar alley which she had a feeling wouldn't be especially well-frequented. As she predicted, one or two of those rats seemed to be lurking in the shadows. The sight of them definitely didn't help her to maintain her human form, and yet, instead of running from them like before, her instinctual reaction was to...hiss. It was a guttural sort of sound that came from her lips as her vocal cords shifted back to their true configuration, the warning hiss of a predator, and it certainly did the trick of spooking the rats badly enough that they scurried back towards their lair. Vee paused as she watched them run, run from her, and found herself utterly flabbergasted at what she had just done.

Where the hell did that come from?

She shook her head: that wasn't important right now. She had to assume that Luz and her friends weren't aware of the true danger Belos posed, and if that was the case, then her sister was in grave danger. There were two people she had to reach out to about this, but of the two, only one immediately came to her mind, panicked as it was by the thought that her sister was going to die.

With shaking fingers, she pulled out her phone and called her mother.

"What the hell was all that about?"

Alex's pointed question, albeit perhaps a little tactless given the circumstances, nonetheless deserved an answer, not that Masha was entirely prepared to give them one as they sat at their desk. This entire situation had been bizarre, which was frankly saying something when it came to "Luz."

"I-I dunno!" Masha said, too stunned to offer much else. "We were, y'know, alone for a bit while y'all were moving things, but then she started noticing all of these old witch hunter things we had on display, and it spooked her in, like, a really weird way. It can't be anything to do with that turd, because she was mostly fine going through all his stuff in the staff room, and she was muttering some weird stuff after I told her what she was looking at...stuff that I don't know what to make of. Ugh, it doesn't make any sense!" Masha exclaimed, to which the others thought for a moment before Sam piped up, having taken the time to carefully examine the objects in question.

"I mean, this might be nothing, but if you put Philip's mask on an older guy with his figure and give him a shepherd's crook...he'd kinda look like that monster she keeps having nightmares about, don't you think?" Sam proposed, causing the others to mull over it for a bit.

"Maybe...but I dunno, it seems like a bit of a stretch. Like, how would that have even happened?" Alex pondered aloud. "Did she, like, get freaked out by hearing about him as a little kid or something? It just seems a bit incidental for something that's affected her for so much of her life, is all." The others considered Alex's argument before Sam offered a slight rebuttal.

"I mean, fears aren't exactly rational, dude, plus Luz has had a pretty sucky life so far. Maybe it's stuck in her head all this time because it's more abstract than that: like, she's always been afraid of getting punished for being different, so her subconscious represents that fear through Philip because he was a scary witch hunter guy," Sam suggested, causing Masha to groan louder.

"Agh, you might be onto something there. No wonder that prison comment I made scared her so badly," Masha said, regret evident in their tone as Juniper brought up another point.

"There is also the fact that Luz is well known for having a remarkably active and...somewhat macabre imagination," Juniper remarked, thinking back to the Sausage Incident. "It is not inconceivable that her subconscious mind would transform this historical figure into a monster that is perhaps reflective of what the man was in reality, while also serving as a reflection of her own fears like you suggested," Juniper argued while looking at Sam. Alex nodded in agreement.

"Yeah, as cool as the story is, it's also kinda weird when you think about it. Like, it tries so hard to frame Philip as some kinda hero when he most definitely wasn't? I mean, we all learned about the witch trials in school, I dunno why our town's so dead-set on stanning the guy," Alex added on. Masha murmured in agreement before taking charge once more.

"Look, we're getting off track and it feels kinda weird to speculate on this stuff," Masha began, to which nobody could really offer much of a rebuttal. "Why don't we figure out where Luz went and ask her what's going on instead of making it a whole thing, yeah?" Masha suggested, prompting the others to quickly gather their things as they prepared to leave the building and embark upon the search for their friend. Once the door closed behind their friends, only Masha remained, sighing as they finally bit the proverbial bullet and placed an object they had been concealing behind the desk on top of it to finish personalizing the space to their liking. It was simple enough, nothing more than a nametag like one would expect of a person in Masha's position, but after much internal deliberation...they had elected to make an important addition to it.

"Still got some stuff to sort out, but...it's a start, at least," Masha thought aloud before grabbing their employee key and locking up the building, leaving only the following words behind:

MASHA

THEY/THEM

Bonus Chapter #3: Trials and Tribulations

[Summary: Mabel's efforts at helping the Nocedas haven't quite panned out the way she wanted, and she's beginning to worry that she's wasted her time. Unfortunately, texts from a panicking Vee cause Mabel to realize that her situation has gone from bad to much, much worse.]

Mabel still wasn't doing too great, all things considered.

Although she'd made a point of checking it out only once to restock on water samples, the coastal portal still refused to do anything of note no matter what she tried. Honestly, if it weren't for the Titan's Blood that she continued to filter out from the water, she would've figured it was a complete and total dud. As it stood, her best guesses were that it would activate only when affected by some natural phenomenon that hadn't occurred yet...or it was utterly random and she just had the worst luck on the planet. Dipper jokingly claimed that Option 2 was more likely over text, but Mabel knew he was just messing with her. Still, there was at least some consolation to be had in the fact that her best guess was as good as his, even if he still couldn't find the time to come see it for himself. Now that jerky voice in her head had less ammunition when it claimed her genius brother would have solved this whole thing weeks ago.

I mean, it was still gonna do that, because it was a jerk, but y'know, small victories.

In any case, there was no use crying about the portal being a dead end, so once Mabel caught up on all of the other boring work she had missed during her self-destructive spiral, she turned her attention back to her ongoing project at a much slower pace. Now she could confidently say that she had managed to filter out a whole teaspoon of Titan's Blood, maybe a little more if she was being generous. She couldn't tell whether or not a teaspoon of the stuff was really all that much in the grand scheme of things, since what information she'd gathered secondhand didn't provide the best sense of scale regarding how much Titan's Blood was needed to actually make a portal door. It felt like it shouldn't be enough, but apparently Luz had made her janky one using a teensy bit of the stuff soaked into a glove, so...maybe it'd work? Of course, that was assuming that things would even necessarily work the same way if she tried to use the Titan's Blood to make a portal on boring old Earth instead of in the magic-infused Boiling Isles. She had been tempted at times to splash her whole supply onto the door of the abandoned house and see what happened, but that was young Mabel talking, and she had gained a lot of impulse control now that she was an adult. She wanted to attribute that to her maturity, but if she was being honest with herself, the long-overdue ADHD diagnosis and accompanying meds were probably a more pertinent factor.

Besides, if Mabel blew up the door, it'd destroy what little property value the house had left.

And on that note, Mabel had thought getting the abandoned house for the Nocedas was a done deal, but apparently City Hall finally decided to get a backbone somewhere along the way and was now asking for an additional fifty grand on top of the original price which they had already negotiated. Nevermind that they literally had no other buyers and no real weight at the negotiating table: Mabel had no idea what they were thinking with this play, but God was it annoying. Thankfully, this was additional money which Pacifica had if they really needed it, but Mabel had already asked her for a lot and didn't want to put her under further financial strain for the sake of total strangers. On the other hand, her amateur paranormal research and various other living expenses had set her back a bit financially as well, not that she was swimming in cash to begin with, so it wasn't like she could pick up the slack herself.

She could call in some favors, though.

With the renovation situation still in flux, but looking somewhat better after reaching out to her favorite family of lumberjacks, all Mabel really had left to worry about aside from the potentially fruitless Titan's Blood project was her ongoing work forging Vee's documentation. Sure, the plan had been to let "Marilyn" handle everything, but it had almost been a month since they'd heard from Luz at this point: Mabel wasn't taking any chances. Fortunately, when it came to forging the actual documents which Vee would need to establish her new identity, all Mabel had really needed to do was copy Luz's documents and then carefully edit those copies as needed to make "Victoria Noceda" as distinct from Luz Noceda as any twin sister would be. It might not have been as good as something made by a professional forger, but Mabel figured it'd pass muster.

Making up a paper trail for "Marilyn," though, that was harder. Much harder.

What little information Mabel could find after rifling through the things they'd taken from Hopkins suggested that Eda had lived virtually off the grid whenever she was in the Human Realm. She never paid for things with anything traceable (on the rare occasion she paid at all), she rarely stayed at hotels, not to mention she had literal magic to help her cover her tracks! The one saving grace which ultimately helped Mabel to work out a general timeline of her whereabouts which the existing records would support was the fact that Eda never bothered picking another alias, just using "Marilyn" on its own whenever she could get away with it and "Pines" if she absolutely had to give people a last name. A part of Mabel wondered why their family hadn't caught wind of her paranormal activities sooner with her using their name as an alias, but then again, her Grunkle Stan had seemed eager to put the woman out of his mind. Literally: she only knew about "Marilyn" in the first place because Dipper found Stan's memories of that wild weekend in Vegas while they were actually inside his mind. She shuddered to think of what else her brother saw in there.

In any case, she was eventually able to cobble a narrative together which would back up the girls' story without adding too many questions on top of it, but it hadn't been easy or particularly quick, and it still left the hard part completely unaccounted for. She'd thought about biting the bullet and doing that herself too, but she was far less confident about her breaking and entering skills than she was about her forgery skills. It was one thing to use the power of editing software to spoof documents proving that two of what were basically the same girl existed and had always existed: it was quite another thing to break into multiple buildings and plant those documents carefully enough to avoid drawing suspicion so that everyone else would believe this to be true. She'd counterfeited money once and gotten good at typical teen-style trespassing over years of mundane and magical hijinks: she did not have the skill-set needed for something like this!

Of course...it wasn't like there were many other options. Grunkle Stan was too far away and too old to do something like this anymore, and Mabel couldn't possibly ask anyone else she knew to take that sort of risk, least of all Camila. God knows that woman was already too involved in this increasingly illegal Parent Trap scheme for her to risk getting arrested and taken away from her kids! As much as she didn't like it, Mabel had to acknowledge that it was probably best for her to trust that "Marilyn" would eventually show up and pull it off for her, rather than attempting to shoulder the responsibility herself or outsourcing it to someone she couldn't trust. All that taking either option would accomplish would be putting them at further risk once it backfired immediately and she got herself arrested and lost the camp and finally let everyone down like she always knew she-!

"Ms. Pines? Ms. Pines, are you still with us?"

Mabel blinked as she heard Principal Hal's words. Right. She wasn't supposed to be thinking about this stuff right now. She was supposed to be telling the principal about what Karen and her cronies did at camp, her presence having been requested along with Camila's as part of the school's frustratingly belated attempt to sort out the situation with "Luz" and the mean girls from Cabin 9. Nevermind that Principal Hal had already gotten her report on how camp had gone for each of the students placed under her care, including Karen and her friends. Nevermind that she had explicitly told him to keep Karen and her friends out of any classes with the Cabin 7 kids, only for the mean girls to be sprinkled in throughout their courses anyway. Nevermind that all of the mean girls had been put into the same P.E. class as "Luz," only for everyone to be all shocked and horrified when Karen became increasingly violent and unruly. Nevermind that the principal had the nerve to give Mabel side-eye when she walked in instead of realizing that they had both messed up here!

No, as usual, it was only her job to deal with the kids that were left behind.

"Hm? Yeah, yeah, sorry. I tend to space out sometimes. ADHD, forgot to take my meds, you know how it is," Mabel explained off-handedly, bending the truth enough to deflect suspicion.

"Right," Principal Hal said with uncertainty. "Well, as I was saying, I'm not feeling quite as confident about your program's effectiveness in the wake of these incidents, Ms. Pines. Karen and her fellows were admitted into Reality Check under the assumption that their behavior would be straightened out, and yet now she's become even more unruly than she was last semester. Given the trouble she's gotten herself into, it seems pretty strange to me that she managed to stay on her best behavior for most of your camp. Unless, of course, there were additional incidents which you and your staff remained unaware of? Incidents which your camp failed to adequately address which may be responsible for all of this?" he asked rather pointedly, to which Mabel frowned a bit in spite of herself. She'd done a good job of keeping Karen and her clique away from Vee, but because of that, there wasn't much else going against them on Mabel's reports outside of their initial confrontation and a handful of remarks she'd overheard which skirted just shy of the line. To an outside observer, it really did look like Karen had supposedly gotten marginally better during camp, only to suddenly revert to her old ways the moment she was back in school. Mabel had never dealt with a troublemaking relapse quite this bad before, and if she didn't address this tactfully...well.

Word tended to go around rather quickly in these school districts.

"I understand how this looks, but I'm not sure I entirely agree with that assessment, sir," Mabel began, having gotten fairly good at sounding professional enough to be taken seriously over the years. "Even if she largely followed the rules and participated in the activities, a day rarely went by without some sort of passing remark from her about how pointless it all was. I try not to judge the kids for that kind of initial negativity, given how challenging it can be for many of them to adjust to being away from their families and many of their friends, but they all still recognize on some level that they need help. Not Karen: she didn't think she did anything to warrant getting sent to Reality Check, and I imagine that she still doesn't think she's done anything wrong even after all of this. That points to some pretty deep-seated issues on her end, issues which I'm fully prepared to admit are beyond the scope of my program's ability to address, and you'll recall that I said as much in the report I gave you last month." With that, she noticed Principal Hal tense up ever-so-slightly, giving her the chance to press him further. "In fact, you may also recall that I specifically advised you not to place Cabin 9 in the same courses as Luz and her friends, a recommendation which was apparently ignored and arguably could have prevented much of this from happening in the first place," she added a little more pointedly, causing Principal Hal to attempt to defend himself.

"Ms. Pines, there's only so much we can do in that regard, you can't expect us to-"

"Other schools have had very little difficulty in following my recommendations, including when it comes to keeping students away from each other as much as possible," Mabel pointed out swiftly. "Why is it suddenly so difficult here?" she asked, leaving Principal Hal unsure of how to answer for a moment before he decided to be as transparent as he was willing to stomach.

"There were, um...objections among the faculty," he said with regret in his voice, a nothing-statement that both Camila and Mabel saw through immediately. Judging from the way his gaze shifted, he wasn't about to name names, but they all knew who exactly they were talking about.

"I see," Camila said dryly, speaking up for the first time. "Well, while we're on the subject of the faculty, could we perhaps talk about Mrs. Peterson?" she asked, causing Principal Hal to pause.

"I, um, I'm not sure what relevance she has to this conversation, Mrs. Noceda," he attempted to argue, but Camila caught the slight twitch in his expression at that name.

"Oh, I think her conduct is quite relevant to this conversation, Principal Hal," she continued. "She has made her opinions about my daughter clear from the very first day of school: earlier, in fact! And luckily, I happen to know that several classmates are prepared to corroborate everything that my daughter has told me about the condescension and disrespect that she's been forced to endure from that woman with no help from the district whatsoever!" She managed to catch herself from raising her voice too much at the end, knowing from years of bitter experience how important it was for her to remain calm and reasonable even in the face of such an outrage. To do otherwise would only make an undesirable situation even worse, she knew that much.

And yet, she had to admit, she was having trouble giving much of a damn at this point.

"Mrs. Noceda, this is a very serious charge to levy against a faculty member-"

"And that must be why my daughter didn't want to come forward herself," Camila said, cutting him off. "Perhaps that's why she hadn't told me about this until recently, when I have every reason to suspect that this has been going on since the spider incident last semester. Perhaps that's why she's never been brave enough to come forward about any of the things she's told me about, and only ever tells me things to begin with when her mental health is pushed past the breaking point. As though she shouldn't let things like this bother her, no matter how bad it gets and how badly it hurts her. As though all of this was her fault somehow," Camila said, no longer able to keep her voice entirely in check while Mabel watched the conversation derail with rapt attention.

"M-Mrs. Noceda-"

"The bullying, the name-calling, the mistreatment from her teachers, and all of the precious belongings that so many awful kids decided to ruin for no good reason!" Camila said, listing each major point on her fingers and gradually cowing the principal into silence. "All problems which she always tried so hard to avoid talking about, because at the end of the day...she knew that you wouldn't do anything to help her. And she didn't want to make me upset about things which she thought I didn't have the power to change," Camila said with a noticeable hitch in her voice, taking a moment to regain her composure and stare Principal Hal down. "And so, I have to ask you, principal," Camila said bitterly, spitting out the last word with contempt. "Was my daughter wrong?" she asked, and Mabel could only watch gobsmacked at the exchange unfolding before her.

"Mrs. Noceda, I assure you, we all want to help your daughter continue to thrive at our school-" Principal Hal attempted to reply with a disarming smile, but Camila wasn't having it.

"Oh, please!" Camila said derisively. "This conversation was supposed to be about helping Luz, and yet you've been going on and on about how Karen has been backsliding, trying to pin the blame for all of this on anything other than her behavior and the system that has enabled it to go on for far too long! Did you ever stop to think that maybe we wouldn't be dealing with this situation if you or her parents had given her the professional help she so clearly needs instead of letting things progress to this point? Or is bullying suddenly acceptable in this school when it's directed towards a certain type of student?!" Both Mabel and Principal Hal were left utterly stunned in response to Camila's poignant question, a question that could be interpreted in multiple ways, none of which made the district look good. Mabel was doing everything she could not to laugh like she was watching a drama show that just got good, while Principal Hal remained steely and impassive for a moment, leaving Camila more worried as the seconds ticked by.

"Mrs. Noceda," he began at last in a rather serious tone. "You have made some rather bold accusations during this meeting...accusations which we shall investigate in due course," he finished, shocking both of them with his relative compliance. "We can at least agree on one thing: this is a systemic issue, one that we clearly need to address via every means at our disposal. And rest assured: we will address it. You have my word that we will make this school into a safe place for your daughter and her friends. Whatever it takes." At this, the two women paused. His words certainly sounded sincere enough, and decisive enough, and yet...Camila in particular had trouble trusting them. Principal Hal seemed relatively decent, he was no Superintendent Burnes, but even so...

Well. It didn't seem like she had much of a choice other than to take him at his word.

"Thank you, sir," Camila responded politely. "I think we will take our leave now," she added, knowing that going immediately was probably for the best.

"Of course," he said, only to stand up from his chair once Camila was about to close the door. "And, Mrs. Noceda? One more thing," he called out after her, and Camila cringed. She'd watched enough old American TV with her abuela to know that phrase meant nothing good.

"Yes?" she asked nervously, trying not to let it show on her face.

"I consider myself to be a reasonable man, and I strive to be the best principal I can be for the sake of my students. All of my students," he began by way of explanation. "And yet...this meeting marks the second time in which you have treated me with deep disrespect," he said gravely, causing Camila's eyes to widen as she thought back to that horrible mistake she'd made over a year ago now. As she'd long feared, he very much still remembered. "I advise you not to make a habit of that," he said simply, something in his tone warning Camila that she, as a parent, was on rather thin ice at this point. She could only nod hurriedly in agreement.

"Mhm, mhm, I, uh...my apologies, sir. This whole situation is just...frustrating," Camila said, a part of her admittedly indignant at the fact that she had to apologize even as she knew that she hadn't been the most tactful, and that this was the best course to take to keep their relationship as parent and educator as civil as possible in light of her earlier mistake. Principal Hal gave her an easy smile in return, one which likewise seemed to be genuine enough.

"I understand. We all want what's best for our children, after all," he said affably like nothing had happened, but Camila couldn't shake that nervous feeling while she was in line of sight. "You take care now," he added warmly, and Mabel took that as her cue to lead Camila away from him.

From the looks of things, the woman was one more fright away from simply passing out.

"Ay, I can't believe I said all of that!" Camila said anxiously once they were outside and sitting on one of the benches in the lunch area. "The last thing my girls need is another reason for their principal to hate me!" she added mournfully, wincing as she reflected back on certain things while Mabel looked at her with a bemused expression.

"What, are you talking about the whole snake thing? It seems like the bite healed well," Mabel remarked, only for Camila to groan with a pained expression on her face.

"Ohhh, no, not just that, I...agh, before Luz started going here, I might have...hm," Camila said, not wanting to get the words out. Unfortunately, that only made Mabel more curious.

"Camila, what did you do?" she asked, already struggling not to laugh as Camila blushed.

"I kind of, um...cursed him out in a fit of road rage," she eventually got out, leaving Mabel to start guffawing as she attempted to explain herself. "I'm not saying it was right, but he was on his phone, at a stop sign, for five minutes! There were maybe seven cars piled up behind me, and I had non-dairy ice cream in the car, I couldn't afford to wait! I just...really should've been nicer about it," she finished with such embarrassment that Mabel stopped herself from laughing any further.

"Eh, we all have bad days and screw up sometimes. I know that better than most," she said, getting a look in her eyes which was eerily familiar. As soon as Camila noticed it, however, it was gone, and Mabel was back to her normal sunny self. "In any case, what you said in there wasn't one of those moments, that was awesome!" Mabel said in an effort to cheer her up. Camila couldn't help a small smile escaping her lips in response to the young woman's praise.

"You really think so?" she asked, evidently not so sure of that herself.

"Uh, yeah, totally, are you kidding? I wish I could tell off some of these tools I have to deal with the way you did!" Mabel replied, chuckling a bit to herself.

"Well, I doubt I'll get to do it again," Camila said worriedly. "Not if I want my daughters to survive the fallout of this whole Parent Trap scheme. I can't imagine the district will be happy."

"Eh, screw 'em," Mabel said casually, as though she weren't talking about the people who kept her in business. "I mean, worst case scenario, I could help y'all move out to Gravity Falls if you really needed to. Their school district is way more permissive, trust me," she suggested in a light tone, although Camila could tell that the offer was genuine, even if a little out of the blue.

"Are you sure?" she asked. "Even if it...becomes necessary, I-I'm not sure I'm cut out to live in a place like that," Camila admitted before a smile came to her lips as she thought about it. "Luz would love it, though. It'd be like her own little slice of..." Camila paused, her eyes widening as a new thought she hadn't fully considered before came to her mind. Mabel looked at her weirdly.

"Slice of what? You kinda lost me there," Mabel remarked, to which Camila sighed tiredly.

"Home," she said, finishing her thought. "I never thought about it before now, how I just-I just assumed that she'd stay here most of the time, once she was back and everything was all said and done," Camila continued. "I knew she'd have to go back to see her friends every so often, and we'd have to figure out how to balance her schooling across two different realms, but I...I never stopped to think that the Boiling Isles might actually be...home for her, now." Camila paused again as she grappled with that fact, while Mabel sought to get ahead of a troubling train of thought.

"Camila...she's coming back," Mabel said firmly, only for Camila to chuckle humorlessly.

"Ay, because I asked her to. Because I made her promise me in a moment of panic," Camila said with a hint of sadness in her voice. "Be honest with me, Ms. Pines: if it weren't for that promise, if it weren't for me and Vee and my side of the family being here...do you honestly think that she'd want to come back? For as dangerous as that place is...what does she have here that makes it so much better?" Now it was Mabel's turn to pause, because she honestly couldn't think of anything, but she had to say something.

"She has you," Mabel said simply, earnestly, and Camila could at least give her a sad smile in response. "She has Vee, she has her family, like you said."

"Ay, but not much else," Camila pointed out. "Any friends she might have here are really Vee's friends, and everyone else in this town either bullies her, ignores her, or whispers all sorts of nasty things about her behind her back. She might be happier in a place like Gravity Falls, assuming we ever needed to move there, but even so...I think I need to accept the fact that her heart will always be elsewhere," she finished with a bittersweet smile on her face. "And that's alright. I'm truly happy that she's finally found a place where she belongs...even if it's somewhere I can't follow her."

The two fell into a tense silence after that, Camila lost in her thoughts while Mabel tried desperately to think of something she could say to comfort her and ultimately came up empty. She almost thought she had something, but then...well. Camila's phone had other plans.

"Ah, lo siento, Ms. Pines. It's Vee, she probably needs me to pick her up," Camila explained, to which Mabel reluctantly nodded, having been told that Vee might need a ride beforehand.

"No problem. Good thing we decided to drive separately, yeah?" Mabel quipped, but Camila was already engrossed in a phone call which Mabel suspected was going south fast, judging from the way the older woman's smile fell seconds after she picked up the phone. Mabel grimaced, wondering whether she should offer to come with, but decided against it. She needed to get to the beach and pick up some more magic water, after all. They could certainly use as much of this Titan's Blood as possible, and if this conversation was anything like what Mabel feared it was...well.

She had a feeling they were going to need every last drop.

Chapter Nineteen: Agony of a Sister

[Summary: Camila and Mabel attempt to help Vee feel better in the wake of what she has discovered about Emperor Belos' true identity, a discovery which brings to mind some less than pleasant memories and even darker feelings. Although they do their best to come up with a plan to warn Luz of what Vee has discovered...this ultimately becomes unnecessary.]

It made an unfortunate sort of sense that Vee would be hiding when Camila arrived.

"Vee?" Camila whispered, hoping that nobody would notice her in this alleyway. She could see two golden eyes perk up and look at her worriedly from the darkness of a dumpster. Evidently, Vee's panic had caused her to revert fully, the poor girl. "Oh, baby," she muttered before glancing around to make sure no one was watching. "Do you have enough magic to change back?" she asked, to which Vee nodded hesitantly. Seeing that the current problem was more an issue of panic than an issue of lacking the resources, Camila did her best to whisper sweet nothings as she held Vee's hand through the dumpster and waited until her daughter had carefully reassembled her human disguise.

"Thanks, mami," Vee muttered, almost too softly for Camila to hear.

"Of course, baby," she replied warmly as she pulled her out. "Now, come on, let's get you home and, um..." She paused as she did her best to not instinctively gag upon smelling her daughter, which thankfully got a chuckle from her despite everything.

"Into a shower?" she asked as if finishing Camila's sentence, causing her to sigh.

"Well...yes, but one thing at a time, eh, cariño?" she asked, helping Vee to brush off the worst of the detritus so that no one would give them strange looks. As usual, nobody seemed to be paying them any special attention...but the sight of Vee's friends looking for "Luz" throughout the rest of the park made her especially anxious to get to the car as quickly as possible. Fortunately, they indeed managed to do so without any further complications, and the two were swiftly on course for home.

"Sorry about all of this," Vee muttered, but Camila wasn't having any of that.

"I'm not mad at you for anything, okay, sweetie? I'm just really worried about you, that's all," Camila explained, and Vee had thankfully gotten to a point where she could fully believe her mother when she said things like that. "Now what's going on? You mentioned that we needed to find a way to make a portal today, and something about the Wittebanes?" she asked, only for Vee to instinctively flinch at the name. "I'm sorry, mija, but I'm really trying to wrap my head around this, and I don't know how much I can help you unless you tell me what's going on," Camila explained, the concern in her voice palpable enough that Vee was eventually able to recover her own.

"I...need to get a message to Luz!" Vee replied with utmost urgency. "Unless something's changed recently, she probably has no idea who Belos really is or what he's actually planning to do to the Boiling Isles, and-and if she doesn't find out soon, then he's going to...to...!" Camila's face fell as she recalled their earlier conversation and realized just what had scared Vee so badly. Somehow, her daughter had deduced that she was actually right about Belos' plans...and that meant that Luz and everyone she cared about were in grave, grave danger.

"Vee, honey, breathe," Camila said gently, giving Vee time to go through her usual breathing technique. Once she'd managed to recover, she spoke again, her words confirming Camila's fears.

"He's going to kill them all," Vee finished, the horror in her voice more than evident as she continued in a panic. "I already knew he wasn't what he claimed he was, but if I'm right, it's even worse than I thought! He isn't a witch at all, he's-he's human! He's Philip Wittebane!" Vee cried out, knowing that Camila would recognize the name and the implications behind it. A witch trying to wipe out all witches had been utter madness to consider, but such a plan being made by an old, Puritan witch hunter like Philip Wittebane...now it all made a horrible kind of sense.

"Oh no," Camila muttered as Vee continued, her panic rising with each additional word.

"The stories they tell about him here must be true! He must have come to the Isles nearly 400 years ago and somehow kept himself alive long enough to whip up this 'Belos' persona, take over the Isles, and come up with a brilliant plan to murder everyone there! H-he made me and the other basilisks so he could learn how to drain magic. He's gonna use that knowledge to kill millions on this 'Day of Unity' and I was forced to help him do it! He-I-hahh, hahghh, hahhghhh-!"

"Vee, sweetie, stay with me!" Camila said worriedly as she resisted the urge to take her eyes off the road. Vee did her best to calm herself down yet again, but the girl was clearly struggling without someone who could properly tend to her. After a moment of silence passed and Vee had thankfully settled down a bit, Camila dared to ask another question in the interest of clarification. "Okay, baby, you don't have to answer this if you don't want to, but...how did you figure all of this out? From things at the historical society?" she asked, not wishing to introduce doubt on Vee's part so much as get answers. Vee nodded as she tried to explain.

"There were some things there that I hadn't had the chance to really look at on the day I was abducted," Vee explained with a tremor in her voice. "Things which reminded me of home...of him. I-I'd learned bits and pieces of the town's colonial history in the weeks since, things that seemed eerily familiar, but I hadn't put it all together until today because-"

"You didn't want to go back there," Camila finished consolingly, knowing that having that kind of revelation in the place where she'd been kidnapped must have been really difficult for her.

"Yeah," Vee admitted nervously. "I-I thought I could handle it well enough to help Masha and the others clear out their new office, and-and I did! I...I was doing so well," she finished as tears came to her eyes, and it took more effort than she would have liked to remind herself that it was okay to cry. Unfortunately, there was only so much comfort Camila could offer while driving.

"Oh, pobrecita," Camila muttered as she reached out to place a hand on her head while keeping the other hand on the wheel. After enough time had passed that Vee felt like she could talk again, she continued to explain what had happened.

"Anyway, there was this sigil from colonial times, and...and it looked exactly like the one used by the Emperor's Coven," Vee began. "I had noticed similarities between it and the sigil used by the town itself, but it was a really vague connection, I thought I'd imagined it. As if that wasn't bad enough, there was also this local legend Masha told me about the Wittebane brothers meeting a witch from another world...and there was this old wooden mask that looked a lot like Belos' golden one, one which had apparently belonged to Philip," Vee finished, shuddering as she weighed all of the evidence together once again. "I-I don't know for sure that I'm right yet, and there's some bits of the story I don't have any idea how to explain, but everything I saw in there, everything I heard, it-it all lines up too well for any other explanation to make sense!" Vee cried out in a panic, sounding as though she were questioning if she'd really made the connections she had and wasn't just imagining things. Camila made sure to put an end to those doubts immediately.

"I believe you, sweetie, and I need you to know something, okay? Whatever that man might do with what he learned, whatever he forced you to do, it wasn't remotely your fault, okay? You didn't have a choice," Camila said reassuringly, managing to calm Vee down a bit before she was forced to be the bearer of bad news. "Unfortunately, from what Ms. Pines tells me, I'm not sure if there's much we can do. That portal by the beach hasn't opened once, and even if it does, who knows where it might lead or whether we could use it to even send a message to Luz, let alone bring her back or go in ourselves. We could try making our own portal with the Titan's Blood we have, but from how Luz described it, it sounds like we would need raw magic on top of the blood, and I'm not sure anything we have would cut it. I mean, unless you can, I dunno...spit some back out?" Camila asked, already cringing at that mental image, but on the bright side, it got a chuckle out of Vee.

"No no no, I cannot do that, mami," Vee said with the slightest hint of amusement. Camila laughed a little awkwardly as well at her assumption before getting back on topic.

"Right, well, in any case, I don't think any of us really knows enough about how that all works to take such a risk right now," Camila continued somewhat dejectedly, knowing that she'd have to put her foot down even if she understood her daughter's feelings on what was an acceptable risk. "I don't want you doing anything like what Luz did back then until we know for sure that it's safe. From the sound of things, Luz is already in terrible danger, I...I don't know how I'd live with myself if something happened to both of you," she finished, the pain in her voice more than evident and more than enough to squash any thoughts Vee had of doing something stupidly heroic. She knew that they needed to be smart about this, especially for her mother's sake, but all the same...

"We've got to at least try something, though, I can't...I can't keep running away from things like this," Vee muttered, causing Camila to fall silent for a moment before offering her a sad smile.

"Don't worry, baby," she said. "We'll figure something out...sooner or later. We always do."

Vee didn't quite manage to force a smile in response to that, knowing full well that "sooner or later" could still end up being far, far too late.

Thinking about it now, Vee absolutely hated the feeling of being talked about.

She could hear Camila and Ms. Pines in the hallway no matter how much they tried to keep their voices down, debating how exactly to handle what Vee had told her mother and how to handle Vee in particular given what she had just experienced. Granted, she was all the way in the living room underneath a pile of blankets, so the dialogue between them wasn't entirely clear even with her keen ears, but she got the gist of it, and she didn't like it. Part of it came from simply feeling bad about making them worry, but more than anything, she hated feeling like she was too fragile to be included in these conversations. Of course, for as much as it hurt what little pride she had to admit it, her being too fragile to handle it wasn't an entirely inaccurate assumption. After all, she had just run away from her friends in a panic after learning what she'd learned, and she'd barely been able to talk about it for too long after the fact without finding herself on the verge of yet another panic attack. Still, she was a little sick of being put in situations where her loved ones felt the need to walk on eggshells around her, both because of how demeaning it felt and because of how much she hated that their caution around her was often necessary.

As foolish as she knew it was, she kept waiting for the moment where she would stop freaking out over everything and just be...better. The moment where she wouldn't stumble and stammer through every conversation about her past. The moment where she could actually stand up to the Belos that lived inside her head. The moment she could finally have some damn confidence in herself without some sort of caveat, or having it all yanked out from under her without any warning. She had almost felt like she was getting there, between the nightmares becoming less frequent and her loved ones helping her realize her value as her own person. She had managed to set foot in the Gravesfield Historical Society for the first time since she'd been kidnapped, and she had even helped put away Hopkins' leftover things without freaking out once! But leave it to Belos-agh, Philip to take all of that confidence away and turn her right back into that scared little serpent girl who'd snuck through the portal door all those months ago.

There really wasn't any getting rid of him.

"Oh, baby," Camila said worriedly, jostling Vee out of her thoughts and quite literally jostling her out of her position as she sat down on the couch and gave her a big bear hug. Although she was still a bit miffed, Vee at least managed to crack a sad smile at the contact.

"Hey, mami," Vee replied tiredly, only causing Camila's worried expression to intensify.

"I knew I should've rescheduled that meeting so we could help you kids pack! If I'd known all of those horrible things would be there-!" Camila began, only for Vee to hold up a hand.

"It's...fine," Vee said, although the reticence in her tone made it clear that it was anything but. "What's more important is that we find a way to help Luz and the others," she continued resolutely, and as much as Camila wanted to offer her daughter more comfort, what she'd heard convinced her that Vee was at least partly right about where their priorities ought to be for the moment.

"Ay, that's true enough, but do you have any ideas on how to accomplish that with what little we have?" Camila asked, hoping that Vee would have answers she ultimately did not possess.

"I don't know. I don't know! But I can't-I can't just sit here and feel sorry for myself like I always do, not while Luz is stuck in that hellhole dealing with Titan only knows what!" Vee snapped, shrinking in on herself when her brain caught up on how she was speaking to her mother. "I...lo siento, mamá, I'm just...I'm so scared," she admitted, tears coming to her eyes again. "I'm scared for the other basilisks, I'm scared for Luz, I'm scared for her friends and her weird little family even though I've never met any of them. I'm scared for Malphas and that guard and all the other people who showed me some degree of kindness before I came here. Even though they probably wouldn't have done that if they'd known what I was, they...they don't deserve this." As Vee said that last part, she suddenly found herself thinking back to another scary situation that was eerily similar to the one she faced now. A time where she could only stand by and do nothing, a time when what she chose to do might have actually helped prevent a horrible tragedy.

For all of the outrage she had felt over what Number One had done to that poor scout so they could escape, for all the horror she had felt about the greater basilisk's plans, she wasn't the one who'd chosen to do something about it. Number Three and Four had been willing to fight, and Number Two at least made a good show of helping them to stay on what looked to be the winning side, but Number Five? The baby of the group, fresh out of prison and absolutely terrified of dying? She had been just as outraged, just as horrified, and she had wanted to help, but when the time came for her to act, she just...froze. She stood there trembling like a child, because she was a child, but that didn't change the fact that her inaction could at least have been somewhat to blame for Number One fending the others off and making her escape. It wasn't until Vee and Luz had the chance to compare notes that Vee would realize just how close Number One had gotten to accomplishing her goal because of that...and she'd tried her best not to think about the "what ifs."

Sure, maybe she was overestimating how much she really could've done, and maybe she ought to give herself some slack for being reluctant to fight her own kind, but she just couldn't shake the feeling that she should have done something, at least, even if it only amounted to one wayward bite in the end. She may have had good reasons for being scared at the thought of hurting Number One despite what she had been planning, but she had even better reasons to stop her! Beyond the practical consideration of her plan revealing their existence and putting them all in danger, there had also been the moral imperative to consider! As much as Number One may have been "family" in a sense, she had already done something absolutely horrible to facilitate their escape, only to reveal that she wanted to do even worse in the name of revenge, and that she wanted them to help her! If they had just let her go without at least trying to stop her from wiping out countless innocents in retribution for their own trauma, then it would prove that everything they had heard the guards whispering about them, everything they knew witches thought about basilisks, was all true! That they didn't think or feel like other demons did, that they lacked any empathy or understanding of others' value, that they only cared about their own survival and saw all other creatures as nothing but prey!

In short...that they were monsters.

"Why bother pretending otherwise?" Number One had asked them on that horrible night, with that wide toothy grin of hers that Vee had learned to fear. "They'll always think we're monsters no matter how 'good' we are, and at this point, why shouldn't we play the role they would have us play?! They're the ones who let the Emperor rise to power, they're the ones who helped him carry out his experiments, they're the ones who sent their 'best and brightest' to torture us for years, just like that pathetic scout! 'Ohh, but he was never cruel to us!' Well, he still didn't let us out, now did he?! I had to make him do that! 'Oh, but he could have been killed if he had helped us willingly!' Then he would have died braver than most! And if that little coward is the best that witchkind has to offer us...then I say we make sure they all get nothing less than what he deserves."

It was hard not to shudder as Vee thought back to the horrible things that Number One had said back then. Vee had been far too horrified to offer much of a rebuttal, and Number Two might have run away right then and there if Number One hadn't stopped him, so it fell to Number Three and Number Four to try to talk her down. Unfortunately, Number One had made up her mind, and although it was far from an easy decision to make, it soon became apparent that the others couldn't just stand by and let her put everyone else at risk, including themselves, and if Vee hadn't just stood there frozen in terror, then they might have...well. She supposed it didn't make a difference in the end: Number One still failed, without any help from Vee, and...and so she was probably dead now.

But Belos...Philip was still all too eager to finish what she started.

Something in Vee's heart hardened as she thought about that, about how everything had come full circle like this. Philip had made them all to facilitate his monstrous plans for the people of the Isles, tortured them for years to ensure their compliance...or just because he thought they deserved it. Number One had always been the most routinely punished for her disobedience, so for as much as her sibling had made her own evil choices, Vee had to recognize that she didn't make them on a whim. What they had suffered in the deepest depths of the Conformatorium had broken and twisted Number One so badly that she became a grotesque reflection of the man she hated the most. She not only accepted everything that had ever been said about basilisks, she embraced it, practically salivating at the thought of all the magic she would drain from everyone that she held as complicit in enabling their torment. She may have been a monster, but she was also a victim of the most horrific abuses imaginable, and as much as Vee can say that she would've stopped her if she could do it all again...she couldn't deny that she would be a very different person if she had made that decision, let alone if she had succeeded in helping the others carry it out. For as horrible as Number One had been...she was still one of them, and even though Vee still agonized over whether she should have stopped her, even though it was good that Number One had been stopped and maybe even good that she was dead...Vee still couldn't help but mourn her sibling anyway. She doubted anyone would extend the same courtesy to Philip.

Titan knew she never would.

Indeed, as she pondered all of these things in light of what she had recently learned, the numb sensation of creeping dread she still felt in the back of her mind was beginning to give way to a rage unlike any she had ever experienced before. She already hated Belos, but with the knowledge that he was Philip Wittebane, with the full understanding of why he had done everything he did to her kind and to the rest of the Isles...Vee found her mind going back to those dark thoughts from the absolute worst moments of her long captivity. They were the moments in which she could now admit that she had come the closest to being like Number One, because she had wanted to make her abuser suffer for what he did, just as badly as Number One had wanted to make everyone else suffer for their mostly ignorant support. She figured Number Two could probably relate - he had been the most sympathetic to Number One, after all - but a part of her always wondered whether Number Three and Number Four ever had thoughts like that, as stubbornly principled as they were. Could they have held on to their convictions in spite of all they'd suffered, choosing to do no harm even when it came to someone like him? Or...were they simply better at hiding their thoughts of retributive violence for Vee's sake, because they didn't want her to ever go down that path?

Well, in any case, they weren't here to lend her their advice now, as much as Vee sometimes wished they were, that they all could have made it out and experienced the joys of the Human Realm together. She had to figure out just what to do with these feelings without anyone that she could consult on the subject without making them incredibly concerned, and for very good reason. Because, as she finally realized after giving it actual thought for the first time in her life, the conclusion she reached regarding what she would do was precisely why her mind had jumped straight to "warn Luz" first, and only later to "go back and save her" if she absolutely had to.

She knew now that, if she ever went back, if she ever saw that man again, if she ever got the chance...she was going to kill him. She was going to drain his magic until whatever had kept him going was finally gone, until whatever was left of his heart finally stopped and he fell down dead at her feet. And as disgusting as it felt for her to know that she would do these things without any remorse, that she was indeed capable of killing someone no matter how richly they deserved everything she'd do to them...it felt even worse knowing that she would enjoy it.

Titan dammit, she would enjoy every second of it.

"Mija?" Camila began softly, because Vee had been quietly staring into space for a very long time with an unreadable expression she had never seen on her sweet daughter's face before, and she didn't want to know just what her daughter was contemplating. Realizing how long she had been lost in thought and fearful of exactly where her thoughts had gone, Vee quickly shook her head and returned to the present moment, tucking those thoughts back into the deepest depths of her mind.

Right where they belonged.

"It doesn't matter," Vee muttered, not offering any clarification on what she meant, which was probably for the best. "The point is, I don't know for sure whether or not Luz has figured any of this stuff out, and until I do, just-the idea that I might know everything she needs to know right now and I can't even warn her, it's...it's too much!" Vee admitted with a hitch in her throat. "I can only hope she has at least some idea of what's going on, that she's aware of what it is she's trying to stop, because if she's not...if-if she ends up diving into something bigger than she can handle like she always does and I could have stopped her, I...I don't..." Vee let the sentence hang, as though finishing it would cause the terrible fate her anxious mind envisioned to be made manifest. Camila placed a hand on her shoulder to try and offer her some comfort, at least, while Mabel took up a similar position on the opposite side of the couch.

"Don't worry, kiddo," Mabel said. "Like your mom said, we'll figure something out. Besides, it's not like we have a set time limit on this, right?" she asked, causing Vee to shrink in on herself.

"I dunno," Vee replied worriedly. "It sounded like he was getting closer to the endgame when I last talked to Luz, and that was like a month ago now..." she added in a whisper, her mind readying itself to spiral out of control before Camila pulled her out of it with a comforting touch.

"In any case, we'll do what we can," Camila remarked, rubbing Vee's back soothingly while shooting Mabel a look. "If nothing else, we at least have some new leads we can explore," she added, causing Vee to look at her mother with a mixture of surprise and slight skepticism on her face.

"We do?" she asked, not wanting to get her hopes up too much.

"Well, sure!" Mabel confirmed, catching on to what Camila was putting down. "We've still got some Titan's Blood to work with, and if that old legend is right, the coastal portal might not even be the only place around here where we can get some more if we need to. Heck, depending on what exactly these 'secret codes' end up pointing to, we might be able to get to Luz another way!"

"Exactly," Camila remarked, pulling out her phone in order to write down some reminders as she glanced over at Vee. "Now then, how about this? Tonight, I want you to stay here and decompress while me and Ms. Pines look into our options. Then, over the weekend, we can take a closer look at that abandoned house and anything we can find about the Wittebanes' story which might point us in the direction of something useful." As Camila finished setting up her reminders, Vee nodded with a sense of hope mixed in with trepidation which she was willing to overcome for her sister's sake. "If we're lucky, between the coastal portal and anything else we might find, we may be able to reach out to Luz or even find a way to get her back ourselves!" Camila tried her best to look optimistic when she said these things, but both Mabel and Vee could tell she really had no idea of how well things would work out. "And, um, you know, if we can't, then...then we'll just have to-!"

This was about as far as Camila got before a sudden notification promptly interrupted her.

"¿Qué?" Camila muttered to herself, pulling out her phone only to find the entire room ringing with the sound of notification after notification coming in all at once. Her first thought was that the rapid texts she was apparently receiving must have been due to a sudden crisis at work or something involving her family overseas that needed her attention. However, as she unlocked her phone to check, she found herself stunned by what she actually found: a veritable flood of text messages and video files that had promptly been resent after failing to send initially...from a number she hadn't gotten messages from in months.

At the same time, Vee caught a momentary whiff of something potent in the area, something which she hadn't smelled for so long that it actually took her a moment to identify it, and once she did, she could scarcely believe it, let alone the myriad of new scents that accompanied it. Although she was hesitant to trust her nose at first, one look in Camila's utterly stunned eyes told her everything, as impossible as it seemed to be in this particular moment.

The pair of them were out the door before Mabel even knew what was happening.

"Luz?! LUZ?!" Camila and Vee both cried out in a panic, hoping against hope that they weren't imagining things as they frantically looked around, no consideration given to the rain that was coming down steadily and soaking their clothes without an umbrella. The thought briefly crossed their minds that this would be a rather tough thing to explain to the neighbors at present, what with "Luz" calling out her own name as though she were searching for someone else, but that was a problem they would deal with if and when it came up. Since nobody seemed to be out at the moment, it was doubtful anyone had noticed, and in any event, a more intensive round of sniffing on Vee's part swiftly gave them the fix on Luz's whereabouts which they had been hoping to get.

Or, rather, a fix on the whereabouts of whoever was with Luz.

From what Vee was able to discern, there were nine magical creatures heading towards them. Five of them were palismen, with one's magical aura coming off so faintly that Vee was almost worried it was dying before realizing it was...something else, something she couldn't place given what little she knew about how palismen functioned. The remaining four were witches, from what she could tell, although one of them smelled...different. It thankfully wasn't "different" in the same way Belos had smelled in retrospect, but that likewise left Vee at a loss as to how to explain it. Of course, any such explanation would likely be forthcoming, considering that the same magic beings she had just identified had gotten close enough that they were now faintly illuminated by the nearby streetlights...along with the girl she and her mom had been so desperately looking for.

Luz and her friends looked worse for wear, to put it mildly. All five of them were covered in bruises and cuts, suggesting both that they had recently come from a rather intense battle and that none of them knew healing magic they could use to fix their injuries. The palismen she had sensed earlier were likely hidden away in their clothes or knapsacks or something, although she didn't see any obvious place that most of them could be hidden on the witches assembled before them. Any details about Luz's friends other than their names were only known to Vee secondhand through Camila, so based on that, she was perhaps 80% certain that she knew who was who.

The chubbier girl with golden glasses and navy blue hair was Willow Park.

The younger boy with brown skin and a brown fade was Gus Porter.

The lavender-haired girl with golden eyes, purple hair, and a crescent moon necklace was Amity Blight, Luz's girlfriend and the love of her sister's life, based on when they had last talked.

And finally, the older boy with several distinctive scars on his body, the one who smelled different, was none other than...Hunter. The same boy who Luz claimed was a work-in-progress when she had last talked about her loved ones on the Boiling Isles. The same boy whose true identity Vee had to learn secondhand from Camila. Although Vee would be lying if she said she fully trusted this boy given what she now knew...the fact that he was here with her sister counted for something, at least, even if his presence among them and his presence in general raised a lot of questions. Questions which Vee didn't have the luxury to consider right now.

"Oh, dios mío," Camila muttered, echoing what Vee was thinking as she caught sight of Luz in the flesh for the very first time.

Luz clearly hadn't escaped whatever battle she and her friends had been in unscathed, and from the looks of things, one could argue that she had gotten the worst of it. After all, for as numerous as the others' injuries were, none of them were going to scar the way that the deep slash splitting Luz's eyebrow was going to. Beyond this rather distinctive new identifier, Luz's hair had also grown out to the point where she was wearing it in a rough-looking ponytail just to keep her usual look, and she seemed to be lacking her typical hoodie and the witches' wool cloak that she'd worn when they first met. More significant and worrying than any of these physical differences, however, was what Vee beheld with one look into her sister's eyes. She seemed to be so lost in her own thoughts, so shell-shocked over what had just occurred on the other side of that portal door, that it took the poor girl several seconds to even register the presence of her mother and her new sister in front of her. Vee knew with heartbreaking certainty from the moment she looked into Luz's eyes that everything that had happened to her since they had spoken last...it had broken her. It had broken her in a way that Vee could recognize as though she were looking at her own reflection.

And yet, somehow, Luz still tried to offer them a smile.

"Hey, fam," Luz said, with her arms outstretched and tears in her eyes. "I'm back."

Chapter Twenty: The Day of Unity

[Summary: With Luz and her witch friends possibly stranded in the Human Realm, La Casa Noceda has become far more crowded than Camila had ever expected it to be. While Mabel does her best to address the long-term issues posed by this predicament, Camila and Vee are left with the unenviable task of helping these kids cope with all that they experienced during the terrible Day of Unity.]

Part One: The Night Everything Changed

Obviously the first order of business was to get the kids out of the rain.

Thankfully, between Camila's experience and the rudimentary training Mabel was required to get in order to supervise an outdoor summer camp, tending to the kids' injuries was a relatively straightforward affair. Although Luz seemed strangely insistent on having her injuries treated last so that she could help with her friends, nobody else really put up much in the way of resistance despite the unfamiliar circumstances. In fact, if anything, Amity and Hunter were a little too compliant, staying almost perfectly still and never raising the slightest complaint even when they visibly winced as a result of their treatment. Both of the women tending to them shared a concerned look with each other: between Vee and a few other campers, they'd both seen this sort of thing before.

These kids clearly had enough problems to deal with before their world fell apart.

"Okay, so Emperor Belos was drained of magic and turned into a monster-" Camila began, having gathered most of the kids around the dining room table with the notable exception of Luz and Hunter, who had gone off to the bathroom together for a reason that Vee couldn't decipher.

"Well, he started out human," Gus pointed out. Camila winced in response.

"Right, yeah, we're...up to speed on that," Camila said hesitantly as she glanced towards Vee, while Amity cocked her head in confusion.

"Hang on, you guys figured that out too? How?" she asked, only for her favorite person to interrupt Camila and Vee before they could explain.

"From the historical society, right?" Luz asked as she walked into the kitchen with Hunter trailing behind her, her voice still tired in a way that was, frankly, unsettling. "The same place that's hosted a Halloween thing telling the Wittebanes' whole story every year for forever?" she continued dryly in what seemed to be a recriminating tone, like she was berating herself for not remembering that crucial fact until now. Vee nodded reluctantly as she did her best to provide confirmation.

"Yeah, I went back there to help Masha - uh, my goth friend from camp, you remember them, right?" Vee asked, to which Luz didn't offer much of a response. "Anyway, they got a job as the new 'curator' after Hopkins got arrested, so they needed us to come in and help them clear stuff out," Vee explained. "I wound up stumbling into the witchcraft displays they had and...connected the dots from there, based on what you told me," she added at the end, suddenly unsure whether or not the others had already been told certain pertinent information about her. She couldn't decide whether to feel relieved that Luz hadn't outed her or terrified that she would surely have to tell these people the truth on her own if they were going to be staying here. They were Luz's friends and she was Luz's sister, so she certainly hoped that they would trust her even if they hadn't already been told about what she was, but all the same, she'd only ever had to consider the consequences of...she supposed, "coming out," to humans with no knowledge of what she was beyond a mere monster.

She had never imagined revealing herself to people who had been hurt by a basilisk before.

In any case, the implications behind what Vee said about the GHS evidently pained Luz to hear, not in the least because of how she was already feeling about everything else.

"Stupid," she muttered, hitting herself in the face in a way that got Camila's attention.

"Oye, no hitting yourself!" she chided her daughter, knowing that this was an unfortunate habit Luz got into when she blamed herself for things. Luz could only offer a noncommittal sigh in response, worrying her mother all the more.

"Lo siento, mami," she said, simply going through the motions of an apology as she plopped down in the open seat next to her girlfriend. Amity, hardly a stranger to that kind of light self-harm, placed a comforting hand on Luz's shoulder that managed to make the human girl smile weakly in response. Vee grimaced. If even the "awesome girlfriend" Luz had told her she loved could barely cheer her up anymore, her sister really was in dire straits.

"Anyway...so he turned into a monster, but then he was defeated by this new bad guy?" Camila asked, having reached the limits of her knowledge about the Isles.

"The Collector," Willow clarified. "We don't know what he is or how deep his connection to Belos goes, but from what we can tell, they were the one who came up with the Draining Spell, not him." At this, Vee's eyes widened, finding herself shocked that what she had assumed for so long about herself and the other basilisks might not actually be true after all. Unfortunately, her shock briefly overtook her usual good sense in a way which only added to the tension.

"Wait, but I-I thought that's what he made us for?!" Vee said without thinking, only to find Gus, Hunter, and Willow all eyeing her strangely in response to that, while Amity and Luz shared a nervous look that worked in concert with her impromptu statement to essentially unravel Vee's human disguise right then and there.

So. They hadn't told the others, then. Great.

Although Vee tensed up at realizing that she'd just dropped the ball, she did her best to calm herself. She could readily imagine that the story was hard enough for Luz to recount to Amity, let alone anyone else, given how they both knew it had ended. She could also imagine that Luz's girlfriend wasn't about to go sharing her secrets without permission, and that she had figured it would be best to tell the others "later," only for that to keep getting pushed back by everything else that had happened until...well. Now it was simply too late. They should've told the others sooner, Vee knew that, and she knew they knew that, they just...didn't feel like they had enough time.

They never seemed to have enough time.

"What do you mean by that?" Hunter said warily, hand moving to his side for Flapjack as though he were a Western gunslinger reaching for his pistol. Vee gulped nervously and was about to duck under the table to avoid a magic blast when Luz interjected, not wanting to see them fighting in particular for reasons she didn't quite understand and didn't quite want to at this point.

"She's a basilisk, Hunter. She took my place when I came to the Boiling Isles," Luz explained curtly, causing Vee to shrink in on herself. At the same time, however, Vee found herself a little caught off guard by just how blatantly Luz had revealed her true nature to the others, even if she'd admittedly just filled in the blanks on that herself. "Go ahead, show 'em," Luz told Vee, jolting her sister out of her reflection with her sheer bluntness as she gestured to the others.

"Ah, right, okay!" Vee replied in a slight panic before she shifted her form back to how it had looked for much of the girls' harrowing adventure in the Human Realm, if only to save on energy. Once the initial surprise factor was gone, Vee shifted back to how she'd looked when they met her earlier and graciously accepted a leftover scrap of unicorn hair from Mabel (why her mentor just had unicorn hair on her, Vee wasn't about to ask). A quick glance around the table revealed Camila looking at Luz with a slightly disapproving glare, Willow looking back between Luz and Vee with a concerned expression, and Hunter blinking as though he were wondering whether what he'd just seen was real. Meanwhile, Amity looked a little nervous at the revelation of Vee's true nature despite evidently knowing about it beforehand, while Gus simply looked...amazed?

"Whoa," Gus remarked. "That is...it's..." he began, holding it in for only a second longer before he grinned with an intensity that rivaled the sun. "SO COOL!" he cried out exuberantly, suddenly peppering Vee with a million questions she was absolutely not equipped to handle. "Ha! Amazing: a basilisk in the Human Realm, augh! I can't, this is so exciting, I have so many questions I've been dying to ask! How do your powers work? Can you make up your own form, or can it only be something else that actually exists? How much magic does it take for you to transform, and how easily can you shift between forms with vastly different anatomical-?" was as far as his questions got before one of Camila's nearby plants was deputized into pulling Gus by the arm with its stem, tearing him away from where he was beginning to encroach on Vee's personal space.

"Come on, Gus, don't be rude," Willow chided her young friend before holding out a comforting hand to Vee. "I think I get why you were reluctant to say anything, especially if you heard what happened at Hexside," she remarked, both of them wincing at the allusion. "Still...it's safe to say you're not the weirdest person Luz has adopted," she quipped, glancing over at Hunter and Luz to see whether her teasing remark had gotten a rise out of them. Unfortunately, they were both too hung up on their own internal dilemmas to register the implications of Willow's joke.

"That's...I can't believe it," Hunter said breathlessly. "Basilisks are supposed to be extinct. Belos said that the one who attacked the schools was the last of their kind, he made sure that she-!"

"Yeah, well, he lied!" Luz snapped before Hunter could finish explaining exactly what happened to Number One, speaking with a bitterness that sounded foreign on her tongue. "In case you hadn't noticed, he's pretty damn good at it," she added spitefully, to everyone's surprise. That was also new, and definitely pointed to something being very, very wrong.

"Yeah, of course I know that, but until that basilisk was captured, all the evidence had pointed towards them dying out a long time ago! The only way they could've possibly come back from utter extinction is if-!" he retorted angrily before he realized what he was saying and where he was saying it, causing his eyes to widen and his ears to droop down in terror. "Is if...if he..." he muttered fearfully, while staring right at Vee as though she were the angel of death. Vee could easily guess at the realization he had just made about how the other basilisks had been brought back, but she sensed there was something more to his apprehension towards her in particular.

Great. As if she hadn't already been hit with enough curveballs today.

Before she and the others could press him on what all that was about, he quickly mumbled an overly formal request to be excused and raced upstairs, not even knowing where exactly he was going other than that it wasn't a place with them in it. With a look of worried recognition in her eyes, Luz gave her mother a similar excuse before going up after him, the two of them disappearing together to talk for the second time in as many hours. Vee frowned along with Camila. Clearly they were hiding something big, something involving her and something that they were clearly terrified would be exposed to everyone else...but now wasn't the time to pry.

Now wasn't the time for them to be doing much of anything, really.

"Anyway..." Willow continued hesitantly, brimming with questions and worried about Hunter and Luz in equal measure. "Luz tried to use the Draining Spell against Belos and force him to shut it down that way, but...he couldn't stop it. Only The Collector had the power to do that, and that's why...that's why King must have released him while we were busy fighting Belos' goopy form, because he'd talked them into ending the spell in exchange." Willow paused as she suddenly found herself grappling with the fact that the only way to save her parents and everyone else she loved from certain death may well have doomed them in another way. "But then they said they wanted to play 'Owl House' and I have no idea what kind of game that is but everything was crumbling and the portal was falling apart and we don't have any idea what's happening or whether our dads are-!"

Amity placed a comforting hand on Willow's shoulder to help her stop herself before she spiraled any further, with Gus doing his best to keep an eye on Willow without crying while the others looked at the unlikely trio with concerned expressions on their faces. Amity took it upon herself to give the Nocedas the answers they deserved. The others clearly needed a minute.

"If The Collector was the one who gave Belos the means to perform the Draining Spell, then...he must have made you and the others as a backup plan," she said hesitantly. "I can't imagine he trusted The Collector all that much, so he probably made you and the other basilisks to give himself a cover story and a failsafe all at once," she said to Vee, their mutual hatred of the man evident. "By studying how basilisks drained magic, it would make sense to the few people he kept in the know how he had developed such a powerful spell, with or without any help from someone like The Collector. And, if nothing else, well...he probably suspected that something like what happened at the schools was inevitable if you and the others ever managed to escape." Amity found herself unable to face Vee for a moment, while Vee simply nodded along. As awful as it was to hear, that was the explanation that made the most sense to her for such a seemingly illogical act.

Vee couldn't decide whether having had no purpose at all was better or worse than before.

"So then how do we stop The Collector?" Vee asked instead. The room fell silent immediately, Gus and Willow on the verge of falling apart while even Amity tensed up a little.

"We...we don't know," Amity admitted worriedly. "They're far more powerful than Belos ever was, powerful enough to tear the Titan's skull apart and...to reduce Belos to a pile of sludge with a flick of his finger," she explained, the slight terror evident in her voice even as she tried to keep it in check for the others' sakes. "B-but hey! We got close to beating Belos before, and-and we've got people we can count on back in the Isles!" she proclaimed, trying to keep their spirits high. "Together, I'm sure we can get back home, find our friends and family, and stop this...childish chaos god...once and for all!" Despite the bravado with which she spoke, nobody was particularly inspired by Amity's words, which certainly weren't helped when her attempt to pose dramatically on top of her chair ended with her nearly falling to the ground and hurting herself before Ms. Pines caught her in the nick of time. The contrast was a rather demoralizing one for the kids, especially when they had just fled from what already felt to them like an utterly hopeless situation.

"We're all gonna die," Gus said abruptly with tears in his eyes before Willow pulled him into her arms, Camila's parental instincts likewise kicking in immediately.

"Nobody's going to die, cariño. You're safe here. I promise," Camila said gently from across the table before glancing around the room and electing to take charge. "We had a rough plan in place after Vee learned the true danger you all were in, but as long as you're here, we'll need to reevaluate that strategy," Camila explained as best she could to the shell-shocked teens. "As far as I understand, we have some of the resources you'll need to get a portal working, but there's no guarantee they'll be enough. You may need to prepare yourselves for the possibility that you'll be here for a while," she said, knowing that her words weren't exactly inspiring confidence. Even so, they needed to be said. "I know it's hard to think about anything else, but you kids need to rest tonight, okay? Tomorrow, we'll put our heads together and, um...see what happens," she finished before glancing at Mabel and Vee, wordlessly calling upon them to help the kids relax somehow.

"C'mon, let's, uh, let's go see if Luz's room is open so we can set you two up in there, huh?" Vee suggested, guiding Amity and Willow up the stairs as they nervously glanced back at Gus.

"I'll go move my things out of the basement, give the boys some room," Mabel said somewhat vaguely before excusing herself a little swiftly as well, leaving Camila alone to tend to Gus as he sunk down into his seat, trying his best to calm himself down and not quite succeeding.

"Alright, let's just sit here for a bit, okay?" she whispered gently as she sat down next to him and placed an arm over his shoulder. He was so much smaller than the others were: how old did Luz say he was? 12? 13? 13 at most and dealing with his entire world literally falling apart, just like...

Just like Ms. Pines had done, once upon a time.

"Once Ms. Pines is done moving her equipment, we can get things ready for you and Hunter in the basement," she whispered gently, only getting a slightly choked up hum in response. When her typical calming techniques didn't seem to work, she decided to up the ante a bit based on what Luz had told her. "Say, uh, how about we play a game while we wait?" she suggested in the same sort of voice she'd used with Luz when she was younger and couldn't sit still. "I'll go ahead and point at some human thing around here, and you tell me what it is! Does that sound like fun, cariño?" she asked, worried for a second as the boy didn't respond before she was surprised by what he said next.

"What does that word mean?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

"Hm?"

"'Cariño.' It must be Spanish, but what does that mean?" he asked, catching Camila by surprise with how good his pronunciation was for someone from another realm entirely.

"It, ah, roughly translates to 'darling,' 'sweetheart,' things like that," Camila explained before realizing she had erred. "Oh, lo siento, I should've asked if you'd be comfortable with me calling you something like that," she said apologetically, kicking herself for getting attached so quickly for the second time now. "Agh, look at me being far too motherly with my younger guests again, que ridícula! I guess having other kids around the house is still so new to me, but...I didn't mean to make you feel uncomfortable. God knows you've got enough to deal with as it is," she added mostly to fill in the awkward silence, only for Gus to eventually speak up again.

"It's alright, Mrs. Noceda," he said, twiddling his fingers a bit as he debated whether or not to say something before taking the plunge. "I, um...I never really got to know my mom," he admitted without elaborating, causing Camila to let out a sympathetic gasp as she put a hand to her mouth. "Haven't really gotten to know my friends' parents that much, either. Willow's dads are nice, and Amity's dad isn't as big a jerk as he could've been, I guess? I've never really met anyone else's families, and Hunter-!" Gus continued before shooting up straight as though he'd realized he was about to let slip something he very much shouldn't. "He, um...doesn't have a mom, either," he deflected, which wasn't technically a lie. Camila took note of the odd pause, but she wasn't about to say anything about it. "Anyway, having a mom around who isn't evil or a morally gray con artist is a nice change of pace, so, y'know, it's whatever." By the end of it, he was clearly trying to seem nonchalant, but Camila noticed the way his ears drooped down just a bit as he finished his sentence. She smiled at the sight of it, happy that he was evidently feeling a bit better than he was before.

"Well, I'm glad I didn't make things too awkward, at least," she said lightly, to which Gus offered a noncommittal murmur until she got a new idea of how to cheer him up. "Say, mijo...have you ever heard of Cosmic Frontier?" she asked, piquing Gus' interest immediately.

"Uh, nope. Luz never mentioned it," he remarked, causing Camila to chuckle a bit.

"Ay, I can imagine. She always preferred fantasy over sci-fi," she replied fondly before returning to the subject at hand. "Anyway, I think you'll like it! It's a story that takes place in ~the stars~!" she added with a bit of dramatic flair, only hooking Gus further.

"Ooh! Why would humans wanna go there?" he asked, causing Camila to beam.

"Why, to explore strange new worlds, of course!" Camila replied, not bothering to note how she was dipping into another franchise: Cosmic Frontier's Trek influence was already clear as day. "To seek out new life and new civilizations! To boldly go where no one has gone before!" With every word, a little bit of the melancholy that had fallen over Gus seemed to wash away like dirt, leaving the bright and curious boy she could tell was still there underneath, even after everything.

"Ohoho, cool!" he said eagerly, and Camila knew she had him now, thank goodness.

"I've got a copy of it in the basement, we can go in there and read it-" she began before hearing the sound of footsteps walking down the hall and out the front door. "Right now, it seems!" she added happily, helping Gus to his feet and practically being dragged down to the basement in his hopes of checking out this amazing human book for himself. Although the circumstances were bleak, and she was worried about both of her daughters now more than she ever had been before, knowing that this spark of curiosity and wonder about the world around him which so defined him hadn't been burnt to cinders after what he'd been through reassured Camila of one thing:

These poor kids may have been broken, but they could still be coaxed back together.

Things were so hectic that by the time Vee saw Luz again, it was nearly time for bed.

Trying to convince Amity and Willow that nothing in the house would attack them without warning had been a difficult endeavor, but one she was proud to say she'd succeeded in doing without (much) collateral damage. All she had to do now was get Luz to settle in for the night: nobody had seen her since she'd raced after Hunter, and Vee knew there was something going on. Whether her sister would be willing to tell her any of that, though? That was another matter.

"Hey," she called out softly as she spotted Luz standing in the dimly lit hallway marked by rows of family photos. A familiar picture frame was held in her hands, and it didn't take a genius to guess just who she was thinking about as she looked down sadly at the old family photo.

"Hey," Luz replied back in a monotone voice, not even looking up as Vee hesitantly moved to approach her, unsure of what exactly to say now that they were finally alone. There was a grim irony to be had in the fact that Vee had just been lamenting the feeling of people walking on eggshells around her, yet now found herself doing the exact same thing with Luz. Of course, where Vee clearly leaned more into the "flight" part of "fight or flight," with some notable exceptions, Luz just as clearly leaned more towards the opposite response these days. Her uncharacteristic spat with Hunter, a boy she'd been quite excited about slowly becoming friends with when they had spoken last, was evidence enough of that. Vee worried that if she pushed her too hard, she'd come off as trying to sniff out whatever Luz was hiding from everyone and become the target of her sister's ire.

Assuming, of course, that Luz even still wanted to be her sister to begin with.

After their harrowing experiences had so clearly chipped away at the happy-go-lucky optimism Luz was known for, Vee couldn't discount the possibility that Luz had thought better of their naive plan. Or, even worse, perhaps her awful circumstances had caused Luz to start resenting her this time around. Luz had been somewhat callous to her at the dinner table, after all, revealing her deepest secret without asking and bluntly telling her to transform in order to confirm it. As much as Luz was known for being kind to almost everyone she met, Vee also knew that she was still a human being whose emotions could get in the way of her usual disposition. Being forced to go another month without her mother's love to comfort her through what was likely the most difficult time of her life, all while knowing that her literal demon of a sister got to stay safe in her home and keep that love entirely for herself...Vee could see how such a situation might engender resentment.

She could only hope that her intuition was wrong for once.

"The others are all set to go to bed, just kinda waiting on you," Vee said feebly. Luz merely grumbled in response, leaving Vee to try a different tack. "Amity was, uh, pretty worried about you and Hunter leaving dinner all of a sudden. Is everything okay?" she asked, the mention of her girlfriend at least getting Luz to face her now, only for Luz's eyes to widen in a way that suggested she had been made privy to whatever other horrible thing Hunter had figured out about Vee. Lovely.

"Everything's fine," Luz said quickly, much too quickly to be remotely convincing. Vee was in the middle of reconsidering her stance on pushing Luz when what she said next made the choice for her. "She shouldn't have bothered," she muttered, low enough that she likely thought Vee had missed it. Unfortunately for Luz, Vee had pretty excellent hearing when she wasn't distracted.

"What was that?" she asked, perhaps a little more pointedly than necessary. Luz frowned a bit petulantly, crossing her arms as though she were younger than she actually was.

"Nothing," she said defensively, moving towards her-their room. Right. It was "their room" now: not even just Luz and Vee's room, but Amity and Willow's as well. Her closest friends were all packed into tight quarters with only fold out beds and sleeping bags for God knows how long, separated from their loved ones and everything they had ever known...because of her. "It's nothing, let's just go to bed-" she said, wanting nothing more than to leave this conversation for tomorrow, when she might have the energy to smile through it. Unfortunately, her sister had other ideas.

"No no, hang on, back up," Vee said, physically blocking Luz from going any further. "Why do you think your girlfriend shouldn't worry about you? Isn't that kind of her job?" she asked, knowing that she was probably doing exactly what she'd tried to avoid, but also not feeling comfortable just letting some eerily familiar thoughts of Luz's continue without being addressed.

"She's got enough to worry about already without dealing with more of my stupid problems," Luz said, careful to keep her voice down, but getting a little heated all the same.

"What are you talking about? What stupid problems?" Vee asked in a similar manner.

"Everything!" Luz snapped before laying into herself even further. "First I couldn't tell anyone what happened the day we met and got her caught up in this stupid scheme to help Belos' lapdog, then I couldn't tell her I was messed up because my dad died and got her in trouble with her dad, and now-!" Luz suddenly stopped short, realizing that she had just gotten dangerously close to revealing something that she was desperately trying to keep under wraps, even from Vee. Vee seemed to realize this, for she relaxed her posture and placed her hands on Luz's shoulders.

"Luz, I might not know everything that's happened since we spoke last, but I do know that you must have had a lot going on lately-" Vee began, only for Luz to brush her off.

"That's not an excuse!" Luz retorted angrily. "I always do this to her, to everyone! I just keep avoiding my problems and screwing things up, trying to be some kind of 'hero' to make up for it, and all I ever end up doing is making them help me clean up my messes! And Amity, she's still so patient with me and so supportive, no matter how many times I've made things harder for her because of my stupid brain!" Vee certainly had some strongly worded thoughts about that remark, but unfortunately, Luz had clearly needed to vent some of this frustration for a while. "Ugh, I love her! I do! But sometimes she's just so-so frustratingly perfect these days that it makes me feel like I'm not doing enough, like I don't...like I don't deserve her," Luz finished, looking down at the ground for a whole other reason while Vee scrambled for something to say to pull her sister out of this spiral, only for her to keep on talking. "I keep trying to do better, to be better, for her, for everyone, and it's just...it's not working!" Luz continued with pain evident in her voice. No matter how hard I try, all I ever do is make things worse...and everyone else pays the price."

Luz fell silent once again, and Vee definitely had some choice words to say about everything Luz said, but before she could finally interject, she overheard...something else. Something softer than a whisper and sharper than a knife. Something that swiftly sent Vee into a panicky spiral herself.

"Maybe they'd all be better off if I had just..."

Just...

"Just...what?" Vee asked slowly, the germ of a horrible conclusion forming in her head.

Luz's eyes widened, like she had just realized what she almost said aloud as her hand absentmindedly drifted to the mark Philip had left on her face. The wild slash of a goopy scythe that could have so easily cleaved through her skull if he'd been just a little more coherent, a little more careful in exactly where he was aiming. From the look on her face, what she just said left her almost as scared as it left Vee...but she wasn't about to elaborate on it.

"Luz...what are you trying to say?" Vee asked, developing her hypothesis but not wanting to believe it, desperately trying not to believe it despite the mounting evidence: Luz's uncharacteristic snappiness, her secret conversations with Hunter, her unfortunate history of self-deprecation, the-the ease with which she beat herself up with very little prompting! It all mixed together with the current circumstances to point towards a conclusion that was more terrifying than anything Vee had heard her sister say in the short time she had actually known her. "Luz?" Vee repeated in a panic, growing increasingly horrified as each second of tense silence that ticked by seemed to prove her hypothesis more and more likely. Vee had absolutely no idea what to do about this, and Luz-!

Luz...

Luz needed to get the hell out of that hallway.

"Nothing," she repeated quickly, knowing it wouldn't work but hoping beyond hope that the warning in her tone would get Vee to drop it, that there was some way they could avoid this conversation before the tension grew any further and their already strained reunion took them to a place that Luz didn't want anyone to be in with her. She almost got away, but Vee was persistent and, more importantly, incredibly worried about her sister's well-being, even if Luz didn't want her to be.

Especially if Luz didn't want her to be, as far as Vee was concerned.

"Luz-!" she began, the fear in her voice briefly giving Luz pause before she shoved down her own sisterly instincts and kept walking.

"Look, it's nothing, just leave me alone-!" Luz attempted to retort, only to suddenly find herself being stopped in her tracks.

"LUZ!" Vee hissed as loud as she dared, not wanting to make this incredibly tense conversation in the dark a matter of public record. As Luz quickly realized, Vee had grabbed onto the collar of her borrowed varsity jacket and pulled her back with such force that she was unable to move a single step more until Vee let go. It may have been easy to forget, given how she had mostly remained in her human disguise, but Luz was swiftly reminded that her sister was shockingly strong. "Luz..." she repeated more softly as she reluctantly let her go, a part of her relieved that Luz didn't just immediately book it while simultaneously being left at an utter loss for words.

Vee understood now, perhaps more than she really wanted to, how difficult it must have been for her friends to talk her down after the kidnapping. How they must have been so desperate to figure out the right words to say to make her feel better when the simple fact was that it wasn't that simple. That there might not have been any kind words they could offer or logical arguments they could put before their friend to convince her that she was worth something. By that same token, there didn't seem to be any immediately apparent path before Vee that she could take which would magically fix this. Much as she wished that she could, she couldn't count on whatever sisterly bond they may have had at this point to power through the fact that Luz quite possibly wanted to-!

To...

Well. Even if Vee had no idea how to fix things...that didn't mean she wasn't going to try.

It would take all of them working together to help Luz, Vee knew, but somebody had to get the ball rolling, somebody had to make the first push and tell Luz that it was okay to cry, that it wasn't her fault, or do whatever it was that she needed right now. And Vee had some words at her disposal that she was willing to bet couldn't make things much worse, at the very least. Truthfully, she had no idea whether they'd even work, and if they didn't, things could get even messier between them. Vee couldn't deny that, as far as dramatic statements went, hers was by far the most cliché, not to mention woefully premature. Still, the fact remained that her words were special, and they were true, and they were unfortunately the only words she could think of saying to get through to Luz.

She hoped harder than she'd ever hoped for anything in her life that they would be enough.

"I love you, sis," Vee whispered, the words so broken and so earnest on her forked tongue that Luz's bitter expression faltered, because really, what the hell was she supposed to say to that?

Even though they had agreed to be sisters when they met, that connection had only formed due to a shared love of their mother and a shared desire to come to love each other, someday. There was no rush, they'd thought back then. Once Luz came back, assuming she could come back, they'd have all the time in the world to actually get properly acquainted as siblings. Neither of them had been willing to say those four words then, and for very good reason. As much as they had come to understand each other that day, perhaps better than anyone else had ever understood them in such a short time, they were still strangers, albeit strangers who wanted so desperately to be family.

They had thought of each other often during the month they spent apart, but that didn't change the fact that Luz was absolutely flabbergasted to hear those words from Vee so soon after they had finally met up again in person. And yet, the only thing that shocked her more than how genuine those four words sounded coming from her sister...was just how badly she wanted to be able to say them back. She wanted to keep buying into yet another stupid fantasy of hers even as a part of her was absolutely certain that she would eventually screw up and ruin things between them, just like she had ruined everything else. In the end, as much as Luz wanted to keep being Vee's sister, to keep buying into that fantasy and to find a way for their hare-brained Parent Trap scheme to actually work...she couldn't. She couldn't burden Vee with the terrifying ordeal of knowing her, not after she had burdened everyone else by dragging them into this mess and ripping them away from their families. Vee deserved better than that. She deserved better than a perpetual screw-up like her.

Same as everyone else did, really.

"We've only known each other for one day," Luz said curtly, the words cutting into Vee with how unflinchingly true they were. "And it was a pretty shitty day, at that," she added, a bit of that same bitterness from before entering her voice...but only on the surface. A normal human girl might have missed it with how little light there was in the hallway, but Vee's keen eyes caught the way that Luz's eyes were misting with tears. Those four words, as cliché and premature as they may have been, had still gotten through to her, at least a little. They had told her in no uncertain terms that Vee was there for her, and that she would help her to fix things between them, between all of them.

Together.

"You're not wrong," Vee conceded. "Between almost getting outed to everyone and getting kidnapped, it definitely wasn't great. But you wanna know something?" she asked.

"What?" Luz replied skeptically, leading Vee to deliver her next stirring set of words.

"Meeting you still made it one of the best days of my life," Vee said in that same earnest tone as before, once again leaving Luz in stunned disbelief.

"W-what?" she repeated somewhat breathlessly. "But I was so thoughtless, I barely did any-!"

"Aht, aht, none of that," Vee replied smoothly, echoing her own friends' response to her transactional nonsense. "Honestly, for as much as I love mom and my friends...I don't know if I would have been as happy with my life here if we hadn't met, Luz," she said softly. "You were the first person to see me as I was and treat me with kindness without really expecting anything. You saw the absolute worst of me the day we met and you still wanted me to be a part of your life, in a way that I didn't realize how much I needed until I didn't have it again, until I had to handle things on my own. You not only accepted me, you helped Mom to accept me too, and because of her, I finally learned to accept myself...albeit with a little extra help," she said with a bit of nervousness in her voice as she thought about that tumultuous self-care day. "The point is, even though there have been ups and downs since we met, I think this past month might be the happiest I've ever been, Luz, and I have you to thank for that! So, just...y'know. Keep that in mind, okay? As far as adopted sisters go, you're...you're pretty great," she finished awkwardly, yet warmly, but became increasingly worried that she had made a mistake the longer that Luz didn't respond to her loving words.

"Thanks," Luz said eventually, sounding a bit more like herself than before, but evidently still weighed down by a lot hidden beneath her tired smile. "Glad to hear I did something right, at least," she added, in that awkwardly self-deprecating way which made it obvious that the speaker desperately needed help. Vee debated how to address this before opting for the somewhat silly approach. After all, humans did say laughter was the best form of medicine, metaphorically speaking.

"Hey, now, be nice, that's my sister you're talking about!" Vee said, going for a stern sort of tone that was only half-serious as she wagged her finger disapprovingly. It thankfully did the trick, getting a light chuckle out of them both despite the circumstances, before the two fell silent again.

"You really wanna stick with this, huh?" Luz asked softly. Vee knew what she was alluding to.

"Yeah," Vee confirmed, hoping that Luz could tell how much she wanted this from her tone. "Don't get me wrong, the logistics are still nutty, and there have been some, uh, complications that we're gonna need to talk about, clearly, but...I'm willing to keep doing this if you are," Vee finished with determination in her voice as she held out her pinky. "So...how about it? Sisters?" she asked, further echoing the moment that had clearly changed them both on some level, even as they now found themselves occupying the other's role. Luz looked at Vee for a moment, uncertainty etched on her face just as it had been on Vee's when Luz had first made that offer to her, an offer which already felt like it had been made a lifetime ago. The only difference here was that this time...there wasn't anything separating them. No mirror, no dimensional barrier, nothing.

For the first time, they could actually touch each other.

Luz hesitantly reached out with her own pinky and still found herself a little surprised when it actually made contact, wrapping around Vee's and closing the distance between their hands. The two looked at each other for a moment, Luz's expression one of stunned disbelief and Vee's expression one of nervous hopefulness. It truly was a complete inversion of that pivotal moment between them, a moment they were both beginning to understand had altered the course of their lives in more ways than they could ever have realized at the time.

Without any warning, Luz pulled Vee into a hug, clinging to her more fiercely than she had ever hugged someone in what already felt like a lifetime.

"Sisters," Luz answered in a choked up voice as she dug her hands into Vee's back, a silent promise to never even think about letting her go, ever again. Vee ignored the slight pain of Luz's desperate embrace and responded to it with deliberate gentleness, knowing her own strength and knowing that Luz had been through enough pain already.

The logical part of Vee's brain knew that this was only a start, that the terrifying sentiment which Luz had nearly expressed openly could not be undone with a single hug or a heartfelt speech, no matter who it came from. Perhaps that pain would always be there, just under the surface, and Vee would simply have to accept that and help her sister through it for as long as she needed her to. Still, for better or worse...this was progress. Vee thought so, at least, and she thankfully wasn't the only one, even if neither she nor Luz realized that they weren't exactly "alone" in that hallway.

They were both far too preoccupied to hear the egg in Luz's pack wobbling ever-so-slightly.

Part Two: The Day Nobody was Okay

Vee was going to have words with whoever decided anything before 6 A.M. was "morning."

She'd always had a little trouble settling in to sleep: years of having nothing but horrible nightmares about your abuser will do that to a person. Still, she'd gotten a bit better in recent weeks, thanks to her friends' support in coping with her abduction and her mom staying by her side every night since her last big nightmare. Obviously, that wasn't exactly feasible now that Camila had so many other children to tend to, but Vee didn't mind.

At the very least, she wouldn't be alone in her room anymore.

Of course, she still wasn't entirely sure what to expect of her dreams the first night that Luz and her friends were back, given all of the awful news that they had brought with them. Learning both that Belos had been killed and that she actually hadn't had a real part to play in his genocidal ambitions was...comforting, in a morbid way. All the same, though, she knew that the Belos in her head would always be there, and beyond that...a part of her didn't quite trust that it was just that easy. After all, you didn't keep yourself alive for over four centuries without having some kind of failsafe.

With these half-formed concerns running rampant in her head, it was only natural that they would manifest themselves in the form of dreams that weren't as bad as usual, but definitely weren't great. Every time she tried to settle in to sleep, she was inevitably visited by brief flashes of a new spin on the usual fare: being thrown into a prison cell, being experimented on by demons and humans alike, being chased by a version of Belos which was half-skeletal and wearing that old rotted wooden mask instead of his golden metallic one. It was this last nightmare which finally caused her to give up trying to sleep, glance at the clock and the moonlight seeping through the window, and declare that she would one day have retribution against whoever thought the next day should start when it was still so dark outside. Turning her thoughts away from that relative non-sequitur, she glanced around below her to see whether the other girls were doing any better.

Judging by the absence of one and the tossing of the others, they were doing even worse.

Amity was just straight up gone, having vacated one of the spare foldout beds Camila miraculously had lying around while Vee was asleep. Luz seemed to be feeling a bit better ever since their talk, but that didn't stop her from tossing and turning directly below Vee in a manner which suggested she was...running, from something. Willow was more talkative in her sleep than Luz was, with Vee's keen ears able to pick up the desperate whispers of a familiar name, someone whom she suspected that the poor girl had very nearly lost in that battle. He'd tried to hide it when he was around the house for obvious reasons, but she'd still caught a glimpse of the sigil under Hunter's sleeve. Imagining those five taking on this monstrous goopy version of Belos was already something she'd rather not do if she could help it, but thinking about it with the added context that Hunter had been dying the entire time? Despite her lingering apprehension about the former Golden Guard, she could at least acknowledge that he didn't deserve to go through that much pain. And, seeing as the others appeared to have accepted Hunter as one of their own, she could certainly understand why they would have been incredibly worried about him during that battle, especially given something else that Luz evidently knew about him which they were both so desperate to hide-

Vee shook her head. There'd be time to worry about that later.

For now, she needed to sleep, and she knew well that even a turbulent sleep filled with nightmares was still marginally better than getting no sleep at all. As such, Vee gingerly crept out of bed as softly as she could with a glass in hand in an effort to get herself some warm water...and perhaps figure out where Amity had gone in the process. She didn't want to bother her, of course, but as long as she was going to be awake anyway, she also wouldn't mind having somebody to talk to. Assuming Amity didn't mind, at least. She'd been polite enough earlier, but Vee hadn't missed the way Amity had tensed up just a little bit when she transformed and when Willow talked about what happened at Hexside. She doubted that meant Amity was afraid of her, exactly, but that didn't really discount the fact that they still hardly knew each other and that she probably didn't want anyone to disturb her, least of all the resident basilisk. If she was awake for the somber reason Vee suspected, she certainly didn't want an audience, serpentine or otherwise. That was assuming they'd even run into each other in the first place, given that she didn't know for sure where Amity even was-

Oh, wait a second, she was in the bathroom already. Well then.

Vee could see that the light wasn't on and that the door was locked, but she could still clearly smell Amity behind the door. Like all basilisks, Vee had the ability to distinguish between magical creatures once she'd become familiarized with their "scent," tending to associate each one with colors in her head which roughly corresponded to their magical specialties. Amity was lavender, Gus was cyan, Willow was light green, and Hunter was...a weird mix between gold and a kind of splotchy red, almost like blood. She idly wondered whether that had any connection to how strangely his magic smelled in general, but that was immaterial. The fact was, she clearly smelled Amity's lavender magic behind the door, and so Vee tentatively reached out to knock just to double check that Amity was fine when the soft sound of someone desperately trying not to cry swiftly told her that she very much wasn't. Caught between her instinct to help someone who was hurting and her instinct to leave well enough alone lest she mess things up and make the situation even worse, Vee attempted to tiptoe in the direction of the stairs so that she could use the kitchen sink to get her warm water and go back to bed. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite as stealthy leaving the hallway as she was entering it, which Vee realized when the sound of crying stopped with a small gasp.

"Is-is someone there?" Vee heard Amity ask, a slight nervous tremor in her voice. Vee sighed. Guess the cat was out of the bag at this point, as Masha had said once.

"Yeah, it's me," Vee said, careful to keep her voice down lest she wake anyone else up. "Sorry, I was just trying to get some water. I can go somewhere else if you-" she attempted to add, only to be cut off by the sound of the bathroom door being unlocked.

"It's...it's fine," Amity said from the doorway, her eyes noticeably red from crying. "I could use the company, if that's alright?" she asked, and there was something in her gaze which made it clear how nervous she was to ask in the first place. Vee offered her a smile as she slipped in quietly.

"Of course," Vee said, going about her task and hopefully nullifying a bit of the awkwardness in the air with the background noise of the water running.

"So, uh...couldn't sleep either, huh?" Amity asked, evidently having had just as much trouble trying to start the conversation as Vee did. Vee chuckled dryly.

"Yeah, that's something of a regular problem with me," she quipped without much humor behind it. Based on what little she knew of Vee's past, Amity didn't exactly feel like chuckling along with her on that, so the two fell into another brief period of silence until the water finished warming up. As Vee moved to fill up her glass, she was about to try and ask something about what had drawn Amity to the bathroom in the first place, but found herself interrupted yet again.

"Sorry, this is kind of abrupt, but, um...can I ask you something?" Amity asked suddenly, taking Vee by surprise and provoking her curiosity.

"Uh, sure. What is it?" Vee replied, not quite sure how to respond. Amity took a deep breath, the question on her mind having come to her partly as a means of avoiding any questions about what she had been crying about...and partly as a means of learning more about her girlfriend.

"What made you agree to be Luz's sister so quickly?" she asked, leaving Vee taken aback just a bit more before she clarified a bit. "Luz explained her side of it when she told me about you, but...I dunno, even I don't get why you'd say yes to that so easily, and I'm in love with her," she said matter-of-factly. Perhaps it was due to her somewhat sleep-deprived state, but it took Amity a second to register what it was she'd just admitted to her girlfriend's adopted twin sister, causing her face to become a tomato. "UM, I MEAN-!" Amity tried to deflect only to shut up as Vee laughed softly at her reaction, experiencing a rather amusing sense of deja vu for multiple reasons.

"It's funny, I was just talking about this," Vee began as she drank from her glass of warm water, not elaborating any further on the context of that statement for the sake of Luz's privacy. "Admittedly, part of it was just the convenience of not having to start my human friendships over again with a whole new face, but beyond that...Luz was the first person to show me I was worth caring about, even when I looked like a monster," Vee explained, to which Amity nodded along as she endeavored to calm down from her flustered state and listen. "She saw me at my worst, both emotionally and physically, and she still wanted me to be a part of her life...even after I said and did so many mean things to her." This in particular caused Amity's eyes to widen momentarily before her gaze softened and she instinctively tugged on her sleeve while looking down at her feet.

"Yeah. She's pretty sweet like that," Amity said with a sad smile. "I just wish-"

"-she'd be as forgiving towards herself as she is with everyone else?" Vee finished for her with a somber expression on her face, surprising Amity before she nodded as well.

"Yeah," Amity muttered, the only sound in the room being Vee finishing her warm water.

"Speaking as someone who was in a similar place for a bit: it's gonna take all of us to really get through to her after everything she's been through," Vee remarked as she opted to fill up her glass again. "It's not gonna be easy, and she's gonna be real difficult, but...I think you being more open with her about stuff like this might be helpful," Vee suggested while gesturing to Amity's reddened eyes, leaving Amity somewhat confused and embarrassed at how the conversation had circled back around to the tears she'd hoped to shed in secret for her missing family members.

"She already blames herself for not doing enough, I-I don't want to make her feel worse-!" Amity attempted to reason, only for her to be cut off this time as Vee picked up her glass.

"She'll feel awful if she catches you hiding these feelings from her later, trust me," Vee countered. Amity's ears drooped slightly as she found herself unable to deny that statement, particularly given her own experiences with being on the other side of that with Luz. Vee sighed, muttering a silent apology to her sister before giving Amity just a smidge of pertinent information that would hopefully help them both. "Look, you didn't hear this from me, but Luz has been feeling like she hasn't been the best girlfriend to you. Something about you always having to clean up her messes? I dunno how accurate that is, I wasn't there, but regardless, she doesn't think she's been doing enough to really be there for you outside of, like, active crisis situations," Vee explained, wincing once she saw Amity's ears droop further with concern and sadness written all over her face. Evidently, hearing this information didn't exactly surprise her.

"Oh, Luz," she muttered, the care in her voice palpable and just enough to set Vee's mind at ease, somewhat. This girl clearly loved her sister, so...maybe it was fine? In any case, she couldn't exactly take her words back now, so she might as well roll with it and hope that it would all work out.

"Mhm," Vee said sympathetically, trying not to think about the residual pangs of guilt. "I mean, maybe you're right, maybe I'm stupid and talking to her about how you're feeling would just make her blame herself more, but...I also think a part of her would appreciate the chance to be there for you more after all the times you've been there for her. And hey, even if you don't end up going to her for comfort, you should go to somebody about this stuff, at least." Vee unconsciously mirrored Amity's earlier pose by rubbing her own shoulder and looking away, feeling bad about crossing a line for the sake of her sister's well-being. "I happen to be a pretty good listener," she finished with uncertainty in her voice, sipping on her warm water as her eyes flicked over to Amity to gauge her reaction. Seeing the olive branch Vee offered her, Amity smiled softly as she moved to take a seat.

"Okay," she said while Vee was left leaning against the door in an effort to get more comfortable. "I guess...one of the reasons I was curious about you and Luz is because I have siblings already. Luz probably told you about them: Edric and Emira, the twins?" she said to jog her memory. Vee nodded, blinking a bit as she remembered how Luz had described them to her and realized that she was going to have to edit some stuff out.

"Right, the twins, yeah! Yeah, she said they were...kinda jerks at first," Vee said, to which Amity sighed as she thought back on less than pleasant family memories.

"Yeah, for the longest time, the three of us had a...contentious relationship, to say the least. There were moments where I honestly hated them almost as much as my parents," Amity admitted, even as she evidently felt bad about having ever viewed them that way in light of recent events. "Really, that's probably why this whole 'found family' thing never made any sense to me. If you already have two annoying siblings who won't leave you alone, why the heck would you want more that you just grabbed off the street, you know?" Amity chuckled slightly in spite of herself, which Vee was willing enough to reciprocate this time around, finding the sentiment curiously relatable.

"Yeah, my, uh, biological siblings are a bit of a mixed bag too, so it took me a bit to warm up to the idea myself," Vee quipped in response. Amity's face paled a bit in spite of herself as she remembered just who exactly this sweet girl was related to, among others whom she thankfully hadn't been attacked by. Deciding to wholly ignore the brief flashback she had of a much larger basilisk draining the life out of her, for Vee's sake, she continued with what she was saying before.

"Um, anyway, we all kinda hated each other for a while, but...then things started getting better between us. Heh, right when Luz came into our lives, go figure," Amity said, earning her another chuckle from Vee. "They stopped picking on me after an incident with Luz at the library, and once it became clear that being friends with Luz and...and trying to make up for my mistakes meant that I was breaking more of my parents' rules than their pranks ever had, I stopped being so much of a...narc? Am I saying that right?" she asked.

Vee giggled a bit as she nodded in confirmation, having made sure to brush up extra carefully on her human slang as of late. She didn't want to have another Self-Care Day Incident.

"Whatever, the point is, things got better between us," Amity continued before chuckling. "We even managed to get our dad to actually start being a dad again, if you can believe it," she said, her tone bittersweet as if she were reflecting on some less-than-pleasant confrontations. "Sure, my mother may have still sided with Belos in the end, but...it felt like we could finally be a real family once Belos was defeated and everyone was safe." The brief flash of optimism in her tone flickered and died as soon as tears began to come to her eyes. "But then we got separated from the twins while dealing with Odalia, and-and dad had to fend off a whole squad of coven scouts while the Draining Spell was killing him, and everyone down in the square looked like they were fine after it ended but I still have no idea where any of them are now or if I'll ever see them again and-!"

Amity would have kept going had Vee not suddenly moved to pull her into a hug.

"It's okay," she whispered, her voice slightly choked up. "I'm worried about my family too."

With that, Amity couldn't hold herself together anymore...but at least now she wasn't alone.

"Alrighty, kids, y'all ready to fire this sucker up?"

As Mabel spoke from her position next to the door of the abandoned house, the others nodded and quickly began work on their final preparations. Breakfast had been a remarkably muted affair, and it had been obvious to everyone that nobody but Camila had really slept all that well, not even Mabel herself. Fortunately, Mabel had just the thing to potentially cheer them up: an impromptu shopping trip into town to pick up everything they determined they would need to try and set up a portal in the Human Realm. The kids had what fun they could during such an excursion, but as Mabel had suspected, the process of making a portal was indeed more complicated than simply slapping the Titan's Blood onto any old door.

Hunter told her that they needed plenty of activation energy to kickstart the reaction, so Mabel got a jumper cable from the store and a diesel generator which Camila thankfully kept in the basement for emergencies. He added that they'd need plenty of magical energy too, so Mabel got some hamster wheels from the pet store and jury-rigged them to the generator with extension cords so that the kids' adorable magic pets could help out. And finally, Luz claimed that having a bunch of raw materials from both realms would help give the portal something solid to build itself around, so Mabel had Vee and the witch kids take a brief trip to the junkyard to scrounge whatever random crap they could find that looked like it'd be helpful. With glyphs and junk and old magic objects stuck onto the door with tape while Willows' plant scaffolding held everything together, the group could hesitantly say that things were looking pretty good this time around.

That didn't mean they didn't appreciate the scrap metal blast shield, though.

"Okay...here goes nothing," Mabel remarked as she carefully took out the teaspoon of Titan's Blood and gingerly lathered its contents onto the doorframe. She'd noticed an odd sort of energy to it while she had filtered it out drop by drop, but it was only when she saw it in action firsthand, felt the wind whip around in strange ways as the deep blue liquid thrummed with unfathomable power, that she could truly get a grasp of how potent this stuff was. After all, her Grunkle Ford and McGucket had needed years of groundbreaking research and gallons of radioactive waste just to replicate what this remarkable magical substance could do entirely on its own! She still had no idea if a teaspoon of it would be enough given the other factors at work here, but with how well equipped they were now, she was certainly more optimistic than she had been before Luz came back. Of course, if she was wrong this time, then...they'd be right back at square one, with four more kids to take care of and no idea when they could get them back to save their families and their world.

So, for their sake, she hoped she wasn't wrong this time.

"Alright, babies, do the thing!" Mabel called out to the magical pets - palismen, she idly remembered they were called - right before she hopped over the blast shield and joined the kids with a thud, while Camila stood ready near the house with the fire extinguisher in hand. Unfortunately, the chameleon one did what chameleons do and simply walked until she hung upside down on the hamster wheel, but the others ran as fast as they possibly could to supply the portal with the energy it needed. She didn't know how Willow's flying bird-bee and Hunter's vaguely familiar-looking red cardinal could keep up with Amity's adorable little snowy kitty cat, but Mabel wasn't complaining, as it quickly became clear from the different colors of magical energy flowing through the various cords that their jury-rigged setup was working. The energy flowed into the generator, kicking it into overdrive and adding mundane electricity to the mix as everything they had attached to the door became awash with a faint golden glow. Before long, this glow spread to the Titan's Blood on the doorframe, causing it to...well, bleed all over the rest of the door. It almost looked like there was more of it than there had been originally, and nobody could tell whether that was actually the case or whether the blood was just spreading out naturally. Before they could make a determination one way or the other, the whole thing shuddered with this horrible scraping noise, as though the fabric of reality itself were being torn apart until a portal formed.

Mabel unfortunately knew exactly what that sounded like.

Once the horrible noise had reached its apex, everything attached to the door - cables, cards, glyphs, junk, vines - all collapsed and fused together in a lightning-fast display of magic that none of them could really process. It was so quick and so violent that the diesel generator was dragged onto its side from the force of the jumper cable being ripped out of its socket, while the palismen instinctively scrambled out of the hamster wheels as they too were jostled about by their impromptu cords being sucked into the momentary vortex. When the dust settled, what sat in place of the door was a crooked and twisted mockery of what they had intended to produce through this experiment, its two misshapen eyes looking out in different directions as though every second that the door existed in that state was absolutely agonizing for it. Perhaps it was strange to ascribe such qualities to a door just because it had eyes, but most of them had seen plenty of objects brought to life with magic in the past, so they couldn't discount the possibility that this thing was actually alive.

If it was...it didn't look like it would be for much longer.

"Hoo boy," Mabel said, pursing her lips as she hesitantly looked out from the blast shield along with the others. "I'm no expert, but uh, this one's a dud, ain't it?" she asked nobody in particular. Luz stepped out to examine it along with Hunter, with Amity and Willow maintaining a careful distance while Gus and Vee continued to look out from relative safety.

"I don't know," Hunter remarked, too stunned at the unnatural sight to offer much else. "I've never seen a portal like this before. But, then again, Belos hadn't needed to rebuild his from scratch, just...reinforce the old one," he added, mostly to himself. However, Vee caught the unease which entered his voice as soon as he even mentioned the man. Evidently, there had been painful reasons for his sudden defection from the Emperor's service...reasons which may have been connected to the scars on his face and whatever he was so desperate to keep under wraps.

Vee shook her head. She needed to stop thinking about that, at least not right this minute.

"This is what it looked like the first time I tried making one, but it's...weird," Luz said, clearly trying to make sense of this situation and stumbling backwards when it finally swung open to reveal a shimmering vortex which Luz and her friends recognized on sight. "It swung open immediately last time, and it didn't take nearly as much Titan's Blood to make back then. Why didn't it-?" she asked aloud, moving just a little too close to the door for Amity's comfort.

"Luz, stay back! We don't know how stable it is!" Amity cautioned her girlfriend. Luz nodded, but she seemed a little desperate to stay on the bright side in the wake of this development.

"I mean, yeah, it's pretty janky, but-but so was the last one, and that portal held itself together for hours when I went into it the first time! This one had way more Titan's Blood poured into it, there's no reason to think it won't last for a while too! Besides, even if we can't use it to get back to the Isles, we can at least get valuable information about what's been happening and maybe even get in contact with Eda, or King, or...or anyone," Luz finished, having grown increasingly despondent as her speech went on. "But we won't know for sure until we try!" Luz said to try and bring the mood back up, both for herself and everyone else. Amity grumbled worriedly under her breath, and the others seemed to share her general sentiment.

"I dunno, Luz, this seems dangerous," Willow said, caught between not wanting to look scared in front of her friends and not wanting their recklessness to get them hurt. "Maybe we should send something else in our stead, like one of Gus' illusion clones," she suggested, already whipping up a length of vine to act as a rope while Gus nodded quickly in agreement.

"Yeah, yeah! Let's do that!" Gus said, quickly conjuring an illusory duplicate of himself that was solid enough to work for their purposes. Judging by the duplicate's expression, he wasn't exactly thrilled about the prospect of being used as a testing dummy. Luz and the others winced at the sight, suddenly less sure about the idea even if it was probably the best option for them to take. With how talented Gus was, they never could quite tell how intelligent those guys were...or how self-aware.

"Uh, I dunno about this, man, this seems dicey," the illusion said, already backing away.

"It'll be fine! All you gotta do is pop in, find out what you can, and come back to tell us. Just in and out, twenty minute trip!" Gus replied, attempting to be encouraging. Unfortunately, his illusions were rather panicky at times, no doubt in emulation of their creator.

"But what if I stare into the abyss and the abyss stares back at me, man, what happens then?!" the illusion rattled off, and Gus didn't quite have an answer, so the conversation went back and forth for a while with Willow awkwardly trying to mediate. Meanwhile, the palismen elected to return to their witches' sides, and Hunter in particular was emboldened by this enough to inspect the janky portal along with Mabel, although neither of whom were all that confident in its viability.

"I wonder if it needed more Titan's Blood because it lacks any ambient magic to draw from here?" Hunter mused aloud. "Without the Titan physically present like it is on the Isles, the energy requirements for making a portal from scratch could be much higher." Mabel nodded along, having guessed as much herself even if she wasn't as familiar with the magical theory at play here.

"Yeah, I had a hunch that things might be harder here, but if this is the best a whole teaspoon can do...I mean, jeez, I can't even imagine how much Titan's Blood we'd need to make a permanent portal," Mabel remarked, causing Luz's face to fall as she considered the logistics.

"Yeah, I don't...I don't know either. I don't actually know how long this door will hold," Luz said in a distant way which struck both Amity and Vee as being rather concerning, and all the more so once her signature look of determination took the place of her thousand yard stare. That was the signal that she was about to do something brave, noble, and utterly reckless.

"Willow, vine me. The rest of you, pull as soon as you feel a tug," she said firmly, already taking a step towards Willow expectantly as the plant witch took a step backwards.

"Uh, I dunno about-" she began nervously, only for the others to interrupt her.

"Mija?!" Camila called out worriedly, running as fast as she could with the fire extinguisher.

"Luz, don't you dare do anything stupidly heroic!" Vee added from behind the blast shield, to which Amity nodded frantically in agreement and attempted to pull her back before Hunter intervened, placing a hand on Luz's shoulder.

"Yeah, no, you are not going in there," Hunter insisted, causing Luz to scoff.

"Oh yeah? Then who will: him? That would just be mean at this point," she said as she gestured towards the illusion of Gus who kept the original busy trying to calm him down from a nervous breakdown about the nature of his temporary existence. "I've done this before, and it's my fault that you all are stuck here! The least I can do is find out how everyone else is doing and what we're up against so that we can at least try to fix it!" The others frowned, obviously taking umbrage with that particular framing of events, but it was Hunter who dared to counter Luz's claims.

"Except you're right: we don't know how long this door will hold," Hunter argued. "Plus, unlike you, I can teleport with Flap! I'm much better equipped to get myself out of there if your calculations are off, and even if I can't, then unless you can make an abomination out of human mud or something...I'm the most expendable person here," Hunter said while glancing in Amity's direction, as though he were stating a fact that should have been obvious to everyone else.

Luz's eyes widened in sympathy and terror as she found herself desperate to say anything to talk Hunter down from that extreme position, but was simultaneously left unsure of how much she even could say without betraying his confidence, and thus was locked into a horrible silence. Hunter looked at her for a moment, his resolve wavering ever-so-slightly at the care that he could see embedded into Luz's warm brown eyes, before he shook his head. Luz was just being foolishly sentimental like always, and he wasn't about to let her risk her safety for his sake like she had done time and time again. Not anymore. This time, he was going to keep her safe, no matter what it cost.

Unfortunately, she wasn't the only one who took issue with Hunter's opinion of himself.

"Hunter, no," Amity said first, the weight behind that simple sentiment evident in her eyes as they looked into his own, the both of them silently thinking back to the last time they'd really talked. Thinking about the sentiments they had both shared with each other in their own moments of weakness. Thinking about all of the horrible things that they had in common...and about how readily Hunter had started to literally dig his own grave in front of her right before they fought.

Fortunately, the others spoke up more than Amity could at the moment.

"Mijo, what are you saying?" Camila asked, horrified by what she was hearing from this boy.

"Hey, Hunter? I'm gonna need you to stop all that!" Gus called out protectively as he continued to do his best to comfort the illusory version of himself.

"Yeah, if you two are going to be like this, then nobody is going into that portal!" Willow declared firmly, channeling the energy she embodied as the captain of the Emerald Entrails to cow both of them into relative silence. Vee could only quietly nod in agreement with her as she nervously watched this whole scene play out from behind the blast shield. The attitudes on display with both Hunter and Luz were painfully familiar to her, to say the least, and as much as she wanted to help them both, something in the way that Hunter's piercing gaze shifted towards her direction made her hesitate to speak up any further. Although the eyes were a different color, the intensity in Hunter's magenta eyes was similar to the piercing blue of his, and even though Philip was dead and gone, and even though Hunter really wasn't anything like him...those magenta eyes of his still terrified her.

And she couldn't decide whether or not she hated herself for that.

"Captain..." Hunter said in a lower voice for a moment, the faintest hint of a blush on his cheeks before he angrily shook his head. "Ugh, none of you appreciate what's at stake here! We're losing time! Every second we spend arguing is one less second we have to get answers and one less second that the portal will hold! Just let me go in and I'll take my chances, you don't have to-!" he said, making for the open portal before he was suddenly grabbed by the wrist and yanked back.

"Nuh uh. We don't put children at risk," Mabel said firmly, and something in the way she looked down at him must have triggered his old instincts, because Hunter didn't even object to being called a child. "I know you kids don't really know me that well, but trust me when I say that I've done this sort of thing before. If any of us is going into that weirdness right now, it's me. End of discussion," she added, her voice carrying the same seriousness which only Camila had really been exposed to before. It was because of this that nobody, not even Hunter, was especially willing to challenge her claim, instead doing what they could to clear the area and lash a vine around Mabel no matter how much she insisted that her grappling hook would suffice if things went awry.

Once Luz told them that knowing people's names was required to summon the right reflections in this in-between space, the others gave Mabel the rundown on everyone whose status she needed to check. With a promise to find out as much as she could even as the many, many names she was asked to remember swirled around like soup in her brain, Mabel took a deep breath and plunged into the portal like it wasn't the most terrifying thing she had done in a while, the others unable to do anything but watch the door with nervous apprehension written on all of their faces.

Perhaps half an hour had passed by like days before Waddles suddenly started squealing.

The others attributed this to anxiety about the fate of his favorite human, but Camila frowned as soon as she heard it. She hadn't dealt with many pigs, admittedly, but she'd gotten to know Waddles well enough after keeping him in her backyard for the past month. He didn't spook easily, so if he was this scared, then something was clearly wrong. Camila knew now that there must be truth to the notion that animals had a sixth sense for when things were simply wrong in the natural world, and she could see that reflected in the way he suddenly booked it towards the portal, trying to jump in after Mabel before Gus caught him and held on as tight as he could. As Waddles' squeals only got louder and more desperate, as seconds ticked by like minutes with no accompanying tug on the vine...Camila made the only choice she could.

"Kids, pull. Gus, don't let him go," she said suddenly, startling the kids from where their attention had been focused on the squealing pig. Before they could offer much comment on that, they all heard the sound of reality...shuddering, for lack of a better description, and they quickly got the message. As Gus did his best to make sure Waddles didn't jump into the portal after Mabel, the others pulled with all of their considerable strength, eventually succeeding in pulling Mabel back through the portal just as they heard something in the door snap.

"Agh, what the hell-?" Mabel muttered, rubbing her head with confusion in her eyes before she looked behind her and saw the portal beginning to go critical. "Oh, hot Belgian waffles, what was I thinking?! We cannot lose the house!" she cried out anxiously without even thinking about it, too caught up in scrambling over the side of the blast shield as everyone else followed suit.

"Everyone take cover, get behind the-VEE!" Camila cried out as Vee suddenly sprung up past Mabel's retreating form, a desperate idea in her head as she sought to minimize the damage.

"God dammit Vee, what did you just say-?!" Luz called out angrily, about to leap after her sister to try and save her before Amity intervened and dragged her back behind the blast shield.

"Just trust me, guys! I got this one!" Vee called back, not remotely confident that she indeed had this one as the wind picked up around the portal, jostling her and forcing her to wave her arms around to regain balance. Once she was solidly on two feet, she stared down the terrifying magic door that was about to explode in a burst of magic that would surely take the house down with it if she didn't do something. She had an idea, although it was reliant upon muscles which she hadn't exactly been using ever since her fight with Hopkins. Draining magic was far from a pretty process, especially when considering how Luz's friends had been victims of a basilisk's hunger in the past. She had no idea if she could even absorb this much, but..it was the only way to save the house. If it went up in flames, people would notice, questions would be asked, and everyone would be put at risk. They could lose everything if she didn't stop this from happening, so...she had to try.

Even if it killed her.

With a deep inhale, Vee drew all of the magic in the collapsing portal out of the door and towards her, pulling it free in blue strands of light that arced through the air in random patterns before sliding into her open mouth. The meal was filling, to say the least: compared to the training wand, all of the magic that went into making this portal was so potent and acrid that for a split second, Vee was worried that it would overwhelm her. She instinctively took a step back to plant her feet more firmly on the ground, pushing past the pain in her stomach and her throat as she continued to absorb the many different types of magic that had gone into the portal door with even greater intensity than before. The others could only watch dumbfounded as Vee drained every last bit of magic from the collapsing portal seconds before it would've otherwise exploded...and left an ordinary door in its place, cracked almost off of its hinges and scorched as though it had barely survived a house fire. The rest of the house was unharmed.

If you asked them, the real miracle was that nobody saw all of that.

Once they were certain that the threat had passed, the others rushed to Vee's side as she stumbled to the ground, clutching her stomach as though in immense pain. She hadn't exactly been eager to find out the limit of how much magic she could hold onto at once, but apparently she had found it, and the glyph magic especially seemed to wreak havoc on her digestive system. If Vee had to compare the sensation to something a human would understand, it was like she had just eaten an entire bag of chocolate candy in one bite and topped it off with a gallon of soda, with all of the awful side effects that one would expect from that hellish combo. It provoked a rather curious train of thought for a brief moment. After all, Luz had said that glyph magic came from the Isles themselves, and the Isles were built on the bones of the Titan. However, based on what she had read in the Forbidden Stacks, demons like herself had been born from the remains of Titans as well. If both things were true...then why would Titan magic be dangerous for them to eat?

Vee would've pondered this more intently if she didn't feel like she was gonna throw up.

"I'm good!" Vee called out between gasping breaths. "I'm good! Just gotta ride it out!" she added roughly, and Camila was gracious enough to give Vee a moment to make sure she was fine.

Luz, however, was less gracious once she put her arms around her sister.

"Hey, so remember when I was gonna go into the portal and you said 'don't you dare do anything stupidly heroic,' and then the portal was collapsing and you decided to risk getting blown up? What was that about, sister?" Luz asked in true grumpy sibling fashion, to which Vee replied in kind as she clutched her head in pain.

"Ugh, shut up shut up shut upppp!" Vee whined, unable to deal with too much noise as she was suddenly hit by the sort of nausea one gets from either sickness or overeating. Probably both.

Despite her mild irritation with her sister's hypocrisy, Luz couldn't help but smile at Vee's response while the others watched with expressions which were equal parts relieved and bemused.

Those two really were sisters.

Eventually, once Vee had managed to get back up onto her own two feet, and once the others had calmed down from the adrenaline rush of the last few minutes, they all looked at the scorched door they'd barely managed to salvage along with the house. All other traces of their experiment were gone, including the materials that had gone into making the portal. It made sense: Vee had to drain the portal of its magic in order to stop it from exploding, and that meant absorbing what remained of the objects which had given the door its shape. Even so, making even a janky portal door in the Human Realm had still required all of those materials along with a whole teaspoon of Titan's Blood...and it had only lasted for about half an hour before collapsing. The conclusion to be reached from this experiment was as obvious as it was utterly disheartening:

They wouldn't be going home for a long, long time.

Part Three: The Evening Things Fell Apart

Hardly anyone spoke while Camila busied herself with making dinner.

Gus was the only one who made much of an effort to enjoy himself at the table once it was done, seeing as Vee was absolutely full after eating a whole packet of saltine crackers to settle her stomach, while the others weren't really "eating" so much as "obtaining sustenance." Vee sat around awkwardly as she tried to figure out how to cheer everyone up, Hunter and Luz were busy having another of their frustratingly mysterious silent conversations, and the rest were looking at Ms. Pines with such desperation for news that it broke Camila's heart to look at them for too long.

"I'm sorry, kids, but I could only get so much info while I was in there," Mabel said, rubbing her head as though she were still dealing with an odd headache. "I called out all the names you asked me to, but only a handful of those cube things even came up and showed me anything. I dunno what exactly that means, but...I doubt it's anything good." As she spoke, Amity and Gus did their best to stifle the tears that came to their eyes, both of them fearing the worst for their families and friends.

"So...almost everyone is...?" Amity asked, knowing from one look at Gus that he couldn't even bear to start the question like she had done, let alone finish it. Mabel seemed uncertain, but Luz came to the rescue, desperate as she was to reassure her loved ones.

"Not necessarily!" Luz said a little hastily. "It only works if they're near a reflective surface, remember? Maybe they're somewhere safe outdoors, without any puddles nearby! Or-or maybe they're hiding out somewhere with-with no mirrors, or windows! All of them! Every single one!" The others could hear the desperation in Luz's voice as she attempted to give them hope despite the awful circumstances. They appreciated her trying, at least.

"Luz is right. They're not dead. They're not," Willow said firmly to try and rally the others, as though simply speaking the words would make it so. Perhaps they had to, Camila thought as she looked at this poor girl sitting on her kitchen table and saw a bit too much of herself in her. After all, she had been in a similar situation from the opposite side, worrying constantly about Luz while simultaneously having to pretend like nothing was wrong to avoid casting suspicion onto Vee's disguise. All the false smiles and clenched fists out of sight, all the things you have to do to continue being someone else's rock while you can barely keep it together yourself...it weighs on a person. Camila at least had made the decision to lean on Mabel and Vee to an extent, to admit that she wasn't okay and accept their mutual support, but Willow...Willow seemed determined to go it alone, as if her emotional needs were much less important than the emotional needs of those around her.

They would definitely need to have a talk about that at some point.

"Who did you see?" Willow asked promptly, the directness of her question catching Mabel's attention as she was promptly yanked out of her disorganized thoughts.

"Okay, okay, um..." Mabel said, hoping that her brain would cooperate as she thought back to the disorienting realm she had briefly dipped into. "Well, I called out for your folks and the other basilisks: didn't get anything. Called out for those 'coven heads' of yours: ditto, zilch. All the kids you asked about seem fine: they were all at the same school, based on what glimpses I could get." At this, the kids all breathed a collective sigh of relief at the knowledge that their peers were alright, at least.

"So Hexside's safe," Hunter said with a rare smile on his face, even if it was admittedly a bittersweet one given the circumstances. "There are still people fighting back," he added, and the kitchen was silent for a moment before Luz spoke up without fully thinking about who was listening.

"What about my family?" she asked instinctively before she and the others paused as they glanced over at Camila. The remark had certainly been surprising, even knowing something of how much her daughter cared about this Owl Lady and her little family of misfits, but contrary to what the other kids feared...it didn't quite sting Camila the way they might have expected it to. After all, she'd already accepted that the Boiling Isles was likely "home" for Luz now, maybe more of a home for her than Camila's house ever was. It made sense that the people in it would be family for her too. Camila gave Luz and the others a reassuring smile, hoping that they would understand how she knew that her daughter's love for her other family didn't mean that she loved her mother any less.

It was just a little hard for Camila's mind not to assume the worst sometimes, that's all.

"Well, I called out for Lilith and that bird dude, but nothing came up. Eda was locked up somewhere, looking like that owl beast you mentioned she turns into sometimes. That's not supposed to last too long, is it?" she asked, being able to guess the answer from the silence that followed. "Yeah, figured. And I called out for King last, but what I saw when I called for him was...confusing," she began tentatively, grabbing Luz's attention as she leaned onto the table.

"Where was he?" she demanded, prompting Hunter to pull her back onto her seat a bit.

"Some kind of castle, maybe a library? I dunno, some fancy looking place," Mabel explained a little hurriedly, sensing that Luz was especially concerned about the adorable little guy she'd seen. "He was wearing pajamas and talking with this crescent moon looking kid - guessing that's The Collector - along with this green haired lady in some weird space nanny getup?" Mabel seemed especially confused about that part, as were the others, with one noteworthy exception.

"That would probably be Odalia," Amity said tersely. "Always finding some way to get ahead. Probably thought she could gain favor with The Collector by playing 'mommy' for them. Pathetic," she growled, causing Willow to hesitate for a moment before placing a comforting hand on Amity's shoulder. Vee winced, having been told the gist of Amity's family struggles already. She had mentioned that Odalia had sided with Belos for some unfathomable reason, but the way that Amity talked about her with others made it clear that she didn't even think of the woman as her mother anymore. Vee went ahead and scooted closer to the girl to offer what comfort she could.

"Hm," Mabel said, no doubt thinking her own thoughts about that, but choosing to keep them to herself. "Anyway, they were talking about what games they were gonna play together. The Collector seemed really excited about this 'Owl House' game, but King was pretty insistent that you had to be there before they could play that. The Collector got pretty upset, he did...something, and...I didn't get much else in the way of specifics after that," she finished apologetically, rubbing at her head in a way that left Camila and the others rather concerned.

"What happened?" Camila asked, echoing the worries of the others as they looked into Mabel's searching expression and realized that she legitimately didn't know, which was much scarier.

"I'm sorry, that's...that's all I got," she said, like it was her fault for succumbing to...whatever had happened to her during her excursion. "The last thing I remember is winding up on the grass outside the portal with a screaming headache," she added in that same morose way. The kitchen fell silent for a moment before Luz spoke up, desperate to remain optimistic.

"Well...okay then," Luz began hesitantly. "At least we know that Hexside is safe, so...whatever game The Collector's playing may not have started yet. And-and we know that Eda and King are still out there, at least, and that King's doing everything he can to keep The Collector's games from hurting anyone else, right?" she asked Mabel, who could only give a hesitant nod of confirmation. "Right, so...all is not lost, alright guys? We'll look for more Titan's Blood, we'll figure out how to make a portal that actually works, we'll find a way to stop The Collector, and...and it'll be okay. It'll all be okay." By the end of it, Luz was clearly struggling to believe her own pep talk, and she could tell that the others realized it. Even so, they did their best to offer her encouraging smiles in response to her words, if only so that perhaps their smiles would become genuine. Perhaps they would come to believe in what Luz was saying. Perhaps they would really believe they'd be okay.

After all...what other choice did they have?

By nightfall, it became clear to Camila that the kids weren't doing alright, to put it mildly.

With Mabel busy making a few apologetic phone calls about the damage to the front door of the house she'd been looking to purchase, it fell to Camila to check on the kids once the sun had started to come down. For obvious reasons, the mood wasn't all that chipper when Camila got there. Hardly anyone spoke as they hung out listlessly in the living room, the TV left on to some channel or other that no one was really paying attention to as they congregated around the couch. To their credit, Gus and Vee were trying to capture the others' interest using her copy of Cosmic Frontier, and it seemed like the others were somewhat receptive at least, but it was mostly a one-sided book talk. Honestly, Camila was just glad that the sight of Vee talking about the book so enthusiastically had returned some of the light to Luz's eyes...even if her daughter still hadn't smiled all day. With some exceptions, most of the kids had hardly smiled about anything since they got here, and Camila was at a total loss as to how to cheer them up in the wake of these latest unfortunate developments. She glanced towards Vee with a look that signified her desperation to help these poor kids somehow, and luckily for her, Vee happened to have another idea once she decided she had talked them to death.

Of course, whether it would help instead of making things worse was another matter entirely.

"Hey, uh, seeing as we're probably gonna be taking it easy for the rest of the day...why don't we play catch up?" Vee suggested somewhat nervously. The others looked at each other with varying degrees of trepidation before Hunter spoke up, his skepticism evident.

"Catch up?" he repeated, his piercing magenta eyes unnerving Vee once again.

"Yeah, like, talking about the good times we missed," she attempted to clarify, the relative silence of the room doing nothing to ease her anxiety. "I-I only really got Luz's stories about her adventures secondhand, and that was only up to around when you two started dating," she said, gesturing to Amity and Luz. "And, you know, clearly most of you haven't heard about what's been going on with me since I got here, and I have no idea what's been going on with each of you beyond whatever Luz mentioned to me or to Camila like a month ago, so...maybe this is a good opportunity for us all to get to know each other better? If for, um, no reason other than the fact that, well...we're gonna be living together for a while," she finished apologetically, dropping the mood down just a bit further and instinctively hiding behind the comforting embrace of her hoodie. "Sorry, this was stupid, just ignore me-" she attempted to remark, only to be interrupted by Amity once again.

"Not at all, Vee. That sounds like a great idea, right Luz?" Amity said gently and a little nervously, lightly nudging her girlfriend to bring her out of her fugue state and process what was happening, along with the fact that her sister was evidently in distress.

"Hm? Uh, yeah! Yeah, that...that sounds like it could be fun," Luz said, the trepidation in her voice clearly communicating that she felt the opposite to an extent. Even so, her willingness to try anyway for her sister managed to reignite a bit more of that lost enthusiasm from the others.

"Well, I'm willing to share if you guys are," Willow said warmly. "How about you, Hunter?" she asked, jolting the boy out of his own train of thought. It was for the best, really. Those thoughts hadn't exactly been good for him for a while now.

"I, uh, suppose such an exercise could be beneficial," Hunter responded, managing to land the first part relatively okay. "Just in case something we share about our, um, past experiences proves to have, um...contained relevant information," he added, landing that part much less perfectly. Willow giggled a bit at hearing his rationale, only making matters worse for the poor boy.

"Of course your head jumps straight to the tactical implications," Willow said with a lightness in her voice which was...teasing, sure, but not in a mean-spirited way, not in the least. If anything, it reminded Vee a bit of how Masha would talk to her sometimes, before they told her-

Oh.

Well, file that down for future reference, Vee supposed, not that she particularly had much reason to care, to put it bluntly. Judging from the way Amity and Gus snuck a quick glance at Hunter's reddened face, it seemed as though they at least had an inkling of what was going on too. Really, it was a testament to how much Luz was hurting right now that she didn't even seem to notice the muted flirting between her best friend and her...adopted brother? Was that what Willow had implied about Luz and Hunter's relationship last night?

Hrm. Vee would have to sort out her feelings on that later.

Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, Gus quickly pivoted to another matter.

"Ooh, wait, let me get a notebook!" Gus proclaimed, conjuring forth a mechanical pencil and notebook from thin air with a quick spell circle. "I wanna make sure I get all the details right when I publish your biography!" he added for Vee's benefit, his evident excitement prompting Vee to flush in embarrassment at once again being the center of his attention.

"My what now?" she asked, too stunned to offer much else. Between his earlier questions about her biology and this sudden interest in her life story, she was proving to be strangely popular with this kid. She didn't know whether to feel flattered or weirdly exposed, like she was being studied under a massive microscope. Given her history, the allusion didn't feel the most comfortable for her, or the most charitable to Gus, really, after Vee thought about it for a moment.

He...probably meant well enough by it, right?

"Gus, we've talked about this, you need to ask first before committing to writing down someone's entire life story to preserve their lived experiences for future generations," Willow prodded him gently while offering Vee an apologetic smile on her friend's behalf. Gus could only groan pleadingly, reminding Vee that this was indeed a barely-teenage boy she was dealing with here.

"Augh, Willow, don't you understand?! Not only is she a demon of a kind once thought to be extinct, but she may be the first denizen of our world to have lived in the Human Realm with the intention to stay there! She must have an entirely unique perspective on the complexities of human society and the future of our cross-cultural relations!" Gus argued, the passion behind his words continuing to put Vee slightly on her guard as she timidly raised a finger to object slightly.

"I-I mean, I've only lived here for like four months and I have maybe five friends, I dunno if that's-" she interjected, only for Gus to cut her off with a dramatic gesture in her direction.

"Did you hear that?! Four months, uninterrupted! And she has friends, real human friends! Five of them! That's way more information than anything I could get out of the Owl Lady!" Gus argued, getting somewhat annoyed as he thought back to a far more timid interview he'd done as part of the makeup for that old project. "All she'd tell me about her visits to the Human Realm were the many crimes she committed and some stuff about a place called 'Vegas' that she'd tell me more about 'when I was older,'" he continued with derisive air quotes at the end, leaving most of the room confused while the humans in earshot all shared an awkward look, each of them mortified.

"Ohh, Eda," Luz muttered to herself with an accompanying facepalm at her owl mom's antics, although she couldn't quite hide her somber smile at the reminder of her mentor's wackiness. She could only imagine the havoc that Eda had wrought upon that city in her "gory days." Camila, for her part, kept her thoughts to herself, not wanting to come off as judgmental towards this woman who, despite her evident recklessness, had also kept her baby fed and housed for four months. Mabel, meanwhile, found herself with the opposite problem as soon as she wandered back into the living room and realized that the subject of "Marilyn" had come up again.

"Don't talk about how she's kind of your great-aunt, don't talk about how she's kind of your great-aunt, don't talk about how she's kind of your great-aunt!"

"Did you know she's kind of my great-aunt?" Mabel blurted out suddenly.

"DAMMIT!"

"What?" Luz and Vee asked simultaneously, in true twin sibling fashion.

"What?!" The others asked, having still only been given the very basics as to why this "Ms. Pines" was even here, let alone why she was apparently perfectly comfortable with the supernatural and talk of magical beings from alternate dimensions for reasons which nobody had yet to explain.

"¿Qué?" Camila asked, having not heard that particular tidbit from Ms. Pines during any of the many nights she'd spent crashing on her basement couch.

Feeling the pressure of going from being socially invisible to having every single pair of eyes in the room pointed squarely at her, Mabel blanched and attempted to explain as best she could.

"Okay so years ago my brother learned about this magic woman named 'Marilyn' who married my Grunkle Stan in Vegas, only to divorce him and steal his stuff, and I didn't put things together until I saw Hopkins' conspiracy board and y'all caught me up on the fact that she's actually a witch named Eda, so...yeah. That's how all that happened. Bit of a...bit of a fun coincidence, huh?" By the end of her explanation, Mabel looked like she wanted nothing more than to exit the house as quickly as possible, ideally through a bottomless pit: she had experience with those, she'd be fine. Fortunately for her, everyone mostly dropped it after a moment of utterly dumbfounded silence.

"So anyway," Gus said as he clicked his mechanical pencil, turning back to his earlier topic. Vee sighed before giving Gus a patient smile of her own, willing to satisfy his curiosity this time.

"Why don't I just tell you the story first, huh, bud?" Vee suggested gently, to which he shrugged somewhat sheepishly, obviously recognizing his own overeagerness to an extent.

"Ah, right, of course. One thing at a time," Gus remarked by way of apology, leaning in intently along with the others to varying degrees. While Mabel quietly took the moment to sneak out of the house while everyone's eyes were on Vee, Camila looked at her adopted daughter with a proud smile on her face as she began to launch into her own unique brand of colorful narration.

"So, there I was, slithering through the busy streets of Bonesborough, hiding in plain sight..."

In retrospect, Vee should've known that something would go wrong eventually.

Despite starting with her own backstory, Vee's idea of playing "catch up" with everyone actually seemed to work quite well at first. Luz's friends enjoyed hearing about her generally lighthearted antics while at Reality Check, and Luz in particular seemed...happy, for the most part, to hear how much Vee had accomplished while posing as her. Befriending Juniper, landing the role of Romeo in the school play (even if partly by the whims of circumstance), encouraging Clara to become a better person: Vee had feared that talking about these things would make her envious or upset, and yet Luz was genuine in congratulating Vee for settling some of the old issues that she'd been unable to deal with before coming to the Isles. Of course, Vee could tell there was still a degree of bittersweetness there, but she understood it. It was only natural to feel off about being told that your twin had fixed problems in your life that you hadn't been able to, almost as if they were better at being "you" than you were. She wasn't going to begrudge her sister for feeling weird about that.

She was going to begrudge her for the Looks whenever Masha came up, though. Just a bit.

In any case, once Vee was done and Gus had taken detailed notes on just about everything that came out of her mouth, the others took to sharing their own stories with more or less ubiquitous enthusiasm. Amity took the lead on telling Vee about all of the cute moments she and her girlfriend had shared together, as well as the adventures which formed the basis of her inclusion as a part of Luz's wider friend group. Judging from the small sheepish smiles which Luz sent Amity's way, Vee could tell that her sister appreciated the reminders of the good times she'd had with Amity before all of this happened, especially considering their earlier conversation.

Once Hunter was supposedly sick of hearing about that, he went ahead and gave a no-doubt sanitized retelling of his long and arduous journey towards becoming a fully-realized teenager, which the others were quick to playfully dub as his "redemption arc" to his lighthearted chagrin. It was a tale which Gus and Willow were all too happy to supplement with their own exploits involving the "Emerald Entrails," the Flyer Derby team which Willow had apparently started at Hexside in emulation of her dads. As it turned out, Hunter hadn't been aware of this extra tidbit until Willow mentioned it, and Willow's playfully added confirmation that her dads got together because of Flyer Derby all but guaranteed that they wouldn't be hearing from the blushing boy for some time.

With that, Luz was the only one left who hadn't shared something, and to her credit, she gave an earnest effort at describing the few stories her friends had missed, despite her earlier reticence. It was almost certainly bittersweet to think back on those relatively happier moments in her impromptu stay. Vee didn't miss the way Luz's face briefly fell at remembering certain details, namely the human-only barrier she mentioned while recounting how she broke into and out of the Conformatorium. Still, Vee didn't have any reason to believe that things were taking a particular turn for the worse...at least until they had finally run out of anything else to talk about.

"Man, hearing all of it back to back like this...it really puts into perspective how many things have changed this past summer," Willow remarked, to which everyone else agreed. "I mean, my life did a complete 180 once you came along, Luz!" she added happily, and while the comment was clearly meant to cheer the human girl up, Vee managed to catch the briefest hint of something strange passing over Luz's features in response to that statement. It wasn't entirely dissimilar to how Hunter and Luz had looked at her the night before, but while that little puzzle was already frustrating enough for Vee to figure out, this new wrinkle made even less sense. What on earth could Luz have only just realized about Willow's past that would make her almost as spooked?

"Tell me about it. Who even was I three months ago?" Amity asked jokingly, but both Nocedas caught the look quickly shared between Amity and Willow, and they had very different reactions to it. In Vee's case, it seemed to indicate some past history between the two that had been alluded to at various points, yet not completely elaborated on for obvious reasons. In Luz's case, however, the earlier expression Vee had noted only seemed to worsen as she glanced between the two girls. Vee could recognize the tell-tale signs of someone who was putting the pieces together, especially when viewed on what was almost her own face. All the same, though, she wasn't quite sure how to approach Luz about it while everyone else was around, especially as they continued talking.

"I quite literally could not have imagined the trajectory my life would take to get to this point," Hunter pointed out with a dry chuckle, causing Luz's gaze to shift and linger on him especially. Gus chuckled as well, glancing at the small mirror he had earned in battle with a mixed expression as he contemplated just what it had revealed about the true extent of his abilities.

"Yeah, we've, uh, we've all grown a lot this summer, huh?" he asked no one in particular, but the others made noises of agreement anyway. He looked up from the sight of his mirror to look at Luz with a hesitant smile. "And I think we've all got you to thank for that...Luz?" he began before pausing as he took note of his friend's expression. He especially took note of the way it seemed to worsen as she looked at him and the mirror he held in his hands, given that they had just gone over exactly how he had come to acquire it. The others likewise heard the reticence in Gus' tone and took note of Luz's plight as well, swiftly shifting from tired and happy to concerned for their friend.

"Luz? Luz, what's wrong?" Amity asked, attempting to touch her shoulder while Luz locked eyes with Vee. Suddenly, as if this last sight put the last few pieces in place within her mind, Luz abruptly pushed herself away from her girlfriend and jumped to her feet with a panicked expression.

"Whoa, hey!" Gus exclaimed at the sudden movement while the others moved to respond.

"Luz, deep breaths, okay?" Willow said nervously, hoping her usual method would work.

"Luz, please, talk to us, don't-Luz!" Amity attempted to add, only for Luz to suddenly bolt out of the living room. Before anyone could even think to get up and pursue her as best they could, she was already out the front door and well beyond the reach of any of them.

Well. Beyond the reach of most of them, anyway.

With the others too busy wondering what the heck was going on to do anything for a few costly seconds, Hunter and Vee took their own routes towards getting to Luz as quickly as possible. Hunter, in a move that was somehow both extremely calculated and extremely reckless, summoned Flapjack before teleporting out of the house and onto the front porch just as he spotted Luz heading into the woods. Vee, for her part, was just incredibly fast, but not quite fast enough to get to Luz before Hunter's tell-tale glitchy flash of yellow light had materialized in front of her. The two found themselves in a brief stare down for a moment as they assessed each other's intentions, with Hunter coming to the rather unfortunate conclusion that even Vee couldn't be allowed to interfere.

While Vee elected to simply dart past him, Hunter was faster than her, and he managed to kick her leg out from under her in a practiced maneuver that sent her tumbling to the ground. Before Vee could do anything, he swiftly planted his staff a few inches from her face, making her have second thoughts as she tried to process what had just happened. By that point, the others had finally made it to the door, but Hunter's unexpected takedown left them surprised for just a second too long to do anything as the boy used his staff to magically seal all of the doors and windows in the house, leaving the others trapped inside and muffling their shouts of protest. Vee wanted to question where the hell he had learned such a spell, let alone who the hell he thought he was to knock her to the ground and lock everyone inside the house without warning. However, with her impressive ears suddenly so close to the ground...she had far more pressing concerns at the moment.

"Look, I understand you want to help Luz, but I think I know what's going on here, and she wouldn't want to worry you and the others," Hunter explained, clearly apologetic over what he had just done. "Just let me handle it and stay out of her busi-NESS!" Hunter continued before Vee pulled him to the ground too and moved around such that her body was completely covering his face. Hunter was too annoyed at the sudden reversal of their positions to register exactly why she had done this, outside of simply responding to his potentially uncalled-for provocation. Only when he noticed the brief flash of light coming from behind Vee did he come to understand her actions, based on what little had been explained to him about the technology of the Human Realm:

A car had come by with two humans in it. Humans who could have noticed his pointed ears.

When the lone car had continued on without any sort of pause, its driver having either not noticed or not cared to notice the roughhousing teenagers, the pair relaxed (although Vee could've sworn she saw a familiar-looking kid in the backseat). Even so, as soon as it became clear that no other cars were coming and that no window lights were on in the neighborhood, Vee swiftly rolled out of Hunter's reach just in case he tried to grab her again, while Hunter quickly tossed around his longer hair to see if that would be enough to hide his ears. As both parties got up to their feet without any further offensive action, Vee looked at Hunter with a hard stare which she didn't pull out often, but which evidently had the desired effect on someone who knew full well what she was.

"Get back inside and apologize, now," she said firmly, in a tone which would have made anyone else back down in terror. From the look in his magenta eyes, Hunter was certainly considering it, but he hadn't entirely given up on making his point, either.

"Not until Luz is taken care of," he countered firmly. "I'm sorry for freaking out, and I understand you two are close, but...look, there are things at work here that aren't your concern. Just let me deal with this and don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong, okay? Please," he added, the desperation in his voice giving Vee pause. "She's been through enough already."

Vee groaned, her frustration evident. The mysterious one-on-one conversations between those two were one of many things she wasn't quite sure what to do about, and perhaps something she should've addressed sooner. She at least knew that both of them were hiding something from the others for reasons unknown, and she also knew that whatever that secret was apparently had something to do with her. However, now it seemed that some other new revelation involving her and the others together had occurred to Luz, sending her running out of the house with tears in her eyes and only making the puzzle even more convoluted. Vee had been content to leave well enough alone, let Luz come to her, but clearly that wasn't going to be happening, especially if whatever she and Hunter were hiding was causing them to have regular emotional breakdowns and had Hunter forcibly stopping her and the others from interfering the way he did. Vee knew something had to give before those two buried themselves any deeper, or things were only going to get even worse.

"I know you don't have much reason to trust me, but Luz is my sister. We've trusted each other with some pretty heavy things in the past, and I know how badly all this has affected her," Vee began hesitantly. She looked away towards the house for the briefest moment, choosing not to dwell too long on her recent example of bending the trust which Luz had placed in her just a bit, for her sister's sake. "Whatever she won't tell the others, I promise I can handle it, but I can't help either of you if you won't let me in," she finished with a slight degree of desperation in her voice. That piercing magenta gaze of Hunter's looked upon her yet again, evaluating whether he could trust her. As much as she didn't want it to, the look sent a shiver down her spine. She wanted to trust him, and she did to an extent, because Luz clearly trusted him a lot. And yet...something about him still felt off to her, almost unnaturally so. Those two facts together made her nervous.

He'd claimed that he was Belos' ward during their conversation earlier, and he was clearly a witch, but she knew firsthand what it looked like when someone was editing details of their life in real time. "Ward" was clearly a substitution for some similar term: Belos' relative, perhaps, a distant descendant of his brother Caleb and that Evelyn woman who Belos had abducted? That would certainly explain why his calculating gaze felt so similar, why his magic didn't quite smell right, why Hunter acted so similarly to Amity in certain upsetting respects, as well as why he...looked like Caleb.

Titan, he looked a lot like Caleb, didn't he?

Obviously a statue in the local park wasn't going to capture everything, but his face, his hair, even his evident height relative to everyone else in the house, they all pointed to Hunter being genetically related to Caleb and Philip in some fashion. That he had magenta eyes and witch-like ears could be readily explained by the love story Vee had heard, and the fact that he had no natural magic...maybe human/witch hybrids lacked a proper bile sac? If so, it seemed like an odd sort of change to keep going that long in a family tree that would have only included one human in it over 400 years, but perhaps that trait was especially persistent. It wasn't like the concentration of magic bile needed to cast spells was critically necessary for a witch to have: given adequate support from magical friends or family members, a powerless witch could easily live a very full life on their own.

Although...a powerless witch family would be rather hard-pressed to defend themselves.

Had Belos decided to come knocking on the doors of Caleb's descendants as Vee now suspected, there would have been nothing they could do against that kind of raw, unnatural power. They would truly have been powerless as Belos descended on them like a vicious predator, likely killing them all and taking an infant Hunter to raise into his loyal soldier as some twisted form of, what, revenge? For his brother abandoning their awful colony for a witch he'd supposedly been madly in love with? Had something that petty truly been the inciting incident for a genocidal plot centuries in the making? It seemed ridiculous on the face of it, and yet it was the only story that made sense to Vee, the only one which could currently explain such unnerving similarities between the man she loathed and...and the scared teenage boy who was now standing across from her. The scared boy with an expression on his face that mirrored the expression she had worn when he looked at her like he had seen a ghost. Perhaps he had. Perhaps they both had.

Suddenly, Vee didn't find him quite as scary anymore.

"How do I know that I-I mean, that Luz can trust you?" Hunter said, quickly covering his mistake in the hopes that Vee wouldn't notice. As luck would have it, she didn't, if only because she was still lost in thoughts too numerous to process, and was therefore startled back into the present moment by Hunter's question. She took a deep breath. Although she desperately wanted to figure out what was going on so that she could help her sister through this, she knew she had to tread carefully around them both, especially with Hunter being so protective of Luz and vice versa.

"I don't know," she admitted honestly. "I could say it's because we're family, but...you of all people have a right to be skeptical of that particular argument," she added, causing him to look downward. She certainly wasn't wrong there. "And Titan knows it's been difficult getting through to her so far," Vee continued somewhat despondently before circling back around to her point. "Still, I can tell that she's been hiding something she's terrified will turn us all against her, and if nothing else...you can at least trust that I know how it feels to keep a secret like that from the people you care about. If it's really as bad as you two think it is...I promise I'll take it to my grave." Hunter's eyes widened at that particular expression before he slowly nodded. He had to admit, she was more persuasive than he'd expected, and hardly the timid little wallflower a part of him had assumed she was after it had become clear that she wasn't really that much of a monster. Still, he wasn't entirely inclined to give in just yet, if only to make sure that he wasn't betraying Luz's trust.

"It's not quite the same thing," he insisted. Vee gave him another look before shrugging.

"Maybe not, but I've also gathered that whatever you're hiding has something to do with me in particular," she added, causing him to pale a bit as she gave him an even harder look. "Wouldn't you say I have a right to know whatever awful thing you two found out about me? Because if you're hiding it to spare my feelings or something, trust me...I can take it. I already know I'm a monster: what could be worse to know than that?" At this pointed response, both of them fell silent, each one grappling with something deeply personal before Hunter eventually sighed in frustration.

"You're not letting this go, are you?" he asked pointedly in turn, the look in her eyes telling him everything he needed to know. "Titan, you two really are sisters," he muttered under his breath before glancing out towards the abandoned house. "Well, I guess it isn't really my call to make, so...come on. Let's go see what Luz thinks," he commanded, turning on his heel to walk towards where he knew Luz to be. Vee sighed as she followed along, grateful he'd at least agreed to let her come with, but finding herself somewhat less grateful when she caught sight of their destination:

The front porch of the abandoned house, where Luz was left quietly sobbing into her sleeve.

This was going to be much harder than she'd thought.

Part Four: The Night of Horrible Truths

"Luz?" someone asked, possibly not for the first time, before she finally looked up.

Her instinctive reaction upon seeing that Hunter had come after her was a slight degree of relief mixed in with fear, and this was only further compounded by Vee's presence at his side. She'd already felt bad enough about their conversation the previous night, and now Vee was here to crack open everything she'd tried to hide! In hindsight, Luz should've gathered by now that her adopted sister was remarkably perceptive, but it would also seem she was possessed of a stubbornness that was entirely too much like her own for her liking. She couldn't exactly brush off the scene she had just caused, especially not in light of Vee's inquisitive nature and what she had let slip the night before, but at the same time...she wasn't remotely ready for this.

Then again, perhaps having her life fall apart so quickly was exactly what she deserved.

The minute Luz choked out another sob and averted her gaze, Hunter sprung into action.

"Okay, that settles it, come on," Hunter said gruffly, summoning Flapjack a second time with the intent to teleport Vee back into the magically locked house. He might have succeeded in grabbing her despite Vee's efforts to avoid him had Luz not interceded on her behalf.

"Hunter, just-just stop, okay?! It's too late now! It's...it's over," she said shakily, evidently not in the most coherent state at the moment. Still, her words did make him take pause, at least, allowing Vee to get out of his grip and cautiously approach her sister with a worried expression on her face.

"I'm sorry for prying, Luz, I just...look, whatever's going on with you two, it's clearly tearing you up inside," Vee attempted to argue, succeeding insofar as both of them averted their gaze from her now, neither of them able to refute that what she was saying was true. "And I know this is rich coming from me, but maybe...maybe the others won't react as badly as you think they will if you told them the truth? I know I won't, at least. I promise." This cautiously optimistic sentiment managed to sow some doubt in Hunter, at least, judging from the way he nervously looked back towards her before looking away again. From Luz, however, all Vee's argument got her was a dry chuckle laden with such a degree of guilt and regret that it threatened to crush the poor girl underfoot.

"You more than anyone wouldn't be saying that if you knew what I did," Luz said in that same tone from the night before, the bitter voice that set off warning bells in Vee's head and told her that Luz was hurting badly. Even so, Vee wasn't about to let that attitude go unchallenged either.

"Try me," Vee dared back, looking her sister dead in the eye. "You saw the absolute worst of me the day we met, Luz: that stupid letter I wrote to you, the things I said, the sheer audacity I had to toss out your things and cozy up to Mamá like I had any right to call her that yet, all while taking your identity and calling 'finders keepers' on your entire life! And yet, even after witnessing all of that firsthand, after being given every possible reason to hate me...you still wanted me to be your sister." The earnestness with which she ended her brief rant, so very much like the earnestness she'd laced into every word she spoke in their previous conversation, finally succeeded in pulling Luz out of her depressive spiral, if only for a moment. Fortunately, that was all that Vee needed. "I think it's about time I repay you for that kindness, so you better believe me when I tell you that nothing you say to me is going to make me stop wanting to be your sister. You got that, Luz?" Faced with her stubborn determination, Luz stood there in stunned silence for a moment before sighing in a rather resigned fashion, as though Vee ought to expect disappointment.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," she said sadly, pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts before looking Vee in the eyes with such a guilty and heartbroken expression that Vee's desire to help her sister grew in tandem with her sympathy. "The truth is...Philip, the Day of Unity, everything that happened...it really is all my fault," she admitted, leaving Vee somewhat confused.

"What do you mean?" Vee asked. "You did everything you could to stop him: hell, from what you told us, you mostly succeeded! You can't blame yourself for not knowing he was-"

"It's not just that!" Luz countered swiftly. "It's bad enough I barely managed to stop him, it's bad enough that I never figured out who he was, but I...I helped him, Vee," she said, her voice sounding even more broken as she said it. "I helped him ruin the world I love."

"...How?" Vee asked without any hint of judgment in her voice, knowing that this wasn't the end of it. There was no possible way her sister would have helped that madman willingly, not without being tricked or coerced into it somehow. Her sister was cunning, Vee knew, but she also knew that manipulation was what Belos excelled at, and someone like him could easily exploit her sister's greatest strengths and use them for his own benefit.

"There were these things called time pools," Luz began by way of explanation. "Me and Lilith, we used Titan's Blood to find them, and once we did, we went back in time to look for Philip Wittebane. We'd been getting information about how to make a portal door from his diary, but we could only get so much from it since we were relying on an Echo Mouse who ate most of it." Vee nodded in response to that: she knew from experience that those things could be rather selective about when they broadcast the information they absorb from their food. Precisely why Malphas had been willing to let her and the others hide in the Forbidden Stacks in exchange for rooting them out, not that Vee had really contributed much to that effort for obvious reasons.

"So you found him, then?" Vee asked tentatively, to which Luz gulped, then nodded.

"Yeah, we did, and apparently saying his name a bunch more times still wasn't enough to get it through my stupid head that he was actually-!"

"Luz," Vee said in a warning tone, not wanting her sister to beat herself up any further. Luz sighed, shaking her head back and forth to calm herself down a little before continuing.

"Right...sorry," Luz replied, more for the sake of politeness than actually being sorry about putting herself down like that. "Anyway, we met him and convinced him that we could help him find The Collector. One thing led to another and I...I showed him the light glyph," Luz continued. "I didn't even think about it. We were in a dark cave and-and his diary made him seem like he was such a cool, smart guy, so I guess I wanted to impress him for some reason? And I just-I just did it, I showed him the light glyph! He had never seen it before and I was so excited that I had taught him something new that I didn't even think twice about it!" By this point, she was starting to become frantic in her recounting of what had happened, leaving Hunter to do his best to calm her down.

"Luz, remember," he said authoritatively as he took a cue from Gus and Willow, inhaling while counting to four, then exhaling while counting to four again, all while looking at Luz with the unspoken implication that she should be following his lead. Sure enough, she did, and after a moment of this relaxing exercise, she was ready to talk again, at least for the moment.

"Thanks, Hunter," she said genuinely before continuing. "Anyway, it turned out that he used glyphs too, and he'd developed all sorts of intricate combos which he'd written bits and pieces of into his diary. The thing is, though, he speculated that the Isles had somehow been keeping him from discovering the other glyphs as easily as I did. It took years for him to find them, he said." By this point, the guilt inside of her came out in full force as she once again thought about how much of a red flag that had been in hindsight. "But oh, look at that! Here I am, just dropping the last one he needed right into his lap! He'd already figured out how to teleport with the other three, so having all four must have given him everything he needed to...!" Luz went on before stopping herself and curling up in shame. Hunter instinctively moved to comfort her before she brushed him aside; she didn't deserve his sympathy or anyone else's, not after how stupid she had been. Vee, meanwhile, turned that particular issue over in her head for a moment before coming away perplexed as to how Luz was blaming herself so badly over what seemed to her to be a smaller mistake than Luz claimed.

"Well, okay, but...you didn't know he was Belos back then, and with how long he managed to keep himself alive...surely he would've figured out the light glyph with or without you, right?" Vee argued hesitantly, causing the other two to look up in response to Vee's proposition.

"Actually...yeah, she's got a point," Hunter said, having initially accepted Luz's framing of events, but now finding himself somewhat caught in the middle. "Sure, he acquired it earlier than he would have otherwise after you showed it to him, but...the Isles hadn't been able to stop him from finding the rest eventually, right? It could've taken years or maybe even decades, but...he clearly had all the time in the world," Hunter finished darkly, lost in his own secrets which he wasn't prepared to reveal just yet...but had admittedly been thinking about it after what Vee had said to him earlier. Luz, meanwhile, failed to notice this as she chuckled mirthlessly at the others' attempt to make her feel better in spite of everything she had done.

"Maybe, but it still made a difference, and that's hardly the end of it, you know," Luz countered bitterly. Vee and Hunter shared a glance, having long since gathered that they both wanted what they thought was best for Luz, before Luz continued her rant. "He used that teleportation combo I mentioned to take us to the Head, where he said he knew that The Collector was sealed away behind an intricate puzzle door which he hadn't been able to open."

"So, you were the one who opened it, then?" Vee asked promptly, throwing Luz for a loop.

"Uh. Well, no, it was Lilith who did that-" Luz began, only for Vee to cut her off again.

"And was it all Lilith, or had Philip taken a crack at it first?" Vee asked just as quickly, catching Luz off-guard and causing Hunter to glance back and forth between them.

"Well, okay, sure, it was mostly finished already, but-!"

"And could Philip have finished it himself, do you think?" Vee asked, not letting up.

"Yes, clearly, but it wasn't just the door that he needed us for!" Luz continued a little more harshly than she had intended, her mind spiraling once more as she thought back on all the little ways she had doomed them all. As Vee instinctively reared back a little, Luz hesitated for a second before continuing. "There was a Stonesleeper guarding The Collector's plate thingy, a big ol' dinosaur monster that Philip planned to sacrifice us to so he could grab the plate thing and teleport away to go work out the next step of his evil plans! I fell right into his trap, but Lilith had been on to him from the start! If I hadn't been such an idiot and just listened to her, we could have stopped him before he set all of this in motion! Philip got everything he wanted and spent centuries ruining countless lives, just because I was too stupid to figure out who he was until it was too late!"

"Luz!" Vee snapped as her sister once again tore into herself, and from the look of it, even Hunter had become a bit ticked off at that particular remark. Still, Luz doubled down.

"But it's true!" Luz argued, tears beginning to form in her eyes. "Up until now, I was only thinking about how I helped bring about the Day of Unity, but-but after hearing everything you guys were saying, I realized that all of that awfulness was only the beginning of what I've done!"

"What are you talking about-?!" Vee attempted to interject, only to get shut down again.

"Think about it!" Luz retorted. "Without The Collector, Philip probably wouldn't have been able to develop the sigil magic he used to seal people's magic away! Without sigil magic, he couldn't have pulled off the Draining Spell or set up the Coven System, and without the Coven System, he wouldn't have any power! If it weren't for me practically handing him what he needed to take over the Isles, he couldn't have become 'Emperor Belos' in the first place!" Vee let out a sympathetic groan in the face of Luz's faulty reasoning, recognizing her own flawed logic about when she was kidnapped by Hopkins as if she were looking in a funhouse mirror. Judging from the expression on Hunter's face, she at least wasn't the only one who was really starting to take umbrage with Luz's interpretation of events, even if he had initially encouraged it to an extent.

"Luz, I-I really don't think that-" Hunter tried to cut in this time, only to get shut down too.

"I saw what the Isles were like before, Hunter!" Luz snapped, her voice beginning to get choked up. "There was nothing 'savage' about it! Witches and demons were happy when they could use magic however they wanted to! They weren't hurting people, they were helping each other, caring for each other in ways that...I hate to say it, but in ways they almost don't anymore." She said the words painfully, yet reluctantly, like she was worried about offending Hunter and Vee as people who grew up in Philip's world. "They weren't as bitter and closed off and obsessed with being the best or getting ahead no matter the cost, like how Boscha and Odalia are or like...like how Amity used to be," Luz finished in a breathless whisper before she couldn't hold back the tears any longer.

"Luz? Luz, it's okay, I'm sure she won't be mad-" Vee began before Luz cut her off yet again.

"Yes she will be, don't you get it?! I ruined her life, I ruined all of their lives!" Luz cried out with such pain and anguish in her voice that Vee found tears coming to her eyes as well. Even Hunter felt his ears droop as he realized why Luz had gotten so upset back in the house.

"Luz, you're not responsible for-" he began, but Luz wouldn't let either of them talk.

"Of course I am!" Luz countered, not letting up on herself for a second. "If it wasn't for me, Philip wouldn't have taken control of the Isles and traumatized everyone I care about!"

"Luz, no! This is his fault, you can't-!" Vee pleaded desperately, but her sister was spiraling much faster than before, and she couldn't pull her out of it this time.

"Without him, Eda wouldn't have been cursed, Lilith wouldn't have cursed her, and Raine wouldn't have broken up with Eda because of it!" Luz began, listing off each and every person she could think of whose lives were damaged because of Belos. "Without him, without this culture he created that crushes creativity and punishes weakness, all of my friends would have lived happier lives! Gus might not have been pressured to excel before he was ready and gotten hurt in the process! Willow might not have been bullied for years while being stuck in the wrong magic track! Amity might not have been pressured to brutally cut off her best friend, then bully her because of her awful friends and horrible parents who might not even have been as horrible without Philip twisting their worldviews from childhood! Edric and Emira might not have been jerks to their sister, the Detention Track kids would never have been punished for doing magic differently, and you two-!" Luz paused, tears finally breaking free as she looked across at both of their faces with an expression of utter despair on her own. "You both would've been spared so much pain," she finished, her voice filled with such remorse that neither of them were sure how to pull her out of this depressive spiral, only that one of them needed to do it and that it needed to happen now.

They both had an inkling of exactly where Luz's mind was primed to go otherwise.

"Luz..." Vee said in that same earnest tone, trying desperately to reach her sister. "Even under your own logic, I still wouldn't have had such a happy life here without you. I wouldn't have experienced any of the wonderful things I've gotten to experience while living here, because I wouldn't even exist if Belos hadn't made me, which you're claiming responsibility for! Your whole argument is that he couldn't have ruined our lives without you getting tricked by him, right?" she asked, to which Luz could only nod in response, wondering why her sister didn't seem to hate her still. "Well, I mean...you gave him a glyph and distracted a monster. To be frank, he could've done those things without you being there. And even if he somehow couldn't have, you didn't 'ruin our lives' any more than anyone else he's manipulated over the years, and I think we all know that that's a long list of people, most of whom are way more deserving of being called a monster than you are!" Vee argued fiercely, to which Hunter was ready to back her up before Luz could interject this time.

"She's right, Luz," he agreed firmly. "That's what Belos does: he tricks people. He tricks them into believing that he's whatever they want him to be: a liberator, a brave explorer, a...a father figure," Hunter said, pausing for a moment as he reflected once again on the lifetime of lies he had been fed. "He may have tricked you into trusting him for a bit, but that was only because you didn't know it was him, and you can hardly fault yourself for not seeing through him when he'd spent his whole life mastering the art of manipulation. Besides, in case you've forgotten, he also tricked me every day for as long as I can remember, and he tricked Lilith for even longer than that! Does believing his lies and doing anything he asked of us for so long make either of us 'stupid,' Luz?" Faced with this intense question, Luz gulped worriedly, realizing she'd crossed a line.

"Ugh, of course not, but this isn't the same thing!" Luz said in her defense. "Philip, he-he manipulated you both for years until you'd almost never question him, but like you said, I had just 'met' him! I should've known better! I shouldn't have been taken in by him so easily, not only because of what I should have known about 'Philip Wittebane' in the first place, but just through common frickin sense! I mean, God, an Afro-Latina girl meeting a white British colonizer, what did I think he was gonna be like?!" Although Hunter nervously glanced off towards a bush at that last remark for whatever reason, Vee pushed forward anyway.

"Luz, please, give yourself a break!" Vee implored her sister. "I smelled something off about Hopkins too, and I still ended up walking right into his trap! And let me tell you, I really beat myself up about that, using the same twisted logic that you're using right now! It took all of my friends to snap me out of it and I was miserable until they did! I thought I was a monster: I've always thought I was a monster, even when I had barely any reason to think that! That's exactly why I know that you're not giving yourself enough grace here, Luz! At worst, you made a mistake, and you've done more than enough to correct that mistake!" Vee argued, only for Luz to scoff.

"How?" she asked. "I may have done my best to stop Philip, but he still almost won, and even if I helped stop that from happening...I still ruined everything to begin with, didn't I?"

"Ugh, NO! No, you didn't!" Vee insisted, getting a little frustrated with Luz by this point. "Belos had centuries to stop being a monster and he clearly didn't: he's the only one responsible for ruining everything, not you!" Hunter firmly nodded in agreement as Vee continued, seeing from the look in Luz's eyes that Vee was maybe starting to get through to her a little. "And even if I were to accept your logic and agree that you're to blame on some level, that you're partially responsible for my entire tormented life, well...if you asked me to choose between having a painful life that gets better eventually or having never existed in the first place...I can safely say I prefer existing."

That Vee could say that so easily after living the life she had surprised everybody, even her, but while Luz was simply in disbelief over what Vee was saying, Hunter seemed to be considering it from an entirely different angle. Almost as if that sentiment was relatable to him somehow. Except...it shouldn't be, at least not in quite the same way. Unless...wait a minute. He isn't-

"Yeah. Same here," Hunter said with a distant smile on his face, his voice sounding far away.

"What?" Vee asked softly, her mind spinning. She thought she'd figured out Hunter's backstory already, but if he was saying what she thought he was saying, then-then that meant-!

"Hunter, please, don't-!" Luz cried out, but this time, Hunter was the one to cut her off.

"It's fine," he said in that same detached tone. "I can't hope to hide what I am forever, not with us living in close quarters like this, and I think...I think if I hadn't been so desperate to do just that, you wouldn't have been left hurting so badly," Hunter added regretfully as he looked towards the house which continued to remain locked under his absentminded watch. "You might have been more willing to talk about what happened with Philip if I hadn't made it out to be just as horrible."

"Oh please," Luz said derisively, albeit towards herself. "Vee can tell you: running away from my problems is kind of my whole thing," she added bitterly, jolting Vee out of her thoughts.

"What-oh, Titan, Luz, you know I was wrong about you back then, please don't-!"

"Were you, though?" Luz asked, the words as sharp as a knife pointed at both of their chests, and Vee instinctively took a step back in response. Luz's expression softened again, and it seemed as though she might have apologized for that remark had she not looked at Hunter's nervous, yet resolute expression and curled in on herself even further. "Oh, alright, sure. Why not? Why not let everything fall apart at this point?" Luz asked ruefully before burying herself in the sleeves of her jacket. Deciding it was best to give her space for a moment, Hunter and Vee looked at each other, Vee having formed a horrible hypothesis and Hunter working up the nerve to confirm it.

"I'm a Grimwalker," he said, his voice still a little shaky. Vee had no idea what that was, but she could guess it was something Belos could make, just like he had made her and the others. Possibly exactly like how he had made her and the others. "I'm the latest in a long line of clones which Belos made in the image of someone he killed, a human witch hunter just like-!"

"Caleb," Vee muttered fearfully, connecting the rest of the dots all at once as she looked Hunter over once more. The thought made her feel sick, but seeing Hunter cock his head in confusion at first, only for his eyes to widen in recognition at the name made her instinctively gag with revulsion. She might have been able to push down the growing tempest of emotions inside her if that horrific revelation didn't bring with it a memory she'd been trying to ignore.

"'He's still chasing his brother, caught in a cycle of horror and strife!'"

"Oh God. They were right. Why the hell are they always right?" Vee asked herself in disbelief and utter horror, not even noticing her slight slip up or the others' shocked looks. "Hunter, you-Caleb was Philip's brother!" Vee stammered out, causing the color to drain from Hunter's face as he processed just what that meant. Even Luz looked up in surprise which likewise gave way to horror on Hunter's behalf, her own troubles momentarily forgotten as she quickly caught up on what Vee was saying based on what little she could now recall of the Wittebane legend she had been told. "Philip, he-he killed his own brother, because of a witch! Caleb fell for a witch named Evelyn, and they went to the Isles and Philip went after them eventually! He found them and he killed Caleb and he must have taken the body and used it to-again and again and again and...and...!"

Hunter and Luz sat up a little straighter as Vee continued, certain that she was about to descend into a panic attack under the weight of what they now knew. It wasn't an inaccurate assumption: Vee was certainly panicking, breathing heavily, hands clutching her head as though trying to contain an explosion inside her own brain. However, as she looked across at Hunter and Luz, both clearly planning on trying to calm her down even as they were both hurting just as badly because of what he did to them...something inside of Vee snapped. As she had been starting to discover more and more within the last month or so, mixed in with all of her fear and revulsion directed towards her abuser was a considerable degree of raw, undiluted anger. Anger over everything he had done to her, to the others, to Luz and her friends and everyone else. Anger that had been waiting for an outlet for some time, and in the face of all that she had learned about what he had done, in the face of knowing just how much he had ruined all of their lives, knowing that there was now absolutely nothing she could do about it...there was only one course left to take:

She flew into a rage.

Both Hunter and Luz instinctively stumbled backwards upon hearing Vee roar in a mixture of anger and anguish, with Hunter especially finding it hard to concentrate on his spell once the noise hit his eardrums. It was a sound that couldn't have come from the girl they knew: something deep and painful and vicious which perfectly reflected the horrible emotions that swirled inside of her. It brought to mind the sounds from old monster movies and prehistoric beasts, not this poor girl who had come out here to help them, only to wind up crumbling under the weight of all she'd learned. No sooner had they adjusted to the sound than Vee finished roaring and instead sunk down so she could slam into the ground beneath her feet with all of her strength. Hunter and Luz didn't quite know what to make of the reaction, other than being quietly in awe at the sight of the cracks that she formed in the cold hard ground with every strike.

They hadn't quite realized how strong she was when she wasn't holding back.

Fortunately, Vee's anger seemed to finally peter out around the tenth slam or so, although her cries of anger soon gave way to actual crying once she sunk to the ground, mournful over what she had just done to the world she loved so much.

The comforter soon found herself desperate for any comfort her charges could offer her.

"Why?" she found herself asking no one in particular as Hunter and Luz dared to get close enough to her to offer their silent support. "Why did he...?" she asked before trailing off, suddenly uncertain of whether or not she wanted to finish her sentence. Needless to say, the others were unsure how to answer the question they thought she had asked them for a moment, but Hunter eventually decided to take the plunge based on his personal experiences.

"I've been asking myself that a lot lately," he began. "I still don't have an answer for-"

"No, no, I meant..." Vee said, hesitating again before committing to voicing her darkest thoughts aloud for the first time, if only so that the others might become less alone in feeling like they were a monster. "I meant 'why did he have to go and die?'" she finished regretfully, yet with a hint of spite, leaving Hunter and Luz confused and somewhat worried for her. "When I learned who he really was and why he had done all of those horrible things, it made me so angry that I knew deep down I...I couldn't face him again. Because if I did, then I was going to..." she said, letting the implication speak for itself as she hung her head in shame. "And now he's dead. He's dead and the anger's still there and I can't do anything with it other than THIS!" she cried, gesturing towards the cracked and ruined earth in front of her before choking out a sob and hiding her face in her hands. "I...I really am just a monster, aren't I?" she asked in a small voice, and although what she had just admitted caused both of them to fall silent for a bit, Hunter and Luz still did what they could to console Vee. It was the least they could do for her after how hard she'd tried to help.

It was the least they could do for their sister.

"No," Luz began, her voice a little shaky. "I don't think you are, Vee."

"A monster wouldn't have given me so many chances even knowing who I was...and even after I knocked you to the ground," Hunter said with a wince while Luz snapped to look at him.

"Hang on, you what?!" Luz asked, her protective instincts kicking in for a second before Vee held up a hand, the reaction strangely serving to cheer her up a bit.

"I got him back for it, don't worry," she attempted to quip, finding unsurprisingly that her heart just wasn't in it. "Still, I...I wanted Philip to suffer," she admitted in a pained voice. "I still wish he had suffered in the end, even now. The way you described it felt too quick, too painless, and that's...that's messed up. It's messed up for me to be thinking that way, even about someone like him...isn't it?" she asked, leaving Hunter and Luz unsure of how to answer her before Luz spoke up.

"I don't know," she said, which honestly was probably a better answer than a straight yes or no. "Truthfully, I've tried not to think about that too much since it happened," she admitted with some trepidation of her own. "Especially now, with everything put into perspective like this, I...I don't know what I'd do if I saw him again, if he somehow survived and I was the only one who could stop him for good. I don't think I want to know what I would do in that situation...but I can at least understand why you would make that choice. That doesn't make you a monster, Vee. Not when it comes to him, when it comes to what he did to you. He never deserved our sympathy: he deserved exactly what he got. I just...I wish I had realized that back then. Before it was too late."

The three of them fell silent after that, none of them really having the energy or the will to continue such an emotionally charged conversation as they rubbed at their eyes. Left with all sorts of questions and words of encouragement they lacked the means to express, it was ultimately Hunter who broke the silence first as he gestured in the direction of the house.

"As much as I worry Amity is going to kill me once we go back inside, you, um...you both could probably use some water," Hunter said awkwardly, cringing at every word he spoke and especially surprised when his awkward remark actually got a laugh out of the girls, albeit a tired one.

"Yeah. Yeah, we probably could," Luz agreed with a pained cough, her voice hoarse. With some reluctance, the three of them picked themselves up off of the ground, Hunter guiding them over to the backyard so that he could teleport all three of them back inside before pausing once he caught sight of Willow sitting on the living room couch, looking worriedly in the direction of the abandoned house before spotting the trio. With a nervous glance towards the others who were milling around the house, Willow asked the three of them a silent question, to which they responded with a reluctant nod that told her that she might as well go get the others. Not wanting to burn the energy anymore, Hunter instead took a deep breath as he let his concentration on the locking spell falter, causing the doors and windows to unlock on their own as he moved to let Luz and Vee inside.

They still weren't entirely ready to tell them...but there was no point in hiding anything now.

It was hard to tell if it was any easier the second time around.

Granted, Vee wasn't around to hear Luz and Hunter properly this time: one look at the expression on her favorite camper's face was all Ms. Pines needed to gently guide Vee upstairs and sit down with her on the bottom bunk while they told the others everything that Vee had just learned. Despite Ms. Pines' earnest effort to distract her by putting on Deep Space Nine episodes Vee hadn't gotten to see yet and offering her own brand of commentary, Vee could still hear bits and pieces of the conversation downstairs. Not everything, of course, but enough to put a few things together.

Like how Gus had already known most of what they were hiding already.

"Dang, that doctor guy is a real smooth operator, isn't he?" Mabel asked Vee with a bit of a smirk on her face, having taken a liking to the handsome doctor who Vee could admit she had gotten to like a little better once he stopped being quite as much of a womanizing creep. Still, between what she was still managing to overhear from downstairs and her relative disinterest in the contents of this particular episode (seriously, why was he dating his own patient when the tailor was right there?), she could safely say she lacked the will to offer much of a response to her mentor.

That didn't mean the effort to keep her distracted wasn't appreciated, though.

"No comment," Vee said faintly, leaving Mabel concerned for a moment about whether her tactics were working before she processed what Vee was saying and got an idea for a topic change.

"Hm. Y'know, you totally don't have to answer this if you don't know or you don't want to, but I'm kinda curious: do you...do you like guys, at all?" Mabel asked hesitantly as she paused the show, knowing it was a bit of an awkward conversation to start that would probably need the silence in order to breathe. "I mean, I know you aren't bio twins like me and Dipper, but I still kinda just assumed you were the same as Luz on that front, admittedly," she added awkwardly, causing Vee to pause as she considered that particular question for the first time in months.

"Well, um, to answer your question, not...really?" she began hesitantly. "I mean, I haven't met any guys that I like that way, at least: as cool as they all are, most of the guys and other masc-ish people I know are kinda scraggly," Vee continued before getting a little flustered with herself, like she was worried she was being rude to Sam and several of her school acquaintances in her attempt to explain herself. Mabel only laughed at Vee's remark, showing that she wasn't being that mean.

"No, yeah, they tend to be pretty scraggly," Mabel agreed with no small amount of bemusement as she thought back to simpler times. "Oh man, my first 'boyfriend,' he had the tiniest little hint of a mustache when we were twelve, I thought he was so handsome. Which he was! But like, by pre-teen standards, you know? You don't have to like guys just because Luz does," she said consolingly, and Vee appreciated the support, but there was a certain irony to that statement which one gesture towards her face illustrated clearly. "Well, okay, I guess you might have to pretend if someone asks your opinion, but c'mon, everyone knows you like Masha, right?" she asked, only to quickly realize that this was not the case judging by the way Vee's face flushed. "Oh, jeez, I stand corrected," Mabel said with concern in her voice, unsure of what to do for a second and too caught up in this dilemma to realize the noises downstairs had softened. "Do you, um, wanna talk about-?" was as far as she got before she heard a knock at the door, one that made her face fall.

She didn't need to be a genius to know just who had come knocking.

"Come on in, kids," she said without her usual enthusiasm, allowing Hunter and Luz in once she confirmed that Vee welcomed their interruption. "I'll go ahead and give y'all some space, but, um...let me know if you wanna talk some more, huh, Vee?" she added, leaving Hunter and Luz confused at why Vee had started blushing out of nowhere before she nodded in response.

"Thanks, Ms. Pines," she said earnestly to the woman at her side, causing Mabel to smile.

"Anytime, honey," she said, giving Vee a kiss on the forehead before taking her leave, closing the door behind her...and leaving the three of them alone once more.

"So how'd it go?" Vee asked, getting straight to the point and surprising them both for a second before they relaxed somewhat. They were clearly tired, but...they looked better than they had when they had told her everything the first time, at least. Hopefully they had gotten some closure.

"Oh, y'know...fine," Hunter began with a slight voice crack, evidently still shocked about how things hadn't completely fallen apart like he had feared they would for nearly a week. "Gus is still dealing with a lot: I mean, he looked into Philip's mind, I don't know why we thought he didn't know about what had happened," he continued a bit more reluctantly. "But...he's doing better, I think. Not having to hide how much he knows from us anymore, it-it's definitely helped." By the end of his statement, it was obvious that he was trying to get around voicing something he knew would hurt, a sentiment which Luz couldn't hold herself back from expressing in utter disbelief.

"They still love us," she choked out with a teary-eyed smile before she suddenly sunk to the floor of her bedroom, overwhelmed by how lucky she was to have her friends and family. Hunter did his best not to follow her example as he sank down to the floor as well and instinctively moved to wrap an arm around her shoulder in a gesture of solidarity. Judging by his expression, he was making one hell of an effort to hold back the tears, as was Luz, but Vee wasn't about to let either of them put themselves through that. Without a word, she sank down to meet them both and wrapped an arm around both of them, pulling them into a hug and surprising Hunter with the gesture after what had gone down between them less than two hours earlier.

"Of course they do...and so do I. Just like I promised," Vee said softly, yet with the same earnestness in her voice which both of them were learning was almost impossible to resist.

"Vee, I'm-" Luz said, probably attempting to apologize for something she didn't do.

"I know," Vee said gently. "I know," she repeated a bit more solemnly this time, having an inkling of what Luz was getting at. "And I can only imagine how scary it was for both of you to find out, but it doesn't matter to me, okay? It doesn't change anything. I'm still Vee, Hunter's still Hunter, and you're still you. And I don't hate you, Luz, not even a little. I don't think I could ever hate you the way I used to," Vee continued with a bittersweet smile. "I know Mom still loves you, and I may not know them all that well yet, but your friends, your girlfriend, they seem like some of the kindest people I've ever met. They're not the kind of people who would say they care about you two while secretly resenting you for things beyond your control. Trust me, I...I know what that feels like."

She paused for a moment as she reflected on how it felt to be abandoned by the only other person she could call a brother before shaking her head. Number Two could take care of himself: if nothing else, he at least was okay, Vee knew it. And as worried as she was for Number Three, Number Four, and even Number Two...they weren't with her right now. Luz was, and Hunter too. He had become sort of like a brother to her at this point, both by the transitive property of Luz effectively adopting them and because of...common parentage, in a sense. Vee could safely say she preferred the former connection, but regardless, she cared about him, and she wanted to help him, help both of them, and right now...right now that meant telling them one simple thing. A lesson she had learned far too late...and one she suspected they could use a refresher on too.

"It's okay to cry."

And they tried, they really did, but none of them could hold back their tears anymore

That would explain why none of them heard a loud crack coming from inside Luz's bag.

Part Five: The Day of Lumity

It had been a long, long night, but in Vee's case...it wasn't quite done getting longer.

She'd been hopeful upon settling in to sleep that her dreams would be better than they were the night before, and they were...in a sense. On the bright side, she wasn't waking up every few minutes, and any rendition of Belos or Hopkins was mercifully absent this time around. However, all this business of long-kept secrets being revealed in the worst way seemed to prompt a whole new nightmare to play out in Vee's mind, one that had been nestled into her subconscious for quite a while...waiting for the right time to strike.

It was a dream that initially seemed rather pleasant: Luz walking around Gravesfield with Vee and the others, the weight still resting on their shoulders blessedly absent by this point as they allowed themselves to bask in the warmth of the Human Realm's summer sun. And yet, for as nice as this dream seemed to be at a glance, Vee noticed something odd about it once she inadvertently looked at all of them through the reflection of a nearby window:

Amity was nowhere to be seen...and Vee didn't look like herself.

In this dream, Vee had opted for a whole new human disguise, with hair that resembled her true form and skin a few shades lighter than Luz's. The disguise also used her natural voice, which she admittedly had taken to using more and more around the house just to help distinguish herself from Luz, hence why she hadn't noticed anything unusual at first. Getting a closer look in the mirror, she saw that this new disguise had gone for a completely different wardrobe too, centered around an adorable pumpkin sweater that she'd seen Ms. Pines wear at times. As nice as it felt to have her own distinct look (and potential backup disguise, the survivor in her idly pondered), Vee couldn't figure out just why her subconscious mind had made her look so different from Luz. This ideal scenario she had envisioned should have let her and Luz live as two perfectly normal twin sisters along with everyone else, so why did Vee look so different? And why wasn't Amity around?

Unfortunately, she got her answer to both questions as soon as Masha appeared.

With a cry of fright mixed with utter shock and despair, Vee shot up awake from the dream-turned-nightmare. It took her a moment to process what exactly had happened inside her head, but once it all clicked together, she immediately put her face in her hands and groaned with embarrassment as her cheeks reddened. This 'karma' thing that humans talked about was apparently real after all. She'd managed to avoid that self-fulfilling prophecy her mind had made up back when Juniper had told her about Twelfth Night, so of course it would come true once Luz finally came back! Deciding that she would avoid sleeping for a bit if it meant sparing herself any additional nightmares of that variety, Vee carefully descended down to the floor and tiptoed her way to the bathroom...only to run into what was quickly becoming a familiar situation.

"We have got to stop meeting like this," Vee quipped softly once the awkward pleasantries had been exchanged and Amity had let her in as quietly as possible while conspicuously setting what looked to be Luz's phone aside. Amity chuckled to herself in response to Vee's attempt at easing the tension, hoping that such a gesture in combination with the light being on would help to reassure her that Vee hadn't caught her crying this time.

"Yeah, it's feeling a bit like that one human joke," Amity replied, only to get a blank stare from Vee. "You know, the whole 'If I had a nickel' thing?" she added. Recognition dawned in Vee's eyes and the basilisk finally chuckled in turn.

"Ohhh, gotcha, yeah, I knew that," Vee said, a little embarrassed that she hadn't gotten it immediately. Fortunately, Amity seemed to sympathize with her plight.

"Don't worry, it took me forever to get a lot of Luz's jokes," Amity said. "Always hard to tell what's a human thing and what's a Luz thing, you know?" she added, to which Vee nodded.

"Better than most, I can tell you that much," Vee replied before the joke caused her to reflect on what she'd just experienced. She winced instinctively as the memory came back to her, causing Amity to look at her with a concerned expression.

"Bad dream?" she asked. Vee nodded tersely, evidently a bit reluctant to discuss it.

"You could say that," Vee replied before leaning against the wall. "Feels sorta stupid to be worrying about that after...well," she said without elaborating. Obviously Amity knew what she meant, that's probably why she was in here! Amity paused before giving her a hesitant smile.

"It's not stupid, not at all," Amity said consolingly. "For better or for worse, life doesn't stop when your world gets turned upside down, and...sometimes it's easier to focus on the mundane stuff," she added, causing the two to fall silent as they reflected on their last late night conversation. Vee instead chose to focus on the mundane problem.

"Well, um, I told you all about Masha, right?" Vee began nervously, to which Amity nodded.

"Your goth friend from camp, yeah, I remember," Amity replied, and as understanding dawned, she wound up hitting Vee with a bit of a teasing smirk. "You know, they do say that twins tend to have similar taste in partners-"

"Oh, stop it!" Vee countered in a similar manner, punctuating the gesture with the lightest of bumps to Amity's shoulder. She had to be careful about that, especially given how strong she knew she was, but after the two of them laughed it off and Vee knew for sure there was no harm done, she continued. "I mean, you might be onto something there, but I, um...don't think me and Luz have quite the same tastes," she admitted somewhat hesitantly, leaving Amity intrigued.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, um, I was talking with Ms. Pines earlier and I kinda realized that I, um, don't like guys. Like, at all. Which is fine! It's just...I dunno, I sorta expected to have figured myself out by now," Vee admitted, to which Amity attempted to offer her a consoling shoulder touch.

"Hey, everyone figures these things out at their own pace, and that's okay," Amity said. "I mean, heck, I didn't figure myself out for like fourteen years! The downside of not having words for these things, I suppose," she mused, which Vee figured was a fair point, considering.

"Yeah, I guess so," Vee agreed. "It still feels weird, though, how my crush just kinda snuck up on me like it did. It feels like I'm still missing something," she thought aloud.

"Well, maybe, but it's not like you're alone there: my crush on Luz hit me like a Slitherbeast. Sorta literally," Amity remarked. "And besides, there's no rush. All that matters is how you both feel now," she added, causing Vee to groan a bit. Now that she was well aware of, on both accounts.

"Yeah, that's just my luck, isn't it? I like them, and they like me, but I can't do anything about it," Vee said in a lower voice as she sank a little against the weight of the bathroom door.

"Why not?" Amity asked, catching Vee off-guard at how she genuinely didn't seem to know.

"Wha-? Because if Masha and I started dating, you and Luz couldn't go out anywhere around here or it'd lead to some horrible misunderstandings!" Vee argued, as though that were obvious. Amity's eyes widened a bit before she thought the situation over a little more closely.

"Hm, that is tricky, yeah," Amity conceded. "I'm guessing your nightmare had something to do with that?" she followed up, to which Vee nodded.

"Yup, it was quick, but...it wasn't great," she said simply. "Junie was telling me about this human play, Twelfth Night, where a twin gets mistaken for his sister by this other lady, who loves the sister because she's posing as a man and looks like her brother, so one thing leads to another and-"

"Yeah I think I get the picture!" Amity replied a little bit quicker than she intended, leaving her worried that she had come off as rude for wanting to dismiss the mental image of somebody else kissing her Luz because they thought she was Vee. Fortunately, Vee seemed to sympathize with that.

"Mhm, that was my reaction too, you're good," Vee remarked before groaning again. "Ugh, this is such a mess!" Vee ground out. "I don't wanna hide my feelings, but I don't wanna make you two hide your relationship right now, either! Besides, Luz must have been so excited to show you everything, especially after...well. Everything," Vee said despondently, looking at her with a somber expression as the witch smiled faintly in response.

"She was excited to show me everything," Amity acknowledged with a chuckle as she thought back to that magical moment on the balcony. "She was going to take me out when this was over, she said. No monsters, no mysteries, no deadly duels. The most mundane, slice-of-life date ever. Except...we never got the chance," she said, bringing her hand to her forehead as she was forced to think about everything that had transpired in such a short time. "Luz is dealing with so much more than I ever realized, and-and I think she's doing better now that the air's been cleared, but I know what she looks like when she's trying to hide how hurt she is and she's still hurting, badly! She's barely smiled since she got here, and I've been trying so hard to make her happy, but I had no idea how bad it really was because she keeps hiding things from me so that I don't have to worry about her and it just makes me worry more and I don't know how else to tell her that I-!"

"Amity, breathe," Vee said simply, the words succeeding in pulling Amity out of her spiral long enough to take some deep, calming breaths for a moment, using the same sort of breathing techniques that Vee had become very familiar with over the course of her turbulent human life. By the time Amity was finally ready to hear her out, Vee had an idea of how to cheer everyone up. "Why don't we surprise her with that?" she suggested, leaving Amity confused.

"Huh?"

"'The most mundane, slice-of-life date ever,' let's surprise her with it in the morning!" Vee repeated, getting a little more eager as she thought about it. "C'mon, I've been in Gravesfield for months, I know all the good places, all the human things she'd love to be able to share with you! Let me help you plan it, and then you can get Camila to drive you there, or you can walk! It'll be the perfect way to make her feel better!" At first, Amity blinked before grinning like a schoolgirl in response to the idea, but as she thought about it more, that grin turned into a frown.

"Wait, but...if we went on a date here, then-"

"Gossip could spread through the grapevine and I might have to lie about you being my girlfriend, who cares?" Vee said dismissively, but that only made Amity more annoyed with Vee's refusal to consider herself and her own needs as being equally important to everyone else's. It seemed to be a pattern with this family, unfortunately, not that Amity had much room to talk.

"Um, I think we'll care, and I think you know that," she pointed out a bit more roughly than she intended. Vee shrunk in on herself a bit, confirming that she did in fact know that.

"Okay, sure, you two might not mind laying low, but come on, you both need this more than I do! Go on your cute dates, I can wait as long as I need to!" Vee argued, to which Amity sighed as she thought the whole situation over, trying to figure out how to get through to this poor girl that it was indeed possible for them to both get what they wanted.

"Look at me, Vee," she said gently, to which Vee responded surprisingly fast. "It doesn't have to be one way or the other. If push comes to shove, we'll figure something out that makes everyone happy, and do you know why?" she asked, to which Vee didn't offer much of a response. "Because I know that Luz wants this for you just as much as I do. I saw the way Luz was looking at you when you brought them up for the first time. She might have teased you, because she's your sister and all, gotta make up for lost time, but...she looked so happy to hear that you had found someone. The happiest I've seen her since we came here. And do you know why that is?" she asked again, and Vee at least knew the answer to that one.

"Because she loves me?" she replied, like that was still a novel concept. Amity smiled softly.

"That, and because she wants you to be happy," Amity confirmed. "Because you deserve to be happy. Because you deserve to be with someone who makes you as happy as Luz makes me." Amity paused, hesitating for a brief second before gingerly reaching for Vee's chin and tilting it up so that their eyes met and told her what she most needed to hear at this point.

"Because you deserve to be loved, just as much as any of us do."

That was around the point when Vee started crying.

In a perfect reversal of their previous clandestine meeting, it was now Vee desperately trying to stop herself from sobbing into Amity's nightshirt as the witch held her with a tenderness which she had never allowed herself to express before she met Luz. After what felt like minutes of this silent embrace, Vee was eventually able to calm down and muttered her thanks, to which Amity simply smiled. Without another word, she picked up Luz's phone and showed it to Vee, preparing to toss her earlier idea right back at her in an effort to cheer them both up.

"So, we'll probably have to widen our search a little, but...are you willing to stay up and help me plan my first date?" she asked Vee eagerly, unable to hide the giddiness from her voice despite the circumstances. Fortunately, her excitement was contagious, as although Vee took a moment to return Amity's smile with a wobbly one of her own, she ultimately nodded.

"I'd love to, Amity."

The second morning wasn't much better than the first, in Camila's estimation.

Glancing around the kitchen, Camila could tell that most of the kids were doing a bit better, although whether or not their somber conversation from the previous night had actually helped was difficult to determine. Camila knew Luz was carrying something heavy on her shoulders from the moment she came back, but hearing the things Luz thought she was responsible for pained her in a way she had never experienced. She was quick to reassure Luz that her fears were unfounded, as were her friends, but even as many tears were shed and a smile was eventually coaxed out of her by her wonderful girlfriend, Camila could tell that the weight her daughter carried hadn't been lifted entirely. It was lighter than it was before, at least, as indicated by the fact that Luz seemed to actually be enjoying her pancakes now, but there was still a sadness behind her eyes which proved that the weight was still very much there. No matter how much her friends and family insisted otherwise, it seemed that a part of Luz still feared that she was at fault for everything they'd suffered. And, for as much as Camila wanted or perhaps needed to hope that all of this was the result of recent developments...she had a feeling about what had begun to lead Luz down into this horrible mindset.

Suddenly, it wasn't hard to understand why Luz had left her in the first place.

Camila shook her head angrily, dispelling that irritatingly persistent thought before it could gain any traction. Luz didn't leave her, no matter what her foolish brain said! She left a town and a world that had been cruel to her for longer than she could remember for no good reason, because she had found a place where she was accepted and loved like she had never been before. And sure, perhaps she hadn't gone about leaving in the most sensible way, but she'd always intended to come back home to her! It had just...taken a little longer than they had expected it to, is all. And left Camila with an extra daughter that she had to pretend she had always had. As well as four more mouths to feed whose sudden arrival at her house would also probably need to be explained at some point, but-but none of that was important! Luz was back! Luz was back, and...

And Camila still needed to apologize to her.

She should've done it earlier, she knew that, but first she was busy helping the others settle in and then she had to deal with the aftermath of the portal test and then she was too focused on dealing with the revelations of the previous night to take Luz aside for yet another emotional conversation. Still, it was a new day, and it was the last day she'd have off of work before Vee went back to school and Luz...would have to stay home. With her friends, and with Ms. Pines, maybe. Where she'd be left with nothing to do but hang out with them and work on portal research and play games and work on portal research and...and...

God, what kind of mess had they all gotten themselves into?

"Um, e-excuse me, Mrs. Noceda?" Amity asked from behind, having apparently finished her breakfast and gotten up from her seat without either Camila or Luz noticing.

"Yes? What is it, cariño?" Camila asked, not missing the way Amity's ears drooped and reddened slightly at the term of endearment. It seemed to be a witch thing that their ears reflected their mood to an extent, and while it was ordinarily rather adorable, Camila could tell that Amity and Hunter reacted to words like that far more than Gus and Willow did, although all of them thankfully didn't mind such language coming from Camila.

"Can we, um-?" Amity asked awkwardly, jolting Camila out of her thoughts. The poor girl gestured towards the stairwell as an unspoken signal that she wanted to talk with her in private: words evidently weren't quite happening around her girlfriend's mom yet, for reasons which were understandable. Camila nodded and quickly moved to lead Amity there in a way that nobody else at the table noticed, engrossed as they were with Mabel's tale of fighting some magic dork called "Probabilitor the Annoying" who apparently came straight from the box of what Luz jokingly described as "The game people played before Creatures & Caverns did it better." This in turn generated a whole tangential conversation in which Mabel attempted to defend the merits of Dungeons, Dungeons, & More Dungeons on her brother's behalf, while the rest of Luz's friends were unsure what both games were and wondering whether they had the means to play them.

Vee, of course, saw Amity leaving out of the corner of her eye and gave her a cheeky thumbs up to wish her good luck. Amity really tried not to flare up in embarrassment at the gesture, but evidently failed, judging by Vee's cat-like smirk in response. Honestly, she had forgotten how irritating she used to find Luz's expressions until she was seeing it on a whole new girl's face. Perhaps that was one of the many pitfalls of falling in love with a twin.

In any case, once Amity and Camila had made it up the stairs and out of sight, they proceeded to withdraw into Camila's bedroom to talk. Camila looked at Amity with a slight degree of bemusement as the girl nervously paced around the room for a moment, unsure of how best to start a solo conversation with this motherly figure whose approval she was more desperate for than her self-respect would allow her to admit. Although Amity still hadn't said anything after maybe thirty seconds of hemming and hawing, Camila had a pretty good idea of what this was all about, made all the more evident by the girl's face. Luz was right: she really did turn into a tomato.

"You know, I get the sense that you're pretty old-fashioned, but if you've been waiting to ask for my permission to go out with my daughter, you really have nothing to worry about, honey," Camila said lightly, flustering Amity even further.

"Agh-! Um, that's not what I was-well, I mean, it's kind of what I was...thank you," Amity eventually settled on, looking absolutely mortified. "I-I actually just wanted to know if you'd give us a ride-" Amity continued, only to be interrupted by Camila's well-meaning reassurances.

"Oh, por supuesto, I'd be happy to-!" Camila began cheerfully.

"-to New Haven," Amity finished with a worried lilt in her voice, catching Camila off guard.

"¿Qué?" Camila asked blankly, not really in a position to do much else in response to the sudden shift in what was being asked of her.

"I-I know it's a bit of a drive, but me and Vee looked into it last night, and apparently there's all sorts of fun things to do there, so I figured we could all go! Just to, y'know, get a break from everything, have fun, see the sights without worrying too much. And I know it's maybe not the smartest place to take Luz for a date, but we found this cute place downtown which makes lactose-free milkshakes, or at least I'm pretty sure they're lactose-free, I guess I should have double-checked but I'd already wasted enough of Vee's time and I didn't want to be a bother-!" Amity said nervously in her defense, clearly thinking that Camila was going to dismiss it out of hand. She quickly moved to reassure the girl that this was not the case, although she still had questions.

"Respira, baby," Camila coaxed gently, managing to...well, she supposed she didn't really 'calm Amity down' so much as she inadvertently distracted her from her catastrophizing with yet another term of endearment that put the girl's brain into debug mode. Camila waited until the brief tomato-faced panic brought on by that subsided, at which point Amity's bashful, yet tentative smile signaled that it was safe for her to inquire further. "Well, that sounds like a lovely idea, Amity. I think a good day out is exactly what our little Luz needs," she said, her gentle words managing to coax a small smile out of Amity despite her earlier apprehension. "Why don't you go get everyone who wants to tag along, huh, baby? I'll grab my things and meet you all at the car." With a hesitant nod, Amity moved past Camila and out of her room, only to pause in the hallway and mull over something as Camila had her back turned to pick up her purse and a few other things. Before the older woman even knew what was happening, she suddenly found herself being hugged from behind by the somewhat waifish girl with an intensity which she hadn't expected.

"Thank you...for everything," Camila heard Amity mutter as her arms squeezed a little tighter around Camila's waist. "Luz is so lucky to have a mom like you." For whatever reason, hearing those words from her daughter's girlfriend caused tears to form in her eyes, either because of how much she needed to hear them...or because of how much she feared they were wrong.

"Yes," Camila replied sadly, quickly blinking the tears away. "I certainly hope that she is."

When Camila next appeared before the kids to take them to New Haven, it was with a strange human artifact in hand, so much like their own technology, yet very different in some ways.

"Ooh, check it out! Human camera!" Gus called out excitedly from the very back seat of Camila's car, pointing towards the device that Camila had handed to the kids in the middle seat for their inspection, and which Vee likewise recognized from the basement.

"The girls told me about your magic phones, but I knew you wouldn't really be able to use them while you were out and about, so I figured this was the next best thing. You could take some nice pictures, maybe even make a scrapbook so you can show everyone back home," Camila suggested gently from the driver's seat, causing Luz to brighten up ever so slightly next to her. She had elected to distance herself a bit more from Vee just in case, undoing her ponytail and letting her curls hang freely in a way she hadn't done in years. Beyond this, although it had taken some convincing, Camila had managed to get her out of Eda's old Grudgby jacket and into some new clothes which were very Luz, all tomboyish and vaguely like something her dad might have worn. Ms. Pines had taken it upon herself to not only wash everything Luz/Vee owned, but also take the kids' measurements before they left so that she could procure them a decent enough wardrobe out of what they had available or what she could modify. Although Vee could certainly appreciate having more clothes of her own - she'd never thought to ask Camila to take her back to the mall - she was a little uneasy about how ready Ms. Pines had been to make them all new clothes. Vee suspected they'd all have color-coordinated "summer sweaters" and matching beanies before the day was out.

"Aww! That's a great idea, Camila!" Willow responded from the middle seat on the left-hand side, her enthusiasm evident as Hunter handed the camera to her and explained how the older device worked after looking it over for himself. Amity smirked a bit from her position in between them, having handed it over for his inspection precisely because she knew he would go into an enthusiastic lecture as soon as he figured it out, and that Willow would love every second of it.

With the benefit of hindsight, those two weren't much more subtle than she had been, really.

"Just, uh, promise to be careful with it, okay? It belonged to my late husband, it's...it's very special to us," Camila added, and Vee managed to catch the briefest glance between mother and daughter at the front of the car before the flash of a camera diverted everyone's attention.

"Lemme see, lemme see!" Gus called out, to which Willow obliged by handing him the photo she'd just taken of Hunter with perhaps less warning than she should have given. As one would expect, his expression was rather candid in a way that was very uniquely him, having been caught completely by surprise and being just a little grumpy about it after the fact. "Ha! Oh, man, we're gonna have fun with this thing, I can already tell!" Gus continued happily. Hunter just sighed before he chuckled a little hesitantly, having grown a bit used to the pair's antics towards him specifically, yet still finding it strange that they could keep it up now...even knowing what he was.

"Well, happy to be of service, I suppose," he said awkwardly, to which Willow smirked.

"Ah, yes, thank you for allowing us to capture your most humble and noble visage, your worshipfulness," she shot back with a teasing lilt in her voice, causing Hunter to scoff.

"You know I'm not actually a prince, right? I dunno why Darius calls me that," Hunter retorted a little bemusedly, completely unprepared for what would come next.

"Well you've certainly got the looks for it," Willow quipped a little too quickly and at a much lower volume, clearly not quite as confident about flirting with him that explicitly while everyone else was with them in the car. Her words were so soft that Hunter hadn't quite heard them, but what little he did hear still left him blushing up a storm.

Had Willow just said he was-?

"We all set, kids?" Camila asked, inadvertently coming to Willow's rescue.

"Oh, right!" Gus said before quickly casting a spell to make sure that beanies and long hair were carefully arranged as needed in order to disguise their pointed ears without burning energy. The noise of everyone else replying in the affirmative regarding the application of their human safety belts swiftly yanked Hunter's mind back to the situation at hand.

"Agh, um, yes! All safety belts are secure and locked, Mrs. Noceda!" he said a bit awkwardly as he swiftly buckled himself and Willow without much issue. Camila's expression faltered at seeing the poor boy clearly lapsing into his usual patterns with her, no matter how much she gently coaxed him towards calling her Camila and not acting so much like a modern day knight around the house. It was slow going, but she could tell he was making progress, so she decided not to press the issue.

"Thank you, mijo," Camila said kindly, briefly taking note of the way his ears drooped at the term of endearment and the way Amity of all people laid a comforting hand on his shoulder in response. They hadn't seemed like they were the closest pair among all of the kids, but they also seemed to possess an unfortunate kinship based on the common traits that she and Ms. Pines had unfortunately noticed. Amity clearly understood better than anyone why he was so desperate to maintain the approval of an authority figure like Camila, why he was so eager to be useful to make up for everything that Camila was doing for him and his friends...especially knowing what she knew now. And Camila, for her part, knew better than she ever had before how the affection she gave out a bit too freely was the polar opposite of what both of those kids had received growing up. Quickly stowing away the thoughts of righteous fury that this generated, Camila instead chose to focus on the task at hand. "Alright, kids, say goodbye to Ms. Pines!" she called out, rolling down the windows so that they could call out towards the young woman standing on her front porch, one hand excitedly waving at them while the other cradled her adorable pig.

"Bye, Ms. Pines!" The kids called out with varying degrees of enthusiasm, Vee being the first and loudest of the voices due to having to project from the very back seat. Mabel's smile grew a little wider as Vee said her goodbyes, but before long, the windows were rolled up once more and Camila's dependable vehicle peeled out onto the street and towards the highway.

Their first real trip in the Human Realm had begun.

Given the unspoken intent behind their journey, it wasn't too surprising that the kids in the back of the car were dropped off first when they arrived.

"Alright, remember kids: stay close to each other, stay off the streets unless you're at an open crosswalk, and stay out of trouble as best you can, okay?" Camila cautioned them from her parking spot along an out of the way street, with the others nodding their heads before she gestured for Hunter and Vee to come closer. "Hunter, you're the oldest, so you're in charge, but remember, Vee is the expert here. I know you and the others are excited to explore on your own, but I want you to double check with her before you do anything, just to make sure it's safe. Can you two do that for me?" The pair glanced at each other before nodding almost in unison.

"Sí, mamá," Vee said with determination in her voice.

"Understood, ma'am. I won't fail you!" Hunter said with even more determination. Camila gently reached out and touched his shoulder before he instinctively moved to bow.

"Please don't do that with me, mijo," she said gently, but firmly, making it as clear as she could that he hadn't done anything particularly bad before she addressed all four of them again. "Plan to meet us all back here by six, have Vee text me if you need anything, and most importantly!" she called out, raising her voice just enough to where the kids perked up and stood a bit more at attention before the older woman smiled. "Have fun," she said cheekily, causing the others to laugh while Hunter was caught somewhat off-guard. "Bye, kids! Be safe! Make good choices!" she called out from the window while giving Amity and Luz the opportunity to move around and say their goodbyes before driving off. Vee smiled as she watched them go, happy that her sister would get to have that date she'd longed to have with her awesome girlfriend...and finally prepared to hope that she would get the same opportunity too, albeit not until she had worked up the nerve.

Electing to stay focused on her task for now, she noticed that Gus and Willow had already found something fun to check out down the block and went off ahead of them, leaving her relatively alone with Hunter for a moment. She could sense that there was something still going on with him, but she didn't want to be pushy about it. He and Luz were unfortunately a lot alike when it came to hiding things, while he was also a lot like her when it came to how he viewed his relationships with others, at least initially. Getting him to open up to her twice in as many days was much easier said than done, but...well. It didn't hurt to extend the offer, at least.

"Hunter?" she began, her trepidation evident as her lower register caught his attention.

"Yeah?" he asked, a little nervous himself at the way she was speaking. He was well acquainted with Vee's persistence by now, and he had an inkling of what this was about.

"You didn't talk as much last night," she continued, knowing that he knew what she was trying to obliquely reference as much as she dared. "I know this is all very strange for you, and I know it feels too good to be true that it all worked out okay, but...what I said to Luz applies to you too, you know." Hunter raised an eyebrow at her, and she tried to tamper down her instinctual reaction to his eyes. She was really starting to care about him; she should be over this by now!

"Yeah?" Hunter asked, his skepticism evident, and Vee supposed she couldn't blame him.

"Yeah," she confirmed. "The others love you for you, Hunter. They don't care about what you are or who you used to be: it's who you are now that's important to them." Hunter at least seemed to acknowledge the truth of Vee's words in an abstract sense: that was about what everyone else had said last night. Still, he couldn't fully trust it.

"And what about you?" he asked in a somewhat challenging tone, as though he were hoping for Vee to trip on her own words and confirm that he really was a monster. Vee took a deep breath.

"I'll admit, it's been an adjustment, and I think we can both agree we got off on the wrong foot," Vee began before her expression softened a little at how Hunter tensed, as though he were bracing himself for a verbal lashing. "But I know now that you were just as much of a prisoner as I was. You just...couldn't see the cage," she finished sadly. Hunter's breath hitched at how she had described his former life in such a painfully accurate way...but he wasn't quite done yet.

"Even if my path was set for me, I still made my own choices," he argued. "I didn't have to fill out reports or go out on patrols or...or hand Philip his palismen," he finished, glancing around as though he were expecting Flapjack there, only to remember that they had left their palismen back at the house. Upon doing so, he continued, a bit angrier at himself and a part of him wishing that Flapjack was there to help calm him down. "I didn't have to raise my staff at Luz, I didn't have to fight Amity and King for the key, I didn't have to kidnap my first real friends just so I could prove myself to a man who never even gave me a chance until-!"

"Hunter," Vee said, gently placing a hand on his shoulder as a reminder that they were in public. Nobody seemed to have heard anything, but still, better to be safe than sorry. Flushing in embarrassment at some of what he'd just said, Hunter kept walking a little faster than before.

"Sorry," he muttered once they had gotten close enough to where Gus and Willow had gone to spot them in the window of a homely little jewelry store facing the street. Vee gave him an encouraging smile as they walked towards it, keeping her arm firmly wrapped around his own.

"You're alright, big guy," she said gently, getting him to raise an eyebrow in a different way.

"'Big guy?'" he asked, amused in spite of the circumstances, especially when Vee blushed.

"Wha-c'mon, we're practically siblings at this point! I gotta use some sort of endearing term, and 'big bro' doesn't feel right!" Vee retorted, but that only tickled Hunter further.

"Okay, but 'big guy?' That's like the next most obvious one!" he argued lightly.

"Yeah, well-you're tall, okay?! It works just fine, shut up!" Vee said in defense of herself, the little sister-style bickering coming to her so naturally that she didn't even notice that was what she was doing until she had already said it. She would have said more, probably clarified that she wasn't being serious, but her last remark ended up doing something to Hunter that stunned her into silence:

She had made him laugh.

It was a fluttering sort of sound, hesitant and unsure of itself, like he had only discovered how to laugh properly a week ago and was still getting used to it. With each second that ticked by without any pushback or someone telling him to stop making a fool of himself, he allowed himself to lower his walls bit by bit, until eventually he was laughing more than he had ever laughed before. His laughter wasn't mocking or smothered, but uproarious and free, not to mention so infectious that Vee couldn't help but lean against him as they both laughed like there was no tomorrow.

Because now, neither of them had reason to think there wouldn't be a tomorrow anymore.

Of the two of them, Hunter was the last one to stop, his laugh petering out to a chuckle as he looked down at Vee, who looked up at him with a beaming smile that was so Luz and yet so her at the same time. It really was uncanny how similar they could be, even when they weren't trying to be identical twins. As though suddenly realizing what he had done, he looked directly away from her and towards the ground, prompting another light chuckle from Vee.

"Ahhh, look at us," she said, glancing down at the sidewalk beneath her feet and the cars driving past them and suddenly feeling blessed. "Just two dumb teens, going for a walk and laughing about nothing," she added, as though such a mundane situation represented everything that she had ever wanted in life. "How incredible is that?" she asked Hunter, finding herself sounding a little choked up as she looked into his eyes without fear for the first time, if only because she knew now more than ever that he of all people would understand what she was feeling.

"Yeah. It really is, isn't it?" he agreed, but his voice had taken on that distant quality it had when he first told her he was a Grimwalker, and Vee was starting to get a little worried. "I still can't believe that-I don't deserve any of this, I-!" he said, beginning to grow more choked up in turn with every word he spoke, until suddenly he was breaking down right there on the sidewalk.

"Oh, Hunter, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to-!"

"It's not your fault, I don't-I don't know what's wrong with me, I-!" he got out in an attempt to put her at ease, but it was very much having the opposite effect the longer he continued crying. Not wanting to attract too much attention or risk getting separated from the others, yet also knowing that being in public like this would only make things worse for the poor boy, Vee frantically looked around for somewhere secluded they could go before her eyes landed on a nearby alleyway. She looked over to the jewelry store and saw the others through the window displays, managing to get Gus' attention and silently communicate what was happening. With Gus' silent permission to leave them alone for a bit, Vee quickly pulled Hunter into the alleyway and made sure they were alone before gently helping Hunter sit down on what looked like the nicest patch of ground available, hidden from the sight of passerby by the dumpster that sat outside some restaurant or other that she hadn't caught the name of. By this time, Hunter had managed to calm himself down a little bit, although it was clear that he hadn't had a good cry like this for the first time in a while, maybe forever, and that he was fighting his own instincts to push it down the whole time.

"Shshshsh, okay, buddy, we know what to do, remember?" she said gently, holding up her fingers and using the trick her friends taught her, which she figured was similar enough. "In for four, out for eight. Keep your cool, now we're great," she said as she walked through all the same steps to the breathing technique which Hunter had learned from Willow, just with her friends' spin on it. After a few minutes of this, he was able to calm himself down enough that the tears stopped flowing, and he rubbed away the remaining evidence of them with one rough brush of his sleeve.

"Thanks," he said a little hoarsely.

"Anytime," Vee replied, hesitating for a moment before poking the bear. "Do you, um, wanna talk about it, or...?" she asked, hoping that he knew that she wasn't giving him an order. The two fell into a tense silence for a moment before what he said next sent a chill down her spine.

"I shouldn't be here," he whispered, his voice distant in that same terrifying way of his.

"Hunter, what are you-?" Vee asked, terrified at what he seemed to be implying.

"I'm not-it's just-!" Hunter stammered, trying to explain himself better and struggling to find the words. "The others didn't get this," he said eventually, a unique kind of bitterness in his voice which Vee could recognize from whenever she thought about the other basilisks, the ones who hadn't truly gotten away. "They didn't get to be themselves, they didn't get to have friends who still care about them despite having every reason not to! They just did their jobs and did what Belos told them to until they were tossed aside like GARBAGE!" Without even thinking about it, Hunter slammed his fist against the side of the dumpster on that last word, finding that the added punctuation it gave to his argument was worth the pain in his hand. "And...and now I'm here. Going out on a fun little field trip with my friends like everyone who came before me wasn't buried in a hole and forgotten." As Hunter buried his face in his arms, Vee found herself struggling to maintain her human form. This was...a lot, to put it mildly, and although she had gotten a sense of the scale of it last night, it was one thing for her to imagine it and another to be told about it directly. Still, Hunter was clearly hurting just as badly as Luz had been, so as soon as she had steadied herself somewhat, Vee did her best to offer him comfort.

"I get what you're feeling," she began, and Hunter knew that she of all people wasn't just saying that. "It took me a bit to really start appreciating my time here. The first few days were very tense, and I spent a long time after that wondering what I had done to deserve all of this, especially when compared to all of my siblings. I still have thoughts like that sometimes, and I don't know if they'll ever go away completely, but...it'll get easier. It will," she said firmly, and to her credit, she actually believed it. "I can't speak for the other Golden Guards, but I don't think they would be mad at you for enjoying the life that you get to have and they don't. I don't even think they would see it that way. Matter of fact, I know they wouldn't." It was this remark which finally got Hunter to look up from where he'd been sitting, tears in his eyes again.

"How can you be so sure of that?" he asked, the pain evident in his voice.

"Because I know you, Hunter, at least a little bit," Vee replied in her usual earnest tone, the one that had done such a good job at breaking through the others' emotional walls. "I don't care what my stupid brain says: you're not just nothing like Philip, you're everything he isn't," she said, cutting straight to the heart of the fear which sat in the darkest corner of his mind. "Sure, you might be similar on the surface, with the same piercing eyes and weird smelling magic or whatever, and I'll admit that those similarities kinda scared me at first...but then I got to know you better. I got to know this kind, sweet, wonderful boy that's done so much to help Luz and her friends when they needed it the most." Vee's words were sweet, but a part of Hunter remained unconvinced.

"I didn't do anything special, I just...did my best to make up for how I hurt them before. I still don't know if I have, to be honest," he admitted, and Vee nodded along in response.

"I know, but that's exactly my point!" Vee countered. "You may have made mistakes, but you care about them so much, Hunter, and I should have realized it from the beginning! Sure, your execution could've...used some work sometimes, but you're still the exact opposite of the crusty jerk who made us. If Philip ever had a heart, it shriveled up centuries ago, but you...you've got a heart that's three sizes too big, Hunter. Luz and my mom, Amity, Gus, Willow...they all care about you so much because of it. And so do I," she said earnestly, causing Hunter to pause.

"You mean that?" he asked, and Vee nodded without hesitation.

"Absolutely," Vee said. "And I know that the other Golden Guards would care about you just as much if they had ever gotten the chance to meet you," she added, speaking with a conviction that told Hunter that every word she was saying was true. "They'd be so happy you're still here, Hunter," she finished in a bit of a choked up voice herself, which was about the point where he likewise had to cry: just a little bit, mind you! Hunter glanced away from her and towards the street for a split second so that he could rub at his eyes and dispose of the evidence, knowing it wouldn't do much good. He sniffled a bit as Vee helped him get to his feet, then found himself smiling down at this persistent girl who seemed determined not to give up on anyone...not even someone like him.

"I, um, I get the sense you're referencing some human thing with that heart comment, and I don't get it, and I feel like that's kind of unfair," he quipped shakily, causing her to giggle a bit.

"Come on, big guy, I'll tell you all about it," Vee said, extending a hand for him to hold in his own as they walked out of the alley, intent on enjoying the first day of the rest of their lives.

Together.

By the time Hunter and Vee finally met back up with the others and had time to calm down, they found themselves in a bit of an interesting predicament, depending on who you asked.

"Oh, there you are, Hunter! What do you think?" Willow asked, holding out a pair of golden earrings for his inspection and causing him to flush just a bit upon noticing them. They definitely didn't mean anything, he was 95% positive, but that didn't stop his ears from reddening anyway.

"I, uh, think they look nice, but that also means they're probably a little outside of our budget, right Vee?" Hunter asked a little desperately as he noticed Vee casually hanging around nearby with her hands in her shapeshifted pockets.

"Hm?" she asked, as though she hadn't heard every word they'd said.

"Well, you're the expert. We don't have enough money, right?" he repeated, not sure why he was getting so nervous over the possibility of Willow buying golden earrings. Earrings which coincidentally matched up perfectly with the color of his old armor, the armor he had worn when they met and their brief, yet indescribably valuable friendship began in spite of everything he'd done. And really, he had to wonder whether she would buy symbolic jewelry for just anyone she knew-!

"Mmm...nope, $59.99, we're good," Vee replied succinctly, her face looking especially smug. While Hunter was left stunned, Gus and Willow both cried out in triumph as Vee moved to purchase the earrings and some other little bits of jewelry on her houseguests' behalf with a decent chunk of money to spare and only a little awkward stuttering. Perhaps as a result of Vee's evident anxiety, or simply due to common sense, the man was kind enough to give them a little baggie to put their purchases in so they wouldn't get lost, and soon enough, the gang was back on the street with perhaps a third of the human snails they'd been given left available for all of their other purchases.

"Ohh, I'm so excited, I've never tried earrings before! Hopefully Amity and Luz can help me get 'em in there without much fuss," Willow chatted somewhat aimlessly with Hunter as Gus and Vee tagged along behind them with matching smirks on their faces. "Not a huge fan of needles, but...I think they'll look really pretty on me, don't you think?" she asked Hunter, and something about the way she smiled at him while asking that question just utterly short-circuited his brain.

"Oh, yeah, you'll be pretty-I MEAN you'll look pretty, with the earrings-WHICH ISN'T TO SAY you wouldn't look pretty without the earrings, obviously, but-!" Hunter frantically replied, trying and failing to put himself back on track as his face slowly became a tomato which rivaled Amity's. Willow couldn't stop herself as a giggle escaped her lips, and although this only heightened the boy's embarrassment...it somehow always felt worth it whenever he got her to laugh like that.

In any case, after continuing to meander around New Haven with a budget that was shrinking rapidly with every new impulsive purchase, they eventually got turned around so much that they ended up having to retrace their steps based on the landmarks they'd noticed during their drive through the city. For whatever reason, their configuration had drifted back to what it was at the start, Gus and Willow in the front while Hunter and Vee kept an eye on them from behind. Of course, this time around, Hunter had recovered enough of his enthusiasm that he had actually initiated the conversation this time. He had a lot of thoughts about Cosmic Frontier, and Vee was happy to listen to his speculation about the plot going forward, but truthfully, she was waiting for a good lull in the conversation to address something that had been nagging her. As soon as that lull came with the last of Hunter's thoughts on their favorite book, she took the plunge.

"Hey, Hunter?" she began suddenly as they walked back towards where they had started out.

"Yeah?" he replied, no longer quite as nervous to start a new topic of conversation with her.

"Thank you for trusting me earlier. I know it isn't easy to be vulnerable like that," Vee said.

"Of course," he said somewhat nervously. "That's what siblings are for, right?" he asked with a bit of hesitation, like he still wasn't sure about their status.

"Yeah," Vee said warmly. "I think I could grow to think of you that way...so long as we make something crystal clear," she added a bit less warmly, making Hunter nervous.

"Yeah?" he asked, no longer quite as confident.

"Belos didn't make the two of us siblings," Vee replied rather bluntly. "And to be honest, neither did Luz, really: she just brought us both together," she added. "If we're gonna be siblings, I want that to be something we choose, because we have the freedom and the right to make choices for ourselves. Got it?" She didn't mean for it to sound as harsh as it did coming out of her mouth, but thankfully, Hunter seemed to understand what she meant after taking a bit to process her words.

"Got it," he said firmly, finding himself in agreement with Vee's position.

"Great! So, how about it?" she asked, holding out her hand as if to offer Hunter an especially firm handshake: she figured he'd object to doing a pinky swear. "You got what it takes to be a Noceda, big guy?" Hunter smiled at her before matching her intensity with a little of his old swagger.

"Yeah. I'm always eager for a challenge," he replied as he took her hand in his own.

"Ohoho, you little jerk! Come here!" Vee cried out teasingly before pulling him into a hug from behind, and then into what might have been a headlock if she wasn't just trying to mess with him. All she could really manage was awkwardly climbing onto his back and putting her arms over his shoulders such that he was giving her a piggyback ride against his will.

"Agh, hey, quit it-why doesn't Luz get this treatment?!" Hunter objected, getting flustered when he noticed Willow and some of the human passerby chuckling at the sight.

"Because A. we're the same size, and B. I'm the little sister now! Mwahahaha!" Vee said, cackling in an overly theatrical way which she hadn't really been able to tap into outside of, well, the theater. Hunter, in a surprising turn of events, found himself willing to play along, at least a little bit.

"Unhand me, you brigand!" he cried, attempting to dislodge her from his back using methods which were purposely designed to be ineffective: if he wanted her off, he could throw her off. Nevertheless, the two of them continued their little game until Gus noticed something up ahead.

"Hey guys, stop being adorable and look over there!" the boy called out, pointing at the building which sat at the end of the block, the single word "Milkshake" written in the window.

"Oh my gosh, isn't this it? Isn't this the place?" Willow asked Vee eagerly, causing her to get a little nervous as she glanced at the name of the street they'd been walking down and realized that, yes, they were getting closer and closer to the milkshake place that Amity had selected for her date with Luz. Thankfully, Hunter seemed to share Vee's reluctance to intrude upon the two of them.

"Yeah, uh, maybe we should keep on walking, don't wanna invade their privacy-" Hunter began with Vee nodding along from behind him, only for Gus to point the lovebirds out to them.

"Look, there they are!" he said a little too quickly, gesturing towards the window seat they occupied. They were currently in the midst of sharing a well-decorated milkshake with two straws in it, eyes closed, holding hands, and looking very cute. Making sure to move as silently as possible, Willow snuck into the building like a thief in the night, heedless of Hunter and Vee's whispered warnings. After she stealthily pulled out her camera, she managed to snag the perfect photo of the pair while unfortunately forgetting one noteworthy precaution:

She forgot to turn off the flash.

"MMPH!" Amity cried out suddenly as both she and Luz were caught off guard mid-sip, the ensuing chaos managing to leave a rather hefty bunch of milkshake splattered onto Luz's cheek. As the two turned towards the unexpected third wheel, Willow quickly snapped another photo of the aftermath to pair alongside the first one before getting the heck out of dodge. Luz was laughing with one eye closed in that bubbly way she did, for what might have been the first time since she came back from the Boiling Isles. Amity, for her part, was absolutely mortified, face flushing tomato-red and eyes widened in shock. Still, she continued to sip on the milkshake if only so she could speak out at this sudden interruption once she was finished with what she had been doing, but she became even more embarrassed once she heard Camila's laughter from a nearby booth.

Having accomplished their objective, Gus and Willow quickly made themselves scarce as Hunter and Vee chased after them despite their less-than-mobile configuration. And yet, even as the unlikely duo found themselves shouting recriminatory words at the little gremlins for what they had done...a part of Vee had to admit that the entire situation was clearly the happiest Luz had been since she and her friends had tumbled back into the Human Realm. Her laughter had returned, if only for a bit, and the sound of it warmed Vee's heart like nothing else.

Things were really looking up for them, huh?

Part Six: The Night Things Start to Settle

The drive back was pretty uneventful, all things considered.

As the others talked about what they had done and where they had gone during the trip, Vee took advantage of the free time she had to text her friends beyond the few quick responses she could fit in during all the craziness of the last few days. She wasn't quite sure how much she could give away just yet, but she was at least willing to mention that she had been busy dealing with a "family emergency" over the weekend, one that she naturally wouldn't be super comfortable elaborating upon. Her friends seemed to accept that explanation, just as they had thankfully seemed to rationalize her overreaction at the GHS as being the result of perfectly ordinary nightmares about Philip Wittebane. Honestly, it was a miracle they hadn't figured her out yet, but she knew she would have to be especially careful about how she interacted with her friends from now on. No more get-togethers at her place, that was for sure, not unless they came up with a good story for Luz's friends and a good place for Luz to...hide. In her own house. For weeks or-or months, if need be.

Vee knew there wasn't a better option for now, but that didn't make it suck any less.

By the time they pulled into the driveway, the sun had just started its descent, and the kids were noticeably peckish for dinner. Camila wasn't about to deny them that, but she also couldn't deny she had been meaning to check on the kids for a while, and with most of them having already gone inside to sample whatever Ms. Pines had made for them, she would have to start with the girl who stayed behind. The girl who might possibly be the most difficult for her to get through to.

"Willow? Could we talk for a moment, cariño?" she asked, leaving Willow confused.

"Oh, um, okay. Sure," she said, signaling to the others that she would catch up. "Is this about what happened earlier? I can give you the camera back if you don't trust me with it anymore, I just-"

"Oh no no, you're fine, don't worry about that," Camila reassured her. "I just...wanted to see how you were doing," she added gently. Willow was...quiet, for a moment, almost like her brain was experiencing a fatal error. However, just as soon as Camila noticed the shift in the girl's expression, it was gone, and she was right back to smiling as she usually did. Like nothing was wrong.

"Me? I'm fine!" Willow said automatically, only thinking better of it after a few seconds. "Well, not completely fine, obviously, but y-you know what I mean! It's...I'm dealing with it," she amended weakly, hating herself for it. Camila looked at the smaller girl with nothing but sympathy.

"I know, and you've been so brave these past few days, but...it's okay to be vulnerable too," Camila replied with concern in her eyes. "You've been through a lot, and so have all of your friends. I know you feel like you have to be strong for them, but take it from me: it's not good to hold all of those feelings in." Willow instinctively took a step backwards at the turn this conversation was taking, causing Camila to pause before continuing her attempt to reach out. "When Luz told me where she was the whole summer, I tried to keep it together all on my own too. I didn't do the best job of it, and as much as a part of me wishes that Vee didn't feel like she needed to take care of me...I don't think I could have handled all of this without her support. She and Ms. Pines showed me that I didn't have to face all of this alone...and neither do you, Willow."

There was something almost desperate in the way Camila said the words, something that left Willow tempted to open up, to admit that maybe something was wrong with her beyond the obvious, but...that would just be selfish. How could she possibly act like she had it so hard when everyone else had it worse than her? Sure, it wasn't like she wasn't hurting, she just...couldn't let the pain tear her apart inside, like she feared it would if she gave into it. Vee was already taking on so much responsibility for the others' sake, not to mention everything that Camila and Ms. Pines were doing to help them all on such short notice! Willow wasn't about to give them anything more to deal with on top of everything else she had thrown out of whack. She wasn't a weak little witchlet who needed her daddies to hold her after yet another day of everything in her life killing her slowly. She wasn't Half-a-Witch Willow anymore. She couldn't be. She refused. So, after another moment of that same unsettling silence, Willow put on that same cheery smile like it was a well-worn mask, then looked at Camila and tried not to think about how she was about to lie through her teeth.

"I'm fine, Camila, really. You don't have to worry about me," she claimed, and she could tell that Camila doubted that very much, so she quickly excused herself while she still had the chance. "Now come on, let's eat already! I'm starving!" she said with forced cheer, moving as if daring Camila to race her inside. Camila might have been convinced that the girl really was managing okay...had she not looked down at her feet and realized that the grass leading up to the porch was now somewhat overgrown where Willow had walked away from her.

This was going to be even harder than she thought.

As it turned out, Ms. Pines was actually a pretty good cook.

Electing to give the kids some space for the moment, Camila walked inside to find them all seated at the table, eagerly awaiting the opportunity to enjoy her houseguest's supposedly famous "meatloaf," one of many human things they had no context for even after knowing Luz for months. Conversation over dinner wasn't exactly animated, per se, but there was a definite improvement over the previous meals they had shared together, and the group's caregivers were optimistic that they had managed to turn a corner. By the time they were done eating, everyone was in a good mood...mostly. All the better for addressing what they had danced around long enough, at least in Mabel's opinion.

"Alright, everyone! I have gathered you all here, at the Meet of the Loaf, to discuss our options going forward!" Mabel proclaimed, only to be immediately met by snickers. "You guys can laugh at it, it's okay," she added bemusedly, the kids' laughter certainly providing a welcome contrast to the tense atmosphere of the last few days. Once everyone had calmed down enough, Mabel continued. "Now then! Kicking things off with some good news: as of this afternoon, I finally managed to close the deal on that stupid house!" she began exuberantly as she gestured at her cartoony re-creations of that whole gruesome process. Her art style hadn't changed too much in the last nine years: it just got more professional-looking, not that she was bragging or anything. Her amusing little comic culminated in a drawing of her and some blonde woman with hoop earrings (someone that looked vaguely familiar to Camila, for reasons she couldn't immediately place) smiling in front of the abandoned house with a 'SOLD' sign out front. The drawings really captured just how relieved Mabel was that the nightmare was finally over.

"Ha ha! Ah, nicely done, Ms. Pines!" Camila said encouragingly, causing Mabel's cheeks to flush a bit involuntarily, particularly when faced with the others' enthusiasm as well.

"Aww, shucks, I didn't do that much, really-" she attempted to say, only to be interrupted.

"Ms. Pines, did you or did you not just buy us a house?" Hunter asked rather dryly, albeit with a teasing edge to his words as well. Mabel couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the response.

"Welp, got me there!" she playfully sniped back before getting back to the matter at hand. "Anyway, the place is technically owned by a friend of mine: she's the one who actually paid for it, I just handled the logistical biz. The cover story (and maybe the real story if I twist her arm enough) is that she wants to fix up the place so she can finally move in with her boyfriend...who happens to be my brother." She added the last part with a bit of giddiness in her voice, as though she still couldn't believe that this was actually a true statement. "Whatever, point is, they're off going around the country solving mysteries and stuff, so she's more than happy to let y'all squat there as soon as it's, y'know, livable," Mabel finished, understandably nervous about how much work would need to be done for that to happen. "The renovations will still take a while even with the guys I called in, but they should be here tomorrow, and they say they can get the place fixed up in around a month, provided you and the neighbors don't mind punching and screaming." She said that last part so casually that Camila and the others could only blink in disbelief before they finished processing that.

"I-I'm sorry, did you say punching and-?" Camila asked, only for Mabel to keep talking.

"Now for the bad news! As mentioned, my brother and his boo are booked to heck, and everyone else I know is too far away and can't really do much to help out beyond sending Vee some magic stuff to eat. We've got no real backup for the foreseeable future, and as far as Vee's backstory goes...well. I managed to get us part of the way on that plan, at least." With that, she pulled out the forged documents she had carefully crafted to give Vee her own distinct identity, along with a backstory that was mostly airtight. Everyone other than Camila was surprised and stunned at both what Mabel had done and the quality of her handiwork, especially for a relative novice at the craft.

"Oh, Ms. Pines, this is-you didn't have to-!" Vee began haltingly, but Mabel wasn't having it.

"Aw, hush. I was spinning my wheels for so long, I figured this was the least I could do," Mabel replied. It seemed like some of the others were about to contest that assertion, so she moved on. "In any case, with 'Marilyn,' uh, indisposed at the moment, I don't really know who we can count on to get this stuff embedded into the system. The lack of any digital records could probably be written off as a clerical error, but they'll need physical copies that look like they've been there the whole time if they're gonna buy that things happened the way we say they did, and the only way we're managing that is by, um...breaking into a few places," Mabel explained as delicately as she could manage. She'd done some hardcore stuff in her youth, but even she had to admit that the logistics of this whole "Parent Trap" scheme were just a little bit insane. Judging by the glances around the table, she wasn't the only one who thought so.

"Jeez, this is even more complicated than I thought it would be," Luz muttered worriedly.

"Aren't you glad you adopted a voice of reason?" Vee quipped back, equally nervous.

"Yup. Very much so," Luz replied earnestly, and the two shared a smile before Mabel picked up where she had left off, taking the others' expressions as all the commentary she needed.

"Mmmhm. Nobody I know is able to do that kind of job anymore, least of all me, and everyone y'all might know is...unavailable," Mabel added with notable reluctance, not missing the way the kids' faces fell at the reminder. "I hate to bring it up just to say it's hopeless, but I honestly can't see how we'd pull this off until all of this Collector-biz is resolved...somehow or other." Although Vee accepted Mabel's conclusion easily enough, something in the way that her eyes briefly flickered with hope at first before she was reminded of reality tugged at the other kids' heartstrings like nothing else. Vee had done so much for all of them since they arrived, more than she knew. Helping her finally get to live as herself was the least they could do in return for her kindness.

"What if we did it ourselves?" Hunter suggested, earning him a shocked look from the adults, a worried look from Luz and Vee, and a bemused look from his new friends, who felt the urge to needle him a bit even though they were totally on board with his plan already.

"Hold on, do my ears deceive me, or is the Golden Guard suggesting that we commit a human crime?!" Amity asked in a fake posh voice, which was basically her best Odalia impression.

"Multiple crimes, even!" Gus added on in a similar tone, expertly trained not to break character despite the fact that he sounded even more ridiculous than Amity.

"How completely unprecedented!" Willow topped off with a posh voice so laughably corny that Hunter couldn't help but respond, trying to look more annoyed than amused at their antics.

"Yeah, yeah, we're all criminals already, ha ha. Are you with me or not?" he asked, choosing to ignore the others' snickers while Luz and Vee glanced at each other with matching expressions.

"Uh, guys, maybe we should think a bit harder about this!" Vee piped up worriedly.

"Yeah, I mean, it's a little rich coming from me, I get it, but the Emperor's Coven and human cops are two very different beasts, guys! You do not want to risk getting arrested here, or worse!" Luz added, likewise concerned that her well-meaning friends might be a little in over their heads. A part of her was admittedly tempted to throw caution to the wind if it meant that her sister would be happy, and honestly, the Luz of four months ago probably would have gone along with them without a second thought. She really had matured in the Boiling Isles...for all the good that did.

"The girls are right: breaking the law is absolutely out of the question," Camila said sternly, then found her eyes widening a bit as she belatedly remembered a crucial detail. Even disregarding what Ms. Pines had done, Camila herself had already broken the law by stealing evidence from an active crime scene and thereby obstructing a police investigation. Needless to say, she would need to address that little tidbit. "You kids breaking the law is absolutely out of the question!" she amended, to which Mabel nodded along in agreement, really starting to regret bringing that whole issue up.

"Yeah, sorry, kids. I don't doubt that you could pull it off with all your cool magic and whatnot, but that's precisely why we can't take the risk. We've already had some close calls just during this weekend alone, and the last thing we need is for you kids to get caught pulling off a supernatural heist," Mabel said, remaining in "responsible adult" mode for all of five seconds before her brain sent her off the tracks a bit. "Actually, hang on, can you even call it a heist if the goal is to break into a place to plant something instead of stealing it? And if not, what would you even call that, then? A reverse heist? An infiltration? A break-in without the implied robbery aspect-?"

"It doesn't matter what it'd be called: they're not doing it!" Vee cut in more harshly than she intended, her expression softening as the other kids instinctively leaned away a bit. "Look, I-I really appreciate that you'd be willing to take a risk like that for me, and it's not like I don't want to finally live my own life, I do! I just...I don't want my own selfishness to be the reason you all get in trouble," Vee admitted, shrinking in on herself a little. "I don't know what I'd do with myself if I was the reason my family got arrested and my friends got captured by the government and-!"

"Vee, Vee, it's okay," Willow said, helping to break Vee out of her spiral before it truly got underway by quickly getting up and placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You won't have to worry about any of that, and do you know why?" she asked gently, causing Vee to look up at her.

"Because you've thought better of doing something so incredibly risky on my behalf?" she asked hopefully, only for Willow to immediately dash those hopes with a smile on her face.

"Oh, no, we're doing this: you don't need to worry because we won't get caught!" Willow replied cheekily, her confidence doing well to inspire the others who were already on board, but still leaving the rest with very understandable reservations about the whole idea.

"Honestly, I set myself up for that," Vee said, berating herself while Luz took the lead.

"Guys, I really don't know about this!" Luz attempted to argue, only for Amity to step in.

"Luz, we all understand that there are pretty major risks with this plan, but if you ask me, the risks might be worth it, and not just from the standpoint that we care about Vee and want what's best for her," Amity countered. She made sure to give Vee a fond smile as she said this, one that caught the basilisk off guard when paired with the others' similar expressions of affection.

"Guys..." Vee muttered, a little misty-eyed. She knew in an abstract sense that the others had taken to her surprisingly fast, but she hadn't expected them to be that attached to her so quickly, especially given certain factors she still had to remind herself didn't matter to these people. That they were all so eager to tackle something like this for her sake, even knowing the danger...it was a lot to process all at once. So, while Vee wrestled with that whirlpool of emotions, Amity did everything she could to convince Luz and the adults that their risky plan was worthwhile in spite of it all.

"Think about it: if we can fully establish Vee's identity now, that solves a lot of our current problems!" Amity argued to Luz. "You wouldn't need to lay low with us, Vee would be free to live her own life without losing the connections she's made, and the rest of us wouldn't need to be quite so careful about who sees us and when! Sure, you would need to go back to human school, which clearly has its own pitfalls based on what you've told me, but honestly, what's the alternative? Diving right back into your portal research, all day, every day? Only going outside to help us get more Titan's Blood or tag along for another field trip? That doesn't sound like a fun way to live, and we've talked about how laser-focused you can get sometimes." With that, Amity crossed her arms and gave Luz a Look that made it all too clear that they had indeed had such a conversation before.

"I know, I know. I won't be pulling any all-nighters this time. I promise," Luz said, her honesty rewarded with a smile and a squeeze of her hand once Amity reached over to her.

"Thank you, batata," she said warmly, the nickname melting Luz's heart just as it always did. "Of course, I'd be lying if I said I didn't have any ulterior motives here," she added with a chuckle. "I had a lot of fun today, so as selfish as it might be of me to say this, I'd appreciate not having to hitch a ride outside of Gravesfield every time we want to do something like that again, honey!" That cheeky remark certainly made her argument more appealing to Luz, especially when paired with an accompanying wink that probably would have made her switch sides right then and there if her mother didn't remain strongly opposed. Mabel, for her part, was starting to come around to the kids' plan, her more fast and loose approach to role-modeling gaining ground on her better judgment.

"Hard to argue with that, huh, kiddo?" she asked teasingly, leaving both of the girls even more flustered than they already were. Camila sighed, although she had to hide a smile as well.

"Honestly, estrella, whose side are you on?" Camila responded in turn, her tone making it clear that she wasn't seriously chastising her. Even so, the impulsive remark on Camila's part certainly caught Mabel off guard for a number of reasons, not all of which were entirely pleasant.

"Hang on, did you just call me-?"

"ANYWAY!" Amity cut in, hoping that getting them back on track would help her fight off the terrible case of tomato-face she was grappling with. "The point is, if we pull this off without a hitch, everyone wins!" Amity finished succinctly, leaving Luz and Mabel to consider her words while the others picked up where she left off, eager to make their case as well.

"Plus, even with most of our magic off-limits for safety's sake, this all sounds pretty doable!" Gus remarked. "Illusions are the obvious M-V-P, as you say, and heck, I even managed to get these things working! Check it out!" After tossing his beanie to the side to reveal his pointed ears, he swiftly took one of the little cheap necklaces Vee bought him in New Haven and put it on, causing the turquoise gem which sat at its center to glow ever-so-slightly. With a small puff of blue smoke, Gus' ears were now round like a human's, leaving the others looking totally amazed even though they had watched him imbue his necklaces with magical energy all throughout the car ride home.

"Whoa, awesome!" Willow said encouragingly, always willing to be her little buddy's hype woman. Amity smiled at the sight before adding her two cents.

"Very impressive," she said, and Gus knew that meant a lot coming from her. Her siblings may have been talented illusionists, but Gus was something else. Crafting concealment stones was already pretty difficult, but crafting concealment stones without the proper material foci? That took some serious skill, and Amity clearly recognized that. They might not have been quite as close with each other as they were with their other friends, but if nothing else, Amity had certainly come to develop a respect for Gus' abilities that was very much appreciated by the younger boy.

"Heh, yeah, they're pretty great," Gus demurred, passing out the others for his accomplices' inspection. "They're not that powerful, admittedly, but I figured they'd only need to be good enough to mask our ears. Still, though, add on a hoodie and a mask to go with them, and we should be pretty safe from getting clocked as anything other than juvenile hooligans even if we do get caught," Gus concluded. "And beyond that, I've been working on other magic too! I could probably mess with human surveillance stuff by using telekinesis to scramble them! If I do it right, I should be able to make it look like they just broke down on their own, and then we can just sneak in and out with no one the wiser!" Seeing that he was maybe a bit too eager to demonstrate his telekinetic abilities in some fashion to punctuate his argument, Hunter decided to go next.

"Magic or no magic, I spent years learning the ins and outs of infiltration, along with, well, everything else an elite soldier should know," Hunter said, his voice thankfully indicating that he very much knew how unfortunate that was by now. Even so, it wasn't much easier for the adults to truly comprehend that the sweet teenager who stood before them used to be a glorified child soldier, and Hunter could recognize that readily enough, so he moved on. "If Gus clears me a path, I can get to wherever you need me to be," he finished firmly, speaking with the same confidence that he'd used to have in a very different time and place.

"And even if some of our magic isn't the most useful for a mission like this, I-I'm sure we can think of some other ways to help, and we could bring our palismen to act as scouts!" Willow added on, trying to cover for her and Amity's relative lack of subtle magic skills. By this point, Luz and Mabel seemed to be genuinely considering the merits of their plan, but Vee remained anxious, too caught up in her own conflicted feelings about it to offer much in the way of commentary. Camila groaned to herself, hoping against hope that she could still dissuade these kids from risking their lives on a pursuit which, while worthwhile, was also far too dangerous to take lightly.

"Kids, you know you're not in the Boiling Isles anymore," Camila said matter-of-factly. "You may be able to take care of yourselves, but you're still strangers in a strange land. If something goes wrong, really wrong, getting arrested could be the least of your worries! I don't want you kids putting yourselves into harm's way like that, especially not after you barely got away from an even worse situation back home!" At this rather pointed reminder of how fragile they really were without full use of their magic, the others found their enthusiasm for the plan faltering. While the rest of them mulled over whether or not they had overestimated their capabilities, Willow was left stewing in silence for only a moment before she clenched her fists and looked back up at the adults with a defiant expression they hadn't quite expected to see directed at them.

"We can do this," she said firmly, as if she was daring them to challenge her on that. As the other kids looked up hesitantly at Willow's response, Camila and Mabel found themselves at a loss for words before Camila eventually took a risk of her own in doing just that.

"And what if you can't?" Camila asked tentatively, worry laced in her tone. "What if you get discovered? What if you get hurt? What if things go so horribly wrong that you all get captured, or worse?! Our policía don't use sleep spells or magic chains: if they find you, they could-!" Camila stopped herself from finishing her sentence, not wanting to voice the horrible thoughts that had come into her mind for fear of making them come true. While the kids got the message thanks to Luz's haunted expression, Camila endeavored to calm herself down and think all of this through.

Even if the kids did fail, it was hardly a guarantee that things would turn out quite that badly, although no version of this heist plan where the cops get involved could possibly end well for any of them regardless. Then again, perhaps it would go off without a hitch. Perhaps Camila and Mabel were underestimating the witches' abilities to an extent, but who could blame them? They had only heard about all of the extraordinary things Luz's friends had done, and all they had seen was four scared teenagers cut off from everything they had ever known and pushed to the breaking point after countless near-death experiences. Frankly, it had taken a non-zero amount of self-control not to put them on lockdown for their own protection.

Still, the fact remained that they could take care of themselves, and while they were still children, some combination of their harrowing experiences and the realities of life on the Boiling Isles had clearly endowed them with an awareness of true peril which typical human children probably wouldn't have. That didn't mean this wasn't a risky idea that could very easily backfire...but they weren't going into this blindly. Camila knew that much, at least, especially from looking into their eyes. She had been a mother long enough to recognize what that determined expression meant.

"You're going to do this no matter what I say, aren't you?" she asked plainly, causing the kids to look at each other nervously after being clocked so quickly. Luz at least seemed reluctant to say anything even if she was starting to come around on the plan, the guilt in her eyes serving as a painful reminder that they really needed to talk. The others were similarly torn, but Camila wasn't surprised when they ultimately stood their ground. For as much as she had helped them and as much as they were grateful for it, they still hardly knew her outside of her being Luz's mom. Granted, they hadn't known Vee for any longer, but they had bonded more closely with her for obvious reasons. It made sense that, given the choice of who to "side with" in this situation, they'd choose Vee over her. She wasn't about to hold that against them. She just hoped that none of them would hold her caution against her...especially Willow, whose fists were still clenched in defiance.

In any case, Vee herself clearly had reservations about the plan even now, but Camila could still see that same flicker of hope in her eyes. The flicker of hope which had likely started this whole thing with the kids in the first place. The flicker of hope which showed just how badly Vee wanted this for herself, yet also how much she believed that it just wasn't worth the risk. And, well, as dangerous and reckless as the kids' plan was, it was probably the best shot they had at making Vee's dreams a reality under their current circumstances, and it was hard for Camila to deny that pulling this off would probably help them all in the long run. Both of her girls deserved to live their own lives as soon as possible, and if this was the only way they could accomplish that, then...then Camila will learn to live with it, and hope for the best.

"Alright," she conceded, very begrudgingly. "We'll do it your way, but only if you two make sure that they stay out of trouble! Got it?" she added, looking at Luz and Mabel with the most motherly glare she could muster. The two were almost reflections of each other in how they reacted under her gaze, both standing straighter than they had ever stood before and offering a hasty salute.

"Yes, ma-uh, ma'am! Yes ma'am!" Mabel remarked, still reeling from the nickname earlier.

"You can count on me, mami!" Luz replied, thankfully too anxious to notice.

"Alright, kids, if we're doing this, we're doing this properly!" Mabel continued as she brought her hands together and started rearranging her things, preparing to channel her inner Dipper. "We're gonna go over every target in extensive detail until you know these places like the backs of your hands, do you hear me? I wanna know everything you kids are bringing to the table here, every resource we can use safely and everything else you can do only if we absolutely need it! Got it?"

"Got it!" they replied, almost in sync with each other as they leaned onto the kitchen table, which Mabel worked to turn into an impromptu planning area while Amity cleared off the plates.

"Okay then! Now, lemme go ahead and sketch out what I could find..." Mabel said as she briefly rubbed her head, pulling out her pens and paper and getting so caught up in planning out the perfect reverse heist that she didn't notice the Nocedas drifting upstairs for roughly similar reasons:

For better or worse, this would be their last chance to talk things out.

"Mija? Are you alright?"

It was Camila who spoke up first, having found Luz in the hallway leading into the girls' room. From the looks of things, Vee had already beaten her to it, their whispered conversation no doubt having something to do with what happened downstairs and what would need to happen until it was accomplished. As soon as they both registered Camila's presence, Vee glanced towards the bedroom, having an intuitive understanding of what was about to happen here.

"I'll, um, go make sure I've got everything I need for school tomorrow!" Vee said a little too quickly, moving to leave before Luz squeezed her hand, silently beckoning her to stay. Not having any reason to object to Vee's presence, and believing that it was best for her to get on with it as soon as possible, Camila attempted to start this long overdue talk, only to get beaten to the punch.

"Luz, I-"

"I'm sorry!" Luz choked out, tears already threatening to come out after she had evidently been holding them in for a hot minute downstairs. Vee instinctively wrapped her sister in a side hug while Camila paused, taken aback by how upset Luz was before she even started talking.

"Oh, honey, you don't have to-"

"Yes I do!" she retorted. "I disobeyed you! I lied to you! I ran off to a place full of magic and monsters just to avoid going to a sucky summer camp that was actually really awesome!" Although it probably wasn't the best idea, Vee elected to speak up in an effort to make Luz feel better.

"Well, I mean, it was awesome by my standards: the others thought it was pretty boring-" Vee remarked, but one look from Camila told her in no uncertain terms that this wasn't the time.

"And now you're stuck with four more kids! Dealing with all of this crazy stuff like evil schemes and reverse heists and everything else that never would have happened if I hadn't-!"

"Luz," Camila said simply, yet firmly, causing the remainder of Luz's rant to die on her lips as she looked up at her mother with tears in her eyes. "I'm not mad at you for any of this, okay? Sure, deciding to stay in the Boiling Isles without a plan, that was a pretty silly thing to do. And yes, maybe all of this could have been avoided somewhere down the line, but that's my fault, mija, not yours. I was so worried about your future and so desperate to keep you out of any trouble that I made you think that I wanted to change you, I..." As she found herself trailing off, she wound up with a bittersweet smile on her face, her mind briefly sent back to a much happier time. "I forgot about the Astral Oath," she finished, leaving Luz a little confused while Vee chuckled to herself.

"Hang on, the what now?" Luz asked. It sounded vaguely familiar, and yet she couldn't quite place where she had heard the term before. Camila chuckled as she thought back to when Luis had explained the whole thing on their first date, one long-winded infodump of hundreds that convinced her, little by little, that this weird, wonderful man was the man she was going to marry someday.

"The Astral Oath is a promise made between Captain Avery and his family, to love and protect each other just as they are-" Camila began, only to be interrupted by a well-meaning snake.

"Through supernovas and solar winds," Vee finished warmly, holding onto Luz a little tighter. Camila laughed a little more freely, knowing how delighted Luis would have been to have a daughter who could rattle off the lines just as easily as he could. Luz, for her part, was a little caught off guard. Vee may have brought her up to speed on how much their mom actually liked Cosmic Frontier, but it was still hard to picture. Ever since she had found all that stuff in the basement as a kid, she had always assumed her mom had humored her dad with matching cosplays and whatnot simply because she loved him. Given how she conducted herself in public up until recently, there hadn't been too much evidence to contradict Luz's previous impression of her mom as almost being the opposite of her, but between this and a few other things...she was starting to catch on a little.

"Huh. How about that?" she muttered to herself, still not quite believing that her mother was a Nerd who actually had way more in common with her than she had ever thought possible.

"Yup. It was pretty silly of me to hide my hobbies for so long, huh? At least somebody helped pull me out of that old habit," she said a little cheekily, causing Vee to laugh awkwardly.

"Ah, well, that was mostly my friends being agents of chaos," she quipped, managing to get a shaky laugh out of Luz as well. Camila fell silent, taking in the comforting sight of her daughters supporting each other while trying to come up with the right words to say to explain herself.

"I had a hard time growing up," she began, knowing that didn't excuse her mistakes as much as explain them. "I was bullied when I was your age, too, for a lot of awful reasons. Being a nerd, being chubby, being different in ways that we...didn't quite have the words for yet." Vee paused, not entirely sure what she meant, but Luz understood her more than she really would have liked to.

She'd grown up not knowing what was wrong with her too.

"As you can see, it...hasn't been easy for me to forget," Camila continued sadly. "I never wanted to discourage your creativity, Luz, but when the Superintendent told me all these horrible things about how you were doing in school, I just...I didn't want you to keep getting hurt the way I had been." Both girls were left unsure of what to say, but Camila simply held up a hand, seeing their well-meaning responses coming a mile away. "He may have given me the pamphlet, but it was still my decision to put Reality Check on the table. I was...mostly sure that it wasn't as bad as that thing made it seem...but I still knew what it must have felt like for you. I just kept telling myself that you'd come around to it eventually: we all know how that worked out. Ugh, and then I made you make that stupid promise!" Camila finished, providing the impetus for Luz to speak up finally.

"No, mom, that wasn't-that made sense! I'd just told you that I almost died, like, twenty times in another dimension: of course you wouldn't want me to go back there!" Luz argued, but Camila was unfortunately a lot like her daughter in some less pleasant aspects as well.

"Ay, but it sure felt like I was asking you to leave your new life behind, didn't it, mija?" Camila asked, the self-loathing evident in her voice and causing Luz to hesitate in answering her.

"No! I...okay, maybe a little. Maybe at first, it did kinda feel like you were asking me to leave everyone behind, and maybe that did make me go a little crazy for a bit," Luz conceded nervously, leaving Camila worried while Vee endeavored to explain what her sister meant as best she could.

"She let herself get roped into a trap helping the Emperor's secretary or something, it was a whole thing," Vee elaborated from what she remembered, but this only left Camila more confused.

"Look, the point is, Amity helped me calm down after that, and I realized that you weren't going to take me away from my friends, only the deadly demon dimension they came from. Which, you know, is fair, considering." Luz cut in. "I was just overreacting like I always do, so don't...don't beat yourself up about it, okay, mamá? I know you might not think so, but...you've always been good to me. Always." She chuckled wetly, eyes cast downwards in shame. "It's not your fault I'm such a screw-up," she said sadly, and neither Noceda was about to let that slide, not for a second.

"Luz, you're not-"

"Mija, none of this was-"

"No, no, both of you, stop trying to-STOP IT!" Luz barked suddenly, causing both of them to move away from her as though they had been struck. "You don't have to keep making excuses for me, okay?!" Luz continued angrily, trying to fight back her tears in order to explain why she was the worst. "I'm the one who messed up here, mamá, not you! I messed up every day at school, and then I went behind your back and ran away to a magical place where I kept messing up even more! I've been so selfish and short-sighted, over and over again, and yet everyone keeps giving me chances like I won't just mess up even worse next time! Like I didn't get bamboozled in the stupidest way and let Philip get everything he needed to ruin their lives the long way around!" While Camila was left at a loss for what to do, Vee found herself getting just a little frustrated by this point.

"Luz, we've been over this! Nothing Belos did was your fault, and if it wasn't you he tricked, it would have been someone else!" Vee argued, hoping against hope that the third time would be the charm when it came to helping her sister truly let go of her guilt. "Besides, he's the one who told you all of this stuff in the first place, right? While you were trying to stop him?" she guessed, Luz's expression doing enough to convey the answer. "Right. So don't you think he maybe had an ulterior motive for framing all of his crimes as being your fault too?" Faced with Vee's undeniable logic once again, Luz found herself faltering more than she had done before, seeing as this was indeed the third time she had found herself having a conversation like this with her sister.

That awful voice in her head may have been horribly persistent, but her mom, her siblings, her girlfriend, and her friends had all worked pretty hard to chip away at its lies with all of their kind words and sweet gestures over the last few days. Even if they couldn't root it out entirely, it definitely wasn't as strong as it had been when she got here. She didn't find herself believing the voice as easily, and truthfully...she was starting to appreciate her sister's persistence in showing it who was boss.

"I-I mean, yeah, he's definitely an unreliable narrator, but...even if he would have gotten what he wanted regardless, even if it didn't end up mattering, I was still the one he tricked, I was still the one who messed up, again! That still counts for something...doesn't it?" Something in her tone sounded eerily similar to Hunter for a moment, at least to Vee's ear. Like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for something to confirm that she really was a monster. Vee backed up a bit, trying to come up with something else to say to Luz, but luckily for them both...she didn't need to.

"Luz..." Camila began slowly, hoping against hope that she could pull Luz out of this awful mindset once and for all. "I-I know this is all way beyond me still, but...messing up is a part of living," she said softly, her familiar maternal tone doing a lot to comfort Luz in that moment, even though she still felt like she didn't deserve it. "I mean, even discounting the whole mess with Reality Check and the things I asked of you, do you honestly think I've never messed up before?" she asked, leaving both girls at a loss as to how to answer.

"Well, I mean, yeah, you must have, it's just-" Luz began awkwardly.

"It's always sorta hard to internalize that since, y'know-"

"You spend so long with your parents taking care of everything-"

"You kinda start to idolize them after a while, so...yeah," Vee finished sheepishly, especially when faced with Camila's amused grin despite their present circumstances.

"Oh, you girls don't know the half of it," she began with an airy chuckle. "Here's a good one: have you ever looked real closely at my wedding photos, mija?" she asked, gesturing to the photos in question which rested among many others on the walls of the hallway. Luz and Vee paused, Vee having a slightly better view of it in the dim lighting than Luz did.

"You do look a little loopy here. Is that it?" Vee asked, not entirely sure what this was about.

"I always figured you'd just, um, had a bit...much?" Luz said in the form of a question, sounding profoundly embarrassed. Camila simply laughed good-naturedly at the assumption.

"Not quite: I mixed up the dates and ended up scheduling my wisdom tooth surgery the day before my wedding!" Camila said, finding it easier to laugh about now. "Oh, and this came up recently: you ever wonder why Principal Hal always looks uncomfortable around me?"

"I...guess I never really thought about it?" Luz replied hesitantly: it was news to her, at least.

"I mean, you can be pretty intimidating," Vee remarked, earning a less enthusiastic chuckle.

"Yes, well, that one's more on account of how I...cursed him out on the road last summer," Camila admitted a bit more reluctantly, leaving both girls surprised.

"Wait, you-mom!" Vee cried out, scarcely believing it, while Luz connected the dots.

"Hang on, was he the jerk on his phone at the stop sign?!" she asked incredulously.

"I, ah, yes, mija, he was, although I was not made aware of that fact until it was far too late," Camila said, beginning to regret having told Luz that much about that awful interaction before. "Suffice to say, not my proudest moment...and it gets worse, believe it or not," she added.

"What-how?" the girls asked almost simultaneously, causing Camila to take a deep breath.

"Do you know why we stopped going to Mass, mija?" she began, leaving Luz confused.

"No? I was like a toddler, it never really mattered that much to me...why?" she asked, and Vee found herself rather curious to know the answer as well, even though she only barely knew what "Mass" even was. Camila pursed her lips, not exactly looking forward to this.

"Well, you see, when you're an expecting mother with a mountain of student loans to pay off before bringing a new life into the world, you may possibly get a little...desperate," Camila explained with no small amount of trepidation. "Desperate enough to look for extra help from anyone who offers it, even less-than-nice ladies in your congregation who get you started selling energy drinks in what turns out to be a...pyramid scheme," she finished dejectedly, pointedly looking away from her kids as they glanced at each other and spoke up in quick succession.

"Mamá, that's...that's awful," Vee began, to which Luz nodded hastily.

"Was that part of why money was so tight when I was little?" she asked, in a tone which made it sound like she thought she was responsible for this somehow. Camila chuckled mirthlessly.

"Well, it certainly didn't help as much as advertised, that was for sure," Camila said bitterly. "Took your father three years to put it together and pull me out of it. Why do you think I developed such a good head for finances?" she asked, only to realize just how upset her girls were. "Oh, come here," she said gently, pulling them both into a hug. "I didn't mean to make you sad on my behalf. I just hoped that talking about these things would help you understand that everyone makes mistakes. Even big ones," she said, looking at Luz in particular. "For the longest time, I thought my biggest mistake was drifting away from your father's old friends, but your sister helped me realize something while you were gone. My biggest mistake was trying to protect you by changing this beautiful, good witch...into something she wasn't." With this warm sentiment, both Camila and Vee hugged Luz a little tighter, leaving the poor girl in both an emotional and physical bind.

"Mom..." she muttered tearfully, a part of her still finding it hard to understand how her mother could stand to look at her, let alone with the same love and devotion as she always did.

"I love you, cariño," Camila said solemnly. "Nothing you do will ever change that. Right, Vee?" she asked, giving Vee an opening to really milk the hug for all it was worth.

"Right," she said warmly in turn. "It's like we talked about, remember? You're stuck with me, sis, whether you like it or not," she added teasingly, lifting up a hand to playfully pinch Luz's cheek.

"Agh, hey, stoppit!" Luz cried out, trying to feebly push her sibling away and ultimately failing. Vee thankfully let go, but not before Camila reached into a previously untapped wellspring of maternal strength and managed to lift both of them off the ground enough that they could all spin around in a circle, laughing merrily in spite of the conversation they had just had. Although Camila couldn't sustain this for more than one rotation, the three of them were definitely happier than they were beforehand, so she figured the ache she would feel in the morning was more than worth it.

Luz in particular found herself laughing more intensely than the others despite her crummy mood, no longer finding it quite as hard to internalize what her mom, her sister, and everyone else had said to her, again and again. That she wasn't an idiot, or a monster, or a stupid selfish girl that had gotten them all stranded here as a result of her own hubris. That she wasn't responsible for ruining the lives of everyone she cared about. That she was still worthy of love, even after all of the mistakes she had made. That...that there was never anything wrong with her, after all. That all her mother had ever wanted...was for her to be herself.

Before Camila and Vee could say anything more, the last of Luz's laughs became shaky as tears came to her eyes once again, for reasons which they couldn't immediately ascertain. These tears soon gave way to more, her cries becoming more intense until Luz had instinctively collapsed into her mother's embrace, sobbing her eyes out in a way which she had never quite allowed herself to do until this very moment. Until every awful thing she had ever thought about herself was suddenly revealed to be nothing more than a lie, planted into her head by her meanest bullies, her worst teachers, her rudest neighbors, or some other aspect of the culture she had been immersed in from the moment she could think. Whether she was mourning the life she could have had if she hadn't grown up with this mouthful of lies choking the life out of her, or whether she simply couldn't handle this sudden revelation on top of everything else, even she couldn't say for certain. All she knew was that she was wordlessly crying out for someone to hold her, to tell her that it would be alright and that the awful voice would someday go away, even though she feared it never would. Camila and Vee did their best to rise to the occasion, and fortunately for them, someone else heard their little Luz's cry...and quietly ensured that they wouldn't do so alone.

Amity was naturally the first one up the stairs, her brain acutely trained to respond to the sound of a Luz in distress at this point in their relationship. She had barely even finished wrapping her arms around the poor girl when Hunter teleported right behind her, the two of them somewhat awkwardly sharing similar positions in what was becoming a rather unwieldy group hug. Even so, Gus and Willow weren't about to let a little awkward rearranging stand in the way of cheering up their best friend, as they too managed to find a way to fit themselves into the growing assortment of bodies gathered together for a singular purpose. Although Luz couldn't entirely stop herself from crying harder and louder with each new person added to the embrace she so desperately needed, none of them were about to let her go, and she wasn't about to push them away. Not anymore.

Never again.

After doing her part to ensure they all got where they needed to be, Mabel watched the whole moving scene play out from the top of the stairs, socially invisible once again. Now that she had finished working out a mostly viable plan for the reverse heists, all she had to worry about was whether or not the kids placed under her protection were in good enough shape to pull it off anytime soon. With several summers at Reality Check Summer Camp under her belt, she could assess how each of them were doing at this point with some degree of confidence.

Luz had clearly been hit the hardest by all of this, in ways which Mabel now knew were eerily familiar...but she had Vee and the others to help her through it. She'd be okay. Eventually.

Hunter had been through a lot as well, but for better or worse, he was a survivor, and Mabel had the feeling that Vee's support had done wonders for him too. She could count on him.

Amity's hurt was quieter, bit down so she could help support Luz and the others, but Mabel didn't miss the way she talked about "Odalia." She was lucky to have someone like Camila right now.

Gus did a good job of hiding it, but even with everything out in the open, he must have seen things in Philip's mind that a kid like him shouldn't have seen. They'd need to have a talk about that.

And Willow...Willow was harder. She seemed like the most well-adjusted out of all of them, but...Mabel sensed there was something else she was dealing with beyond the obvious crisis at home. A deeper hurt, an older pain, something which all this recent trauma had started to exacerbate. Camila must have sensed it too, given her own experiences silently suffering through Luz's absence. She was probably the best person to help Willow through that. Until then...best keep an eye on her.

All told, this plan was utterly ridiculous even with Mabel's fine-tuning, and there was no way that they were executing it immediately. They may have made a lot of headway in a surprisingly short amount of time, but...they were still kids. Kids who had been torn from their families, their friends, and everything they had ever known. Kids who had barely survived an incredibly traumatic event that Mabel knew would probably mess them up for the rest of their lives on some level. God knows Weirdmageddon had done that to her, whether she had wanted to admit it or not. Camila had done her part to help her come to terms with it: even after hearing everything, the woman had still maintained that none of what that evil triangle did was her fault. As Dipper might say, an outside observer reinforcing his claim in isolation made its validity that much harder to disprove. One of many reasons why she found herself wanting him and the others with her now more than ever.

Maybe one of them could figure out how to fix this damn headache.

"Hss!" Vee let out as loudly as she dared, having noticed Mabel's presence out of the corner of her eye and wanting her mentor to hop aboard the hug train. Luz's sobs had finally managed to subside, but the hug train showed no signs of stopping until everyone on it was certain she was feeling better. Mabel honestly wasn't sure if she'd fit, or even if they necessarily wanted her to intrude on such a private moment...but Vee's smile said otherwise, as did Camila's, so she figured it was alright this time. With a hesitant smile of her own, Mabel managed to find a place for herself as she enveloped the whole cuddle pile with her arms and melted into the collective embrace rather quickly. She supposed it made sense: she had always been a hugger, after all, not to mention...this felt good. It felt right. Mabel certainly felt that way, at least, as did everyone else who had come to the aid of this weird, wonderful girl whom they all cared for so much.

Luz may have only just started to truly understand that she was worth it, poor thing, but not to worry. They'd remind her of that fact every chance they got from now on, and the more she learned to accept their love without any reservations...the more she would finally begin to heal, bit by bit. It might take weeks or months or even years before Luz could finally say she was okay. It might never happen at all. But that was fine.

It wasn't like her palisman was going anywhere.

She (for she had grown enough to start thinking about things like that, and decided that she rather liked it) would wait as long as she needed to. Her partner and the others may have a whole host of troubles ahead of them, but as far as she was concerned, the hard part was already over. Her partner had given her what might be the greatest gift any witch had ever given their palisman: the freedom to choose. And sure, it had taken much longer than she would have liked, but she could finally say that she knew what she wanted: to keep choosing, keep learning, keep living with her partner by her side, and loving every moment they spent together. Because for as awesome as she knew she was, for all the power she could sense lying dormant within her lovingly-crafted shell...she knew that her partner was something even more extraordinary.

Her partner was Luz the Human.

And she couldn't wait to finally meet her.

Interlude One

[Summary: While the kids attempt to unwind for the night over a campy human movie, the adults go outside to talk. However, something else is lurking in the grass...something hungry.]

Nobody knew who pitched it, but "Human Movie Night" was just what the kids needed.

"Human movies! Oh, I've never seen so many of them in one place before!" Gus proclaimed excitedly as he reviewed the dresser drawers of DVDs beneath the TV and accompanying DVD player. "Titan, remember when I used to think these were edible?" Gus added, betting on the amused reaction he got from the others, but failing to account for the concerned reaction of Camila.

"Wait, what? Mijo, you didn't-mijo?!" she asked nervously, immediately moving to fret over him and make sure he wasn't experiencing any residual stomach pains despite his protests.

Luz smiled a little bittersweetly as she looked at the Azura movies she must have watched a million times before she left, not to mention all of the other classics she'd been raised on. The others had no real idea what they were looking at, but nevertheless began pulling movies out of the drawers and holding them up for the Nocedas' approval once the minor kerfuffle was resolved. Eventually, after having combed through a decent chunk of movies and found each of them wanting for whatever reason, Willow happened on a particular movie which stuck out to her.

"Hocus Pocus?" she asked, holding it up for Luz's inspection. Although the human girl initially brightened up a bit upon hearing that title, closer introspection regarding the subject matter of that particular movie and how it might relate to her loved ones' recent troubles made her pause.

"Oh, uh, that one could be fun, but, ah, maybe we should watch something else?" Luz suggested nervously, earning a concerned look from Amity while Hunter asked to see it for himself.

"What's wrong with this one?" Amity asked, knowing there had to be more to it than just the admittedly nasty-looking trio of human witches on the cover.

"Yeah, not to put too fine a point on it, but we've been digging through stuff for ten minutes. We gotta pick something: we're burning nighttime!" Gus said, not really caring whether or not that was actually an expression or not. Luz winced, not wanting to deny her friends the entertainment, but worried that she'd inadvertently end up offending or triggering them somehow.

"I know, and it's not super bad, but-!" Luz attempted to argue, only to get cut off.

"It's about witches being put on trial, right?" Hunter asked plainly, glancing at the plot synopsis on the back of the DVD. His tone was...difficult to read, even for Luz.

"Well, partly, at least," Luz admitted nervously before attempting to cushion her statements. "Don't get me wrong, it's about a lot more than that, and it's not too grisly since it was made for kids, but it is a little...biased against witches, or at least the fictional human variety, and, um..." Luz paused in the face of her friends' largely blank stares and blushed slightly. "Look, I just don't want the first movie we pick to be a bummer, you know?" Luz said in her defense, only for Amity to regard her with a patient smile as she glanced over towards Hunter, putting the ball in his court.

"I want to see it," he said simply, his voice carrying a kind of authority which caused the others to tip over off of the fence and cosign his position.

"Yeah, it looks like it'll be fun!" Gus said, happy they'd finally picked a movie.

"Or at least fun for you guys to make fun of, if nothing else," Vee added a little smugly as she plopped down by the couch, having reverted to her serpentine form in order to relax. It was perhaps slightly wasteful of her magic reserves, and it was the first time the rest of them had seen her true form for themselves, so she was a little nervous about it. Still, nobody seemed to mind (especially not Gus, who immediately pulled out his notebook again), and besides, after such an action-packed weekend, she wanted to stretch herself out. If nothing else, she figured she might as well practice shifting back and forth more quickly in a safe environment, just in case. Never knew when she might need to change forms fast.

"Why don't we judge how 'biased' it is for ourselves, hm?" Willow said encouragingly, getting up onto the couch itself with Gus on her left and Hunter on her right.

"And if it's bad, well, we'll have other movie nights," Amity said consolingly as she placed her hands on her girlfriend's shoulders. It managed to coax a small smile out of Luz, something which had thankfully gotten easier to do after everything that had happened in the last few days.

"Alright, alright, you got me," Luz said teasingly as she placed herself practically right in front of the TV, Amity naturally taking a seat on the floor next to her. "I promise there are things to like about this one, at least," she added, to which Amity gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead.

"I'll take your word for it," Amity said warmly as Luz moved to start playing the DVD.

"Uh, mija, maybe you two shouldn't sit so close to the..." Camila began as any concerned parent would, not wanting her kids to hurt their eyes as Mabel dimmed the lights. "Hm," she mumbled, not finishing the admonition as she caught sight of Mabel's silent, knowing look.

It was better to let the kids have their fun this time.

As the sound of the kids' raucous laughter echoed from behind the screen door, Camila and Mabel snuck out to the backyard in order to touch base, being the only two adults in the house.

"Are you really sure about this?" Camila asked, and Mabel knew exactly what she meant.

"Not remotely, but more than I was before, at least. Kids made some good points, what can I say?" she answered honestly. "I've got a plan that's mostly solid, we should be able to-"

"Just...tell me they'll be safe," Camila cut in, the worry in her tone evident. "Tell me that you and Luz will look after them," she added, causing Mabel's expression to soften.

"Of course," she said with conviction. "I would never leave a kid behind."

"I know you wouldn't. And I'm sorry for being so harsh before, I just-"

"Hey. Don't worry about it," Mabel cut in this time, giving Camila a smile. "You're a mom: keeping kids safe is kind of your whole job. Y'know, aside from your other job," she added, getting lost in thought as she usually did. "Did I ever tell you that I used to want to be a vet when I was a kid?" she blurted out suddenly, blushing a bit as Camila chuckled in surprise.

"No, no you didn't!" she replied much like a mother would, only worsening the problem.

"Ah, it was nothing: I was like 7 or something, and the job sounded great until I realized that part of it meant you had to...well. You know," she ended solemnly, prompting a bit of an awkward silence. Camila did know, and it certainly made it hard to continue that subject of conversation.

Fortunately, they had other subjects to choose from, plenty of them.

"So, to be clear, your friend bought the house, yes? I know it's a wreck, but how much-?"

"Eh, just over a hundred thousand bucks," Mabel said quickly, like that wasn't an insane price to ask for a house that was left in such a state of disrepair.

"A hundred-?!" Camila exclaimed rather sharply before Mabel shushed her with a laugh.

"Believe it or not, that was still a steal! They wanted to tack 50k onto their original list price last minute: 'for renovations,' they said. Luckily, I called in the Corduroys, those contractors I talked about earlier? They promised to do the job with a fraction of that budget in exchange for owing them a favor," Mabel explained, causing Camila to wince a bit as she remembered what else Mabel had said about them. "And besides, Pacifica's...well, not exactly 'richer than God' these days, but she's got money to spare," Mabel added, although she noticeably winced at the reminder of just how much she had asked her friend to do for the sake of total strangers. The one consolation was that Dipper and Pacifica also got a house out of it...not that they would be using it anytime soon.

"I see," Camila began: why did the name 'Pacifica' sound so familiar to her? Was it just because Mabel had mentioned her before? "And this money, it's all...above-board, yes?" she followed up in a similar manner, amusing Mabel further as she moved to reassure the older woman.

"Don't worry, Camila, it's all legit. Pacifica's just an old friend from old money who owes me an old favor: given what I mentioned earlier, I imagine you can guess. In any case!" Mabel said, not elaborating on much as she pivoted to some more logistical stuff Camila ought to know. "I called Dan a while ago, and he was nice enough to bring my friends' first shipment of magic stuff himself! It'll get shipped on the first of each month after that, but they've assured me that they should be able to keep doing it as long as we need them to, and with only minimal risk of life-threatening injury in transit!" Mabel said in her usual cheery tone, although Camila could tell from one look into her eyes that she very much knew how this sounded to someone like Camila.

At this point, she just kind of accepted it.

"Well, um, gracias, Ms. Pines. I-I can imagine this was all very difficult to arrange..." Camila began, only to find herself caught in another awkward silence as Mabel contemplated doing something risky in an emotional sense. Her expression briefly shifted for a moment before she gave Camila a playful finger waggle as though nothing was wrong and everything was normal.

"Aww, c'mon, Camila!" Mabel said. "You don't have to be so formal! I've been crashing on your couch for, what, a month? Mabel's just fine at this point!" Camila smiled, a part of her glad that she could drop that particular boundary, while another part of her was left nervous at its removal. Without that degree of separation, it was a little harder for her to remain...objective, so to speak.

"Alright, then. Thank you, Mabel," she said a bit more warmly, to which Mabel smiled her usual thousand-watt smile. "I know you've mostly been in the background on everything, but it's been...comforting to know the kids have someone looking out for them who really understands all of this," Camila admitted, rubbing her shoulder a bit. "There are times where I wake up expecting things to suddenly be...I don't know. I guess 'normal' has never really applied to our family, but I certainly didn't expect to become a mother of six, I'll tell you that much!" Camila attempted to quip to disguise the very real fear and worry at the heart of her admission, which Mabel seemed to get.

"Yeah," Mabel said, only a trace of that familiar bittersweetness in her voice. "Once you've seen the stuff we have, it's...it's not exactly easy to go back to how life was before, especially when reminders of it keep cropping up here and there," she remarked. Camila paused for a moment before daring to bring up something she wasn't entirely sure on.

"Say, that, um, that nickname I gave you earlier, was that...okay?" she asked hesitantly, causing Mabel to look up in surprise. "I-I know you told me something of what that all meant, but I just-I don't know, I figured a more positive association might...um," Camila cut herself off, concluding from Mabel's somewhat vacant stare that she had definitely made a mistake. "Ah, lo siento, sweetheart, I shouldn't have-"

"It's fine!" Mabel interrupted quickly, returning to her senses enough to stop Camila from spiraling into a needless apology. "It didn't, ah, freak me out or anything, it just...caught me by surprise, that's all," she explained, rubbing at her head as though her headache was flaring up again. Camila frowned: it looked like it had gotten better since yesterday, but...now she wasn't so sure.

"Are you alright?" she asked, to which Mabel groaned as she wrestled with her own head.

"Kinda? I dunno, the headache is...weird," Mabel began, rubbing at her temples. "It won't go away, but it only hurts when I try to think about the bad stuff. And this whole thing with that 'Collector' kid, what the kids are dealing with, it's all a little too familiar for my liking." As Mabel fell silent, lost in thoughts that were literally too painful to contemplate, Camila was left at a loss for how to respond, knowing only that she was very worried and very much out of her depth.

"Is there anything we can do to help you? Has your family dealt with something like this before?" she asked nervously, to which Mabel pursed her lips and considered the question.

"Hm. Not really," Mabel answered frankly. "I mean, we know that portals like that can be sorta unpredictable in how they affect people, but this...this is new. And a little too specific," she thought aloud, finding herself stumped. "I'm honestly not sure how to go about fixing it, short of letting somebody hop in there and troubleshooting from there," she added, tapping her head a few times and reminding Camila that, oh right, this young lady had gone into someone's mind somehow.

Honestly, for as strange as the Boiling Isles sounded, Gravity Falls might have it beat.

"Well, um, I suppose we can look into that at some point," Camila said awkwardly, not sure what else to say in this particular situation. Mabel chuckled, knowing that her life was pretty crazy.

"Eh, one thing at a time. I can handle a weird little headache; I've got Ibuprofen for days!" Mabel attempted to quip, although she could tell that Camila didn't quite buy it. "Ah, I'll be okay, Camila, really," she added in a softer tone, knowing that the older woman tended to worry about her for reasons which neither one of them was prepared to address just yet.

"Well, I hope you'll take it easy once this whole heist business is done with, Mabel," Camila said in a similar way, to which Mabel chuckled a bit more genuinely than before.

"Ahh, c'mon, Camila, you know I can't sit still for long!" Mabel said jokingly. "Although, somebody ought to stick around and watch the kids when you're at work, so I guess I'll have to get used to that," she thought aloud. Camila nodded solemnly.

"Mhm. It's going to keep being an adjustment, for sure, but...we don't have much of a choice, now do we?" Camila asked plainly, to which Mabel quickly nodded in agreement as well.

"Yup, just gotta knuckle down and do it. You and me, the dynamic duo, a couple of...ah...!" Mabel said, trying to go for something inspiring before faltering on what exactly to call their dynamic. Camila wasn't exactly a mentor for her, but they weren't the right ages to be considered peers, and any kind of 'found family' thing still didn't feel quite right. Not really having a good option for capping off her sentence, Mabel just kinda let it die, but Camila had one idea. It was an incredibly foolish one, something she never would've dared to say a few months ago, but...she figured she was willing to make a fool of herself just this once, if only to help pull her not-daughter out of her emotional turmoil and end the conversation on a more positive note.

"Perhaps we could be a couple of, ah, como se dice...girlbosses?" Camila suggested tentatively, knowing how ridiculous she sounded. Still, it did its job: Mabel burst into raucous laughter at such modern online slang she never would've expected to hear from Camila of all people.

"HA! Ahahaha, oh my GOD! Where the hell did you learn that?!" Mabel managed to ask in the midst of her uncontrollable mirth, causing Camila to awkwardly rub the back of her neck.

"Oh, you know...the Internet," Camila answered sheepishly, regretting that joke of a suggestion immensely even as a part of her was relieved it had done what she wanted it to.

"Ah, man, that's great, we are totally using that!" Mabel said, still giggling before managing to calm herself down eventually. "Just, uh, maybe not in front of the kids," she added more circumspectly. "Vee's a sweetheart, but I'm not entirely convinced Luz wouldn't roast us if she caught us saying stuff like that." Camila chuckled at the mental image that Mabel's words generated.

"Ay, claro que si," she said in bemused agreement. The two fell silent for a while, getting some distance from the earlier tension and just relaxing in each other's company. Even if the future was uncertain, even if she didn't quite know how much more they could do to help these poor kids, Camila knew that she couldn't have asked for a better ally in this cause...or a better friend, if that was all that Mabel wanted their relationship to be. She could admit to herself that she had gotten quite attached to the young woman, perhaps more so than she really ought to be, but she would keep her distance if that was what Mabel wanted from her. And if it wasn't, then...well. Mabel didn't need to be adopted or anything, but she and her own strange family had definitely earned their place in the Noceda family Christmas card rotation, if nothing else.

So it was that the two women talked happily with each other about everything and nothing for over an hour longer than they needed to, neither of them bothered by the growing chill in the air until they finally went back inside...unaware of what lurked in the grass beyond their little safe haven.

"Incredible! That house is a trove of wisdom unlike any we have seen!"

A small group of mangy, yet frighteningly intelligent rats crouched down in the tall grass of a neighboring house and observed the Noceda residence from afar. They were rather far from home, a few drones of many which had been dispatched from their den to search for additional wisdom. Although their wisdom had not faded since the moment they had all been enlightened by the consumption of the bread, the rats were nonetheless compelled to find more. The wish which unified their minds was ambitious, to say the least: with enough wisdom, they thought, they could dethrone the humans and claim their place as the true masters of Gravesfield!

To do that, however, they needed far more wisdom than they had, and unfortunately, it was in rather scant supply. The only sources they had managed to locate so far were a few scattered trinkets left behind by the witch-mother, the snake they had first encountered near the source of the bread, and the terrifying beasts held within the humans' disgusting "zoo." The trinkets had been rather meager sources of wisdom, and it had recently become apparent to them that the snake was not to be trifled with, no matter how meek she looked on the surface.

Thus, they were left with the beasts.

Knowing that to attack them was utter suicide, the collective decided to form an alliance with them instead, believing they had a common enemy in humanity. Unfortunately, there was an understandable linguistic barrier between the two species at present which could not yet be overcome, making it difficult to assess what thoughts lie behind those vacant eyes. The best they had gotten out of the giraffes so far was a silent non-aggression pact, one which they suspected that the demons would violate the moment they were sufficiently provoked. Still, the beasts hadn't objected to their presence at the zoo, giving them a potential backup den if the snake proved to be a problem in the future...particularly with more recent developments taken into account.

This group of four had been monitoring this particular neighborhood for some time, knowing that it was the home of the snake and knowing that she had her own wisdom supply to feed off of. With how dangerous she was, they had kept their distance, but something had changed recently...something which made the house's value as a source of wisdom increase tenfold.

"We must be cautious. The wisdom is plentiful, but it is far better protected than before," another rat pointed out. "To retrieve it in full would require the force of the entire collective."

"Could we not consume it in part, then, with the coming of night?" the first rat who had spoken argued, only for the second rat to shake its head.

"A covert infiltration may be successful, but there are too many occupants to count on all of them being incapacitated at any given moment," the second rat claimed. "It is still unclear whether the false beasts even require rest, and the pig is...more cunning than its age suggested." The rats shuddered as they recalled how their designated scout drone had nearly run afoul of the creature earlier that day, while the bulk of the house's residents were absent. A pig that spent most of its time eating, napping, and rolling in the mud should not have been so alert. They clearly could not settle for the house being mostly abandoned while that little pink monster was there.

"It will soon be another of the learning days for the children, and the pig's human has left with it on those days as well," a third rat remarked. "Perhaps they will all leave the den on that day, providing us an opportunity to consume unnoticed?"

"Perhaps..." the second rat conceded before shaking its head. "No matter. Let us return to the collective and evaluate how best to proceed," the rat proposed, to which the other drones nodded and began to head back to the nest...except for the scout drone, who rejoined the group only to suddenly pause and begin trembling uncontrollably. It had been specifically tasked with investigating the abandoned house and had not reported back until now. The other rats had thought nothing of it at first, but as it continued to remain unresponsive to their attempts to rouse it...they began to grow rather concerned. This concern quickly gave way to fear once it finally opened its mouth...and a different voice came out of it. A voice that was not their own.

"No," the fourth rat said firmly, the single word stopping the other rats in their tracks.

"What is this?" the first rat demanded. "We have decided. We do not object. We execute."

"For we are one, we are the collective," the third one continued dutifully, but with a hint of nervousness underlying its rote delivery of their unifying creed.

"How...why have you deviated from our glorious purpose? You will answer," the second rat finished, the closest thing this group of identical drones had to a leader. Despite the implied threat in its words, the fourth rat continued to remain uncooperative.

"No," the fourth rat repeated, as though it was learning how to speak all over again. "I do not...answer," it said, still struggling, but seeming to get markedly better with each utterance.

"You will answer or you will die," the second rat growled. "What is the meaning of this? What has happened to you? How do you continue to speak? You will answer!" the rat commanded, only for the defective rat to...chuckle, as well as a rat could be expected to do so, anyway.

"I do not...answer...to you," the rat said, in a voice which was becoming more refined with each passing moment, and which was absolutely dripping with contempt for their very existence.

"It has gone mad," the second rat concluded, echoing the sentiments of the others. The three rats shared a look before proceeding, their course of action decided. "You are lost, brother, and we do apologize. We will learn what has happened to you...but you must be exterminated." Although they moved closer and closer to the lone rat, clearly intent upon tearing it apart for the good of the collective, it only continued to chuckle in its belabored, unnatural way.

"Well," it said, with noticeably more effort. "At least...we can agree...on that much."

That was when the rat exploded.

The other rats were caught completely unawares by the sudden shift in the situation. They knew that something had broken their comrade out of the collective and dictated its actions, but a sentient pile of goop was definitely not what they had expected to find behind it all. The first and third rats, having been closer to the defective rat than the de-facto "leader" of the group, were fully engulfed by the blast and squeaked in agony as they felt their bodies and, even worse, their precious wisdom being consumed by the sludge. There was nothing that could be done for them as they were slowly, painfully absorbed by the false rat until nothing was visibly left of their remains.

The second rat, having been a little further away, was thankfully able to leap to safety, but not without catching just a single drop of the sludge on its paw. Suddenly alone, it swiftly rubbed its stained paw along the dirt to try and get rid of the sludge, knowing that it would need to keep its distance if it wanted to survive. And yet, even as it knew it had to get back to the collective as soon as possible, it would not move. The collective demanded satisfaction. The collective would have their answers one way or another, even if it cost them one more drone in the process.

"How did you consume our wisdom?!" the second rat demanded, a single survivor still speaking with the voices of many. "Why did you kill those drones?! Answer our questions at once, or we will have you exterminated! Exterminated! EXTERMINATED!"

The rat may have stood its ground as the sludge ebbed and shifted, but its repetition betrayed its fear in the face of this amorphous and likely unkillable enemy. Although the collective was wise and powerful, it was not fearless, and neither were its drones. Being formed from the hearts of many desperate, mangy rats would do that to a hive mind, and try as they might, it was a weakness which they could not overcome.

A weakness which would prove to be this last drone's downfall.

As the second rat stared at the pile of sludge in front of it, the sludge appeared to slowly stitch together the bones of its fallen comrades into the rough approximation of a rat. This was already disturbing enough to witness, but what made matters worse, what truly told the second rat that it was about to die, was the fact that the sludge made its new rat bones stand on two legs. That the sludge monster could speak was one thing, that it was consuming magic was another, but to make its patchwork form do something as eerily specific as that...there was no other explanation. The conclusion to be drawn from this, as impossible as it seemed, was nonetheless clear. This sludgy creature was by far the most dangerous thing the collective had ever encountered:

A man who had made himself a monster.

"They were...disgusting..." Philip Wittebane answered before tearing the final rat apart.