[Summary: As Vee continues to take Luz's place in public, she struggles to settle back into her normal life after everything that has happened, particularly when an unexpected development proves that she hasn't done the best job hiding from curious onlookers.]
Vee could almost convince herself that things had gone back to normal. Almost.
It was a strange feeling, walking from class to class with her friends by her side like nothing had actually happened. Like her entire life hadn't changed on some level as a result of the last few days, nevermind what everybody else had gone through. The feeling was at its most intense at the very start of the day, which saw Vee going through the motions of her previous life in a dream-like daze, unable to wholly reconcile the mundanity of the life she had gotten used to with all of the new concerns buzzing in the back of her head. Thankfully, this disconnect got easier to manage as the day went on, but she still couldn't quite get over how isolating it felt. For Vee, this was the first day back after some of the most emotional days of her life, but for her classmates...it was Monday.
It was just like Amity said: for better or worse, life goes on, even after everything.
"Luz? Luuuz? You with us, babygirl?"
Vee stumbled: although this had not been the first time her friends had pulled her out of her anxious thoughts, it still caught her by surprise, especially with everything on her mind.
"Yeah! Yeah, I'm good, I've just...got a lot to think about these days," Vee said on impulse as her friends hovered nearby. While the others kept on walking towards the front parking lot and shared nervous glances with each other the moment they could do so unobtrusively, Masha put on a smile and hoped that nobody had noticed the "babygirl" thing, least of all "Luz."
It just slipped out, honest!
"Ooh, mysterious~," Masha quipped instead, earning them a chuckle from Vee before their expression softened into a more genuine look of concern, causing Vee's to soften in turn.
"Mhm, I don't-I don't really wanna get into it too much right now, but things have been pretty hectic at home, for a lot of different reasons," she said somewhat evasively, not wanting to outright lie and not wanting to say too much at the same time, but only really accomplishing the former objective. "Last weekend, Friday especially was, uh...kind of a lot. Kind of a lot, and I, um, I guess I'm still just kind of adjusting to, y'know, not being in crisis mode, if that makes sense? Like I'm still feeling a little out of it, a little on edge, but-but I'll be alright, you guys really don't have to-!"
This was as far as she got before she suddenly found herself wrapped up in a group hug.
"Worry about me," she finished softly, albeit with traces of a smile as she looked around at all of her friends: Masha pressed up against her left side with Sam next to them, while Alex and Juniper occupied similar positions on her right side, trapping her in what could only be described as an inescapable cocoon of affection. Vee couldn't help but chuckle at the sight, her anxious melancholy dispelled for the moment. "Yeah, I guess I sorta walked into that one, huh?" she asked, to which the others chuckled in turn and scooched a little bit closer.
"Perhaps," Juniper conceded in a manner which was almost cheeky, coming from her.
"Seriously, dude, we've been over this," Sam added in a similar tone, causing Vee to laugh.
"I know, I know, and I appreciate it, really," she said, with a second glance around at all of her friends leaving her with an indescribable mixture of emotions which reminded her of her walk with Hunter just the other day, on top of some even less pleasant memories. "You all have done so much for me, I-I can't even begin to describe how much it's..." she continued, only to pick up on the tremor in her own voice and realize that she was suddenly crying. "I'm sorry, I-I shouldn't be-" she muttered as she attempted to rub at her eyes, only for Masha to gingerly reach out to do so on her behalf, cupping her cheek with one hand and gently brushing her tears away with the other. It happened so quickly that Vee almost didn't even notice it, and once she did, all she could do was look at Masha with a stunned expression on her face.
"It's okay if you're not...okay, you know? You've had a pretty rough couple of days, it sounds like," Masha said softly, albeit not soft enough for the others to miss it. The rest of the crew silently glanced at each other and inched away from Vee just a bit: clearly, they were interrupting a Moment.
"Yeah, you could say that again," Vee remarked dryly before her expression softened in turn as she thought about certain other things that happened recently. "Still, it wasn't all bad," she said, both to cheer herself up along with everyone else, who smiled along with her.
"Well, glad to hear it," Masha continued in their attempt to help Vee calm herself down, trying not to think about how painfully obvious their feelings were: Alex in particular looked like they were going to enjoy poking fun at them for a change, which was fair, considering. "The important thing is: we'll always be here for you, Luz, whenever you need us. Always," Masha said, helping to divert their thoughts back towards the task at hand. "It's okay to ask for someone to lean on or vent to for a bit, but it's okay to keep things to yourself too. I just don't want you to feel like you have to hide this stuff, or just sit there feeling bad about not telling us things if you don't want to, because it's hard! It's hard to talk about bad stuff, and it's perfectly alright if it's just too much to deal with right now, but...whenever you're ready to talk about it, we'll be here to listen. In the meantime, though, just tell us what you need and we'll do it, no hesitation. Right, gang?" they asked, to which the entire Cabin 7 Crew immediately agreed. "Right. Because...because that's what friends do," they finished warmly, squeezing onto Vee's arm just a little bit more and causing her to let out an involuntary squeak in spite of herself.
"Right! Friends! Yeah!" she said, not at all convincingly. She could feel her cheeks suddenly burning at the physical contact and the sweet sentiments of her totally platonic bestie, and one glance at the rest of the crew made it even more obvious that they all knew what was happening here. A part of her cursed herself for that: she'd been able to handle herself decently well in the wake of Masha's confession (although to be fair, she had also been rather distracted lately), but now that she was potentially within sight of the finish line thanks to Luz and the others, she was right back to the same awkward mess she had been when she first started seeing Masha again. Fortunately, the rest of the crew weren't the type to go butting into such a tender moment, and as usual, Juniper had a clever idea to divert attention from the lovebirds and resolve the current issue at the same time.
"Might I suggest proceeding to my apartment for today, assuming we are all free? I imagine another relaxing evening may be called for under these yet-undisclosed circumstances," Juniper reasoned, causing the others to brighten up while Vee snapped to attention, her troubles forgotten.
"Oh! Um, are you sure? I mean, it's kinda short notice, isn't it? I don't wanna impose-" she said, to which Juniper cocked her head while Masha chuckled and Sam sighed in loving exasperation.
"Girl, she is literally inviting us, what are you doing?" he asked in disbelief, although he couldn't keep the smile from his face despite his slight frustration.
"Well, I for one think that's a great idea!" Alex chimed in, albeit with slight ulterior motives.
"As do I," Masha said in their best posh-sounding voice, which was honestly a little unfair, because how the heck was Vee supposed to say anything at all when Masha pulled that on her?!
Evidently, she wasn't, since all she could manage was sputtering wordlessly in agreement.
"Hm. Very well then. Shall we?" Juniper remarked, as though Vee hadn't just made a fool of herself: she was sweet like that.
Without another word, Juniper moved to extricate herself from the group hug just enough to where she could help rearrange them so that they could walk hand in hand instead. One by one, the others got the message, and soon Vee found herself in what could almost be described as a walking cuddle pile, Masha still hanging on to her left arm while Juniper scooched up a little closer to Vee on her right side while holding onto Alex's hand. Vee continued to be pleasantly surprised at how physically affectionate her friends were, just as she had been from the moment she had first met them. Having barely experienced such comforts until she came to the Human Realm, Vee had been all too eager to accept their affection as readily as she accepted their friendship, even if both were technically being given to her under false pretenses.
Even so, it wasn't until recently (and with a great deal of help from, well, everyone, really) that Vee was finally able to enjoy these things without feeling like she needed to earn them. That didn't mean there wasn't still a vague sense of unease she'd get from knowing that she wasn't telling her friends everything, and even though she would be taking a good step towards resolving that problem...those feelings showed no sign of going away anytime soon. Not as long as she was hiding.
Moments like these certainly helped her forget about it for a while, though.
They ended up spending a lot of time at Juniper's place after that.
Nobody had planned on their "Self Care Days" morphing into a regular thing, least of all Juniper: after all, an apartment built above a barbershop wasn't exactly built to host a bunch of teenagers on a regular basis. Still, with the Noceda house being rendered unavailable as of late due to ongoing construction and other reasons that had yet to be revealed, it was easily the second-best choice for a regular hangout spot after school. It wasn't exactly close to Gravesfield High, but it was close enough that the walk wasn't completely exhausting, plus they all agreed that the opportunity it gave them to just hang out and talk about nothing made it way better than taking the bus. What's more, Teresa was always so glad to have them over, to the point where she even let them stay for dinner if they wanted, provided they kept themselves relatively quiet beforehand: she did have a business to run downstairs, after all. "Luz" in particular seemed to get more comfortable talking to her with each passing day, a sight which made Teresa especially happy. She'd been able to gather that things hadn't exactly been the best for the girl lately, what with the recent anniversary and the drama at school and what she knew had happened not too long ago at the Gravesfield Historical Society. She was just happy to see the poor kid smiling more often: God knows she needed it, and from the things she'd heard secondhand, so did the rest of Juniper's friends, for one reason or another. If keeping her door open to them helped give them a space where they could be happy together, she'd keep doing it for as long as they wanted her to...even if the kids were putting a bit of a strain on her grocery money with all of these extra meals she was paying for.
Without really knowing it, she and Camila had gained something else in common.
For her part, Vee was ever-grateful for Teresa's hospitality, and had also taken advantage of the opportunity to get to know Mr. Palmer a bit more. From talking to him, she could definitely see where Juniper got her affinity for the stage from. Everything he said just had this presence to it, like he was always five seconds away from launching into a big dramatic monologue about the nature of mortality. He lit up whenever the kids talked about how the play was coming along, telling them stories about some of the productions he had been a part of back in New Orleans, and even offering them tips on how to improve their own performances. Unsurprisingly, it was him who had introduced Juniper to Cosmic Frontier, having been drawn to it when it first came out due to the strength of its cast and especially that of its protagonist, Captain Avery. Although not everyone in the crew was quite as interested in the series as Alex and Juniper were, Vee had to admit that hearing him talk about how much the story meant to him made her enjoy it all the more...while also giving her an idea to contemplate in the days after she first met him on that Monday night.
With how well Camila had gotten along with Teresa during the memorial, something told Vee that another introduction might be in order if they could get some free time. Heck, if they can swing that, maybe they could invite everyone's families over for dinner, make a day out of it! Granted, they would have to do it during a time that Luz and the others wouldn't be around, and clean up the place just to be safe, not to mention that Alex and Masha's occasional venting was evidence enough that not all parents were created equal. Still, it felt strange that she had known most of her friends for longer than she had known Juniper, and yet the Palmers were the only parents she had really interacted with so far. Perhaps there were good reasons for that, but even so...she couldn't help but think back to what her mom had told her about her own struggles making friends after Luis died. If having all of their families together in one place could eventually lead to her mom having a social life of her own again, then Vee was more than willing to risk a little awkwardness.
In any case, by the time Thursday had rolled around, the kids had come over often enough for Teresa to not even be surprised as they once again made their presence known, noticeably quieting down whatever discussion they had gotten into on the way there as they crossed the threshold of Palmer Cuts. If you were to ask her about it later, Vee wouldn't be able to recall what exactly they had been talking about as they walked into the building, if only because of how heavily it involved human media that she still hadn't gotten the chance to watch herself. Perhaps it was this lack of personal investment in the conversation that left her slightly more aware of the world around her, or perhaps it was simply what remained of her survival instincts telling her that something was wrong, but regardless, something felt different when she walked into Palmer Cuts that day.
Vee couldn't quite pinpoint why that was at first: her friends were fine, and Teresa was busy taking care of a customer, which wasn't unusual by any means. The customer in question, a brown-skinned woman with a streak of gray in her hair, didn't ring any alarm bells either. Judging by the rather potent smell that hit Vee's keen nose especially hard, she was only there to touch up on her hair dye, which Vee had come to understand was a thing some people did once they got to be that age. Sure, the woman looked vaguely familiar, but that may well have been due to how similar she looked to Camila, especially given their similar habits, a habit which Vee dimly recalled Camila mentioning she wouldn't be able to afford anymore. It hadn't felt like that was a bad thing when she mentioned it to her and Luz. It kind of felt important. In any case, Vee had done a lot of walking around Gravesfield lately: she had probably seen this person in passing, that was all! Through that process of reasoning, she had almost convinced herself that her odd sense of impending danger was a false alarm, that she was merely keyed up as a result of everything else she was trying to keep out of her mind. It wasn't until she picked up a surprised squeak coming from a seat to her right that she began to put the pieces together and realize exactly the sort of complicated bind she was in.
There was a girl sitting in one of the waiting chairs, no older than five or six by the look of her, with a somewhat round face and her hair done up in little pigtails. She wore a tiny red overall dress thrown on top of a simple teal striped shirt, paired with tiny velvet boots that matched the dress and would have looked very cute under different circumstances. Indeed, the girl was someone whose adorableness Vee might have silently cooed at if she saw her walking down the street with a hop and a skip, as little kids were wont to do. As it stood, however, she couldn't help but feel a growing sense of unease as she locked eyes with the eerily familiar observer. The woman being subjected to Teresa's ministrations was one thing, probably just the girl's mother, but this girl was something else entirely. While Vee struggled to place why the girl was so familiar and why her brain was telling her that she was in danger, the others began to falter in their conversational stride as they realized that Vee had lagged ever-so-slightly behind them. Teresa likewise couldn't help but notice the disruption out of the corner of her eye, although the girl's mother was blissfully unaware of what exactly was happening here just yet. For her part, the girl in question sat frozen to her seat for a moment, taking in every detail of Vee's appearance as though she had just caught sight of a unicorn in the flesh, and although Vee felt no malice from the girl, that didn't make her feel better about it. She was about to decide between rushing her friends up the stairs or concocting an excuse to suddenly dip out of the building entirely when the girl made a decision which forced the issue:
She reached out and grabbed onto Vee's sleeve.
Vee probably shouldn't have visibly startled at the contact: eerily familiar or not, this was still a little kid, and Vee would have ordinarily been confident in her ability to break out of the girl's grip without injuring her. However, she had only just gotten used to the sensation of things being normal again and was still ever-so-slightly on edge, so one could perhaps forgive her for overreacting a little to such a strange situation...especially with what the girl did next.
"Miss?" she asked, so softly and so sweetly that Vee almost let her guard down. Almost.
"Y-yeah?" Vee replied in kind, her dread mounting as she nearly finished putting the pieces of this whole bizarre thing together just in time for the girl to fill in the last one herself.
"Your ears are really pretty," she whispered, as though she and Vee were sharing a fun little secret together. Her tone was friendly and even inviting, albeit somewhat nervous and tentative in its delivery at the same time. It should have been obvious to Vee that the girl didn't mean any harm by what she was saying, but all Vee could focus on was just what it was that she was whispering to her.
"My ears? What are you-?" Vee muttered in confusion before it finally clicked for her, and she realized with sudden horror that her suspicions had been confirmed:
This girl knew what she was.
She could remember it all so clearly now, as though the memories had just spontaneously shifted into focus. The day that she had walked around in her incomplete disguise, her ears had momentarily poked out from the adorable cat-eared beanie she had taken from Luz's room in order to hide them. Luz had endeavored to warn her, but it was too late: a little girl had seen them and pointed at her excitedly, trying to get her mother's attention and thankfully failing. She might have been able to forget about it if it were just that one incident, and Vee suspected that the little girl might have as well, but unfortunately, that was only the beginning.
This little girl had likely witnessed her doing something strange on at least two other occasions over the course of her tumultuous weekend, not to mention that even a little kid like her must have been at least vaguely aware of what happened with Hopkins at the Gravesfield Historical Society. The Noceda family's explanation for that whole incident had been believable enough to Vee's friends and the somewhat-willfully ignorant people of Gravesfield, but even a child would have had good reason to doubt that story if they had seen what this little girl had seen. That she knew Vee's true nature, at least in an abstract sense, was made evident enough by her unusual compliment, and even though she didn't seem frightened of Vee in the least despite knowing what she was, Vee herself couldn't say the same during what was quickly turning into her worst nightmare, realized. Her pulse quickened along with her breath as she found herself unable to look or pull herself away from the little girl who still held onto her sleeve. The little girl who had figured her out. The little girl who might not be able to keep it under wraps, despite her good intentions. The little girl whose earnest expression started to twist into a frown at the realization that she had done something wrong.
Any kid her age could tell you: they hate it when that happens.
"Polly!" her mother called out, having opened her eyes once it became clear that her hair stylist had become distracted. Polly, as the girl was apparently named, jumped as though struck and swiftly let go of Vee's sleeve, giving Masha the impetus they needed to pull Vee away from the girl while her mother continued speaking, sounding more tired than genuinely chastising. "Honestly, how many times have I told you not to bother strangers?" she asked, causing the girl to tear up.
"I-I didn't, I wasn't trying to-!" she stammered aimlessly with a trembling voice, and although she was responding to her mother, Vee imagined the girl was talking to her as well, trying so desperately to explain herself without revealing anything out of turn. She couldn't help but look back at little Polly Shulman with a conflicted expression on her face as Masha and the others quickly escorted her upstairs, cutting off the rest of the conversation downstairs...and leaving Vee with a whole new set of problems to occupy her attention.
Namely, the fact that she was really starting to hyperventilate.
"Luz? Luz, what's wrong?" Masha asked as soon as they were in the relative safety of Juniper's apartment, gently setting her down onto the nearby couch while Alex and Sam took up positions on either side of her and Juniper made sure to lock the door. Vee, for her part, didn't show any signs of calming down despite all of their best efforts so far.
How could she, when she had no idea how to explain any of this without it all falling apart?
"Hey, we know what to do here, yeah?" Sam coaxed gently, managing to pull her out of her spiral for just a moment as he walked her through the same song and dance as always. "In for four, out for eight. Keep your cool, now we're great," he said, and even though Vee dutifully followed along in order to calm herself down just enough to stop any spots from suddenly showing up on her skin, she couldn't help but feel disappointed in herself for not being able to calm down this time.
Why was it that, whenever she was starting to do better, something new had to come out of nowhere and send everything crashing down? It had taken days of hanging out with her friends again to be mostly okay with how many things had changed for the better and how many not-good things stubbornly insisted on staying the same, and yet, one chance encounter towards the end of the week had knocked it all out of whack all over again! How could she possibly explain why she was having a severe panic attack over a child grabbing her sleeve? How could she be sure that Polly hadn't said something about her true nature to her mom or to somebody else, or that she wouldn't say something about her true nature now in her misguided attempt to-what? Be friends with the shapeshifting demon girl that may or may not have taken the place of her neighbor?!
What kind of sense did that make?!
"Luz, seriously, what's going on?" Alex asked, noticing that her breathing had started to pick up again even after Sam had done his best to calm her down.
"Did Polly say something unusual to you?" Juniper asked in turn, having set herself to the task of making some tea. "She's always been such a sweet girl, delightfully imaginative and very understanding. I can't imagine she would...hm," Juniper continued mostly to herself, leaving a part of Vee wondering where she had been going with that while the rest of her started panicking again.
"Luz?" Masha asked gently, holding Vee's hands in their own and rubbing circles in them without adding any further questions to the pile in an effort to help ground her again. It worked to an extent, but Vee still couldn't bring herself to say much, caught as she was between the need to explain herself and the need to keep her secrets, now more than ever. As had been rather plainly illustrated over the past weekend, the current situation with Luz and her friends made it so that a lot of dominos could fall all at once if Vee's true identity was revealed prematurely, making it that much more difficult to figure out what to say in the wake of this latest wrench being thrown into her plans.
"I-I don't-! It's, it's too much, I can't...I can't-!" Vee stuttered, trying desperately to come up with something, anything she could say and finding her panic overriding her words despite all of her friends' best efforts. She had been so close, they had all been so close! They had a plan, they had been working on it for over a month, and now everything she had wanted to preserve in the first place was all falling apart just like she feared it would! She knew she would have to tell them everything eventually, she owed it to them, but not like this! She thought she would have time: time to figure out what to say to soften the blow, time to gauge their potential reactions as best she could, time for Luz's friends to go home and save the world and not have their safety shackled to her own! She had worried that things wouldn't turn out as neatly as she sometimes hoped they would, that she wouldn't be given the chance to plan things out so carefully, but she still found herself caught off guard all the same. She had come to believe that things would keep going well, for once in her life.
She really ought to know better by now.
"Luz...please. Take your time. Whatever it is, we'll understand," Masha said, the earnestness in their voice breaking Vee's heart a little as she looked in their eyes and saw nothing but honest apprehension and care reflected inside of them. She saw the same things as she glanced at the eyes of her other friends, but Masha's expression felt...different. With the softest gasp of shock and the widening of her eyes, Vee eventually realized just what it was: they were looking at her the same way Luz and Amity look at each other. The same way Hunter looks at Willow when he thinks she isn't looking, the same way Willow looks at Hunter when she knows he isn't looking...and the same way Camila looks whenever she talks about Luis. Vee could readily admit that she still didn't know a lot about how the Human Realm worked, or even just how life worked in general, but she had come to recognize that expression. It was nothing more and nothing less than love, visualized. Platonically, romantically, or somewhere in-between...Masha loved her. Even though they didn't fully know her.
And in that moment, Vee just couldn't stomach the thought of lying to them ever again.
"I...I'm not-" she began with purpose, only to find herself interrupted by a knock at the door: small, tentative, the sound originating at waist-level in a way that could only have come from the hand of a child. With that, the brief moment had passed and Vee's anxiety came back with a vengeance, causing her to let out a panicked squeak as she clung protectively to Alex's shoulder. Getting the message that this kid was still an issue for...whatever reason, the others moved a little closer to Vee while Juniper took the lead on answering the door. It was her house, after all.
"Miss Junie?" Polly began, her voice still sniffly from crying and making Vee feel even worse about just how strongly she had reacted earlier, even if she couldn't entirely blame herself. The fact that Polly apparently knew Juniper well enough to call her "Miss Junie" didn't exactly help matters, and indeed only intensified Vee's idle speculation as to what Juniper had been talking about before.
"What is it, dear?" Juniper asked, crouching down to her level and resting a hand on her cheek as she spoke with a softness that the others hadn't quite heard from her until now. Although she hadn't seen much direct evidence of it, it was easy enough for Vee to understand how Juniper had gotten so good with kids, and she could readily imagine that Alex's heart would be melting at the sight if not for the unfortunate circumstances. As it stood, all she could really do was watch and hope that her friend would help this poor girl to calm down enough for them to talk in private, assuming that was indeed the purpose of her sudden intrusion.
"I wanna talk to Luz, please," she said, covering up the slight hesitation with which she spoke by making it appear as though she had simply needed to think of the name. "Mommy said I had to say sorry for what I said," she added, and while that was no doubt true on some level, Vee at least could tell that wasn't the only reason she was up here, even if the others remained only vaguely aware of the fact that something strange was going on here. Between this interaction and the way in which she had phrased her comment earlier, Vee had to admit: for a girl who was maybe five-ish, Polly was doing a surprisingly good job of covering for Vee, despite the circumstances.
Her timing could definitely use some work, though.
In any case, with Vee's silent nod, Juniper stepped aside before carefully leading Polly over to her. Nobody objected when Vee stood up to meet the little girl and escorted her to Juniper's room with their host's unspoken permission, although Vee was certain they would be too busy talking among themselves about what exactly was going on here to eavesdrop on her own conversation even if they wanted to. Still, one problem at a time. She had to deal with this first, and judging by how Polly's expression twisted as soon as the door closed, Vee sensed she was in for a rough talk.
"Listen, uh, kiddo-" she began tentatively, unsure of whether to speak in her natural voice or not, but before she could even shift from her default "Luz" voice, Polly cut her off with a sob.
"I'm so-ho-rryy!" Polly cried as softly as she could before her tears rendered her barely coherent and hiccuping over her words in the face of her overwhelming guilt. Vee quickly knelt down to her level and moved to comfort the poor girl however she could.
"Whoa whoa whoa, hey, hon! It's okay!" Vee said almost instinctively as Polly fell down to the floor and hugged her knees. The girl could only continue to sob and tried her best to use her words while Vee desperately endeavored to calm her down.
"It's not okay, i-it's not!" Polly protested wetly. "I made you so scared, and I didn't mean to, I just-!" The girl paused as she looked up at Vee, tears still shining in her eyes. "I just wanted to be friends," she said, for lack of any better words to describe the true depths of her motivations. Needless to say, Vee was confused, for a number of reasons.
"That's...that's really it? You just...wanted to be friends?" she asked in disbelief, to which Polly tearfully nodded. Vee sighed, feeling more guilty than ever as she held out her arms for a hug which Polly reluctantly accepted. "Shshshshshsh, it's okay. It's okay. I'm not mad at you, really," Vee said, not entirely sure how to handle a distraught child, yet wanting to be there for her anyway.
"Really?" Polly asked in a small voice, making the parallels between them a little obvious.
"Really," Vee promised, and once Polly's tears had subsided into little more than tiny sniffles, Vee felt it was safe to pull them apart and look her in the eye. "I'll admit, it was pretty scary hearing that out of the blue, but-but I shouldn't have reacted so badly!" she stammered out, and upon seeing Polly's expression begin to shift again, she endeavored to course correct and get ahead of another crying fit. "It's just...hard for me not to freak out when stuff like that happens," Vee explained. "I had to run for a long time and...I guess I never really stopped running, now that I think about it," Vee muttered, as though she had thought about it for the first time before shaking her head a little too quickly. She could reassess her thoughts on hiding from her friends later: right now, there was a sad child who needed comforting, dang it! "I'm sorry for getting you in trouble, and making you upset," she finished as softly as she could, to which Polly looked at her with a conflicted, yet sympathetic expression in response, looking a little better than before.
"It's...okay," she replied somewhat hesitantly, not so much because she didn't appreciate Vee's apology as she didn't understand why Vee was the one apologizing. "I'm sorry for scaring you. I just wanted to say something nice," she admitted, to which Vee managed to smile a little for Polly's sake.
"Well, in isolation, it was very sweet," Vee consoled her, succeeding in comforting Polly enough to feel alright giggling a bit if nothing else. Vee tried her best to laugh along in kind, but the laughter didn't quite reach her eyes, and unfortunately, being a remarkably perceptive five-year-old, Polly noticed. "Hey, what's wrong?" Vee asked softly, causing Polly to look up at her.
"Are you okay?" Polly asked point-blank, catching Vee off-guard. She was tempted to just say she was and send this kid back to her mom, but she couldn't lie to a kindergartner, and even if she could, something told her that Polly would see through it anyway. Thus, she sighed and did her best to address the question as honestly and tactfully as she could.
"I don't know," Vee answered eventually, which Polly seemed to understand if nothing else. "I have no idea how we're gonna explain this misunderstanding without my friends catching on," she admitted, and Polly muttered despondently to herself: that would be fairly tricky. Except...
"Would that be so bad?" she asked, her innocent demeanor throwing Vee for a loop.
"I don't know," Vee repeated in a softer voice. "I'm scared to find out." And indeed, her mind had conjured all sorts of awful scenarios for how that conversation would finally happen, but by far the most terrifying thing about the ever-present dilemma in the back of her mind was that she truthfully had no idea how her friends would react.
The rational part of her brain knew that they wouldn't go all witch hunter on her, and she was reasonably sure by now that they wouldn't out her either...but that didn't mean telling them the whole truth would turn out okay, not by a long shot. After all, no matter how she tried to justify it to herself, the fact remained that she lied to them, had been lying to them from the very beginning. She could tell herself that she'd had good reasons to keep her true nature a secret, and she could tell herself that she didn't lie about anything important. She could say that her love for them was genuine, that her personality was as genuine as she could make it, that she had genuinely wanted to do everything she had done for her own reasons instead of merely following Luz's example. Even so, she had to face the possibility that all of that might not matter when weighed against the full scale of her deception. Would they be able to look past each and every little lie that she had told them over up to four months of friendship? Would Masha truly feel the same way about her if they knew what she was? Vee still didn't have the answers to those questions. She wasn't sure that she ever would.
Luckily, though, she had somebody to help her confidence on that front, at least a little bit.
"Well..." Polly began nervously, obviously putting a great deal of thought into her words. "I think it'll turn out okay. I was never scared of your monster-y bits, and I don't think your friends will be either!" Vee smiled in spite of the confusing soup of emotions in her head. Polly really was a sweetheart, and she meant well enough, but she was definitely possessed of a youthful optimism which Vee never had. A part of her hoped with all of her heart that she would never lose that, especially not the way her sister nearly did.
"Thanks," she said, with a smile that still didn't quite reach her eyes. Polly frowned at that, but couldn't really figure out what else to say, so she instead opted for bold action. "Now then, let's get our stories straight and get you back to your mom, huh, kid-oh!" Vee said as she got up to her feet, only to find her legs wrapped up in a fierce hug which said more than any number of words.
"Do...do you still wanna be friends, miss...um...?" Polly asked, her earnest words stalled momentarily on account of how Vee had never mentioned her actual name. Vee smiled down at her, and this time Polly could tell that she wasn't just faking it.
"My name's Vee," Vee remarked warmly. "And I think I'd like that very much."
Honestly, it was a miracle they had managed to work out a decent cover story after that.
It was a bit of a hard sell, admittedly, but between Vee's unfortunate natural talents and Polly's expertly deployed puppy dog eyes, they were able to convince everyone that it was nothing more than an innocent misunderstanding. As it turned out, nobody really thought twice about lovable, quirky little Polly Shulman legitimately believing that "Luz" was secretly some manner of cryptid, with her questions on the subject causing "Luz" to suffer a PTSD attack regarding the horrible incident wherein she had been mistaken as such by an unhinged criminal. Although an outright falsehood had initially been considered in lieu of this explanation, the two eventually agreed that bending the truth was the better approach. As Polly herself said in much less sophisticated terms, people would actually be less likely to believe that Vee really was a shapeshifter if it came from someone with her "overactive imagination," than they would be if it had come from anyone else who had seen what Polly had seen. That "overactive imagination" comment came courtesy of her mother, who was able to properly apologize to "Luz" as soon as her hair was finished drying. That may have been what she called it, but Vee had realized firsthand that what she was really describing was merely the combo of "a child's curiosity" and "decent observational skills."
From what little Vee had seen, the kid was clearly going places in this town.
In any event, while the Cabin 7 Crew had verbally accepted her explanation, the mood was still somewhat tense compared to the previous days. It was comparable to how the mood would often get in the cabin on a day after one of Vee's old night terrors: everyone coiled up on a spring wondering whether Vee was really alright and perhaps even pondering the mounting incongruities of all the little lies she had told for her own protection. Even though she knew they were concerned for her because they cared about her, it still wasn't an especially pleasant feeling, especially now that Vee had started to reconsider the merits of telling them the truth sooner rather than later.
Even by dinnertime, she still didn't have an answer...but she at least did another good thing.
"Hey, would you guys be interested in coming over to my place this weekend?" Vee asked, trying to come off as nonchalant but ultimately failing, judging by how the others looked at her.
"Isn't there construction happening next door?" Alex asked, causing Vee to blink. Right, she had mentioned that to her friends at some point, hadn't she? If only to feel less bad about keeping them in the dark on so many other things: the construction had been as good an explanation for why they couldn't come over as any. And now here she was, contradicting that logic. Excellent.
"Well, yeah, but the Corduroys should be mostly done for the day by the time dinner rolls around: I'm sure it'll be fine!" Vee pivoted, glancing towards the Palmers. "Besides, we don't have a lot of summer left. Seems like as good a time as any for a good old-fashioned summer cookout, right? Good chance for people to, y'know, mingle?" she suggested, hoping that the Palmers would back her up on this one. Luckily, they both broke out into grins after a moment of deliberation.
"Well, it would be a nice change of pace, and I definitely won't say no to more of Camila's cooking," Teresa remarked enthusiastically before humming in appreciation, as though she were already imagining herself partaking in just that instead of the jambalaya placed before her.
"Plus, I recall somebody mentioning a certain common interest of ours which I would be happy to discuss with her at some point, assuming she is agreeable to that prospect," Mr. Palmer - Benjamin, he insisted by the third dinner they had shared together - added on, shooting a coy glance Juniper's way. Without missing a beat, Juniper immediately turned towards Vee with her usual stoic expression, albeit with the slightest hints of sheepishness on her face.
"My sincerest apologies, Luz. Your mother is very cool," she said simply by way of explanation, with her deadpan delivery causing the entire table to erupt into varying degrees of laughter. She simply smiled in her usual demure fashion at the positive reaction to her odd humor.
"So, yeah, count us in if you like, we're good anytime after six this weekend," Teresa said after a moment, leaving the floor open for the rest of the table.
"Yeah, my folks should be down, provided I give them enough time to make something," Sam said rather casually, prompting Teresa to snap her fingers in recollection.
"Oh, that reminds me: Ben, we need to stock up," Teresa said matter-of-factly, to which Benjamin nodded before going into the best exaggerated bow he could muster at the dinner table.
"By thy will, it shall be done, Your Grace," he replied in his "Shakespearian" voice, causing Teresa to scoff playfully as she brushed him off.
"Baby, please, not in front of the kids," she said jokingly, only for him to raise an eyebrow and look at her with a wry smirk of his own.
"I believe we are among friends in this particular instance, darling," Benjamin shot back smoothly, to which the rest of the kids chuckled to varying degrees: they were all Nerds here. Teresa herself couldn't even manage to keep her composure for long, her mirth turning into an airy chuckle and a loving sigh that was unfairly heartwarming from Vee's perspective. Alex likewise couldn't help but dwell on the display of domestic bliss for just a second too long before coughing awkwardly.
"I, uh, my parents should be able to make it. Sorta the same thing, we just gotta coordinate, and doing it within a few days from now is bound to be tricky, but they've really been wanting to meet the rest of you guys!" Alex said, glancing over at Juniper, Masha, and Vee with warmth in their eyes, to which Masha replied in kind.
"Yeah, the 'rents have actually been sorta heckling me about that lately, given how often I've been staying over here for dinner," Masha remarked. "Should be able to find time. Y'all thinking Sunday?" they asked, prompting a chorus of general agreement while Vee nodded along. Sunday! She could do Sunday, and if she was lucky, so could everyone else! All they had to do was tidy up a bit over the weekend and see to it that Luz, Ms. Pines, and the rest of the kids were...indisposed, for the day. And for better or worse, Vee had an idea on how to take care of that, even if it did mean expediting their plan a bit more than Vee was entirely comfortable with. Still, after so many close calls in such a short time...she thought it best now to get that part over with as quickly as possible.
Maybe then she could work up the courage to finally tell them everything.
Interlude #2[Summary: Although the Hexsquad has been given time to recover from the Day of Unity, some of the kids find it easier to move on than others. Meanwhile, Philip struggles with long-buried memories which he would rather have left behind.]
Checking in on the kids had proven even trickier than Camila had expected.
Although Mabel was determined to help out in every way she could, Camila couldn't ask anything more of her, especially on the financial side of things. The young woman already had her own expenses to worry about on top of helping Camila budget and juggling her remote work, not to mention overseeing the construction on the old house, watching the kids while Camila was gone, and eventually going back to slowly collect Titan's Blood from the coastline when she could afford to make the drive without leaving the kids alone. With Vee continuing to take Luz's place at school and getting some much-needed face-time with her friends, there really wasn't anyone else available to help Camila out. I mean, sure, the kids were sweet enough to take care of all the household chores, and she may have connected the dots and remembered that, oh yeah, Mabel was on a first-name basis with Pacifica Northwest, but that nice young lady had already bought a house on their behalf! Maybe if Camila got desperate enough, she'd ask if there was any more money Pacifica could spare, but not yet. She had to at least try and handle this on her own first.
For now, she would simply focus on taking every coupon she could find and cutting out any unnecessary expenses. No more gym, no more masking her gray hairs, no more straightening her curls to make herself look more conventionally pretty: if she was going to keep six kids fed and happy, then she couldn't afford such frivolous things. So far, she was doing a decent job of keeping them fed, at least. They might not have been strictly human, but they took to human food more easily than Luz had taken to Boiling Isles food, and Camila thanked God for that. The only thing she had to do was ensure that there was a reasonable quantity and variety of foods available to satisfy the specific dietary requirements of at least three different species. Easy as pie!
Keeping them happy, however, proved to be far more complicated.
It was evident enough that each of the kids could take care of themselves just fine in a strictly physical sense, and they were pretty close-knit in an emotional sense, but that didn't mean they would always be willing to go to each other with their problems. Her poor Luz was a perfect example of that, and she thankfully seemed to be doing better, but the sadness behind her eyes was still there, even if it was more subdued as of late. If nothing else, Camila could at least tell that Luz was getting better about leaning on the people who loved her, just as Vee had to learn not too long ago. She would always worry about her daughters, and she would always be there when they needed her, but the fact remained that both of her girls were growing up. She had no idea what the future held...but they had each other, and they had their friends, and so Camila knew...they would be alright.
Amity and Hunter were trickier for her to get a handle on, but Camila was happy to note that they trusted her more with each passing day. Amity in particular was starting to catch up to the others in calling her "Camila" instead of "Mrs. Noceda," and she was getting a lot more comfortable with terms of endearment. Once Camila had made it clear that she didn't need to perform the role of "my daughter's girlfriend" to her satisfaction, whatever wall there had been between them was most definitely cracked, even if it wasn't outright knocked down. Amity had a lot she needed to unpack regarding her relationship with mothers as a unit, and while it broke her heart to see the poor girl lapse into old habits on occasion, Camila wasn't about to walk on eggshells around her either. The best thing she could do for her was talk and bond with her as much as she could.
And if that involved getting to gush over Luz's baby photos, well, that was just a bonus.
As for Hunter, well, he still wouldn't call her "Camila," but he was at least taking his first hesitant steps in recovering from his Golden Guard conditioning. He hadn't bowed or kneeled or saluted her once since the New Haven trip, and she was especially pleased to see him decline her request for someone to please take out the garbage cans the other night. Of course, getting a moment alone with him to check in on how he was doing, that was another matter entirely. As it turned out, part of his Golden Guard conditioning was the ability to hear her coming a mile away and make himself too busy to talk by any means necessary, usually by making himself a part of whatever activity his friends were doing at the moment. Camila wasn't about to hold that against him: day by day, he was making progress, and she knew that Luz and Vee and the others would be there for him when she couldn't quite be a comforting presence for him yet. It was just...hard, sometimes. It was hard for her to see this bright, kind boy with so much love to give struggling so hard to learn how to be a teenager instead of a tool, held firmly and tightly in the hands of another.
The only photo she didn't show Amity was the one they took beneath the Wittebane statues.
If Luis were here, he would've burned it too.
She started writing to City Hall the day after Hunter and Luz and Vee told her everything, demanding that they tear those damn things down.
They had yet to get back to her, the bastards.
Trying not to let that consume her, she instead focused her efforts on trying to talk to Willow most of all, knowing that she sorely needed it. Unfortunately, she and Hunter seemed to have come to an unspoken agreement that they would always be busy doing something together whenever Camila tried to check in and talk to either of them. From what Mabel had told her, this extended to her too: when Willow wasn't doing something with her friends, she was out in the backyard with Hunter, spending hours toiling away in the sun to grow food that everybody could eat without cutting into Camila's finances...while also giving herself a convenient excuse to avoid both of her caregivers. A part of Camila was happy to see that Willow was able to keep doing what she loved, and happy that she and Hunter were getting more comfortable spending time together without anyone else to serve as a buffer between them. They were good for each other.
At the same time, though, it was a little frustrating to keep getting shut out like this.
She wasn't as upset about Hunter avoiding her because, if nothing else, she could at least take comfort in the knowledge that he was letting somebody in: if not her, then Luz or Vee or one of the other kids, people he could fully trust. With Willow, however, Camila knew for a fact that she wasn't reaching out to anybody about how she was feeling, not so long as she could convince herself that anything else was more important than her own needs. She evidently placed a lot of stock in being capable and confident at all times, to the point where Camila honestly wasn't even sure if Willow was fully conscious of just how much she was holding back for others' sake. That level of repression, combined with magic so strongly connected to her emotional state, could really hurt her if she kept it all in for long enough. All the more reason for Camila to find some way to corner her in the few hours she got to spend at home in between work and sleep.
It may have been a fool's errand, but it did end up helping with another persistent problem.
From what Mabel told her, Gus was a bit of an odd man out among the kids. They hung out as a group more often than not, and when they didn't, he easily fit himself into whatever Luz and Amity or Willow and Hunter were doing all by their lonesome. However, he didn't spend much one-on-one time with any of his friends, not counting the fact that he was sharing the basement with Hunter every night. It wasn't like he was being excluded by the kids, so much as the idea of them hanging out with just him just...didn't come up much anymore. It made sense, Camila supposed: the kids were in very tight quarters right now, it wasn't easy to find ways to hang out alone.
Only problem was, the others were managing it just fine. Maybe even a bit too well, honestly.
Camila had the worrying suspicion that it wasn't just the blossoming relationships among the kids that was leading to Gus getting sidelined. That it actually had something to do with what Gus had witnessed before they came here. That the kids' complete inability or unwillingness to address it made it harder for them to spend time with him, because they just didn't know how to comfort him and were terrified of hurting their friend unintentionally. Gus might have seemed like he was doing okay, but Camila hadn't missed the way Hunter and Willow would stick to him just a bit more closely sometimes, which likewise made it tricky to get a moment to talk with him alone. Of course, combine that with their tendency to avoid her to begin with, and, well...you wind up with Gus alone.
But he wasn't going to be alone tonight, not if Camila could help it.
"Agh, Willow, why are you-? ...Oh," Gus muttered as Willow abruptly moved outside to check on the plants before turning in, or so she claimed. He sighed tiredly as he deduced the cause of her sudden departure: Camila, and the hesitant smile and wave she offered him from the kitchen. Willow had already shut the sliding glass door behind her with nary a sound.
"Hi, cariño," Camila began warmly, and thankfully, Gus didn't bolt like a part of her had feared, instead slumping down onto the couch with his hands folded. He knew what this was.
"Hey, Camila," he said, trying to keep up a smile even though his voice suddenly sounded tired in an unnervingly familiar way. Camila continued smiling gently as she took a seat next to him.
"Whatcha doing?" she asked, attempting to sound casual, but ultimately just sounding a little bit goofy, just like parents often did in their earnest attempts to be cool. Gus chuckled weakly.
"I finally convinced her to give Cosmic Frontier a shot...by pointing out that Hunter really liked talking about it," Gus said, like he was sharing a harmless, yet nonetheless juicy secret.
"Ohhh, yes. A tried and true technique. I should know," Camila agreed with a smirk of her own, making it clear that she spoke from experience. The two laughed a bit before Gus fell silent.
"We were just about to head down to the basement when you walked in," he said, catching Camila off guard. He didn't sound mad at her, thankfully, just upset about the situation. "It's been a long time since I haven't known what's going on in Willow's head. I don't know why exactly she's avoiding you, but I wish you two could talk things out, because this awkward tiptoeing is not it."
"You can say that again," Camila said in agreement before chuckling bitterly. "I think I can guess: she felt like I was doubting her abilities last Sunday, and as far as she was concerned, she's had just about enough of that to last a lifetime. Am I right?" From Gus' murmur in response, she figured she had indeed been correct on that front, but the way he rubbed his hands showed there was more to the story than what she had been able to gather on her own.
"That's part of it, but...agh, I dunno," he said, looking off towards the other hallway. "It's not just being seen as 'weak,' it's being 'weak' that really drives her up a wall. She spent so long stuck doing magic she was terrible at and getting tormented by bullies for being 'weak' that she honestly started to believe them. I think...I think a part of her still believes them." He added this last bit with noticeable reluctance, suddenly conscious of just how much he was saying to this adult whom he still didn't know very well. Camila recognized this and offered him a small, reassuring smile.
"You don't have to tell me everything, you know," she said gently. "I just...I wish I could figure out some way to get through to her." She sighed, sinking a little further into the couch. "I see a lot of myself in her, I think. How I was when I was your age - heh, how I still am in a lot of ways. I've always had to keep myself in check for somebody: my teachers, my in-laws, some of my coworkers and clients, not to mention most of the school district here. And I know all about trying to be strong for the people you love, and how damaging that sort of mindset can be in excess. I tried to tell her that she didn't have to hold everything in for the rest of you kids, but I think it just made things worse between us." Gus mulled over the dilemma he had been struggling with earlier before responding. The way he saw it, somebody had to get through to Willow if he couldn't manage it, and everyone else didn't seem to be having much better luck than him.
Maybe Camila could succeed where he failed...albeit not without a little extra help.
"Yeah, that's the thing with Willow: telling her she can't do something just makes her do the thing she's not supposed to be doing even harder," Gus cautioned, causing Camila to laugh.
"Ay, I can relate to that as well: I've done a lot of things off the power of spite alone," Camila said, thinking back to some of the harder moments in her life with an odd sense of reminiscence, now that she was so far removed from them that she could laugh instead of cry. Gus chuckled as well, understanding the idea even if he didn't quite relate to it due to his lack of lived experience.
"Anywho, she's gained a lot of confidence lately, and it definitely shows, but I think it all feels...fragile, to her," Gus reasoned, based on what he had observed as her best friend. "Like it would only take one bad day, one failure, one slip up on her part to send it all crashing down around her. And the Day of Unity was a pretty bad day." He looked down at his feet with a somber expression on his face, no doubt caught up both in his own awful memories of that horrific event and knowing that it messed up someone close to him to an even worse extent, no matter how much she tried to pretend that everything was fine. Camila laid a comforting hand on his shoulder, relieved when he didn't immediately flinch away from the touch the way Amity or Hunter still did sometimes.
"You care about her a lot, don't you?" she asked. Gus responded with that same tired smile.
"For most of my life, all I had was my dad," he began, already sniffling a bit as he said it. "And then I met Willow, who bought me human things and helped me calm down from panic attacks and made sure I never got taken advantage of again. All without asking for anything in return." His smile grew a bit wider, a bit more genuine the more he talked about what Willow meant to her. "I'd say she's like the sister I never had, but...that still doesn't quite cover it, somehow. I mean, what exactly do you call someone who loves you so fiercely that it kinda saved your life?" Camila felt herself tearing up, to the point where she couldn't give him an articulate answer even if she had one. But that was alright. She knew exactly what Gus was describing.
She had someone like that, once. She missed him every day.
"Agh, um, the point is!" Gus deflected, no doubt because he needed to take a second to wipe the tears that had come to his eyes and swiftly regain his composure. "She helped me out of a pretty dark place when we first met, and ever since, I've done everything I can to pay that forward with the people I'm friends with, especially Willow. I've tried to talk to her about deep stuff every so often, tried to return the favor, and when that failed, I could usually count on making her laugh for a bit to take her mind off things. That's the strategy that seemed to work best with my friends, until..." He trailed off after that, but Camila had a good sense of what he was thinking.
"Until you were the one who needed comforting," she finished for him. He nodded.
"Yeah, I think trying to stick to the usual script and trying not to fixate on it just made things awkward between us...but I dunno what else to do," he said despondently, clearly at his wit's end. "The things I saw at the Head, the nightmares, those aren't really things I can talk about with Hunter, Luz, and Vee: the last thing I wanna do is drudge up bad memories when they're already walking on a tightrope as it is. I could talk to Amity, but she and I haven't quite found much common ground outside of shared friends and circumstances, so it'd be pretty weird to just bring up this stuff with her out of the blue. Ugh, and don't get me wrong, Willow's been super helpful, checking in every day and cheering me up, but, just-! Whenever I try to ask how she's doing, she just brushes me off, or she finds a way to turn it back on me again! It's like - girl, I've told you how I'm doing already, now it's your turn! That's how this works!" Seeing that he had descended into ranting for a second there, he did a quick four-second breath in and out before Camila spoke up.
"You could have talked to Ms. Pines, or to me," she assured him in that same gentle tone, making sure he knew that she didn't blame him for being reluctant to do so. "I know a lot of this is way over my head still, but...I think I know a thing or two about being stuck with memories you'd rather forget." The two looked at each other for a moment before Gus sighed, evidently conflicted.
"I know, and I appreciate the offer, but you've already got so much on your plate, and I didn't want to bring it up when you can't really do anything about it," Gus reasoned, which Camila could understand on some level, at least. "Seeing all of the messed up stuff Philip did definitely sucked, but like, there's no getting rid of it, not without giving us more trouble than it'd be worth. I just need to deal with it bit by bit, and I'm not mad at the others for not knowing how to handle it, but I-I don't want them to keep walking on eggshells around me just because I'm the youngest!" He admittedly didn't make the best case for himself with the pout he assumed upon finishing that sentence, but Camila wasn't about to point it out. Instead, she found herself coming up with a couple of ideas on how to resolve this situation, some perhaps more effective than others.
"Do you want me to have a talk with them?" she asked, giving Gus a moment to think about it. Judging by his facial expressions, he most certainly was, and it was remarkably adorable even now.
"Yeah. I think it'd help if they stopped dancing around it, and I'm not sure what I'd say that wouldn't just make things more awkward between us. I'd appreciate it," Gus concluded after giving it careful consideration. Camila smiled, glad that he was comfortable enough with her that he allowed her to act on his behalf in this situation. Now for the fun part of the plan!
"Well, on a vaguely related note: have you finished Cosmic Frontier, by any chance?" Camila asked, aiming for casual but unable to completely hide her anticipation. Gus was momentarily surprised at the subject change before grinning and nodding his head far more enthusiastically.
"I just read the last few chapters of it earlier today, it's so good! Oh, man, when everything came out and Avery admitted he knew the truth about O'Brien all along, I was like-!"
"Ah-da-da-da, let's keep it down, huh, sweetie?" Camila said, speaking in a slightly lower register, but loving the enthusiasm. "Your friends' ears can be pretty sensitive," she added, and Gus got the message readily enough.
"Ah, right, spoilers, heh heh," he said with a bit of his usual good humor, and Camila smiled.
"The reason I ask, and I dunno if I mentioned this before, but the thing is...they made a cartoon," she revealed with an eager smirk, causing Gus' eyes to widen to the size of dinner plates.
"Whoa, really?! Is it just a one-to-one adaptation, or-?" he asked, but the fact that Camila was already shaking her head made him even more excited. "Nooo, it's a continuation?!" he followed up, to which Camila nodded, unable to keep herself from grinning too.
"Yes, it is!" she confirmed. "Only ran for one season, but my God, what a season! Late 90s animation was something else, let me tell you!" she added, already moving to get up to the basement. Gus got up and began to follow her without a second thought, at least for a moment.
"Say, isn't curfew in a couple hours? How long does this show run for?" he asked, reasonably, to which Camila chuckled in response.
"Usually 45 minutes an episode, but we can just watch the pilot for now. And who knows? If you like it, maybe we could make it our own little tradition, just the two of us. Does that sound like a plan, mijo?" Camila found herself pausing at that, the term having slipped out without thinking like it usually did, until she noticed Gus get real quiet at the top of the stairs leading into the basement. "Um, Augustus?" she added as she turned around hesitantly, wondering whether she had once again overstepped in just how quickly she was growing attached to these children. However, once she had turned around, she was surprised to find that Gus was smiling wider than she had ever seen him smile, his eyes shining as though it were taking every bit of self control he had not to cry.
"Yeah. That sounds nice," he replied, sounding the happiest he had ever been in this house.
Maybe helping these kids be happy again wasn't as impossible as she had feared.
Little by little, Philip was feeling a bit more like himself.
With every bit of magic he consumed in whichever dark corner he could hide himself in, he could feel a bit more of his mind returning to him, even though he was still far more monster than man these days. He could remember enough words to speak, but not without difficulty. He could remember what he had been through, but only the broad strokes of a life, marked by fear and fury and framed faces torn up beyond recognition. He could remember that there was something he had been tasked with something which he had devoted his entire life to seeing finished, but all he knew about it for now was that he had failed, and that for his failure, he had been reduced to this.
He sensed it wasn't that simple, but it was hard to think in more complex terms right now.
Once it had become clear that the world above was safe from prying eyes for the moment, Philip elected to surface once again, melting down enough to slip through the cracks of the sewer grate before reforming in the comfort of the moonlit night. He had discovered rather quickly that what little was left of him was far more malleable than it had ever been before, and that this newfound malleability somehow translated to him being able to bend other creatures to his will from the inside. The ability had proven quite useful in hunting down those accursed rats and staying out of sight, and were he of sound mind, he might have questioned how he was even still alive in this state, let alone how he had developed such extraordinary powers. However, he was hardly in a state to question such things at the moment, especially since he hadn't exactly slept since he first became aware of his predicament, either. A part of him had to wonder whether he would ever sleep again.
Whether he would ever be human again.
He angrily shook his head and kept trudging along as fast as he could in his current sludgy state, too small and too weak to do much more than eat and hide as though he were a rat himself. Perhaps it would be a different story after he had recovered his strength, after he had assembled enough bone and magic to pull himself together in some fashion, at least. He could vaguely recall feeling stronger than this, once upon a time: he would even have dared to call himself invincible, and yet clearly, he was not. He knew he would likely not be as powerful as he had been before, but anything was an improvement over what he was now: scattered in both body and mind, barely able to hold himself together or even distinguish memory from reality. At first, his memories had eluded him, but now they were returning to him in waves and he was getting lost in them, drowning in them, unable to bring his head above water for more than an hour without seeing some reminder of-
"Caleb," he muttered, having caught sight of the statues.
They weren't the most accurate, all things considered. His features looked a bit too owlish, Caleb would have never worn something so formal without making a fuss about it, and both of them looked a good few years older than any human would have ever known them to be. The part of his twisted mind that could still accomplish rational thought suspected that these statues were not constructed until centuries had already passed, until the lives of the Wittebane brothers and all they had ever known had been lost to the annals of mytho-history, their details changed to suit a narrative which suited the Gravesfield of another time entirely. Why their likenesses would be honored by this present-day, bastardized mockery of the town he had lived for, Philip wouldn't know, and he quickly became too distracted to care. His gaze shifted to a familiar building on a familiar hill...and just like that, Philip once again found himself swept away by the currents of his own repressed memories.
Fire.
The house of God was burning.
It happened without warning at the end of the service, the moment everyone had left the building.
There was no discernible cause at first, but Caleb spotted the culprit before anyone else did.
It was almost like he had known she would be there, Philip had thought, hoping it was nothing.
"Witch!" he cried, and the town knew what to do at once.
While the layfolk and their families fought against the blaze, the Witch-Hunter General rallied his men.
"To arms!" he commanded, and Philip obeyed, taking up a pitchfork just a little too big for him.
"Deliver us from evil," Philip muttered dutifully before putting on his mask so the witch would fear him.
Though he trembled in fear despite himself, the boy's holy words dared not waver as he spoke them aloud.
The Lord would protect him. The Father and the General said that the Lord was with them, always.
He was the only parent who Philip had left.
Caleb strode beside him, torch in hand, smiling at his brother as they moved to hunt down another heathen.
Or at least...that's how it was supposed to be.
Philip instinctively clutched his head, trying and failing to get above the waters of this endless current, this inverted Lethe, suffocating him with memories he'd tried so hard to forget-
Caleb led him away from the others, he knew not why.
"Brother, the witch was heading that way, wasn't she?" he had asked, too young and trusting to know better.
"Yes, and no," Caleb had replied, frustratingly cryptic. But he was smiling at him, so it must have been fine.
"Come, Philip. We don't have much time," he said later, the smile replaced by a look of great determination.
"Brother, what are you saying?" Philip had asked, growing less trusting, but still too young.
Caleb paused. Took a deep breath. Centered himself. Hoped for the best, prepared for the worst.
What Caleb spoke next was utter madness.
He talked too quickly for Philip to follow, said all sorts of terrifying things about-about another life he had lived, another world he had been to as often as he could, and it-it made no sense!
"We're getting out of here," he had said, so earnestly that it threw Philip off even more.
"To where-?!" he had asked, no longer trusting, and no longer feeling quite as young.
That was when the light of the torch went out, plucked into thin air as if by...
"Magic," Caleb had muttered, utterly spellbound, and Philip had no idea why he was so damned happy.
Then he saw her. Saw the fire of the torch floating above her hand, and he knew she was a-
"Witch," Philip had muttered fearfully, the mask nearly slipping from his face.
Philip stumbled behind a tree, breathing heavily even though he was no longer breathing.
She was Caleb's age, from the look of her, and she might have even been beautiful if she was a person.
She looked human, but the details were wrong - ears too pointed, eyes too sharp, hair the color of fire-
"Evelyn!" Caleb cried, happier than Philip had ever heard him. "Thank God you're alright," he breathed.
"What?" Philip muttered in disbelief, either scared for Caleb or of him, he knew not which.
Caleb, his brother, had just used the Lord's name in vain.
He was the one who'd taught Philip all that was right and good, and yet he just broke the Commandments!
He had helped the others with every hunt, watched every one of those witches burn, and now he was-!
He was-he was-!
The mask was weighing him down.
Philip needed to see everything.
Philip could feel his form melting down drop by drop, but he didn't care. He needed to see. He needed to remember exactly why he had done this to himself, and he needed to make it RIGHT-
Caleb lowered his pitchfork. Approached the woman - "Evelyn," it seemed - without any hint of fear.
"Took you long enough," she said at last, speaking to Caleb as though they were old friends. Or perhaps-
"No," Philip had whispered, horrified. Caleb smiled at her like she held the sun in her hand and not hellfire.
Caleb hadn't heard a word Philip had said. He wasn't looking at him anymore.
"Apologies, darling: had to make it convincing," he said, and suddenly it all made sense. The long walks in the woods, the sadness in his eyes, the times Philip woke up in the night to find that his brother wasn't there-
This witch had seduced him. Beguiled him with magic, stole him under cover of darkness, and-!
And she had clearly planned this.
From Caleb, she learned their schedule: knew exactly when to strike so that no one would perish in the blaze-
The fire would leave the layfolk preoccupied, the hunters distracted: no one would even notice them leave-
He had to stop her.
He had to stop her, right now, before it was too late!
He had to save his brother before she dragged him off to Hell and-!
Suddenly, there was shouting in the distance.
The hunters had caught on to the witch's trickery.
"Whelp, that's our cue!" Evelyn cried, grabbing Caleb by the hand. He laughed, grabbing Philip's too.
"Right, then! Come along, Philip! We're going on an adventure!" he called out almost giddily, dragging him through the forest like the Devil himself was after them.
Like that wasn't exactly who they were rushing to meet.
At last they came to an archway on a hill, one Philip recognized - they had looped around to the cemetery.
The archway was glowing with all the colors of Creation - a portal to Heaven or Hell, if ever one existed.
All the while, Caleb laughed along with Evelyn like they were all playing pretend. Just like they used to.
Like they weren't leaving everything they had ever known behind.
Philip didn't want to leave anything behind, least of all his brother, but…
This was his home. Their home.
This was their home, their life, their people: this was all they had left, how could he throw it all away?!
How could he...?
Without thinking, Philip slipped his hand out of Caleb's grasp just as they reached the base of the hill.
Philip realized too late what had happened. Caleb hadn't been as lucky.
By the time he reached out to them, the witch disappeared into the portal and Caleb was...gone.
Caleb had left him behind.
Philip's "breaths," if you could call them that, had settled somewhat, shifting in tempo away from "panic" and closer towards "rage" as he reflected on all he had lost.
He told the others what had happened. He almost wished they hadn't believed him.
They told him Caleb was lost. That he was now damned to live eternally in Hell with that witch.
They spoke as though he were dead - arranged a memorial, carved him a headstone, laid his clothes to rest and deeply lamented the fact that his soul had descended bodily into Hell.
Philip refused all of it. Refused to believe that the brother who had cared for him was dead and gone so easily.
That witch had done something to him. She made him turn his back on Philip, and-!
And he was going to prove it.
He was going to save his brother, the colony - humanity itself! He knew it! It was his destiny!
After all...why else would God have done this to him, if this weren't all part of His plan?
Philip growled as his anger grew beyond his ability to control it. He dug his claws into a tree trunk in an attempt to steady himself. He needed to see these horrid visions through to the end.
He waited for the witch to return. Watched her sneak into their house a week later with a box in her hands.
As soon as she hid the box beneath the floorboards, he crept up, picked up Caleb's carving knife...and struck.
They struggled: his blade couldn't find its purchase, and she was stronger than him. She tore off his mask-!
She paused. Held up her hands, spoke to him softly, like he could still be a child after everything she'd done.
She said that the box was for him - claimed that it would guide him back to his brother.
She told him that Caleb had never meant to leave him behind.
Philip wouldn't be so easily misled.
He sprung upon her while her guard was down, slashed her in the side.
She fled. He pursued, following the trail of blood which she couldn't quite staunch completely.
(It had been red, more or less. Smelled a bit more of sulfur, but otherwise very human)
(Just another part of the illusion, he had thought)
He left the mask behind. Damned thing was broken beyond repair, useless to him anyway.
He followed her to the cemetery, jumped after her into the glowing water...and found himself in Hell.
Years, he remembered now. He had spent years looking for his brother, endured all manner of hardship, sacrificed his humanity for him, and what did he find?!
He saw them dancing in the woods. She stumbled, and they laughed, and it made him sick.
Caleb was under her spell, he must have been under her spell!
Except...except he knew his brother's smile. His real smile.
He knew when he was faking it: knew when he wasn't fully present, like...like he had always been in church.
He only smiled like that around the things he loved. Around the people he loved, truly loved.
He had smiled like that around his brother, once. Philip failed to notice whether or not he still did, now.
There was no spell, he realized. There was no compulsion, no trick of the Devil at work here.
Caleb loved this woman, so much so that he ran off to Hell and left! Him! ALONE-!
By the time the currents arrived at that moment, everything around him just...stopped.
He never quite remembered exactly what happened after that, even after all these years. He remembered that, once he knew that his brother had abandoned him, he had become utterly consumed by something violent and ugly, something that had festered in him from the moment he set foot upon the Isles and was forced to weather its perils. It was something which soon boiled over into a tempest of rage once he noticed the curve of Evelyn's stomach, the lack of a ring on any of their fingers, and finally realized just what they had done-!
The next moment, he instinctively recoiled into shadow...and everything was normal again.
Gripped by feelings he lacked the mental bandwidth to even remotely process, his immediate reaction was not to attack, but to escape before anyone saw him like this. He allowed his form to unravel entirely, slithering with unnatural alacrity for the nearest sewer grate. He allowed himself to drip between the bars and into the tunnels below. He slithered and stumbled and ran - did whatever he had to do to get away, far away, away from these memories and away from his failures and away from this wretched hive of sinners which had once been his home-!
He stopped, having just made it to an especially dank corner of the sewers. He didn't truly need to catch his breath, but he found his makeshift body heaving and panting anyway, more of a reflection of his mental state than any true exertion. He hadn't wanted to believe it at first, hadn't wanted to believe that his home could have changed more than he ever could have expected it to, but after remembering just how much he had lost, the realization hit him very suddenly:
He had nowhere else to go.
Luz had been right: times had changed. He'd thought that he had prepared himself for it, but nothing could have ever prepared him for the things he had seen. It frightened him almost as much as it infuriated him. After everything he'd sacrificed, after scarcely managing to survive for four hundred years, he was not only left without his brother, but he was left with a world no less ugly and terrible than the place that he'd worked so hard to escape from! And this time...this time there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to save what little may have been left of his brother's soul. Nothing he could do to save Luz and the rest of these poor debased youths from the weight of their own sin. Nothing he could do to return his home back to the way it had been, the way that God had always intended it to be. Nothing he could do but continue to eat and hide in the hopes of one day regaining his human form...assuming that such a thing was even possible. Until he knew for certain, until he succeeded in undoing what had been done to him, then he would live however long he had left...as a monster.
The thought nearly drove him to tears.
He couldn't remember the last time he had cried, not that his current state actually allowed him to do so. Had it been from pain, when he first took on his "Belos" persona, mutilating his own body in order to not draw suspicion by hiding his face at all times? Perhaps, but he had suffered worse pain without succumbing to such weakness. Had it been from sadness, when the first of the grimwalkers betrayed him, when history kept repeating itself again and again? That was definitely when the betrayal had stung the most, but he had to admit that, after so many failures over the years, the memories of each individual one all blended together into an indistinct mass of masks he regarded only with tired disappointment. Thinking about it now, Philip realized with a start that the last time he'd even considered crying...it was when he had looked down upon Caleb's lifeless body.
He had felt the tears pool in his eyes, and perhaps one or two had fallen, but...he no longer knew whether or not he had cried, even after he killed his own brother. He could barely remember anything between the moment Evelyn hit him with that damned spell and the moment he woke up miles away with no recollection of how he got there, half-mad from exhaustion and pain, and still breathing solely by the grace of God. He had been given centuries to process his brother's death, and yet he never found himself on the verge of tears at the recollection of those unfortunate events, even though he felt like he really should have been. He still felt the loss of Caleb, of that he was certain...but he didn't regret what he did. Caleb was...he was a trial. A test, put before him by the Lord, to see if he had the resolve to do what had to be done to save humanity, no matter the cost.
And he did. He most assuredly did.
And with God as his witness...he would not fail again.
Chapter Twenty-Two: It Is What It Is[Summary: With Mabel and the Hexsquad absent as they make the final preparations for their "reverse heists," Camila and Vee host a nice cookout at La Casa Noceda so that they can finally meet all of her friends' parents. Unfortunately, this festive occasion doesn't quite go according to plan, particularly with the last-minute inclusion of a less-than-perfect guest.]
Vee loved play rehearsal.
When the act of pretending to be someone else was largely disconnected from the complicated feelings she had about lying to the people around her, Vee found herself enjoying it quite a bit. She loved the dialogue she got to play around with, she loved the feel of the period costumes she got to shift between, and she absolutely loved getting to act alongside her friends. For as much as her confidence and cadence was steadily improving, her friends really did blow her away with how naturally a lot of them took to the stage. Juniper was perhaps the most obvious example, with her command of the prose she was tasked with laying out as both Frau Lawrence and Juliet's nurse making it exceptionally clear that she had effectively memorized the entire play already, but Clara's past experience with the role of Juliet was likewise very visible in her performance so far. Sam seemed like he was almost a different person entirely with how well he took to playing a guy like Benvolio, and Alex made for a surprisingly effective villain as the dastardly Tybalt, playing up the arrogance and the bravado so expertly that Vee readily understood how Romeo came to hate him. Still, when it came to arrogance and bravado that was sold masterfully, Vee knew she had to look no further than the dazzling character who was currently standing across from her, shooting her a wink before Mr. Fisch called on them to rehearse what was quickly becoming Vee's favorite scene:
Act I, Scene IV.
"What, shall this speech be spoke for our excuse? Or shall we on without apology?" Vee asked the group gathered around her: Sam standing to her right as the ever-faithful servant, Masha already prancing about ahead of them with a handful of the Drama students carrying torches. According to the scene, they were supposed to be on their way to the masquerade being held at the Capulet estate, and so they were each dressed for the occasion with the flashiest period costumes and masquerade masques which Mr. Fisch could procure. Masha in particular was downright radiant in the costume they had chosen for Mercutio, which was naturally the flashiest and most opulent of the bunch, and Vee had found it difficult to look away from them for long in previous rehearsals. Still, the fact remained that she had a job to do, same as everyone else here, and the last thing she wanted to do was to keep getting distracted.
"The date is out of such prolixity," Sam replied in the noble-sounding voice he had adopted for Benvolio. "We'll have no Cupid hoodwinked with a scarf, bearing a Tartar's painted bow of lath, scaring the ladies like a crowkeeper, nor no without-book prologue, faintly spoke after the prompter, for our entrance. But let them measure us by what they will. We'll measure them a measure and be gone," he reasoned, the character hoping to reassure the others as they delved into the heart of enemy territory. Vee held her hand out with a somewhat resigned expression on her face.
"Give me a torch. I am not for this ambling. Being but heavy, I will bear the light," she proclaimed in a tired voice, prompting Masha to glide on over to her in the blink of an eye.
"Nay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance!" they proclaimed as they came up behind her and brushed her shoulders with their hands, the flirtiness in their tone making it all the more difficult for Vee to fight the blush forming on her cheeks. She wasn't quite sure when Masha had decided to dial up the flirtiness of Mercutio's dialogue with Romeo as much as they could get away with, but Mr. Fisch either hadn't noticed or was tacitly encouraging their...unique interpretation of the two friends' dynamic, and Vee couldn't decide whether or not she wanted it to stop.
(She didn't, she absolutely did not want it to stop)
"Not I, believe me," she said instead, affecting a half-hearted chuckle to match Romeo's demeanor. "You have dancing shoes with nimble soles. I have a soul of lead, so stakes me to the ground I cannot move," she bemoaned. Masha simply pouted and clicked their tongue.
"You are a lover. Borrow Cupid's wings and soar with them above a common bound!" they teased, only to grow more disappointed at how Romeo continued to sulk.
"I am too sore enpiercèd with his shaft to soar with his light feathers, and so bound I cannot bound a pitch above dull woe. Under love's heavy burden do I sink," Vee reasoned, prompting Masha to give her another pat on the shoulders as a show of emotional support.
"And to sink in it should you burden love. Too great oppression for a tender thing," they reasoned in turn, Mercutio's insistence and Romeo's melancholy making for an amusing dichotomy between the two performers who might have otherwise found themselves in each other's role.
"Is love a tender thing? It is too rough, too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like thorn," Vee complained, causing Masha to laugh as one of the extras drifted towards them expectantly.
"If love be rough with you, be rough with love! Prick love for pricking, and you beat love down! Give me a case to put my visage in," they said last as an aside to the extra, a nameless servant of the Prince's kin who promptly handed them a small box in which to stow their masque. "A visor for a visor. What care I what curious eye doth cote deformities? Here are the beetle brows shall blush for me," they boasted, and Vee made it clear in her expression that Romeo believed him.
"Come, knock and enter, and no sooner in but every man betake him to his legs," Sam proclaimed, keeping the pace of the scene going as they were now within sight of the estate.
"A torch for me," Vee replied in that same dejected tone. "Let wantons light of heart tickle the senseless rushes with their heels, for I am proverbed with a grandsire phrase: I'll be a candle holder and look on. The game was ne'er so fair, and I am done." As she had somewhat come to expect, Masha was quick with Mercutio's teasing retort.
"Tut, dun's the mouse, the constable's own word. If thou art dun, we'll draw thee from the mire - or, save your reverence, love - wherein thou stickest up to the ears!" Masha proclaimed, leaping away from Vee and back towards the front of the troupe. "Come, we burn daylight, ho!" they added, prompting the extras to pick up the pace and, to an extent, enjoy the show that was to come.
"Nay, that's not so," Vee insisted glumly, causing Masha to chuckle airily.
"I mean, sir, in delay we waste our lights; in vain, light lights by day," Masha replied, stating the obvious and having a good time of it. "Take our good meaning, for our judgment sits five times in that ere once in our five wits," they continued. Vee adopted a reserved expression as Masha kept on skipping along, until at last Vee made Romeo's objections slightly more strenuous in order to push the scene forward to what could easily be described as its best part.
"And we mean well in going to this masque, But 'tis no wit to go," she claimed.
"Why, may one ask?" Masha asked in that same airy manner, as though Mercutio were daring Romeo to explain his boorish reluctance.
"I dreamt a dream tonight," Vee answered seriously, and Masha turned around on a dime.
"And so did I," they replied promptly.
"Well, what was yours?"
"That dreamers often lie," they said, their voice silky smooth as they spaced out each word with a little sway and a playful little finger waggle that culminated in booping Vee's nose. They had done it in each of the previous rehearsals, and yet each time it was almost guaranteed that at least one of the extras would have to smother a laugh at the sight of it, especially when paired with the indignant expression (and visible blush) which Vee always adopted in response to Masha's flirting.
"In bed asleep while they do dream things true," she argued, sounding very put out.
"O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you!" Masha retorted, unable to fully conceal their own anticipation for launching into Mercutio's most monumental monologue. It wasn't an easy thing to memorize, and they were certainly still getting the hang of it, but as far as Vee was concerned, when they got into the swing of things, watching their performance was like watching poetry in motion. She had never quite found it easy to sit completely still even while watching something she enjoyed, and yet Vee felt as though she could listen to them perform for hours without even noticing the passage of time around her.
She wondered whether that spoke more to Masha's performance or to Masha themself.
"She is the fairies' midwife, and she comes in shape no bigger than an agate stone on the forefinger of an alderman, drawn with a team of little atomi over men's noses as they lie asleep!" Masha continued, accentuating their dialogue by moving about the stage every which way they could get away with without much of a physical set to interact with. "Her wagon spokes made of long spinners' legs, the cover of the wings of grasshoppers, her traces of the smallest spider web, her collars of the moonshine's wat'ry beams, her whip of cricket's bone, the lash of film, her wagoner a small gray-coated gnat, not half so big as a round little worm pricked from the lazy finger of a maid! Her chariot is an empty hazelnut, made by the joiner squirrel or old grub, time out o' mind the fairies' coachmakers! And in this state, she gallops night by night through lovers' brains, and then...they dream of love." They suddenly paused, looking at Vee for just a moment as though Mercutio suddenly had reason to hesitate upon looking into Romeo's eyes. In an instant, the moment passed, and Masha was back to their shenanigans as though nothing had happened.
"Hrm," Vee faintly heard Mr. Fisch mutter to himself, evidently pondering this new choice from an actor who was already taking considerably more personal liberties with their role than he was used to working with in a simple high school production. She didn't have any reason to suspect that he was unhappy with the change, particularly given how he hadn't objected to the other changes they had made so far. As far as Vee could tell...he was simply curious. Maybe a bit pleased, even.
"On courtiers' knees, that dream on curtsies straight; o'er lawyers' fingers, who straight dream on fees; o'er ladies' lips, who straight on kisses dream, which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are!" they continued, miming appropriate hand motions for each group of people they described. "Sometime she gallops o'er a courtier's nose, and then dreams he of smelling out a suit. And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig's tail, tickling a parson's nose as he lies asleep; then he dreams of another benefice. Sometime she driveth o'er a soldier's neck, and then dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, of healths five fathom deep, and then anon drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes and, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two and sleeps again." This last one was accompanied by a particularly animated series of gestures, exaggerations which made it very easy for the extras to act as though they were amused at Mercutio's antics.
"Oh good heavens!" "God's sake!" Vee heard a few of them ad-lib as such, to break up the scene and liven up the dialogue a little bit as Masha brought the speech to its conclusion.
"This is that very Mab that plats the manes of horses in the night and bakes the elflocks in foul, sluttish hairs, which once untangled much misfortune bodes!" they cried, unable to completely hide their enjoyment of being able to use such language within the context of a school play. Mr. Fisch tried to look disapprovingly at them, but couldn't entirely hide his smirk at their enthusiasm. "This is the hag, when maids lie on their backs, that presses them and learns them first to bear, making them women of good carriage. This is she-!"
"Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace! Thou talk'st of nothing!" Vee interjected at last, adding in a bemused, yet dismissive laugh of her own to rile Mercutio up in turn. Masha paused briefly yet again, looking intently at Vee as if to assess whether Romeo had any inkling of what was really going on here. Seeing that he didn't, they allowed Mercutio's mood to become just a bit harsher as a means of increasing the distance between them, emotionally speaking, letting it bleed through their next lines.
"True. I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain, begot of nothing but vain fantasy, which is as thin of substance as the air and more inconstant than the wind, who woos even now the frozen bosom of the north and, being angered, puffs away from thence, turning his side to the dew-dropping south," they replied, their voice laced with the barest trace of contempt.
"This wind you talk of blows us from ourselves. Supper is done, and we shall come too late," Sam interjected, acting as though Benvolio could sense the tension between the two and saw fit to nip any potential quarrel between them in the bud before it could escalate further. This seemed to accomplish just that, turning Mercutio and Romeo's attention towards other matters.
"I fear too early, for my mind misgives some consequence yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin his fearful date with this night's revels, and expire the term of a despisèd life closed in my breast by some vile forfeit of...of untimely death," Vee said, affecting a pause in her own dialogue largely by instinct before seemingly dismissing her momentary hesitation as yet another flight of fancy, on both Romeo's part and her own. "But! He that hath the steerage of my course direct my sail! On, lusty gentlemen!" she proclaimed, ushering them onward.
"Strike, drum!" Sam ordered, bringing a satisfactory end to a satisfactory rehearsal.
"Aaand cut! Brilliant, simply brilliant, everyone! Awesome jobs all around, give yourselves a hand!" Mr. Fisch proclaimed happily, encouraging the rest of the performers who had been watching the scene to join him in clapping and congratulating their fellows on a scene well played. Vee smiled and readily accepted the compliments of her peers, compliments which left her momentarily unaware of a potential source of trouble brewing beneath the cover of good intentions.
"Heh, man, you've, uh, you've really been killing it with this scene!" Clara said, having approached her former friend with a genuine smile and no small amount of nervousness. Masha regarded her with an expression which wasn't quite hostile, per se, but it definitely wasn't friendly.
"Thanks," they said simply, curtly, as clear a sign as any for her to leave them alone, just like they had given her on the previous few occasions where Clara had tried to approach them with a compliment like that during their rehearsals together. They knew that Luz was confident that Clara meant everything she had said, and the last thing they wanted was to start drama that could impact the production. At the same time, though, what was good enough for Luz to let bygones be bygones wasn't necessarily good enough for them to do the same. Luz was sweet, but some things weren't quite so easy for Masha to let go, and fortunately, "Luz" understood that readily enough.
That didn't make seeing the subtle signs of heartbreak on Clara's face easier for Vee, though.
"Hey, Mr. Fisch, you got a second?" Vee asked instead, thinking it best that she not get herself too mixed up in that situation. Mr. Fisch looked up from where he was writing down some notes regarding the latest rehearsal of Act I, Scene IV and smiled.
"Sure, I can spare a second between scenes, what's up?" he asked, leaving Vee to lay out what she had been practicing in her own head all day.
"My mom and I were wondering if you and your wife would be interested in joining us for a cookout on Sunday," she said, thankfully managing not to stumble over any of her words. Judging by the way that his eyes widened, Vee could safely say that he hadn't been expecting that invitation.
"Oh! Well, um, I don't believe we have any plans for the weekend at the moment, and, ah..." he said haltingly, pausing for a moment before electing to be honest. "I think Amelia would like that very much," he finished earnestly, giving Vee a slightly more open smile which she easily returned.
"I think so too," she replied happily before bringing her hands together. "Okay! That makes seventeen guests, nineteen people in total, so while it's a little short notice, it'd be really nice if you could whip up something to bring for dinner!" At this, Mr. Fisch chuckled, his surprise evident.
"Seventeen guests - who all are coming to this little shindig anyway?" he asked bemusedly.
"Oh, just the crew and their parents, nothing too crazy," Vee replied breezily, even though a part of her had been worrying about this get together almost nonstop for the past twelve hours. Mr. Fisch chuckled to himself, well aware of who exactly "the crew" was at this point.
"Heh. Well, you may rest assured that the Fisches have never been known to disappoint in the realm of culinary offerings at such august festivities," he replied in turn, earning him a chuckle from Vee before he glanced over her shoulder and dared to make a suggestion. "You know, I can't say I'm entirely aware of what's been, ah, going on with the Hartfields after...recent dramatic events. But, if all parties invited are amenable to the prospect...we'd be happy to give Ms. Hartfield a ride."
At this, Vee paused, instinctively glancing over her shoulder to find Clara still awkwardly hanging out in a corner by herself after failing to begin even the most tentative steps of reconnecting with Masha. Vee didn't begrudge Masha or anyone else among the cast for their reluctance to talk with Clara more than they had to, on account of her past deeds...and yet, Vee couldn't help but feel a little bad for her. A quick glance over at Juniper told her that she wasn't the only one, and nobody said that she and her friends had to be all buddy-buddy with Clara right away, least of all Clara, but...surely it couldn't hurt to at least extend an invitation, right? Provided everyone was cool with it?
Vee certainly hoped so, because otherwise, the question she slipped into the group chat before the next scene began just might have doomed her weekend plans the long way around.
They had all said she could come, thank Titan, and in no time at all, the day was upon them.
The Palmers arrived first, and honestly, Vee was surprised it took only five minutes for the adults' conversation in the living room to turn to the subject of Cosmic Frontier. It wasn't a common interest between Benjamin and Teresa like it had been for Camila and Luis, but Ben's level of interest was exactly like her own, and to meet an adult like that again...Camila could still scarcely believe it.
They would have talked about it for hours if nobody else had come knocking on her door.
The Hubbards came first, and they seemed nice enough, if perhaps making for a bit of an odd couple. After all, when one saw these straight-laced, hard-working, God-fearing civil servants of Gravesfield - Matthew an especially active City Council representative, Meredith a highly committed nurse in an admittedly shoddy hospital - standing side by side with their Goth, radical witch of a child, one had to admit that questions would no doubt be asked in a place like Gravesfield, both of the child and of their parents. Still, the thing that stuck out most to Camila about them was that, while they may have stumbled around their child's new name and pronouns a bit more often than she would have personally liked...they did accept their child, in the end. They were still stumbling, a lot, but they were still determined to learn, and Camila hated few things more than the thought of parents who were unwilling to do even that much for the sake of their children. She had met far too many people like that in her life, and frankly? She had decided the night her husband had to pull her out of their predatory pyramid scheme that any "God" who told parents to abandon their children simply for who they were was not one that deserved her worship.
For better or worse, the Hubbards seemed to have come to the same conclusion as of late.
The Fullertons came next, and they were in a similar situation, albeit not quite the same. Michael was a lawyer, Elaine was the reference librarian, and yet together they had produced a child who pursued the joys of writing in lieu of any sort of career which would actually support them financially. This wasn't to say that the world didn't need writers, of course, and they would always support their Alex no matter what they chose to do, but-but writers didn't make a lot of money these days, did they? And sure, Elaine had thought about writing her own books when she was their age, certainly, but they had never been that good, and in any case, she didn't have anything interesting to say, not the way her Alex did. No, no, better to point kids towards the kinds of books which made it to print and...make sure that they waited a little longer to read Alex's future science fiction novels.
I mean, she loved her kid more than anything, but that space scene had sounded grisly.
All of this, Camila had at least figured out in broad strokes within 5 minutes of talking to her, and honestly? It was all a little upsetting to see such a similar parental impulse from the outside, now that experience had taught her that she had been so mistaken. She didn't think they were really trying to change Alex, far from it: they certainly supported them in every other sense, at least. Still, she was a mother to a very similar daughter with a very similar dream (at least on the mundane side of things), and so she noticed the way Alex shrunk in on themselves a little when they overheard that scene being talked about in hushed tones for the first time in months. She tried to shoot them a look which asked what they wanted her to do about it, but they just shook her head: not worth it, that gesture said. This was just something that happened sometimes, and they meant well, clearly.
That didn't mean it didn't hurt a little, though.
The Erlingtons, George and Marianne, came immediately after, and they didn't talk as much about what they did or how they felt about Sam's choices. Clearly, Sam had gotten a lot of his unique qualities from them. They didn't seem interested in making waves, and were actually having a rather nice conversation with Teresa and Benjamin about where they had once lived in New Orleans before moving up to Gravesfield...for a number of reasons. Sam, for his part, silently excused himself from that conversation and joined Vee in sidling up to Alex and Masha, coaxing them both down to the basement with Camila's silent permission to get the kids some space. Juniper followed suit once she had noticed the others left and precisely where they had gone, at which point she more audibly asked for permission to briefly depart, which was swiftly granted by her parents as always. With the kids all out of the living room for the moment, the adults could now talk about them openly with each other in the way that only fellow parents could. It was a rather nostalgic experience for Camila, one which she had been anticipating almost as much as she had been dreading it.
After all, she had spent a long time being the one who the other parents whispered about.
"I know I kinda sorta know everybody here already, but: Teresa Palmer. Pleasure to meet you outside of work," Teresa said, reaching out to shake Elaine's hand while Benjamin stood next to her.
"Benjamin Palmer. A pleasure," he said a bit more formally, like he found the whole song and dance of a firm handshake to be vaguely performative, but learned to live with it like he did many things. After all, if nothing else, he was an excellent performer. He'd managed to convince everybody that he was "normal" until Juniper came along and taught him to be "happy" instead.
Looking at him, Camila suddenly felt grateful that her daughters had taught her that too.
"Mm, yes, of course, Alex has told us a lot about your daughter, and about the rest of your kids," Elaine said on Matthew's behalf, first to the Palmers and then to the other parents.
"All good things, I hope?" Teresa asked jokingly, to which Elaine laughed.
"Oh, very much so, yes," she replied dryly. "Honestly, if I didn't know better, I'd almost think they were dating already," she added, clearly intending for her reply to be joking in kind.
Nobody laughed all that much, least of all the Palmers.
"What do you mean by that?" Teresa asked, the picture of innocence in a way Camila was honestly a little jealous of. She had never figured out how to be that subtle when confronting people. Of course, such a skill didn't quite hide the way that the energy in the room had shifted with that comment and Teresa's response, leaving Elaine caught between a rock and a hard place.
"I, um...I'm not sure I follow," Elaine said, desperate to dig herself out of this hole she'd fallen face-first into. Benjamin had a lot of things he wanted to say, but he'd learned to wait in times like this. Teresa was much better at dealing with these little moments without escalating the situation. Camila could tell: she'd had to rely on Luis in situations like this too.
"You said 'if you didn't know better,' which implies that you know something which would lead you to dismiss that as a possibility," Teresa explained, her Juniper-like logic underpinned by all of the fierce maternal instincts which Camila was sure were burning underneath her skin.
"Well, we are, y'know, colleagues, in a sense," Elaine began, trying her best to explain herself. "We don't talk much, but we do associate in a professional capacity, and she always struck me as being, well, not...especially interested in, y'know, that sort of thing." Her explanation sounded feeble the moment she said it, and she hadn't meant it to sound as bad as it did, but that didn't change the way that both Teresa and Benjamin's expressions hardened along with Camila's.
They weren't gonna write her off, far from it, but they did like her a little bit less, now.
"Perhaps you do not know our daughter as well as you think you do," Benjamin said simply, firmly, a more effective dismissal of the nascent argument than anything Teresa could have devised. They made for a pretty good team in situations like this one, all things considered.
Pity they still had to do it up here, though. They had expected better of this town, once.
"So! Why don't we, ah, set up everything out back while the kids are downstairs, huh?" Camila suggested, coming to the Palmers' rescue and giving Elaine a lifeline at the same time, while more subtly placing a hand on Teresa's shoulder in a silent gesture of solidarity. Teresa smiled, and the plan might have succeeded in diffusing the situation...had the last guests not come knocking.
Ever the dutiful host, Camila excused herself to answer it, knowing exactly who was there.
"Camila. A pleasure, as always," Marcus Fisch began warmly, his wife beaming beside him.
"Marcus, Amelia. It's good to have you over again," she replied, finding that she meant it even as a part of her felt oddly adrift at the idea. After all, what could you say to people you've barely spoken to in almost a decade, and not for lack of trying on their part? Seeking a momentary respite from that dilemma, her eyes fell upon Clara, who looked as though she were having second thoughts herself. "And Clara! Glad you could join us, dear," she said, which at least succeeded in drawing Clara out from where she was hiding behind Marcus now that she was being formally addressed.
"Right! Um, thank you for having me, Mrs. Noceda," she said nervously, having no doubt worried about how the other kids and Camila especially would react to her presence. Camila smiled, trying not to let her lingering reservations show on her face. Vee had told her that Clara really was changing for the better, and everything that she was seeing now confirmed that this was true. It might take time for Camila to truly move past what Clara had said and done to her little Luz, but she could at least join Vee and the others in extending a hand to a girl who clearly needed it right now.
"Of course," she said simply, taking Clara aback. "The kids are down in the basement - we were going to go set the table, call you back up to eat in about fifteen minutes or so?" she added, looking over to the other parents for approval. As they each nodded along in agreement with that course of action (some more hurriedly than others), Camila caught the way which Clara gulped nervously at the invitation, especially with how the Hubbards narrowed their eyes ever-so-slightly. Still, with silent encouragement from Camila, the Fisches, and even Teresa, Clara eventually gave the older woman a nervous smile as she brushed past them all with half-muttered apologies, only to pause at the stairwell before taking a deep breath and heading downstairs.
Meanwhile, the parents were left to continue talking among themselves as they went about setting the table, each of them unsure what to make of this new Clara Hartfield. It was hard to reconcile the shy, awkward girl that had shown up at the door with the girl who had, largely by inaction, enabled so much of their kids' torment during the previous years.
Some of them were likewise more willing to forgive her than others.
"So are we just...okay with this?" Meredith asked as soon as they were more or less finished, leaving Camila in the rare position of playing devil's advocate, as it were.
"I'll admit that it's an adjustment, but I trust Luz. If she and the kids are willing to give Clara a second chance after everything that happened between them, then the least we can do is support them, right?" Camila asked, to which Teresa nodded along with a bit more reluctance.
"Yeah, it surprised me, I'll admit, but she's given up a lot for the sake of making things right," Teresa added, speaking with the authority of someone who hears everything that goes on in town sooner or later. "Besides, it wasn't like she came over here expecting everyone to forget about what happened, either. You all saw her, poor kid could barely make it through the door!" she pointed out, to which Marcus nodded solemnly, having seen the girl struggle firsthand.
"I had my suspicions, but from what I could get from her on the way here, it sounds like most of the cast barely talks to her, especially Masha," Marcus explained, leaving the parents even more conflicted while Masha's parents narrowed their eyes, unsure where he was going with this. "Look, I don't begrudge anyone for their misgivings about her, but she's been nothing but polite and respectful during the production, and, I mean...we all know about her folks," he said, leaving the room deathly silent as each parent reflected on the horrible truth of his words. Not wanting to bring down the mood too much, he swiftly got to the point of why he had brought it up in the first place. "I'm just saying, I think she could at least use a breather for tonight, don't you think?" he asked, causing some of the parents' expressions to soften while Meredith sighed, acknowledging the point.
"Agh, you might be right, it's just...look, no offense, but none of you knew her the way we did," Meredith argued as she set down the meal she and her husband had brought. "That girl had been friends with our baby since kindergarten: they were inseparable! And sure, her parents were - I mean, okay, we don't have time to unpack all that - but we honestly thought she was a good kid! And yet, where was Clara when her best friend was being bullied every day by people they had thought were their friends? Standing right there with the worst offenders and hardly saying a word in their defense, only to flip the script over the summer and tell off her friends with no explanation. And so, now what? We're just supposed to let her into our homes again, let her back into our dau-our child's life, like she wasn't right there on the worst day of it? Like she wasn't complicit?" she asked, and the bitterness in her voice was especially pronounced. Camila had to admit, even if she and the other parents didn't quite agree with them in this particular case, they all had somebody who had hurt their babies, and Camila really didn't have much room to judge. It wasn't remotely the same, of course, but she still couldn't even think about Philip without a part of her angrily, foolishly, wanting to kill a man who was already dead. It was for that reason, along with much older pains, that she didn't entirely blame them for not being willing to give Clara a chance after everything she had done
She could only hope that all of these complicated feelings would be sorted out before dinner.
Things did not get sorted out before dinner.
It was always hard to pinpoint when exactly things went wrong in situations like this. Often, all it took was a single shift in tone, a single twitch of a speaker's face, a single poorly phrased remark to start a chain reaction which rippled throughout everyone present and spawned more unpleasant reactions. From there, the cycle would continue to get worse with each revolution until eventually, somebody ended up saying or doing something which couldn't be taken back, and somebody else wound up leaving the party in a huff or in tears depending on just what had happened.
In this case, the unfortunate truth everyone could agree on is that it all started with Clara.
"Um, h-hey, everyone," Clara began, her nerves only slightly improved from when she first arrived. This hesitant introduction on Clara's part was, for better or worse, well-warranted, as what had previously been a somewhat lively conversation about Cosmic Frontier fell into almost total silence once Clara made her presence known. The Cabin 7 Crew glanced at each other in a silent discussion before Masha spoke up first, surprising Vee.
"Hey," they said, more neutral and much less cold, but not exactly friendly. Still, at this point, Clara would take what she could get. She offered a somewhat tentative smile as Vee walked over.
"Clara, hi! Glad you could make it!" Vee said earnestly. "Despite the frosty reception" went unsaid, communicated solely by a quick glance on Vee's part to make sure Clara was doing okay, only to be somewhat disappointed by the evident answer of "No, but thanks anyway." Unsure of how exactly to fit Clara into a conversation which had been put on pause by her mere presence, Vee was left waiting awkwardly for one of the others to pick up the conversational slack, only for Clara to attempt to take initiative on her own terms.
"So, uh, whatcha guys doing down here?" she asked, giving Vee a chance to assess the moods of everyone present. Sure, they had all agreed to Vee inviting Clara the other day, but that didn't mean things would be all hunky-dory the day of, and Vee hadn't expected that for a moment. From her quick scan of the others' expressions, she could at least determine that Masha didn't have any better ideas about starting a conversation with Clara in the room, and Juniper likewise was a little bit hesitant to just dive back into her Cosmic Frontier infodumping like there wasn't a whole bunch of Tension that hadn't been there before. With Alex therefore occupied keeping tabs on both Juniper and Masha to make sure they were alright, it was Sam's typical unflappability which made him best suited to help Vee slowly bring Clara into the group, one awkward conversation at a time.
"Oh, y'know, just talking about this one book series, Cosmic Frontier? It's pretty old, no shade if you haven't heard of it," Sam began, sounding no different than if he were just talking with the crew normally. Vee smiled at him, and smiled just a bit wider upon noticing Clara's apparent interest. Good, this was good, they were actually talking to each other now!
"Ah. I'm, uh, familiar," she said, albeit with a hint of reluctance which got Alex's attention.
"Not a fan, huh?" they asked, wanting to do their part to keep the conversation going. Clara winced, having not wanted to give the impression that she wasn't interested, yet also finding that idea to be preferable to the truth she had been hesitant to admit. Still, if she was going to try being a part of this group (assuming they weren't just humoring her this one time for Luz's sake), then it stood to reason that opening up about the things she had kept close to the chest was probably a good start. It still felt strange for her to do even now, even after she'd already spent most of the summer taking advantage of her friends' absence and her parents' obliviousness to slowly but surely unravel every layer of the false personas she had adopted to fit in and meet her parents' expectations at the same time. By the time she was done, there was hardly anything left, certainly nothing remotely close to the "Alpha Bitch" her Cheer team worshiped or the "Good Christian Girl" her parents wanted, and she still hadn't quite figured out who she actually was yet...other than a profound disappointment.
Perhaps Luz and company would be willing to help her come up with a better answer.
"Ehh, more like I wasn't really, ah...allowed to be a fan?" she admitted with noticeable reluctance, still a little unsure about how to phrase it and only growing more unsure once the others began to actually show genuine concern for her, causing her to elaborate in a somewhat-frantic overcorrection. "I-I dunno, my parents really had a bone to pick with that series for some reason. I never would have even heard of it if they hadn't tried to get it banned from the library, which, ah, they said it was 'unsuitable for children,' but...I kinda have to wonder if they didn't like it because-"
"Everyone's gay and there's a Black guy on the cover?" Masha cut in with the same degree of harsh bluntness that they had adopted earlier at play rehearsal, leaving Vee and the others nervous about the way this conversation was going. It seemed more directed at her parents than it was at Clara herself this time, which was definitely an improvement. Still, all Vee had really been able to glean about Clara's parents was that they were Not Good, to put it mildly.
That, and that Clara was deathly afraid of them...even when they weren't anywhere near her.
"I, um...yeah," Clara said in what was almost a whisper, speaking as though she were scared that they'd suddenly call her at any moment. Had they not been operating under the false pretense (corroborated by Mr. Fisch) that she had missed a rehearsal day and needed to make up for it, she knew with absolute certainty that she would not have been able to sneak over here the way she did, especially since she had been effectively grounded for a week now. As irrational as it was, a part of her nervousness probably sprung from the fear that her parents would somehow find out about this, that they would add disobeying them and hanging out with "freaks" to the growing list of rules that she had broken, along with "abandoning her friends" and quitting Cheer. It was by the grace of God that they hadn't found out about her sexuality, because once they did...Clara was scared. Scared of what her parents might do to her, scared of what she just realized they could do to her.
And horrified that everyone else still seemed to think that she was anything like them.
"Tch. Typical," Masha remarked, their words laced with neither outright compassion nor outright condemnation as they looked at the shifting of Clara's face with an expression which was difficult to place. The others found themselves glancing back and forth between the two of them, finding it hard to ascertain just what exactly they were supposed to do in this situation. Vee, for her part, was in a similar position, yet figured that it was better to at least try to diffuse the situation.
"Yeah, Cosmic Frontier is actually really progressive for a 90s book, although I'm still not sure how all of that was expected to have happened by 2008," Vee quipped shakily, which Juniper added onto immediately partly as support and partly for the sake of responding to a frequent criticism.
"The choice of year was an ironic one more than anything else - a commentary of how most science fiction struggles to imagine a better future within the lifetime of those who imagined it into existence," Juniper rattled off as though she had said it half a dozen times before, making it so that Alex felt comfortable enough to elaborate further.
"Really, it's less 'everyone is gay' and more 'nobody is explicitly straight,' which is sorta how most stories should work if you ask me," Alex began, before their brain went on a bit of a tangent. "Like, ooh, don't get me started on Kira from DS9: that may have been the most bisexual woman to ever exist, and yet she only got to be bi in an alternate universe because the writers knew she'd be too powerful otherwise! And of course you've got Dax, a woman from a species who willingly bonds with symbiotic parasites in order to live multiple lives in different bodies, which is basically just a giant trans allegory if you really think about it, and-"
"Suffice it to say, it's mostly the captain who gets those kinds of people mad, because he's got a husband and kids back home. That's basically it," Sam interjected a bit dryly, obviously relating to that struggle himself. Clara nodded slowly in response to the sudden deluge of well-meaning lore drops she was being hit with, unable to ignore the way Masha continued looking at her silently.
"Heh, I, uh, I guess I'll have to check it out at some point, heh heh...heh," she said, hating how anxious she sounded and wondering just what she was doing wrong. She didn't want to act like she was owed anything from Luz and her friends, or from any of the other people who avoided her at school, especially knowing the person she had certainly thought she'd been last year. She had to admit, if she were looking at her life from an outsider's perspective, she too would be skeptical of just how much this "Alpha Bitch" had really changed over such a short time. Masha especially had every reason to tell her to piss off, every reason to have told Luz not to invite her in the first place, and so Clara had to wonder just how it was that she was standing here. Had Masha agreed simply because Luz and the others had clearly taken pity on her? Because they pitied her?
Because they wanted their best friend back too?
"Mija, dinner's ready!" everyone heard Camila call from the living room, as clear a signal as any that it was time for the kids to table whatever this was for the time being. As the others moved to head upstairs and partake of the meals their family had brought for them, it quickly became apparent that neither Clara nor Masha had made much of an effort to move. Rather than point it out, Vee simply gave Masha a Look and nodded in understanding before heading upstairs herself.
She knew those two were going to have to work things out themselves.
"I should go-"
"Don't," Masha said, before Clara could even think about carrying out her half-formed plan to politely excuse herself from the proceedings, maybe find a way to apologize for making everything worse by her mere presence at this party she clearly had no business being invited to. Hearing Masha shut it down immediately, though, made her pause, and left her rather confused, to say the least.
"What? But...nobody wants me here," Clara said, as though it were obvious. As though it were fact. "I mean, sure, Luz invited me because she's sweet like that, and you all must have gone along with it for her sake, but-but come on! Nobody knows what to do with me, I don't know what to do with me, and you've been staring daggers at me from the moment I got here-!"
"Because I can't let go!" Masha snapped, finishing Clara's sentence with such anger directed towards themself that it made her flinch anyway. "Because even when Luz and Juniper told me about everything you did on their behalf, even when I've been seeing the person you're trying so hard to be with my own eyes, even when you make it heartbreakingly obvious that you were messed up even worse than I was...I still can't let go." Masha sniffed, rubbed at their face in a way Clara hadn't seen in over a year at this point: as though tears were little more than an inconvenience for them, to be angrily swatted away so that nobody would know that they could even be hurt in an emotional way.
It seemed that some things didn't change, even after everything.
"Masha..." Clara said, saying their name for the first time. She'd been hesitant to use it until now, worried that using it so casually would be misread as an attempt to get into their good graces when she had no right to even attempt to be friends with them again after what she did. A part of her still thought that way now, but she had at least concluded that it would get their attention, which was the important thing. "I never expected you to forgive me," she said honestly, which certainly sounded right based on what they had been told, but she kept going anyway. "I-I can barely even wrap my head around why you even wanted me to be here in the first place, why any of your friends are even giving me the time of day after everything I did to you, to Luz, even to Juniper I think!" At that, she instinctively smacked herself in the head, angry at herself over her inability to remember. "God, I can't even keep track of all the people that I hurt, how messed up is that?! Why do any of you even want to hang out with me, I'm-!"
"Better," Masha said, as though they could scarcely believe it themself, but wanted to more than anything. "You are better than the person you used to be. You are. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you feel even worse than you already did, and I do want to be friends again, I just...I think I need more time. Time to get to know the real Clara Hartfield." They said the words with a small, hesitant smile and a sincerity behind them which shocked Clara out of her self-deprecating spiral enough that she actually started to believe it too...even if a part of her couldn't quite let go either.
"Heh. Well, if you figure out who exactly that person is, let me know: God knows I still haven't," she remarked dryly, causing both of them to chuckle in a similar manner as they reflected on the circumstances that had led them to this intense conversation in someone else's basement.
"I think I'm looking at her," they said simply, offering her another small smile which she was able to return with only some difficulty. "I'm still not entirely sure who she is, or how much of who she was before was real and how much was just what everyone expected of her...but I'm willing to find out, and I'm willing to help you find out. Together." With that, they hesitated for a moment longer than they would have liked before holding a hand out for Clara...which she herself hesitated to accept for two moments too long, still wondering whether she even deserved it. Still, she had to admit...it was easier to accept that she did tonight than it had been yesterday. Maybe that was just how this sort of thing worked. Each day, it would get a little easier to accept that she was still worth caring about, that she wasn't a monster, until eventually...she would actually start to believe it.
She would actually start to believe she was worth loving again.
"Yeah. I think I'd like that," Clara said shakily as she took Masha's hand in hers...and made a promise to never even think about letting them go.
Interlude #3[Summary: While Vee and Camila are busy managing their Sunday cookout, Luz and her friends prepare themselves for a dangerous mission in a rather unorthodox way. Meanwhile, Philip gets closer to regaining his human form, if not his humanity.]
Honestly, only Mabel Pines would think to go on a beach trip right before pulling off a heist.
It had been clear to everyone that if Vee was going to be hosting a get-together at the Noceda house, everyone but Camila and "Luz" was going to have to vacate for the day. It had also been reasonable enough to conclude that leaving on a weekend would give them a pretty good opportunity to put all of their plans into motion. She had been noticeably reluctant to make the request with that in mind, but they understood as soon as Vee had explained just what had prompted this sudden turn of events. Camila was cautiously optimistic about having an opportunity to meet the rest of the parents and perhaps have some semblance of a social life, and everyone else had been more than willing to accelerate their plans if it meant they could make that happen for both Vee and Camila. As far as where they would actually go before embarking on their late night escapades, though, they hadn't had many ideas...until Mabel suggested the beach.
As it turned out, she had become quite familiar with the area over the course of her investigations into the town's supernatural happenings, so she knew for a fact that there was a perfectly normal, typically abandoned stretch of coastline they could go to without risking too much attention or delaying their plans significantly. Everyone had been excited to some extent about the prospect of a nice, relaxing beach trip, especially one at a beach where the water wasn't boiling and the wildlife wouldn't happily swallow you whole if it got the chance. So it came to pass that, after picking up everything they would need for a trip to the beach, Mabel crammed them all into her comparatively small car and drove off with Waddles in tow. The pig was eager to get out as soon as they made landfall, and the kids couldn't blame him: even though it had only been a few days, they had all found themselves eager to go on another adventure, even if aspects of it made them nervous.
"You're sure that no one will see us?" Amity asked Mabel for multiple reasons, the biggest of which was fairly self-explanatory. However, Mabel could also tell from her expression and her posture that she was almost more worried about being caught wearing a pool floatie over her swim dress than she was about being caught as a witch. Mabel couldn't help but chuckle a bit.
"I'm reasonably sure of that, yeah," she answered honestly, which Amity could appreciate even if there was room for doubt in her reply. "This place isn't really frequented much, what with how close it is to an 'oil spill,' and beyond that, we're sorta moving out of beach weather, especially in a place like this." As she spoke, a cool ocean breeze wafted over both of them, illustrating her point and causing Amity to shiver instinctively while Mabel was protected by her sweater.
"I-I can see that," Amity replied with a bit of residual chatter before cocking her head in confusion. "Do they really tell themselves that that's an oil spill?" she asked, glancing to where she could just barely make out the deep blue waters of the coastal portal. Mabel sighed in exasperation.
"They tell themselves a lot of things," she remarked dryly. "They kinda have to in a place like this. The only other option is to accept that magic is real and that monsters really do go bump in the night. Most people would rather plug their ears and convince themselves of anything than accept just how little they really know about the world." Mabel fell silent for a moment as Amity spared a quick glance towards the ramshackle changing booth that had been set up near the footpath leading from the sandy parking lot. She stammered out an excuse to leave the conversation which went in one ear and out the other, leaving Mabel alone with a headache that was stubbornly resistant to modern medicine and all of the thoughts that seemed to make it more painful by the day.
She really needed to get that checked out soon.
"Hey, um, Miss Pines?" someone asked her eventually, causing her to open her eyes again.
It was Luz, now sporting a purple-bluish two-piece swimsuit and hovering near the young woman with a concerned look on her face, Ibuprofen in hand. Mabel smiled weakly as she took two and washed it down with her water bottle, for all the good it had done her so far.
"Yeah? What is it, kiddo?" she asked, trying to slip back into the usual happy-go-lucky mask that fit her face like a glove at this point. Unfortunately, Luz knew better than most how that sort of thing worked, so it wasn't particularly surprising that her expression only got more concerned.
"I just wanted to make sure you were okay. And maybe, um...look, can we talk for a bit?" she asked point-blank, leaving Mabel stunned for a moment before she read between the lines.
"Yeah. Yeah, of course," she said, glancing around to make sure the kids were still within their line of sight, but out of earshot. Fortunately, they seemed to be busy coordinating with each other over what "human beach day" activity they were going to do first. Waddles remained at her side, just as he always did unless she told him otherwise, but she figured he could stay.
She suspected they would both need some cuddling when this talk was over.
After wandering around until they found a large, flat rock to sit down on, Luz and Mabel sat together awkwardly for what felt like hours. They both knew, on some level, what this was about, but how the hell do you start a conversation like that? Neither of them really had much of an answer, but before Mabel could try leading into it as smoothly as she could, Luz beat her to the punch.
"Does it get any easier?" Luz asked softly, gently, hoping that Mabel would understand just what it was that she was asking, in all of its awful complexity. Fortunately, Mabel caught on quickly: with the breadth of kids she'd already looked after so far, Mabel unfortunately had some experience with answering more mundane variations of that question already, nevermind her own eerily similar childhood folly. She paused for a moment before making up her mind on what exactly to say. She might not be one to talk on this subject, but if she could do anything that would help these poor kids cope with their circumstances better than she had done when she was their age...then the pain of reopening those old wounds once again would be more than worth it. Hopefully.
"Eventually," Mabel settled on, wincing a bit already as she felt the headache starting to act up again. "Obviously the nights right after your world gets turned upside down are some of the hardest. It's just so darn fresh in your mind that you can't escape it. The nightmares are one thing, and that little jerk banging on the back of your head is even worse, but...things do get easier, bit by tiny bit," Mabel elaborated with a bittersweet look in her eye. "When someone gives you something nice, makes you laugh or cheers you up with some silly thing you always used to do...it helps. All those little labors of love, they remind you that things won't be terrible forever. They give you room to breathe and...and smell the roses again, little by little." She looked out at the crashing of the waves for a moment, taking a whiff of the salty smell of the sea and glancing towards the kids on the beach. "And I know this much, at least: with friends as cool as them...you'll be alright," she said with a sad smile, gesturing towards the game of Chicken the others were playing more or less like how Luz had explained it to them on the drive down. Amity was holding up Gus while Willow held up Hunter, each one eagerly attempting to knock the other down with an intensity which showcased just how competitive they all were. Although Mabel couldn't help but sweat a bit at the level of roughhousing, Luz smiled at the sight with an eerily familiar sort of tiredness in her eyes.
"Yeah. They really are the best, huh?" Luz asked, and something in the way she said those words set off alarms in Mabel's brain even before she suddenly started crying.
"Whoa, whoa, hon, what's wrong?" Mabel asked in turn, instinctively moving to cradle Luz in her arms as she tried to adapt to this sudden change in circumstances.
"I don't-I don't know!" Luz choked out faintly, clearly trying to get herself under control and failing miserably. "I don't know what's wrong with me: nobody hates me, nobody is mad about all the stupid stuff I did last weekend, and-and I have been feeling better, so why-?!" She cut herself off for a moment before biting the bullet. "Why won't that little jerk just leave me alone?" she asked in a pained voice, taking a strange sort of comfort in borrowing Mabel's phrasing. "That little jerk" didn't sound so bad. It made her think of Adegast, oddly enough, the big scary monster that fed her nothing but lies until she stabbed him in the cranium and he turned into a harmless little octopus thing. It made her think of Tibbles, that recurring thorn in her family's side that pretty much stopped being a problem after they ruined his life a couple times. It even made her think of Grometheus, the terrifying fear demon who got blown up by the power of love and turned into little blobs that couldn't do anything but give you the heebie-jeebies.
All of them had been scary to her once upon a time, but she had beaten them! She had beaten them all! And if she could do all that, then surely she could beat some little jerk in her head! I mean, all he could do was talk! Talk and...and make her think about doing things. Things she would never actually do, obviously, but...that didn't make them any less scary to think about. And really, calling this a "little jerk" like it was just another bad guy felt...insufficient. Childish, even.
If she was being really honest with herself, she would rather fight all of her worst enemies at once than listen to that thing in her head for one second longer.
"Oh, honey," Mabel muttered, hugging Luz a bit more fiercely and letting her sniffle into her sweater for a while, not caring about whether or not it might be ruined. As far as she was concerned, times like these were exactly what sweaters were made for, or at least the ones she made. Knowing better than anyone just how much Luz had on her shoulders, Mabel put herself back into teen Mabel's shoes for the first time in a while, if only to better understand what to say to this poor girl...and, perhaps, what she might say to her past self if she ever got the chance. "I'm not gonna lie to you: things do get easier with time, but that doesn't mean there won't be flare-ups. Moments where things almost get worse, because that little jerk knows you're getting better, bit by bit, and it hates that. Sometimes, you think you've moved on when you really haven't, and you don't realize it until something real bad happens. Sometimes, you think you can walk down the street alone or look someone in the eyes without giving them a once-over for safety's sake, only to find out way too late that you can't, you really can't. And sometimes...sometimes life comes along and slaps you upside the head without any warning. All of a sudden, you're back to that first week where everything is terrible forever, and sometimes...sometimes you can't get out of it like you did the first time around." Luz couldn't help but gulp nervously at that, but she could at least appreciate that Ms. Pines wasn't attempting to sugarcoat anything the way others might have done.
It was very Eda-like, honestly, although the comparison was a bittersweet one.
"The hurt doesn't ever go away completely, I think," Mabel continued. "I know it hasn't for me, no matter how much I may have tried to pretend otherwise. Your mom actually helped me break out of that mindset, thankfully. I know she's still kicking herself about signing you up for camp, but I think we both know she'll do anything for you kids, no matter how crazy life gets for her. Plus, as someone who met your sister right when she got here, she's done wonders for Vee, I can see it in her eyes. Having someone like Camila to support her has made her so much happier, so much more confident and relaxed, it's incredible. Camila's been handling all the twists and turns way better than anyone could possibly expect of her. It's...it's honestly pretty refreshing to see in a parent, looking at it from the other side like this. She's been...really good to me, the past month or so." She spoke a bit more haltingly with those final words, glancing away from Luz with an odd sort of embarrassment in her expression that the younger girl clocked almost immediately from personal experience.
"I bet," she said warmly, hoping Mabel would pick up on the intent behind her smile and know that she didn't have to be ashamed of how much she had come to care about Camila. If Luz had enough love in her heart for two moms, then Camila had enough love in her heart for three daughters. And a son, maybe: Luz still wasn't sure how her mom felt about Hunter's whole situation. Regardless, Mabel smiled at the comment, even if she may not have fully understood its deeper meaning, and Luz was more than willing to let her say what she needed to say.
"Ah, well, the point is, people like her: family, friends, a therapist that won't think you're crazy, those are the sort of connections you need to survive. It might be on you to handle things most of the time, but that doesn't mean you gotta do it all on your own. The people who love you will make all the difference in the end. You just...gotta let them in," she finished, hoping she ended her impromptu speech on a relatively optimistic note, considering the subject matter. Even so, something felt...off, to Luz. She sensed that there was something else that Mabel was keeping to herself, something that she couldn't just leave without at least checking in on the young woman.
"Are you okay?" Luz asked gently, as if to confirm this was indeed the case. Mabel jolted in place a bit and murmured out a response before making an effort to compose herself.
"I don't know," she eventually admitted, which she supposed was as good a place to start as any. "I guess spending all this time up here on my own, with Camila and Vee and the rest of you kids...it's got me thinking a lot about the past." She moved to rub her forehead again, leaving Luz even more worried. She knew that Ms. Pines had been dealing with a headache since she went into that portal, but she also had dealt with Eda for long enough to recognize the signs of someone hiding just how bad they were feeling. The Ibuprofen clearly wasn't doing anything, and if the expression which she tried to mask was anything to go by...she was getting worse.
What happened to her?
"You...wanna talk about it?" Luz asked tentatively, hoping not to pressure the older woman too much. Mabel thought about it for a long time, her shoulders tensing up ever-so-slightly. She knew that if she said anything more about the course of her thoughts, she was at risk of losing it, and she couldn't lose it in front of a child, so...she did what she usually did when things got hard.
She just kept on smiling.
"Come on," she said, the tension evident in her voice even as she tried to lighten the mood again. "Let's go hang out with the others and have some fun in the sun before we gotta get going, huh?" she asked, and Luz could recognize a unique sort of desperation in the young woman's voice. She simply could not talk about this, at least not with Luz or any of the other kids, and Luz wasn't about to make her. Instead, she opted to give her sister's mentor a quick little side hug, knowing that they could probably both use the comfort after such a heavy conversation.
"Thank you," she whispered. "I'm glad we have someone like you around, too," she added warmly, causing Mabel to smile warmly at her in turn...even as her head screamed bloody murder.
"Of course, kiddo," she said kindly in spite of it all. "Happy to help."
Although Vee was no stranger to waking up in the middle of the night, she had to admit that being woken up that early by somebody else was a new experience for her.
It must have been about three in the morning when Vee awoke to the sound of the front door opening downstairs, followed by the barely muffled sounds of excited chattering. She had just enough time to drag herself out of the top bunk when the door to their shared bedroom was thrown open by Luz with the finest of hand trumpet fanfare, her friends following close behind. From the rather disheveled look of Hunter and Luz, they had certainly been on quite the adventure, but the tired smiles on their faces told Vee everything she needed to know.
"You did it," she said breathlessly, part of her struggling to believe it even now. Luz grinned at her with greater intensity than Vee had seen in all the time they had known each other.
"You're darn right we did!" Luz cried out, pulling her sister into a triumphant hug as she laughed heartily at the success of a heist well done. "Omigosh, it was awesome! Gus was like a magic hacker or something, messing up all the cameras like - p-chew! P-chew! P-chew!" she began ranting, moving away from Vee and acting out her best approximation of Gus' telekinetic magic, which basically just amounted to her shooting finger guns at the corners of the room. "And then Hunter would go in after him like - hwah! Ha! Hup, hup! Fwip, fwip! Toy-augh!" she continued, now doing her best to mimic Hunter's stealthy movements until she eventually tried to do a flip like he did and ended up tripping over one of the foldout beds. Recovering almost immediately, she bounced back up and continued her narration of events. "And Amity...well, okay, the rest of us just kinda played lookout and watched the car most of the time, but the important thing is, we pulled it off! Ha-HA! WHOO!" she finished exuberantly, causing the rest of her friends to cheer along with her at much lower volume, evidently more exhausted than she was after the night's escapades.
"Whoo, yeah, go team," Hunter replied with a thin smile, clearly the most tired of them all given his sleep schedule (or rather, the historical lack thereof). "Anywho, I suggest we all get some sleep. Here, you can have some of my melatonin gummies," he said, handing out one for each of them while keeping two for himself, leaving Amity just a little concerned.
"Wait, if we only need to take one, should you really be-?"
"Trust me. I need it," he replied promptly, walking out of the room before she could do anything other than shoot an anxious glance at Gus, who nodded in silent understanding as he followed the older boy down to the basement. With the door shut and the girls alone in their room, they were about to settle down when they realized that Vee was still standing there, dumbfounded.
"Vee? You okay?" Willow asked, taking a hesitant few steps closer to her so that she could tap her on the shoulder. Vee blinked, registering the question a second too late.
"I-I don't, I don't know," she answered honestly. "I-I feel like I'm still dreaming, but...I'm not," she added feebly, not knowing how else to describe the complicated mixture of emotions that were stirring within her at the news that their plan was a success. "I-I'm relieved that you're alright, I'm happy that you did it, but I'm also - anxious? It's like, I've been waiting for this for so long, I always wrote it off as some distant hypothetical, but now...now it's real. And now...now I really have no excuse." The others had been listening patiently as a still-sleepy Vee endeavored to express her feelings, but at this last remark, Amity cocked her head in confusion.
"I-I'm not sure what you mean - we, we did it, didn't we? Your identity is established, your friends don't have to know unless you want them to, I thought...do you want them to know?" she asked, hoping that Vee didn't take offense to what she was asking. Luckily for her, Vee wasn't in much of a position to feel offense even if she was inclined to, not when the dilemma she had been grappling with for days had been pushed back to the forefront of her mind.
"I don't know," she repeated almost desperately, wishing more than anything that she had a better answer for them. "I don't want to risk putting myself - or you guys - in jeopardy by opening up any further about what I really am, and even though I know that's probably not going to happen, the thought of it still terrifies me more than anything. Not to mention that, even disregarding the possibility of being discovered, I don't even know how my friends will react to the story of me being 'Valentina' the whole time, let alone how they'd react to the truth! And even if they're fine with our cover story, telling them the truth after the fact is more likely to go wrong the longer I wait and I don't...I don't want to lie to them anymore." She paused at this admission, taking a deep breath in an effort to control herself before she started crying. "I want them to know, so badly, because I love them and I trust them, but I'm just...scared. This is the happiest I've ever been in my life, and I'm terrified of messing things up, but...I can't keep doing this either." Another pause, another deep breath, this time unable to hold back a sniffle. "I don't know what to do anymore," she finished, regret and sadness laden in her voice in a way that made the others instinctively hug her.
"It'll be okay, Vee," Willow said, her voice soothing to her in a way the others couldn't quite duplicate. Perhaps that made her the "Mom Friend" of Luz's group, to borrow a human expression.
"Why don't we just...take it slow?" Luz suggested gently in an effort to give Vee the plan she so desperately needed at this point. "Just one day at a time, you know? We'll focus on the hard part - getting the story to take, getting both of us in school, all that stuff - and then, once your friends have sorted out their feelings on that, we can figure out what to do from there. Okay?" Vee looked at Luz then, looked at how she regarded her with the same gentle expression she had worn the day they met, and mulled it all over for a minute. Maybe Luz was right. Maybe if she just...eased her friends into accepting the truth, bit by tiny bit, it would be okay. She could tell them the story to start with, introduce them to the others so that they could get to know them before she let the other shoe drop, and if everything went according to plan...maybe this could all work out okay.
Sure, she hadn't had the best track record when it came to things going according to plan, but the heist plan worked, didn't it? And sure, this plan didn't exactly solve the underlying issue of revealing two versions of the truth one after the other, but honestly, just dumping everything on her friends at once felt like it would be a disaster even in the best case scenario. She didn't like doing it by any means, but between easing her friends into it while the others were still here and waiting until all was said and done to tell them everything...Vee knew which approach she preferred.
"Okay," Vee said at last, managing to give them all a shaky smile...and hoping that she wasn't making the biggest mistake of her life.
It was getting easier with each passing day, thank God.
The rats didn't have much magic on their own, but the more magic Philip consumed, the more he could feel the difference. Each fresh kill made him a little less scattered, a little less driven by base urges and a little more aware of who he was and what he was here for. He had always counted on his interminable will and his singular focus to carry him forward in his holy work, but no longer did he maintain those powers without difficulty. His mind, once an impregnable fortress driven by glorious purpose, was now more akin to a cracked hourglass, his thoughts slipping away like so many grains of sand. If he truly sought to restore his humanity, then all of this cast-off filth...it just wasn't enough. He needed more magic. He needed more time.
And judging from his current state, both of these things were in increasingly short supply.
Of course, without anything else to feed on, the only available recourse for that problem was to go out and find more substantial fare, hence why Philip was making his way through these disgusting sewers to try and find the wretched rats' den. With these mostly-coherent thoughts driving him, Philip continued trudging on, unable to succumb to exhaustion or fatigue, but finding his sludgy form dripping with every step. Consuming magic helped stave off the weight of ages, just as it had done before, but it wasn't a permanent solution then and it certainly wasn't a permanent solution now. If he had any hope of finishing what he started, then he needed a proper body.
And he would have it, no matter how many monsters he had to send screaming off to Hell.
After what felt like an eternity of wandering in the muck and refuse of the damned world above, he found what he was looking for right beneath the Gravesfield County Zoo. From what he had observed so far, the rats were quite cunning, albeit mad, so it was reasonable to conclude that they had established their den here in order to ally with those damned giraffes. That his hometown would house several of those banished demons in plain sight infuriated him, but it was still a stroke of luck he'd be foolish to squander. Creatures so bizarre and terrifying that they had been considered monsters by the monsters themselves, banished to Earth instead of being exterminated? That tale implied a degree of raw magical potency contained within their abhorrent bodies which ought to ensure the success of his rejuvenation...assuming, of course, that he would be able to feed on them without being detected prematurely. Not an encouraging prospect, but he had some ideas on that front. God willing, he'd figure something out. He always did.
Right now, though? He had other fish to fry. Or rats, in this particular case.
He knew that the collective which he saw crawling around beneath the zoo did not represent all of the corrupted rats in Gravesfield. Although he had killed several of their hunting parties, he reasoned that a few of them were likely out and about right now, scouting for food and "wisdom" to bring back to the collective. If all went well, he would soon be above such a petty task as hunting down the last of those pests, but he would need to make sure that none of the ones in the den survived. In any case, once he had gotten a lay of the land and took note of the many exits he would need to cut off one by one, all he had left to find was whatever passed for their leader.
As he used his latest host's eyes to scan the mass of almost identical bodies, mangy and putrid as they all were, he at last spotted what he was looking for, and would have retched at the sight of it if he could. It was a rat king, many rats with their tails tied together, but unlike a typical rat king...these rats had done so willingly. They moved together in perfect harmony, a rapidly shifting mass of fur and meat and too many eyes which nonetheless looked as though it were a single unified entity. Rat kings were something he had heard tell of when he was a boy: something he had told him about to give him a fright, as older brothers did. Still, to actually see one with his own eyes, to see it cursed with intelligence and speech such that it chose to debase itself in this manner...well. It certainly made Philip eager to put these wretched creatures to death, that was for sure.
By this time, the other rats had slowly begun to pause and take note of the lone rat just sitting there and watching them in an eerily familiar manner. Quickly realizing what it actually was, the rat king appeared to spur the rats to action, even though it was not technically their leader in the strictest sense. As Philip recognized this and saw fit to shed his ill-fitting skin and reveal the not-quite-a-man beneath it, the rats moved to surround the monster that had killed so many of their brothers and sisters. No more, they thought as one. They would not be slaughtered like animals by this foul creature, not after they had worked so hard to grow wise and conquer the Under-World. There had to be some way to fight this thing, some way to kill this thing! There just had to be!
The collective could not accept that they were about to be wiped off the face of the Earth.
"Look at you all," Philip said at last, speaking with both condescension and pity as the rats paced around him like caged lions, waiting for the moment to strike as one. "Look at what has been done to you, wretches. You've become so twisted up by this evil magic, this 'wisdom' you speak of, that you have forgotten your purpose. You've forgotten what God put you on this Earth to do. You are not men. You do not build or conquer. You merely eat and hide in your own filth!" he spat, refusing to acknowledge how that very condemnation had once applied to himself.
The rats snarled as they surrounded their foe, seeking to punish him for his insolence and muttering amongst themselves in one voice. Philip cared not for their mad blathering. Soon that horrific voice of theirs would be blissfully silenced, its vocal cords cut both figuratively and literally.
"That is the difference between you and I, beasts!" Philip continued angrily. "Those witches, those monsters have led you astray! They have broken you beyond any hope of salvation, corrupted whatever passes for a soul amongst such low creatures, and left me with the task of correcting their blasphemy!" With this proclamation, Philip paused for a moment, growing contemplative as he regarded the damned beasts and saw an opportunity to give voice to one of the few thoughts which remained securely in the hourglass. "Because try as they might to destroy me with their magic, beguile me as they thought they did with their best facsimile of civility...they could not break me. Nothing could break me...not even the wrath of a false god."
"We will give you one chance: leave this place, or die," the rat king growled in unison, caring not for the melodrama of this arrogant monster man and delivering the collective's ultimatum with the gravity of a force greater in strength than they truly were. After all, for as much as their unity and wisdom gave them strength, neither had saved their fellows from Philip's wrath. To kill him clearly required powers far beyond rat or man, possibly beyond even demon or witch. Power the likes of which they had never encountered before, except for...yes. Yes, that could be enough, couldn't it? The thing which stood before them was formidable, but he clearly depended on the wisdom he had gathered even more than they did. And the snake, so naturally built for consuming wisdom and surrounded by allies, might just be the only thing in this world which could kill that monster for good. They had no reason to think that she wouldn't either flee from them or kill them on sight, but under these desperate circumstances...they were willing to try anything to ensure their survival.
After sending new instructions to every drone they had left, the collective breathed as one, shuddering in anticipation of the battle which would begin the moment Philip decided to stop playing with his food. The wiser course of action in such an unwinnable situation would have been to retreat, scatter to the winds and hope to lose him in the sewers. As much as they still felt this base impulse, as much as their wisdom had not dulled their natural instincts of self-preservation, the ambition which came with it rejected such cowardice now. They had no idea whether they could fight him, but for the sake of all that they stood for, they had to try. If they simply ran away and hid in their darkest hour, everything they had worked for would be in vain. Their collective, their efforts to conquer the surface world, all of it would be exposed as nothing but a mass delusion, a futile attempt to rebel against their nature and rewrite a destiny written for them in sewer brick. They were more than the corrupted creatures Philip made them out to be, more than the filthy animals which the laws of nature would deem their due. Whether they had asked for it or not, the bread had given them a gift they would be foolish to squander. It had given them the freedom to choose.
And they would rather die than let that gift be for nothing.
"One person came close, long ago. Back when I was still merely a man," Philip said, ignoring them completely and having no inclination of the thoughts which ran inside their minds. "But I am no longer a man. I am...something more," he concluded breathlessly, in awe of his own brilliance, before he looked at the rats one final time with a satisfied smirk on his face. "And I have grown strong enough to finish what I started, to finally complete my life's work...starting with you."
And so the collective's last stand would begin.
The rats snarled with one voice, pouncing as one unified action in their collective desire to tear their hated enemy apart. Although the odds seemed stacked against him in his current state, all of that changed the moment Philip drew forth his sludgy scythes and rushed towards his prey. With the kind of manic glee which he never would have dared to show to anyone else in his past life, his blades tore through his opponents with supernatural alacrity, every slash taking out multiple rats at once and scattering their bodies across the den. The rat king attempted to overwhelm him, all of the individual rats which made up its body biting and clawing and smothering in a vain attempt to try and pin him down...but that was exactly what Philip had counted on. After summoning forth all of his strength to expand his size closer to that of the man he once was, one arcing slash from both of his arms was enough to tear the rat king apart, leaving only a scattered few survivors which were handily dispatched. In the chaos of this horrific act, the rest of the drones left confused and frightened in the aftermath were easy prey, torn between fighting to the end and scampering away after all. Whether they remained true to their convictions or reverted back to their original instincts in the end, it was of no consequence to Philip. He slew them all regardless, and by the time the killing was done, the sheer trauma of such secondhand slaughter was enough to cut the collective's remaining drones free in an instant, leaving them severed from each other...and terrifyingly alone.
In a matter of minutes, the collective was no more.
Almost as soon as he was finally done feeding on the scraps they left behind, Philip felt a tremor course through his entire body. Something was happening, he could feel it. His body was finally starting to knit itself together in a way that blessedly felt somewhat natural. His limbs became less disjointed, his horns sunk back into his body, and for a brief moment, he could almost see the form of his original human hand returning to him. Of course, no sooner had he smiled at the sight of it than the hand had dissolved back into dark green sludge, and the whole process fell apart as quickly as it had begun. Philip let out an echoing howl as he reverted back to his monstrous form, albeit larger and much, much stronger this time. He had been so close, so close, and yet-!
And yet...well. No matter. He had waited centuries to see justice finally done. What was a few more weeks in comparison to that?
Even though he had been unable to restore himself to his proper state, Philip now knew without any doubt in his mind that what he sought was indeed possible, and this alone was enough to drive him onward, no matter what else God demanded of him. He would bring the giraffes low one by one, take their considerable magical power for himself, and when he was finally done...he would be human again. He knew it in his soul, knew it with the same ironclad conviction that had kept him alive for four hundred years. It was nothing less than destiny that Philip Wittebane, after enduring centuries of the most excruciating torments imaginable, after sacrificing everything for the good of humanity, would at last be restored in order to finish what he started, once and for all.
It was the will of God that Philip Wittebane would get what he so richly deserved.
Bonus Chapter #4: The Mysterious Mind of Mabel Pines[Summary: Just when things seem to be looking up for everyone, Mabel's headache takes a turn for the worse. With the kids' help, Camila uses a fake Latin spell to delve into Mabel's mindscape, where she ends up finding much more trouble than she ever could have prepared herself for.]
"So, kiddo: you ready for your 'first' day of school?"
As Mabel spoke, ruffling Vee's fluffy little head, she couldn't help but laugh in her true voice.
"That joke was only funny the first time you said it, Ms. Pines," she retorted playfully, shifting from her true form into her human form in the process. Mabel chuckled, finding herself pleasantly surprised at how smoothly Vee could transform around people she trusted now.
"Ohh, I see, you thought giving yourself Luz's hair would help you escape the hair ruffle, didja?" Mabel asked playfully in turn, Vee adopting an expression that said "So what if I did?" Mabel laughed: the student had not outgrown the mentor yet, not when it came to everything about being a chaotic teenage girl, at least. "Well, jokes on you - you just made it even easier for me!" she claimed, taking advantage of her greater familiarity with humanoid anatomy and the greater rigidity of Vee's human shape to wrap her into a headlock and give her a noogie with much greater intensity.
"Hahaha, noooo!" Vee cried overdramatically before shifting into something she wasn't experienced with turning herself into - a human rat, one less big and much less spinally ocular than the rats she had known. Sure enough, it allowed her to easily leap out of Mabel's grasp, amusing the pair of them all the more to think of all the untapped playtime potential.
"Ohohoho, you've been practicing have you? Well, don't think you've got the upper hand just yet! You merely adopted the silliness, but I was born in it! Molded by it!" she cried just as overdramatically, quoting a movie which had been culturally relevant when she was a teenager, as adults often did when interacting with those younger than them. "You cannot hope to avoid your fate forever! Not on the ground-!" she added as she attempted to snatch at Vee's tiny rat body, prompting her to swiftly transform yet again into a cardinal, like Flapjack. "Nor in the sky!" she said, switching gears a bit more quickly than Vee had expected. Just as she might have been captured, she turned into a frog and tanked the landing easily, hoping that even a woman like Mabel would have second thoughts about grabbing a slimy frog and giving it affection.
Unfortunately, Mabel was the kind of girl who thought Tiana was the perfect role model.
"Gotcha!" she said, grabbing Vee without any hesitation and bringing her up to her face. "Mwah!" she said, kissing her right on her froggy little cheek and making her ribbit out a laugh.
"Ewww, Ms. Pines! Gross! You don't know where I've been!" she cried playfully, her voice very different from how it usually was on account of the differences in anatomy. If frogs could speak just as well as humans, Mabel figured, they probably would sound about as bubbly, literally.
"As a matter of fact, she does," Camila pointed out playfully from down the hall, catching them both by surprise at how long she had been watching them play with maternal affection. "And we both know where you need to be-"
"On the bus to school," they both said in unison, like they'd been caught stealing cookies.
"That's right," Camila said, before saying a sentence which a part of her still couldn't believe was a normal thing to say for her, now. "Now stop being a frog and go wait for it with your sister," she commanded, to which Vee obeyed a little too instinctively...while still in Mabel's grip.
"Whoa, hold on kid, I wasn't prepared to-ACK!" Mabel cried as the sudden difference in weight she was expected to support caught her off guard, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Camila rushed to make sure they hadn't broken anything as Vee lay sprawled out on top of Mabel, both of them now on the floor of the hallway. After Camila was satisfied and helped pull Vee off of her, Mabel laughed in her usual bubbly fashion as she sat up, not remotely surprised at just how messed up her hair had gotten with all of their playful bonding. "Aww, c'mon kid, I just got this thing tamed for the day!" she bemoaned jokingly, brushing aside her hair and exposing her forehead. Vee couldn't help but chuckle at what she saw...but Mabel's heart stopped at what she said next.
"I didn't know you had a birthmark," she said, innocently, because she didn't know, couldn't know, nobody could have known except-
"Mija?" Camila asked instinctively, her tone kicking up the weird soup of emotions again and making Mabel nervous at how concerned the older woman was.
"What?" she asked in a blank tone which Vee was well acquainted with, leaving her scared.
"A birthmark, on your forehead," the younger girl clarified shakily. "It-it looks just like-"
"A shooting star?" Mabel finished for her breathlessly, glancing at Camila to make sure they both saw this. Vee nodded in a similar manner as Camila brought a hand to her mouth, confirming that they did. "No," she gasped out. "No no no no no no-!" she continued in a panic as she quickly rose to her feet, looked in the hall mirror, saw a birthmark just like Dipper's where she knew there had never been anything before she went into that portal...and did the only thing a person who had lived her life and suffered through the worst of her nightmares would do.
She screamed loud enough to wake up everyone else in the house.
By the time everyone was gathered in the hallway, Camila was on the phone in the kitchen and Mabel was shaking on the floor as Vee and the others tried to calm her down.
"No, I-no, I know I'm supposed to come in today, but something's come up, alright? Family emergency," Camila explained tersely, having already been driven up a wall a bit after she called the school to get Luz and Vee out sick, and only having so much patience left. "I'm not going to tell you what kind of emergency, and yes you shouldn't be asking!" she said a bit more harshly, only to see several of the kids flinch at her raised voice and adjusting herself accordingly. "Let me make one thing clear, Susan: I'm not coming in today. Deal with it." With that last line, she hung up before her coworker could get another word in and shakily let out a sigh. After 14 years of working in a town like theirs, that felt a little too good to say out loud instead of in her head, like always.
She kind of regretted electing to cancel the gym membership.
"God knows I have too much going on already," she muttered to herself before putting on a smile and walking into the living room, slowly. "Okay, mija, you've got us for the day. What can we do to help you right now, baby?" she asked, a part of herself cringing. She knew on some level that Mabel still felt weird about the terms of endearment, and she didn't want to make the young woman uncomfortable on top of everything else she was dealing with, but the kids' breathing techniques had barely worked at all for the first time any of them could even really think of. Fortunately, her words didn't seem to do much beyond making her groan a little bit more, clutching her head like she had done sporadically ever since she saw the shooting star on her forehead that hadn't been there before. Since she clearly wasn't in any state to take her painkillers, Gus hesitated for a moment before drawing a spell circle and letting his eyes go blue, reaching her mind and seeming to...calm her, a little. Or at least, enough that she could form words again.
"He's back. He has to be, there's-there's no other explanation-!" she muttered, leaving everyone but Camila confused, but no less scared at the level of ambiguity in that terrified statement.
"Who's back? Is it-is it him?" Hunter dared to ask, only for Mabel to quickly shake her head. Everyone but Camila breathed a sigh of relief. Good. He really was dead, then.
"Then who is it?" Amity asked, only for Gus to give her a hand across his throat gesture, clearly having gotten at least a vague hint of what Mabel was currently thinking. Unfortunately, Camila knew well that somebody had to say it for her sooner or later.
"The demon she told me about," she said, trying to stay strong for everyone. "His name is-"
"DON'T!" Mabel cut in, sounding even more scared - either for Camila or of this entity, no one was entirely sure. "I-I shouldn't have told you," she muttered, sounding just like Luz had when she had told them about Philip. Just as guilty for something that wasn't quite her fault. "I shouldn't have told you, Grunkle Ford-Grunkle Ford told us not to tell anyone else and I didn't listen, I didn't listen and now he's back and he's going to kill us all because of me just like he was going to-!"
"Mabel," Camila said firmly, persuasively, the authority in her voice managing to stop Mabel's spiral in her tracks long enough to be ashamed for freaking out in front of these terrified children. "That wasn't your fault, and neither is this," she continued, and Mabel was yet again so desperate to believe her, even though she couldn't. "I don't know this man, I don't know what his reasons were, but I do know this: he was wrong to make you feel like you had to keep all of that inside," Camila said just as resolutely. Mabel wanted to dispute it for the same reason - Grunkle Ford was the smartest man alive, surely he knew what he was talking about - except she knew well from talking with Dipper about everything that had happened that he had also been a very flawed man. He'd been wrong before, she knew he'd been wrong before, but-
"Not this time," she managed to say in his defense. "Not this time," she repeated more fearfully, rocking back and forth in distress like she had done when she was a child. Seeing that she clearly wasn't in a state to handle further questioning for the moment, Camila looked at the palismen and jerked her head towards Mabel: they got the message. After that, she briefly thought about the amount of vacuuming she might have to do before opening the back door and letting Waddles inside, thankful that he hadn't been rolling in the mud. He jumped up onto the couch and started licking her instinctively, seeming to give her enough comfort despite the situation that the others were comfortable leaving her alone for a moment while they talked amongst themselves.
"Mom, what's going on?" Luz asked, Vee's silence showing that she shared her sister's apprehension along with the others. Camila sighed, knowing that she had to keep it to herself.
"Something upsettingly familiar, mija," she answered as honestly as she could before shifting to focus on solutions. "Okay, let's think: Mabel mentioned some method of getting into her mind and fixing whatever is wrong with her from the inside, but she either can't remember how it works or can't tell us how it works right now even if she does remember. Do you kids have any ideas?" she asked, causing the kids to look worriedly amongst themselves before Hunter spoke up.
"We know of a way to access her mind, but none of us know the spell. It's partially illegal and Bel-Philip wouldn't let me learn it anyway," Hunter said, briefly slipping into how he used to talk as the Golden Guard. Amity placed a hand on his shoulder while Camila cocked her head.
"Wait, how can something be 'partially' illegal-?" she asked, only for Amity to cut her off.
"I'm pretty sure there are potions that can duplicate the effects, but they require very rare ingredients which are only found on the Isles," Amity explained, suddenly very thankful that all those hours she spent listening to Boscha talk instead of flipping off her parents and hanging out with Willow actually came in handy for once. Unfortunately, Amity would pay for that thought.
"We have to do something soon, though," Willow said, deathly serious in a way that was still unusual and very worrying from such a normally bubbly girl. "She's clearly been hiding the extent of the damage for some reason, possibly even from herself, and if we don't help her soon...there won't be anything left of who she is to help." At this grim pronouncement, everyone fell silent. None of them liked thinking about how close Willow might have been to a fate like this: how Luz maybe hadn't treated it as seriously as she should have, how Gus had focused on a project instead of his best friend whose mind was burning, how guilty Amity still was about causing that whole mess in the first place, and how terrified Hunter was to see the extent of something she had once minimized.
What else was Willow keeping so close to her chest for their sakes?
"Willow, I-" Amity began, only for Willow's gaze to snap to her immediately.
"Don't," she said firmly, but not unkindly, just setting a boundary. "Not right now," she clarified, because as hard as she knew it must have been to even face her after that, Willow also had to wonder: why hadn't Amity thought to apologize before now? She shook her head - don't think like that about your friend and take it out on her right now, Half-a-Witch, she's been through enough already - and tried to explain herself in a way Amity would understand. "Not while I'm watching it happen from the outside," she finished, maybe a bit too harshly, and was it just her or were tiny flowers starting to grow into the floorboards-?
"Gus?" Luz cut in as she watched Amity's ears droop, knowing the last thing they needed right now was to make things worse by dredging up old wounds, no matter how justified she knew Willow was to still be angry at the girl who Luz loved so much. "Gus, Ms. Pines must have meant something different, did you pull anything important from her mind earlier?" she asked gently, both her and Vee noticing that he was reluctant to speak up on this topic.
"No, no I didn't," he said, his voice a little shaky. "I wasn't pulling memories, just...trying to calm her down a bit by...by making her remember the good times too," he explained, clearly having had some major reservations about memory magic for a while after what happened to Graye. After what happened with Philip. The others looked anxiously between him and Camila - evidently, she had found the time to have that little chat they had talked about - before Camila spoke up.
"I know how difficult this must be for you, mijo, but it sounds like your magic might be the only way for us to get the information we need and help Ms. Pines," Camila explained as gently as she could under the circumstances, which Gus could appreciate if nothing else. "We're not asking you to pull everything, far from it. We just need whatever memories she has of how this all worked before. Can you do that?" she asked, the care and worry in her voice so palpable that Gus faltered for only a second or two more before nodding firmly.
"I can do that," he said, speaking with the experience of a witch twice his age as he pulled out the mirror he took from Graye and strode out into the living room, the others following behind with greater hesitation as they stuck close to the walls and watched with bated breath. "Ms. Pines?" he asked, diverting her attention with a sudden jolt.
"No, nononono, don't look!" she cried, shielding her face with her arms in a futile attempt to protect her mind from Gus' magic. His face fell at the reaction before he regained his resolve.
"I promise, Ms. Pines, I'm not going to pry into anything I don't need to," he said calmly, the earnestness in his voice going a long way towards reaffirming his good intentions and getting her to relax just a little bit. "Now, do you remember the method you used to enter someone else's mind way back when? The thing you told Camila about?" No sooner had he said the words than Mabel screwed her eyes shut, desperately trying to think back to the start of that horrible day all those years ago, the first of many nightmares to come. Naturally, her mind came up short, rattled as it was, but everyone knew from one look into Mabel's apologetic expression that the memory they needed was in there, somewhere, buried and locked away along with so many others. Something happened to her in that in-between space, and whatever it was, her mind clearly couldn't handle the pressure of all that she had witnessed, all that she had learned...and all that she had lost.
Not anymore.
"I-I can't," she whispered in a broken voice, shaking her head as tears came to her eyes. "It's still in there, but...it hurts," she added in a way which pained the hearts of everyone who heard her, especially Camila. The last couple of months had been hard for her in a number of ways, but watching this bright and beautiful young woman suffer so intensely while she could do little else but watch...words could hardly describe how it felt to look at all of it from the outside. She couldn't even imagine how much more terrifying it was for Mabel, but her expression did a lot to fill in the blanks.
All the more reason to stop this whatever-it-was inside her head as soon as possible.
"What do you need us to do?" Camila asked, a unique sort of desperation in her voice which Luz and Vee picked up on immediately, having heard it themselves on several occasions by now. Mabel couldn't answer for a moment, too preoccupied with an especially intense surge of pain which immediately followed the conflicted mixture of a thousand different emotions on her face. When she was finally able to push through the pain long enough to respond, she spoke as sparingly as she could get away with, making every word count as though it might be her last.
"Knock me out," she rasped out. "Touch my head, say the words, but-!" she paused, pain twisting her expression once again before she could continue. "It has to be Camila," she added, the strain in her voice making it clear that every second she spent awake was agonizing for her. "Please. I can't...I can't let anyone else see me like this," she finished, able to command some of that presence she had during the portal test even under her current adverse circumstances. Camila looked around at the kids gathered behind her, looking to her for guidance even though they knew she was by far the least knowledgeable among them when it came to things like this. Still, she was the head of this particular household, eccentric as it was, and so, she looked back at them in search of a solution. As most of the kids hung back silently, Willow stepped forward with one of the flowers she had grown accidentally in her hand, taking a shaky breath before allowing her magic to flow freely just long enough to turn that flower into a sprig of Sleeping Nettles. From there, she proceeded to gently blow the newly created plant in front of Mabel's face like she was making a wish with a dandelion, taking effect almost immediately...for better and for worse.
"Take care of her in there," she whispered as Mabel's vision began to blur, hoping that she would be able to help Camila in some fashion, even in her current state. Once Mabel sank back onto the couch, Luz and Vee made sure to make her as comfortable as they could before stepping back to either side of the couch along with Amity and Hunter, standing watch in case anything happened. Waddles, the ever-faithful companion that he was, remained by Mabel's side even now, hoping that his presence would bring her some small comfort while Willow sat down next to Mabel and patted his head. Camila looked at the bittersweet sight before her and tried not to think about it too much as she turned to Gus, the final piece in the puzzle.
"Gus?" she said, a silent question which snapped him out of his own horrified silence.
"Right," he replied, taking a breath before drawing a spell circle in the air and using the mirror to focus it, heighten it, as it enveloped Mabel's mind for no more than a couple seconds before he consolidated what little he had gleaned and sent it into Camila's head, causing her to stumble backwards as she screwed her eyes shut from the sudden rush of information. Camila muttered a prayer in Spanish as the blue glow faded from her eyes, signaling that she was more or less alright now. After giving her a moment to process it all and taking another moment to give her what little advice they could, Camila turned to the kids apprehensively, suddenly very aware of the fact that she might not come back from this one.
"Whatever happens, I...I love you. All of you," she said, in a way which brought tears to the eyes of everyone present as they nodded wordlessly.
"We know, mami," Luz said, speaking for all of them even as her voice shook with the sudden realization that, this time, their roles were reversed: her mother was diving off into an unknown world of sorts, and all she could do was wait and hope to God that she would be alright. "We know," she repeated more desperately, a part of her impulsive enough to try and go with her even as one look from Hunter and Amity told her that this really was the best option they had, no matter how much it hurt them to contemplate the risks.
That didn't mean she wasn't more terrified than she had ever been in her life.
"Well, then...here goes nothing," she said with a shaky smile, mostly for her own benefit, before turning back to Mabel with a determined expression as she touched the shooting star on her forehead and recited the words that had been planted into her head without a second's hesitation, unknowingly drawing upon the magic of everyone and everything around her...to do the impossible.
"Fidentus omnium. Magister mentium."
"Magnesium ad hominem. Magnum opus."
"Habeas corpus. Inceptus Nolanus overratus."
"Magister mentium, magister mentium, magister mentium!"
And just like that, Camila sank to her knees...and all the kids could do was wait.
What happened afterwards was...confusing, and for Camila, that was saying something.
She honestly should have anticipated that diving into someone's mind would be strange, but given what she gathered from the memories Gus lifted, she had at least expected this "mindscape" to have some kind of internal logic that would make troubleshooting easier. Instead, she found herself in what could only be described as a home video recreation of her own house, right down to the grainy filter over everything and the date affixed to the bottom-right corner in big blocky text. In this manner, Camila could only watch in awe as memory after memory played out before her eyes. She saw Mabel and Vee playing in the hallway, Mabel and Luz singing karaoke one night in the basement, Mabel and Gus playing old Atari games on the couch, Mabel and Amity doing dishes in the kitchen, Mabel and Waddles just hanging out in the backyard and watching Willow work on her garden until Hunter emerged from the woods with a swarm of bees hot on his tail. They only lasted for a brief moment each time, but Camila could feel the way the house brightened up with every snapshot of the new life Mabel had found herself living these past few weeks, and she had to admit, it lowered her guard just a little bit. Just enough for her not to notice the signs until it was too late.
"Mabel?" she asked the one right in front of her...only to receive no answer. The scene around her flickered for a split second, much like an old VHS tape, and Camila was suddenly reminded of just how dire the stakes were. "Sweetie, it's-it's me, I made it!" she attempted to call out to the other Mabels, only for the flickers to grow increasingly frequent as things grew stranger still. It started as a kind of discordant echo, vaguely reminiscent of a heartbeat. Camila could only hear it faintly, but the Mabels in front of her definitely heard it, and as each one did, they seemed to pause as the light left their eyes and some reminder of Mabel's past was dredged up to the forefront of her mind for reasons which Camila couldn't quite discern due to the indistinct nature of the memories. She attempted to interact with one of them physically in an effort to snap them out of whatever this was, only for the frame to flicker so badly that by the time Camila could see around herself again, the Mabels were gone, replaced with a discordant laugh which filled Camila with a very unique kind of apprehension. It was a laugh that, put simply, belonged to something else.
Something that didn't belong here.
No sooner had Camila heard the laugh and recognized just what was causing it that she was forced to stumble as the world around her became distorted to such a degree that the ground itself nearly vanished beneath her feet. Colors rapidly shifted across the entire visible spectrum, objects changed places or else changed entirely, and her archways and windows were a lot more triangular than usual. With every new alteration to the mindscape that forcibly asserted itself, the ear-grating laughter grew louder and more distorted, and it quickly became apparent that if Camila didn't do something fast, everything around was going to shift into something far more hazardous to her health than an empty suburban home.
Desperate for a solution, Camila looked around at this facsimile of her beloved house and tried to put the knowledge she had just received from Gus' spell to good use. She knew on an abstract level that imagination had been the key to beating this equilateral jerk the first time around, but it hadn't exactly been a perfect solution, and even if it was, Camila still had a little trouble thinking of herself as "imaginative," especially after so many years wasted trying to figure out how to be "normal." She suddenly found herself doubting her ability to succeed in this monumental task that had been set before her, and unfortunately for her, whatever it was that was lurking in the thin space between memory and thought seemed to take great pleasure in watching her struggle.
Still, if nothing else, she could at least imagine what her house was supposed to look like, so Camila concentrated on every minute detail of her precious abode as much as she could, filling her mind with the ephemeral sights and sounds of the home she had built for herself and her family. With each second that her mind worked to correct the changes being made to her environment, the laughter subsided bit by bit until it eventually transitioned into something more...bemused.
She could honestly say that she preferred the maniacal laughter to what that heralded.
"Well, how about that?!" cried the source of the laughter, having suddenly appeared behind Camila with an unusual sound that almost sounded like a harp's chord progression, like the kind of sound you'd hear to signify a flashback in an older movie or something. "Looks like you've been getting some point-AUGH!" the demon cried as Camila instinctively wheeled around and punched him in the face, sending him crashing into the wall and letting Camila get a better look at him.
Or, rather, what was left of him.
On the surface, the creature left lying on the floor before Camila was about what Mabel had described: a one-eyed, two-dimensional yellow pyramid with black arms and legs who wore a funny top hat and bowtie. Hardly the most threatening picture, especially when paired with the fact that his entire body appeared on the verge of breaking apart and left in even worse condition by the damage Camila's punch dealt to one of his "sides." Although Camila knew not to take this thing lightly based on what Mabel had told her and what she had just witnessed, she couldn't deny that giving this little punk a good right hook definitely felt good...and maybe left her a little too confident.
"Heh. How the mighty have fallen," she quipped, only making the demon more irritated.
"Oh, you don't know the half of it, lady," he snarked back as he half-floated, half-staggered back to an upright position and engaged Camila in the mother of all staring contests, one which Camila demonstrably had no time for.
"If you think I'm going to let you terrorize this poor girl for one more second, you've got another thing coming, mister-!" Camila attempted to threaten, only for the demon to cut her off.
"Shshshshshshsh," he said condescendingly, that irritating voice of his leaving part of Camila infuriated at how lightly he seemed to be taking her while the rest of her was apprehensive about what he was going to do, an apprehension which turned out to be well-placed. "Go ahead. Say my name," he continued, the very remark serving to suck the remaining light out of the house...until Camila looked at him, really looked at him, and realized what was happening here.
"No," she said instead. "I'm not going to do that, because...you're not really him, are you?" she asked, uncertain at first, but growing more confident as she watched the demon falter just a little bit in the face of her sudden epiphany. "Nooo, no, how could you be? The way I hear it, you were erased, wiped out completely! You couldn't have come back from that, so all of this-!" she cried out, gesturing to the landscape she was admittedly struggling to hold together in the face of the demon itself, as it were. "This is just a feeble echo of what you used to be, a pale reflection of what you used to be capable of...and a rather shoddy one at that, Diablo," she finished, purposefully using what one could think of as the opposite term on purpose in order to mess with him even further.
Unfortunately, that Noceda-brand confidence in the face of danger could only get her so far.
"Heh. Barely know anything about what I am and you're calling me something different, that's clever," Diablo conceded, his tone suggesting a smirk without the benefit of a mouth to communicate that clearly. "You're right, of course: I'm not Bill Cipher, not in the strictest sense, at least. More like...what he left behind, in a way," he explained, and while a part of Camila felt just a little vindicated at her wild guess being correct, the rest of her was feeling even more apprehensive than before at how smoothly he rolled with this minor development. Deciding that buying time was the best course of action she had, Camila attempted to consult the knowledge she had been given as subtly as she could without letting her concentration slip or letting her true intentions be known.
"So, what, he made you somehow? Then why are you only causing problems now, instead of any other time in the last nine years or so?" she asked tentatively, causing Diablo to laugh.
"Ha! Not a bad question, Noceda, but you got one thing wrong: he didn't make me!" Diablo replied, not lowering his guard in the slightest as he seemed to...pull himself together, just a little bit. That wasn't good. Still, Camila stood her ground as he continued indulging her, or perhaps indulging himself now that he finally had someone he could talk to. "He didn't need to! All he needed to do was scare the ever-loving crap out of Shooting Star and the rest of those weirdos, and their heads would figure out the rest whether they liked it or not!" he gloated giddily, leaving Camila angrier than ever before and all the more determined to find a way to save Mabel from her inner demons.
Or, well, just the one demon, in this particular case.
"So what you're saying is..." Camila began, only for Diablo to cut her off once again, in a way which made it clear he'd be grinning like a madman if he could.
"This is all her, Noceda. For the most part, anyway," he confirmed. "And at the risk of stating the obvious...she's got a way better imagination than you do."
No sooner had he finished the words than Camila felt a shudder reverberate throughout the house, cracks beginning to form despite her best efforts to imagine it whole and undamaged.
"I'll give you this: you've got moxie, and you catch on quick. Not quick enough, though," Diablo taunted, the cracks growing even worse as he wagged his finger mockingly in her direction. Camila wasn't exactly an expert at this, but she could at least tell that she didn't have long. She had suspected that she wouldn't quite be able to handle multitasking to this extent in such an unfamiliar way, but she could at least take solace in the fact that she had almost succeeded. She just needed to hold things together as best she could...and stall for time for just a little bit longer.
"You didn't answer my question, Diablo!" she barked, visibly struggling to hold the house together - not entirely part of the plan, admittedly, since it actually was proving very difficult to do. "Why now?! How do you suddenly have the power to do all of this?!" she asked, to which he replied with even more of his agonizing laughter that she was honestly starting to hate.
"Oh, that's the best part, Noceda: this is all on you!" he replied mockingly, his mirth at the situation making it infuriating how Camila just couldn't spare the effort required to punch him again at this point. Still, his words did serve at least to legitimately give Camila pause as she thought it all over. Mabel's trauma, the portal, and what her great uncle seemed to think would happen if she ever said the monster's name aloud, it all tied together into a rather grotesque tapestry.
One with her right at the center of it.
"You were the first person she told outside her circle, which brought aallll of those old fears back up again," he pointed out, finishing her thought. "And you didn't exactly step in to stop her from diving into that portal, did ya?" he asked, causing her eyes to widen despite herself. She'd gathered that the trip through the portal had caused all of this somehow, but she'd had no reason to assume there was any particular risk in Mabel diving in there as opposed to anyone else. Obviously none of the kids were going in there, they'd agreed on that much, but if Camila had known-! "Nope, of course you didn't! And as luck would have it...well. Let's just say that little sojourn gave me every little errant thought I needed for her to become convinced that I existed...just long enough to watch her mind shatter from the inside out," Diablo gloated, secure in the knowledge that all that he had described was going to come to pass, and that he would enjoy every minute of it. "Face it, Noceda: you're not a hero! You're nothing like anyone in this 'family' of yours! No magic, no brains: you're nothing but a bit-player in someone else's story!" he taunted, the words shaking Camila to her core for just a moment, one which felt like it stretched for an eternity. Still, she had come in here to save someone she would readily admit she loved like a daughter. Someone she was willing to die for.
Someone she was prepared to kill for, if push came to shove.
"Maybe so," Camila replied firmly. "But I'm still going to stop this. Whatever it takes," she declared, even as chunks of the carefully-constructed ceiling rained down from above.
"By all means, hit me with your best shot, Noceda!" Diablo cried with one last mad cackle, just as confident as she had been when she got that lucky punch in at the start of this little chat.
Big mistake, in her experience.
"Oh, believe me..." she said, reaching for what she imagined was tucked behind her back, having made sure to build it according to every specification she could find online. "I intend to," she finished, firing her Very Real laser pistol right through Diablo's eye...just before everything fell apart.
For a long time, the last thing Camila heard were Diablo's screams of agony...until she heard someone else calling for her, a voice she didn't recognize...and yet also recognized immediately.
"Camila? Camila!" Mabel called out, frantically attempting to shake Camila awake as she lay slumped in a heap of splintered wood and tattered bedsheets. As the older woman slowly opened her eyes, she was able to get a much better look at where she had found herself, relatively speaking: an attic, one which had certainly seen better days, and yet...had a certain coziness to it, all the same.
It felt like home, to put it simply. Camila suspected that Mabel would always feel that way.
And indeed, it hadn't been her home in the strictest sense for many years now, as looking at the young teenage girl lying next to her now, Camila could see the resemblance between the young woman she had come to know and her younger self, paired with a much-younger Waddles beside her. It had been one thing to imagine it, aided by photographs Mabel had kept in her adorable little scrapbook, but to actually see how young she had been when all of this started...it broke Camila's heart like little else she had experienced.
Still. There'd be time enough to reckon with that later.
"Where exactly are we?" she asked, mostly for clarification's sake, as Mabel helped her up.
"The Mystery Shack, the day before we left," Mabel added, speaking with a voice just a little bit higher than what Camila was used to, but which was still unmistakably Mabel's. "The last day it was like this," she added in what was almost a whisper, her hand lingering on the bedpost for a moment. "It changed a lot while we were here...not always for the better," she added, looking back at the wreckage of Dipper's bed as Camila brushed herself off and struggling not to tear up at the sight, thinking back to all the times that her first real home had been damaged, destroyed, intruded upon, and just when it was all over...they had to abandon it for good. "I still think a lot about that summer, clearly, but...this is the version of it I always come back to. I think...I think I always kinda knew that a part of me never really left," she admitted, chuckling sardonically at the situation in spite of herself. "I guess I just never imagined that would end up being so literal, y'know?" she quipped, her heart not in it as her laugh quickly collapsed into a sob and she sank against the bed frame.
"Ohh, honey," Camila muttered as she moved to comfort her instinctively, the memory of Waddles right on her heels as she tried to figure out how to reach the young girl lying before her, before it was too late. Whether she was an "Inner Mabel" in the sense the others had told her about, a subconscious entity whose agenda might not necessarily align with that of Mabel's conscious mind, or whether she was a literal representation of Mabel's "Inner child," merely one aspect of the greater whole of Mabel's psyche, Camila didn't know for certain. All she knew was that a girl was hurting because of a monster born from her own fears, given form by her belief in his existence, and Camila had a feeling that simply insisting that Diablo wasn't real wasn't going to be effective for as long as Mabel was stuck in this depressive spiral. She didn't quite know what she was going to do to help Mabel get them out of this mess...but judging by the sound of mounting pressure which she could hear coming from the other side of the attic's door, Camila knew she would have to come up with something fast if they wanted to make it out of this in one piece.
And if there was one thing Camila had gotten quite good at, it was talking to her daughters.
It seemed like a rather ludicrous proposition in the face of what they were dealing with, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. The best way to strip Diablo of the power Mabel gave him was to get at the heart of Mabel's issues, to help her realize that none of what had happened was her fault. They had made some progress there - talking about it had certainly helped more than it hurt, at least - but the crux of the matter was that Mabel still wasn't willing to fully address everything that had happened to her. Everything that she still blamed herself for, to a point.
It was a situation that Camila had experience addressing, unfortunately. Multiple times.
"I want to help you, Mabel. I do," she said gently, finding it trickier to approach the little girl lying next to her without knowing just how much of the young woman she knew was in there, so to speak. Nevertheless, she pressed on. "And I know it's hard - believe me, I know it - but...I think the only way we're getting out of this is by confronting all of these feelings head on." Mabel looked up at her then, her expression a curious mixture of confusion and creeping dread.
"I-I already told you everything and that's exactly what got us into this mess, why-?"
"Okay, mija, let's put a pin in that for now," she said authoritatively, and perhaps it was the unusual circumstances than anything else, but needless to say, that particular language was especially disorienting for Mabel, who promptly shut down for five seconds as she hid her face with her hair. Having thus been given the space to talk, Camila continued in that same gentle manner. "I may not know much, but from what little I've seen of this place, all of this-" she said, gesturing to the attic all around them and the noises getting louder and louder outside, "it's like a dam about to burst. If you don't find some way to relieve this pressure that's been building up inside your head...I have no idea what's going to happen. To either of us." Although Camila could tell her words had an effect on the girl, her conflicted expression made it clear that she still wasn't entirely on board with her premise.
"But I thought...it only hurts when I think about the bad stuff," Mabel pointed out, screwing up her face in a way which Camila didn't have time to consider adorable. "Why would thinking about that stuff even more be the thing that makes it better?" she asked, which was a fair question, really. Fortunately, Camila had an answer for her after a moment of deliberation.
"I know, it's a little backwards, but think about it: you felt better after we talked about what happened that summer, didn't you?" Camila asked, to which Mabel hemmed and hawed before she ultimately nodded with some lingering reluctance.
"I mean...yeah...but like, that was before a half-dead god pulled me from a cosmic wellspring and used her magic to keep me from going insane," Mabel replied matter-of-factly, like that wasn't the wildest sentence Camila had heard in a hot minute. She quickly realized this, however, as she proceeded to smack her forehead right where her new shooting star birthmark would have been if she weren't a kid at the moment. "Which clearly isn't working right, because I'm not supposed to know that!" she exclaimed angrily, leaving Camila stunned until she seized on the unusual opening.
"No, no, hold on, tell me: what happened in there?" she asked, hoping that the pressure might settle down somewhat. Mabel groaned as she attempted to sort out exactly how much she could remember under the present circumstances.
"Ah, jeez, okay, so I was just going around checking up on everybody like I said, and I landed on King last, but..." Mabel began, only to pause as she suddenly remembered something. Something terrifying. "He sounds the same," she muttered fearfully, her train of thought completely derailed, and Camila didn't need to guess what she meant by that, especially with the way the entire room started to shake in response to Mabel's turbulent emotions. "He sounds the same, and-and that Collector kid, he's so much like he was in all the worst ways, what if-what if they're both connected to him somehow?! What if it's all part of his plan, what if-?!"
"Mabel," Camila interrupted, gripping onto her shoulders so that she would look her in the eyes as she said what she maybe should have started with. "He's gone," she said firmly, catching Mabel by surprise for a second before she shook her head rapidly.
"You don't understand, I-I remember everything now!" she exclaimed desperately. "I don't know how I forgot or-or how I found out, but-but I remember! 'One way to absolve his crime - a different form, a different time!' It was right in front of me all along! He's back, I know he is! He's-!"
"Mabel!" Camila said, perhaps a bit more harshly than she normally would, if only because she didn't know what to make of what Mabel was going on about now. "He's not real! He's not! He's just some thing that came from your imagination because of all of this stuff you're worrying about! He just took it and ran with it, he's only doing all of this because you think he can do all of this!" As she had suspected, Mabel didn't quite grasp what Camila was trying to say, understandably caught up in her own anxieties seemingly coming to fruition just like a part of her had always feared.
"What? I don't-? How does that-?!" she sputtered, prompting Camila to change tack, quickly.
"Just...tell me the rest," Camila cut in softly, once again stopping Mabel's protestations in their tracks. "The stuff you haven't told anyone about," she clarified, hoping against hope that her Hail Mary pass would be just the thing they needed. "I know it's tough, I do, but...if you've got anything else you need to get off your chest...it feels like now's the time," she finished, set to the backdrop of the pressure suspended on the other side of that door. This was it. Either her plan would work and Mabel would find the will within herself to wipe out that evil triangle...or he would win, laughing all the way as Mabel's mind broke apart with him and Camila inside it. It definitely put the stakes in no uncertain terms, that was for sure. Still, no harm in trying at this point, really.
After all, it wasn't like things could get much worse.
"My parents have always been...fine," Mabel began pensively, taking a good minute to think about it and weighing her words carefully as though she were worried about implying the wrong thing. "They were busy, sure: Dad was a computer programmer, Mom was a wedding planner, so they'd both work late and go to, like, conferences and stuff for...days, at a time." Mabel paused, and something in that pause made Camila think about how Luis talked about his childhood: a life spent in a house full of stuff, with only his siblings for company, because his parents were too busy being successful to really focus on being parents. Camila frowned at herself: she was letting her own issues with her in-laws color her perception of the Pines, who certainly didn't sound as bad as they were from what Mabel was saying so far. Still, there was clearly far more to this story, and she wasn't positive, but it felt like her original strategy may have been the right call after all.
"It's okay, baby," she said encouragingly, leaving Mabel embarrassed for a moment before she continued, finding that the words came a bit more easily to her now that she had started.
"So, yeah, they weren't around as much as we would've liked, but they wanted to be around, at least, and-and they still love me and my brother, more than anything!" Mabel insisted, and while Camila didn't doubt that, the way she said it sounded like she had maybe needed to convince herself of that more than anything, and Camila could only imagine how that may have felt from the other side. "They really did their best to help us after...everything," Mabel said without really elaborating. Wise choice, since she was already starting to tear up a bit as it stood. "When my brother and I explained it all to them, though, all the monsters we'd fought and the stuff we did in Gravity Falls, they...they didn't take it as well as you did. Their eyes just...glazed over. And I don't-I don't blame them for that, it was a lot, way too much for any parent to deal with! They...they did their best." Mabel said. "They did their best," she repeated, not quite believing it as much the second time.
Camila's brow furrowed. Her maternal instincts were telling her that this poor girl had been keeping in more than she'd realized, and whether she wanted to or not, she was about to explode. A part of her was starting to regret prodding like she was...but she could also tell that talking about this was working. The pressure wasn't as oppressive as it had been, and although she couldn't see him, she knew that Diablo wasn't happy about this.
That was good enough reason for Mabel to keep going in her book.
"Dipper was a lifesaver after everything that had happened, but-but he was hurting too, and they just-! Just kept working and sending us off to school like everything would eventually be fine!" Mabel snapped, unable to stop now that the proverbial floodgates had opened. "They were so nervous to talk about it after we told them what happened, and sure, they tried to get us help, but nobody else ever believed us, even without getting into Weirdmageddon! Everyone who knew was too far away and never could make the time to come visit back then, as much as we knew they wanted to. All we had was our parents and each other, and-and I know I should be thankful they did what they could, but after talking to Luz, talking to you...it doesn't feel like it was enough anymore," she admitted, rubbing at her eyes with her sweater sleeve. "And how awful is that? That I'm feeling like they didn't do enough, even after all they've done for me, even after all they tried to do for me after everything that happened when they were clearly in way over their heads!"
"Oh, pobrecita," Camila said softly out of instinct, and even though it hadn't been her intent, Mabel still felt a little small and a little defensive upon hearing that word from her. She pushed the familiar feeling aside and kept going, not wanting to examine it further and realizing that she had maybe needed this more than she had wanted to admit to herself.
"I still love my parents. I'm not, like, mad at them...I think?" she continued hesitantly, suddenly not as sure of that as Camila looked at her with a sympathetic expression. "I just, I can't help but wish...God, this is so stupid, but I wish we had someone like you back then!" she admitted, getting closer and closer to something hot and violent inside of her chest, or maybe inside of her head, she wasn't sure. "An adult we could talk to who would have listened, who would've believed us and made us feel safe, someone who wouldn't keep making us into someone else's problem-!"
Mabel stopped short as she found herself pulled into a gentle embrace by Camila.
"Shhhh, shhh shh shh, it's okay, honey. Just let it out," Camila whispered in a soothing voice, a very motherly sort of voice, as they both felt the pressure around them subside bit by bit, until it was almost unnoticeable. Unfortunately, although Mabel appreciated the gesture...something about this still didn't feel right. She knew that Camila cared for her in a way that was, to an extent, similar to how she cared about Luz and Vee and the other kids that wound up under her roof. And she had gotten better about giving her the space she needed and treating her like an adult, but...she wasn't sure how she felt accepting that sort of motherly support from Camila. It didn't feel bad, per se, far from it, but...perhaps that was what made it so strange. To accept that kind of support from Camila felt like she would be admitting she wasn't as much of an adult as she thought. That she still needed a mother to swaddle her, and was so ungrateful that she didn't even want that mother to be hers.
It was true at least that she had a little more growing up to do, even as she had spent so long making such an effort to stand on her own. Establishing Reality Check, graduating early, making her new dream come true and keeping it going for as long as she had: that had all engendered quite a bit of pushback from people who thought she was too eccentric, too naive, too young to be trusted to pull all of these things off. The effort of proving those people wrong had perhaps, perhaps, made her just a bit defensive about her maturity, and so perhaps she didn't quite feel great about admitting vulnerability. So it came to pass that, although a part of her very much wanted to break down and cry in Camila's arms for a minute or ten, her pride ultimately won out, and she extricated herself from the older woman's embrace with what was perhaps a ruder huff than was called for.
"I shouldn't keep venting at you like this," Mabel said grumpily as she pushed herself away from Camila, trying not to feel like the child that she very much still was in a metaphorical sense. "I'm an adult, a camp administrator, a childcare provider. I should be focusing on helping you with the kids, not burdening you with my leftover teen angst and...and parental issues," Mabel muttered, looking down at the facsimile of Waddles with a tired expression as Camila scooted back up to her.
"Ay. I think I get what's going on here," Camila began, her tone causing whatever bitterness Mabel may have felt towards her to dissipate almost immediately. "My abuela always said that I have a big heart that loves easily. That's probably why I warmed up to Vee and the others so quickly...and why I warmed up to you too." She gave Mabel a bittersweet smile at that, one which Mabel was reluctant to return before Camila continued to make her point. "Except you don't need the same things they do, and I should've done more to fully internalize that. You are an adult, one of the most capable I've met, and it's clear from the way you talk about them that, despite the mistakes they may have made along the way, your parents love you very much. Even so...that doesn't mean it's wrong of you to seek out that same kind of support from others, even at your age. It doesn't mean that you're any less capable and it doesn't mean that you love your parents any less, it just means that...well. That you've got a big heart too," she finished warmly, speaking with such love in her voice that Mabel found herself suddenly quite overwhelmed. Unable to respond with words, she settled for the next best thing, no longer quite as anxious about looking like a child because...she was a child, somewhat.
And that was okay.
"I'm sorry!" she choked out with a sob as she reached out for Camila to hug her again, which she did, promptly. "I shouldn't have kept this all in for so long, I just-you were working so hard to support everyone and everyone else was so focused on getting back and helping Vee and I didn't want to be a burden to you all, you've all been so good to me and I didn't understand how much I needed that until I had it for the first time in my life and-!"
"Mija," Camila said gently, yet firmly, as she glanced around them with alertness in her eyes. "Why don't we save this for after we find a way to beat Diablo, huh?" she asked, causing Mabel to chuckle weakly at the pun in spite of the dire situation.
"Ah, 'devil' instead of 'demon,' that's clever," she quipped, her voice still a little choked up.
"Thank you," Camila replied with a smirk. Oh yeah. Mabel had gotten her groove back.
"Oh, you have got to be KIDDING ME right now!" they heard, echoing all around them.
"Is he always this obnoxious?" Camila asked nonchalantly, like Diablo was no big deal.
"Ohhh, yeah," Mabel replied in kind, albeit with a hint of trepidation she endeavored to bury for the sake of her own survival. "Did you shoot him in the eye, perchance?"
"I may have done."
"Yeahhh, that'll do it," Mabel finished, her trepidation a bit more evident as they both heard something banging rather forcefully on the door. "You're positive that 'Diablo' isn't really him, right, Ma?" she asked just to be sure, not even realizing her slip up until Camila's smile grew wider.
"Positive, mija," she replied warmly, which only made the soup of emotions worse.
"Alright. Cool, this is cool, this is fine," Mabel said, understandably finding it difficult to stop believing that the thing about to knock down her door was, in fact, about to knock down her door. Camila wondered about how to ameliorate that particular conundrum until she hit upon a somewhat predictable, yet very fun solution, as she imagined that a baseball bat just like the one she kept from her old softball days was lying around amid the clutter of Mabel's imaginary attic.
"You ready to bust our way out of here?" she asked eagerly, leaving Mabel to hesitate as she wondered whether it would work the way Camila thought it would. Still, she admittedly hadn't come up with any better ideas, and she could at least see the logic at work here.
Plus, she'd been itching to really get some use out of her grappling hook again.
"Oh yeah," she said, cocking it over her shoulder. "Let's do this."
And suffice it to say, "Bill Cipher" didn't know what hit him.
Camila came to first, which did not improve anyone's nerves, to say the least.
"Mami!" Luz and Vee cried out in tandem, Amity and Hunter likewise caught by surprise at how easily "Mom!" slipped out - the stress of the situation, they would insist later. For now, they were, all of them, bombarding Camila with frantic questions, and judging from Waddles' squealing, the pig would certainly have joined in if he could. In any case, although Camila did her best to field their anxious inquiries, they didn't need to wait long for answers, as soon enough, Mabel herself was awake and well, the new birthmark she was left with the only indication that anything had happened.
"Whuh happen?" she asked groggily. "Why's everyone all gathered around like I'm-?"
That was about as far as she got before Camila pulled her into the fiercest hug of her life.
"Te quiero, mija," she said without hesitation, having clearly been waiting to say it for quite some time, but never wanting to impose that kind of pressure on her. The others were still catching up, but from the looks of it, Camila didn't have anything to worry about: although she was certainly surprised, Mabel got over it quick, and couldn't help the happy tears that came to her eyes as first Vee, then Waddles, then Luz and Amity and all the rest gradually joined in to create one big hug pile on the floor of Camila's living room. With everything she might have told them locked away without her knowledge...there was only one thing she could think to say. Something far more important.
"Love you too, Ma."
Chapter Twenty-Three: Because of Her[Summary: With the preparations finally complete, the moment of truth has arrived: Vee must begin the process of revealing herself not only to her friends, but to the rest of Gravesfield! Although things go about as smoothly as they could be expected to on the legal side of things, there are some awkward moments of the social variety which no amount of planning can help her to avoid.]
"Alright, let's go over this one last time. Ready?"
As Mabel spoke these words with her flashcards in hand, Vee nodded from across the kitchen table with fierce determination. Even if it was largely in an indirect sense, she had been preparing for this moment for the better part of a month, and she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that the effort which everyone had undertaken on her behalf would be worth it.
"Ready," Vee confirmed, eager to prove that she had everything under control.
"Name?" Mabel began, a softball, one Vee could answer in her sleep.
"Victoria Noceda," Vee said, her accent flawless. "Or 'Vee,' for short!" she added with a playful wink in emulation of how Luz had said it. Mabel couldn't help but smile at the sight.
"Date of birth?" Mabel asked, another question Vee had gotten down by this point.
"June 1st, 2007, 1:13 A.M.," Vee said just as smoothly, causing Mabel to chuckle.
"Kiddo, you-you don't need to rattle off that part," Mabel replied. Vee scoffed playfully.
"Somebody might ask! It could be a fun trivia thing!" she argued half-heartedly, leaving the two of them struggling to get back on track for a moment before Mabel eventually managed it.
"Alright, alright, so! The reason nobody knew about you beforehand is-?"
"They missed me during the ultrasound," Vee replied. Highly unlikely, but not impossible, at least according to Camila and Mabel's research. Of course, such an explanation required a number of errors to have been made on the part of hospital staff in order for it to make any amount of sense, but unfortunately for Gravesfield, it was an open secret among residents that their "state-of-the-art" hospital was anything but, something which Camila and Luz could readily attest to when it came to the subject of mental health. Combine that with the fact that Vee's assumed identity kind of spoke for itself, and their improbable explanation would hopefully be accepted without too much fuss.
"Okay. And so, because they hadn't remotely prepared for taking care of two kids-"
"They asked their friend Marilyn to take care of me. You know, just for a little while," Vee finished, sounding appropriately conflicted about that aspect of the story. Mabel nodded.
"Mhm. And they knew about Marilyn because..."
"Camila took care of her pets sometimes. Y'know, off the books and all, because mom's nice like that," Vee responded, with the same confidence as the previous answers.
"Yup. So, you stay in contact with your family, and Marilyn homeschools you. Only issue is-"
"She, uh, lived life on the edge, so to speak," Vee remarked hesitantly, evidently practicing how to phrase "My impromptu guardian committed a lot of crimes" in polite conversation. Smart.
"Right. You're not a fan, but she does a good job covering her tracks, and life keeps getting in the way of you finally getting a break-"
"Until Luz comes along, with an insane plan too tempting to refuse," Vee said, chuckling a bit to herself. It was technically the truth, after all, from a certain point of view.
"And the reason you ran into each other to begin with was-"
"Total coincidence. We were hiding out in Gravesfield at the time, but Owlbert stole Luz's book right before she would have left, so one thing just kinda led to another," Vee claimed.
"So, you two hashed out this whole Parent Trap scheme and switched places," Mabel continued. "You figured it would be simple enough: act like Luz, maybe make some friends, learn about taxes and public radio and get to be a normal kid for a bit. Only problem was-"
"Luz didn't come back in time," Vee finished, doing a good job of sounding despondent. "We're still not sure what happened, exactly: Luz still won't tell us much," she added, a good enough cover for how tricky it would be to explain any part of Luz's story in mundane terms.
"Yup. So, Luz is missing, Marilyn is missing, you panic for a bit, but eventually, you-"
"Decide to keep up the charade until Luz gets back," Vee replied, this time doing an even better job of sounding remorseful, given that she very much still was.
"You keep it up for about a month, until all of a sudden-"
"Luz shows up on our doorstep, with no sign of Marilyn and four other kids with no records to speak of," Vee answered, doing her best to convincingly deliver what was easily the weakest thread of their revised story, even if it was technically true. The others had been willing to go the safer route and continue hiding as much as possible so that Luz and Vee's story could stand on its own, such as it was. In the end, though, they couldn't be expected to stay hidden forever anymore than Luz could have been expected to do so, especially since they had no idea how long they would be stuck in the Human Realm. It may make things more difficult, perhaps even too difficult in the end...but they had put a lot on the line for her. The least she could do was return the favor.
"Yup. And so, all of the stuff going on at home that you couldn't talk about-"
"Was you and mom getting everything sorted out for us, including documents," Vee said in another bit of technical honesty that amused both parties ever so slightly, wrapping up that particular line of questioning and passing with flying colors. Mabel grinned and clapped her hands together.
"Ha-hey, good job, kiddo! Up top, yeah!" she cried, holding up her hands so that Vee could high five both of them from across the table. "Whoo! Okay!" Mabel continued, still somewhat keyed up in typical Mabel fashion. "Not gonna lie, it's still pretty shaky, but you'd be surprised what people will believe in places like this. Long as we keep our guard up and nobody sees anything too weird, we should be able to..." Mabel paused, noticing for the first time that Vee wasn't nearly as excited as she had seemed initially, her polite smile having morphed into a pensive expression while she wasn't looking. "Kiddo? You doing okay?" Mabel asked, concern laced in her voice. Vee looked up at her mentor, having been suddenly pulled from her thoughts.
"Hm? Oh! Yeah, I'm fine, just...thinking," she said, sinking into her chair a little as whatever she was thinking about seemed to make her even more upset. Mabel's expression softened as she got up from her seat and sat down in the chair next to Vee's.
"Well, whatcha thinking about?" she asked gently, but when Vee didn't respond for a while, Mabel opted for a different approach. "Come on, hon, what's going on in that cute little head of yours, huh? Boop!" she said, booping Vee on the cheek in hopes of getting a laugh out of the girl. Sure enough, she did, albeit only a little one: Vee couldn't let her know she was winning, after all.
"Ms. Pines, stop it," Vee replied faintly, trying not to make it obvious that it was working.
"Boop!" Mabel answered, her grin having grown a little wider as she booped Vee again.
"Stoppit!" she repeated, unable to stop herself from smiling as Mabel continued merrily.
"Boop boop ba-doop boop, boopity boop boop, boop-!" Mabel chirped, punctuating each boop that she made to Vee's cheek and side before Vee playfully bapped her hands away, bringing an end to their little juvenile game as they both laughed at the absurdity of the situation.
"God, you and Luz have the same brain sometimes, I can't," Vee muttered bemusedly before falling quiet for a bit, trying to figure out how to explain herself. "Ugh, I dunno, I guess going over all this backstory stuff is making me think about...well, about how much I still don't know about myself," she said eventually. Mabel nodded along slowly as her mind briefly flashed back to the last one-on-one talk they'd had and slowly put the pieces together.
"Ah," she ultimately replied before giving Vee a reassuring smile. "Well, hey, I mean, there's no rush to have everything about yourself figured out right now, y'know? You're still young, you've got all the time in the world!" Vee smiled faintly in response to her mentor's encouragement.
"I guess," she said with a bit of hesitation, like that was still a new concept for her. "Still feels sort of odd not to know certain things by now. I mean, I know I've had a lot of catching up to do, but it's been months! I've been here for months and yet I didn't even realize that I didn't like guys until you practically spelled it out for me!" Vee exclaimed, evidently a bit frustrated with herself. Mabel murmured to herself a bit as she mulled over how best to respond for Vee's sake.
"Well, hey, give yourself a bit more slack, you know?" Mabel said gently. "You never really had words for all this stuff, and you've had a lot going on since...well, since you got here, really. Can't exactly be blamed for focusing on more important things until you finally had some time to breathe. I mean, heck, I sure didn't have myself figured out by the end of my life-changing summer trip, I can tell you that much!" She laughed at the recollection of some of her earliest romantic misadventures, but stopped when she caught sight of Vee's brief look of surprise. She'd gotten better at talking about her past since her brain stopped self-destructing, but it was clearly still odd for her to bring it up out of the blue like that. Mabel's laugh faltered into a chuckle as her mind drifted to less pleasant channels, and she found herself absentmindedly rubbing at her forehead even though the headaches were far more manageable than they had been...albeit still there.
She suspected she might be stuck with those too.
"Honestly, I was so boy-crazy during that summer and so laser-focused on school afterwards that I didn't even realize I was bi until, like, college," she added bemusedly to try and put her mind at ease, in multiple respects. It worked, for the most part, as Vee laughed a bit along with her, mostly for the sake of helping her mentor not to dwell on things, before the notion of dwelling on things caused her to look down at the table and really think for a moment about why all of this bothered her so much before coming to a conclusion that she knew was correct, albeit hard to internalize.
"You're right, I guess it's not that big of a deal," she conceded, albeit evidently still conflicted about the questions her mind was grappling with. Mabel thought about what to do for a moment before an idea occurred to her. Now if she could just remember where she'd put it-
"Be right back!" she whisper-shouted before racing out of the kitchen and scrambling through the apartment as quickly as she dared, searching for a particular bag of things she had purchased just the other day for the other kids' benefit. When she finally located it, she swiftly pulled out what she had been looking for and plopped it onto the table in front of Vee with a satisfied grin.
"Life Ain't Binary? What is this?" Vee asked, turning it over cover to cover as Mabel smirked.
"Oh, just a little something I figured would make for a good book before bedtime. Maybe it can help you and the others figure some stuff out," Mabel said coyly while surreptitiously grabbing a cup of water and some Ibuprofen before knocking it all down like a shot, as only a grown up Mabel Pines could. "And on that note, I'mma go hit the hay! Nighty night, hon! Sweet dreams!" she added in her usual chipper tone as she tiptoed her way to the living room.
With her quiet departure, Vee was left effectively alone to peruse through the book at her leisure, and so she quickly put it out of her mind as she chose to focus on what her mentor thought would help her minor identity crisis. Pausing for a moment to smile at her mentor's thoughtfulness, she cracked the book open and flipped through it until she found a particular title that stuck out to her. Love Beyond First Sight, it read, and Vee didn't quite understand what it was getting at until she found its definition of one very particular term.
"Demisexuality...'" Vee read aloud, slowly, her voice no louder than a whisper for several reasons. Intrigued, she flipped to the page where the essay started and began to read. She read through one page, then another, and another, fighting off the urge to nod off to sleep and leave it for the morning. The more she read, the more all of those little moments from camp started to make more sense and the more things really started to click in a way that felt...freeing, almost.
Well. She may have figured one thing out, at least.
In the end, Vee was still kind of amazed that it had all turned out so smoothly.
Granted, she more than anyone knew that the final version of their cover story was going to be a hard sell, and as she walked through the halls with Luz's hand held tightly in her own for the very first time, she could tell from her classmates' furtive stares that the two Noceda sisters were going to be the subject of gossip and idle speculation for many days to come. Most of their peers seemed content to whisper amongst themselves about the story as though she and Luz weren't there, and the pair's new teachers were similarly reluctant to call much attention to the situation, but a few of Vee's castmates were actually brave and curious enough to ask the girls directly for clarification on what was going on with them, which definitely served to keep them on their toes if nothing else. Still, at the end of the day, the real test wasn't going to come from any old student or teacher they barely knew: it was going to come from-
"Vee?"
The voice, echoing hesitantly as it did from across the hallway, was enough to stop Vee in her tracks, because she knew from the moment she heard it exactly who would be waiting for her on the other side: Masha, surrounded by the rest of the Cabin 7 Crew, each of whom looked at her with a different expression on their faces. Masha, for their part, seemed to be the most conflicted, finding themself both surprised and not surprised at the revelation that Vee had been hiding something from them. Alex and Sam seemed to be in a similar boat, albeit without the same complication of Masha also having romantic feelings for Vee that could potentially be impacted by this revelation. Clara was nowhere to be seen, which was probably for the best, and Junie...her expression was the same as it often was when she was faced with a puzzle: analytical, calm, and completely unreadable.
For some reason, that was the reaction that left Vee the most nervous.
"Ohhh, god, I'm not actually ready for this, we need to-!"
"Breathe, Vee," Luz said firmly, her grip on Vee's hand tightening to help keep her steady. "Let me handle this," she added, gently coaxing Vee along as she strode forward to meet the others in the middle, noting how they looked at her like they were seeing a long-time friend as the stranger she had always been for the very first time.
It was a rather direct analogy, if nothing else.
"Heyyy, gang," Luz began, trying not to let her own apprehension about the situation trip Vee up even further: she could already feel her poor sister's hands becoming slightly more scaly in her grip. "I, uh, I'm sure you've got some questions, although it sounds like you've also gotten some answers?" she added, her own unspoken question obvious to everyone and quickly answered.
"Principal Hal talked to our parents last night, since you didn't come to school yesterday and get the chance to tell us in person. Made sure we knew what to expect...and that we would have time to think about everything before we saw you today," Masha explained, trying to make it clear in their tone that they weren't exactly mad at Vee, just...confused, and a little hurt, albeit less than they must have been when they first heard the story. Vee, meanwhile, grumbled a bit at the revelation. She understood the logic behind it, and it was probably for the best that they knew a little in advance so that they'd have time to process it all, but it still stung to have even that tiny bit of control over this whole process taken away from her.
Then again, such is her life, isn't it?
"Right, okay, so you're caught up, good! That makes things...a little easier, right?" Luz said with a bit less confidence than before, noting the way that Vee had started to shrink in on herself even further with an eerily familiar look in her eyes. Alex and Sam could only look away from the duo with unreadable expressions on their faces, while Masha's was mostly cast downwards.
"It feels so obvious in retrospect," they muttered, fretting over their hair as they continued to grapple with everything they had suspected being proven right. "We were so close, how could we not see it?" they added before they could think better of it...and suddenly Vee's blood ran cold.
"What do you mean," she muttered fearfully, unable to even properly indicate that it was a question and drawing all eyes to her in the process, especially Luz's, who started grasping just why Vee was worried...only for someone else to cut in, albeit not quite unexpectedly.
"We all had gathered that what we knew about Luz and what we knew about you could not be properly reconciled," Juniper explained on the others' behalf, ever the voice of reason. "I had noticed immediately that 'Luz' had changed a great deal over the summer, particularly with respect to how much academic knowledge she had apparently 'forgotten,'" Juniper continued, causing Vee to chuckle sheepishly as her heart rate returned to normal. Phew. Another false alarm, then.
"Yeah, Marilyn was a good mentor - mostly - but she was kind of terrible at actually teaching you things," Vee quipped, which was at least a broadly true statement based on what she had been told, but she didn't miss the way that Luz glanced off to the side and put a hand over her mouth instinctively to try and smother her response. Whether she agreed or disagreed was unclear.
"Additionally...the others say you have struggled with nightmares in the past," Juniper kept going, causing Vee's heart to sink for only a moment before she realized when Juniper had likely been told about that and schooled herself to calm down. It made perfect sense that they would have brought that up to Juniper after Vee's freakout at the Gravesfield Historical Society, and Vee wasn't about to get mad at them for that. Their hearts were in the right place, at least.
"Yeah, that was...yeah," Vee said, unable to really elaborate, which luckily wasn't pressed.
"Indeed," Juniper replied simply. "This combined with your overall mental state - no offense - made it simple enough for me to deduce at least that you were not telling us everything for reasons unknown. I had broadly suspected as much since what happened when you first visited my home, but subsequent incidents served to clarify my hypothesis more and more until, well...the evidence became too difficult to ignore." With this, Juniper made direct eye contact with Vee in a way that she rarely did with anyone, and suddenly, the nervousness that Vee had felt earlier was back in force.
"Wait...does she actually-?"
And suddenly, the bell was ringing, which felt oddly appropriate, considering.
"Ah - apologies, Luz, but we shall have to get reacquainted another time," Juniper said without missing a beat, while the others found themselves caught off guard by the ringing of the bell. "I will see you all later in the day, but for now...I sense that Vee has a question for me," she added, giving Vee another Look that turned all eyes onto the girl they thought they knew so well.
"Agh, um, right! Yeah, I did want to ask her something, it's super embarrassing though, why don't we go talk about it in a more private place where people aren't pretending not to stare at us?" Vee got out in a jumble of words that made her die a little inside, and for the first time, the others realized that, oh yeah, they had been having this conversation right in the middle of a busy hallway full of people trying to get to class, only to find themselves spectators in a potentially volatile social situation. Luz sucked in breath through her teeth while Alex and Masha got flustered and worried for Vee all at once; even Sam didn't exactly look happy about any of this, although he said nothing.
Juniper barely reacted at all.
"I think that would be sensible, yes," she replied instead, gesturing towards a place that Vee was beginning to suspect she had selected for precisely that purpose: the nearby janitor's closet. With a nervous gulp on her part and a few suspicious glances thrown their way, Vee nodded silently as Juniper moved to reassure the others (and the crowd). "This will not take long. We will reconvene later, and I...I look forward to finally getting to know you properly, Luz," she finished, the slightly choked up tone she adopted against her will the only visible hint of any serious emotion which she had displayed throughout the entire conversation. Enough that everyone took notice, and might have moved to offer her some comfort if the hustle and bustle of the halls wasn't so hell-bent on sending them off towards their classes while Juniper quietly led Vee towards the closet without anyone else noticing them. The others ultimately surrendered to the current of bodies with nothing much to offer but fond farewells and sympathetic looks laced with concern for their friends, but Luz...her gaze lingered long after they left, for reasons she couldn't quite explain to herself.
She had seen all of Vee's friends around campus before, but Juniper was the only one she shared any classes with back in freshman year, and out of all of Luz's classmates...she was the only one who had never made fun of her, not even once. Mind you, she hadn't made much of an effort to approach her in conversation outside of class, but Luz had surmised that it didn't have much to do with her as it had to do with Juniper just...keeping to herself. Luz had always tried to be polite and sweet in her interactions with her, just like she tried to be polite and sweet with everyone back then, no matter how badly they treated her anyway. And she had thought about being friends with her, sure, but...but she also took note of how Juniper recoiled from her during the Romeo and Juliet tryouts last year. She took note of how Juniper didn't talk to her as much after that, took note of how the whole play got cancelled because of her, and she had assumed that she had ruined her shot with someone who might have honestly been a really good friend. But now, seeing how much she still cared about Vee even after learning "the truth," Luz had to wonder...
Had Juniper wanted to be friends with her too?
Luz had to pause for a moment as that question entered her head, pause for a moment to process the implications of Juniper's statement and truly realize for the first time that...that there had been people for her here too. People who wanted to be friends with her even when she was at her most wild, her most vulnerable, her most unpredictable. People who saw the weird girl that she was and would have loved her because she was weird, just like the people she ultimately came to love in the Boiling Isles. Vee had found these people when she needed them most, they were her people more than anything, but...but they might not have been, Luz was only just now starting to realize.
If Luz hadn't chosen to run away and Vee hadn't chosen to slip through that portal to take her place, then...then Luz would have gone to camp. She would have met Masha and Alex and Sam, and she probably would have hit it off with them, just like Vee did. She would have found a mentor of sorts in Ms. Pines, just like Vee did. She might have even reconnected with Juniper at the library, made herself into the heart that the Cabin 7 Crew couldn't exist without, just like...just like Vee did.
It was something she should have figured out sooner, something she kind of instinctively knew from the moment Vee had described the eerily similar story of her life, but she had never really thought about it too much until Juniper's statement got her thinking about all the what-ifs. She had never thought it was possible until that very moment. She had spent so long thinking, on some level, that the wonderful life she had built for herself could have only happened on the Boiling Isles, that the only place she belonged was on the Boiling Isles, but all of this time...she had been wrong. Vee was living proof of that, a basilisk living her life in the Human Realm and succeeding at everything that Luz had wanted to do sort of by accident. A worse sister might have hated her for that, but Luz had mostly just been envious and super depressed about it, and it helped that she could at least recognize that about herself now, but...she hadn't fully let go of the idea that Vee was just better.
Until now.
Until Juniper said those words and made Luz realize that they really could have been friends.
Until Luz looked at Vee's life through the lens of that truth and saw another version of her smiling back, telling her that everything might have been okay.
Until Luz accepted the notion, ludicrous as it had once seemed to her, that she could have had a normal life with a not-normal group of human friends and been perfectly happy.
She had found a family, friends, and a partner who loved her in the Boiling Isles, and but for a handful of minor differences in the grand scheme of things, Vee had effectively accomplished the same in the Human Realm. They really had lived two lives that ran parallel to each other without even realizing it, and Luz wouldn't trade the connections she'd made in the Boiling Isles for anything...but she could just as easily have lived Vee's life too. No matter what Luz did, whether she went to the Boiling Isles or not...her life would probably have turned out okay. She would have found people who liked her, people who loved her, people who...who Understood.
And that was all she had wanted, in the end.
"Weh?!" she exclaimed, because suddenly her bag was glowing purple.
"HEHEHEHEHE YESSSS!"
"WEH?!" she exclaimed again, because now she was hearing a voice in her head.
"IT'S HAPPENING! IT'S FINALLY, FINALLY HAPPENING!"
"Agh, uh, nooo, no it's not happening, because-! Because I am in school right now and I'm probably already late to class and oh God you look like you're gonna explode-!" she got out in a rush, her panic worsened all the more as she tried to get a handle on the fact that her palisman was finally hatching at the absolute worst time and absolutely brimming with magical energy that she could not have going off in a school on her first day back-!
"I-I waited so long, I can't stop it, I'm sorry-!"
"No no no no, bebe, it's not your fault, I just-ohhh my God, oh my God oh my God-VEE!" Luz called out frantically towards the janitor's closet as her attempts to defuse this were interrupted by a sudden CRACK that made it clear that she only had so long until her palisman Hatched.
And unfortunately for her, Vee had far too much on her plate already.
"How'd you get the key to the janitor's closet?"
No sooner had Juniper closed the door behind her than Vee asked the question, knowing that it wasn't the question Juniper was referring to, but nonetheless trying to delay the inevitable as long as she could. Juniper smiled, recognizing the deflection but not begrudging her for it.
"I asked for it. Mr. Frederickson doesn't get paid enough to care too much about such matters, especially when the request comes from one of the few students that makes a habit of acknowledging his presence in any meaningful way," she said dryly without any hesitation, leaving Vee confused and a little concerned for a moment before nodding hesitantly.
"Ah, right, that-that makes sense," she replied, taking a moment to catch her breath and try to center herself as Juniper looked at her for a moment, the silent question on her end obvious. She just needed to take the plunge and ask the one question that was really on her mind:
"How long have you known?"
Juniper paused to collect herself in turn before responding at last, wishing only from the look on Vee's face that she didn't have to confirm her worst fears, if only for a moment.
"As I mentioned, I had my suspicions, half-formed as they were, from the moment I met you," Juniper began frankly, which Vee would come to appreciate upon reflection, but didn't find especially comforting in the moment.
She thought she had been doing so well.
"Oh," she muttered, trying to disguise the pain in her voice and not quite succeeding, to which Juniper rushed to intercede before Vee wound up jumping to conclusions.
"To clarify, I did not suspect that anything in particular was amiss, at least not at first," she explained, which at least got Vee to look up from the floor again. "To be frank, I was so happy to meet someone who acknowledged my presence in any meaningful way, and so happy that 'Luz' was still willing to be my friend even after everything...that I couldn't care less if you were not entirely forthcoming about your private life. No amount of white lies on your part would ever make me put much stock into the ravings of a man like Hopkins when faced with your rather unusual, if ultimately consistent alibi. It wasn't until the incident with little Polly, perceptive and precocious as she is, that I began to think that there was truth to his story after all, and that perhaps...you had lied."
With these three words, the two girls looked at each other for a moment, then two, Juniper's face remaining neutral and objective while Vee struggled to keep herself from crying at what felt like an accusation, despite the fact that Juniper didn't look or sound like she was upset. She was often the easiest one to read among her friends precisely because she was so upfront and direct, but now she was being confusingly and almost frustratingly opaque for reasons which Vee couldn't understand. Seeing the mix of emotions on her face, Juniper again felt her mask crack for a moment as she tried to compensate for what she was beginning to believe may have been a mistake.
Unfortunately, she wasn't quite fast enough this time.
"I'm sorry!" Vee gasped out, her voice cracking as she found herself unable to hold it in any longer. "I didn't tell any of you because I knew something like this would happen, I never thought I would ever have friends as wonderful as you and I didn't want to lose you, I love you, I don't-!"
"Vee," Juniper said firmly, placing a hand on her own such that she was able to wipe away the first few tears that had begun to slide down Vee's cheek, drawing her attention back to Juniper with wide eyes and her face frozen in disbelief. "We're okay," she confirmed, leaving Vee stunned.
"What?" she asked, her brain struggling to catch up. "But you, you seemed like you were-"
"Upset? My apologies: I assumed that you wanted me to be as honest as possible, and thus, I may not have done the best job regulating my tone," Juniper explained, which didn't quite help Vee's confusion, if she was being perfectly honest.
"I mean, I would, still? It's just, it's hard to imagine you all not getting upset about it," she explained in turn, to which Juniper nodded solemnly.
"I will not lie to you: I was upset, for a moment, at least," she clarified. "However...suffice it to say, I think you are fortunate to have so many friends who can understand the struggle of having to pretend to be someone you are not for your humanity to be acknowledged...albeit not quite so literally," she finished, sounding almost sheepish in a way that left Vee unable to stop herself from laughing a bit, at least until her mind drifted back to the first part of Juniper's statement.
"I'm sorry, Junie, I-I never meant-"
"You're forgiven, Vee," Juniper replied promptly, sounding a little fondly put out at having to repeat herself. "It was a simple matter for me to deduce what you had and had not lied about, as it were," she clarified with her trademark "smirk that isn't quite a smirk," causing Vee to smile a little herself. Things really had worked out, at least with Juniper. Of course, that didn't mean she was safe.
"What about the others?" she asked, clearly desperate for an insider's perspective now that she had access to one. Juniper sighed and looked at her for a moment, having evidently given it a lot of thought from the moment that she put things together on her own.
"Well, the good news is that, as I'm sure you have reminded yourself often, our friends value your friendship as much as you value theirs: they will not betray you or cut you out of their lives in perpetuity," Juniper said frankly, providing Vee with the most level-headed evaluation of the facts as they stood which she could provide. Vee nodded slowly: she knew these things intellectually and had known them for some time, but no one said fears had to be rational.
"And the bad news?" she asked, although she had always known what this was likely to be as well. Juniper pursed her lips before giving her perspective on the situation.
"Sam was the least fazed by your cover story, so of the three, it is likely that he will be the quickest to recover," Juniper began, which made sense to Vee when Juniper said it: at the end of the day, Sam was Sam, and he'd probably just be happy that Vee wasn't hiding her true self from them anymore. "Alex would no doubt be upset at first, but they were not especially upset last night either, and in that instance, my own measured response helped them to calm down," Juniper continued, to which Vee couldn't help but chuckle, especially when paired with Juniper's own knowing smile. They both knew why Alex was so quick to listen to her over anyone else.
Frankly, if it weren't such an emotionally charged situation, Vee would be tempted to gossip.
"And Masha?" she asked, a hopeful lilt in her voice that Juniper hated to put a damper on, but Vee could tell from her expression that her worst fears were closer to the mark on this one.
Exactly what she was most afraid of.
"I'm sorry, Vee," Juniper said by way of consolation. "They care about you a great deal, this much is obvious...but I think you and I both know that this is precisely why they would be so hurt by a lie of this magnitude. I am confident that they would get over it, in time, but until that point, it would not be easy for either of you to be around each other...unless we do this carefully." Vee had to nod firmly at that: it was about what she had figured would be the least terrible way to go about this, even if she couldn't quite get over her apprehension.
"Will you help me? I can't lose them, Junie, I just...can't," she said in a softer voice, her tone almost pleading as she held Juniper's hands in her own. Knowing that Vee needed an even greater level of reassurance from her in this specific instance, for reasons even more obvious than what they had jokingly observed earlier, Juniper elected to do something she had never done before:
She offered her friend a smile, bright and free and pearly white, to put her mind at ease.
"You won't lose us, Vee. I can promise you that," she said simply, like she was speaking a fundamental truth of the universe, and now Vee was tearing up for an entirely different reason.
Or at least she would have, had they not been interrupted by a loud slam on the door.
"VEE! I NEED YOU!" they both heard Luz call out frantically, putting her on alert at once.
"Luz?! What's wro-ohhhhh, that's what's wrong," Vee said, understanding the situation the moment she was able to sniff the air and realize that her sister's palisman was Hatching.
"What? What's wrong?" Juniper asked, not sounding especially concerned, but Vee had gotten to know her well enough to recognize when she felt like she was out of her depth.
"Is Junie good?!" Luz called out frantically, and Vee knew time was of the essence here.
"I-"
"Yeah she's good!" Vee called out. "Sorry," she mouthed as Luz took her cue to slip into the janitor's closet with her bag in hand, which appeared to be glowing with a deep purple light.
"Um," Juniper said, her words failing her for once, but only for a moment. "I am not quite familiar with matters concerning magic and the supernatural...but I can feel that. Is that normal?"
"Nope!" Luz cut in quickly. "Hey, so remember when I got on your case for risking your life and stopping the house from blowing up?"
"Vividly," Vee replied in a deadpan tone that served as an amusing contrast to Juniper's face.
"Great. Forget all of that for like ten seconds!" she said, handing the bag over to Vee and leaving Juniper in utter disbelief for the first time in quite a while.
"I'm sorry, you did what?" she asked incredulously, but Vee had to put her out of mind.
"Sorry, Junie, but you kinda signed up for this," Vee said apologetically, right before she took a deep breath and rubbed the bag in the hopes that the egg in there would feel it. "Sorry, little one," she whispered before beginning to drain the palisman of just enough magic to let it Hatch without a burst of magic that was liable to punch a hole in the roof or blow up a locker. The process only took about fifteen seconds or so, Luz watching with bated breath while Juniper was...starstruck.
"Fascinating," she muttered, which Vee couldn't help but catch. She'd unpack that later.
"Phew! Okay, you alright, bebe?" she asked, taking out the cracked egg and breathing a sigh of relief with the others when she saw that it was still glowing...at least for a second, and then it fell apart with a flash of purple light. In its place, a powerful staff made of black wood as sturdy as stone was conjured out of thin air to support what looked to be a whole galaxy within the space the egg once occupied. Nobody there was an expert on palismen, least of all Luz's palisman, but from what Vee could tell, it was alive, and very healthy at that.
"Huh, you, uh...you still sorting yourself out there, bud?" Luz asked hesitantly, reaching a hand out to touch the staff - her staff - and feeling it thrum with magical energy as it responded to her proximity, the magical energy coalescing into a glowing purple orb at her touch. Vee moved to place a hand on her sister's shoulder in solidarity while Juniper looked the staff up and down with that same starstruck curiosity in her eyes.
"Hrm...I don't think I messed anything up," Vee remarked nervously as she sniffed again. "Maybe we just need to wait for-oh!" she exclaimed suddenly, as the moment she laid a hand across the glowing orb herself, it suddenly expanded back out into a roiling galaxy in miniature, only for it to race along her arm and terminate right in the space between her eyes with a...hiss?
Luz and Juniper gasped, but all Vee could stare as the energy at last took the shape of a...snake. No, not just any snake: a purple-scaled snake, with a big green rattle on its tail, cat-like ears, purple eyes with the same-colored sclera as her rattle, and a bone-like visage on its adorable little face which made it vaguely resemble a skull. In a flash, Luz understood everything about who her palisman was and what had ultimately allowed her to come into existence...but Vee understood even faster. She understood the moment that she heard the adorable little bean hiss at her with such a happy smile...and realized that she understood her, even if she wasn't her palisman, because-
"She's...like me," Vee muttered, and the snakeshifter smiled back, because of course she was.
Stringbean might never have Hatched without her, after all.
Interlude #4[Summary: The Cabin 7 Crew and the Hexsquad hang out on the last day of summer and celebrate the coming of fall with wacky hijinks. Meanwhile, Philip finally realizes that there is no going back.]
"Alright, so before we go in, there's a few things you should know."
As Vee spoke, she was leading her friends on one of their fun little walks in the direction of their place, this time with the somewhat last-minute addition of Clara. Although the atmosphere was naturally a bit more tense this time around, Sam and Alex did a good job of mitigating that issue by acting just as they usually would, giving Clara a chance to acclimate to the Cabin 7 Crew's humor. Now that they were about a block away, however, Vee figured it was a good time for a crash course.
"Number one: they've been catching up really well, but these guys are still a little bit like I was when you met me, so be nice," Vee began, giving Clara in particular a pointed look that she, in fairness, had done some things to deserve not too long ago. "Of course, Gus and Hunter have read Cosmic Frontier cover-to-cover, so feel free to geek out about that with them if you want," she added for Alex and Juniper's benefit, causing both of their eyes to widen.
"Oh hell yes," Juniper said in her usual deadpan, attempting to mute her excitement and not quite succeeding. Vee chuckled along with the others before moving on.
"Number two: these guys like their personal space, especially around strangers, so be respectful of that!" Vee claimed. It wasn't completely untrue in this case, but that particular rule was mostly intended to minimize the possibility of any wacky hijinks that might lead to the others losing their concealment stones. Those things were one of the main reasons that Vee felt comfortable introducing her friends to them in the first place, so she wanted to make absolutely sure that any sort of accidents were as unlikely as possible.
"Ease up on the physical contact, got it," Alex remarked in affirmation, giving Vee a salute which the others nodded in agreement with. Vee smiled at that before getting to the main rule.
"Number three, I feel like this is obvious, but: go easy on the questions. You know almost as much as we do about their past, and they do not like talking about it, so don't bring it up!" Vee stressed, to which the others nodded immediately in understanding. "Alright, great, lemme go ahead and tell you guys a bit about who's who!" Vee continued in a brighter tone, pulling out her phone to a group selfie which she had taken with all of Luz's friends for precisely this purpose. The photo attracted the attention of the crew in no time, albeit not for the reasons she had anticipated.
"Hm. I am definitely noticing some...curious similarities," Juniper remarked, zeroing in on Willow like she was looking at her counterpart from an alternate universe.
"Tell me about it. Was pink hair dye on sale one day or what?" Alex remarked from over her shoulder, glancing over at Clara with a smirk and prompting an awkward chuckle in response. Vee continued her explanation unimpeded by the others' wisecracks.
"It's supposed to be lavender, but anyway!" she said before switching from the group photo to some individual pictures she had taken to help segue into her individual rundowns of each of Luz's friends. "Willow might look a bit like Junie, but she's a lot more like you, Alex: real, what is it, 'cottagecore,' party girl, mom friend vibes," Vee explained a little hesitantly, to which Alex nodded appreciatively, recognizing in that description a potential kindred spirit. "Just keep in mind she's also really competitive. And strong, like super strong. Don't challenge her to an arm wrestling match, you will lose," Vee warned, causing Masha to smirk.
"Oh, you know that from personal experience, don'tcha?" they asked, leaving Vee in a bind. Technically speaking, the one time they did arm wrestle, Vee won the minute Willow called her out for holding back, so to say "yes" would therefore be a lie. However, she also knew that a girl with her supposed noodle arms beating a girl as well-built as Willow in an arm-wrestling match was basically impossible, so she had no choice but to lie or move on quickly enough to avoid notice.
"This is Gus!" Vee said, choosing the latter option. "He's the youngest, sorta everybody's little brother, but he's super smart! He's a die-hard Cosmic Frontier fan, but he's down for whatever, really! He's got this curiosity and love for life in spite of everything that's just...really inspiring to me, honestly," Vee continued earnestly, finding that the words came to her without even really thinking about it. Sam smiled a little more broadly than he usually did at that description.
"Sounds like my kind of guy," he said brightly, which spoke volumes coming from him.
"Now, Amity actually is a lot like you, Clara - in a good way!" Vee moved on seamlessly, only to pause briefly and make sure that Clara didn't make any undue assumptions about Amity based on her own checkered past. "But she's also a lot like Junie: pretty literal, pretty particular, but also very sweet! I think you'd both get along well with her!" Vee added on with particular fondness in her voice, causing Juniper to smile warmly in turn while Clara's smile was more hesitant and uncertain. Seeking some way to take the focus of the conversation away from this girl who sounded too much like the girl she wanted to be and not enough like the girl she was, her eyes quickly fell upon the next photo Vee brought up...and then promptly dilated once she got a good look at it.
"Whoa, who's that guy?" she asked, sounding almost starstruck as she pointed at-
"Oh, that's Hunter!" Vee said cheerily as she knocked on the door, looking at the photo she took of Hunter leaning against the wall all cool-like and completely missing Clara's shift in tone. She didn't even question it when Clara held out her hand for a closer look. "He's sorta like the big brother for most of the group. He acts tough, and he can back it up when he wants to, but he's really just a dork who loves learning and sci-fi and sewing and all that fun stuff. Also wolves, he loves wolves: major wolf boy energy," Vee explained, having no idea how else that could be interpreted.
"You can say that again," Clara remarked in a besotted tone, whistling at the cute boy in the photograph before she could think better of it. As she honestly should have expected, the others were quite amused by her reaction, while Vee had to take a moment to process what Clara had said before her face took on an expression that was comical all on its own.
"Wat," she said, speaking as articulately as she could manage, but Clara was already burying her face in her hand out of sheer embarrassment, pointedly looking away from Vee's phone.
"I'm sorry it just slipped out he's really hot!" she said in a rush to defend herself, not really thinking clearly about that either. As the others did their best to tamper down their snickering, Vee could only stammer in disbelief at the turn their talk had taken, made even worse when Sam looked over Clara's shoulder and decided to be an agent of chaos.
"You can say that again," he repeated in a similar manner before adding in the whistle, causing Alex and Masha to howl with laughter as even Juniper found herself chuckling at the situation. Vee, for her part, had an instinctive reaction of her own in response to her friends' antics.
"Noo, stoppit, stop whistling at my brother!" she cried indignantly as she attempted to snatch the phone out of Clara's hands. She and Sam instinctively moved away in response to the sheer fervor of Vee's snatches, prompting a lighthearted tussle between the trio which ultimately ended in them all laughing along with their friends at the absurdity of the situation. However, it wasn't long before somebody noticed Vee's little slip up and cocked their head in confusion.
"Hang on, did you say brother-?" Clara asked, only to be interrupted by the door opening and swiftly confronted with much more pressing concerns.
"Oh-! Everyone, Vee's friends are here!" the subject of their conversation called out into the house as soon as he realized who had come knocking. After receiving a chorus of responses from all over the house, Hunter turned his attention back to the guests, not noticing how two of them were in varying states of utter panic at the sight of him. "Hey, guys, glad you could make it," he said, smiling bright enough to rival the sun in classic Noceda fashion. It had been a very gradual transformation, expedited by a continuing lack of fanfare over what he was and a fairly recent midnight haircut courtesy of Willow, but the truth was undeniable: Hunter was much, much happier than he had been when he first came to the Human Realm. For Vee's part, she would never not be proud to see the evidence of that firsthand, knowing better than anyone exactly how hard it had been for him to open up. However, without the benefit of that exclusive context, her friends had a somewhat different impression of his brilliant, inviting smile.
Namely, that if Clara and Sam weren't crushing on him before, they certainly were now.
"Eep-!" Clara squeaked feebly, hiding behind Vee as though the slightly shorter girl was even remotely capable of keeping her red face concealed. For his part, Sam recovered a bit more quickly, although Alex in particular had known him long enough to tell that he was embarrassed too.
"Hey, glad to be here, man," he said relatively smoothly, holding out a hand for Hunter to shake and shooting his own disarming smile to match. After a brief pause on his end (during which Vee could have sworn his ears reddened a bit), Hunter accepted the handshake with a laugh and allowed Sam to pull himself inside, stepping aside as he did so to allow the others to pass.
"So! Vee tells me that you're a Cosmic Frontier fan, huh?" Alex remarked in an inquisitive tone as they came up to one side of Hunter, catching him off-guard for multiple reasons.
"Huh-? Oh! Yes, yes, I've, uh, I read through it a while back!" he attempted to respond, not wanting to make it quite as obvious just how much of a fan he was. However, Alex's knowing look and Vee's little sister-style smirk in the background combined to chip away at his mask bit by bit. "And watched the show," he admitted, causing Alex to start grinning as well. "And read the comics," he added, to which their grin widened as Juniper solemnly placed a hand on their shoulder.
"We have much to discuss," she said simply, taking that as her cue to guide Alex inside while Hunter watched them go, obviously waiting to infodump about all of his theories and headcanons and whatnot. Vee giggled to herself a bit as Masha took her by the hand and led them both inside as well, abandoning Clara. As the former cheerleader sheepishly took up the rear while continuing to pointedly look anywhere but at Hunter's face, Hunter cocked his head in confusion before turning to his sister with an unspoken question which Masha answered before Vee could get the chance.
"Don't worry, she's just shy," they said teasingly, prompting Vee to lightly elbow them with a bemused scoff. "What?" they asked Vee plaintively, prompting a whispered discussion between them as they disappeared into the hallway. Clara made sure to follow lest she embarrass herself further.
"It was nice meeting you," she managed to stammer out in a barely audible voice during her retreat, leaving Hunter confused for a number of reasons.
"Nice to meet you too?" he replied hesitantly as he closed the door and moved to join everyone who had gathered in the living room.
By the time he got there, Gus had already been contacted by Alex and Juniper, who were now all huddled together on the floor and talking animatedly about their mutual special interest. Sam had likewise found a place for himself in that conversation, for while he wasn't as into the series as Alex and Juniper were, he did greatly admire the music and sound design of the animated series, short-lived though it was. His perspective had luckily attracted the interest of Willow, who had a bit of an appreciation for human music herself due to its beneficial effects on plant growth, as well as a recent interest she had taken in what Luz described as "metal," but which sounded more reminiscent of Boiling Isles pop music to Hunter's ear.
Speaking of Luz, though, she and Amity were busy chatting with Masha and Vee as the two goths complimented each other on their outfits and overall aesthetics. Although most of the kids' Palismen couldn't quite mill about the room in a situation like this, Ghost was an adorable exception to this rule, and she was taking full advantage of the privilege afforded by her convincingly feline form to get pets and scritches from everybody in attendance. The one exception to that particular rule was Clara, who was currently hiding in the corner by herself for reasons unknown. Between his curiosity and his lack of understanding regarding her situation, Hunter elected to approach her again.
"Are you okay?" he asked gently, so gently that it was almost unfair from Clara's perspective. She'd known this guy for like ten seconds and he was already checking up on her out of genuine concern for her well-being, in a way that she had never quite experienced from guys like him. As such, she found herself at something of a loss as to how to respond without making a fool of herself, and settled on the most convenient excuse she could give that didn't give herself away.
"Uh, yeah! Yeah, I'm good, it's just-allergies, you know?" she deflected, helped by the fact that she actually was allergic to cats, so it wasn't even a lie. Hunter nodded in understanding.
"Ah, I see. Well, don't worry, Ghost is pretty hypoallergenic," he claimed, if only to account for the fact that Ghost probably wouldn't trigger this girl's allergies in a way that made sense. Clara seemed to be a bit confused by this, but eventually accepted the explanation. He sounded sincere.
"Oh, well, um, that's good. Real good, I guess I should go, um, do. That," she stammered, looking to get out of this conversation before her face got any redder. Hunter watched her go with even more confusion than he had before, only for his mind to be diverted by a welcome distraction.
"Hey, you~. Is everything alright?" Willow asked in a stage-whisper, having noticed that Hunter wasn't with the rest of the Cosmic Frontier nerds. Hunter nodded quickly, blushing a bit.
"Yeah, yeah, I was just talking to, um, Clara, was it? Just wanted to make sure she was doing okay," he answered honestly, causing Willow to smile as she glanced over his shoulder to see the girl in question genuinely having a good time hanging out with Ghost.
"That was sweet of you," she said earnestly, getting an idea. "Why don't you go join the others and I'll keep an eye on her, huh?" she suggested, which seemed like a good idea to him.
"Yeah! Yeah, that'd be great, thanks!" he said, flashing her a smile before running off to go geek out with the rest of the nerds over in the Cosmic Frontier book club corner. Willow smiled even wider as she watched him go, sighing dreamily in spite of herself. He really was the goodest boy.
"Hey, mind if I scooch over?" she asked Clara after walking over to where she was currently sitting on the couch, Ghost in her lap. Clara, having observed bits of that conversation, nodded with a hint of trepidation on her features. She had been on the other side of an exchange like this once or twice before. She didn't envy those girls now that she was about to get a taste of her own medicine.
"Mm! Mhm!" she stuttered out, the close proximity between them making Clara realize with a start that Vee was not kidding about how strong this girl was. Nevertheless, Willow's expression was friendly as she sat down and gave Ghost some scritches beneath her chin.
"She really likes it when you do this, or give her a little bit of love behind the ears," Willow remarked off-handedly, to which Clara nodded, naturally not having had a lot of experience with petting cats and moving to follow Willow's example.
"Right, um, thanks," she said awkwardly, bracing herself for Willow to make some kind of passive aggressive comment or not-so-subtle threat to back the hell off from her man, but...neither of those things seemed especially forthcoming. The bigger girl's friendly expression betrayed no hint of malice or even petty jealousy. As far as she could tell, Willow had seen Clara talking with her boy while obviously crushing on him and just...decided to talk to her too, with no ill intentions of her own and nn misunderstandings of Clara's intentions for her to have to correct for fear of ridicule.
Huh. That was new.
As Willow got Clara to lower her habitual guard and the others continued their respective conversations, nobody really took much notice of the passage of time. When simply talking amongst themselves ran its course, they switched to video games, alternating between the four controllers they had available based on who was and wasn't interested in wacky cartoon racing or battling each other to the death using popular video game characters. When that eventually got stale, they opted for all sorts of fun party games, during which they learned a few new things about each other without straining their newly formed bonds of friendship. By the time that was done with, Camila was home from work, and the gang could finish out their afternoon get-together with a lovely meal that had to be eaten in the living room because the kitchen table was too small. Even so, by the time each of Vee's friends had to bid her adieu with the arrival of their rides, everyone in attendance could safely say that they had a wonderful time getting to know Luz's friends, and that they would eagerly avail themselves of any future opportunities to hang out which may present themselves.
And so they did...for a little while, anyway.
At long last, the time was at hand.
It took everything Philip had to keep his form under control as he felt the last of the giraffe's magic be added to his own reserves like it were the richest ambrosia, rather than the foulest ichor of the damned. With it, he had at last enough power to achieve what he had been praying for after all this time. At last, he had the strength required to restore himself to his former glory, to regain his lost humanity: he could not be blamed for his eagerness, now could he? Not when he was one step closer to accomplishing what he had been put on this Earth to do, one step closer to getting his revenge, one step closer to saving humanity once and for all!
Or at least he would be, if the fools he was saving would just leave him alone already!
He had been on a razor's edge for what felt like eons, holding back his impending rejuvenation to make sure he was not discovered prematurely, and yet he could still vaguely sense humans hanging around nearby, even as he could feel the body being moved for eventual burial. The staff of the Gravesfield Zoo had spent weeks doing everything they could for these barely-disguised monsters as their "bacterial infection" gradually sapped away their strength, and Philip couldn't understand how these freaks had managed to engender their sympathy to such a degree. Clearly that same naive compassion which had made poor Luz into such a problem was not exclusive to her by any stretch of the imagination, and could perhaps be said to be one of the few remaining virtues of this godless society if it weren't so often misplaced. Ah, if only they were not so easily misled as a result of that kindness, he had thought to himself. Still, with little else to do but slowly feast upon the giraffes from within, Philip had been blessed with a lot of time to not only recover his wits, more or less, but also to think about the future for the first time in...he honestly couldn't remember.
Even if he found a way to restore himself, even if he found a way back to the Boiling Isles after taking care of those pests, there was clearly much work left to be done. Wiping the world clean of those monsters was all well and good, but everything he had experienced since returning from the Demon Realm made it painfully clear how much they had sunk their claws into human society while he was distracted with his own crusade. Intelligent rats lurking beneath his hometown, demons masquerading as native fauna spread all throughout the world, and God only knows what else that witch got up to before the portal door fell back into his hands. With how long the portal door had been kept hidden by Evelyn, who knew what other havoc had been wrought upon his world? For all he knew, everything that was wrong with these modern humans could be traced back to-!
To...
He had been a fool.
It was painful to admit, but there it was: he had been a fool. For as much as he may have bemoaned the naivete of these modern humans, this long period of introspection allowed him to realize that he too had been naive - naive enough to think that ridding the world of witchcraft was all that was required of him, that purging the cause of the disease was tantamount to eliminating its symptoms. He had seen with his own eyes the damage which one witch could do to a single location, a single human life. It was only now, with centuries of experience and his own recent misfortune in mind, that he could even begin to fathom the extent to which their entire species had corrupted his own. How many beasts, how many witches had slipped through the cracks over the years, found themselves in the Human Realm by chance or by choice, and elected to spread chaos in their wake? And even if he was wrong, even if Gravesfield and its corruption represented most of the damage outside of those damned giraffes, how could he possibly hope to guide humanity back into the light? He was no preacher, no prophet, no matter how much he styled himself as one. Bending the Isles to his will had been the work of ages, and clearly his methods had left much to be desired in the final accounting. Trying to do the same with his own people, with a society which he was still struggling to understand after so much time apart, that was a recipe for disaster! Unless...
Unless...hrm. Now there was an idea. Pity that it was about to become irrelevant very soon.
Before he could contemplate his hypothetical solution any further, he sensed the light in the room dim, and he knew that now was his chance. As soon as he was finally certain that the coast was clear, Philip roughly adjusted the dead giraffe's neck so that he could easily slide out of its open mouth onto the floor, then scrambled to take the most expedient path through the vents while he still had some control over himself. He had just barely made it back to the old rats' den when he finally gave out, unable to hold himself back any longer. Falling to his hands and knees once more, he felt a very similar sensation to what he had felt back then, albeit far more intense than before. He hadn't been ready when he slew the rats, but with the giraffes' magic in his possession, and after all of this time spent trudging through sewers and feeding on these monsters like a starving animal, he was done waiting. He would become human again. He had to.
How else could he be expected to save them from themselves?
With what could almost be described as maniacal glee, Philip watched as the same steps repeated themselves once more: the bones knotted into place, the horns shrunk back into his skull, and the flesh of his hand reasserted itself before his eyes. From there, it spread down his arm, through his torso and towards his other arm, his legs, and finally to his face. He looked into a nearby puddle and watched himself be restored to his original state, complete with the old clothes which he had worn before he succumbed to his own Draining Spell. Were he not beside himself in jubilation, Philip might have been inclined to question this particular development, but as it stood, he was too preoccupied with marveling at the improvements to his body. Gone was the hideous gash of green across his face which had forced him to hide behind a mask! Gone were the glyphs carved into his arms which had caused him so much misery for so little gain in the end! Gone was the...the...
Gone was the heart which should have been beating in his chest.
Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as Philip finally noticed the absence of a sound which all living beings took for granted, a sound whose absence he had grown so accustomed to in the past weeks that it was little wonder how it slipped his mind until now. With a subtle, yet growing panic, Philip moved a hand to his chest and confirmed that, indeed, there was no heart beating beneath his breast. As if this were not sufficient proof already, he then proceeded to draw two fingers to his wrist, pointlessly confirming that he had no pulse. He let out a startled gasp, and through this he was once again informed that he was not technically breathing either, or at least that the inhaling and exhaling of air through his mouth and nose wasn't doing anything except helping to sustain the illusion of humanity. With a sinking feeling in a stomach that clearly did not exist, he called upon what were now well-practiced instincts and formed his right arm into a long, whip-like tendril of green sludge before reforming back into his right arm, leaving small droplets in its wake.
There was no denying it anymore: he was not human, would never be human again for as long as he continued to cling to life. Although he could now maintain a humanoid form, it was just that: a form, a facsimile, a work of arcane artifice sustained by his intent and his magic alone through means which he still did not understand. What he was now was nothing more than a replica of what he had been at the height of his power, on the eve of his ultimate triumph, before those monsters and that mewling little bitch took it all away from him! The more time he took to think it all over, the less he was able to avoid one simple, infuriating conclusion:
This was all her fault.
For once, he wasn't talking about the temptress: he had made sure there was nothing left of her but that wretched cardinal he still couldn't find. No, he was talking about Luz, that deluded little human girl who'd stumbled through the portal and thrown centuries of planning into utter disarray. He thought he'd prepared himself for her: he had been given centuries to prepare himself for her! She was an amateur, a fool, an idealistic whelp whose mind had been poisoned by the wretched lies of two realms, and yet, she still managed to outfox him, time and again! Catching him off guard and destroying the portal door was bad enough, but he'd at least been able to correct that mistake, and once he knew for certain that she and "Luzura" were one and the same, neutralizing her should have been child's play! All of the pieces had been laid out perfectly: everything had played out exactly like it was supposed to! She'd even delivered herself directly into his mindscape, the one place she couldn't escape his clutches and the one place he could freely reveal everything he needed to ruin her without consequence! Even he couldn't have anticipated such a serendipitous situation!
Of course, despite having all the advantages, she still managed to keep herself out of his reach, and took his latest failure along with her. Even when she once again delivered herself right into his hands, even when he had her on the brink of death at the final hour, still she managed to trick him into letting his guard down! He knew how crafty she was, knew how much of a threat she posed, and yet, she lives because of his folly! He didn't understand how she had done it, if only because he simply couldn't accept that he would ever have been so easily outmaneuvered by a mere child. Nonetheless, the fact remained that he indeed fell right into her trap, and with that one mistake, she and her precious witches had cost him everything.
It would have finally been done if it weren't for her.
Caleb may have chosen to betray him again and again and again no matter what he did to perfect the procedure, but Luz...Luz had ruined everything he'd worked for. Four hundred years of planning and sacrifice, four hundred years spent trying to avenge his brother, trying to protect the rest of their kind from that wretched realm of evil, all dashed to the wind! Those witches had corrupted the poor girl even more than this modern world had already done, tempting her with their beguiling whispers and false promises of fellowship and "love" to such a degree that she had been willing to die for their sake, just like...
Just like Caleb had been.
Philip had tried, he had tried so hard to save both of their souls, and yet they rewarded his mercy with betrayal and ruination, again and again and again and again and again and AGAIN-!
Philip forced himself to pause. He would not give in to his anger. He was better than that. Still, unable to actually take a calming breath, he could only do his best to center himself, tuning out the dripping water and the skittering of the bugs around him in a desperate attempt to focus. He ignored everything in hopes that it would steady his mind, plug up the cracks left behind by the trauma of what The Collector had done to him. What they had all done to him.
When he was finished, there was only thought left in the hourglass, one that reigned supreme over all others. A thought that would never slip away with the rest of them, not if he could help it. A thought that was, admittedly, less of a plan and more of an oath, an oath made to a power he was ashamed to say he had almost forgotten. A solemn vow of only two words, a vow which he intended to see carried out to its terrible conclusion...or else to finally die in the doing of it.
"No more."
He could feel a shift in the atmosphere around him as soon as he gave voice to this single thought. The water did not drip, the wretched creatures did not scurry, and nothing else dared make a sound in the face of his proclamation. For a brief moment which stretched for hours, everything was perfectly still. The comparison his mind made, still reeling from the realization that he would always be a monster, left him experiencing a rare, yet familiar sensation of apprehension mixed with excitement. It was a feeling he knew well to associate with sin. And yet, at this point in his long life of faithful service, after enduring such hardship and ruin for so little reward...he found he was more than willing to indulge himself, just this once.
In that singular moment, despite his current circumstances...he truly did feel like God.
"No more," he repeated every so often, trudging along the dark tunnels of the sewer and feeling his lucidity slip through his fingers little by little with each moment he went without more sustenance. No matter. Lucid or not, man or monster, he would find the wretches who did this to him, he would find a way to save humanity, and if he could not find a way to finish what he started...then he would take solace in dragging Luz Noceda down to Hell where she belonged.
For no more did he have the mercy of a man.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Homecoming Night[Summary: With Homecoming approaching, the perfect opportunity for Vee to ask out Masha arises, one which she is determined not to let go to waste! However, when it becomes apparent that Karen intends to be at Homecoming as well just to make everyone else as miserable as her, the Hexsquad and the Cabin 7 Crew team up to stop her from ruining Vee's perfect night.]
"Alright, Vee...you can do this."
Vee had accomplished a great deal during her time in the Human Realm, faced down all sorts of harrowing situations, and yet, as absurd as it was, what she had finally worked up the nerve to attempt on this day of all days...might have been the most harrowing yet, at least in her estimation.
"You know where they stand. You've known for weeks now. Now, you just gotta do it!"
She took a deep breath. She needed to focus. Just one more step and-
"Just! Do it-!"
And she had to catch herself before she ran headfirst into Masha.
"Whoa! Hah, um, hi, Vee," Masha said, laughing in that cute, sorta nasally way they did. The kind that made Vee's heart almost literally twist itself into knots.
She could not do this.
"Masha! Friend! Hi, hah, fancy meeting you here, I...um..." Vee began, her voice going up a whole octave before faltering the more she looked at Masha, and the more Masha looked at her, their grin slowly growing wide enough to show off that adorable gap between their teeth and oh Titan why did she ever think she could do this-!
"Did you wanna talk for a minute?" they asked, and Vee had to bite back a sigh of relief.
"Yes! Yeah, let's just, um..." she said before subtly guiding Masha over to a less populated corner of the halls; she'd had her fill of sneaking off into janitor's closets, frankly. Masha followed her with that same grin on their face, a grin which seemed almost knowing in its way.
Vee gulped. As nervous as that made her, it did make things easier.
"So..." she began hesitantly, not quite sure how to start despite the fact that she had been rehearsing this conversation in her head for...longer than she cared to admit, to be perfectly honest.
"So..." they repeated playfully, making it even more clear that they knew exactly where this conversation was likely going. They just wanted to give Vee the chance to say what she wanted to say on her terms instead of electing to speak for her, which was sweet of them, really.
Just one of many reasons she had grown to care for them so much.
"Look, I-I know that things have been...kinda crazy, lately," Vee managed to start, to which Masha had to nod solemnly, a part of them still a little guilty about how they'd reacted at first, as mild as that reaction was by the time it got to Vee's ears.
"Mmhm," they said, if only to acknowledge the statement and prompt Vee to continue.
"And-and I wish I could say that things are gonna get less crazy, but to be perfectly honest with you...I'm not sure I can promise that in good conscience," Vee continued, looking at Masha with a look they recognized from all the way back at camp. It was a look she got when she was at her most bleak, her most self-deprecating, a look she got when she thought that everything was her fault and her friends deserved better than to deal with someone like her.
Someone who had been lying to them the whole time, even if she had her reasons to.
"Vee? What exactly are you talking about here?" they asked, their bemused expression having swiftly given way to a look of concern that only served to twist Vee up more. She took a deep breath and weighed her options: either go with the original plan and keep things relatively safe still, or…
Or tell them everything, and pray to the Titan that it wouldn't blow up in her face.
"I have something important I need to tell you, and-and I know that I've been putting it off, and I'm sorry, but I just-I didn't know how you would react to the whole 'Parent Trap' thing and I'd totally understand if your feelings have changed since then, but-!"
"They haven't."
Vee could have gone on until well past the ringing of the bell, had those two simple words from Masha not stopped her in her tracks so completely that she didn't even hear the ringing of the bell in the first place, keen hearing be damned. Vee had known that it was possible, even likely, for this to be the case, but to have it confirmed so bluntly, without a second of hesitation in Masha's voice or the slightest wavering of Masha's softly smiling expression...she didn't know what to say. Words seemed insufficient to describe the emotions that were bubbling inside her heart and twisting everything around so much that it was a wonder she was able to maintain her human form at all.
"Oh," she said eventually, stupidly, her mind bereft of anything more complicated than that.
"Hehehe, yup," Masha said, popping the "p," and oh Titan, she loved them so much.
"So, uh, what happens now?" Vee asked timidly, hopefully, her mind supplying her with all sorts of answers that weren't especially helpful at this particular moment.
"I think you can guess, cutie~," Masha said with a wink, which didn't help Vee out at all.
"Ah," she said, hoping she wasn't blushing furiously and knowing that she absolutely was.
So, knowing this, and knowing that Masha did in fact still have feelings for Vee and Vee specifically, and knowing that she had to resolve this conversation in some fashion before they were late for class, Vee glanced around as unobtrusively as she could before her eyes landed on an oh-so-helpful poster, giving her the mental jump-start she needed to say what she needed to say.
"Do you wanna go to Homecoming with me?" she asked, bringing her hands together as though praying for Masha to say yes, and something about the gesture just made them grin wider.
"Nothing would make me happier, Vee."
Oh, what Vee would have given to let even one of her plans go off without a hitch.
"Wait, she's still going?" her keen ears picked up as she was (admittedly) skipping down the halls a little still on her way to lunch. It took her a moment to put a name to the voice, which she only recognized from oh-so-many instances of teasing under the radar at camp: Tiffany Campbell, a close friend of Karen's, with her brown hair done up in short pigtails and purple earrings.
"Mmmmhm," she heard after that, as if on cue, from another girl whose voice reminded Vee of less-than-pleasant summertime memories: Keisha Roberts, a girl who was more on the periphery of the Cheer team for reasons nobody wanted to interrogate, but nonetheless bought into the Look with her long pigtails, otherwise-straightened hair, and yellow earrings paired alongside piercings.
"But I thought, I mean, after Curtis-" a third voice she dimly recognized cut in, and Vee didn't even have the time to properly place the name before the other girl got cut off.
"Wow, y'know, I thought she wasn't going to bother as long as Clara and Curtis were there," Tiffany mused a little louder than she needed to, piggybacking off of the new girl's hushed attempt to contribute to the conversation, in a way that had evidently been perfected down to a science. Vee honestly felt a little sorry for...Amanda! Yeah, that was the name, Amanda...Woolard, Vee wanted to say. In hindsight, she had known her from camp too, and yet she'd never heard the girl complete a sentence as long as Karen and the others were around to hear it. It made her wonder how many of those girls were certified Mean Girls and how many were like Clara: decent girls at heart who acted like jerks in order to survive, only for the role to consume them bit by bit until they couldn't discern what was real about them and what was fake.
It made her wonder whether she was more similar to Clara than she thought she was.
Maybe that was why she could never bring herself to despise her the way Masha had, once.
"-So she's really going without a date?" Tiffany was asking, prompting Vee to abruptly tune back into the conversation before she missed anything vital. She wasn't one to eavesdrop, which was why she didn't make a point of deviating from her planned course once they got near the lunch area, but if this meant what she thought it meant...
"Mhm, don't ask me why - you know what she'll say," Keisha said dryly.
"'The inner machinations of my mind are an enigma,'" both girls said in unison, catching the third girl by surprise such that all she could do was awkwardly laugh in the background.
"Ha, I, um, 'I understood that refer-'" Amanda attempted to quip in response, finger guns at the ready, only to be shut down yet again as the pair continued on talking like she wasn't even there.
Maybe Vee was imagining things, but she could have sworn that the girl bit back a rather unladylike snarl at the second instance of interruption.
"God, her and her stupid vocabulary," Keisha added in that same dry manner, only to find herself bapped in the shoulder by Tiffany, causing her to stumble slightly. "Ow! Hey, what gives, we both know she cares way too much about her A+ in Eng-!" she began in protest, only to freeze in her tracks as none other than the girl of the hour appeared before them, food tray in hand and not even bothering to hide the bags that were slowly developing over her "perfectly perfected" face.
It was a testament to their God's benevolence that nobody saw Vee make herself scarce.
As if to reward her for her begrudging faith in Him, such as it was, Vee was visited by another stroke of random luck in that Karen and her gaggle remained in earshot (well, in her earshot) even as Vee moved to sit down as casually as she could manage. Masha and the others' attempts to engage her in their usual friendly banter were briefly paused, then quickly resumed as they each took note of the slight quirk of her ears and let their friend with unusually good hearing get the hot goss with just enough conversation going on around her to give her plausible deniability.
Her friends really were the best she could ask for.
"Karen! Good to see you, everything okay?" Keisha began, evidently trying not to sound like she hadn't been caught making fun of the new queen bee behind her back. Karen simply scoffed.
"What do you think?" she replied grumpily as she briefly assessed the situation, such as it was, before concluding that her hold over the girls was secure and moving on to the one thing that she knew was on each of their minds. "Heard Pearl and 'Vee' are going to Homecoming," she said, spitting out both names as though they were poison on her tongue. Vee had to clamp down the urge to get up: Masha still hadn't come out to anyone outside of Mr. Fisch's class, word got around as it always does, and the last thing she needed to do with her mostly-clean slate was pick a fight with Karen over words she wasn't even supposed to be hearing with her perfectly normal human ears.
"Yeesh, they just gotta rub our faces in it every chance they get, huh?" Tiffany said in their clique's own twisted form of solidarity.
"Right? Talk about a match made in Hell," Keisha quipped, and ohhh, Vee was going to do something stupid if they didn't change the subject soon.
"Yeah, yeah, she can do whatever the hell she wants with that poser, I don't care," Karen said, her tone indicating that she very much did care, not that anyone else in her group noticed or cared to notice under the threat of her glare. Masha couldn't quite resist rolling their eyes at Karen's posturing, and as much as Vee knew she shouldn't let the girl's wild accusations get to her...being called a "poser" of all things couldn't help but set her a little on edge.
It was probably nothing. They had all known the cover story was going to be a hard sell, but when presented with the undeniable visual evidence of Luz and Vee's simultaneous existence, most everyone found a way to rationalize it, just like they did with every other weird thing that happened in Gravesfield. Karen must have done the same, must have assumed that everything Vee did was an act, must hate Vee for all the reasons that she hates herself...with or without her knowledge. That must have been the reason Karen still loathed her with every fiber of her being even after learning that she wasn't Luz, why she seemed convinced that Masha and Vee were engaged in some kind of conspiracy meant to spite her specifically, why she was so deep in denial over whatever it was that Clara and Masha saw in her that she continued to sabotage herself at every turn.
The only other explanation, the one which made her truly afraid, was that Karen knew what Vee was, or at least suspected that she wasn't who she said she was, and that...that wasn't possible. Sure, she had poked around a little at camp, when Vee was at her least normal, but Ms. Pines assured her that she threw Karen off the scent whenever she got too close. Since then, nothing else weird had happened in Karen's line of sight, and barring another sudden crisis, nothing else weird was going to happen, especially not on Homecoming, not if Vee had anything to say about it!
"So why bother with Homecoming?" Tiffany asked, diverting Vee's attention back to the conversation once again, while also wisely omitting the fact that Karen had explicitly said she had no intention of going without a date. "They're just gonna be insufferable all night, them and their kooky little cabin crew," she added, hoping to reassure Karen she was on her side, only for Karen to stomp her foot and turn towards her "best friend" by default with a furious storm brewing behind her eyes.
"Because I still have the perfect dress for my perfect night ready to go in my closet, and I'm not going to let that perfect girl take anything else away from me!" Karen snapped, her voice loud enough that the rest of the crew could hear her along with everyone else.
Needless to say, that certainly clarified things as far as Vee was concerned.
"Yikes," Sam said, which really summed up everything about that conversation in a nutshell.
As the kids in the lunch area gradually turned to more pressing matters on their phones or on their tables, Karen's face flushed in embarrassment before she stormed off, leaving the trio to stand there for a moment, torn on how to handle the situation from here.
"Are you ok-?" Amanda asked, moving to put a hand on Tiffany's shoulder until Keisha beat her to it, like they did with everything else.
"You good, girl?" she asked, earning her a smile from Tiffany and a scowl from Amanda as her face settled into something that Vee found unnerving in the split second she turned her head to look. As the pair attempted to console each other and figure out what to do about their "friend," the third girl behind them made a carefully calculated show of bumping into Keisha just hard enough to make her stumble into Tiffany too, leaving their perfect hair and their perfect outfits ever-so-slightly disheveled in a way that Amanda knew full well they would hate more than anything.
"Agh, what the hell, Amanda?!" Keisha snapped as she attempted to resettle her hair.
"Seriously, give a girl some warning, huh?!" Tiffany added, dusting herself off as well.
"Sorry - tripped," Amanda said, clipped words delivered with a clipped smile from a girl who, Vee was slowly realizing, had indeed been sent to Reality Check for a very good reason. One which made her just a little bit scarier than Karen, if Vee was being totally honest with herself.
Perhaps all of the Cheer girls were more complicated than she had initially thought.
"Ugh, can't say I miss that," Masha remarked dryly, drawing Vee's attention back to their...
Huh. What were she and Masha, at this point?
From her admittedly limited understanding of romance, asking someone out to a big formal dance was a recognized way of confirming mutual romantic interest, which was naturally required to begin a romantic relationship. Furthermore, Masha had already confessed their feelings to Vee, and she had been very careful in kicking that particular can down the road until she was ready to be open about her own feelings. It was only now, hours after she had finally gotten the chance to do just that, that she realized she hadn't had the time or the wherewithal to get confirmation on whether she and Masha were "an item," to use the human expression. They both clearly wanted to be together, and it was likely that they were together now for all intents and purposes, but until Masha confirmed it somehow, their relationship was in a perpetual state of uncertainty, both existent and nonexistent at once, a paradox in motion that Vee dare not resolve lest she disrupt the delicate strings upon which they all seem to be dancing like actors on a stage, dancing together towards a future whose shape Vee could only guess at for all her optimistic fantasies, but which nonetheless loomed large and terrible in the back of her mind like a pale shadow dragging her into the depths-!
"Vee?"
Vee blinked, realizing that Masha was talking to her, and everyone else was looking at her in a way they had never quite looked at her before. She bit back a groan as she rubbed her head, noting the way it ached and felt warm to the touch. Was this how Ms. Pines had felt? That was terrifying.
"Sorry, I just zoned out there for a bit. Head full, too many thoughts, you know?" she said, trying to distract her friends and herself with an outdated human reference. It didn't quite work.
"Nah nah nah, this was new," Sam pointed out frankly, which Vee couldn't argue with. It had definitely felt new, new and terrifying, like her mind had been so caught up in everything that it hadn't quite had time to process that it reached out and touched something...dangerous. Something she shouldn't have been able to know, for all of her unusual insight. There was only one other thing her mind supplied her with which was remotely comparable, and it was such a bizarre connection that her first instinct was to dismiss it out of hand...just like she had dismissed her fears with Karen.
And she knew what had happened the last time she dismissed her own bizarre connections.
"Hey Vee? Babe? We don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," Masha said, so rattled at seeing Vee about to drift away from them again that they lost their filter, and everyone noticed.
"What was that?" Vee asked breathlessly, her dilemma pushed to the background of her mind like an ongoing download in the wake of what she had just heard.
"I-I said we don't have to talk about it-" Masha said, already starting to blush a bit against their will as the others couldn't help the grins forming on their faces at the sight of them.
"Nooo, no, you said something before that," Vee said, surprised at how quickly the turns had tabled in the teasing department, and even more surprised at how much she liked it.
"Ohh, no, don't you dare, that is my thing!" Masha protested in an attempt to spare what was left of their dignity, their face growing redder by the second.
"Aww, what's the matter, honey? You don't like it when I flirt with you for once?" Vee asked, and oh my God, where was this coming from?! She had never been this confident before, and it was as exciting as it was terrifying, for a number of reasons that were all confined to the back of her mind as she focused on what was most important to her right now.
"Mrrrrr!" Masha groaned, their face in their hands to hide how red it was at this point.
"So, if you're calling me 'babe' and reacting like that when I call you 'honey,' I take it that means we're 'official,' then?" Vee asked a little cheekily, but unable to hide the anxiety in her eyes. Masha peeked through their hands and registered what that look meant, registered that it didn't matter how ridiculous they looked right now because their...girlfriend needed them. And they had promised to be there for her, always. Until the end of the line.
"Yeah. We're official," they confirmed with a smile in an effort to set Vee's mind at ease, and luckily for them, that was exactly what they did.
Well...more or less, anyway.
Luz: So we're doing something about Karen, right, gang?
As they sat in their room that very evening, Masha couldn't help but chuckle as Luz's sudden text ushered in the birth of a new group chat fittingly - if somewhat inaccurately - labeled as "The Conspirators." For as much as they cared for Vee and loved every aspect of the girl who rekindled their faith in humanity, there was a certain utility in having a group chat which contained everyone in the Crew except for Vee, with the notable addition of her far more chaotic twin sister, along with two other people whose numbers they didn't recognize.
So, you know, that was interesting.
Juniper: Indeed. Vee deserves to have her first Homecoming be as special as advertised.
Juniper: On a related note, however, who else is here? I do not recognize the remaining two numbers listed.
Masha smiled. Leave it to Juniper to beat them to the punch, with Luz not far behind.
Luz: Right, right, one second. Go ahead and introduce yourselves, everyone!
Mabel: Howdy gang! This is Ms. Pines, I was asked to join this chat to keep y'all's schemes civilized. ;)
Juniper: Hm. A sensible precaution. /j
Alex: Pfft, yeah, that's fair.
Alex: That still leaves the other one, though, and if we're really scheming, then we're missing three, right?
Masha raised their eyebrow at that. Alex was right: Luz wouldn't leave any of her friends out of a scheme, especially a scheme that involved thwarting the vapid ambitions of Karen. Then again, there was one person that wasn't accounted for in the list of known conspirators, and while Masha knew her number and didn't think she'd want any part in this sort of thing anymore...it was possible that she might not have been using her phone to contribute in this particular situation.
And they both knew that they weren't done dealing with Karen just yet.
Luz: Oh, yeah, none of my friends have cell phones, so we worked out a bit of an unorthodox solution.
Hexsquad: Howdy! -Gus
Hexsquad: Howdy! -Willow
Hexsquad: Howdy. -Amity
Hexsquad: ...
Luz: Pfft, Hunter, you-you gotta say it. =}
Hexsquad: No. I don't think I will. -Hunter
It didn't take more than a second of thought for most of the human kids to flood the chat with laughing emojis, leaving the witches and especially Hunter off guard, to say the least.
Hexsquad: Why is everyone laughing? I'm not joking. -Hunter
Luz: No, no, Hunter, you made a joke unintentionally, that's why everyone's laughing. xD
Hexsquad: How? -Hunter
There was a notable pause, followed by a brief mental refresher undertaken by each of the members of the Cabin 7 Crew before they all independently agreed to return to the subject at hand instead of wasting daylight trying to catch Hunter up on an outdated reference.
Sam: So anyway, yeah, what are we doing about Karen?
Masha sighed. They'd been asking themselves that question for months now, and they still hadn't the foggiest idea of how to make her piss off for good, let alone how to do so in a way that Vee wouldn't pick up on (or at least not make too much of a fuss about). It was a tough job, but the most brilliant, creative, and devious minds in Gravesfield were on the case, and nobody knew Karen better than they did...except for the one girl they now knew wasn't here.
And in this case, the enemy of their enemy really was their friend. Or starting to be, again.
Masha: I think I've got an idea. =)
And with that, they switched over to a text thread they hadn't opened in months...and prayed to their Goddess that everyone would get the Homecoming they deserved.
"I can't believe I agreed to this."
As she muttered the words under her breath, Clara had just finished another scan of the dimly lit gym for any sign of Karen causing problems, only for her to once again confirm that the girl was simply not there. This on its own was puzzling, since her lackeys were most definitely present along with their dates and likewise confused as to why their friend was late, especially after having made such a big deal out of how she had no intention of missing Homecoming. It left a sinking feeling in her gut that she couldn't quite shake, but it wasn't like there was a whole lot she could do about it. The way she saw it, she was lucky enough to be allowed to go at all, albeit only with a somewhat last-minute concession.
"Hey, are you doing okay, Clara?"
Clara jumped a little, she was willing to admit it. She couldn't help it, could she, especially when the person who had caught her by surprise was none other than Hunter - Hunter Noceda, if Vee's offhand comment the day they met was meant in a literal sense. Regardless of what his name was, the fact remained that he was there, and that part of Masha's bold plan to get Karen off their backs had hinged on him being her "date," at least as far as the paperwork and her parents were concerned. She had wondered whether this was Masha's own lighthearted kind of payback towards her, but if that was indeed the case...they certainly could have done a lot worse.
"I'm fine, yeah, just a little on edge," she said, thankfully finding it easier to speak around him now that they had gotten to know each other, somewhat.
"Mm, yeah, understandable. Must feel a bit like you're undercover behind enemy lines, huh?" he mused aloud as he did exactly what Clara had just done with, from what she could tell, far more subtlety than she had even thought possible. It was like he was a spy or something, or maybe even-
"Like a soldier?" she asked, confusion in her tone which registered to Hunter's concealed ears immediately as a particularly dangerous kind of confusion: the kind that suggested that your cover was about to be blown after you let the mask slip just a bit too much. He needed to get her mind back onto the task at hand, for the sake of the mission! Just for the mission, no other reason!
"Hah, uh, yeah, I guess. You know me, I always have Cosmic Frontier on the brain, heh heh..." he said as convincingly as he could manage, but even if Gus' cleverly disguised concealment stones hid the way his ears drooped, they could do nothing about the fear in his eyes, which gave Clara pause as he continued with his plan. "Anyway, we've been here scouting for a while now and she hasn't shown up. Maybe she stayed home after all," he suggested, more casually this time, which at least succeeded in diverting Clara's attention for the moment, anyway.
"Maybe..." she muttered, briefly considering doing a bit more active investigating just so she didn't feel like she was standing around listlessly on a night she should be out having fun and loving every second she spent walking around in a beautiful dress. Then again, if Clara had been given a choice in what she was going to be wearing this time around, she would have picked something a little less high-vis than seafoam green, no matter how much she had liked the dress when she had worn it last year. She couldn't help but wince as the memories of her last Homecoming flickered through her mind at that thought: not because it had been bad by any means, just because it was so far removed from where she was now that it felt like she was remembering another girl's life. One of the Cheer girls, Amanda, locked eyes with her for a split second, but although Hunter instinctively took a step in front of her, she fought down the urge to take advantage of his protection. She didn't want to run from her past or the consequences of her attempts to be better than she was. She hoped that the look she gave Amanda in return, one that she hoped offered that poor girl the same kindness she had been willing to extend to Karen, would do...something, at least. Honestly, she wasn't quite sure what. She just knew that she owed it to them to keep trying, for the sake of the girls she thought she had known once. She hadn't been the best about that lately, for understandable reasons, but even so, no time like the present to try and make amends, and-
And Amanda scoffed and turned around, without saying a word.
Clara's breath hitched at the sight, and it shouldn't have gutted her that much, but it did.
"I-I'm gonna get some air," she said with a stumble, getting Hunter's attention at once.
"Clara-" he said, so good and so kind and entirely too much for her to handle right now.
"I'm fine," she got out, barely, as she made her way to the hall as fast as her heels could take her. Hunter contemplated going after her anyway, if only because having any of them alone while Karen's location remained unknown seemed like a bad idea, only to end up with his hands tied.
"We should give her space," Willow said gently as she hugged him from behind, causing him to be the one jumping a bit this time. He was thankful the concealment stone hid the redness on the tips of his ears, if nothing else: that was always the most embarrassing aspect of their...arrangement.
He knew intellectually what they were: the current circumstances and the way she had smiled at him when she first wore the beautiful green dress Camila lent her made it obvious even to him. Still, they hadn't exactly talked about it in some big dramatic confession like Luz and Amity or Vee and Masha did. They just kind of...quietly slid into it, day in and day out, like a nice and warm pair of socks that shouldn't be separated. Odd metaphors aside, it definitely made him happy to gradually discover that his feelings were reciprocated, and he liked that the others didn't tease either of them about it (much). From the tenderness of her embrace and the softness of her words, he could readily surmise that she was eager to spend time with him as well, and he couldn't resist teasing her a bit.
"Am I detecting a hint of jealousy, Captain?" he asked as smoothly as he could, which had the desired effect of making Willow blush a little bit herself.
"Pfft, what? Nooo, we like Clara, Clara's nice!" Willow argued in a slightly higher register, and Hunter suspected that her feelings about Clara were a little more complicated than that, given the obvious parallels. He didn't want to ruin the fun she was having at this human dance, but she needed to talk to somebody about everything she was pushing deep down inside sooner or later, because as much as it hurt for him to admit this to himself, she wasn't getting better.
And part of that had been because of him.
At the time, keeping to themselves had seemed like the smartest thing they could do: there was still so much they were both dealing with, so much they couldn't tell the others, that it just felt easier to distract themselves by being with each other as often as they could. In hindsight, they could have stood to spend a bit more time alone with the others as well, especially Gus, and they did their best to rectify that bit by bit after Camila had talked to them about that much, at least. Still, the fact remained that neither of them had been especially comfortable sharing their problems with anyone, including each other, and they didn't have to talk about it if they didn't want to, which they didn't. They were both fine, better than fine!
Until they suddenly weren't.
It had been a couple weeks at this point, but Hunter still dwelled on it sometimes: the night that he had gone to the bathroom for a bit of midnight reading, only to look in the mirror and see them in the reflection, if only for a second. It hadn't been real, of course, just the product of one too many sleepless nights that he couldn't quite explain, until he realized that it had been triggered by the sight of his hair in the mirror, which was getting to be pretty long, too long, far too long for him. Naturally, addressing this immediately had seemed perfectly rational to his sleep-deprived brain, but Willow was a bit more concerned about it when she wandered into the bathroom for her own reasons that she refused to elaborate on. Still, rather than trying to talk him out of doing it or try to figure out why he was doing it, she just...sat him down and cut his hair. She did a great job.
And somehow, everything that happened afterwards just made perfect sense.
"Well well well..." a girl's voice they didn't recognize rang out as she stepped out to greet them, holding out a phone as though she had just taken a picture of the pair earlier. "Look what we have here," she said, in what may have been one of her most cliched lines yet.
"What do you want?" Hunter asked dryly, like he couldn't be bothered to care.
"What I want is your opinion on this text before I send it to Clara," Karen said as she held out her phone for the pair's inspection in the most transparently obvious ploy imaginable, done just so that she could show them the compromising photo and silently taunt them with it. "'Hey, bestie, it's been so long since we talked, after you betrayed us all and started hanging out with losers. Just thought I'd let you know that your date is cheating on you - hope it was worth it!' Annd heart emoji, how's that?" she asked rhetorically, only for her expression to falter as she was met with one answer, written on both of their faces to varying degrees:
Pity.
"You know what? I don't care!" she said, failing to completely keep her cool as she tapped to send the text a little too roughly. "Because now, Clara's night is ruined, all your social lives are ruined, and I! Am doing! Great!" she insisted, even though the evidence to the contrary was so obvious as to be actively painful to watch. Were she not so thoroughly unpleasant to them for no reason that they could discern, they might have tried to help her, but fortunately, they were spared in this regard by someone with a bit more sympathy for the troublesome girl, despite everything.
"Oh, Karen. Why do you keep doing this to yourself?"
And at last, it was Karen who jumped a little bit as she turned around to see Clara, who was looking at her with that same damnable pity in her eyes. She tried to laugh it off.
"I don't know what you're talking about," she claimed, before gesturing to the similarly stoic Hunter and Willow behind her, now a good distance apart. "I gotta say, you're taking this rather well. Don't tell me you're sharing - you could do so much better, girl," she quipped in a voice dripping with sarcasm, a remark unknowingly delivered to an audience of no one. Hunter and Willow shared a look with Clara, and with it, received an unspoken message:
Time to drop the act.
"Not exactly," Clara countered as she took a step forward. "The truth is, there's nothing going on between me and Hunter: I just told everyone he was my date so that my parents would let me come here and you would latch onto it. Oh, and Willow here is Curtis' date: figured you'd hate that, since, you know, the only people you're even more mad at than Masha and Vee right now are-"
"You two," she spat, finishing the sentence as Hunter and Willow took a step back to watch the drama. "Okay, so you got me, congrats, but what was the point?" she asked incredulously, which was a reasonable question, to be fair.
"The point was to show you something, Karen," she said sternly, yet with a hint of empathy behind her words which drove Karen up the wall, as much as she tried to hide it. "Look around: do you see what the others are doing right now?" she asked, and indeed, Karen seemed to finally realize that her lackeys had all gone off with their dates, pointedly looking away from the drama unfolding by the punch table. "You could at least be off having what fun you can with them, but instead, you just kept on being miserable, and you went to all this trouble in the hopes of making someone else's night even worse than yours. Does that sound about right?"
Karen, naturally, gave no reply to that question.
"Right," Clara confirmed, her voice softening just a bit. "So now, you're alone, and what you thought was so much more important didn't even matter, so I gotta ask you...was it worth it?"
Karen growled a little, but still made no reply.
"I thought so," Clara finished. "If you can't handle admitting you were wrong, then the least you can do is let it all go, don't you think? Leave us alone, leave Masha and Vee and everyone else alone, just go about your life like we don't even exist. Why can't you do that?" Clara had hoped that spelling Karen's situation out in such stark terms would open her eyes a little, but if there was one thing she knew about Karen, it was that she was stubborn...and just clever enough to skip to the end of her well-meaning monologue with her fists clenched more out of habit than anything else.
"They're not even here, are they?" she muttered under her breath, defeated. Clara sighed.
"No, Karen. No, they are not."
"Annnd...done! Okay, you can look now!"
At Masha's instruction, Vee smiled and slipped off the yellow blindfold to find what she had not quite expected to find: the old house done up as much as possible, with fairy lights hung up all over, Mabel's old karaoke machine hooked up to a rather impressive setup indoors, and a big banner with "Homecoming" printed on it in big rainbow letters which was hung up above the door. Vee simply stood there for a moment and took it all in, smiling wider as the rest of her friends and family came out in their own spectacular outfits for the occasion. Seeing them all together and happy, even under these rustic circumstances, was enough to make her eyes shine, if nothing else. Still a simple wave of her arm over her eyes took care of that problem, and when she was met with Masha's look of expectant glee transitioning into a kind of residually happy confusion, she couldn't help but smile a bit more, even though she knew that she was going to have to burst their bubble.
"You know I knew we were coming here, right?" she asked rhetorically, and their reaction was the cherry on top of this lovingly crafted sundae.
"Aw, what? But I set it up so perfectly - I even had Ms. Pines go a different route from my place so you wouldn't catch on!" Masha argued, to which Vee held up a finger and tapped her nose, leaving Masha flabbergasted. "I'm sorry, you smelled that you were actually headed here?" they asked if only to confirm, to which Vee offered them an apologetic smirk.
"Sorry, Mash, but the place has always had a very distinctive odor," she said by way of explanation, leaving Masha slightly disappointed for a moment until they processed what Vee said.
"Hang on, 'Mash?'" Masha asked, smirking a little themself as Vee's confidence immediately gave way to her usual demeanor once she found herself on the back foot.
"Ah, um, I dunno, it's just something I thought of, it doesn't have to be a thing if you don't like it-" Vee began with a noticeable blush on her cheeks, only for Masha to put their hands on them and look into Vee's eyes like they held the stars themselves inside of them.
"I could get used to it," they quipped, right before giving her a little peck on the forehead.
"Ah, okay, cool," she stammered out, because holy heck that was wonderful.
"So, what do you think?" Masha asked, once Vee had a moment to finish buffering and take another good look at the homemade Homecoming they had put together just for her, so that the two of them could have their perfect night with all the people they both loved, tucked away in their own little corner of this strange new world. The one that felt the most like home.
"It's perfect," Vee confirmed, smiling brightly enough to rival the sun.
Interlude #5[Summary: After Vee's friends introduce her to an unofficial human holiday, she decides to introduce it to Luz's friends as well, giving them a space to learn some things about themselves. Meanwhile, Philip prepares to do whatever it takes to bring his plans to fruition.]
"'National Coming Out Day?' What is that, an official holiday?"
Vee's somewhat puzzled inquiries, questions prompted by the briefest of brief glances at her phone's search engine, caused the rest of the Cabin 7 Crew (and Clara) to glance around at each other before the latter elected to provide clarification.
"Ehhh...not exactly?" Clara said with the slightest bit of residual hesitation in her voice, as though she was still mentally adjusting to the fact that she could talk about these things openly now. "Like, it's been around for a while, and it's a pretty big deal for, ah, those who celebrate it, but it's never really been a capital H 'Holiday,' y'know? Probably never gonna be at this rate, not with people like my parents in charge of everything," she finished bitterly, leaving the rest of the crew taken aback. Irrational as it was, they nonetheless had to ask themselves: who was this girl, and what had she done with Clara Hartfield? How could this girl, who was sitting at the same table as them and denouncing the evils of heteronormativity, possibly be one and the same with the "Alpha Bitch" queen bee of the cheer team who had given them such grief in the past? Judging by the momentary look of surprise on her own face, Clara didn't have much of an answer for them, although she certainly appreciated being given a second chance regardless. Masha couldn't help but smirk once they had fully processed their old friend's little diatribe.
"Maybe not with that attitude, it won't," Masha countered teasingly to lighten the mood.
"Yeah, I dunno about y'all, but I've been making my sexuality everyone's problem today," Alex jokingly claimed, attempting to smoothly put their arm over Juniper's shoulder, only for Juniper to beat them to it by pulling them towards her side.
"With some assistance, of course," Juniper remarked playfully as she leaned her head onto their shoulder, leaving Alex flustered while the rest of the table quietly marveled at their surprising dynamic. They had all known something was there, but the transition from "Friend with a crush on a friend" to "Oh wait, those friends are dating now" sort of snuck up on them, to put it mildly. That Juniper had elected to reveal this information at the very end of their homemade Homecoming, and with it the added revelation that she had apparently asked Alex to Homecoming two days prior and told none of them, had come as even more of a shock to friends who thought they knew her so well, only for her to keep surprising them. Clearly, Clara was not the only one of Vee's friends who had undergone a radical transformation in recent months...nor would she necessarily be the last, given the thought that had just occurred to the basilisk lying in wait for the moment she could finally convince the survivalist in her brain that she really was ready this time. It was incredibly frustrating at this point, not being able to quite get over a hurdle in her own head, but even though she figured out pretty quickly that today was not the day to drop that bombshell...she'd been sitting on certain other things long enough, in her estimation.
And, hey, all the better to convince herself that this sort of thing really would work out okay.
"So, I take it that coming out is a pretty common occurrence on National Coming Out Day?" Vee asked somewhat jokingly, if only to prepare herself for what she had decided to do.
"Eh, sometimes. It's as good a day as any to get it over with, if you're so inclined," Sam remarked casually to Clara's right, prompting her to respond with a hesitant joke of her own.
"Why, you got something to share with the class?" she asked. A fair question in response to that statement, really, but that didn't mean the others weren't put just a little bit on edge because of who exactly was asking it. They were getting better about that, though, which is why Clara didn't take it personally. For her part, Vee took a deep breath to steady herself before responding.
"Well, now that you mention it, I've been doing a fair bit of reading, and...I'm pretty sure I'm demisexual," Vee said after a moment, having spent long enough thinking about this aspect of who she really was deep down that she knew it for a fact. "And a lesbian!" she added somewhat cheekily, since she realized that she hadn't exactly made that explicit either, even though she'd figured it out first. Although there was a brief pause as the others took stock of what was happening, it wasn't long before Vee was once again greeted with smiles all around, with Masha being by far the most excited.
"Oh, bitch, me too!" they cried out jubilantly, giving Vee an enthusiastic high five before pulling her into a congratulatory side hug. "One of us, one of us, one of us!" they proclaimed, which naturally made Vee laugh at how over-the-top they were being about such a mundane thing. While Sam and Clara offered their own congratulations with very disparate levels of reluctance, Juniper found herself slightly confused at the apparent turn the conversation had taken.
"Wait, why would they call her-?"
"Sometimes words like that are used in a friendly way with folks you're close to. Definitely need to check if they're okay with it first, though," Alex explained to her softly, having anticipated their somewhat new partner's question before she could even finish asking it. Although she was still puzzled for a moment, she eventually nodded in understanding once she finished processing.
"Ah, I see. Thank you, dear, that was very helpful," she replied, either not noticing or pretending not to notice the way that Alex absolutely melted at the casual term of endearment.
"No problem," they squeaked, causing Juniper to chuckle before realizing something incidental and electing to jump in as soon as she deemed it acceptable to do so.
"While we are on the subject, it occurs to me that I have yet to 'come out' myself, so: greetings, friends. I am pansexual," Juniper said in her usual deadpan way, as though she were simply telling them that her eyes were brown, or that she was autistic. The others likewise offered their congratulations in between expressing their appreciation for the way that Juniper tended to deliver such things, although Clara was naturally reluctant to comment much on either front. Instead, she looked down at her hands for a moment and found that they were shaking just a little, no doubt in anticipation of the fact that she hadn't exactly been super forthcoming about her orientation either. Then again, while she admittedly wasn't quite as secure with her identity as her friends were just yet, they all clearly knew that she wasn't straight at this point. Besides, if she couldn't open up to these kids, who could she open up to, really? Thus, after a moment's deliberation, Clara spoke up.
"I guess it's sorta obvious by now, but, um, well...I'm bi," she said during a lull in the conversation, her voice downright cracking at the end. Irrational as it was, Clara nonetheless felt herself bracing for a rejection that clearly wasn't coming, as Vee immediately smiled at her with a tenderness that she would have thought was reserved only for everyone else at the table.
Evidently, she was mistaken.
"Knew it," Masha remarked smugly, dispelling the magic in an instant as Clara blinked in surprise and Vee barked out a shocked laugh at Masha's unexpected interjection.
"Masha! You're not supposed to say stuff like that!" she chided, although the fact that she was doing so in-between giggles wasn't really helping her case. While the two got caught up in their own half-hearted argument, Juniper sent a similar smile Clara's way, albeit far more restrained.
"Thank you for telling us, Clara," she said without any additional pomp and circumstance, which Clara could appreciate, honestly. As it turned out, however, Juniper was the only one who would exercise that kind of restraint with Clara in this particular situation.
"Ha ha! That's what I'm talking about!" Alex echoed with similar excitement as they turned to Sam, the same thought running through both of their minds. "Bi gang, bi gang, bi gang, bi gang!" they chanted together with roughly equal enthusiasm, throwing Clara for a loop.
"Ha ha, yeah! Bi gang. Wooo..." she followed up much more apprehensively, instinctively glancing over her shoulder to make sure that everything was fine. Luckily, nobody seemed to be paying much attention to what was happening at the weirdo table, but the act understandably put a bit of a damper on proceedings. After a brief look from Vee, Masha grumbled a bit before slowly putting a hand on Clara's shoulder, pulling her attention back to the group. One look into Masha's eyes and their own somewhat muted smile was all it took to remind her that she was okay now, and Clara was happy to return the gesture with the same earnestness which defined everyone else in this merry band of misfits. With the mood brought back up, Vee looked around at all of her lovely little rainbow of friends and got another brilliant idea, albeit one that would take a bit of work to set in motion. Knowing that her sister had developed a habit of studying in the library during lunch, Vee let the others continue talking as she pulled out her phone to begin Step One of her master plan.
Vee: So apparently today is National Coming Out Day, lol.
As expected, her phone pinged before she could even put it away.
Luz: ASDFGHJKLJLJLKGJL
Luz: I COMPLETELY FORGOT HOLY CRAP
Although she figured her work here was done, Vee couldn't help but have a little fun with it.
Vee: You know what you must do, dear sister.
Luz: I do indeed.
With that, the texts in their own private messages stopped entirely, and just as Vee predicted, the next ping which came from her phone directed her to the "La Casa Noceda" group chat. She knew for a fact that Camila kept her phone on Do Not Disturb while she was at work, for she never would have gone through with her master plan otherwise, knowing the havoc it was about to wreak on all of their notifications. Nevertheless, some things simply needed to be shared, especially when it came to something that might actually be incredibly important to her fellow Boiling Isles residents.
That the ensuing conversation was likely to be incredibly funny was (almost) irrelevant.
Luz: GUYS GUYS GUYS GUYS
Luz: Guess what day it is!
Hexsquad: October 11th?
Hexsquad: Monday?
Luz: Okay, yes, true, but more importantly!
Luz: Today is National Coming Out Day!
It took less time than Vee had expected for the others to catch on, even accounting for the fact that they needed to pass around Camila's old tablet in order to contribute to the conversation.
Hexsquad: Huh. Interesting. -Amity
Hexsquad: Oh my Titan, it's a human holiday today and NOBODY told me?! -Gus
Luz: Eh, not exactly a Holiday holiday, bud. But it is definitely awesome!
Hexsquad: What exactly does this holiday entail? -Hunter
Hexsquad: Now that I think about it, from what little I found back home, I always figured it was hinting at some kind of human metamorphic process. Y'know, back when I used to think humans had gills and stuff. -Gus
Hexsquad: But I'm sure it's something perfectly normal and boring instead. =p -Gus
Luz: xD
Luz: Well, your first guess isn't *completely* inaccurate, at least in a metaphorical sense.
Luz: I've told you guys about pride and stuff before, haven't I? And how some humans are mean old jerks?
Hexsquad: In somewhat less polite terms, yes. -Amity
Luz: Yeahhh, I know I didn't really sugarcoat it earlier, but it gets Bad, y'all.
Luz: In the Boiling Isles, nobody really cares who you are or who you like, which is frickin awesome, you're gonna have to talk me out of moving there full-time when this is over! xD
Luz: But like, here in America, pretty much everyone is conditioned on some level to think that being cisgender and heterosexual is the only way they can be, like that's supposed to be the "default state" of humanity. =/
Luz: It doesn't even matter if their parents or their whole community is just as accepting as the Isles is: that ideology is so pervasive in media and online discourse and stuff that it can mess them up anyway.
Luz: And if the place you live in *isn't* accepting, it's made, like, a million times worse!
Luz: I mean, God, mom can tell you how rough it was when I came out. I'd rather not get into it, tbh.
Luz: The point is, this holiday exists to give people a space to find themselves, to "be" without reservation, in the hopes that enough people doing that can make our world a little bit more like yours every year. =3
Vee couldn't help but pause and glance towards Clara and Masha as she read through Luz's impromptu speech. With how long she had spent posing as her sister and living among humans, Vee knew better than most exactly how much the people of the Isles took that sort of thing for granted. She could only imagine just how bad things had been between Clara and Luz or Clara and Masha before the former cheerleader got her act together, and honestly...she didn't like thinking about that too often. Reading about the horrible things that some humans did to people like her and her friends, the unspeakable words they used, that was one thing. Imagining any of those words being used by Clara, however insincere they may have been at the time? That was a mental image which never failed to make Vee feel sick. Better to focus on the here and now instead of dwelling on the past, Vee thought...especially since the here and now was hopefully about to get far less depressing.
Mabel: Ohhh my gosh, I forgot what day it was too!
Mabel: Hang on, lemme get that book I bought y'all!
Vee could only imagine the clutter of noise that was occurring at that moment as Mabel probably leapt out of the kitchen, no doubt having been in the middle of making them lunch when she saw the texts and decided that this was far more important.
She loved her mentor so much.
Hexsquad: For those currently listening in to this special program during school hours, allow me to reproduce verbatim what we just heard from our responsible adult caregiver before she raced back up the stairs. -Gus
Hexsquad: "Remember: gender is a construct, the possibilities are endless, bye kids, BYEEE!" -Gus
Mabel: Hey! I resemble that remark! xD
Hexsquad: How can you "resemble" a remark? -Amity
Luz: I'll explain it later, babe.
Hexsquad: Welp, Amity's gonna be quiet for a bit. ;) -Willow
Hexsquad: Seriously, you've been dating for months, how are you both still like this? xD -Gus
Hexsquad: I may not know much about this holiday, but I imagine it isn't really in the spirit of the day to make fun of a girl for liking another girl, LOL. -Hunter
Luz: Lmao
Luz: You'd be surprised, but in this case, your discretion is much appreciated, hermano. ;)
Hexsquad: =) -Hunter
Luz: Anyway, I just wanted to let y'all know about it, that's all!
Hexsquad: Aw, c'mon, Luz, you can't tell us about a human holiday and expect us not to participate! -Gus
Hexsquad: Yup, Amity is furiously flipping through the book as we speak. xD -Willow
Hexsquad: I honestly haven't thought about it too much, but
Hexsquad: I remember now I am a lesbiab!
Hexsquad: *Lesbiam
Hexsquad: *Less bien
Luz: It's okay, take your time. ;)
Hexsquad: Ugh, stupid autocorrect, screw it: GIRLS! -Amity
Hexsquad: Ah, yes. Such a poetic declaration of love. Truly inspiring. -Hunter
Hexsquad: Amity says she's on book duty so the rest of us can share, and for her own sanity. -Willow
Luz: Lmao. Tell her that her sacrifice is appreciated. ;)
Hexsquad: Done. -Willow
Hexsquad: Anywho, as I was saying, I haven't thought about it much. My heart's pretty fickle. =p -Willow
Luz: Huh. What do you mean by that, if you don't mind my asking?
Hexsquad: I've *had* crushes, but there's no real rhyme or reason to it: they just sorta happen. -Willow
Hexsquad: Like, I used to like Amity when we were little, and I liked you when we first met, but I don't feel that way about either of you anymore. -Willow
Hexsquad: I'd get crushes on classmates sometimes, but most of them barely even knew I existed. -Willow
Hexsquad: I even sorta liked Jerbo for a bit, tbh. -Willow
Hexsquad: Oh Titan, Amity, *that's* the part that gets me side eye?! xD -Willow
Luz: Aww, c'mon, Amity, what's wrong with Jerbo? He's just a little guy, be nice to him! ={
Hexsquad: Isn't he like the tallest student at Hexside? -Hunter
Luz: It's a human meme, dude. I'm being silly. Just a silly little guy. ;)
Hexsquad: Figures. -Hunter
Hexsquad: In any case, I don't know him, but he seemed nice. Don't really see the issue here. -Hunter
Hexsquad: Yeah...yeah, he's pretty sweet. Idk why I reacted so strongly; I feel pretty bad now. ={ -Amity
Luz: Well, why don't you do something nice for him once we get back to make up for it?
Luz: Y'know, besides saving him and everyone else from The Collector. That one's kind of a given. ;)
Hexsquad: Yeah. Yeah, I like the sound of that. Thanks, batata. =} -Amity
Luz: =}
Hexsquad: Okay so returning to the actual point of this holiday - what word fits all that? -Willow
Luz: Well, it's not always a cut and dry thing, but it sounds like gender isn't really a factor for you?
Hexsquad: Nope. Girl or guy or otherwise, doesn't make a difference so long as you're cute. -Willow
Luz: Oh right, gosh, Willow thinks I'm cute.
Luz: A surprise, to be sure, but a pleasant one nonetheless! =}
Hexsquad: Pfft, what do you mean "surprise?" I was like super-glued to your arm for the first week of our friendship, what did you *think* that meant? ;) -Willow
Luz: I'm a very touchy person! I thought you were too! Not to mention I was lowkey crushing on Amity! xD
Hexsquad: All valid points, but still. Whatever I am, it's not subtle, that's for sure. =p -Willow
Luz: Ah, right, forgot to finish my thought!
Luz: Again, don't wanna stick you in a box, but it sounds like you're probably pansexual! That means you're attracted to people regardless of their gender identity! Here's the flag for it! :pansexual-flag:
Hexsquad: Huh. Neat. Guess that's one thing figured
Hexsquad: Alright, me next, me next! -Gus
Luz: Come onnn, Gus, wait your turn. ;)
Hexsquad: Willow says it's fine: she was pretty much done anyways. -Gus
Hexsquad: Anywho, I haven't exactly had a lot of time to think about this stuff, tbh. Being younger than most of the people around me probably has something to do with that: I just don't get crushes as easily. -Gus
Luz: Totally valid! You don't have to have an answer today, tomorrow, or even months from now! Everyone figures these things out at their own pace, and that's wonderful! =3
Hexsquad: Titan, I can literally *feel* your brightness coming through the screen! xD -Gus
Hexsquad: But seriously, though, I've had crushes before; I just need to figure out what that points to. -Gus
Luz: Ha, I knew it! You *have* been keeping the hot goss from me! =3
Luz: Dish the dish, witch!
Luz: If you're comfortable sharing that with everyone, obviously. Don't wanna pressure you. ={
Hexsquad: Nah, it's cool: I brought it up for a reason. -Gus
Hexsquad: Getting the hard one out of the way first, well...y'all remember Bria? x{ -Gus
Luz: Ohhh, buddy... ={
Hexsquad: Oh, yeah. I dodged that lightning bolt so fast, I pulled Matt out of the way too. xD -Gus
Hexsquad: Still kind of embarrassing, but oh well. As you humans say, live and learn. -Gus
Luz: ...Huh.
Luz: Hey, Gus? Gustopher? Gusteban?
Luz: You don't have to answer this, but would you say that you and Matty are...close?
Luz: Like, as close as you are with any of us?
Hexsquad: ...Yeah. Yeah, I'd say we are. -Gus
Hexsquad: Wasn't easy, I'll tell you that much: dude had to re-learn how to be nice to people, it was a whole
Hexsquad: Wait a minute.
Hexsquad: Wait, no, you're way off base here, Luz!
Hexsquad: I don't even think he likes guys! And even if he did, he doesn't like me! Why would he?!
Hexsquad: I'm just the little goober that got him sent to the Detention Pit!
Hexsquad: And, y'know, helped him stop being a hanger-on to his jerky friends.
Hexsquad: Encouraged him to be his own person and...and made him want to be better than they were.
Hexsquad: Even took time out of my busy schedule to teach him illusion spells so that he could dual track and...have the perfect excuse to...spend more time with me?
Hexsquad: Um.
As one would naturally expect after a sudden realization like that, the thread was silent for a good few moments, giving Vee time to check back into the conversations happening around her and make sure she wasn't being rude to her friends. Once she had accomplished these minor objectives to her satisfaction, she was brought back into the fold when her phone finally pinged anew.
Luz: Gus? Buddy? Are you good? ={
Hexsquad: Amity and Willow are helping him sort out his feelings, and Ms. Pines just brought lunch down for us, so all told, the situation has stabilized. -Hunter
Luz: Ah, thank goodness, I was worried for a minute. Tell him I'm sorry for overstepping! x{
Hexsquad: He says it's not your fault and not to worry about it. -Hunter
Hexsquad: But also, if anyone teases him about Matt, you'll see him in your nightmares. -Hunter
Vee shuddered: with Gus' capabilities being what they were, that wasn't just an expression, but a statement of intent. Luz clearly touched a much bigger nerve than she'd anticipated.
Luz: Got it - we can sort out labels and stuff when you feel better, okay, bud?
Hexsquad: Mhm. -Hunter
Luz: Y'know, I think you can drop the name indicator for a bit, lol. I know it's just you on the tablet.
Hexsquad: Fair enough.
Hexsquad: Oh, Ms. Pines had been meaning to add - she is likewise, and I quote, "bi as hell."
Luz: Pfft. Kinda figured, tbh.
Hexsquad: Yes, upon reflection, I'm realizing that she's worn that particular shade of pink, blue, and purple in some form or another once a week for the duration of her stay. She literally could not have been more obvious.
Hexsquad: Shame the festivities had to end so soon, though. Hearing about this stuff has been oddly fun. ;)
At this, Vee couldn't help but cock her head, unaware that Luz was doing the same thing.
Luz: Huh.
Luz: Yeah, it was pretty fun. Definitely an improvement from last year, that's for sure.
Hexsquad: What's "huh?" Why did you say that first?
Hexsquad: We've gone over everyone who isn't "heterosexual," per this book, ergo the festivities are over.
Hexsquad: What about my earlier statement was unclear?
Luz: Nothing, it's just...
Luz: Again, not trying to put you in a box!
Luz: But...I *am* a little surprised to hear you're straight, ngl?
Luz: Sorry, I know how that sounds - I promise, I'm not trying to challenge you or anything! ={
Hexsquad: It's fine. I'm mostly just confused on why you'd think that?
Hexsquad: "Heterosexual," "straight," et cetera, means "attracted to the opposite sex," right?
Luz: Eh, generally speaking, yeah. Like I said, things are rarely that cut and dry.
Hexsquad: Right, well, regardless, I've only ever had a crush on Willow, at least to my knowledge. Thus...
Luz: Yeah, no, I gotcha. And again, not here to challenge - you know yourself better than anyone!
Luz: But like...remember all that stuff I was saying about being conditioned to think you have to be straight?
Luz: It's bad enough in the year of our Lord 2021, but...you were raised by a puritan.
Luz: Y'know, for a certain value of "raised." =/
Luz: And not even just what folks nowadays *think* a puritan is, like an actual 1600s, capital p Puritan!
Luz: I can't imagine this stuff came up at all, and if it did, I can't imagine it was especially welcoming. x{
Luz: So just, idk, keep that in mind, I guess? Coming out is rarely a one and done process, believe me.
There was a pause, a rather lengthy pause, before Hunter's reply spoke for itself, really.
Hexsquad: Understood.
Vee let out a breath she didn't know she was holding, and was about to finally join in on the conversation when the sound of the bell ringing diverted her attention back to the world around her.
"Dude, you still got some sammich left," Masha pointed out, prompting Vee's eyes to widen.
"Ah, shoot!" she exclaimed, looking frantically at the bits of her lunch that she had just let sit there for however long she had been focusing on the group chat. Realizing that she'd never finish it in time for her rapidly-approaching Art class, Vee devised an uncharacteristically risky plan to try and expedite the process, albeit not without taking what proper precautions she could think to take while in the midst of doing so. "You guys go on ahead, I'll catch up! Love you!" she called out distractedly, causing her friends to glance at each other for a moment before chuckling and smiling in response.
"Love ya too, boo! See you in Spanish!" Masha replied cheerfully, allowing the rest of the Cabin 7 Crew to give their own goodbyes before going their separate ways, leaving Vee as alone as she could be in a public space like this. After glancing around quickly, too quickly, to make sure that nobody was looking at her, she ever-so-slightly shapeshifted her jaw such that she could comfortably swallow the sandwich in one bite, albeit not without difficulty. Coughing a bit as a result, she quickly returned her form to its original state and sped through the rest of her lunch as she walked, then disposed of it all in the proper waste receptacles like any other law-abiding student. Doing her best to act normally without sacrificing expediency, Vee proceeded to run towards the Art room as fast as she felt she could get away with, which turned out to be just shy of "professional sprinter."
So caught up was Vee in the somewhat-routine, yet no less scary task of covering her tracks after doing something magical before the ringing of the bell that her keen senses failed to notice the presence of her self-styled nemesis: Karen, who was looking at her with a rather perplexed scowl as she observed the entire thing from behind a tree. Karen was many things, but underneath all of the Mean Girl posturing and self-sabotage was a girl more clever than people gave her credit for, being a blonde cheerleader and all. She had noticed a fair number of odd things about "Vee" at camp - the way she darted around like a rat in a cage at first, the way she moved just a little too quickly, even the way she slipped through the front gates on the first day of camp. All of those things had been odd, yes, but they still made a certain sort of sense while she was operating under the assumption that Vee was Luz. That girl was a capital w Weirdo, she had always known that much, and even the gate thing might not have been the most outlandish thing for Luz to have pulled off, if she was actually serious about joining the Cheer team the previous year. For all of that to have been attributed to Vee instead of Luz, that was trickier to believe, but they were twins, so it stood to reason that the same chain of reasoning that had once applied to Luz could still apply to Vee, especially since she had actually seen Vee pull off a move like that with her own eyes.
But this...this was something else. Something she couldn't explain in a rational way.
Karen groaned as the bell rang: she knew that she was late to class now, but she didn't care, she wasn't going anywhere until she had made sense of that inexplicable little insect. Irritatingly, she still had Clara's last words to her stuck in her head, much as a popcorn kernel might be stuck between one's teeth: impossible to dislodge and exceedingly annoying to live with. Perhaps this was what normies called a "conscience," she thought, or maybe she was just finally getting sick of all this In the end, the constant nagging of her former friend inside her brain was just sufficient enough to get her to relent and run off to class herself, her suspicions pushed to the side.
For now, anyway.
Everything Philip had seen of this new Gravesfield was vulgar and he hated it.
Obviously he was in no condition to do anything about it: the last thing he wanted was to risk exposure by revealing himself as anything more than a cloaked, hooded gentleman going about his business, much like everyone else around him. To do so would instantly jeopardize the strategy he had devised in the wake of his failed rejuvenation, a strategy that hinged on him staying out of sight and not kicking up a fuss until all of the pieces were put into place. Still, Philip couldn't deny that this "Gravesfield County Zoo," this public menagerie of wildlife taken from all over the world to serve as nothing more than idle spectacle, was really the perfect microcosm of everything he was growing to hate about how much his home had changed.
He had never been naive enough to fall completely out of touch: he had made sure that "human contraband" was collected in a sealed chamber of the Conformatorium for precisely that purpose. And yet, no amount of magazines and toys and waterlogged books could have prepared him for just how much Earth had dulled since he had last set foot in Gravesfield. The air was now choked with the exhaust of these "automobiles" he saw everywhere, the forests had been razed to make room for rows upon rows of ugly buildings and uglier roads, and just as Luz had warned him, the old ways of Gravesfield...had indeed been discarded. There were still churches, of course, but from what little he'd been able to glimpse in his wanderings, their prayer was a hollow supplication devoid of the fervor which the Lord demanded...assuming these people even prayed at all. Those who still kept the faith clearly prayed to a God who let them indulge in their basest desires without reprisal, a God who condoned all of the sinful ideas which Philip himself had begrudgingly tolerated back in the Boiling Isles. If these people had a God, it was a God that had been corrupted beyond recognition, and if they didn't...then He, too, had been forgotten. The thought was so terrible that it nearly crushed Philip's immortal soul into dust.
How on Earth could this be all that had awaited him, after everything he'd sacrificed?
The most damning impact of this godless society was readily apparent: although there was clearly a great deal of ideological variation from what he had observed, many of these new, modern humans seemed to endorse permutations of the same deluded worldview that had made Luz into such a problem for him in the first place. Philip knew that the monsters who had led her astray were still at large, likely corrupting her family and every other human they came into contact with in the same way they had corrupted Luz. The naive compassion of Luz's fellows left them all vulnerable to the witches' fell influences, and Philip shuddered to think how many more of these poor, misguided sinners might become twisted by their false promises of fellowship and love...or even worse besides.
Still, even if it was too late to save the Nocedas, Philip had to hope that it wasn't too late for the rest of the humans he encountered in the course of his work. They were lost and confused, yes, but many of them clearly valued the teachings of the Lord in some form, and as long as that was true...there was still a chance that they could be saved. All they needed was a little guidance, a firm hand, and although he knew he couldn't take power as easily as he had done in the Boiling Isles, Philip had been blessed enough to come to a fortuitous realization:
Fate had gifted him a method through which he could still be the hero he was destined to be.
By this point in his unnatural existence, Philip knew well the extent of what his powers could and could not accomplish. He could take control of other creatures by shifting into his sludgy form and infiltrating their bodies, ideally through open wounds or other pathways which gave him direct access to their bloodstreams. From there, his sludge could spread throughout the rest of his chosen host, giving him total control over their body within as little as a few minutes or as long as a few days, depending on their size and anatomical complexity. It was a remarkable ability, one that he still felt eluded him in some ways, but he had begrudgingly come to accept that man was not meant to know all. Some things were simply not to be questioned. This is what he had always been taught.
In any case, with his considerable experience using these abilities to possess rats and giraffes and such, Philip had been reasonably sure that he could utilize these miraculous powers of his in a more...controlled capacity. One that would influence the minds of his fellow humans, instead of controlling them until they dissolved into ichor and sludge. By subjecting them to a minimal dosage of his sludge, he thought, he would be able to establish a mental connection without corroding their bodies too badly. If it worked as intended, he could then speak to them in their own voices, cloak his instructions within their own thoughts and take advantage of that false pretense to slowly but surely guide them back towards the light of their own volition...more or less. Of course, he had also been reasonably sure that this hypothetical plan would immediately be invalidated once he had regained his humanity, and this had proven more important to him than whatever practical benefit such a strategy may have offered him. He was painfully aware of how that had turned out. Still, there was no harm in trying now that he knew he had no other options, and sure enough...it had turned out to be just the breakthrough he had needed.
It had been slow going, of course: one couldn't exactly go about this process without taking considerable care in choosing one's targets and avoiding attention all at once. Still, if nothing else, Philip's new "humanoid" form was at least more solid and stable than before. He still needed to top off his energy reserves with the occasional deer or one of those disgusting rats, but there was little else stopping him from taking as much time as he needed to in order to build up a "following," as it were. With how many people were at the zoo while it was in operation, his presence went completely unnoticed once he learned how to blend into this modern society, allowing him to subtly orchestrate as many "accidents" as he needed to in order to spread his influence throughout the general public. He had made sure to prioritize adults over children during this process for a variety of reasons (not the least of which was his complete inability to persuade a modern child, as Luz Noceda clearly demonstrated), but considering that she and her "friends" were no doubt living in secret among the rest of her kind...he had been idly considering the possibility of finding a child who could infiltrate their group at his behest. Between Luz's naive compassion and the witches' desire to corrupt the innocent, such a person would be tailor-made to slip through their defenses and wait for the perfect moment to strike. Problem was, there was only so much he could dictate a fellow human's actions through the methods he employed, and if he was going to accomplish such a scheme, he was going to need someone who already hated Luz Noceda almost as much as he did. If the people here were anything like his former "subjects," that was far easier said than done: something about the foolish, freakish girl made her eminently lovable, for reasons which Philip could not comprehend. Still, there had to be at least one of Luz's peers who despised her so richly that they would do what he would ask them to with nary a feather ruffled.
And as luck would have it, today would be the day Philip found such a person.
It was nothing more than pure coincidence that Philip's calculating gaze ended up falling upon a disgruntled girl with blonde hair done up into a ponytail, evidently doing her best to have fun after school with her tired-looking parents despite her extraordinarily foul mood. Although he had no way of knowing this for certain, something about her irreverent bearing made her stick out to Philip as the sort of girl that Luz would dislike, and someone who would dislike Luz in turn. Seeing his opportunity, Philip looked more closely at the girl and saw that she was rather uninjured, denying him the most expedient path forward. Undeterred, he decided to go with a different approach, getting up from the bench and bumping into the girl in an exaggerated manner intended to look accidental. While she and her parents were thus distracted, he carefully drove a small, needle-thin spike of sludge into the girl's exposed shoulder, under the pretext of inadvertently grabbing onto it with his hand. In this manner, he allowed a larger than normal dosage of sludge to enter her bloodstream, the most he could possibly embed into her body without causing her any permanent damage. The girl naturally cursed at him for the invasion of her personal space, but did not appear to notice the injection, allowing him to remove himself from the situation with a brief apology to her and her parents. After looping back around the immediate area, he chose a different bench to sit at so that he could observe the results of this test directly, once the larger dosage of sludge had been given enough time to do its holy work.
"Mom? Dad? I...I don't feel so good," Karen muttered in confusion, clutching her head and groaning as though she had suddenly been hit with an intense migraine. Her vision blurred more and more as the pain increased in tandem, to the point where she stumbled and nearly lost her footing.
"Oh God-honey?!" her mother said worriedly as she caught her while Karen's dad scoffed.
"She's fine, Carol, it's probably just her imagination again," he said derisively, as though incidents of this nature had become rather frequent and tiresome as of late. Karen let out a short cry of teenage frustration at her father's dismissiveness, while Carol glared at her husband yet again.
"Charles, not now," she warned him as firmly as she dared, but her daughter held no such reservations towards her father, especially not in her current state.
"Shut UP, dad! You never believe anything I tell you!" she snapped angrily in the midst of her pain, and by this point, the other zoo-goers were beginning to give the family a wide berth.
"Because you never make any sense, Karen!" he retorted. "Ever since you got yourself shipped off to that quack summer camp, you've been obsessed with 'Loose' or Vee or whoever the hell the girl is beyond all reason!" Carol wanted to swiftly correct him on several counts, but when Charles was on one of his "tangents," she knew better than to interrupt him. "I don't know what your problem is with her and her friends, but you need to let it go before you get yourself expelled!"
"You don't understand, dad! I'm telling you, something isn't right with her!" Karen feebly protested despite the pain, but her father had grown quite tired of hearing her supposed excuses.
"She's not a monster, Karen. She's just unfortunately related to that neurotic little weirdo, and even if this girl is just as bad as her, she apparently hasn't done anything crazy since she just showed up a couple weeks ago, probably because of that kookie camp down in Jersey. Glad to know it worked for someone's kid, at least," he added bitterly.
"B-but she slipped through the gate like it was nothing!" Karen protested.
"So? She's scrawny, is that really so unusual? Probably does that kind of stuff all the time."
"She ate like half a sandwich whole!"
"Ha! You'd be surprised how much you can put away, sweetie," he said, dismissing her.
"You never saw her at camp, dad, she was like a feral cat or something-!"
"Okay, that's enough!" Charles snapped, raising his voice even further. "You're just looking for an excuse to trample all over this girl for no good reason! I raised you better than that, missy!"
"Charles!" Carol cut in, finally having had enough. However, the back-and-forth argument between the unhappy couple faded into the background as Karen found herself caught between her anger and her agony, along with a steadily increasing sense that something was wrong with her in a way she couldn't quite understand. Philip smiled as he felt the sludge embed itself into her mind and establish a connection. He could hear every thought in that horrible little girl's head, and although he had no direct control over her actions at this stage...he could talk to her.
And Philip had gotten quite good at talking to people.
"Aghh, I hate you, both of you!" Karen cried out, not for the first time, before an even greater wave of nausea and pain overwhelmed her. "I-I wish...you never even...met...dammit-!" she tried to get out as she clutched her head in agony. Carol stuck close to her daughter's side, the parental argument abandoned for now in the face of what was so obviously a problem now.
"Charles, something's wrong with her!" Carol said in a panic, albeit a little belatedly.
"Relax, it's probably just a stress headache. I'll get her some Advil," he conceded, still irritated, but willing to put the argument on pause for a moment as he reached for his pill case.
"Charles, this is serious! I think she needs to go to the hospital!" Carol continued worriedly.
"You're both overreacting, okay? It's just stress, that's all!" Charles said, sighing in a way that suggested that he did care about her, in a sense, provided she wasn't being too much of a nuisance to him at any given moment. "You've been working yourself up over this nonsense for weeks, sweetie. You need to calm down and really think about what it is you're saying before you do something you're going to regret," he continued, hoping to defuse the argument he started and not end this zoo trip - which he had moved Heaven and Earth to get the day off for, allegedly - on an awful note.
"I...I don't...need to-!" Karen cried, only to feel the presence of...something, inside her head. It was her...conscience? Well, such as it was, anyway: they haven't really been on speaking terms in a while, but now it was...telling her something. Something important. More important than anything.
Breathe.
After a few haggard breaths to try and center herself, Karen felt herself calming down, just like her father had asked her to.
Ugh, no, just like she had decided to do entirely on her own, thank you!
Good. Doesn't that feel better?
Yeah...yeah, it did feel better. Her head still ached, but it wasn't pounding anymore, so that was good. Plus, she didn't feel quite so...on edge, like she had been ever since...God, how long had it been since she actually felt calm like this? Before Clara cut her off? Before camp? She barely even remembered what had set her off in the first place, only that it seemed rather silly in retrospect.
Now, don't you think you should apologize to mom and dad? They only want what's best for you, after all.
Right. Yeah, that...that was probably called for, huh? She did shout at them a lot, even though they had gone to all this trouble to make her feel better. And sure, her dad was being a jerk like always, but...but he was just looking out for her too, wasn't he?
Yes. Yes he is. You can hardly blame him for getting cross after you spoke to him like that.
Cross? Why would she think-? Karen shook her head: her and her stupid vocabulary. In any case, her dad definitely looked "cross," so she should probably get with that apology now.
"You're right," she said glumly, slowly lowering her hands from her head. "I need to calm down," she conceded, gratefully accepting the Advil from her father. "I've been letting that bit-that girl live in my head rent-free for so long, and it's...it's ruining my life," she admitted, tears coming to her eyes unbidden as she wrestled with just how far she had fallen. "I-I'm sorry," she finished in a choked up voice, shrinking in on herself as her parents could only watch with concern written on both of their faces to varying extents. Their daughter...apologized? To them? That was...rare, to the point where it was odd. Still, she was clearly distraught, so the next course of action seemed clear: the two of them moved closer in order to envelop their daughter in a somewhat awkward hug.
"Oh, baby. We're sorry too," Carol said, taking license to speak for her husband when his words had clearly done more harm than good. "You've clearly been going through a lot, and your father and I couldn't really see it until now. Maybe...maybe we didn't want to see it, not until it got too bad to ignore." She made that realization in real-time as she looked at Karen and thought back to just what she had done on her daughter's behalf, even knowing on some level that Karen had been bullying Vee for what she had always suspected was nothing more than jealousy over Vee becoming Masha's...friend. If she was right, then Charles definitely couldn't know about that, but...that was a problem she'd deal with later. "But we can do better. We will do better. I promise," she said right now, giving Karen a kiss on the forehead. She glanced over at Charles expectantly. "Right, honey?" she asked a little pointedly, a not-so-subtle prod for him to drop it and get in line.
"Right! Yes! I, um, I'm sorry for raising my voice and...and saying those things, sweetie," Charles said, mostly meaning it. Carol could only sigh tiredly. She knew that was the best she'd get from the man God had stuck her with.
"Why don't we go home and relax, hm? We can, um...look into some things that might help you," she said, and Karen frowned, because she knew what that was code for, and she didn't need-!
You do. You need help, desperately. You were just terrified of showing the others any sign of weakness.
Karen found herself blushing in embarrassment at how accurately her conscience had just broken down exactly what was wrong with her, but, well...she couldn't argue with herself. She did need help, and...and Clara had realized that, even when she herself didn't. She'd reached a hand out to her after everything, and Karen had slapped it away. She'd said and done such horrible things-!
Shshshshsh. There will be time to make things right. You just need to be honest with yourself.
Karen took another deep breath. Her conscience was right. It may have taken her way too long to realize it, but she needed to swallow her pride and accept that she wasn't okay.
"That sounds...nice," she said, her voice still rough from crying. " I...I think I need that," she added, sending even more conflicted feelings swimming around inside her head, which was still pounding even after the Advil had kicked in. What was that coming from, anyway-?
It doesn't matter.
Right. Yeah, it...it was nothing. Just some stupid thing that had set her off. Just like always.
But...maybe she wouldn't feel this way forever.
Maybe she really could be better, just like Clara had said.
With a hesitant smile, she followed her parents out of the zoo and back to where they had parked, leaving Philip to watch them go with a satisfied smirk on his face.
That had gone very well, if he did say so himself.
Just like with the others, his connection to Karen remained present even with distance, albeit gradually fading from his conscious awareness with each step she took. He knew that he could still focus on what she was thinking with enough effort, and obviously he would have to be careful about letting the sludge take root too deeply, lest it corrode her body from the inside out. Philip had no desire to harm a fellow human who had done nothing to deserve it, nor did he relish the idea of taking complete control if he could help it. All he had to do with this girl was nudge her, really: help her along on the road to "redemption" so that Luz would let her guard down at a critical moment and leave herself vulnerable. A part of him loathed that he could see no other option with her, but after everything she had done to ruin his plans, this stratagem was nothing more and nothing less than what she deserved. Besides, if he could succeed in molding even someone as repulsive as this "Karen" into a proper human being...then perhaps he really could save humanity after all.
Well. Minus a few unfortunate exceptions, anyway.
As he turned his attention back towards the general passerby to see who else he could reach, he found himself dwelling on the more unusual elements of that particular interaction. He had assumed that this was a girl who did not like Luz Noceda, and in this he was correct, but it seemed that the true focus of her hatred was someone else, this "Vee" person. The more he reflected on what he had been able to glean from her train of thought, the more confused he became. This "Vee" whom Karen despised was apparently Luz's twin sister, which wasn't unusual on its own, but she had also apparently been Luz as far as anyone else was concerned for the entire duration of her sister's stay in the Boiling Isles. Nobody had known that Luz even had a twin sister until that point.
Now, this too could potentially be written off as nothing more than a simple coincidence, but then there were the things which Karen had been telling her father a moment ago. Despite having no knowledge of the Boiling Isles or the horrors of witchcraft or anything like what he and Luz had seen, she had been convinced that there was something wrong with this "Vee," something which defied all earthly logic. Every bit of evidence the girl presented, it painted a picture that was a little too vivid for Philip to dismiss as easily as Karen's father did. And as if all that wasn't enough, Philip was also struck with the most curious feeling upon hearing the name "Vee," for even though it was ostensibly short for "Victoria," it struck him as such an unusual nickname to have. Perhaps that was just a consequence of these strange times he had found himself in, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he had heard something like it before, albeit less of a "name" and more of a-
"Subject Number: V. Time of...creation: 0125 hours. Vital signs...stable. Thank Titan."
"Apologies for the delay, sir. Subject Number V had to be disciplined again. Stubborn little thing, ain't it?"
"Subject I is in custody now, but Subjects II through V remain at large. Should we redouble our efforts?"
"No. Leave them," he found himself muttering unconsciously, momentarily lost in the memory as it all came back to him. "The Titan will decide their fate."
When the moment passed (thankfully without attracting any undue attention), Philip sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation, both for his brief lapse into reverie and his own foolishness. How many more times was God going to take him aside and taunt him like this?
He took a sharp breath: no, no, Philip, you mustn't take the Lord's name in vain. Just calm down and work through the problem, just like you always do.
Based on what he had gathered from Karen and what blanks he could fill in himself, Philip could surmise a rough timeline of events. Somehow, on the same day that Luz Noceda came to the Boiling Isles, Subject Number V had seen her in the marketplace and snuck over to the portal while it was still open, likely due to its caretaker's incompetence. From there, it took Luz's form and took her place at this "summer camp" which Luz was supposed to go to, much like the changelings of old English folklore. When Luz returned home and its deception was revealed, it no doubt won her over with its crocodile tears and convinced her to devise this "twin sister" cover story, allowing it to keep hiding from him and the rest of humanity in safety under the name "Victoria Noceda."
He had to give Subject Number V credit on that: it was a truly cunning plan, one that might have let it survive beyond his own unnatural life regardless of whether or not he was successful. Unfortunately, in exposing its plan to him through the pieces Karen had put together, Fate had once again rewarded him at last for his perseverance, in more ways than one. Having a more promising vector through which to enact his revenge, that was all well and good, but this fortuitous turn of events had given him something else, something far more valuable:
The perfect host to bring his plans to fruition.
Oh, yes, Philip thought to himself. Things were coming along very nicely indeed.
Bonus Chapter #5: Parting is Such Sweet Sorrow[Summary: Mabel unfortunately can't stay in Gravesfield much longer if she wants Reality Check to keep running smoothly, so she has no choice but to finally say goodbye to everyone whose lives she touched in one way or another. However, she's made sure that all of them will have something to remember her by, although some of these gifts are more unexpected than others.]
"Alright, gang, everybody grab a bucket! I promised Camila we'd be home before lights out!"
With Mabel's pragmatic encouragement, the kids slowly but surely piled out of the somewhat tight quarters they had been stuck with for this nighttime drive. With slightly less room in Mabel's car compared to Camila's, Vee elected to be the odd one out on this particular outing so that Waddles could get some fresh air, while the others were likewise a bit more cramped than they might have been otherwise. Still, after who knew how many hours spent more or less cooped up in the house, everyone was ready to shift gears and focus on something which felt more productive than what they had been doing lately. While Amity, Gus, and Willow took to the task at hand rather quickly, Luz and Hunter stayed behind, occupied as they were with questions which they weren't entirely sure Mabel could answer.
"Whoa," Luz said as she got a good look at the deep blue waters which hugged the coastline. "Y'know, I still can't believe this was practically in my backyard the whole time," she mused while setting down the bucket. Mabel chuckled knowingly as she walked up behind her with twice as many.
"Yeah, stumbling into another world is one thing, but stumbling into a place like this on your own home turf? Now that is something," she said, and something in her voice gave Luz pause. Although it was lighter than it had been before, the way Mabel sounded when she talked about this stuff still felt...distant. It felt like a part of her was nostalgic for that time in her life and eager for the chance to finally talk about it with someone, while another part of her already regretted bringing it up at all. Frankly, it almost felt like she was looking at herself through a funhouse mirror.
Luz hadn't really thought about it until recently, but the two of them were...pretty similar, all things considered. Both generally upbeat, both kind, both super confident (most of the time), not to mention both totally awesome if Luz said so herself (which was getting easier for her to do as of late). And yet, from what little the young woman had told them about her own adventures...it sounded like she had been even younger than Luz was when her world got turned upside down, around Gus' age. Luz may have had her fair share of magical hijinx back in the Boiling Isles, but this "Gravity Falls" sounded like it was almost in a class of its own. Demons, shapeshifters, wizards which sprung forth fully formed from the covers of outmoded tabletop roleplaying games, and Mabel only knows what else! And all of that at twelve years old, no less! Gus was already having a rough time dealing with all the things he'd witnessed so far, but he at least had the small comfort of growing up in a world that was already pretty hardcore to begin with. How does a little girl, technically a teen, adjust to suddenly being caught up in supernatural peril for an entire summer?
A part of Luz worried that Mabel might not have any better of an answer than she did.
"How do you think it ended up here?" she asked, instead of the millions of questions now bouncing around in her head like the most hyperactive game of Pool.
"Wellll, given what we're working with and how much of it there is, something tells me that's, uh, sorta self-evident, y'know? I try not to think about it too much," Mabel said quickly, a little too quickly. The others could understand that readily enough, especially given what they had somewhat recently discovered about someone most of them were close to. Someone all of them were missing.
"Right. That...makes sense," Luz said with trepidation and a hint of melancholy. Mabel struggled for a moment to figure out how to cheer her up, but Hunter came to the rescue.
"Hm, but, um, how exactly does it work, and how does it stick around? I mean, shouldn't it have, y'know, gone out to sea or something? That's pretty weird, right? Almost, uh, abnormal, you could say!" Hunter said, his genuine curiosity helping to shore up an otherwise mild performance. Seeing the life preserver for this conversation which had been thrown her way, Mabel accepted it.
"Great questions!" Mabel picked up eagerly. "Still have no clue how it works, but as far as how it sticks around, gimme a second!" With that, she set her buckets aside for the moment and started rummaging around the back of the car, leaving the others to glance over at their chaperone out of curiosity while Luz chuckled a bit at the obvious setup.
"That was sweet of you," Luz whispered warmly as she looked back at Hunter, a bit of the usual energy returned to her voice, or at least the illusion thereof. Hunter smiled in turn, albeit with a teasing edge which lacked the bite of their first interactions.
"Ah, don't worry about it. And besides, I am actually curious," Hunter replied in a similar register, before Mabel found what she was looking for at last.
"A-HA! Here we are!" Mabel cried out jubilantly, holding the book which Grunkle Ford wrote over her head like she was the pretty elf boy in that video game Dipper likes. With her own jubilant fanfare to accompany the reveal, Mabel held Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide to Magic and Mystery out cover-first to the other kids like she was a teacher showing them the assigned reading: not the worst analogy, considering her job and the circumstances. "Okay, so I may have mentioned my Grunkle Ford occasionally, right? Nerdy scientist, six fingers, voice suited for public radio?" she prompted, to which the others nodded dutifully in response.
"You may have mentioned," Amity supplied. Mabel snapped her fingers in appreciation.
"Right! Well, to make a long story short, he's spent his whole life researching why exactly paranormal things happen on Earth and why people don't know about them, or at least pretend not to. He called it his 'Grand Unified Theory of Weirdness,' and while he sorta got turned around on it for a while, he managed to more or less figure it out by the time I met him," Mabel explained just to start them off, establish context. The kids seemed to be following along so far.
"Yes, remind me: full name? I gotta keep him in mind as an interview subject," Gus interjected, causing Mabel to chuckle as she held the back cover a little closer to him.
"Dr. Stanford Pines, see? Right there," Mabel said encouragingly, trying to keep the brief lecture on track without shutting anybody down in the process. "Anywho, what he realized is that some places are just kinda magnets for 'weirdness,' as he called it, sort of a fundamental force like gravity or magnetism or whatever," Mabel continued. "Anything 'strange' or 'unusual' or whatever word you wanna use, it all tends to wind up in these places one way or another, whether you're talking about ancient artifacts, magical substances, charming little cryptids or...or weird little girls, just looking for somewhere to belong." She said the last part to herself in a bittersweet tone, as though she wasn't even entirely aware that she was speaking it aloud, but Luz heard it, because Mabel was looking right through her when she said it, albeit unintentionally.
"Ms. Pines?" Willow said, nudging the young woman gently to bring her back to Earth.
"Ah, um, where was I? Yes! Magnets!" Mabel said, trying to get herself back to her usual upbeat tone and not quite hiding what just happened, especially not when paired with the slight instinctive grimace which followed her apparent recollection of less-than-pleasant times. "Gravity Falls was the focus of his research because it was where a lot of this stuff had gathered, for a whole bunch of different reasons, but all you need to know is that weird stuff has happened there since before humans even walked the Earth," Mabel explained, leaving Gus, Hunter, and especially Luz spellbound. Seeing that she was doing a surprisingly good job at this, Mabel continued. "It all kinda feeds into itself, you know? Something weird happens, which leaves its mark on the area, which attracts more weirdness, which leads to more weird things happening, ad infinitum."
"Huh. What does 'ad infinitum' mean?" Gus asked, raising his hand to be called on.
"I dunno, it's Latin to me - point is! Gravity Falls is the biggest weirdness magnet on Earth...but that doesn't mean it's the only one." Mabel continued, quickly sidestepping the odd non-sequitur. "Take a look out there - tell me what you see," she instructed, and the kids did their best, but as the sun had already set in order to give way for a new moon which hung almost invisible in the night sky, the fact remained that they could not see anything.
"The ocean?" Amity asked hesitantly, the others looking similarly lost until Hunter looked a little closer and began to get an idea of what Mabel meant. The deeper blue color of the waters by the shoreline was not uniformly distributed, and in fact steadily tapered off the further an observer looked at it from the shoreline. Meaning...
"The Titan's Blood is being pulled against the current," Hunter put together out loud.
"Ha-hey, good job, bud!" Mabel answered encouragingly, instinctively giving Hunter a little hair ruffle which he responded to with his usual sounds of teenage indignation. "That's exactly right! The Titan's Blood in the water isn't mixed in completely, because while the water is getting pulled every which way by tidal forces and whatnot, the Titan's Blood won't go anywhere that takes it away from the area occupied by colonial Gravesfield! It just...sits here. Doing nothing. Forever." At this, Mabel paused, her lecture more or less done for the moment as her mind went down another tangent. "Except for, oh, I dunno, occasionally opening a portal to another dimension, somehow!" she griped, her frustration briefly triumphing over her usual easygoing attitude as she turned around away from the water at a critical juncture, leaving her the only one out of the loop.
"Um, Ms. Pines?" Willow said, backing away from the water a bit.
"Like, it has to happen pretty regularly, right? There's tons of human junk in your world: it can't all have come from Eda's shop, and Grunkle Ford had this whole graph laid out-!"
"Ms. Pines?" Gus added, glancing over his shoulder with a worried expression on his face while the others followed Willow's lead.
"Except I've been coming here for months and it's done nothing no matter what I do!" Mabel cried, only to realize what she was doing and groan to herself. "Ugh, I'm sorry, kids, I should know better than to freak out like this, I'm just...frustrated, y'know?"
"It's okay, Ms. Pines, but we really need you to-!" Luz chimed in, but Mabel wasn't done.
"No, it's not okay. I'm an adult here, and I need to act like it. It is what it is, we just need to get as much of this stuff back home as we can and-oh, heck, when did it start glowing?"
Indeed, as soon as Mabel had finally (mercifully) turned around to face the water, she saw that the deep blue waters closest to the shoreline were in fact glowing a similar color to how the unstable portal door had looked while it was open. Upon later reflection, she and the others would recall looking up and truly registering the otherwise-incidental presence of the new moon, put two and two together, and at least have that question answered. As it stood, the first thing they could process was how hot it had gotten all of a sudden, like it was suddenly a humid day and not past sunset in the fall. The second thing they could process was that the glowing water was also bubbling as if it were boiling...just like the Boiling Seas back home.
The third thing which they couldn't process was the giant tentacle flailing onto shore.
The first one clearly wasn't aimed anywhere in particular, so it was easy enough for Hunter to grab Amity and teleport her out of its path before it was too late. That he was the only one among them who had taken the precaution of bringing their palisman on this supposedly harmless resupply mission proved to be especially fortuitous as the next few came crashing onto shore, requiring both Gus and Willow to be yanked out of the way as well. These likewise weren't aimed anywhere in particular either, nothing more and nothing less than the desperate movements of a truly massive aquatic creature that wanted out by any means necessary.
By the time the kraken had successfully pulled itself into their dimension, everyone had gotten the chance to get a good look at it, and they could pretty readily identify what it was. This naturally left the kids nervous at the sight of the gigantic squid-like creature, especially considering that half of them couldn't really do much magic worth a damn at the moment. For Mabel, however, she had a sinking feeling in her stomach which was disconnected from the simple fact of the monster's sudden appearance. A sinking feeling which was born from the fear that this monster meant bad news for her specifically.
Or rather, for anyone who just so happened to have the same stubborn cowlick in their hair.
"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."
"I'm sorry, what?"
"Immaterial, sweetie."
"Oh, son of a-!" Mabel ground out before one of the tentacles wrapped around her body, and everything went to heck for a good ten minutes.
Surprisingly enough, it was the morning after that little misadventure that would prove to be more unfortunate in Mabel's estimation, albeit largely for sentimental reasons.
"Okay, I know, I haven't been on-site in...a while! And I understand you've been running into some setbacks, but I made it very clear that I'll be back this weekend, alright? I've been keeping up with everything online, and-and I know my organizational system is a little tough for y'all to work with, but I'm sure you can handle things for a few more-"
Camila found herself in the unenviable position of overhearing Mabel's phone call right as it took a turn for the disappointing. Not wanting to sneak up on her, Camila elected to wait in the kitchen doorway and make eye contact with Mabel as she listened to her assistant manager over the phone, inserting "Uh huhs" where appropriate as the woman laid out exactly how bad the situation was over at that camp without its leading lady there to keep it all running smoothly.
"I see," Mabel eventually finished, sounding like she was almost completely spent from the interaction. "Okay, I can be back on Friday, how about that? First thing Friday morning, I promise! I just-!" Another barely discernible tirade cut her off before she could explain herself, and Camila watched as Mabel sunk in on herself just a little bit more over the course of whatever was being said. "I know, I know, I just...I really wanna be in town on Thursday. I told you about that play the kids are doing, right? It'd really mean a lot to them for me to be there and..." A softer retort this time, perhaps even sympathetic, but no less insistent. "I see. Yeah, yeah, I can be back tonight, I just...gotta tie up some loose ends first." Camila took a step closer. "Mhm, it won't take long, I promise." And another step. "Okay. I'll see you then. Bye," Mabel finished, at which point Camila was close enough to reach a hand towards her shoulder and silently ask if it was alright to give her a hug. With a nod and a sniffle, Mabel answered and collapsed into Camila's arms, far more receptive towards Camila's affection than she ever would have considered being months ago.
Amazing the things that can change in such a short amount of time.
"Things not going well, I take it?" Camila asked, if only for the sake of politeness: the shake of Mabel's head and her current demeanor were indicative enough of that. "Mm," she murmured with uncertainty in her voice. "Is there anything I can do to help, cariño?" she asked gently, coaxing a smile out of Mabel as she regarded the older woman by her side. It had taken some getting used to, Mabel could readily admit, but...she really had come to care for Camila like she was the second mother she had never known she needed, never even known she could have without betraying the woman who had raised her as best she could. From the warmth laced in her words, Mabel knew that Camila extended just as much love and consideration towards her as she did towards any of the kids she had taken into her home and accepted as a part of her family. Mabel wanted more than anything to repay the kindness that had been shown to her by this woman, by everyone she had come to know in this strange little town, and while she had some ideas on how to give thanks, she was clearly going to need to adjust her plans for them on considerably short notice at this point.
But hey, what else were mothers for than for times like these?
"Wellll...I can think of a couple things."
Nobody quite knew why they had been summoned to the Noceda house "ASAP," but needless to say, they were pretty universally bummed out once they realized what was happening.
"You're leaving?" Vee asked first, willing her voice not to tremble as much as she could for both her sake and the sake of her friends gathered behind her. She knew, logically, that Mabel's stay was a temporary one: Mabel herself had outlined the terms of it to her first before anyone else. She had even known that her mentor was bound to leave soon, especially as the days grew shorter and the air colder. Still, to be summoned to the house by a text from her mom and greeted with the sight of Mabel's car in the driveway with the trunk opened up like she was leaving for good...it was a difficult thing to accept, all the more so for how sudden it was. Judging by the sympathetic look in her eye and the pained smile she offered her favorite camper in response, Mabel understood this illogical contradiction better than most.
"'Fraid so, kiddo. I really was hoping to stick around for the play at least, but, well, nobody said being an adult was all fun and games. We all knew I was gonna have to go back sooner or later," she replied, and the kids could at least appreciate Mabel's efforts to give it to them straight. In an effort to bring up the mood, however, she proceeded to turn the others' attention to what was piled up inside the trunk by gesturing towards the boxes she'd gathered like they were prizes in a game show. "But hey! Figured the least I could do to make up for it was to get you all some going-away presents! Go on, check 'em out!"
With her encouragement, the kids glanced at each other before moving towards the trunk one by one, whereupon they soon discovered a large box in the middle which stood apart from the rest of what Mabel had packed for the trip back to Jersey. Opening them up, the kids were at first confused to find what appeared to be little more than assorted knick-knacks, only for some of their eyes to widen at what they discovered within.
"Hrm. Shakespearean Mad Libs. How quaint," Juniper said with a bemused lilt in her voice as she picked up a little booklet containing just that, which Mabel had decorated with a little cartoony sticker of a skull in emulation of poor Yoric.
"Aww, succulents!" Willow gushed, pulling out the tiny little plant from where it sat next to the box and cooing over it like it was a tiny little baby as her friends watched.
"Whoa, Sam, take a look at this!" Alex called out, causing Sam to move over to them and look over their shoulder. Upon realizing what they had found, he adopted an honest to God expression of genuine surprise, one which quickly morphed into the kind of giddy expression of anticipation which one would have ordinarily expected from Alex themselves.
"Ohohohoho, sick," he said eagerly, pulling out the decently old karaoke machine which Mabel had been keeping in the back of her car for longer than she honestly remembered. Mabel smiled at the sight of that reliable zombie-killing contraption, thankful that Soos had thought to send it to her when she first went off to college. A part of her was a little bummed to see it go, but eh, it wasn't like she'd used it much recently, and she knew something like that would be right up Sam's alley. This kind of thing was better off in the kids' hands anyway.
"Huh, check this out. Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide to Magic and Mystery," Masha read aloud as they flipped through it, showing some of the illustrations to Alex. "Think it's legit?" they asked, honestly not sure whether or not it was at this point. Alex shrugged, although Mabel could tell by the look in their eye that they were very eager to find out.
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Mabel said cheekily. "Figured you two would have fun digging into that one together," she added, trying not to think too much about including that particular book in the pile. She'd already made sure to destroy any and all references to anything too dangerous in her estimation, so it wasn't like there was much in there that they were in any position to misuse. She'd tried all the spells in it and found out they were largely bupkis, so the way she saw it, that book was probably only going to really be good for inspiring new stories for Alex and letting Masha self-teach themselves just a smidge of fake Latin magic.
You know, as you do.
"Huh, this is weird too. Like some kind of electric wand thing?" Masha remarked, pulling out the emptied training wand from where it had sat at the bottom of the pile. Luz and Amity, who had largely been preoccupied looking at more mundane tchotchkes which Mabel just happened to have, immediately became more alert upon seeing that thing in their hand.
"WHOA whoa whoa, let's not mess with...huh?" Amity cried as she raced over to stop them from doing anything reckless, before her panic melted into confusion upon realizing that the wand was, indeed, fully emptied. "Oh. Oh, well that's...hm," she muttered, thinking to herself for a moment before scooting over to Mabel. "Ms. Pines, are you sure about this?" she whispered furtively, to which Mabel chuckled a little nervously.
"Like, 95%? I mean, c'mon, how much damage can they do with an empty wand anyway?" the young woman attempted to deflect, only for Amity to glance between her and Masha with a vague sense of unease. She knew on an intellectual level that Mabel was right, but she had gathered from what Vee told them that Masha had an uncanny knack for divining horrible truths with greater accuracy than the great Osran himself. An ability that couldn't be explained by what she knew of magic. And, well, putting it simply, a human had already surprised her once in that regard.
So she figured it wise to hedge her bets, as it were..
"That's probably fine," she said in a tone both casual and ever-so-slightly apprehensive, in a manner which was similar enough to how Luz might have said it that a part of Mabel found herself bemused, especially when the girl herself soon cut into the conversation.
"Oh my God, Amity, look!" Luz cried out, diverting her girlfriend's attention completely as she saw that, against all odds, Mabel had actually found some adorable marketable plushies of both Azura and Hecate. Amity followed in Luz's footsteps the moment she caught sight of the squishy little things, instinctively hugging the Azura plush with both hands in an affectionate vice grip. As the two promptly fangirled over them and thanked Mabel profusely for the next few minutes, Clara found herself smiling at the sight, even as she had yet to find anything in the box which was to her own tastes. Perhaps that was just as well: in some ways, it was still difficult to determine which of her interests and tastes she could ascribe to her real self and which of them were tied inexorably to her false persona. If nothing else, she could at least take comfort in the fact that she wasn't the only one, as Vee also found herself struggling to find much of note which really stuck out to her.
Luckily for her, at least, Mabel had a charming little solution to that particular problem.
"Hey, mind if I borrow this?" she asked Willow softly, gesturing to the camera she had taken to keeping in a snazzy little satchel. With one brief glance in Vee's direction, Willow seemed to pick up on Mabel's general intent, so she happily handed the camera over with a smile. With this task accomplished, Mabel proceeded to set it to the side before sneaking up on Vee with a playful boop, which she was pleasantly surprised didn't startle the girl in the slightest.
She really had come a long way since that first day in the woods, hadn't she?
"Hey, kiddo. Lift your arms up for me and close your eyes for a sec, will ya?" she asked, leaving Vee confused for a moment.
"Huh?" she asked, not entirely getting what was happening and leaving Mabel amused.
"C'mon, throw your hands up in the air like you just don't care!" she insisted. Realizing that her mentor was almost certainly making some outdated human reference she didn't understand, Vee did eventually play along, rolling her eyes with a bemused smile of her own.
"Alright, Ms. Pines, whatever you say," Vee replied, doing as Mabel asked and keeping her eyes closed long enough for Mabel to stealthily slip something over her own shoulders before dropping it onto the smaller girl like she was covering her with a sheet.
"And swoop!" she said playfully, which Vee figured was probably the signal for her to open her eyes, especially when paired with the sudden weight on her body which she quickly realized was...
"Your favorite sweater," she muttered dumbfoundedly, having once again found herself wearing the pumpkin-print sweater which she had seen Mabel wearing on many occasions before, regardless of the season. Mabel smiled softly in response as she wrapped an arm around Vee's waist, now clad in the kind of mono-color sleeveless top which she typically wore underneath her sweaters, and moved to guide her away from the car while grabbing the camera.
"Don't worry, kiddo, it gets better," she said encouragingly before glancing behind herself towards the rest of the kids. "Alright, guys, on three! One, two, three-!"
"CABIN 7, HOO-HA-HA!" the Cabin 7 Crew called out in perfect unison, with Clara and the rest of the kids who weren't quite in on that group joining in a little late due to being less familiar with the cabin's war cry. Nevertheless, Mabel took the selfie jubilantly and handed Vee the photo as soon as it developed, the meaning behind it obvious. Vee smiled and found herself tearing up just a little bit at the sight of a photo which so perfectly encapsulated everything she loved in her life, but a quick swipe of her new sweater sleeve took care of that problem readily enough. Feeling a strong need to give Mabel something in return, Vee thought for a moment before finding a familiar gift stowed safely in her shapeshifted pocket, just as it had been for every day since she left the camp that changed her life for the better. Devising a plan, Vee quickly got to whispering among the rest of the kids, giving Mabel a moment to talk with the other kid left out of proceedings.
"And as for you..." Mabel began, leaving Clara nervous for a second if only due to old habits, only to be surprised to find a familiar pamphlet being put into her hands. "I know our marketing could use some work - believe me, we've been trying to iron that out lately - but if you wanna start saving up some money...I could definitely use an assistant over the summer." Clara's eyes widened a bit at the offer being put before her, leaving Mabel to clarify what she meant a little bit. "Well, more of a gofer than anything else, really. You are pretty young to be working, like, a full time job, after all, plus I just really like that word, y'know? Gofer, it's so cute! I just can't help but picture a tiny little gopher in a suit and tie carrying a briefcase as he waddles off to work-oh! Waddles! Oh, god, I did that whole bit with Waddles once, it was the cutest thing, lemme see if I still have the pictures-"
"A-are you sure?" Clara interrupted nervously, looking as though she honestly didn't believe it, or rather that she didn't think she deserved it. Mabel's expression softened at the sight.
"Well, of course I'm sure! I wouldn't be offering otherwise," Mabel reasoned, giving the girl a reassuring smile. "Way I see it, I'd be lucky to have any of you kids on my team...including you," she added, leaving Clara stunned for a moment before she finally spoke, albeit haltingly.
"Oh. Okay," she said, audibly choked up as she struggled to maintain her composure. Mabel offered her a couple pats on the head to offer her comfort before being distracted by Waddles impatiently squealing from the passenger seat of her car. While she went to deal with her cranky old man pig, Vee was able to sneak over and whisper to Clara in turn, leaving everything set for her master plan by the time Mabel finished calming him down.
"Hm?" Mabel asked, having noticed Vee tugging on her shorts in order to get her attention.
"I know it's sorta rude to give a gift back to someone, but..." Vee muttered with some slight uncertainty as she pulled out the bus ticket to Gravity Falls and handed it to Mabel front side up, leaving the young woman in a rare moment of being stunned into silence for once. "I figured that you might appreciate having this the next time you get homesick," Vee added a bit more confidently, causing Mabel to gasp out a bit of a chuckle in response. "Besides, I, um..." Vee continued before glancing over her shoulder at everyone else gathered to see Mabel off and looking like they knew something Mabel didn't. She smiled at the sight of them, then turned around and spoke her next words with far more assurance than Mabel had ever heard from the somewhat timid girl. Words which made her more happy and proud than anything else her favorite camper had done.
"I don't think I need it anymore," Vee finished, with a smile that rivaled the sun.
One look at these kids was all Mabel needed to know that she was absolutely right.
That might have been a good note for Mabel to end on, give the kids her best and head out onto the road so she could stop by Camila's work on her way out, and Mabel absolutely intended to do all of that, but...something still felt missing. Luz and her friends, they had done a lot for Mabel too, but they really hadn't gotten much from her outside of various knick knacks and a few lovingly chosen items. They deserved a little more from her before she left, but after giving away all the remaining cool magic stuff she had, she was honestly at a loss for what else she could leave them.
Fortunately, fate would end up throwing her a bone in this regard.
With the loud crack of wood suddenly giving way, everyone's attention was momentarily drawn towards the forest, and to the old house which sat amidst the trees. Last Mabel had checked, things had been going smoothly, and the Corduroys had been optimistic about wrapping up the job very shortly. If something had happened, Mabel needed to know now, so even though she had a hard deadline staring her in the face, Mabel instinctively marched out towards the old house to see what was going on. No sooner had she come within sight of the place, with Luz and her friends cautiously following behind her, than they were all intercepted by Dan Corduroy himself, holding what appeared to be some kind of ornate box in his hand with a perplexed look on his face.
"Whoa, don't worry, Mabel, nothing's gone too off the rails! I think," Dan remarked, attempting to set the much smaller woman at ease. "The boys just wound up applying a little too much pressure and caved in a loose board we had missed when we were going over the place. In fairness, it had been pretty well-hidden, and for good reason, it seems: we found this thing hidden underneath it," he said, gesturing to the box in his hand. At his invitation, Mabel pondered it for a moment before handing it off to the kids so that she could focus on talking with him about the project. The kids promptly opened the box to see what was inside for themselves, and after it released a little puff of dust from being sealed up for so long, all they found within was a folded up scrap of parchment containing a strange series of symbols which most of them couldn't quite make heads or tails of. Fortunately, however, some of them had grown up with a very particular set of special interests, interests which happened to be very useful in this sort of situation.
"Wait a second, this feels sorta familiar..." Luz murmured to herself, taking the scrap and mulling it over for a bit before snapping her fingers. "Oh, man, that's right! A rebus!" she exclaimed eagerly, leaving the others confused while Mabel's ears perked up in dim recognition. "It's like a puzzle with words and symbols and stuff. Lemme see if..." She paused as she looked around and caught Vee's eye, asking her sister a silent question as she glanced over at the Cabin 7 Crew. Vee gave her answer with a somewhat hesitant nod.
It was about time the crew started getting the truth.
"Masha!" Luz called out before taking off, leaving the others to trail her as she caught up to Masha, and in no time at all, the two began chattering excitedly at a mile a minute once she had explained what they had found.
With the grown-up matters concluded, Mabel was once again free to make her way back to the car and witness all of this going down. Even if she couldn't quite follow along with everything they were saying about Old Gravesfield and all of that neat historical trivia, she was able to grasp the basics of just how important this fortuitous little discovery might have been for their chances of getting home. Somehow, without even trying, Mabel had ended up giving them the best goodbye present they could have ever asked for.
Yeah. That seemed like a good note for her to end on.