Chapter Text
Upon diving recklessly headfirst into the enigma that was the Boiling Isles, Luz would probably describe it as “overwhelming” or “exhilarating” or “absolutely terrifying both physically and emotionally.” Now, having been here for months--far longer than intended--the list of flashy adjectives has made almost a complete one-eighty into familiarity, comfort, and routine she would’ve never thought possible in such a place. Of course, she still found her breath taken away by the Isles on a daily basis- it’s hard not to when one is surrounded by a world so alive . Not just alive, but ferociously alive, alive in all of the ways that made the word synonymous with wild and defiant and magical .
In short, alive in all of the ways the human realm isn’t. Alive in all of the ways Luz is.
Standing behind the counter at Eda’s stand, she muses about this for a second. She’s begun casually thinking of the Boiling Isles as something interchangeable with the concept of “home” and instead calling home home “the human realm” far more often. A pinch of guilt needles into her gut as she considers how her mamá would take this. Her texts hadn’t gone through since the portal was destroyed (though they were getting closer and closer to finding an alternative) and her mother undoubtedly thought she was dead at this point; still, she wonders if the truth would be any easier to digest. Magic? Witches? She still wakes up pinching herself sometimes to make sure it's all real, and she's been living here. However, her mental agonizing is interrupted by Eda snapping her fingers in front of her face.
“Kid, you good? You’ve been zoned out for like, ten minutes,” she comments, turning back to whatever she was preoccupied with shoving into her mane. “We’re packing up, so I’d get outta the way if I were you, unless you’d like to see if living things can survive a compacting spell.” She stalls at this, furrowing her brows a bit. “Hey, that’s actually a decent question… Can’t believe I didn’t think to test that out at Hexside-” Luz jolts out of her fog and hurriedly steps out from behind the booth as Eda mutters about the potential benefits of being able to wrap students into suitcases.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here! I’m fine, just thinkin’. Using that funky lil’ noggin to, uh, come up with new advertising ideas for the stand.” Eda glances over her shoulder and shoots her a skeptical look before finishing the glyph that will neatly wrap up her wares. “Not that there’s anything wrong with your wanted posters! Those suuure do the trick,” she adds hurriedly.
“Sure, kiddo. C’mon, it’s getting dark.”
Luz glances up at the sky, which has bathed the marketplace around her in the warm amber light of late evening. She takes a moment to marvel in it for a second- the atmosphere and the earth seem to bleed into each other on the Boiling Isles, especially in the hours surrounding dawn and dusk. On particularly clear days, the sunsets were so brilliant they seemed to blur the horizon, engulfing everything in their brilliant colors. It made for a particularly ethereal experience unlike anything she had seen in the human realm, and truth be told, it took her breath away every time.
“Also, I think there’s supposed to be some shale hail coming soon,” Eda calls over her shoulder.
Ah, the beauty of the demon realm.
“King and Lilith and probably Amity, we’re home! Also, don’t go outside! It hurts!” Luz gasps as she throws open the door, Eda stumbling in behind her.
“Yeah, turns out flying a staff is a bit difficult when there are rocks falling from the sky. Sorry about that,” Eda adds apologetically, dusting off her palisman. Owlbert half-animates to chew her out in several strings of indignant hooting, and Luz chuckles at Eda’s genuine chagrin. Very few beings could direct such strong language--er, noises?--at the Owl Lady and live to tell the tale, but she was being soundly put in her place by the tiny bird.
“Hoot hoot! Where’s my apology?” The house demon’s incensed whine reverberates around the room, and Luz moves to gently close the door while he’s too preoccupied ranting to notice. “You’re lucky Lilith and Amity already cast the shield spell, otherwise you wouldn’t have a home to so graciously rip the door off of! Geez! Hoo-” She and Eda let out matching sighs of relief as the latch clicks, abruptly cutting the nasally voice off.
“Did you guys seriously not check the weather before you went out?” Amity calls from the direction of the kitchen, and Luz absently smiles to herself as she continues shaking shards of stone out of her hood.
“What, do you think I’m that irresponsible? Of course I did! I wasn’t about to sit out a mostly-perfectly good afternoon of scamming losers just ‘cause of a little hail,” Eda chimes, “I just thought we’d beat it home.”
Luz rolls her eyes, scribbles out a few healing glyphs for the minor bruises they’d both accumulated, and then trots into the dining room to find Amity bent over schoolwork at the table. “Hiya- oh shoot, that’s not for a class I’m in too, is it? I swear I had written down all of the tests coming up this week…” She drapes her arms around the witch’s neck-- I’m happy you’re here --and bends over, attempting to decipher how potentially dooming the notes were.
Amity leans back into the contact-- I missed you, too --and snorts in amusement. “No, this is for an elective I’m taking. Also, I’m glad you’re home, but you’re covered in dust and it’s getting everywhere,” she comments pointedly, blowing air through her nose in emphasis.
“ Ay, menos mal, ” Luz breathes in relief. “Also, aww, did I hear you say you were happy to see me? Cariño , that’s so embarrassing, wow…” she drawls with a lopsided grin. “People are gonna think you have a crush on me or something.”
Amity pulls forward just enough to have room to twist and shoot her a withering look, but there’s no bite in it. “You’re insufferable.” Luz laughs, still draped around the witch’s neck.
“Amity is correct. You two are filthy,” Lilith notes dryly from the entryway. Luz looks down at the trail of small pebbles she’s tracked in and glances up in time to see Eda shake herself like a dog, throwing up a cloud of dust in the living room. Amity cringes a bit from underneath her- Lilith was definitely within the splash zone of that one.
“Aww, Lily, if you wanted a hug you could’ve just asked! C’mere-” Eda singsongs, making a beeline for her sister with arms outstretched. Lilith moves to draw a circle in the air, then pauses in horror when, of course, the muscle memory yields no result. Eda’s eyes narrow mischievously. “Nuh-uh, sis! No restraining spells for you!” Lilith barks out a very refined expletive and darts out of the room without hesitation, her sister hot on her heels and cackling wildly. Luz holds in her own amusement without much success.
“I’m not cleaning that up!” she calls after them.
“Seriously, get off of me and go change,” Amity huffs in mock irritation. Her hand reaches up to squeeze Luz’s wrist, you make my day , and then untangle it from around her neck, moving to push the girl towards the stairs, but you’re literally covered in sand and pieces of rock for the love of the Titans please at least wash your face.
Luz laughs amiably and leans down to press their lips together. The witch, grievances momentarily forgotten, embraces the contact, and it verges on deepening before Luz pulls back to lock their gazes. The warm, bright gold in front of her is sparkling with open and soft adoration, and she knows she’s an open book reciting back the exact same expression. “Mmh. That’ll never get old.” Luz grins and swiftly swipes her thumb across the witch’s cheek-- love you too --leaving a streak of dust that’s subsequently scrubbed away with a yelp of exasperation. She shakes her head, but a small, fond smile creeps across Amity’s face as she listens to Luz chuckle to herself, bounding up the stairs two at a time.
In the bathroom, Luz pauses to listen to the somewhat relaxing noise of the shale bits hitting the house’s shield. The storm is quite light this time and the pieces small, which was appreciated given that they had been forced to fly in it. They had had something akin to a mineral-laden monsoon last month, one of the worst in the Isles’ history, and Hooty hadn’t shut up about his precious stucco for weeks. Despite the large difference in medium, she finds that it sounds considerably more similar to human realm rain than the sizzling, boiling thunderstorms do, somehow. Another pang of reluctant homesickness hits her. She screws her eyes shut before deflating with a sigh, moving to shake out her clothes over the bathtub and step into the shower.
She jogs back downstairs a short while later, dust-free and in clean loungewear. Amity’s moved from the kitchen table to the couch, although she’s still bent over her notes, scribbling in strict concentration. The witch hums in greeting as Luz walks in the room but doesn’t glance up nor pause- it looks to be some chemical equations, potentially related to abomination composition? It’s giving her a headache already, and she’s barely even glanced at the textbook.
Luz plops down next to her and loops their arms together. I want to be close to you, it says.
Amity squeezes it to her side briefly, I’m glad you’re close to me, but hold on, and returns to her assignment for the next several minutes. Luz is content to let her work, even though she’s pretty sure the witch has been at it for hours already- they go through this routine often. Luz is aware that there’s not much she can do to lighten the load, although she has managed to persuade Amity to pick up healthier homework habits, with snacks and water and similar such life-sustaining things breaking up her otherwise continuous study sessions. In the meantime, she awaits her cue while attempting to pick remnant grit out from underneath her nails.
Finally, Amity lets out a fatigued sigh and slumps into Luz’s side. Alright, interrupt me, it says, with which the girl is more than happy to comply.
The textbook is shoved unceremoniously onto the floor (“Hey- that’s expensive!” Amity chides, although she makes no move to save it), and Luz reaches up to gently tug her hair out of that always impeccable half-ponytail. She slips the tie around her wrist, from which it’ll later undoubtedly be looped around the knob of her bedroom door, joining about a dozen identical others. Luz adjusts so they're stretched lengthwise across the sofa, her shoulders propped up against the armrest with Amity pressed against the length of her body. Their legs are tangled together in a way that will definitely leave them numb from the waist down in the near future, but in the moment, they sink into the touch. The witch's breath is warm against her collarbone. A familiar shiver of giddiness runs through her chest, and the corners of Luz's mouth quirk involuntarily.
From there, Luz begins her rambling about the day. She babbles quietly and aimlessly about how business was at the stand or fun, creative ways she managed to sell various pieces of human junk or even just a particularly interesting bug she might’ve seen, gently carding her fingers through Amity’s hair as she does. Once in a while, the witch interrupts to ask a question or clarify something new, which regularly catches Luz a bit off guard--sure, she goes off on tangents a lot, but it’s not often someone is actually paying attention; of course, Amity always is and always does--but for the most part, she’s content to sprawl across the girl and let her mind be mercifully preoccupied with anything other than schoolwork or responsibility for a moment.
Luz plays a game where she tries to see how many times she can get Amity to start purring without noticing.
Amity plays a game where she pretends she doesn’t notice when her chest falls into that childish rumbling.
Eventually, Amity’s breathing deepens and evens out, her form completely slackening into dead weight on top of Luz. The girl isn’t far behind her, having fallen quiet a while ago, but she’s still got a bit to go until her overdrive mind finally settles down to the point where she can drift off. Truthfully, she should probably move them upstairs before that happens, but she’s still a bit sore and her friend is warm and laying on the couch just a few minutes more sounds far more appealing than trying to wake and drag Amity up to Luz’s room that’s mostly theirs at this point.
Eda had never gotten Luz a proper bed, instead insisting on the benefits of nest-sleeping and muttering about the nefarious politics of “big mattress,” whatever that meant. As a result, the floor of Luz’s room had more or less been turned into a mess of various blankets, cushions, and pillows, with plenty of room for frequent sleepovers with both Amity and the rest of her friend group. It's quite cozy, truthfully, and she doesn't particularly mind its unconventionality. Eda had also praised her denmaking skills, which was right under “witch-in-training” on the list of attributes she had never thought would apply to her.
Amity sighs and curls slightly tighter into her chest. Even in her sleep, it murmurs you make me feel safe, and the gesture suddenly strikes Luz with magnitude of all the ways in which her life has changed since her arrival here.
Domestic, whispers her small epiphany, and she blinks.
Sure, the Boiling Isles might have been, may still slightly be, overwhelming and terrifying and all of the other questionable adjectives Luz might have picked upon first tripping into this dimension. But the Isles, the ferociously, defiantly, magically alive Boiling Isles were, at this moment, with the stone hail pounding outside and her best friend she was definitely in love with (even though that was sort of scary to admit, that she not only loved her but was in love, the big, important kind of love) draped unceremoniously and mildly awkwardly across her, at this specific point in time, the only way Luz could ever think to describe the world she was so unbelievably enamored with would be domestic .
Of course, somewhere in the middle of this realization, she crossed the line into more-unconscious-than-not, so the majority of it hit her in the form of an unlabeled, concentrated emotion of some sort with her internal monologue manifesting the words huh. wow. before sleep hit her like a truck.