Chapter Text
Amity couldn’t do it. Once again she couldn’t tell Luz they were connected by a soul string. She tried to convince herself she wasn’t a coward and that it was other factors like the fact that King interrupted and demanded Luz's attention.
Eda tells her she's a coward.
“You’re a Blight kid, witch up and tell her.” Is Eda’s response when Amity tells her about her latest attempt to tell Luz and how it failed. King was a reason of course but most of it boiled down to Amity herself. She couldn’t get over the fact that Luz couldn’t see the string. She wasn’t tied down like Amity. Luz could choose any of the many other people in either the human realm or The Boiling Isles. Luz had a choice and Amity was not going to get in the way of that.
“Like you’re one to talk,” Amity snaps back at Eda. Who by all means had adopted her at this point. Amity spent more time at the Owl House than she did her own home. Actually, the Owl House was home to a lot more people then just Eda and King these days. Luz lived there full time visiting her mother in the human realm once a week, and at least once a month for sure. Luz, of course, attracted Willow and Gus who were over enough that it felt like they lived there. The same could be said for Amity's siblings, a fact that used to bug Amity until she realized that their parents were hard on them too. They needed somewhere to escape to as well.
Then there were Eda and Lilith who despite all their differences, and the big fact that Lilith cursed Eda, managed to live together without killing each other. Though Amity is sure Lilith is slowly going crazy dealing with everyone. I mean she had to deal with the troubled twins, their soulmates, Willow and Gus, their soulmates, plus Eda, King, Luz and Amity.
Amity did not envy her at all. Although there was one other responsible adult, Luz’s mom, it still fell on Lilith alone most of the time. Amity and the others have met Luz’s mom, Camillia many times by now as most of them make the trip to the human realm with Luz when they can and are forced to go around holidays. They were an odd family but it worked in its own way.
“Fine,” Amity hears Eda state with a sigh pulling her out of her thoughts, “you're right, I’m not one to talk, I haven't told her either.” Amity tries not to give the Owl Lady a smug smile but knows that she fails when Eda narrows her eyes, “but I also haven’t taken four years.”
“I-” Amity sputters, Eda was right of course. Amity has known about her soul-string leading to Luz since she was fourteen. She was eighteen now and hasn’t said anything to the other girl. Actually the last time either one of them really discussed her soul-string was years ago when Luz told her she wasn’t alone.
Eda on the other hand recently discovered that her string that had been towards the ground her whole life, actually went to the finger of Camillia. Luz’s mom. A fact she found out the first time she visited the human realm years ago.
“Wait,” Amity blinks realizing that Eda has taken about as much time as her. You’re not any better than me.”
“Yes, I am,” Eda counters, “four years is longer then three, stupid,” she scoffs rolling her eyes at Amity. It was times like these where Amity really understood Lilith, and why she often left to who knows where for a while a day so she didn’t have to deal with Eda.
“It’s a delicate situation,” Amity counters, face going red with embarrassment and a bit of anger.
“No it’s not,” Eda waves her hand pointing up, “you just walk up like ‘hey know that string thing that connects people together? Well mine goes to your finger,’ boom done, situation solved.” Amity stares at Eda, wondering how in magic’s name she got to this point in life.
“And why don’t you do that?” Eda’s face falls the second Amity says it, and she blinks, her hand slowly falling back to her side as she thinks about it.
“Maybe I will,” she counters after a moment, face lighting up, “yeah, I will do it tonight. Then you,” Eda steps forward pointing a finger into Amity's chest, who forces herself to stand her ground, “will have no excuse.”
“I thought we were past this.” Amity and Eda turn their heads to find Luz standing in the doorway looking at both of them confused.
“Past what kid?” Eda states backing away from Amity running a hand through her hair.
Amity knows what Luz is talking about. For a while when Amity first started coming around the house, her and Eda got into fights a lot. Well, “fights” isn’t really the right word but they had a hard time coming to terms with the fact that they both loved Luz. They butted heads about what was best for her or how to save her when she was in danger. That mellowed off when Amity had confessed she cared to Eda because her string connected to Luz.
Amity’s surprised that Luz brought that up. She’s actually surprised the girl noticed at all. She was after all super oblivious to many, many things but especially the feelings of others.
Luz just shakes her head and says it’s time to go. Amity follows her out of the house excited. They were going to visit the human realm this weekend. Camilia had invited them over for the weekend as she was off work. Amity was excited as always, she loved seeing the place where Luz grew up. She also quite liked talking to Camilia. She always had the cutest stories about Luz.
Amity was debating grabbing Luz’s hand, something Luz had been doing more recently when she jumps as her brother calls her. “Mittens!”
Amity glares at him for a few seconds before realizing just how many people were apparently coming with them. Amity was quite sure that Camila had not invited everyone. Yet standing outside the Owl House were her siblings, Willow and Gus. All sporting backpacks that most likely held their overnight stuff.
Amity was under the impression it was just going to be her, Eda, King, Lilith, and Luz. There was no way that everyone was going to be able to stay. The Noceda’s home was not large enough to house this many people over night.
“Luz,” Amity whispers, drawing her attention as Eda and King start talking to the guests. “I thought not everyone was coming.” Amity tries not to say it like she was disappointed, she was of course because she wouldn’t be alone with Luz, but Luz didn’t need to know that.
“Oh well,” Luz scratches the back of her head giving Amity a nervous smile. Amity knows instantly that she was right. “It was, but then King told Gus we were having a sleepover and then like he told Willow, and,” she frowns, “I’m not sure how the twins found out, honestly I think they’ve bugged the hous-”
Amity cut off Luz’s long ramble with a hand on her shoulder, “does your mom know they're coming?”
“Well,” Luz draws out, “no, but,” she raises a finger, “I’m sure she’ll be okay with it.”
Camilia was not okay with it, er well she was but she was definitely surprised for sure. She invites them all in gracefully, even though she sends Luz a look that Amity catches and snickers at, which Luz finds unimpressive. Eda even catches it and apologizes stating that ‘if you bring one, the others follow.’ Lilith’s apology is so much better, even suggesting that they can just stay for a bit and head back.
Camilia says some things to Luz in another human language that no one understands before shaking her head, chuckling quietly, messing up Luz’s hair. This action earns a rebuttal, which Amity guesses is something along the lines of ‘don’t embarrass me in front of my friends.’
They speak a bit more, Camilia gesturing outside before Luz runs over excited. “She said we can all stay! We just have to set up tents and sleep outside.”
“Set up?” Edric asks.
“As in work?” Emira concludes as they both shake their heads. Amity rolled her eyes. They were able to stay, the least they could do was set up stuff.
“It’ll be fine,” Luz tells them before getting pulled away by Eda who wants to talk to her about something.
It wasn’t fine. Not as far as Amity was concerned when she found herself outside with Luz, the only one helping set up tents. Which were contraptions that were proving to be very, very difficult to set up. Why was everything about humans confusing?
Amity is less angry when Luz laughs at her when she somehow gets stuck inside the tent before it’s up. Don’t ask her how she did that. She was actually glad that her siblings weren’t there to make fun of her. They never would have let her live it down, Luz on the other hand just starts laughing before helping her out.
“And done,” Luz exclaims later, looking at their hard work. Three human tents, one of which had a hole in it from where Amity got mad and tried to burn it. It wasn’t huge, hopefully no one would notice, otherwise there was going to be a fight about who slept in that one. Amity voted for Edric, he was slightly, by a small margin, the more annoying twin. Probably because occasionally Emira was a caring older sister.
Amity looks at everything proud of herself for figuring out the stupid annoying contraptions and only losing her cool once, and realizing that three tents meant people had to share when Luz tugs her arm.
“I want to show you something,” Luz exclaims before dragging Amity off into the forest around the Noceda household. Amity almost loses her footing but manages to keep up with Luz.
“Tada!” Luz exclaims excitedly when they get to a certain tree. Amity blinked confused. There was nothing different about this tree than the others, not really. Was it a human thing to just show people trees? “Wait, hang on, you can’t see it,” Luz mutters to herself patting herself down for a second before smiling triumphantly when she produces a flashlight, essentially the human way of casting a light spell. She turns it on and points it up and Amity understands more why Luz was excited, there was a platform in the tree. “Tada!” Luz yells excited again, before frowning at Amity, “You’re supposed to be excited.”
“Sorry,” Amity confessed, forcing a smile, “yay, wood.”
“Oh come on Amity,” Luz waves her arm around sending light everywhere scaring some birds out of the trees, “it’s not just wood it’s a treehouse.”
“It’s a platform,” Amity deadpans.
Luz’s face falls and Amity feels bad. Clearly Luz cared about this ‘tree house’ and was excited to show it to her. She smiles, “I’m sorry Luz, I don’t exactly get why you’re excited but maybe I will if you show it to me.”
“Yes!” Luz yelled startling Amity handing her the flashlight that she almost dropped before walking toward the tree.
“What are you doing?” Amity asked, concerned.
“Light,” Luz calls and Amity fumbles with the light before shining it toward Luz, who gives her a thumbs up. “I’m climbing up,” she explains as if that would prepare Amity for the heart attack she has when Luz starts scaling the tree. “Once I’m up, toss me the light.”
Amity does as she’s told, amazed that Luz just did that. When she suggested they go up to the plat-tree house she thought maybe there would be stairs or maybe even use her magic. Not this.
“Okay your turn,” Luz says pointing the flash light down the tree, “just use the pegs and climb on up.”
Amity doesn't die on the way up, but definitely does not want to consider what going down will be like. Luz gives her a huge smile once she makes it up that makes everything worth it. “Please tell me we can stay up here a while,” Amity pleads.
Luz laughs at her, “Is Amity Blight scared?”
“No,” Amity counters quickly, even though she scoots closer to the middle, away from the edge. She was scared a bit, but wasn’t about to admit it. “Just some of those peg things wiggled and are probably gonna break.”
“Honestly I’m surprised they didn’t,” Luz admits but back tracks quickly when she sees Amity’s horrified face. “I mean it’s totally safe and nothing can go wrong.” Amity rolls her eyes but accepts it anyway, and really what could she do about it now. They were after all, already up on the thing.
Amity doesn't quite see the appeal of the tree house. Was the point to be high up? Luz shuts off the light and for a second Amity is blind before the moon provides enough light. “It’s a little overgrown,” Luz says, laying down, “but it still works.”
Amity doesn't understand until Luz gestures for her to lay down. She does so and finds herself staring up at a full moon and lit up sky. It was different from the Isles but very beautiful.
“Change your mind about my platform?” Luz asks, wiggling her eyebrows when Amity turns to tell her something. Amity says nothing opting to not give fuel to that fire. Luz takes it in stride and let’s it go with only a smirk and a knowing look before she starts pointing out different things in the sky.
Amity tries to pay attention to where Luz points and the stories she's telling her about the different constellations and strings of stars. She makes it about three minutes learning about a thing called the north star before she gets distracted by the string connecting up to the hand pointing up at the sky.
It was odd how seeing it so close before her eyes, still made Amity feel fuzzy all over.
Amity of course gets caught spacing off. “You’re not even paying attention are you?” Luz teases her.
“I was thinking,” Amity broadly states, not at all ready to be like ‘hey so I found looking at the string that says we’re meant for each other more interesting then looking at the stars.’ She was listening to Luz talk. She quite liked listening to the other girl, she just wasn’t quite watching where she was pointing.
“About?” Luz questions turning to Amity setting her elbow down, holding her head up making Amity swallow.
“Uh,” Amity’s brain blanks for a few seconds before clicking together a half lie, “About what Eda wanted to talk about, earlier.”
“Oh,” Luz nods, sitting up all the way, “I um, actually wanted to talk to you about that.”
Amity sits up quickly heart pounding hoping beyond hope Eda hadn’t told Luz about the soul-string. If she did there was no one on Earth or the Isles that would stop her from cursing Eda, or at the very least, yell at her until she was red in the face.
“She told me about her string,” Luz states and Amity takes a breath, thank goodness. Most of her knew Eda was trustworthy, but she still couldn’t stop the fear that sparked. “That it was in the ground her whole life,” Luz continues and Amity nods along, she knew this after all. “That it didn’t change until she came through the portal, that suddenly it was connected to my mom's finger,” Luz states holding out her own hand for a second, “but my mom can’t see it, just like me.” Luz stares at her hand clearly hoping that if talking about it, concentrating hard enough she would see it.
“Does that bug you?” Amity ventures pulling Luz from her thoughts, who blinks as if she forgot Amity was there before shaking her head.
“No, not at all, I mean it’s kind of odd, but like I already consider Eda a mom so like now it’s like a real thing,” Luz chunkely explains.
Amity nods, that's kind of how she thought Luz would react. Eda would never listen to her though saying that Luz would be upset about it. That must mean that Eda was serious about telling Luz’s mom if she brought it up to Luz herself.
“So what do you want to talk about?” Amity ventures cautiously because Luz had said she wanted to talk though she could just want to share with Amity.
“I just,” Luz looks at her and Amity is taken away by how beautiful the moon light made Luz look. Luz slowly grabs Amity’s hand making her heart rate spike again, but for a totally different reason. “I know your string leads to the ground,” Luz says quietly and Amity’s sure she’s about to faint when Luz traces around her finger right on her string, “I um just,” Luz looks at Amity before sighing, “did it change when you came here? To the human realm?”
Amity blinks. Luz was asking that? Wha? Why? Did she? Did she want it to have changed? Amity’s head swirls with questions.
Luz must take her confusion as something different because she’s dropping Amity's hand and apologizing for asking such a personal question.
Amity's brian kicks in gear, “No, it’s fine, it um hasn’t changed.”
“So it still goes into the ground?”
“No,” Amity answers too quickly and stiffens the second she does. No, no, no. She didn’t just out herself like that did she? Oh no. Really Amity? For a brief moment she hopes Luz didn’t hear her but who was she kidding there weren’t many other sounds, and she didn’t say it that quietly.
“No?” Luz asks and suddenly as quick as a storm turns bad, Luz was asking her all kinds of questions. About when it changed, when she noticed, how she noticed. Who did it go to, why did Willow tell her it was in the ground, did Amity lie to Willow, why hasn’t she done anything about it? It all comes at Amity in a jumbled mess as Luz shakes her excited.
“Who is it?” Luz ends with after what felt like an hour, sitting back looking at Amity expectantly. “Who’s the lucky guy?”
Amity blinks a few times getting her bearings after having the life shook out of her before staring at Luz. She couldn’t be serious could she? Oh who was Amity kidding, Luz was as oblivious as a pile of rocks. Of course she wouldn't notice that Amity never looked at guys.
“Girl,” Amity corrects, further putting herself down the path of destruction. If she didn’t want to tell Luz it was her, why in the slime goo was she just blurting things out.
“Oh,” Luz looks genuinely surprised, making Amity want to burst into a fit of laughter at how utterly painful life was sometimes. “That’s cool, who is it? Do I know her?” Amity sighs and prepares herself for the heartbreak that’s about to come.
She wasn’t able to tell Luz at first when she was younger because she was too afraid to, afraid of talking to her crush, her soulmate. Then as she got older she was brave enough, she thinks, but never got over the fact that Luz could choose. She never told Eda that’s why, just kept letting the Owl Lady think she was scared.
But in reality, Amity didn’t want to tell Luz she didn’t have a choice. Or that if she did choose and it wasn’t Amity, she didn’t want Luz to feel bad. She didn’t want Luz to feel pressured to be with her over some string she couldn't even see.
“I’m so sorry,” Amity tells her, tears starting to form in her eyes. Luz blinks at her confused, because of course she doesn't get it. Amity was going to have to hit her on the head with a book.
She takes a breath, time to be brave and possibly ruin everything. “It changed a long time ago,” Amity starts, voice way calmer then she feels. She probably has her parents to thank for that, the one thing. “Four years ago when a human came through to the Isles, my string no longer pointed at the ground.”
Amity wants to shove Luz when it takes her longer than half a second to figure out she was talking about her. Luz looks at her unreadable expression on her face and gestures to herself, “Me?”
“Yes,” Amity sighs questioning not for the first time why she liked this dork.
“Me?” Luz asks again, “your string leads to me?”
“Yes.”
“And you're sorry?” Luz cocks her head at Amity, “Do you not like me?”
Amity is floored by the question. “What?” She practically screeches, “No I like you, you’re Luz, I- what’s not to like.” She babbles, and okay, maybe she didn't need to thank her parents, she was not composed at all right now. “You can choose Luz,” Amity tells Luz, pushing straight through her fears.
“You can choose, and I,” Amity forces herself to take a deep breath, “I didn’t want to take that away or make you feel bad.” Amity isn’t looking at Luz while she talks, opting to look down at her hands which proves not helpful when the offending string is there pointing right at Luz. Amity wonders if it would be better if she couldn’t see it.
“Amity,” Luz calls but Amity doesn't look up she can’t.
Amity thinks Eda was right in calling her a coward, she can’t face Luz knowing she just ruined everything.
“Amity,” Luz calls again, voice light and caring, “please look at me.”
Amity risks looking up at Luz who was smiling kindly at her, eyes shining like the stars above. Luz holds up her hand and Amity’s throat tightens. Slowly with an encouraging nod from Luz, she holds up her own hand to Luz’s.
Luz laces their fingers together after a second and Amity feels it in her bones, her string tightening. Luz looks at their hands for a moment before speaking.
“You act like I would ever choose anyone but you,” Luz tells her, sending Amity a smile that rivaled the stars.
It takes Amity a second to process what she just said. Amity does so milliseconds before Luz pulls her into a kiss that has Amity’s brain melting like abomination goo.