Chapter Text
It was a beautiful day as Amity made her way towards the Owl House, relishing the lack of a clunky cast on her right foot. She even returned Hooty's gratingly cheerful greeting with a cordial "Good morning" rather than her usual growl.
Opening the door, Amity walked into the living room to find it filled with warmth and laughter. Luz and King were holding their sides, laughing at whatever Eda was holding in her lap. Lilith was as far away from the trio as she could without actually getting up from the couch they all were sharing. She alone noticed Amity’s entrance and raised a hand in greeting.
“Good evening, Amity,” she called drolly. “How are you?”
Amity’s reply was drowned out by Luz’s cry of “Amity!” as she leapt up from the couch to sweep the teal-haired witchling into a hug.
“What are you doing here?” Luz asked when she finally returned Amity to the ground.
“I-um,” Amity coughed to try and regain what little sense of decorum she had when around the human. “I was just, you know, in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop by for a visit. Here. Where you live... Un-unless you’re busy that is-”
“Nonsense!” Luz assured her. “I’m never too busy for you!” She dragged the now gurgling and red-faced witchling over to the couch and sat her down right next to where Luz had been before. “Eda was just showing us some pictures from back when she went to Hexside!”
“Hmph, more like she’s trying to kill me over how embarrassing I looked,” Lilith mumbled, only half grumpily. It’d been several weeks since the ex-Coven Leader had been forced to choose either her Emperor or her sister and had, very publicly , gone with the latter. Things had been tense in the beginning- between the cursing and the use of Luz as a literal human shield -but eventually Lilith had begun to find her place within the Owl House. She had even started to enjoy the chaotic atmosphere, but at the moment would swallow her own tongue before admitting so.
“Oh I’m sure they’re not- wow,” Amity mumbled, having caught sight of one of the pictures. “-that is a lot of hair.”
“Yup, the Clawthorne Mane does not skip generations,” Eda bragged, tossing her own silvery locks.
“I didn’t know you were a redhead like Eda,” Luz added.
“I was,” Lilith admitted with a small smile. “Used to love it, too.”
“So why change?” Amity asked.
“A few years after I joined the Coven I realized I wasn’t being taken as seriously as I would have liked,” Lilith shrugged. “So I straightened it, changed it to this and even got my eyes spelled so I could lose the glasses. Annoyingly enough, it did the trick.” She pouted, mildly irritated it required her to change her own appearance in order to gain the respect she needed to climb the coven’s ranks.
“Whoa!” Luz gasped, wide-eyed, while Amity kept looking at the photo in thought. “There are spells that can change your appearance like that without it being an illusion?!”
“There are, but I prefer a more–” she waved her hand as she thought of the best description, “–I guess you could say, physical , method. I mix up a brew and work it in by hand. I find the effects last longer and look more ‘authentic’.”
Eda gave a low whistle of appreciation. “You do that yourself? Not bad, sis. Here I was thinking you went to some high class hoity-toity salon,” she smirked.
“And run the risk of all the Isles learning the lengths I go to to remain intimidating?” Lilith quirked an eyebrow. “Pass.”
“Intimidating? You? Ha!” Eda mocked causing Lilith’s eyebrow to twitch.
“I’ll have you know that my visage has struck fear into the hearts of many…” the elder Clawthorne’s rant dwindled as it occurred to her that all of her arrests were done on the orders of the Emperor, who she now realized was nothing more than a corrupted old man. How many had she captured on his behalf that were actually undeserving of punishment? How much suffering had she caused beyond what she’d done to her own flesh and blood?
As if sensing the route her mind had started to go down, Luz piped up with a new question.
“So! Since you no longer have any particular reason to be intimidating, are you going to go back to how you looked before?” she asked with wide eyes, as if excited to see what amounted to a bush atop Lilith’s head.
Lilith blinked at the young human, startled back out of her own head at her inquisitive nature. She smiled ever so softly, quietly appreciating what the child was trying to do.
“Well, to be honest the color has kind of grown on me–”
“Kinda like that gray-streak you’re now rocking?” Eda sniggered.
“Hush you,” Lilith glared at her sister for a moment before returning to Luz. “But since you’ve mentioned it, I might let my curls come back. Straightening it all is too much of a hassle anyway.”
The conversation evolved from there into a debate on whose hair had had the most admirer’s back in school, the sisters tossing quips and jests back and forth from their respective ends of the couch like there wasn’t decades of distance between them. Through it all, no one noticed one witchling moving her gaze from the eldest witch to her old photo and back again, her hand twirling the ends of her hair deep in thought.
The next morning, Lilith was once again seated on the couch, trying to get lost in a book when Hooty banged open to say that there was a visitor.
The witch looked up to find Amity at the threshold of the Owl House, looking nervous but determined even as she fiddled with the strap of her small bag.
“Good morning, Amity,” Lilith greeted bemusedly. “If you’re looking for the hu- for Luz, I’m afraid she, King and my sister left to go run the stand in the market. Against my advice, I might add,” she grumbled to herself.
“No, tha-that’s fine,” the teal-haired witchling began before clearing her throat and standing as straight as her small frame would allow. “I’m actually here to see you.” Lilith blinked at that. She was here to see her?
“Oh. Um... alright,” she closed her book and placed it on the table before the couch. “What can I help you with?”
“I…” Amity gulped. She had rehearsed what she was going to say the entire walk over, but now that the moment had arrived she found the words threatening to get stuck in her throat. Swallowing them back into place, she braced herself and let them loose.
“I was wondering if-if you could help me. With my hair. Please.”
“Wha- your hair?” The witch chuckled awkwardly; surely she was kidding? “Why? It looks fine to me. Plus, couldn’t you just use one of the salons in town; no doubt your mother is well acquainted with them.” Lilith rolled her eyes; Karen had always been very ‘meticulous’ with her appearance, even back when they were in school. It wasn’t a surprise to the witch that her youngest daughter might follow the same path, but the flinch Amity gave at the very mention of her mother did not go unnoticed.
“No, no I can’t go to a salon. Mother-” she looked down and away, as if annoyed, though with who would be anyone’s guess. “–Mother gave them all very strict instructions on what they were and were not to do with my hair.”
“Well that certainly sounds like Karen,” Lilith scoffed, brow rising lazily. “What is it that you even want to do?” Amity swallowed again, but her spine grew visibly straighter.
“I want it brown; like it should be,” she indicated her obvious roots, “–and I was hoping you could help me make that happen. Since, you know, you have experience with that and stuff.”
“You just want to be a brunette?” Lilith was surprised; which apparently was the theme of the morning. In all the time she had known the youngest Blight (which admittedly wasn’t very long) the girl had always had the same shade of green atop her head. She’d noticed the roots, and while she had been surprised Karen would allow her daughter to flaunt them so readily, she’d assumed it was just typical teenage fashion.
“I want to be myself ,” Amity declared, meeting Lilith’s eyes and clenching the strap of her bag so hard her knuckles turned white. “I want to be able to-to look in the mirror and see me, not some little girl who lets her mother dye her hair so that all of her children are ‘color coordinated’! I want to be me!” Her gaze dropped back down to the floor. “I want to be enough… but not at the cost of myself… not anymore...”
The silence stretched on thickly for several moments; Lilith staring at Amity and Amity determinedly staring at the floor as if it had all the answers she needed.
“Hoot- your mom sounds like a dumb fart,” Hooty cheerfully chimed in. Amity’s head snapped up at him in pure disbelief; no one ever dared to speak that badly of Karen Blight, even when she wasn’t there to hear.
“That may just be the smartest thing you’ve said all week,” Lilith remarked as she rose gracefully from the couch. “Come along, Amity,” she called as she began walking deeper into the house.
“Uh-wha?” Amity meekly replied, the last five seconds giving the poor witchling whiplash with how fast the conversation had changed.
Lilith paused in the doorway out of the living and looked back over one shoulder with a light smile.
“We need to see what ingredients Edalyn has in stock– right after we figure out exactly what ‘system’ she’s using this decade –and make a list for anything we might need to pick up from the market. If we hurry we should be able to hit Sal up before they close for the day. Their hours of operation aren't exactly rigid, but they have the best stock for this kind of thing.”
Amity gaped at the doorway for a few moments after Lilith vanished from view. She’d hoped for the best but had been prepared for the worst. It took the elder witch’s distant question of “You coming?” to snap her out of her stupor. “I’m coming!” Amity called back with a shaky grin, darting off after her as Hooty gently closed behind the witchling with a happy hoot.
Miraculously enough, it turned out that the storeroom of the Owl House had everything they needed and more to get the job done. Granted it still took time to track everything down; Eda’s system was apparently to sort things from least to most dangerous from one end of the room to the other, but both ends looked fairly the same and her idea of what constituted as “dangerous” was as loose as a triple-x hoodie on a pixie.
Eventually they had everything they needed (plus a few singe marks on Lilith’s dress that Eda would be paying for later) the duo made their way up to the surprisingly spacious second floor bathroom to get set up. In short order Amity was wearing an old, but blessedly clean, bathrobe and leaning backwards into the sink so Lilith could wash her hair while she sat upon a stool. The witch started slowly– it had been decades since she’d washed another person’s hair and that had been Eda when they were both tiny witchlings –but eventually it all came back to her and she soon made short work of shampooing and conditioning the young Blight’s hair.
Amity, for her part, was trying her best not to murmur happily and further embarrass herself. Up until now the people who had dealt with her hair had been... clinical in their work. They were efficient, no doubt, but there was something in their movements that put the witchling on edge, though that may have been a result of her displeasure of her hair being forcefully dyed. Lilith’s hands, however rusty, were...different. She couldn’t put her finger on how, exactly, but where previous hairstylists were aloof and cold in all ways except literal, the older witch’s hands were carefully warm and almost kind.
The witchling had to bite her lip at one point to keep from tearing up. She would not get emotional over having someone wash her hair with so much as an ounce of kindness. She refused.
Before she knew it, Lilith had whipped up a bowl of gunk– which she had spent quite a bit of time hemming and hawing over, nearly glaring at Amity’s roots; mumbling to herself something about ratios and highlights –and began applying it methodically to the witchling’s head, section by section.
While they waited for the color to set, they had a small “adventure” trying to keep Hooty– who had popped in through the window to say hello –from eating the leftover hair dye.
“But it’s dirt colored, hoot!”
“Okay, one! Just because it’s ‘dirt colored’ does not mean it’s dirt!” Lilith growled as she held Hooty’s face back with one hand and the bowl in the other. “And two; why are you eating dirt?! Amity! Amity could you please stop laughing and HELP ME! If I poison her house demon Eda may actually kill me.”
“Hoo-Hooty,” Amity laughed, tears close to streaming down her face at the sight of the witch struggling with the bird tube. It truly was a sight to behold. “It’s not- it’s not for eating. It’s for dyeing–”
“Dying?! Hoot?! Amity, no– I’ll save you!”
“Wait, Hooty, no not that kind of dying!”
“BATTLE HOOT!”
“HOOTY NO!”
Between the two of them– and the sheer luck of the window restricting a good portion of his movement –Lilith and Amity were able to kick Hooty out of the bathroom long enough to explain that no, Lilith wasn’t trying to kill anyone (though Hooty was dangerously close to changing that) and no , Amity was not dying. With the crisis (mostly) averted, time was up and Lilith set about rinsing Amity’s hair and blowing it dry. Soon she spun the witchling around to face the mirror and see the results of her work.
Amity gazed wide-eyed at a witchling she hadn’t seen since she was a child. Her hair was still out of its usual half-up ponytail, but the bronze locks were just as she remembered them. She beamed at herself and saw her reflection begin to get teary-eyed, but if Lilith noticed she didn’t comment. Instead she had her chin resting in her hand as she surveyed her work with a critical eye.
“Did I get the shade right? I feel like it could have gone a hair darker…” she winced and buried her face in her hand. “ Ugh, I’ve been hanging out with that human for too long...”
“It’s perfect,” Amity declared, spinning around on her stool to look at Lilith directly. “Thank you.” The witch heard every single unspoken feeling hiding between those two small words and smiled softly down at the newly brunette witchling.
“You’re welcome, Amity.”
The warm moment was shattered rudely by Eda stomping nonchalantly up the stairs and into the bathroom.
“Lily! You wanna explain why Hooty now has tiger-shark stripes for about fifteen feet of him?”
“It’s not my fault!” Lilith argued, arms crossed defensively. “Your demon tried to eat a bowl of hair dye! And given that his stomach is somewhere in the house I didn’t think it was wise to let him do so and risk an upset stomach!”
“Hair dye?” Eda asked, as she stepped fully into the room, finally catching sight of Amity. “What did you need- whoa. Nice hair, Blight. Finally decided to quit the two-tone hair-do, I see.”
“Yes,” Amity blushed, sitting up straight. “I decided I wanted to be more natural and not like one of my mother's dolls.”
“Mother’s dolls?” Eda asked, confused. After glancing at Amity for permission real quick, Lilith casually explained after receiving the witchling’s nod.
“Apparently Mrs. Blight decided her children should have matching hair and forced Amity to dye hers against her wishes. Which, given how she was back at school, should not surprise me as much as it does.”
“Back at school? We went to school with short-stuff’s mom?” the Owl Lady asked, smirking at Amity’s indignant “Hey!”
“Yes, Eda, we did,” Lilith answered rolling her eyes. “Her name was Karen Hemmlocke back then, remember? She married Rudolf Blight a few years after–”
“Hemmlocke!” Eda snarled, cutting off her sister. “Ooh, that no good, dirty rotten, daughter of a–”
“Language! There are children present!”
“She went toe-to-toe with Grom, she can handle a few bad words,” Eda waved off Lilith’s exclamation before returning her rant. “But that prissy, little, uptight–”
“Eda!”
“–got me into more trouble than anyone else at Hexside!”
“You mean she caught you causing trouble,” Lilith smirked. “I seem to recall you were perfectly capable of starting trouble all by yourself.”
“Yeah, and I was good at it too,” Eda gloated momentarily, “But then she’d swoop in and rat me out to Bump! After I made perfectly good getaways too!”
“If she caught you, then technically they weren’t perfect getaways,” Lilith drawled.
“My point still stands!” the Owl Lady growled. “Karen whatever-her-name-is stinks worse than the foul end of a trash slug!”
“Uhhhh,” Amity called out meekly, reminding the two sisters of her presence. “Does-does that mean I’m not allowed to be here?” She looked like she was about to cry, but stubbornly refused to.
“Wha? Don’t be silly, kid; you’re welcome here any time you’d like,” Eda assured the witchling.
“Eda,” Lilith beamed at her sister, “That’s very big of you. I’m proud you're not letting old grudges–”
“What better way to get back at Karen than by corrupting her precious baby daughter,” Eda cackled gleefully.
“Annnnd just like that, the pride is gone,” Lilith groaned, massaging her temple. “If we could get back to the issue at hand, dear sister; how does Amity’s hair look? Does it seem even? I’ve never dyed another witch’s hair before.”
“Hm? Oh,” Eda walked over for a closer look, moving around Amity in a half circle until the witchling was between her and the door. “Looks fine to me, but the kid has better eyes than I do when it comes to artsy stuff. HEY LUZ!” She yelled, causing Amity and Lilith to flinch at her volume, “COME UP HERE A SEC; WE NEED YOUR EYES!”
“I really hope you mean metaphorically!” Luz called back as she jogged upstairs to them. “By the way, Hooty’s found out his new stripes make him harder to see in the trees. I mean, you can still see where he’s connected to the house, but the rest…of...him…” Luz’s voice died out as she caught sight of Amity still sitting on the stool.
“Luz, we need your opinion,” Eda began.
“How does Amity look?” Lilith nonchalantly finished.
Luz kept staring silently for so long it began to become awkward. In all the time she'd know her Eda had never known the kid to be this quiet for this long unless she was literally asleep, and sometimes not even then.
Poor thing was stunned; she'd never seen Amity with her hair down before, never mind with it all a lovely shade of warm brown that gleamed like fiery bronze in the evening light.
“Luz!” Eda growled impatiently.
“Huh-wha, yeah?” the human shook her head to refocus.
“How does Baby Blight look?” the Owl Lady asked, ignoring Amity’s glare at being called ‘Baby Blight’.
“I think she looks pretty girl,” Luz answered distractedly before her face darkened dramatically and she began backtracking. “Pretty good! Pretty Good! Yup, looks good, real good! Well I-ow,” she backed up straight into the door frame, waving it off, “I’d better go check on King and make sure-make sure that....that he’s still King! Yup! Okay- adiós!” Luz turned out of sight and seconds later they heard a series of bumps and crashes followed by mutterings in another language before the human called back, “I’m okay!”
The three witches stared at the open door silently for a few moments: one full of glee, one confused, and one turning darker than her own hair.
“Well,” Eda began, just barely containing her laughter, “I’d say you did a good job sis. So– he he –so good, in fact, that you think you may have– pft –broken Luz!” Lilith looked back and forth between Eda, Amity and the door several times in confusion before comprehension dawned on her face.
“Ah. Well… that’s going to make things more interesting around here,” Lilith mumbled thoughtfully, “Which is rather impressive, given how chaotic this place usually is.”
“And that, my dear sister, is the beauty of the Owl House,” Eda preened, before nodding at a still-seated Amity. “By the way, I think my kid made your kid pass out.”
“What, she’s not my- AMITY!” Lilith cried, just barely catching the witchling before she face-planted onto the floor.
“Pretty...she said pretty….pretty…” she gurgled nonsensically as Lilith tried to gently shake her back to her senses. Eda just laughed at the whole thing.
“Yup! Things definitely just got a whole lot more interesting around here!”