Chapter Text
The walk to Amelia's house made Lucia feel a lot more nervous than even she expected. She wasn't fully sure why? They hadn't known each other long maybe, and they also only appeared to REALLY get along 50% of the time.
Amelia may have called Lucia her "friend," but to the Latina it felt a lot more like she was a convenience for the abominations girl. Lucia wasn't necessarily against helping Amelia out but she knew for sure if Vee ever found out what she was doing, she'd probably ask her if she'd lost all common sense.
To be honest, Lucia had no idea why she'd agreed to this. Maybe it was because she enjoyed having the power to be able to dangle this in front of Amelia's face and use it to her advantage whenever the witch took the teasing a little too far. Or maybe it was because she was bored as hell and needed some stimulation.
The walk there made Lucia realise she'd passed this route before on the first day she and Vee had arrived in the Boiling Isles. They'd been bored out of their minds and in the mood for some adventure so Eda had flown them out on her broomstick, and they'd played in the forest with Owlbert for a few hours just to touch some grass. Eda had warned them not to venture too far out there, especially at night, since the girls, being new to this realm, had a target on their backs that was potentially alluring to creatures roaming in there.
Lucia shut her eyes, a soft smile on her face as she spun a little, enjoying the sound of the flitting breeze in her ears. Luckily for her, the shortcut she'd taken didn't go too deeply into the forest.
Titan, how she wished she could stay here forever.
After some time, she finally emerged from the darkness to spot a towering home in the distance perched on a pink hill. The house was large and grand with purple-bricked walls and arched church-like windows with a large two-panelled blue front door. Lucia could spot circular windows built just below the triangular pointed roofs, but her eyes settled pleasantly on the purple turret with the light orange pointed cone roof that shot up into the night sky.
So Amelia's family was rich like Boscha's then? Interesting..she'd never mentioned that. Lucia snorted. To be honest, there was clearly a lot she didn't know about Amelia.
She sighed, was this part of the reason why Amelia always belittled her? Because she was human, yes, but also because somehow she knew, Lucia's family's financial situation was a lot less grand than her own? Lucia didn't know; she could only hope that Amelia didn't view her as any lesser for that reason.
In that moment, Lucia heard the sound of a window being opened and a familiar voice coming from above.
"Miss me, Noceda?"
Lucia looked up to find the face of the girl with golden eyes. "In your wildest dreams, Blight! You going to let me in or what?" She smirked, settling for any expression that could disguise the anxiety she really felt.
Amelia smirked down at her from her bedroom window, chuckling to herself before grinning, her fangs glinting in the moonlight. "Or..you could just..climb your way up?" She teased, making Lucia snort.
"And ruin my perfect body? I don't think so." Lucia returned Amelia's smirk, waggling her eyebrows playfully, which made Amelia burst into a fit of giggles.
"So egotistic..." She chastised her before smiling, a softer, less mocking one than her customary grin. "Well..fine, I'll let you in..but only because I feel like being particularly nice today.." With that, Amelia shut her bedroom window so hard that Lucia could swear it jiggled a little, making her cringe, hoping it wouldn't ruin the perfect framework of the white arched window.
Footsteps were heard and the left side of the front doors swung open, revealing Amelia in a polka-dot top with spaghetti straps and black leggings. Her pyjamas, the teenage girl guessed? Amelia opened the door wider and walked in, a silent invitation for Lucia to follow, so the human shrugged her shoulders back, telling herself to stop being such a coward and follow her frenemy into her home.
*
Amelia's room had lavender wallpaper lining the walls. In the centre of her room was her bed that had a wooden framework with a dark blue constellation print blanket, resembling the night sky of the demon realm.
Lucia smiled. "Your room looks really cool." The purple wallpaper was likely a symbolic representation of Amelia's passion for Abominations, she guessed. "Soo..what made you pick the Abominations track at Hexside anyway?" The human asked, sitting down on the blanket that covered Amelia's bed.
Amelia shrugged as she shut her bedroom door. "My dad loves it, engineers abominations for his company and whatnot. Plus, I love it. I want to explore how we can seize the world by doing abomiation robotics."
Lucia smiled, remembering once again Eda and her mum explaining the different tracks at Hexside and how each worked. "That's pretty cool, plus you'd be pretty good at it if your dad is. He can teach you everything you need to know huh? You nerd?" Despite the little tease, Lucia flashed a sweet smile of some affection.
Amelia returned that with a smirk. "Who you calling a nerd huh? You're the creative writing geek."
"So are you...apparently." Lucia shot back, remembering Gus's mention of the fact Amelia also took advanced creative writing on her second day at Hexside, just... in a different class to hers, apparently?
"Yeah...I guess..." Amelia answered timidly, a change from the usual confident bravado she portrayed, confusing Lucia. There were a few seconds of comfortable silence, Lucia fiddling with her fingers nervously and hesitating to fully look at Amelia, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. She settled for eyeing her room properly.
On the wall above Amelia's bed, were a snapshot of photos of her and Gus in different places, one was a beach day with Amelia making goofy faces while Gus held up a peace sign, another was of the duo in a skate ramp with a stillshot of Amelia acing the difficulty of each slope on a purple abominations skateboard while Gus wore some shades. His own skateboard was on the back of his shoulders as he stood up, facing the camera with his legs crossed. The sight made Lucia chuckle. Another, was of Amelia and Gus with their arms up, their backs to the camera, with what appeared to be a brightly lit stage in front of them. That likely meant they'd been to a concert.
However, there were many other photos too. Not just of Amelia and Gus, but of them with another girl. The girl had short, cropped pixie cut forest green hair and light green eyes with red framed glasses. What stood out most to Lucia, though, was the girl's style. She seemed to wear a high yellow-collared signature jacket in a lot of the pics, kinda cool like she'd walked out of a 70s vintage shop. The weirdest part, though, was how this girl was in at least 3/4 of the photos with Amelia and Gus. Pictures of the trio at a beach, in a park, lying down on a picnic blanket, at a market, some of the girl herself at the skate ramp, too, but the strangest photo of all had to be the one with Amelia and the girl sitting in what looked like a red booth, probably a diner.
The girl's arms were wound around Amelia affectionately and she was looking at the camera all smiley while Amelia looked at her with such a soft, tender look. The sight was pretty astounding to Lucia, who for now had mainly seen the rough, teasing and tougher side of Amelia. So..guess the girl did have a vulnerable side, she wasn't afraid to let down with some people.
The rest of Amelia's room seemed pretty in line with her interests. There were posters lining the walls of different demon realm bands. They appeared to be a mix of punk, rock and heavy metal, considering the aesthetic of the clothing, colourful but spiky haircuts, tattoos and piercings that a lot of the band members had in common.
Surrounding the room were colourful fairy lights strung to and fro from the left side of the room to the right, making up the expanse of the ceiling and hanging just overhead.
Opposite Amelia's bed was a bookshelf. The books were organised by genre and author in alphabetical order, and by the spines it left a lasting impression of a teenage girl interested in Boiling Isles history, science, mathematics and astronomy as well as engineering.
To the left of the door was a mahogany desk with neatly organised folders in different colours of the rainbow, textbooks, Lucia guessed, for abominations. There were also notebooks lined in order with a laptop in the centre of the desk and her scroll on top of the laptop.
Amelia's wardrobe had just one door, appearing to likely be a walk in closest of some sort, though the human couldn't really tell since the door was shut. Finally, there seemed to be a mini sliding door in the corner of the room that looked like it led out onto a terrace, overlooking Bonesborough.
All of these details were taken in by Lucia in just a few seconds until Amelia cleared her throat, snapping Lucia back into reality.
"Soo...how did it go with the minions?" Amelia changed the subject.
Lucia shrugged and chuckled. "About, how you might expect. They have this weird arse burn book thing..where they write down all these dumb things about people at Hexside."
Amelia's attention was immediately on her, as she perked up, her eyes widening as she leaned against her bookshelf, her arms crossed, a scoff escaping her breath. "Damn..am I in it?"
Lucia remembered the picture of Amelia and that fucked up slur written across the photo, she decided not to tell Amelia about it..since she had a feeling it would pry a little too much into her personal life. "If you are, I didn't look that far.." She lied.
Amelia sighed. "Either way, they're a bunch of fuckasses. Someone needs to teach them a lesson, why don't you steal it?" She suggested, catching Lucia off guard and making her frown.
"What?!" The human said, outraged at the idea. Did Amelia want Boscha to murder her?
"Come on!! Lighten up, Noceda. Think of it this way, everyone will finally know how two-faced they really are if we expose it." The Blight clearly didn't seem to understand how terrible of an idea that was to Lucia, she'd agreed to Amelia's conditions to do a bit of harmless spying, not actually to stir anything up!
"I'm not a thief, though, Blight. Plus, do you think Boscha is stupid? She will definitely notice it is gone." Lucia pointed this out, her tone a little accusatory, as she stared Amelia down.
Amelia rolled her eyes and then walked away from where she was leaning against the bookshelf and towards Lucia, sitting next to her on the bed. "Noceda, there are two kinds of evil people. People who do evil things and people who see evil things being done and don't try to stop it." Her tone was a little off-putting, almost convincing and matter-of-fact, different to the usual snark, and it calmed Lucia down a little.
She couldn't help but find that funny. Amelia seemed a little..extra.. "Are you calling me evil?" She smirked, eyeing Amelia, who was suddenly really close to her.
Amelia chuckled, a small smile on her face despite her eye roll. "Why can't you be serious right now?"
"Lighten up Blight." Lucia smirked, using Amelia's words against her, only earning a prolonged glare from the witch, making the human girl laugh a little harder, before the two stayed silent.
Some time later, Lucia opened her mouth, this time her composure less goofy. "Look..I don't know what Boscha did to you, but I'm asking you to consider if revenge is really the answer. That's all." A softer smile grazed her expression as Amelia avoided eye contact, her hands clenched into fists so tight her skin was turning red.
"If you knew what Boscha did to me-" Amelia's voice trembled through her stern composure. She kept repeating that, without ever actually telling Lucia WHAT had happened.
"Try me then.." Lucia offered, softly, but Amelia only shook her head.
"Another time." She said, cutting off that conversation before it could go any further in depth.
Lucia sighed and raised her arms, playfully. "Alright... think about it, but what would Miss Grumpy Pants like to do in the meantime?" She tried to ease the tense atmosphere before things went a little out of hand, like they had last time.
Amelia softened as she sat up and tapped her chin in thought. "Hmm..what about a board game?" The witch offered, unsure if that was up Lucia's street.
Lucia smiled. "Sounds good to me."
*
While Amelia had picked out the game they were going to play, Lucia's gaze kept flitting towards the pictures of the green-haired pixie-cut girl with Amelia and Gus. Amelia settled down on her bed with her legs crossed as she placed the chosen board game between her and Lucia.
"Who is that girl in the pictures with you and Gus? She appears quite a lot." Lucia asked as she looked back, surprised to find a smiling Amelia.
"Oh, that's my friend Willow." Amelia answered, as she lifted the cover of the board game and laid it out, while also distributing the fake snail notes between her and the human.
"Oh...I haven't seen her with you and Gus at school yet?" Lucia said, a little too curious about Amelia's personal life. It wasn't that deep, she knew, so why did she care?
"That's because she doesn't go to Hexside." The abomination girl answered for her, resolving the mystery. "Anyway, you ready to play?"
Lucia peered at the title of the board game advertised on the cover of the box. "The game of life?" She snorted. "Isn't that a little too..elementary school coded for you "cool" girl?"
Amelia smirked. "Yeah, I know, which is why I thought it'd be perfect for you."
"You're such a jerk." Lucia pouted, making Amelia laugh.
"Aww come on Noceda, you must admit you enjoy it sometimes." Amelia smiled, nudging her frenemy in the side. As they started near the beginning of the game path, Amelia chose a blue car to Lucia's surprise, assuming she'd pick the faux pink one since it was way more her colour, but she settled for picking that one herself, as a little way of poking fun at her acquaintance.
Amelia seemed to pick up on this as she arched an eyebrow, "you trying to be me or something?"
Lucia pretended to know less. "What are you talking about?" She played innocent, not convincingly, and Amelia snorted.
"You're such a dorky little freak."
"Says the alt girl." Lucia rebutted, making Amelia nudge her hard.
The game went on. Amelia chose the university path along with Lucia, and as they both graduated and received their starter money pack, it was now time to choose a career.
Lucia picked up two cards from the career stack, crossing her fingers with her left hand, praying it was a good one. Amelia watched with a teasing grin on her face, practically begging for it not to be so she could have more ammunition to make fun of her.
"Singer or... Veterinarian?" Lucia read. Chuckling. "I'd pick Vet any day, I suck at singing." She went for that option, putting the other at the bottom of the pile, making Amelia cackle.
"Of course you do, let me guess, you offer to babysit dogs on the side too, don't you?" Amelia snarked as Lucia smirked.
"I'd choose to babysit animals over hanging out with you any day." Lucia shot back, shutting the witch up. Oh no? Had Lucia gone too far? She was kidding, obviously, but she saw Amelia's expression falter for a minute and she suddenly felt guilty, but just as quickly as the girl's composure softened it was just as quickly devoid of emotion. The girl moved her legs outwards so she was lying down on the bed, belly first and her hand in her chin, moving her car on the board.
"You..okay?" Lucia asked, gently. She may not LOVE Amelia, but that didn't mean she enjoyed hurting her feelings either.
"Hm? Huh? Oh yeah, fine..sorry I was caught up in the game." Amelia winked and moved the car further on the board as she picked out her career path. "Hmm..cook or scientist? Scientist, easy! No take backs." She did a triumphant harrumph, making Lucia giggle.
As the game went on, the girls teased each other back and forth as they moved their cars along the board, obeying whatever the cards told them to do. When they reached the marriage stop, Amelia cringed.
"The worst part of the game, by far." Amelia muttered as she placed her car on an alternative path. "I'm staying single."
Lucia arched an eyebrow. "Oh yeah, how come? Not in search of the love of your life or something?"
Amelia tried to hide her smile as she rolled her eyes playfully. "The whole, soulmate and life partner bullshit is just fictitious romance-novel fantasy."
Lucia, thought about her parents, who were high school sweethearts then, and how even after 20+ years together, they were still very much in love. "Not for everyone." She said, matter-of-factly.
The witch smiled at Lucia, sincerely this time. "Maybe it is possible for some people..but, I don't think romance is for everyone either."
Lucia considered this, "fair point..why..what's stopping you?"
Amelia chuckled. "Nothing. I just have other priorities right now, and romance isn't one of them." She turned her blue car over in her fingers. The lamplight on Amelia's bedside table casted a warm glow across the room, illuminating Amelia's golden eyes gracefully as she passed her fingers through her hair before placing her hand back down on the covers. Lucia couldn't help but wonder why the girl in front of her was not in a relationship, she very clearly was pretty enough to be and smart enough too. She took in how close their fingers were now and if she could just reach out and graze them with her own, and tangle their fingers together, she could offer her some comfort, any, if that's what she needed. Just like she used to, with her female friends back in the human realm.
But, she restrained herself, not wanting to cross any lines that Amelia wasn't ready for. Instead, she settled for nodding in assent, as she picked out a blue pawn representing a guy and placed it in the car beside her to indicate she was married now. The action made Amelia chuckle.
"Who's the guy?" She peered at Lucia curiously, who shrugged.
"No one in particular.." Though, Hunter may have crossed her mind but she wasn't about to let Amelia know that.
To the human's surprise, Amelia smiled and dropped it as she picked up her car. "Come on, your spin."
*
"This fucking game is a total me-hater. Tell me why, I KEEP missing the house spots!" Amelia pouted until she heard a cheerful squeal from Lucia, making her head snap up to see the look of utter glee on her face.
"I got a houseee..let's gooo!" Lucia did a little dance of success, as Amelia glared at her reproachfully, jealous it hadn't been her.
Lucia giggled. "Aww come on Blight, don't be so salty!"
Amelia perked up at the mention. "Speaking of salty, I'm hungry. You want food? I can go get us some snacks if you like?"
When the Latina heard the word food, her stomach rumbled. "Yes, please."
Amelia got up from where she was lying on the bed. "Kk! I'll be right back." With that, she left and went downstairs.
The time alone gave Lucia a moment to let out a breath of air she hadn't even realised she was holding as she fell backwards onto Amelia's bed, eyeing the ceiling. To her surprise, she'd actually been having a lot of fun. She hadn't expected that, especially with Amelia Blight of all people. But the strange sense of irritation and tension that sometimes appeared was still a lot to process. She'd never been laughing so hard at something someone said and then a few seconds later suddenly want to push them off a cliff. The emotional mood swings she was experiencing and rapid changes in extremes were a lot for Lucia to keep up with.
Amelia's bedroom door creaked open and a head of dark green peered around it. The face didn't belong to Amelia, but in some ways was similar; the girl looking at her now had the same golden eyes but a narrower face and a mole on her cheek. She had dark green hair plaited back, shades WAYY darker than Amelia's mint green.
"Soo are you the Lucia I've heard so much about?" Her voice was playful, quite like Amelia's, but also had a touch of something more sympathetic and a lot kinder than the girl Lucia was around a lot. This was likely a relative of some sort, Lucia could tell, she had too many similar features and mannerisms to Amelia not to be.
Lucia sat up and smiled. "I hope..that's a good thing?"
The girl cackled. "Probably." She looked older than Amelia, but not by a lot and she was wearing a red blouse and grey shorts, a choker around her neck.
"She's a handful." Lucia chuckled.
She snorted. "Oh trust me, my sister and I have a lot more in common than you think."
Sister? Huh? How come Amelia hadn't said she had siblings?
"What's your name?" Lucia asked.
"I'm Emira. Emira Blight, nice to meet you." She winked, making Lucia blush a little. The Blights were very charming so far.
"You too." The human meant that, genuinely. Emira seemed a lot more..bearable than Amelia.
Emira winked. "Just make sure you don't wake up my dad and it's all chill." With that, she left.
Amelia returned a few minutes later changed out of her pyjamas and was now wearing the pink dress she'd worn on Lucia's second day. She watched her sister leave and shook her head tenderly as she kicked the door shut. "Was my sister bothering you?"
Lucia smiled soothingly. "Oh no, don't worry. She seemed cool, apart from the threat of waking your guyses dad up."
The teenage girl chuckled. "Okay, good and yeah my dad doesn't exactly know you're over since it's a weekday. So, we need to keep it down a little."
Lucia seemed to be fine with that and watched Amelia place two bowls of popcorn on the bed.
*
As the game continued, it got more and more amusing. Some of the cards that told them what to do were stupid, such as when Amelia was given the option to sue Lucia for damaging her fence and to the human's misfortune, she was forced to pay her 10k snails in the form of paper money. Others, were goofy, such as when they requested the girls to have a singing competition and spin the spinner; whoever got the highest number would win money. Amelia was in the lead at the moment, where paper snails were concerned.
"What's with you being so slow Noceda? I'm smashing this!" Amelia grinned, as Lucia shrugged.
"Guess the titan isn't on a human's side." She smiled to herself, a little, albeit forced. Lucia obviously couldn't care less that Amelia was winning, it was just a dumb board game after all, but she couldn't help but be reminded of how she was being treated by some witches here, simply for something she couldn't help.
Amelia seemed to pick up on this, as she offered a sympathetic smile. "Hey, I know I give you a lot of shit for being human, but for the record..for one of them..you're really not..that bad..okay?"
For some reason, that comment made Lucia's heart pick up a little, probably because she'd been needing to hear that from one of the witches here for a while. "Thanks..that means a lot."
Amelia smiled genuinely, "It's no problem.." She laid back on the bed, as if it was a quiet statement that she was putting the game on hold for a minute, Lucia watched her from where she was sat up, but didn't join her, knowing Amelia wasn't a big fan of spatial proximity.
The teenage girl's gaze was fixed on the ceiling. "Do..you ever miss the human realm?" She inquired, curious.
"Some things..." Lucia drew her knees up and under her chin. "Like how I didn't have to feel like someone was trying to cut my throat every second for just..existing but at the same time, humans are shitheads in their own ways." Amelia looked at her from where she was lying down as they made eye contact for some time, Lucia felt herself feel overwhelmed all of a sudden and she didn't know why..she picked at the string hanging loose from her jeans.
"I understand.." Amelia said, confidently and Lucia smiled shyly, until her expression turned more playful. "But you should really shave your legs Noceda.." The green-haired girl was eyeing Lucia's ankles, which were slightly lifted by her jeans, making Lucia shrink back in herself as she snorted and picked up a piece of popcorn and threw it at her, making Amelia snicker.
"At least, I don't dress like a 9th grader." She eyed Amelia's pink dress. The comment came out with a bit more bite than she'd intended, but she needed to remind Amelia she wasn't going to put up with any comments about her appearance or style.
Amelia crossed her arms and glared at Lucia challengingly, the human returning the expression and action.
The witch turned a little icy as she got up from where she was sitting. "I need some air." With that cold snap, she passed her desk and picked up a packet of cigarettes that Lucia hadn't even noticed were on there, and stepped out onto her balcony for a smoke.
This was going to be a long night.