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The bell screamed, ringing in Luz’s ears as she packed up her healing books to head to lunch. She still hadn’t quite gotten used to how piercing the bell’s screams were, but there probably wasn’t going to be any permanent damage, right?
She put her thoughts regarding whether magic hearing aids existed to the back of her mind (making a mental note to ask Eda later) and began her mad dash through the corridors to the cafeteria.
As much as she loved all the cool magic she got to learn in her classes, now she got to have lunch with her friends! The idea led to a rush of excitement even after a month in the Isles, that she had people to eat, talk, and have fun with who genuinely enjoyed having her around.
Just the other day, they had all met up at the Owl House to hang out and Luz had introduced them to the great human tradition of memes. They were all happy to have Luz describe memes and the history behind them, despite varying levels of interest, or understanding.
Willow admitted that while she was happy Luz enjoyed them, they didn’t really make much sense to her, which Luz could understand. Gus on the other hand, was very intrigued by the ‘obscure human jokes’ and he had spent the afternoon trying to find a common trend between them all, failing miserably in the process.
Amity’s reaction had been the most surprising to her. She’d seemed confused about them but also determined to understand. Luz had gone through a bunch of the most popular ones, and Amity had seemed super focused on figuring out the key parts that made up each of them.
In fact, the way her brow scrunched up as she focused on them was kind of cu-
“Nope,” she mumbled, almost tripping over a short demon as she realised she hadn’t been paying attention to where she was running. “Not encouraging that train of thought.” She slowed down as she approached the cafeteria doors and made her way through to see if her friends had made it there first.
“Luz, over here!”
She turned and spotted the three of them making their way to their normal table and hurried over to join them. As she plopped herself down into her seat, Amity passed her over a tray of the cafeteria food.
“I got you some food already, thought you’d be a little late since you just came from the healing wing,” Amity explained with a smile that seemed almost smug at the fact her prediction was right.
“Aww, thanks Amity!” Luz pulled her in for a hug, missing how Amity’s face lit up before she let go and turned to her food. She went to eat, but something was bugging her about it, yet everyone else was eating theirs without concern.
She ran through the food mentally; her spookghetti was there, but more set apart than normal. Her pile of thornberries seemed to be split in two for some reason? Below those her mashed paintatoes almost seemed to make a-
Luz let out a gasp as realisation hit, and turned to Amity to see her smile seemed to be a bit more nervous now that Luz was focused entirely on her.
“That’s- that’s how you do that ‘Loss’ meme, right? I’m pretty sure that’s how you explained it, but I mean, I wasn't entirely-” Amity got cut off as she was pulled into a tight hug, before Luz pulled back a second later with a big smile.
“Yeah, it was perfect.”
Amity’s face seemed to light up with the confirmation, a huge grin appearing. Luz caught a glimpse of a small fist-pump under the table, and she felt a familiar warm feeling in her chest.
Oh.
So this is happening.
“Luz? Are you alright? You turned a bit red.” Willow’s voice cut through her thoughts and she focused again on the present. All three of her friends looked concerned and she tried to shake away the remnants of any blushing before she responded.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m good, sorry about that, zoned out for a second.” Amity and Gus seemed to accept it without too much thought but Willow seemed to be glancing between her and Amity.
“No problem, Luz,” Willow said with a growing smug smile, which made Luz a bit nervous. “What were you saying Gus?”
Almost immediately, Gus launched into a tirade about how he had discovered this ancient human tradition where they would trap defeated enemy spirits within their skin in a process known as ‘tattoos’. Amity and Willow chimed in every now and again to clarify things.
They had an unspoken agreement to wait until Gus had finished sharing his tidbits before fact checking them with Luz, given they almost always led to amusing conclusions.
Luz sat there, surrounded by her friends (and a crush, which maybe wasn’t as terrible as she made it out to be). She felt content. She didn’t want to lose this.
Yeah, this was nice.