The Return
Boscha was completely secure in herself.
She knew who she was. She knew what her life meant. She accepted every part of her, and let her life live itself.
She was the bad girl.
Standing by Amity’s side. Enforcing her rule. She was the war dog. She was the ruthless one. She was the maniac. The general. The brutalist. The survivalist.
Boscha knew herself.
She could be hated. She deserved to be hated. As long as she was feared, she could be hated. As long as she was feared, she would be hated.
It was alright. She was the bad girl. The general. The brutalist.
The war dog.
It was alright for her to be feared.
Psychopath? Not quite. Not her. A sadist, maybe. Probably. But not a psychopath. She wasn’t emotionless - again. Not quite.
She cared about things, even. She cared about being hated. She cared about her power. Her position. She cared about knowing herself, inside and out. Know thyself, and all that.
(And she cared about Amity.)
Her eyes wandered aimlessly as she walked home.
This was… the odd part of the day. The part where she didn’t know how to feel.
Not knowing how to feel was, often, scarier than anything she had to do during the day. Because not knowing how to feel meant that her sense of self was slipping away. Being scared meant her sense of self was slipping away, too. And yet, she rarely found herself scared during these walks. With only her shadow to keep her company.
During the school day, she always knew how to feel. Depending on what she was doing, of course. She felt an endless power-lust and greed pumping through her, when she spun fear into her enemies - like a spinster of terror. Boscha, the arachnid. It had a nice ring to it. Bubbling pride and glee, when Amity said her work was good, and gave her one of those oh-so-rare ice cold smiles. She even knew, in theory, how to feel during sleepovers. Apparently some camaraderie was expected - a warm, soft feeling in her chest. Or so she’d been told. She’d never actually felt that one.
And then, there were these walks. Where she… didn’t know how to feel.
How were you supposed to feel, walking home alone? Bored? Satisfied? Tired? Boscha had no idea - and she didn’t want to ask. If everyone else knew, and she didn’t, she’d look like an idiot. She couldn’t look weak.
So she just… did her best to not feel anything at all.
Her gaze drifted to a nearby tree, and she rolled her eyes. Even after two years, those wanted posters were still up.
She ripped it off the tree, stuffing it into her pocket. Those things were incredibly annoying - they got blown off their trees and walls, and left on the streets in piles. Clogged everything up. Made the roads look ugly and unkempt. It was really bothersome.
She was nearly home. And she’d successfully distracted herself from feeling anything.
Yay her.
It was only when the sun had long since disappeared over the horizon that Amity risked crawling out of bed - an insatiable curiosity bubbling deep in her stomach.
Her steps were light and quick as she went through the hallway and down the stairs, towards the closet she knew contained her thickest, most durable jacket - the one she used to protect against the rain when she couldn’t manage a shield spell.
She slipped it over her shoulders.
The jacket was one of her favorite possessions. Her parents had wanted to get rid of it - it was, according to them ‘unwieldy,’ and should be ‘discarded, if you want to keep your reputation as a respectable Blight.’ But the twins had nearly gone on a personal mission to get this decision retracted - pulling out their debate acumen and putting it to good use. They spent at least weeks, getting the parents to hold off on making their decision, ambushing them with sudden changes in topic back to the jacket, using every excuse in the book to keep it.
All because Amity had, in passing, mentioned that she kinda wished she could keep it. She felt safe when she wore it.
And, now that the twins and all their possessions were gone, it was one of the last things she had to remember them by.
She slipped the hood of the bulky thing over her head, and slipped on some shoes.
Mother and Father shouldn’t wake. It was past midnight, and they always slept soundly. Usually with a sleeping spell to help out. If they did, for some reason, get up, there should be no reason to check on Amity.
In short - there was little to no risk in going to the human realm again tonight.
Her shoes padded along the rug in the hallway. And then up the stairs - quiet and smooth.
It was only once she was nearly to the attic that her steps began to take on that light patter patter of someone speeding along a carpet. Her footsteps became a little uneven, too - taking on a gallop-like rhythm. Pitter-pit-patter. Pitter-pit-patter. Pitter-pit-patter.
And, finally, her hand wrapped around the knob of the attic door - behind which laid the answers to all her idle curiosities for the last hours laying in her bed.
She twisted.
Once again, once she stepped into the human world, the first thing she saw was darkness.
Amity smiled.
The moment she stepped onto the granite-grey sidewalk, she pressed the eye of the key again - and the door slammed shut behind her, before beginning to fold up.
She considered the case sitting on the ground.
...After a long, long moment, she decided it was best to leave it here. A case with an eye like that might look a little odd in the human world, and might thus draw unwanted attention to her. So she wedged it, under one of the dark green bags next to the massive green box, with her foot.
Good. It was hidden well enough that she could hardly tell it was there. Anyone who wasn’t looking for it would never notice it.
And, in theory, nobody should be looking for it.
This time, when she started walking, out of the endlessly tall stone hallway, her steps echoed out into the night.
Her eyes wandered to the floor underneath her - until she noticed that she’d walked out of the alley, and that she was now standing on the edge of an indent in the path.
So far, what she’d been walking along was the same shade of light grey as carved stone in the Boiling Isles. But, at the edge of the walkway, it dropped off about an inch - into a much darker, granier grey walkway. This walkway was wide as a river, with dull yellow dashes traced along the center of it. Presumably some kind of marker - perhaps dividing the walkway into two. Perhaps an indicator of which way you were supposed to go. Maybe something else.
Did humans even speak? If they did, was it the same language as witches? Could they see yellow? Did they perceive things like witches?
Amity’s eyes glittered with the endless pit of curiosity that was boiling in her stomach.
Suddenly, the image of a screeching blur of black and chrome flashed through her head.
...That had gone through this part of the walkway, hadn’t it?
Maybe it had carved this indent in its wake? Was that thing normal in the human world? They made wide walkways just to prepare for one to come?
Suddenly - Amity heard the light ringing of a bell to her right.
She turned.
The lighter grey part of the walkway continued to stretch out along the darker trench - and, in the near distance, next to the walkway, was a… corner building.
That was the best way Amity could describe it. The buildings were piled up in such a way that they all seemed to blend together, into one massive cube - and this building was on the bottom corner of that cube.
It had windows - windows that were spilling out orange light. Just enough light that Amity could make out some details of the building. The walls were a shade of brown, instead of the normal shades of grey and white that suggested stone. Was this building made of wood? Maybe.
There was a strip of green, that stuck out slightly, at the top of the corner building. It separated the bottom of the corner from the rest of the towering building. Perhaps every building was separated like this - with full houses or buildings stacked onto each other like children’s alphabet blocks.
And, on the green strip, were letters.
That formed words Amity could read.
...Okay. So, humans spoke and wrote the same language as witches. That was good.
It seemed like the first word was a name of some kind, judging by the fact that the second word was bar, which was at least intelligible.
And a silhouetted form was walking out the door of the place. Amity could just barely spot a bell on the inner side of the door - which was an explanation for the ringing sound, at least. Though why you would put a bell on a door was beyond her.
And the form was walking towards her.
She froze - automatically reaching up to check that her hood was on, and one hand darting to her pocket, where she still had her training wand. She didn’t need it except for really hard spells, these days, but it would come in handy if this figure - a human, presumably - proved to be dangerous.
“See y'all tomorrow!” the figure called towards the door. There was a slight waver in their voice - almost a slur. Perhaps it was just the palpable relaxation and cheer, though, that made their voice shift like that.
When they turned away, and towards Amity, she automatically shifted out of their way, tensing slightly.
But they just walked past her like she didn’t exist.
Amity blinked.
...Alright. So she didn’t have to worry about being seen as different, presumably. That was good.
She glanced up again.
Still no stars. It was safe to assume by now that they didn’t exist in the human world.
That was… kinda sad. Amity couldn’t imagine living without the company of the stars.
She glanced again at the corner building. The ‘bar,’ she supposed it was called - assuming the sign was some kind of indicator of what it was. Which it might not be.
This whole ‘different world’ thing was very confusing.
...Hm.
There was only one way to find out about the human world - outside of finding a library, which she couldn’t help but think was pretty unlikely.
And that was asking people.
And there were people in that bar, right? Judging by the way that human had acted as he left, anyway.
Amity took a sure step towards the building.