Studying
Amity’s POV
Amity frowned and checked her watch, of course Luz was late.
Amity had had a very stressful conversation with her parents last night about her test grade and the steps that she had already taken to improve it. She’d told them about the tutor but strategically avoided providing a name because her parents would definitely take that as a go ahead to dig up everything and would no doubt discover how unsuitable the girl was. Thankfully, Lazura had been online last night as always so Amity was able to relax a little bit with her for a while. Don’t get Amity wrong, she liked playing with Willow and Gus but the alone time she got with Lazura on the main weekdays were something that she looked forward to. It was thanks to those days that Amity had been able to improve a lot and had even leveled up a few times. Not that the extra experience points were the real reason she enjoyed playing with her.
She felt a small heat rise in her cheeks as she thought back to last night. Amity had been experimenting with a lot of different kinds of magic over the past month, practicing in game and reading the pages and pages of lore and statistics that Lazura sent her in her spare time. The ranger had noted that Amity seemed to be using abomination magic a lot, and Amity had explained that she was really starting to like it. The abomination system used a lot of mana and some complicated symbols to trace but resulted in a goopy minion that Amity could control. Different symbols lead to different kinds of abominations, some were fighters, some were shields which were particularly useful considering she didn’t have too many hit points because of her magic based class.
Lazura had been so happy when Amity decided that she’d wanted to specialize in abomination magic. There was no ‘are you sure this is the right decision’ or ‘is this really what you want’ that her parents always commented whenever they made a decision for herself. All Lazura did was immediately drag Amity’s avatar over to the mission board in town square and pointed to a paper that referenced a need for someone to investigate strange happenings down in The Shadow Swamp.
“This is a mission for the Black Willow Staff, it specializes in abomination magic.” Lazura had said, her voice giddy with excitement. “I’ve never had a reason to go on it but we can go tomorrow if your up for it! Let’s see, most staphs are guarded by the kind of things that they amplify magic for and abominations are weak to…” Amity kept listening as the ranger explained the main factors that would go into the fight and as Lazura bought a bunch of ice tipped arrows and frost daggers and each of them got a pair of water resistant boots so that they wouldn’t be at half speed in the muck of the swamp.
Amity bit her lip as she doodled their party’s sigil in the corner of her notebook to pass the time while waiting for Luz to show up. It was an interesting symbol composed of a triangle with a few lines through it and an intricate background, apparently Lazura had designed it herself which Amity thought was really cool. “It’s based on a symbol for a light cantrip that got taken down early on in the game’s development,” the ranger had told her this while they were trekking through The Field of Night, a beautiful setting with a night sky that seemed to go on forever. She had pointed to a constellation that was of the same symbol and talked about the other constellations and the texture feature the developers used on the grass and how the audio file only repeats every six hours which is apparently impressive and Amity listened to her talk for hours and could have listened to her forever.
“You ready?”
Amity snapped her notebook shut as Luz suddenly appeared in front of her. “You’re late,” Amity said as she glared up at the girl. Luz didn’t seem to care.
“The bell only rang two minutes ago,” Luz said before shoving a bright pink helmet in her direction.
Amity held it tentatively, “And what am I supposed to do with this?”
Luz raised an eyebrow, “It’s a helmet. You wear it. Now come on or I’m gonna be late.” Luz started walking towards the front doors of the school while sticking a purple helmet on her own head.
“Wait!” Amity called out as she struggled to shove her notebook into her backpack while following the girl out the door. “Aren’t we supposed to go to the library or something? I thought you said you were going to talk to your boss.”
“I did,” Luz said as she twisted in the code that unlocked the rattiest bike Amity had ever seen from the rack. “She said it was okay for you to be in the back with me as long as I was still working at my usual pace or took a project home with me.” Luz looked at her from the seat of the bike. Amity was still clutching the pink helmet in her hand like she wasn’t sure what to do with it. She couldn’t believe that Luz didn’t even have the decency to give Amity her full attention while she was supposed to be helping her. The latina gave an exasperated sigh, “You know princess some of us actually have to work and this is the only part of my day that I might be able to multitask enough to help you so you can either get on my bike or we can figure out some way to swap test papers during the next exam.”
Amity blinked, not only was Luz being absolutely insufferable, but was the girl seriously suggesting cheating? She could only imagine the fit that her parents would have if they found out the thought had even crossed her mind, a chill running down her spine as she thought about what her parents would do to her. Thankfully, the autumn air made it possible to hide the action as a normal shiver.
A sigh escaped Amity as she pursed her lips and looked over the bike. It didn’t look like it could hold both of their weight but Amity had no doubt that if she didn’t get on the bike within the next twenty seconds Luz would leave without her, extra credit be damned. There was a flat ledge over the back tire that was likely for strapping a milk crate to or something which Amity could probably sit on. Amity glanced around the parking lot, the buses had left and anyone staying after was inside so there was no one around to see her interacting with Luz. Finally, she bit her tongue to avoid saying some choice words and sat on the ledge, her fingers gripping Luz’s backpack for security as the girl kicked off and started pedaling.
Luz’s POV
Luz had never been so grateful that The Owl House was downhill from the school. She’d honestly been a little surprised that Amity had actually gotten on the bike with her, the girl must have been really desperate for a tutor. As usual, it only took a few minutes to get to The Owl House though it felt longer with Amity making noises and pulling on her backpack around every turn no matter how slowly Luz was peddling.
“This is where you work?” The distaste was eminent in Amity’s voice as they stepped off the bike in front of the store.
“Yep,” Luz said. She chained her bike up to its pipe in the alleyway and nodded to the other girl to follow her
The ring of a bell sounded as the two of them walked through the door. Luz could practically feel Amity staring at all of the crappy nick-nacks and half broken antiques. Suddenly a sound like a dying animal came from the corner of the store making Amity practically jump out of her skin and Luz didn’t bother to hide her satisfactory smile as she nodded towards the stupid cuckoo clock that went off every twenty seven minutes regardless of the actual time. “Yeah, that’s Hooty,” Luz said, giving the weird looking owl tube that popped out of the clock a little poke.
“There is something wrong with that thing,” Amity said. Judging by how she looked actively disturbed by Hooty, Luz could guess she wasn’t just referring to how the time on its face was off. Frankly, Luz didn’t blame her for being creeped out. The thing was awful.
“Yeah, apparently that was here when Eda moved in. It’s got some kind of glue keeping it on the wall and the last time Eda tried to take it down, well…” Luz let her voice trail off and pulled up the picture frame that was on the wall text to the clock to reveal the hole that Luz’s boss had made with a sledgehammer. “You know that phrase, ‘even a broken clock is right twice a day’? Yeah that doesn’t apply to this. We don’t know what’s wrong with it either.”
Suddenly there was a crash from behind the Employe Only door and both Luz and Amity jumped that time. Luz started towards the door calling out “Eda, you okay?”
“You’re late!” Came the response and Luz sighed in relief as the door opened and Eda tumbled out, wrestling with some Christmas lights that she had somehow managed to get completely tangled in.
“I’m five minutes early.” Luz responded with a small smile as King rushed over and scaled her like a climbing wall to get to one of his perches on her shoulder. At that moment he seemed to notice Amity and began doing his odd high pitched yipping noise that can’t be traced back to any known animal. “You’re fine, that’s Amity. I warned you about her yesterday, remember?” Luz cooed in her baby voice while giving him chin scratches. With him still on her shoulder she went behind the counter and helped untangle Eda, leaving Amity frozen with an expression that was some mix of confusion and disgust. Luz relished that expression.
“So, is that the idiot you told me about yesterday?” Eda asked as Luz managed to find and loosen the main knot, releasing the owl lady from her bindings.
“Hey!” Amity protested at the same time that Luz said “Yeah.”
Amity’s face suddenly got a lot redder and she shot Luz a glare which Luz ignored in favor of wrapping the lights in a less amorphic form. “It’s still alright if she hangs out in the back room with me right?” she asked, placing the bundle onto the counter.
“I don’t care, just don’t let her touch my stuff,” Eda huffed. She plugged in the lights and to what definitely wasn’t Luz’s surprise, they didn’t light. The older woman tapped on the bulbs disappointedly while Luz gestured for Amity to follow her through the employee only door. “Oh! And remember that the door at the end of the hallway is off limits!”
Luz shivered, remembering the first and last time she’d opened that door in search of a bathroom. “Don’t need to tell me twice.”
Luz guided Amity over to her usual work table. The other girl watched with a slightly judgemental expression as Luz pushed some of her works in progress to the side or onto the floor. “So I figured your notes are probably fine,” Luz grabbed a DVD player that Eda had gotten for pennies a few days ago which Luz had promptly explained could be sold for thirty bucks easy with a little work the second the guy was gone. “I guess for now, just start on the homework and let me know if you have any questions.”
Amity looked at Luz like she was crazy. “That’s it? That’s all the instructions you’re giving me?”
“What do you want from me?” Luz grabbed a screwdriver out of a box on the floor and started disassembling the device in front of her. “I’m not a teacher, I don’t know what you do or don’t know and I’m not just going to repeat the lecture, that’s what youtube is for.”
Amity crossed her arms in a huff, she hadn’t sad down yet. “How do I even know you’re any good at this? You’ve done nothing but… literally nothing for the last month of class and somehow you’re some kind of math whizz? I don’t buy it.”
Luz let out an exasperated sigh and put down the screwdriver just long enough to dig her crumpled exam paper out of her backpack. “Here, compare our answers or whatever.”
Clenching her jaw, probably to relieve some tension, Amity unfolded the test and started looking it over. Taking this as an opportunity, Luz got back to work as the other girl flipped through the pages and eventually sat down in the chair next to Luz. She pulled out her own exam paper and her notebook, doing out some of the problems.
“You’re handwriting is crap.” Amity finally speaks after several minutes of silence.
“So I’ve been told.”
“You also do it differently than how Mr. Bump told us to do it.”
“Yeah,” Luz said, before blowing some dust off of some internal wires. “Mr. Bump wants us to do the algebra on the equation instead of the numbers. I don’t like doing that. It confuses me and makes me question the units at the end. I just prefer to work around the equals sign, it also takes out the time it takes to rewrite the formula a million and one times.”
“Huh.” Amity had her eyebrows knit as she actually contemplated Luz’s plan of action. Not that Luz noticed because she was definitely focusing completely on her work and not at look thinking about how Amity actually didn't look all that horrible when she wasn’t angry. “Okay.” With that, Amity set Luz’s test down on the table while she filed her own away in her binder and pulled out that night’s homework.
It was pretty easy going from there. For the most part, Amity and Luz did their prospective work in silence, Amity only occasionally getting stuck on a problem and Luz, not even looking up from what she was working on, explaining that she needed to combine the outcome of one equation into the variable of another or connecting it back to the last chapter in the book. In nearly no time, Amity had finished with that night’s assignment and was just kind of staring into space seemingly in shock with how easy it had been. Luz had never given her a direct answer, just offered suggestions for how Amity should be thinking through the problem and it seemed to work wonders for her.
“Anything else you want to ask?” Luz asked, beginning to place the pieces of the player back where they belong inside of the casing.
Amity blinked, like she had been pulled out of a deep thought. “No. I mean, yes? I don’t know.” She was talking a bit faster than usual.
“If you’re gonna ask, might as well ask”
There was a pause. “Why didn’t you finish the extra credit?”
“Huh?” Luz spared a moment of attention to give Amity a confused look.
“The extra credit, you did three problems, then stopped after writing two numbers into the fourth. I know you didn’t run out of time because I remember you sleeping for the last ten minutes of the test.”
“Oh, that.” Luz snapped the player’s case back into place and started replacing the screws. “Yeah, I didn't realize that it was extra credit until number four, so I stopped.”
“Wait, you thought that the extra credit was part of the main test? Those problems were twice as hard, I could barely figure out the first one.” Amity’s voice had a tinge of disbelief in it.
“I just didn’t really notice.” Luz responded honestly. “Math is math, if you have all of the tools you need, one problem is the same as any other, just longer and with more moving parts. Frankly if I’d realized that the first three weren’t mandatory sooner I wouldn’t have done those either. It’s not like he’d shove any extra points I get into my class participation percentage anyway, which is stupid.” Luz chose to ignore the way that Amity was looking at her as thought she were somehow interested in what Luz had to say.
With the final screw in place, Luz pressed the on button and pumped her fist in the air when the screen turned on. “Yes!” She still needed to test it though. With a moment’s thought, Luz went out into the main floor, keeping her distance from a customer Eda was somehow selling a comic from Free Comic Book Day to, and grabbed a DVD at random from off of a shelf that was nearly covered in dust.
“What time are you getting picked up again?” Luz asked, carefully placing the disk into the player.
“I sent my siblings the address when we got here, they should be here around 4:30. Why?”
“Well,” Luz started with a slight frown. “It means that we’re probably not going to get to the end of Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses today, sorry about that.”
Amity let out a snort of a laugh, before shaking her head, not really trying to hide the small, amused smile on her face. Before shrugging and grabbing some other homework from her backpack as Luz pressed play. Luz grabbed another project from off of the floor to work on while the movie played smoothly in the background.