Boiling Isles RPG

Amity’s POV

“What am I supposed to do about this?” Amity groaned and planted her forehead against the cool wood of one of the library’s study tables.

There was a snort from above her and Amity turned her head just enough to see Willow’s caring yet amused smile from the chair across from her. They had a few minutes before first period started and Amity had sent Gus and Willow a message last night asking them to meet her in the library so that they could talk in person without anyone else hearing. “Maybe you should try talking to her.” Willow suggested.

Gus nodded enthusiastically from his seat next to Willow. “Yeah, I mean, it’s clear that you guys are good together, and besides, it’s kind of obvious that you have a crush on her.” He mumbled the last part but that in no way stopped Amity from hearing.

“What?!” Amity shouted, then immediately quieted her voice when she remembered that they were in a library. “I mean, what do you mean it’s obvious?”

“Amity,” Willow’s smile widened with the knowing look in her eyes. “You always make an effort to stay on later than us so you can be alone with her.”

“Your voice gets all flustered when she says something nice to you.”

“And even though she can’t see it through the computer screen, you’re literally bright red right now.”

Amity felt her face heat up even more as she struggled to think of a way to respond to that. Was there a possibility that Lazura already knew? “Okay, but even then. I don’t even know what she’s really like. I’ve never met her in person, hell, I’ve never even seen her!” Amity felt herself clam up as a sudden realization struck her. “What if she isn’t who she says she is at all? What if she’s actually a middle aged man or something?” She felt panic swell in her chest and ran her fingers through her hair, messing up her ponytail as she groaned in distress.

“Amity, hey, look at me.” Willow’s voice was calm, how could she be so calm at a time like this? “Look, we’ve never met Lazura either, and I know that there are creepy people on the internet but I feel like if she had been one of those guys she probably would have asked for inappropriate pictures or an address years ago.”

“Okay, then why won’t she talk about her personal life, like, ever? I mean, I’m not exactly an open book on there, but I’ve told her about why I joined the game, the pressure my family puts me under and that I’m grateful for something to focus on that isn’t school. I’ve never heard her talk about anything like that though. Except for the occasional comment about how much she hates school in general anyway.”

Willow was quiet for a moment, her smile had been replaced with a contemplative look. It made Amity feel even more nervous. “Have I ever told you about how Lazura and I met?”

Amity blinked, then shook her head. She’d assumed that they’d just met in the game.

“It was a few years ago, before I’d really gotten close with Gus. I was going through a lot and didn’t really have anyone to talk to so I started going on a few different chat rooms online.” She hesitated, “One of them was kind of a support group for kids who were being bullied.”

Amity made a face, “Look, I am sorry about what Boscha did back then-”

“I wasn’t there because of Boscha.”

Amity averted her gaze. “Oh.” Her voice was soft, the shame obvious.

Willow, pierced her lips slightly, “Amity, you’ve apologised since then and I’ve forgiven you; but i’m not going to lie, it was one of the hardest times I’ve ever had to deal with.”

Gus placed a hand on Willow’s shoulder, but stayed silent.

“Anyway,” Willow continued. “Lazura was getting bullied a lot at her school too. The chat room was a good place to vent and she and I started talking outside of it too. Then some jerk found it and used the information he got to send some pretty personal emails and other things to everyone involved. Thankfully, Lazura and I were smart and used non identifying usernames and emails but apparently someone lost a scholarship because the troll found out where the kid had applied to school and sent a bunch of fake letters. Another kid got kicked out of home because he was outed to his parents.” There was a pause as Willow allowed Amity to absorb the information.

Amity had never explicitly told Willow or Gus that she was gay but she had just spent the last ten minutes asking for their advice on how to deal with her crush who was female. She could imagine that it wasn’t difficult for Willow to understand why coming out was not an option for Amity considering the kind of views that her parents had.

Since Amity didn’t respond, Willow continued. “After that, the chat room got shut down but Lazura and I still talked, it was less explicit though. I mean, we’d never given real names or anything, but… those emails we got were pretty cruel, neither of us wanted to risk something like that happening again. She introduced me to The Boiling Isles and we just kind of reached a silent agreement that we wouldn’t talk about our personal lives anymore. Obviously she was still there for me if I needed to get something off of my chest and vice versa; but online kind of just became the place where we go to escape from everything.”

Amity felt horrible. She felt horrible for what she’d done to Willow and what had happened to her afterward. She also wondered, now that she knew a bit more about Lazura’s history, what the other girl’s reaction would be to finding out that she had been the reason that Willow had been in the same chat room as her. Lazura was so sweet and funny, she deserved better than some old bully who wouldn’t even stop Boscha from picking on others unless it benefitted her. “Willow, I am really sorry, for how I treated you, then, how I let Boscha treat you-”

The bell rang, and amity twitched at the sudden noise then looked back at Willow. This wasn’t the kind of conversation where she was supposed to have the last word.

To her surprise, Willow didn’t look pissed off or anything. She was actually smiling again, that small, calm smile that made Amity feel reassured. “Talk to Lazura.” Willow said as she started to gather her things. “Tell her how you feel, maybe even ask her to meet you in person. If you feel like you might need backup, Gus and I can come along too.”

Gus nodded again. “Yeah! We’ve got your back Witchling.” He whispered her username with a wink. “That’s what friends are for!”

Amity smiled widely on her way to pre calc. She tried several times to tap out the message on the discord app on her phone, deleting words and the whole thing a few times before she hoped she had the perfect message. Taking a deep breath, she hit send before she felt something heavy push her and she suddenly ended up on the floor.

“Oh jeez, I’m so sorry!”

Amity looked up to see Luz, also on the ground next to her, trying frantically to pick up a pile of loose papers and textbooks that she’d dropped in the collision. Amity sighed and picked her phone up off of the ground, relieved to see that it wasn’t damaged by the fall. She debated chastising the girl for being so unorganized but at this point she knew that that was just how Luz was. “You’re late too huh? Traffic in the bike lane?”

Luz looked up at her a little startled. She blinked as if she were trying to process information. “Was… was that a joke?”

Amity offered a slight nod. Luz stared at her for a second as though she were a deer in headlights. She supposed she couldn’t really blame the girl for being at least a little surprised, while Amity had warmed up to her a bit over the last two study sessions she hadn’t made a joke yet. In fact, she couldn’t really remember the last time she’d made a joke outside of a virtual world.

As Luz finished picking up her papers Amity noticed something off about the girl and it took her a second to put her finger on it. “Hey, are you okay?” Luz seemed to be strung a lot tighter than usual. While she was usually emotionally distant to say the least, now she was practically twitching. She didn’t even look at Amity while she moved, just stared intently as though solving a math problem without anything actually being in front of her. Considering she normally stared boredly into space, this could definitely be considered out of the ordinary.

“Huh?” Luz’s eyes snapped up to hers for only a second before her gaze shifted away like a guilty puppy that had made a mess. “Oh, I’m fine. We should probably just get to class.” She was talking very quickly, with the intent of someone whose mind was elsewhere and just wanted the conversation to be over with. As Luz walked off towards the precalculus class that they were both quite a bit late for, Amity noticed something else unusual about her. Her hair was wet, and Amity might have been imagining things but it looked like there were soap bubbles in it.

Luz’s POV

“What are you making? It smells good?”

Luz glanced over her shoulder at Amity who was doing that night’s homework at Eda’s kitchen table while Luz cooked. “Patatas bravas,” Luz answered. “Spicy potatoes. Your brother and sister will probably pick you up before dinner time but you can probably have a taste once they’re done frying.”

Amity gave a curious look at the pan in front of Luz before turning back to her work. They’d gotten their quizzes from last Friday back yesterday after getting to class late. Luz had gotten her usual perfect score and Amity had gotten a 98 by using one of the methods that Luz had taught her to check her work and was able to find an error. Of course, before Mr. Bump had handed them back their papers; he'd given them both an earful about being late. Luz wasn’t sure why little miss perfect hadn’t been able to get to class on time, but for herself Luz simply hadn’t realized how long it would take her to shower and the warning bell had sounded off before she was able to finish rinsing off completely.

Of course, she was nothing if not able to learn from her mistakes so she left her house even earlier that morning and was able to make it through the classroom door right as the bell rang. Despite that though, she was still pretty tense after the last few days. She hadn’t really been online over the weekend since her conversation with her mother Friday night, or Saturday morning depending on how you looked at it. Though her mom wasn’t really around to tell her what to do, she’d suggested Luz try to catch up on sleep a bit over the weekend and she hadn’t been able to say no. Then yesterday, Witchling had sent her a message saying that she wanted to talk about something but then had some technical difficulties and couldn’t hear anything, nor could Luz hear her. She’d obviously been having problems with her headset from the beginning as made clear by the horrible sound quality that was obviously the result of old and overused technology. Witchling had felt that it was better to actually go into a voice chat for what she wanted to talk about rather than just messaging back and forth, and since Luz didn’t have a phone to call, they would need to wait before talking.

Luz had actually offered to take a look at the malfunctioning equipment but Witchling had said that she knew someone already who might help so they left it at that.

Several minutes passed in which Luz finished the dish and packaged it up for later, then took her usual seat next to Amity and pulled the latest project within reach. Amity asked the occasional question but this topic was a little easier to grasp so they mostly just worked in silence. Eventually, Amity closed her math notebook but instead of pulling another assignment out of her bag like she did during their last two sessions, she just sat, drumming her fingers lightly against the table.

“Hey, Luz? You fix things right?”

Luz paused in her work, just long enough to make eye contact with Amity before gesturing to the screwdriver in her hand.

“I know, stupid question, I’m sorry.” She sighed, “I just… I have something.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a pair of really banged up headphones with a microphone attachment that was only held together by the wires. “These broke and I was hoping that you could fix them.”

Luz took the headset from Amity’s hands and turned them over. “What happened to them?”

Amity crossed her arms. “They weren’t in that great shape when my brother gave them to me, but the other day I kind of… ThReW tHeM aGaInSt ThE wAll.” She coughed the last part.

“I’m sorry, what did you do to them.”

Another sigh, “I threw them against a wall.”

Luz chuckled, “Wow, Blight, I didn’t take you for a rage quitter.”

Amity rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t like that. Can you fix them or not.”

Luz set the headphones down on the table. Sure she could fix them. It was all physical damage, some loose wires and a frame that could easily be snapped back into place. It wasn’t like it had been dunked in gatorade or anything, though she could fix that too with a little more effort. This probably wouldn’t even take her that long.

She opened her mouth to say as much but hesitated. Even with Eda’s help with groceries she and her mom still wouldn’t have the money to turn the water back on that week…

“I’ll fix them for fifty dollars.” Luz felt bad, it was one thing for Eda to jack up the price of something and give her a cut but it was another for Luz to do it. Theoretically, it wouldn’t even need replacement parts so she’d be charging this for what would probably end up being less than two hours of labor. “This kind of headset is pretty old but any newer version you could find in good quality would probably cost around two hundred dollars.” At least that was the truth, they were old but the brand they were from was pretty expensive.

Amity frowned at the price but ultimately nodded. “I’ll pay you on Thursday during our next session. Do you think you’ll be done with them by then?”

Luz nodded, “Yeah, that should be fine.”

A few minutes later, Amity’s siblings came to pick her up and Luz stuffed the headset into her backpack. Since this was a commission that wasn’t through The Owl House, Luz didn’t feel comfortable doing it there. Besides, she had two days to get it done.

At around six o’clock, Eda came into the back room and placed a busted rotating fan down in front of Luz before prepping two plates with the food that Luz had prepared and that day’s bag of frozen vegetables that were about to expire.

“So, thought I’d let you know that I was gonna be chaperoning your school dance.” Eda piped up as she took her first bite. “Hey kid, this is really good.”

“Thanks,” Luz smiled softly, before it shifted into a confused look. “Wait, what school dance?”

“The winter formal, it’s not until December but chaperone slips were due last week and surprise, surprise, not a lot of parents want to spend a Saturday night watching a bunch of high schoolers flirt badly.” Eda, snorted. “So, my sister asked me to fill in for the night.”

“Your sister works for my school? Wait, you have a sister?”

Eda blinked. “Oh yeah, I guess I never told you.” She scratched the back of her neck, “Yeah, she and I have been kind of distant since she messed with a college application of mine but we’ve been… working on things.” The older woman shrugged, “I’m not sure if you have her as a teacher but if you see a Mrs. Clawthorn in the hall, say hi to her for me.”

“Vice Principal Clawthorn is your sister?!” Luz stared at Eda with wide eyes.

“Lily’s a vice principal?” Eda took a swig of apple cider. “I probably should have known that, huh?”