Chapter Text
Luz Noceda was known for many things -- her creativity, her energy, her determination -- but silence has never been one of these things. That’s what Dr. Camila Noceda was the most worried about, to be honest. Of course, the bruises, cuts, scrapes, and the four other children with pointy ears weren’t exactly calming, but Luz’s total silence chilled her spine.
She had just come in from the rain with all of those other children, all of them cut up, bruised, and completely soaked through, and other than to tell her mother she missed her and giving her friends directions to the three bathrooms in the house, she kept her mouth closed and her eyes down.
“Mija…you know you can talk to me, right?”
“Yeah, I know I’m just…” she sighed. “I think this one might fit Willow best…and Gus can wear my P.E. shorts and sweatshirt…we gotta get them out of those wet clothes…”
“Sweetie, you also have wet clothes on.”
“Yeah but I know everything in my closet fits me, they’re my clothes. Amity too, since we’d borrow each other’s stuff sometimes. But Willow is a different size, Gus is…he’s…he’s so small…and Hunter…” she kept trailing off.
“So those are their names,” she said.
“Oh…I guess I forgot to introduce them to you. I mean, I’ve talked about them in my videos that are on my phone which I was recording for you from the Boiling Isles when I couldn’t send them to you until I came back to this realm…” she picked up a shirt and put it back down, deciding it wasn’t the right fit.
“Let’s focus on getting something for them to sleep in,” her mother said. “I can run to the thrift store down the road first thing in the morning and get them a few things there and work out the rest later.” She went to the hall closet and grabbed enough towels for each of them, as well as an old fire station shirt and sweatpants. “Hunter’s the blonde boy, right? I still have a few of your dad’s things and knowing how he was…”
“Papa would’ve dressed Hunter himself if he was here,” she finished with a sad smile on her face. She gave her mother a small nod and found a set of pajamas for Willow and Amity to wear.
“They’re probably starving too, huh? Good thing we always have extra arroz con frijoles. Vee and I can get that done in just a few minutes while everyone showers and warms up, including you corazon, and…I won’t force you to go into details, but I need to know what happened. At least a little bit.”
“Mami…”
“At least the basics Mija. Now, go show your friends how the upstairs shower works and I’ll help the boys with the downstairs one,” she ordered, giving Luz some of the pajamas and towels while taking the rest.
“Fine,” she said. “Though I should warn you that even though he’s tired and sad right now, Gus is a huge human fanboy and the shower may blow his mind. I mean, I already had to restrain him on the Boiling Isles after I introduced him to a stapler.”
“Have…have they never showered before?”
“The Demon Realm has magic because of how the natural water there is quite literally boiling constantly. So they used spell circles and I used glyphs. Long story,” she said, watching her mother’s puzzled face. “But the mechanical shower? You’ll have to show Gus how *not* to break it.”
“Noted mi amor. Now you too. And after you get cleaned up, I’ll feed you all and patch you up while you fill me and Vee in.”
There was a very specific sort of motion that Camila had seen in traumatized puppies and kittens in her clinic, those who were abused and neglected especially. They were starving, and having been presented with a plate of food, it was like they were afraid of eating it, getting sick, or in Hunter’s specific game, carefully analyzing every piece trying to determine if the food was poisoned. Hunter worried Camila quite a bit.
“Okay, so…” she said. “From the top, what are the basics?”
Willow, the girl with glasses and wearing Luz’s yellow Pokemon pajamas from a few years ago, started. “I guess maybe…Luz isn’t the first human in the Demon Realm?” Camila noticed that her daughter’s grip on her plate tightened and she started to glare a hole through the floor. Hunter also reacted to that information, though he seemed to try and make himself shrink to be even smaller than Gus. “Centuries ago…two humans came through and one of them stayed, and fifty years ago, became the emperor of the Boiling Isles.”
“He’s a witch hunter…was a witch hunter,” Luz said. “He made a plan to seal away witches’ magic and…he created all this…this stigma about living naturally and authentically and…he wanted to come back and be a Witchfinder General!”
“Wow…he was very outdated,” Camila said. “Witchfinders didn’t even hunt real witches. They hunted innocent women who ‘caused trouble’.”
“Well Emperor Belos tried hunting innocent witches,” Amity said. “And convinced corruptible witches to sell out their neighbors and even hurt them to help him get ahead…”
“He really affected all of you, didn’t he?”
“You have no idea Mama,” she said. “But...he had this plan to drain witches of all their magic and kill them on the solar eclipse, but we were able to beat him because King…he’s…I lived with him and Eda…they’re the ones I told you about when I talked to you through the mirrors…King released basically…I guess he’s like a god? But he’s a kid? I don’t know, but he defeated Belos by tapping him, and moved the moon away from the sun with his finger, and started destroying the Titan we were standing on to play a game…”
“We don’t know if he’s good or bad,” Gus said. “Just…powerful…and dangerous…and King knew that and he saved us by making us go through the portal right before it got destroyed.”
“Wait, the portal back to your world is destroyed?” They all went quiet, picking at their food, finally forcing themselves to eat a little bit, and Gus started sniffing back tears, clearly not for the first or last time tonight. “Well, there has to be a way back. I mean, the portal had to be created some way, and the weird things that come through here…it can’t all be from that portal can it?” Luz was the one who gave a small nod. “Well, until we figure it out, and we *all* can figure it out, I’m going to do what I do best, and that’s patch you up and take care of you kids. Vaya, eat up, and I’ll get my medical kit and start working on getting you guys healed.”
“You’re a healer?” Hunter asked.
“I’m a veterinarian,” she said proudly. They all looked confused, so Luz piped up.
“Think Viney. Beast Keeping and Healing together. She’s an animal doctor.” They all nodded in understanding.
“Obviously, you guys aren’t animals, but patching up scars and healing scratches and bruises is the same on just about every animal in every realm…I think…I don’t know enough about demons. But you guys look like you heal like humans do…right?”
“Well…Luz got a common witch sickness and she was fine and reacted like we did,” Willow said.
“I don’t know…she acted a lot loopier than most people with the common mold,” Amity said. “Remember how she thought her arms were snakes?”
“Oh no, that’s normal for Luz. She was the same way when she had the human flu,” Camila laughed, and Luz’s cheeks turned red. Amity smiled and giggled a little and reached out to touch Luz’s hand, making her smile too, and Camila pretended not to notice…for now.
“So…that Amity girl…como una muneca…” Camila said, handing the dishes to Luz, who was putting them in the dishwasher. “And she very clearly cares for you…”
“Mami, I know what you’re hinting at…and yes, Amity is my very awesome, super powerful, and ridiculously pretty girlfriend,” she said, blushing again.
“Ayy! I knew it!” she squealed happily and pulled her daughter in close, kissing her face over and over. “Your first girlfriend!”
“Ma!” she laughed, wrestling her off.
“I saw her trying to hold your hand all the time, and how she leaned on you, and how she volunteered to clean your scrapes…”
“Ma!”
“Oh! Is she not out yet? Do I have to play it cool? Pretend I don’t know?”
“Oh..no that’s not a thing there,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Well…being queer on the Boiling Isles is not a big deal at all. There’s no coming out because there’s not really any homophobia. You just identify how you do and date who you want to date, it’s not seen as anything out of the ordinary or…weird or wrong…it never was. Eda’s partner is a nonbinary witch named Raine who uses they/them pronouns, Willow has two dads, Eda’s sister Lilith is Ace and nobody makes a big deal about it. Witches just…let people exist. Even Amity’s mo-...nevermind.”
“Amity’s mom? What about Amity’s mom?”
Luz looked out and closed the kitchen door to make sure they weren’t being eavesdropped on while Vee helped the others set up every air mattress in their house, and the extra mattress from Luz’s bunk bed, and put it near the couch to make almost a big giant bed pile. “Amity’s mom Odalia is…well…here in the Human realm, she’s the equivalent of the Bible thumping PTA mom who expects her daughter to be perfect. And she’s told me to my face many times that she doesn’t approve of me and of me dating Amity. But she never said it was because I was a girl dating her daughter. In fact, she said that she’d get Amity “a new girlfriend.”
“What a horrible woman..”
“Oh, that’s not even half of it…but that’s on Amity to tell that part,” she said. “I don’t want to go over a boundary. But the point is that queerness is so normal that she didn’t even blink an eye that Amity is a lesbian. She just wanted her to date someone who wasn’t me --again, let’s not go into that right now-- and honestly, it was kind of refreshing, hearing her say that…I was terrified that she’d tell Amity she was wrong for liking girls, even though I’ve been on the Isles for months and knew it would be okay, I’m just so used to…they don’t even know what homophobia is.”
“How…that must be really nice.”
“It was…it’s weird, but with all the weird stuff on the Isles, and the fact that people were limited to what magic they could learn…it was kind of liberating.”
“Well, it's not the Boiling Isles or the Demon Realm, but you know you’re always safe within these four walls, right Luz? You know that I don’t want to change you…”
“I know you don’t…in that way…”
“Luz…”
“Ma…that summer camp? I mean, I’m glad Vee liked it, and her friends from there sound cool and all, but…thinking inside the box? Conformity? I know it’s not like a… a conversion camp but…Mama, why?”
“Because…Because I hated how bullied and alone you were and I wanted to help, but I…I was so wrong Luz. I see that now, that I should’ve found something you would be into to find friends…like an Anime summer camp or…one of those LARPing thingies…I don’t know…but Luz…can you ever forgive me?”
“Ma…I’ve never been mad at you for that. I just wanted you to be proud of me for who I am…I was afraid of always disappointing you.”
“Mija, you’ve never disappointed me. Everyone else disappointed me. And I should have never asked you to clip your wings for their confort. And you should know that I never will again. In fact, anyone says anything…so much as looks at you with an upturned nose…Ellos ni siquiera verán la chancla, solo sienten las ronchas después.”
Luz laughed lightly and hugged her mom. “Te quiero mucho mama, siempre.”
“Te amo de un extremo a otro de la tierra, mija.”
Vee took the bedroom to herself, and though it wasn’t said out loud, everyone knew that she would be sleeping in that bedroom alone for a while. There was a full-sized air mattress, Luz’s spare twin, and they were nestled into the crook of the L shaped couch, all fitted with fluffy pillows, soft and clean sheets, and every fuzzy blanket in that household. Hunter and Gus each took an end of the L shaped couch, their heads meeting in the middle, and Willow was in the twin mattress lying parallel to Hunter and almost like a headboard to the full sized mattress that Luz and Amity were currently cuddling on.
All of them were trying to scoot as close together as possible without falling onto each other, with none of them (with Amity and Luz being the exception) knowing how comfortable the other would be with fully cuddling in one giant sleep pile. Almost all of them wanted to do that, but they were afraid of disturbing the others and disturbing their sleep, but all of them also knew that they certainly weren’t going to sleep well that night, or any night any time soon. Everyone’s heads were replaying images of the Day of Unity, thinking of what was happening to their loved ones and praying that they were okay.
Gus was the first one to stifle his sniffling again and Hunter reached out to try and comfort him, holding his shoulder while Luz reached up and took his hand. That broke the invisible walls that each of them didn’t even know they built up and they all started letting tears fall quietly. Amity curled into Luz a little more and reached out for Willow’s hand, and Willow reached out to hold Hunter’s gloved hand, closing their little circle. Luz wanted to imagine that they were making a protection circle, but one that protected their families and friends on the Isles. That this action, though it was probably pointless, made them all feel better, like it would actually do something back in the Demon Realm, and they were able to slowly drift into a sniffling, dreamless sleep.