A True Witch (Part 1)

More Than What's Bargained For

Content warning for this and later chapters: graphic depictions of violence

Luz's eyes slowly peeled open and adjusted to the faint light of the room. The first thing she noticed, however, wasn't anything in the room, but the fact that she was in a chair and had magic suppressant cuffs on her wrists. As she looked around the room, where she saw it was massive and almost empty, she noticed she was just one person in a circle of chairs. Eda and Hunter were all right across from her with Raine, Darius, and Boscha to her left and Gus, Willow, and Amity to her right.

Amity was the first to notice she was conscious, turning to face her, looking completely neutral. Though that might have just been from half her face being scar tissue, skin grafts, and a barely yellow eye on the right side of her face. Eda and Hunter noticed next, both of them looking concerned, though Luz couldn't pin down what was the most concerning part about it all. After them, Boscha noticed and gave Luz a small smile and a squeeze of her shoulder. Finally Darius, Raine, Gus, and Willow noticed, having looks anywhere from bored to worried to hesitant. Luz knew that whatever was going to happen was going to be big, and she really hoped that the cuffs also suppressed the curse.

"Okay Luz," Eda sighed, "We're all worried about you. You've been acting weird for over a month now. You're constantly tired, you lash out, you keep leaving the hideout to go somewhere...so we're having an intervention."

"Okay, fine. This might as well happen. What do you want to know?" Luz sighed.

"You'll just...tell us?" Darius asked, confused.

"I guess we didn't need to give you blabber serum while you were out." Eda shrugged.

"Wait, you drugged me?!"

"Drugged has such a negative connotation." Raine awkwardly chuckled, "It's more like we-"

"Yeah we definitely drugged you, kid. Had to know you wouldn't lie to us and you have a trend of hiding your negative emotions. Why else would you lash out like that?"

Luz felt her blood run cold. If she wouldn't be able to lie, then who knows what she'd say. Even she didn't know how she really felt about everything

"But, we decided it would be fair if you could ask us anything you wanted to know." Willow added.

"My idea." Boscha said with a smirk, lightly elbowing Luz.

Willow glared at her, clearly not fully on board with Boscha and Luz becoming closer, but quickly went back to looking at Luz, ready to answer anything she was wondering.

"Okay, uh, I guess I want to know what happened with Tarak." Luz said slightly sheepishly, having not expected this interrogation to start with her being able to ask things.

"The Titan Trapper turned worshiper of you? He got away when you set off that smoke bomb." Darius explained, "That whole situation with that guy is crazy. You almost kill someone once and they treat you like a god, but I actually kill tons of people and all I get is not being killed by Belos! And even he tried and almost succeeded in killing me, actually."

Raine elbowed Darius before he could say anything else. The whole situation of what was going on was mildly freaking out Luz, but Boscha having a reassuring hand on her shoulder the whole time helped.

"Another question," Luz began, getting the attention back on her, "How are people around the hideout doing with...my outburst."

"Morale is a bit cattywampus with someone dangerous finding this place, a few blaming you for it, and with your outburst people are pretty split." Eda explained.