Lumity Oneshots

Love in Disguise (Part 1)

Requested by @Dwatk16 — I am SO sorry this took so long!! I've decided to split it up into two parts because it's already 10k words and I'm still not done (cries), and I wanted to give you something at least. Thank you so much for your patience!! Part 2 is coming soon :)

There was so, so much to do after the final fight.

A small part of Luz wanted to curl up in the nest with Eda, King and Raine and stay there forever, marvelling in the fact that they all had each other back at last (and stewing in the lingering guilt from helping Belos plus her messy jumble of feelings around everything that had happened during the fight). But the more logical part of her knew that sitting around wasn't going to make everything restore itself faster, and so every morning, she heaved herself out of bed, threw on whatever clothes she had at the house she was staying at for the night, and made her way to the crown above the Titan's head, the previously agreed meeting place.

Rebuilding was hard work, but it was never done in silence. With their hands occupied, people talked.

"Did you hear the Blight daughter has been trying to tear down the restoration's progress?" Someone's voice drifted into Luz's ear one afternoon as she and Willow were working to bring piles of bricks and wooden slabs to Bonesborough to help with rebuilding. She paused, blinking, then shook her head. Stupid rumours. Still, the demons were close enough that their voices wafted into her awareness even when she elected to ignore them.

"Really?" the second one asked.

"Yeah," the first demon continued. "Pablo said they saw her the other day, spraying graffiti on the walls of one of their buildings. Said it was something about wild magic and how wrong it was."

Luz glanced over to see if Willow had heard what the demons were saying; her face was tight with disdain, and she shook her head at Luz, a silent cue to ignore it. Luz nodded, continuing to lift the stack of wood and move it towards one of the houses lining the street, but the words stuck oddly in her mind like a misplaced sticker.

It was one thing for rumours to be circulating with no apparent source, but for someone to have claimed to see Amity doing those things? Things both Luz and Willow knew were highly out of character for her?

Someone must have it out for her, she thought. A bit of a weird thing to lie about, but Luz had seen how needlessly cruel people could be if they decided they didn't like someone. Amity, being from such a recognizable family, was more likely than any of them to be known, and subsequently hated, by people she didn't know.

She expelled a puff of air, deciding to tell her girlfriend about it later. If there was someone spreading nasty rumours about her, Amity deserved to know.

The rest of her thoughts were lost in the physical labour of moving the heavy materials back and forth along the street to each house that needed it. Luz caught herself wishing the Collector could be helping them, but she knew they'd left for the stars for a good reason—even if some groups of people knew how he'd saved them, she'd heard the cold, tight-lipped whispers about the danger he'd brought from people across the Isles. As much as she wished they could've stayed—for King's sake, if no one else's—she understood the decision. The extra help with removing all the stars had been appreciated too, even if doing it had left most of the holes she and Willow were helping fill now.

It was alright, though. There were plenty of witches and demons alike who were eager to help get the Isles back to normal, with or without construction magic. They'd restore it to its former glory eventually. Luz just had to keep at it until that point.