Here to Help

Chapter 7

"Aw look how adorable they look, King! Kinda makes me sick how cute it is," Eda quietly scoffed as she walked through the front door, spotting Luz and Amity asleep on the couch.

"There has to be a more comfortable way to sit," King chided, "They have the whole couch; why stay all squished together when they have all that space?"

"Something tells me that space isn't what they were looking for," Eda smirked, noting Amity's hand intertwined with Luz's.

"No one ever wants to snuggle with meeee, hoot," Hooty whined from across the room.

"And no one ever will!" King yelled back.

"Will you keep it down?" Eda warned, shooting a glance from King to Hooty and back. "You're going to wake them up." Noticing Amity start to stir, Eda whispered, "Common, King. You're coming with me to town. I heard that theres a Hexas hold'em tournament this evening and something tells me I just might get lucky."

"But we just got back!" King groaned.

"And now were leaving. Let's go," Eda ordered as King begrudgingly made his way to the door. This should give the kids a bit more time to rest, Eda thought. Though she could not make out the conversation the pair had last night, she recognized the sound of soft sobs echoing through the house into the early morning hours. Luz had told her in confidence that she suspected the pale witch was being abused in some way, and could only assume that the extent of it came to light sometime during the previous night. Making a mental note to follow up with the human, Eda looked back at the pair on the couch once more before making her way outside. She knew something had to be done, both for the green haired witch's sake and the sake of the fragile human's heart. "Oh, kid..." Eda muttered through a soft, worried smile as she shook her head, "what are we going to do?"

——

"Mmm... what time is it?" Luz groaned as she slowly opened her eyes. The pain in her leg had significantly died down and from what she could feel, so had the swelling. Finally shaking the sleep from her eyes, Luz slowly took in her surroundings, eyes shifting from her hand intertwined with Amity's to her heavily casted leg propped up on her friend's lap. "What happened?" mumbled, trying to recall how she had ended up in the present situation. The last thing she clearly recalled, Luz thought, was being in an extraordinary amount of pain but not wanting Amity to know. The bits and pieces of memory that followed were sketchy at best as she recounted what took place, each flashback siloed from one another - Amity caught her before she fell, she took some medicine and ate some food, she asked Amity to stay, she said "I love you," before dozing off... "Oh JEEZE," Luz shouted, panic immediately flooding her small body as she smacked her forehead in horror; of all things she could say to of all people. Its not that it wasn't true - the young human did in fact love Amity Blight but that was just it, she was just a human and she was the Amity Blight. She was Hexside's top student and arguably one of the most amazing people Luz had ever met, and who was Luz? No one by comparison; how could she ever hope Amity could love her back?

"Luz!" Amity let out a small yelp of concern as her eyes shot open at the sound of the human's voice. "Whats going on? Are you in pain?" she asked, voice laced with a genuine concern that echoed in her sleepy eyes.

"Ah, hey Amity! No," Luz nervously chided, rubbing the back of her head, "I'm okay! Never better, in fact!"

"Luz?" Amity questioned, noting the girl's stranger than normal behavior. "Are you sure? I can get you anything if you need; I'm here to help, you know."

"Ah, yeah. I'm fine..." Luz remarked, voice trailing off, face red with blush.

"Okay, because you still look a little feverish," Amity remarked, the look of concern growing on her face.