The light of abyss (The owl house x Marvel)

After Vee settled on a human form which was... Not too dissimilar to Luz, all things considered. A little shorter, a little stockier, different mouth, different hair(sandy with green and blue highlights that the basilisk's undisguised ears blended in with) eyes similar to her natural eyes, and a slightly lighter skin tone all wrapped up in a sweater, the four teens convened outside to explore the tone. Camila had wanted them to stay out of the forest for now, as there had been a major uptick in illegal traps in the last few months for one, and also an aged paranormal investigator and his neer do well twin brother were in town investigating ghost sightings in the woods. Camila had apprently already had to help one of them out of a snare trap once already.

The older woman had also asked if either Amity or Masha would be staying for dinner tonight, which prompted Luz to hand over the list of human foods that were safe for witches. Apparently, Eda had also written foods that witches for sure could not eat on the back, and this discovery prompted Luz to lament that her 'Sweet Potato can't try sweet potatoes.' Honestly, it wasn't that big a loss, Amity had never particularly cared for starchy vegetables sweet or otherwise.

As they prepared to leave, Amity took the chance to carefully examine the van that Camila had driven the two teens who'd been to camp back in. After a moment, she admitted to Luz that "I'd still let you drive it into my heart."

This was apparently a humorous thing to say, as it prompted a snort from Masha. "You didn't!?" The teen asked Luz.

This prompted Amity to blink. "What?"

"Uh," Luz began awkwardly and... Oh no. Luz's emotions began to tank. She'd been steady all through her trip home, even with her nerves, even when she started self-deprecating after the glyphs didn't work, but now... "That song I played for you... Came from a children's cartoon."

"...And?"

"I mean, it's a little cheesy isn't it?" Masha asked.

And suddenly Amity thought back to Luz's confession to Grom, why she'd frozen up when Amity had given her her Grom proposal. About being made fun of and everything made sense.

"I like cheesy," Amity insisted while reaching out to grab Luz's hand. "Luz sold it to me as the cheesiest and gooiest love song in the human realm. If it comes from a children's show, then that just makes me like it more."

"Oh, Jeeze, I didn't mean anything bad by it," Masha defended suddenly on the back foot. "I was just surprised and... Oh," they seemed to have some sort of realization as they looked to Luz. "I'm being a jerk, aren't I?"

"A little bit, yes," Amity insisted.

"So uh... I'm remembering now that, in the woods, Luz... You said something about looking for exit routes when you meet human teenagers... I'm bringing up some bad experiences, aren't I?"

Luz did not answer verbally, but she did nod.

"I'm sorry," Masha replied sincerely. "I uh... I've heard about you, at school." Luz froze again. "About the... A weird kid who nobody liked. I'm guessing it's all made up, but... I'm not trying to make fun of you, okay?"

"It's fine," Luz dismissed quietly. Amity squeezed her hand again. This... Wasn't the Luz Amity knew. The Amity Luz knew was energetic and outgoing, this Luz was acting like a prisoner rescued from a war zone.

"No, it's not," Masha continued, "I don't know the full story and, after meeting Vee when she was pretending to be you I just dismissed everything I'd heard about "Loony Noceda" but pretty much everyone at our school knows how much... I was at the tryouts for the play. Any other school that stunt would have made you a local celebrity. I'm guessing every other incident was people overreacting, too."

"...I mean," Luz began hesitantly, "in hindsight maybe my taxidermy sculpture didn't need to be filled with live spiders..."

"What?" Vee asked flatly

"I do taxidermy," Luz answered. "You know, stuffing and preserving dead animals? I mostly do squirrels and pigeons since I can get them from exterminators. I um... Stitched together a pigeon and a squirrel to make a mockup of a baby griffin and I filled it with spiders to simulate spider breath."

"...And you got in trouble for being anatomically accurate?" Amity asked.

"Yeah," Luz replied sullenly. "Shows what they know, real griffins do have spider-breath. And their eggs are delicious."

"Oh... kay,' Masha responded, "but... the point is... You get picked on for stuff that is not really a big deal and punished for minor transgressions a lot, don't you?"

"...Yeah," Luz admitted. Amity immediately made plans to burn down the human school.

"I'm sorry," Masha said again. "I'm sorry I wasn't more sensitive and... I'm sorry I didn't try to be your friend before now. Nobody deserves to be... You know."

"It wasn't that bad," Luz deflected with a forced laugh. "Lots of people have had it way worse than me. Vee was right, I didn't really appreciate what I—"

"No!" Vee shouted. "I... I shouldn't have said that. I don't know what it is you're talking about but whatever happened had to have been pretty bad for you to be acting like... This. At the camp, on the first day, there was a lecture. Some of the kids weren't people who got in trouble or needed help fitting in. Some of them came from... Bad places."

"At least one kid in the next cabin over agreed to come to Reality Check instead of getting sent to juvie," Masha added, "which admittedly did not help with my concerns that it was a troubled youth camp in disguise."

"One of the first things they told us was that some people had it worse than you did, but that didn't mean that what was bad for you wasn't bad," Vee continued, "And that just because it seems like someone had it good that doesn't mean that they weren't still hurting. I guess I forgot that. I'm sorry."

Luz inhaled. "It's fine. Now uh, how about that tour around town?" She declared while becoming the others to follow as she started walking.

Amity progressed from handholding to firmly wrapping her arm around Luz's, trying to be protective without making it obvious. Then she had a thought. "Should I cover my ears? So I don't stand out too much? Or maybe try not to open my mouth too much?"

"What's up with your mou—holy flip you have fangs!" Masha exclaimed.

"It took me a little bit to notice too," Luz admitted.

"But no, most people will probably just think you're a mutant," Masha. "There's still some issues with mutants in most of the country but Gravesfield is ironically pretty cool with them."

"Except for that one girl who got suspended after wanting to bring her mutant girlfriend to prom," Luz added.

"Oh, the school didn't find out she was a mutant till after the suspension," Masha corrected.

"Huh?"

"That was my big sister," Masha clarified. "Sveta didn't tell the school that Sophie was a mutant. She didn't think it mattered." Masha pulled out their phone and pulled a picture of an older girl with a clear family resemblance with Masha, albeit with a pink streak dyed in her hair, standing next to a girl about the same age with long brown hair and green scales covering every inch of her visible skin. "After Sveta got suspended, Sophie was out for blood and just let the local news draw their own conclusions about the bunk suspension."

"Huh, so it wasn't an anti-mutant thing," Luz concluded.

"Nope, just the vice principal being homophobic," Masha confirmed.

"We have a vice principal?" Luz asked.

"We had a vice principal," Masha corrected.

"I um... I'm probably not gonna like the answer, but... Why is it ironic that Gravesfield is mostly okay with mutants?" Vee asked hesitantly.

"Humans aren't always good to each other, Vee," Masha began, "just thirty years ago the government was seriously debating whether or not mutants should legally count as people. If ti wasn't for the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants putting their differences aside long enough to deal with that invasion of robo-zombies from outer space and the whole general 'what-the-heckery' backlash from the public when that still wasn't enough to convince the lead senators behind that bill we could be living in a world where bigots could just gun down mutant children and never be convicted."

"After the whole 'mutants saved the whole world from a fate worse than death' thing, public sentiment warmed up to them significantly," Luz added. "Mutant registration was abandoned and the Genetic Diversity Preservation Act was passed."

"That one guarantees legal personhood and all the rights and protections afforded to a human being to all mutants, mutates, Inhumans, and other human species and subspecies, mutated or not, as well as any alien organisms of humanlike intellect and temperament regardless or plane or planet of origin," Masha continued before moving back onto topic. "Things are a lot better for mutants, but they're still not great in most places... Gravesfield, meanwhile, isn't so great when it comes to people in the LGBT or neurodivergent people but is second only to NYC for mutant acceptance."

Amity turned back to her girlfriend. "And you want to live in this place?"

"No," Luz declared bluntly and without hesitation. "But it's where my Mom lives, and most of my stuff is here."

"I mean, it's not as bad as it used to be," Masha interjected. "It's mostly stuff like... I can't speak for Luz but the worst that's gotten for me was a couple of teachers refused to respect my pronouns when I first came out as nonbinary and it only took a couple of months and a threat of a lawsuit before that got taken care of."

"I've been bullied a lot but nobody's ever tried to, you know, hurt me," Luz admitted reluctantly.

"Meanwhile if either of us were here at the founding of this town we'd have been hung," Masha finished. "Humans are bad at treating each other nicely but when you look at things on a historical scale we're getting better at it at a pretty quick pace."

"...So I'm probably going to regret asking," Amity began, "but... When 'this town was founded' is a pretty specific reference point."

Luz stopped walking and threw her head down. "Aw crud I knew I forgot something."

"Oh, yeah. This is probably gonna be really awkward," Masha continued.

"What?" Amity and Vee both asked at the same time.

"So this town was founded by members of a certain subset of a prominent religion," Masha began in a voice that evoked a storyteller. "And this religious group feared supernatural powers that they couldn't rationalize away as being miracles from their God, believing that all such powers came from dealings with malevolent or unholy spirits. The term used to refer to these people is derived from the old English words wicca or wicce for men and women, meaning something along the lines of 'sorcerer' or 'necromancer...' But over time as the language evolved, it became..."

"Witch," Luz interrupted Masha's storytelling. "The people who founded this town hated witches. But their idea of what witches were was wrong, they thought that they were all like, evil sorcerers."

Masha pouted but continued. "Like, murderously so. They also believed that their God would show His favor to those who were good and righteous and so believed that those who had good fortune were good people and that one only needed to do their chores and say their prayers to be successful in life... This also meant that when say, a tool broke, or someone got kicked to death by a spooked horse, or the harvest was bad, they didn't think 'Oh what a horrible accident' or 'What could I have done differently to prevent this,' they assumed that it must have been enemy action and, with no obvious enemy, the ill fortune would be blamed on witches."

"Which then lead to witch hunts," Luz lectured. "It's not enough to blame it on some outside force, they had to find and punish a scapegoat. Accusations would be thrown out wildly, sometimes at people the alleged victim had a beef with but usually on well..."

"Weirdos, people who didn't jive with the social hierarchy or the rules of the community, social outcasts, people who loved the wrong people, the guy who just moved to town, the childless widow with a suspicious number of cats, old spinsters, disobedient children" Masha listed off. "People who wouldn't be missed, who were already disliked, who were interpreted as a threat to social order, etcetera."

"A lot of people were tortured and executed just for being themselves in a way that was considered inconvenient by the pillars of the community in Old Gravesfield," Luz finished sadly.

"Of course, very few people seriously believe stuff like that," Masha defended, "in fact, a real witch would probably be pretty popular around here, but..."

"...Gravesfield, and other towns with similar histories of witch hunting, have a bad habit of monetizing it as a morbid spectacle," Luz explained.

"So we have things like a magic shop and an occult bookstore on Mainstreet," Masha began, "and a huge focus on the witch trials at our historical society but very little in the way of sympathy for the innocent victims of those crimes."

"...That's horrible," was all Vee could say, the poor demon clearly stunned.

Amity, however, couldn't help but think of what Masha said about how they and Luz would have been treated in those times. She found herself hugging her girlfriend protectively.

"Like, we're coming up on the town square," Masha said with a gesture to a statue in a clearing in the town center, with a statute of two figures in prominent display. "You see that statue up there of the two young men? That's in reference to a local legend about a pair of brothers who came to town as orphaned in the early days of Old Gravesfield and became witch hunters so as to fit in. Legend has it that as adults the elder brother was seduced or ensorcelled by a shewitch whom he then eloped with and the younger brother gave chase after, never to be seen again. We've got quite a lot of stuff about them, and don't get me wrong, all that stuff is pretty interesting, but we don't even know the names of half the Gravesfield witches."

"Amity, not that I don't appreciate the hug, but I can't walk like this," Luz explained after a moment. "did the stories scare you or... Are you scared for me? You don't have to worry, witch hunts like that are a thing of the past. It all happened centuries ago, so I can promise you we'll never have to deal with anything like that."

Amity gave Luz one last squeeze and then let her go before interlocking their arms once again. Still, the feelings Amity was picking up from Luz had normalized after the major drop earlier, which was good.

"Could anyone else do with a pick me up after that long walk and talk?" Luz asked. "Because well, the local cafe is right there," Luz gestured to a building across the street from the town square, a wall of windows under a sign saying 'Robin's Roast' next to a picture of a bird in a teacup. "It's a place where people hang out, but hot drinks and baked goods, and... Oh, Amity, you can try human realm coffee that isn't the coffin varnish I make."

Amity shuddered momentarily.

Vee, for her part, seemed to have a moment of realization. "Oh!," she exclaimed, "that's what they were talking about."

"What?"

"When President Laufeyson came to the camp to offer Masha the apprenticeship, they also looked at me and said that 'no blessing I can grant would salvage that horrific abomination,'" Vee suddenly said in a perfect imitation of the former president's voice, "and that I should 'just fill the machine with Mountain Dew like a normal person.' I was confused but... If It was meant for you..."

Gears were visibly turning in Luz's head. "...You can do that?"

After that exchange, the quartet of teens marched over to the cafe, amity bracing herself in the hopes that this experience would be more pleasant than her last. Upon entering the shop, which didn't seem particularly busy, they were greeted by a gruff, gravelly voice loudly exclaiming "I'm telling you, Ford, that woman's my ex-wife!"