maybe ill actually write someday

--

1. 7 years old

Amity kept drawing the spell circle, focusing on the spell each time, only to grow more and more frustrated as the circle fizzled out of existence. It was a simple fire spell! She’s learned spells harder then this before, like summoning an abomination or making plants grow.

She let out a groan of irritation as the spell circle fizzled out for what Amity assumed to be the hundredth time. She didn’t understand why it wasn’t working!

She tried again, not surprised when it didn’t work. Again.

Titan help her, she was going to destroy something or someone soon if she couldn’t do this spell.

She went to cast it again when the door creaking open jolted her out of her focus and she spun around, looking up at Eda. She quickly turned away, not wanting to admit that she couldn’t get this simple yet stupid spell to work for her.

“You alright?” Eda asked and Amity hated that Eda could already tell she was upset. She’d only been at the Owl House for a few months, yet the older witch seemed to be able to read her like a book. Probably some kind of book with pictures. Simple. Childish.

Just like she was being, getting frustrated and not being able to cast a simple fire spell.

When Amity didn’t respond, she let out a sigh and walked over, crouching down next to where Amity sat on the ground of her room. She’d known Amity was trying to practice a new spell, but it seemed she was having trouble.

“Need help?” Eda asked, eyeing the way Amity’s hands were shaking ever so slightly with frustration.

“It’s a stupid spell… I should be able to figure it out easily enough…” Amity muttered, clenching her hands into fists in her lap.

“It isn’t a bad thing if you can’t figure out a spell quickly.”

“But it’s a child's spell! Witchling’s first fire spell, and I can’t seem to figure it out!” Amity said, her voice raising above her usual volume near the end. Eda watched her before responding,

“Alright then. Walk me through how you’re casting it,”

Amity glanced up at Eda before hesitantly raising her finger into the air and drawing the spell circle. She let out a noise when it predictably fizzled out again.

“What’s your focus while casting it?” Eda asked, looking down at Amity.

“A fire spell?” Amity responded plainly, although it seemed more like a question, “I guess I just…” she trailed off, trying to find a way to put it into words, “think about the spell I want and I just.. cast it.”

“Hm. Try imagining what you want but in a more physical sense. You’re trying a fire spell, right?” Amity nodded. “Try imagining the fire. What’s it's shape, it's size. Things like that.”

Amity looked back down at her hand, thinking about it for a few seconds. She took a deep breath, raised her hand, and closed her eyes.

Imagine it, she thought, moving her finger as she began casting the spell. Imagine it.

When she opened her eyes after casting the spell, a grin broke across her face when she saw a small red flame on the tip of her finger. She looked over at Eda’s direction, the older witch having her own huge grin.

“Congratulations! You get a big serving of dinner tonight to celebrate!” Eda said before getting up and heading towards the door.

“Thanks mom,” Amity said before she could catch herself, her breath freezing in her chest.

“No problem, kid.” Eda said after a few moments, closing the door behind her.

Amity didn’t go downstairs until Eda called her down.

2. 8 years old

Amity jolted upwards and awake, taking deep breaths as her eyes darted around the room before she remembered where she was.

I’m at the Owl House. I’m with Eda. Eda will protect me. I don’t have to go back. Eda will make sure I never go back.

She pulled her legs up to her chest and pushed her head into her knees, trying her best to not start crying. She wasn’t back there anymore! She was safe and, for the first time in her life, truly happy.

...she did miss Willow though.

The thought of Willow and her parents’ reaction to her being friends with the other witch caused the tears to finally start falling. All attempts to wipe them away and stop only caused them to fall harder.

Not a true Blight, rang through her head like a mantra. Maybe they were right since she’d run off and practically abandoned the name and all the standing it had along with it. They always seemed to be right when it came to her.

She wanted to forget about the manor, about her parents, about it all. Her siblings never seemed to notice the comments directed towards her or how their parents always put expectations way above her age on her.

All because they couldn’t follow a few stupid rules.

A sob broke through her and the tears fell harder. She did her best to be quiet, not wanting to wake Eda up because she had something as silly as a nightmare. Eda shouldn’t have to deal with that.

But she let you stay, even after you told her why, she thought through the haze of tears, and it gave her a second of pause before the tears came back.

Amity was able to calm herself enough so that she could see in front of her, albeit it was still blurry from tears. She grabbed a blanket from where she slept and got up, carefully making her way through the house until she stopped in front of Eda’s door.

She choked back another sob, opening the door and wincing when it gave a creak. She stood in the doorway for a few moments, quietly crying before Eda’s silhouette sat up from her nest and glanced over at her.

“‘mity?” Eda drawled, rubbing at her eyes. Amity let out another quiet sob and Eda paused, looking back over at Amity with more urgency before quickly getting out of her nest and over to the witchling.

“Hey, hey. What’s wrong?” Came Eda’s panicked voice when she crouched down next to Amity, carefully taking the witchlings blanket and wrapping it around her shoulders. Amity merely moved forward, wrapping her arms around Eda. Eda carefully picked Amity up and walked back over to her nest, sitting down and positioning the two of them so Eda could sit against the side with Amity still curled up against her.

Amity sobbed into Eda’s chest, the older witch running her hand through Amity’s hair in an attempt to calm her. She wasn’t sure what caused Amity to get this upset, but it really set her off. She hadn’t seen the witchling cry like this since the first few months of living at the Owl House.

Eventually, Eda listened as Amity’s crying quieted down, and after a few moments she realized the younger witch had ended up crying herself to sleep. She let out a soft sigh and shifted slightly, freezing when Amity shifted along with her.

“G’night m’m,” Amity muttered, curled against Eda’s chest. Eda glanced down at Amity, wondering if the witchling was even conscious enough to know what she said. Eda guessed that she wasn’t.

So, Eda ran a hand through Amity’s hair and muttered back, “Goodnight, kiddo,” before closing her eyes.

3. 11 years old

Amity drew a spell circle, watching as an abomination grew out of the ground. It wasn’t any taller then her knees, but she hadn’t wanted to summon a big one. Not for this.

She concentrated, her tongue sticking out of her mouth as she drew another spell circle, watching as ice grew across the abominations body. Eventually, the entire abomination was made out of ice.

“Abomination, move.” She commanded, doing her best not to let her hopes rise too high just in case it failed. She’d been trying this for days now and it hadn’t worked yet.

The abomination gave a sharp jerk of movement and Amity held her breath, watching the small ice creature closely. It gave another sharp jerk and then it was moving forward. It was a smooth movement, far from it even if it was made out of ice.

But it was moving.

Amity’s excitement took over her focus for a bit too long, the ice abomination melting into a puddle of water onto the floor. Amity paused, staring at it before that it was still a success.

“I did it!” She exclaimed, not noticing the front door opening in her excitement at getting the spell to work.

“Tell me you didn’t destroy anything,” came from her left and she turned sharply, but calmed when she saw it was just Eda.

“Nothing but the carpet, but I might be able to fix it.” She replied before let out a noise of excitement. She’d been practicing for days and it finally worked!

Eda raised an eyebrow, “Alright then. If you maybe destroyed the carpet, then what has you so excited? Did I miss you burning something?”

“It was one time! One!” She exclaimed before remembering what Eda’s first question was, “I managed to finally make an ice abomination, and it only took me a few days this time!”

“Well, would you look at that. You managed that in a few days?” Eda asked, surprised. Amity was barely eleven, so a spell like that couldn’t have been an easy feat.

Amity gestured for Eda to come closer, so she did, crouching down next to the witchling.

Amity drew a spell circle, watching as Eda watched her create the abomination. Amity drew a second spell circle and watched as ice slowly took over it's surface, just like last time. She could do this.

Amity could tell she was pushing herself, but she wanted to show Eda that she could do this and that she wasn’t just making it up. Her magic had grown and she’d learned this spell in mere days.

“Abomination, move.” Amity commanded, glancing over at Eda who was watching as her ice abomination jerked forward. Amity wasn’t able to keep her concentration anywhere near as long as last time, so within another step it melted onto the carpet.

Amity had to take a few deep breaths, but she turned to Eda with a nervous but proud smile on her face. Eda gave her one back.

“You did a good job there, kid. Never seen a witch as young as you do a spell that complicated.”

Amity’s smile grew wider and she wrapped her arms around Eda, almost throwing the older witch off balance. She buried her head in Eda’s chest, grabbing tightly onto her dress.

“...thanks mom,” Amity muttered quietly, although she knew Eda heard it due to the hitch in her breathing. Eda ran a hand through Amity’s hair before responding softly,

“Anytime, kiddo.”

4. 13 years old

Amity sat on a stool, her gaze flitting across the multiple stalls that sat near Eda’s in the market. She’d saved up some snails from when Eda had her run the stand, albeit rarely. It has been a while since she’s been able to treat herself with something.

Maybe she could get King something. Another plushie for that weird, yet adorable, demon army of his. He’d enjoy it. Although, speaking of King…

“Are you sure King will be alright on his own? He’s never gotten the Demon Flu before,” She said, turning to look at Eda. She did her best to sound more disinterested then she actually was. Titan knew she’d never hear the end of it if King heard she was genuinely worried about him.

“Bah, don’t worry. He’ll be fine. ...Probably.” That… didn’t reassure her. Eda took one look at her expression and let out a sigh, “He’ll be fine. He’s a strong little demon. He just gets dramatic when he doesn’t feel well, so I had him stay home.”

Amity let out a small hum in response, turning her attention back to the stalls. Definitely going to grab him something to cheer him up. He might not admit it, but he doesn’t like being alone.

Her ears twitched and she perked up when she heard three distinct and recognizable chirps. She held out a hand, watching as her palisman Feathers landed on her finger. She’d let him off the staff for a fly when they got there that morning. She hadn’t wanted him feeling confined.

“How’s my pretty bird?” Amity cooed, scratching the small bird's chest. Feathers let out a few happy sounding chirps before hopping up onto her shoulder. She let out a small laugh as the bird settled down in the crook of her shoulder.

“She’s so energetic. I still don’t understand how you ever keep up with her.” Eda commented, watching the witch and her palisman for a few seconds before turning back to her wares.

“I just let her out to fly as often as possible. She enjoys the freedom.” Amity said. Feathers let out a chirp of agreement.

Amity glanced around before pulling her hood over her head a bit more. Precautions were precautions.

She gave Feathers a small head scratch when the sound of the portal came through. She glanced up and watched as Owlbert came through the tent behind them and dropped a sack full of human things on the ground.

Owlbert landed on Eda’s staff as the older witch went to work on opening the sack and going through the contents. She glanced up and gestured for Amity to join her, which resulted in a long sigh from the younger witch.

She helped Eda go through the human things, splitting what would be valuable to them and what wasn’t. If it wasn’t valuable, then it either got thrown out somewhere or put into one of the many storage closets within the Owl House.

They were called storage closets for a reason, after all.

Amity let Feathers look through the items as well. If the bird wanted something then Amity might try and convince Eda to let her have it.

Amity’s gaze was diverted and she dug through the items before grabbing and pulling out what caught her attention. It was a stuffed duck, although it didn’t seem to be in the best condition. One of its eyes was missing and Amity could count at least three small rips at a quick glance.

Overall, nothing special, but Amity could probably fix it up and give it to King by the end of the day as a gift of sorts. She’s pretty sure he’d enjoy it. She isn’t sure if she’s seen a stuffed duck in his collection yet.

“Hey, Eda?”

“Yeah, little Sparrow?” Eda responded. It was never Amity in public. Even if she was declared dead years ago, the Emperor’s Coven and anyone else could connect the dots if they heard her name.

“I’m gonna go try and get supplies to fix this up for King. I’ll be back before you close up shop, alright?”

“Sounds good, but be careful, alright? I know you can handle yourself, but I’d rather not have to fight off some Emperor’s Coven guard if I didn’t have to,”

Amity rolled her eyes and let out a small laugh, “Alright mom,” she said sarcastically, half-ignoring how true it was.

“Get goin’ before you get any more sappy, y’hear?” Eda said, gesturing for Amity to head off on her way.

Amity grabbed her staff, let Feathers hop onto the top, and left for the supplies she’d need to fix up the toy for King, all the while trying to ignore how much she meant that simple comment.

5. 14 years old

Amity let out a yawn as she walked down the stairs, rubbing at her eyes as she turned into the kitchen. A quick glance around the room let her know that Eda was most likely still asleep. King wasn’t with her when she woke up, so she assumed he was somewhere in the house.

She made her way over to the fridge and opened it, looking around for the glob-o she’d bought yesterday. Her brows furrowed when she couldn’t find it, and she dug around the fridge, trying to find it.

Her ears twitched when she heard the little clicks of King’s claws on the floor and she spun around, narrowly missing banging her head on the top of the fridge.

“You’re up,” King said, and Amity opened her mouth to answer, but she froze when she saw yellow specks around King’s mouth. Her eyes widened.

“You ate my glob-o!”

King let out a squeak, “I did not!”

“Then why do you have yellow specks around your mouth, which just so happens to be the color of glob-o I bought yesterday?” She accused.

King let out a “weh!” before wiping at his mouth and pointing a finger at her, “You have no evidence that I did such a thing!”

“Just because you got rid of it doesn’t mean it wasn’t there, King!” Amity retorted, frustration edging into her voice.

“It means you’re a liar, accusing me of something I didn’t do!”

Amity let out a growl before drawing a spell circle, King’s expression going from one of frustration to one of nervousness as an ice abomination formed on Amity’s side. It towered over both of them and it was at that moment King knew he’d made a mistake opposing Amity that day.

“Abomination,” Amity started, glaring at King. “retrieve.”

King was out the door before she said the second word.

It was a few minutes later that Eda came down into the kitchen, pausing at the sight of King trapped on the ceiling in ice and Amity sitting in a chair at the table, clearly upset. She raised an eyebrow at the scene, not sure if she wanted to know what had happened between them getting up and her getting up.

Unfortunately, she was the parent and thus had to at least try to resolve this. Keyword being try.

“So,” she started, pausing as Amity’s eyes darted over to her in a glare and King’s eyes darted over to her in desperation, “what’d King do this time?”

“I didn’t do anything!” King exclaimed the moment Eda finished talking.

Amity let out a noise of frustration and drew a spell circle, the ice holding King to the ceiling growing to cover a small portion of his head now. The demon let out a “weh!” of regret.

Eda raised an eyebrow in Amity’s direction and the younger witch copied her expression. Eda let out a sigh,

“Amity, what’d he do?”

“He stole and ate the glob-o I bought yesterday! I’d been waiting for them to get that specific flavor for weeks and when I finally did he stole and ate it!” She said frustrated. She’d waited a long time for that glob-o, dangit!

Eda let out a groan and rubbed her forehead. It was going to be a long day. She looked up at Amity, then at King. She felt no remorse for him. He brought this upon himself for wronging Amity, and both knew the younger witch could be doing worse.

“How about this? You let him down, and then you and I can make something called jell-o from the human world that Owlbert dragged through a few days ago. I’d been meaning to save it for some kind of special occasion but, well…” she trailed off, gesturing to the scene in front of her.

Amity perked up at the sound of something human, quickly drawing a spell circle, not giving King a second glance as he fell from the ceiling onto the floor with a “weh!” of pain. He let out a groan as he got up and rubbed at his head.

Amity glanced at him, “No more stealing my snacks,”

“Amity.” Eda spoke, giving her a ‘let it go’ look. She didn’t want to have to deal with either of them riling the other up even further. That happened once when Amity was younger and it was a pain to clean up, even with all three of them cleaning.

Amity rolled her eyes, “Fine mom.”

There was a beat of silence throughout the room as the words registered in everyone's minds, but Eda just grinned and continued on, “Now don’t worry because King won’t be getting any of this,”

“Hey!”

+ 1. 14 years old

“Welcome to the Owl House,” Eda spoke to Luz, snapping to light all the candles. The let out a sound of wonder as Eda continued, “Where I hide away from the pressures of modern life. Also the cops. Also ex-boyfriends, hah.” She said with a snort at the end.

“This place is beautiful,” Luz said with awe, staring up at the walls and the ceiling, “Do you live here all alone?” She asked, turning to look at Eda.

At that exact moment, footsteps that shook the whole house came from the hallway. “Who dares intrude upon I, the King of Demons?” King asked, his voice going from deep and rumbling to his normal squeaky voice. He squeaked the duck in his hand, glaring at the human.

Luz let out a gasp, her eyes widening, “¡Ay, què lindo!” She exclaimed as she charged at King, picking him up into her arms. “Eda he’s so cute!” She said as she rubbed her cheek against his. “Who’s a wittle guy, who’s a wittle guy? Is it you, is it you?” She asked, King looking at her with fear.

She hugged him against her chest, “I don’t know who your little guy is! Eda, who is this monster?!” King screeched, pushing against the human who held him in confines. Eda let out a small laugh before grabbing Luz and pulling her away from King.

“Oh this is Luz, the human.” Eda stated. She glanced up when she heard a light laughter and saw Amity standing in the doorway, having watched the scene play out. Eda set Luz down and walked over to her.

She put her hands on Amity’s shoulders, smirking when she saw she had both King and Luz’s attention. “And this here is Amity.” She paused, watching as Luz let out a small sound of awe at seeing another witch, “My daughter.”

Amity’s face flushed at the words, a wide smile growing on her face as she glanced at Eda, then at King. She could hear Eda start talking to Luz, but that didn’t matter to her.

--

Amity was half awake, brushing her hair in front of the bathroom mirror when Luz walked in and did her own morning rituals. Amity barely paid her any mind, needing at least another ten minutes to wake up completely.

Of course, Luz didn’t seem to notice nor care.

“How do you keep all of that hair brushed? How long does it even take you?” the human asked, Amity not bothering to hide her annoyed sigh at her question.

“And why are you so obsessed with my hair this morning? If you hadn’t noticed, I actually have things I need to do before me and Eda set up shop.” she said, glaring at the mirror and adamantly refusing to look in Luz’s direction.

“I’m not obsessed with it! I was just wondering how you care for it,” Luz responded. She seemed to want to add something, but she closed her mouth and turned back towards the counter to finish whatever she did in the mornings.

Amity merely hummed as she put the brush on the counter, getting ready to head out of the bathroom and downstairs to where Eda and King were probably already eating when Luz spoke up,

“Have you ever tried styling it?”

Amity finally glanced towards Luz, “Excuse me?”

“I just meant it might be nice to try something different for once, y’know?” Luz quickly replied, not wanting to upset Amity and cause her to ignore her for an entire day again.

Amity paused, running a hand through her hair. As it was now, it reached her waist in length. She’d never once tried styling it, never even thought about it. She narrowed her eyes at Luz.

“You won’t cut it, right?”

“Of course not!” Luz seemed genuinely against the idea. There were a few seconds of silence before Amity gave in.

“Fine. Only this once though, and you’re never mentioning it again. Deal?”

“Deal.”

And that's how Amity found herself sitting on a chair that Luz had dragged into the bathroom. The whole situation reminded her of when she first decided to grow her hair out, but she did her best to deny that Luz reminded her of that special moment.

Her ears twitched as she listened to Luz grab what she’d need to do whatever she was going to do to her hair. Amity would be lying if she said she wasn’t at least a little nervous at the idea of someone messing with her hair but, well, even if she didn’t necessarily like Luz she had to admit that the human was never purposefully malicious.

“Alright. I’m gonna start, alright?” Luz said and Amity gave a small nod. Amity felt as Luz started brushing through her hair, carefully making sure she didn’t pull on it.

“So…” Luz started, “is there anything particular you have in mind?”

“I’m… not too sure.” A pause, “Just not a bun.”

“No bun, alright, got it.” There were a few more moments of silence as Luz tried to figure out what to do with Amity’s hair. “How does a braid sound?” She finally asked.

“It sounds good I guess,” Amity said, nervously.

Luz let out a small “hmm” before taking Amity’s hair and separating it, and if Amity had been looking at her she would’ve seen Luz’s tongue sticking out as she concentrated.

“So, you’ve been living with Eda for a while now, right?” Luz started talking, jolting Amity into focusing on what she was saying.

“Uhm, yeah. I think I’ve lived here with her for about… seven years now? She’s… I was fortunate that she let me stay here in the first place.”

There were a few moments of silence after Amity spoke, both of them trying to think of a topic to restart conversation. Eventually, Amity was the one to start talking again,

“So, I remember you had the uh, fifth book in the Good Witch Azura series, right? Since it was the fifth one, I assume you enjoy the series?”

“Do you read it too?” Luz asked, pausing in her braiding of Amity’s hair for a second in her excitement before remembering what she was doing and continuing.

“Yes!” Amity exclaimed, before remembering Luz was messing with her hair and she went still, not wanting to mess her up. “I’ve only read up to the fourth book though. I didn’t even know a fifth book was out!”

“Really? Well, maybe you could read my copy and we could, I dunno, talk about it? Maybe? Like a book club?” Luz asked, hopeful. She’d always wanted to talk to others about the Good Witch Azura, but no one back home ever really wanted to talk about it.

“That… doesn’t sound like a bad idea, actually,” Amity said, a bit surprised that she agreed to it. Maybe Luz wasn’t as bad as she thought she was.

“Azura book club!” Luz exclaimed, barely keeping herself from moving around with excitement. She was almost done with the braid and was getting kind of nervous to see Amity’s reaction.

Amity let out a small laugh at Luz’s excitement. The excitement and happiness coming from Luz was infectious.

“Aaand done!” Luz exclaimed, putting the end of the braid in a hair tie, making sure it was secure before she stepped back, her nerves showing a bit in how she wrung her hands together.

Amity blinked, not even realizing that they’d been there talking for about five minutes. She stood up and turned towards the mirror, pausing as she took in her appearance.

It was shorter in the braid, barely reaching the bottom of her shoulder blades, but even so Amity found that she didn’t really mind it. She reached back to feel it, being careful and light, not wanting to risk ruining it or causing it to come undone.

“Do you like it?” Came the nervous question from beside her. Amity glanced at Luz before looking back at her reflection.

“I love it.” Came out, and Amity found that it was true.

Luz let out a relieved sigh, “Oh I’m glad! I was a bit worried cause you seem to really enjoy your hair, but if you enjoy it then-”

“Luz,” Amity turned to her, “I-” She paused, seeming to look for the right words. “Thank you,”

Luz paused, looking back at Amity. After a second she gave the witch a big grin, “Glad I could be of service! Now, how about we head downstairs before Eda starts to wonder why we’ve been taking so long.” And with that Luz left the bathroom, leaving Amity to stare after her.

Amity turned back to the mirror and looked at her hair, giving a soft smile before she left and closed the door behind her, heading downstairs and sat at the table, staring at the wall in thought when Eda came up next to her,

“What’s with the new hairdo, kid?”

Amity’s face flushed, “L- Luz mentioned styling it and, well, I decided why not?”

Eda stared at her for a few seconds before giving her a soft grin, “It looks nice, little Sparrow.”

--

“Edaaa!” Came a call from upstairs, causing Eda to pause and look up from her cookbook and pile of ingredients. She hesitated, holding the animation potion above the ingredients before a second call from upstairs came and she put the potion down, giving the ingredients piled on the counter a glare like this was their fault.

“Coming!” She called back as she headed up the stairs, muttering about food needing to make themselves for once before she stopped in front of the bathroom door, which she assumed Amity was due to the light shining out of it.

She gave the door a knock, hearing a muttered “come in” before she cracked it open and, well. What she saw wasn’t what she was expecting.

Amity stood there, her face red with irritation and an annoyed look on her face, with a brush stuck in her hair. Eda probably would’ve burst into laughter two years ago, but an irritated and annoyed Amity was not an Amity she wanted to mess with.

As it was, she still couldn’t help grinning slightly at the absurdity of it.

Eda cleared her throat to keep herself from laughing and stepped closer. She glanced around the bathroom before casting a small spell circle in the air and waiting a few seconds for a chair to come from one of her many, many storage closets.

She moved the chair so Amity could sit in it while Eda could try and get the brush out of her hair and hopefully fix the mess that was now sitting on the side of Amity's head. All things considered, she had her work cut out for her.

It took a while to get the brush out of Amity’s brown tangles, but eventually she did. After the brush was free, it took Eda much longer to brush out her hair to a point where it didn’t look like some kind of demon was living there.

Eda didn’t want to know how or why it was tangled that badly, and she was positive Amity would never reveal the reason to her.

As Eda ran the brush through Amity’s hair a few more times, she spoke, “Might be time to cut it a bit shorter. It’s down past your shoulders by now.”

“I don’t wanna cut it short.”

“You don’t? Why not?”

“...I want it to look like yours,” came after a few seconds of silence, and Eda paused in her brushing as the words registered in her mind.

“You want your hair to look like mine?” She asked, letting the hair she held up in her hand fall back down against the witchlings back.

Amity nodded, still looking down at the floor. Eda grinned softly, moving her hand to rustle the witchlings hair, who proceeded to let out an offended noise of protest and try to push Eda’s hand away.

Eda let out a laugh and removed her hand, letting the witchling smooth her hair out, although she couldn’t hide the smile on her face. Eda’s grin grew wider.

“That we can do, kiddo. Although it’ll be your job to take care of it, and that means no more brushes stuck in hair that needs me to get it unstuck, alright?” She joked, pointing the brush at the witchling.

The day Eda met Amity was an overall mediocre day until the moon was high in the sky and all witches and creatures (except those that were nocturnal or did business at the Night Market) were asleep.

She’d sold some wares, ran from a few Emperors Coven guards, and pick pocketed a decent amount of stuff during the day, so when night fell she was expecting to just head back home to Hooty and pass out in her nest until tomorrow, as she usually does.

At first, it seemed she’d get to do exactly that as she laid in her nest, just seconds away from passing out.

And then a screech echoed out in the forest around the house.

Now, see, normally Eda would’ve been able to ignore the screeches outside of her house. It's the Boiling Isles. It would’ve been more worrying if there wasn’t any screeching throughout the night.

No. What did catch Eda’s attention was the second screech that came after it. A screech that was high-pitched and a child.

Eda’s eyes flew open and before she could really gather her thoughts that, maybe, just maybe, the child-like screech wasn’t actually a child, she was grabbing Owlbert and flying into the woods in the direction of the sounds, Hooty calling after her.

Rationally, Eda knew this was probably a horrible idea. At worst, she’d be caught by a creature that she’d have to waste magic on fighting off or maybe it was the Emperors Coven trying to lure her out and she’d have to make them regret ever joining said coven.

Or maybe, worst case, there actually is a child out in the forest past midnight that's in some kind of danger.

Eda wasn’t sure which she wanted to believe more.

It only took about a minute or two to find what she was looking for, but it was a minute or two too long for Eda. It only took a few seconds to learn which of the worst case scenario options was right.

A young witchling was cornered by what Eda quickly recognized as a lesser basilisk. Overall not a dangerous creature to fully grown witches, but to a child? Well, there's a reason witchlings are told to stay out of the forests until they can cast spells reliably.

Within seconds, Eda had landed in front of the creature, drew a spell circle, and blasted it with a simple fire spell, causing it to let out a displeased screech before disappearing back into the forest.

Eda turned to the kid, who she now noticed had multiple scrapes and rips in her outfit, as if she’d been running through the forest for some time now.

Maybe she has, some part of Eda’s mind whispered. Eda didn’t want to think about why a child would be in the forest this late, alone.

“Wh- Who are you?” Snapped Eda out of her musings, the voice small and still quivering with fear. Eda crouched down in front of the child before she spoke,

“Hm. Eda the Owl Lady, at your service. And who might you be?” She asked, making sure to keep her voice from being too loud. Regardless of if she succeeded or not, the witchling flinched.

“A- Amity,” broke the forest's silence after a few seconds and Eda let out a small hum of thought.

“Well then, Amity. What is a little witchling like you doing in the woods this late at night? Aren’t you supposed to, I dunno, be in bed, being read a story, be tucked in, somethin’ like that?” Eda said, her gaze never leaving the still trembling kid in front of her.

The kid- Amity, went silent at that, her expression turning from fear and nervousness to one of sadness and almost seemed distant. Eda let out a sigh and shifted, which caused Amity to quickly dart her eyes to her and flinch back. At this point she was practically pushing herself against the tree behind her.

Eda decided to try and take a different approach, “Do you have somewhere to go? Somewhere I might be able to take you? ‘Cause, sorry to say, this forest probably isn’t the best place to stay during the night.”

“I-” a pause, “I’m not going back,” her face, even though it was obvious she was still afraid from what had happened and whatever else Eda might not have witnessed, had a growing look of determination, “You can’t make me go back.”

Eda felt a headache start up, her ears drooping slightly before she let out another long sigh that she quickly cut off halfway through when Amity flinched back yet again, which now was starting to worry Eda.

“Fine. I probably have a room to spare for a kid as small as you.” She reached a hand out, already knowing she’d probably regret doing this. She didn’t know who this kid was or why she seemed to not wanna go back home, but she wasn’t just going to leave the kid all alone out in the forest.

Amity eyed her hand suspiciously before reaching out to grab it, although Eda could see her hesitation. Eda stood up and climbed onto her staff, a tad bit surprised when Amity seemed to get the hint and, with a nod from Eda, climbed on in front of the wild witch.

The whole fly back to her house was silent, both witch and witchling not wanting to say something that might upset the other. Eda was also counting the seconds until she could get back to her nest and sleep.

They land and get off, Eda leading the way up to Hooty, Amity following a few steps behind her, obviously out of place.

“Where’d you fly off in a hurry this late at night? Hoot?” Eda glanced behind her when she heard a small yelp come from the witchling, but still responded to Hooty,

“Just an issue with a lesser basilisk. Keep an eye out for it, would you?” she asked before pulling him open and gesturing for Amity to get inside. Said witchling did, but not without eyeing Hooty with a confused and distrustful look. Eda might just have to give the kid props for that.

Eda shut the door behind her and quickly led the kid through a doorway and up the stairs. She’d give her a proper introduction to Hooty and a tour of the house tomorrow. As it stood then, she just wanted to get to sleep.

She stuck her head into a few rooms before settling on a somewhat empty room that she honestly couldn’t remember the purpose of, even with the context of what was already in the room. It might’ve been a storage closet or it might’ve been a weird amalgamation of a living room and a storage closet.

It was probably just a storage closet. She had a lot of those.

“Wait here.” she said before heading for another storage closet and grabbing some extra pillows and blankets that didn't look completely unusable. She brought them back to where she left Amity, slightly raising an eyebrow when she saw how nervous the kid looked.

Eda bit back yet another sigh (she’s been doing that a lot tonight), remembering how the witchling had taken her previous ones back in the forest, “Don’t worry about getting attacked again. Hooty can keep anything out.” “Anything?” She seemed to ask quietly, although it seemed to be more to herself then anything. She seemed to be thinking about something specific when she spoke, and Eda would wager that it wasn’t the lesser basilisk.

“Yeup.” She stated, “He can even keep the Emperors Coven out, which is a pretty good feat considering how many times I’ve caught them sneaking around here.”

“So… you are the lady on the, um, posters?” Amity asked, glancing up at Eda this time as she spoke, which caused Eda to pause before she grinned, “Yep! I introduced myself as the Owl Lady didn’t I? Do I have to do it again?” 

Amity seemed to grow visibly nervous as she quickly responded, “N- No! I- I remember I just-” She shifted in place a bit before continuing, “wasn’t sure if you were the same person and I just didn’t want to assume because-”

“Alright don’t worry,” she quickly interrupted, only to bite her tongue when Amity quickly shut up and went still, “everything’s fine. I just wanna head back to sleep.”

“Right. Sleep. I’m sorry that I’ve kept you up.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it kid. I’m just glad you’re alright. Speaking of.” she gestured Amity a bit closer, and when the kid was close enough she drew a small spell circle over all of the scrapes she could see.

“That better?” She asked, watching the kid look at her arms and legs now that they were healed. She glanced back up towards Eda before glancing off to the side, her ears twitching lower.

“I- uhm- y- yeah. Thanks.” Eda raised an eyebrow at the response but didn’t question it. The two stood there for a few seconds before Eda cleared her throat and spoke again, “So, uh, will you be alright for tonight? I can probably find some more permanent pillows and blankets tomorrow,”

“I’m… alright.” She said simply, although for the first time that night she actually had a small smile on her face, although it was barely noticeable. She’d still count it as a win though.

“My doors just down the hall. If you need something I’ll be in there. Bathrooms two doors down on the right. See you in the morning,” she finished before walking off back to her room, able to feel Amity’s eyes on her the entire way before turning and closing her door.