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“DINNER IS READY!” Eda shouts from the kitchen, interrupting the hug Luz and Amity are currently engaged in.
“You want some stew?” Luz asks her awesome girlfriend, a bright smile on her face.
“I’d like that,” Amity answers as she takes Ghost, who had been sitting on her lap, and places her on the table in front of the couch at The Owl House, “I’d like that a lot.”
“Great!” Luz says as both girls get up and Luz leads Amity over to the kitchen. When they arrive they see that the table has been set up for dinner. Two chairs had been placed on the side facing away from the window (calling them chairs was being a bit generous, they were really just stools with pillows on top of them) with silverware and a glass of water in front of them. On the right end sits King, strapped to a high chair and opposite to him is another empty seat (this one an actual chair), most likely Eda’s (if the mug full of apple blood in front of it was any indication) who was currently at the counter pouring four bowls full of stew. It was a scene not too unlike what the family dinners at her place looked like, way less fancy, of course. It was at this moment that a realization hits Amity like a grudgby ball.
She was about to have dinner with her girlfriend's family.
While yes, Eda and King weren’t related to Luz or even to each other, Eda had been watching Luz for months now and given the way they acted around each other, the three were as close as any biological family she’s ever seen. Panic begins to set in as Amity sits down on the stool to Luz’s right.
Amity didn’t have the best track record with dinners with other people's families (she didn’t even have the best track record with dinner with her own family). She still cringes at herself every time she thinks back to the dinner she had at Boscha's where she asked when her other parent was going to be there (She learned that Boscha's father was a very touchy subject). Or the time she had dinner at Skara's and her dad asked her if she was enjoying the food and she answered with an honest "no" (She learned that day that sometimes you have to lie to people so they don't feel bad despite the fact that she had been taught that lying was bad). Those situations are bad enough on their own but her parents would always hear about what she said and there was always a lecture waiting for her.
Alright Amity, just breath. You've got this, it isn’t like you haven’t already met Eda and King, heck you went to Eclipse Lake together! Plus they seem to like you already. Just don't say anything that will make anyone uncomfortable or hurt their feelings and you'll be good. Despite her best efforts, the panic in her head hasn't gone away by the time a bowl of stew is placed in front of her. "T-thank you Eda," Amity says. To Eda's credit the stew looks and smells absolutely incredible.
“Thanks,” Luz says cheerfully and to Amity’s horror, (maybe it was more a feeling of shock? She couldn't really tell) Luz starts eating right away.
“What are you doing?” Amity asks her girlfriend.
“Eating?” Luz replies, not bothering to swallow before replying, “What else would I be doing? You do know what dinner is right?”
“Of course I know what dinner is, but we weren't given permission to eat yet.” Luz looks back at Amity like she’s lost it. Clearly this was a foreign concept to the human.
Amity’s attention is soon drawn away from her girlfriend as she hears Eda chuckle as she places King’s bowl on his high chair. “Listen Boots, I don’t know how they run things over at the uptight mansion of yours, but when you're at The Owl House you don’t have to wait for me to tell you when to eat. If there’s a bowl in front of you, eat away!”
Well this was new. Amity always had to wait until her mother or her 'friends' parents told her she could eat whenever they had dinner together (Somedays her mom would even use this rule as a punishment and force her to wait until her parents had completely finished before Amity could eat if she had done something that Odalia didn’t approve of). But here was Eda, just letting her eat even before she could sit down herself. She didn’t even seem to care when King started scarfing down the bowl in front of him. “Are you sure it’s okay?” Amity inquiries, still not believing what she is hearing.
“Yes I’m sure,” Eda says as she sits down on her chair with her own bowl of stew.
“Well alright,” Amity takes a spoonful of stew, making sure to get the meat and all the different vegetables in said spoonful. Amity blows on it a couple times and places the spoon in her mouth. Amity’s eyes widen as the food makes contact with her tongue. Eda’s stew managed to taste a thousand times better than anything their servants at the castle make, let alone when her mother actually cooks once a year. The meat was cooked to perfection and the taste was super savory. It’s just the right amount of spicy and the vegetables complemented the meat perfectly. And the texture? Incredible. Unlike the stuff at home, Amity has no problem with how it feels in her mouth. “Mmm,” Amity hums as she chews and swallows the stew, “Eda this is absolutely incredible, what’s your secret?” (Amity asks that last part since she’s seen people ask that all the time on tv or in books, she’s not sure why they do that but they do and she figures she should as well).
“A good witch never tells, mostly because it is illegal," Eda answers, leaving Amity with a look of slight worry on her face. "KIDDING!” Eda snorts out, clearly amused at her own joke. Luz laughs and it’s the cutest sound Amity has ever heard. “In all seriousness I just make sure to season the meat well. Something I suspect may be a bit foreign to your parents. Full offense, they don’t seem like the kind of people to enjoy spice.”
Amity can’t help but laugh at Eda’s last remark, “You’re not wrong, everything is super bland there since mom acts like she’s going to die if anything spicier than salt is put on her food.”
King chuckles as he takes a moment to stop eating, “I bet she needs a gallon of water if pepper is put on anything.”
“Try two,” Amity says with a slight chuckle as everyone else at the table has a big laugh as Amity takes a sip of her water (which is also somehow better than the water at her parents, though she’s sure it’s just her imagination).
“If you want to come over and eat here every now and again so you can have some food with some flavor more often, I’m sure Eda wouldn’t mind, she’s a really good cook,” Luz pipes up as she sends some adorable baby-demon eyes over towards her mentor.
“Oh no I wouldn’t want to intrude on your dinner,” Amity replies.
“Nonsense Boots!” Eda interjects, “It really is not a problem if you want to eat here more often, I always have extra food after every meal and we enjoy your company.”
Amity can’t help but blush at the last remark and tab her hands on her lap, “You enjoy my company?”
“Of course we do!” Eda says, “You make Luz happy and Luz being happy makes me happy. Plus you’re just fun to be around if I'm being honest.”
“Same here, plus whenever you leave, Luz is more willing to listen to my orders to make up for the time she spent not giving me attention,” King says after swallowing another mouthful of stew.
“And needless to say I always enjoy spending time with my awesome girlfriend,” As Luz says this, she leans over and gives Amity a kiss on the cheek and Amity feels like she could pass away at any moment as her cheeks heat up. The tapping on her lap grows to an even faster pace before she finally moves her hands up to her chest to properly flap them as she remembers she's allowed to do that here.
“T-thank you guys,” Amity manages to get out, “I think I may take you up on your offer,” Amity’s hand flaps die down and she says this and she takes another spoonful of stew and eats it. It definitely is an enticing offer. The food at home is usually awful and if the other meals Eda cooks are anything like this one then she’d glady walk through the boiling rains to get some. It was also nice to eat at a place where the adults weren’t always judging her every move.
“Now then I have something I need to ask you Boots,” Eda says, breaking up Amity’s thoughts, “What exactly are your intentions with Luz over here?”
“Edddaaa,” Luz whines as she brings her hand to her face, clearly embarrassed by her mentor.
“My uh intentions?” Amity replies, the nerves from the beginning of the meal returning to her chest. She did not expect to be asked about Luz and her future together (which is totally not something she thinks about regularly. It isn't like she spent the other night drafting her wedding vows and brainstorming possible baby names. Nope). “Well I guess they’re to make her happy and uh I guess in the long run get married,” Luz visibly blushes at the last statement, “And then I guess we’ll probably have a ki-”
Eda starts laughing again, “Woah slow down there Boots, I was just joking with you. I completely trust you around Luz. I don’t need to hear what the menu at your wedding is going to be.”
“O-oh,” Amity replies as she takes a sip of water in hopes that she can hide the embarrassment currently on her face.
“Well I have something to say to her too!” King speaks up. Amity turns her head over to the little demon who has his fist raised in the air, “If you ever so much as think about hurting Luz I will unleash my full fury on you until you’re begging for mercy!”
Great. Now Amity was being threatened, not an unusual thing to happen at dinner (albeit they were more threats of grounding and not violence) but she certainly wasn’t expecting it to happen at this dinner. She grows quiet and tenses up, beginning to shake slightly. King isn’t the scariest thing ever but usually when she gets threatened it marks the part where dinner completely falls apart. Evidently Eda seems to have noticed her anxiety spiking as she speaks up, “KING!”
“Weh? I was just trying to show I cared about Luz.” King says.
“And while I appreciate the fact that you care,” Luz replies in a scolding tone, “You don’t need to show you care by threatening my girlfriend.” Luz slowly moves her hand to rub Amity’s back to provide her some comfort. Luz looks over to Amity to silently ask her if it’s okay to touch her. Amity nods her head and Luz begins to rub Amity’s back.
“Yeah you're scaring the poor girl,” Eda says as she looks over at Amity, a look of deep concern on her face.
“I’m sorry,” King begins as he lowers his head in shame, “I didn’t mean to scare you, I just don’t want to see Luz hurt.”
Well this was also new. Someone apologizing for causing her anxiety? It felt strangely nice. “It’s okay,” Amity says as the anxiety begins to fade from her body, “I get it, I care about Luz too and don’t want anything to make her sad either. Tell you what, what if we make a deal to do everything in our power to keep Luz from being sad.”
“It’s a deal!”
“Great,” Amity says as she leans over from her seat and stretches her hand over towards King, “Shake on it?”
“Yes,” King says as he shakes the witch's hand with his claws.
“Aw thanks you guys,” Luzs said with a blush on her face. Amity can hear the sound of her leg bouncing up and down beneath the table.
Amity sits back down in her chair and continues to eat until she realizes she finished all her stew. “Well I’ve finished, if you’ll excuse me I'll clean the bowl out.”
“You want some seconds?” Eda asks.
“I can have seconds?” Amity looks back at Eda dumbfounded. Being able to have seconds was also new to her.
“Of course,” Eda says with a growing concern in her voice, “Are you not allowed to at your home?”
“No, everyone is allowed one plate of dinner and that’s it.” Amity replies.
Eda bites at her nails as she looks back at the purple haired witch, “Well when you’re here feel free to eat as much as you want, any leftovers will just go to Hooty anyway so eat away.”
Amity was still hungry, plus the stew was good enough that Amity wasn't ready for the meal to end, “Alright, I think I’ll have another bowl.” Eda just smiles back at her warmly.
“Luz I command you to go get me another bowl!” King barks at Luz.
Luz chuckles at King, “Fine, but only because I was going to go get some more stew myself,” and with that Luz and Amity both get up to head for the cauldron filled with stew sitting on the counter, Luz making sure to grab King’s bowl from his highchair as she got up. When they arrive Luz starts whispering to Amity, “So how are you enjoying dinner? I hope King didn’t scare you too bad.”
“No no I’m fine now,” Amity whispers back, “I’m actually having a great time. Eda is a lot easier to be around than my own parents and as much as I love them, sometimes it’s good to have a break from Ed and Em’s teasing. You’re really lucky to have Eda and King…”
“Well I’m glad you're having a good time,” Luz says with a smile as she fills up the bowls she has. Luz glances over to her demon realm family and gives them a fond smile, “Yeah I guess I am.”
The two girlfriends walk back over to the table. Luz places King’s bowl back in front of him and as soon as she does he’s back to shoving his face in the bowl. The dinner grows a bit quiet after that. No one said anything for about a minute as they all ate and Amity was getting a bit nervous at that. I should say something shouldn’t I? Maybe something nice to Eda? Oh I know. Amity takes a deep breath and looks over to The Owl Lady who’s currently mid sip of her mug of apple blood and says, “You know Eda, you make a really good mom.”
Apparently that might not have been the best thing to say as Eda begins to choke on her apple blood, some of it coming out of her nose. “EDA!” Luz shouts as she runs over to pat her mentor on the back as she coughs up her drink. King is laughing hysterically on his high chair.
“I’m sorry. Did I offend you?” Amity asks as she grabs ahold of her shirt. Great job Amity, you almost killed Eda. You just had to say something weird and ruin everything like always. And it was going so well too! Now they'll definitely rescind the invitation to eat here again. Amity's stress was building up again. She feels like she might explode. She needs an outlet to let it out and as if on cue Ghost jumps onto her lap and Amity begins to pet her palisman, it's helping.
“No no,” Eda says as in between her coughs, “I just was not expecting to hear you say that.” Eda takes a deep breath as the choking stops.
“I’m sorry,” Amity says, looking down at her bowl, “It’s just you’ve been so nice to me and I just kept thinking ‘Wow, this is much nicer than dinner with my mom’ and thought you might want to hear that.”
Eda smiles over at the young witch and notices the new guest at the dinner table currently in Amity's lap, "Hey don't worry about it, I'm not upset or anything, you were just being nice," Eda wipes the apple blood that's under her nose, “And it’s always nice to hear I’m better than Prissy Pants at something, like I know I'm better than her in almost every way," Eda begins to boast, "but it's nice to hear it from someone else so thank you for that.”
“Well you're welcome,” Amity says as she looks back up at Eda and smiles at her, "I just hope I didn't ruin dinner."
"Nonsense," Eda responses.
"Ruin dinner?" King chimes in, "Seeing apple blood fall out of Eda's mouth was the funniest thing I've seen all week, if anything you make dinner better!"
"You could never ruin dinner," Luz says as she sits back down and gives Ghost some scratches, "You being here makes dinner a whole lot better."
"T-thanks everyone," Amity says with a blush on her face, partially for embarrassment and partially from just feeling genuinely loved. It was definitely new hearing that her presence made dinner better, awkward moments and all, “So I’m still allowed to come back?”
“You’re always welcome here,” Eda says as she goes back to eating her stew and Amity breathes a sigh of relief in her head.
A couple moments pass before Luz speaks up again, “She’s right, you know, about the whole mom thing.”
“Yeah there’s a reason I changed my name to Clawthorne,” King adds.
“Well uh,” Eda is.. blushing? Now that is definitely new to Amity. “I had better start cleaning up dinner.” Eda says as she gets up, clearly desperate to change the subject. “Boots, you want a container of leftovers to heat up later? There’s still plenty of stew left.”
“Oh you don’t have to do that,” Amity replies as Ghost leaves Amity's lap and follows Eda, most likely to beg for some food.
“I know I don’t, but I’m offering it to you. So again, do you want some leftovers?” Eda says as she pulls a plastic container from a cupboard. She notices Ghost rubbing up against her leg and sighs as she pulls out a plate as well.
“Yes I would,” Amity says (getting leftovers to take home with her was also new), “Thank you so much for everything tonight Eda, I had a great time.”
“Don’t mention it boots,” Eda says with a smile as she pours some stew onto the plate and places it in front of Ghost before filling up the container and closing the lid over it, “Just remember to return this container when you’re done,” Eda places the container in front of Amity and goes back to clean up the kitchen.
"I will," Amity smiles at the older witch. Amity then turns to King, “And King, don’t forget our deal, alright?”
“I will never forget our deal. My fellow soldier in the ‘Make Sure Luz Isn’t Sad’ army!” King shouts.
“Good,” Amity says as she turns to Luz and takes her hand in her own as Amity’s eyes meet the one person who’s eyes she doesn’t mind looking in. Titian, she’s adorable. “And Luz?”
“Yes sweet potato?” Luz says, blushing at her awesome girlfriend.
“Can I come over for dinner next week?”