Chapter Text
Lucia Noceda woke up face down in a dirt patch. An unfortunately common occurrence in the last few years. Lifting her head, only to flinch at the ray of sunlight that seems to be aimed directly at her, she briefly her head returned to the imprint her body had made in the forest floor, before forcing herself to roll over, staring up to the branches that…wait, something was off.
Blinking, Lucia stared beadily at the tree, as her swimming view slowly focused, revealing the thin branches and green leaves. Green.
The last vestiges of tiredness disappear in a flash. That’s right, she was trying to find a way back to the human realm, to make up for her mistakes.
Getting to her feet, she started to pat herself down out of habit, running down her mental list of belongings to make sure that she wasn’t missing anything. Keys, her old & cracked phone, a secondhand scroll, packets of glyphs. All that was missing was…….
A cold dread filled her, as she stared to the empty space on top of the staff that was lying next to her. “Udon? UDON?” Lucia called.
While she was aware that leaving the Scalding Archipelago meant breaking all ties with her friends that would be better off without her, losing her palisman would have felt like losing a part of herself, especially with proof that she had made the transition with her.
Straining her ears, she smiled as she heard familiar slithering through leaves, through it was quickly replaced with a frown as she heard footsteps following behind it. Luckily, it was a child by the sound of it, which meant she could probably just BS anything, or just fallback on the fact that any adult human would just shrug off the stories of a kid finding a purple horned snake and her owner in the woods.
‘Big Lucia! My Lucia!’ She ‘heard’ the words as Udon rushed up to her, coiling around her leg in an armless hug. Reciprocating with a head pat, she turned to bluff the kid, only to have lose her train of thought.
‘Lucia! Brought Little Lucia!’ And she could see where her palisman was coming from, the young girl that had joined them in the clearing looked like she could have walked right out of one of the old pictures Lucia had of herself right before she found the Scalding Archipelago.
“Sooo, is that your snake? She’s beautiful!” The young teenager asked, breaking the awkward silence. Udon hissed happily, preening at the attention.
“She looks just like the Gildersnake from Good Witch Azura!” Wow, this kid really was just like a young Lucia. “Thanks. Her name is Udon. I’m Lucia the-uh, just Lucia.”
The kid somehow got even happier. “Hi Just Lucia! I’m Luz, Luz Noceda.”
Oh Shit. Maybe Udon wasn’t too far off. In hindsight, trying to rip out a rift in space-time to travel to the Human Realm probably wasn’t the best idea.
Trying to play it cool, Lucia decided to probe this mini version of her, “So, Luz, you grow up around here?”
Luz’s smile dimmed. “Uh, not exactly. My family moved to Gravesfield a year ago, so my Dad could, uh”. The young girl trailed off into silence, staring at her feet.
As if sensing that another human was in desperate need of comfort, Udon quickly slithered over to the younger Noceda, transferring her full body hug to her. Luz gave a small smile, looking down at the purple snake, only to give a surprise squeak as Lucia instinctively pulled her into a deep one-armed hug.
By all accounts, it should be awkward, two complete strangers hugging. Yet, both girls felt like they knew the other their entire lives.
“You know, Lucia, you’re pretty cool.” “Thanks, you too Luz.” “Do you think I…could visit you and Udon?”
‘Don’t say yes,’ Lucia thought to herself. ‘You know this is going to end up. What happens every time someone looks up to you.”
Luz shifted slightly, looking up at Lucia with soulful eyes.
“…. Yeah, sure.” ‘Titan Dang it Lucia!’
“Thanks. Sooooo, do you also live around here. Are we neighbors?”
Oh right, housing. “Yeaaaah, about that…”