Luz groaned as she flopped onto the ground. She was in the same thin, white shirt and ‘shorts’ that had annoyed Amity when she’d started wearing them to gym class but the serious girl couldn’t be upset this time. Not when the Isles was experiencing a heat wave. For Earth, that meant it was a little warm. In the Isles, it meant that it was so warm that there were literal waves of fire in the sky while the air tried to air roast you.

Amity herself was in a loose dress that was the brightest color in her closet, which was a grass green because, well, Odalia. It did mean spaghetti straps though and showing pretty much the most skin the serious girl ever did. Only thing one could maybe get her into that showed less was a swimsuit but she commonly wore a t-shirt over a one piece, in part to help avoid burning as much as her clammy skin often ended up doing so if she spent too long outside. She really wished she tanned. Or that they had this ‘sunscreen’ stuff that Luz talked about.

Emira and Edric walked out of the manor in matching sky blue shirts and white shorts before smiling at Amity. “So, how are you doing beating the heat?” They were all too fine with not letting their mom choose their outfits, but they also had a better sense for fashion than Amity. She just didn’t normally see the point in going out just to get a dozen new outfits. She’d probably have a lot less clothes if Odalia didn’t want to make sure no one started thinking that her daughter didn’t know how to dress up. She mostly just stuck to the different sheets her mom gave her for what would go with each other.

Amity glared at the two briefly before sighing. “It’s too warm to get mad.” She then looked over to Luz and said, “Are you okay?”

Luz kicked her legs lightly as she whined, “Water.”

Amity smiled a little before saying, “You just want to be able to pretend to be an otter, don’t you?”

The half melted girl flopped around on the ground in response before turning over and spreading herself out over the grass. “Why don’t you have anything for this?”

Edric wiped at his brow before making a circle and summoning a water bottle for himself. “We normally do, but apparently the people who commonly cast protection circles against this stuff were all swamped.”

Luz barely lifted her head up as she shouted, “With what? This is their job!”

Amity shook her head a little before saying, “No, he means swamped as in they got eaten by a swamp.”

There was a long pause from Luz before the human flopped back on the ground. “Nope. Too hot.”

Emira smiled as she summoned clones of her and Ed to go and just retrieve a bunch of water bottles from inside. “Speaking of hot, we were thinking that we might try and use you for a bit more illusion practice. What do you think?”

Luz rolled onto her side as she looked at Emira skeptically. “Last time you did that, I ended up with a crazy, cruel clone running around.”

Amity rolled her eyes as she thought about how Cluz was neither crazy or cruel but knew better than to argue with Luz about it. Instead, she let Edric talk as he came over and got onto his knees next to the human’s head. “Oh, don’t worry. It’s simply an alternative form of projection this time. We stick our fingers into your brain and show exactly what you’re thinking rather than needing you to describe it to us. How does it sound?”

“That sounds fi-”

“Cool!” Emira crashed down on the other side of Luz before saying, “Then just clear your mind and start thinking about the hottest guy-”

“-or girl-”

“-that you can imagine.”

Luz blinked a few times as she looked between the two of them before looking up at Amity. “Help?”

Amity took a sip from her water bottle before saying, “It was either let them do this to me or not protest when they did this to you. I’m sorry.”

Luz flopped back down again before asking, “Okay, next question; why that specifically?”

Emira and Edric looked at each other before saying in tandem, “Because it’s funny.”

Huh. Well, Luz couldn’t say they were entirely wrong. And hey, even better was that she just had to not think about Amity. She liked guys too after all. LIke Nevareth… “Okay, I think I’m ready.”

The twins nodded before putting their fingers onto Luz’s forehead. They actually weren’t helping each other but effectively competing against each other to see which of them could make the projection clearer, more accurate. For Luz, this process felt like having her skull massaged. For the twins, this almost immediately made them go from sweating to panting too from exertion. After all, this was the rare illusion spell that was allowed to be taught to those still outside of the coven that could be used on an unwilling subject and those always took a lot out of a witch. “Go slowly now. Part by part. We’re still learning this after all.”

Luz went to nod before remembering she wasn’t really supposed to be moving. She did try to clear her mind and focus on the task. Adegast had been disturbingly accurate though in the sort of guy she found hot. Tall-

“Hey, Amity.”

-strong and with defined muscles though not so much that he was some roided out freak-

“What are they doing?”

“Mental projecting what Luz finds hot?”

“Why is it a dude then?”

-tanned skin that was just the right amount of golden. Not so much that it could be mistaken as being burnt but not so light you couldn’t notice it-

“I don’t know. Just is.”

“Well, let’s go fix that.”

“What?”

-a smug smirk with a glint in his eyes that promised mischief and adventure-

“Give me that.”

“Hey! There are water bottles over there.”

“Tough.”

-and short, rough hair that was used to being rough and rowdy.

Bang!

Luz jumped at the sound of a water bottle exploding before the twins pushed the panicked girl back into the ground before they lost focus on the spell. That just gave a dripping wet Boscha time to grab Emira’s water bottle, walk to where Luz’s now open eyes were, and dump the thing over her head. The water ran off of her already dripping body, as she’d first covered her by smashing the first bottle between her hands, in long rivulets that landed on Luz as she stood over the human.

Stood in a pair of jean shorts that covered the absolute bare minimum to be decent while also being tight against her, a white shirt that may as well have become a second skin the second it got wet, and a white bra that came dangerously close to becoming see through like this. Boscha hadn’t even come to the house just to do this. Her coach had called an emergency weekend practice since Hexide didn’t have a lava field and this was their best chance to work out in extreme heat. That also meant that, while Luz had been out for only a little while to get to Amity’s, and Amity had spent less than ten minutes outside, the sun had indeed kissed her skin to a nice, golden tan and her hair was a complete disaster from practice.

Boscha looked down at the already bright red human with an exceedingly cocky smirk before asking, “So, hottest thing you can think of, huh?”

The two projections instantly copied Boscha’s look before the human’s entire body got lit on fire. Em and Ed both retracted their fingers in panic before Emira yelled, “I always thought Amity was joking when she talked about this!”

Boscha burst into a loud cackle before making a circle to give herself fire protection before grabbing the idiot. “Alright, come on, let’s get you under some cold water.”

Amity blinked a few times as she stared into the middle distance. At least Boscha had proved that Luz did look at girls like that?

Boscha did…

======+++++======

Boscha did. Boscha got Luz to light on fire. Boscha got Luz to get nosebleeds. She’d needed help from Luz’s ‘cruel clone’ in order to get that sort of reaction out of her crush and that was in a body that wasn’t this one. This underdeveloped, noodly, pale, awkward body of hers. She wasn’t even just talking about bust. She could maybe grow into something better there but Luz was at least a third of a foot taller than her, and Boscha was a good bit more than that. Maybe if she got a growth spurt? But then it would have to hit all of her to match up with Boscha’s body and that wouldn’t fix that Amity was lithe, not muscly. She didn’t have time to work out, not when she was in so many advanced classes, and that was without after school Advanced Abominations.

And she’d have to work on her skin. All Blights turned into lobsters. Even Emira and Edric weren’t immune to the fact that if they spent too much time outside in the sun they would begin sizzling. Their dad was the only one who didn’t turn into a screaming, burnt figure of a witch but none of them had seemed to inherit that trait and his skin didn’t even like the sun too much from how much time he spent inside. At least she had short hair? But she liked keeping it under control. If she was going to let her hair down, she’d probably just give up on it and let it grow out like some shaggy mane.

No, she simply didn’t match the image that Luz projected. She still got Luz to blush sometimes at least? But she thought Luz was beautiful. She liked the human’s noodly arms, liked her round ears, liked her darker skin, loved that tousled brown hair, those shining brown eyes. But Luz didn’t feel the same apparently.

Her head turned towards her closet while she laid on her bed. Maybe Luz would think differently in the dress she got with her mom a while ago? Then again, she’d picked that dress out to be unique and pretty. Different. Because she knew Luz liked pretty. It wasn’t anything like the kind that Boscha would wear. It wasn’t even anything as daring as Emira was allowed to wear by their mom. No, it was chaste. Just like her…

“Amity!”

The serious girl almost fell out of her bed as Edric crashed into her room. He looked white as a sheet and probably quite thankful that the heat wave had ended a while ago with how sweaty he was. Wait, hadn’t he just been downstairs? “What?”

Edric lifted a letter up before saying, “Kikimora… just stopped by. Sh-She gave mom and dad a letter from Belos before saying,” he said as he extended an envelope to her, “that this was specifically for you.”

Amity frowned for a moment before coming closer and tentatively taking the letter. “Why didn’t he simply give these to them while they were at the castle?”

Edric shrugged as it wasn’t their place to question the Emperor. If he wanted to give the Blights a small heart attack in the middle of the night, it was his right to do so. She assumed it had to be important though if he sent Kikimora with the messages.

And it was. Amity slowly turned to her closet as her face turned bright red at what the letter had said. At imagining what she might look like in the dress in a few nights. At her on the dance floor with Luz. Something that the letter was going to make sure was going to happen. There simply was no other option in her mind.

Belos would finally get what he wanted; Luz and Amity on a date, even if it had taken him making a deal so attractive that saying no would be sheer madness at this point.