Amity swallowed hard as she looked in the full body mirror in her room. She was currently in something closer to what she wore the night that the two had told each other their feelings but did she want to be that obvious? Sure, they were going somewhere nicer than a little diner but the table would likely be open to the public. A casual nice restaurant? Not like a candlelit dinner but not somewhere where they’d sing happy birthday to you. Was that even the right choice? She didn’t know how to be semi-casual. She didn’t even know how to be casual!

Emira, who had been helping her sister for the past two hours with choosing what she would wear rolled her eyes at the fact that Amity was obviously about to dismiss this dress too. They’d been through her Grom outfit, her piano outfit, a proper ball gown, a half dozen different styles of makeup, and now this. She was kind of running out of options at this point.

There was a knock at the door before Edric’s voice came through, “Can I finally come in and help?”

The two sisters looked at each other. They had mostly dismissed their brother on the simple principle of, well, him being a guy. Amity didn’t need to be shoving someone out of the door every time she changed or more eyes on her while she judged herself. Besides, Odalia had taught both girls how to look proper, even if Amity had never gotten those lessons to stick as well as she’d have liked. That’s why her sister usually did her makeup on the rare occasions that she wore any.

They were beginning to get desperate though so Emira finally relented and said, “Alright, but you get one shot.”

Edric shouted from outside before walking in. “Okay, so what sort of date is this? Movies? Fancy dinner? Mini golf? Oh, you two should definitely do mini golf one day. I guarantee it would go well.”

Amity had her doubts as she imagined Luz breaking something by swinging too hard while Amity was so nervous about overshooting that she kept using too little power. Besides, Edric had never gone out with anyone except to hang out with them. Emira had had more boyfriends than Edric had and a lot of those had lasted only for a week before their mom stopped worrying about them being bad for the Blight family. Maybe that was the perspective she needed though. “The restaurant describes itself as having a relaxed atmosphere akin to a steakhouse but with more refined cuisine from the Mideteranean and Italy. When I told Luz that, she seemed to think it would be perfect for us so I really don’t want to screw this up.”

Edric tapped his chin for a few seconds. Amity of course had casual clothes but mostly stuck to a few copies of her school uniform for when she went out. It was practical and fashionable while also letting everyone know that she was a gifted witch of Hexide. He strode over to her closet, opened it up, and then finally threw a purple blouse at her along with a light blue, long skirt. “That should work.”

Both Emira and Amity stared at the clothes as Edric clapped his hands together while leaving. They then looked at each other. The older Blight daughter chuckled nervously before saying, “It couldn’t be that simple, right?”

Amity mimicked her sister’s laugh before biting her cheek. “I mean, trying it on won’t hurt and we can take a picture then to show him how little it works.”

The two of them were quiet before Amity silently began changing. By the time they were done, they both looked into the mirror before sighing at the fact that Amity looked cute but not in a way that would catch every eye in the room. In other words, perfect for impressing her girlfriend without trying to knock her out.

It was right about then that there was a knock on the door again before Edric said, “You should probably also dial back the makeup a little. Eyeliner is good but you probably don’t need eyeshadow too.”

Amity’s face turned bright red before she pointed to the side and made a circle. A second later Edric let out a yelp as an abomination bear hugged and then began dragging him towards the pool in the backyard as punishment for rendering his sister unintelligible.

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

“Eda, are you sure I can’t go as an otter?”

“Look kid,” Eda said as she sipped on some apple blood in her loafers, “I may not be the best at dating, but I’m pretty sure pajamas aren’t what you want for almost any restaurant. Though, if you have the sort of pajamas I do, that would be a different matter.”

Luz looked behind her while dozens of clothes sat abandoned around her. “I guess a baggy shirt and sleep pants are okay.”

Eda’s eyes widened slightly before she glanced away. “Yeah, those are what I’m talking about…”

King kicked his feet from the ledge while resting his chin in his hands. “I still think if you two are going out, you should find something to carry her in. That’s what I always want!”

Luz glared at King for a second before digging into her trunk again. “Amity might be short but she’s not that short.”

A soft knock came against the doorway but Luz didn’t even look behind her as she pulled out a t-shirt with Azura on it. If they were going somewhere less fancy than that would be perfect but Amity had chosen something just a bit too nice for most of her clothes. She had her dark witch outfit but she wasn’t sure she wanted something that kiddy for tonight. Not when she was, you know, going out with an actual witch.

Lilith shrugged slightly as she came over and sat next to her sister. “Having trouble picking an outfit?”

Luz nodded before throwing another three shirts to the side. Why did she have to have no nice clothes? “Do you think you might have any clothes that will fit me?”

Lilith looked down at her legs and the fact that she was the tallest person in the house before simply stating, “No.” She then yawned as she tried getting her head working. She had been so tired recently. Having nothing to do would do that she supposed. “What options have you considered?”

Luz sighed before looking around herself. “I mean, I have t shirts and shorts, or t shirts and like, normal pants but, well,” she lifted up a pair of light brown slacks, “not really anything I think would impress Amity. Then there’s my like two nice outfits but we’re trying to make this casual. Something, I dunno, our speed?” Her shoulders then slumped a little as she mumbled, “Whatever that means.”

Lilith smiled a little at the worry. Amity must be worried too about their chemistry now that they were together while Luz seemed to be able to not have a care in the world. She bet that when they weren’t together, this sort of stuff was all the poor Blight could think about, at least right now. “Have you considered going shopping with her? Figure that out together?”

Luz sighed as she gave up and crossed her legs. “I mean, that sounds nice but she booked us a table for…” Her eyes widened before she shouted, “I have an hour left? Where did the time go?”

Lilith stepped forward and grabbed the young girl’s shoulders before looking her dead in the eyes. “Go in what you two met in then.”

Luz blinked a few times before tilting her head a little. “What?”

Lilith thought back to when Odalia had been in this same place with Alador. How panicked she was because she had literally nothing outside of her school uniform that fit a place her boyfriend could afford because he had insisted that he pay for their first date. It had meant a lot to her friend then and while this was a trick you could only pull once, it was perfect. “This is your first date. If you have nothing you think fits then say you wanted to celebrate where you two started. Then you two can schedule a day for you two to go shopping. That’s a pretty good excuse for a second one that’ll match what you normally wear, isn’t it?”

Eda blinked a few times as Luz turned bright red at the last part. The young girl then pumped a fist into the air and shouted, “That’s perfect!”

Lilith then went back to sitting next to her sister as she said, “I’ll help her with her makeup once she’s ready for it.”

That only made the younger Clawthorn frown more. “Since when are you good at this stuff? I thought you never had time for a boyfriend.”

Lilith shrugged a little before sighing. “I read a lot of romance novels on the road. They made me feel less… lonely. Like I could pretend their relationships were mine.”

Eda was quiet for a second before gagging at it. After all, she couldn’t imagine the flowery books helping anyone.

Though she did suppose they had helped Luz and Amity get together so they couldn’t be entirely wrong.

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

Emira and Edric both yelped as Amity came sprinting back to them. “Guys, conjure me up something more casual!”

They looked at each other before Emira smirked and made a circle and a large, poofy, white Victorian Era dress came onto her. A matching hat joined it after Edric spun his own finger before the twins giggled at their own joke. Amity was far less impressed. “I’m serious! I just saw Luz waiting out front and she’s in her normal shorts, leggings, and t-shirt! How did I still end up overdressed!?”

Her two siblings glanced at each other before Emira crossed her arms. “Okay, I’m going to say that unless Luz has a good reason, I’d be annoyed.”

Edric nodded before tapping his chin. “Do you think it might be because she has nothing for this sort of place?”

Amity simply paled at the thought before grabbing her head. “Oh Titan, what have I done? Why didn’t I think about that? She was lucky to have packed something for Grom, let alone for this! I didn’t even give her the portal so she could go home!”

The twins glanced at each other before smirking at each other. Their baby sister wasn’t going to get anything done like this after all. So, while Amity covered her face to muffle a scream, they began casting their next spell..

Fortunately for Amity, the two were kind enough to time it so that Amity had her hands off of her face when they blinked her to be right in front of Luz. The human shrieked as she flailed back before wheeling her circles in large circles to keep herself from falling over. Amity saw her date through the smoke and immediately slammed her arms to her side as she tried to recompose herself. All this achieved really was getting her to look like a rigid statue with a creepy smile.

They both just stared at each other before forcing themselves to let out nervous laughs. Amity kicked the ground as she managed to look away. Why? Why was she such a mess? Confessing to Luz was supposed to fix this! When she glanced back at her date and looked at that goofy, awkward smile she had her stomach filled with butterflies as she smiled back.

Luz gave Amity a small wave as her thoughts were going to the same places. She was supposed to be able to just talk to Amity now. To be able to do anything she wanted with the other girl. To treat her as special as she was and yet that same thought terrified her. After all, her girlfriend had become that based off of her treating her like everyone else. If she let herself be extra weird around her, what would that do? “Te ves hermosa esta noche.”

Amity blinked a few times before saying awkwardly, “You too?”

It took Luz a moment to realize what she had done before shouting, “Sorry! I was just trying to tell you that you look beautiful tonight. Not that you don’t look beautiful all of the time but, well, you look especially pretty tonight. Unless you just threw that together then you look the same amount of pretty and… I’m going to shut up now.”

Amity blinked a few times at some weird sense of deja vu. Luz had never been this awkward with her though. Was she worried about the date too? That’d be great, but also terrible since she’d put it together. Why didn’t she just have it be a walk or something? “Um, you don’t think I’m overdressed, do you?”

Luz blinked a few times before shaking her head rapidly. “No! I mean, I’m underdressed if anything. Would you believe this is all I could figure out to wear? It was this or the otter and Eda said no to the otter.”

Amity’s cheeks burned at that. Not really from the idea of Luz having come in her pajamas, as that would have been mortifying, but at something she expected her girlfriend to like that she’d done when planning this. She then looked at Luz and whispered, “I mean, I like it.”

Luz’s cheeks turned bright red now as she scratched her cheek and gave Amity a smile. “I just… I wanted to dress up for you and I couldn’t.”

Amity stepped closer to her girlfriend before slipping her hand into Luz’s while she looked away to try and hide how red she was. Of course, she was so heated at this point that even her ears were red. “You don’t need to. I understand, I promise.”

The energetic girl squeezed Amity’s hand back before saying, “ I know but I don’t want to treat this as, well, just us hanging out. It’s special, right?”

At this point, Amity tried to cover her face even slightly as she felt like she might pass out. She wasn’t sure how special this was going to be to her girlfriend after all. Luz just didn’t take things seriously after all. She loved that about her date but it also scared her sometimes. To hear that she worried like this… “M-Maybe we can try to go shopping sometime?”

Luz blinked a few times. She’d forgotten entirely about making an excuse for how she was dressed, at least the one Lilith had told her to use, but it had worked nonetheless. She already had a second date with Amity. It let her breathe a little easier as she took a step towards the front door to the restaurant. “So, are you hungry?”

Amity smiled at her date before nodding and following Luz hand in hand inside. The two tried to look like they were comfortable with slipping into the restaurant together but their knuckles were white as they tried to lean on the other for strength. For a second, Amity wondered if it wasn’t still possible to get Skara and Willow here to take off some of the pressure but one look at Luz and she knew she didn’t want that. This was their night. Besides, she had only reserved a table for two.

A server then came up to the small podium at the front before smiling at the two. “So, two tonight?”

Amity swallowed hard before standing up straight to at least try and look a bit more like she knew what she was doing. “Actually, we have a reservation under the name…” She shut her eyes as she wondered why she did this but there wasn’t anything she could do about it. “Otters.”

Luz gasped at such a pitch that only Edric’s pet bat could hear it and even then, only maybe. She then hugged Amity tight as she said, “With a dark side!”

Amity felt like she could die of embarrassment right there and then, especially when she saw the server giggle at her predicament. Luz was so happy that she had done it though and she had done it on purpose. She’d even expected to be hugged. Now that they were actually here though, it was so much harder not to pass out from how dumb their little in joke was. However, she kept to her plans and mumbled, “And a light side…”

The server smiled at the two as Luz began jumping up and down with Amity and, in the process, violently shook her girlfriend. She then tapped the podium with her pen before stepping back. “Your table is already prepared then. Will you follow me?”

Amity nodded from within Luz’s tight hug while the energetic girl wondered why her neck was so incredibly warm. She then looked down at her girlfriend while the poor girl’s head literally steamed from the heat on her face. Luz scratched the back of her head before asking, “Too much?”

Amity held up one of her hands with two fingers pinching the air while her mind continued its reset. She had time though while they followed the server to a small table smack dab in the middle of the main dining hall. In theory, it was to make it so she was showing off to everyone that she was with Luz. In practice, Amity was beginning to wonder if she had made any good choices tonight so far.

Then Luz turned to their server and asked, “Hey, um, could we get a corner seat actually? I think my girlfriend would like it more.”

Amity looked at her date and, especially when she heard Luz so casually say what she was to her, knew she had definitely made one right choice. Then again, she had made that choice about a week ago and- Take the win Amity!

The two nodded the server away after they told her what they wanted to drink before looking at each other. And looking. And looking… Luz coughed a little before asking, “So, what did you do today?”

Amity groaned internally before saying, “Luz, I spent all day with you and then I got ready for this. That was my day.”

The energetic girl tapped on the table a few times before looking for literally anything to talk about. Normally they were doing things that might bring up conversation but this was just dinner. Dinner between the two of them. That was for just the two of them. Was it okay to bring up other people? After all, Gus had been working on a new comedy routine. Luz could steal a few jokes from that but she’d want to give him credit for them.

Amity on the other hand had things to talk about. After all, what she’d said wasn’t technically true. Luz wasn’t a part of any of her classes and today they had gone over a theory about abomination atomic structure that supposed that every hour an abomination existed, the numbers of electrons in them shifted about .000000002%. This would be a huge thing for familiars as their long term lifespan would give time for shifts in their composition that would possibly be needed to be fought by reformation. Of course, Amity thought as she started drawing lines on her skirt with a finger, Luz still couldn’t make abominations. She could somewhat help with their creation but nothing they had done managed to work as a sigil for the energetic girl. As such, she didn’t like babbling at her about her studies because how could she understand them? Amity knew Luz was interested of course, but they were on a date. She didn’t want to confuse her when it should be about things they share.

Clack.

Both girls jumped at the sudden sound before looking up. The serv- No, the chef that had put down the plate now covered their face except for a pair of brown eyes. The voice sounded familiar but both of the girls’ hearts were pounding too loud to focus too much on it. What the chef had to say didn’t help either. “I apologize for the intrusion. I had heard that a lady and her tramp were out here having what looked like, if I may be so bold to assume, their first date?”

Amity covered her face as her head began to steam from the comment. What did the chef mean by tramp though? That wasn’t a nice thing to say about Luz but her girlfriend was… Laughing?

Luz looked at Amity with what could be a patented smile at this point before leaning over the table and to the plate of spaghetti that the chef had brought. She then, incredibly awkwardly, nudged one of the meatballs at Amity before giggling again. The serious girl just looked at her date with several levels of confusion before saying, “You have some sauce on your nose…”

Luz’s face got very hot as she realized that Amity didn’t get the reference. How stupid did she look like this? Though, her girlfriend did usually get a kick out of her weird shenanigans. “It’s, uh, a reference to a really cute scene in a movie.”

There was another pause before Amity’s eyes widened. It was something, anything, that they could talk about. She was so desperate for the topic that she ended up smacking the table as she said, “Tell me more!” She then promptly covered her face again and whined while Luz began to laugh again.

Meanwhile, the chef left behind their hat and grabbed their staff on the way out.

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

“Well, um, this is where you go home now I guess.”

Luz nodded awkwardly as her eyes darted up at the Blight Manor. This was it. The end. Goodbye. Amity would go inside and Luz would walk home. There was just one more thing to do. A kiss goodnight. Why was it so scary though? They’d kissed before. She loved kissing Amity even! If her girlfriend would let her, she’d kiss her all of the time. So why did it feel like she was going to pass out right now?

Amity swallowed hard as she waited. She wasn’t able to say anything more. Asking for a kiss felt so weird after all, especially after how many times they had given each other small pecks. Did it need to be more than that tonight though? She’d never practiced using her tongue for something like this. If she wanted it so badly though, why wasn’t she the one stepping in for it.

The two stood there awkwardly for almost a full minute before Luz finally shouted, “Is it okay if I don’t kiss you?”

Amity blinked a few times before sighing and asking, “Is it okay that I don’t know if I want one right now?”

“Yes!” Luz threw up her arms before grabbing her hair in frustration. “Why was this so hard? This isn’t normally so… this!”

Amity’s eyes widened before her shoulders slumped a little and she asked, “Wait, you thought this was hard too?”

Luz’s heart almost stopped at that before she looked at Amity. “Wait, you thought this was hard?”

“Yes!” Amity groaned as she put her fingers to temples. “I wanted this to be special but I feel like I was just in a panic the entire night!”

Luz threw her hands up before she shouted, “Same!” She then paused as Amity locked eyes with her. The two were quiet for a moment before the energetic girl stepped closer and slipped her hand in her girlfriend’s. “And… And I like that it normally isn’t. The fact that, well, I love you, and that I love spending time with you, is so…”

“Easy?” Amity smiled back as she stepped closer and squeezed Luz’s hand tight. She then nuzzled gently into her date’s shoulder before whispering, “Because it is for me too.”

The two then looked at each other again before they, in a motion that took next to no effort for either of them, leaned in close and brought their lips together. They held each other there, never more than putting a gentle pressure on the other, for minutes before finally parting. Amity then gave Luz a small smile and a matching wave as she whispered, “See you tomorrow?”

Luz just grinned at her before saying, “Only if I don’t see you first in my dreams.”

Amity blinked a few times before darting into her house and slamming the door shut so she could scream into her hands in peace. For once though, Luz didn’t worry that she’d done something wrong. In fact, she was pretty sure she had given Amity exactly what she wanted and she couldn’t have asked for more out of the night than that.