Chapter Text
Amity's day began in a fashion very much like the last couple of days.....with the exhausted witch's head resting face-down on the manor's dining room table.
In retrospect, sacrificing the majority of her potential sleeping time for several nights in a row in a frantic effort to binge the copy of Book 5 of The Good Witch Azura that the Huma.....Luz had given her was definitely not the wisest move, particular when several semester-crucial abomination track exams were rapidly approaching. But Amity just couldn't help it, the book was too good, almost like the author had written it with all her favorite fan theories in mind.....especially Hecate and Azura finally getting around to confessing at the penultimate arc! Maybe it was self-indulgent, but sometimes when she really got into a certain chapter, all of the stresses of life....hours of studying for classes that didn't particularly interest her, endless parental pressure to make it into the emperor's coven, socializing with friend groups that she secretly hated....faded away into a haze that made life feel so much less oppressive....
Enough of that, Amity mentally chided herself as she groggily forced herself into an upright position, reading and fantasizing is for your secret room, not at home, school.....or anywhere that matters.
Blearily, she made the effort to blink the last vestiges of sleep from her eyes, revealing a rather unpleasant reality as the (patented Blight Industries) clock came into full focus. She was going to be late if she didn't leave immediatly......in other words, no time for breakfast...…fine....this was fine.
Well no, it really wasn't, Amity despised even a minor deviance from her mental schedule, but it's not like she had much of a choice at this point.
It was then that the now-cranky witch spotted her potential saving grace out of the corner of her eye - a can of fairy juice. Sure, maybe tossing back an energy drink on a school morning wasn't the wisest idea ever given the caffeine content, but given both Amity's (admittedly self-imposed) god-awful sleep schedule and the fact that even a minor breakfast was apparently an impossibility now, it sure seemed to beat the alternative.
Amity swiftly cracked the fairy juice open and desperately began gulping the liquid down. Relief at the chance to at least have SOME energy during the (often seemingly intentionally dull) morning classes quickly gave away to minor disgust as the drink's bizarre aftertaste kicked in.
"What the hell??", retched Amity as she briefly doubled over, slamming the still mostly full drink down onto the counter.
Come to think of it, wasn't Boscha whining about this brand cheaping out on the ingredients lately? Guess she IS right about some things......
The witch managed to overcome the urge to vomit, swiftly grabbing hold of her bags and making for the manor's entrance, passing (and ignoring) Emira on her way. Just as she made to take her first step onto the porch-
"Wait a sec there, Mittens!"
Of course she has something annoying to say....
"What. Is. It." spat Amity through already gritted teeth, swiveling to see the elder Blight approaching her with.....was that the can she just drank from?
"Woah woah woah, calm your fangs there sis, I just need to ask you if you were the one who drank this", Emira defensively sputtered back, holding her hands in front of her face (one clutching the previously discarded can) as if she expected an imminent attack.
Well to be fair, that was my original plan.
"Oh. Yeah, I suppose I did, I assume you left it there to have later or something then?"
Amity wasn't one to be easily intimidated, but the rapid shift from a fearful expression to a sly grin on her sister's face certainly did the trick.
"Wellll.....not on myself, no, but I did intend to use it later......"
Why is she being so weird about this, pondered the younger witch to herself, she could have just asked me to pay for a new one later or somet- wait. What exactly does she mean by-?
To your average human, non-witch observer, Amity's expression would best be described in the fashion of a carnivorous animal baring its fangs rather than a mere gritting of teeth.
".....ON yourself? Was that a POTION?"
Emira's grin only grew wider.
"Welllllll.....hypothetically speaking of course....let's say I wanted to improve my odds with a certain witch in the detention track by picking up a love potion down at the black market.....such a hypothetical vendor wouldn't risk actually selling the thing in it's original packaging in the event of an unexpected coven raid of course.......so PERHAPS they may have taken to selling them in cans adorned with knock-off labels of popular energy drink brands....."
She lifted the accursed can up next to her grinning visage, twirling it around in several of her fingers for emphasis.
"......just hypothetically, of course, Mittens."
For a moment, all was deceptively calm. Amity's expression relaxed back into one of calm, disinterested neutrality.
"Oh....I see. Well, I'm late as it is, so I'd best be off. Later."
She turned and marched down the steps and towards the gate of the manor, apparently done with the conversation.
Emira stood, puzzled, muttering to herself.
"Geez, I was expecting to get more of a reaction out of her with that.....well anyways, I guess it doesn't matter now, I should go fetch Edric-"
Her train of thought was rapidly cut off and her voice morphed into a shriek as a mass of abomination fluid unexpectedly slammed into her from the side. Any chance of a third party hearing her cries was silenced as the mass coalesced around her, dragging her struggling form out of the manor and through the front gate, careening several dozen yards into the nearby woods before depositing her onto the ground in front of her younger sister.
"Holy cow, Mittens, since when have you been able to do something like that!?", gagged Emira as she spat abomination goop out of her mouth, "-like that's actually pretty impressiv-"
Her sentence died in her throat with a gulp as she took in the expression on Amity's face. In stark contrast to the openly hostile one she wore earlier, the younger Blight stared down at her sister with a perfectly blank expression.....anyone who didn't know her well would assume this was an improvement, but Emira knew otherwise: this was the expression that her baby sister wore when she was so furious that she was actively holding back her rage.
".....please don't kill me."
Amity simply stared back at her. A second passed. Then two. Three......Emira couldn't handle this tension for much longer.
Finally, the younger Blight spoke up, albeit with an even more unsettling twist in her expression to a strained, clearly faked smile.
"Kill you? Don't be silly, Em. No one needs to die here today...."
Abomination tendrils shot from the now-discomposed mass to a nearby tree, pulverizing the trunk into a cloud of sawdust in a matter of seconds.
Amity tilted her head to the side, now bearing a sickeningly sweet grin that did little to hide her at least quasi-murderous intent.
"That is.....unless you don't tell me exactly what this potion is going to do to me."
Emira watched in horror as the same tendrils ripped a nearby boulder from the ground, before crushing it into pebbles in even LESS time than they had taken to utterly destroy the tree. Come to think of it, perhaps pissing off the up-and-coming "most talented witch of her age at Hexside" had some potential side effects.....
"You."
Amity pointed directly at her sister, and in nearly perfect harmony the (murderous?) abomination tendrils swiveled to face her next target (victim?).
"Will. Tell. Me. Right."
An unearthly CRACK shot through the air as the tendrils broke the speed of sound in their whip-like motions, only coming to a stop mere inches from Emira's face.
"NOW".