I changed my mind! I've decided I'm going to release this in three parts now over a few days (each part will still be longer than normal), rather than all at once at the end. Originally I thought there wouldn't be any good points to break it up at, but now that I've finished this first part I realized there were a couple good spots to do so. Enjoy!
Luz was bored. Not only was she in her dullest class, chemistry, (her teacher was nice enough, but he spent about three days on things she picked up in the first ten minutes) but COVID meant that she couldn't even do the actual fun part, the experiments. For a while she had been playing video games by setting her Switch right next to the camera (which at least most of her teachers didn't force to turn on, her chemistry teacher being the primary exception) so she seemed to be paying attention, but her mom took that away when she realized what was happening.
At least now the zoom app let you keep your camera on when you used split screen with other apps, not that her school would ever let her download anything interesting. Sighing as her teacher went over the many steps to a homework problem she had gotten right, Luz decided to open mail because she couldn't think of anything better to do. She scrolled through countless notifications from websites she hadn't figured out how to unsubscribe to for what felt like an hour, until something caught her eye.
Wait... is that?
Luz had completely forgotten that she had gotten Amity's email (which Luz learned actually stood for enchanted mail) when she was still in the Boiling Isles.
A/n: Don't think about it too hard, just assume human technology works with witchy stuff somehow, I needed this for the plot.
Amity had taken a photo of the two of them that Luz loved so much she had to make it her new background. In fact, she still had that photo on her home screen. (Her lock screen was some awesome Azura fanart she had found of the character scoring a goal using the famous thorn vault.)
Luz had been forced to ask her to send an email rather than a text because messages seemed to have been glitching just like her camera app, locking her into only being able to text with her mom. Luckily, she was able to get it fixed once she got back to the human realm, though.
She hadn't talked to the witch in a long time. She didn't have the chance to ask her for any contact info, with how rushed she was to get through the portal six months ago. (But of course you know all about what happened, so I won't bother explaining it all again here.) And she never realized she had her email until just now.
Amity must have forgotten about this email too, she thought. Unless... she just didn't want to talk to me?
Luz shook the thought from her head quickly, she couldn't think like that. She decided to start writing an email, and after many revisions she finally settled on a message she at least didn't hate. That would have to do. She hit send, not wanting to lose her nerve.
~~~
Luz Noceda
To: witchchick128@jmail.com
Thingy
Hi! So I feel like we haven't talked in a while, because you know... different dimensions. But I just found your email address and thought I'd message you. Anyway, how are you?
~~~
-about forty minutes of complete boredom later-
~~~
Amity Blight
To: Luz Noceda
Re: Thingy
Hey!
I'm good, thanks for asking. We've been having some trouble rebuilding the Isles, but I'm holding up so far. It was cool of you to reach out, it definitely stinks not being able to interact in person. How is it going for you?
~~~
Luz felt elated. Amity was talking to her again! She hadn't forgotten about her after those six months, and she even said she thought it was cool that she had emailed! Luz began to type out a response.
~~~
Luz Noceda
To: Amity Blight
Re: Thingy
It's going pretty well. The human world is actually kind of in the middle of a global pandemic, but I've been staying at home social distancing so I'm fine. My mom still has to go to work, but since she's a healthcare worker she already got the vaccine. So yeah. It's kind of weird being in my house all the time, but I'm still going to school and everything using zoom, this video call app that's suddenly gotten super popular.
~~~
So Luz waited. And waited. She spent the night constantly checking her phone for notifications. She had trouble falling asleep, so she (probably unwisely) went back to their chain of emails to reread Amity's words next to her own. Maybe Amity really doesn't want to talk to me anymore? What if she just responded out of politeness?
But Luz was fairly certain that wasn't true; she was pretty sure Amity considered her a friend, and in the time they had spent together in the Boiling Isles she had seemed to enjoy talking with her.
Maybe I should have talked about myself less. I sent a whole paragraph just talking about me! No, she wouldn't think I'm self centered or anything after I reached out in the first place, right? What if the stuff I told her was too boring, so she doesn't want to talk to me more? Maybe I should have given her an obvious question to ask me, just to keep the conversation going. Oh no! I should have asked her a question! I told her all about me, but she didn't tell me much about what's been going on for her since I left.
Luz read through the email for about the millionth time.
She really just told me they were having a bit of trouble with the reconstruction. Maybe I should have asked if she was all right? But she did say she was holding up...
Luz looked back at her favorite part of the email, 'It was cool of you to reach out.' Even that made her mind race now.
What if she thought I was sending this email to everyone I know in the Boiling Isles? I mean, of course I want to talk to them, but I specifically want to talk to her the most! What if she thought it was just a duplicate email, not something I wrote to her in particular? I can't really ask her about it, because that would be a weird message. What exactly would I say, 'hey, so the phrasing of your last email made me think maybe you thought I was sending that same email to everyone. To clarify, I only sent it to you because I have a huge crush on you and really want to talk to you a lot more.' That wouldn't work, it sounds stupid! And I can't exactly admit my crush on her, that would probably be the fastest way to make her stop talking to me all together!
Luz buried her face in her pillow to muffle a desolate sigh. She decided to remain in that position for a while.
Maybe I should be a bit more direct. Not about my crush, of course, but about talking to her. I really wish I had her phone number, then our conversations would be a lot more fluid. I can't just make some random comment or send a funny picture over email, no one does that, but I could over text. Maybe I should just send another email to ask for her phone number? Would that be weird? I mean, we only talked over email a little bit, so it might be kind of awkward to immediately jump to talking more. Plus, asking people for their phone number kind of associated with wanting to date them, right? What if she takes it in a romantic way and says no? Not that I wouldn't necessarily want to ask in a romantic way, I just highly doubt she sees me like that. I mean, I guess it's possible... but she can't. There's no way. She never acted weird or nervous around me, as far as I could tell. And besides, why would she like me anyway?
Luz finally decided to get some sleep, ending her thoughts on a somewhat troubled note, though she still held out some hope that Amity had been doing something else and just hadn't seen her email. Maybe the witch would even send a response tomorrow morning. Only time would tell.