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Chapter Text

“Alright - And what did you learn?” 

“...To not throw glyphs into Abomination goo until I know what it does.” 

“...And not to encourage her to do that.” 

Clearing up huge piles of Abomination goo wasn’t something that Willow was unused to doing. She had spent quite a long time in the Abomination Track before being moved to the Plant Track, and a lot of the lessons and experiments she had taken part in ended up in failure, leaving her with a huge mess to clean. Honestly, it was probably one of the worst parts of being on the Track. 

After switching Tracks, a part of her had honestly expected those days to be behind her. If she could help it, she didn’t even want to so much as touch another Abomination again for as long as she lived. 

And yet, here she was, trying to scrub the remains of a particularly sticky, viscous, and obstinate Abomination from every corner of the Abomination Track’s homeroom, using water, cleaning solvents, mops, whatever was to hand to try to coax the sludge to give in and allow itself to be cleaned up. 

And while she tried to do that, the Track Professor berated Luz and Amity, not even ten feet from her. 

“I’m glad to see that your common sense survived this fiasco.” The Professor flatly stated, clearly not satisfied. “I wish you would think to use it more, though.” He faced Luz. “Principle Bump informed me of your unique ways of doing Magic before you attended any of my classes. That is the only reason I’ve permitted you to get away with not actually creating any Abominations for my classes for so long. I had hoped that when you discovered a way to control them, that you would have had the foresight to figure out precisely what you were working with.” 

Luz chewed on her lip, and looked away. 

The professor  turned to Amity. “And I would have hoped that you, Ms. Blight, of all people, at least would have had the sense to not indulge her in this.” 

“I’m sorry, sir.” Amity looked at the ground as she apologized. It was more a whisper than anything else. 

Willow sighed. This had all seemed like a much, much better idea twenty minutes ago. 

Everything about this situation had started while everyone was eating lunch - Luz and Amity had just had Abomination classes, and were talking about the projects that they had to complete for the Track. While Luz kept notes about the class, and the technical side of creating the Abominations, she didn’t have any idea how to actually cast… Any sort of spell to let her control an Abomination. Without Magic, she had to rely purely on the mixture being perfect, but even then , she couldn’t get the thing to form, or to rise at her command. And if she couldn’t raise an Abomination, well, that was pretty much a dead-end for the Abomination Track. 

When Amity asked to see what notes that Luz had made - suggesting that maybe there was an error in the amounts of material that she had used, or that she was using the wrong technique, or some other small mistake that could explain why she was having so much trouble - she discovered that there had been a glyph, made out of Abomination goo, that covered one of the pages, that had formed without Luz noticing. 

In all their heads, that had to be the glyph that would allow Luz to control the husks, and with encouragement from Willow and Gus, and Amity’s assistance in getting into the room and finding a vat of goo, Luz tried out her new spell. 

Unfortunately, it had actually had the opposite effect of controlling Abominations - It just caused the things to go ballistic and attack people. 

Luckily, everyone was able to use their Magic to destroy the rampaging thing, splatting it into a useless mess of sludge. The noise however, attracted the Track professor; and all he saw were four students, and his classroom absolutely coated in Abomination goo. 

Needless to say, he was quite angry. He demanded an explanation, and well, here they were. 

He glanced between the four students, and for a moment, it looked like he was about to start yelling again. Instead, he just pinched at the bridge of his nose, sighed, and said, “You all have excellent school records, which is why I expect this room to be thoroughly cleaned before the next lesson begins. I’ll be reviewing the security crystals when I return, and if I discover any of you have used Magic to clean this up, or find even a patch of goo left under a single seat, I will be taking this matter to Principle Bump. Do I make myself clear?” 

“Yes, sir.” Everyone answered. That was…. Honestly far lighter a punishment than any of them expected. 

The professor snapped his fingers, and the Abomination that had carried him in here picked him up again, and took him out of the room,  slamming the door behind them. As if to punctuate the point further, a pile of goo fell from the roof, just where the professor had been standing. 

As soon as the door shut, all four of the students let out long sighs of relief. There were… Literally a thousand ways in which that could have gone far, far worse. This was… Probably as light as it got. 

Still, it didn’t mean any of them felt especially lucky. Or good, for that matter. 

“I am… So, so, so sorry, you guys.” Luz said quickly, almost immediately after exhaling. “I didn’t - I didn’t think that would happen!”

“It’s okay, Luz.” Willow looked over from her workplace towards the Human. She offered her friend a light smile. “We all... Kind of got ahead of ourselves. We all encouraged you to try your new glyph out before we knew what exactly it would do.” 

Amity nodded, and hummed in agreement. Her left arm crossed over, and held onto her right. “The… The professor… Was right.” She said, almost like it physically hurt her to admit to it. “It was mostly my fault - If I hadn’t let you all in here, none of this would have happened.” 

“Hey, hey, it’s not like it was just one of us.” Gus said from the other side of the room. “We… We’re all to blame, at least a little bit.”

There was a brief moment of silence between the four of them. 

“...I guess we’re just lucky that all we got as punishment is having to clean this room up without Magic.” Amity commented, her voice sounding… Ever so slightly less dejected l than before. “I’ve seen the professor get… Pretty vindictive with people before.” 

Beside her, Luz shuddered - Willow somehow had a feeling that Luz had seen a number of these punishments for herself. Whatever they were, Willow was just glad that she hadn’t been subject to one of them. 

Yet , anyway. 

“Er… Speaking of which,” Willow piped up, looking around at the goo-coated walls and realizing the full extent of the task ahead of them, “We should probably get to work. We’ve only got until next lesson to clean this up.”

Everyone nodded, and grabbed whatever cloths, mops, buckets of water and cleaning solvents that they could get their hands on, and began to scrub, clean, and wipe every surface in the room, as quickly, and as thoroughly as they could, until it looked like nothing had ever happened. 

It was going to take a lot of work to clear this up.

“Ow…” 

It really had been an especially sticky, viscous, and obstinate Abomination. 

Attempting to massage her right shoulder with her left hand, while at the same time rolling her shoulders, Willow let out a low hiss. The tension in her shoulders had built up from all the rapid, thorough cleaning that she had had to do, and she was now trying to release it in whatever way she could manage. 

No matter how much she had attempted to mop it up, the Abomination goo hadn’t lifted easily. It had required multiple attempts of high-intensity pressure to get the sticky substance to lift off of the walls and the floor. Like trying to coax a carnivorous man-eater plant to let go of it’s prey. Combined with the time limit that had been placed on them, Willow and everyone else had had to go as quickly as she physically could to even come close to cleaning up in time for the next lesson. 

“And we’re... Completely sure that wasn’t one of your professor's sadistic punishments, right?” Gus asked. He sounded particularly tired, out of the four of them. Which made sense, given his age compared to the rest of them.

 “Trust me, he could have done… So much worse than that.” Amity answered, letting out a sigh of exhaustion as she did so. “What in the world was that Abomination made of? It shouldn’t have been anywhere near that difficult to clean up…”

Luz groaned. “My arms are killing me…”

Glancing over her shoulder to look back at her friends, Willow saw that they were all doing something similar to her, trying to relieve their aches in various ways.

They had managed to wrap up the cleaning effort in time for the end of lunch and for the next lesson, just as the Abomination professor had instructed - With just a few minutes to spare, though. It had taken most of their time to just get rid of the first layer of goo, before they had to deal with the layer that was actually sticking to the surfaces. 

But still, after about forty-five solid minutes, they had managed it. 

“At least it’s over.” Willow offered, trying to raise their spirits a little. “We were let off lightly, all things considered.” 

“Yeah,” Gus replied, letting his tired arms flop at either side of him, “But I don’t know if I’m even gonna be able to lift my arm for my Illusion Classes!” 

“Sorry, shoulders.” Luz muttered, apparently to her limbs directly. 

All of their afternoon classes were in the same direction up until a crossroad in the hallways, at which point they would have to split off from one another to go to their respective classrooms. Gus and Luz had Illusion classes, Amity had a class on the heximal system, and Willow - 

Willow blinked. Then she blinked again. Then she realized what she’d forgotten to do. 

Blood meal.

“Oh… Shoot!” She suddenly came to a fast stop, turned on her heels, and did everything but run past her friends, headed in the complete opposite direction where they were headed. “You all go on without me - I forgot something important!” She called as she turned a corner, leaving her confused friends out of her line of sight. 

The Plant Track room had run out of Blood Meal in the previous day’s advanced lessons - They had been looking after a Wolfen-Tree; a particularly violent and difficult-to-deal with specimen that required far, far more blood meal than a lot of the other plants in the Track’s possession. And, alongside sending at least one student to the Healers Office, the plant had taken up practically all of the classroom's blood meal supply. The Plant Track Professor had asked Willow to bring some from the supply closet for the afternoon classes. 

But with everything that happened with the Abomination and the cleanup, it had totally slipped Willows mind! And now, she was going to have to move as fast as she was physically capable of moving without running - unless she wanted to get in even more trouble, or even thrown in detention, now that that was back up and running - if she wanted to get to her classes on time.

It took her a couple of minutes to reach the supply locker that kept spare material for all the various Tracks at Hexside. Abomination materials for the Abomination Track, crystal balls for the Oracle Track, and blood meal for the Plant Track. 

She opened it up, and luckily for her, the Plant Track’s section was the first one that was available, and a few bags of blood meal were left next to one of the drawers. A small sigh escaped Willow; if she was quick about it, she might still be able to avoid running late. 

Stacking up a few bags into a holding crate and, after rubbing her shoulders once final time to try and work out the aches, she picked it up, and began to make her way towards the Plant Track classroom. 

Honestly, it was a little weird to her to be the one that was asked to retrieve classroom supplies - That was usually something teachers only asked good, competent, and trustworthy students to do. Willow wasn’t used to being considered… Any of those. She’d only been on the Plant Track for about two months now. Easily, she was more comfortable there than she had been in the Abomination Track, but it was just weird to know that her new teachers trusted her enough with this sort of thing. 

As she made her way through the corridors, she realized that they were mostly empty now, since everyone had rushed to class. Still though, there were a few people still making their way there. One of them was a classmate from one of the mixed-track Magical theory classes, who walked past Willow, and gave her a short, friendly wave. “Hey.” 

“Hey.” Willow couldn't wave, so she offered him a short nod. He smiled lightly, and nodded back. The two of them walked past one another without further incident. 

That was another thing that she had noticed; things like that seemed to keep happening now. It seemed to become more and more frequent after she had been able to make up with Amity - Or, at least as made up as they were going to get right now, anyway. Things had gotten better than, since she’d gotten more comfortable and confident in herself. That hadn’t been the end of it though - The real turning point though had been a month ago, during the Emperor’s attempted petrification of Eda. 

People around Hexside, even those who barely even knew her, seem to acknowledge and recognize her now, and treat her with a degree of respect. That was… New, too. And it was weird, but it had done wonders for her self-esteem. Which seemed to translate to getting better and better grades in Plant Track classes. A happy cycle, that just seemed to keep feeding into itself.

Maybe that was why her teachers trusted her with this. A small smile came onto her lips as she walked through the empty corridors and down a series of steps. That was a nice thought. Willow thought that - 

Sniff.

Pausing on the steps for a moment, and feeling her ears twitch, Willow stopped and glanced around for a moment. The codiroors were empty, but she could have sworn that she heard - 

Sniff. Sniff. 

Her ears twitched again. That time, she definitely heard something. 

Trusting her hearing, she peeked her head over the railing, looking down to see someone curled up, knees pulled into their chest, but just enough of them peeking out that Willow could see what Track they were in. Bard, apparently, if the red was anything to go by. Now that she was properly listening, Willow could hear soft sobbing escaping from them.  

Someone down there was crying. 

Without really thinking about it, Willow decided to investigate; someone might be hurt, and need help or something!

Making her way down the rest of the steps, Willow walked towards the crying person, and poked her head around the corner to see that the crying person had buried their head in their knees. They were tucked into a corner, half obscured in shadows. They very clearly hadn’t wanted to be seen, but hadn’t accounted for anyone hearing them, apparently. Willow was barely able to make out a few details.

But even then, it didn’t take Willow even a second to realize who it was.

The red uniform that identified the person as a part of the Bard Track was only one of the identifiers - Darker skin, and a signature haircut of white and gray hair with the sides buzzed; that -

That was Skara. 

For just a moment, Willow just outright stared at the scene before her - Skara was sobbing into her hands and knees, and was too busy doing that to see the Plant Witch. There was something ...Surreal about it, and it was only when Willow realised what she was doing that she hid around the corner again. 

What in the world was she doing here, and why was she crying?

She wasn’t even anywhere near the Bard Track classroom - That was practically on the other side of the school, and Willow was fairly confident that they had classes like every other Track did at this time. And Skara was usually in her lessons on time no matter what.

Evidentially, something had happened; she wouldn’t be crying otherwise, or hiding away like this. Willow was about to say something.

Then she stopped herself. 

Skara was a part of Boscha’s group of friends. Even if Boscha’s teasing had died down from the outright physical, the taunting had not stopped. The repeated teasing of ‘half-a-witch’ and the taunting reminders of her past inability to do magic had continued.  They were pretty much the only things that hadn’t changed in the last couple of months. The one thing left that reminded her of the miserable time that she had had at this school.

Even though Boscha was the one who did most of it, Skara and the rest of the girls in her group just stood by and let it happen. Even Amity had less taken part, and more often than not, just watched it happen. The difference though, was that Amity had apologised, and stopped entirely. Amity had left Boscha’s gang. 

Skara hadn’t. 

Years - Literal years of putting up with all of their taunting, all their harassing, bullying, making her life miserable - 

Why should Willow care if Skara was hiding and upset? 

For once, things were going right for her - They were going so well for Willow. She had friends, and had managed to at least fix things a little with Amity. She was doing well in school and didn’t feel like a complete failure anymore. She was happier. So much happier .  And what had Skara done for her, other than just… Be an obstacle in the way of that?

Willow glanced back down the corridor. The Plant Track classroom was around the corner. She still had the blood meal to deliver. 

She could just turn around right now. Carry on with her day as normal. Pretend that she didn’t see anything.

That’s what Skara would  probably do after all.

Besides, if she stopped now, she’d end up being late. Her teachers had finally shown some trust and faith in her. She didn’t want to let them down now. 

Not for Skara , anyway. 

Turning away, and closing her eyes, Willow pulled away from the corner. She stood still though. Tried to work herself up into taking the first step and walking away.  

A particularly loud sob made her flinch slightly. Willow sighed.  

She couldn’t just leave her there, could she? 

Her conscience wouldn’t let her. 

Another sigh escaped her, and she knelt down to place the crate of blood meal on the ground. She would… She had to at least try to see what was wrong. 

Stepping back around the corner, she walked until she was just in front of Skara. For a brief moment, Willow didn’t have the first clue what to say. What was she supposed to do, just… Act casual? Like there wasn’t any history between the two of them? What was she supposed to… 

“... Skara?” She eventually asked. She didn’t know how else to open this up. 

Skara jumped slightly when she realized someone was there, and quickly tried - and failed miserably - to wipe her face clear of any sign of sadness before she looked up. 

When she saw that it was Willow, there wasn’t any hiding the surprise and confusion on her face. She just blinked, and for a short while, it looked as though Willow's mere presence had surprised Skara out of crying. She just sort of stared at the Plant Witch.

Of all the people she had expected to see, Willow clearly, and fairly obviously,  hadn’t been one of them. But that was fair enough - Willow hadn’t expected to be one of them either. 

An awkward silence hung over them, Willow searching for what to say, eventually clearing her throat. “Um...” She started, “...Are you... okay?” 

A single second passed, before one, lone, watery chuckle came from Skara, and she buried her head in her knees again. 

Willow grimanced slightly, “Yeah, that was a dumb question, I guess.”

“Go away.”  Skara muffled into her knees. “Leave me alone.” 

“...You know that classes are going to start soon, right? If... If you’re upset, you should at least go to the Healers Office. You won’t get marked as skipping class if you - “

“I said go away.” Skara repeated, this time trying to be a bit firmer. Her voice croaked halfway through saying it though, so it didn’t sound even the least bit intimidating. 

For a moment, Willow considered doing as she asked. She was… Probably one of the last people that Skara would ever explain… Any of this to, really. It wasn’t like she could force Skara to say anything to her either. 

But still...

“...I could tell someone that you’re here.” She said, although to be honest, she was just trying whatever came into her head at this point.. “I’m in the Plant class next. It’s just around the corner. I could tell the professor there that you’re here. That… That you’re skipping classes.” 

Again, Skara looked up at Willow. This time, she didn’t bother to try to wipe the tears away from her face. Her expression was… An odd one. A mixture of confusion, sadness, apprehension, and incredulity, but also… It wasn’t quite fear, but it did show something on that spectrum. “...Are you going to?”

“...No.” 

They both stared at each other for a moment. 

“...I guess that’s not a very good threat, is it?” 

“No, no.” Skara said, her eyes now visibly red from tears and rubbing with her hand,  She wiped her face with the back of her hand. “Just… Unexpected.” 

She looked down again, giving a low sigh. There was another brief pause.

“....If I tell you will you go away?” She asked. Her voice was heavy. Apparently, she had accepted that Willow wouldn’t leave her alone until she knew what was wrong, and Skara… Didn’t have the energy to yell at her to go away. 

Willow nodded. She sat down against the wall, taking up a space that was next to Skara. For a short while, they just sat there, not saying a word, while Skara tried to keep herself from sobbing again, and compose herself. 

Just sitting there, Willow didn’t say a word. She didn’t push Skara at all. She just waited until she was ready. 

It took maybe a minute before Skara found her voice. 

 “...Ves broke up with me.” The words barely carried across the short distance between them. 

Ves - Willow recognized the name. He was in the Beast Keeping Coven - The guy that Skara had gone to Grom with. 

School gossip wasn’t something that Willow kept a particularly close eye on, and she wasn’t exactly friends with Ves either. All that she knew about that particular situation was that apparently Skara and him had been tip-toeing around each other for quite a while now, and Grom was the first actual thing that they had done together. 

So it hadn’t even lasted a month ?

“...Oh.” Willow chewed her lip, trying to figure out what to say. This was just… Drama. She hadn’t known what she had been expecting when she asked Skara what was wrong, but it hadn’t been... This. Normally, Willow did everything she could to try and avoid this kind of drama. 

She couldn’t even understand how Skara must have felt - She had never had to deal with a break-up before. Maybe the closest thing that she had to compare it to was her friendship with Amity, but that was a completely different thing.  

This was… Something personal. This was something that Willow didn’t know even the first thing about. She didn’t know what had happened between Ves and Skara. She barely even knew a thing about either of them. 

What the heck was she even supposed to say here? 

Skara groaned, putting her face in her hands. “And he didn’t even tell me why.” She started to talk more. “He just... Just came up to me, said that we were done, and walked off.” 

That made Willow blink; even she had gotten more than that when Amity had been forced to end their friendship.

“He didn’t give you a reason at all?” She asked, her eyes narrowing. Skara just nodded. “He literally just walked up, said that, and left?” 

“Who - Who does that? I - I didn’t even - At least  - Couldn’t he at least have told me why?” If she had been trying to hold back, Skara finally failed here. Words came flooding out so quickly that she began to trip on them. “Instead he just - He just walks off, and - And what am I supposed to think? I thought we - We went to Grom together! I thought he liked me. And I’m just - I’m getting all worked up over all of this and - ” 

She stopped for just a moment. 

“...I don’t even know what I did wrong…” 

There was a few seconds of silence as Willow tried to figure out something to say. 

Nothing came to her mind. 

For a short while, neither of them moved. Skara’s tears seemed to dry up after a short while, like she had run out of them entirely. 

Upon noticing that, Willow reached into her shoulder bag, and pulled out a bottle of water out of her bag, and held it out to Skara. “Here. You… Probably need this more than I do. I can get it refilled in class anyway.” 

Looking at it, and then at Willow, Skara seemed to hesitate slightly, before she reached out and took it without a word. She had been incredibly thirsty, apparently, because she downed the thing in just a few seconds, and let out an exhale as she finished. 

A brief smile of gratitude appeared on Skara’s lips. 

But then it curled down again, and tears began to fall once more. Her head fell into her right hand, which gripped her forehead. “I… I - I didn’t even know what to say to him. He just walked off and I didn’t - couldn’t even try to say anything. I just…” A sob escaped her. “...I really tried, y’know? I tried with him but… But I don’t even know what went wrong and... And now I’m…” 

More open sobbing followed. 

And now she was here, crying underneath a staircase, completely on her own. 

Except for someone who she had helped to torment, who had stopped to ask her if she was okay.

It reminded Willow… Far too much of a lot of the times she had ended up alone throughout the years here. 

...What could she even say in this situation? Skara was obviously blaming herself for... Everything. But she didn’t even know what happened. And that was a spiral that Willow knew well.

Willow… Wished she knew something to say. Something to make this all just… Stop. Something that could be comforting and insightful, and would let Skara just wrap this all up in a nice neat bow and move on with her life.

That wasn’t how this worked though. That at least, Willow understood perfectly well. 

She took her time, trying to gather her thoughts on what to say. 

“...I think...” Willow started, hesitantly, trying to pick her words carefully, “...That it might not be your fault.” She ran her finger on the ground, drawing small circles on the tile floor to distract her. “I mean, if he didn’t give you any explanation then, I think that he just…” Her words died off as she tried to think of something else to say. 

Once again, nothing came of it. 

The only thing that she could think of was how strange it was to be trying to reassure someone who previously had only tried to put her down. It was… It was hard to describe. 

Even if Skara  was one of her close friends, Willow had no experience with something like this. So she was trying to reassure someone she had only ever had bad experiences with, about something she knew next to nothing about, about a situation she had never been in herself. 

There was something slightly surreal about that. 

“It’s his loss.” 

Looking up again, Skara turned to Willow with a look of confusion. . 

“That’s what I'm supposed to say right?” Willow gave a small shrug and an attempt at a smile, her lips barely, awkwardly quirking upwards.

Somehow, it made Skara let out a rough chuckle. 

At least that was something. 

“...Yeah.” The Bard Witch nodded. She didn’t sound too convinced, but...

The awkward mood descended again, and Skara took another hesitant sip of her water. 

Willow shifted in place. Were she being honest, she didn’t know what more good she could be to Skara right now. Skara needed… Someone who actually had a clue about what it was they were talking about, and that wasn’t her by any stretch of the imagination. 

She had done the best that she could. 

“...Why did you stop?” 

When Willow turned back to skara, there was an inquisitive look on her face that Willow couldn’t fully describe - Confusion, uncertainty, a… There weren’t really enough words to properly describe the look Skara gave her as she asked, but it was a lot more tentative and careful than the Plant Witch had seen her before. 

Her fingers drummed against her knees.“You didn’t have to, I mean, Titan knows that I have given you enough reasons to just leave me here to cry it out alone.” 

It was a good question, honestly. Willow wished she had an answer that made sense to her, too. 

“...You know,” She started, her words hesitant, “I know what it’s like to be alone. And what it’s like to not know why people are treating you poorly.” 

Skara looked away. 

Willow continued, “When Amity left, I spent a… A really long time blaming myself. I had no idea what happened.” Willow sighed. “I… I kept wondering, if I had done this or that differently, if I said this here, or said that there, then maybe… Maybe we would have still been friends. Or at least, maybe she wouldn’t talk to me like I’m… Just some nobody.”

That had been what hurt the most. 

But a slight smile tugged at the corner of her lips. “But it was never my fault. And because of my friends, Amity and I talked and…” She stopped herself, before she said anything about the exact manner in which this had all transpired, since it had been, well - Illegal. “...Well, I know what it was now. And…”

Standing onto her feet, she offered Skara a hand. Skara looked at it, and then up at Willow. 

“...I know what it’s like to want to curl up and cry, too...”

Briefly, Skara looked up at the hand again, and then back to Willow. A part of her… Still didn’t get it. 

Neither did Willow. 

“...And I couldn’t leave you like that.” Willow finally admitted. “Not when I know what it’s like. I… I tried but I couldn’t. Because no one deserves to feel like that for something they didn’t do.”

At that point, Willow stopped waiting - She reached for Skara’s hand, and pulled her up herself. Skara wobbled as soon as she was on her feet, but once she was up, she was up. She seemed surprised but… Not actually upset. 

“..I don’t think you’re the person to blame here. I know I don’t know about your situation or anything but… I don’t think that you did anything wrong. Not with Ves, at least.”“Just,” Willow gave her a small, awkward smile, “Remember that.” All Skara could do was stand there. This was… 

...To just say it was unexpected would be a disservice, but that was what it was. There wasn’t really much else that she could think. It was one of those times where even someone with the widest vocabulary in the would would find themselves using the simplest language imaginable.

It was just… Unexpected. 

“I ah, class is on the other side of…”Willow  trailed off awkwardly, pointing behind her - She had done as much as she could, and didn’t know what else to say. And if she could avoid getting any more in trouble with her Plant class than she was, then that would be preferable.  “Are… Are you going to be okay?” 

For a moment, Skara thought really, really hard about the answer. 

“...I’m okay.” She finally said, a small, sad smile on the corner of her lips. “I mean, no, I’m not okay…” She continued, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. Even after crying as much as she had, eyeliner still smeared it. “...But I… I have a feeling I will be.” 

QuirkQuartz - 'Ello! I'm QuirkQuartz - I wrote Valeween Night To Remember, and It Must Be (A) Love (Potion), and am generally that one guy who does way too many projects for their own good! Me and Julia have been planning this project for a month in secret and we're happy to FINALLY have the first chapter up! Julia is an amazing writer and I'm honoured to be working with her! We hope you enjoy this because Hoooo boy we're going to enjoy writing it :D 

JuliaCorvid - Hello all!! this is Julia, Author of Replace My Name (Maybe With Yours), and I am super exited to work with QuirkQuartz on this wonderful story that we have. I hope you are ready for a great one, because we have lots in story for you all. Thank you all for reading, and hope you enjoy!

Credit to our friend Majestic_Arts for the artwork - They're absolutely amazing and adorable and we both adore it to the ends of the earth : D