high tides ☆ TOH au

Chapter 1

"Go! Go, go, go! I--I can't hold the portal much longer..." Luz says to me, summoning vines to hold together the pieces of the portal as it collapses, and the only thing I can think is that I can't leave her behind, I can't. She's the light in my life, the only thing that matters. I'm so caught up in my thoughts, staring in horror at the love of my life slowly being wrapped in vines, I don't notice the portal flickering behind me. She really can't hold it much longer.

"Amity! Amity, go, go, I'll find a way back to you, I promise," Luz says, and I swear I can see tears in the corner of her eyes, but she promised, and the portal is starting to fade. I glance back at the portal for a second, at the yellow, green, and black swirls of color as the portal glitches, and then back at my girlfriend. "I promise, Amity, I'll be okay."

There's a sudden pull at the collar of my dress, dragging me through the portal. I reach out, trying to get back to her, to any piece of the Boiling Isles, because I still don't believe she'll be okay. She's strong, so strong, but she's up against a child of the stars, a god. She can't fight the Collector, a being with more power than the moon.

I fall into Willow's arms. All four of us are as close to tears as we could be, but the only one to give into them is Gus. Where do we go now? What do we do? We don't know this realm, or anybody in it besides Luz. We don't know anything. We don't even know where we are. Luz would.

I pull out of Willow's arms, running towards the door we came out of. I open it. Nothing, just the inside of the house. Close. I open it again. Nothing, still. Close again. Open, still nothing. There's no point anymore. She's gone, trapped in my realm, and we're gone, stuck in her realm.

"What do we do?" I ask the others, but more so myself. Hunter mutters something to himself, that I can't hear a word of, and Willow coughs. Nobody has any ideas, and why would they? Everything's different and new. The leaves aren't a cherry red, and instead the color of vines, and so is the grass.

"Once Luz told me she came here through this door. She said her house was just down there," Willow responds, gesturing down the dirt path. "We could check her house." I highly doubt that would work--even if someone did respond, it would be Luz's mom, and I wasn't ready to explain to her what we are and what happened to her daughter.

"No, no, I don't want to," I clear my throat, "Explain things to Luz's mom." I make a strange gesture as I say 'things', not wanting to specify anything just yet. It's too soon. We should've had longer with each other, longer than a few months. We weren't even friends for the first month, we need more time, a lot more time. I didn't even get to say goodbye to her, and I don't know what's going to happen to her.

I sit down on the porch steps, and let my head fall into my hands. I can't leave her yet. Tears stream down my cheeks, and my makeup is definitely ruined by now. We didn't have enough time together, enough time to be with each other. I can't lose the best person in my life this soon. I don't have anyone else to go to.

I inhale shakily, stand up, and wipe the tears off my face. If we're stuck here, we might as well find a place to stay. Or something. I've never been lost somewhere before. I always knew where I was going, but now, I don't have a clue.

The steps are a bit steep, with just the wooden posts on either side holding them up. They creak under my feet. I take careful steps down, making sure I don't fall. I can't trust my legs right, with how shaky I am. Gus is curled in on himself, clearly crying, Willow is in her own little space, trying to hold back her own tears, and Hunter's simply sitting by himself, and I can't read him well enough to know what he's thinking. All of them are just trying to process what just happened, and so am I.

"What," I look around, trying to find something, anything, that could help. "What if we do talk to Luz's mom?" I'm considering it at this point, we've already been here too long. Too long without Luz. She's the only person who even knows a bit about this realm. At least, I think she does. Luz told me she told her mom about us, but her mom thought it was made up, or something like that. I don't know what else to do, honestly. Luz tried to keep me safe, the least I can do is try and keep them safe. Find somewhere for us to stay. Something.