Chapter Text
Hilda and Luz soon started the first term of their new high school whilst their bond continued to grow and strengthen, despite the notable pressures that accommodated the new term and an underlying fear in the younger teen. As promised, Hilda didn’t speak a word about her roommate’s experiences, and they both knew of the challenges they would face in their new school. The schedules were varied and exhausting, and brought back the wrong kind of nostalgia for Luz and a further feeling of isolation for Hilda, and the concrete infrastructure and foreboding hallways and doorways created depressing auras for them and everyone that surrounded them. The hours were long, the tasks were pressing and the teachers were close-minded. Frida and Louise were in attendance with them at school, and often shared classes with the blue-haired adventurer, but this did little to improve the mood. The experiences of Ms Hallgrim’s classroom became a cherished memory, and the Dominican fifteen-year-old began to miss the halls and students of Hexside more and more. Both teens were grateful to finally return back home and somewhat unwind, despite the requisite homework for each day, and also shared a mutual disdain for their new learning environment.
Whilst attending school and continuing to live with her new family, Hilda began to feel a growing sense of isolation and dread, spurred from several comments heard from Johanna about Anders, and how much of an influence he had on her. During the particularly tumultuous times at school, she began to fear her old life slipping further and further away as her mother moved towards her new partner. She dreaded that her ways would become offputting to people, that people would leave her like Anders left her as her adventuring became too self-centered. Hilda wasn’t becoming afraid of fully adopting the ways of her father, but was becoming afraid that it would cost her everything in the end. Whenever questioned about this by Luz, David, Frida or her mother, she put a brave face on it and told everyone she was fine before proceeding with her day, hoping that no one would notice. The Dominican fifteen-year-old, however, could sense the signs of mental unrest from her own experience.
One school night, following a particularly rough day where both roommates had classes with teachers they couldn’t get along with and students who despised them, Luz and Hilda went to sleep in their bunks. The subjects taught were subjects they both disliked, and during the lunchbreak, Hilda had confessed to her roommate that she secretly wanted to be at Hexside instead of at the human school, and Luz very much agreed with her. After dinner that evening and finishing their homework, they collapsed onto their bunks to sleep, dreading the unnatural start times that made them wake up early when they wanted to lie in.
As the teens slept in their respective bunks, the window was open to let air in. A glowing, green wisp formed around the open window and flowed into the bedroom. It hung above the carpeted ground, observing the environment it was currently in, before settling on the occupant of the top bunk. It flowed over the thick carpet beneath and up the metal framework, before it began to materialise into something far more humanoid and youthful.
Hilda felt a pressing situation on her chest. Something or someone was sitting on her. She slowly lifted the eyemask off her head, and blinked her eyes slowly to adjust her vision. Something green and glowing was immediately there before her, even though it was greatly blurred by the darkness and her daze. A small, inaudible voice cooed at her evilly, as her vision became more concentrated. The form resembled a girl around her age as it became more and more lucid.
“Hilda…Hilda…” the voice emanated. “Can you hear me, Hilda?” As the blue-haired adventurer finally saw clearly, she could see a familiar but unwelcome guest who had let themselves in: David’s marra. She’d changed her look since she last saw her on the last raven’s parade. Her platinum blond pigtails had black tips, piercings adorned her ears alongside her ghost earrings, she sported a new black nail varnish and black boots. She wore dark torn jeans, a ghost symbol on her black belt, a black My Chemical Romance t-shirt and violet vest, and spike bracelets. Hilda sat up in bed to confront the intruder. No noise came from Luz, indicating that the marra had her in a dream.
“Miss me, crazy girl?” the spirit asked.
“No,” Hilda replied angrily. “I’m not sure how anyone could miss someone like you.”. The marra twirled around as they floated in their human form above the ground to show off their new clothes.
“How do you like my new look? I just got it the other day.”
“It’s perfect…if you’re trying to make yourself look even stranger.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Who's the group on your t-shirt?”
“Only the real fab four.”
The marra began to search through the room, looking for precursors to fears and other elements that could be used to craft their night terrors. She observed the textbooks, books, photographs, sketches left around the room, including the copies of Azura on Hilda’s desk. She remarked on the new layout of the bedroom.
“Haven’t been here in a while,” she cooed. “You haven’t changed this place much, have you? What’s with the kids books?”
“What do you want marra?” Hilda growled, as the spirit rummaged through her belongings.
“What does it look like I want, blue hair?” the platinum-blonde-haired spirit asked. “I’d just scared every other kid on this street, and figured, we hadn’t seen each other in a while, so I decided to visit. You did leave the window open for me.”
“The window’s open because it’s hot, especially in the top bunk, not to mention in the lower bunk.”
“Yeah, I see we’re not alone in here. So who’s your new roommate? I’m always looking for new targets.”
“Her name is Luz, you demon. If you must know why she’s here, her mum is dating my mum, and they’ve moved here for a better life, and we’re getting along just fine. If you lay one finger on her…”
“What? You’ll stab me with a cow bone? Shoot me?” the marra hissed.
The blue-haired adventurer retorted that she wouldn't stoop to the level of hurting them, as tempting as it was. It was something she and her friends considered beneath them for every entity in Trolberg, even the marras.
The marra pulled out her sketchbook and sketched some random objects. “Like my sketches?” she asked. “They help me come up with all the good stuff. I’ve even tried animating, but making stuff in people’s heads is just way easier.” She demonstrated her skills with a rustic animation depicting a child being eaten by a large set of monstrous teeth. The blue-haired adventurer chastised the spirit for using her talents for nightmarish means, before telling her to leave and not tamper with Luz’s dreams.
“Why are you so protective of Luz anyway?” David’s marra inquired. “I mean you guys just share a room, don’t you, and I haven’t found anything in here that’s hers. Since your mom isn’t married, you’re not sisters either.”
“I am a sister to her,” Hilda countered. “Just not in the usual way. I comfort her and listen to her. Is that sisterly enough for you?”
“Yeah, but isn’t that supposed to be a BIG sister thing?”
“Who said it had to be. Will you just leave her alone?”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. It makes no difference to me, not when you can flow in and out of someone's head like it's nothing.”
The blue-haired adventurer hissed back at the spirit for being invasive, even though it was inevitable to an extent considering the marra’s form. The spirit countered that people could still have nightmares with or without a marra’s presence. Hilda chastised her for tormenting David when he was younger.
“We couldn’t help ourselves,” the marra smirked evilly, whilst continuing to float around. “He was too much of a pushover, too much of a scaredy cat. He was the perfect target, full of stuff he’s scared of. A girl’s gotta eat, not just because we want to, but because we kinda have to to keep our energy. You look close enough, there’s nightmarish stuff everywhere. A homework deadline here, a scary movie there, all these fears gestate when people fall asleep. They’re almost like flowers, full of nightmare nectar, and we’re the bees that pollinate them.”
“Wasps more like,” Hilda retorted. “And unfortunately for you, David’s grown a spine. You won’t be giving him nightmares any time soon.”
“People change, and so do their fears. Everyone is scared of something, even me. The difference is I know it's not going to happen. When you can see the inside of someone’s head, you learn a lot about them. Remember that time I was in your head?”
Hilda glared at the spirit defensively, painfully recalling that time she was given that night terror from her insecurity over not being able to ride a bike, even though her mother never bought her a bike or that there were any real bike trails near their isolated home.
“Good times,” David’s marra grinned. “All that scary stuff, all that fear…just because you couldn’t ride a bike.”
“I wasn’t raised in a place where I could ride a bike!” Hilda retorted. “And I’ve faced much scarier things than the stuff you come up with, and so has Luz. She’s been somewhere you couldn’t even imagine and seen even worse, not that I’d expect you to care. All you do is scare and hurt people. You’re just heartless monsters.”
This comment stung the spirit more than she expected, and she was suddenly struck with fear. She turned away. The green glow suddenly disappeared from her eyes as she gasped and was forced to recall her own pained memories from her life. A nerve within her had been touched, and her current form briefly felt like a curse instead of the life she’d chosen. She quickly and angrily regained composure, balled her fists and returned her look towards her target.
“You know we’re not all spirit right?” she growled at the blue-haired adventurer. “We weren’t born like this! We need those nightmares, and we don’t just go after targets stupidly! It’s not like everyone’s head is fun to peek inside… and it gives us purpose.”
“In that case…” Hilda stated. “Why don’t you pay a visit to the States? It sounds like there are plenty of people there who could use one of your nightmares.”
“I like it here too much. I know the people here, and I know how to get to them. The dreams of those idiots over there would just be toxic frat-parties, or them being scared of just paying taxes. Fun fact: we’ve been hurt by people too.”
“Since when?”
“Not that it’s any of your business… but since the idea of us came to be, and it hasn’t changed since. You’re not even the first person to call us monsters.”
“Only because you deserve it.” Hilda sat there in bed in a glaring match with David’s marra. The otherworldly abilities of the spirit did not include immunity from blinking, so eventually they both gave up.
“How did you win over Frida anyway?” the blue-haired adventurer recalled. “She’s a girl of high standards, and it’s not like she became head of class because of a favour. I thought her parents would’ve discouraged her from hanging out with the wrong crowd.”
“She was lost, genius,” the marra replied. “She ended up turning to us, if only briefly, because we actually… y’know, listened to her. People do stupid stuff when they’re lost. We were lost too, but this literally gave us new life. We knew what we were doing when we became who we are. We always did.”
“Ever thought about channeling that energy into actually helping people?”
The marra simply stated that none of them liked the outfits they’d have to wear for volunteering, and that their demeanour and behaviours had reached the point where they didn't know how to be accepted by others, so they embraced their nightmare-making ways and fashions. They lived with families mainly to be more integral to human society, and to learn the locations of people, but the only people they truly trusted were themselves.
“Do you ever feel lonely being stuck like that?” Hilda remarked.
“Not at this point,” the marra grumbled. It was becoming clear that the spiritual girl was going to carry out her intentions regardless of what was said, so the blue-haired adventurer sought to resolve the matter more quickly.
“Tell you what. Since we both know why you’re here, I’ll make this easy for you. Our school is terrible, the teachers are mean, there’s homework all the time, all the other students are jerks and it makes me miss my old teacher. There’s your nightmare fuel, now put on your show.”
“Heh… nice try, crazy girl. But we also both know that that’s not how it works. You don’t ask for a nightmare, it’s no fun. I’ve done that “school sucks” thing over a billion times. There’s nothing scary about that anymore. I gotta dig deeper. Find out what my prey is REALLY scared of…”
The marra continued to search the room for any more triggers. Hilda herself rummaged around in her bed for a leather belt to restrict the spirit before her, but realised that she provided neither herself nor her roommate with such a means.
“You won’t find anything,” the blue-haired adventurer stated.
“I always find something” the marra snapped back. “I can look in every nook and cranny.” Then a knowing look came across her face, as she finally discovered a workable trigger to build a nightmare off of. “What was that you said about your Mom?”
“She has a new partner: Camila. She’s lovely. Took some getting used to, but I’m happy Mum has a new partner! Are you going to give them a nightmare too?”
“Nope. Adults are way too hard to scare, unless they’ve got something you don’t want to find. If you try to scare a new couple, it can only make them grow closer. I was thinking more about what you don’t have right now… and what you could lose.”
“What, my Dad? He doesn’t live here but I still see him, even though I want him to be back here. I got my love of adventure from him, and I love him, even if he kept running away and Mum kept saying how much he hurt her, and that I could end up copying him…” Hilda quickly covered her mouth, realising what she’d just said out loud to the girl in front of her.
The marra grinned evilly at the inadvertent reveal. “Looks like I don’t need to look any more. You’ve led me right to the good stuff. Come to think of it, with you being kind of a daddy’s girl, aren’t you afraid of being alone? Your adventures hurting your friends, Mom choosing a new family for herself, and you alienating everyone until you have nothing?” She quickly drew up a rustic interpretation of a dream in her sketchbook, and showed it to the Blue-haired adventurer. The sketch depicted her being alone after running away, completely estranged from society. It also depicted Johanna and Camila together as a newlywed couple in a photo frame, with Luz taking her place in between them.
“That’s not true!” Hilda snapped back, shoving the sketchbook away. “Mum still loves me, and I’ve grown to like Camila! My friends and family would never leave me! I do what I do because I want to make things better, like how I want to bring Luz and her girlfriend Amity back together, even though it probably won’t work, and I wouldn’t feel left out… and that neither of us be alone and…I’d be recognised and…” She stuttered as she realised how vulnerable she’d made herself.
The marra laughed loudly at what she could hear. “Really, crazy girl?” she cackled. “This is just too easy! You really suck at honesty! This is even better than David!!” She then clicked her fingers and the whole room turned a penetrating black.
“What the…” the blue-haired adventurer asked fearfully. “I know what you’re doing marra!”
“Sssshhhhh…nightmare time…”
Luz awoke slowly at around about 1am, and left her curtain-shrouded bunk to use the bathroom, not noticing Hilda stirring as the marra crafted her nightmare from the information provided. She poured herself a glass of water after using the toilet, and stared dully at her dreary reflection in the mirror. She was very much not looking forward to returning to the dreaded school building first thing in the morning, and longed for the more morbid but comforting setting she’d previously experienced. Despite the fact her roommate accompanied her to the start of each day, it didn't make the experience any less depressing.
“Looks like it's going to be another day from hell tomorrow” she said to herself, before heading back to bed. “This mama is not ready for another day of trauma.”
As she returned to the bedroom, she could hear Hilda struggling and jolting around in her sleep. She started to speak more loudly in an attempt to resist the mental imagery the marra was mentally throwing her way. It was very identical to the first time she’d agreed to negotiate with the marra in exchange for David being left alone. But this time, since the spirit had found fresh fuel, she could evoke more striking fears from within the blue-haired adventurer’s mind. She started to scream as the nightmares grew stronger.
“No! That’s not what I meant!” Hilda cried with her eyes shut. “Please don’t!”
Luz was about to tell her roommate to keep it down, but her pleas and cries started to make her worried. It sounded like the nightmares she herself had been having on several occasions, but she was confused on how that was possible. It wasn’t like Hilda herself had been to the Boiling Isles or seen any of the traumatic events she’d described to her. Nevertheless, she stood there in the dark-shrouded room listening to the pleas of her roommate, shutting her eyes and trying to look away in an attempt to resist any unfortunate callbacks. This did nothing to stop any of the nightmares in Hilda’s mind from coming to fruition, as she rocked violently on the top bunk, the metalwork creaking as she did so.
“Please! Don’t leave me!” the blue-haired adventurer cried, sounded more and more scared than before.
In Hilda’s nightmare, the marra concocted images of Anders being killed on the job due to his negligence and wandering off, and it was being conveyed by one of his colleagues in the Safety Patrol who was at their home. He’d failed to secure some scaffolding on the bell towers dotting the Trolberg walls, resulting in him falling from a height and dying upon hitting the ground. Because he was divorced from Johanna, the family would receive no compensation, which resulted in the brown-haired mother going on an exaggerated but entirely plausible rant about how much he ruined their lives, and how he was never a father to her. Hilda knew that this wasn’t true, but it still scared her due to how the marra recreated the flat with every detail on point. Her portrayal of Johanna stood there angrily before her in the living room, yelling about what a bad father Hilda had, even though the green eyes adorning her indicated that it was a manifestation of fear.
“I know this isn’t true!” Hilda snapped in resistance.
“Yes you do Hilda!” the recreation of Johanna shouted angrily. “You know that he left you! Left us to fend for ourselves! And now, he’s left us with nothing!”
“He didn’t mean to hurt us! He tried to come back for us when he was trapped in that mound! He had a job and he’s still my father!” Just then, the marra managed to concoct a recreation of David to accompany the fake Johanna in her dream.
“He doesn’t care about you Hilda!” the fake David shouted at her. “He abandoned you, and yet you still want to be just like him! Putting your adventures before your friends or loved ones! Can’t you see that?!”
“That’s not true David!” Hilda retorted, despite the growing fear in her voice.
“It is true Hilda!” the fake Johanna roared. “He left us time and time again! Is this what you really want?! To have a family and a stable life and then throw it all away?!”
This recreation struck the blue-haired adventurer particularly hard, as it indicated how much of an influence Anders had on her and how much she loved exploring the wilderness, but it also showed how much he was more focused on his own want of adventure rather than his responsibility. Inside their photorealistic puppet, the marra cackled at what she could see before her.
“This is why I’m going with Camila!” the recreation continued. “I want a partner who’s there for me! Who wants to be with me! Who loves me! Something neither Anders nor you are willing to do! Why don’t you just leave now, like he always did?!” The recreation of David joined the fake Johanna in pointing Hilda in an outward direction.
True to the per-visualization the marra had made earlier, Hilda suddenly found herself alone in the wilderness, improperly clothed and completely alone. She tried to resist the mental images before her, but it was becoming ever more difficult.
“Awww, poor little Hilda all alone,” David’s marra sighed evilly. “Still wanting to be like Dad, and not willing to face facts or grow up! Now, what else can we make?!” She rummaged through the memories and fears in Hilda’s mind, until she found a makeshift schoolbook. She flicked through the notes, and saw mentions of fears of being illustrated by several notes of being worried of being replaced and abandoned. “Oh, I got a good one! Let’s see what we can conjure in this dream!” She then proceeded to craft a new dream for Hilda to be shrouded in.
Hilda slowly lowered to the ground and curled herself into a ball in an attempt to resist the nightmares, but the marra recognised this as a frequent sign of admitting defeat. As she filled the mindscape with darkness in preparation to conjure the next haunting set of images, she teased her of how feeble she appeared, and bullied her into growing a spine for what she had next. “Come on Blue Hair! Don’t throw in the towel yet! I haven’t even gotten to the good stuff!” she rasped, before shrouding the mindscape in light to start the next set of dreams. “Let’s let Luz in on the fun!”
Outside Hilda’s head in the bedroom, Luz continued to resist the cries her roommate was making, and was surprised that the parents hadn’t been summoned by what was happening. She cautiously approached the bunk bed, and could hear that Hilda was having another nightmare, one that sounded like she was trying to help someone but failing.
In the new dream, she found herself in one of the library’s hidden rooms and in a very different scenario. The walls were covered in sticky notes and ideas, and upon further inspection, she could see that they were all ideas on how to reach the boiling isles. For how it was established, it looked as though it had taken hours but evidently produced no success. There was a tall pile of borrowed library books on the desk to add to what little knowledge they had, and Alfur was currently skimming through a book, whilst carrying a highlighter in an attempt to look for anything useful. The blue-haired adventurer scanned over the notes on the wall, and noticed how many of them had big crosses on them, indicating that they were all deemed to be bad ideas. She then went over all the books on her desk, and saw that they contained information on warping spells and teleportation, but there was no mention of anything that could give her what she needed. Eventually, another voice in the room told her that she had extra human company.
“This is useless Hilda!” the voice of Frida sounded. She turned around to see both David and the African-British witch with her, and that they’d agreed to help her with whatever it was they were doing. Even though the green eyes showed that it was another one of the marra’s tricks, she continued to recreate the scenario very accurately, owing to her growing years of experience. “We’re not going to find anything on how to find this place!”
The increased immersion of the dream made Hilda flip through the books, as she was convinced that there was an answer: a way to the new realm, and that it was somewhere in the library.
“Come on! We can’t give up yet!” she stated, quickly going over each page. “There must be something in here! I know there is!”
“We’ve been at this for five hours Hilda!” the recreation of David stated. “We haven’t found anything that can get us to another realm!” Hilda struggled to maintain the differentiation needed to remind her that this was a manifestation in her head.
“We haven't been looking in the right place! We have to keep trying! For Luz!”
It was at this point that the marra began to play into the fear Hilda had of ruining things if something went wrong, as well as her increasing fears of isolation.
“Are you sure this is for Luz Hilda?” Frida asked, as she stopped with her arms crossed and David did likewise. “Or is this another one of your adventures like your Dad used to do? Where he’d come up with excuses to just run away!” Alfur had also stopped his research to protest the failing results. The blue-haired adventurer was startled by the comparison, and saw that David’s marra had latched onto the comparisons made to Anders.
“Of course this isn't one of my adventures!” Hilda retorted. “This was never about being like Dad! I’m not running from anything! We’re helping my roommate! Can't you see that?!”
“How is this going to help her?” David angrily asked. “She doesn't want any of this! You’ll just make her more depressed! Pretty sure your Dad would use this as a means to just to go to the Demon Realm for himself!”
“That's not true! Luz misses the Boiling Isles and everyone there! I need to find a way there! To make her better! So that I we can both have our lives back!”
“Oh this is too good!” the marra laughed from within the David she crafted. “How can you possibly help someone with crap like that?! You know this can’t work Hilda! You’ll just make everything worse, just like your Dad always did!”. She continued to conjure more haunting visions to torment her victim.
“How can you be sure Hilda?” Frida snapped. “How you can be sure this will make things better for her…or you? How will this not end with you being alone like you Dad…”
The blue-haired adventurer was shocked at this response, and deeply hurt by the implied meaning. She paused to contemplate if this really would solve or assist anything, and almost began to question her own self-worth temporarily. She wanted to keep pursuing the answer, if only to get what she wanted. She knew the main reason why she was doing all this, but the stress of school and alienation in life was clouding her judgment and she couldn’t be certain what she really wanted right now.
“Guys, don't be like this, please!” she pleaded desperately. “I know we can do this. I know I can do this! We always fix things in the end!”. What came next was a taste of genuine trauma for her.
“What if this is something we can't fix?!” David asked. “There's only so much we can take Hilda! We can't do everything you want because it’ll be a big adventure for you!”
“This isn't an adventure! It's a rescue mission! Just please! Don't abandon me again! I can't do this alone!”
“Well you’ll have to this time!” Frida finally roared. “In fact, you could do everything by yourself from now on!!”
The African-British witch, Alfur and David left, slamming the door to her room. Angered by this violent response, Hilda screamed back that she could do it by herself, and finally found something that could seemingly give her what she needed. She then began to reach for things in her room that could give her what she was after. But after she finally found another book that could be of service, an additional human figure appeared as the door opened. It was the marra’s recreation of Luz, fully accurate based on what knowledge she could use. She had a near identical form to the real Luz, and was almost indistinguishable from the real Luz.
“Hilda, what are you doing?” the recreation asked in a fully identical manner.
“Luz, what are you doing here?” Hilda asked fearfully.
“What are you looking for this time? Somewhere else to go adventuring with your papa?”
“What?! No! I'm trying to help you Luz! I'm doing this for you! I just need to figure out how to get to the demon realm…” She quickly realised that she’d let their secret slip, and immediately covered her mouth. This did nothing to reduce Luz’s anger.
“You’re trying to get to the demon realm?! I can’t believe you!!”
“I want to help you Luz!” Hilda protested. “You’re just making yourself sick by keeping all this up!!”
The blue-haired adventurer tried to argue against the version of her roommate but found herself unable to say anything that dissuaded her from yelling at her or getting more depressed. She tried to get her to stop doing what she feared she’d do, but it was ultimately futile.
“Please Luz! Don't do this!” Hilda pleaded with the mental image before her. “I know we can help you! I know this can work! Just…please!”
“I can't believe you’d try something like this! I trusted you! And you try to search for the thing that ruined me!” The recreation paused for the marra to adjust the nightmare, before returning to the underlying fear.
“You don't care about me! You don't know me!” the recreation yelled at her. “You can't save me, so don't bother. You’ll make everything worse, like you and your Dad always do!”
This made Hilda shut her eyes tightly in resistance to what the marra was throwing at her, but the events that followed were impossible to ignore or disbelieve. The images that followed included Luz pushing Hilda away violently and making more attempts at her life, as well as both Camilla and Johanna berating her for letting Luz die.
“No Luz, please…” Hilda quietly sobbed in response to the nightmare. “I just wanted to help you get better…for your Mum, for everyone…”. She reached out with her arm at the air. “Just please, don’t leave me…I don’t want to be cast out…”
This latest emotional response seemed to finally trigger something within the Dominican fifteen-year-old: her eyes shot open, her fists clenched and she stormed up to the top bunk and quickly pulled her roommate into a tight hug.
“No! Please! I just want to help!” the blue-adventurer reacted in her sleep to the hug. “Why can’t you see that?! Why can’t I help you!” Luz realised that just hugging won't do anything to stop Hilda’s frightened mood and demeanour. She then tried something else.
The marra organised the night terrors in a circling formation to surround Hilda and accost her with crippling fears and demoralisation. They became louder and louder. The blue-haired adventurer sunk further and further down, clutching her ears tightly to fight the penetrating fear, but the images formed a tornado around her full of negative energy.
“That's it Hilda!” the marra exclaimed. “Give in already! You’re not getting up from this one!!”
After taking a deep breath, she softened her hug around her roommate, and started to sing softly to her.
“A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella
Mi nina tiene sueno, bendito sea, bendito sea”
As Luz sung further and louder, the melody began to penetrate into her head and the night terrors began to fade, the marra was caught off guard and she became visible to Hilda again. The song slowly brought the blue-haired adventurer back to reality, as she opened her ears and moved her hands from ears, allowing the song to soothe her.
“Where’s that singing coming from?!” the marra bristled, as the darkness became lighter and lighter and her target woke up. Her influence died right before her spiritual eyes. “No! All my hard work!!”
As Hilda slightly opened her eyes, she found herself in the arms of Luz, her head on her shoulder. She could hear the lullaby being sung to her tenderly. Even though she couldn't understand the words, hearing the song helped her relax and sleep peacefully.
In the adjacent bedroom, Johanna finally awoke after a period of peaceful sleep devoid of interruption. She looked up to see her partner already awake and sitting up straight in bed. She could hear her daughter singing softly, even though the screaming from Hilda’s nightmare had already startled her awake.
“Camila, what is it?” she asked her partner as she slowly sat up. “What was that screaming?”
“It’s Luz,” Camila replied. “She’s…singing to …Hilda.” Johanna's eyes widened at what was happening.
“Hilda! She’s having a bad nightmare again!” The brown-haired mother just realised that her daughter may still be in a nightmare, and she quickly got out of bed and ran to the other shared bedroom in the flat. Her partner followed.
The marra became increasingly irritated and unfocused by Luz’s singing, both by how much it made Hilda immune to the nightmare and how much it sparked memories to her of something she hadn't experienced in years. It repulsed her and her grip on the blue-haired adventurer’s mind strained further and further, until she stormed back into reality to face Luz, who’d risen to glare defense at the non-corporeal intruder.
“You ruined my nightmare, you freak!!” the marra barked sharply at the older roommate clutching Hilda, as she floated angrily.
“Get away from her!” Luz growled furiously. “Get away from my sister!”
Driven mad with being denied her source of energy, the marra tried to dart back into her hilda’s skull, but failed to realise that her target was awake and had began hugging her roommate back, feeling protected in her arms. The girl was no longer open to her.
“Get out of the way Nerdy Gonzalez!” David’s marra ordered. “I need this nightmare energy!”
“No!” the Dominican teen snapped before becoming briefly delusional. “I’m not letting you hurt anyone else Belos!” She widened her eyes as she remembered who she was talking to.
“Who the hell is Belos?!”
The marra quickly realised that she’d lost her target and couldn’t torment either of them any further. She turned into her wisp form and quickly flew off, continuing to rant at herself for not noticing the other occupant in the room and how that could disrupt everything she’d planned. With the threat finally away from their room, Luz continued to lie down and softly hug Hilda and sing the lullaby to her to calm her down. The blue-haired adventurer sighed contently as the room fell silent, and let the warmth of her roommate soothe her.
“Thank you Luz” she whispered, leaning into Luz’s torso.
“De nada” the Dominican softly responded. Camilla and Johanna quickly entered the room in response to the shouting and saw their children in the top bunk, hugging each other.
“Miha, what's with all the shouting?” Camilla asked at the doorway.
“What happened Luz?” Johanna asked. “Why was Hilda saying all that stuff?”. She quickly went to the bunk with her partner.
“Some ghost girl got in her head and gave her night terrors…” Luz explained to the two mothers. “I thought that it wasn’t a big deal at first, but it sounded like they really got to her.”
“Un fantasma? What was it doing here?” Camilla asked.
“It must've been the same thing that was scaring David years ago” Johanna explained. “They did manage to negotiate peace with them, but because they're recalcitrant teens, they don't always honour agreements.”
Camilla and Johanna quickly comforted their respective daughters, checking for any residual shock the marra might’ve left behind. The brown-haired mother cursed herself for not giving either of them a belt for restraining the spirit, but was glad that they were both unharmed.
“Did she get you too Luz?” the Dominican nurse-in-training asked whilst hugging her daughter.
“I'm fine, Mami” Luz replied. “It looks like that girl could only get in your head whilst you’re asleep. She couldn’t lay a finger on me.”
“Hilda, are you alright?” the brown-haired mother asked Hilda. The blue-haired adventurer slowly opened her eyes and saw Johanna.
“I'm OK Mum” Hilda responded. “The marra scared me, but Luz helped me. She sang this song …and it just made everything calm down and helped me relax. She sings beautifully.”
“Ci, Hilda,” Camila stated softly. “I used to sing her that lullaby every night when she was a pequena, and nothing made her fall asleep faster. It looks like it can still help you even when you get older.”Later that night, Luz and Hilda continued to sleep together in a sisterly fashion. Eventually Hilda awoke briefly and noticed that her roommate was still clutching her tightly with their heads close together. She didn’t mind this at all, and continued to rest soundly and lean into it, but not before telling the Dominican fifteen-year-old.
“Thanks for saving me from that nightmare” she softly stated to Luz.
“It was nothing sis,” Luz quietly replied. “I heard you were struggling and wanting to help, so I just did what I had to. I wasn’t about to let anyone down again. Why were you yelling that stuff about being cast out?”
“It’s just…there’s a lot going right now, with you…and school, I think I just wanted something from a simpler time, and to help you…to help us…” No response came from her roommate as she’d let sleep consume her again.
Hilda was not easily taken back to her slumber, as what Luz had told her once again sent her mind into a cycle of contemplation. Despite what the marra had conjured and manipulated, she wasn’t any less determined to find an answer to her roommate’s predicament, as well as her own mental turmoil. She thought about the available options, as well as the inevitable objections that were hinted at in the nightmare, but still considered what could be done. Then, as luck would have it, Tontu quietly appeared to return a board game he’d borrowed and stowed it under Luz’s vacant bunk. She then realised that it was possible to warp to other dimensions, as long as they could find the means to get there with strong enough magic. There was also the element of rejection from the Boiling Isles since Luz essentially betrayed and hurt them, but Hilda decided that trying to make amends with them and reconnecting was better than the alternative they’d been dealing with lately. If Luz was back with her girlfriend, she would also allow Hilda to be recognised more in the household, both for her selfless deeds and to not be left behind. With one final look of silent determination, the blue-haired adventurer made one last conclusion before finally nodding off.
“Luz, I’m getting your girlfriend back…”
Later that evening, in an attempt to get back at the Dominican fifteen-year-old for ruining the dream she’d tried to create, David’s marra reappeared in the room. She quickly materialized into her humanoid form, and saw that Luz was sound asleep alongside her roommate, leaving her open to be given a nightmare. Angered by the drive to get back at her, she quickly became a wisp again and attempted to dive straight into Luz’s head, but instead bounced right off her. It was the equivalent of a secure barrier protecting the Dominican fifteen-year-old’s skull.
“Ugh, are you still awake?!” David’s marra growled silently as she rematerialized. She extended her ghostly hand towards Luz and tried knocking entering her mind slowly, but upon grasping her head she found it was like trying to get through a stone wall in human form. It became clear to her that Luz’s traumatic experiences had somehow made her numb to being scared of anything else, including nightmares from marras. She left the room still floating in human appearance, throwing a tantrum whilst shouting incoherent words and noises as she did so.