This Isn't Home (Amphibia x The Owl House)

Summary: Sasha and Luz work on a cure for Marcy..

Sasha woke up to a drop in her stomach as she rolled off the edge of the surprisingly tall bush, landing flat on her face in the dirt. It had become quite crowded with four people huddled on it, and Sasha and Marcy's capes were barely enough to keep warm.

Sasha grunted and pulled herself up, sitting on her knees and wiping her face. The chaotic events of yesterday had made her arms sore, and she winced while stretching them above her head. They fell limp beside her a moment later and she heaved herself to her feet. The others were still asleep, cuddled together in some way.

Maybe she could start with a breakfast of some sort.

The thought of food made Sasha realize just how hungry she was. She hadn't eaten anything for almost two days, leaving the food to her friends who needed it more.

Sasha walked out of the camp to the clearing outside. The river bubbled and gurgled and splashed to her left, and the grass shifted slightly with the cool breeze.

Marcy lay on a flat rock on the bank in the sun, eyes closed and a smile on her face as she splashed water on her neck every now and then.

Sasha grinned slightly and felt a familiar bubbly feeling. Choosing to ignore it, she looked away and began to climb the nearest tree. She hooked her arm around one branch and heaved herself up, digging her boot into the bark and pulling her upper body onto a thicker branch. Seeing nothing but leaves and thinner branches, she climbed down again and chose a different tree.

This one had barely any branches near the trunk. Sasha backed up until she was a couple feet from it, and then ran full-speed towards it, leaping as high as she could and just managing to grab a thin branch. She laughed in victory, taking a moment to catch her breath while hanging with one arm.

There was a sound of wood splintering, and Sasha panicked realizing the branch was breaking. She scrambled upwards, reaching to another branch higher up, but was too late. The wood cracked and broke under her, sending her tumbling to the ground.

"Dammit!" She spat, coughing a few times and struggling to stand. Marcy was startled back to reality from her half-asleep state, slipping off the rock with a splash.

Sasha rubbed at her eyes, a low, tired groan escaping her lips. Her hair swished in front of her face and she pushed it away with a huff, scanning the forest to find a better tree to climb. "Sash…? What are you doing?" Marcy asked, climbing back onto the rock to bask in the sunlight.

Sasha gently dragged her hand along the bark of the trunks as she passed by them.

Will she think I'm silly for doing this?!

"I'm, uh…" Collecting eggs that might not even be here? Failing to climb trees?"...trying to make breakfast."

Marcy's eyes widened. "Oooh, can I help?" She asked.

"Well…" Sasha hesitated, looking away. "You can't exactly… walk very well, so I'm worried you won't be able to do much-?" Within the two minutes Sasha had shifted her gaze, Marcy vanished beneath the surface and reappeared in front of her, three huge fish clasped in her hands. The fish had claw marks in their sides, leaking an eerie reddish-purple colour of blood.

"Well. That'll do." Sasha walked forward and took the (surprisingly heavy) fish in her arms and laid them out on a nearby log.

She grabbed sticks and branches from the ground and cleared a circle of ground, placing the wood in a tent formation.

"Hey, Marce? You're not able to breathe fire or anything like that, are you?"

Marcy looked up with a confused expression. She saw what Sasha was building and shook her head.

"I don't think so." She said, "If I could breathe fire I don't think I'd be able to swim underwater."

Sasha nodded along in agreement while digging to get a rock she found out of the dirt. She yanked it away and began to chip at one of the sticks, hitting it on the side repeatedly. After a moment of nothing but the continuous clunk of flint on wood, sparks began to appear, and a fire was created.

Sasha sighed with relief, leaning back on her knees.

Marcy sat closer to the shore and drew some strange shapes and pictures in the sand and dirt with her claws. She found a tiny crab and gasped, scooping it into her hands and watching it stumble around.

"Sashy! Sash! Look! A crab!" She squealed, holding it out to the blonde.

"Is it big enough to eat?" Sasha joked, taking the first of the three fish and shaving the scales off with the sharp rock.

Marcy brought the tiny crab closer to her and gasped in mock anger. She shifted to sit in a different way and winced. 

"My cast hurts," she mumbled.

Sasha nodded sympathetically without looking up.

"That happens when you lose a leg." She said sarcastically.

Marcy playfully hit her in the shoulder, causing the two to break into giggles.

Luz announced her arrival with a yawn, stretching slowly with a warm smile. She waved to Marcy and Sasha and made her way over to them, sitting beside the two with crossed legs.

"Hey," Sasha greeted, pulling the last few scales off of the fish and skewering it calmly with a stick. She rested it on top of the fire and started to work on the next fish.

"Good morning." Luz replied.

"It's officially been around four days here for us," Marcy started excitedly, placing the tiny crab down on the sand, "We're doing pretty well!"

"Huh. I'm not sure how long I've been in this… place… but if I had to guess, probably around a week?" Luz fidgeted with her fingers nervously, like saying something wrong would hurt her.

Marcy tilted her head, her webbed fingers tapping on a rock like it was a drum set.

"Mmm, what smells good?" Anne asked as she rubbed her eyes, walking out from the camp entrance of bushes. Sasha felt her heart jump in her chest and tried to ignore it. Feelings were confusing.

"Roasting some fish for breakfast. Want some?" Sasha lifted the stick with the fish on it and flipped it around so it wouldn't burn.

"Sure!"

Amity woke up just before the last fish was cooked, and Luz shared some food with her for breakfast. Once everyone had eaten their fills, Sasha began to organize groups.

"Okay. Today we should reinforce the camp walls. They aren't keeping anything out like this," She gestured to the thorns and vines that hung loosely from the branches of trees that surrounded the camp. "We don't know what kind of dangers there are here. There could be giant birds, giant bugs, giant- the point is there could be some seriously dangerous stuff!" Sasha clapped her hands together.

"But also I need just a few more ingredients to make what I hope is a cure for Marcy. So I'll divide us into two groups. Amity, Anne, and Marcy can stay here to build a better defense system, while Luz and I search for the materials."

It seemed like a good enough plan, so everyone went along with it.

Sasha and Luz took Anne's backpack with them, and promised to be back by sundown. And they left.

Amity was left alone with the other two.

"I think we should use the vines and thorns to our advantage," Marcy said, pointing to the side of the camp walls, "Tie them around together, put the sharp parts on the outside, and then we'll be able to defend ourselves and keep out pesky bugs."

Anne nodded and began to weave the vines and branches together. Amity went over to help, holding a piece of wood steady while Anne draped vines over it.

"Ooh! Amity! Use the purple goopy stuff you used for my fake leg!" Marcy called.

"I can't. I'm all out," Amity said, "Your cast is made up of the last abomination magic I have." Marcy looked a bit disappointed.

"So, uh… How did you meet Luz?" Anne switched the topic of the conversation quickly, offering a gentle smile in Marcy's direction.

"Oh!" Amity tried to think back to the first time she'd seen her now-girlfriend. "Hmm… Well, at first I tried to have her dissected-"

"What?!" Marcy gasped.

"-but after that misunderstanding, we held a witches duel in an arena." Amity continued quickly. "We fought, but I lost. After that she told me she might not be able to learn magic like witches do…" She drew a circle in the air and created a ball of light, holding it in her palm, "...she was learning, and trying her best." Amity smiled, "She was kind to me even when I pushed her away… and eventually we became friends."

"Cool. It's a lot more complicated than when Anne and I met Sasha." Marcy spoke up after a moment.

Anne giggled, a distant look in her eyes as she remembered it. "Sasha's still as bold and brave as she was when we were seven." She laughed.

Amity let the light dissipate, going to wrap some vines around a branch, taking it up and around to tie it to the base of the branch.

"So… are you all… dating or something?"

Anne and Marcy fell silent, their expressions shocked and confused.

"N-no, we're just really good friends." Anne dismissed the question with a laugh, awkwardly trying to look away.

"Yeah, totally. We're not dating anyone!" Marcy added, "Yet."

"Why, are you and Luz dating?" Anne asked with a sly smile, her tone teasing.

"...Yeah. I thought it was obvious." Amity answered.

Anne once again went quiet, clearly embarrassed.

"D-don't worry, we support." Marcy said quickly from where she rested in the river.

"Support"? Amity thought.

"That's really cool! I think queer people are awesome."

"Marbles, you're kinda overstepping it there. But yeah, we support everyone." Anne smiled.

They're acting like it's usually a bad thing to be queer… isn't it normal?

"Do people from Earth not all support each other?" Amity wondered.

"Not… exactly." Anne cringed, "Some people are very loud with their misinformation and feelings."

"Huh. Weird." Amity went back to interlacing the vines.

"Wait. Are you telling me you grew up in a place with no homophobia?!" Marcy sounded excited and equally shocked. "But that's impossible. Everyone has an opinion on something , there are always bad people out there… but- wait- how-" She stared off into space, calculating under her breath.

Anne sighed, "Oh, great. You broke Marcy."

Sasha aggressively whacked a bush away from her, a grumble of annoyance building in her throat.

Luz was walking beside her, ducking under hanging things and jumping over roots with ease.

"How do you do that?!" Sasha burst out, bewildered at how smooth and coordinated Luz's movements were.

"When I was little, my dad would take me into the forest closest to our house. We'd go on hikes and…" Something in her mood shifted, before it went back to being happy, "I basically grew up dodging branches and stuff!"

Sasha hummed in response. She turned past a tree and saw a big rock with a den dug under it.

Maybe let's save the den for another day.

She went into the bushes away from it and groaned.

The purple bugs Marcy described in her journal were really hard to find and it was so annoying .

"She was lucky enough to find one, why can't I find more?" Sasha mumbled.

A small screechy squeak was enough to make her tense up. She looked to her left and saw it. A purple bug that matched the descriptions and drawing almost perfectly. Sasha leaped towards it and exclaimed triumphantly a moment later. She'd caught three of them somehow.

Shoving them in the backpack quickly, she stood and brushed herself off.

"Luz! I got them!" She called.

"That's great! We can go back to camp now, right?"

Sasha picked one of the bugs out of the bag, holding it firm in her hand.

"...We can go back to camp now, right?" Luz asked again.

"Not yet," Sasha held the bug just above her, narrowing her eyes, "I need to make the pouches first. I'll make three in case something goes wrong."

Luz nodded, her shoulders went from tense to relaxed as relief filled her gaze.

Sasha pulled a leaf pouch of items out and crushed the bug in her hand, letting the pieces fall into the curse and complete it with a tiny poof of teal sparkles. She tied it all together and sighed with relief.

"Okay. And now we're-" Her fingers slipped, and her heart sank as she realized what was going to happen.

A cloud of magical dust exploded from the pouch, Sasha coughed repeatedly and fell to her knees.

Anne's backpack slid off her shoulders, almost as though it was forced away by something else.

Sasha lifted one of her hands and blinked through the haze of teal smoke. Something was wrong. Her fingers were almost glued together, a thick layer of skin that was more pink connected them together.

The sound of fabric ripping was brought to her attention as webs grew and sproutedfrom her spine.

A sharp pain in her tongue caused her to reach up and feel her teeth. She had fangs now.

Sasha tried to stand up but fell again, tripping over her shoes that felt too small all of a sudden. She reached down and yanked them away from her, examining her webbed and clawed toes. She yelped in surprise as an entire new limb flopped around behind her. 

A tail?! Webs? Fins? GILLS?!

Sasha grabbed onto a nearby tree and pulled herself to her feet, waving the last remnants of teal dust away.

A light shined from above her, swinging just in front of her face. She looked up to try and find the source of it and realized she was the source of it.

Oh no .

"Luz? Luz?!" Sasha called, her voice hoarse and throat dry.

"Sasha!" Luz appeared out of the mist, looking… fish-ier than normal. She had long webs that hung from her arms and smaller ones that grew from her torso. Gills grew on her neck and metallic purple scales were almost everywhere.

"And now we're… fish."

Sasha's breath caught in her throat as she realized she couldn't breathe . She couldn't take a breath.

"We're fish that need to get in water!" She panicked, grabbing Luz's wrist and bolting on shaking legs in a random direction.

There's gotta be water here somewhere, right?!

WHERE THE HELL IS THE WATER?

Black spots began appearing in her vision and she sped up, desperately racing through the woods.

Her foot caught on a root and she stumbled, tripping and falling on the dry dirt.

"There!" Luz dragged her to her feet and into a small pond.

Sasha gasped and heaved oxygen through her gills, relief running through her veins like blood.

"Woah…" She mumbled, taking a look at her new scales and fins. They all shimmered various shades of pink in the light of both the early morning sun and the light hanging in front of her face.

"You're an anglerfish!" Luz gasped, "That's SO COOL!"

"And you're a… um… a fish!" Luz looked down at herself, admiring the purples of her webs.

"Yeah, a fish with really long fins…" She mumbled, stretching out one of her arms.

Sasha perked up a bit hearing a distant splashing that was growing louder.

"Something's coming." She hissed, rushing forwards and shoving Luz down under some water plants.

The two hid together, Sasha's light flickering out as they camouflaged into the seaweed.

The splashing noise became louder and louder until it stopped.

A creature that seemed almost humanoid poked its head out around the riverbend. It was hard to see through the weaving seagrass but it continued to swim forwards.

Sasha bared her teeth as it swam right overtop of the two.

She tensed up, and, signaling for Luz to stay down, launched herself at the creature.