Based on an unrelated quote I saw on Tumblr – happy reading and reviewing! I finished this like a WEEK ago and am hardcore struggling with writer's block for TWW/my other fandom, so I figured I'd post and who knows haha? Seriously, please review – they fuel my writing, especially now! Cheers xx

Hecate stormed into her room and slammed the door shut. She was furious — she was fed up with her idiot students, particularly Mildred Hubble, and her idiot colleagues who insisted on giving the girl, and all sub-par students, a pass. Magic was not a thing to be trifled with and only the most serious of witches should be advancing through Cackle's Academy. The craft must be stabilized and passed onto the next generation.

The very thought of the craft in decline was enough to send shivers down Hecate's spine, and she continued ranting to her familiar, Morgana, while she puttered around in her room, moving and cleaning things that didn't need to be moved or cleaned.

Hecate was so caught up in her rant and in all the rage that she had suppressed throughout the day that she failed to notice a pink robe that hung on the back of her door, a bottle of pink nail polish on the nightstand and the fluffy pink slippers strewn across the carpet.

Quickly stripping her black cloak from her body, she threw it on the bed in a huff. Crossing by the full-length mirror hanging on the back of her bathroom door, she stopped to glance at her reflection.

Looking quizzically at her black-clad self, Hecate smoothed her hair back from her forehead and frowned. Today was a day she did not care to relive, and she felt stupid about being hurt by it. Since when did she care what her students and colleagues thought of her? But then again, part of her would always be that tall, gangly, teenage Hecate who desperately wanted to be included and never was.

Muttering to herself about stupid, dunderheaded people who would never appreciate her for what she did and didn't recognize beauty and intelligence when they saw it, she continued to study her reflection. When she was a child, her mother always used to tell her that the most important thing was beauty within, but she always secretly resented not being like Pippa and her popular, pretty, bubbly friends.

In the midst of her internal diatribe, she went into her bathroom and stopped, shocked out of her internal reverie.

Candles lit the bathroom, creating a soft glow that bounced of every surface of the white marble, and Hecate gazed around in amazement. After the shitty day she had, she just wanted to take a bath, curl up in bed and sleep for a million years. It'd been ages since she had gotten a solid night's sleep.

She peeked around the corner of the enormous bathroom and saw a glimpse of a pink person in her bathtub. How people could be colors, she would never know — her mother was always obsessed with colors and people's auras, but until she met Pippa Pentangle, Hecate never understood the fascination. Pippa was all pink, all the time, and she loved her dearly for it. Hecate always joked that the pair were like yin and yang; dark and light; sweet and sour — they balanced each other out nicely.

Sour mood immediately gone upon the sight of her girlfriend, Hecate took a breath and tried to expel all of the negative energy, as Pippa was always telling her to do. She'd always sworn it was a load of nonsense, but lately had to admit, deep breathing did do wonders for her state of mind.

"Hey, Pipsqueak," Hecate said breathlessly as she rounded the corner to the bathtub. She swore, even just seeing Pippa was loads better than the best health tonic she'd ever taken — that woman was magic, in more ways than one.

Pippa looked over her shoulder and smiled.

"Hiccup, love! I hope you don't mind I commandeered your chambers for the night. I had a feeling your day might have been worse than you let on, so I came to help you relax."

Upon hearing that, Hecate did feel a slight relaxation in her shoulders and smiled widely.

"Thank you," she said gratefully. Stripping off her beaded dress as quickly and carefully as possible, she muttered a spell that whisked it away, back to her closet and out of sight.

Hecate stepped one foot into the bathtub and sighed in relief. This was just what she needed. Submerging herself entirely in the bath, she gasped as she felt Pippa immediately wrap her arms and legs around her middle, pulling her close. She rested her head on the other woman's shoulder and closed her eyes contentedly.

The pair sat in silence for a few moments, safe in the warmth of the water, until a concerned Pippa broke the quiet.

"Love? Can I ask you a question?"

Hecate murmured in response, trying to relax her body but unable to relax her mind, feeling it kick into overdrive the harder she tried to let it go.

"What's on your mind?" Pippa asked tentatively.

Hecate pursed her lips in thought and instinctively moved away from Pippa in the bath, repositioning herself to sit on the opposite side of the tub, facing the blonde witch, head slightly down and avoiding Pippa's eyes.

Pippa could see her beautiful, repressed girlfriend was struggling to articulate her emotions and resolved to wait her out, as long as it took.

Eventually Hecate raised her eyes slightly and began to speak.

"I just…" the dark haired witch trailed off and blew frustratingly at a strand of hair that had slipped out of her tight bun.

She went to speak and then shut her mouth in a huff.

"ARGHHHHH," Hecate yelled, as she leant her head up against the side of the tub.

Pippa smiled at her girlfriend encouragingly, and tangled her legs around hers playfully.

"Okay…" Hecate said firmly. "I'm going to say a thing and I need you to not talk, okay? I need to just get it all out there."

"My lips are sealed," Pippa said as she mimed zipping her mouth shut.

"I've never really been one of the pretty girls," Hecate said resignedly. Pippa went to say something and then, at the look in her girlfriend's eye, thought better of it and closed her mouth.

"No, hush, you, and listen! I've never been one of the pretty girls, and I've always been an outsider. Until you came along and ensnared me in your pink web of unicorns and donuts, I didn't really have any friends. And I was okay with that. I am okay with that. Then we didn't talk for so long, because I was scared about having feelings for you so I bailed on our friendship — I do admit that, and I'll be apologizing about that until the day I die."

Hecate paused to breathe, having said all that in one breath, like she was scared she was going to run out of time somehow, and then continued.

"I'm good at being alone, and I like it. I don't care what people think of me, or at least I didn't used to. Before you, that is. But now…" she swallowed hard, and Pippa's heart clenched at the thought of her Hiccup, all alone. Never again, she vowed.

"Now it's harder to ignore when I hear whispers from the students or comments from my colleagues that I wasn't meant to hear. And I don't mean the ridiculous ones, like how I am supposedly a vampire or I never sleep or I bathe in the blood of small children to maintain my porcelain skin, although that last one is pretty funny," she chuckled to herself.

"Honestly…I just get sad sometimes when I hear the students saying actual cruel things about me — oh, I know they would never if they thought I would hear them, but that doesn't change the fact that it happened. Or some of my younger, newer colleagues today apparently have a pool going on how ugly I'll look when I'm Miss Bat's age, which is a way longer time from now than they think it is!"

Seeing Pippa's outraged face, she placated. "Oh no, if Ada heard what was happening, she'd shut it down faster than the Great Wizard at a chess game, but what she doesn't know…" Hecate trailed off, wrapped up in her own thoughts.

She was jolted out of her reverie by a kick from Pippa — the blonde witch's foot landing in her midsection with a thud, disturbing the surrounding bath water and soapy bubbles.

"Ouch, Pip!" Hecate said, looking outraged. "Seriously?!"

Pippa just smirked. "Oops," she said, not very sorry at all.

"What was that for? I just tell you about the shit day I've had and how I'm not in the mood for any more bullshit and then you just decide to kick me? You could have really hurt me! You could have caused internal bleeding or something!"

"Whoa, Hiccup, relax there, I barely tapped you! To hear you speak of it is like if you were stomped on by an elephant; an event after which you'd almost certainly be dead."

As the absurd fight continued to escalate, Hecate was so caught up in her diatribe of why her bath partner was the absolute worst that she failed to notice said bath partner's slow migration toward the other end of the massive bath tub.

"And furthermore, I don't appreciate when you — mmmmpphhhh," Hecate's long winded speech was cut off when Pippa planted a long and lingering kiss on her girlfriend's mouth, that previously was moving a mile a minute. Almost involuntarily, Hecate's hands came to wrap themselves in Pippa's blonde locks, in order to angle her head and bring them even closer together. Pippa's hands came up to grip Hecate's face tightly, controlling the kiss; but finally, the two women had to come up for air. Pippa rested her forehead on a dazed Hecate's forehead, as the latter tried to work out what in the hell had just happened.

Looking at Pippa questioningly, Hecate saw her blonde girlfriend flash her a brilliant smile. Leaning in close, resting her pink lips just above the dark haired woman's ear, Pippa explained quietly; Hecate hung on every word as if it was an order from the Great Wizard himself.

"Hecate, darling. My darling, fiery, stubborn, gorgeous girl. I was simply getting tired of the silly argument that you picked to let off some steam, when your real problem was with everyone else you encountered today; present company being the exception, of course." Pippa smirked again at her girlfriend, who seemed to be lost for words, struggling to form a coherent thought after she willingly deprived herself of oxygen due to their recent activities.

"Ummmmmmmm," mumbled Hecate, still at a loss and wracking her brain to remember what on earth she had been talking about or why she was so angry in the first place.

"Yes, dear?" Pippa grinned cheekily at her girlfriend.

"Feel free to use kisses as a method to shut me up any time," Hecate said lovingly, as she smiled and drew the blonde witch in for another kiss, while water sloshed over the tub's edge.