Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“You just need to lighten up about this Luz, it’s just summer camp”, Camila Noceda said to her daughter and light of her life, Luz Estampida Noceda, while out on the front lawn of their house waiting on the bus to pick up Luz and take her to summer camp. “It’ll be a chance for you to finally make some new friends and learn how to socialize some more!” Camila said with a fake upbeat attitude, knowing that Luz only agreed to go to summer camp because Camila wanted her too. “It’s only 4 weeks mija, you’ll be spending so much time canoeing and looking at deer that the time will fly buy!”
“But I don’t like any of that stuff”, Luz replied while pulling out a physics textbook from her bag intended for a student several years older than her, “I like watching documentaries and studying textbooks with complicated equations!”
“Mija, your head is stuck in your books. Tell me, do you have any friends? Real ones! Reptilian friends don’t count either.” Camila told Luz.
Luz’s lack of an answer and her gaze looking down towards her feet with a sad look in her eyes told Camila more than words would have. The thing was too, it was Luz’s lack of friends that led the mother and daughter to where they currently were.

To describe Luz as a smart kid would be an understatement. She would consistently score the highest in her class on assignments at school, and while she was only 14, she was already studying chemistry and physics in her free time. The problem that arose from this was that for many people, it seemed that Luz was almost too smart for her own good. Her intensive knowledge into a variety of fields of science and love for projects and experimentations that far outweighs her consideration into the safety or ethics of her experiments has resulted in a normal day at her school’s science lab ending in a few trips to the nurses office, and a few times have even resulted in several calls to the fire department being made.
This love for learning and science did have a cost unfortunately. Time that could be spent talking with others and making friends, Luz would instead spend at the library, trying to find textbooks and studying up on equations, concepts, and theories. As rumors began to spread about her, born from a student jealous about about test scores or from a student who had previously been injured from one of her failed experiments, she had no one there to defend her or rebuke them, allowing the rumors to take root into the school’s view on her. As time went on and the rumors began to build onto one another, and she went from being the weird kid who liked books and her TI-84 a bit too much, into the freak who had more in common with machines than with other people.
Camila had become aware of Luz’s terrible social life but had decided not to do anything about it at first, not wanting to come off as nosey. Camila however decides to step in when Luz comes home from school crying one day. Camila finds out that the previous ostracization Luz had faced had turned into full on bullying. Camila try’s to bring this to the attention of the school, but they refused to do anything, claiming that they couldn’t do anything with just Luz’s claims alone. Wanting to get her daughter to a safer place, Camila decides places Luz into the testing for early graduation from 8th grade, which Luz passes, allowing her to no longer go to her school for the rest of the year. In an attempt to help Luz gain some friends and possibly help Luz improve her social skills before high school, Camila decided to sign Luz up for Laity Lodge, a local summer camp, resulting in their current conversation.

“Listen, I know you don’t like it, but it will be good for you. This summer camp will be a chance for you to make some friends. You’ll do great there, I know it! You’ll just have to give it a chance” Camila reassures Luz.
Camila’s phone buzzes, letting her know that she needs to head to her shift at the hospital. “Ok mija, I need to go to work, Cuídate mucho, mija. ¡Qué te vaya bien!”
“Yo a ti también!” Luz responds back to Camila with. Luz quickly places the physics textbook still in her hands on the ground and rushes forward to give her mother a hug goodbye.
“Thank you mija, but I got to go.” Camila said as she exited Luz’s hug and made her way up to her car. Luz watched Camila back out of the driveway into the street, before taking off into the direction of the hospital for another day of work as a nurse.

Luz turns around and looks down at the ground in order to start to pick up the textbook she had placed there, however, the textbook was missing from where she placed it. Panicking, Luz quickly looked all around her, and managed to notice a small brown owl fly away towards to woods with a book in its claws.
Luz gave chase to the avian thief, screaming that it was a “dirty little trash thief”, alongside several curses and threats in both English and her native Spanish. Luz managed to follow the flying criminal to the ruins of a shack towards the center of the forest. Luz noticed her the owl fly into the doorway, and also noticed the blinging white light emanating from the door but was too focused on tracking down the owl to properly comprehend the light, and ran right through it, traveling unknowingly straight to the Boiling Isles.

Chapter Text

1 Week Later

Luz was sitting in the living room of the Owl House making a quick stock of all of the various bits of electronics Eda, the witch Luz had become an apprentice for, had scattered about while she was waiting for King, the self-proclaimed king of all of Demon kind and the cutest resident of the Owl House, to set up his presentation. While Luz had managed to teach Eda a good deal about human technology to help her sell any tech Owlbert drags over from the human realm, Eda claimed she was currently unable to teach her magic, with her current excuse being she was currently out of the house, having headed out towards Bonesburrow, muttering under her breath when she thought Luz couldn’t hear about “her stock being low”. Getting impatient with King, Luz started to reflect on the past week, and how she had fought the puppeteer demon on her first day, and snuck into Hexside, where she even managed to make two friends, Willow and Gus, who now that Luz looked back on it, were the first friends she had in years. There was also Amity, who’s death glare would haunt Luz’s nightmare for years, something that Luz realized that she kinda earned, since her helping Willow cheat screwed over Amity. She quickly though up of a way to possibly make it up to Amity should she see her again before having her attention stolen by King.

“And ready!” King shouted, causing Luz to snap out of her daydream. Luz looked over to King who was standing in front of a cloth tarp covered board. “You’ve been so caught up with magic and witchcraft that you’ve learned nothing about my kind, Demons!”, King stated upon making eye contact with Luz. King then grabbed the upper corner of the tarp, flamboyantly pulling it away, revealing a board covered with photos and information on demonics. “Demons are the tricksters of the Twilight, born from the Titan’s rotting flesh and made of bone and sulfur,” King explained. “We have only two weaknesses, purified water and sarcastic remarks”.

King continued to explain the biology of Demonkind while Luz tried to take notes on his lesson over the fauna of the Boiling Isles, while fighting against the urge to coo at King for every little adorable action he took. Kings lesson put to an end when a crack of thunder came shaking through the house. “Uh oh, looks like we’re gonna get some rain today” King said upon realizing the weathers turn for the worse. “Rain, I love the rain!” Luz exclaimed running out of the house to the dismay of King and his protests. Luz walked a few yards away from the house before leaning down over a small flower. “I always loved the feel of the first few drops of rain in my hair, and I bet you like the rain too little guy.” Luz said to the flower. Right on cue, a drop of rain fell from the sky, landing straight on the flower, killing it with a sinister hiss emanating from its destruction. “WHAT!” Luz exclaimed in panic in shock. Eda quickly emerged from the clearing, having put her business in Bonesburrow on pause to race back to the house.
“Everyone inside, boiling rain!” Eda shouted towards the occupants of the house. Eda quickly grabbed Luz off the ground, picking her up and throwing her inside the house, away from the destructive rain. Upon making it back inside the house, Eda let out a sigh of relief before commenting, “That was close. At least everyone is safe and out of the rain.”
“Yep” Luz sarcastically replied, now a sore heap of flesh tangled up in the ruins of Kings presentation which Eda had accidently thrown Luz into. “Ow!” Luz said as a mug fell onto her head, inadvertently compounding her previous sarcasm.

After getting Luz patched up, and establishing a protective shield around the house, Eda and her two freeloaders made their way back inside the house. Eda, tired after placing the necessary protections upon the house, changed into some comfortable clothes, and started to take try and take a nap. This plan was foiled however when Eda heard a clicking sound, sitting straight up, and crouching on the arm of the couch she planned to nap on to look at Luz, who was holding a pen with a light up gem on the end, repeatedly turning it on and off. Eda, living up to her moniker as the Owl Lady, was immediately fixated upon the shininess of the gem.
“Shiny thing!” Eda muttered in a trance like state.
“Oh, you want it?” Eda coyishly asked Eda, already knowing the answer to the question. Eda lunged to snatch the pen from Luz’s hand, but Luz moved out of the way, causing Eda to crash to the floor face first. “If you want your shiny thing, teach me a spell.”
“How about a compromise, you give me shiny thing and let me nap, and I’ll teach you a new spell…..tommorow” Eda tried bargaining.
“Nope, if you want shiny thing today, then you’ll have to teach me magic today”
“Fine!” Eda groaned before getting herself off the floor. Eda made her way to the center of the living room and summoning her staff to her. “Witch staffs have power embedded into them, allowing a witch to cast spells without draining their own stamina. But before I’ll teach you how to make one, you’ll need to learn how to cast magic on your own. The first spell I’ll teach you is electricity!” As she said this, she drew a circle in the air, her finger leaving a trail of an orange arcane light. When the circle was completed, it collapsed in upon itself before erupting into a small ball of electricity, with small arcs of lightning shooting out of it. After a few seconds of Luz staring at the ball of lightning, it began to shrink before dissipating completely.
“Electricity, isn’t that a little dangerous?” Luz asked. “Why not something tamer?”
“Because you can use it for self-defense, and that phlegm thing you –“
“Phone, not phlegm”, Luz said, correcting Eda.
“As I was saying that phone of yours is powered by electricity, so you already have some knowledge and understanding of how to control electricity if I remember correctly. This spell will allow you to use it more. The spell circle is the most important part of the spell. The bigger the circle, the bigger the spell. Now humans like to believe that magic comes from nothing, but that’s not true, magic has to come from somewhere. Now where do you think it comes from?”
“Ummm, the heart?” Luz asked nervously.
“Actually, you’re correct!” Eda told Luz, with a smile upon her face, causing Luz to make various sounds of excitement. “No seriously, witches are able to control magic due to sack of bile attached to our hearts!”. To help prove her point, Eda stuck her hand into her hair, pulling out a scroll depicting a witches heart.
“Ew, gross”, Luz exclaimed upon seeing it, noticing how a witch heart was near identical to a human heart, with the only difference being the addition of the bile sack. “Wait, if you need the bile sack, then how could I, little old Luz, cast magic without a bile sack?”
“Actually, I’m not sure”
“WHAT, but that’s your job, to know this stuff? Aren’t you the legendary and wise Owl Lady? How do you not know?”, Luz exclaimed.
“I know the original witches did magic differently, but I never bothered to learn how. Never needed a reason to know how until why”, Eda explained. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll figure it out, you’re a smart kid!”, Eda said in an attempt to cheer up Luz.
“Can you at do the spell one more time? I’ll record it this time!”, Luz asked.
“Fine”, Eda said, immediately regretting her decision to cast a spell a second time when a wave of exhaustion washed over her. Eda then attempted to perform the spell a second time, however, upon completing the circle, Eda’s exhaustion caught up with her, knocking her out.

“This is all my fault, this is all my fault”, was the only thought going through Luz’s mind as she ran through the dark Owl House towards Eda’s room with King following right behind her. The past half hour had been a disaster to say the least. After getting Eda to perform the spell a second time for Luz to record, Eda fell over unconscious, forcing Luz and King to drag Eda to her nest. Afterwards, King stole a potion from Eda to give to Luz, believing it would allow Luz to cast magic, which Luz then dropped onto the floor in an attempt to drink it. Shortly afterwards, the lights in the entire house went out and scared hoots were heard from Hooty. After making their way to the living room, Luz and King saw a massive Snaggleback shrouded in shadows standing over a wounded Hooty. Upon noticing them, the Snaggleback fled outside before jumping into Eda’s room through the massive eye shaped window, resulting in Luz and King racing off towards Eda in order to protect the vulnerable witch.

Luz and King finally made their way to Eda’s room. Luz quickly opened the door, making her way over to Eda’s nest, only to have her worst fears confirmed. Instead of finding Eda sleeping peacefully, Luz only found slash marks and destroyed pillows, clear signs of a fight. With Eda no where to be seen, Luz realized that Eda had been eaten by the Snaggleback. “King! Eda’s gone! She was eaten!”, Luz shouted towards King before resuming her investigation into Eda’s nest. When Luz looked up to ask King a question, she noticed that King was gone, and panicked. Luz raced out of the room, looking for King. Her search was quickly ended when she realized that she had managed to lose her show in her search for King, only for her to suddenly heard King’s panic yelps and the sound of running echo throughout the house. Realizing that King and the monster were heading in the direction of Eda’s room. Having made it there before the other two passe by the room, Luz waited for them to pass, quickly grabbing King from the hallway, and pulling him into the room as he tried to escape the Snaggleback.

After both realizing that the others were safe and King returning Luz’s shoe back to her that he found, King noticed a paper scrap on the bottom of Luz’s foot. Upon taking the scrap and using it to complete a ripped tag King found on the magic potion from Eda, King had a revelation on the identity of the monster.
“Luz, I messed up, big time!”, King guiltily told Luz!
“What how?”
“That potion I stole doesn’t give Eda magic, it’s a potion for preventing her curse!”
“Wait”, Luz said, connecting the dots between what King was saying, “you’re saying that creature is Eda?”
Before King could even respond, the beast crashed through the door and answered Luz’s question far better than any words could have by giving Luz a good look at its face, full of the features of Eda. The Owl Beast then got up on its hind legs, claw raised to turn Luz into mincemeat. Luz, panicking, recoiled backwards causing her phone to drop out of her pocket, breaking the camera, but also triggering the camera flash. The bright flash emanating out from it caused the Owl Beast to recoil in pain, giving King and Luz enough time for them to escape to Eda’s balcony garden and hide from the Owl Beast. Once the Owl Beast left the room, King and Luz both let out a sigh of relief before King started freaking out from the guilt of being responsible for Eda’s transformation.
“I can’t believe I did this to her! This is all my fault!”, King said.
“No, it’s not. We wouldn’t be in this situation if I didn’t push you to steal Eda’s potion.”, Luz said in an attempt to calm King down by taking part of the blame onto herself.
“Except it is, I was the one to suggest stealing it, and I was the one to steal it.” King retorted back.
“Fine”, Luz said, realizing that there was nothing she could do to convince King otherwise that he wasn’t the only guilty party in their situation. “If it’s your fault then you need to help me help Eda! No one knows more about demons than you anyway King, so I probably will fail if you don’t help me anyway.”
King’s demeanor quickly shifted from guilty to ecstatic upon hearing Luz’s compliment. “Ok, so Demon’s with big black eyes are typically sensitive to light, so why don’t you use that weird device to stun her again?”
“I can’t”, Luz sadly informed King. “The camera broke when I dropped it.”
While Luz was talking, she started to play back the video of Eda casting the electricity spell for her when Luz’s phone started to glitch, freezing the video. Luz was about to get annoyed until she noticed that due to the phone freezing, it paused just when Eda finished the spell circle, a symbol appeared in the spell circle.
“Hang on just a minute”, Luz muttered, gaining King’s attention who went over and started to look at Luz’s phone over her shoulder. “There’s a symbol in the spell!”
“There is?”, King asked, somehow unable to see the glyph.
“Yeah, there is. Let me draw it for you”, Luz said, reaching behind her to pluck a leaf from one of the plants in Eda’s garden to draw on. Luz pulled out the sparkly pen and started to draw the glyph. First, she started with the outer circle, before drawing a quadrilateral that looked like a pyramid from an angle. Luz continued to add the smaller details of the symbol on her phone onto her drawing. When she finished, she showed it to King who had previously never even known the glyphs existed. Luz’s finger lightly brushed against the ink when she felt her finger start to get warm. Looking down, Luz saw the leaf she drew on burn up into ash, and from the pile of ashes rose a ball of electricity, a ball of magic.
Luz preceded to scoop the ball up in her hand, it levitating several inches from the palm of her hand. Several arcs of lightning jolted out of it into Luz’s hands, but it was painless, almost as if it were sentient and refused to harm its creator. “It’s beautiful.” Luz quietly stated. Luz upon realizing what she had just done freaked out. “I just did magic! I JUST DID MAGIC!”, Luz popped up and yelled, too focused on having accomplished something that should have been impossible for her to think about keeping her voice down.
“Hey quiet.”, King whispered to her.
“Sorry!”, Luz quickly told Luz and ducking back down, bringing the orb down with her. Luz admired the orb until King stated, “Yeah, it makes some light, but it’s not bright enough to stun Eda.”
“No”, Luz admitted, “but it can power something that is!”
“What how?”, King asked.
Luz then explained to King what she was going to make, how it would work, and what she would need.

Luz has spent the past few minutes on the floor of Eda’s room tinkering on her invention, occasionally needing to hide when the Owl Beast came a bit too close to comfort.
“Luz, I got it!”, King said as he snuck back into Eda’s room. Luz had sent King out to get several materials that Luz had noticed Eda had laying around her house. King laid down on the floor the last of the materials Luz needed for her inventions, aluminum foil. Some of the other materials Luz had sent King out to get included a translucent plastic cone, some light bulbs, and several bits of electronics and wiring that King was clueless to what purpose they served. Luz picked up the aluminum wrap and lined the inside of the plastic cone with it, giving it a reflective coat, before attaching said cone to a contraption, covering up an array of lightbulbs.
“Ok, we’re ready King, go get Eda!”, Luz demanded.
“You sure this will work?”, King asked.
“Yep, this will definitely work!”
“Fine, I’ll go get her.”
Luz watched King scurry out of the door into the hallway before heading out in the direction of the living room. She sat on the floor for about a minute until the sheard the Owl Beast’s howls and the sound of King running, both sounds getting louder by the second. Suddenly King came bursting through the door. Upon seeing the Owl Beast, Luz slammed her hand onto the ground, activating a electricity glyph and making a ball of pure lightning. “I’m sorry Eda! This is for your own good!” Luz yelled as she grabbed the two exposed ends of wiring leading to her machine and jamming them into the lightning ball and then pointed the coned end of the machine at the Owl Beasts eyes. Suddenly, the light bulbs of the machine lit up, powered by the lightning orb. They shone a brilliant pillar of light, focused by the reflective cone, straight into the Owl Beasts eyes, knocking it unconscious.

To say Eda’s day has been interesting would be an understatement. First, she had her trip to Bonesburrow cut short by a boiling rainstorm, then she was blackmailed into teaching her apprentice a spell through a pen of all things, and now she woke up to her apprentice, her human apprentice to be exact, was casting magic in the corner of her room, something that should be impossible with out a staff. Upon being filled in by King on what happened, then scolding him as a result, Eda decided to open up to Luz and King about her curse. Afterwards when Luz tried to leave Eda’s room, Eda asked Luz to stay behind for a minute.
“Hey, I’m proud of you kid.”, Eda proudly told Luz. “Figuring out not only how to cast magic as a human, but then using it to power one of your inventions, that’s not something any normal witch could do. You’re gonna be a great witch one day, I can already tell!”
“Thank you, Ms. Eda!”, Luz excitedly said, elated that Eda referred to her as a witch, before making her way out of the room.
Upon seeing Luz leave the room, Eda decided to lay back down in her nest, falling asleep while thinking about how maybe taking in Luz wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Chapter Text

“Come on, why won’t you cooperate with me!”, Luz said to no one but herself. She was currently in the former broom closet Eda had turned into a room for her. It’s been five days since Luz discovered the electricity glyph and four days since her duel with Amity at the Covention, and she was already performing experiments with the glyph. Her experiments were driven by both a desire to know more about magic and to keep an incident like the Covention duel from happening again. Luz had encountered Amity at the Covention, who preceded to both insult her and King, causing Luz to challenge Amity to a Witch’s Duel, a duel she smugly accepted. It wasn’t until Luz was discussing possible strategies with Eda that Luz came to a sudden realization, she couldn’t control her lightning glyphs. As a result, if Luz managed to hit Amity with the orb, it could cause serious harm to Amity, resulting in potential burning, nerve damage, or worse, meaning Luz’s only form of offense was far too dangerous for her to even use. Feeling as if there were no other options, Luz accepted Eda’s help to cheat. It was later revealed at the end of the duel that both Amity and Luz were cheating, with Amity being completely unaware of it, Luz still felt guilty about it, driving her to both better control her glyphs, and maybe even find some way of making it up to Amity.
Her testing has already born fruit and helped her discover that she is able to control the effects of her glyphs to a surprising degree, able to turn the ball of electricity into a massive bolt of lightning she could use to attack, making sure that should she get into another witch duel, however, said attack was made at the cost of destroying the ball of magic. She was currently experimenting not with the glyph’s magic, but with the material the glyph was drawn on. She theorized that the material that the glyph was drawn on may have some effect upon the spell and had tested it with whatever materials she could get her hands on. Luz was currently testing if the materials density determined if the glyph destroyed its medium or not, with materials lacking the necessary density to stably control the magic being consumed into the spell. She was currently trying to etch the glyph into a piece of slate Eda had brought her, a task that was far more difficult and time consuming than Luz had predicted. After much work, Luz managed to get the entire glyph etched into the piece of slate. “Piece of schist”, Luz angerly muttered at the stone before giggling to herself at her geology pun. Luz quickly tapped the glyph on the stone, assuming that it would get destroyed just like the leaves and papers she had previously worked with. To her pleasant surprise, her hypothesis turned out to be correct, with the glyph activating without destroying the stone.
“It worked! I was right!”, Luz screamed from the top of her lungs at having her hypothesis validated.
“Hey, some of us are trying to take a nap!”, Luz heard King yell from downstairs.
“Sorry King, I’ll be quiet now!”, Luz replied.
Luz began to resume her inspection of the stone, only to notice something she wasn’t expecting. Instead of an orb of electric magic being created, the stone seemed to be creating electricity all by itself now, with arcs of lightning occasionally emitting from the stone and hitting the surrounding items on the desk Eda had given Luz. Luz picked up the stone, and while stray electricity flying into the air wouldn’t hurt her when they made contact due to her being the caster, she could still feel the magic inside the stone. Luz held the stone in her hand, getting used to the weird feeling. The stone had an energy inside of it, making it feel almost alive. It honestly could be alive now, Luz thought. She wasn’t really familiar with how magic exactly worked, but she did know it could create life with plant and abomination magic, so there was a possibility that it actually was alive, or at least some magic approximation of life.
“Madre de dios,” Luz said, “this, this is amazing”! Luz shot up from her desk and started to fish through the mess that was her room. “There it is”! Upon finding her desired item, Luz made her way back to the desk, the light-cannon she used to subdue a cursed Eda bundled in her arms. She placed the cannon upon her desk and took the two loose wires from it and wrapped it around the stone and tying the two ends of the circuit together. Upon finishing the circuit, the light-cannon activated, powered by the electrified stone.

Eda was currently sitting on the couch in the center of her living room, with King curled up on her lap, snoozing away his little head, and one of Eda’s favorite books in her hands. It was a story about four wanderers who banded together to destroy an ancient relic, a simple enough story in theory, but the character interactions always made the book an enjoyable read to Eda, regardless of how many times she read it. She was about halfway through her book when she heard a commotion from deep within the house, a commotion that could only be the whirlwind of energy that was her apprentice. Shortly afterwards, she heard the tell-tell sound of running footsteps, steadily getting louder and closer.
“Eda, Eda, Eda!”, Luz shouted with an excited look on her face as she barged her way into the living room, “you have to see it! You have to see what I did”!
“If it’ll get you to let me actually read my book than sure.”, Eda replied, knocking King off of her lap onto the floor, something he was not the biggest fan of, and placing her book on the central table before standing up and following Luz up to her room. Inside she saw the light-cannon Luz had used to subdue her cursed form on the desk, powered on. Luz had explained enough about how technology worked to Eda for her to understand that the light-cannon required a power source to function. Instead of seeing a ball of electricity however, Eda only saw the wires that would connect to the power source wrapped around a stone. Eda walked over to the stone, recognizing it as the piece of slate she had given Luz earlier in the day after she had asked for some. “Do you mind if I get a closer look?”, Eda asked. “None at all!”, Luz replied. Eda unwounded the wires from the rock, deactivating the light-cannon, and picked it up. Eda quickly noticed that there was a strange energy to the stone, similar to the feeling one gets in their bones before it starts to storm. An energy that wasn’t in the rock earlier when Eda had originally given it to Luz. “What did you do to this?”, Eda asked, looking towards Luz. “Flip it over!”, Luz excitedly said to Eda. When Eda flipped it over, she saw etched into the stone was Luz’s lightning glyph faintly glowing with a long-forgotten energy. Eda stared at the stone for a minute before putting it back on Luz’s desk and making her way towards the door.
“Um, is everything all right Eda?”, Luz worryingly asked Eda, fearful she had done something wrong. “No, no, everything’s all right. I just need to think about something.”, Eda said, slightly easing Luz’s worry.

Eda sat on the couch of the living room thinking about what Luz had shown her up in her room. While Luz had quickly picked up on the theory’s behind magic since Eda decided to start teaching them to Luz, Eda doubted Luz’s understanding about magic, or even the history of the Boiling Isles to recognize just how impressive what Luz had made was. Luz managed to make a relic. Eda knew that imbuing the latent, ambient magic that permeated the island was a relatively simple task. It was the same process Witches used to make their staffs and talismans. What Luz had done though was a step further, she had managed to imbue not ambient magic into that piece of slate, but the refined, volatile magic created in a spell. The only people Eda had ever heard of doing the same thing were the members of the Founding Council, the original nine Witches appointed to lead the covens fifty years ago when they created the Belos’ relics. Those relics were one of the most powerful weapons on the Isles, able to cast powerful spells without draining a Witches bile sac. The process to make a relic had been a closely guarded secret for years, but when the last member of the Founding Council died about twenty years ago, it had been considered a lost art, until now. Eda realized that should Luz master making relics, she could wind up as one of the most powerful Witches on the Boiling Isles. “Heh, and I just wanted her for the free labor.”, Eda quietly muttered under her breath. Eda decided now was as good of a time as any to work with Luz, especially with what Luz had showed her. Eda got off the couch and made her way up the stairs to the armory. Eda opened up the door to the arsenal and stepped inside it. She began to browse through the collection of weapons she had acquired over the years for one that would fit her apprentice. Eda quickly ruled out swords and other bladed weapons, knowing Luz would never willingly use on out of the fear of killing someone, leaving just the blunt weapons. Even with half of the weapons automatically being ruled out, there were still plenty of weapons Eda had to go through. After going through countless weapons, including a massive Warhammer made for the strongest of demons and a red wooden club Owlbert had brought from the human realm, Eda finally settled on a weapon to give to Luz, a whip made from the leather of a dealnarag, a fast and dangerous electric beast know to inhabit areas around the skull and vertebrae of the Titan. Eda admired the weapon in her hands, taking in the craftsmanship of it. While Eda relied upon her magic, she could still recognize a good weapon when she saw one, and to Eda, this whip would be perfect for Luz.

About half an hour after Luz had shown Eda the stone and what she had done to it, Eda returned to her room. This time however, it was Eda who had something for the apprentice. Eda gave her a whip, a beautiful whip, with the catch that Luz had to replicate what she had done to the stone with the whip. Though it took a bit of time, trying to draw an intricate glyph onto the small bottom of the whip’s pommel, Luz managed to get the job done. Holding her breath, she lightly tapped the bottom of the pommel to activate the glyph. Upon her hand hitting the marking, Luz felt the same energy that was contained within the stone start to spread out from the glyph before encompassing the entirety of the whip. Luz looked back at Eda and eagerly told her, “it worked! I managed to get it to work again”! A proud smile grew on Eda’s face. “Well look at you kid. And who said that humans can’t do magic?” “That was you Eda!” “and look at you kiddo, you’ve managed to prove both me and baby Blight wrong. You’ve proven you’re a fine Witch”! With that, Eda gave Luz a ruffle of her hair before telling her, “Oh, we’re going to the training grounds. Need to teach you how to use that whip!”

Eda and Luz emerged from the brush into a clearing a few yards from the Owl House. Eda had set this area up to be a place for Luz to safely train with her glyphs, with several training dummies set up, already showing the damage from Luz’s lightning bolts. “Ok, to the center, I’m going to teach you how to use that whip!”, Eda instructed to Luz. Luz quickly made her way to the center of the clearing and unfurled her whip and mentally prepared herself for training. The training lasted for a several days, where Luz had to learn how to safely handle the whip to keep herself from hurting herself or someone she didn’t mean to. After three days of training, Eda decided to have Luz finally practice cracking the whip. “So, today, I’m finally going to have you crack your whip. I might have explained to you how to do it, but nothing will help you more than actually doing it.”, the Witch told Luz. “Really! I’m gonna be just like Indiana Jones!”, Luz excitedly shouted. “Ok, now get up and start practicing with that dummy!”, Eda instructed Luz, pointing to a training dummy Eda had King set up about nine feet away from them before returning back to the Owl House to go nap. “Yes ma’am!” Luz said, even throwing in a joking salute, before getting herself off the ground and getting in position to attack the dummy. After a quick estimate of the distance from her to the dummy, and making sure her stance was correct, Luz took a deep breath in and then out before striking at the dummy with the magic whip. Eda observed Luz, noting that the girl was doing everything exactly as she had instructed, paying far more attention to Eda’s training than she had expected. The tip of the whip struck the center of the dummy’s chest, the entire length of the whip seemed to crackle alive with energy and arcs of lightning, and instead of the crack both Eda and Luz had expected, a loud boom emanated instead, the unforgettable sound of thunder.
Eda and Luz were surprised at what they had witnessed. While both knew that the whip was magic, mainly because Luz was the one who made it magical, neither of them had known how the whip’s magic would manifest, until know. They both ran over to the dummy, or what remained of it, to see the damage. The dummy had previously been damaged and slightly scorched, the result of being hit by bolts of electricity from Luz’s glyphs, but that was nothing compared to what Luz and Eda saw once the dummy had been struck by the whip. There was a strong smell of ozone and smoke surrounding the remains of the dummy, and the top half of it was completely gone. To put it quite simply, it looked like a bolt of lightning came down from the sky and obliterated the dummy. “wow”, Luz said softly while admiring the damage before shouting out, “I AM ZEUS!”, a comment that got a hearty chuckle from Eda. “Geez kid, I didn’t know you were that powerful. But just because we don’t have a dummy doesn’t mean you’re out of training. Your punishment is to run back to the house to get a new one.”, Eda told Luz. “Yes Eda!”, Luz told Eda before racing off back to the Owl House. “Titan below, I really lucked out with that kid.”, Eda said to no one but herself, finding herself getting far more attached to the human than she would care to admit.

Chapter Text

Luz struggled to get the massive doors to the Bonesborough library, hampered by the comically large pile of books Eda had overdue and had sent Luz to return for her while Eda took care of the Bat Queen’s baby. Upon finally getting the massive doors of the library open, Luz managed to get only two steps inside before stopping, awestruck by what she saw. Luz knew the library was massive, the exterior made that obvious, but Luz hadn’t truly comprehended the size of the library. The exterior came off less like a library, and more like a palace, and this extended into the interior. Luz saw countless books held on massive ornate bookshelves, more things for her to learn than Luz could have hoped for. Luz was snapped out of it when the topmost book of the stack she was carrying started to glow before levitating off the stack and towards a desk where a man who appeared to be the librarian was standing, sending each of the books he levitated from Luz’s pile into a glowing spell circle where the book would disappear once it had passed through the spell, each time the word LATE appearing in bold lettering above the circle, causing Luz to slightly cringe each time it happened. “Late, late, late.”, the librarian chanted in a monotone voice at each of the book, until he grabbed a particularly worn book with a red cover and began inspecting it. “Coffee, grass, and bloodstains? These are Eda’s, aren’t they?”, he asked Luz. “That was one wild night.” Luz nervously answered. “Since you’re obviously new here and her apprentice, I’m letting you know ahead of time that while you are allowed here at the library, no using any weapons!” he said, pointing to the whip Luz had clipped at her waist, “and we won’t do anything to stop the Emperor’s Coven should they come in here to arrest you,” he explained, “other than that, you’re good to go, just make sure you leave early tonight. We’re closing up due to the Wailing Star”. “What’s that?”. “You’re in a library, read a book!”. “I am in a library. I will read a book!”. “Shhh”.

Luz had been wandering through the seemingly endless bookshelves of the Bonesborough library for about an hour now, browsing through the magnitude of textbooks, texts, and other forms of writing held there. She had taken it as a chance to learn more about the technological progression of the Boiling Isles, taking many textbooks about a wide variety of subjects to a table for her to quickly skim through. She quickly realized that despite the extreme anatomical similarities between Witches and Humans, there was extraordinarily little information about Human biology in the library, and what little there was, was flat out incorrect. “That probably explains how Willow seemed to know more about human biology than Gus did” Luz thought. She also learned that many of the same principles and equations that governed mathematics in the Human Realm were also known and used on the Boiling Isles, just under a different name. While on Earth, there was Newton, Archimedes, and Pythagoras, the Boiling Isles had Liadon, Binth, and Sharpe. Doing some more research, Luz realized that the Boiling Isles had far more in common with the Human Realm than she had expected. They had a similarly advanced understanding of mathematics and physics. The only main technological advancement the Human Realm had in technology from what Luz could tell was in weapons and electronics. Feeling like she had a far better understanding of the Boiling Isles than when she had walked in, Luz decided to put all the books back. After putting all of her books back, and secretly giving one of the demons in the library’s demon decimal system a treat for doing such a good job, when she heard a voice she hadn’t heard in a while, a voice that caused her to panic. “What do you think you’re doing?” Amity Blight, the unofficial Queen of Hexside and the closest person Luz had to a rival, said accusingly. “I’ve been caught! Pretend to be a book!” Luz shouted, too busy panicking to come up with a better plan. “Wait a minute.” Luz muttered under her breath, realizing she couldn’t see Amity, and that her voice sounded a lot farther away than she would have expected. Luz then heard the laughter of small children.
Luz went in the direction of the laugher only to end up in a small area of the library obviously designed for smaller children. Luz quickly hid behind one of the miniature bookshelves before peaking her head up to get a look around the room. Surveying the room, Luz saw something she didn’t expect. Over by a window was Amity, sitting on a small chair with a book in her hands, angled outwards towards a row of about twelve kids so they could see the pictures in the book. Amity began to resume her story, this time in a far more upbeat and friendly voice. “'We're your friends and we want to help,' said the Tin Boy with a yelp. Otabin smiled and paced the floor. 'I've never had real friends before.' 'Then we'll be your first,' the Chicken Witch clucked. Otabin couldn't believe his luck. So, Bookmaker Otabin surrounded by friends, bound a book of friendship and that's the end”. Watching this display, Luz thought to herself that this was the first time she had seen Amity actually happy. All the other times Luz had seen her, Amity had either been enraged at Luz for helping Willow cheat, disgusted from having run into Luz, or downright distraught like at the Convention duel, when she found out Lilith placed a strength glyph on her. After finishing that thought, both Amity and the kids she had been reading too began to stand up. As Amity made her way towards the exit, the kids began to run up to her to hug and thank her for reading for them. It was after the last kid, a small child with a deep voice and a maw for a face similar to Warden Wrath had said thank you that Amity finally noticed Luz.
“Oh, it’s you!” Amity said upon making eye contact with Luz, her disgust and annoyance made apparent with both the tone she spoke with and the look she gave. “Hey Amity,” Luz said while quickly popping herself from off the ground, “reading to kids. It seems like this sour little lemon drop has a sweet center”. “It’s for extra credit, don’t get your leggings in a bunch!” Amity unconvincingly told Luz. “Sure, sure,” Luz said, making her disbelief evident to Amity, “if you need some help with the kids, I’m more than willing to help with them if you need it”. “Listen human, do you see me going to the Owl Shack and messing with you while you fry up some owls?” Amity angerly shouted at Luz, “Ok, I don’t actually know what you do there, but every time you come near me, I get in trouble!”. “I know, that’s why I wanted to help you, to try and do something to make it up to you!” Luz defensively said. “Then if you really want to make it up, then it’s quite simple, just leave me alone!”. Upon hearing this, Luz sadly told Amity, “you’re right. I’ll leave you alone.”, before walking away with her head hung low.
When Luz was leaving the kiddie area of the library, she heard someone start speaking to her. “You’re not just gonna let her get to you like that, are you?”, the person said. Luz looked up to see the person to see two teenagers, a guy and girl, obviously twins and with green hair and gold eyes similar to Amity standing there and wearing a Hexside uniform with aquamarine sleeves and leggings, looking at her. “Who are you?” Luz asked. “We’re well-wishers on a mission”, the boy of the duo said. The two walked over to Luz where the girl then chimed in with “a noble quest. One of great importance.” “Watch this”, the guy told Luz. He turned towards Amity before yelling “HEY MITTENS!”. Upon hearing this, Amity turned beet red and marched over to Luz and the twins. “Stop forgetting your lunch”, the guy said, pulling out a pink cloth lunch bag with bunny ears on top, “and stop being so mean to your friend”. “She’s not my friend!” Amity angerly told him. “Yeah, she’s obviously too cool to hang with you”. “I am?” Luz asked hopefully. “You can leave now all of you!” Amity angerly demanded, before stomping away, further into the library. “So, you’re the human we’ve heard so much about” the teen Luz know knew was Amity’s older brother. Finally speaking up, Amity’s sister introduced her brother and herself, “I'm Emira. And this is Edric. We're Amity's older siblings. We heard how you embarrassed her at the school and at the witch Covention last week. No wonder she hates you”. “That’s the thing, I didn’t mean any of it. I thought we we’re as cool as cucumbers, but we’re as sour as pickles”, Luz defeatedly said. “Don’t waste your time with Mittens,” Emira told Luz, “we are way more fun. Follow us.”

Luz preceded to assist the Blight twins with committing their mischief around the library. Their pranks and shenanigans even managed to give poor old Gary, the librarian’s assistant, an existential crisis, twice. Luz and the twins were in the middle of committing more mischief when they heard Amity yell at them “HEY!”, calling their attention. They looked over to see both Amity and the librarian staring at them with an angry expression and their arms crossed. All three of them were kicked out of the library, being told by the librarian that “they had made reading too fun!”. “Amity’s even madder at me. I didn’t even know if that was possible!”, Luz said, trying to catch her breath between her laughter. “No, when Mittens gets angry, she looks like this!”, Edric responded, before preceding to hold his breath in while maintaining an angry expression on his face, causing his face to turn red and only ending when he nearly ran out of breath. “You’re pretty fun human,” Emira said, “how about joining us back here later tonight? There’s a book that we forget to check out”. “Plus, rumor has it that the Wailing Star will reveal some magical event!” Edric chimed in. “Sure, I’ll come.” Luz nervously said, not knowing how to react to having older kids including her in something for once. “See you at midnight!” Emira said before both she and her brother walked down the library steps to go back home. “This is great! First, I befriend the siblings, then I befriend the Amity, perfect plan!” Luz said once the twins were out of earshot.

It was now about midnight, with several hours having passed since Luz had gone to the library earlier, with Luz currently standing outside the locked door to the library, waiting for Edric and Emira to arrive. To say Luz was excited would be an understatement. Back in the human realm, Luz lacked any real friends, with her being flat out ostracized and bullied by her peers in middle school, so making real friends on the Boiling Isles with Willow and Gus was easily in Luz’s top 5 moments of her life. Going beyond that, having older kids like Edric and Emira take an interest in her was something Luz had considered possible only in her dreams. Besides, if hanging out with Ed and Em got Luz out of helping them care for the Bat Queen’s child, then Luz would have no problem going along with whatever shenanigans the twins had planned.
“Gotta look cool, Luz!”, Luz said to herself, striking up several poses. “No, not cool enough”, she said. “Go on, this is fun to watch!”, a feminine voice chimed in, startling Luz, and causing her to fall backwards onto her but. Luz looked up to see that the voice had come from Emira, who was standing on the other side of the stairs with her brother, both staring at Luz. “You ready to bring your whole, what ever you were doing inside?”, Edric said, gesturing to Luz, receiving several excited nods of approval from Luz. Edric walked up to the door, pulling out and unfurling a scroll with ornate writing and a depiction of a rock. “It says no trespassing, but I’m allergic to the rules”, he said. “And diary!”, Emira added. “Wow, just gonna expose me like that”. When Ed walked up to the door of the library, he pressed the scroll up against the lock, causing it to disintegrate and the lock on the door to expand across the door, until the gap in it was large enough to allow a person to walk through the lock and into the library.
The three trespassers walked into the library before stopping in the lobby. “You sure do know how to party, standing in an empty lobby”, Luz joked before the faint sound of someone wailing was heard, slowly but surely growing louder. “There it is, the wailing star!”, Edric exclaimed, pointing up at a massive glass window depicting a shooting star. Shortly, a shooting star emanating the wail Luz was hearing passed through the night sky, with Luz having a perfect view of it through the stained-glass window. As the shooting star passed, the entire library was bathed in colored light, stained from the chromatic glass, causing all of the books within the library to emit a faint green glow. The three ran over to a bookshelf and took out a book on exotic birds of the Boiling Isles. Upon opening the book, countless birds of vibrant plume erupted from it and started soaring through the library. “Wow!”, exclaimed Edric, “wailing star brought the books to life”.

It was about in hour since the revelation that the Wailing Star brought the books to life, and Luz’s situation had immensely changed. First, Luz and the twins just used the books to mess around with each other, trying on new outfits and having snowball fights, but things started to go downhill when the twins discovered that any changes made to the page would also get manifested. While Luz had been uncomfortable with what the twins were doing with this, she still went along with it, and made Otabin, the titular main character of the book Luz had saw Amity read to kids earlier today, into some long-clawed monster. It was shortly after this however that Luz discovered the twin’s true purpose for going to the library when the three made a trip to the library’s romance section. “Wow, Boiling Isles romance, totally lame! Unless you guys are into it?”, Luz nervously said. “I think I’m into this one.”, Edric said before grabbing a book titled “The Lonely Witch” and pulling it back. Upon releasing the book and letting it return back into the shelf, the bookshelf began to retract into the wall before sliding away to reveal a small secret hideout. The right wall of the hideout was taken up by a small desk and chair, while the entire left was taken up my bookshelves, each one filled to the brim with books.
“Wow, your clubhouse is like, the ultimate secret hideaway!”, Luz excitedly told the twins while running inside it towards the bookshelf. As she was browsing through the books on the shelves, a name caught her eye: Azura. Luz realized that on the shelf designated for the owner’s favorite books, sitting proudly on display was the Azura books. While Luz herself never read any of them, she herself still recognized the name from seeing the books in her middle school library back on earth and from seeing people discuss them online. “Wow, you guys read Azura? I didn’t even know it was possible for a book series to be sold both here and back home!”, Luz asked the twins. “What, no! This isn’t even our own secret hideout, it’s Amity’s.” Edric explained. “Wait what, then what are we even doing here?”, Luz asked them, with a slight panic to her tone. “Well, you see, Mittens has gotten too full of herself.”, Emira claimed. “She keeps ratting us out when we skip school so we’re gonna find her diary and post it’s pages all over Hexside!”, Edric added. “What, isn’t that taking it too far!”, a horrified Luz asked. “No, you see, we’re her family, it’s just tough love.”, Emira said in an attempt to ease Luz’s worries. “Fine, I’ll help then.”, Luz begrudgingly told them, secretly planning on finding Amity’s diary just to hide it from the twins.
Luz began to search through the bookshelf, looking for the diary, when she found a small black book. Taking it off the shelf, Luz saw a hand drawn depiction of a Witch with green hair wearing long, flowing, white robes. Luz opened up the book only for a small manifestation of Amity to appear on the page speaking. “I saw that human girl again. I may have overreacted. I don’t wanna come off as cruel, I just can’t show any weakness.”, the miniature Witch said with a disappointed tone. Whether that disappointment was directed towards Luz herself, Amity, or towards the situation they were in when they had encountered each other was a mystery to Luz. “This is definitely her diary!”, Luz thought while quickly shutting the cover closed. “What you got there?”, Edric asked, having noticed Luz starting at a closed book. “Oh nothing, just Azura 5, where she goes through her goth phase”, Luz lied, hoping that the twins were just as clueless about the Azura series as she was. “Sure it is.”, Emira sarcastically said before drawing a spell circle, causing the book in Luz’s hands to levitate over to the twins who began to open and read it. Luz began to here Amity’s secrets and private thoughts leak from the manifestation of Amity the twins had created from opening the diary. “Where you trying to hide this from us?”, Emira asked Luz, a betrayed look in both of the twins eyes. “You’ve seen how she treats people, why would you protect her?”, Edric added. “These are private thoughts. Amity may be cold, but no one deserves this!”. With that comment, Luz reached forward and began to try to wrestle Amity’s diary from the twins. Her plan was put to an end when the pages of the diary began to fall out, each one creating a green haired narrator to read it. “No, no, no”, Luz said, reaching down to try to pick up the loose pages, only stopping when she heard the twins giggling. Luz looked up at the twins, seeing them looking at the door to the club house. Looking over to the door, Luz saw the last person she wanted to see at that moment, Amity.
“Really you two!”, Amity yelled at her older siblings, “You two are the worst, but you!”, Amity said, turning down towards Luz who had the pages of her diary wrapped in her arms. “Why can’t you just leave me alone! You said you never meant to get me in trouble, yet you then go on to do this!”, Amity yelled at Luz, with fury in her eyes, before drawing a spell circle that caused the pages of her diary to erupt into a cool flame, destroying it from being used by the twins and walking off into the library. “Amity wait!”, Luz said, trying to get Amity to stop but it was too late, Amity was already out of earshot. “Leave it up to Mittens to ruin the fun. How about joining us for some goblin-tipping Luz?”, Emira asked, having not noticed Luz running off after Amity. After a few minutes, Luz managed to find Amity walking alone between some bookshelves. Luz called out to Amity, this time causing her to stop. “Ugh, what’s your problem human?” an annoyed Amity asked Luz. “First, you embarrass me, and now you want to be my friend. I don’t get you. Pick a side!”, Amity continued. Luz tried to speak up but was interrupted by the sound of massive, heavy footsteps. Coming around the corner was a massive beast with massive claws, pink skin, dark eyes with luminous iris’, and a book merged into the flesh of the chest. “Otabin?”, Amity fearfully asked, recognizing the character from the children’s book, even in it’s twisted form. “With claws and fangs and breaking bones, I found a friend to make my own.” the massive beast stated before grabbing Amity and running off with her. Luz watched in horror as Otabin ran off with Amity, who was currently calling out for Luz to help her.
Luz unclipped her whip from her waist and ran after the beast, determined to save Amity from her mistake. She managed to track the beast back to the kiddie area of the library, a place Luz noted she had been making frequent trips to that day. She managed to find Otabin crouching over a book, planning on doing something with it to Amity. “Hey ugly, get a piece of me!”, Luz shouted, gaining Otabin’s attention. When Otabin looked over, he wasn’t given a chance to react to Luz’s presence as he immediately felt the sharp pain of a whip in his face, followed by the force of a bolt of lightning, the result of being hit by Luz’s magical whip. Luz’s strike on Otabin caused the massive beast to drop Amity to the ground, running away from the creature and past Luz. “RUN!” she yelled at the human; a command she didn’t need to be told twice to follow. Luz had struck Otabin square in the face with her whip, hitting it with the force of a literal bolt of lightning, Otabin should be nothing more than a faint memory after that strike, yet Otabin was still standing, having only been stunned.
Luz and Amity regrouped, trying to stay quiet from the monster stalking through the halls of the library, hunting for the two witches. “Ok, you’re the one responsible for Otabin, so you’re gonna tell me how to destroy it.” Amity demanded from Luz. “Destroy it, my whip hit it with the force of a small bomb, we can’t exactly destroy it by conventional means. We probably need to close the book on his chest.”, Luz explained. “You want us to go and get up close to that thing? Do you have any idea how dangerous that is?”, Amity asked. “Probably about as dangerous as spending time with me.” Luz responded, earning a laugh from the Blight. “True. Ok then, what’s your plan?”
Otabin was prowling through the library, looking for the two witches to make into his friends, permanently when he heard some yelling coming from the main hallway. Making his way to the main hallway, he saw Amity at the other end with a cart of books in front of her facing Otabin. Upon making eye contact with Otabin, Amity let loose a war cry before charging forward towards Otabin at ramming speed. Seeing this challenge, Otabin began to charge towards the approaching Amity, only to be stopped by a sharp pain wrapping itself around his right arm. Looking over to see what caused the pain, he saw Luz standing in between two bookshelves with a massive grin on her face and her whip wrapped around Otabin’s arm restraining him. He raised his left arm to swat at Luz only to be stopped by Amity finally hitting her target and ramming the book cart straight into Otabin’s chest, knocking him onto his back. With her opponent subdued, Amity hopped up on the chest of the fallen beast and ripped the book from out of it’s flesh, closing it and putting an end to their nightmare.

Luz and Amity were currently standing at the top of the stairs. “Oh, thanks for helping me clean up!” Luz told Amity, receiving only a monotone “yep” from the green haired witch. “Oh, I noticed that you had some Azura books in your library, there were some back in the Human Realm, and I was curious if I could borrow one, if it was all right with you?” Luz asked Amity, surprising the Blight. “Uh yeah, sure. Let me go get it for you.” Amity said before heading back inside the library for a minute. When Amity returned, she handed the book Luz before telling her, “Here’s the book, and sorry. I haven’t exactly been the friendliest witch with you, and I snapped earlier at you. I’ll try to be nicer towards you from now on”. With that final comment, the green haired witch descended the stairs before making her way into Bonesburrow, out of Luz’s sight.