Chapter Text
Luz bounded through the woods, her rucksack clutched in one hand and a grin glued to her face. The Wailing Star was set to cut across the sky in less than an hour, and she’d made plans with Amity to spend the night in the library. Her heart stirred at the thought of the Blight. She brushed it off as excitement, but beneath it all she couldn’t deny the mixture of nervousness and affection threatening to bubble over.
She couldn’t pinpoint when exactly her feelings towards Amity Blight changed.
Was it in the library that first time, when she saw the young witch reading to a flock of entranced toddlers? Was it when she first heard her laugh? Was it on the Knee, seeing her cheeks colour at the suggestion of their now-existent Azura book club?
Was it when Amity had single-handedly held back her parent’s monstrous creation, halting its blade seconds before it sliced Luz’s pinned body to ribbons?
She wasn’t sure. All she knew was that somehow, sometime, the rosy tinge of her usual friendship had slowly bled into something warmer, and now she found herself unable to even think about Amity without flushing.
She cleared her throat as she ran, shaking her head to clear the thoughts. She couldn’t afford to embarrass herself in front of Amity tonight. Their Azura club meetings tended to go smoothly, even now Luz found herself tongue-tied around Amity. It never took long before they fell into their usual dynamic and laughed the hours away.
They’d write and draw together, tease each other relentlessly, and each time, only grew closer. With the addition of the Wailing Star, their meeting promised to be even more fun than usual.
Luz couldn’t wait.
Bonesborough wasn’t far, now. It wasn’t yet visible through the thick mass of trees between it and the Owl House, but Luz could hear the bumbling activity of the town at night. Her strides quickened, a flutter in her chest driving her forwards at the thought of seeing Amity just a little bit sooner.
A snap of a twig behind her yanked her out of her excitement. She skidded to a halt, wheeling around to glance back into the trees she’d been running through. She narrowed her eyes as she saw only darkness. She hadn’t imagined that sound, and she knew better than to underestimate the horrors of the Boiling Isles.
Nothing moved.
Luz frowned, and shifted her rucksack over her head, burying her hand inside until they rested lightly on her glyphs. She was nothing if not prepared by now. She stepped backwards, keeping her eyes fixed on the trees behind her.
A low huff sounded from the dark undergrowth, but still nothing moved. The noise made Luz flinch, backing away slightly quicker, until her heel clipped a raised root. She was sent sprawling, her back hitting the dense forest floor as she let out an “oof”.
That brief lapse in concentration was all the hidden beast needed to make its move.
With a roar, a furred quadruped leaped from the trees, loping towards Luz. Talons raked the forest floor, ripping up the undergrowth as it ran. Luz yelped and grasped for a glyph, scrabbling to use it.
An icicle launched from her glyph towards the rapidly approaching beast, but the monster was nimble, and it flattened itself to the ground to avoid being impaled. The icicle whizzed by it harmlessly, and the monster pounced on Luz, staring down at her with eyes void of anything but malice, and hunger.
Luz cried out, reaching for another glyph, but the beast slammed a paw down on her arm, effectively pinning it in place. Pain radiated from her wrist where the beast rested its weight, drawing a grunt of pain from Luz, bad enough to briefly immobilise her as she stared up at the monster.
It looked to be some combination of canine and feline, with lips pulled back to reveal a mouth filled with teeth, with fangs the size of Luz’s forearm. The beast was covered in fur, mottled muted shades of reds and blues, and it had large, rounded ears, swivelling this way and that as it made sure they were alone.
Luz reached her other arm down towards her rucksack at the same time that the beast lunged for her, fastening its teeth into her waist. She let out a yell of pain and fright, but drew a glyph from the sack even as the beast lifted her into the air.
It shook her to and fro like a ragdoll, teeth tearing, sinking, cutting-
“¡Vete al cuerno!”
Luz slammed the glyph down onto the beast’s head, and flames erupted from her hand. They swamped the beast’s face, and it let out a scream of rage and pain.
It backed away, clawing at its own face - its vicious talons raked Luz’s upper arm as it did so - but it couldn’t extinguish the flames so easily. With a whine of fury, the beast reared onto its hind legs, releasing Luz from its grip. She sailed through the air, crashing down to the forest floor, and looked up to see the beast thundering away into the trees, fur still ablaze.
Silence fell as quickly as Luz’s trip had been interrupted in the first place.
She barely felt anything, even as her heart raced and she knew, logically, that she was dripping with blood from the gouges across her waist and arm. Her temples pounded, breaths laboured, and she found it more difficult than it should have been to force herself to her feet and stumble towards Bonesborough.
The adrenaline started to trickle away and was replaced with pain as Luz forced herself into the town. Her blood dripped audibly onto the cobbles, and she glanced down at the blood trail she was leaving with a morbid curiosity which prevented her from even being that horrified by it.
It was surreal. Reasonably, she knew exactly what had happened, and she understood that she needed help. In the moment, however, with her head swimming with shock and blood pulsing from her injuries, she struggled to accept the reality of the situation. In her mind, she could only see it as something out of a fantasy novel.
This wasn’t happening.
Of course it was.
It couldn’t be.
Her feet dragged as she continued towards the library. She could see its turrets by now, could see the slowly approaching door, just as she saw the eyes of demons watching her limp through the streets, panting as she went.
The pain was growing with each step, but the repetitive motion of walking was an easy distraction, and so she didn’t let herself stop to wait the waves of pain out. She needed help. She needed Amity.
Amity would know what to do.
The library door was more difficult to push open than Luz remembered. She groaned with the effort, feeling sweat bead on her forehead, and she stumbled, barely keeping herself upright, as she finally succeeded and pushed her way inside.
“Amity?” she called out. Her voice was hoarse, rough from her panting. Now she stood stock still in the library’s entrance, the pain grew and grew. She vaguely heard footsteps as Amity ran to greet her and she swayed on the spot, sparks dancing in her dark-rimmed sights. She looked up to see Amity, her vision blurring, and she offered a tiny “Hey,” and a weak wave before she finally collapsed to the ground.