Chapter Text
When she’d woken up at 5 am in the morning to King whacking her in the face with his hind-feet, Raine snoring in her ear, and mucus stuffing her nose with what felt like cotton, Eda had known it’d be one of her worse days.
Through the pile of bodies on top of her—sans one hyper-active sunshine child—she could feel the beginnings of a rattle in her chest, and a bought of coughs wanting to push through the weight bearing down on her diaphragm. A fever that seemed to burn hotter than the sun was spreading over her forehead and behind her temples, giving her a headache that sitting only served to make worse. Eyes rolling upwards, she let her head hit the thin pillow behind her, and stared upwards to find a mushroom blocking her thin vision.
The great Edalyn Clawthorne, Owl Lady of the Boiling Isles—coughing and sneezing and spitting literally everywhere—was sick in bed with the common mold and unable to get up, for her lack of strength and due in part to the two being’s lazing in her nest. Sighing, Eda decided she’d greet the day with a cocky smirk and two middle fingers up—though she’d have to release her hands first. She attempted to raise her right arm from under the snug form of King, who merely rolled over and nearly out of the nest, to pry her partner off the left side of her failing body.
”C’mon Rainestorm, wake up already! You sleep like a log for Titan’s sake!”
In response, Raine only snored louder, causing the ringing in Eda’s head to grow louder and more pronounced—oh, how she longed to slap them awake. But she was far too kind, even though she wasn’t feeling like it, and took to shaking her lover harshly instead. Shoving them to the edge of the nest, the sensations of falling kicked in and caused their eyes to fly open.
“Aye!” Raine awoke with a start, shoulders flying up and knocking her in the jaw, “Oh Titan Eda, I’m so sorry! Are you alright?”
They took her jaw in their hands and began moving it around, fretting over any bruising or possible fractures, although she supposed it was just in Raine’s nature to be a worrywart. Eda would’ve laughed given the situation if not for her aching jaw and congested sinuses, but she did let out a small scoff at the gesture.
“I’m fine hon, couldn’t say the same for your shoulder there though,” she pointed towards an oval bruise beginning to take shape on their skin, “next time, remind me that you have a reflex!”
Raine released her face and glanced away sheepishly, rubbing a hand up and down the back of their neck habitually, awkwardly laughing to themself. They dropped their arm and sighed, turning to look at a stump-shaped nightstand that held a shrieking clock, ogling at the time.
“Titan’s above Edalyn, why are you up this early? More importantly, why did you wake me up this early? Is something wrong?”
Raine’s eyes wandered, scouring the room, before landing on the space in the nest and realizing a certain someone was missing from the family cuddle pile.
“Hey Calamity, where’s Luz? She didn’t wander back to her room again after we fell asleep, did she? Ohhh my, what if she got into your potions on accident? And drank a shrinking spell! What if she wandered off in the night because she saw something curious in the woods? Perhaps she found a treasure map or some scam tome and wandered off! Oh Edalyn, what—”
“Hey!” It was her turn to slap her hands around the edge of their cheeks, and turn their face towards her, the worry-lines written in their face showing the years of stress from work and rebellion had worn them down by years, “the kid is fine Rainestorm! You worry too much. Listen, Luz is probably having a lil’ fun by herself in her bedroom, or maybe she’s down in the kitchen trying to cook us another breakfast in bed again!”
She definitely wasn’t ever going to tell the love of her life that, just for a moment, she didn’t realize that her youngest child was missing from the body pile, or that she hadn’t cared that King rolled off the nest and possibly gained a skull fracture. If they’d ever found out, she’d blame it on her high fever.
Raine honestly didn’t seem too much happier at the prospect of Luz playing with the stovetop downstairs alone, as early in the morning as it was, if their furrowed brows and clenched teeth were any indication. Edalyn cursed herself—though not actually—for causing them to stress even more.
“Just don’t think so much about it, okay? If it makes you feel better, I’ll go and see what the kid is up to while you keep the little gremlin here,” she looks to King, “asleep. No doubt sunshine child is somewhere reading or with Hooty, papier-mâché-ing an innocent animal.”
Eda sat up and stretched her back out with a loud ‘pop’! Lifting her legs over the edge of the nest, she hissed as all her weight settled on them as she stood up to walk out of the room. Luckily, Raine hadn’t seemed to notice the mushrooms dangling in front of her eyes, or the mold floating around her hairline like a fairy-ring, and she was trying her hardest not to cough or sneeze, or let their hands wander too far up her jawline. Best not to let them know until later in the morning, she didn’t want them to fret anymore than they had to this early.
But, though Raine was without glasses, or the aid of Eda’s night vision, they had known her long enough to tell something was different, much like they had with her curse.
So, as she stepped out her bedroom door and into the ever-shifting walls of the house, there sounded a faint “Eda….”
She swallowed nervously, “Uh, yeah Rainestorm? What’s ‘matter?”
Sea-green eyes seemed to peer into her soul, her bile-sack tightening around her heart as she tilted her head backwards only a bit. Through the dark of the room, her eyes could pick up a glint of glass being framed over Raine’s face, their own staring never waning from her gaze. Finishing adjusting their eyeglasses, they huffed at her and crossed their arms.
“When you find Luz and get back here, I expect you to lie down and stay down. I’ll bring you medicine and elixir throughout the day after I drop Luz off at Hexside—you, my dear, will stay in the nest for the rest of today.”
“But…”
“No ‘but’s’ Eda, Luz starts school today and I don’t want you getting her sick for orientation! I’ll drop her off, and you can pick her up, if and only if you feel better.”
Eda frowned at them, huffing her distaste at the notion of lying down and doing absolutely nothing all day. Boredom was not one of Eda’s strong-suits. If anything, Lilith would’ve been better suited to handle lazing around while Eda went off and created havoc all over the Isles; Lilith was always good at working hard or hardly working.
“Alright, alright! I go find Luz, don’t get sidetracked, bring her back, take some elixir and pick these mushrooms off my head, then I lie down and do nothin’ for the day, I got it.” She acted nonchalant and picked a stray twig out of her mane, flicking it across the hall.
“And if you’re gone longer than five minutes Edalyn Clawthorne, I’m coming after you!”
“Yeah yeah, just go back to sleep, I’ll grab some Fever reducing spells while I’m in the kitchen!”
She slammed the door to her room shut and made off down the hall towards Luz’s room. She could hear some small murmurs of ‘Azura’ ‘Battle wand’ and ‘Moon pool’ from under the kid’s doorway, and snorted, “What could she possibly be reading about now?”
No doubt it was one of her newest Azura books she’d spent out on at a resale stand at the bookfair last week, but regardless of price, it had made her kids happy, and that was good enough for the owl mom.
She brought her hand up to the small open crevas in the door, and pried it open a tad to see what Luz was doing inside. She only smiled softly to herself when she found Luz, curled up in a pile of blankets and pillows, a small reading light taped to a headband she wore, and her collection of Azura books scattered across the floor. She was only barely awake, and lilting side-to-side in an exhausted stupor, nearly making contact with the floor a few times before perking up and continuing to graze the pages.
Edalyn felt almost guilty to interfere with such a cute scene, however if Luz was too tired for school later on, she might get frustrated with some students or sidetracked during her studytime, and then she’d only become frustrated with her lack of awareness or concentration. Eda wanted her owlet bright and energetic for the day ahead, so that she could better deal with any issues or interests that greeted her on her first day at Hexside.
“Hey my little owlet,” she crooned as she pushed the door the rest of the way open, “you do know that it’s far to early in the morning to be reading all those books, right?”
Luz startled a little, raising her head and tired eyes to meet Eda’s form in the entryway, before relaxing and placing the book down in her lap.
“Yeah mom, I know… but Auntie Lilith said that Amity and I can walk together the rest of the way to school tomorrow after O’pa Raine drops me off at the school gates, and said that Amity loves the Good Witch Azura books just as much as I do! I wanted to read all of them before school today so that we could talk about them while we walked! But… I only remembered to start reading after you fell asleep… sorry if I woke you up, I thought I had a lot of time…”
The youngest Clawthorne child lowered her gaze, fiddling with the hem of her pyjamas and tapping the side of her foot against the ground in a steady rhythm. Eda frowned,
“Hey now, ain’t your fault kid, you didn’t wake me up! Mama’s got a cold, so I just got up to get some potions, alright? Don’t worry about it.”
The owlet blinked wearily at her, “Really?”
“Really really,” winked Eda, picking up the 8-year-old and tucking her into her small bed, “now, if you wanna have the energy to talk to the Blight kid about those books of yours, you better get some shut-eye before the sun rises, alright sunshine?”
Luz only smiled and nodded at her before slipping off into dreamland. Glancing at the small girl, Eda was reminded of herself, when she were younger and far more energetic and her mind would also keep her awake at night. Now however, her mind kept her up for a completely different reason, having to do with the second occupant and tenant renting out the space inside her head and body. Eda stepped back over the bookpiles before softly closing the door and stumbling her way over to the stairs. She patted her mouth, yawning and stepping lightly down into the kitchen. She could feel hints of the owl beast’s magic rousing in the back of her head, a sure sign that they were being disturbed by her activity this early in the morning.
“See,” she began speaking into the air, “I told Rainestorm they shouldn’t have to worry! Luz was just being Luz again, active at all hours of the day!”
The owl beast still hidden inside her mind grumbled their discontent at being awoken, she could feel them stretching out their wings and scratching at the back of her neck, letting off a growl here and there, and giving off an unimaginable amount of heat.
She attempted to sooth their irritation with waves of calm, and reassuring words that the illness would soon be over with, though she could agree with their poor sentiment, she hated being sick.
“Don’t you worry bud, I’ll get some elixir and then douse myself in a vial of pain meds for the both of us, should put us to sleep for a good few hours, and when we wake up, hopefully this whole thing will be done with!”
The beast purred in agreement. Eda reached into a cabinet for a few bottles and vials of multiple purposes, before setting them down and grabbing an ingredients list and an old home-remedy book. She settled everything over the counter and began flipping through pages of the book at a fast pace, before landing on a section about cough and cold relief.
“Here, with this elixir recipe, I should have a reducer done by 9 am, which is about 4 hours from now,” she reached over and grabbed a food timer, “Rainestorm should hopefully be asleep now, so I shouldn’t have to worry about them dragging my sorry bilesack back to bed. ‘Means I should be able to finish this while their dropping Luz off tomorrow, so I won’t have to go into town to buy new potions, and I won’t have to lie around the house all day with nothing to do!”
The owl beast crooned it’s distaste at being forced awake at such an hour, and at being forced to remain awake as Eda shuffled around her ingredients. The beast sneezed, and Eda did the same in turn. She swiped a hand under her nose and wiped it on a spare tissue, washing the snot away with soap under the sink tap.
“Don’t you worry bud, I’ll be done this before you know it! I promise I’ll let you eat a vole later if you’re good, as long as it doesn’t give us another disease. Here,” she reached up and picked a large mushroom off her head, shoving it into her mouth, “hope you enjoy the mushroom.”
A moment of silence permeated the room before the creature chuffed it’s approval. And for the first time that morning, the owl beast was satisfied.