Chapter Text
Eda Clawthrone. She is known as the strongest witch in the boiling isles. She's a rebellious witch who does wild magic. Wild magic is forbidden in the bowling isles, but that doesn’t stop her from practicing it, and does what she thinks is right. Even if it means breaking the laws.
Eda as always, was on the run from the Emperors coven, besides the fact that they’re trying to arrest her for her practice in wild magic, her older sister Lilith, keeps coercing her into joining the coven.
So Eda decided to leave as far away as possible. Flying on her palisman, when she sees an abandoned home in the middle of a forest. She thought there could be useful loot to take. Maybe even a nice place to settle until the target on her back is died down a little so she doesn’t accidentally have the coven follow her back home. Little did she know, what she found inside would change her life. Forever.
She cautiously opens the door to the house, she is met with a scene of utter devastation. The once-tidy space is now a chaotic mess, as if a gorenado had swept through, leaving behind a trail of destruction. Items and personal belongings are scattered across the floor, walls are scratched and broken, and some windows have been shattered, leaving shards of glass scattered on the ground.
Eda looks around feeling a little distraught; frightened even. The vibe of the home gives her the ick, feeling as though she’s being watched, as if something terrible has happened that caused this, like the danger is still lurking around the corner. She slowly walked inside the home and looked around to see it was pretty big.
Almost like these people have money? Maybe they were rich? But the home looked to be hand made - by the construction coven perhaps? Eda kept looking and went upstairs. She goes inside a random room to see it's an even bigger mess.
She cautiously enters the room and, as she walks further, her attention is drawn to something in the corner. Squinting her eyes, she finally discerns a gruesome scene: two lifeless bodies lying on the ground. The wind from the nearly destroyed house had scattered items from the floor, revealing a blood-stained, clawed-up surface with mysterious prints.
Eda was shocked to her core as she gasped and backed up sharply. A few steps away, she heard glass break beneath her feet. Had she accidentally stepped on something?
Eda looks down at her feet, to see she's stepping on a framed photo. She removes her foot and carefully grabs the frame to makes sure she doesn't get hurt by the broken glass. She looks at the framed photo, to see a man, a woman, and a baby.
Eda tilts her head in confusion as she looks at the picture. She sees two parents holding a baby.
The Dad having short, pink, messy hair, yellow eyes, and dark tone skin. He has pointy ears, the tip of his right ear missing with scars where it’s missing, with two piercings on his left ear. He also has a dragon symbol on the left side of his face under his eye. He also has scars across his face, one on his right eye, two on his cheek, and one that’s on his chin that goes to his neck.
The Mom having short white hair, red eyes, and tan-yellow skin. Her right ear having a loop piercing on the tip of her ear; her ears also pointy, a large pale blue blotch that eclipses the right side of her face. She has a yellow star symbol on the right side of her face under her eye and three small blue stars under her left eye.
Eda looked at these two parents and couldn’t help but think: "These two kinda look like..."
She then looks at the baby having orange hair, green eyes, tan skin, and a scar on her nose. She looks to be a couple months old in the picture. Eda looks around and sees a document folder. She grabs it.
She opens it and looks through the papers. “Valerie..” Eda reads. That’s the baby’s name. “Draco and Sky.” Her foster parents. “Adopted six months ago by a mysterious lady. Born on June 21, a year ago.” The document also contained the photo of her foster parents. They have the adoption papers in the folder.
Then she takes out a kind of necklace, having colorful beads on the string with seven different sized teeth dangling from the necklace. From what beast? Eda didn’t know.
That's when Eda suddenly heard a baby's cry. She looks up and sees in front of her at the end of the room, a pile of junk stacked together as though hiding or blocking something.
As she slowly walks up to the pile, she puts all the documents in her bag, and sees on the inside of the pile, being a baby's crib.
There is something being covered with a blanket and is moving under it. Eda slowly put her hand towards it, she softly touches whatever it was before quickly griping on the blanket and yanking it off to see a baby!
It's the kid in the picture! Eda thought.
The baby looks to be a year old now. Eda tilts her head in confusion seeing the baby and the baby even coping the same action.
Eda gets closer to the baby, their faces being very close to each other, then the baby sneezes on Eda's face causing her to back up and wipe her face.
The baby just laughing as she then suddenly puts her hands up with a squeal; asking to be carried. Eda looks around as though making sure no one was around. She picks up the child and put her near her face.
She looks deeply at the baby. "Valerie." Eda says. Valerie, the baby, just giggles. Eda and Valerie look at each other deeply as Valerie slowly puts her hands on Eda's face making the young adult chuckle with a snort.
"You've got some tiny hands." Eda softly holds her tiny hands when she then notices something. But before she could observe it, Valerie grabs onto Eda's orange hair and pulls it.
"Ow! Hey, no! We don't pull hair!" Eda lectures. Valerie just laughs. Eda then holds Valerie in a cradle style, causing Valerie to nuzzle into Eda's chest.
She won’t lie, Eda felt happiness holding this young girl in her arms. It's almost like a void that was secretly there in her heart, just suddenly got filled. The youngling digs her face into Eda's chest. Eda couldn't help but smile. She caresses the kids orange locks as she squeezes on Eda’s red dress.
Suddenly, Eda heard a scary and uncanny whistling. Almost like the whistling of death... like if death, themselves, is warning her.
She didn't know above her was some weird beast lurking - preying on her. Eda felt this. She slowly looks up at the roof, and sees a horrifying beast sitting on the sky beam of the roof.
"What the hell is that?!" Eda screams in horror. The thing hisses at Eda, then lunges itself at her. Eda quickly moves out of the way and runs out the door.
The beast then pins down Eda, causing her to let go of the baby, causing her to roll. Eda gasps as she quickly makes a spell that lets Valerie float up, Eda then casts a spell making the beast fly back.
Once Eda got up, she grabs Valerie, calls her staff: Owlbert, and is ready to fly off. But then the beast grabs onto the back of the palisman. "Hey, get off!" Eda yells.
Her palisman went out of control, going up in the sky then crashing on the roof. Luckily, Eda held on tightly to Valerie as they crashed, but the beast went to slice them and all though Eda moved quickly, the beast still sliced Valerie's right ear.
Valerie crying out from the sudden pain of her ear. Eda gasps seeing her bloody ear; she growls at the beast. The beast growling back. "You little shit!" Eda then spins her staff and caused a huge attack making a huge explosion.
Eda holds onto Valerie tightly as the explosions wind was rough. Eda looks and sees the beast weak, Eda quickly making a cage to trap it. She uses her palisman to quickly get down to the ground.
Eda looks back up at the roof to see the beast trying to get out the cage; head budding the metal bars as it screeched at her. Eda does a raspberry at the beast angrily. She puts her hood on and quickly leaves home.
At the Owl House, Valerie is happily giggling as Hooty is very close to her face. From Valerie’s perspective, she sees Hooty’s animated face up close. “Hoot!” he softly says, tilting his head and observing her. The demon is curious about the little baby.
"Hooty, stop getting so close to her." Eda yells as she sits on the couch, pushing Hooty away from the baby’s face. Valerie’s in a little baby holder that Eda found in the human realm; the holder being placed on top of the counter with the baby facing Eda.
"I'm just curious, Eda. Why would you bring this baby back with you?" Hooty asks.
Eda gives Valerie a bottle for her to drink. "I couldn't just leave her alone there. She could of died!"
“Awww! Look at you, so motherly.” Hooty teases. "Since she was adopted, are you going to try and give her to someone else to adopt?" Hooty curiously asks.
Eda looks at the little baby drinking her milk peacefully. Valerie looks up at Eda with trustworthy and loving eyes. Her green eyes shining at her as if hypnotizing her with her cuteness. The color of those eyes remind her of somebody… but Eda shook that thought out, thinking it was her being sentimental.
Eda couldn't bear the thought of giving her away to some random witch in the isles. It would haunt her not knowing how the kid was doing, if she was okay, if the people she gave her away to is actually caring for her. All she thought of was how her Mother treated her once she was cursed, how her Mother wasn’t exactly the best mother figure, and wishes she had a Mother who truly loved her for her.
And for some reason, something inside her, almost like a voice in her head kept saying to keep her. "No... I can't." Eda finally said.
Hooty was stunned hearing this. "What?!"
"I can't just give her away to some rando! Besides, I wouldn't mind having some company." Eda admits as she rubs Valerie's head.
She looks saddened as she sees the cut on Val's right ear made by the beast. It’s definitely going to leave a scar. Then she realized. "Is she... human?"
"What?" Hooty questions.
"Look at her ears, Hooty. It's not pointy, it's round, like a humans!" Eda explains. The two finally seeing the girls round ears.
Strange.. in the photo she had pointy ears, so what happened? Why aren’t her ears pointy anymore?
"Hoot!! You're right! Is she actually human?!" Hooty yells.
"I don't know." Eda replies. Valerie then makes cute baby noises as she puts her arms and hands out towards Eda.
Eda's eyes widened. "It's..." Eda remembers the picture of the foster parents to see that Valerie's wrists have the same symbols that were on their faces.
Her right wrist having the foster fathers dragon symbol and her left wrist having the foster mothers star symbol. "Are these curse marks?"
Eda rubs on the marks with her thumbs. "They can't be coven marks, I've never seen any like these..." Valerie laughs as she holds onto Eda's finger.
Eda softly smiles. "Don't worry, kid. I'll keep you safe." Eda assured. Eda picks up Valerie and holds her close to her.
Hooty then gets close to Eda and asks: "Hoot! What's her name?"
"Valerie. But she has no last name. So.. I'm gonna give her a middle name, and she'll choose whatever last name she wants..." Eda explains as she looks at Valerie with nothing but love in her eyes.
“And you’re gonna have the strongest witch in the Boiling Isles to guide you.”
Eda carries one year old Valerie to her nest and lays with her. Eda makes circles that created a small ball of light, which gave the baby’s attention as she tries to grab the light as she happily giggles.
The ball of light creating more balls of light as the room has a comfy glow to it. Eda lays on her back as she holds Valerie up in the air allowing her to see the little lights surround them. She claps and happily squeals.
Owlbert then comes in slowly as he goes towards Val who looks at him then happily pats his head making him hoot happily as he sits on Valerie’s head. Eda softly smiles at this.
Owlbert then flys elsewhere. Eda brings Valerie close to her chest and lays on her side allowing Valerie to comfortably start to fall asleep. She yawns and puts her thumb in her mouth as her eyes start to slowly close.
“You’re getting soft, Owl Lady.” Eda whispers to herself. Eda smiling as she feels herself softly fall asleep herself. The two sleeping peacefully. Eda feeling her heart slowly becoming whole again.
5 years later
The sun rises in the boiling isles, Eda slowly finds herself waking up. She groans as she stretches feeling her body’s cracking that gave her relief.
Eda, with her eyes still closed, feels around her nest to find someone only just to feel the twigs of the nest. Eda’s eyes shot open in fear as she looks around and starts to freak out wondering where Valerie went.
Dangling on the ceiling from a rope Eda stole, Valerie quietly giggles to herself as she watches Eda frantically looking for her.
Ash then makes a screeching noise imitating a griffin, startling Eda as she screamed in fear only to turn around to find six year old Valerie, dangling upside down from a rope laughing.
“I sure scared you, Mama Eda!” Eda chuckles lightly as Valerie gets off the rope and on Eda’s shoulders. “Can’t you imitate quieter beasts?”
Valerie plays with Eda’s now short slightly faded orange hair. “Aw, Mom, they’re no fun.” Valerie grins. “Wanna see me be a dragon?”
Valerie then growls and roars to intimidate a dragon. Eda giggles as she picks Val off her shoulder and puts her down on the nest. “How about we release all that pent up energy into something, huh?”
“Like what?” Valerie asks.
“How about we go to Bonesborough and have some fun.” Eda ruffles Valerie’s head as she looks at Eda with sparkly eyes. She hops off her nest and runs to her room. “I’ll go get ready!”
Eda shakes her head with a small smile as she watches the little tyke run to her room.
“What the hell?!” A shop keeper came out his work shop to find his entire shop covered in graffiti writing. He looks around to see all the other shops were also covered in graffiti. Writing containing words like…
Valerie rulez
The emperor stinks!
Wild Witch 4 Life
Wild Magic!!
Clawthorne Family Rulez Coven Heads Drool
Some of the graffiti also being random spirals, ticktacktoe, little kid drawings of beasts in the isles, skulls, et cetera.
All the shop owners or building owners come out in disbelief and anger from seeing all the graffiti written on their property.
Then they all heard laughter from a kid. They all looked up and saw Valerie with different colors of paint across her face and clothes as she looks down at everybody from the sky, standing on Eda’s staff. Paintbrush and can of paint still in hand as she grins at everybody.
Wearing the necklace that her foster parents had, the colorful beads with beast teeth, a purple t-shirt that says “wild child” with white sleeves underneath, shorts, boots, and as she grins she shows her sharp fangs and having a missing tooth.
“Valerie Clawthorne, at your service!” Valerie yells in amusement. “You’re looking at the next powerful witch in the boiling isles!”
That’s when some members of the Emperor’s coven come out and point at Valerie. “Hey! It’s her again!”
“The Owl Lady’s menace human child!” Valerie then flies away on Owlbert as she laughs.
The scouts quickly try to catch up with her, but since they don’t own staffs like their leaders and high ups, they tried running but couldn’t catch up. Valerie grinning at herself, giggling, as she saw she beat the scouts.
“Hey!”
“Ah!” Owlbert turns into his owl form and grabs Valerie by the back of her shirt and flies down. Valerie looks down and sees Eda with her arms crossed as she watches Owlbert sit Val down in front of Eda.
Valerie nervously smiles with a chuckle at Eda. This isn’t the first time Valerie has done something like this. When she was just a year three months, she stole items at the store when Eda had her on a baby holder, when she was three she drew on posters of the emperor writing many mean and even vulgar names about him - which Eda has obviously laughed about, and Val continues to be up to no good.
She would even cast spells on scouts like making their hoods block their faces, or making them trip on nothing, or even using bard magic to make them move their bodies without their will.
Needless to say, this is just the start of Valerie’s menacing behavior. Eda had taken Valerie with her to get ingredients for potions and even shopping for food to eat later, last thing - but should have expected - was Valerie sneaking away, stealing paint and a brush and painting an entire shopping center.
Eda smiles at Valerie and ruffles her hair. “Haha, good work, kid. You learn from the best.”
Eda then grabs Valerie’s hand, picking her up from sitting down on the ground. Valerie and Eda exchanging looks as Eda smiles down at her. “Don’t worry kiddo, I’m right here.” Valerie smiles back at Eda.
“Sister?” Valerie gasp and quickly hides behind Eda’s leg, Eda looking up, shocked to see her older sister Lilith.
Lilith couldn’t help but smile. “Sister, it has been so long!” She walks up closer to Eda who has a surprised look on her face. “Oh, Lily.” She crosses her arms. “I-It sure has.”
Lilith then looks down at Eda’s leg. Valerie hides herself behind her leg. Lilith’s eyes widened. “E-Edalyn, who is that?”
Eda puts her hand on top of Valerie’s head. “This.. is my kid.”
Lilith looks up at Eda shocked, almost scared even? “B-But..”
Eda puts her hand up. “Don’t get all horrified, she’s not mine, I found her and took her in.”
Lilith sighs but her eyes showed sadness. Like.. if she’s upset that Eda said this? Lilith looks down and slowly crouches to the young girls height. “Hello there.” Lilith puts her hand over her heart. “I’m Lilith. Edalyn’s older sister.”
Valerie slowly sticks her head out more to look at Lilith. “Older sister?” Eda smiles down at Valerie. “Yes, this is my sister. Which means she’s your aunt.”
Valerie quietly gasps and looks at Lilith with shiny eyes. Eda gingerly scratches the back of Valerie’s head and pets her. “Introduce yourself. You don’t have to say your full name if you don’t wanna..”
Lilith looked at Eda a bit confused at what she meant. Valerie squeezes Eda’s dress more as she goes to Eda’s side to be more revealed; she shyly looks at Lilith. “I’m Valerie Raeda Eda Raine Pirate Lily Dell Clawthrone.”
Lilith couldn’t help but feel her heart flutter a bit. She slightly blushes as he puts her hand over her heart. Valerie giggles as she runs towards Lilith and hugs her, rubbing her face on shoulder. Lilith, although hesitant at first, she softly hugs back and pats her head.
Lilith raises an eyebrow at Eda. “Mind explaining the names? You’re making me wonder if you ever got over Raine.”
Eda chuckles. “It’s nothing like that. It’s just… I know they would have loved her. And especially you and Dad. And Pirate is something she called herself as a baby. I keep giving her new middle names with so many name ideas I keep having, but she doesn’t seem to mind.”
Lilith chuckles. “I always thought you would have trouble giving your child a name. Giving them multiple middle names because of your indecisiveness.”
Eda smiles at Lilith as she smiles back. That smile soon frowned as she looks away. “Edalyn…” she looks back at her sister. “I was going to tell you to join the coven but.. it seems you have a lot going on in your hands. I was unaware of you having a child now.” Lilith states as she looks down at Valerie in her last statement.
Lilith’s half lidded eyes shined at Valerie and looks up at Eda. “Sister, just for today, take Valerie and yourself far far away from the boiling isles until everything dies down with you tomorrow. They’re upset about the graffiti.”
Eda snorts. “I didn’t do the graffiti, Valerie did.”
Lilith was a little stunned hearing this. She softly smiles. “She really is your kid, isn’t she?” Eda chuckles and picks up Valerie who sadly looks at Eda. “We gotta go, kiddo.”
“But, what about aunty?” Valerie innocently asks looking at Lilith. Eda rubs her back. “Aunty is busy and right now we need to leave or else the emperors coven is going to get us.”
Valerie makes a disgusted face. “Bleh! The covens..” Valerie said in annoyance. Lilith looks to the side in slight heartbreak hearing this.
I should have known. She’s Eda’s kid so of course she won’t like covens.
Owlbert flies next to Eda and turns into a staff, she hops on and looks at Lilith one last time. “See ya around, Lily.”
Valerie waves at Lilith and whispers, “Bye bye, Auntie,” in a voice that’s loud enough for her to hear.
Lilith half-waves at the two before Eda takes off. Her smile fades as she sighs and hugs herself, guilt evident in her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she murmurs, gazing up at the sky as Eda and Valerie fly away. “One day, you’ll know.”
Eda flew for a while, not knowing where to go exactly, so she went by feeling. She just decided to follow her sister’s order for the first time ever. She tended to not really listen to whatever she orders her to do, but she saw that look in her eyes that showed she meant it.
“Mama, where are we going?” Valerie asks. Eda sighs. “Somewhere far. So that the emperors coven can’t find us.”
Valerie looks at Eda sadly. “Is it because of me?”
Eda chuckles as she looks at Valerie confused. “What? No! Kid, the coven has been trying to catch me for years, this isn’t my first chase away from those annoying..”
Eda’s eyes widened as she stopped herself from uttering something vulgar in front of the child. She glanced at Valerie, whose innocent eyes held anticipation as she stared at Eda. “Those annoying lackeys of Boo-los.” Eda ruffles Val’s hair. “Don’t let your guilt cloud your judgment, okay kid?”
“Yes, Mama.” That’s when Val yelled out an “Ouch!” As she held her shoulder in pain. “Something burned me.”
Eda’s eyes widened. “Oh no…” Eda quickly takes out a cloak and covers Valerie. “Huh, what’s—”
“Keep it on! The boiling rain is going to come down! I gotta find shelter…” Eda then sees something in the distance and quickly went towards it. She was getting burned from the boiling drops of rain coming down but didn’t care as long as Valerie was okay.
Once landing on the ground, Eda saw an ancient tower and decided to use that as shelter until the rain died down. Eda rushes into the building holding Val in her arms, still covered by the cloak.
Valerie takes off the hood and gasps seeing how hurt Eda was from the boiling rain. “Mama, you’re hurt!”
“Heh, I’m okay, kiddo. Don’t worry.” Valerie had slight tears in her eyes but tried to keep it together because Eda assured her she was okay. She then looked around at what they were in.
“What is this place?” Valerie asks. Eda starts to slowly walk further in. “I don’t know, but for now, it’s a good place to hide until the rain passes.”
Eda puts Valerie down but keeps her close as she grabs onto Eda’s dress. The two look around cautiously as they notice the are having stacked rocks spread across the entire area.
That’s when the two saw something quickly move. “Who’s there!” Eda yelled, pointing her staff at the area where they saw the shadow. Eda pushing Valerie behind her.
Valerie looked around nervously, when she looked at the exit where they came in. She saw two figures. A human like figure and a witch like figure with hair similar to Eda’s. Valerie tilts her head as she can barely see their features.
A human? She questioned as she saw the man had ash-blonde hair and round ears while the woman had brown hair in a style similar to Eda’s short hair.
“Show yourself!” Eda yelled. That’s when the two heard footsteps from behind them. They quickly turned where the footsteps were coming from, only to find a small dog looking creature pop out from behind one of the stacked rocks.
Eda raises an eyebrow at the creature as Valerie’s eyes shined in delight at it. She gasps in excitement. “Aww, it’s so cute!” Valerie quickly said as she hugs the creature.
The creature just letting this happen as it lets out a little: “Weh!” She rubs her cheek on the creatures cheek as Eda smiles at the two.
The creature then gets off Valerie’s arms and grab a boomerang looking rock and places it on top of a stack of rocks. Valerie giggles as she crouches down to the creature. “He’s so adorable!”
Eda gets down on a knee. “Did you make all these?” Eda asks the dog. She starts scratching his chin as it leans into her touch happily. “What are you?”
As the two were distracted by the creature, the dog opened his eyes and noticed something behind them. A shadow loomed over them, causing Valerie and Eda to turn around and see a tall, golem-like stone creature. The creature raised its hand, the hand forming into a giant blade, and swung it towards them. Eda quickly grabbed Valerie and the dog, narrowly avoiding the attack. The creature’s swing struck the dog’s little stacks, causing the rocks to fall.
Eda accidentally tripped letting go of Valerie on accident causing her to roll a little away from Eda who’s still holding the dog. Eda gasps seeing the golem creature poised to strike. She instinctively held onto the dog, protecting him. Valerie looked up and gasped, seeing Eda and the dog about to be attacked.
“NO!” Valerie swiftly rushes towards them, blocking the creatures’ attack. However, the creature slashes her left ear. Valerie falls to the ground, clutching her injured ear in pain as she cries out in agony. Blood drips down her hand, causing Eda to gasp in shock.
Eda’s gut feeling telling her to just take the kids and bounce! And that’s what she did. She quickly grabs Valerie and the dog and quickly flies off. However, the stone creature stayed by the door and made a bow and arrow with its hands. It releases an arrow right towards them and hit the dog causing its left horn to break in half causing Eda, Val, and the dog to fall off the staff.
Eda quickly picks up Val and the dog and grabs its horn that broke off and flew away back home. Valerie and the dog cuddling close to Eda for comfort.
At the Owl House, Eda cleaned up Valerie’s ear, only to find herself angered when seeing half of Valerie’s left ear was missing. But Eda composed herself and tried her hardest to heal up the young girls ear. Although she’ll forever be missing half an ear, she was alive and healthy, so Eda’s thankful for that.
Once she finished with Valerie, the two looked and saw the little dog had stacked up some items around the house like it did back in the ancient building. It had a collar since Val stole it a while ago hoping she could get a pet in the future, but Eda just laid that off and put it away but now they got a little mysterious dog creature and put a collar on it since Eda said: “That’s what you do once you get a pet”
However, this little guy was different… the little guy out the final touch being a severed head of a teddy bear and put it on top of a stack. He fell but quickly got up and put his little paws on its hips with pride. Valerie squeals in delight. “He so cute!”
Eda snorts as she crosses her arms facing the little dog. “Look at you. A King amongst his subjects.”
That’s when the little creature looks at the two and said: “King. King!” It put its arms up excitedly saying it causing him to fall on his bottom.
This shocked Eda and Valerie. “It spoke..” Eda said. Valerie chuckles as she quickly goes up to the dog. “It liked that word! Is that his name?” Valerie asks.
Eda walks next to her as she faces the talking dog. “I don’t know, but if he seems to like the name, maybe that’s what we’ll name him.”
“King!” He said again.
Eda smiles. “Yeah! That’s right. A king.” She boops his cold, skull nose. “You know what else kings do? They command armies and eat delicious feasts.”
The little guy happily but struggles to get on his four legs as he looks at Eda and Val eyes of admiration. “Yeah! Kings are powerful, strong, and feared! The people of their kingdom always go to them for guidance.”
King looks at Valerie with loving eyes as she explains to him details of kings. “They are respected because of their wisdom. And they always have the coolest crowns!”
Eda smiles as she watches the two interact with one another. “What do you say? Do you want your name to be King?”
“King!” He happily yelled as he gets on Valerie’s lap. Valerie looking at him with sparkly eyes. She looks at Eda. “He loves it!” She smiles showing her missing tooth.
Eda chuckles. “Does this make him my little brother?” Eda looks at King who’s cuddled against Valerie with trust. Eda softly smiles as she pets her daughter’s hair. “Yeah, I guess so.”
Valerie chuckles happily as she picks King up to face her. “I’m gonna be the best big sister! I’ll teach you all about Kings, and demons, and read to you at night.”
This made Eda’s smile turn to a frown as she thought about her sister Lilith. How she used to read to her at night to help her sleep, or how they always were together - inseparable even. But all that’s changed when Eda got cursed and Lilith joined the emperors coven.
Valerie looks at Eda worriedly. “Mama, are you okay?” Eda looks up at Valerie. She flicks her wrist with a fake smile. “Don’t worry, kiddo. It’s nothing.” She hugs Valerie. “Just promise me you’ll always be King’s big sister. Protecting him and caring for him.”
Valerie looks up and smiles at her as she showed her missing tooth. “Promise!”
3 years later, 9 years old
"Hahaha!!"
"Kid, get back here!"
"You're in big trouble once we catch you!"
“We will arrest you this time, Clawthorne!”
Valerie is now 9 years old. She has become quite the kid. During the years, Valerie became a big menace like her mother, stealing, fighting, and graffitiing.
Valerie was being chased by the Emperor’s Coven. They discovered her at Hexside, where she was graffitiing, accompanied by King, who was perched on her shoulder as she fled from the scouts. However, that wasn’t the only area she had been painting on.
Valerie summons her palisman that is a dragon and starts flying off, but the scouts follow behind as well.
"You guys are just jealous cause I'm not afraid to do whatever I want! That I’m a proud wild watch and you’re all coven bound losers! Hahaha!!" Valerie yells. King also laughing.
Her and King graffitied nearly the entirety of Bonesborough: houses, shops, buildings, and even the entirety of Hexside.
"Valerie was here!"
“King was here!”
"Clawthorne rules!"
"Wild Magic"
“Belos more like Boo-los”
“The King of Demons is your true ruler!”
Are just a few of the words that Valerie and King tagged across the isles. She even made drawings of the emperors coven scouts to look ugly, drawings of beasts, drawings of Belos and even some of the coven heads in ugly scribbles.
Valerie lands on the ground and runs off with the scouts behind her, but little did they know that the Valerie and King being chased was an illusion and the real ones hid behind a tree. She came out and laughed at the scouts.
"Haha! Too easy." Valerie smugly says to herself, putting her hands behind her head.
However, they didn’t notice a person standing behind them. "Oh really?" He said. This startled the two kids making them scream. "AHH!" Valerie and King then get tangled in rope and was forcefully turned to face none other than - "Principal Bump?!"
He looks at her angrily. "Valerie! You're in big trouble. AGAIN!"
Inside Hexside. Outside of the classroom that Val is in. There is a sign that says: "Wanted Troublemaker." Showing a picture of Valerie.
Valerie and King are inside of a classroom and tied up, King on top of Val’s head with Val sitting in front of Bump on the floor as all the students in the classroom watches while Bump lectures her.
"Valerie, I am getting tired of your mischief. You're not even a student here and you always come around and make a ruckus!" Bump complains.
Valerie turns her face away from him with an uninterested expression. "Like I care." Valerie sassily replies.
Bump groans angrily. “And this is why you will not be a student at Hexside!”
“Hey! Don’t speak to my sister like that!” King yelled angrily.
“Ew, you’re related to that rat-thing?” Boshca sassily says with a smirks.
“Shut up, turd! King isn’t a rat, he’s a powerful king of demons! So shut your mouth before I make you!” Valerie threats.
Bump sighs as he rubs his temples. “Titan forbid you become a student, you might be worse than Edalyn!”
Valerie chuckles. “If you think I won’t take that as a compliment; you’re wrong!”
"Ooh, if you’re not afraid of being like Edalyn, then I’m sure you’ll be just fine with your punishment." Bump retorts with a grinning face.
Valerie looks at Bump confused. "What?"
"I think she means the owl lady, Dragonborn." Amity says with sass.
"Shut it, Blight!" Valerie angrily yells, facing at Amity. "Eda is the most powerful witch in the boiling isles and I’m her kid, so don’t mess with me!" Valerie corrects.
That's when the door slams open to reveal smoke, then a figure showing Eda, then her eyes glowing a bright golden color.
Everyone in the class became tense from the intimidation. Eda comes out the smoke, hands on hips with a slight angered expression. "Valerie Clawthorne!" Eda yells.
Valerie just rolls her eyes. "Here we go." Valerie whispers, the rope around her and King gets untied as she slowly gets up.
"Come with me." Bump says as he passes by Eda.
Valerie walking up to Eda. Eda grabs Val's ear and pulls her. "Ow ow ow ow!" Valerie says as King laughs at her.
“Hey! Why am I getting punished?” Valerie sassily replied. “Because you got caught! And I taught you better than that! And not only that.. you brought King into it - getting him caught too!” Eda’s reply made Valerie groan.
At Bumps office, Eda, King, and Valerie are getting a talk from the principal. "Edalyn, Valerie isn't even a student here at Hexside and she's running around graffitiing, pranking, and being a ruckus like... well like how you were." Bump explains.
Eda having her arms crossed just rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah, I get it, I wasn't a great student."
"More like a horrible student. Haha!" King mocks, making Val giggle.
"Eda, please. I can't have her running around here and misbehaving, she's distracting the kids education!" Bump states.
Eda grins as she flicks her wrist. "Psh, kids don't need education! Kids are fine without it." Eda replies.
Bump just sighs as he rubs his temples. "I don't want to ban the kid. She seems to like coming to the school, and I even think she might like to learn here. She could learn what you lack in."
When Bump said that, it made Valerie look at him with curiosity. "She's fine without your education. Besides, if she wanted to learn here she would of told me years ago. I gave her the option of school and chose to study with me. Also, she's my kid, and I do what's best for her." Eda argues.
Bump looks at Eda with a blank look then looks at Valerie. "Valerie, do you mind stepping outside?"
Valerie was confused, but complied with his instructions. "Ok." She grabs King, holding him as she walks out, and closes the door. However, she stays close to the door to ensure she can hear the conversation with King also listening in.
"Eda, she is legally not your kid, so why?" Bump starts.
Eda looks at Bump confused. "Why what?"
"Why be so protective?"
"You don't have kids of your own, you wouldn't understand."
"You're right, I don't have kids of my own, but I do have kids I take care of and see everyday. And what I think when I see them is that I want them to have a bright future and let them do what they want and be happy. Don't you want that for her too?"
"Of course I do, but she's happy learning wild magic with me! And besides, the school doesn't teach wild magic, you guys force kids to choose one of the classes and that's it. Valerie wants to learn allkinds of magic, wild magic, culture, beasts, demons, humans — all that can't be learned here."
"Is she learning with you?"
Eda averted her eyes to the side. "I'm teaching her everything I know. When I can't teach her something she... well runs off and tries to find the answer herself. Which is likely how and why she ends up here." Eda slightly smiles at the last statement.
"Edalyn, she's the only human here. Someone like her isn't suppose to be able to do magic, yet she can." He reminds.
"Well, she is my kid." Eda brags.
Bump raises an eyebrow. “So you’re saying you did have a kid with a human?” Eda’s eyes shot open in shock. “What? No!” She yells. “She not… biologically mine but.. in the end she’s still my kid, right?” She grins crossing her arms. “So she gains her abilities from me.”
Bump gazed at Eda with a longing expression, as if he possessed some hidden knowledge or a hunch about something, but chose to keep it to himself. He sighed deeply.
"Edalyn. Have you ever even signed papers?" He suddenly asked.
"No. But she chose to have my last name. I even gave her, her middle names."
"Names?" Bump realizes that Eda said it in a way that sounds like more than one.
"I gave her more than one middle name. I may not have signed anything, but just because it's not on paper shouldn't mean anything."
"That may be so, but that doesn't make you her parent - legally."
Eda averts her eyes away from Bump as she gains a saddened expression. She closes her eyes. "I don't want to talk about this, I already have to deal with it everyday." She says with a hint of woe.
Bump looks at Eda with sympathy. "She wants to know about her real parents?"
"Also her foster ones." Eda adds in a whisper.
"I see. I guess I'll let that be between the two of you. Edalyn, just… please control her, she's a little too much like you." Bump gives a soft smile at Eda at the last part which made Eda smile back.
“Yeah.. and I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Eda softly replied.
Valerie gets away from the door, and pushes herself against the wall, she slides down as she thinks about everything they said.
The door then opens. "Let's go, kid." She gets up and quickly follows Eda.
They soar into the sky with Owlbert. Valerie gazes down, feeling a pang of sadness. For some inexplicable reason, she remembers the recurring voice and dream that haunts her.
She can barely hear the peoples voices, since it's so echoey, and can barely make out how they sound. But she can clearly hear what they're saying.
"You can't keep her! She'll be a target and end up being brainwashed by the emperor!"
"I know but.. this is our daughter."
“We can’t lose her.”
"Exactly, which means you have to do what's best for her..."
"I hate to say it... but you're right."
"I can help you, I can take her somewhere safe, b-but, it'll cost your memories about her."
"Hey. Hey kid!" Eda calls. Valerie snaps out of the memory and looks at Eda.
"You okay?" She asks concerned.
"Y-Yeah, it's just I had that dream again..."
"The one with the people talking?" Eda asks.
"Yeah... I think the people talking might be my real parents!"
King pops out of Eda's hair. "Are you sure?"
"I'm sure of it!" Valerie confidently says. "The people are talking about how they can't keep me... because I would be the target to the emperor or something?"
"Sounds rough." King admits.
"Yeah.."
King and Eda look at each other seeing Valerie’s depressed expression. “Why would I be a target to the emperor?” She questioned in a whisper.
“Because you’re the Star Dragon Valerie!” King starts. “You’re a powerful witch, and he likely intends to exploit your abilities for his nefarious purposes.” King states.
Valerie looks at Eda with a small smile. She snorts. “So this is the consequence of being the Owl Lady’s kid?”
Eda felt a slight pang of hurt at those words, but she understood that Val had meant it in a teasing manner, devoid of any ill intent. With a smile, she ruffled the girl’s orange locks and chuckled, replying, “Yup, it sure is.”
Valerie chuckles as she smiles back at Eda.
Back at The Owl House, Valerie is lying on her sleeping bag and is looking up at the ceiling. She turns to her side to face the wall that is covered in photos.
The photos being a variety of many different photos like Eda when she was a young kid at Hexside with some photos having Lilith or even Raine - which Val didn’t really ask or question who this witch was since every time Eda looked at any photos in the past she tended to get depressed, so Val never asked for background on photos - scared that Eda would get upset. And other photos being the Clawthorne family, and even more recent photos like Eda and Val: Eda with a one year old Val, one of Eda teaching Val to walk, Val and Eda being together, Val and Hooty and even Val and King of course.
Val then grabs one photo of Eda and Dell, Eda looks to be super young, about six years old? Her and Dell were making what looked to be Owlbert. And another photo in the older hand being Eda, Lilith, Dell, and Gwen. A family portrait.
“Sentimental?” Valerie looks at her door a little startled, not expecting Eda to suddenly be in her room.
“Oh, hi Eda. You scared me.” Valerie chuckles.
Eda walks up to Valerie and sits next to her. “That shows you were very interested in whatever you’re looking at.”
Eda’s eyes slightly widened seeing the photos. Now, Eda doesn’t regret hiding the photos so nobody can find them, but she never expected Valerie to find past sentimental photos when she was just a toddler and became very obsessed with putting photos and memories on her wall to see all the time.
Eda averts her eyes away as she became silent, but that silence soon broke once Valerie asked a simple request: “Can you tell me about some of these photos?” She asks not looking away from the photos in her hand.
Eda, looking down sadly, turned back to Valerie. Valerie, looks at Eda with puppy eyes, pleaded, “Please…?” This tugged at Eda’s heartstrings, but she couldn’t resist a chuckle with a snort at Val’s unwavering determination to learn the origin stories of these photos. “Alright, kiddo. I don’t mind.”
Eda wraps her arm around Valerie, pulling her closer. Valerie rests her head on Eda’s shoulder as they gaze at the photos in her hands. “Ya know, when we made Ember together, it reminded me of when my Dad and I made Owlbert together. It’s a favorite memory of mine, but the one with you making your own Palisman as we made him together… it’s definitely a new favorite of mine.”