Chapter Text
Luz woke to light streaming in through the blinds. She yawned, arching her back and stretching her wings (the soreness from the cut wasn't as bad as yesterday, thankfully) before she opened her eyes. It took her a minute of looking at the room piled with stuffed animals to remember where she was. The Good Witch Azura lay on the floor next to her – King had fallen asleep maybe about twenty minutes in.
She got up on two feet, picked up the book, and returned it to her bag. She looked at King flopped down on his bed, a plush held tightly, and smiled. He was just – adorable! With pinchable cheeks and fierce little fangs and eyes! She was going to let him sleep, though. She got her scroll out of her bag's side pocket, only to frown at it showing the exact same result as yesterday.
No signal.
… It'd be fine. Her mom thought she was at camp, learning how to be a good citizen, and if she could literally trip and fall into the Human Realm, surely it couldn't be that hard to get back. She had six whole weeks to figure it out. For now, though, it was time to get ready for the day! She could just barely reach the doorknob, so that was one problem solved!
The rest of the morning, though… Not being able to hover to reach things sucked. She'd ended up falling into the toilet – which, okay, was admittedly a regular occurrence – and hadn't been able to really reach any food in the pantry to feed herself. She just ended up going back to King to shake him awake and ask for his help. He grumbled, but was able to drag a stepstool out of the garage that Luz could push around to actually reach things.
He showed her where some 'chicken' eggs were – they looked a lot like griffin eggs, but smaller – as well as the skillet, and she got about to scrambling them. Before long, they were having some eggs and toast for breakfast. King still wouldn't let her get any cheese or butter, though. Okay, yes, she knew that it wasn't the best idea without enzyme supplements, but also it tasted good.
King did get her to try adding 'catch-up', which she was pretty sure was some sort of congealed fruit blood, to the eggs, and that was great!
"So," Luz said, once she'd finished eating. "When's your mom get up?"
"We don't really get customers until the afternoon, and it's summer so she doesn't have to teach me," King explained. "We won't see her for a few hours, at least."
"Okay," Luz nodded, and jumped to the ground. "Well, then, let's get out there and start looking for a portal!"
Her walk to the door was stopped by King grabbing her arm as she walked past.
"Luz, you can't just go out there with…" King waved his other hand. "That."
"You just gestured to all of me," Luz said.
"The Human Realm doesn't really have bone cat/bat/dog things," King said. "So if we're going out into Gravesfield…" Luz assumed that was the town's name. "You're going to need a clever disguise."
"Oh! I've been wanting to use this!" Luz pulled her hoodie up over her head. The cat ears that had been sewn onto it fit over her horns nicely. "Meow, meow!"
"… It's hideous. I love it," King said. He bent down to inspect Luz. "But it doesn't hide your wings, or your tail, or your face. No one's going to be fooled by it."
"… Is it really that big of a deal?" Luz wondered.
"If TV shows and movies have taught me anything, yeah. The government could come and put you in a lab and run tests on you," King said. "They'll dissect you and try and figure out how you work!"
"Weh?" That sounded… bad. Really bad. Mami had done her own tests to try and figure out how Luz worked when she was younger, but she'd never actually hurt her. She'd just wanted to make sure she knew how to take care of her.
"Thankfully, your human overlord has the perfect solution that he thought of just now," King said, and ran off towards his room. "Follow me!"
Luz felt incredibly stupid in the outfit King had put together. The main part of it was the jacket – a thick, puffy thing clearly meant for winter wear. It was soft, she'd give it that, but she'd had to wrap her wings around her front to even get the thing on, and having her wings pinned to her body wasn't really pleasant. The whole thing was way too big for her, trailing all the way to the ground, and the sleeves had to be pushed back up pretty far for her hands (which were now covered in mittens) to be free.
The second main part of the outfit was the scarf that was wrapped around the entirety of Luz's neck and face, combined with some goggles to hide her eyes and a hat King called a 'beanie' to hide her horns and the top of her head.
It was really uncomfortable, but Luz had to admit it got the job done as King lifted her up to the counter so she could see herself in the bathroom mirror. The only parts of her left uncovered were her legs and tail, but that'd be hidden by how much the jacket trailed.
"There," King said. "Now you just look like a crazy person wearing heavy snow gear in the summer."
King paused for a moment, seeming to realize something. "Oh, wait, you have fur… Um, you're not dying of heat stroke, right?"
"I mean, it's super uncomfortable, don't get me wrong," Luz laughed, as . "But I actually do pretty well in the heat." She remembered a rumor she'd heard once before, from a Hexside illusion student a couple of years younger than her. "Is it true that rain doesn't boil here?"
King looked at her in awe. "Rain boils where you come from?"
"I guess so," Luz said – sort of in response to her question, sort of in response to King's. "Yeah, the weather's really fun. Boiling rain, gorenadoes, shale hail… Oh, and painbows. Like a rainbow, but looking at it turns you inside out."
"… I have to see your crazy demon world," King said.
"I'd be glad to show you," Luz said, as she hopped to the floor. "But first, I need to figure out a way back."
"Hmm…" King cupped his hands to his face and yelled. "HEY MOM! WE'RE GOING TO THE LIBRARY!"
"OKAY! BE BACK BY NIGHTFALL OR RISK MORTAL PERIL!" Eda yelled.
"Is it really okay for us to go by ourselves?" Luz asked, as she followed King back to his room. The jacket wasn't the easiest thing to walk in, unfortunately, but such was the price of staying hidden.
"Oh, yeah," King said. "Mom's library card was revoked, but I've got my own." He grabbed his umbrella and backpack, offering the latter to her. "Hop in, your stubby little legs will slow us down."
… She really couldn't argue with that logic. Her legs were stubby. King didn't zip up the bag when she got in, letting her head and arms stay out as she rode.
The library in the Human Realm, Luz learned, was pretty amazing. It wasn't magical like in the Demon Realm, but there were still so many interesting books.
Unfortunately, as several hours of research proved, few-to-none of those books were actually helpful when it came to creating a portal to another world. There were some theoretical physics textbooks talking about other worlds, but what little King was able to comprehend of them wasn't very helpful (and Luz had understood even less). There were a ton of different fiction books where the protagonists stumbled on another world, but none of them had anything that seemed helpful on getting back.
It was King who found the first book that actually seemed promising, and he sounded quite excited as he showed Luz Dr. P's Extraordinary Guide To Magic & Mystery.
Luz was skeptical. "This looks like a random book of myths. What, does it have lendermen, time pools, possums?"
"Those are real," King said. "But, look, here! The author!"
Luz looked to see, in tiny print on the spine where King was pointing, the name Stanford Pines.
"This book is all magic junk, but I've heard of this guy before. Mom egged his house once. He's a paranormal investigator who's also a real scientist," King whispered. "I looked him up on the computer, he's written research papers about portal theory."
King opened the book, and began reading. "Though most believe our reality to be devoid of magic, magical phenomena can be found all over the world if you know where to look. But why? Why do these things, so strange, so otherworldly, exist? Through my research, I have discovered that these phenomena are the result of a little bit of other dimensions leaking into our world."
"A little bit of our world leaking into yours…" Luz whispered. "King, this is it!"
"Wait, you believe me?" King seemed genuinely taken aback.
"What it says here, it's the same thing my dad said about the Human Realm. Every myth you have comes from a little bit of our world leaking into yours."
"Awesome," King closed the book. "Let's go check it out."
"Um… Can I check one more book out?" Luz asked.
King shrugged, and Luz took that as a yes. She waddled over to the children's fiction section, King following close behind, and quickly found the books under 'F'.
Though covered by her scarf and the general lack of expressiveness of her face, Luz was grinning as she held The Good Witch Azura 5 while following King to the check-out desk.
"Let me do the talking," King said.
The librarian was a middle-aged human woman with curly orange hair. She seemed to recognize King when she glanced at him.
"Clawthorne," She said tersely.
"Mom isn't here today."
That improved the librarian's mood immediately. "Oh, thank heavens. That woman, with her writing in books, and her coffee, the grass, and the cider-" She cleared her throat. "Disregard that, it was unprofessional. What do you have today? I see you've brought a little friend with you."
Luz waved.
"Those clothes look… a bit warm," the librarian commented. "You're a bit young to be babysitting."
"… She's a friend who's staying with us for a few days," King said.
"Weh?" A friend? Was King her friend?
"A friend?" The librarian asked, echoing Luz's thoughts. "Oh, Lilith will be so pleased."
King groaned. "Please don't tell me she's back in town."
"That would be a lie," the librarian said. "She moved into an apartment downtown last week."
"Great. Wonderful. Awesome," King said, in a tone that very much indicated he didn't think it was any of those things. "Just… do your job, Agnes." He put his book on the table.
"Pines… An interesting choice," Agnes the librarian commented.
"Just scan it," King growled.
Luz wondered what had him so worked up, and then remembered that she also had a book. She stretched up as much as she could to try and push her Azura book onto the desk.
Agnes scanned the books, and placed them into a plastic bag for King to take. Once the two of them were back outside, Luz finally asked the question that had been on her mind.
"Who's Lilith?"
"My aunt. Connecticut's number one most annoying nerd," King said. "Ugh… She keeps getting on to Mom for how she's raising me – as if she could do better – and she's the reason we're stuck with Mr. Hopkins."
King picked Luz up and put her into his backpack, Luz shifting around a bit so that the books weren't digging into her sides. "Who's Mr. Hopkins?"
King groaned as he began walking down the (surprisingly empty) sidewalk. "He's the guy who came up with that dumb Mars story I told you yesterday. He thinks I'm a vampire."
"That's ridiculous," Luz said. "Everyone knows vampires fall asleep in like, five seconds in the sunlight, and I haven't seen you eat any red."
King was silent for a few moments before he doubled over and burst out laughing, Luz barely managing to stay in his backpack.
"That's what sunlight does to real vampires? They don't burst into flames?"
"Weh – why would you think that?"
King shrugged. "That's what the stories say. Sunlight kills them and they drink blood."
"… They eat the color red," Luz said. She guessed that vampires could drink witch blood if they wanted to, but they'd probably just get set on fire because, you know, witches.
… She was suddenly quite glad her blood was blue. All she had to defend herself from vampires that could try and take a bite of her was a light spell. And her teeth, which were admittedly rather sharp, along with her claws and horns which weren't.
"Adventure Time was right about that?" King asked, surprised enough that he stopped walking down the sidewalk and turned to look at Luz.
"I don't know what that means," Luz admitted. "Let's just get back and check out this book."
"You just want to start Azura 5, don't you?"
"No!" Luz protested. "… Kind of."
King just laughed before continuing on his way. The two ended up making a few more stops on the way back. The first was to a drugstore where King bought some enzyme supplements for her – which she was really grateful for, although she wasn't completely sure if human stuff would work for a demon like her – and then went to get something called 'pete-zah'.
Which was amazing, and either the enzymes worked or there wasn't that much lactose in the cheese in the first place – she wasn't sure, but it was still really good and she didn't get indigestion. There was way too much food for them to eat by themselves, though not for lack of trying, so they ended up taking some back for Eda.
By the time they got back to the house, it was mid-afternoon, they'd been gone for several hours. Eda was up, and after greeting her Luz went up to King's room as he was giving her some pizza. The moment she got inside, she started taking off all of the clothes King had lent her, before flopping down in her bed, not even bothering with retrieving her hoodie.
Ugh, her wings were so stiff. She'd never tried to hide them before, but she'd have to get used to it if she wanted to go outside in the Human Realm.
She looked up at the sound of King entering to see him lay down on his bed and begin playing with some sort of weird rectangular device. She walked over, crouched down, and jumped into the bed, snuggling up next to him.
King didn't look up from his whatever-it-was but started idly petting her. A minute or two later, he realized what he was doing, and stopped. "Luz! I'm sorry! I didn't even ask if it was okay…"
"It's fine," Luz said. "It… Well, it reminds me of my parents," she admitted. "They found me back when I was an egg, and when I hatched, they thought I was just some sort of weird dog with wings before I started talking," Luz explained. "I don't like people thinking I'm a pet, that sucks, but it's kind of hard to blame them for it."
King didn't say anything for a moment, looking deep in thought.
Luz laid her head down on King's stomach. "What'cha doin?"
"Just watching some videos on my phone," King said, bringing the device – the 'phoon'? – down to her eye level. She quickly realized that this must be the human version of a scroll – which was amazing. How did they even make something like that without magic?
"That's so cool…" And it gave Luz an idea. "Hold on, I want to show you something." She jumped to the ground, over to her bag, and then rummaged through it a bit. She was looking for her scroll, the talk about her parents had reminded her about it. Somehow it had gotten wrapped around a pen in the hours since she'd checked it.
Scroll in hand, she scuttled back over to King to show off her prize.
"This is a scroll, it's like your 'fun'," Luz exposited, as she opened it up to show a photo of her and her Mom. She brought it over to King, climbing back on the bed to show him. "That's my Mom."
"The little fluffy one?" King guessed, as he set his phone to the side.
"Weh?! King, no, that's obviously-" She noticed his smirk. "Oh, you're making a joke."
King laughed. "Your Mom looks nice."
"She is," Luz agreed, and then sighed. "But… She still wanted to send me to camp. I don't really… get it," Luz admitted.
King shrugged. "Who knows?"
"I also had an idea. Ahem," Luz sat down like a dog would, looking at King with wide eyes.
"Woof woof. Bark and such."
"… Ah, it's an extra-clever disguise!" King realized.
Luz nodded. "If even my parents thought I was a weird dog at first, this should work, right?"
"I'm feeling confident about this plan," King agreed.
Luz's tail wagged. If King was confident, then this was sure to work! Now all they had to do was… Luz drew a blank for a moment, before remembering the reasons she and King had actually left the house that morning.
"The book!" She exclaimed. "Is there anything useful?"
"Oh, right!" King grabbed his backpack and pulled out the magic book. He opened it up to the end, muttering to himself about an index. Luz clambered into King's lap so that she could see the book too.
Luz spotted it before King did. "Look, portals on page 618!"
"Not just that," King said, pointing to another part of the page.
Gravesfield, p. 128
"I always knew there was something weird about this town…" King said.
"Check out portals first," Luz said. King duly flipped to that page, and the two read together.
Warning: Attempting to create a portal without a magical implement specifically attuned to creating portals could threaten the very fabric of reality.
"That doesn't sound good," Luz noted.
"Hm…" Why did King sound like he was considering it?
Portals are gateways between our world and other worlds. They exist in spots where the fabric of our reality is at its weakest, allowing magic to leak through. The most notable place in which this occurs is the town of Gravity Falls, Oregon, though many small towns with a reputation for odd things happening are likely in one of these places.
"Like Gravesfield," King noted, as Luz read out loud.
The page went on more about a few interesting details about portals, but didn't have any clues on how to make one, so the two of them instead went to the page for Gravesfield.
Gravesfield is another town which sits on a weak point between dimensions, but it is so unusual that I felt it deserved its own mention. Gravesfield is abound with nearly as much magical energy as Gravity Falls, but with far fewer strange phenomena. There is a legend regarding a witch from another world visiting in the seventeenth century, though this is difficult to confirm. So, using my instruments, I worked to get to the bottom of this, and made a startling discovery:
Gravesfield is home to a persistent portal to another world. An inactive portal, which would require a power source to locate, let alone open, but a portal, nevertheless. These tales of a witch may be true. So, if you're ever in Gravesfield, look around – perhaps you'll discover the truth of the witch, the portal, and the brothers Wittebane.
"Wittebane?" Luz asked. "Who's that?"
"I don't know," King admitted. "But it sounds… Familiar, somehow."
"I guess we've got a project for tomorrow," Luz said, clapping her paws together. "Do you know anyone who can help us with the history of Gravesfield?"
King didn't say anything for a while, and Luz looked up to see a look of horror on his face. "… King?"
"… We're going to have to talk to either Hopkins or my aunt," King said, dejected.
"Surely they can't be that bad?" Luz suggested.
"They are. We're going with Hopkins, he's at least an idiot." King's statement didn't leave a lot of room for discussion, he was clearly in a pretty sour mood.
Luz really didn't want to leave her friend – she had a friend – feeling like that and wondered what she could do.
… Well, she had one idea. "Do you wanna… read more Azura?" Luz asked.
"… You know what, yeah," King said. "I want to know what's up with this 'Hecate' character. Why does she have two faces, what's her deal?"
That was where they stayed for the next couple of hours until dinnertime – Luz reading King her favorite books, helping him feel better about what they had to do tomorrow, even if she wasn't quite clear on why King was so apprehensive about this 'Hopkins' guy and Eda's sister.