Chapter Text
"Heya, Lily. It's been a while."
Eda did not expect that sending a video would work, but at least she could get her thoughts out to show Lilith later once they all made it back.
"Well, two weeks, anyway. I know King told you how we might get stuck here, but he didn't really explain anything. So, I cheesed off the emperor of this place big-time, I guess, and he decided that the solution was public execution." Eda paused. "Okay, I should explain that. Emperor Belos wanted the portal to the Human Realm, and he decided the best way to get it was to arrest me and Luz's mom to lure the kids into a trap."
Eda sighed. "Well, it worked, but the kids were able to get me out. Mostly." She held up her right hand – or, rather, the brass hook that she'd replaced it with. Amity had offered to try and get her a better prosthetic, but Eda liked the pirate aesthetic and probably wouldn't use it unless she really needed the dexterity. "Belos kills people by petrifying them, turning them to stone. Once the spell is done, that's the end. Apparently shielding myself with my hand bought me some time, but… Yeah, we weren't able to fix it. Don't worry, it didn't hurt, but it's taking some getting used to."
That was an understatement.
"I've figured out one disability, I can figure out another," Eda joked. A metabolic disorder wasn't exactly the same thing as losing a limb, but she felt it did lighten the mood a bit. "There's something else, too. Cass was a witch. Wait, did I even tell you about him? King's dad. Purple eyes, helped me prank my ex-husband, only dated the guy for a couple weeks. Anyway, turns out King has powers and can set things on fire with his hands. It's pretty darn cool."
Eda waited a moment before continuing.
"… Okay, I know what you're thinking, yes, I'm kind of jealous. The kids fought Belos and destroyed the portal with magic fire. And ya know what, Lily? I'm proud of 'em. I didn't think I'd be making it out of that one, and boy they proved me wrong. I don't know what Belos wants with the portal, but don't you worry. We're figuring things out."
Eda glanced out of the window to see Luz and King practicing with their powers.
"Cami lost her job. So, to keep food on the table, we've resorted to being bounty hunters. It's been… rough. After working with Owlbert so much, we've become a pretty great team, though." Eda said fondly. "Don't you worry your little blue head, Lily."
The memory surfaced in Eda's mind. It's midnight navy!
"We'll make it back home before you know it."
Turning in the bounties had gone… poorly. None of the family was exactly respected or feared. Camila tended to stay home with Vee, now that she'd lost her job, trying to figure out other ways to make ends meet. Eda was fierce, stubborn, and loud, but she was human – completely powerless without Owlbert, and unable to lend any power to his spells. King, being nine years old, didn't get much respect no matter how good of a fireball he could throw, and Luz was just seen as some sort of strange pet or talking animal sidekick. Which was just as annoying now as it always was. Altogether, this meant that they tended to get… shortchanged. Half a snail for a whole bunch of bounties wasn't going to put food on the table.
"Why are they taking down the posters of… What's-her-name?" King asked, pointing out where the Emperor's Coven posters were being taken down. "Kikimiki?"
"Mikiroka," Eda said. Luz was about to correct them, but wasn't given a chance.
"It's Kikimora," a familiar voice cut in. Luz turned to see Steve, no longer in his scout uniform but instead dressed in a leather jacket and yellow T-shirt with his name on it. He'd kept the pants for some reason, though. "Rumor has it, she's been demoted."
"Aren't you, like, wanted?" King asked.
"… Yeah, turns out they couldn't figure out which scout betrayed them," Steve shrugged. "Should be fine as long as I avoid my stepdad."
The four of them watched as new posters were hung up. Luz flew over to pull one off of the wall. "The Golden Guard? Do you know him, Steve?"
"Everyone does," Steve said, taking the poster from Luz. "He was a scout until last year, I worked with him a few times. He's the 'genius teen prodigy', Kiki hates him, and he's kind of a brat."
"Hold up, how old is this kid?" Eda asked.
"… Sixteen or seventeen?" Steve guessed. "I'm not actually sure."
"Isn't that a little young to be, I don't know, part of the Emperor's personal attack dogs?" Eda asked. "Let alone leading it?"
"Yeah, I don't know how he got in," Steve admitted. "If he's in charge now… Yeesh, I'm glad I'm out of there."
"That bad?"
"Smug, sassy, thinks he's the coolest thing since sliced dread, you get the idea," Steve said, waving a hand.
Eda sighed, pinching her nose. "Knowing our luck, we'll have to deal with him."
"Probably," Steve admitted.
Luz didn't like seeing everyone so down in the dumps, so she quickly came up with a plan. "Hey, I know! We need a confidence booster. Why don't we go tackle the biggest bounty we can find?"
She flew over to the bulletin board labeled 'Greg's List', and quickly went down a few things. "Lost Cerberus? No, they keep trying to smell me… Witch cackling lessons? Ooh… Not today. Aha!"
Luz grabbed a poster and flew back to show it to them. "There's a selkidomus ravaging boats along the coast. A high seas adventure with a great payout."
"I dunno, Luz," King said, as he took the flyer. "I heard about them in class – wow, that is a lot of money, moral questions ignored."
Eda grabbed the poster and studied it for a minute. "Nope," she finally said. "How about this instead?" She pointed out a different poster on the wall with her hook.
"The Abominable Cutie Pie?" Luz asked. The picture was of a little pink demon with horns and bat wings, though definitely not the same species as Luz, holding a lollipop.
"No, I hear it's very dangerous." She gasped, which sounded very off to Luz. "And look, there he is!"
Luz turned to see the depicted demon, who immediately noticed that he was being watched and ran off.
"You'll never catch me!" The Abominable Cutie Pie called out as he climbed the statue.
Luz just flew up and landed next to him.
"… You did it. You caught me," the demon said, completely deadpan, as he just tipped over and fell into Luz's arms.
Luz groaned as King climbed up to her.
"Gimme," he said, as he snatched the lollipop.
"It's not looking great," Luz caught Eda saying to Steve. "Cami's out of work, and bounty hunting isn't putting food on the table."
"The kids are strong," Steve pointed out. Luz didn't think either of them realized that she and King could hear them.
"Oh, I'm sure they can handle bigger bounties," Luz felt a bit of pride at that. "But I can't take care of the kids if I can't take care of myself. There's not a lot I can digest here, and my medicine…"
Luz had forgotten about that. Briefly, she played with the chain of the portal key around her neck. She'd taken to wearing it underneath her hoodie ever since she destroyed the door, both as a reminder and a motivator to fix things.
"… There's a nice kid in town, Morton, that's been working on making a potion version, but it's going to be expensive," Eda finished. "We don't have the money."
Luz was silent, deep in thought, as Eda and Steve walked away.
"That's rough, buddy," the Abominable Cutie Pie said.
King shoved him to the ground.
"This is awful," Luz said. "None of this would be happening if it weren't for me. Maybe things would be better if I never brought you guys here."
"Luz…" King said. "What are you talking about?"
"I can't change the past, but I can still change the future!" Luz said. "I'm gonna help Eda, get all the money for her medicine, and prove I'm not a burden!"
"I'm all for helping Mom, but how are we supposed to do that?" King asked.
The answer, of course, was by going on a dangerous high seas adventure to slay a creature that King was about sixty percent sure wasn't actually, you know, a murderous beast ravaging ships down the coast (he'd missed the second lesson on the selkidomus), and right now he wasn't going to bother thinking about it because they really needed the money. If worst came to worst, they could figure out a way to fake the monster's death or just steal the money. That's what his mom would do in this situation.
The ship was big. And really cool, in King's not-so-humble opinion. The hybrid had only been on a ship once before, owned by one of his mother's ex-boyfriends whose idea of romance was to set his own boat on fire. King was pretty sure that was wrong, but it sounded better than whatever most people counted as romance. Eda had seemed to agree, setting the man's boat on fire before he'd gotten a chance to, and while he had greatly appreciated the gesture and resolutely refused to press charges, she'd still gotten banned from ever setting foot on a boat within the state borders again.
The crew was very interesting. All of them were there for a cut of the loot, including a funny fish demon who was very willing to talk about their many debts.
"Don't be a burden, sea squirts."
That's what Salty, the captain of the boat, had said to Luz and King after explaining the plan to them. King thought the two of them did rather well. His fire magic was pretty easily able to keep the ship going, he just kind of had to make it burn hotter and the ship went faster.
Luz helped, too, adding fire glyphs to make things a little easier on King, until he pointed out that she was the source of literally all of their magic that wasn't his fire spell.
It was kind of funny to watch Luz deal with barnacles on the side of the ship, King had to admit. Since she could fly and was immune to boiling water, her solution was to just fly down there and scrape them off with her horns. After she fell into the water from a lack of leverage, she took to using a vine from a plant glyph while King held the other end, and that worked a lot better.
It was when Luz yanked a large bug off of King's back that Salty finally accepted him.
"Well, ye had me confront my own biases and I got nothing but respect for ya now, squirts. I mean, sailors."
"Thanks, Salty," Luz said. "You make me feel like a real part of the crew."
"That's because ye arghhhh." Salty hoisted the little demon up, and she took a seat on his shoulder. She fit a lot better there than on King's.
"Boo!" King said at the pirate talk.
"Hey, you're a part of this, too!" Luz said, hopping back to King's shoulder.
"Listen to yer…" Salty paused. "… Flying fox."
"Sister."
"Alright, yer sister." To Salty's credit, he seemed to accept that without question.
Luz's stomach grumbled. "Whew!" She said. "I'm gonna go look for some food. I'll bring you some back too, King!"
She scampered off, and Salty just laughed and shook his head.
While Luz and King had their own plans and schemes in motion, Eda was back at the Owl House, trying to think of… Well, anything. She wasn't too worried about where Luz and King had gone off to – the two of them were perfectly capable of defending themselves now.
Hm… It had been quite a while since she'd pulled off a heist. They'd gotten a bit less common after King was born thanks to, well, needing to actually take care of a small human. Witch. Human-witch hybrid. Yep, that still felt weird to think about. But what could she do… She'd never really used the glyphs that much, and she didn't exactly feel confident in her ability to draw them with her left, now only, hand quite yet.
But there was another type of magic that Eda could do. She'd been dabbling in potions on and off since arriving and the Boiling Isles, so some basic combat potions shouldn't be too difficult to brew. And, heck, she was smart! She could figure it out.
It honestly wasn't that hard to brew potions. The most difficult part was chopping ingredients, which she could take her time with at the start – everything else was about stirring, heat, and timing. Before long, Eda had a bandolier (why Hooty owned one, she didn't know) full of potions to act as smoke bombs – or fog bombs, in this case – as well as some that produced small fiery explosions and a few other effects. The goal was to make them small and tossable.
Once she was done, Eda went to the shed and got out her project she'd been working on over the past couple of weeks: the bathtub boat. It was an ordinary porcelain bathtub she'd treated with some inexpensive potions she'd bought from Morton to make it lighter, more durable, and a better insulator – with how good of an insulator porcelain already was, Eda imagined she'd managed to make one of the greatest small watercraft to ever sail the Boiling Sea.
Well, "sail". It was a motorboat. She was pretty sure no one else had those, meaning that she had speed on her side with nothing but an old bathtub, scrap metal, and some cheap potions. She also managed to dig up a pirate outfit that went great with her hook from the depths of the Owl House's tower.
She was just about to leave when she heard Camila's voice. "Eda? What are you doing?"
"Trying to earn some money," Eda said.
"Do I… want to know how?" Camila asked, looking up and down Eda's outfit.
"Probably not," Eda admitted.
"Alright… Have you seen Luz and King?" She asked.
"Um… no," Eda said.
Camila sighed. "Can you look for them while you're out? I think Luz forgot to charge her scroll."
"Can do, Cami," Eda said. "What about you?"
"I'm going to look around town," Camila said. "Luz's friends haven't seen her, either."
"Break a leg," Eda said.
"Only as a last resort," Camila answered, a glint in her eye. "If anyone touches my baby…"
"No, it's an expression, it means…" Eda stopped. "You know what? I like your version better."
Eda said her goodbyes to Camila and was shortly off, Owlbert nestled in her hair asleep just in case she needed his help. She didn't think she would, but, hey, it always paid to have a backup option. The bathtub, however, worked perfectly. The plan was pretty simple. While Eda didn't want King and Luz going after the selkidomus themselves, she was absolutely going to steal the loot from the boat. She'd pilfered a map of the seas surrounding the Boiling Isles not long before, and with the knowledge that the selkidomus was seen in a place called the Simmering Shoals, she had a direction to go on.
The ship was simple to find – big and powerful, just as she suspected from a ship owned by the emperor (why Luz and King had thought going on one of those was a good idea, Eda had no idea… or maybe they'd been too distracted to read all of the details on the wanted poster). And, bonus points, when she arrived its crew was already fighting the selkidomus! She didn't quite see the details of the fight, but she knew it was the perfect distraction to lob a fog brew over the edge of the ship, nab the giant sack of cash, and then speed away in her motortub.
It had gone shockingly smoothly. She'd grabbed the money, jumped into her little speedboat, and then zipped away, barely hearing the captain shout something about a "Ghost Pirate". Ha! No, just a normal pirate. Though if she came back as a ghost, she supposed she had some job opportunities to consider.
She was able to make her way to a small island – best to count the loot before taking it home, plus she could leave some fake tracks to make them think she was hiding out on the island, preferably in the cave near the shore, giving her ample time to high-tail it back home. Which is what she would have done, had she not looked back the way she came to see something zipping across the water with a jet of blue flame behind it approaching fast.
All Eda had time to say before her son collided with her at high speed was "Dang it, King."
He knocked her flat on her back, faceplanting into the sand himself. Eda picked herself up, only to see the sack of cash right at the edge of the shore getting carried away on a wave.
"The money!" both Clawthornes shouted at the same time.
King squinted at Eda, and then knocked her hat off. "Mom!"
Eda chuckled sheepishly. "Hey, King."
King helped her to her feet. "Why are you robbing the ship? Luz and I were gonna make a load of money!"
"The ship I specifically told you not to go on?" Eda asked. "Who taught you to act like this?"
"You. Like, a lot," King pointed out.
"… Hah! Got me there, I guess. But, seriously, you coulda' gotten killed!"
"That can still be arranged." The most unreasonably annoying voice that Eda had ever heard called out.
A giant fist of water rose from the sea and slammed down, revealing the Golden Guard – Eda recognized him from the posters – steam pouring from his mask and armor. In one hand, he held a birdcage with a cover over it. In the other, he held a strange mechanical staff.
"Hello, criminals. What's about to happen should-"
"Hey!" King interrupted. "You're the guy that tried to arrest us after we wrote a book!"
Eda looked at King questioningly.
"Long story."
"No, I'm not," the Guard claimed. "Anyway, as I was saying… This should be relatively painless, as long as you do what I say."
"Right," King scoffed. "And we should do that because…" King drew a spell circle, summoning a blue fireball.
"Because I'm the head of the Emperor's Coven," the Guard pointed out. "So! You can remain a sailor to pay off the money you lost in the sea, and the human will be arrested – again – for robbing one of the Emperor's ships."
"What other ship would be worth robbing?" Eda asked.
King narrowed his eyes and glared at the guard. "Okay, I knew there was something fishy… My class about the selkidomus didn't mention anything about it being aggressive."
"Is that so?" Eda asked. "Well, Mr. Golden Guard, mind telling us what the Emperor really wants with this thing?"
The Guard shrugged. "I'm just following orders. He wanted one slain."
King threw his fireball. The Guard easily deflected it with his staff, and then used it to levitate both of them over the edge of the beach. "If that's how you want to do things, I can leave you dangling over the Boiling Sea." He laughed, and brought the two of them back to land. "But I don't have to be that mean. Slay the selkidomus for me, and you're home free!" He dropped them on the ground, and waved his staff again, conjuring a golden sword that formed out of what appeared to be flesh.
… Yep, that was weird.
"This'll help!" He said.
King threw another fireball, and the guard parried it just as easily.
The guard pinched his nose. "Look, I tried this the nice way, but…" the Guard pulled back the cover on the birdcage to reveal Luz trapped within. Her arms were crossed and she looked distinctly annoyed, a muzzle keeping her from opening her mouth. "I have your precious little bird, and if you don't comply, I'll drown it in the Boiling Sea."
"… Fine," King spat, grabbing the sword and turning towards the cave.
"King!" Eda called. He didn't stop, and she ran after him. "Wait, King!"
King reached the edge of a cliff within the cave with not much walking, and stopped to look for the best way down. It didn't look too deep…
"King, don't hurt it," Eda said. "We can figure out another way."
"We've got to get you and Luz out of this somehow," King said. He paused. "Okay, Luz will be fine, but I don't want you getting arrested again! What if Belos tries to petrify you again, huh? All Luz wanted to do was help earn some money so she could help take care of you!" King was yelling now, trying not to cry. "We can't do that if you get arrested! And I guess we can't do that now at all." He turned and began walking again.
"You heard that, huh?" He heard Eda say behind him as she followed. "King…"
"Let's do this, get home, and figure something else out." And with that, King jumped down as his mother called his name, managing to land directly on top of the selkidomus and slide down its back.
The sea monster, rather unsurprisingly, did not appreciate that, and began puffing out its chest to send some spikes at him. King prepared to throw a fireball, only for Eda to tackle him out of the way and pull him behind cover.
"You think this is going to help?" Eda asked. "Kid, no matter how much guilty talk you hear from Luz – and don't try to pretend that she wasn't doing that – this isn't on you. Either of you. Maybe things could be better, but I actually feel pretty good about my life and where I am now!" Eda paused, and her expression softened. "And I know you do, too."
King didn't say anything. She was right, he knew she was right, but… What else was he supposed to do? He wasn't a planner or a schemer like Luz or his mother. Not really. He was just… King. Even if he had magic now.
"There's gotta be a way out of this where no one gets hurt…" Eda said.
He heard a sound coming from nearby, and looked to find that the source was what could only be a baby selkidomus.
He looked back at his own mother… Well, he definitely couldn't do this now. What would Luz do?
"Wait… Luz!" King realized. "She's just up on the beach, right? We can still use her magic!"
"Hoot." Owlbert also peeked out of Eda's hair.
"That might work…" Eda said. "I think I've got it… If you can draw me some plant glyphs, kiddo, Owlbert can control them to make it look like you're fighting the selkidomus." Owlbert hooted in confirmation. "You just gotta sell it. Think you can do that?"
"I'm… not sure," King admitted.
"Well… Give it everything you've got," Eda said. "Break a leg!"
"If I'm lucky," King said. The Golden Guard definitely deserved it.
"Has anyone ever told you that you're weirdly endearing?" the Golden Guard asked, as he poked through the bars of the cage.
Luz swatted his hand away. "I'm small and fluffy, dude, what do you think?" She wasn't really in the mood for this right now. She couldn't believe she'd let herself get captured! She'd been on the way back from the galley when she'd tripped and gotten her teeth stuck in a gap between two planks on a crate, and the guard had been the one to find her and promptly muzzled her and put her in a cage before she could warn King.
… Not her best moment, and it didn't exactly help how she was feeling about not being able to help Eda and her mother. She felt another random twinge of her magic – it was pretty subtle, but she was pretty sure that Eda and King were using a lot of her glyphs for something.
Luz heard a commotion and looked up to see shadows in the cave. King was fighting the selkidomus with a sword, yelling as he sliced off its head. Luz felt… kind of ill, especially when King started dragging it back.
"Oh, that smells awful," the Guard agreed. "Why are you touching it? Gross."
The smell hit Luz, and while it did smell really bad, it was a really bad plant smell. She decided to keep that little tidbit to herself.
"You're the gross one!" King shouted, but did drop it. He walked into sight. "Now, give me Luz!"
"She smells pretty bad, too," the Guard said. "Take her!"
Okay, she did need a bath, but that wasn't even her fault! The Boiling Sea didn't exactly smell good!
"Weh!" She was not, however, expecting for the entire cage she was in to be tossed to King. He quickly opened it, and the muzzle that had been magicked to her fell off. King immediately hugged her.
"Thank you for your service to the Emperor," the Guard said. "… I mean it, thank you. Try to stay out of trouble on your way home. He is not a merciful man. Byeeee!" The guard gave a jaunty little wave, got on his staff, and then blasted off in a burst of red light.
King set Luz down, and beckoned her to follow him into the cave. Inside, the two of them found Eda and Owlbert over a dummy of the selkidomus made of vines from Luz's plant glyph.
"Wow…" Luz said, marveling at it. The real selkidomus moved into view, along with… "Awww! Baby!" Luz pounced, doing her best to hug the selkidomus baby that was still considerably bigger than her. She felt a hand grab the scruff of her neck, and looked up to see Eda.
"… Hey, kiddo," the human began, as she set Luz back down. "So, uh. You overheard me earlier, huh?"
Luz looked down.
"Look, kid. I know you're probably blaming yourself for us being trapped here, and how we wouldn't be in this situation if not for you. Am I right?"
Luz nodded, tears welling up in her eyes.
"Luz, I would have done the same thing in your metaphorical shoes."
"Weh?"
"If it meant keeping you safe, I would've trapped us here," Eda said. "I bet King would've too."
"Oh, yeah," King confirmed. "I mean, I want to get back home and all, but… You matter to us, you know?"
"I said the same thing not long after we first met, remember?" Eda said. "Us weirdos gotta stick together."
… She had, hadn't she? The memory warmed Luz's heart.
"Our lives are so much better with you in it," Eda said.
"And don't you forget it," King added.
Luz smiled, tears still in her eyes. "Thanks, guys."
King turned to the selkidomus. "Hey, uh. You should probably get out of here. Go far away, where the Emperor can't find you."
The majestic beast gave a slight nod, and for a moment Luz felt a sort of magic in the air – not literal magic, but the sort of literary magic. It was beautiful.
And then the selkidomus vomited all over her.
"… Well, now I need a bath even more," Luz said, as she tried to brush some of the golden whatever-it-was out of the fur on her arm. It didn't really help much, and there was already a lot of salt and… other things she didn't want to think about stuck there.
"It's selkigris," King said.
"Oh, people pay big money for that at the night market!" Eda said excitedly. And then she jumped in the pile of golden goop. "Feel that money, Luz!" She began rubbing it all over Luz's skull with her hand.
"Eda! Stop!"
"Luxuriate, Luz!"
King laughed.
"Oh, you're joining the luxury, King!" Eda grinned. "There's a whole pile of it here!" She threw a glob of selkigris at him.
"… You asked for it, Mom," King said. He jumped into the gris, getting it everywhere.
"King!" Luz laughed. "You guys!"
"Boop." King poked Luz's nose. "How'd the guard capture you, anyway?"
"… I don't want to talk about it," Luz grumbled.