Chapter Text
The first thing Luz notices, when she first wakes up, is light.
It traces a fine line along the ceiling, spelling out the graceful shape of what she thinks is some sort of owl. She blinks and rubs her eyes at the unfamiliar shape. Where is she?
The motion jostles a warm weight on her stomach—a cat, maybe? She tries looking down at it, but it doesn’t look quite right, and she thinks her vision might’ve been messed up because since when did cats have exoskeletons and horns? The distortion might be connected to the lightheadedness suddenly hitting her and making everything feel like it’s happening three feet below her, or maybe not actually happening to her at all.
The cat(?) lets out a sound startlingly similar to a gasp and stands, its little claws sinking surprisingly heavily into her stomach as it turns its eyes on her and- hold on- okay, she must be hallucinating, because there’s no way a cat could have eyes that are yellow and take up that much space on its exoskeleton-face.
Then, something even weirder—and, when she thinks about it, super awesome and borderline magical—happens, and the cat(?) opens its mouth and it talks.
“You’re awake! Luz!” it cries, flinging itself around her neck and holding on tight.
At this point, Luz is sure she must be dreaming. God knows the amount of times she’s had awesome, magic-filled dreams like this and woken up to bland reality with disappointment weighing her down. The magic cat(?) knows her name! And it’s giving her a hug, which she’d never say no to even if it was a regular human cat, so obviously she hugs it back, petting it and grinning as its tail wags, thumping against her hand.
“I’m sorry,” it mumbles, and it takes her a moment to hear it properly, but when she does, she realizes the magic cat(?) is repeating it over and over, whispering shaking apologies into her neck. She gives it a squeeze. If this is one of her adventurous dreams, might as well comfort the creature so she can get on with the action!
“Hey,” she says, except her throat is all clogged up for some reason, so she clears it and tries again. “Hey. It’s okay, little friend! Whatever you did, we can move on from it now!” The voice that reaches her ears is- different than she’s used to, lower than she’s used to hearing herself. It takes her off-guard, and it takes her a second to notice that its tail has stopped wagging against her arm, its grip slackened.
It pulls back to look at her, and she has to tamp down a smile and a squeal at how cute it is. After a moment of it looking at her, it starts, “Do you-“
Unfortunately it never gets to finish its sentence, though, because just then what Luz thinks is probably the coolest lady she’s ever seen bursts into the room, rocking the longest, poofiest grey hair she’s ever seen. She even has a hook as her right arm! “I thought I heard Luz, is she-“ her look of concern is immediately replaced with one of relief when the woman catches sight of Luz, eyes wide and head turned on its side to see her. She walks over, dropping into a crouch to be at eye level.
“Thank Titan you’re up,” she says, grinning, something vaguely familiar hiding in her expression. “You had us worried there, kiddo.”
Oh, that’s what it was! This woman must be her dream-fantasy-mom; the look on her face reminded Luz of how her mama looked at her, sometimes.
“That’s right! I’m up! What adventure are we going on?” She looks eagerly back and forth between the two, and- now that she’s thinking about it, they even look like Azura’s mentor and familiar! …kind of. It’s close enough, anyway, and Luz figures it wouldn’t be one-to-one as a dream.
They exchange a look, confusion and worry passing between them. The magic cat(?) shrugs, the cutest little noise coming out of its mouth.
“Adventure?” the woman asks.
“Yeah! Y’know, like freeing the kingdom from an ancient evil, saving an innocent civilian from mortal peril, defeating a no-good…evildoer…” Luz’s enthusiasm trails off at the increasing confusion and concern on their faces. Shouldn’t they be jumping at the chance to tell her what she needs to do so they can get on with saving the day?
The magic cat(?) grabs onto the woman’s sleeve, hiding his face. It’d be cute, but Luz has the feeling something is wrong because it looks…sad. It whispers something into the fabric, and the lady’s face softens, adjusting her arm so she can wrap it around the creature.
“What’s the last thing you remember happening?” she suddenly asks, staring straight at Luz.
She blinks. “Um. I think I was getting ready for- for summer camp, why?”
The lady lets out a low whistle, expression a lot sadder than before. “Looks like you were right, kiddo,” she mumbles, eyes dropping to the magic cat(?) gripping her arm like it’ll vanish if it lets go. In response, there’s a muffled noise that sounds heartbreakingly close to a sob.
Luz looks frantically between them, trying to piece together what exactly she’s missing. “What? What was it right about?”
The lady looks her in the eyes again, a sad tint to her smile. “Looks like you’ve lost your memory.”
Luz blinks. “My- what?”
The woman introduces herself as Eda and the little creature as King, who crawls up into her hair (INTO her hair!) and doesn’t come out again. She says they’re her family, sort of, and Luz frowns.
“What about my mom? Did something happen to her?” The fear stabs her sharply, thinking of what could’ve happened to the last bit of family she has, but Eda shakes her head.
“Nah, she’s fine. Let’s just say we have shared custody of you.”
It’s a relief to hear, but if what they’re saying is to be believed, then no wonder King is so upset. Poor thing.
A whole other family! One with a super-cool witch and magical creature that, apparently, she'd been able to charm into becoming her family. She wonders how she managed to do that.
“How do I know you’re not lying? How do I know this isn’t all some crazy fantastical dream?” Luz asks.
Eda shakes her head. “There’s not much I can do to make you believe me, but you’ve had dreams like this before. Does it feel like one?”
If she thinks about it- no. Eda’s right, she has had dreams of adventure and epic fantasy before, but they’d never felt quite like this, and they’d all landed her either at the beginning of a quest or in the middle of the action. So it’s weird that this one so far is so lacklustre and almost normal (if not for the unfamiliar setting and magical creatures within it). But the alternative, that what they’re saying is true and she’d truly lost her memories? It’s scary, more than she’d like to admit.
All of it is too much for a mind that still felt like it’s swimming through half-crystallized honey.
Just to test, Luz pinches her arm, and the pain that erupts tells her everything she needs to know.
“No,” she finally answers. “I guess not.”
There’s silence for a moment, as they both think. Luz has a million and a half questions tumbling through her brain about the how and the why and the when of it all. How much of her life has she lost?
Probably a lot, comes the very helpful and specific answer, looking at Eda and the place around her and thinking of all the answers she’s been given so far.
“Well!” Eda’s voice snaps her back into the present. “I’d better go to the others and let them know you’re up. They’ll want to reintroduce themselves.” Her voice sounds wavery, and Luz feels a stab of guilt. Whether she remembered it or not, Eda was her family, and she had to deal with Luz having forgotten all about her.
“Wait,” Luz blurts. “King, and your ears- are you magic? Like, magic, magic?? And how many of my memories do you think I’ve forgotten?”
Eda stops. “Hoo boy,” she mutters, “never thought I’d have to explain this again. I’m going to grab the others, and they can help me explain everything,” she says. “And as for your memories, well…from what you’ve told me, it sounds like you’ve lost the past two years or so.”
“Two years?!” Luz exclaims.
“Yep,” Eda affirms. “Now, uh, I’m gonna go grab your mom and your friends. They’ll want to hear about this.”
Luz is not equipped to handle any of this information, because somehow the thought of her actually having multiple friends who are (presumably) real and human and care about her is on basically the same un-believability level as having lost two whole years of her memory. Like- hold on, how old even is she now? Sixteen? Trying to attach that age to herself feels foreign and also just wrong. Though at least it explains why her voice sounds so different.
And when did she manage to make multiple friends? How did that even happen? Luz had honestly begun to believe she’s been cursed to be an outcast forever, resigned to watching everyone else live happy, normal lives while she drifts between people who sort-of like her and tries her best to fit in as much as she can.
But Eda and King—they’re magic. Maybe the reason she never fit in with other humans is because she was never supposed to be one of them! Maybe she’s had a magical destiny and friends waiting for her this whole time!
It’s a tantalizing thought. She wonders what they’re like.
“King, can you stay here with her while I get the others?” Eda asks to seemingly no one. Then King’s head pops out of her hair and Luz has to bite her lip to keep from cooing at how cute he looks, just sticking out of her hair.
“Okay,” he says, and hops onto the arm of the couch.
Luz tries to push herself up to sitting, but whoa, as soon as she tries the dizziness in her head gets about a thousand times worse, and instead she yelps and falls onto her back.
“Careful,” Eda says, “your head is probably still recovering from losing your memories. You should probably stay put for a while.”
Luz sighs but obliges, crossing her arms over her chest. King wanders over to a gap between her and the couch, up near her arms, and settles down, and a wave of affection floods through her. Whether it’s because some part of her remembers loving him or because he just looks so cute and feels so warm, she doesn’t know, but she hopes it’s the former, if only so she can stop making them so sad.
“Aight! I’m out,” Eda calls, opening the door. “Don’t do anything I would!”
She leaves, shutting the door behind her, and Luz notices, for the first time, a circular hole in it. That’s odd, she thinks, and maybe it’s the least important weird thing she could be thinking about right now when there’s a magical cat-like creature sleeping beside her, but…does it not make the house wet when it rains?
It gets added to her VERY long mental list of “things to ask about when Eda gets back” (although admittedly, it’s definitely closer to the bottom than the whole magic thing, because, HELLO).
Distantly she realizes her eyes are drooping shut, her brain practically screaming at her to sleep from its state of overwhelming dizziness and confusion and fatigue from trying to process all the new information it’d just been given. The warmth of King beside her and the promise of waking up to answers (and her friends, she thinks giddily) lure her into sleep.