Chapter Text
Luz watched Eda and King leave.
If only I could remember them, she thought to herself. They seem to really care for me.
She sighed, causing the collector to glance at her. For now, she would have to trust her forgotten friends to help fix her.
Eda and King watched Memory Luz cry, Eda covering her face.
“I had known about her dad,” Eda said, “But it’s awful seeing her like this.”
“Do we have to give her these memories back?” King asked. “They seem miserable.”
Eda shook her head. “But they’re a part of what makes her Luz. We can’t take that away.”
King looked down. Eda knelt in front of him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out. But for now, we just need to focus on helping Luz.”
King nodded. “Alright.”
Eda caught another of the collector’s toys. The room reformed into the hall of Luz’s witch school, Hexside.
Eda looked around, surprised by the large crowd, then stopped as she spotted Luz in her grom outfit.
“This must be her grom memory.” Eda said.
“Should we be watching this?” King asked hesitantly. “Grom looks like a silhouette to everyone but the fighter. Luz might not want us to see this.”
Eda looked away. “I know. But it’s not looking like we have a way out of these memories until they end.”
Memory Luz stepped forward, mace ready. Eda and King watched her go. Luz beat her way through fears, reminding Eda that it was actually going well until the beast connected with her.
Speaking of which, Grom had caught Luz now. The beast shifted into… a door. The portal, Eda and King realised.
The door opened, and out stepped something that Eda and King could never have guessed. It wasn’t any of the things Luz had mentioned, not even failing Eda like she had said.
It was her mum.
“Mija?” Camila whispered.
“Mum!” Luz said softly. “What are you doing here?”
“Luz?” Camila asked. “What is this terrible place?” She said something in Spanish that Eda and King didn’t catch. “This isn’t camp. Have you been here all these weeks?”
She gasped. “And is that a weapon?”
Luz dropped the mace. “I can explain-”
Camila’s eyes started to glow. “Mija, have you been lying to ME?”
Eda watched sadly. She had been able to tell that figure wasn’t her like Luz had said. If only she could have known. Noone was there for her.
King took her hand as the memory faded. “L-let’s… Let’s go.”
In the next memory, Luz was walking down a hallway in her human school.
“Hey, Luzer!” called a voice.
Eda, King, and Memory Luz turned. A girl with short blonde hair and a died pink streak marched towards her.
“Still messing around with all that ‘magic’ garbage?” The girl sneered. “Or have you finally grown up?”
Eda clenched her fists, calming her rage.
Memory Luz looked away. “Leave me alone, Amber.”
Amber folded her arms. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten your little stunt in class, Luz-er.”
She slammed Luz into her locker. “You almost got me into huge trouble with the teacher. “You’re going to pay for that.”
She pulled back her fist.
“GET OFF ME!” Luz shouted, shoving Amber off of her. Amber stumbled back, shocked.
“Luz Noceda!” shouted a voice. “Principal’s office, now!”
“What?” Luz cried. “But I-”
“No buts, miss Noceda,” the teacher said. “I won’t be tolerating student violence.”
The memory faded, leaving Eda and King to stand in horrified silence. “What the hell was that?” Eda demanded. “They just refused to listen to her!”
King stomped his foot. “That girl was bullying her! Why won’t the teacher listen?”
Eda scowled, grabbing the memory doll. “Let’s just go,” she snapped angrily.
They entered another memory. The scenery formed into somewhere Eda and King had never been, a sort of museum. Vee, partially transformed into Luz, was standing there. Eda frowned, and King crept forward, looking at the reflection of the glass in front of her. He gasped at the sight of Luz’s reflection in the mirror. “This must be when she went back to visit her mum and met Vee!”
“I know what it’s like to want to run away from home,” Luz said. “I did the same thing!”
“You and I are not the same.” Vee said, shoulders hunching. “You had a mum that loved you, a home, a life, you had it good! And you still wanted to run away.” Vee looked down. “I… I didn’t have a choice. My real name is number five. I’m a basilisk, and technically I shouldn’t exist. My kind went extinct a long time ago.”
She kept talking explaining how she had escaped the emperor and taken Luz’s place. “I resent you for running away.”
The memory shifted back to the collector’s recreation of Bonesborough. King looked at his feet. “She never told us that happened.”
Eda sighed. “She seems pretty good with Vee, so chances are they figured it out eventually.” She picked up the doll. “It probably still hurts, though.”
Eda and King watched the latest memory. Luz was curled up in the corner of her room, late at night, while everyone else was asleep.
Eda didn’t know why, and probably never would, but she was crying.
Luz stuck her hands into her pocket, pulling out a small object. Eda and King moved closer to see it. Eda flinched as she saw it, not wanting to watch the cold metal move through her child’s flesh. She forced herself to lift King into a comforting hold, trying to keep him from seeing the drops of blood forming.
The next memory went back to while she was trapped in the human realm.
“Foes vanquished, he trod the shores of his fatherland, family by his side, finally at peace,” the teacher read aloud. “This epic ends with the homecoming of not just a man, but a hero.” He closed the book.
“Hero?” Luz asked indignantly. “Everywhere he went, people ended up suffering.”
“It does get bleak,” the teacher said. “But no one said his mission would be easy. And when you take into account the ripple effect of his actions-”
“Who cares about the ripple effects?” she demanded. “He was just a pawn in someone else’s game!” She stood on her desk. “And he was never smart enough to realise it! If his friends and family knew about his mission, they’d know that their lives would never have been in danger if it weren’t for him. They should hate his guts, and it would better if he literally never existed!”
Eda and King both gasped, King taking a step back, Eda reaching forward, wishing she should comfort her. But it was just a years-old memory. She couldn’t do anything.
In the next memory, Luz was in front of Belos, alone. Eda stood straight, shocked.
“When did this happen?” King said, terrified.
Belos and Luz seemed engaged in some sort of half-conversation half-fight situation.
“You’re still decades away from beating me,” Belos said, dodging her attack and restraining her with a goopy arm.
“Eat dirt, Belos!” Luz shouted.
“It’s Phillip,” Belos said. “And despite our differences, I want to help you, Luz. I can send you home. I have just enough titan’s blood for one more trip.”
Eda scowled at him as he watched Luz. “Please. I don’t want to see another human life destroyed by this place.”
Luz delivered him a scowl that rivalled Eda’s. “You’re such a hypocrite. You talk big about protecting humanity, but after all you’ve done, you’re barely human yourself.”
“I do pity you,” Belos sighed. “These monsters have warped your sense of reality.”
He raised the arm holding Luz. “Perhaps it would be better to put you out of your misery.”
Stone started to creep up her legs. Eda stumbled back, shocked, remembering her own harrowing encounter with that spell.
King ran forward, tears in his eyes. “Luz!”
The memory vanished. He dropped to his knees. “How did she escape?" he whispered. Eda helped him stand. “Let’s go, King.”
In the next memory, Luz was hiding in the locked bathroom at her home in the human realm.
Stringbean slithered out of her pocket, indicating that this memory took place after she had defeated Belos.
Luz was holding a sharp razor in her hands, rubbing her thumb over the blunt edge. She wiped away her tears and tried to smile at Stringbean. “Hey, bean. You should head to our room, I bought you some treats.”
Stringbean hesitated, tilting her head sideways. Luz smiled weakly. “I’ll be there soon.”
“Luz?” she heard Camila call from downstairs. “Are you okay? You’ve been up there for a while.”
Eda flinched as she realised she had been there. She remembered that moment. She, Raine, and King had come over for dinner.”
“I’m okay, mama!” Luz called. “Just using the bathroom.”
“Okay, Luz,” Camila replied. “I’ll see you soon.”
Luz looked down at the little razor. “Y-yeah. I’ll see you soon.”
She lifted the blade to her throat. Eda and King gasped.
Stringbean shot towards her, chirping frantically, then shooting out the door.
Downstairs, they could hear Stringbean getting Camila, who ran upstairs.
“LUZ!” she demanded. “What’s going on?”
“Sorry, mama!” Luz said nervously. “It’s just... that time of month, yanno? This is the first time since she hatched, so she got spooked by the blood. I bought her some treats if you want to give her some, they’re in my bag.”
Eda cursed to herself. She is far too good at making up a lie.
“Oh, okay,” Camila said. “Well, hurry up, okay? We’re ready for dinner.”
“Si, mama.”
Luz picked herself up off the floor, running the tap and splashing cold water in her face, then using a towel to rub a healthy flush into her face. “No pasa nada. Todo bien”
King took Eda’s hand. “Luz taught me what that means in her Spanish lessons,” he whispered.
“Yeah?” Eda asked, not sure she wanted to hear it.
“Nothing is wrong,” King said. “Everything is fine.”
They kept going. Some of them were happy, some of them weren’t. Bittersweet memories of picking flowers with her father, followed by picking flowers without him.
They saw her late nights studying for school, surrounded by stress. They saw her success at school, smiling proudly.
She had so many happy memories, and so many more sad ones. They chased the dolls until Eda gave up, picking King up to fly away from his incoming memories. She stopped as she soared over a hill, shocked by the sheer number of dolls in front of them.
“Are they crying?” King whispered, stunned.
“Oh, titan,” Eda muttered. “Even after all that, we only scratched the surface, huh?”
“King, I want to hug you and console you until you pop, and I will. But right now, we gotta get rid of them.” She looked towards the flocks of memories.
The King dolls launched themselves at them. King slipped from Eda’s hands, starting to run. “Stay away from me!”
“King!” Eda cried. “Wait for-”
She tripped, sliding down the hill. She groaned, sitting up and looking around. She gasped. She was surrounded by Luz’s memories.
From them, she could hear words being shouted into the air, flashes of memories appearing in her vision.
“You’re a bully, Luz.”
“Human!”
“Ah, don’t worry,” Eda heard her own voice say. “A couple more months here, and you won’t look like such a mark.”
“Do you have any real friends? Not imagined, or drawn, or reptilian?”
“I showed him the light spell when he was still Phillip!”
“Not everything can be fixed with good spirits and a dope soundtrack!”
“Thankyou, Luz,” came Belos’s voice. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”
“Say it! Say you’re not a real witch!”
“I will never trust you again.”
“Being around you makes you do stupid things, and I wish it didn’t.”
“You think you can fix everything by being nice? It doesn’t work that way, Luz!”
“I just thought I had to… prepare for a world without you in it.”
Eda flinched at that last one. Nearby, she heard a choked sob. She ran forward, pulling King out of his own memories.
“I got you.”
A few days after it had happened, Eda found herself with her arms wrapped around Luz, holding back tears.
I really need to talk to her about what we saw in there, she thought to herself. But how do I bring it up?
They had been hugging for a while when Luz sniffed. “Alright, that’s enough.”
“No,” Eda said. “It isn’t.”
Luz rubbed her eyes. “So, uh… How much did you guys see in there?”
“A lot,” Eda said. “We’ll have to talk about that later, but… not right now.”