Chapter Text
Eda could barely see Owlbert on the end of her staff in this storm. The steam from the acid rain hitting her shield only helped obscure the already hard to see horizon as she flew over the boiling sea.
She needed to find somewhere to land and fast. At this point she didn’t even care if the coven scouts were still following her. She’d die anyways if she couldn’t find cover soon. Honestly, she’d take the odds of her breaking out of the emperor's castle over her survival now.
It was then that she saw something on the horizon, buried beneath the mist and steam, the outline of… wait, Mountains! She could see land!
“Oh thank Titan, finally!” She’d found somewhere to take cover, and better yet, as she flew closer to her saving grace she could make out a tower sitting at the center - Yes! Not only land, but a shelter; a place to lay low while waiting for the rain to clear.
Though the more Eda looked at it, the more it felt like the island seemed… off. Like something about it was just wrong. Maybe it was its shape? The mountains made it almost cup shaped to be fair.
Well, no matter. What’s far more important right now was getting to safety; she could figure out what was bothering her later once she had landed.
Ironically enough, actually finding a spot to land was harder than she had hoped. She was intending to land directly in front of the tower, but the tree cover was so thick the only real landing spot was the small beach at the edge of the island.
“Well shit, I guess I’m doing this last bit on foot.” At least the tree cover would block most of the rain.
Eda pulled up her hood and dropped her shield as she came into landing. Instinctively she ducked her head and brought up her staff to cover her from the rain as she caught her footing. She quickly cased her surroundings, and then ran down the lightly worn path leading into the forest.
Despite the thick canopy, the rain was still getting through far too much for her liking. Feeling her cape beginning to warm from the scattered rain only made her run faster.
Getting closer, now she could see her destination hiding behind the trees; the blank white walls of the tower gave way to the its entrance. A set of stairs at the tower’s base ran up to the giant, oddly keyhole shaped, doorway which was being blocked by a pile of rubble that had gathered at the bottom half of the door.
Thankfully, the pile didn’t fully block the entrance, so as Eda reached the stairs, she slowed her run, went up the stairs and quickly vaulted over the debris, jumping down into the… tower?
The inside of the ruin was far more intricate than Eda had anticipated for how plain the tower was on the outside, let alone it being on such an isolated island. She lowered her hood and surveyed what she could of the place.
While the room was mostly covered in a dark shadow, she could still tell that the walls all around her held large murals of some kind. Both the walls and pillars also had accents made of a bright golden metal that, despite the decay and overgrowth of everything around it, was still just as shiny and new as if it was all just polished.
Weirdest of all, the floor was littered with little rock statues. Each statue was made up of two small rounded rocks stacked on top of each other, with a curved crescent shaped rock topping each rock pile; almost all of these statues being coated in a thick layer of moss, showing their age.
What… is all this? Eda began to move into the ruins, but still felt the singe of rain. Turning around, to make sure the rain wasn’t coming down through the entrance, she saw the shower of rain steaming off the rubble she had just passed, but more importantly, the stinging pain had moved with her, sticking to her back.
Realizing what that most likely meant, she pulled up her cloak and, to her dismay, found large holes poking through the fabric, still burning from the acid. Dang it! The one time she actually buys something instead of just stealing. Uhh, whatever, as long as she had some shelter until the rain stopped it would be fine - she could just steal another later if anything.
She began to walk further into the massive… foyer? Honestly, this place felt far more ‘old abandoned mansion’ than ‘random ruined tower.’ Heck, she should know; she had just recently renovated an abandoned tower herself!
Even so the statues didn’t help with the atmosphere of the place one bit. Eda was still on guard; this whole place was just too off putting for her. Yeah sure, the rocks were old, but with how old this whole place seemed to be, surely the precarious stone piles would have collapsed by themselves at this point, no? How were these still standing? Surely that would require someone, or something, to-
She suddenly heard the sound of something quickly scurrying past her on her right, flinching in reaction to it. She whirled herself to her side, holding out her staff with both hands, standing ready to… smack whatever that sound was with Owlbert- okay yeah, she’s not thinking the clearest right now, but this place was unnerving her before the creepy noises started so… uhh, whatever. She wasn't convincing anyone let alone herself.
“Who’s there!?” She shouted out into the massive room. As much as she needed shelter, she wasn’t exactly planning on sharing it with anyone, but clearly that wasn’t in the cards anymore. She wasn’t alone, and now she knew it.
To be fair, with how deserted this island was, it was most likely some animal just trying to escape the rain like she was. Even so, whatever had made the noise stopped the moment she shouted; it had clearly heard her, yet even with her whipping her head back and forth looking, she still hadn’t found the sound’s source.
The growing silence quickly began to annoy her. Eda would much rather just have a one on one duel and get this over with, than have a scurrying noise follow her around the whole time she was stuck here. She was really tired of this charade at this point; her anger starting to override her fear.
“Reveal yourself!” She called out to the crowd of rock statues. Finally she began to hear the scurrying again, but this time she wasn’t as easily able to tell where it was coming from until it knocked a stone over behind her… ah shit, it’s right behind her.
She gasped as the dark, shadow covered creature began a sneak attack, running out from behind a statue- wait… huh. In truth, it never went running at Eda, rather it simply stood poised to pounce at her.
“Weh!!” It barked. Well, it was a demon alright, but it was tiny; probably a baby of some kind. A stray dog demon perhaps? Its face was just one large upper external skull with a pair of quite large horns for a demon its size; Eda guessed its species probably grew into them or something.
Its paws were also clad in a pair of large bone claws; but the rest of the body was covered in dark fur - potentially confirming Eda’s guess of a demon dog? She still wasn’t sure; she’d never seen any demon like this little guy before.
Responding to Eda’s lack of movement, the demon relaxed its pose and tilted its head a bit at her. After some continued silence from the two of them, it looked over to the head of a rock statue it had knocked over when it had scurried past the second time.
Bounding over to the rock, it went to pick up its prey. “Ny-EH!” It vocalized as it lifted the stone. Holding up the stone while standing on its hind legs, the little guy walked the stone over to the stone torso, putting it down back where it was with another Nyeh!
Eda kneeled down to the demon. “Did you make all these?” She asked aloud, going to scritch the little demon’s fur on the bottom of his face. The demon turned its head towards her, and began to wag at the pets it was getting.
“What are you?” As Eda wondered the thought aloud, a loud crash sounded from one of the hallways behind the witch and demon, drawing both of their attention.
“Wehmanah!” The demon cried out and bounded past her and towards the noise. Eda, both intrigued and having nothing better to do, began following slowly behind.
The furry creature scurried into the hallway past Eda’s sight as quickly as it came to her. She gave a slow chase, finally reaching the hallway and turned the corner into the… oh. Well that’s not promising.
The first thing that immediately caught Eda’s eye were the clear drag marks covering the whole of the hallway’s floor at its entrance. The second, and even more unnerving thing though, were lines of monsters made of… goop? and stone lining both of the walls.
Yeah, the dog was a nice surprise, but Eda was really over this place now; she is absolutely up and leaving the second she’s able. Speaking of the dog, the furry guy continued to lead the way - now even stopping and looking back at Eda to make sure she was still following.
“Yeah, yeah, dog, I’m still comin” She scoffed at the demon while it just sat and stared at her expectantly. As she continued her slow pace, she took a moment to get a better look at her surroundings, and made the unfortunate decision of looking upwards.
As she did, Eda passed underneath a large open tube that the fancy ceiling had opened into. Lining the entire way up the unholy chimney were even more of the goop monsters. As she stared up, she began to realize she had passed more of these openings earlier, but just hadn’t looked up. Just how many of these things did this place need? And why did they have to be so creepy looking?
“Weh!” The little demon called out at her, bringing Eda out of her thought spiral. She had stopped walking when she started staring up into the chimney from Hell.
“Hey, I’m just looking around,” Eda poorly joked back at the dog. It responded by just continuing to make dead eye contact with her. She just scoffed a bit “Alright, alright, fine” and began walking again.
Once he saw Eda heading forward, the demon began leading the way again. Only a short bit further, he finally turned and ran through a doorway leading into what Eda guessed would be some side room. She finally rounded the corner herself, looked in, and immediately stopped, shocked, standing in the doorway.
“Is that..” The room, like Eda guessed, was a small side room, probably once used for random storage way way back. Well, no, WAS being used for storage, given the amount of random stone crates piled up in a corner… excluding the pile that had fallen over; almost certainly the cause of the bang the pair had heard earlier.
The room however, had clearly been redecorated since. A stone big enough to act as a bed was laid in the corner, with a makeshift pillow made of mostly moss, leaves, and the occasional twig. One of the old crate-stones was on the other wall and from what Eda could see held old, worn out, dirty clothes.
And at the center of it all, “..a kid?” They stood holding the little demon dog that had led her here. Eda guessed they looked maybe 5 years old to her? The witchlet was staring at her nervously with their bright amber eyes, but more noteworthy to her, they were nervously twitching a very short tail on their back.
A kid biped-demon? All the way out here? How? Why? Given this was seemingly their whole living situation Eda could assume it wasn’t exactly by choice, but even so, how did this happen to them?
At this point, Eda could care less about getting home; her whole focus was now on making sure this kid got to, dear Titan, anywhere but here. Even so, her dead silence hadn’t stopped the kid from being any less nervous at her continued existence in the room.
“Ummm.. hey there, kiddo. Do you.. have a name?” Titan, she was so bad at this. Lilly was always better with children of the two of them; Eda just didn’t know what she was supposed to do or how to handle them, so most attempts just ended in some kind of a comical farce.
The kid scrunched their face up at Eda’s question, glancing around the room for a bit, trying to look at anything other than her, finally landing on the demon-dog in their arms, which just gave a really soft “weh” in response. The kid looked down and seemingly pondered the dog’s statement for a bit, before finally looking back at Eda.
“W-L-Luz” they stuttered out, their eyes finding the floor more interesting immediately after finishing their word.
“Okay, W- ..Luz, uhh.. do you know how you got here?” Eda asked, butchering the kid’s name as she realized the ‘wuh’ the kid stuttered out before their name wasn’t actually a part of their name too late into their question.
The kid just shrugged. “ssHome, live aquí.”
Well that was less than helpful, but Eda was willing to let it slide for now. The last word the kid said though bugged her; she gathered that the kid had meant to say that they lived here, but ‘A key’ was nowhere near any of the words that’d make sense.
“Well, do you ..want to stay here?” Eda felt stupid asking the question, but she didn’t want to kidnap a child that didn’t want to be taken. Even so Eda wasn’t sure what she’d do if the kid dared answer ‘yes.’
The kid was clearly in a bad state and needed help, and as much as she’d rather have the kid get help willingly, she was more than willing to cast a sleep spell and take the kid unconscious. Eda would feel horrible about having to do it, but she’d do it damn it.
The kid initially looked confused at the statement, but then seemed to realize what Eda was fully asking. Even so, they seemed very hesitant, looking down at their demon-dog repeatedly, almost silently asking for answers.
Finally they answered: “Can ser rey come wehth?” pointing at the dog with the hand they were holding it with.
“Uhh, sure.” Eda wasn’t expecting a question back to that one, but she guessed she had her answer either way. Ray huh? Guess that’s what the kid named the dog.
Although the longer Eda looked at both the kid and their dog together, the more that sounded almost wrong - The pair’s amber eyes only differed in that Ray’s sclera were black and Luz’ were white, along with a red-ish center to Ray’s irises that Luz lacked. They both had very similar tails; the only real difference being Luz's being much smaller and shorter, but even the fur covering said tails was the same.
That along with the both of them being stranded here together, Eda was beginning to think the two of them were siblings - probably half-siblings given Luz clearly being a biped demon and Ray being …beast? Eda guessed?
Either way if their parents were still around Eda would probably have some very loud words with them before dunking them in the boiling sea for stranding their kids like this.
It was then she caught herself out of her thought spiral, having disassociated and silently stared at the poor kid(s) for far too long while having the train of thought. “Oh, umm.. didja wanna ..grab anything, before we go?”
Luz’ eyes brightened a bit and nodded, put down Ray, then turned around to their box of old-dirty-crap™ and began to grab some of the things out of it. Notably to Eda though, was when they turned around, for a split second she caught sight of the kids ears underneath the untamed mop of hair on the kid’s head.
Their ears were partially rounded; not fully round like a human, but rather curved into a very short point. Are they.. partially human? How the heck? Would that even be possible- actually, no, Eda wasn’t doing this right now, she could figure this shit out later. Right now she has a kid to help.
Luz grabbed almost everything they had out of the stone crate, only leaving the random torn scraps of clothing and a singular sock the kid had apparently silently deemed irredeemable or something.
Finally the kid walked back over, death gripping the little belongings they owned, and stood in front of Eda. “Ya ready, kiddo?” The kid nodded. “Alright, both of you follow me then” the trio began to walk out of the room and back into the …overly creepy hallway. Great, Eda definitely wanted to walk through here again.
As they trudged through the hallway though, yet another scrambling sound of something moving over reached them. Eda, holding back an eye roll and half expecting yet another deserted kid to save, turned around and-
“-DEAR TITAN!” Eda’s skin crawled as she stared past the kids at one of the goop monsters heading straight for them. One of those things had apparently gained mobility and was now sprinting after them, and given it brandishing its arm like a mace, Eda could only assume its intentions weren’t kind.
Given almost no time, Eda threw out Owlbert, grabbed both of the kids, and threw herself towards her now floating staff and booked it, flying through the rest of the hallway as fast as Owlbert could manage with the now three passengers.
Once out in the foyer-esk room and Owlbert pointed towards the opening out, Eda took the risk and turned around to see how far the monster was. It was not nearly as far as she had hoped it would; for something that didn’t fly, it was keeping up insanely well.
Eda turned back to face forward and flew right out the entrance, not even thinking about the rain they were surely flying into until they were already outside.
..only for the rain to have stopped some time earlier. Thank Titan. Okay.. good, that means she just needs to focus on fl- OH SHIT
Apparently while trying to escape, that monster thing had thrown (shot?) a spear or something at her, and it had hit Ray right on his horn, cracking it and sending part of it flying forward, knocking out the poor guy in the process, and making poor Luz shriek in turn. Eda, the sport champ she was, deftly flew low and grabbed the broken horn piece off the ground before flying back up, and back towards her home.
…Well, back in the direction she came from at least. Even with the rain cleared, the island was completely alone in the featureless sea surrounding it; best Eda could do was just point roughly the direction she came from and hope she could reorient herself later once she found… any kind of landmark.
“wAhdónde vamos?” the ..sound, came from the back of her staff. Luz, was seemingly trying to ask Eda something, but Eda understood absolutely none of it.
“Uhh, could you say that again kiddo? I didn’t quite catch that” Eda tried to reply as diplomatically as she could to a question she didn’t understand.
“Adónere Weh vaming?” Even Luz blinked at their own replay and seemed annoyed at themself about the nonsensical question.
Oh boy, this was gonna be a long flight home.