Chapter 8 - First Morning in the Other World

~ONE~

Luz woke up to sunlight in her face, and the smell of pancakes and bacon floating into her bedroom. She glanced over at the clock and then back over to the bed.

The feline palisman hadn't stirred when she woke, and King wasn't here. The human girl get out of bed, causing Maotif to wake up with a soft cat sound. A shudder ran through the winged cat as she yawned to show small sharp canines and a tawny-pink tongue.

"Good morning, Maotif." Luz said, scratching the cat between her wings.

Maotif's pink cat ears pointed up in happy and she even let out a long purr. Then the human girl grabbed the witch staff off the corner of the room and padded barefoot down to the kitchen.

Iniko stood in front of the stove, flipping pancakes while King sat on the countertop, stirring the pancake batter to the edges of the bowl.

"Good morning, guys."

"Mornin', Luz." Iniko said as he flipped the pancake into the air. It landed right back into the pan.

"Anything I can do to help?"

"It's actually almost done, but you can get the blood juice, sticky maple and the butter out of the fridge if you want."

"I want." Luz smile, walking over to the refrigerator.

The bacon was finished and King climbed over his high chair. Luz set the table and put out the toppings for the pancake.

"Enjoy your meal." Iniko said as he drew a spell circle, causing his hand to glow pinkish-orange color before he make plate levitate to table. Luz smiled when saw that he had drawn a Azura on the top of her pancake with maple syrup.

"What about me?" King asked.

"Ladies first, King."

"The king should go first! Always!" King said, tapping his claws on his high chair. "Now feed me! The King of Demons want to eat the fried pancake."

"So there you go." Iniko set a stack of steaming-hot pancakes practically drenched in maple syrup and butter down in front of King.

King jabbed the top pancake on the stack, syrup and butter squirting out like blood from a jugular, and crammed it into his mouth.

Soon, Eda came into view and yawned loudly.

"Good morning." Luz and Iniko said at the same time.

"Not the "good" part." Eda said in greeting as she grabbed a mug that said 'Thirty and Flirty'. "None morning is good." She continued as she poured her drink.

"Does someone need to be cheered up with a joyful song?" Iniko teased, half sang.

"Did someone say "joyful song"?" Hooty asked as he came stretching into the kitchen.

"If you start singing, I'll rip your tongue out and serve it to fire lizard." Eda told Hooty as she sit at the table. Hooty starts grumbling but then Iniko assured demon they could later sing together his favorite song. So, sentient house demon returned to the door in a good mood.

A flick of the knob turns the stove off as Iniko turns on his heel to join them at the table, Luz spoke to Eda as the older woman slurped her drink. He put the big plate with bacon in the middle of the table. And draw a spell circle to summon two more plates with the stacks of goldish pancakes.

They all began devouring the stacks of food Iniko had prepared. Finally, the table was a disaster, bits of grease and pancake chunks were everywhere. The little family however, were most satisfied, as indicated by the few soft burps following the drinking of their drinks.

Iniko took last sip of his milk and then set it aside. "So, what's the plan for today, Mom?"

"Only the boring stuff." Eda said as she was finally awake. "Which reminds me, I have to go to a boring meeting with Bump and others. He'll give me the lecture on his precious punctuality and talk me to death, if I'm late."

The witch shimmied out of her chair and made her way over, ruffling their hair for good measure. "You two do what you want. Just don't burn the house down, my owlets."

She changed clothes with a snap of her fingers and grabbed her staff before went out through the back door.

"Owlets." Luz said again the term of endearment, still trying to keep her hair neat, "I like the sound of that."

"My sister love this nickname, too." Iniko began to gather their dishes and carried them over to the wash bin. "I personally, I prefer being called Trickster. This nickname is cooler. But mom is called the Owl Lady. So, it's obvious that we are her Owlets."

"Iniko, shouldn't we get ready for school?" Luz asked as she helped him."The first classes begin over 30 minutes."

"No, the school is not open till Tuesday." He waved his hand, "Nearly all the teachers had the dragon pox. And school is only your problem, I don't study in Hexside."

"Why?"

"Principal Bump agreed to let my sister study at the Hexside. But according to him, I'm a high-level dangerous to the students, teachers and building. Even bigger than my mom was in her school time."

"Is this even possible?" Luz asked, thinking about Eda's track record at Hexside.

Iniko chuckled at the girl. "I'm a nice guy, and I just like to blow things up. But nobody ever got hurt. Well, maybe somebody got hurt, but nobody we knew..."

'He certainly is Eda's son.' Luz though.

"Yes, I'm. And I'm proud of it." Iniko said like he know what she just thought.

"Can you read minds?" The girl asked with a touch of excitement.

"Yes." He said it as if it was the most casual thing in the world.

"Really?!" Luz exclaimed, drawing a closer to him. He held her back, pressing a finger to her forehead. "So cool! What am I thinking?"

Iniko smiled, concentrating. "That...I can read minds. I was jokin' - jokin'." He added, seeing the look on her face. "I just know Luz from this world, so part of your thoughts are easy to predict."

"Aw. And I thought I met true telepath."

Iniko chuckled again, "You really do remind me of my sister."

"I'm her. Maybe not her her. But I'm still her. I mean me and your sister, we both are Luzs." Her head tilts, and brain thinking about what she just said. "Does it make sense?"

"Coming from you, it's so normal."

Then the teenage boy's scroll made sound unexpectedly grabbing both their attention. Iniko took it from his pocket and look at it.

He was staring off into the scroll, distracted.

"All ok?" Luz asked.

Iniko snapped back to reality, looking over at her. "Ah… yes, Willow wants to know why my sister is not answer the phone. Hmmm... I write that you are having a little technical problems with the human phone."

Luz give him a bit weird look. "Other me don't have scroll?"

"Mom wanted to get (steal it) for my sister scroll, but she has a real affection for the phone or as King likes to call it, "the wonder rectangle". So, we did a spell and make her phone compatible with the scrolls." Iniko explained while typing on his scroll, "Yet, the spell doesn't work perfectly, and sometimes my sister says she has technical problems with her phone... whatever that means." He put his scroll in his pocket, "And done. Willow and Gus won't have to worry."

"So...Willow and Gu-"

"The plant girl and Dweebus are your friends in this world, too. And by the way, mom told me yesterday that to don't tell anyone you aren't our Luz."

Luz open her mouth but Iniko was faster.

"And before you ask, we doesn't want to worry any of your friends. We'll tell them when we found a way to switched you and my sister again. In the meantime, you will pretend you're our Luz."

"It can be hard." She replied, "I'm a lot like her, but I don't know much about this world."

"Luckily for you, I do." Iniko said with a grin, "I'd love to tell you all about this version of Boiling Isles and adventures that our family had. But first I wanted you to meet someone."

~TWO~

With carefully and patient accuracy, the sun beamed its light straight through the window, hitting the sleeping witch in the eyes. Slowly, Eda blinked her lids until she could fully see the bedroom around her. The rest of Eda's senses followed her sight.

The first thing the Owl Lady noticed when she woke up was the warmth on her back... and the snoring.

The witch sit up, feeling some weight in her silver mane. She figured that it's King. Ever so slowly she turns her head to the right, her eyes moving over the blanket covered teenage girl body beside her. Luz lay sleeping, her mouth open with a most ungraceful line of drool running onto her pillow.

Eda sit up, causing Luz to open her eyes. The girl wasn't aware where she is for a second and then she looked up at the pale woman.

"Good morning?" Luz said rather shy as she sit up.

"Not that I have anything against your presence, but what are you doing in my nest?" Eda asked, pulling King out her hair.

"I couldn't sleep last night." Luz twiddled her fingers in her lap, subtly shifting in her place as she said, "I'm sorry. I know you are not my mom, but Iniko isn't here, and I needed extra company."

"No need to apologize, kiddo." The witch soothed, "My Luz snuck into the nest, once or twice. She calls it nest party."

"It sound like me."

"Well, you are her. Not her but you are still Luz, and- Ugggh... It's too early to talk about this kind of things." Eda rubbed her hands over her face and groaned.

"You are not really a morning person, just like my mom." Luz cocks her head to the side. "Does your dislike for mornings is caused by connected to your inner owl beast?"

"Morning is just the worst part of day." Eda said, her tone suggesting that was the most obvious thing.

"And I thought you think the daily comedy hour is the worst part of day." Luz said with a joking tone.

"It is. Why do you even do this everyday?" Eda groaned at the mention of the "comedy hour".

King had long abandoned his false sleeping and had jumped onto Luz's lap. "Because ours puns are pun-believably good."

"Seriously?" The pale woman asked.

"We're just being pun-reasonable right now." Luz replied with a grin, "Right King?"

"We are also punny."

"Uuugh. I need my apple blood." Eda brought a hand up to massage at her scalp as she left her bedroom.

Luz and King followed her, still telling puns.

When they walked into kitchen the witch actually considering paying them to stop. She needed a moment to found her mug and then get bottle of apple blood.

"Much better." Eda said after she took a sip of her morning drink and turned to Luz. The girl look at me a bit strangely, "What?"

"Nothing. It's just weird seeing you when you don't use magic to get a mug for your apple blood." Luz said as she get the products out of the fridge, "I suppose I'm used to things like a flying plates and mugs or bacon that dances on the pan."

"Dancing bacon?" King asked from a kitchen stool he was on.

"I and Iniko mistook oil for magic potion. That was a funny breakfast," Luz smile, "At least until the eggs declares war on French toast. We have had a lot of mess to clean."

Just then, Lilith walked in, and after made eyes concact with everybody and say good morning, she approached stove to boil water for tea.

The four of them do their morning routine in silence for a few moments.

Finally, King broke the silence when he started demanding glasses of milk and some scrambled egg.

"Hey guys. Does we have any plans for this day?" Luz asked, brimming cup of spider-cow demon's milk down in front of King. "We didn't settle about the search for a solution yesterday."

"I guess we can start from finding that six finger man you talked about, Lily." The Owl Lady looked more awake now, thanks to her morning drink.

"No one know who he was. He just showed up one day. And after he talk with Emperor... He just disappeared. And nobody haven't seen him or heard about him since." Lilith finished making her tea and took a seat next to King.

"Which means that he probably is dead. So, we scratch him off the list of useful people. Then we probably focus on this." Eda reached into her hair and pulled out a glass like orb, then put on table, "Any thoughts what should we do with this grey parody of crystal ball?"

"Well, maybe we shouldn't do anything yet." Luz said, looking at the orb.

Eda put her nearly-finished apple blood on the counter. "Why the change of mind? Yesterday you were prepared to run to library and looking information on the orb."

"I thought about it thoroughly and then I remembered that my brother often says that 'If anything goes wrong, just wait looked into the problem and maybe it'll actually fix itself'."

"Well," Eda crosses her arms, "I like his approach to the problems, but unfortunately, that won't work."

The teenager shook her head, "No, what I meant was the switch places with other me is maybe a temporary thing. A lot of spells only lasts for a couple of hours. So, I think that we should wait at least one day before we do anything."

"This is a reasonable. If this dimensions switch is temporary effect, the various attempts to interfere in it may be harmful to the eventually re-swap." Lilith pointed out, taking a sip.

Eda just shrugged, "We can wait another few hours." She then put the orb back in her hair. "If the problem will take care of itself, I won't complain."

"So... if we're not have other plans for today, then I can to go on a trip?" Luz asked, watching out the window. "I'd like to take a look around the area. I am curious if this place is very differs from the one I know."

"Just make sure to take King with you, kiddo." The Owl Lady pointed to her roommate, "He could use a little fresh air."

"I have plans for today." The little demon said.

"Yes, you have." Eda smirked, "You are going with Luz."

"I makes my own decisions." King crossed his arms and turned his head away from Eda to show that he was not liking her decision.

"Come on King. There is a world to rediscover." Luz said, cheerfully. "And I may need brave demon that can help me during my travel around this version of Boiling Isles."

After taking a moment to think, King replied, "Well, someone has to keep an eye on you, and keep you away from the wizard who offers you a quest."

"I think it sounds really cool." Luz said as her eyes sparkling, "Where can I found the wizard?"

"Never trust the wizards." Eda said, "They are just old weirdo wearing pajamas with glitter on them." The look on her face was enough to make Luz certain that the witch meant it.

"My Mom says exactly the same thing..."

Hello there! I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Leave feedback and stuff if you want and have a nice day! Se ya next time