A/N: Maybe I saw a few clips from the first couple of episodes and maybe I didn't. But I can confirm that I totally did. Obviously I'm not dropping any major spoilers but I have to say, I'm a little disappointed with how the show handled Amity's parents. That being said I really did like what I saw and I can't wait for the full relese of season 2. Just putting this out there again but I'm not adding anything from season 2 into this story. I can't in good conscience shoehorn the new content in so instead pretend season 2 doesn't exist and only season 1 is relevant. Got it? Good. And once again thank you for the wonderful reviews, I greatly enjoy reading them. Now, back to the story.
-Additional note: I'm writing this particular a/n on the 12th. I haven't properly sat down to watch the new episodes yet but I've got a pretty good understanding of what happens in them. I stand by my original statement in that I'm kinda disappointed with how the show has handled Amity's parents but maybe that's subject to change. I saw some scenes with the Golden Guard and boy I cannot wait for him to get his due ass kicking. Still love the bastard though. Also my stance on anything season 2 being absent in this story is unchanged. We're too far in to make anything from the new season work well so just pretend it's non existent. Anyways later guys. Thank you for the great support you've been giving me.
The realm of dreams is a shore barren of water.
A human walks across a desolate and gently sloping valley. The stench of iron is piercing and makes them want to retch. In the distance a giant carapace in the shape of something like a mockery is in view. It has the claws and shell of a crab, the torso of a great strong man and a head of something mixed of the both with great teeth broken and spilled to the ground. Pierced through it's heart and pinning it to the ground is a mighty spear that never rusts and withered away unlike the body it is sheathed in.
The sky of the dream world is without stars and color. The Void filled with a thousand-thousand souls surrounds the faux realm. The very ground the human walks upon is not sand but cracked and dried shells turned bone white from age. Old claws and fangs and carapaces coat the very ground as far as they eye can see. The scene of a great tragedy far from the present.
Closer now is the great pierced body. Vestiges of something filled with great hate and domination linger but the soul long ago escaped to a new ocean world of Cold Harbour, leaving behind it's previously tarnished vessel.
A great battle must've taken place long ago. A slaughter of a people following the birth of a new god born in the bowels of the world. The human finally speaks and questions where they might be. A Titan, tarnished yet flowing with great strength and wisdom appears before the weak human and answers and names the sour desert Lyg. The titan bade the human forth yet they were weak and quivered before the deity.
But the great Prince was not satisfied and with a wave of its mighty hand an ocean of blood rises from the bowels of Lyg and consumes the human whole.
"Yahh!" Luz's eyes snap open. Her heart pounds like a beating war drum and she fumbles for her sword like a drunkard before accidentally throwing herself face first into the floor. The shock snaps her out of her mania and she becomes firmly aware of both her wounded pride and aching nose.
"...Ow."
Bang bang bang!
"Luz, you up?!" - "No." - "Good! Grab your mask piece and get your ass downstairs, and hurry! It's important!"
Eda's footsteps march away and judging by how extra loud they are the Owl Lady is stomping on purpose. Luz mutters a few choice words in Spanish under her breath and throws on her regular clothes. She grabs her favorite hoodie and pauses to look at it.
As useful as magic is for cleaning it's no better than a high powered washing machine when it comes to stains. The purple color is already fading and many parts of the fabric are frayed and the fibers are partly pulled loose. The once clean white parts are stained an almost tan or cream colored. Her fingers brush over a certain section of the lower part near the hem and she can feel a thin and long line of stitching newly added less than two weeks ago.
Lilith, the mother hen she pretends not to be, kindly sewed the jagged hole in her hoodie after they returned home from... the incident.
She had wailed and moaned and mourned for days after the sisters returned with her back to the Owl House. Then she spiraled into a series of manic explosions of hyperactivity followed by deep drops into something like a depression. Those moments she was consumed with guilt so heavy her mind seriously drifted to thoughts of self mutilations.
Then Amity came along again and suddenly she became aware of how silly her reaction to the past events really were. She barely even knew the damn bird and it couldn't even talk!
Sure, she's still bummed that Gus and Willow are MIA but she's confident she'll find them in some way or another.
"LUZ!"
The human sighs and throws her hoodie on and grumbles lowly, "I just wanted to be cool and edgy..."
Eda, Lilith and Amity are all gathering their adventure belongings. The older Witches both have an air of apprehension about them. Their faces are grim and their bodies are tense and even Owlbert's adorable gentle cooing does nothing to lighten the mood. Amity appears completely at ease even if she looks a little grumpy no doubt from a similar rude awakening Luz also experienced.
King is stuffing his face with all of the muffins Lilith cooked last night and as such is the happiest person currently awake.
"There you are! Didn't you hear Eda? You're supposed to hurry!" Luz rolls her eyes at the tiny Demon as he waddles over to her to be picked up. She scoops the tiny fucker up in her arms and turns to the others, "What's going on, are we going somewhere?"
"We are, we're going to see the bastards out in the woods."
"Edalyn!"
"What? They probably are given what happened to Bonesborough."
Ouch. Too soon.
"Too soon." Amity replies. Eda rolls her eyes and points a judging finger at the Witchling, "Can it, Blight, my comedic timing is impeccable."
Lilith addresses Luz, "We have unfortunately exhausted all of our options. No one knows anything and as such we have to rely on scrying magic."
"Wait, couldn't we have just done that in the first place? This is the Boiling Isles, a literal land of magic, any problem we have is always solved by magic."
"Typically yes, but scrying magic belongs to the affinity of the Oracle branch even if it traditionally is casted with potions. Because of the curse on Oracle spells only one group of people left in the Isles can use it still."
Luz stares at Lilith with a vacant expression. Lilith returns the same gaze. After a few moments of silence Lilith is suddenly reminded that Luz can be an idiot sometimes and carries on to explain, "We're going to the cultists in the woods."
"Oh." Her eyes goes wide. "OOOOOH. Yikes, we're kind boned, huh?"
"Yes, yes we are."
The woods around the Owl House are full of old and tough pine. All throughout the woods are many weaker creatures as years of hunters around the formerly great city of Bonesborough have killed or driven off the stronger ones further into the more untamed wilds. The old forest has been considered safe even for young Witchlings to train in and walk through without an escort of an older and more powerful Witch.
Routine patrols of the Beast Keeping coven were crucial to maintaining that level of security as the more dangerous monsters are always creeping closer to settlements to feast on their preferred prey; young and weak Witches.
The collapse of order has ended these operations and now no force is left to safeguard the woods.
Yet not even the strongest wild Slitherbeast or Lesser Basilisk has dared to migrate into the forest of the cultists. The tall trees are blooming with strong leaves and the forest is shining bright with the morning sun but a peculiar weight hangs in the air.
Luz has been through the forest many times before but now she feels like she's in a completely new place. She can't recognize anything anymore; strange grass overgrows the natural shrubbery and off-colored stalks of wide mushrooms grow seem to pierce from beneath the ground like an arrow. Even fallen trees still unrotten and tough have been cracked and strewn to the side to make way for the new fungi.
It's not hard for her to imagine these bizarre mushrooms killing and replacing the natural trees in only a few years time. The thought of that makes her upset.
The further in the four of them travel the more odd things seems to become common. There's random objects tossed up into the trees, obvious signs of plant and construction magic given the new statues made of wood and stone every few paces; some statues are shaped like the old museum ones Luz would see back home and others look more like the artist ripped off various pieces from other statues and glued them back together at random.
Then there's various degrees of skilled paintings and oddly-crafted charms hung on low branches and horribly mutated trees with swollen and lumpy trunks that make them appear to be filled with tumors. Luz tapped one of the tumors but quickly recoiled back when the something beneath the tree started squirming and the wood shifted and squelched like soft flesh instead of hard bark.
"Looks like someone's dumping old potions out here." Eda sniffs the air and pulls her face into a disgusted grimace, "And a lot of it too."
"It seems to me they're just using their magic-"
"-Wildly. Okay, I get it-I get it, maybe the emperor had some good ideas about regulating magic but no-one should be barred from the other types! Education, not discrimination!"
Lilith chuckles, "Oh Eda, everyday you sound more and more like our mother."
"And look like her too."
"Burn."
"Hey, you three better shut yer' mouths before I sew them shut! Baby Blight, you've got more experience than all of us with these types. Spill the beans."
"There's literally nothing of use I can say." There really isn't. Amity may be crazy and homicidal like many from the realm of the mad but that doesn't mean she actually understood what it means to be crazy. "They're insane! The people back in the Shivering Isles were every kind of mad in the textbooks and then some. They'd act on a whim and gore someone and eat their liver or they'd follow a basic routine nonstop to the point that any disruption could send them into a manic episode. There were guards in the city that kept things from descending into a never ending riot but that didn't stop all of the nonsense... so I guess we're actually in a potentially more dangerous situation if there's no one to keep the peace out here."
The Owl Lady groans dejectedly like a teenager before work, "Great! Predictable-unpredictability and murderous teenagers. I'm really getting to old for this... We can still go back and grab King as a sacrificial offering!"
"Eda!"-"Eda!"
"Kidding! I'm kidding! ...Maybe."
Time passes and the sun hangs in the very centermost point of the sky. Given that the group left in the early morning progress could be described best as 'non existent'. The forest has changed greatly and even Eda's decades of experience within this particular one is of no help. The longer they travel the more the natural pines give way to strange fungus and bizarre decorum of continuously nonsensical degree.
Eda stops the group near a large organic pod of some kind and triumphantly puts her hands on her hips.
"Okay gang, I'm lost."
A chorus of groans respond. Tired, thirsty and hungry the three newcomers to the Owl House sit down on the dead grass and start an impromptu picnic. Luz watches Amity open up a small bag and pull out a small foldout table and chair before also somehow grabbing a plate, utensils, a napkin and a box containing her neatly packed lunch. She can't help but feel a little jealous. Her human backpack can't defy the laws of conservation of space!
She dejectedly nibbles on her dry grain bars (the only thing she packed) and lets her eyes wander... Until she's back to looking at Amity again. Luz isn't sure why she does that so often. Maybe there's something about the Blight that always catches her attention?
Luz watches Amity eat for a moment then wanders her gaze to the wicked staff Amity has that she has still yet to explain the origins of as well as her weird outfit. And by weird Luz means that even fashion in the Boiling Isles follows principles of 'robes, flashy jewelry and dark colors' of which makes Amity's outfit outside the norm in a place already outside the norm. Not normal by human standards and definitely not anything ridiculous just... completely alien.
Amity's wearing a sort of mini dress that almost looks like an insect or crustacean carapace in dark purple layers like scales. The material actually reflects a little light like those shiny invasive beetle back in her home realm too. The pants she wears are normal but then there's the boots which seem to be made in a similar fashion to the dress only matte instead of mildly reflective.
"Hey Amity," Luz says, startling the Witchling from enjoying her meal, "What's the deal with your stuff by the way? I'm not insulting your new outfit or anything but..."
"It's kinda out there."
"Eda!"
"What? I'm not judging, just offering an empirical fact." Amity rolls her eyes at the banter but conjurers the tiniest of smiles. She's secretly longed for the regular weirdness of Luz and her company.
"It's the fashion in New Sheoth. At least on the Crucible side, I don't really know how Bliss dresses. Probably with offensively bright colors." Amity shakes her head and frees her thought process before she goes off on a tangent, "Anyways this style's on the higher end. I got lucky and managed to get my hands on a nice set of two for pretty cheap. An... unfortunate incident with a doctor ruined my first set so I'm down to just the one."
Amity covertly sniffs the fabric covering her shoulders and crinkles her nose. Yikes, she needs to wash these!
Lilith eyes the curious staff Amity possesses. While she admits to being ignorant as to the construction methods of other realms she can't help but sense there's similarities between Bendu's odd eyeball staff and Amity's tuning fork-shaped staff.
"I don't really know anything about the staff. A few people said it was 'Telvanni' which I think is some sort of organization or something in Nirn. I haven't gotten to those sections of my history books yet."
"How many books do you have?"
Amity opens up her bag once again and gazes deeply into the confines for several long moments while silently counting to herself, "Like a hundred give or take."
"Jesus Christ, Amity."
The Blight flushes just a little embarrassed. Lilith comes to her rescue, "Well I think it's great she's so focused on her reading. Books sharpen the mind like a stone sharpens a sword."
Eda scoffs loudly, "Please! I haven't read squat in years and look at me! Have you seen a smarter Witch than me?"
A symphony of deadpan stares answers her boast. The Owl Lady scoffs for real this time and stomps away muttering, "Ya'll are a bunch of witches..."
As she passes the odd growth pod a strange squirming sound reaches her ears. She taps her belly just to be sure but the sound happens again! This time coming from the odd pod that's twice the size she is. Eda narrows her eyes and quickly jumps back just in time for some creature to birth itself from the pod. Milky slime coats the strange mantis-like being and the newborn clearly struggles to stand but it's instincts are sharp and it lashes out at Eda clumsily with its scythe-like arm.
The attack misses and the insect twice the size of a grown man hisses seemingly in frustration. Before Eda can conjure a spell circle a strong blast of a fireball completely explodes the creature into a pile of burnt goo. Eda's still in the splash zone and as such gets the Seaworld treatment.
Lilith and Luz race towards Eda but Amity detours to the corpse of the insect she destroyed. The familiar scent of burnt insect flesh and the iconic pungent aroma confirms the identity as well as her fears.
"Sister! Are you unharmed?! What in the name of the Titan was that creature?!" Luz becomes startled in response to Lilith's exclamation, "Wait, you don't know what that was?! It looked like a Praying Mantis took a bunch of steroids and worked out for three months straight!"
"I'm fine-I'm fine! Just help me clean this shit off me before I hurl! Ugh, this stuff stinks..."
"Don't eat the ichor, you could lose your magic for a while if you do. Or go invisible. Or get heavy. Or restore some spent magic too... Goodness alchemy doesn't make a lick of sense!"
"I agree, kiddo, but you're gonna have to backtrack there. How the heck do you know what this junk can do?"
Amity tugs the hem of her sleeve nervously. She's not an unconfident person but sometimes sudden attention like this can psyche her out. She avoids the Clawthorne's expectant stares but she catches Luz's eye and something in the way she smiles so genuinely fills her with strong confidence she forgets she has.
"It's something called an Elytra. And they're from the Shivering Isles!"
Records scratch. Glass breaks and cats yowl.
"Ah farts, we're fucked."
Lilith finishes her long and well intuitive explanation as to the origins of the dimension hopping Elytra with a proud smile. She turns away from her illusory chalkboard and addresses her students, "And there we are. Any questions?"
Amity shakes her head 'no' as she was the only one actually paying attention. Eda's snoring loudly (how Lilith was unaware given the volume we'll never know) and Luz is drawing anime versions of her favorite characters in her drawing book. Lilith sighs and snaps loudly in Eda's right ear. The younger Clawthorne awakens with a violent start and grumpily rubs her red eyes.
She threatens the gesture at Luz who is suddenly a picture perfect student.
"I'll give the short explanation this time it seems." She clears her throat, "I believe the appearance of an extraplanar entity is obviously due to the weakening or loss of our protective liminal barriers."
Luz shrinks slightly as everyone looks at her, "...My bad."
"...Returning to the topic, the mere presence of something with the strength of a deity brings 'things' with him. It's the same as an explorer accidentally carrying seeds in his clothing from his homeland and unknowingly planting them in a foreign place. A liminal barrier blocks these 'seeds' but without one, as we are now, those seeds are planting themselves in our world. I have coined the new term as a Daemonic Liminal Interchange."
A lightbulb flashes metaphorically above the human's head, "Oh! Oh, teacher! Teacher call me!" Lilith does as such, "Lilith, I watched a video on something similar before I came here! A super long time ago these two continents in the human realm were separate but somehow the water between them went down or something and a land bridge formed. The animals on those two continents migrated across so scientists called it the 'Great Biotic Interchange' or something. Is that what's happening between the Boiling Isles and the Shivering Isles?"
Lilith blinks twice, "...That is actually a great analogy, Luz. Maybe even better than mine. Hmmm, I think the Great Daemonic Interchange has a better ring to it."
"That's a really good title."
"Thank you. I'm very proud of it."
"Oh my Titan, will you stop jacking yourselves off and get back to finding- what's her name? - "Viney." - "-Vinny!"
"You guy's looking for me?"
"Ah!"-"Ah!"-"Ah!"-"Ah!"-"Ah!"
Luz squints her eyes and counts the screams. She turns around to see her dual track friend Viney looking at them blankly while holding a very high looking Barcus in her arms. "Wait a sec. Viney, why'd you scream too?"
"I just thought it was a thing we were all doing." She answers with a shrug. Barcus barks once and starts panting with a goofy grin on his doggy-face.
Viney leads the group through the woods in a seemingly blind path while humming an absolute banger of tune to herself.
It's an awkward and uncomfortable journey. Viney's in with the Madgod and his followers are known for being unpredictably dangerous. Luz still remembers how close she was to being strangled to death by her friend a few months ago yet the animal loving Witch agreed to help them find the Emperor without question.
"So... what's the song you're humming?"
"Nerver Rises or something. Skooma Cat taught me a while ago." And then she's back to humming happily without a care in the world. Silence returns to them save for the song and awkwardness looms over like the shadow of a giant sequoia.
Viney leads them into a thicket filled with reaching dead bushes and tall and leaning trees with thin and wiry branches that seemingly stretch out to purposefully grab one's hair.
And one's hair it grabs; specifically Eda's as her bush of a haircut is remarkably adept at getting tangled in things. Everyone else's hair is fine.
"Yowch! Sonuvabitch, I'm going bald before I can get out of here! Brat, how much longer until we get there?"
"Right now!" Viney yanks back an overhanging branch and reveals a large clearing. The group can't help but be astonished at the scene before them.
What has to be hundreds of students from all the various magical institutions across the Isles mull about with their own business. Each and every one of them works on a craft or a chore or some hobby all to their own. No two individuals perform the same action. They're all completely unique and even the 'natural enemy' students from different schools cohabitate flawlessly with their neighbors and not a single one of them frowns.
All don happy or pleased smiles as they experiment with magics and potions and arts ranging from stonework to finger painting to stage plays on their own crafted set. It's an almost faux scene and one for some reason that leaves everyone with a sour feeling in their stomachs.
It's completely unnatural.
Luz's eyes wander from person to person, many she can recognize as being students from Hexside. She sees all of Amity's old friends as well as a few of her own but she fails to find Gus or Willow. The longer Luz looks the more she realizes that a great majority of the kids and teenagers in the clearing are Hexside students given their distinctive uniforms.
"Our lord called us here from all across the Isles but the journey was dangerous." Viney explains, somehow knowing Luz's question without looking at her, "Those who came from far away suffered the greatest. We're all that's left of our lord's servants."
The implications aren't lost on them. Either predation or the war killed hundreds of children while they abandoned their lives and their families to come and worship a Daedric Madgod in the woods like the Wild Witches from the far past. It's a sickening feeling and Luz feels like she wants to faint. She's the catalyst for this suffering and degeneracy but she's realized by now she's not the cause.
How can they all not know they're suffering because of the one they all worship?
With hearts filled with lead they follow Viney into the belly of the beast.