Part 1: Chapter 1 - A New Glyph
"Deja una luz puesta para mí, te quiero."
Luz reached up and tapped the globule of light floating above her sleeping bag, watching it poof into tiny little sparks as she smiled sadly, setting down her phone. As she watched the other lights she had set up outside slowly dissipate, darkness seemed to creep in on the window and leave her sighing as she prepared to turn over and find some sleep after a long and trying day.
Before she could, her eyes caught a flash of light in the woods just down the dirt path that led to the Owl House. She leaned up and squinted her eyes, trying to make out what the bluish glow was. It was faint, pulsating lightly. Carefully standing as to not wake up King, she took a long look at the demon curled up at the foot of her sleeping bag and smiled before tiptoeing out of the room.
The night itself was chilly, causing Luz to pull at the hem of her tanktop, wishing she had grabbed her hoodie. Scribbling down a light glyph on her notepad, she tapped it with the tip of her pencil as she moved across the path with careful steps, advancing towards that blue glow with that small bright globe hovering above her palm.
The glow moved, causing her to pause for a second as she peered around the trunk of a thin tree to see a little ball of flame bouncing in midair. "Oh." She took another step towards it, careful not to step on any stray branches and spook it, but the moment she did it immediately moved away from her.
Another step caused the reaction again.
And another.
Was it taking her somewhere?
Luz scrawled out a ice glyph on her notepad, just in case the little fireball decided to turn out like everything else seemed to on the Boiling Isles; Dangerous and often explosive. Letting her own light dissipate, she followed the small orb through the trees, weaving around them as it slowed and then rose, illuminating a small clearing.
She glanced around, not stepping in yet, but there was no one else here.
"What're you trying to show me?" Luz peered up at the ball of roiling blue flame as it slowly hovered into the clearing much higher than it had been when leading her here. Her lips pursed in a curious expression as she stepped forward, staring at it.
"Ah, little Human."
A voice!
That voice.
It left the hair on the back of her neck standing up, and sent a chill down through her spine as she glared into the darkness between the trees outside the illumination of the fire. "You!"
"Me." A hooked mask with two horns turned upward, and missing a piece that revealed a pale blue eye that narrowed when it settled on her. A glove rose from beneath his cape, drawing his fingers in to the palm as the ball of light turned into a deep red, one more easily recognizable.
One she remembered being the color of his magic as he threw her around a room, something she could still feel the bruises from.
Luz quickly drew a fire glyph, tapping it and bringing up before his hand was held up. "I did not come here to fight, Human. And I doubt you want a repeat of earlier."
Lowering her hand that was about to hurl her magic at him, she gave a puzzled look in his direction. "Why, then? You got what you wanted, Eda has no magic anymore."
"It's true. This outcome was unexpected, but not troubling, aside from a few.." His head twitched and rotated, almost like a birds as his gaze flicked between the direction she had come from and her, leaving her blood running cold. "Variables."
Holding her fire spell in her palm, Luz took a step closer, glaring up at the Emperor. "You mean when I destroyed the portal, and messed up your evil plan?"
"Evil?" His voice betrayed nothing more than mirth as he remained at the edge of the clearing, just on the edge of that eerie red glow. "I admit, I did not expect such magic from you. Such resolve. To destroy what you thought was your only way home.. It was unexpected. It was impressive."
Was he.. Complimenting her?
"Didn't expect a 'lowly Human' to put up such a fight, huh?" Luz forced her glare into what she hoped was a smirk. Anything to push away the terrifying feeling of powerlessness standing before him gave her.
He said nothing, just stared.
Wait.
"There's another way home?" The words were out before she could stop them, and she stepped toward him, raising the fire in her hand to get a better look at him.
"There is." His mask tilted a bit more to the side, his glowing eyes watching her intently. "But only for someone originally from your realm."
Her shoe stepped on something that cracked, and when she looked down to see the twig she had snapped, a shimmer of bright red began to scrawl out from where her foot had fallen. The fire in her hand fizzled out as the horror of realization grew in her. It was a trap! Of course it had been a trap! A glyph was lighting up beneath her as she looked back at the Emperor.
"I told you, I did not come to fight." The glyph completed, and there was a surge of power that pushed up past Luz as she cowered. It took her a second to realize it had not harmed her, but there was wind picking up all around the clearing. Glancing about, she finally looked up to see a vortex beginning to form directly above her near the top of the canopy of trees. Her hood began to raise up against the back of her head, her hair following soon after as the spell began to pull her upward. "Your knowledge of glyphs is impressive, but chaotic. Undisciplined."
His voice hadn't raised, but it filled the space around Luz as she tore the ice glyph she had scribbled down earlier out of her notepad and slapped it against her feet, freezing them to the ground as her gaze fearfully switched between the Emperor and the growing vortex above her exerted a stronger pull at her limbs.
"And unity cannot abide chaos. It must be banished."
Luz could feel that her eyes were wide with the panic filling her heart. She drew a plant glyph as quickly as she could, pressing it against her chest and activating it. It took a second before the vines wrapped over her shoulders and around her body, digging into the ground around her as she felt the ice begin to crack and break around her feet. "No, no, no!"
"Goodbye, Human." His hand rose, and with a tiny wave the ice shattered, the vines straining as the force pulling her up grew more and more powerful. "Enjoy your world."
Bringing her pen to the notepad again, Luz cried out as the pages were flipped over one another and finally torn straight from it as she was several inches off the ground. All that she could get on the page that remained in the pad was a scratch of ink before the pen was ripped from her hand. The last vine across her chest snapped in two, and she dropped her pen to grab onto one of the vines as her feet were lifted into the air. Her screams had to reach someone, anyone who could help. "No! Eda! King! Lilith!"
Her fingers scraped against the vine as she was drawn further away, finally feeling it give and the dirt it had dug into pull up from the ground. Luz's eyes were wide and wild as she looked over to see the Emperor standing beside the banishment glyph he had drawn, staring up at her, his hands neatly folded over one another inside his cloak. "I'll find my way back! ¡Verás!"
She was sure she heard him chuckle, even as he seemed to melt into the ground.
The middle of the vine snapped with a loud crack.
"You won't."
Luz was pulled through the vortex.
It wasn't like last time, when she had stepped through a portal and into a tent. This time, Luz was thrown through the air, twenty feet out from the rotted wood door of the cabin. Hitting the ground sent a flare of pain through the bruises she was already sporting, and the dull ache of what would become new ones, she was sure. She rolled a few times, coming to rest on her side as the air that was knocked from her caused her to suck in breath in agonizing open mouthed gulps.
She couldn't focus as she turned over onto her hands and knees, looking up to see the vortex still swirling inside the door. One hand forward, then a knee. She could do this.
Another hand forward, another knee.
She could do this!
The light of the swirling and howling vortex dimmed. "No!"
She reached the edge of the porch, pulling herself up to stand as she still struggled to find breath. The wind was whipping from the door as if trying to push her back. It was only when she leaned into it that she tumbled forward, the source of it cut off as the door slammed closed.
"No, ¡no me dejes!"
Luz ran forward, stumbling on the creaky porch before she ripped the door back open, panting as she look around the room filled with dust and trash. She closed the door before opening it again, repeating this a handful of times before she finally had to kneel down on the rotten wood beneath her and truly try to catch the breath that had been knocked out of her.
Holding her chest as each inhale brought with it a spike of pain, she felt tears burn at the corners of her eyes and begin to run down her cheeks as she hiccuped. "Eda.."
King, Willow, Gus..
Their faces flashed through her mind as she tried to process what had just happened.
That she would never see them again.
Amity..
Author's Note: Finally caught up with this show and I fell in love with it. Like every other hyperfixation of mine, gotta write a fic about it! I'm trying something new with this, so this fic will update every Saturday, with the first part covering Luz's life since being banished.
Let me know what you think about this start, and thanks for reading! 3
Translations: Quick disclaimer, I took German for four years in school, and I barely speak a lick of it. If I get any Spanish words/phrases wrong, I am very sorry, it's cause I'm dumb.
"Deja una luz puesta para mí, te quiero." - "Leave a light on for me, I love you"
"¡Verás!" - "You'll see!"
"¡no me dejes!" - "don't leave me!"