Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.
…
"It's funny," Luz said with a hint of melancholy as she and her brother stared out at the Boiling Isles from the peak of the Knee, no longer the highest point in the archipelago.
(And thanks a ton for that, Belos, it was bad enough he had to defile his dad's corpse, but did he have to go and permanently alter the geography, too?)
"Weh?" King asked, staring up at his sister in confusion.
"Well, not ha-ha funny, more like… Ironic funny," Luz said vaguely as she looked down at the cavity where Belos's Castle and his dad's heart had once been.
(Well, their dad, really.)
King regarded Luz for a moment, her dark fur, so much like his own, rustling faintly in the cold wind, her thick fluffy hair, so much like their mother's, flowing behind her.
(He wondered if he could fit in it now. He kind of wanted to find out. Luz had said she wanted hair big enough to stick things in someday.)
Nobody, not even Luz herself, was sure why she hadn't changed back to her human form after the battle was over and the spirit of the Titan left her – left them – forever. And the strange thing was how… Not strange it all seemed.
Yes, everyone had understandably been startled by her change in species and appearance – Amity, to nobody's surprise, had turned red as a tomato and passed out with a major nosebleed – but after the initial shock it was like a switch flipped in everyone's heads and they were all, "Oh, Luz is a Titan now, yeah, that makes sense," and that was that.
Which said a lot about the kind of person Luz was that her becoming a witch, a goddess, a Titan felt… Inevitable almost, like this was the natural culmination of her journey, as if everything in her life up to this point had been building towards this outcome. After all, Luz always had seemed like she was born in the wrong realm, so of course she would eventually gain a body perfectly suited for her magic-loving soul.
("And what a body," Amity had blurted out loud at one point before passing out again, to nobody's surprise.)
Even Camilla, her (biological) mother, had taken this apparently permanent change in stride. "I already have one shapeshifter daughter," she'd said with amused resignation. "Might as well go two for two."
(Another daughter. Luz's sister. Which meant… His sister, too? He was still trying to wrap his mind around that. His family had grown exponentially in a few short months. Practically a year ago it had just been him and Eda – and Hooty, he guessed - and then Luz showed up, and Lilith, and his grandparents, and Raine, and now he had so many other people in his life he could barely remember those days when the Owl House had only two occupants – oh, and Owlbert, forgot about him - and he found he didn't mind it one bit.)
She'd shrugged. "And to be honest, I kind of figured something like this might happen someday. I mean… It's Luz, you know?"
Indeed it was.
Luz glanced down at him, the light glyph briefly flickering in her eyes. "This is the second time I've lost a father, and to the same cause."
King gave her a confused look. He was still getting used to the fact that Luz seemed to regard the Titan as her father as well – which, okay, it made sense, they were siblings, had been for ages, he'd known Luz was his sister the minute he met her but hadn't known he knew that until months later, but now they were basically siblings by blood thanks to her transformation, and she'd met their dad and received his power and spirit, which he was more than a little jealous of - but he had no idea what she was talking about.
(Not an uncommon occurrence these days. Lately it felt like power and a new form wasn't all Luz had inherited from their father. She just seemed to intuitively know things, things about magic, about life, about the world around them, about what it was to be a Titan.
On the one hand, King was a bit jealous, and understandably so – after all, he'd been a Titan much longer than Luz, but he didn't know any of this stuff – and on the other hand, he was gratified that someone knew what it meant to be a Titan, because now that he was no longer the last one, he didn't have to figure things out all by himself.)
"Your dad – Mr. Noceda – was killed in a war with omnipotent aliens or by a centuries old xenophobe possessing his body?" King asked in puzzlement.
Luz smiled faintly at this. "No, King. Cancer. Heart cancer, to be specific."
"Oh," King said quietly.
He'd forgotten. Ever since her transformation, Luz refused to refer to Belos by name, only calling him "the cancer" or "it." When pressed on why she did this, she seemed confused by the question, as if it were obvious, usually replying with something along the lines of "Because it is." And nobody really pushed further than that, reflecting that she was right, Belos had been a cancer, one the Isles were better off without.
(A lot of people, taking Luz's cue, had started referring to Belos as "the cancer" or "it" or similar things themselves. Hunter in particular seemed to relish thinking up new and more insulting things to call his "uncle," while Eda reveled in developing new curse words and definitely family unfriendly terms to refer to him by, many of them really quite creative.
Aunt Lilith had suggested that maybe they should remove Belos's name from the history books altogether and just call him "that asshole." Everyone had a good laugh at that until she admitted she hadn't entirely been joking.)
"I'm sorry," King said, because really, what else was there to say?
"It's all right," Luz said gently. "It was a long time ago."
They stared out across the Vista of the Titan's corpse again.
"He's…really dead this time, isn't he?" King asked finally.
Luz nodded.
"Does it… Ever get easier?" He asked.
"No," she said bluntly. "But I think, after everything that's happened… I can finally let him go. Both of them."
"Oh," King said.
Luz glanced him. "It's okay if you're not ready for that."
"I… It's just…" King fidgeted with his claws, trying to find the right words. "I mean… We all thought he was dead already, right? And that… That sucked, but, I mean, it's something we'd always known, so it hurt, but it's like, he's been gone for ages, what are you going to do, right?
"Except, then it turns out he wasn't dead – not entirely – just… Almost dead, and he'd been watching over everyone – over me all this time, unable to do anything, unable to reach out and talk to us or-or play catch, and, and…"
He sniffled, starting to tear up. Luz gently put a hand on top of his head as he bawled, "And now he's gone – really gone – and I never… I never got the chance to meet him, but you did, and I know it's wrong to resent you for that, but it's not fair, you already had a dad, you grew up with him and had whole years with him, so why couldn't, why couldn't I-"
Luz hugged him, and he buried his nose in her soft, thick fur, so much like his own, smelling of magic and bone and brimstone and the unique scent he'd always recognized as belonging to his sister.
"Shh, shh, hermano menor," Luz whispered soothingly, rubbing the back of his skull and scratching his neck, causing his tail to wag. "I miss him too. I only got to meet him for a few minutes, but I know he loved us, both of us, so much."
"I want my dad," King sobbed.
"So do I," Luz said gently. "But we still have Mama and Mami and Nobi and Tia Lilith and our sister you haven't met yet and all our friends and even Hooty I guess and most importantly, we have each other. The true Children of the Titan."
Sniffling, eyes watery, King glanced up at her. "When I learned who I was – what I really was – one of the first things I realized was that… I'm gonna lose you all. I'm gonna live a really, really long time, maybe even become another archipelago someday. I thought I was gonna be all alone. But… I'm not going to be alone, am I? You'll still be here. Centuries, millennia from now… You'll still be here."
"Of course I will. You can't get rid of me that easily, hermano," Luz cooed, rubbing her nose against his. "I'm going to help you grow big and strong, and learn how to make your own glyphs, and become the kind of Titan that would make our dad proud. I'll always be there for you."
"Likewise, sis," King told her, smiling through his tears. "I loaf you."
"I loaf you too."
Still carefully holding King against her chest, the glyph on it radiating warmth and light and love and pulsing like a heartbeat, Luz stood up, stretching out her hand and summoning Stringbean, who took her staff form and flew into her mistress's grasp. "Now, let's go home, it's getting late, it'll be time for dinner soon, and we need to make sure Hooty doesn't forget we exist. Again." She frowned slightly. "And I'm gonna have to talk to him about some things I saw in the In-Between when I met our dad…there were some really unsettling implications."
King chuckled. "He's so weird. Hey, um, Luz?"
Luz, who had just mounted her staff, glanced down at him. "Yes, hermano?"
"Can I…" He swallowed nervously, then gave her big pleading eyes. "Can I… Ride in your hair?"
She gave him a surprised look, and then her face lit up, a broad smile stretching across her face.
As it so happened, he was a perfect fit.