Well, I've got the second chapter done. I feel like I didn't do too badly, but once again, I'll always have doubts about my characterization. I only had one idea for this chapter (which I didn't use) and then I put forth quite a bit without thinking too heavily about it.
"This next story is way more embarrassing in retrospect," Luz warned, taking a sip of water. She hadn't told anyone, even her friends about this next story. "My first day on the Boiling Isles after causing a prison riot."
"It can't be that bad, mija," Camila said.
"You'll see in about four minutes," Luz said. "So I woke up in the Owl House, ready for my first day of witch apprenticeship. I even decided to dress the part based on preexisting stereotypes from the Human Realm." The witches next to her were confused while Vee was clearly amused. One of only two living beings to spend time in both realms, she could start picturing how that went.
"Let me guess," she announced, "you put on a black dress and a pointy hat." She picked up her glass of water.
"Of course not," Luz denied. "It was a bathrobe," Vee chuckled, taking a sip of her water, "and a dirty traffic cone," With that, Vee almost spit out her water, exploding with laughter. "Yeah, King made fun of me for that for a good week,"
"I feel like I should be offended," Gus said. "but I can't stop picturing you in the traffic cone." He drew a circle in the air, casting an illusion on Luz so she had a traffic cone on her head and a pink bathrobe wrapped around her. Camila startled, nearly falling over on the couch. While he knew that magic existed, having seen Vee use it to transform her appearance multiple times, it was different to have seen it cast for the first time. However, seeing the reactions from the kids in front of her, she felt like she'd have to learn to get used to spells happening around the house more often.
"HA!" Hunter yelled, pointing at Luz while high fiving Gus.
"Funny," Luz commented dryly while waving a hand through the cone to dismiss the illusion. "Eda, though, first thing in the morning, couldn't really remember any of that. Instead, first thing she did was put me to work,"
"This mentor of yours exploited you for child labor, you mean," Camila said, annoyed.
"I've had chores here since I was little, mom," Luz argued. "I wasn't exactly expecting her to let me live in her house and teach me magic for free, you know," Camila opened her mouth, but shut it. It was a good point. "The first task was I had to make deliveries for her potion business. King had to show me around because Eda thought I'd get lost and/or eaten. I was in fact bitten many times on that first run," Luz shuddered. "I still don't understand why you'd have a mouth for a doorbell,"
"How many times did you push it?" Willow asked.
"I don't know, three?" Luz guessed.
"That's why. If they don't answer the first one, they won't answer the other ones." Willow explained. "The mouth on the doorbell is to warn you that they won't tolerate multiple rings,"
"That's a tad… extreme," Camila responded.
"I'm not gonna disagree, but on this particular day, I was having some delusions of grandeur," Luz explained. "I figured there must be some sort of cosmic reason for me being the only human on the boiling isles. That maybe I had a predetermined path of destiny,"
"Take it from someone who had most of their life predetermined," Hunter interrupted, "It's not all it's cracked up to be," Luz winced, remembering Hunter's lifestyle before they'd aligned.
"I get where you're coming from, Hunter, but I meant it in a different way. Like since I was the first human in the Boiling Isles, I must have a purpose… there…" Luz had a moment of clarity. "That must be what Philip was thinking too," she realized, face falling once again. The others also looked uncomfortable at the mention of this name, confusing Vee and Camila. They wanted to ask who this Philip was, but felt like it would come up eventually. Luz took a deep breath and continued. "So after a full day of delivering potions, getting bitten by objects and demons alike, and somehow ending up in a deading zoo-"
"You mean petting zoo?" Camila asked.
"No," Luz responded without clarifying, "I had one last delivery to make to a person named Adegast. He lived in a really big castle and was a wizard,"
"Wizards are the worst," Amity said, crossing his arms. "They think they're better than standard witches because they have long beards and pointy hats,"
"I wish I'd known about them before walking into his castle, though," Luz said, remembering how this story went. "I was kind of mesmerized by the whole 'quest-granting wizard' archetype. King tried to warn me, but I pointed out that Adegast had scones on his snack table and he started eating while I listened to Adegast. I'd told him that I was Eda's apprentice and that it was kind of lackluster at the time, hoping that being the first human in the Demon Realm would mean that I was meant for something special but it didn't seem like anyone else believed it. He told me about a prophecy of a human girl who would claim the Celestial Staff and save the Boiling Isles from an ancient evil." For a second, there was silence as everyone took this in, until Hunter snorted. All eyes on him, he tried to stifle his laugh but it proved futile as he held his stomach while laughing.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he apologized, regaining his composure, "I just can't believe you fell for that,"
"I wouldn't now, but I was still too… naive back then. Anyway, King ate all the scones, I grabbed the map, and we left. I went back to the Owl House to pack for the journey and asked what kind of chosen one I should be: an optimist who wears her heart on her sleeve, or bad girl chosen one with black nail polish and a mysteriously withdrawn attitude?"
"I feel attacked slightly," Amity said, glancing at her nail polish on one hand, making Willow and Gus giggle.
"Eda came in waving an arm around," Luz said before seeming to recall something. "I never did ask about that arm."
"What was wrong with her arm?" Gus asked.
"It wasn't her arm," she said, giving everyone a clearer picture. "Anyway, she come in and King told her about Adegast and they both laughed. Way harder than Hunter." Everyone glanced at the blonde, who had settled down enough to look sheepish. "She said that it was fake because if there was a Celestial Staff on the Boiling Isles, she would have stolen it already. I asked for them to leave me alone for a little bit and then I saw some glowing words on the map that said the path would appear for the worthy and I figured that's why Eda hadn't found it yet. I thought to myself, 'I can only prove myself worthy by trying.' and so I sneaked out the window." Camila took a breath, closing her eyes.
"To summarize everything you told me," she began, "You ran into an old man in a robe, he gave you a map to the middle of the forest, and everyone around you told you not to trust him, but you chose not to listen. You ran into the forest, didn't tell anyone where you were going, and thought this was all a good idea?" Luz looked sheepish. Hearing it from her mom made her realize how terrible that was.
"Well when you put it like that-"
"Mija," Camila said, disappointed, "have I taught you nothing about strangers?"
"He… yeah, it was beyond stupid," Luz agreed. "Let's move on,"
"Don't think we won't talk about this later, Luz," Camila warned, making Luz gulp.
"Anyway, I brought a sword with me- a toy sword, not a real one. Which, when I say out loud sounds even worse. And I arrived at the first stop in my journey: Felinia. I was having doubts for a little bit and wondered if I should have turned back but then I found the tiny cat village and in town square, I ran into my companion for the journey. His name was Nevareth Bladestrife, teen Prince of Angstmore."
"That… sounds like the most Mary Sue name I have ever heard." Amity commented dryly. She might have been jealous on a different day, but she couldn't get past the name. All the teens were holding in laughs, Camila even finding herself amused.
"Wait, wait, wait, did he have an eye patch and fingerless gloves?" Hunter asked, still laughing slightly.
"He probably also had perfect hair and big muscles," Willow added.
"And let me guess," Gus chimed in. "He for some reason was soaked head-to-toe but was fully clothed,"
"He… may have just stood up from the inside of a fountain," Luz admitted, making all her friends laugh even harder. "Yeah, not my proudest moment. Anyway, he was the former prince of a village called Angstmore. His father had started out as a kind and benevolent ruler, but as he'd made harder and harder choices, he fell from grace, attracting the eyes of Abyss, the Dark Dweller. Abyss was a monster said to consume the souls of entire villages to sustain itself, yet only sought the truly wicked. Nevareth begged his father to change his ways as king, but it was too late. A black shadow, Abyss moved through the village to the castle and consumed the soul of the king. And thus began the massacre of Angstmore. With his target consumed, Abyss moved aimlessly through the town, absorbing the souls of any who were unfortunate enough to cross its path, until the village was nearly empty. Some had fled. The unlucky were soulless husks, withering away in the wind. Nevareth tried to fight Abyss but was quickly overpowered. Abyss had been ready to devour his soul as well, but stopped, sensing the growing darkness within Nevareth. 'Such a soul will prove delicious, if allowed to fester. You will be the sole survivor of your town. Live with that, seek vengeance. And when you do, I'll consume you whole.' Nevareth was allowed to live, only to be left as a snack for a later day. And since then, he's only looked for a way to destroy the beast that had slaughtered so many. At least that's the story he told me."
"Well, it sounds like a compelling backstory, but it raises a lot of questions," Amity said.
"Like how does a kind soul taste different from an evil soul?" Vee asked. A moment of silence and some weird looks later, she sighed. "Really? I'm the only one-"
"Yes!" Hunter interrupted, yet there was a single thought in the back of his mind. "She must never know."
"My main question is what kind of choices the king had to make." Willow said, diverting the attention away from Vee.
"What happens to a body that's been drained of its soul?" Gus asked.
"Depends how cleanly it was absorbed," Amity answered. "If the connections it had to its body are cleanly severed, the body will continue to operate normally, but the mind will be unable to make connections to others. The victim will be a sociopath. That might be the best case scenario. If it were ripped out without a care, the victim's mind will break. They can no longer function at all. In some cases, it'll even cause the body itself to wither away."
"I live in a world where sucking out a soul is a real thing," Camila muttered, taking a sip of water.
"As… pleasant… as that image sounds," Luz said, "it's been a long time and I can't remember a lot of the finer details. We came up to this short cat saying I had to solve this riddle to cross his bridge."
"What kind of riddle?" Amity asked.
"I had to guess his name." Luz recalled.
"Hints to his name must have been scattered throughout the trip." Hunter assumed. "It must have been difficult to assess all the knowledge you've accumulated to guess his name."
"It… it sure was difficult," Luz said, chuckling nervously. There was no way she would tell anyone that he was wearing a name tag. "Once I figured out Chris' name, he gave me a ring, Nevareth tore off his shirt and let me use it as a cape, and we went to the Pixie Village. She invited me to her feast and all the food was tiny and cute,"
"Hold on, mija," Camila interjected. "Didn't the last pixie you met try to eat your skin? How did you know you weren't eating hum- witch meat?"
"No, a fairy demanded my skin. These were pixies." Luz clarified. Camila briefly wondered if it would be insensitive to ask what the difference was, but stayed quiet. "So I ate a lot of their food, then immediately felt bad. They told me there was an ogre that had been attacking their farms and dwindling their food supplies. I went to fight this ogre since, you know, the whole chosen one thing and she turned out to be half my size. Honestly, I just told her to get lost and she bolted out of the village."
"That sounded easy," Gus said.
"Yet another sign that I should've picked up on," Luz said regretfully. Luz's statement felt different from the embarrassment she'd shown before. Almost as if she's… remorseful. Needless to say, this didn't go unnoticed by the others listening to her story. "Anyway, I ate a little more food which the princess offered to me and we'd set out for the final stop in our journey, the Celestial Lake. Upon arrival, the pixie princess awarded me two bracelets. I'd been treated with such kindness and I wanted that to never end."
"What about the staff?" Hunter pointed out.
"It was around the corner at that point," Luz answered. "So I go and grab it and felt really good about myself for a total of eight seconds. Then the staff turned to dust, the lake dried up, and the forest withered away before my eyes."
"Well that escalated quickly." Vee commented, which managed to make Luz smile a little.
"Adegast popped out of nowhere with a tentacle attached to his back, followed by everyone else. All the people I met along the way, nothing but puppets controlled by a fake wizard." Luz said sadly. "It turned out the entire thing was a trap for Eda, even the cool accessories everyone gave me bound me tied me down. It's at this point, I realized. Everyone on the Boiling Isles has had beef with Eda at some point."
"She actually sabotaged my dad's abominations once to explode into mucus during an expo once," Amity recalled, shuttering. "That was not pleasant,"
"Your parents must have not been happy," Camila said.
"My mother was absolutely livid," Amity agreed, smirking at the memory. "Eda did it because Mother called the guards on her to get rid of her potions business. My dad actually thought it was kind of funny, but he was disappointed that all his hard work was undone. He spent the next two weeks creating anti-Eda defenses in the factory as per Mother's orders,"
"My dad said she hijacked a live broadcasting while casting an illusion on herself to look and sound exactly like him." Gus added. "It was a meticulous power play that involved her giving as much fake news as possible to both discredit him while throwing bounty hunters off her trail. Luckily, she didn't go too far and deactivated the illusion before the end of the broadcast."
"I remember that," Willow said. "My dads were getting ready for the imminent invasion of the giraffes when I pointed out that Mr. Porter disappeared."
"In the Human Realm, she tried to pay for a latte with a raccoon and hexed their croissants when they called the cops," Vee added.
"Yeah, Eda's really good at getting on people's bad sides," Luz agreed. "So I told Adegast that Eda wasn't stupid enough to fall for the trap. Then Eda and King came in and were trapped. She demanded Adegast let me leave since she'd came for the trap, but he instead put me back under an illusion," Luz remembered the words they'd spoken to her. "The pixies offered me tiny food, Nevareth asked me why I would want to come back to a world where people laughed at me," The teens suddenly thought about their reactions in the middle of the story, feeling regretful for laughing at Luz. After all, it wasn't her fault. She'd still been ignorant to the world around her. "I couldn't exactly deny the truth of their words. I was on the brink for a moment. But it wasn't real. I pushed my way out of their illusion and grabbed my sword."
"The toy sword?" Camila asked.
"It was still made of metal," Luz said. "I used it to stab the wizard puppet of Adegast, distracting him long enough for Eda and King to free themselves. I destroyed the pixie princess, Eda incinerated a bunch of cat puppets, and then I proved that a guy named Bladestrife, isn't necessarily a good swordsman. I disarmed him and stabbed him right through his chiseled pecs."
"Do you really still have to describe him that way?" Amity complained.
"A, he was a puppet. Chiseled is an accurate description. B, even as a puppet, he was still surprisingly handsome. C, they didn't even have any cool battle scars. I added one."
"I'm just saying, he couldn't have been that good looking," Amity said, crossing her arms. In response, Luz pulled out her phone and scrolled through her pictures, showing it to Amity. She examined it for two seconds, then turned her head. "Okay, he kind of was,"
"Let me see," Gus said, reaching across Willow to grab the phone. It was a selfie Luz took shortly after Nevareth had given her the shirt as a cape. "She's right. That's an impossible standard of male beauty for us to reach," Vee stood up, looking at the phone.
"It's not impossible," Vee denied. "Watch," In an instant, she transformed into Nevareth Bladestrife, the fake prince now standing in the living room.
"Yeah, he looked just like that," Luz said, pointing at Vee.
"I can see the appeal, but I'm still not impressed," Amity said, looking away from both Luz and Vee with a small tint on her cheeks. Vee transformed back into her disguise of Luz, sitting back in her spot.
"So I stabbed Nevareth and would have done it again, but he just poofed and disappeared. I was about to attack the main body, but he took King hostage and ordered us to drop our weapons. I dropped the sword I was pointing at him right on the ground, Eda also letting go of Owlbert. I felt guilty for getting everyone in that mess and apologized to King for not listening to him before, before kicking the sword into Adegast's head, stabbing him to make him lose the remainder of his power and transformed into a tiny little octopus."
"You kicked a sword on the ground with enough precision to stab a demon through the head?" Hunter asked skeptically. Luz nodded. "Assuming that happened the way you said, you realize that would never work again in a million years, right?"
"I don't need it to, Hunter," Luz said. "Eda picked him up and ate him whole and asked what was wrong, since I wasn't exactly at my happiest at the moment. I told her that I was feeling down that the Demon Realm wasn't anything like I imagined. Eda decided to show me something cool and blindfolded me. She took me up high in the sky on her staff to take a look at the Boiling Isles from above. It was sunset, so the view was beautiful. I even took a picture and made it my background for a while," Luz took her phone back from Gus and changed the picture to show her mom.
"… is that a giant skull?" Camila asked. "and… those are ribs?"
"The Boiling Isles were created by the decaying body of a titan," Vee explained. "Nearly all magical creatures there were formed from the magic of his corpse."
"You live on a corpse," Camila said flatly. "Well, it's not the weirdest thing I've heard today."
"The sunset created the perfect light for the view. The titan might have been slimy, stinky, and gross up close, but once you see it from a different perspective…" Camila kept admiring the picture. While she wasn't a fan of the macabre, the islands themselves were actually very pretty once you were past the giant skeleton.
"It's… beautiful," Camila admitted.
"At this point, I had to ask," Luz said. "I asked her how she knew Adegast was lying. And she gave me probably some of the best advice I'd heard in the Demon Realm. I memorized her words because they were important to me. 'Look kid, everyone wants to believe they're chosen, but if we all waited around for a prophecy to make us special, we'd die waiting, and that's why you need to choose yourself.'" Luz smiled for a second, remembering that moment very clearly.
"Hey Luz, I'm sorry about laughing before," Hunter said, turning to face Luz. "It wasn't right of me, especially when I've been tricked in much worse ways than that,"
"It wasn't your fault," Amity agreed, putting her hand on Luz's shoulder. "There's no way you could have known what he was doing," There were mumbles of agreement around them, making Luz smile for a second before it went away quickly.
"It doesn't change the fact that my actions put everyone in danger," she'd said, making her friends worry. They'd assumed she was talking about the Puppeteer, but Hunter knew. He knew she was feeling guilt about Philip.
For those curious, the one idea I had but didn't use didn't feel like it fit anywhere. I was thinking Luz might say something like, "In my defense… there was a really hot guy involved,". I actually wrote it, then thought, this doesn't work. Anyway, please be sure to comment and tell me what you liked or didn't like, or tell me any ideas you have that could be used for upcoming episodes.