When Luz and company set out for the morning, packs full of goods and tent pieces in tow, the only thing occupying her mind was the low simmer of intrigue inspired by the eccentricities awaiting them in the Bonesborough market. It was a wonderfully freeing thing, being away from their worries and wonderings within the house, the looming phantom of that haunted horror from Eda's curse outburst days before left behind for the concerns of a new day.

Of course, such a lingering concern was not aided by the fact that only one fragment of the mystery surrounding it had been resolved. Eda could account for her own side of the misfortune that had befallen them all… but none of them had any true answers as to their unexpected savior, nor her otherworldly abilities that defied classification.

If it was magic – and it had to be, Luz thought, because mind control was not something humans could do, a fact she had to explain in great detail to her companions – then there were only more questions, and no present solutions. Both King and the Owl Lady could attest to having never encountered Taylor in their wide travels across the Boiling Isles, nor having ever heard of such magic being wielded as it had been. And even in comparison to the decaying texts her mentor had dug up for them to study, on the hunt for any references to such powers being in use during the so-called 'Savage Ages,' their party could find nothing that properly fit their experiences with the strange, brooding figure of the Owl House's first human inhabitant.

The fact that Eda, as aged and wise as she was, had little to no idea of how Taylor could have done such a thing was terrifying in and of itself.

That uncertainty, that lurking horror existing in the depths of the unknown, was more than enough to unnerve both Luz and King rather thoroughly. Eda seemed awfully unruffled by the implications of such a thing, her perpetual blasé faire approach to life leaving her the only one willing to still meaningfully interact with the lonesome form of the scarred woman that lurked in the corners of their shared home – though, if Luz were honest with herself, she had a feeling that the witch's acceptance of their odd circumstances was partially born of the fact that she couldn't remember any of the unnatural control that had been exercised over her mutated form.

The young teen definitely could.

Nightmares had dogged her sleeping self that night, flashes of muddy feathers and squalling monsters compounded by a horrible paralysis that affected her dreaming mind, locking her in place, left as an offering to the shrieking abomination lunging after her in too-tight halls –

Needless to say, Luz hadn't slept very well after everything had finally settled down, even in the wake of her groundbreaking discoveries in mastering magic. And from the drowsy blinking of King's sagging eyes, she had a feeling he had suffered in much the same capacity, even if he'd shouldered the night terrors with better grace than herself.

Worst of all, beyond the residual dregs of anxiety that followed them through silent halls and past their waiting nightmare in the living room, was the undeniable sense of hungering curiosity Luz struggled with, her hesitation on engaging with the weight of tension between her and the other human girl doing little to quell her desire for understanding.

She wanted to know, more than anything else that had been teased before the girl since her arrival in the Demon Realm, just how Taylor had managed to harness such a powerful and monstrous ability. It was unnatural, it was potentially deadly, and it was the greatest sign they'd found so far that her unflagging hope of becoming something like a witch was within her grasp.

But discovering such a thing likely required them actually talking about their encounter with the Owl Beast, and thus, roughly nothing had been accomplished by the worried teen thus far.

So it was with no small relief that Luz found herself aiding Eda and King in setting their market stall up on the quiet cobbled streets of Bonesborough, hastening to establish the tent before the harsh beat of the sun drove them into shelter, the roads unusually deserted in spite of the early weekend hour.

It was as noon arrived, brilliant and burning, that they finally received an explanation as to the empty township in the form of Luz's newest friends, their excitement palpable as they caught sight of the lingering human and her miscreant companions.

"Luz – hey, Luz!" Her first friends (actually around her age) to be found in more years than she'd care to count skidded to a halt before the stand, the younger of the duo waving his arms about with glee as he greeted the lanky teen. "Something amazing is happening today!"

Augustus Porter – or 'Gus,' as she'd unintentionally rechristened him, much to the younger boy's delight – was one of the few people Luz had ever been able to label as more energetic than herself, and at least equally as passionate about his hobbies. His short stature relative youth offset him from the stocky, chubby form of their mutual acquaintance that stood beside the precocious witchling, that being of one Willow Park, her green eyes sparkling with anticipatory joy as they gushed at the eager human girl about something called a 'Covention,' hosted by the federal agents of the mysterious Emperor Belos.

She'd heard only snippets thus far of the man who had conquered the entirety of the Titan's fallow carcass, told through the irritated mutterings of the Owl Lady and quiet, fearful whispers of the local populace. For all that the political figure himself had little in the way of a public presence these days, his influence was easily marked by the patrols of the plentiful peacekeeping officers lurking in the streets.

For someone who'd barely had much of a grasp on the politics of her own home country, the looming undercurrent of societal tension was definitely a novel, if discomforting, experience.

At any rate - her first meeting with the two witchlings had certainly been a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, beginning with a chance encounter in the woods that had quickly spiraled into infiltrating magical schools, cheating their way to higher grades through a bit of collaborative falsehood, and concluding with a near-miss on being caught and vivisected by the watchful forms of the onsite staff.

Honestly, had someone told Luz that all she had to do to find some worthwhile company her age was to dodge educational security and cover herself in purple muck to act at being a young witch's golem, she'd probably have done it all a whole lot sooner.

And of course, eager as she was for fresh opportunities at harnessing magic and spending time with the people she cared for, the thought of a job convention designed around the various career paths available for the witches and demons of the Isles sounded like a dream come true. Eda resisted the suggestion at first, her scorn for the coven system employed by their watchful government made clear, but she softened up under the assault of some select prose plucked from the pages of one of Luz's Azura novels.

"I will do anything to make this stop," The older woman grit out from between clenched fangs, King clinging to her shoulders like a chimp while flowery language fell from his lips, and the young teens cheered with their victory over their hesitant elder.

That cautious hesitance continued as they approached the town's community center, the older witch making a paltry attempt at disguising her defining features in an effort to fool the countless officers milling about the grounds. Besides that small hiccup, at first, Luz could find no fault with the presentation being put on for the citizenry of Bonesborough. Colorful stalls aplenty advertised the skills and goods of their respective covens, displaying the artistry of specialized mastery in various schools of magic, splintering off into innumerable offshoots of niche gatherings based around every aspect of spellwork one could imagine.

Gus and Willow made their enthusiasm little secret, twisting between the stands and chattering excitedly with the witches manning each of them, rattling off disparate facts about the displays that caught their passing interest to the intrigued form of their human companion. The younger boy was quick to point to the hallucinatory prowess of his own favored Illusionist Coven, the pride of a performer marking his words while the younglings working the stand popped in and out of view as if teleporting about the room. Willow, meanwhile, waxed poetic about the strengths and benefits of the Plant Coven, her natural talent with that sort of magic still on all their minds after she'd made extensive use of it on that introductory day in the halls of Hexside School for Magic and Demonics.

Luz wasn't quite sure how to quantify the rampant feelings bubbling up within her chest, surrounded as she was by people who adored the beauty of magics as much as she did, but the sensation was enough to leave her bright-eyed with steps buoyed by their levity.

The wondrous mirage of magic, however, began to crack when Eda snagged her student's shoulder in passing, a low warning on the tip of her tongue.

"Watch closely, Luz."

They gazed on as a hapless witchling - caught in the throes of early puberty and left starry-gazed by the ongoing show of the convention center – sat before his chosen coven-mates, the inky mark of a brand expanding into being across his exposed wrist, faint veins of magic flashing up his arm as it flashed into being.

The Owl Lady's grave words rang through the tense silence between them, almost making Luz jump with her own sudden bout of nerves at the tension in her tutor's tone.

"When you join a coven, all your other magic is sealed away. From now on, that kid will only be able to make illusions." Eda gave her shocked student a comforting pat on the arm, stepping away to provide the younger girl with some space, a brief look of sympathy flashing across her sharp features. "And since I never joined a coven, I can do every kind of magic - which is why I'm able to be the most powerful witch on the Boiling Isles."

"Huh…" Her perturbed student muttered, glancing about the packed grounds of the center with a refreshed and frightening perspective.

For all that wonder still soared in her heart at the sight of her friends darting to and fro, immersing themselves in the magnificence on display, the flame of her excitement suffered at the horror of such a thought. To achieve even the barest scrap of magical might - that flickering glimmer of hope given to her by her newfound light glyph – was a true achievement in and of itself for an inexperienced and ill-suited human visitor to the Isles. Yet, here they stood, awash in the tides of a shifting crowd of her friends' peers, and so many of them were more than willing to seal away their intrinsic strengths for a fragment of conformity.

For all that the very concept was anathema to Luz's yearning soul, she refused to write off the entirety of the coven system without further evidence – and so she joined Gus and Willow as they rushed ahead to the primary event of the show, a demonstration provided by the Emperor's personal coven… who, if the countless plastered posters were to be believed, retained their access to all magic, in spite of the stringent requirements placed upon their sibling organizations.

While she couldn't claim to have much of an opinion either way on the ruler of the Boiling Isles holding such a lofty, imperious title, Luz was willing to admit that she was just as curious about the source of the government's iron grasp on the cities that dotted the corpse of the Titan. Her trip to the centralized jail under his provenance on her opening day in the Demon Realm had left a somewhat poor impression on the unexpecting human girl, but considering her own history with crappy introductions, she was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt – the same as his organizational system for the common citizenry.

The entrance of the leading witch for the Emperor's Coven was awe-inspiring, the wash of an enormous magical raven unfolding into streamers of twirling, phantasmal force to reveal its master wowing the crowd with ease –

All except for Eda, sinking into her seat with an aggrieved groan just barely audible over the crowd's roar, the motion catching Luz's eye and distracting her from the spectacle below.

Questions burned on her tongue, intrigue dancing over her lips, that familiar hunger for juicy gossip growing ever greater – and it wasn't until they stood before the severe figure of Emperor Belos' right hand that she began to understand the depths of the feud she and her friends had stumbled right into.

"Hello, sister," Lilith Clawthorne demurred, the curve of the grin she gave Eda emptied of anything that might have been described as pleasant. "It's been such a long time I've last seen you. Still scrounging for scraps in the trash while you run from the law?"

As if to compound the sheer dislike that the lanky witch was cultivating within the thoroughly unimpressed human before her, a smaller figure stepped out from the shadow of her skirts, and Luz came face to face with the first awful reminder of home she'd encountered amongst the wonders of the Boiling Isles…

And Amity Blight stared back at her, challenging and haughty, the flinty gold of her gaze daring the aggravated teen to speak as the weight of their original encounter left the charged air of the Covention all the tenser. She cleaved close to her own mentor, the frigid smile of the older woman matching her own.

In a way, Luz almost wanted to thank Amity for her intrusive presence the other day, on the borders of Hexside's grounds, because it was her interruption to Willow's fumbling attempts at salvaging a flagging homework assignment that had prompted the human to step forward, offering comfort to the browbeaten witch in the wake of the cutting insults that Blight had leveled at her, the edge of her wit leaving Willow wilting.

And then she'd nearly gotten Luz dissected in a fit of envious rage over an undeserved grade, but really, that didn't mean much compared to the bullying she'd witnessed occurring. It soured the taste of the Isles' salty air upon her tongue, a blackened reminder of unkind words and formless disgust that had chased her all throughout her time in education.

Once again, however, the optimistic teen was willing to offer another chance for the green-haired witch to make amends. The fractured remembrance of some nugget of wisdom her mami had shared with the despondent form of her young daughter years ago, in the wake of harsh laughter and uncomprehending stares, floated to the surface of Luz's mind as they stared each other down:

The best way to defeat your enemies, mi amor, is to make them your friends instead.

That sentiment lasted up until Amity bumped into an excitable King, scattering his armful of snacks to the floor, before crushing them beneath her heel with the curl of a sneer on her obnoxious, angular face.

Tempers flared.

Ill-advised bets were made, and a duel was issued – Luz wagering her magical education on an apology, bound to her word by the enforcement of a spell that would ensure she could not rescind her promise.

She and Eda collectively realized that the young human had absolutely no combat skills to speak of, and instead, the harried witch opted to simply cheat heavily in place of genuine skill.

The arena was blown to smithereens, their duplicity was revealed to the entirety of the crowd, only for it to be revealed that Lilith had also cheated by aiding her prodigal student, and Luz went running after Amity's humiliated retreat while an actual fight between the Clawthorne sisters broke out behind her.

Generally speaking, a bad time was had by most present.

The two of them commiserated somewhat over their shared embarrassment before the bloodthirsty crowd of convention attendees, hidden away in a dusty storage hall. Luz admitted, at the pale girl's angered insistence, that she was no true witch, only a mundane human striving to imitate one as best she could – a fact she reinforced with a bobbing sphere of witchlight, born from the scrawl of her glyphs, an oddity that even Amity admitted to being unfamiliar with.

Cultivated distaste melted from the green-haired teen's expression at the mystifying sight, her features finally softening, and with a gusty sigh, the bands of the magical oath placed upon Luz faded away with a flick of her wrist. They parted ways somewhat amiably, a flicker of something like hope rumbling in the human's gut at the seeming progress she'd made in breaking through the witch's icy countenance – but any further ponderings were cut short by the frantic flight of her mentor and demonic companion, the three of them rocketing out of the community hall atop her staff as security closed in on the panting older witch.

With all of the adrenal rush and tiring excitement of the day's start, the lot of them were more than willing to head home and call it quits on the early side of things.

They collectively scuttled past Hooty's waiting form, waving off the cheerful chirp he provided at their return to the Owl House, each of their party splitting off to settle across the interior of their home. Absentmindedly, Luz flopped into the cushions of the aging couch with a melodramatic groan, idly wondering if Eda had a way for her to contact Gus and Willow after their hasty departure from the fair's grounds to let them know she was alright after the duel. She could've sworn witches had access to a technology that mimicked cellphones – what were they called, something along the lines of 'scrolls'…?

It was only as she sagged into her chosen seat, eyes slid shut against the warm glow of the living room's lights, that the truth of her mistake occurred to the hapless teen.

From across the chamber, Taylor's dry voice rasped, a touch of curiosity marking her question.

"Long day?"

Luz jolted at the words, giving an undignified grunt as she jerked upright, tiredness forgotten by the sudden return of her waiting anxieties.

She glanced fervently at the seated form of the woman that had occupied her nightmares for the last few nights, her rebellious subconscious uncertain as to what she would see – but it was only the very human Taylor watching her from the creaking silhouette of her chair, the sprawl of another text covering her lap, a fraction of genuine interest in that dark gaze. The scarred girl looked so frail, trapped in that seat as she was, swaddled by the shabby enchanted cloth of Eda's hand-me-downs, and the incongruity of the image against Luz's frantic expectations snapped her dozing mind out of her growing fugue.

"Yeah, uh, you could say that." The younger teen leaned back, some of the fresh tension leaking from her muscles. "I mean - if you count nearly getting squashed by a giant made of goo or getting arrested by the cops as noteworthy stuff, anyway."

Her paralyzed companion looked down to the page she'd been skimming before the unannounced return of her housemates, before sliding a tattered bookmark between its sheeves and putting it aside.

Taylor's hawk-like gaze returned to Luz's lounging self.

"Want to talk about it?"

The immediate reaction that sprouted in the skinny human's throat was the beginning of a frantic denial, opting for the less painful route of a quick escape from the awkwardness between them – but that same sentiment she'd nursed during her confrontation with the equally intriguing and frustrating presence of Amity Blight surfaced from her memories once more, making the girl give an aggrieved groan under her breath.

Friends and foes, mija…

She knew, intellectually, that the only way the uneasy holding pattern between the members of the Owl House would be for them to sit down like a bunch of responsible adults and actually talk about their problems. Except… except King was too ruffled by the encounter, and Eda had already made her own attempt at speaking with Taylor, and Luz hated being forced to process her own fears and worries when they were literally staring her in the face –

But no one was going anywhere. Nobody was leaving, nothing was getting done, and someone had to take initiative and break the icy silence that had gripped their home in the wake of the Owl Beast's rampage.

So, with a grunt of effort, Luz flopped backwards across the cushions to stare up into the waiting gaze of her audience, and launched into her retelling of the events she'd encountered at the Covention – along with a smattering of context from the days before.

Frankly, the younger teen was unsurprised to discover that Taylor made for a rather decent listener. The attentive, unwavering angle of her head never shifted as Luz rattled off the chronological listing of the day's adventure, punctuating her tale with energetic gestures of her hands and exaggerated sound effects. Her sunken features seemed almost placid as she absorbed the minutiae of her companion's story, humming noncommittally at all of the correct parts, none of the skepticism regarding magic that Eda had offhandedly commented on rearing its head as she politely nodded along to the tune of Luz's words.

In fact, the only time she actually made to comment was when the witch's apprentice had just about finished with her account.

"…Yeah, so after our witch's duel got called off, Eda actually figured out that Amity had a power booster stuck to her back that she didn't know about, 'cuz Lilith wanted to get one over on her. Which kinda explains why I nearly got smashed by Amity's abomination – it was way bigger than the stuff she was making, like, a week ago? And -"

"That doesn't bother you?"

Luz paused, her words slowing to a crawl.

"Sorry?"

"Them nearly… killing you," Taylor clarified, her hooded look silent and searching. "Your story sounded like it was… pretty serious." Dark eyes bored into the younger girl's own. "Aren't you worried about another attempt?"

The carefully neutral suggestion left her gut doing little flips at the thought, and an anxious laugh spilled from Luz's lips, bookmarked by a frantic flap of her hands.

"Ah – pssh. Nah, no way! I mean…" Her instinctual denial crumbled in her mouth, uncertainty taking hold, and the teen mulled over her each of her forming words. "Lilith kinda said 'human' in a weird and sorta… species-ist way a few times? If that's a word? But Amity doesn't have that kind of vibe, y'know? Once I got her to sit down and actually talk to me, she mostly just sounded like – well, like a pretty normal kid. And it probably doesn't help that all of their teachers at school like Amity so much more."

The blank, shuttered look she received in return belayed her audience's skepticism.

"You claimed that she was… bullying your friend, Willow, earlier." Taylor's expression did not alter, but her rasping declaration fell with all of the finality of the executioner's axe, unerring and undeterred. "A bully's the same as anyone else – just as dumb and prone to acting out like the rest of the crowd. One conversation… doesn't make you any less of a target than you were yesterday."

The younger teen winced at the cynical sentiment, flipping herself upright to provide the taller girl her undivided attention, something uneasy growing under her lungs. That bitter proclamation felt all too personal, in her opinion, and the possible skew of that rancid bias left Luz willing to defend the honor of a girl she'd only just come to know.

"Not everyone's like that," She gently protested, plopping her cheeks in upturned palms. "There's no way that nothing could ever change between them. Willow and Amity used to be friends! Sure, it was years ago, but…" The lanky girl hesitated, wondering if it was proper for her to be sharing the snippets of conversation she and her burgeoning friends had passed amongst themselves that first day at Hexside, whispered over the gooey rim of her hiding place in frantic explanation. "Apparently they used to be thick as thieves when they were little kids – practically sisters! Willow said she wasn't too sure why they ever even had a falling out, but doesn't that just mean there's room for things to get better?"

Luz sat up, posture growing confident as she ranted, eyes skirting across the floor in furious consideration.

"If I could just figure out where it went wrong, maybe I could get them to sit down and talk about it. Like adults! With actual feelings and everything!"

The idea was becoming more appealing by the second; she could feel the feedback loop of her own optimistic excitement swell, buoyed into something light and hopeful that tugged the corners of her lips into a small grin.

"So, got any ideas to share on how I could make this work? D'you think they'd wanna meet somewhere neutral, like the Owl House…?"

She glanced up from her own twisting fingers, smile still cocked across her face – until Luz caught sight of her partner's expression, and the younger girl stalled in shock.

"Taylor?"

For a moment, a horrible flash of vulnerability had stolen across the scarred girl's grim features, her mouth drawn too tight and cheeks bloodless across the bones of her jaw. She looked, to Luz, like a long-exorcised phantom of the distant past had just tread across the floor before her, stunning in its suddenness.

Worse was the way her face blanked, eyes glazed and distant as a terrible stillness replaced that flicker of old sadness, line of sight falling away from the excitable form of her companion.

A long and leaden silence filled the air between them, harsher than it ever had been, before Taylor was finally able to find her scratchy words once more.

"Sorry… Luz." Her line of sight did not leave the scuffed silhouette of the old boards below, absently tracing them as if they held the secrets to her own anxieties. "I can't help you… or Willow. Not with this."

Questions burdened her tongue, but the young teen simply watched silently, concern flicking across her face at the sullen statement.

"I don't know how to help you, actually," The crippled woman admitted with a sigh, quiet and regretful, such a far cry from her stoic bearing. "I never… figured it out, myself. How to get your sister back when she hates you."

Luz's mouth dropped open at the implication she'd been handed, cradling the information in her heart without surety – and when Taylor looked to her once more, that hint of grief she'd found in the girl's eyes had passed, left in her wake where it had always belonged.

"I don't know if you can… help them like that. But I know how it can play out if you don't." The wounded patient levered herself into a more comfortable position with her remaining arm, an anxious buzz of energy her companion had not yet seen from her pulling at her muscles, leaving Taylor discomfited by its itch. "Willow could just… ignore it. Let it run off her back until they graduate. Turn the other cheek and hope Amity gets bored. Let it all… build up until she just couldn't care if Blight fell off the face of the earth without another word."

The surety of her speech rattled her seated companion, and Luz flinched, bundling nervous fists in the denim of her pants.

"…That's what my mami always wanted me to try. She'd say – 'Mija, if you give them attention, they'll just keep coming back!'" Now it was her turn to confess, the lash of cruel laughter and sneering distaste from old classmates still haunting the recesses of her mind. "But – brushing off the bullies doesn't always work."

"No," Taylor agreed, the singular syllable frighteningly somber. "No. It's always worse… when they were your friend. They know your weaknesses. All the buttons they have to press. And once their teeth are in, they'll never let go."

"So – what. You're saying it's just hopeless? I should give up and accept that my new buddy and my sorta-kinda frenemy will always despise each other for the rest of forever?"

An iron nugget of denial grew in her belly at the sound of her own pessimism, her brow setting with steel as she prepared to meet Taylor's despair with her own force of will -

"Maybe. Maybe not." The wind escaped her sails at the noncommittal answer, but the paralyzed woman was not finished, wistfulness coloring her words. "But they have something to tip the scales, here."

"Oh yeah?" Intrigue brought Luz's brow upwards, hope growing where frustration had taken root.

"You."

She gave a stupefied blink, pointing to herself in question, and Taylor nodded.

"You seem like… you don't plan to give up on them. And having someone in your corner…" The taller teen looked away once more, gaze growing distant. "That can make all the difference."

As that ripple of aged pain passed across Taylor's features for a second, shorter spurt, Luz felt the lightness of a revelation bubble with her breath –

Because that flash of old grief wasn't for the girl that her companion had lost, so many years before, only a bitterness aged like a fine wine left between the two.

It was for herself, and all of the times she must've hoped that someone looking on would see what Taylor did, and become the fulcrum she'd so desperately needed to leverage an escape.

She wondered where Taylor's father was, in all of the turmoil his daughter must have been struggling with; she wondered where the staff were, the students and teachers who must have witnessed the fracturing relationship falling to pieces before them –

And with a terrible certainty, Luz knew exactly where they were found – on the sidelines, sneering and gawking, the same as the students who denigrated the passions she herself so closely clung to on Earth while their minders watched on with uncaring and exasperated eyes.

As for Taylor's dad, she could only guess… but their first conversation floated to the surface of her mind, mental wounds still scabbed and scarring, of lost parents and the long road to recovery. She thought of all the times that despair had dogged her mother as her dad grew sicker, and wondered where they might have ended up if Camila had proven unable to shoulder such a crushing loss in their lives.

Would she be able to forget her own daughter, caught in the wake of her own mourning?

Silence fell across the living room, thick enough to slice into with Eda's jagged pocketknife, and neither girl opted to break it. For all that Taylor's final declaration had delivered a sense of underlying hope with its message, the melancholy that clutched at its skirts left their conversation all but dead in the water.

Luz looked to her callused hands, turning them slowly in contemplation, the gasping flash of a determined fire filling her as Taylor looked askance, waking mind now far from focused on the present.

The girl seemed so fragile and downtrodden compared to her usual stiff self. Realistically, the difference was not that great, in spite of its visibility, but even that minute shift in her countenance was enough to off-balance the younger girl's view of her simply on account of the masterfully crafted shell of blank placidity that Taylor wore like a cloak during every moment she was conscious.

And so, Luz was faced with a proper conundrum:

What could I do to help her?

Any fear of the black-haired girl before her had long since melted away. How could it not, when she looked at Taylor, and saw only a lonely soul sat before her – the same as herself, for so very long?

The first answer was painfully obvious, their conversation having washed away the hesitance with which the younger teen had regarded her otherworldly companion, and so she thought to herself without burden –

I can be the kind of friend Taylor needs.

But that was a long-term goal, a hope to be kindled and forged by shared experience, not something that could alleviate the cloud of disharmony that now blanketed the household in the wake of heavier topics.

That answer, as well, came to Luz in a flash of inspiration.

"Well…" She scooted across the couch, snatching her backpack from its resting place on the dirtied flooring as she went, drawing Taylor's eye as the lanky girl stopped before her chair. "I might not know how to set things straight between Amity and Willow just yet, but at least I know how to get Blight to open up."

A quick search of her bag found one of the chipped graphite pencils she kept on hand, at home alongside the slim cuts of sheet paper Luz had requisitioned from the Owl Lady. With a flourish of her wrist, the shape of her light glyph unfolded across the yellow parchment.

She rapped the completed sigil with a smile, sending it bubbling upwards into a sphere of softened light while the paper was consumed by the billowing spell.

"She seemed pretty impressed by my magic," The lanky teen boasted, only mildly fudging the truth of the witch's reaction.

Taylor tracked its ascent, and for the first time since Luz had met her, something like gentled awe crossed her softening expression, the magical illumination reflected in her bottomless irises.

"How did you do that?"

None of the soured tone they'd shared remained in the seated girl's words, only a creeping sense of genuine interest to be found, and her companion's grin spread at the passing of her malaise.

"Yeah, so remember when Eda went all 'snarly monster' on us?" The younger teen dropped to the floor, stabilizing her makeshift pad against once knee as she chattered, nimble fingers already tracing another enchanted symbol. "I had a video of her doing a light spell that day on my phone. King had mentioned that light might hurt her eyes enough to stop her, so we figured that could help… but I was using my phone as a flashlight when the lamps went out, and she knocked it out of my hands. Just about snapped it in half -" She cringed at the recollection, moving to locate the device in question from her waiting satchel. "And oh man, I just realized I'm gonna have to explain that to my mom. That's not gonna be fun."

Of course, that was just about nothing compared to the spiel she'd have to cook up for her mother regarding why she wasn't even at her summer camp in the first place, not that the other teen needed to know that right now…

"I'd have guessed it wouldn't be," Taylor replied distractedly, still watching as the arcing bob of a second witchlight joined the first.

"Yeah, well, at any rate my phone was pretty busted. But – it still worked. And the video glitched out!" She offered the miniature machine before her, playing the video in question back at reduced speeds, allowing her counterpart to witness the flashing glyph that had caught her eye. "Right there – did you see it? Right in the middle of the spell circle!"

"A symbol…" Taylor's amazed mutter met Luz's ears, and she nodded eagerly at the observation.

"Yup! And now -" A third orb joined its brethren in floating towards the distant ceiling, swirling without sound amongst each other, the dance of heavenly spheres splaying wild shadows across the walls with their passage. "I can do this. And it's only the start."

Magic was real.

Magic was more than real, it was doable, it was in the palm of her hands and Luz would learn as much of it as her hopeful heart could take, come hell or high water.

As her companion considered the miracle before them, head tilting upwards to follow the motion of the lights now circling the rafters above, the younger girl wondered where her thoughts had taken her. Eda had claimed that – in spite of all the evidence arrayed before her, in defiance of her own supernatural abilities – the only other human on the Boiling Isles had rejected the idea of magic out of pocket, scoffing at the mere concept.

Now, watching the witch's student cast a spell before her very eyes, the only sort of eloquent retort to Luz's counterargument the scarred girl could muster was a simple:

"Huh."

She didn't let that seeming lack of enthusiasm dampen her own spirits, however.

"Wanna give it a try?"

Taylor tore her view away from the bouncing lights, eyeing the offered scrap paper in Luz's hand like a bomb waiting to go off. After a moment's hesitation, however, she carefully accepted the homemade notepad, retrieving the leatherbound form of her prior novel to serve as a backboard.

Handing the other girl a pencil and another sketch as reference, the excitable teenager watched with baited breath while her companion's hand slowly, painfully crawled across the paper squares, fighting the tremors in her singular grip with a patience cut from unyielding stone.

The effort of several long minutes was a lopsided circle, barely able to contain the much more coherent tines of the sigil within. It was inelegant and amateurish, an expected outcome from the first stumbling steps into precise penmanship, but neither girl allowed the final product to discourage them.

Cautiously, Taylor tapped her scribbled glyph in imitation of Luz's own gesture; it sputtered and flared, the collapse of a dying star already in motion even as it swelled into being, but a light spell was produced nonetheless.

They watched it fold into itself, the birth of a miniaturized singularity stealing their attention as it died.

As the magic faded out of being, the one-armed woman turned to Luz once more, the hints of her earlier fire sparking within her unerring stare once again. Her companion almost shivered at the calculating intensity of that gaze as it fell to her supine form, considerations and implications swirling in the storm of those deep brown eyes.

"Do you mind if I… practice on these some more?" Taylor lightly tapped the skew of trimmed pages beneath her grip. "I could use something to help me… learn how to write again." The predatory cast of her features fell away, banished by an almost petulant grimace. "It'll be a pain using my offhand from now on."

"Oh – sure! I've got plenty more where that came from," Luz assured the older girl, making to get up from her impromptu seat beside the old rocker.

Taylor hummed in response, the grime of their prior conversation scraped clean with a new goal set before her – but she paused, glancing up at her lingering companion, tender gratitude on her face.

"Thanks, Luz."

"Not a problem at all!" Her counterpart chirped cheerfully, spinning on her sneaker's heel towards the kitchen, glad to have abandoned the heavy atmosphere that had haunted their exchange. "I'm gonna go make myself some lunch. Turns out that running from the cops tends to make a gal pretty hungry. You want anything?'

The scarred girl simply waved her off, returning her attention to the challenge set before her, determination filling her hunched posture.

"Whatever soup's still in the fridge… works for me."

Luz cut her a sharp salute, grinning with childish delight at the dry snort of amusement she received in return, following the sound of Eda and King's good-natured bickering from deeper within the halls of the Owl House.

In her wake, peace settled across their home, bookmarked by the quiet scratch of a clutched pen over curling sheets of paper, and the subsonic hum of gathering witchlights.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Chapter and notes originally posted on 6-30-2023.

Taylor's continued imprisonment in the Chair of Self-Reflection reveals its horrid effects once more. Truly, being forced to contemplate your life choices and relationships is an untenable burden.

Jokes aside, I hope that the interaction between Luz and Taylor caught a decent enough sense of the latter's reflections on her relationship between herself and Emma as it changed over the years. Getting a glimpse at something you could never have, and watching other people receive it, can bring out a whole lot of negative feelings in even the best of people - and Taylor had wished for true friends for a very long time before she finally met the Undersiders. I felt that being forced to confront a whole lot of parallels staring her in the face while she's got nothing to do but think would probably dredge up a bit more than just some indifferent contempt, but that is simply my imperfect interpretation of two characters interacting in a setting far from what their authors originally conceived.

At any rate, Taylor won't have to deal with too much self-reflection in the near future; as this story strives to follow the sequential release of TOH, that means the next episode we'll be visiting is 'Hooty's Moving Hassle,' with all of its childish shenanigans, lessons on the dangers of gambling... and a whole lot of immoral demon hunters with no qualms about tossing a few kids off a cliff.

Thanks again to everyone who's read, commented and liked! I love hearing your guys' feedback and integrating it when and where I can.

Edit (7-2-23): Holy crap, this story's got a TVTropes page. That's a first. Thanks again to the folks that made this possible!

Edit (7-18-23): Minor modifications to character descriptors.