So, this was inspired by a recent Moringmark comic, where Luz was trying to tell her mom about her time in the Boiling Isles. I thought, how would Luz recount her adventures to her mother? Now, here I am, making a story exactly about that.
Camila set the table, along with the fold up table, with several plates of food. Not knowing what witch children generally ate, she chose to go with a traditional breakfast of bacon and eggs. She woke up early, setting her alarm to ensure she'd woken up before anyone else. Cooking for seven was more than she was used to, but she had to make sure all her guests were properly fed and resolved to waking up earlier than normal to do so. Once all the plates were properly set and the food almost done, she looked over the five sleeping children in her living room.
Her daughter having arrived back early last night along with her friends, the first thing she did was make sure they were all properly warmed up, having taken showers and dressed in some of Luz's old clothes, as well as some of Camila's late husband's. She could tell the children had recently been through a great ordeal, so she'd postponed asking the kids what had been on their mind. It didn't help her sleep, however, not knowing what had her only child along with her friends so traumatized. So, she decided, if they were feeling up to it, she would hear out what they had been through in the Demon Realm after breakfast.
Luckily, she didn't seem to have to wait long. The first one to wake up, the blond who Luz had introduced as Hunter, rose from the nest of blankets and pillows on the floor, accidentally waking the other boy who'd been sleeping next to him as well. Once they each felt movement, one by one, the kids had woken up to the smell of freshly cooked bacon. Even Vee had come down, chewing on a Hexes Hold'em card and putting up a disguise of her version of Luz.
Breakfast had been slow, nobody rushing through their meals and the majority of the children had mostly stirred it around, nibbling on a bite of either eggs or bacon here and there. Still, they'd managed to clear their plates, albeit at a snail's pace. Once everyone was done, Luz rinsed off the plates and loaded them into the dishwasher. She sat back down, across from her mother at the dinner table.
"I know this must be hard for you to talk about," she said slowly, addressing all the newly arrived teenagers in the dining room, "but I feel like I should know what happened to you all," For a while, no one answered, all the witches turned to Luz for a cue on what they should do or say. Vee, not familiar with any of them, stayed by Camila and waited just the same.
"It's… a long story," Luz finally said. "And I don't think I should just tell you the ending. I have to start from the beginning. From the moment I stepped into the Demon Realm." Her friends wondered for a moment if they needed to tell Camila all of that, but if Luz thought that was best, they weren't going to question it.
"If we're telling that much, maybe we should move into the living room," Willow suggested. "We'll need to get comfortable."
"Okay, so it all started the day I was going to the summer camp," Luz started, sitting on the end of the couch. Amity sat next to her, Willow and Gus on the other side of the couch while Hunter had brought one of the fold up chairs from the dining room. Camila took the couch across from them while Vee sat on the ottoman nearby.
"Wait, what's summer camp?" Hunter asked, stopping the story as it barely began.
"When school's not in session, there are several summer programs that kids can attend to learn new skills," Luz explained. "In most summer camps, kids learn survival skills for how to survive in the wild." Hunter looked intrigued, but Luz immediately ruined his image of the camp. "Camp Reality-Check, however, taught kids about mortgages and balancing checkbooks, things like that. Nothing kids my age would ever use and then would probably forget by the time it became useful,"
"Why would you wanna go there?" Gus asked.
"I didn't want to, but if I didn't, I'd probably have gotten kicked out of my school," Luz answered. "You guys know I don't always think things through. And I did some things that were kind of creative, but detrimental to the school so I got sent to the principal's office a lot."
"Like what?" Amity asked.
"Well, first I made an anatomically correct griffin, including the spider breath. I didn't think the spiders would go crazy, but they spread all over the classroom. Luckily, they stayed contained to the one room, but it still made everyone freak out,"
"What grade did you get?" Hunter asked. "I might've given you an A based on thoroughness,"
"I still don't understand why you thought griffins would breathe spiders, mija," Camila interjected. A smug grin appeared on Luz's face for a second as everyone else was confused by her statement, as though she'd said that plants grow downward from the sky. Vee herself even had to stop herself from giggling with a hand over her mouth. Once Camila realized what was happening, her eyes widened in shock. "Ay, dios mio, they do, don't they?" A slow nod from all the witches confirmed it and Camila had to rub her head.
"Anyway, then I auditioned for the school play and used sausage to simulate guts falling out from a stab wound. I thought it would add flair, but it just traumatized the cast and canceled the play,"
"Why would they do that?" Gus asked. "It's just special effects,"
"No one in the school wanted to see a teenage girl's organs hanging from her shirt, apparently," Luz answered. "Third, I tried out for cheerleading, but I wasn't very agile back then. There was no way I could compete with the girl ahead of me, so I thought outside the box. I did this," Luz ducked her face down out of view. Once she'd risen back up, she'd turned her eyelids inside out, showing all her friends. The reactions Camila received were not what she expected. Amity started giggling while Gus looked impressed. Hunter raised an eyebrow before touching his own eyelid, trying to get it to do the same thing. Willow just sat there confused. Camila looked at Vee, who seemed to be in contemplation.
"I see your trick," she said, "and raise you, this," She transformed her face, eyelids appearing on the left and right sides of her eyes, already turned inside out without having to touch them. Luz let go of her eyes, staring in awe.
"I'm clearly in the presence of the master," Luz said, pressing her hands together and bowing. Vee giggled before turning her face back to the regular disguise.
"Wait, they actually sent you to the principal's office for that?" Willow asked. "It was kind of weird and you definitely wouldn't have made the team, but that seems a bit of an overreaction."
"If I had to guess, they just figured sending me to Principal Hal was just the standard thing to do for me at that point," Luz offered. Willow still seemed vexed by the issue. "And the last time I was sent to the principal's office was when I did a book report on the Good Witch Azura's first book. I brought some live snakes to use as models for the report and the back up snakes got loose,"
"Don't forget the fireworks," Vee added, having heard the story from Camila before. This made Luz grimace at her past antics, which Amity seemed to pick up on.
"Of course she needed fireworks," she said. "How else would she properly demonstrate the act three closer?" Luz smiled at her girlfriend, appreciating the defense and the fact that she knew how the book report would have been presented.
"I'm not saying they wouldn't fit," Vee said. "With the Gildersnake's invasion foiled, the Festival of a Thousand Sparks could finally continue, so fireworks make sense. They're just not safe for a very flammable school."
"Yeah-wait, what?" Luz responded, registering what Vee had said. "You read the Good Witch Azura?!" The basilisk blushed, looking away from Luz.
"Well, I figured maintaining a cover would be easier if I understood you a bit better and Camila said it was your favorite series. I checked them out from the library and read all five." Luz wanted to talk about the books with Vee, asking her who her favorite character was, what her favorite parts were, what she thought of the twist and so on, but she stopped herself. She still had a story to get through. And her mom deserved the full story.
"Anyway, while I was waiting for the bus to camp, a tiny wooden owl grabbed my Azura book and dragged it off into the creepy shack in the woods,"
"Please tell me you didn't walk in there. That place is practically falling apart," Camila asked, already knowing the answer.
"I didn't walk in," Luz said truthfully with a nervous grin, "I ran in," Camila sighed. She had a feeling she'd be doing a lot of that while Luz told her story. "Once I followed it in, I ran into Eda the Owl Lady,"
"The teacher you told me about," Camila had a vague memory of what Luz had told her about the Demon Realm when she'd been stuck in the reflection of her phone. Luz nodded, starting to look closed off. Camila didn't understand, but judging from the reaction, something bad must have happened to her.
"I saw her sorting through a lot of junk from our world and about to burn my Azura book when I jumped out and grabbed it," Luz thought about the book, now in the possession of the Emperor's Coven. Along with the rest of the stuff she'd left at the Owl House. "I grabbed it out of her hand and tried to run out the door again but it closed and folded up. At that point, Eda looked like she was mad at me for trespassing, so I ducked under the side of the tent- oh yeah, it took me until that point to notice we were in a tent- and suddenly I was on a cliff on the edge of a town I didn't even remotely recognize."
"Bonesborough," Gus added in.
"Yeah, as crazy as my imagination was, I could never picture this place," Luz said. "I only stood on that cliff for about fifteen seconds and I saw an ice cream cone eat a person whole and a fairy demanded my skin."
"Is that weird here?" Willow asked. "That's an average day on the Isles."
"It's… it's pretty weird," Camila confirmed.
"I slapped the fairy and Eda dragged me back to the stand she was running."
"She runs a stand?"
"The only stand that sells legitimate human artifacts!" Gus said excitedly.
"Anyway, she put me on a stool, I begged for her to make it quick if she'd eat me, then she tried to sell me stuff like-"
"Wait, you thought she was going to eat you?" Camila interrupted.
"I was still a little confused about the whole 'Demon Realm' thing." Luz said. "Anyway, she tried to sell me a human foot with holes in it, a human bar of candy, and a shadowbox that reflects only sadness. In reality, they were a croc, deodorant, and a portable TV."
"Wait, that wasn't candy?" Gus asked. "I bought that from her."
"Gus, it didn't even taste remotely like candy," Willow said before turning to Camila. "And that was the last time I let Gus shop at her store without Luz," Hunter leaned over to the two of them.
"What did it taste like?" he whispered.
"It kind of tasted like soap," she whispered back. "Gus finished the whole thing and I swore off human food until last night when I realized I'd be eating a lot of it for a while," Luz continued with the story.
"So I ended up helping her make money off the TV before a guard broke it and tried to arrest her for, in his words, misuse of magic and demonic misdemeanors."
"Wait, this mentor you mentioned is a wanted criminal?" Camila asked. "Mija, I taught you better than to hang out with criminals."
"There's more to the story, mom, don't worry,"
"Yeah, I kind of can't blame her anymore," Hunter said, rubbing his right forearm.
"Anyway, she picked me up and we escaped the guard arresting her pretty easily. Staffs can fly in that world so it wasn't hard to get away. Once we were in the air-"
"In the air?" Camila asked, but Vee spoke up for this one.
"A witch's staff can fly," she said while Willow showed her a giant bee-like animal. The bee suddenly stiffened up, growing a long staff out of the bottom. Willow grabbed the staff and held it parallel to the floor before sitting on top and slowly floating around the room. It was at this moment, Camila took notice of the witches' different animals of similar design. She'd noticed them but only in the back of her mind, only focusing on the five teenagers from another world. She finally noticed that each one stayed with a specific one of the kids. Amity had a white cat laying next to her feet, Gus had a purple chameleon perched on the couch behind him, and Hunter had a cardinal perched on his shoulder. Camila briefly wondered if Luz had her own animal, but put that question on hold.
"Once we were in the air, Eda started explaining to me about the Demon Realm. Every myth from the Human Realm is from a little bit of that world leaking into ours. Griffins, vampires, giraffes, etc."
"Wait, wait, wait. Giraffes?" Camila asked.
"Yeah, the giraffes were banished millennia ago for their war against the hippogryffs." Luz said. "The giraffes had begun a ritual to absorb the souls of all living things in order to achieve immortality. It was taught in Ancient History and it's been theorized they'll attempt revenge once they manage to complete the ritual in the Human Realm." Camila looked horrified for a full four seconds until she noticed all six teens holding in their laughs. Once they noticed she caught on, they couldn't hold it in anymore. Each one burst out in hysterics, Gus almost falling to the floor.
"Oh, ha ha," Camila deadpanned. "Of course giraffes aren't demons."
"Oh no, they really are demons," Hunter said, only sniggering slightly. "but the war they lost was actually against the vampires who wanted to absorb their souls. The giraffes had to evacuate the Demon Realm and made it to the Human Realm in order to survive the brink of extinction." Camila was skeptical, but she didn't want to dismiss the idea. If it were true, it made her want to go find a giraffe and give it a hug, having endured so much. Until she realized the ones that had to deal with it died long ago anyway.
"Don't worry, Hunter's terrible at jokes." Gus said snidely to the chagrin of the older boy. "If he says something, it's almost definitely true." Camila remained skeptical, but stayed silent.
"So at this point, Eda brought me back to her house. I asked her to let me go back, but she wanted me to help her with something first." Luz's eyes widened, suddenly appearing guilty. "I just realized I haven't thought about Hooty or the echo mouse the entire time I've been here,"
"I'm sure they're fine," Willow said, trying to comfort Luz. "The echo mouse probably escaped when the Emperor's Coven raided the house. And Hooty is surprisingly tough." Camila looked like she needed context.
"Hooty is the house demon embedded in Eda's front door," Luz explained. "He's part of the reason her house is dubbed the Owl House." She still felt guilty. "I hope he's okay. Anyway, Eda needed my help to do something for King," Simply saying the name made Luz's voice hitch and cause a few tears to be shed. Amity put a hand on her shoulder, making Luz look up while wiping her eyes.
"Hey, I could take over for you for a minute," she offered. "You've told this story so many times, I think I could do it well enough," Luz wanted to protest, but she stopped when she felt another tear escape. Camila's heart warmed. Even with all the trauma the group had endured, she was glad her daughter was able to make such good friends.
"King's this little demon that Eda lives with. He wa- is about this tall, wears a red collar around his neck with a gold medallion on it, and has a skull for a head. I honestly thought it was a helmet the first time I met him, but it's actually really part of his head." Willow, with a pencil and a paper she'd had in her pocket, drew a picture while Amity described him. She showed the picture to Camila, making sure to add in the detail of his broken horn even. "Eda explained to Luz that King was once the mighty king of demons until he'd lost his crown of power and the powerful Warden Wrath locked it up inside the Conformatorium, within a magical force field that only a human could walk through."
"Wait, are there other humans there?" Camila asked, making the entire group cringe at the question. "Okay, I'm going to assume no, then. If there aren't any other humans, how do they know that a human could go through?"
"It repels magical abilities," Hunter explained. "A basilisk that's starved could probably get through as well, if I had to guess, since a basilisk has no natural magical signature." Vee tensed up at the notion of starving her. "No, I had no intention to experiment. Anyway, a human goes through, it can't repel her non-magical aura."
"So Eda promised to return Luz to the Human Realm if she helped King retrieve his crown," Amity continued. Camila stayed silent at the notion of this so-called mentor extorting Luz into thievery. Still, the kids in front of her could all sense her disapproval. "Once they arrived to the outskirts of the Conformatorium, the group split up. Eda went to distract the warden while Luz and King made their way to the crown. On the way up, Luz had walked into one of the cell spirals where Luz learned about what passes for crimes according to the warden. A woman who wrote fanfiction about food falling in love, a guy who ate his own eyes, and a little demon with a big nose, who was into conspiracy theories,"
"She shouted, 'We are but playthings for a higher being,'" Luz added, making the witches give a dry laugh.
"Luz wanted to let everyone out, but she couldn't,"
"Weak nerd arms, you know?" Luz said, giving a small flex of one arm. Camila was taken aback. She knew her daughter didn't have much upper body strength when she'd left for the summer, but she'd taken notice of her daughter's arms now compared to then. While they still were thin, there was way clearer muscle tone on the arm she'd shown.
"I've had to hold you back while you were sick, Luz," Gus said. "You are freakishly strong."
"You've picked Amity straight off the ground multiple times," Willow added, "including when she injured her ankle and you carried her to the healers,"Amity blushed at this, making Willow giggle.
"I've fought you before more than once and had you as part of my crew on my ship," Hunter commented, "and you are far from weak. A little impulsive, but your muscles are there,"
"Well, back then, I wasn't exactly at the peak of fitness," Luz said. "I was practically just skin and bones. I guess all our adventures toned me up a bit," Camila had to agree, inspecting her arms from afar. Luz may have left with weak nerd arms, as she put it, but returned with real physical strength.
"Luz couldn't free anyone at the time, so she moved on with King to try and get the crown, meeting up with Eda on the way." Amity said, moving on from the subject of Luz's arms. "They walked into a large room with a thick pillar of light in the middle. Luz watched King tackle it a few times, eager to get his crown back, but he just bounced off each time."
"It was all like, 'One does not simply walk into this force field,'" Luz interjected. "And then I simply walked into the force field," She giggled at her own joke, but with no one else laughing, she stopped and sighed. "Once we're done telling the story, War of the Warlocks marathon,"
"Luz walked straight through the force field and surveyed the contents of the light pillar, until she spotted the crown on top of a particularly large stack of items. She couldn't believe what she'd seen at the top. The structure of the crown, regal with a simplistic design was all too familiar. Because it was a Burger Queen paper crown." Camila snorted, laughing at the twist of the crown of power. It made everyone chuckle and Luz smiled at the memory, wishing she could go back and do it again. "She knew immediately what this meant: that crown definitely didn't give King any powers."
"Why would Eda go through so much trouble just to get a paper crown?" Camila asked, calming down from the laughter. "I would have just gone to get another one,"
"She's banned from every Burger Queen in the state," Luz answered. "Something about making the burgers fat shame all their customers."
"Wait, that was her?" Camila asked, relieved. "Ay, I thought I was loco back then,"
"Wait, is that why we spent four months avoiding every fast food place?" Camila stayed silent at the question. "Anyway, Eda explained to me that the two of them didn't have much, only each other." Camila thought about that, feeling a similar way about Luz for a while. "So because the crown was important to him, it was important to her too. Weirdos have to stick together, after all," Luz shed a couple more tears, but wiped them away. "Amity, thanks for taking over for a bit, but I'm ready to keep going," Amity nodded, taking Luz's hand for comfort. "Anyway, the warden showed up and cut Eda's head off." Camila covered her mouth, looking ready to yell out in horror over what she had heard. "Then she told me she hates it when that happens and that just happened when you got older,"
"Wait, her head was lopped off?" Camila asked.
"It wasn't the last time, either," Luz warned her. "Her hands are detachable too, but I wasn't ready for the head thing yet," Luz waited a moment for Camila to calm down, having a hard time processing Eda's head falling off. Once she was ready, she continued. "So we're at the warden's mercy and Eda demands to know what he wants," Luz rubbed her temple. "Fair warning. This is still possibly one of the dumbest things I've experienced in the Demon Realm. He got down on one knee, offered Eda's head some flowers, and asked her to go out with him."
"Wha…?" Hunter asked.
"What?" Camila asked.
"Our reactions exactly," Luz said. "I hated everything he was saying." She shuddered. "Eda spit in his face, refused to go out with him on the grounds that he had his guards stalk her and cut off his head."
"That's fair," Camila commented.
"He also tortured Tinella," Willow added. "She's such a sweet demon. There was no reason to torture her,"
"So I grabbed Owlbert, Eda's staff, and whacked him in the back of the head when he wasn't looking," Luz continued. Luz's beheaded body fought off the guards and we all escaped on Owlbert, but the warden was after us. Conveniently, I noticed we were leaving through the cell spiral I'd walked in through, so I had Eda's hand open all the cells on the way out."
"You… you caused a prison breakout," Camila clarified. "I should be less proud of that, but they weren't locked up for good reasons," Luz smiled at that, happy her mom supported her decisions.
"We ended up in the courtyard of the prison where the warden knocked us off the staff and he prepared to fight Eda. She handed me the key so I could come back to the Human Realm, but it didn't feel right for me to leave them behind. She still made me leave on Owlbert, but I just circled around to where the escaped prisoners happened to be. They felt like they belonged there because the warden was probably going to catch them and throw them back in there. I couldn't stand people putting themselves down for being a little out of the norm. I told them that they might be weird but that made them awesome. And that us weirdos have to stick together. Nobody should ever be punished for who they are," Luz smiled at the memory, feeling proud of one of the moments she stood up for what she believed in.
Camila was having some mixed feelings, though. She'd sent Luz to camp because the principal believed she was a danger to herself as well as the other students. It was a hard decision to make, but the snakes had been difficult to argue against. But she never once thought about how this may have seemed to Luz, a teenage girl who expressed herself as well as she could. She did hope people found her crazy antics interesting, but never managed to make any friends. She wanted to believe summer camp would at least help her make those friends, but she didn't think about the idea that it might have seemed to Luz that it was only to punish her for acting out. Camila could only feel regret for sending to camp. The only solace she took in the action is that Vee seemed to enjoy it in Luz's place.
"We rallied together just in time, because Eda and King were pinned down by Warden Wrath. I flew in on Owlbert, distracting him long enough for Ivan to tackle him, Tinella to trip him over, then Katya jumped him and held him down long enough for Ivan to tie his limbs together. Wrath stared me down after he was pinned and asked who I thought I was. I answered him." Luz grinned, ready to show the dramatic flair she'd displayed against the warden. "I said, 'Do not underestimate me, Warden Wrath, for I am Luz, the human, warrior of peace. Now eat this, sucker!' And I threw the fireworks into his mouth. Since he was getting ready to blast me with fire breath, it was good timing." Luz seemed to enjoy telling this story, she even seemed to be out of the funk she'd been in since arriving. All her friends were starting to miss the jubilation in her voice they hadn't heard in a long time. It was short lived, however, when Luz started to remember the next part of the story and her sorrowful expression returned.
"We went back to the Owl House and Eda opened the portal to let me come back as she promised. She may be a lot of things, but she keeps her word as often as she can. I gave King the tiny tiara from my Azura figurine. I was about to leave and go to summer camp, until I thought to myself, would it be the worst thing in the world to stay there instead of going to summer camp? I know it was escapism and that I was just trying to live out a fantasy, but the opportunity was too tempting at the time. And if you think about it, I was spending my summer learning about a culture no other human knew anything about," Camila stayed silent. She'd already felt the heart break from Luz telling her she'd chosen to stay. But seeing how heart broken Luz was over leaving that place hit twice as hard. "I asked her if I could stay and learn from magic. No human had ever tried to learn magic, so there wasn't any guarantee that I couldn't learn myself. I just wanted to learn magic. I didn't think I'd…"
"You didn't think you'd be trapped," Camila finished for her. Luz nodded, even though that's not how she was going to finish. She couldn't help but think. Had she never come to the Demon Realm, maybe Belos never would have finished the Day of Unity. King and Eda could have been safe if she just let Owlbert have her book.
And that's the first chapter. Anyone think this has worth? Also, any notes about how one of the characters would tell the story would help. It's been a while since I tried to write something that takes so much commitment. Also, a fair warning that if there's any pattern to how I post fanfiction, I'll likely burn out halfway through, offer for someone else to finish it, even though no one ever wants to, and go back to just reading while making comments. Please leave a comment.