Azura: My moms had a perfect love at first sight romance

Luz: Haha no

"When I woke up that day, I didn't think I would meet three of the most important people in my life," said Luz. "And I especially didn't think one of those people would be my wife."

"The greatest start to the greatest love story!" exclaimed Azura, visibly starstruck.

Luz's smile lessened a little. "Well, it may be one of the greatest real-life love stories (not the best, that will always be Raeda), but it really wasn't a great start. It was definitely not love at first sight

"Oh," said Azura dejectedly.

"Hey. Don't be sad, cariño." Luz pulled Azura into a little hug. "Plenty of romances begin on a bad note. It's perfectly normal."

"It's true!" said Syl.

"You seem suspiciously happy that your favorite couple had a rocky start," Julie pointed out.

"Well, duh." Syl rolled his eyes. Everyone knows that enemies to lovers is one of the most common tropes. Look how many times it's been used as a tag!" He pulled out his scroll and showed the table the Archive of Our Own page for 'Enemies to Lovers'. There were currently 8,675,603 separate fanfics that used the tag, the most recent of which being a fic called "How Long Before They Kiss?" by RULERZREACHF4N.

"See?"

"Do you just… have that open on your scroll at all times?" asked Julie. "That's pretty weird, not gonna lie."

Syl just shrugged. "If I'm gonna live like Luz, then I've gotta make sure I know what I'm getting into."

"Anyway, I can't just start with meeting Willow and Gus and Amity. You'll need some context first. Eda took me to the beach that morning and showed me the most breathtaking sight in existence: a giant dead trash slug."

"Huh?" A look of disgust appeared on Azura's face.

"Yeah." Luz chuckled. "Eda genuinely thought that beached slug was one of the greatest things in existence. She started talking about how it makes its own life from what others throw away, which is cool I guess but I didn't want to spend my days picking trash off a corpse.

"But didn't Eda get her human trash from the Human Realm?" asked Azura.

"Yeah, but she wouldn't miss an opportunity to get lots of trash at one time," said Luz. "Anyway, I wasn't gonna dig through the slug's innards and I asked if there were other ways to learn magic. That's when she brought up magic school. Like I said before, she really didn't want me going there. She said that magic is supposed to be wild and unpredictable, and I wouldn't learn that at school. She also pointed out that she never finished school, and who wouldn't envy her?" Luz sighed. "Not gonna lie, at that moment, I really didn't envy the woman standing in a pile of rotting trash."

"That makes sense," said Azura.

"She did make me stick my hand in the trash and grab something, since witches have to be resourceful. I grabbed this greasy round slime ball— I didn't think too much of it at the time, but really it was a surprise tool that would help us later."

"Oh, I've seen some of those before," said Peony. "They're— mmmph!"

Melody had slammed her hand over Peony's mouth. "No spoilers!"

"But I was pretty unimpressed with trash collecting, so I just decided to walk home. And I'm glad I did because otherwise I wouldn't have overheard a very powerful witch doing abominations."

Azura's eyes lit up again. "Mom!"

Luz shook her head. "Willow."

"What…?" Azura's brain wasn't sure how to process that information. Willow Park? Doing abominations!? While Willow has dabbled in a few types of magic besides plant over the years, the idea of her working with abominations was simply baffling. "Aunt Willow did abominations!?"

"For a while, yeah."

"That doesn't make sense," said Luna. "Aunt Willow's the most talented plant witch who ever lived!"

"My mom's still alive!" Peony shouted. "Don't talk about her like she's not!" A few seconds passed before she pulled out her scroll and started sending a message. "Darn it, you made me paranoid. Hold on, Zura."

ynoeP:Mom are you still alive

Hello_willow:Seems like it.

Hello_willow:Why do you ask?

ynoeP:I'll explain later, I'm actually interrupting someone to text you

Hello_willow:Okay ( )

"Can I continue?" said Azura impatiently.

"Yes, I'm good," said Peony.

"You know that back in those days you were only supposed to practice one type of magic," said Luz. "And Willow's strong affinity for plant magic meant she would likely get in contact with Terra Snapdragon, who was way too casual about murder and was honestly kinda pervy. Also she's so stupid that she backtalked the Collector to his face, but I'm getting really ahead of myself." She paused for a moment. "Anyway, Willow's dads encouraged her to study another type of magic to keep her out of Terra's grasp."

"That makes sense," said Azura.

"Willow didn't know that was the reason though. Her dads just told her there were better opportunities on the abomination track. Too bad she was not good at abominations at all. Unfortunately, she was so bad that people thought she was weak in general, and kept calling her 'Half-a-Witch Willow.'"

In the Palistrom Forest, Hunter was busy minding his own business when a feeling of rage suddenly struck him. "Did someone just call Willow 'half-a-witch'!? How dare they!"

"It's pretty sad how cruel people in general could be back then," said Hal.

"What I don't get is why would the Parks name Willow after a plant if they didn't want her to study plant magic," said Dratina. "It's just like naming your son Bow and not wanting him to become an archer."

"Maybe they just didn't expect how good at plant magic she'd be," Julie suggested with a shrug.

"Besides, Willow is a better name than something generic like Paulina or Carol, stuff like that," said Luna.

"What!?" shouted Azura angrily. "Who are these people!? I want names!"

Luz sighed and grabbed Azura's hands. "Sweetie, I know we've mentioned this before but your Mom wasn't always a nice person, at least externally. She didn't want to be mean but she was conditioned into acting that way by that puta who dared call herself her mother."

Stringbean angrily hissed, chastising Luz for swearing in front of Azura again.

Luz gave her Palisman an indifferent look. "What? It's not like I'm lying. If anything, I was being nice."

"Mom's mom— is she dead?" asked Azura.

While the famous video footage of her abuela beating up Odalia at the Archive House showed that she survived Belos and the Collector, her family and friends generally treated Odalia as if she no longer exists, so Azura wasn't sure if she was still alive.

"She wishes she was dead," said Luz cryptically with an evilish chuckle. Then she paused for a bit. "Whoa, I need to stop getting sidetracked. Okay, I saw your Mom approach Willow and mock her abomination, which was just a purple puddle with eyeballs. She summoned her own abomination which put a little star-shaped stain on Willow's uniform, just like Amity's top student badge but 'smaller and meaningless.' Oh and before that she said that Willow was so unnoticeable she almost rolled into her."

Azura just sat there completely speechless. Honestly, how was she supposed to react to that?

Luz looked concerned. "Mija…?"

"I'm fine. I just need a minute to process this…"

"Oof," said Hal. "That's… that's pretty… oof."

"Hey, Azura… if it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one whose mom used to be a mean girl," said Dratina, holding Melody's hand. "I mean, you're not alone with this…" They gulped awkwardly. "We could talk about it sometime… if you want to."

Azura smiled, a faint blush appearing on her face. "I'd like that…"

"Okay, I'm good now," said Azura,

"Alright." Luz gave a quick thumbs-up. "Your Mom left after about a minute, but not before insulting Willow one last time. I watched the whole conversation from behind some bushes and I stuck my tongue out at Amity when she left 'cause she was a jerk."

"Oh, it really wasn't love at first sight then," said Azura.

"Yeah," said Luz. "Though if it makes you feel any better, her initial reaction to me wasn't any better. Anyway, Willow got really mad about Amity, about how much he hates abominations, all that jazz. And when Willow's emotions got strong back in those days, her eyes would glow bright green and she would do tremendous feats of plant magic uncontrollably. Even when she wasn't trying, she was still the strongest plant witch."

"Did she accidentally hurt you?"

"Yeah. A bunch of vines came out of the ground and one of them grabbed me and dropped me on the ground. But once she noticed me, she instantly calmed down and apologized. And then started fangirling a little when she realized I'm a human. I complimented what she did with the plants but she explained that she wasn't even supposed to be doing that since her parents enrolled her in the abomination track at school. Magic school was still on my mind so once she mentioned it, I came up with a brilliant idea: I would sneak into school with her and be her abomination."

"That's nota brilliant idea," said Dratina.

"But it's an important moment in our world's history!" Lobo pointed out.

"Finally, a good excuse to do dumb things on purpose!" shouted Julie.

"I could just cover myself with purple goop and copy what your Mom was doing. That way she could get a passing grade and I could get into magic school. Win-win!"

Azura didn't seem particularly impressed.

"Yeah, it wasn't the best plan— I'll admit that," said Luz. "But Willow's grades really couldn't get any worse, so it was kinda smart." Luz tapped her finger on her head, proud of her genius. "So I hopped inside Willow's pot of goop and she took me into Hexside. We went over to her locker and that's where I met Gus. Speaking of the lockers at Hexside, while not having to remember a combination is nice, I'll admit that Earth lockers are more practical. Anyway, Gus approached Willow with a Human Realm magazine and started talking about braces and how they probably make teeth magnetic. I was supposed to stay hidden in the pot but I couldn't help joking that they're for storing treats."

"That would be weird," said Azura. "Good joke, though."

"Thanks," said Luz with a smile. "After that, Willow was pretty much forced to show me to Gus. He was so excited to see a real human and asked me where my gills were."

"Gills?"

Luz shrugged awkwardly. "Eh, knowledge of humans tended to be faulty before I came here."

"But didn't enough trash wash up for people to at least know human biology?" Syl questioned.

"I guess not," said Azura.

"That's also when I christened him with the nickname 'Gus'. Before that, he was always 'Augustus'. His excitement about having a human nickname made Willow's fangirling sound like nothing. But he didn't stick around long because class was about to begin. Back then, abomination classes were taught by this short guy named Hermonculus and he was a huge jerk. He said the students did so badly that they were the real abominations."

Azura frowned. "That's mean."

"Yeah, I'm glad Bump fired him once Hexside reopened," said Luz.

"Hey, that's nothing compared to how some of the Glandus teachers used to be," said Hal. "According to Mom and Pop, the oracle teacher there would punish students by showing them bad possible futures. One kid had to witness himself being murdered by his entire family."

…

…

…

After a long silence, it was Dratina who spoke first. "What the actual %# ?"

Everyone looked at them confused. "How'd you just censor yourself in real life?" said Lobo.

"Bard spell. It's not that difficult."

"He's also kind of incompetent too. When it was Willow's turn to present I think I did a decent job acting like an abomination, but I looked nothing like one. And he still bought the whole thing. Although, my puns were pretty good." Luz stood up and mimicked her gestures from nineteen years ago. "I may be your abomination, but you're my a-mom-ination."

Azura giggled again. "Good one, Mami."

"I try my best." Luz gave a little bow and sat back down. "But yeah, Hermonculus bought the whole thing, and he liked it so much that he took away your Mom's Top Student badge and gave it to Willow. And that really set Amity off, since she knew Willow couldn't make a good abomination. I think she was literally the only person who cared about that badge, but considering the amount of pressure you-know-who put on her, I don't blame her. Anyway, she got real suspicious and kinda stalked us. Gus gave me a half a sandwich at lunchtime and in seconds, Amity jumped on the table and started yelling because abominations don't eat. She reached down into the pot and grabbed me, then shook me around demanding answers. I couldn't really say anything, so I just did nothing with a dead look on my face. And you know what, I'm sure there have been worse first interactions between spouses."

"I heard a story about two assassins who were hired to kill each other," said Syl. "That's pretty bad."

"I don't think that can compete with my moms," said Azura. "Mom tried to have Mami dissected."

"Dissected!?" shouted everyone else at the table.

"Yep!" Azura paused for a bit. "Well, maybe."

"And then Hermonculus showed up out of nowhere and accused Amity of trying to sabotage Willow's abomination. He sent her right to the principal's office, and I couldn't tell if she was sad or angry, but either way she was gonna do something about that. And that's the perfect segue into the part of the story where I almost got dissected!"

Azura's eyes widened. "You what!?"

"Yeah, it was kinda terrifying!" Luz chuckled. "Willow, Gus, and I were in a classroom where I introduced Gus to the most classic human gesture: the high-five. (Actually, I'm pretty sure the high-five was invented in the '70s, but whatever.) Soon after, the door burst open. Your Mom told Principal Bump about Willow's supposed abomination, and he had to see me for himself. At first, he was just giving commands like you'd do at a dog show. Unfortunately, I realized that too late because when he told me to lie I started telling lies instead of lying down. And if he wasn't suspicious before, then that really did the deal. He wanted a close look of what her 'abomination' was made of, so he handed Willow a dagger and told her to make the first cut."

"Oh wow," said Azura. "Mom really did get you almost dissected."

"I think it was mostly a way of coaxing Willow and I to admit what we did," said Luz. "I don't think they were actually gonna dissect me." There was another awkward pause. "Probably."

All of a sudden, Amity felt an overwhelming sense of shame. "Titan, where are these sudden feelings coming from today?"

"Luckily, Gus knocked over some abomination pots which distracted Bump long enough for us to run out of the room, but pretty quickly he activated this red laser security system."

"Lasers?" asked Azura. "I've never seen anything like that."

"I'm pretty sure that stuff got damaged when all the kids were running New Hexside and it was just never fixed." Luz hummed in thought. "Or maybe it stopped working before that. That system would've been useful when the Emper— oh wait, that's a spoiler. But yeah, Bump managed to corner us and he sent some real abominations after us. I apologized for getting Willow in trouble just because I wanted to see magic school. Willow just got really sad and said she really was just half-a-witch, and I hated seeing a kindred spirit so upset. I told her that she's wrong— she's full-witch Willow! She's a great witch, and great witches are resourceful. I reached for the junk in my pocket, and Willow's spirits instantly lifted. It turns out that greasy slime ball wasn't slime at all— it was a seed!"

Luna turned to Peony. "Is that what you were gonna say before?"

Peony sighed. "Yes."

"That's still no reason to spoil stuff," said Melody.

"But Aunt Luz has been giving some spoilers!" Peony protested. "She already admitted the 'slime ball' would be important!"

"She's doing the best she can!" exclaimed Syl.

"Oh, I think I know where this is going," said Azura.

"Yeah, Willow drew a little spell circle and dozens of large vines shot out of the seed, going all around the school and disabling the security systems. We had a clear shot to the exit, but your Mom showed up again. She wasn't letting us leave with her badge so she sicced some abominations after us. Willow summoned some more plants to keep them at bay, and used some of them to grab me and drop me outside. I didn't want to leave her, but she didn't want me to get hurt. I know I've mentioned how I used to blame myself for other people's misfortunes, especially if I was involved somehow."

Azura gave Luz another hug. "Sorry you felt like that, Mami."

"Aww, thanks." Luz leaned into the hug. "Well, I figured Eda could help Willow, so I ran back to the Owl House where apparently she and King were having their own adventure involving a baby trash slug. You'll have to ask them about the details. Anyway, I started explaining the situation to her but all of a sudden Willow and Gus showed up. I have no idea how they got there so fast but I guess it made things easier. Willow was fine! Bump saw her totally awesome feat with the seed and switched her to the plant track— she could finally thrive!"

Azura cheered and clapped.

"On a lesser note, I was banned from the building— that made Eda happy for sure. Obviously she eventually got me unbanned, but that's not for like another six adventures."

"Being banned must've sucked though."

Luz gave a so-so gesture. "In some ways it did, but honestly I was so grateful to have made two amazing friends that I wouldn't trade for anything!"

"Did mom ever get her badge back?" asked Azura.

"I think so," said Luz. "It helped that she got Bump to count that day's abomination class as extra credit, which in fairness was probably for the best."

"I still have no idea how an abomination professor thought an actual person was an abomination," said Dratina. "Just think how bad Mrs. Noceda could've turned out if she didn't have her dad as another teacher."

Azura tried to imagine her Mom not being excellent at abominations. It hurt to think about.

"Anyway, next up is the story of how I learned my first glyph, and also when me and King found out about Eda's curse!"

For the record, Raeda is Luz's favorite TOH romance, not mine. Lumity all the way!

Also the idea of Camila beating up Odalia in the Archive House, including the detail that people recorded it, is freely borrowed from "A Mother's Wrath" by FungusDungus000. Go read that if you haven't already, it's great!

I wrote a similar fic myself in January but that exact scenario never quite fit with canon.