A/N: Thank you to everyone who has favourited, followed, reviewed, and read this story. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. Further author's notes will be included at the bottom of the chapter, so do stick around for that at the end. In the meantime, hope you enjoy the latest update.
Chapter 58: Don't Hold a Grudgby
The last time Lizzie had encountered Lilith, it was deep within the Webbed Woods after the aforementioned witch and her younger sister fell for a scam courtesy of the sleazy merchant lurking at the book fair. While it started off as an unpleasant encounter for the three witches, their parting when all was said and done was met on okay terms, even despite Lilith's attempts to get Lizzie and Eda to surrender themselves to the law and her light-hearted remarks regarding her plans to continue pursuing Eda's arrest (the latter of which Eda jokingly acknowledged in her farewell). Lizzie wouldn't deny that the events surrounding the Bloom of Eternal Youth had given her a new perspective of the Emperor's Coven leader; however, that hadn't stopped a tense silence from veiling itself over the living room of the Owl House the moment hers, King's and Eda's eyes locked with Lilith's flaring ones. After all, she was still on the side of the law (not to mention associated with a coven whose very name used to cause literal shivers down Lizzie's spine), and her objective hadn't changed last time Lizzie checked. Therefore, she was still an enemy trespassing, an enemy who Lizzie feared would one day find her and invade her safe space.
And now, that was the reality she was currently facing.
As the silence prolonged, Lizzie's fight or flight response kicked in when Lilith slowly pushed herself to her feet and tucked loose strands of hair across her forehead back to the sides, instinctively shuffling closer to Eda's right side and holding her trembling arms up at the ready in case she needed to cast a spell. The blonde-haired witch didn't need to question her technical employer out loud to know that Lilith wasn't supposed to know where they were. Hooty's reaction to bringing Lilith in said it all. Yet the whole reason why Eda nicknamed her home 'The Owl House' in the first place hadn't just been a convenient reference to her 'fame' as the most wanted witch in the Boiling Isles, but to also act as a secret code between its residents without exposing their location. Aside from Eda, King, Hooty, Lizzie, Luz and Luz's acquaintances, no one else knew or should have known where they hid themselves from society, so of course Lizzie's instinctual reaction to Lilith was fear. Heck, she still remembered how terrified she'd been the day she'd first met Luz standing in the middle of the living room, and she didn't even know she was a human then!
Luckily for Lizzie, King and Eda were quick to detect her distress and wasted no time in ensuring she was reassured. King lowered himself to all-fours with squared shoulders and shuffled along the sofa to stand close to Eda's left side, a scowl gracing his bony face as he stood like a guard dog awaiting orders to pounce. Eda, meanwhile, snatched the lunchbox off the coffee table and shoved it inside her bushy hair with her palm without breaking eye contact with her older sister, matching the older witch's vitriol scowl as she placed a hand to Lizzie's closest shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.
A wary stare down ensued between both parties for a few moments, with Hooty blissfully loitering in the open doorway and occasionally switching his gaze back and forth like he was watching an intense game of grudgby.
It was Eda who eventually shattered the silence with an icy greeting: "Lilith."
Lilith lifted her shoulders a bit and pointed her nose to the ceiling as she replied in kind, her narrowed eyes looking upon her younger sister with disdain. "Edalyn." Though her gaze did soften upon sideways glancing Lizzie for a solid five seconds, her verbal acknowledgement towards the younger witch spoken in an even tone. "Elisabeth."
Lizzie's brows raised with a wide blink at being addressed, yet she stayed silent and chose to respond with a curt nod instead. In the least, Lilith's change in demeanour towards her ceased her shaking, allowing Lizzie to relax her shoulders by the time the older witch was returning her gaze to Eda, her aquamarine eyes instantly locking with the younger witch's grudgby jacket.
"Why are you wearing your old grudgby jacket?" Lilith asked while pointing, prompting Eda's scowl to deepen.
"That's none of your business," the Owl Lady replied tautly and folded her arms across her chest. "What are you doing in my house?!"
Lilith released a heavy sigh at this and raised her right index finger, bending it enough to ignite her fingertip in a light blue glow. "Shouldn't it be obvious by now, dear sister?" she retorted sarcastically, not bothering to wait for a response to her question.
Lilith quickly drew a small spell circle in the air without breaking eye contact with Eda, causing a long scroll to appear in a flash between her hands. She cleared her throat and resumed her talking while the scroll unravelled and rolled across the floor until it reached the closest leg of the coffee table, the latter of which Eda, Lizzie and King watched happen with matching forced blinks.
"Edalyn Clawthorne, by the order of the Emperor's Coven, you are hereby charged with the following offences—"
Eda didn't even let Lilith finish. With the drooping of her golden eyes and the removal of her hand from her technical charge's shoulder, the grey-haired witch lifted and twirled her left index finger to summon her own small golden spell circle, enveloping the scroll in a golden light upon completion. Shortly after, it rapidly rolled itself back up from the bottom end, forcing Lilith to let it go and recoil her hands with a wide blink. The tail end of the scroll smacked the older witch in the nose as the paper vanished into scattered golden dust, making Lilith yelp and step back while covering her nose with her palms.
"That's not what I meant and you know it, Lil," Eda said dryly, ignoring King's amused snickers and Lizzie's wince at her older sister's reaction to getting slapped in the face. The Owl Lady rounded the coffee table and stood opposite Lilith with her hands to her hips and a disapproving frown, soon followed by King jumping from the sofa to the table and then trotting after her on all-fours to the table edge. "Tell me how you found out where I've been hiding."
Lilith returned the frown and placed one of her hands to her hip, pointing a finger from the other one at Hooty still lingering in the open doorway. "Not until your infernal house demon releases my companion!" she demanded, prompting the trio's brows to raise as they followed Lilith's finger to the 'infernal house demon' in question.
"Wha…?" was all Eda could muster in response, vaguely recalling that Hooty had mentioned two friends after his unexpected entrance.
But before the Owl Lady could even think to question who it was… a familiar and startled squeak erupted from outside. Next thing the current occupants of the Owl House knew, a black blur scurried its way into the living room from underneath Hooty's elongated body, briefly stopping upon its hind legs in the middle of Eda and Lilith with its beady eyes darting about in a frenzy. It took Lizzie five seconds to process the creature as a black furred and wooden looking ferret, the name that instantly popped into her head slipping out of her mouth as a croak before she could even think to stop it.
"Bandit?"
Bandit's head whipped in the direction of the blonde-haired witch with the twitch of his ears, his eyes lighting up at beholding the witch he recognised to be the younger cousin of his owner. Lizzie watched on with a small gape and multiple blinks as the ferret palisman darted straight for her and clambered up her legs as fast as his own little legs would allow, making his way to her left shoulder with a frantic string of squeaks. Lizzie only broke her speechless gaze away from Bandit upon catching Eda turning to face her from within her peripheral vision, the Owl Lady wearing the same bewildered expression as she probably wore right now.
Neither witch needed to speak aloud for the other to know the identity of whoever they were both thinking was currently trapped in Hooty's clutches, but that wasn't the reason why their shocked stare down didn't last for more than a few seconds. Eda's golden eyes shifted to Bandit when the ferret palisman started waving his front paws wildly above his head to get her attention, continuing his panicked squeaking as he did so. About ten seconds of silence passed before the Owl Lady visibly reacted and made Bandit fall quiet, her mouth falling open as if she'd just witnessed a murder happen right in front of her.
"He's what?" she questioned, with Bandit answering with a verbal squeak and accompanied nod of confirmation. A few seconds later and Eda's shock shifted to anger, her eyes narrowing as she whirled round to face Hooty. "Hooty," Eda addressed the house demon in a stern tone, jabbing an index finger at the carpet for good measure. "Bring Tool-bag in here now."
Lizzie, naturally, was unaware of what Bandit had just been trying to tell her, and yet one look at her technical employer's face and general behaviour, along with her tone of voice, was all she needed to know that whatever Eda heard wasn't a good thing. After all, there was no way in the Titan's name that the Owl Lady would allow Xander inside here after the last two encounters Lizzie had had with him that she'd borne witness to. He was an obvious threat to her. So, if Eda was willing to look past that, then something was clearly wrong, and Lizzie didn't like it one bit.
"Hoot hoot! Okie-dokie!" Hooty jovially responded, unfazed by the intensified tension still shrouding the air.
Doing as he was told, Hooty shifted his head closer to the door and once again raised and stretched his snake-like body over the threshold, bringing a second humanoid figure into view restrained in his coils. Lizzie obviously already knew who it was before the 'grand reveal', and yet that didn't stop her green eyes from instantly bulging at recognising the uniform of the Emperor's Coven past the gaps where Hooty's body was secured around his captive at varying and unaligned angles. The sight of Xander, even with his cloak hood shielding his face, in the Owl House immediately gave rise to rapid palpitations in Lizzie's chest, forcing her to press her palms close to her sternum at feeling her adrenaline spiking upon instinct. She still remembered very clearly what Xander said to her before they'd parted ways last time, and she didn't doubt for one second that the older witch was here purely to stay true to his word.
However, it took a few seconds for Lizzie to notice that something was definitely off once Hooty brought Xander to the middle of the living room and prepared to drop him on the carpet. Unlike with Lilith's entrance, her cousin was still and silent, resting limply in Hooty's hold with his head bowed forward. Lizzie also noticed that Xander was wrapped in a white cloak that looked a size or two too big for him, the inclusion of gold on the design helping Lizzie to recognise the cloak was Lilith's.
'What the—?'
Her internal question was interrupted the moment Hooty unceremoniously released Xander close to Lilith's feet, her eyes momentarily widening at the sight of her cousin landing on his left side like a rag doll being tossed around by an angry child. His current position allowed the right side of his face to be exposed to the residents of the Owl House, with Lizzie leaning back in surprise when she realised Xander's mask was missing and his eyes were closed.
Her cousin was out cold, but that wasn't what caused Eda, Lizzie and King to simultaneously wince and close an eye. A large purple bruise (about twice the size of her thumb, Lizzie estimated) was visible on his forehead, while two thin lines of fresh blood trickled out of his nostrils, around the corners of his mouth and down his chin, partially staining his white cloak with tiny splodges of bright red.
'Holy Titan…'
"Ooooooooh," King commented as he placed a paw close to his eyes and looked off to the living room doorway. "I'm normally all for violence, but… yikes."
"Yeah," Eda added under her breath. "Even I can't help feeling sorry for 'im and I hate the little twerp's guts."
Lizzie hunched her shoulders and looked at Eda with her knuckles pressed close to her lips, concern and panic naturally seeping into her tone. "What even happened?"
"Hooty happened." The Owl Lady glanced over at her charge just as she let out a shocked gasp.
"Hooty did that?!"
"What can I say?" Eda gave a casual shrug of her shoulders. "Bird-brain knows how to use his head! Literally."
"It's true! Hoot!" Hooty blissfully chimed in with a beaming smile to match, ignoring King's amused titter at the joke.
Lizzie's shock instantly vanished with the roll of her eyes. "Don't you start with the puns!" she snapped, causing the Owl Lady's palms to raise along with her brows at the switch in demeanour. "We already get enough of that from Luz and King, thank you!"
"Hey!" King shouted out of objection, but he was promptly ignored.
"Yeesh, calm down!" Eda said. "It's not Hooty's fault he's got a hard head!"
"That's not the point, Eda!" Lizzie cried and held out her hand towards the unconscious witch on the floor. "What did Hooty do to him?!"
"Your demonic bird worm knocked young Xander unconscious with a headbutt," Lilith answered matter-of-factly and scowled towards said 'bird worm', with Hooty remaining unfazed by the animosity even as Lizzie stared at him with wide eyes. "Had it not interfered, I could have healed his injuries much sooner."
Eda raised a brow and pointed at the cloak Xander was wrapped in. "Is that why Blackwood is wearing your cloak?" The Owl Lady didn't wait for her sister to answer, letting a playful smirk slip. "Didn't think you had a soft spot for your underlings, Lily."
Lilith opened her mouth in preparation to refute Eda's teasing, but Lizzie beat her to it and drew the Clawthorne sisters' attention to her upon overcoming her shock at the new information she'd been told.
"You headbutted him, Hooty?!" the blonde-haired witch shrieked at the mentioned owl demon, causing Bandit to wince and shuffle away from her a little at her high-pitched tone. "Were you trying to give him a concussion?!"
"He jumped in the way!" Hooty replied defensively and frowned. "He didn't want to wait his turn! Hoot!"
Lizzie pressed her lips together into a thin line and dug the fingers of both hands deep into the front of her hair, tugging tightly on her roots and making her body tremble to the point it looked like she was a volcano about to erupt. And who could blame her, when it was clear Hooty was not helping her with his responses?
Luckily, Lilith silenced the younger witch and made her fall still with the raise of her palm. "Fear not, Elisabeth," she reassured calmly, waiting until Lizzie sucked in a deep breath through her mouth and released her grip on her hair before stepping closer to the unconscious Xander. "I happen to be well-versed in the basic spells of healing magic. Allow me."
As Lilith knelt behind Xander and prepared to roll him over onto his back, Eda clicked her tongue at her sister's comment. "Show-off," she grumbled, with Lilith seemingly having not heard her as she proceeded to roll Xander over.
Still, Lilith's words did wonders for the younger blonde witch stood behind the Owl Lady, who let her shoulders slump with a quiet sigh… until Xander's face was fully exposed at being laid on his back. A small patch of slightly raised, shiny and jagged shaped dark red skin surrounded Xander's left eyelid, causing Lizzie's breath to catch in her throat at the sudden realisation that dawned upon her.
Xander wasn't wearing his eyepatch, a mental reminder that instantly conjured Principal Bump's words from the day Lizzie and Eda visited Hexside.
'You told me you'd miscalculated the amount of magic you'd put into the concoction; you apparently put in more than intended, which is why he received second degree burns severe enough to leave burn scars.'
'That's… Xander's burn scar, isn't it?'
Lizzie couldn't think of what else it could be. For one thing, she knew it definitely wasn't from Hooty, seeing as that was clearly a burn and Hooty couldn't inflict those. And based on the shiny sheen and how the jagged corners of the injury were a little faded, it was obviously a scar inflicted prior to Hooty's attack in the forest. Of course, that knowledge did little to ease Lizzie's discomfort and prevent the colour draining from her face.
Meanwhile, Lilith remained unfazed by the exposed scar, naturally because she'd seen it back in the forest shortly after Hooty's assault. With a furrowed brow, she held her palms above Xander's forehead and nose and splayed her fingers, igniting a light blue glow that coated her entire hands up to her wrists. But the same couldn't be said for Eda and King, with the former's golden eyes almost bulging from her sockets with a quiet gasp at coming to the same realisation as her technical charge and the latter cringing and crinkling his skull-tipped nose.
"Ugh!" the little demon exclaimed with narrowed eyes. "That looks nasty! Did Hooty do that too?!"
The Owl Lady didn't dare to respond to King. She was already preparing to look over at Lizzie the moment she recognised what she was staring at, instantly acknowledging she was right to do so upon seeing how sweaty and sickly the younger witch now looked in the face, her wide green eyes glistening with a faraway stare.
From the little Lizzie recalled of the aftermath of her provoked attack on Xander, she'd never once gotten a glimpse of the injury she'd inflicted. Her brief and triggered recollections of the events following the attack showed Xander keeping his eye covered by his hand, and the last time they were together in Principal Bump's office on the day of her expulsion, she swore he was bandaged up. Since then, Lizzie had become used to seeing her cousin with that bandage over his eye whenever he was without his mask during their most recent encounters, so it was no wonder seeing the injury 'in the flesh' for the first time had left her speechless and shellshocked, her knees shaking so much, they were close to knocking into each other.
'I knew what I'd done to him was bad when Principal Bump mentioned he'd suffered second degree burns, but… I didn't know it looked that bad. And it's been three years since I hurt him…'
Lizzie's breathing grew heavy and ragged, her body wobbled from side-to-side and then the next thing she knew, she was falling forward, plummeting towards the carpeted floor as if an invisible force had grabbed her and pulled her downward. During this time, she thought she heard Bandit shriek and felt his presence disappear from her shoulder (which, unbeknownst to her, was the little ferret palisman 'abandoning ship' by daringly leaping onto the red sofa arm behind her). Though the blonde witch only made it a quarter of the way before a pair of arms swooped under hers, causing her face to collide with the front of Eda's grudgby jacket.
"Whoa there, kid!" the Owl Lady cried out in alarm, steadying the younger witch and hoisting her back up into a standing position. "Easy does it!"
Lizzie showed no resistance to Eda's attempts to help her, allowing the older witch to bring her closer to her side and wrap an arm round her middle while she continued to wobble a little from side-to-side. As such, she was unaware of King and Hooty having turned to face them with forced blinks and Lilith momentarily breaking her concentration when her head snapped up at hearing Bandit's shrieking and Eda's cry. Lizzie wasn't sure what exactly had come over her, but with the way the living room was contorting into spirals when she tried to lift her head, she knew whatever it was wasn't good.
"You doing okay, Lizzie?" Eda asked after a short round of silence, naturally concerned about what kind of reaction seeing her cousin's scar had caused.
Lizzie twisted her head to look up at the older witch and opened her mouth to answer, yet the moment green locked with gold, a wave of nausea washed over her throat. Eda watched with furrowed brows as the blonde witch closed her mouth again with a muffled gag and puffed her cheeks out.
'Please don't make me throw up!'
Though it probably would have been worse if she also had a headache, she mentally concluded.
Eda's eyes drooped at watching Lizzie bury her face into her closest shoulder and squeeze her eyes shut. "… I'll take that as a 'no'," she muttered sarcastically and slowly ushered Lizzie in the direction of the red sofa, catching King bounding across the coffee table on all-fours to leap back onto the middle seat from the corner of her eyes. "You should get off your feet for a bit."
And Lizzie made no verbal objection to that, letting Eda gently lower her to the far-right seat of the sofa and then sinking her back into the sofa cushions with the drop of her shoulders. In doing so, her sickness instantly vanished, her vision stopped spinning and her breathing levelled out, prompting her to tilt her head back against the sofa.
'Ugh. Great,' Lizzie inwardly groaned as she eventually raised an arm to cover her eyes. 'As if I wasn't already feeling guilty for putting my parents under house arrest. Am I ever going to catch a break today?'
At one point, Lizzie turned her head to the left and peeked from behind her arm at feeling slight pressure added to her shoulder, only to spy Bandit having returned to his previous position and was now lightly rubbing the top of his head against her closest cheek, causing the blonde witch to narrow her eyes at the ferret palisman.
Why did Bandit's reaction to her distress and discomfort seem so familiar?
'Wait. Didn't he do this when Eda and I were trapped in the back of that animal control carriage?'
Lizzie's internal and rhetorical question went unanswered, of course, her attention soon being drawn to King upon hearing him speak. The little demon was standing beside her on two legs again, a concerned frown etched into his bony skull.
"Eda, is Lizzie okay?" Lizzie watched King give her a brief sideways glance. "She looks paler than you!"
Lizzie saw Eda roll her eyes at the comment, yet the Owl Lady refrained from retaliating; now wasn't the time for her and King to get into a bantering match.
"It's just the first time she's looked under the eyepatch," Eda reassured, only to furrow her brows at her own words and give Lizzie a sideways glance. "I am right about that, aren't I?" Lizzie answered with a weak thumbs-up and then flopped her hand down upon her forehead once more, making Eda snort. "Ha! Still got it! Either way, she should be right as the Boiling Rain in a few minutes. That being said,"—Eda's tone grew stern as she glanced between Hooty and King—"you two keep an eye on her just in case."
"And what about him?" King enquired while pointing a raised claw at Bandit, his pink eyes shifting to the ferret palisman still nuzzling Lizzie's cheek.
"Pfft!" Eda waved King off with a hand as she prepared to walk away. "Little guy's practically harmless! He and Lizzie are best buds now, remember?"
Bandit paused in his nuzzling to look at Eda's back with a wide blink, while Lizzie narrowed her eyes at the Owl Lady from just underneath her arm.
"I wouldn't take it that far," the blonde witch muttered.
Eda shook her head at the comment. "Just stay put for now." She scowled and crossed her arms over her chest, her next words coming out as a low growl. "Leave my sister and Tool-bag to me."
"You can count on us, Eda! Hoot!" Hooty answered, with King, Lizzie and Bandit staying quiet and watching Eda move away.
Despite how she was feeling, Lizzie spied Eda's stiff posture as she approached a kneeling Lilith, her shoulders square and her head held high. It matched well with the hint of anger Eda just let slip, leaving Lizzie wondering if she was about to rip Lilith a new one for not only what had happened to Xander, but also to her.
'Suppose we're going to find out, aren't we?'
By the time Eda came to a stop before the still unconscious Xander, Lilith had since resumed her attempts to heal him. With Xander's nostrils no longer leaking blood and the bruise on his forehead having vanished, the blue glow around Lilith's palms dimmed and dispersed. The coven leader lowered her hands to her thighs and scrutinised the dried blood streaked down the bottom half of Xander's face with a small sigh.
"There is still the matter of cleaning up his face. Otherwise, he is now fine," she explained to Eda, her aquamarine eyes lifting to her sister's narrowed golden ones. "Is Elisabeth—?"
"What were you thinking, Lilith?" Eda abruptly cut the older witch off, causing Lilith, Hooty, King and Bandit to stare at the Owl Lady's back with wide blinks and raised brows. "I thought you were better than this!"
Even Lizzie was taken aback by Eda's display of anger despite her suspicions, managing to push herself up into a sitting position while copying the reactions of everyone else.
'Geez. What's gotten into Eda all of a sudden?'
"I beg your pardon?" Lilith questioned as she recoiled a little, understandably confused by Eda's behaviour.
"I get you came all the way here for me!" Eda gestured her palms to Xander on the carpeted floor, her golden eyes burning with the rage she so badly wanted to unleash on her sister. "But did ya have to bring Tool-bag with you?!"
Lilith quickly regained her composure with a scowl. "His name is Xander," she corrected as she rose to her feet and crossed her arms, her shoulders squaring. "And I don't recall his presence here being any of your concern, sister."
"It is if Redwood's safety is involved!" Eda copied her sister's stance and jutted her chin to the ceiling for good measure, her hands balling into fists against her forearms. "It's bad enough Lizzie's uncle is out to get her and he's forcing junior here to be a part of it, but Tool-guy is a low-ranking coven scout who has no business being anywhere near me!"
Lizzie cocked a brow when this was said, her hand instinctively placing itself to her chest at the sudden warmth sprouting there. This wasn't the first time Eda had been protective over her, especially around Lilith during Covention and Xander during previous encounters. Yet there was something strangely endearing about hearing it from Eda after recent events, to the point where it was practically tugging at her heartstrings.
'Eda…'
Meanwhile, Lilith's brows raised at hearing the word 'uncle', becoming momentarily distracted by this new information.
"Uncle?" the Emperor's Coven leader repeated under her breath, a faint frown forming on her brow.
Her gaze broke away from Eda's and went to Lizzie for several seconds, then switched to Xander's unconscious face for several seconds more; however, the older witch's train of thought trailed off at catching Eda reaching for the front of her bushy hair and harshly tugging at her grey roots.
"Why did you think it was a good idea to bring him here, Lily?!" Eda continued in a taut tone. "The little twerp almost suffered a concussion protecting you!"
"Huh?" Lizzie uttered with a slight gape, only just becoming privy to this information. She whipped her head to Bandit with a wide blink. "Is that true?"
The ferret palisman simultaneously squeaked and nodded in response, leaving Lizzie speechless and returning her attention to the Clawthorne sisters at hearing Lilith raise her voice.
"I never ordered him to do such a thing!" she said with a slightly wobbly tone, her expression breaking for a few seconds when she dared to flit her eyes to Xander and then regained her icy stare; did Lizzie just imagine that? "I only brought him along to give him an opportunity to help Elisabeth, just as he attempted to do back at Covention!"
"And you thought that was a good enough reason to ignore his low rank in the scouts?!"
"It's not like I underestimated his capabilities! I knew from what I saw during the Covention that he could handle himself just fine, and my judgement is rarely wrong!"
"Says the coven leader who got a young adult witch knocked out!"
"You think you're one to talk about responsibility?!" the Emperor's Coven leader snapped, balling her fists at her sides and stomping her foot. "At least I haven't convinced a young adult witch that living a lawless life is better than being a law-abiding citizen!"
Eda straightened up and placed both of her hands to her hips with a loud scoff. "And since when did you suddenly care about what Lizzie does with her life?"
"Since I've discovered just how remarkable of a witch she actually is." Lizzie's eyes widened with a blink to match at hearing this, yet she stayed quiet as Lilith gestured her palms to the ceiling of the cottage. "Elisabeth's talents are wasted squatting in the middle of the woods like this! She doesn't deserve to be living the life of a criminal and you know it!"
Eda didn't respond then. Lizzie wasn't sure if it was because Eda just didn't have the energy to keep the debate going or because she knew arguing with Lilith was a lost cause. Either way, she turned to the coffee table with a disgusted groan and stuck her finger in one of ears with a twist, clearly trying to tune out Lilith's ramblings as the older witch sighed heavily and gave herself a few seconds to calm down.
"The emperor has big plans for the Isles and I want you both to be a part of it all," she pleaded, while Eda proceeded to pick up her photo album from the table and pretended to be focusing on it. "Don't you think it's time you set a good example and joined a coven?"
Eda forced out a yawn and held her palm close to her face to fake her attempt to silence it. "Yeah, no, we'll pass on that incredible opportunity," the Owl Lady sarcastically replied without looking away from the photo album. "We're very happy here, thank you very much."
Lilith narrowed her eyes as her attention became drawn to the photo album in Eda's grasp, silently stewing away at her sister's ignorance. But after a few seconds of silence followed, the coven leader finally let her curiosity get the better of her. She stomped forward around Xander and swiped the binder from her sister's grasp like a cat attacking its prey, the action making Eda involuntarily flinch and blink out of surprise.
"What are you even looking at?" Lilith snidely remarked, though she didn't give Eda a chance to answer. Instead, the Owl Lady watched as her older sister held the opened book close to her face and scrutinised the current pages for several seconds, witnessing Lilith's brows raise the moment she realised what she was staring at. "Are these your old Hexside pictures?" Lilith sideways glanced Eda and looked her current attire up and down, cocking a brow once she returned her gaze to her face. "Feeling sentimental for the good old days, were you?" she asked mockingly.
Eda forced out a loud laugh and wrapped her arms round her middle. "Ha! Yeah, right! Like I get sentimental!" She smiled proudly and jabbed a thumb over her shoulder to where Lizzie, King and Hooty were. "I was just telling King and Redwood about my grudgby days and how good I was." An amused smirk appeared on Lilith's face at this, making Eda's smile vanish with the pursing of her lips and King, Lizzie and Hooty frown out of confusion at her reaction. "What?"
"Oh, Edalyn," Lilith replied with a disapproving tut and shake of the head. "It would seem the curse isn't just affecting your appearance, but your memory as well." Lilith plucked the photograph of teenage Eda posing with the grudgby trophy from the opened pages and slammed the book shut with her other hand, continuing to smirk smugly while holding the photograph up for her sister, King and Lizzie to see between her index finger and thumb. As a result, Lizzie squinted at noticing the photograph had a bend where its left corner should have been, whereas Hooty and King were left blinking widely at the revelation. "You may have been the star player," Lilith continued, using her thumb to unfold the left side of the photograph and straighten it out again between her fingers. "but I was the team captain, remember?"
'Wait, what?'
The moment she saw the unveiled part of the picture (which had its top left corner ripped off), Eda rolled her eyes and folded her arms over her chest with the crinkling her nose, a hint of red rushing to her cheeks out of embarrassment (something Lizzie noticed from where she was seated). However, both sisters became distracted by Lizzie rising from the sofa and walking over to stand just in front of Eda, her green eyes focused intently on the revealed left side of the picture. Bandit stayed on Lizzie's shoulder in the meantime, standing on his hind legs and leaning forward to get a look for himself.
Sure enough, there stood teenage Lilith, bearing a smug smile, drooped eyes behind her glasses and having her wavy and fluffy orange-red hair tied up into a ponytail with purple face paint streaking down her cheeks from her eyes. She was dressed in the same grudgby uniform as teenage Eda, but with a blue grudgby jacket, blue fingerless gloves and blue knee pads. Like her younger sister, she was posing with the golden trophy she'd earnt, which depicted an oval middle atop a thin stand with spikes protruding from the bottom, bat wings on either side of it and a large hand clutching a grudgby ball poking out of the top. However, this trophy was much larger and reached just above teenage Lilith's ponytail, so teenage Lilith was, understandably, left to lean her right arm against the trophy's left side with her left hand placed to her hip and right leg crossed over her left one.
'Yup. This looks more like the Lilith I know.' Lizzie felt Bandit scurry down her back and onto the floor again, but she didn't pay it any heed as she cupped her chin with a hand. 'But why was Eda hiding this side of the photograph in the first place?'
Staring at the photograph a little longer made Lizzie notice that the trophy wasn't the end to Lilith's achievements. A small purple diamond medal, a small gold circular medal and a small green beetle-shaped medal dangled from around Lilith's neck, while the trophy held a big grey medal with a black middle and grey star around its own.
'Wow. That's a lot of awards. I wonder what she got them for—'
Lizzie flinched as a pair of hands clamped down on both of her shoulders from behind, swiftly followed by the hasty voice of her technical employer as she was gently pulled in the direction of the living room doorway.
"If you're feeling better now, Redwood, you can give us a hand with cleaning up Tool-bag." Lizzie looked over her shoulder at the Owl Lady to see her jerking her head a couple of times towards the living room hallway. "There should still be medical supplies in the kitchen cupboards."
The blonde witch squinted at Eda out of suspicion, clearly picking up on the older witch's strange shift in behaviour. But then before she could say anything, her attention switched to Lilith at hearing the Emperor's Coven leader snort loudly, watching the teal-haired witch return the photograph to its rightful place.
"Why the sudden urgency, Edalyn?" She smirked and held out the closed album for Eda to take. "Have I embarrassed you in front of your adoring fan~?"
"Oh, stow it!" Eda shouted as she snatched the binder from Lilith's grasp, causing Lizzie to back up a couple of steps. When the Owl Lady switched her focus back to her with a faint frown, the blonde-haired witch swore the blush on her cheeks had become more obvious. "Well? What are ya waiting for, kid?"
Lizzie stared at Eda for a few seconds longer, acting like the witch had grown a second head. But when it became obvious that Eda wasn't going to budge and tell her what was wrong, the younger witch relented with a loud huff.
"Fine," she muttered, adding the next part on sarcastically. "Just try not to get arrested while I'm gone."
"Ha! Like that'll happen!" Eda retorted as Lizzie turned away.
She really didn't feel comfortable leaving Eda alone with Lilith considering the circumstances. But her cousin needed to be tended to and she doubted Lilith would try anything while he was still out of commission. Not to mention Eda could handle herself for the thirty-something seconds she'd be gone, right?
Lizzie didn't give Eda or Lilith any further acknowledgement upon making her way out of the living room, tuning them out when she heard Lilith start talking the moment she disappeared into the hallway. Of course, this gave rise to other thoughts pertaining to the current dilemma the Owl House residents had on their hands and not good ones either...
'I can't believe Lilith and Xander found the Owl House! This is my worst nightmare come true! Eda and I got lucky the last time we encountered Lilith in the Webbed Woods because she was there on a separate mission from the emperor. There's no way she's going to leave the two of us alone this time, especially with Xander here, assuming he wakes up any time soon. He's definitely not going to let me go, injured or not.'
With her posture slumped and her hand running down her face with a harsh stretch of her skin and her lips, the young Redwood sauntered into the kitchen and headed straight for the line of cupboards above the worktop and next to the fridge.
'And even if by some miracle we do manage to make them leave, both Lilith and Xander know where Eda and I are hiding now. They'll probably try and come back at some point. Is Hooty going to be enough to keep them back? Are we going to have to move somewhere else?'
The last thing she thought made her shudder at the chill that trickled down her spine.
'Lilith doesn't seem to be hostile at the moment. She's obviously trying a more diplomatic approach like she did at the Webbed Woods. But with how Xander managed to manipulate her back at Covention, there's no telling what he could convince her to do.'
As she opened one of the cupboard doors and grabbed a medium-sized, rectangular, white box in one hand from the bottom shelf, she felt her eyelids start to grow heavy with each blink she initiated, signalling a wave of weariness washing over her; it was probably her mental exhaustion over today's events finally catching up with her, she concluded.
Lizzie sighed heavily and gently pushed the cupboard door closed. 'Oh, Titan! What are we going to do?'
And then miraculously, as though Fate had somehow heard her inner pondering and decided to answer, the scampering of tiny footsteps could be heard approaching the kitchen doorway.
"LIZZIE!" King yelled breathlessly as he rushed in and skidded to a stop upon crossing over the threshold, his vein-bulging pink eyes widening the second he locked gazes with the older witch. "Eda's challenged Lilith to a grudgby match!"
Lizzie's reaction was delayed. She blinked once, then twice, then thrice, just to make sure she'd heard King correctly. But once she was certain that King said Eda had challenged Lilith to a grudgby match, the blonde witch smacked her free palm to her forehead with a resounding slap, the frustration slipping past her lips before she even had a chance to stop it.
"Oh, for Titan's sake!"
A/N: I was planning on updating this fic for yesterday, but we've spent the past week suffering with a terrible heatwave and I cannot tell you how mentally and physically draining it was. I could not for the life of me bring myself to write anything. On top of that, I have also been working on updates for Her Deadly Thorns, which I am hoping to have completed by the beginning of November, if all goes well, along with another non-Owl House writing project currently in the works that I am hoping to upload soon... I can't say much more than that though. Don't want to get people's hopes up.
Either way, with the release of Chapter 58, I hope you guys have understood why I couldn't just summarise that short scene between Eda and Lilith in the original episode in the previous chapter. As mentioned before, Lizzie's and Xander's presences and current situations complicated the heck out of this scene. Lizzie and Xander have caused a lot of tension between Eda and Lilith, so much so the grudgby match had to be moved to the next chapter. But as promised from my last chapter author's notes, one of the reveals I was building up to has since been revealed in this chapter: Xander's burn scar. Ya'll finally got to see it, as did Lizzie, who did not handle it well at all. But this was revelation was made for a reason, and you will come to know that reason in the next chapter. I can't say when I will have the next chapter done by, but expect at least a month with Ghost of a Kind, Her Deadly Thorns and the 'secret' writing project added into the mix. XD
In the meantime, I will get to answering reviews:
Guest (Chapter 54 - Aug 29th): Wow. I think you're the first reviewer I've had to draw attention to Lizzie's paternal grandfather. XD But sadly, no, that won't be happening in this fic or any future instalments. It was mentioned during Chapter 37 for Xander's half of the chapter that Mister Blackwood is deceased and that he has been since Xander was born, since Xander mentions he never met his grandfather either.
Gry27: By all means, go ahead and guess. Though just know that while I will be commenting on the guess and giving my thoughts, I obviously won't be mentioning if you're right or not. You know, to avoid spoilers for the final fic. XD
hoothoot: Oh, that would have been a lovely idea in an alternate timeline. Sadly, the idea that I already have in the works for Episodes 18 and 19 is /bad/. Like, 'bad' as in 'emotionally destroying' and 'you-guys-are-probably-gonna-hate-me' when it's over. XD I can't go into detail for spoiler reasons, but just know that what you see happening in the follow-up chapters for Episode 17 is going to pave way for this 'terrible' idea of mine... XD
