Kriegstag 3, Fifth Lunar Disappearance, 50 CE | The Owl House

"Hey, King, I need your opinion on something."

"What is it?"

"So, for my little library research trip thing with Amity, do you think I should disguise myself as a scary-looking demon, or should I go as a cute little innocent-looking demon?"

"You do realize you could just shapeshift yourself witch ears, right?"

"Yeah, I know I can do that, but I want to try and stretch my abilities, you know? I wanna see what I'm capable of."

"Well, in that case, then do the spooky demon disguise. Looking cute and cuddly is just asking for someone to try and eat you as."

"Alright. Do you think this is appropriately scary, King?" Luz then handed the pint-sized creature a sketch she had been working on for a while.

The creature Luz had drawn, which she called Kraugh, was a bipedal, two-armed demon. Standing around 7 feet tall, it was covered in dark green skin that was rough and scaly. The head of the creature, which Luz had spent more time on than she wanted to admit, was very snakelike, being flat and triangular, with a sharp beak and beady little eyes. From each of the major joints, a long curved blade protruded. The feet and hands of the demon both ended in three short claws that were also curved, albeit to a lesser extent. Each hand also had an opposable thumb, though it was sans blade. (Luz added that to the design solely so she could pick up things without slicing them in half.) The Kraugh also featured a large tail hanging behind the legs, tipped with even more blades, that also doubled for stabilizing the tall demon.

Overall, Luz thought the design would fit right in with all the other nightmare-inducing creatures she had seen during her time on the Isles.

"Oh yeah, this would go great in my army of terrors," King said, giving the drawing back to Luz.

"Do you think I should give it a test run? Make sure it looks right and all that?" Luz asked.

"Why not?" King responded, shrugging his shoulders.

"I like you're thinking," Luz said, giving a smile.

Closing her eyes, Luz first pictured her human form. Then, she imagined her body turning into Kraugh.

The first change she felt was a tail shooting out from her the bottom of her spine. Looking behind her, Luz saw a weird fleshy material spread down the new appendage, completely coating it. After her tail was covered by the foreign material, a trio of spikes erupted from the tip.

Before Luz could even get a chance to give the tail a practice SWISH back and forth, the next stage of changes came. Her middle and ringer fingers melded together, and she could feel something similar happening to her toes. Her spine lengthened, rocketing her up to nearly touching the ceiling with her head. Maybe I can finally be good at basketball now, Luz joked mentally.

Next, Luz's face deformed. Her nose withered away, only leaving behind the nostrils. Her eyes that were normally wide and constantly examining the strange new world shrunk down to mere dots. Her ears pinned themselves flat to her head, barely visible to the naked eye. Her lips eroded into nothing while the rest of her mouth jutted outwards and hardened, becoming a beak. As a slight reprieve, her tongue was saved from being mangled by the transformation. To finish off the restructuring of her cranium, Luz's skull tapered down and became significantly more pointed.

For the final round of changes, Luz witnessed something that nearly made her toss cookies. From her knees, elbows, and wrists, sharp-looking curved blades made of pure bone erupted. Then, the transformation completed by covering her entire body in scales, starting from her head and spreading down the spine, finishing at the tip of her tail.

Luz was incredibly grateful that the shapeshifting process didn't come with any pain.

"So, how do I look?" Luz asked.

"Absolutely terrifying," King answered, giving a thumbs up.

"Sweet! Nobody's gonna mess with me," Luz proclaimed, imitating those poses she saw bodybuilders do on TV.

"Luz, why exactly are you a giant bladed snake creature?" Eda said, coming in from the kitchen.

"I'm coming up with a scary demon disguise so I can go to the library with Amity sometime over the weekend," Luz explained.

"Huh, alright. You do you, kid. Look, I just checked the weather report on the CB, and it's gonna rain soon, so no going outside unless you have a death-wish. Oh, and Luz?"

"Yeah, Miss Eda?"

"Can you turn back into a human for me? I don't want your claws scratching the floor."

"Sure thing, Miss Eda," Luz said, morphing back into her human form.

"Hey, Luz, I wanna show you something," King said, tugging at Luz's now human arm.

"What is it?" Luz asked.

"Follow me," King replied, letting go of her arm and scampering up the steps all the way up to the attic, opening the door and quickly shutting it before Luz could see what was inside.

Luz chuckled as she followed along. She wondered what exactly she was gonna see when she went in. Would it be a giant plushie fort? Or maybe King wanted to show her his latest drawing. The diminutive demon did occasionally refer to himself as the "King of Artists".

Pushing the door open, Luz was completely thrown off by what she saw. This was the last thing she would have expected.

The attic had been transformed into some kind of makeshift classroom. A corkboard covered with a tarp sat on an easel, while a tiny school desk was placed in front. Strung up on the walls was a diagram showing the inner workings of Hooty. Luz was pretty sure that she could even see a smaller, shorter Hooty inside the body of the main one, along with rows of teeth lining the house demons insides. Luz shuddered at the thought of there being multiple of Hooty. One was already more than enough, but if there were even more? That would be a living nightmare.

Making an educated guess, Luz crammed her way into the desk and faced towards the tarp-covered board.

"So, what are we doing up here?" Luz asked.

"Basilisk Luz, you spent so much time yesterday learning about witches and magic that you didn't spend anytime learning about your own kind. That is why you are here for..." King ripped the tarp off the corkboard, revealing it to be packed with pictures of demons of all shapes and sizes, "Demons 101!"

"Ooh, this sounds fun," Luz said to herself.

"Demons like us are grim creatures of the night, living to spread fear and anguish across the Isles. Our only weaknesses are purified water and passive-aggressive remarks," King continued.

"Aww, you guys have a soft side. Although, I've touched holy water before, when I was baptized, and I didn't get hurt by it."

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah. Papa and I got baptized on the same day, actually."

"One second." King then pulled out a book that Luz hadn't noticed and began quickly scribbling in it. Crossing out the All demons, he replaced it with Most demons. "There we go, now it's accurate."

"Okay, most demons are susceptible to purified water and passive-aggressive comments," King said, resuming his lesson. "While you and I are both fearsome warriors not to be trifled with, there are still some demons we should be wary of. The most dangerous, though, is the Snaggleback. Protected from the rains by its spiny shell, the Snaggleback feeds on those who couldn't find shelter. It especially enjoys eating tourists who got trapped outside." King flipped the pages of his book and showed Luz a sketch of the Snaggleback.

"Ooh, that guy looks very spooky," Luz said, admiring King's fearsome drawing of the creature.

Suddenly, lightning flashed in the distance and the resulting thunder shook the house.

"Whelp, the rain's here. I think we should call the lesson," King said, taking down the corkboard and folding up the easel, stuffing the two in the corner of the room.

"I love the rain!" Luz exclaimed, running down the stairs and out the door, but not before Eda yelled at her. "Hey, I said no going outside! Do you want to be cooked alive?"

Luz obviously didn't hear that last part. Kneeling down next to a flower, Luz admired the plant. "I bet you'll like the rain too, little fella."

The flower did not like the rain, apparently, getting struck by a rogue raindrop, instantly withering and collapsing into dust.

"What the?" Luz cried out, scrambling away from the fallen plant.

"I told you to stay inside!" Eda yelled, dragging Luz back in the house.

After ensuring everyone was inside, Eda let go of Luz's arm.

"You didn't get hurt, did you?" Eda asked, searching Luz for any burn marks.

"I'm fine, Miss Eda," Luz said, brushing away the witch's hand.

"Good. You better not pull that stunt again, cause I might not be there to save your hide," Eda chastised the teen, crossing her arms and giving a stern look.

"Sorry, Miss Eda. It won't happen again, I promise."

"Alright. Now that everyone is inside, I'm gonna go put up the shields." With that, Eda went back outside to brave the storm.

"Do it quick! The rain is getting close to my precious stucco!" Hooty screeched.

Running over to a window, Luz peeked outside to get a look at Eda working her magic (quite literally, in this case). The witch in question first cast a small spell, giving her a sort of magical umbrella, protecting her from the rains. Eda then walked forward a few paces before turning to face the house and casting a much larger spell. A giant orange bubble appeared around the house before shrinking down and conforming to the exterior. Walking back through the force field, Eda strutted confidently back to the house.

"Man, that took a lot out of me. That should keep us safe until the storm blows over, though," the witch said, entering the house.

"The weather here is so fun and interesting," Luz said with a smile on her face.

"Oh you haven't seen anything yet, kiddo. We've got gorenadoes, shale hail, painbows, fun stuff like that," Eda said, counting on her fingers.

"I'm gonna regret asking this, but what's a painbow?" Luz said squeamishly.

"It's like a Human Realm rainbow, except looking at it turns your body inside out!" King answered with a giggle.

Luz regretted asking.

She did not need that mental image.

"So, do we have any plans to wait out the storm, Miss Eda?" Luz asked.

"Not really. We can do whatever, pretty much," Eda responded.

"Hmm... Can we do some magic lessons? Mr. Bump at Hexside said that you could probably teach me."

Eda let out a groan. "Of course Bumpykins would put that idea in your head. Alright, kid, we'll do one lesson, okay? That's it."

"Got it," Luz said, nodding.

"You said you learned about bile sacs and stuff while posing as that kid's homework, right?"

"Yup. Learned about 'em in all their gory glory."

"Well then, that will make this easier. Alright, let's start with an example. This is a light spell." Eda then drew a large circle in the air, which condensed into a ball of pure light upon completion. "The larger you draw the circle, the more powerful the spell, and the more magic it'll take to complete the spell." To emphasize this, Eda then drew a much smaller circle, with the resulting tiny light ball flickering out of existence after a few seconds.

"Woah. That is so cool. Can you do that again? I wanna record it this time," Luz said, reaching into her pocket and opening the Camera app on her phone.

"Sure, kid. So ya see, the spell works by–" Eda suddenly collapsed to the ground unconscious, not even getting a chance to finish the spell circle.

"Oh no, Miss Eda!" Eda ran over to her fallen teacher and quickly checked the witch's pulse. It was still there, though it was going way faster than what Luz considered normal.

Thankful for Mamá giving her some first aid training, Luz dragged Eda's body (which was way heavier than Luz expected) over to the couch and situated the unconscious witch so that her legs were elevated about a foot above her head. Checking for anything that could be constricting blood flow, Luz luckily found nothing.

"Alright, hopefully that helps," Luz said, taking a step back. "Now, we just have to wait for her to wake up. I'm so sorry this happened, Miss Eda," Luz apologized.

"Has this ever happened before, King?" Luz asked.

"Never," he responded.

"Okay, so that probably means that Miss Eda is running low on magic. She did say that putting up the force fields took a lot out of her, after all. Is there any, like, magic drink we can give her?"

"I'm not sure, but I've noticed that Eda always drinks this one orange elixir every day that seems to give her a boost of energy in the morning. Maybe we should give her some of that?"

"Hmm... That could work. Do you know where Eda keeps them?"

"I'm pretty sure she stores 'em in her room."

"Let's go find some, then."

After one last look at the Owl Lady, Luz ran up the stairs and made her way into Eda's room. King followed behind quickly, shutting the door and turning on the light.

"Alright, where could it– Oh, there it is." Luz's eyes scanned the room before quickly falling on the bright orange elixir laying on Eda's nestside table. (Luz thought it was a little odd to have a nest instead of a traditional bed, but Eda was odd herself, so Luz just wrote it off as Eda being Eda.)

A flash of lightning and a crash of thunder shook the house.

Grabbing the elixir, Luz examined it, seeing if there were any instructions printed on the glass. There was nothing.

"Okay, magic in a bottle secured, now let's–" Luz was cut off by the lights suddenly going dark.

King ran over and gave the light switch a few flicks up and down, only for nothing to happen.

"It's fine. Hooty controls the house lights. He probably just fell asleep or something," the tiny demon said.

"HOOT! OW! HOOT!" the house demon screamed.

"That does not sound like he's asleep," Luz said, dropping the elixir and running down the stairs. In the back of her mind, Luz heard the sound of shattering glass.

Upon entering the living room, Luz saw that the front door had been knocked off its hinges and was laying on the floor. A creature stood in the doorway, dragging a pair of claws along the door, leaving deep gouges in the wood. Suddenly, there was another flash of lightning, and by the time Luz could see again, the creature was gone.