Kaufetag 1, Sixth Lunar Disappearance, 50 CE | The Owl House
Luz's body was on fire. At least, that's what it felt like. She had never been on fire before, but this was probably really close. Scratch that, actually. Her history teacher, Mr. West, had set a few strands of her hair on fire to wake her up during a lesson before, but that didn't hurt that much. Given, it was her first class of the day and she had fallen asleep because she had stayed up all night watching Good Witch Azura AMVs instead of doing her homework, so it was a tiny bit warranted so that Mr. West could lecture without her snoring like a foghorn.
This hurt even worse than the threat of la chancla, though, so Luz screamed, slamming her eyes shut and curling into the fetal position.
The pain was unbearable. It was if every cell in her body had been dunked in hot sauce and then thrown in an oven at 350⁰. Luz tried to crawl her way out of the moonlight that was causing this torture, but she could barely find the energy to do so. As Luz forced her eyes open so she could see, she noticed that her arms had gone from human to basilisk. Reaching a hand out, she sunk her claws into the floorboards and pulled with all her might, managing to drag herself a few inches before trying again.
Just as she was about to do that, though, Willow and Gus had run up the stairs to help out their distressed friend.
"Oh my Titan, what happened?" Gus asked.
"Moon," Luz forced through gritted teeth. She was doing her best not to swear up a storm.
Springing into action, Willow ran over to the window and drew the curtains closed, casting the room into near-total darkness, the only light coming from the fairy lights Luz had "stolen" from a collection run and strung up with Eda's help.
Slowly, the pain subsided. Luz propped herself up on her elbows and breathing heavily. Gus knelt down next to her.
"Hey, copy what I'm doing," he said, before taking in a long breath. As he did so, he raised a finger for each second he was inhaling. Then, he exhaled at the same rate, lowering the same fingers.
He then did it again, Luz mimicking his actions this time. As she slowly exhaled, she felt way more calm than she had seconds prior.
"Woah, where did you learn that?" Luz asked as her breathing leveled out.
"It was a little trick Willow taught me when we first met," the illusionist responded.
"And I learned it from my dads," Willow chimed in as she tied the window curtain closed.
"Huh, that's neat," Luz responded, orienting herself in a more comfortable position given her current basilisk form.
"So, what exactly happened? We just heard you scream really loud," Willow asked.
"I'm, uhh, not exactly sure. Like, I was getting the picture, and then the moon shined through the window, and I felt like I got stabbed with a super hot fire poker or something," Luz explained.
"Do you think it has anything to do with the celestial alignment?" Gus followed up with.
"I dunno, probably?" Luz said, shrugging her shoulders. She then remembered the reason she was up here to begin with. Clambering over, she slowly picked up the picture of her and her mom.
The glass in the frame had completely shattered, with the largest crack going straight down the middle, right between Luz and Camila. Luz frowned at the state of the frame. She remembered when that picture was taken. That was the day that Mamá had been promoted to Head Veterinarian at the Happy Pets Clinic. Luz had known that that day was a big one for her mom, so Luz had tried to bake some celebratory maduros in the oven, but they just ended up getting burnt. Mamá didn't care about the mess, though, and she helped Luz make another batch with some expert guidance this time around. They turned out perfect.
"Sorry about the picture, Luz," Willow said from behind her.
"Thanks," was all the basilisk could respond with. She moved to wipe away a tear that was threatening to roll down her cheek. As she did so, she realized that she still had claw hands. She quickly and discreetly morphed her hands back into their human shape. For some reason, the morph actually hurt, which was weird. Eh, it was probably just some side-effect of the moon beam. She clenched an relaxed her fists. That was better. Now she could wipe the tear away.
"So I'm guessing no moonlight conjuring?" Gus asked.
"Yeah, I think we should call it off. Even that little sliver of moonlight hurt like a mother trucker," Luz said, forcing a laugh.
"Although, while you're here, how about I give you guys a tour of the Owl House? As long as we block out all the windows, that is," she continued.
"That's not a bad idea," Willow said.
"Sure!" Gus replied enthusiastically, hoping that meant he could touch more things from the Human Realm.
"Alrighty then. In that case: Hello, my name is Luz Noceda, and I'll be your tour guide this evening," Luz said, acting like one of those college recruiters she had seen when she, Mamá, and Papá had visited the UConn campus so that the two lovebirds could go reminiscing about their glory days.
Luz cautiously peeked out the door-frame, checking to see if their were any stray pain beams streaming in through the window, of which there were none. Letting out a breath she didn't know she was holding, Luz motioned for the others to follow behind.
"This house was constructed by the… wait. Hold on. HOOTY!" Luz shouted, dropping the act. She had no clue who actually built the house. She doubted that it was Eda's doing. The house seemed too ancient.
Hearing his name called, the house demon snaked his way up the stairs.
"W͘h̕ơ ̨͠͝d̛͘͢a̷̸rés̛͝ ͞a̴ẃaḱe̷n̸͞͞ ͏ḿe̢ ̀f̧ro̷͟m ̷͝m̕͠͏y̢ ş͘l̴͠umb̶er̡͠? Oh, hi Luz."
"Quick question, Hooty: Who built the Owl House?" Luz asked.
"My mom!" Hooty replied cheerfully.
"You have a mom?" Luz knew that had to be a lie.
"Uh huh! Momma told me that when a Mother House Demon and a Father House Demon want to have a kid, they contract a stork to deliver all the supplies, and then the parents spend years constructing the house, and then they spend a night together having fun and the next day the baby house demon shows up inside the door to the house. Except, Momma told me that Papa had to go buy some milk and then he disappeared forever, so she had to build me all alone. I'm a big boy house, though, so I have definitely never cried about the fact."
"That can't be real. That has to be made up, right?" Luz turned to her friends to see if they believed the clearly deranged bird worm. Both Willow and Gus silently shook their heads and mouthed the word "No."
"Alright, well, thank you, Hooty. Oh, and can you, like, cover all the windows please?" Luz asked, hoping that was in the realm of possibility.
"Sure thing! Are we doing a summoning ritual?" The house demon gasped. "I can go get some blood from the night market!"
"No, Hooty! We're not doing that. It's just that the moonlight is hurting me for some reason."
"Oh, okay!" The bird tube said. Suddenly, solid metal grates covered all the windows, a kuh-CHUNK sound echoing through the house.
"Thanks, Hooty. Now, can you go outside and take a nap or something?" Luz asked. She loved the house demon, truly, but he could get on your nerves really quickly.
"You've got it, hoot hoot!" Hooty said before slithering back down the stairs and closing the front door.
"Sorry about that," Luz said as she entered the now safe hallway. "Alright, back to the tour. So, uhm, that was Hooty. He pretty much controls everything around here. The pipes, the ventialtion, the lights."
As if on cue, all the lights in the house blacked out, shrouding the entire building in shadow.
"And when he falls asleep, everything shuts off." Luz finished, just now remembering that fact.
Then, Luz had an idea.
"Should I cast a light spell, or do you guys secretly have night vision?" Luz asked. She hadn't shown off the light glyph to her friends yet!
"That would be nice, but don't you not have a bile sac?" Willow questioned.
"Who says I need one? Observe." Luz then pulled out her pad of sticky notes and carefully traced out the light glyph with her pencil. Tapping the glyph, it crumpled up into a small ball of light, illuminating the three friends.
"Woah, that's awesome!" Gus said.
"Can you show me how you did that?" Willow asked.
"Sure. It's really just drawing a few overlapping shapes, then tapping it and presto, you've got a portable sun!" Luz drew out another light glyph, this time showing Willow each step along the way.
"Wait, so if there's a light one, is there a darkness one too?" Gus questioned.
Luz thought about that for a second. If there were other glyphs out there, would they follow some kind of theme? "I have no idea," she answered.
"Well, how about we look for some?" Willow suggested.
"Yeah, let's do it!" Gus agreed.
Luz slumped down onto the couch and sighed. They had tried for the past hour and a half to discover any other glyphs that could exist. Well, they did that after waking Hooty up first. The Owl House had its fair share of not exactly "child-safe" accoutrements, and walking into a sword hanging on the wall was not on Luz or Gus' bucket list. (The two of them promised to make Willow a bucket list some day.)
Now it was searching time!
Since her first glyph had come from when her phone had been cracked back when Eda's curse had flared up, the group had reasoned that it was probably due to the fact that Luz's phone was somehow able to decipher the glyphs inherent in spell circles.
So that's what they tried. Luz would pull up her camera and start recording, and either Willow or Gus would cast a small spell. Then, they would go and check the footage. Their efforts didn't bear any fruit, though. Try as they might, all they could see were the spell circles and the result of said spell. No triangles or inscribed circles or anything. But they did get some cool shots of Gus doing some super realistic illusions and Willow being an absolute powerhouse in regard to plant magic, whatever that was worth. Which wasn't really much for what they were looking for.
Glumly, Willow joined Luz on the couch and spun up a small stunflower. Picking it from the crack in the floorboards, Willow rolled it around in her fingers, the flower eventually bumping into Luz's face.
"Nyeh, stop th-" Luz went to bat the flower out of her face when she noticed something weird about it.
"Hold on. Can I see that, Willow?" Luz asked. She might have just been seeing something that wasn't there, but she was pretty sure she saw a small marking in the center of the flower.
"Oh, sure." Willow handed the flower over to Luz, who pulled out her phone and once again opened up the camera.
Luz swiped over from Video to Picture mode and focused the lens directly on the center of the flower. Then, she zoomed in.
"Oh my Titan, there's a glyph in the flower!" Luz couldn't stop herself from shouting in her excitement.
"Really?!" Gus said, running in from the kitchen, a bucket full of human items clutched in his hand.
"Yeah, look!" Luz handed the flower and phone over to the youngest witch.
"Woah, that's super cool." Gus spun the flower like a top, looking at the glyph from every possible angle.
Gus handed the phone and flower back to the basilisk. Luz quickly took a photo of the glyph for safekeeping.
The basilisk then quickly went to work on tracing out the new glyph. It looked somewhat like a flower, fittingly. Contained inside a circle, much like the light glyph, this new one had a small circle with a dot in the center at the bottom, with the upper portion being a wide V shape that had a line with a triangle splitting it down the middle. The triangle was then split up into an upper and lower portion, a horizontal line running from side to side.
Luz copied the design down meticulously, making sure she got each detail exactly right.
Now, for the moment of truth. Luz tapped the glyph with her finger.
Instead of crumpling into a ball of light, the sticky note sprouted a small vine, not unlike the ones that Willow had used to ensnare Luz when the two had first met.
Luz jumped to her feet and did a fist pump. "Yes! Glyph number two, let's go! Heck yeah!"
If Luz had been paying attention, she would have noticed that she had suddenly grown an extra appendage. Behind her, her tail wagged back and forth like a dog who just got promised a treat.
Willow and Gus both looked towards each other after they noticed the new addition to their friend's backside. Willow gave a thumbs up and Gus nodded.
"Hey, uh, Luz?" Gus said quietly.
"Yeah? What's up Gustaban?" Luz asked, completely oblivious to her new body part.
"Look behind you," was all he answered with.
The girl did a complete 180, turning to face the wall, her tail whipping around, causing Willow to duck out of the way. "What? Did you see a spider or something?"
"No, I mean just turn your head around."
"Oh that's what you… meant." Luz turned to stare at her tail. It slowly stopped wagging.
"Well, this is embarrassing."
While her tail SCHLORPED its way back into nothingness, Luz let out a wry chuckle. For some reason, the morphing still caused a small smidge of pain. Dang moonlight weirdness.
"Heh, sorry about that."
