Schlimmtag 2, Sixth Lunar Disappearance, 50 CE | Bonesborough Public Library
As Luz skimmed through the offerings at the book fair, dragging a finger along the spines of the books, Lilith's words echoed in the back of her mind. "If I find that you have harmed my sister in any way, I will have your head on a platter before Lord Belos by nightfall."
If Luz had to be completely honest with herself, she was at least a little scared by what the leader of the Emperor's Coven had said. Dying was something that seemed very not fun, and she hoped she didn't experience it until she was like 90 years old and senile.
Deciding that none of the books looked that appealing, Luz turned elsewhere to see if there was some booth or event that she had missed. That was when she saw it: Short Story Writing Competition. How had she missed that? It even had a giant banner and everything!
Back before Luz's life had gotten flipped-turned upside down by learning that she wasn't exactly a human, she had dreamt of being an author and having her stories sitting alongside Mildred Featherwhyle's on a child's bookshelf. Given that Luz was in a completely different realm, though, that put a small kink in her plan. Nevertheless, a writing competition seemed like a great way to kick start her professional literary career.
Speed-walking over to the booth - running would have looked quite uncouth - Luz positioned herself in front of the triclops running the table, she waited for them to notice her. After the demon came to a stopping point in their book, they bookmarked their page before setting the book aside. Looking up at Luz, they smiled. "Are you looking to join the short story competition?"
"Yup!" Luz replied with a smile of her own.
"That's great to hear," the triclops replied. "There's a few rules that your story has to follow, though. Since this competition is for short stories, there's a word limit of 7500 words. The topic of the story and the format it's presented in can be whatever you like, so it could be a traditional story, a fake obituary, anything. Besides that, go wild with your story. Submissions have to be turned in by the end of the week, and the best story will get a prize of 250 snails. Still want to sign up?"
"Yes, please," Luz said, nodding her head. She couldn't believe that she was actually going to be competing against other writers. This was going to be so fun! Well, there was also that 250 snail prize, but that was just an afterthought for the basilisk.
Reaching below the table, the triclops produced a sheet of paper with tons of signatures on it as well as a pen. "In that case, just add your name here and you'll be in the running."
Taking the pen, Luz was just about to add her name when an idea struck her. "Hold on, can I team up with another person for my story?"
After thinking on it for a few seconds, the triclops responded. "I don't see why not."
Putting the pen down, Luz held up her index finger. "Give me just one second, then." The basilisk already had the perfect idea for who she wanted her co-author to be. Turning around and scanning the fair-goers, she looked for a certain green-haired witch that she knew was in attendance.
When she finally spotted Amity, she saw that the witch was talking with King, a book held above her head and out of reach of the tiny demon. Walking over, Luz caught the backend of the two's conversation.
"For the last time, I'm not letting you summon Crayak the Destroyer, King," Amity said. As Luz got closer to the two, she saw that the book Amity held was called Summoning Minions for Dummies .
"But I really wanna!" King replied, stamping his foot. (Luz thought that King looked absolutely adorable when he was trying to be intimidating.)
"King, just listen to Amity," Luz interjected herself into the conversation. "I doubt summoning a dude nicknamed 'The Destroyer' will lead to anything good."
Recognizing that he was now getting outvoted 2-1, King relented. "Okay, but can I still see the book?" He then tried to pull a cute face by folding his hands and batting his eyelashes, but Amity was immune.
"No," she responded flatly. Placing the book back in its spot on the shelf, the witch then looked down at the diminutive demon. "But, there are other fun things you can do here."
King harrumphed and crossed his arms. "Like what?"
"Well, I know that there's going to be a book reading with Jon de Plume and the book is going to be super gory and disgusting." Amity explained.
King gasped. "Really?"
"Really," the witch replied.
"Where is it?" King asked.
"All the way on the other side of the library," Amity answered. "I'd hurry, though, because it starts in just a few minutes. You don't want to miss it, do you?"
"Never!" King shouted, running off to the (fictional) book reading.
"Woah, that's the first time I've ever seen King listen to someone besides me and Eda," Luz said. "How'd you do it?"
"I've been working with kids for years. Sometimes you've just got to speak their language for them to do what you want," Amity replied. "How do you live with King 24/7?"
Luz shrugged her shoulders. "Eh, you get used to his antics after a while. All his talk of death and mayhem is for show. Usually." The basilisk still vividly remembered when King had come back to the Owl House absolutely soaked in blood. He'd said he was just playing a game with a "weird-looking tube demon with a ton of teeth" that "went kablooey" after King bonked it with a stick and the demon started eating itself. It had taken nearly an hour to wash all the blood off of the skull-faced demon.
"I guess that makes sense," Amity said. "Sorry about what Ms. Lilith did back there, by the way. I've never seen her act like that."
"She wasn't like that when we met at the Covention." Then, something clicked in Luz's mind. "I guess her learning that I attacked one of her coworkers would sour her opinion of me."
"Yeah, I would probably act the same if I saw someone who attacked you," Amity said.
"Well, thanks for having my back, then," Luz replied, drawing the girl into a side hug.
"So what is it you came here to talk about?" Amity asked.
Luz paused as she tried to actually remember why she was over here. Oh yeah, the competition! "There's a short story competition being held, and I was wondering if you would want to team up with me so that we could work on a story together. If we win we'll get 250 snails."
Amity looked intrigued. "Hmm, that does sound pretty fun. Count me in!"
"Great!" Luz responded. "Let's go sign up!"
Leading the way, Luz weaved through the crowds of people as she made her way back to the booth promoting the competition. As the two got closer, the triclops from before noticed their approach.
"I see you've found your co-author," they said.
"Yup!" Luz replied. "We're gonna come up with something that will blow the Titan's socks off!"
"I wouldn't be that ambitious, but I think we've got a good shot at winning," Amity said confidently, draping her arm over Luz's shoulder.
"I like the enthusiasm," the triclops said with a laugh. Handing over the sign-up sheet and a pen, Luz signed her name with a flourish before handing the sheet and pen over to Amity, who added her signature below Luz's. As Luz returned the sheet and writing utensil to the triclops, she noticed Amity's handwriting. It was very pretty and refined, each letter evenly spaced and the same size, as if she had practiced it a thousand times over.
"Alright, with that you're officially in the running for the contest," the triclops said. "Be sure to have your submission in by the end of the week."
"We will, thank you," Amity said.
"Let's go to the Owl House and get started writing! We don't have any time to lose!" Luz suggested, anxiously grabbing Amity's hand to pull her towards the exit of the library.
"Wait, I need to let Malphas know I'm leaving early then," Amity said, slowly pulling her hand free from Luz's grip.
"Oh, okay then," Luz responded. "You know, I should probably find Eda and let her know as well. Don't want her to think I've gone missing."
"Sounds like a plan. Meet up back here then walk over to the Owl House?" Amity suggested.
"Yeah that'll work," Luz agreed.
Carrying the corkboard in from the attic, Luz propped it up on the easel that she had situated in her bedroom. Grabbing a pair of notecards, she wrote the words "Act I", "Act II", and "Act III" on them before pinning each up on the board. Now the hard part: coming up with the actual story.
Hopping down from Luz's bed, Amity walked over to stand beside the basilisk.
"Hmm…" Luz tapped a finger to her chin in contemplation. "What kind of story should we do?"
"Maybe a romance?" Amity suggested. "Like, have the characters meet at a cafe or something."
"Eh, I think that's just a smidge overdone though. Seems a little fanfic trope-y to me," Luz replied.
"Yeah, okay, I see where you're coming from," Amity said.
"How about we do something more like an action or an adventure?" Luz was always a sucker for a good Lord of the Chains type of story. Characters traveling together and building a sense of trust and camaraderie with one another was right up Luz's alley. (Plus, the characters spending so much time alone together on the road meant that her shipper heart could go wild.)
"I would say yes to that," Amity replied, "but we've got to keep the story short, and I don't think we could do a full action story justice in just a few thousand words."
"Darn, you're right," Luz admitted. "Okay, what about… a slice of life story? That one we could definitely fit in like 5-kay words."
Amity thought about the suggestion. "Yeah, that'd probably work."
"Alright, so we've got the genre down," Luz said. Scribbling "Slice of Life" on a notecard, it was soon added to the Corkboard of Great Story Ideas.
"Next up, characters," Luz continued. An idea immediately sprung to mind. Grabbing a marker, Luz quickly drew a caricature of herself in Azura's signature robe and hat, even wielding the Magic Staff of Awesomeness that was totally canon and definitely not something the Latina had made up for her self-insert fanfic that she'd written a few years back.
Tacking the drawing up on the corkboard Luz announced the name of the main character. "Luzura. Boom, main character done."
Amity laughed. "Oh my Titan, you have a cringey OC too?"
The basilisk gasped. "Luzura is not cringey, thank you very much." She then actually processed what the witch had said. "Wait, you have an OC? What's their name?"
"Do you promise not to laugh?" Amity asked, blushing at the thought of sharing such an embarrassing part of herself.
"What could be worse than Luzura?" Luz replied. "It's not even that creative!"
"My original character is called… Oraios," Amity finally admitted. "It means 'beautiful' in some Human Realm tongue."
"Oh, that is just absolutely precious," Luz said. Grabbing another notecard, she began to write down Amity's OC when she realized that she had no idea how to spell the character's name.
"Wait, how do you spell that?" she asked.
"You're actually going to include her?" Amity asked, dumbfounded.
"Well, if we're going to be including cringey OCs, we're going to be including cringey OCs together," Luz replied."How do you spell her name?"
"O-r-a-i-o-s." Amity spelled the name letter by letter, with Luz meticulously copying it down.
Pinning Amity's OC next to her own, Luz soon added another notecard above the two: Our Protagonists.
"Alright, characters are set, let's hammer out the plot," Luz announced. "Got any ideas, Ams?"
"Ams?" Amity was caught off guard by the nickname.
"Oh, sorry. I can call you Amity if you want," Luz replied.
"No, it's not that I don't like it," the witch clarified. "It just surprised me. I don't think anyone has ever called me 'Ams' before."
"Well, the question still stands," Luz said, pointing at Amity with her pen. "Got any ideas for the plot besides a ton of fluffy, slice of life goodness?"
Amity tapped her finger against her chin in a thinking motion before smiling. "Yeah, I've got some ideas."
Now with a corkboard bursting packed full of plot threads and snippets of conversation, it was time to actually start the writing. There was a small issue, though: they didn't have anything to write with, and there was no way they would handwrite the entire story if it was going to be as long as they expected. So, Luz turned to rummaging around in the nooks and crannies of the house to see if she could find something to write with that wouldn't leave her with carpal tunnel syndrome or something.
After rooting around in one of the many closets, Luz found an old, dusty typewriter hidden away behind a rack of jackets. It wasn't a typewriter like Luz was used to. (Given, she'd never actually used a typewriter, but she knew what one looked like from those British TV shows Mami watched occasionally.) This typewriter looked pretty normal except for the fact that it had a pair of eyes, teeth and a tongue where the back of the machine should be. Grabbing the machine, Luz held it at arm's reach, waiting to see if anything would happen.
Eventually, the typewriter opened its eyes and looked up at Luz. "You're not the Owl Lady," it said.
"Nope, I'm her apprentice," Luz clarified. "Is it okay if I, like, use you to write a short story."
"That's what I was made for, wasn't I?" the typewriter responded.
"Alright, thank you," Luz said.
Returning to her room, the basilisk set the typewriter down on her desk. After taking a deep breath and cracking her knuckles, Luz, with Amity looking over her shoulder, began typing out their literary masterpiece.
