Schlaftag 2, Fifth Lunar Disappearance, 50 CE | The Owl House
With a renewed sense of optimism, Luz tucked the book under her arm and turned to check on King. The little guy was probably getting lonely defending his castle all by himself.
Apparently, while Luz was reading, King had gathered himself an entire army of plushies. Stuffed animals of all shapes and sizes were lined up in rows, all of them pointing at Francois. The bunny in question was currently seated on the armrest of the other couch, and he had a jagged knife taped to his stuffed arm. On the stuffed animal's head was a circlet of paper with the word "Crown" written on it in crayon.
Luz silently chuckled to herself. King was such an adorable little tyrant, and he looked ready to rip Francois' head off in the cutest possible way.
"Hey King, do you need any help with your little battle thing you have going on?"
"Ahh, basilisk Luz. You're assistance is direly needed. The Great Army has fallen to the Francois-ites, and I have lost power. Will you help me reclaim my throne?"
"Of course, my liege. I shall help you however I can," Luz said, playing along and putting on a posh accent. To add to the immersion, she also bowed deeply to King. (She couldn't really take a knee to show respect, so this was the second best option.)
"So, where are my skills most needed? I do fancy myself to be a formidable opponent on the battlefield," Luz continued, adding a little braggadocious flair.
"While I am sure you're combat skills are excellent, we already have more than enough soldiers. Would you consider acting as a spy? I believe you're basilisk powers would be well-suited for the role."
"Well, my lord, you have seen my attempts to shapeshift. They have been less than successful."
"Hmm. That is correct. How is it that you normally go about trying to shapeshift?" King inquired, tapping at his jaw.
"I simply picture whomever I wish to morph into."
"Have you tried other ways?"
"Oh, uh, no I have not, my lord."
"Perhaps, instead of simply thinking of what you want to become, you have to think of the changes themselves? Maybe that would help you go through with the transformation."
"I can give it a try."
Closing her eyes, Luz pictured her current form in her mind's eye.
Once she had that solidified, she focused on her right hand and imagined it shifting from the scaly, clawed basilisk version into the fleshy human version. As she did that, Luz felt her hand begin to change. Scales melt away, being replaced with smooth skin. Claws rounded themselves down and became fingernails. Finally, she felt her fingers shorten themselves from the Marfan syndrome-length they were before to one more befitting a regular human.
Feeling the changes finish up, Luz opened her eyes to see an unequivocally human hand at the end of her basilisk arm.
"Oh my gosh, it actually worked! Thank you so much King!" Luz exclaimed, dropping the accent out of shock that she actually had a human hand now.
Luz tried to give King a hug, but he held her at bay with his butter knife.
"Luz, you have to stay in character!" King reminded her.
"Oh yeah. Right, right. Sorry," she apologized.
Clearing her throat, Luz put the accent back on and continued the game.
"Well, my lord, you prove your genius once again."
After a brief pause, Luz added on, "Am I permitted to finish the rest of my transformation?"
"But of course! What king would I be if I didn't? A mockery of one, that's what." King responded.
"Thank you, my lord."
Now with King's blessing, Luz closed her eyes again and brought up the mental image from before. Focusing this time on her left hand, she went through the same process of imagining the appendage shifting from basilisk to human and felt her real life hand copy the changes.
Opening her eyes again, Luz now had two human hands attached to basilisk arms.
Repeating the procedure for her arms, Luz didn't feel much of a change, mainly just the scales being replaced by skin.
Luz also learned something at this moment: she could morph clothes! Given, all she had right now was the sleeves of her precious cat hoodie, but that was better than having to morph in the buff.
Next, Luz morphed her torso. While there weren't any radical changes to her outward appearance, she felt her insides get completely changed. Her two stomachs combined into one, and she felt her small and large intestines both reappear. She could also sense her heart move from the dead-center of her chest back to the left side. That was an odd sensation, feeling her heartbeat move locations.
She then moved on to morphing her legs and feet. The main change that accompanied this morph was her tail splitting in two (painlessly, thankfully) and the two ends shriveling up as they formed into her feet. Luz slipped up, both literally and figuratively, when she tried to stand while her feet were still morphing. Trying to stand on what are essentially flippers isn't exactly the best idea, apparently, Luz learnt as she flopped to the ground.
Picking herself up off the floor, Luz was now a human with the head of a basilisk.
Only one step left, Luz thought.
For the pièce de résistance, Luz imagined her basilisk facial features giving way to her human visage. Her teeth filed down, her nose jutted out, and her pixie cut emerged from the scraggly mess atop her head. Her ears receded back and shrunk down, no longer the giant leathery flaps they were before.
Collapsing to the knees and burying her head in he hands, now fully human, Luz began to cry. But these were not tears of pain or agony, but of joy.
Luz finally had her body back.
It was at this exact moment that Edalyn Clawthorne kicked open the door to her house, empty burlap sack in hand.
"What's good, dip–" Eda paused at the sight of Luz crying on the floor.
"Uhh, are you okay, kid?" Eda asked, dropping the bag off by the door and walking over to the downed teen.
Luz stopped crying, sniffled, and simply gave a thumbs up, not even bothering to sit up and face Eda.
"So I see you got the whole 'shapeshifting' thing figured out, right?"
"Yeah," Luz responded, muffled by the floor.
"Well then, congrats kid." Eda offered Luz her hand, to which Luz accepted and pulled herself to her (now two human!) feet.
"Thanks, Miss Eda." Luz said, wiping the tears from her eyes.
"So, how did ya figure it out?"
"Well, it was actually King who gave me the idea. He basically said 'What if you have to imagine yourself turning into something, not just imagine something,' and it worked!"
"Yeah, that's totally what I said! It was all me!" King interjected, the imaginary war with Francois forgotten by both him and Luz.
"Well, to whoever came up with it, good job," Eda said.
Luz suddenly wrapped the two in a tight hug, squeezing with all her might.
"Ahh! Too tight!" King squeaked out.
"What. Is. This?" Eda questioned between gasps.
"Oh. Sorry, sorry," Luz said, relinquishing the hug.
"Hey kid, do you want a snack?" Eda asked after catching her breath.
"Sure?" Luz said uncertainly.
"Great, here ya go," Eda said, reaching into her pocket and tossing Luz what looked like a squirming tiny squid with giant eyes.
Luz screamed and dropped the miniature calamari.
Before the "snack" could even hit the ground, Hooty caught the creature in his mouth and promptly swallowed it.
"That was yummy, hoot hoot!"
Monday, May 23, 2021 | Reality Check Summer Camp | Hoboken, New Jersey
Day two of camp had gone much better for Number Five. She had grown much more confident in her ability to hold the Luz disguise after keeping it on for a full day.
Overall, the camp activities for that day had been a mixed bag of boring, confusing, and interesting, and that was perfectly fine by Five's standards.
Day three started at 8:00 AM, when the members of Cabin 7 were awoken by the weird screaming box on a pole telling them that it was time to, "Rise and shine."
The group was then directed to a large building with long wooden tables and benches. Five made sure to sit with the other members of Cabin 7. After all the campers were seated, they were each given a cup of white liquid that looked an awful lot like smilk, a bowl containing small round balls of grain, and a spoon. Apparently, the food was called "sear-yul", and you were supposed to combine the two ingredients into a weird soup. After Five poured the balls of grain into the not-smilk, she got weird looks from the rest of Cabin 7, with Jake claiming that she was, "doing it backwards." Masha just laughed quietly. Blushing at the embarrassing faux pas, Five quickly ate the entire bowl of "sear-yul." She noted how much more flavorful the grain balls were than the "food" she had received while imprisoned by the Emperor.
After they had all finished their bowls, the group compared their schedules for the day. Five's day started with Math, followed by U.S. History, Home Economics, Art, and was finished off by Science at 2:00 PM. Each class was 45 minutes long, and there would be a 15 minute break between classes. Thankfully, there was also lunch from noon until 1:00, so nobody would starve. Five then noticed that she shared classes with all of her cabin-mates. She had Math class with Masha, U.S. History with Jake, and Science with Marco. Sadly, she'd be all by herself with complete strangers in home economics and art.
The math class hadn't been that interesting, with the majority of class time being taken up by the teacher (Ms. Cabrera) introducing herself to the class and the campers doing icebreakers to get to know each other. Luckily, the class was allowed to pick their own seating arrangements, so Five sat next to Masha for the class. The two ended up chatting throughout the entire class period, with Mr. Tidwell even calling them out for it when they got a little too loud.
Five understood absolutely nothing about the history class that followed. Mr. Fitzhenry barely gave any warning before launching into the lecture. Five would think that she was beginning to understand some of the concepts, like "the Declaration of Independence" and "the 13 Colonies", but then the teacher would launch into a whole different topic and Five would struggle to keep up. The worst part was that Five didn't even get to choose where she sat, being forced into a spot in the middle of the class, while Jake was seated up front and far away, so she couldn't even ask him what anything meant. She did see him diligently taking notes, though, so she resorted to asking him to explain the lecture after class was over. He gave a pretty quick overview that was much easier to understand than the incomprehensible mess that was the lecture. Five thanked him before going onto her next class.
The home economics course (Or, as Mr. Gustafson called it, "FCS") was similar to the math class, with the teacher introducing himself, and then the students would get to know each other through activities. This class was a nice reprieve from the mess that was History with Mr. Fitzhenry. Five even talked to a camper who wasn't from Cabin 7! Their name was Max, and they were really nice.
Next was lunch, where all the campers returned to the big building with tables from before. Once again, Five sat with her cabin-mates for the meal. Instead of "sear-yul", they were all getting "sand witches", which horrified Five. She thought that humans didn't know about the Demon Realm. Her fears were quickly alleviated, though, when she discovered that "sand witches" were not actual witches and were just slices of bread with thin cuts of meat and cheese placed between. Alongside the entrée, they also received an apple (Finally, something Five could recognize!) and another glass of milk, except this one was supposed to be drunk straight from the cup and not poured over anything.
Humans were weird, Five decided.
After lunch was art class, which Five actually found to be quite therapeutic. The entire class period consisted of each camper sketching out an important memory. Ms. Sunny, as the instructor asked to be called, simply walked around the art studio, occasionally commenting on a camper's work.
For her sketch, Five drew the old abandoned shack she had escaped to the human world through. She first focused on the outline of the house, making sure to get every detail exactly right. It was easy enough, though, as the image of the house was burned into her brain. Next, she colored in the doorway, filling it entirely with black. She then worked on the surroundings of the house, drawing the trees and the birds in the sky and the small stream that trickled by. She gave the trees (odd in coloration as they were) green leaves and brown trunks. She colored the grass around the house a putrid shade of yellow that gradually gave way to a healthier and more vibrant green as it moved further away. Finally, she colored the sky a pleasing blue. Sure, she still wasn't used to a blue sky, but it was infinitely better than the oppressive purple that she had seen while on the run.
As Five finished up her sketch, Ms. Sunny walked by and took a look at Five's work.
"Wow, Luz. This is very impressive! So, what memory is this associated with?"
"This is the place where I first felt... free. Yeah, that's the right word. Free."
"Well, if your work is consistently this high quality, you won't struggle at all in this class. Keep up the good work!"
"Thank you, Ms. Sunny."
"You are most certainly welcome, Luz."
Five liked the art class. It was nice.
For her last class of the day, Five headed over to Science with Dr. Brown. As Five looked around the classroom, she saw a series of posters on the wall depicting the internals of the human body, each focusing on a different body system. Letting out a long exhale, she noticed the massive difference between her natural anatomy and that of a human. Humans had a lot more going on inside them then she realized.
After taking a seat next to Marco, Five waited for the teacher to show up.
After waiting for a solid ten minutes, the door to the classroom was yanked open, and in stepped an elderly man dressed in a dirty lab coat and slacks. The crazed look in his eyes, and his even crazier hair, did not give Five a good first impression of the man.
"I am very sorry for being late on your first day, class. Einstein had a negative reaction to a new blend of dog food I was trying out and suffered some gastrointestinal issues that had to be dealt with."
Five buried her head in her hands and hoped the doctor never called on her to answer a question.
This was going to be a long 45 minutes.