The next day after a quick breakfast of something Eda calls Death Oats, which you could best describe as oatmeal with a kick to it, Eda introduces you to a card game she calls Hexes Hold'em, which you quickly figure out that it has nothing in common with Texas Hold'em despite the similar names. In fact, if you had to describe the mess that happens before you between Witch and Palisman, would be Yu-gi-oh! or at the very least the earliest editions of it, you still have no idea how to play past the 'second' set of anime cards, and frankly, you have better things to worry about nowadays.
To your surprise, the Owl Palisman seems to hold his own for quite some time, but unfortunately, Eda has a wildcard(trap card) up her sleeves. You have a small smile on your face as Eda starts to gloat about her win, but it is quickly wiped off your face as you see feathers start to appear over her body, mainly concentrated around her arms and neck. You carefully get to your feet, and angle yourself in such a way that you could bolt toward King in the worst-case scenario before you speak, "Hey Eda? Quick question, what's the plan for a feathery situation."
Your words take a moment before they seem to click in her mind and her eyes dart to her arms as a few more feathers grow in real-time, almost like a time-lapse video. With a muffled curse escaping her lips Eda bolts up the stairs and after a moment you and King follow her. In her room, Eda is franticly searching through an old chest covered in cobwebs that you shiver at, not wanting to know anything about the Boiling Isle arachnids. With each bottle she pulls out your stomach sinks a bit more as you realize that there is nothing inside them. Finally, she grows a bit desperate and picks up the chest and shakes out the contents of it to the floor. What follows is a small waterfall of empty potion bottles/vials that honestly would have made you laugh in any other situation.
You cautiously approach her and softly take one of her hands into your own and give it a squeeze bringing her attention to you. Once you catch her eyes you ask how she usually gets her potions, hoping that it will be an easy straightforward action. And for the most part, it is. Eda tells you that she usually gets her potions from a stand in town, Mr. Elixir. As she gets her cloak on you see Owlbert with the Hexem Hold'em cards in his talons and you quickly stash them away in a seal along your left arm before Eda can see them.
On the flight over to the market, you try to keep your attention off the ground and instead ask Eda why she doesn't make the potion herself since she was a potioneer herself. Eda tells you that while she would love to make the potion herself, the potion needs a very temperamental plant, Devil's Gold. She goes on to tell you that DG was considered a controlled plant here on the Isles only being grown by only the best of the Plant Coven members and then only being sold to reputable potion makers leaving little chance for any of it being found at something called the Night Market, which you assume to be the Isle's Black Market. On top of that DG was a plant that grew very slowly, but kept for years if stored properly.
The moment you all reach the market, Eda and King head over to the Mr. Elixir stand that has the shudders closed and your foster mother starts to bang on them the first chance she gets. You instead focus your attention on the others across the market. Your eyes can't find a single thing to focus on, though at one point you do happen to catch sight of one of the shops that Mx. Whispers mentioned back at the Covention, which makes you wonder if the witch(and that word was really making you wonder if the term witch was gender neutral here since it wasn't in any of your previous lives) was now feeling okay.
King eventually grows bored of watching Eda continuously bang on the wooden shudders and comes over to you. Without thinking about it you scoop up the little demon and set him on your shoulder allowing him to peer around the market without having to strain his neck. Out of sight of everyone, a lone shadow clone pops into existence down a dark alley. With a quick transformation, the clone looks nothing like you and they make their way into the music shop that you had noticed. While they do that your and King's eyes are drawn to a cart that has a large bug? demon on it wrapped in ropes surrounded by witches and biped demons alike.
Your eyes narrow in displeasure as the creature bucks on the wooden cart for a moment before the leader of the caravan turns around with a green spell circle already forming that quickly ignites into green sparks that shock the demon into complacency, while also making the Lichtenberg scar on your arm throb slightly in sympathy. You keep your eyes on them as you carefully walk backward away from them until you're near Eda once more. With a slight twinge of something in your voice, eyes still locked on the electricity sparking off the prone demon you ask Eda who they were.
At the sound of your voice, Eda freezes before looking at the demons you're watching before a scowl appears on her face. She places a hand on your shoulder and pulls you, and King, closer to her until you're both hidden behind her stature. "Those are demon hunters. Dangerous nomads who capture and sell the most powerful beasts." And that is all you need to know about the idiots before you, not the first time you've come across glorified animal poachers and you doubt it will be the last.
At this point, the shudders of the shop start to lift revealing the shopkeeper/ possible owner. Assuming that this is Mr. Elixir himself, you find your first impression slightly lackluster, but that is mostly because you were expecting someone with a bit more experience if you were being completely truthful, but if that waste of space you were forced to call Professor for years could be a potion master by his early to mid-twenties you guess this one could also.
As Eda and the shopkeeper begin to exchange words you begin to sense a large concentrated form of nature chakra appear along the edges of your 'radar' and you casually look toward that direction to find Willow and Gus 'dragging their feet' as they make their way down the road. Seeing as they don't notice you, you head on over to speak to them since Eda is currently impatiently waiting for her potions. You end up having to speak up before Gus accidentally runs into you but the moment they see you their eyes light up slightly which makes you smile slightly in turn. When you ask what was wrong those smiles quickly disappear as Willow points toward where she and Gus had just come from.
Looking that way you see Amity and three other feminine witchlings that you can't really recognize. You can almost feel the slight blush appear on your face when you see Amity but you try to push it down and ask what they did this time. "Amity's having a moonlight conjuring and invited everyone but me." "And she keeps posting about it on her Penstagram account." At first, you think you're hearing things because there was no way there was an Instagram knockoff here in The Boiling Ises, but then you turn your attention to the words 'moonlight conjuring'. You hum slightly in confusion before speaking to the two before you, "So what exactly is a "moonlight conjuring" 'cause Mom has never mentioned it before."
Your words make their eyes widen before they start to explain what goes on during an 'MC' and before you know it they are explaining what sounds like a sleepover. Willow then ends with "Then you bring something to life with moon magic!" At that, you can't help but think, 'There's the BI twist' before you ask if they had you along with them could the conjuring take place? In reality, you have no idea if you're being human would cause any trouble with it but you were willing to experiment and act like a teenager for once in this life.
You tell the two to meet you at the Owl House that night for the Conjuring, you do not doubt that Eda would have no problem with you deepening your bonds with some other natives. You also figure that Eda would at least respect the whole "ask for forgiveness, rather then permission" thing. You wave goodbye to them and head back over to Eda and King only to be stopped halfway there by Amity's posse. Amity seems focused on her scroll, but you do catch a few shy glances out of the corner of your eye as the three-eyed witchling in a yellow Hexside uniform steps in front of you with a smug look on her face.
You give her a deadpan look and before she can even pitch her spiel, you're pushing past her without a word. You can feel the glare that settles on your person as you pass Amity and before you can think twice about it you give her a tiny smile and allow your shoulders to brush along one another. You could almost imagine a burst of steam coming out of her ears as a slight blush settled across the bridge of your nose.
When you finally get back to Eda she raises an eyebrow at you and you realize that your blush hasn't faded just yet and you grumble for a moment before asking if she got the potions. With a weary sigh that you could almost feel in your bones, Eda transforms Owlbert into his staff form and the three of you quickly get on top of it. Within seconds you're all flying back to the Owl House as Eda starts to explain that she'll need to make a trip to the Night Market that evening if she wants any chance of acquiring the potions. You ask if you'll need to go with her, but she waves you off stating that she'll need someone watching the house.
In the hours leading up to not only Eda leaving for the market but also the Conjuring, you spend time in the kitchen working on one of the annotated recipes while you have shadow clones working on the underground greenhouse. While you're mixing together something called Dead Bread and Supernatural Pasta for dinner, you receive memories of the clone you had sent to the Bard/Music shop. Thankfully the prices in the shop itself are decent enough and when your clone spoke to the employees there, there were no instances of haughtiness or the like while they spoke. While they were searching your clone managed to come across not only a decent guitar, though it was called Gui-scar, and two different-sized drum kits one of which was the perfect size for King currently.
You mentally go over the numbers for a moment and realize that it will take some time to gather the required cash, but you also figure that if nothing else if you ask Eda about some decent places to pickpocket she'd probably join you, if for nothing else, to cause chaos. You make sure that Eda and King eat before they head out, though you're pleasantly surprised to see Eda stuff King into a baby sling and even more so when he immediately conks right out. Once they are out of sight you double-check that your transformation is firmly in place just before you hear rustling in the nearby bushes. Your eyes just manage to land on a pair of bushes that you swear you don't recognize before they disappear before your eyes.
Before your eyes Willow and Gus appear, for once they aren't wearing their uniforms. You wave them inside before Hooty can start up his usual spiel about bugs, birds, or whatnot. You lead them into the living room and motion for them to sit down before asking if they had anything to eat before coming here as you head into the kitchen to grab a few slices of the Dead Bread you had made earlier. You offer the other slices to them before you rip into yours. You ask a few questions about MCs before Gus eventually chimes in that this was on his bucket list, after owning a genuine human bucket(™) that is. This sparks a memory in your mind, during one of the trash runs you believed Owlbert had managed to gather up his findings in a hinoki, or a bath bucket. And you believe you remember exactly where it is.
It takes an extra minute, mostly because someone pilled things in and on top of it but you wrestle it from its resting place and return to the witchlings prize in hand. When you see Gus's face light up at the sight of the bucket you get a small smile on your face before you turn your attention toward Willow to see her gazing at Gus with a hint of fondness in her eyes before you see she smiles at you seemingly in thanks for fulfilling Gus's desire. When Gus asks where you found it to begin with, you manage to tell a white lie and tell him 'Mom found it while scavaging a trash slug carcass a while back' not wanting to admit you had access to the human world as a whole.
Willow ultimately brings up that the time to start the 'ritual' to begin the Conjuring was almost upon you. Hearing that you ask what you'll be focusing on and her eyes begin to look around the room, passing over a few of King's stuffies until they land on a vase filled with a bundle of flowers that Eda had placed there the day before. Before she could suggest that you use the flower Gus pushes one of King's stuffies into her face stating the little guy could be used, and when it appears Willow will decline he pulls out all the stops, the dreaded puppy dog eyes, eyes that you have seen on several of your love ones in the past and seeing them on his face just makes your heart sink and you have to hold back a wince as you look away.
With moments to spare you place the stuffie between the three of you and start the chant, a chant you just barely manage to get through, stumbling here and there having only heard this chant once and that was ten minutes ago, you've always had memory problems and life hopping was not going to help that any time soon. Within moments you can tell that something has gone wrong, though you note that it has worked, just not in the way you had expected it to.
You can feel the twisted nature chakra flowing through the room, and seep further into Hooty. Once the entire house is saturated in the stuff you all stumble slightly, you only manage to keep on your feet due to sticking yourself to the floor with chakra. The house starts to shift around and without a word you all head toward the front door where you all but throw it open to look at Hooty, only to flinch back slightly at the sight of glowing blue eyes on the bird tube. You look out the door to find that somehow the house is much taller than it had been and as the house shakes you notice that the cliff near the Owl House is slowly but surely getting closer, which is when you finally realize that the house is somehow moving about.
With the jerky movements the house was making, you had to keep the flow of chakra to your feet lest you fall on your face like Willow and Gus were behind you. Initially, you dart toward them intending to grab them and yank them out of the house before it could go over the cliff, but that plan is cut short when you realize as you grab them and they grab one another the three of you begin to admit the same blueish tinge that Hooty's eye currently have. You feel something pulse within your mind and before you can think twice you are calling out a loud "Stop!"
The two witchlings almost fall to the ground but your grip on them doesn't waver. For a moment all is silent before you call out to Hooty to "Carefully make your way back to the House's foundations Hooty." To your joy, and slight bafflement he follows your directions, this time around the two beside you manage to keep on their feet. For a moment you think you hear Willow mutters something about the 'Power of Friendship' which makes you shudder internally at the idea before she sighs and says it was probably the 'Power of the Moon' which you honestly could not say was a thing(either here in the Boiling Isles or back in the Elemental Nations).
You look at the two witchlings before you and state that the three of you should probably keep the house here, but Gus mentions that you should take the place on a joyride. It takes a bit of back and forth before they manage to convince you, mostly because Willow wants to show off what she managed to do to her bullies, which you understand completely. It takes some time for you to manage to find Bosha, the three-eyed witchling from earlier, walking to Blight Manor, as Willow calls it. As her attention turns to the giant walking house in front of her you get struck with an idea. You whisper ask Gus if he could make a useable megaphone and without a question about one appears before you. With a dangerous glint in your eyes, you gather some of Kuruma's chakra and coat your vocal cords with it. You motion for the others to cover their ears and once they do so you let out the loudest, most primal roar that you possibly could.
A loud shockwave erupts from the megaphone pushing back some of the tree leaves and making Bosha stumble back as the soundwave rushes over her. With a hint of fear on her face she turns around and books it down the road. You turn your attention back to your witchlings and give them a small smirk with a quirked eyebrow. Gus has a look of pure wonder in his eyes while Willow looks at you seemingly slightly impressed, or maybe she was just happy to stick it to one of her bullies.
A slight buzz from the witchling's scrolls pulls your attention to them and when you all look, you can see that Amity has posted "Shout out to my fellow witches. #Conjouring Night #No Dorks Allowed," The three of you exchange looks before you're compelling the house forward toward Blight Manor. You end up getting in direct line of sight with the Manor before it goes tits up. You hear something on the wind before a giant ballista bolt lands right in front of the house making you all call out for Hooty to reverse or stop.
From the forest follow more bolts, with these connected to ropes. You push the two witchlings behind you trying to get them into the house before this could turn ugly. The two thankfully seem to realize the severity of the situation and follow your silent command and duck inside as from the forest emerge the demon hunters from earlier. You could feel not only your eye start to twitch as you think, "Yeah that figures" and the scar along your forearm twinges slightly as you remember the shock the hunter had given the bug demon.
Before this could get worse for the lot of you start forming a ball of fire in each hand, twisting them in circles as you do so hoping to sell the illusion of forming a spell circle, before yelling out a "Spicy Toss!" something you had heard from Eda the other day, sending the fireballs at two different ropes. When you see that the fire manages to cut the ropes you spin on your heel and lunge toward Willow and Gus. Once your hands are connected once more, you shout at Hooty to get you out of there, like yesterday. Within moments the house is jumping around and shaking as the bird tries to lose the hunters.
In the distance that is slowly increasing in length, you can hear spell after spell flying through the air but since you don't feel or hear them hit the house you figure the demon hunters have Stormtrooper levels of accuracy, which you certainly won't complain about. Looking out the window next to the door you can see Hooty run through Bonesborough, which makes you slightly concerned that you'll run into Eda. From beside you, you hear Willow let out a small sigh and so you turn your sights on her rather than the window. You can that while she has a smile on her face, it's not one of happiness, rather she is trying to mask her emotions.
You quietly ask Willow if something is wrong. It takes a moment before she opens up to you. She apologizes for dragging you into this mess, to which you counter and say she and Gus had made a quiet evening/night home alone into a bonding moment, after all, you joke there are some things that can't share, and taking Hooty and the house on a joyride was one of them. At that, you feel both of them squeeze your hands as they smile at you. Then Willow reveals that she had just wanted to show Amity up for once, she had never meant for things to get this bad. You squeeze her hand in sympathy, though when she mentions that Amity used to be her best friend when they were younger you have to stop yourself from cursing as with each passing day here on the Boiling Isles your life is becoming more and more like those stupid coming of age teenage movies, which you used to enjoy in your first life.
You softly nudge her shoulder with your own and tell her that it doesn't matter what others think of her, their opinions will never matter at the end of the day. As long as she is happy, and not say committing 'war crimes' you'll be by her side for as long as she wants you there. This gets a small giggle out of her and Gus. Around this time you hear something crunch and snap outside and hold back a wince as you realize that Hooty has most definitely stepped on and broken something or another, you could only hope that it wasn't too important. It only takes a few more minutes before the house gets back to its origin point, and just in time too. Outside you can just barely see the moon beginning to dip below the horizon.
As the house settles back in, the blue aura that had been surrounding your combined hands dims until it disappears. Your hands detach from the others as they stare at their hands in pure amazement and wonder as the front door swings open to not only reveal Hooty, sans blue eyes, but Eda and King as well. You only need to take a single glance at your foster mother's face to realize that you're in major trouble. Eda verbally rips you a new one, which you find completely fair, if the house had been a car that you had taken out for a joyride it could have ended quite badly. Willow and Gus try to take some of the ire off of you but you're not having it, you're the oldest here, especially since if you add up all your years alive you'd be in your triple digits by this point. And you get it, you've been in Eda's shoes before, having to 'punish' your 'child' is never easy especially if they were young enough not to realize what they did was wrong or dangerous. It's during this scolding that you realize that you have somehow managed to give yourself expressional ears in this transformed state because you can feel them pin themselves to the side of your head like you're a scolded kitten.
In the end, your punishment ends up cleaning the house top to bottom, inside and out, along with bathing Hooty, though you negotiate to begin this afternoon since all of you are still reeling from staying up all night, and while you could technically stay awake and have stayed awake, for over 96 hours with minimal problems you're trying to become a healthier individual and you'd rather not slide back into that insomniac depression pit if you could help it. Gus and Willow end up crashing with you in the living room after you bring down a mound of blankets and pillows. Despite your best efforts you end up having two small power naps while the rest of the house sleeps. Eventually, you realize that is all the sleep that you're going to be getting and get up to be productive.
The first thing that you end up doing that morning, after reapplying your transformation that is, is send some clones down to the tower basement to replace the clones currently working down there. Up next you start on the late breakfast/ brunch for the rest when they wake up. While searching through the cabinets you end up finding two things, sin-a-mon, and fairy wing powder, which after a small taste test you realize these are the equivalent of cinnamon and sugar respectively. With the new possibilities available to you, you end up making French Toast/Eggy Bread with the leftover Dead Bread from yesterday. It takes a bit to make enough for the five of you along with two extra pieces that you plan to give to Owlbert and Hooty when you get the chance.
You just about manage to plate the food and set it on the table alongside a bowl filled with fruit when you hear someone come down the stairs. You poke your head out from the kitchen to find Eda staring down at Willow and Gus with King dozing in her arms. Since her back is turned to you, you whistle a few notes, not too dissimilar to that of a cardinal. When she looks over her shoulder to see you peaking out from the kitchen you can tell that she was probably kicking herself for not realizing her foster kid, who had been enjoying cooking, was not missing from the teen cuddle pile on her floor but rather in the kitchen doing Titan knows what.
You approach her and the two on the floor and wave her into the kitchen stating breakfast was ready before turning your attention to the two witchlings. The first thing you attempt is to shake them awake by the shoulder, this only half works waking Gus but not Willow. Thankfully with his help, you manage to rouse Willow from her deep sleep with the promise of breakfast. As the five of you eat, you find that while Willow and Gus find the food that you make slightly unusual after a bite they waste no time with cleaning their plates.
The witchlings try once more to convince you to let them help you with your punishment but you're not having it. You have to all but shove them out the door where Hooty is waiting to ambush them to 'thank' them for the night before. Thankfully it seems as if they both have good survival senses and rush to get away from him and therefore the house. Once you're sure that they have left the area you wait an extra minute before turning your attention toward Eda and raise an eyebrow while pointing toward your ears. It only takes a moment for her to realize what you're asking about and with a quick spell circle, her eyes light up a light blue before they sweep around the room. After her eyes turn back to their normal gold selves she nods her head and you finally allow your transformation to drop.
Even though your jutsu only transforms your ears and the color of your eyes you start to stretch, feeling as if you had been kept in a box just slightly too small. After that, you start your day-long cleaning session. And it does take all day long, especially when you factor in cleaning Hooty(whom you shamelessly use several clones for since you need the extra hands to hold him down). While you clean in the living room you use your wall walking technique to reach up in the rafters, where you find multiple dust bunnies that you would honestly call dust dogs, on account of their size. Eda joins you while you're in there so you ask about how her night went down at the Night Market.
Eda spins a story about a pig demon called Tibblet-Tibblie Grimm Hammer III, though she tells you he apparently went by the name Tibbles, which you snort at. She goes on to tell you how the man tried to swindle her by raising the price of her curse potion by 100x before hustling her in Hexes Hold'em. While she was at the mercy of the stupid pig a group of witches called the BAtTs intervened on her behalf. According to her, they all wore matching white cloaks with bat masks, each welding a musical instrument. The leader of the quartet was the one who helped her personally before they handed her a box filled to the brim with her curse potion.
It was only after they were trying to figure out what to do with Tibbles was when Hooty smashed his stand into toothpicks, solving that problem. When Eda saw that it was her house that had destroyed the stand she knew that you had done something and had raced after the walking house completely blowing off the group that had saved her. When you ask if she had ever heard about this group before she shrugs her shoulders and tells you that rebel groups pop up here on the Isles every couple of years, and due to the actions of the Golden Guard, past ones and the present one, they rarely last longer than six months to a year, it depends on how many are within the group and how loyal they are to one another.
As you clean the rest of the house Eda reminisces about past rebel groups here on the Isles which you take as an impromptu history lesson, and if there was a clone handing out in the rafters scribbling on a notebook well, that was your business.