Eda groaned as she rose from her bed. To say she was stiff was an understatement. It had been an understatement for about two weeks now since she’d almost been petrified. It was admittedly nice to be able to point to why she was stiff at least. Beforehand she’d had no idea. Nope, none at all.
Lilith was not quite so kind. “Sister, please tell me you’ll replace these beds soon. I think one more week on this mattress and I will be hunched over for the rest of my life.”
Eda waved the question away before taking a step away from her bed. The crack that filled the air was more than enough to make sure she didn’t take another one before forcing out, “Oh, suck it up. I mean, the kid sleeps on the floor.”
Lilith took her time getting off of her bed as she gave her sister a glare that would have turned her old subordinates into ice. It mostly got a bark of laughter out of Edalyn, which only made Lilith clench her jaw harder. “Yes, and that’s only one thing we need to speak to your student about. You know the big one though.”
Eda rolled her eyes at the venom in Lilith’s words. The stick in the mud had been pushing hard to get Luz’s training kicked up a notch, even in spite of the two of theirs weakened conditions, but had been respectful of Eda being Luz’s teacher. The rebel knew better than to put it off for so long though. Lilith may have saved her life but she knew better than to think her sister would let her goof off forever. “Luz is barely ready to go back to school, let alone deal with me, okay?”
There was a moment of silence as Lilith pinched the bridge of her nose before she let out a long, tired sigh. “Can we at least try to figure out how she managed to get through the Emporer’s Palace?”
Eda smirked as she got to the door. “You shouldn’t be surprised that she’s so resourceful. I’m her teacher after all.”
Lilith shook her head as she finally made her way over. “That’s not it. I haven’t been wanting to admit it, not with…” She made a circle in the air but, outside of a few sparks, nothing happened. She shut her eyes for a second before looking back at Eda. “Edalyn, she was as strong as either of us close to when we graduated from Hexide that day. She was casting full spells off of the smallest slips of paper. She even made me worry about what she might be capable of for a moment when she assaulted me. She shouldn’t be that strong.”
Eda frowned before rubbing her chin. “I won’t say you’re wrong. I want to say she found some trick but the kid would have let me know when she did and she wasn’t really focusing on new tricks when she came for me, was she?” Eda then grinned and had a twinkle in her as she winked at her sister. “Maybe she’s just absorbed some of my natur-”
“I refuse to believe that. Not while she has a shred of decency.”
The two glared the other down, something that had been happening all too much over the past two weeks. The first day of Lilith living in the Owl House had been fine. Great even as Eda and her had finally gotten a chance to just be sisters again. No responsibilities hanging over them and making them have to hold back from how they felt about one another.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t anything holding them back from letting the other know how they felt about them. Without magic, it had led to a lot of torn out hair and King making things worse by reminding them of how childish they were with each other. The only one who could usually get the two apart from one another was Luz.
Speaking of, the excited girl managed to smack Eda in the face as she swung the door open. The crack of cartilage against wood got Luz to jump but it only made Lilith smirk as she managed to stand up straight for the first time since she’d gotten up. “Ah, Luz, just who I wanted to see.”
Luz didn’t seem to really hear her though as she slammed the door shut and looked down at Eda. The old witch was scowling as she rubbed her nose before looking up and seeing Luz. A smirk immediately broke out across her face as she chirped, “Nice arm, kid. Next time though, open the left door.”
Lilith rolled her eyes before grabbing her staff from where it leaned against the wall and used it to help turn Luz towards her. “Please, I want to be serious for a second.”
Luz, for her part, seemed to understand that Lilith meant it. Then again, she’d been kind of dreading this for at least a week now. After all, you don’t usually just get away with causing someone to lose their job, their magic, and their nice, cushy house. To the girl’s surprise, Lilith’s tone was surprisingly gentle. “How has your magic been?”
Luz gave Lilith a beaming smile before she reached into the cloak of her uniform. After all, she’d prepared dozens of each of her glyphs for today. She wanted to be prepared for school after all, especially after being absent for so long. Of course, that wasn’t the only reason for her to be worried about coming back being an issue, but Emperor Belos’s declaration that the Titan had desired Eda to be released meant that Luz had acted upon the ancient being’s authority. It probably also helped that otherwise Belos had to admit that a kid had managed to chip his mask.
After another moment of searching, Luz pulled a handful of her glyphs before slapping one of her light spells against the wall. Immediately, a small mote of light formed and followed her hand. “It’s doing just fine. I’d even say that I’ve gotten even faster at writing them down.”
Lilith nodded before tapping the floor. “How about one of your plant ones? Maybe you could make some flowers for your friends?”
Eda finally got up before elbowing Luz in the side. “Or some poison ivy. I’ve got some anti-itch cream to sell today after all.”
Luz giggled before grabbing one of them. “A bush of flowers coming up!”
The two watched as Luz smacked the floor with the slip of paper before the young girl rose back up and waved her hands in a manner that still confused Lilith. It was cute but whenever Luz described them as ‘jazz hands’ it usually just went in a circle of what jazz was and what it had to do with her hands. While Lilith was momentarily distracted, Eda watched the sigil. The magic and its effects as the green lines seeped into the wood beneath it before sprouting three short daisies.
One glance at Lilith, at least once the more serious witch noticed the end results, was enough to make Eda groan. After all, her sister, dumb as she normally was, wasn’t the lying sort. That was her job. And from what she’d told her about Luz’s break in, this was nothing. Her student had indeed shown so much more power than one would think was possible through such small pieces of paper. Well, once you knew it was possible to cast spells through them in the first place.
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Which led to the current problem. “Come on, kid, I can’t work with that. How about something bigger?”
Luz sucked in her lips for a moment and glanced away before stomping her foot on the ground and pointing to the sky. “Alright, this time for real!” She turned her wrist and with a flick of her hand showed off another one of the plant glyphs. Just another showing of how Eda’s training was paying off, even if it was through an even more rudimentary version of ‘magic’ than Luz’s normal methods.
But, just like the first one, her slap didn’t result in anything too impressive. Just what Eda might have expected before everything with Belos happened. Luz seemed happy about it though which made her smile. After all, the kid had been through a lot and after coming so close to turning to stone… Well, Eda was more than happy to try to live well, just like she’d been before, but now focusing a bit more on the idiot who had been managing to make her life at least a little more fun.
What? She couldn’t be sappy all of the time. She had some sort of reputation to keep up after all. Besides, the kid couldn’t get too full of herself, could she?
Lilith was even smart enough not to comment on the problem right now. After all, Luz had plenty to worry about, like the fact that she just picked up the poison ivy with her bare hands to give it to Eda. The two women looked at Luz for a moment as the young girl looked between the two of them before looking at her hands. “Uh oh.”
Eda chuckled as Luz frantically threw the plant to the side with Lilith barely managing to dodge in time to not get hit. “Come on. I’ll whip you up something quick so you aren’t scratching yourself all day.”
Luz nodded before looking to Lilith.Before she could say anything though, Hooty’s voice shrieked through the house. “Luz, that cute friend of yo- Ah!”
Luz gasped as she looked towards the front of the house as sounds of exploding fire ripped through the air. “That’d be Amity!”
The young girl took off downstairs and Lilith sighed as she followed. To be young and innocent like that again. To not worry about your spells being at full power one day and then limp and off the mark the next. When everything could be shrugged off with a smile and friends. What she wouldn’t give to have that back. Or to have never sacrificed it in the first place…
Luz didn’t notice any of this rumination as she threw open the front door. Amity was still busy trying to make Hooty eat a fireball and so had to wildly flail her arms to keep her balance when her footing against the door slipped away. After a second or two of her getting herself together, she planted her foot firmly on the ground. She then looked up at Luz and felt her cheeks burn as the dumb human laughed at her. “Are you ready?”
Luz nodded before looking behind Amity. “Hey, where are Willow and Gus? Weren’t we all going to school together today?”
Amity smiled internally as she flipped a bit of her hair behind her ear. She’d been considering doing something to make it so only she and Luz walked to Hexide today but Gus had done her job for her which simplified things. “Gus stayed up so late last night trying to come up with something to bring today that Willow needed to go and help him wake up so it’s just, um,” Amity paused for a second as she felt very warm around her collar. “Me.”
Luz paused for a moment herself before scratching her head. “Oh, uh, just you? So you and me will be going through the front gates just the two of us?”
Amity nodded, wishing the idiot would shut up because she didn’t need the reminder. “D-Don’t expect to be holding my hand or anything.” She then turned away before Luz could see her eyes shoot open as her mind screamed, Why did you say that!?
For her part, Luz was less than focused on anything like that as she laughed it off nervously. Normally she was a lot more carefree around Amity but it had been over two weeks since the two had seen each other and, well, it was really nice to see her again. “Oh, uh, I mean, you do have your big, heavy books.”
An excuse! “Yep! That’s why. Totally no other reason why I’d bring it up.”
As the two nervously laughed, with Luz’s sounding far more natural than Amity’s strangled wheezing, Eda stepped up next to Lilith with a pot of green, bubbling goop that reached up and claws at the edge of the black metal. The rebel smacked it back down before turning to her sister. “What’s up with those two?”
Lilith raised an eyebrow and smirked down at her sister. “Oh, Edalyn, I know you’ve been cooped up in this house for so long, but can’t you still tell young love when you see it?”
Eda snorted for a moment before looking at the two as they calmed down and Amity kicked the ground with one of her legs to show that it was fine. “They do make a cute couple, don’t they? Hell, with how Luz talks about miss perfect over there, you’d think she’d break into the Emperor's Palace for her like she did for me.”
Lilith’s smile grew slightly as Eda walked towards the two before she followed while muttering to herself, “Oh really?”
Neither Luz or Eda really cared about any plans she might have as the human dumped her hands into the goo with a sigh of relief. Amity went to ask her about what was going on before her eyes slowly grew wider and wider. Lilith smiled back at the stunned girl before reaching down and patting her head. “It’s good to see you again. I hope we’ll get more time to talk in the future.”
Amity turned red for very different reasons than she did with Luz as she looked away. She tried to say something but failed until Luz made her shriek with an elbow to the side. “Oh, are you being shy?”
Amity threw her arms to her side and fumed at Luz as she hissed out, “I am not! I simply needed to take a moment to, uh,” she paused for a second as she glanced between her friend and Lilith before smoothing her hair and saying, “remember why she was here. I don’t want Eda getting thrown right back into a cage after all.”
Luz flinched at the cold tone before stepping back as the green goop slipped off of her hands. The silence became more uncomfortable as Eda and Lilith glanced at each other. Lilith was the one to finally break the quiet though as she said, “Didn’t you plan to give Amity a gift?”
Amity’s face froze with one of her eyes half shut as all the gears of her mind jammed at once. Luz just gasped at the reminder though, seemingly unaware of how it likely sounded to the poor girl whose head was beginning to steam. “You’re right! I need to go get those.”
Lilith barred Luz from passing with her staff though. “Now now, you two do need to get going, remember? Why don’t you just make some more flowers right here?”
Amity swayed back and forth as she barely managed to mutter, “Flowers?”
Luz jumped at the idea, literally before smearing some of the goop onto her uniform while she grabbed her glyphs. “That’s a great idea. One batch of flowers coming up!”
Eda and Lilith barely had enough time to step back as Luz smacked the ground with the sigil. For a second though, it seemed like nothing happened. The lines glowed, the paper disintegrated, but there was quiet. The soil didn’t move. Luz didn’t move either though, instead just looking up at them as she relished in the moment of anticipation. After all, she needed to show off for Amity.
When she finally brought her hand up and began to say, “Tadah!” she was abruptly cut off by the ground erupting. Daisies shot into her mouth as all of the witches dodged long rose vines that exploded amongst the softer stalks. They quickly consumed the doorway and almost swallowed up King, who had finally come out of his bedroom to see what all the commotion was about. It was only once he was back in his room though that the plants finally stopped.
Eda and Lilith, who were now separated from the two young girls by the floral wall, looked at each other. Eda was still processing it but Lilith couldn’t do anything about her smile as she looked at the wall of thorns and could hear Luz freaking out about it. “So, see what my poor subordinates had to deal with?”
Eda blinked a few times before pointing to the thorns and asking, “She really managed this? My Luz managed this?”
Lilith nodded before sitting beside her sister. “You said she cared about Miss Blight, right? I’m beginning to think that the more emotion that your student puts into her spells, the stronger they become, regardless of the size of the sigil.”
Eda winced as she imagined what she could do now if she cast the light spell she’d used to snap out of her curse a few months ago now and didn’t like the idea of being blinded for a week. “Okay, but it’s not like we can do anything with that. Not unless you think the two dating would make her more powerful.”
Lilith raised an eyebrow at her sister as Eda blinked a few times before the rebel snorted and said, “Oh, are you really thinking of playing matchmaker?”
“You said it yourself; they’d make a cute couple. If making the two of them happy with each other also leads to a power boost that Luz will need someday, I don’t see why n-”
Eda waved away the last part as she went, “Psht. Screw that. I don’t need any excuse to make either of those two a stupid, stuttering mess. Not that we’ll need to do too much. I mean, you saw them.”
Lilith nodded with a sigh before they actually heard what was going on outside, such as Amity’s uncertain voice barely making it through as she said, “So, uh, you were going to give us all flowers?”
“Yeah! I mean, you’re all my friends and I’ve been gone for so long that I wanted to come back right. Now, do you think Willow would like a rose or forget-me-nots better?”
“Um, I would think you’d give me a rose, right?”
“Oh, but I think a sunflower would help counter that serious scowl of yours, right?”
The two old witches listened to Luz’s laughter before Lilith smacked her forehead and Eda said, “Okay, maybe we’ll need to work a little to get them together.”