Chapter 1
———
“mooom whyyy?” Luz pleads, fully aware of how whiney she’s being.
“You’re in my house, in case you forgot, and unless you wanna start paying rent, you’re going.” It’s been over a decade, what made her change her mind?
“I’m stronger than all of them and you know it! Hell I’m probably stronger then the teachers to, why, in Titans name, do you think I need school?” Luz knew she was laying it on a little thick, but she was right dammit. She had years of practical training on them.
“Luz, look at me, do you have any friends, sentient ones?” Eda paused, then added “king doesn’t count.” Eda was standing in front of the kitchen counter hands on her hips glaring at Luz. Granted the glare could have been from the fact she was currently sitting on said counter. They had just finished dinner and Luz had climbed onto the it (which she defiantly hadn’t been told off for in the past) to wash the dishes when Eda interrupted her. “Well?”
“No.” Luz sighed “but I don’t need them, I’ve been doing perfectly fine” It was true, she was proficient in all types of magic and had all but mastered beast keeping and potions. At the rate she was going she’d be stronger than Eda herself in no time. Luz slid of the counter heading to her room, hoping to avoid the rest of this conversation, and the rest of the dishes, maybe read a book before bed, but alas.
“Next semester starts in three days, you’re going.” Eda called just as she had reached the top of the stairs
Damn, this was going to be annoying, she walked into her room. Flopping onto her bed, Luz reached into her bookshelf and pulled out one of her crusty old books. This one was mostly about offensive magic, she turned to the page on fire magic, one of her personal favorites. It wasn’t one of the nine covens, but had a lot of applications.
After a few hours of reading and desecrate practice Luz glanced at the clock realizing the time decided she’d done enough for the night. She put her book back and with a twirl of her finger she dispelled the abundance of small light spells decorating her room.
“Well guess I’m due an adventure” she mumbled before going to sleep.
———
Luz woke the next morning to a banging on her door.
“Delivery day!” Eda called as she walked back downstairs.
Once a week Eda had her and king delivering potions. At some point she had explained why, but Luz had not been paying attention, something about ‘chores’ and ‘freeloaders’ it didn’t matter though.
She put on the clothes she tended to favor. Those being a pale purple t-shirt, very dark purple sweat pants, a black jacket, and finally a royal purple cowl. Similar to the ones worn at Hexide, it draped down just past her shoulders. However the back fell just past her lower back, and tapered, resembling folded wings.
And by far luz’s favorite feature was the embroidered stars and constellations covering the outside of it, and in the center of her back was an owl face made to seem like a constellation. It was the only one that didn’t reflect a real constellation.
Putting on her boots she headed down stairs, choosing to put hers and Eda’s little argument to the back of her mind for now.
She’d find a way out of it. Probably.
Once she got downstairs she was greeted with Eda and King in the kitchen.
King was sitting at the table, barely conscious, and Eda was at the stove. Probably making her own breakfast as Luz’s plate was already full.
Sitting down she gave King a hardy “morning!” Before starting to eat.
King gave her a slow tired blink which Luz couldn’t help giggling at.
“Well looks like someone’s in a good mood.” Eda remarks as she takes her seat.
“Kinda” Luz says through a mouthful of food. “Can you blame me, it’s basically the only time you let me go into town alone.”
Since finding her at the ripe age of 4 Eda had been very protective, probably because Eda was a wanted criminal but that’s beside the point.
“Not alone, you have King” Eda corrects “but I see your point.”
Speaking of Luz turns to King and asks “ you still with us buddy?”
A dry “uh huh” is the best King can muster. which of course sends Luz into another giggle fit.
Finishing off her breakfast she takes hers and kings plates to the sink, before scooping him out of his chair.
“Come on little guy, we got places to be” she says as she grabs the sack of potions by the door, and her satchel of the coat rack.
“Put me down” King demands, wriggling around “and I’m not little!”
“If you say so” she responds as she lets him go.
Just as she opens the door she hears Eda call out a quick “be safe!”
———
The sun was high in the sky as Luz and king finished up their route.
“Looks like the last one is a new customer!” She tells king as their walking.
“Hopefully their not some creep”
“Well don’t jinx it!” Luz giggles as she playfully kicks some dust at him, just as they walked up to the building. “Woah, fancy!”
“Big houses always belong to big whack jobs”
“King don’t make assumptions, let’s just meet them first ok?” She tells him as the two walk up the stairs.
“Alright” king responds sarcastically, climbing onto her shoulder.
Ringing the doorbell the door flies open. She and king exchange a glance as they walk in.
“Hello?” Luz called out nervously as she and king headed inside.
Slowly the room lights up revealing a grand interior lined with bookshelves. In the center just above the massive staircase was a painting of a goofy looking wizard dude. Said wizard dude then walks out from just below the painting of him.
“Well this day just got more interesting” Luz says to king with a just a hint of a cackle.
“Can we just give him his stuff and go?” King asks already knowing the answer.
“I was in my asolarium reading the stars and who might you be?” The wannabe wizard says as he walks down the stairs.
“Uhh”
“Young lady dareth I say I sense something unique about you, please wont you join me for tea?” Summoning two chairs and a table full of an assortment of food.
She smiles wider
“Luz..” King attempts but it’s in vain
“Absolutely” is her decidedly confident response. She lowers her voice so only king can hear. “I see scones on the table”
Kings get there first and immediately starts scarfing down everything in sight.
Luz spots a cart of clearly amateur potions as she sits, oooh a rival, yay no one will miss him then.
“So, mister wizard what exactly is it you do?”
“Call me Adegast, and I run a small business, nothing of note really”
Bingo!
“It was my understanding Eda delivered her potions her self?” He continued.
“I just help out from time to time you know how it is” he definitely didn’t need to know how close she was with The Owl Lady.
“Oh I see, I see” he said stroking his beard verrry suspiciously. “How,” he rummaged around in his beard “would you like to go on a quest?” He pulled out an even more suspicious scroll from said beard.
King looked up at Luz expectantly, crumbs falling off has mouth. Adeghast was about to continue when she cut him off. “No thanks!” She said cheerily scooping up King under her left arm and summoned a fire ball with her right.
His eyes widened. “What is the meaning of this?” His voice was all squeaky now, funny.
“I mean, I’m not an idiot, a new customer who has a cart of potions, AND runs a ‘small business’...” she did air quotes with her free hand “could you be more obvious?”
She didn’t let him answer, hurdling her fire square at his face. He immediately went up in flames and shriveled like the plant she reallly should have watered.
“Luz?” King squeaked out as he scampered onto her shoulder. “Is.. is he DEAD? Did we do a murder? Mom’s gonna be SO proud!” He was grinning.
“Wow, I thought he’d putt up more of a fight… huh.”
King didn’t have time to respond before what could only be described as the ugliest octopus Luz has ever seen appeared with a crispy arm and a very angry face.
“Awe man” King pouted.
“Nope, nope, NOPE!” Luz yelped switching from fire to ice she launched a large shard right between his eyes. He yelled and shrunk to a small ugly octopus, and Luz, very unhappily, picked him up.
“Eat it, eat it!!”
“No King, that’s mom’s thing, she can eat him if she wants.” She walked over to his potion cart and dumped one of them out, shoving the thing into the bottle and putting it her bag.“Welp let’s go home.” She pat him on his little head.
As they walked out of the castle king looked behind him and let out a little gasp. “I knew it!!” She turned her head to see the castle was now in ruin.
“Yeah, yeah, you were right” she said affectionately. “Good job bud”
“Weh!”
———
“Hi Hooty, bye Hooty” she flung the door open and ran inside slamming the door before he could say anything. “We’re home!” she called out dropping the empty sack by the door.
“Hey kids” Eda greeted walking out from the study. “How’d it go?”
“Fine, we had a biiit of an incident at the end though”
“Luz did a murder!”
“King! I did not!” She turned to Eda and reached into her bag. “See” she pulled out the little bottle and handed it to Eda. “Not dead.. yet”
Eda proved her point by popping open the bottle and swallowing him whole. “Sorry did you want some?” She asked
“Murder!!” King cheered as Luz deadpanned.
She went to take off her shoes but was interrupted “Nope” Eda poked her on the forehead. “We’re heading back out”
“What, why?”
She sighed and suddenly looked very serious. “school.”
“What?”
“I gotta get you signed up remember, which means we’re going to school!” She was grabbed by her arm and whisked out the door.
“Not cool!”